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I've always found the right-libertarian philosophy to be extremely confused. They want freedom to do whatever they want but they also want to base everything of

I've always found the right-libertarian philosophy to be extremely confused. They want freedom to do whatever they want but they also want to base everything off of capitalism which by definition means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich. It just doesn't make any sense (unless of course you're already a billionaire in which case your world is already quite libertarian in reality).

solipsism 10y ago
I have my problems with Libertarianism, but I don't understand what you don't understand. Libertarians think everyone should have freedom to do whatever one wants, but that says nothing of having power to do whatever one wants.
- rorykoehler 10y ago
  Freedom is not freedom without power to exercise said freedom.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    The word 'freedom' has many different meanings.
  - solipsism 10y ago
    Freedom in the Libertarianism context (and in most contexts) means lack of coercion or constraint imposed by government or other institutions. It doesn't refer to freedom from natural or physical constraints. That wouldn't make any sense to advocate for. Does this clear it up for you?
    - rorykoehler 10y ago
      Precisely. The inability of a person to choose their desired path because they need money to feed their family is textbook economic coercion. We've long passed the point where lack of resources (especially food) is a physical/natural constraint.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        What does "choose their desired path" mean exactly?
      - msandford 10y ago
        What would a person who had a family that needed feeding do in the absence of government entirely? My guess is that they would perform some kind of activity in an attempt to feed them. You can take money and even capitalism out of the equation entirely and people would still work. That Russian family that cut themselves off from the outside for 40 years in the wilderness still worked to survive. The food didn't grow itself and then climb into their mouths to be eaten.
    - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
      The lack of economic freedom experienced by many is a direct product of the economic policy enforced by government and advocated for by libertarians, ie, it's directly the result of government coercing people to adhere to its decisions and libertarians support sufficiently many of those decisions to be culpable. Libertarians are nothing but outright hypocrites in arguing that government shouldn't be required to pay the economic damages of its coercing people to adhere to policy they favor (eg, maintaining a free-market, private-property based economy with courts enforcing contracts) while preaching about how people shouldn't be coerced.
      - icebraining 10y ago
        Libertarians disagree with your assertion that the government has implemented free-markets, and therefore reject the idea that they support current policy.
        SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        My point isn't contained to the present system: Even in theory, libertarians are hypocrites because they fundamentally advocate for failing to pay for the externalities of their coercive system, and all supposed benefits of libertarianism can be traced to temporary boosts caused by (inefficient) capitalization of that failure to pay for externalities. Libertarianism enriches a few by creating 0.9 units wealth for every 1.0 units of collective suffering it implements over the current system, but hides this fundamentally externality driven mechanism behind the spread of the suffering (not a lot to everyone) and calling it freedom for many to be allowed to suffer at the hands of others without the instrument of state to implement collective relief. Libertarianism is nothing but a sham political and economic movement that is wholly and fundamentally dishonest about its benefits and costs, by design, deeply self-inconsistent in its models and policies, and is intended to trick people in to accepting serfdom in a return to feudalism by calling it "freedom". Libertarians, as a rule, just seem to have not thought very hard about their position or be selling you something (usually that you should be a serf because they fancy that they won't be a serf too in the new system).
    - zem 10y ago
      most of them also have a very narrow view of "coercion", though, and will hotly deny that economic coercion is a valid concept
    - nhaehnle 10y ago
      It is simultaneously amusing and frustrating how completely wrong this is. Coercion and constraint imposed by government (or similar institutions) is absolutely central to libertarianism! The whole point of property rights is to constrain people from doing things. E.g., you own a beachfront property? You get to constrain other people from swimming there, and the government is there to help if necessary. And so on. Saying that libertarianism isn't about coercion and constraint is like saying that the GPL or copyleft in general isn't about copyright. Both are equally wrong: the GPL absolutely requires copyright law in order for it to work, and similarly libertarianism absolutely requires coercion and constraint. It's just that there's this sleight of hand where for some reason, most people are so used to property right that they don't even notice it anymore. Talk about successful framing!
