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What's funny about your response, to me, is that 'libertarian,' outside of the U.S., and in Europe especially, is generally associated with an anarchist positio

What's funny about your response, to me, is that 'libertarian,' outside of the U.S., and in Europe especially, is generally associated with an anarchist position, and most anarchists are socialists or communists. The associations with the French revolutionaries is strong. "The first anarchist journal to use the term 'libertarian' was La Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, published in New York City between 1858 and 1861 by French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque." [1] The U.S. Libertarian Party's use of the word is an intentional effort by free market supporters to express their support of a certain kind of "hands-off" policy without the baggage of the left. You're also insisting that "libertarianism"—a political philosophy—tells us anything about morality or ethics. The stance your describing above is actually a deontological ethics which takes aggression and coercion as its principal 'bad acts.' That's a much stronger position than what, in my experience, even U.S.-style libertarians tend to espouse. Your position is also incoherent, to be blunt. You say that "using force to take property from others violates the NAP." You mean to say that a workers' occupation is an act of aggression or force, if I understand correctly. I simply ask you this: if the taking of property via force is a violation of your "NAP," what do you say to the implicit threat of force which establishes the principle of property in the first place? If your answer is that that force is not used, then I ask you whether it is okay for me to follow you around with a gun, as long as I never actually use it. If your answer is that property is a natural right or a self-evident 'thing,' I ask you to please explain why you feel this way. I don't want to start a political flame war, but these are the issues at the heart of the article's claims. I'd love if you'd be willing to engage. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#History

