4 ms·

I am one of those people. Though what you forget to add is that we'd rather pay to have such services in our communities by ourselves, of our own volition, rat

by zo1 10y ago

I am one of those people. Though what you forget to add is that we'd rather pay to have such services in our communities by ourselves, of our own volition, rather than it being taken from us without our explicit consent. This discussion always boils down to consent.

Forbo 10y ago
I'm genuinely curious, how do you go about executing this? Not everyone will consent, so how do you selectively apply those services? In the winter, I pay for snow plows and salting the roads, but my neighbor doesn't, so...? I am really having a difficult time seeing how to actually make this happen.
- zo1 10y ago
  Roads would be plowed by the companies that owe them. I.e. as a service to the people that are renting usage of the road. And yeah, we envision a society where all land can be owned, including roads. Of course, transitioning to such a system where currently all roads are owned by everyone else and simultaneously by no-one, would be a tricky thing to solve. Though it has been "solved" in certain parts. E.g. If you consider large gated communities. It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent. It took me the longest time to reconcile a bunch of these things when it came to Libertarianism (or further). Eventually I did "get it" when I started thinking about how I would solve these problems in the absence of a state and only having access to the concepts of "private property" and "contracts". Having a state there, ready and ever-present to fix all our problems is a cushion/crutch when it comes to solving the problems that a community would have to deal with.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? Who pays for those things that everyone benefits from but no one sees? International trade agreements, armed forces, border controls, research, pest control, safety regulation, building regulation, civil defence etc etc.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      > Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? They die. This is considered a feature, not a bug. Beneath the smokescreen rhetoric of consent and personal freedom, the core ethos of libertarianism is "survival of the fittest."
      - bashinator 10y ago
        I'm really glad the pretty words and nice imagery are coming off this fact. I've seen a lot more acknowledgement lately that this is how libertarian societies work out for people lacking any ownership of their own resources.
      - zo1 10y ago
        Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Meanwhile, on the state's watch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan
        PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        > Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Then by all means prove me wrong. What, as a Libertarian, do you think should be done for sick and infirm people without their own financial support?
        FireBeyond 10y ago
        It's a circular argument. The response will be "their family and the community will look after them". But if there's no family, and even if there is, "community" will be some nebulous concept with no practical example, nor method for which to reliably and practically have any impact.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - usefulcat 10y ago
    "It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent." Not unlike the way that (for example) local road maintenance in a particular city is typically funded by citizens of that city, who always have the option to leave should they tire of paying the taxes the fund said maintenance.
    - zo1 10y ago
      >"Not unlike the way that (for example) local road maintenance in a particular city is typically funded by citizens of that city, who always have the option to leave should they tire of paying the taxes the fund said maintenance." The state is completely different in this regard. There is no meaningful piece of land on earth where you could settle and be free from a state. Even if it's arid desert and no one would contemplate living there, if you were to start a thriving community there and the residents start making money or break the outer-state's laws, they will impose on you. You really have no option when it comes to settling and making your own community. Or on other planets for that matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
      - usefulcat 10y ago
        True, but does it matter? Because in such a hypothetical stateless land, you also have no courts, and therefore no way to enforce agreements other than via direct threat of violence. So it would be difficult to have members of said hypothetical community agree to contribute to a (for example) road maintenance fund.
        meanduck 10y ago
        > So it would be difficult to have members of said hypothetical community agree to contribute to a (for example) road maintenance fund. One reason why I want to give up part of my land and pay for road to be developed is that it will increase value of the land. That reason would suffice for 99% cases. Also its safe to assume that Humans are also cooperative and neighourly bunch.