      - solipsism 10y ago
        This is pedantic. The clause, "except when necessary to prevent the violation of one's rights" is understood by most, and isn't relevant to this conversation.
  - morgante 10y ago
    There is no law preventing me from doing 100 pushups right now. Yet I also find myself powerless to do it. Does that mean I'm not free to do pushups?
    - intortus 10y ago
      I don't know. Do you have an overweight orange self-styled billionaire standing on your shoulders?
WalterBright 10y ago
Libertarianism isn't about doing whatever you want. It's about protecting your rights and the rights of others. This means you can do what you want, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others. That last clause is often overlooked or misunderstood, but it is critical.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  > Libertarianism isn't about doing whatever you want. It's about protecting your rights and the rights of others. This means you can do what you want, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others. It is, however, "do whatever you want" in that it implies no non-negative social duties, ie, it doesn't require you proactively do anything to be part of society or that you seek to help others in society -- merely that your harm to them come through passive actions or side-effects of legally permitted actions. It might be better to explain libertarianism as "rights over duties", in that it essentially asserts you have no social obligation which is more fundamental than your rights. Others disagree, obviously.
- dagss 10y ago
  But but...that is what communism is about too, just with a different set of rights. Making "rights" some abstract thing means you end up saying nothing at all.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > you end up saying nothing at all. Any discussion can devolve to reductio-ad-absurdum if one is determined to do so.
vixen99 10y ago
'… base everything off of capitalism which by definition means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich. ' Capitalism is of course not an -ism at all. No one invented it. It's that freedom in the context of democratically agreed regulation whereby we can all trade goods and our labor with others and thereby generate value, usually monetary but by no means exclusively. We can even trade kind words and actions - they too contribute value. Over the last century, billions of people have had the repertoire of 'things they can do' dramatically extended by the extension of an environment which allows people at all levels of income to take part in this productive exchange of items (abstract or physical) of value.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >It's that freedom in the context of democratically agreed regulation whereby we can all trade goods and our labor with others and thereby generate value, usually monetary but by no means exclusively. The very idea that people can have exclusive control of some goods and then have to trade for other ones is capitalism. Property is not the default state of the universe, it had to be invented and enforced before it meant anything. And while it can be called a freedom in a certain sense, property is also a restriction. In order for me to own something, you have be denied the right to use it without my permission. Which is not to say property rights are not a good thing on the whole, but they should be compared as one economic system, in terms of their outcomes, alongside the alternatives.
int_19h 10y ago
Libertarianism is basically about negative rights - not so much about "do what you want", but more about "nobody is going to force you to do something you don't want". As an ethical system, think of it as utilitarianism which assigns infinite value to freedom from violent coercion. Everything else follows from that.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  Unless it's violent coercion used to enforce the property system, which libertarians seem to like to ignore.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    That would be capitalist libertarians. There is also such a thing as libertarian socialists and communists. But yes, that is the next most important division. Right libertarians believe that there is a natural right to property ownership. Therefore, infringement on that right is an aggression, and using violence to protect it is simple self-defense. Left libertarians believe that private property is a social construct, and that it has negative social effects at large scale (a few would even say that it has them at any scale), and so reject it, and the use of violence to protect it.
notthemessiah 10y ago
There are two notions of freedom to consider: One is the notion of a liberal society in which the collective notion of rights lead to freedom from slavery. This notion underpins modern liberal society. The other notion of freedom developed in the late Roman empire which came to mean a lord's right to do whatever he wants with his property, including his slaves. This notion of freedom, indistinguishable from power, lies at the heart of the Neo-Reaction movement. https://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/david-graeber/two-notions-of-liberty-revisited-or-how-to-disentangle-liberty-and-slavery https://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/david-graeber/two-...
pdog 10y ago
> Capitalism means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich. You're conflating laissez-faire or free market capitalism with a plutocracy (society ruled by the wealthiest). They're diametrically opposed systems.