nirvana 15y ago
I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists. I think this is just an example of socialists attempting to coopt another movement. Libertarians are often anarchists because they believe the state cannot exist without violating the NAP. The state (By definition as an entity with a monopoly on the use of force in a geography) thus uses violence to conquer a land and takes for itself rights that naturally belong to the people. >You mean to say that a workers' occupation is an act of aggression or force, I don't see how this follows from anything I said. I can't connect it so, I can't respond. >You're also insisting that "libertarianism"—a political philosophy—tells us anything about morality or ethics. That's a much stronger position than what, in my experience, even U.S.-style libertarians tend to espouse. I'm not insisting anything. I'm giving you the definition. I'm a Libertarian, and that is what we believe. This is consistent across the US, and in my experience, among libertarians across the world. This is consistent with the founders of the Libertarian party in the 1970s, Rothbard and Nolan, and with the philosophical groundwork and economics that they took inspiration from. FWIW, wikipedia is a crowd sourced entity. It is not authoritative, and it is often quite biased when it comes to political topics that leftists have a strong opinion about.
- cmhamill 15y ago
  > I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists. I think this is just an example of socialists attempting to coopt another movement. You'll be glad to know, then, that Proudhon, the first to self-describe as an anarchist, is also perhaps most famous for coining the phrase "property is theft". It's hard to imagine how socialists could be co-opting anarchism, given that both ideologies were born in the same intellectual climate and have, as a matter of historical fact, been associated time and time again. You said: "The workers taking over a company and kicking the owners and managers out to run it as a 'workers collective': Immoral. Using force to take property from others violates the NAP." Am I wrong in taking this to mean that you consider a workers' occupation an act of force? > I'm not insisting anything. I'm giving you the definition. I'm a Libertarian, and that is what we believe. I cannot apprehend the confusion of ideas which lead you to believe that defining a term, enumerating your own beliefs, and speaking for an entire political movement, are one and the same. > FWIW, wikipedia is a crowd sourced entity. It is not authoritative, and it is often quite biased when it comes to political topics that leftists have a strong opinion about. Do you object to my using of Wikipedia to simply note the existence of a leftist journal calling itself "The Libertarian" over a hundred years prior to the founding of the U.S. Libertarian Party? If so, feel free to read the French yourself: http://joseph.dejacque.free.fr/libertaire/libertaire.htm http://joseph.dejacque.free.fr/libertaire/libertaire.htm No engagement with my second-to-last paragraph, I see. I'm sorry to find that you're no more serious about your politics that all the other libertarians I've encountered. I had hoped you'd be willing to engage with the content of my argument instead of its dressings. I am disappointed to find that you are not. Edit: spelling.
  - nirvana 15y ago
    "I'm sorry to find that you're no more serious about your politics that all the other libertarians I've encountered. I had hoped you'd be willing to engage with the content of my argument instead of its dressings. I am disappointed to find that you are not." The entirety of both of your responses consists of either inaccurate characterizations of what I've said, of history, or of me. You have, on more than one occasion made derogatory characterizations of me, and you close with the above ad hominem. This is a form of anti-intellectualism which I will not indulge further. I shouldn't have given you the benefit of the doubt, but unlike you, I am generous that way.
jobeirne 15y ago
Calling the ethics as described above "deontological" is risky and ill-advised because that term is commonly used to describe Kantianism and a use of the categorical imperative[1]. These two (if taken seriously) rule out a marketplace because participants treat each other solely as a means to an end. Deontology, as it is commonly referred to, and the NAP are incompatible systems of ethics. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Kantianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Kantianism
- cmhamill 15y ago
  My understanding was that 'deontological' simply means (indeed, almost literally means) having been derived from rules. Deont being the Greek to refer to duty or rule. Kantianism is probably the most famous from of all the deontological ethical systems. But structurally the NAP and the categorical imperative serve the same purposes in Kantianism and nirvana's libertarianism, respectively: they provide the principle by which all other actions are held to account.
  - jobeirne 15y ago
    And that principle differs irreconcilably in NAP and Kantianism, so using "deontology" here is not helpful.
    - cmhamill 15y ago
      Except that Kantianism is by no means the only form of deontology, and in fact has nothing to do with any of this. I do _not_ mean deontological in a derogatory sense. I mean it descriptively in contrast to consequentialism. Edit: To quote your own source, "The non-aggression principle, also known as the non-aggression axiom and zero aggression principle, is an ethical stance which states that any initiation of force is illicit and contrary to natural law. It is the basic moral axiom of deontological libertarianism, most upheld by philosophers such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Non-aggre...
sliverstorm 15y ago
First, I don't quite understand how you can be socialist and anarchist at the same time. Second, 'libertarian' means 'anarchist' in the same way 'Republican/conservative' means 'fascist' and 'Democrat/liberal' means 'socialist'. Anarchist/Fascist/Socialist are extremes, and libertarian/conservative/liberal are regions along the spectrum. IMO.
- cmhamill 15y ago
  > First, I don't quite understand how you can be socialist and anarchist at the same time. Simple: anarchism refers to the belief that governments are unnecessary and/or unjustified; socialism refers to the opinion that the means of production ought not to be owned by private individuals or entities. > Second, 'libertarian' means 'anarchist' in the same way 'Republican/conservative' means 'fascist' and 'Democrat/liberal' means 'socialist'. Anarchist/Fascist/Socialist are extremes, and libertarian/conservative/liberal are regions along the spectrum. IMO. Depends who you ask! These words all have different meanings across societies and cultures. I don't think these ideologies can be collapsed into points or regions along a spectrum.
  - sliverstorm 15y ago
    Simple: anarchism refers to the belief that governments are unnecessary and/or unjustified; socialism refers to the opinion that the means of production ought not to be owned by private individuals or entities. Hmm... I had forgotten about that particular definition of socialism- but, if the means of production are not owned by individuals, they must either be commons or government owned. In anarchy there is no government, so the means must be "owned" by all, but how do you maintain such a structure in a government-less society...
    - cmhamill 15y ago
      Very good question. That's probably one of the largest sources of division between various anarchist schools. One way to tackle the problem is to separate governance from the state, and say that we want a governance structure accountable to the workers, and populated by workers, but no associated state apparatus—no police, no army, no state lines, etc. Many forms of anarchism turn into a kind of pastorial agrarianism because of this. It really is hard to come up with a governance structure beyond a certain size that meets the accountability requirements for the kind of society socialism wants, and so many socialist anarchists see the answer as the self-governance of communities small enough to manage some kind of general council.
derleth 15y ago
> most anarchists are socialists or communists How would this work? How would they enforce a 'no-ownership' or 'communal-ownership' principle without a state to prevent people from claiming and defending private property?
- cmhamill 15y ago
