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> you can live in a community or lack thereof that shares your values The thing is, as a Libertarian you literally can't. One principal idea is to live withou

> you can live in a community or lack thereof that shares your values The thing is, as a Libertarian you literally can't. One principal idea is to live without coercion, but as long as you're part of a tax collecting state, you are to "share" part of the fruits of your labor with authorities you do not recognize or else... Secondly, the rights and laws (such as really free speech or free contracts) are overridden (e.g., by hate speech, minimum salary, anti-discrimination laws, ...), so there is no way you can meaningfully establish a libertarian society within a current nation state. Finally, there are other (possibly quasi-) monopolies (such as monopoly on violence, Taxi licenses ~ anti-Uber, Hotel Services ~ anti-AirBnB) that you cannot get rid of unless you get rid of the controlling entity. Note the difference to e.g. communist societies where you can just start sharing everything (much like you might already be doing within your family).

vacri 10y ago
The monopoly on violence doesn't go away in libertarian-land, they just try to hide it. How to solve disputes? Courts. And if you don't submit to the court's will? Um... oh yeah, we need state "violence" after all, same as the democracies we mock.
- dmichulke 10y ago
  Yes and no. Yes we need courts and no, we can choose them (unlike now). Same for enforcement. Violence yes, monopoly no.
  - grzm 10y ago
    Re: choosing courts. Depends on the jurisdiction, doesn't it? In some jurisdictions, judges are elected. In others they're appointed by representatives who are elected. At least I believe those are the common cases in democracies. (And there's another couple of assumptions.) Or am I misunderstanding? Wouldn't be the first time.
    - dmichulke 10y ago
      Yes and no:) Currently and generally a single jurisdiction doesn't allow for competing courts. In libertarian land everyone has (or is?) his own "jurisdiction" for his private property (and there is no public property). All other courts are defined in contracts. Note the latter is the generalization of the former where entering other people's property entails an implicit agreement to the owner's terms (and jurisdiction if you will.) So everyone can define his own abortion/marihuana/uber free zone at will and/or just rule out the public completely. Often there is a misunderstanding that this entails a "free for all" but municipalities in today's sense would still exist and have their own laws / courts and the streets there would probably belong to a company consisting of a number of the municipality's inhabitants. This doesn't mean that there is only one such company, so you can "choose your court" by walking the streets of company A and avoiding the streets of company B. Or you dislike them both and just move to some other town a few kms away.
      - grzm 10y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it.
  - jandrese 10y ago
    I have a disagreement with my neighbor, I'm taking him to court. The court of me, overseen by me, the court finds in my favor. Now I appoint myself to enforcement, with my deputies Smith and Wesson. Letting people choose their own court is a terrible idea. It's basically binding arbitration for the masses.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Many flavors of libertarian agree that in order for any court's decision to be binding, all parties to the dispute have to agree to grant it jurisdiction. This, like most parts of Libertopia, is completely dependent on a robust reputation system. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to determine whether the proposed court is likely to be fair and impartial for your specific case. If you can't find a single judge that you can both agree on, you basically become Hatfields and McCoys, and then the rest of the county pulls their own guns, and decides which gang gets to be out in public on which days of the week. In a government court, jurisdiction is just assumed. In Libertopia courts, you can never skip that step. You also can't skip the part where the litigants post cash bonds to the court, to pay the judge and jury, and guarantee some of the judgment award. Filing suit as plaintiff in your own court seems like a slam-dunk until you realize that no defendant with an IQ higher than broccoli would ever be insane enough to grant you jurisdiction to hear your own case against them. And they definitely wouldn't pay you to do that.
      - jandrese 10y ago
        My neighbor claims that my fence is over the property line, so he is taking me to court. Turns out there are no courts that I feel are acceptable for resolving this dispute. Having total freedom to do anything you want only works until other people exist.
        dmichulke 10y ago
        There is always karma. At some point you will have a hard time leaving your property and people will avoid entering yours. That's when you dearly pay for everything bad you did. And of course, there's also violence, just as today.
soundwave106 10y ago
I have heard of stories of people who move deep into the woods, disappearing from standard society, and actually successfully manage to live completely off the land. So, technically, this would certainly be possible. Few people are willing to do pursue things on this level however. When more than one person gets involved, politics can easily enter the equation. Personally, I find the libertarian philosophy a bit naive for that reason. The natural state of humanity is tribal in nature. "No rules" is a bit of a fantasy; eventually, some foundation will have to be established. Inevitably, people will disagree on this foundation. Technical achievements aside (the blockchain will live on), Bitcoin actually is a great example of how something with somewhat idealistic libertarian underpinnings ended up turning into the usual tribal politics in the end.
- dmichulke 10y ago
  Moving into the woods is certainly a way but libertarians are big fans of the market and a far away single man show is not a market, so there is no division of labor and consequently no prosperity (relative to what is possible). Well, all libertarianism is based on ownership and contract law (plus some other stuff like homesteading as initial means to acquire ownership). So rules there are, they are just not forced unto someone. Consider the opposite - maybe you are in favor of Uber or abortion or against taxation. Yet somehow your state assumes that you implicitly agree to everything the state mandates, such as laws and sharing the fruits of your labor. You can think of Libertarianism as a way to have many many states instead of just a single one the size of the US. In this way, you can choose with your feet what rules you accept because you have a choice. And you have this choice without travelling thousands of miles and leaving your family, friends and job behind. You can avoid Donald and Hillary by moving a few miles, you can avoid paying taxes or your personal nemesis law (like abortion) because you have a market of possible states (I'm simplifying here) and not just a single one. Bitcoin is indeed a great example of Libertarianism (or rather the market) because if the BTC guys don't adapt to what people need, another crypto-currency will eventually take over. You now have a market of semi-anonymous currencies and that's not the problem but the solution to BTC's tribal politics.
  - soundwave106 10y ago

vacri 10y ago

The monopoly on violence doesn't go away in libertarian-land, they just try to hide it. How to solve disputes? Courts. And if you don't submit to the court's will? Um... oh yeah, we need state "violence" after all, same as the democracies we mock.

