An Honest and Accurate libertarian Discussion Thread

Very good pay and benefits supported by taxation.

 

Volunteer firefighters get no pay and benefits.

 

And how does their performance compare with those who do?

Also in a libertarian extreme capitalist society why should someone take the altruistic action to do such a thing for no pay or benefits?

 

*gulp*

You said the "v" word!

 

I neither know nor care. You seem to think that in a society of libertarians nobody would offer to become a judge even though doing so might prove to be a sacrifice. I don't agree with this, as we can see that people actually do volunteer to do things that require sacrifice.

Because people do altruistic things all the time.

 

Altruism is mutually exclusive with an anarchist-capitalist economic system. The very idea of providing a service for free that would rightfully be expensive would mean the altruist is stealing from those who charge by distorting the market value of their labor. The altruist would be the one committing coercion.

 

That is mentally corrupted thinking and dismisses the "Good" humans possess.....some of us actually DO care about others. Think of a true love and extrapolate.

 

Again, I don't think you understand libertarianism. There's nothing in libertarian philosophy that prohibits altruism. Libertarian simply considers the initiation of aggression against the person or property of others to be unjustified.

 

First, altruism is NOT mutually exclusive with an an-cap economic system.

Second, it would not be immoral for judges and jurists to offer their services for a fee. It is currently like that in the US with arbitrators and judges.

 

It could be through an attorney or by their elected representative(s) in government under the social contract between the people that establishes the government.

 

Libertarianism is far more than just that. Libertarianism is based upon the "Right of Liberty" for the person to exercise their natural (unalienable/inalienable) rights.

As John Locke points out, "Though this be liberty it is not licensed."

The Right of Liberty is not a "license" to do whatever the person chooses that may not be a direct act of aggression against another person. A person does not have the Right of Liberty to violate natural law that based upon the survival of the species.

For example a person does not have the Right to use another person's labor without ensuring that the "support and comfort" of the person (i.e. the reason the person expends their labor) isn't provided for as just compensation for that labor. Claiming that "market forces" determine the compensation for labor ignores the fact that "market forces" are not natural law. They're forces based upon individual greed that could lead to the extinction of the species in violation of natural law.

 

Not actually true when one reads Chapter 5 "Of Property" by Locke. Locke's argument was that a settler that uses the land for farming requires less land to survive on than the hunter-gather and that would leave more land for the hunter-gather. If the farmer is taking away land required by the hunter-gather for the survival of the hunter-gather then the farmer (or industrialist) is violating the Right of Property because they're not leaving "enough and as good as" for the hunter-gather to provide for their own survival and comfort. Arguably if the hunter-gather can also harvest what they require for their survival and comfort from the "settler" then their need for large unoccupied land decreased dramatically.

Locke doesn't specifically address use of land for the purposes of raising cattle like a rancher would do but does establish that the cattle don't establish a right to the use of the land. Only the person's labor establishes that Right of Property to use the land. The rancher's labor in taking care of the cattle establishes the Right of Property to the cattle but not to the land. The fence around the "ranch" (Property of the rancher based upon the rancher's labor) is purely for containment of the cattle and is not a property boundary. The "hunter-gather" would be fully within their natural rights to trespass on that land to secure other game of plants for their survival and comfort as long as they don't harm the rancher's cattle or the grazing land the cattle survive on or the fence that the rancher built with their labor.

Remember as well that the Right of Property, with all of it's limitations and restrictions, is based upon the individual person's labor and not the labor of another person.

 

The latter is not a representative.

 

That is not a libertarian viewpoint. Please cite any current libertarian who holds it.

 

No one has that right today. Your only "right" is to report what you see and hope your rulers will pay attention. Frequently, they won't until the issue becomes egregious, and maybe not even then.

In a free market for justice, you simply pick a better vendor.

 

"Market forces", logically, are simply making determinations based on the aggregate of information on transactions within a particular market. They aren't "forces" in any objective sense of the word. Natural preserve the right of two individuals to peacefully transact without your sanctimonious, busybody, third-party demand to interfere because you think one side or the other isn't living up to your moral or ethical standards.

 

That makes no sense. There is no identifiable victim any more than there is a victim if you decide to light up a joint.

 

How does one go from believing that humans are inherently selfish and greedy to believing that the best way to control humans is by succumbing to the rule of those individuals who are particularly good at winning popularity contests promulgated by the very same selfish and greedy people?

It must be some sort of double-think.

 

Not exactly true. Market forces in capitalism result in enterprises working to reduce costs so that the prices can be lower providing an incentive to buyers to purchase products of equal value from the lower priced enterprise. While many factors result in the desire to purchase a product or service from one commercial supplier over another price has been shown to be a significant factor in the purchase decision.

The key is that for enterprise to reduce the price the enterprise must first reduce the cost associated with the delivery of the produce and/or service because the price cannot be below the cost for capitalism to succeed (unless there's an outside source providing financial assistance to mitigate pricing below the cost). Capitalism cannot function when the price is below cost for the enterprise because the enterprise will go bankrupt eventually and cease to exist.

The market works very well for enterprise that engages in strict accounting for costs related to the products and services they provide and the enterprise will not establish a price below the actual costs related to the enterprise (to avoid going bankrupt). The enterprise selling the product/service establishes the price based upon their costs plus profit margin.

The market doesn't work for all employment for two reasons.

1) Unlike the enterprise the person cannot "cease to exist" if they sell their labor for less than the cost of providing that labor. We have welfare programs to subsidize households where the individual(s) cannot fully fund the expenditures of the household based upon their labor because the individual cannot simply stop existing.

