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As a not-so-extreme libertarian: >Power companies are responsible for their own infrastructure. >National defense is a tricky one. Maybe PMCs. >Conflicts are

As a not-so-extreme libertarian: >Power companies are responsible for their own infrastructure. >National defense is a tricky one. Maybe PMCs. >Conflicts are basically impossible to resolve without some variety of authority; this is why more moderate libertarianism works better

bronson 11y ago
>Power companies are responsible for their own infrastructure. You think they'll be able to negotiate easements and rights of way to each house? (without starting to look like a public entity?) >National defense is a tricky one. Maybe PMCs. So, Somalia? Blackwater? >Conflicts are basically impossible to resolve without some variety of authority; this is why more moderate libertarianism works better Extremely moderate libertarianism? There are more conventional names for that.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  > Extremely moderate libertarianism? There are more conventional names for that. Per my understanding, mainstream Libertarianism retains the court system as mediator of contractual disputes as well as criminal law.
  - kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
    Because the people peddling this philosophy are all lawyers and they want to be at the top of the heap after knocking everyone else down.
    - dawnbreez 11y ago
      I...don't know where you get the idea that libertarianism is about knocking everyone else down. Perhaps if you focus entirely on removing welfare, it looks like that. And then, I (and other libertarians) believe that a Basic Income Guarantee would be extrenely useful, and a BIG would cover more people than current welfare systems. Or perhaps you think that deregulating business will lead to massive monopolies, ignoring that the regulations you defend make it harder for new companies to enter a market (thus making it easier to hold a monopoly).
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > Or perhaps you think that deregulating business will lead to massive monopolies A reasonable belief, given what happened before regulatory controls were imposed to prevent massive monopolies.
        dawnbreez 11y ago
        Fair enough. It's not like there haven't been regulations that cause more harm than good, though--for instance, regulations on pollution that only apply to new powerplants, leaving old ones untouched. Libertarianism treats regulation like engineering: Simpler is better, and the ideal solution is the simplest; complicated solutions add more points of failure, which leads to a more broken result.
thoth 11y ago
>Power companies are responsible for their own infrastructure. How exactly do you build infrastructure without government powers such as eminent domain, or without inserting easements for utility access? A libertarian landowner could simply refuse to allow utility lines to cross their property and thus cutoff others from access, or require expensive routing around their property. Roads, power/sewer/water/gas lines, phone/cable/data - all would be at the whim of landowners large and small as to whether it would even exist. There is no realistic way for a private company to negotiate access between them and every single landowner they'd need to in order to build infrastructure that serves a sizeable population. Hence government "coercion" is required.
- mercurial 11y ago
  In Spanish regions controlled by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War (a country which at the time had a lot of dirt poor farmers and a lot less large landowners), landowners were given the choice between working their lands collectively, or keeping only the land they could work themselves. That's not the same thing as Ayn Rand-style libertarianism.

bronson 11y ago

>Power companies are responsible for their own infrastructure. You think they'll be able to negotiate easements and rights of way to each house? (without starting to look like a public entity?) >National defense is a tricky one. Maybe PMCs. So, Somalia? Blackwater? >Conflicts are basically impossible to resolve without some variety of authority; this is why more moderate libertarianism works better Extremely moderate libertarianism? There are more conventional names for that.

dllthomas 11y ago
> Extremely moderate libertarianism? There are more conventional names for that. Per my understanding, mainstream Libertarianism retains the court system as mediator of contractual disputes as well as criminal law.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
  Because the people peddling this philosophy are all lawyers and they want to be at the top of the heap after knocking everyone else down.
  - dawnbreez 11y ago
    I...don't know where you get the idea that libertarianism is about knocking everyone else down. Perhaps if you focus entirely on removing welfare, it looks like that. And then, I (and other libertarians) believe that a Basic Income Guarantee would be extrenely useful, and a BIG would cover more people than current welfare systems. Or perhaps you think that deregulating business will lead to massive monopolies, ignoring that the regulations you defend make it harder for new companies to enter a market (thus making it easier to hold a monopoly).
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > Or perhaps you think that deregulating business will lead to massive monopolies A reasonable belief, given what happened before regulatory controls were imposed to prevent massive monopolies.
      - dawnbreez 11y ago
        Fair enough. It's not like there haven't been regulations that cause more harm than good, though--for instance, regulations on pollution that only apply to new powerplants, leaving old ones untouched. Libertarianism treats regulation like engineering: Simpler is better, and the ideal solution is the simplest; complicated solutions add more points of failure, which leads to a more broken result.

thoth 11y ago

>Power companies are responsible for their own infrastructure. How exactly do you build infrastructure without government powers such as eminent domain, or without inserting easements for utility access? A libertarian landowner could simply refuse to allow utility lines to cross their property and thus cutoff others from access, or require expensive routing around their property. Roads, power/sewer/water/gas lines, phone/cable/data - all would be at the whim of landowners large and small as to whether it would even exist. There is no realistic way for a private company to negotiate access between them and every single landowner they'd need to in order to build infrastructure that serves a sizeable population. Hence government "coercion" is required.

mercurial 11y ago
In Spanish regions controlled by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War (a country which at the time had a lot of dirt poor farmers and a lot less large landowners), landowners were given the choice between working their lands collectively, or keeping only the land they could work themselves. That's not the same thing as Ayn Rand-style libertarianism.