  I never said the position was coherent or viable. ;) That said, I think there are various answers. One is to have a militia to enforce those kinds of principles. Anarchists who are also pacifists naturally reject this option. Another option is to claim that in a society where everyone's needs were met, there'd be no desire by anyone towards private property, and that the desire for private property is a historically conditioned product of capitalism, and feudalism before that. Another argument is that it wouldn't much matter as long as the default state was no private property. John T. Private can take his guns and go live in the woods if he wants to, what is essential is that the majority of property is public and therefore private property does not give a specific class control over the output of others' labor. Another position, and this was Proudhon's, is that there is a distinction between personal property and private property. Proudhon would actually say that a family's household is an empowering, important kind of property which must be protected and preserved. Ownership of capital, however, Proudhon objected to, because it allowed, in his view, for those who owned the factories, machinery, mills, and plantations to present those who had no stake in the means of production to either work for one of them or to fend for themselves. As industrial society developed, fending for yourself because less and less plausible, and eventually the choice was between selling the output of your labor for (a socialist would say) less than its cost, or dying, basically. Calling that choice barbaric is the essence of the social-anarchist critique of capitalism.
  - derleth 15y ago
    > One is to have a militia to enforce those kinds of principles. How is that not a government? > Another option is to claim that in a society where everyone's needs were met, there'd be no desire by anyone towards private property, and that the desire for private property is a historically conditioned product of capitalism, and feudalism before that. I'd like a society that can plausibly exist in the world as it is now, thanks. > Another argument is that it wouldn't much matter as long as the default state was no private property. This would work on a small scale in the presence of massive social pressure to conform. All anarchy seems to be predicated on the existence of massive peer pressure to conform to their social norms, and we all know where not being able to question peer pressure leads. > Proudhon would actually say that a family's household is an empowering, important kind of property which must be protected and preserved. Ownership of capital, however, Proudhon objected to, because it allowed, in his view, for those who owned the factories, machinery, mills, and plantations to present those who had no stake in the means of production to either work for one of them or to fend for themselves. This is incoherent because it tries to force a distinction where none exists. The very existence of cottage industries and family farms puts the lie to the concept. In other words: My family farm is empowering until I hire on my first field hand to help bring in a big harvest, at which point I become an evil capitalist oppressor.
usr0110 15y ago
> what do you say to the implicit threat of force which establishes the principle of property in the first place? One has a natural right to at least one property: one's own body. A natural right that is routinely violated in most so called 'free' societies; I should add. This notion of property is established (and recognized) without the threat of force, implicit or otherwise. Now assume the existence of only one person on the entire planet. None of our political philosophies have any effect on the dealings of that one person. If another person is added however, the two have now the possibility of interaction over a limited resource. The two can attempt aggression as a means of securing the resource, or they can attempt to set out a contract. That is, a set of rules that determine how the two deal with scarcity. For example, they can agree that the person who finds something first shall consider it their property. The two can reach this conclusion in the absence of any force, implicit or otherwise. They can reach this conclusion in the spirit of cooperation, or for entirely selfish reasons: to avoid or at least minimize the stress of conflicts. The two can indeed introduce the possibility of aggression as a means of enforcing the contract. But if you think closely, you will see that this aggression is not defined as an initiation of force, but rather as a response to it. That is, contract or not, the first person to go against the will of the other is the aggressor. And since there is no political philosophy which prohibits one to defend themselves - libertarianism included - it seems safe to assume that everyone would agree: the return aggression is justified. So all the contract winds up doing, is codifying the interaction and determining exactly what the two view as aggression. For example, unilateral contract termination is typically viewed as such. When scaled up to more than two persons, the complexities increase, but the principles remain the same. A contract is a document that governs interaction. This is markedly different from a person who governs interaction in that the contract requires the agreement of all parties involved, whereas a tyrant simply imposes his or her will, unconcerned about the will of others. Libertarianism is a way of thinking that rejects the initiation of force. It is not a way of thinking that denies the existence of force. Neither does it deny the necessity of force -- but only in response to it.
eldude 15y ago
I've heard the "Libertarians are one step away from anarchists" argument multiple times before, but I've honestly always found it perplexing. At least with regards to my own libertarian views, government is essential. In libertarianism, the government is the objective enforcement of contract laws and the defender of rights. Without the government, you would have anarchy, which is a rule by force by intrinsically dishonest people resulting in the exact opposite of the upholding of contract law and rights. That is the _opposite_ of libertarian desires for freedom from the desires of others. Why would any libertarian desire this? I'm going to speculate, as I'm not well versed in the history of libertarianism, but I suspect it grew out of anarchism inasmuch as it was a righteous rejection of government abuse. You see this occurring today with the Occupy movement; the government has failed and rejected its duties, therefore they reject the government. I consider this throwing the baby out with the bath water. With regards to the NAP and force, the American founding fathers regarding the 2nd Ammendment did not even believe the government should have a monopoly, but instead the whole of the populace should hold its propensity for tyranny in check with its own force so to speak. This is consistent with the libertarian value of the right to defend oneself. Force is therefore permissible whenever necessary to rectify the violation of one's rights (contract law being subsumed by this). As far as whether violating my (property) rights is an initiation of force, according to the NAP[1] it is: Specifically, any unsollicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property, including that person’s body, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficiary or neutral to the owner, are considered violent when they are against the owner’s free will and interfere with his right to self-determination, as based on the libertarian principle of self-ownership. So at the end, the obvious glaring disparity between socialist and libertarians is whether the right to own property is in fact a right. Socialists as you see here (comments), obviously refuse to acknowledge the assumption of this right. Unfortunately, the natural progression of having no right to own property is the socialist value that everyone else has a right to your own mind, sweat, etc... Or in other words, we are all beholden to the desires of others as all that we own, even ourselves, are community property. This in my mind is the most unimaginable tyranny of all, and thus I see socialism as fundamentally incompatible with libertarianism. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle
- 15y ago
javert 15y ago
The fact that the non-aggression principle cannot stand without an underlying philosophy is precisely why Ayn Rand, who originated that principle, rejected the U.S. libertarians' attempts to promulgate that principle in a way that was divorced from her philosophy.
olalonde 15y ago
Libertarianism is basically anarchism + property rights + government that enforces freedom.