2) The person (seller of labor) doesn't establish the price for their labor. The price is determined by the enterprise (buyer of labor) that uses pricing based upon how many people can provide the labor they need as opposed to the price reflecting the cost plus profit margin of the person providing the labor. The enterprise doesn't care if the price is not sustainable for the supplier of the labor because there are more people in the labor market that will provide the labor at below cost. The enterprise doesn't care because society will pick up the additional costs for the person supplying the labor to the enterprise. Society, through tax and spend welfare programs, will subsidize the individual household that doesn't earn enough money to pay their minimum mandatory expenditures.

There's a rule in natural law that establishes that the person can provide for the support and comfort of their household with their labor. Our survival as a species required the ability of the able bodied adult person(s) in the household to be able to provide for their own support and comfort of the household in nature.

When we start with the proposition that the individual, based upon our survival as a species, has demonstrated they can provide for the support and comfort of the household in nature because we've survived as a species it imposes another mandate when as a society we can no longer survive based directly upon nature. We require commerce to survive today and commerce requires employers and employees.

As soon as one individual decides to employ the labor of another person, that they have no right to, then the "employer" must ensure that the "workers" will be better off than they would be based upon their ability to provide what they require for their support and comfort directly from nature using their own labor. The employer must ensure that the compensation is enough to cover the basic mandatory costs for survival and comfort of the household of the employee because the employee is denied the ability to provide for their survival and comfort of their household directly from nature in our society.

We've become the "ant colony" where all of the members contributed to the survival of the colony through commerce. In the colony it's the responsibility of the colony as a whole to ensure the survival and comfort of the individual members of the colony. Capitalism requires that the costs plus profit must be a part of the pricing for goods and services for capitalism to be successful. Pricing cannot be predatory where the cost plus profit is not inclusive because that forces the seller into non-existence over time.

The costs of the person providing labor to the employer include the minimum mandatory costs to support the typical household plus some minimum amount of profit for the employee. Support and Comfort are the right of the person based upon survival of the species and the employer must ensure that the price they're willing to pay for labor covers those costs (and minimal profit).

I always hate to quote FDR because I've opposed so many of his actions but there's one statement he made that is indisputably true.

 

I think in the two bolded instances above, you meant "the enterprise".

 

Says who?

 

Where is this "rule" in natural law and how does it not contradict with the right of any person to own himself and his property and not be forced, under threat of harm, to provide for a stranger?

[quote[
As soon as one individual decides to employ the labor of another person, that they have no right to, then the "employer" must ensure that the "workers" will be better off than they would be based upon their ability to provide what they require for their support and comfort directly from nature using their own labor. The employer must ensure that the compensation is enough to cover the basic mandatory costs for survival and comfort of the household of the employee because the employee is denied the ability to provide for their survival and comfort of their household directly from nature in our society.
[/quote]

You are making this up from whole cloth, as if money becomes a source of mystical transfer of energy that otherwise does not exist when it's a transaction not involving money. If I share a meal with a stranger, am I then obligated to feed his family and support him for a time because of that? Yet, when I give him money and he does some small thing for me, you claim that to be the case. Explain the objective principle that creates what I believe is a mystical equation you have not established.

This is an entirely subjective moral view, and despite your desire, your subjective morals are not natural law.

 

The god of money, apparently.

 

Okay, so I'm bumping up a near year old thread. For that, I apologize. I was just mesmerized(in a positive fashion) by the OP's signature line and thought it deserved an equally thought provoking response. That, and I want to return to the essence of politics which is philosophy in my humble opinion.

That said, to begin: Anarchy(or at least as defined by the OP) is certainly what we'd all like: Voluntary exchange of goods, ideas and interactions between people. In essence, it would be self-government in its purest expression. But the problem, and the main reason we have government(ignoring for now, the status of that government's political function) is that this voluntary, non-violent behavior is not presumed to be automatic. Neither human history(or present) gives evidence for this ideal reality to manifest.

In the sense that the spiritual would connect to the political, it would take a spiritual awakening of a new renaissance to reject both violence, and the need of the cradle of the State. I was once a Libertarian because I cannot deny the philosophical sound reasoning behind it. But I look to the world today and tragically lament that as far as political forces are concerned, it hasn't been evidenced.

Does that mean we'd have to reject politics itself, in order to create a Free Society? Ignoring human history, and sticking to philosophy, the main reason governments exist is to govern men. Indeed, the OP's signature doesn't argue otherwise, but acknowledges it as a form of slavery.

I've had my difficulties with this myself. Can we truly say man is free, if other men rule over him/her? And what qualifies this person?(Outside of votes, good ideas, appointments, etc). He's as much flesh and bone as I am.

Well, it's not like we'd take to alien life or artificial life ruling over us either. Simply, ideally the concept of autonomy is that no one rules over us. Period.

The way to reach that, is of course for us to be able to in autonomy respect the other person and respect the Golden Rule. Maybe that time will come in human history, but basing a political philosophy off it is akin to making a wish on a shooting star.

In a world of evils, where humans tragically fall at times to evil wicked desires we have to have a system of relative control to assure the peace of a vast majority of law abiding and thus autonomous people.

Thus why I call myself a Fascist-Technocrat. Fascism, or the centralization of the State would minimize as many actors as possible so as to minimize the amount of corruption as possible. And then Technocracy, the political thought of putting the best people suited for a particular task in that role. By combining these two philosophies, you get a government that secures the rights of the State and the People, and follows the Libertarian philosophy but actually having the teeth to combat the evils of the world as they sadly appear.

Or, a simpler way to put it is that humanity has to be pulled in the right direction before it is capable of willfully taking that direction.

 

Who's pulling the pullers?