  - tangent128 10y ago
    How do you solve these problems? 1. I do not wish to consent to the contracts of your community. However, I was born here, and lack the resources to leave, or any goodwill that may assist me in doing so. Perhaps I am LGBT in the deep south. 2. Somebody is murdered. A person can be demonstrated to be the killer, but they do not consent to jailing or court. 3. Somebody is emitting carbon dioxide on their own property, as I suppose is their right. But the expanding sea is now trespassing on my island, flooding my property. 4. I buy up all the land surrounding your property, and erect a wall. I refuse to grant you passage onto my property (and thus, off of yours) unless you sign a contract agreeing to turn over to me a portion of all value you produce.
  - dkersten 10y ago
    How are "taxes theft" but landownership is not? Why does someone get to claim exclusive ownership over some land and another person does not (just because the first persons ancestors reached the land first (in some cases, only if you conveniently ignore the native population))?
    - zo1 10y ago
      Well, one is where your labor and the benefit of it (earnings) get taken from you without consent. The other is land ownership, I'm not sure how else to digest that? Are you implying that land belongs to everyone and someone claiming exclusive ownership of it is somehow theft? The usual response about how land "becomes" owned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle I really can't think of any fair way of distributing land other than the mechanism above which is essentially "first come first serve" along with a "use it or lose it" expiry mechanism.
JoBrad 10y ago
One of the big problems I have with this theory is the way "consent" is being defined: I find it illogical to think that every person should have to explicitly agree to every possible law they could be held accountable for. Exercising this would become the biggest farce and waste untold amounts of money.
- zo1 10y ago
  Well, Libertarianism usually means very little government and as a consequence, very few laws. So there is no need to have elaborate mechanisms to "consent" to countless laws. Though the precise amount of "laws" varies depending on which Libertarian you speak to. They will all, however, agree on property/ownership law and the Non-aggression principle. It's actually quite elegant, because you could define all sorts of "laws" or prescribed/prohibited behaviors simply by following through with the consequences of the above principles. E.g. Fraud, or breaking a contract. The money and ownership of goods was transferred from one entity to another. If one side "refuses" to hold up their side of the trade, then they're effectively depriving the other party of the use of the property that they own.
Frondo 10y ago
The thing I've come to realize after being alive for a while is, the world you want to live in is pure fantasy. The idea that we'd do away with a democratic state and replace it with all-volunteer contracts and shit, it has absolutely no resemblance to reality at all. It's an even bigger fiction than a communist paradise, from each according to his ability and all that. BUT...my ideal world (for simplicity's sake, star trek--post-scarcity, people can explore and make art, etc) is also fiction. I get that. I don't think we're there, of course, though I'd like to see us get closer. The difference between our aspirational fictional worlds is, whenever people take steps toward yours (think America in the late 1800s, which is probably the best proxy for the libertarian paradise we could look at in the West), lots of people suffer. Private charity simply didn't--and wouldn't--work the way libertarians think it would/should. Life is hard for a lot of people, and shitty, and we've moved beyond that because it doesn't have to be a cruel world like that. But when people take steps toward my ideal post-scarcity world (think, broadly speaking, Scandinavia, or even anywhere with universal health care, like Canada), it actually kinda works. Health care systems get funded, people can be artists without starving. People suffer less. Maybe you prioritize the libertarian ideal of personal freedom (which is not what I'd even consider freedom in any way) over the suffering of a bunch of people, and hey, that's your prerogative. But looking at the outcomes of one or the other, man I know where I throw in.
yequalsx 10y ago
How do you account for the free rider problem? Suppose you live in a small town how do they collectively pay for expensive medical services if one member of the small community gets an illness that requires lots of resources to treat? Isn't it better to distribute the burden over a larger population? Wouldn't there be a massive amount of administrative overlap if all services truly were done at the community level? How do you prevent the race to the bottom mentality if everything is done at the community level?