dmichulke 10y ago
Yes and no. Yes we need courts and no, we can choose them (unlike now). Same for enforcement. Violence yes, monopoly no.
- grzm 10y ago
  Re: choosing courts. Depends on the jurisdiction, doesn't it? In some jurisdictions, judges are elected. In others they're appointed by representatives who are elected. At least I believe those are the common cases in democracies. (And there's another couple of assumptions.) Or am I misunderstanding? Wouldn't be the first time.
  - dmichulke 10y ago
    Yes and no:) Currently and generally a single jurisdiction doesn't allow for competing courts. In libertarian land everyone has (or is?) his own "jurisdiction" for his private property (and there is no public property). All other courts are defined in contracts. Note the latter is the generalization of the former where entering other people's property entails an implicit agreement to the owner's terms (and jurisdiction if you will.) So everyone can define his own abortion/marihuana/uber free zone at will and/or just rule out the public completely. Often there is a misunderstanding that this entails a "free for all" but municipalities in today's sense would still exist and have their own laws / courts and the streets there would probably belong to a company consisting of a number of the municipality's inhabitants. This doesn't mean that there is only one such company, so you can "choose your court" by walking the streets of company A and avoiding the streets of company B. Or you dislike them both and just move to some other town a few kms away.
    - grzm 10y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it.
- jandrese 10y ago
  I have a disagreement with my neighbor, I'm taking him to court. The court of me, overseen by me, the court finds in my favor. Now I appoint myself to enforcement, with my deputies Smith and Wesson. Letting people choose their own court is a terrible idea. It's basically binding arbitration for the masses.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Many flavors of libertarian agree that in order for any court's decision to be binding, all parties to the dispute have to agree to grant it jurisdiction. This, like most parts of Libertopia, is completely dependent on a robust reputation system. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to determine whether the proposed court is likely to be fair and impartial for your specific case. If you can't find a single judge that you can both agree on, you basically become Hatfields and McCoys, and then the rest of the county pulls their own guns, and decides which gang gets to be out in public on which days of the week. In a government court, jurisdiction is just assumed. In Libertopia courts, you can never skip that step. You also can't skip the part where the litigants post cash bonds to the court, to pay the judge and jury, and guarantee some of the judgment award. Filing suit as plaintiff in your own court seems like a slam-dunk until you realize that no defendant with an IQ higher than broccoli would ever be insane enough to grant you jurisdiction to hear your own case against them. And they definitely wouldn't pay you to do that.
    - jandrese 10y ago
      My neighbor claims that my fence is over the property line, so he is taking me to court. Turns out there are no courts that I feel are acceptable for resolving this dispute. Having total freedom to do anything you want only works until other people exist.
      - dmichulke 10y ago
        There is always karma. At some point you will have a hard time leaving your property and people will avoid entering yours. That's when you dearly pay for everything bad you did. And of course, there's also violence, just as today.

soundwave106 10y ago

I have heard of stories of people who move deep into the woods, disappearing from standard society, and actually successfully manage to live completely off the land. So, technically, this would certainly be possible. Few people are willing to do pursue things on this level however. When more than one person gets involved, politics can easily enter the equation. Personally, I find the libertarian philosophy a bit naive for that reason. The natural state of humanity is tribal in nature. "No rules" is a bit of a fantasy; eventually, some foundation will have to be established. Inevitably, people will disagree on this foundation. Technical achievements aside (the blockchain will live on), Bitcoin actually is a great example of how something with somewhat idealistic libertarian underpinnings ended up turning into the usual tribal politics in the end.

dmichulke 10y ago
Moving into the woods is certainly a way but libertarians are big fans of the market and a far away single man show is not a market, so there is no division of labor and consequently no prosperity (relative to what is possible). Well, all libertarianism is based on ownership and contract law (plus some other stuff like homesteading as initial means to acquire ownership). So rules there are, they are just not forced unto someone. Consider the opposite - maybe you are in favor of Uber or abortion or against taxation. Yet somehow your state assumes that you implicitly agree to everything the state mandates, such as laws and sharing the fruits of your labor. You can think of Libertarianism as a way to have many many states instead of just a single one the size of the US. In this way, you can choose with your feet what rules you accept because you have a choice. And you have this choice without travelling thousands of miles and leaving your family, friends and job behind. You can avoid Donald and Hillary by moving a few miles, you can avoid paying taxes or your personal nemesis law (like abortion) because you have a market of possible states (I'm simplifying here) and not just a single one. Bitcoin is indeed a great example of Libertarianism (or rather the market) because if the BTC guys don't adapt to what people need, another crypto-currency will eventually take over. You now have a market of semi-anonymous currencies and that's not the problem but the solution to BTC's tribal politics.
- soundwave106 10y ago