solipsism 10y ago

I have my problems with Libertarianism, but I don't understand what you don't understand. Libertarians think everyone should have freedom to do whatever one wants, but that says nothing of having power to do whatever one wants.

rorykoehler 10y ago
Freedom is not freedom without power to exercise said freedom.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  The word 'freedom' has many different meanings.
- solipsism 10y ago
  Freedom in the Libertarianism context (and in most contexts) means lack of coercion or constraint imposed by government or other institutions. It doesn't refer to freedom from natural or physical constraints. That wouldn't make any sense to advocate for. Does this clear it up for you?
  - rorykoehler 10y ago
    Precisely. The inability of a person to choose their desired path because they need money to feed their family is textbook economic coercion. We've long passed the point where lack of resources (especially food) is a physical/natural constraint.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      What does "choose their desired path" mean exactly?
    - msandford 10y ago
      What would a person who had a family that needed feeding do in the absence of government entirely? My guess is that they would perform some kind of activity in an attempt to feed them. You can take money and even capitalism out of the equation entirely and people would still work. That Russian family that cut themselves off from the outside for 40 years in the wilderness still worked to survive. The food didn't grow itself and then climb into their mouths to be eaten.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    The lack of economic freedom experienced by many is a direct product of the economic policy enforced by government and advocated for by libertarians, ie, it's directly the result of government coercing people to adhere to its decisions and libertarians support sufficiently many of those decisions to be culpable. Libertarians are nothing but outright hypocrites in arguing that government shouldn't be required to pay the economic damages of its coercing people to adhere to policy they favor (eg, maintaining a free-market, private-property based economy with courts enforcing contracts) while preaching about how people shouldn't be coerced.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      Libertarians disagree with your assertion that the government has implemented free-markets, and therefore reject the idea that they support current policy.
      - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
        My point isn't contained to the present system: Even in theory, libertarians are hypocrites because they fundamentally advocate for failing to pay for the externalities of their coercive system, and all supposed benefits of libertarianism can be traced to temporary boosts caused by (inefficient) capitalization of that failure to pay for externalities. Libertarianism enriches a few by creating 0.9 units wealth for every 1.0 units of collective suffering it implements over the current system, but hides this fundamentally externality driven mechanism behind the spread of the suffering (not a lot to everyone) and calling it freedom for many to be allowed to suffer at the hands of others without the instrument of state to implement collective relief. Libertarianism is nothing but a sham political and economic movement that is wholly and fundamentally dishonest about its benefits and costs, by design, deeply self-inconsistent in its models and policies, and is intended to trick people in to accepting serfdom in a return to feudalism by calling it "freedom". Libertarians, as a rule, just seem to have not thought very hard about their position or be selling you something (usually that you should be a serf because they fancy that they won't be a serf too in the new system).
  - zem 10y ago
    most of them also have a very narrow view of "coercion", though, and will hotly deny that economic coercion is a valid concept
  - nhaehnle 10y ago
    It is simultaneously amusing and frustrating how completely wrong this is. Coercion and constraint imposed by government (or similar institutions) is absolutely central to libertarianism! The whole point of property rights is to constrain people from doing things. E.g., you own a beachfront property? You get to constrain other people from swimming there, and the government is there to help if necessary. And so on. Saying that libertarianism isn't about coercion and constraint is like saying that the GPL or copyleft in general isn't about copyright. Both are equally wrong: the GPL absolutely requires copyright law in order for it to work, and similarly libertarianism absolutely requires coercion and constraint. It's just that there's this sleight of hand where for some reason, most people are so used to property right that they don't even notice it anymore. Talk about successful framing!
    - solipsism 10y ago
      This is pedantic. The clause, "except when necessary to prevent the violation of one's rights" is understood by most, and isn't relevant to this conversation.
- morgante 10y ago
  There is no law preventing me from doing 100 pushups right now. Yet I also find myself powerless to do it. Does that mean I'm not free to do pushups?
  - intortus 10y ago
    I don't know. Do you have an overweight orange self-styled billionaire standing on your shoulders?