by zo1 10y ago

Forbo 10y ago

I'm genuinely curious, how do you go about executing this? Not everyone will consent, so how do you selectively apply those services? In the winter, I pay for snow plows and salting the roads, but my neighbor doesn't, so...? I am really having a difficult time seeing how to actually make this happen.

zo1 10y ago
Roads would be plowed by the companies that owe them. I.e. as a service to the people that are renting usage of the road. And yeah, we envision a society where all land can be owned, including roads. Of course, transitioning to such a system where currently all roads are owned by everyone else and simultaneously by no-one, would be a tricky thing to solve. Though it has been "solved" in certain parts. E.g. If you consider large gated communities. It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent. It took me the longest time to reconcile a bunch of these things when it came to Libertarianism (or further). Eventually I did "get it" when I started thinking about how I would solve these problems in the absence of a state and only having access to the concepts of "private property" and "contracts". Having a state there, ready and ever-present to fix all our problems is a cushion/crutch when it comes to solving the problems that a community would have to deal with.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? Who pays for those things that everyone benefits from but no one sees? International trade agreements, armed forces, border controls, research, pest control, safety regulation, building regulation, civil defence etc etc.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    > Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? They die. This is considered a feature, not a bug. Beneath the smokescreen rhetoric of consent and personal freedom, the core ethos of libertarianism is "survival of the fittest."
    - bashinator 10y ago
      I'm really glad the pretty words and nice imagery are coming off this fact. I've seen a lot more acknowledgement lately that this is how libertarian societies work out for people lacking any ownership of their own resources.
    - zo1 10y ago
      Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Meanwhile, on the state's watch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        > Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die". Then by all means prove me wrong. What, as a Libertarian, do you think should be done for sick and infirm people without their own financial support?
        FireBeyond 10y ago
        It's a circular argument. The response will be "their family and the community will look after them". But if there's no family, and even if there is, "community" will be some nebulous concept with no practical example, nor method for which to reliably and practically have any impact.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- usefulcat 10y ago
  "It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent." Not unlike the way that (for example) local road maintenance in a particular city is typically funded by citizens of that city, who always have the option to leave should they tire of paying the taxes the fund said maintenance.
  - zo1 10y ago
    >"Not unlike the way that (for example) local road maintenance in a particular city is typically funded by citizens of that city, who always have the option to leave should they tire of paying the taxes the fund said maintenance." The state is completely different in this regard. There is no meaningful piece of land on earth where you could settle and be free from a state. Even if it's arid desert and no one would contemplate living there, if you were to start a thriving community there and the residents start making money or break the outer-state's laws, they will impose on you. You really have no option when it comes to settling and making your own community. Or on other planets for that matter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
    - usefulcat 10y ago
      True, but does it matter? Because in such a hypothetical stateless land, you also have no courts, and therefore no way to enforce agreements other than via direct threat of violence. So it would be difficult to have members of said hypothetical community agree to contribute to a (for example) road maintenance fund.
      - meanduck 10y ago
        > So it would be difficult to have members of said hypothetical community agree to contribute to a (for example) road maintenance fund. One reason why I want to give up part of my land and pay for road to be developed is that it will increase value of the land. That reason would suffice for 99% cases. Also its safe to assume that Humans are also cooperative and neighourly bunch.
- tangent128 10y ago
  How do you solve these problems? 1. I do not wish to consent to the contracts of your community. However, I was born here, and lack the resources to leave, or any goodwill that may assist me in doing so. Perhaps I am LGBT in the deep south. 2. Somebody is murdered. A person can be demonstrated to be the killer, but they do not consent to jailing or court. 3. Somebody is emitting carbon dioxide on their own property, as I suppose is their right. But the expanding sea is now trespassing on my island, flooding my property. 4. I buy up all the land surrounding your property, and erect a wall. I refuse to grant you passage onto my property (and thus, off of yours) unless you sign a contract agreeing to turn over to me a portion of all value you produce.
- dkersten 10y ago
  How are "taxes theft" but landownership is not? Why does someone get to claim exclusive ownership over some land and another person does not (just because the first persons ancestors reached the land first (in some cases, only if you conveniently ignore the native population))?
  - zo1 10y ago
    Well, one is where your labor and the benefit of it (earnings) get taken from you without consent. The other is land ownership, I'm not sure how else to digest that? Are you implying that land belongs to everyone and someone claiming exclusive ownership of it is somehow theft? The usual response about how land "becomes" owned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle I really can't think of any fair way of distributing land other than the mechanism above which is essentially "first come first serve" along with a "use it or lose it" expiry mechanism.

JoBrad 10y ago

One of the big problems I have with this theory is the way "consent" is being defined: I find it illogical to think that every person should have to explicitly agree to every possible law they could be held accountable for. Exercising this would become the biggest farce and waste untold amounts of money.

zo1 10y ago
Well, Libertarianism usually means very little government and as a consequence, very few laws. So there is no need to have elaborate mechanisms to "consent" to countless laws. Though the precise amount of "laws" varies depending on which Libertarian you speak to. They will all, however, agree on property/ownership law and the Non-aggression principle. It's actually quite elegant, because you could define all sorts of "laws" or prescribed/prohibited behaviors simply by following through with the consequences of the above principles. E.g. Fraud, or breaking a contract. The money and ownership of goods was transferred from one entity to another. If one side "refuses" to hold up their side of the trade, then they're effectively depriving the other party of the use of the property that they own.

Frondo 10y ago

The thing I've come to realize after being alive for a while is, the world you want to live in is pure fantasy. The idea that we'd do away with a democratic state and replace it with all-volunteer contracts and shit, it has absolutely no resemblance to reality at all. It's an even bigger fiction than a communist paradise, from each according to his ability and all that. BUT...my ideal world (for simplicity's sake, star trek--post-scarcity, people can explore and make art, etc) is also fiction. I get that. I don't think we're there, of course, though I'd like to see us get closer. The difference between our aspirational fictional worlds is, whenever people take steps toward yours (think America in the late 1800s, which is probably the best proxy for the libertarian paradise we could look at in the West), lots of people suffer. Private charity simply didn't--and wouldn't--work the way libertarians think it would/should. Life is hard for a lot of people, and shitty, and we've moved beyond that because it doesn't have to be a cruel world like that. But when people take steps toward my ideal post-scarcity world (think, broadly speaking, Scandinavia, or even anywhere with universal health care, like Canada), it actually kinda works. Health care systems get funded, people can be artists without starving. People suffer less. Maybe you prioritize the libertarian ideal of personal freedom (which is not what I'd even consider freedom in any way) over the suffering of a bunch of people, and hey, that's your prerogative. But looking at the outcomes of one or the other, man I know where I throw in.

yequalsx 10y ago

How do you account for the free rider problem? Suppose you live in a small town how do they collectively pay for expensive medical services if one member of the small community gets an illness that requires lots of resources to treat? Isn't it better to distribute the burden over a larger population? Wouldn't there be a massive amount of administrative overlap if all services truly were done at the community level? How do you prevent the race to the bottom mentality if everything is done at the community level?