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ToxicSlurpee posted:What I find baffling is that there's all of this "well you should own yourself and be free" but then they're suggesting literally selling living, breathing humans on a free market. Like, OK, it's not OK to own and coerce somebody, unless they're a baby. Cool, got it. It's not that hard to understand. "Freedom" in this context means absolute freedom for the owners, for the powerful. If you're at the top you're free to make your own rules and impose them on others (basicaly divine right, but with "The Market" instead of "God"). It's freedom from democratic oversight or from any resistance by the dispossessed because that would be "coercion". If the under-classes complain they are acting unethically because after all they are "free" themselves and their poor situation is their own drat fault and if they don't want to starve then they should "freely" agree to the terms the market offers them for their subjugation. Many strands of libertarianism argue for the freedom to own slaves, since people can "freely" agree to put themselves or their children as collateral for a loan, for example. Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 16:07 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 16:05
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spoon0042 posted:Kind of related, it occurred to me after the last thread that assuming people are perfectly rational spheres should obviate contracts but 99% of the time libertarians say oh yeah we need government to enforce contracts (this is absolutely never elaborated upon). Of course that's only if two people would only agree to something that was to their mutual benefit as rational actors. If contracts are just a way for the wealthy and powerful to extract more wealth from the underclass though... Yes libertarians usually say that they want a legal system and a police force (because even they, deep inside, realize that "markets" are not some universal part of nature and that they are a construct of society and the state). When you ask them about it though, they often go on about how all these former functions of the state could all be enforced by "private" for-profit firms: you could have a private police force / military that you pay to protect your property, you could have private judges that both parties agree to hire in the event of a trial, a private monetary system with private repo-men, etc. They claim that this would not constitute a state, but of course that's nonsensical semantics. It's still a state, just one that serves exclusively the interests of the capitalist class, with no regards to the people at large or even any pretence to represent them democratically. It's an absolute and unrestrained dictatorship of the oligarchy. Libertarians (as with any ruling-class ideology) are deathly afraid of any manifestation of democracy or of popular rule threatening the power and "freedom" of the strong-men heroes they worship, and this is what they mean when they say "the state".
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May 23, 2014 16:32
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tbp posted:A very simple issue that we can start off with is the tyranny of the majority that comes with an excessively centralized society. Oh no not 
Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 18:30 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 18:23
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tbp posted:I understand if you are uninterested in discussing the idea. It seems to be a lot of rhetoric and memes rather than discussion around here. Are you advocating for some kind of "Third Position" by any chance?
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May 23, 2014 18:59
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:DOMA, Controlled Substances Act, UIGEA, Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. All tyrannical laws, no? Never meant to imply otherwise.
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May 23, 2014 19:36
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Babylon Astronaut posted:At the end of the day, you have to discuss these things as an extreme critique of government as it exists instead of a panacea for all social problems. I've noticed that political philosophies you don't like have to solve all problems, or they are dumb, where the status quo has the advantage of being time tested and stable. Noting the advantages of no government over the status quo is not without merit; you'll see libertarians more or less study their philosophy, and implement the things they find advantageous into the current system. The same can be said of socialists and the social programs they implement. Libertarians are not anti-government, they want a legal and justice system, they want contracts to be enforced, they want a police force to defend private property, and they want all other state institutions that make the "market" a thing. When they say they are "anti-government" they mean they are against the state being accountable to the masses or serving any interests other than those of the capitalist class.
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May 26, 2014 02:28
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I have problems with left-anarchism (you might find me to be an "authoritarian socialist", Tias) but as far as political philosophies go I'm pretty cool with it and have lots of sympathy for its adherents. Liberalism is much more of a childish idealist worldview than left-anarchism could ever be, and trying to equate it to right-libertarianism is insultingly reductive. It's pretty ridiculous for leftists to refuse to engage with left-anarchism when most people out there simply buy ruling class ideology wholesale. I would enjoy reading such a left-anarchism thread. Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 17:47 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 15:41
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LogisticEarth posted:It's worth noting that this sort of thing could happen in any system. You just need a comically evil person to amass enough power. It's entirely possible (and maybe more likely?) for a state bureaucrat to do the same thing. What happens then? Well usually you get a revolt. That's the likely outcome in a libertarian situation like that as well. No system of law and economics is going to be stable if you happen to get people in charge who are flagrantly antagonistic to the population at large. Some systems of government are structured so as to have checks and balances, accountability to the public, or other forms of democratic control, making it possible in theory for such amassing of power by bureaucrats or anyone else to be avoided. These kinds of "success-punishing regulations" are precisely what libertarians oppose, though, so I don't think it's correct to take the anti-authoritarian way they paint themselves at face value. I think it's also a mistake to put the blame on the person in charge being "evil" or antagonistic to the public. The idea that the problem with capitalism or other authoritarian systems is that the wrong people are CEOs/despots is quite misleading and harmful.
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May 27, 2014 20:54
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LogisticEarth posted:I suppose you'd prefer he throw up his hands and run to the status-quo answers that are riddled with problems? Anyway, Long identifies as a left-libertarian so I'm not sure what ideals you think he's holding that are in conflict with those statements. I would say that is the ideal of private property. Rejecting private property is far from being the "status quo" answer. The term left-libertarian also typically describes people like anarchists and anti-authoritarian socialists who do reject private property.
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May 27, 2014 22:42
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LogisticEarth posted:As for left libertarianism, the definitions I've always seen don't universally reject private property, but rather traditional lockean property. Geolibertarians and left market-anarchists don't explicitly reject private property. The way I see it, geolibertarians basically redefine private property to mean something completely different ("private property" is not owned but instead rented from the community). As far as I know market anarchism also rejects private property as does any form of market socialism. I might be wrong about that though, and maybe worker control is widely referred to as private property in some circles but I'm not aware of that.
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May 27, 2014 23:15
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I really hope that authors or game or movie writers have been following this thread for inspiration because holy poo poo is there potential for some awesome DRO-land dystopian sci fi
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Oct 4, 2014 05:50
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Plastics posted:Okay so the thing a lot of Statists seem to not recognize is that if they take on those contracts because they need to then it is by definition fair. If they need the employer more than the reverse and that gives the employer power then that is perfectly fair and reasonable. The only reason the workers "need" the employer at all is because the employer owns the poo poo they need to do their work (land, resources, machines), because private property is a thing, because it is enforced through coercion upon the propertyless by a state and armed police force. Hope this helps.
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Aug 12, 2015 06:29
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Nolanar posted:Also, to restate my previous question in a way that is less easily deflected, what's to stop states from rising if you got your dream society, assuming it came about in the way you want it to? They would rise they would just be corporate fascist states ruled by a private oligarchy instead of states that have any semblance of accountability to the people so it's ok, because what libertarians mean when they say they don't like "states" is democracy
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Aug 14, 2015 16:19
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I'm still not sure exactly what a tankie is but I've learned for example that opposing US-backed regime change in Venezuela makes you one
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Sep 25, 2019 05:06
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