WalterBright 10y ago

Libertarianism isn't about doing whatever you want. It's about protecting your rights and the rights of others. This means you can do what you want, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others. That last clause is often overlooked or misunderstood, but it is critical.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
> Libertarianism isn't about doing whatever you want. It's about protecting your rights and the rights of others. This means you can do what you want, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others. It is, however, "do whatever you want" in that it implies no non-negative social duties, ie, it doesn't require you proactively do anything to be part of society or that you seek to help others in society -- merely that your harm to them come through passive actions or side-effects of legally permitted actions. It might be better to explain libertarianism as "rights over duties", in that it essentially asserts you have no social obligation which is more fundamental than your rights. Others disagree, obviously.
dagss 10y ago
But but...that is what communism is about too, just with a different set of rights. Making "rights" some abstract thing means you end up saying nothing at all.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > you end up saying nothing at all. Any discussion can devolve to reductio-ad-absurdum if one is determined to do so.

vixen99 10y ago

'… base everything off of capitalism which by definition means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich. ' Capitalism is of course not an -ism at all. No one invented it. It's that freedom in the context of democratically agreed regulation whereby we can all trade goods and our labor with others and thereby generate value, usually monetary but by no means exclusively. We can even trade kind words and actions - they too contribute value. Over the last century, billions of people have had the repertoire of 'things they can do' dramatically extended by the extension of an environment which allows people at all levels of income to take part in this productive exchange of items (abstract or physical) of value.

aninhumer 10y ago
>It's that freedom in the context of democratically agreed regulation whereby we can all trade goods and our labor with others and thereby generate value, usually monetary but by no means exclusively. The very idea that people can have exclusive control of some goods and then have to trade for other ones is capitalism. Property is not the default state of the universe, it had to be invented and enforced before it meant anything. And while it can be called a freedom in a certain sense, property is also a restriction. In order for me to own something, you have be denied the right to use it without my permission. Which is not to say property rights are not a good thing on the whole, but they should be compared as one economic system, in terms of their outcomes, alongside the alternatives.

int_19h 10y ago

Libertarianism is basically about negative rights - not so much about "do what you want", but more about "nobody is going to force you to do something you don't want". As an ethical system, think of it as utilitarianism which assigns infinite value to freedom from violent coercion. Everything else follows from that.

aninhumer 10y ago
Unless it's violent coercion used to enforce the property system, which libertarians seem to like to ignore.
- int_19h 10y ago
  That would be capitalist libertarians. There is also such a thing as libertarian socialists and communists. But yes, that is the next most important division. Right libertarians believe that there is a natural right to property ownership. Therefore, infringement on that right is an aggression, and using violence to protect it is simple self-defense. Left libertarians believe that private property is a social construct, and that it has negative social effects at large scale (a few would even say that it has them at any scale), and so reject it, and the use of violence to protect it.

notthemessiah 10y ago

There are two notions of freedom to consider: One is the notion of a liberal society in which the collective notion of rights lead to freedom from slavery. This notion underpins modern liberal society. The other notion of freedom developed in the late Roman empire which came to mean a lord's right to do whatever he wants with his property, including his slaves. This notion of freedom, indistinguishable from power, lies at the heart of the Neo-Reaction movement. https://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/david-graeber/two-notions-of-liberty-revisited-or-how-to-disentangle-liberty-and-slavery https://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/david-graeber/two-...

pdog 10y ago

> Capitalism means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich. You're conflating laissez-faire or free market capitalism with a plutocracy (society ruled by the wealthiest). They're diametrically opposed systems.