nirvana 15y ago

I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists. I think this is just an example of socialists attempting to coopt another movement. Libertarians are often anarchists because they believe the state cannot exist without violating the NAP. The state (By definition as an entity with a monopoly on the use of force in a geography) thus uses violence to conquer a land and takes for itself rights that naturally belong to the people. >You mean to say that a workers' occupation is an act of aggression or force, I don't see how this follows from anything I said. I can't connect it so, I can't respond. >You're also insisting that "libertarianism"—a political philosophy—tells us anything about morality or ethics. That's a much stronger position than what, in my experience, even U.S.-style libertarians tend to espouse. I'm not insisting anything. I'm giving you the definition. I'm a Libertarian, and that is what we believe. This is consistent across the US, and in my experience, among libertarians across the world. This is consistent with the founders of the Libertarian party in the 1970s, Rothbard and Nolan, and with the philosophical groundwork and economics that they took inspiration from. FWIW, wikipedia is a crowd sourced entity. It is not authoritative, and it is often quite biased when it comes to political topics that leftists have a strong opinion about.

cmhamill 15y ago
> I find it endlessly amusing that communists or socialists would call themselves anarchists. I think this is just an example of socialists attempting to coopt another movement. You'll be glad to know, then, that Proudhon, the first to self-describe as an anarchist, is also perhaps most famous for coining the phrase "property is theft". It's hard to imagine how socialists could be co-opting anarchism, given that both ideologies were born in the same intellectual climate and have, as a matter of historical fact, been associated time and time again. You said: "The workers taking over a company and kicking the owners and managers out to run it as a 'workers collective': Immoral. Using force to take property from others violates the NAP." Am I wrong in taking this to mean that you consider a workers' occupation an act of force? > I'm not insisting anything. I'm giving you the definition. I'm a Libertarian, and that is what we believe. I cannot apprehend the confusion of ideas which lead you to believe that defining a term, enumerating your own beliefs, and speaking for an entire political movement, are one and the same. > FWIW, wikipedia is a crowd sourced entity. It is not authoritative, and it is often quite biased when it comes to political topics that leftists have a strong opinion about. Do you object to my using of Wikipedia to simply note the existence of a leftist journal calling itself "The Libertarian" over a hundred years prior to the founding of the U.S. Libertarian Party? If so, feel free to read the French yourself: http://joseph.dejacque.free.fr/libertaire/libertaire.htm http://joseph.dejacque.free.fr/libertaire/libertaire.htm No engagement with my second-to-last paragraph, I see. I'm sorry to find that you're no more serious about your politics that all the other libertarians I've encountered. I had hoped you'd be willing to engage with the content of my argument instead of its dressings. I am disappointed to find that you are not. Edit: spelling.
- nirvana 15y ago
  "I'm sorry to find that you're no more serious about your politics that all the other libertarians I've encountered. I had hoped you'd be willing to engage with the content of my argument instead of its dressings. I am disappointed to find that you are not." The entirety of both of your responses consists of either inaccurate characterizations of what I've said, of history, or of me. You have, on more than one occasion made derogatory characterizations of me, and you close with the above ad hominem. This is a form of anti-intellectualism which I will not indulge further. I shouldn't have given you the benefit of the doubt, but unlike you, I am generous that way.

jobeirne 15y ago

Calling the ethics as described above "deontological" is risky and ill-advised because that term is commonly used to describe Kantianism and a use of the categorical imperative[1]. These two (if taken seriously) rule out a marketplace because participants treat each other solely as a means to an end. Deontology, as it is commonly referred to, and the NAP are incompatible systems of ethics. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Kantianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Kantianism

cmhamill 15y ago
My understanding was that 'deontological' simply means (indeed, almost literally means) having been derived from rules. Deont being the Greek to refer to duty or rule. Kantianism is probably the most famous from of all the deontological ethical systems. But structurally the NAP and the categorical imperative serve the same purposes in Kantianism and nirvana's libertarianism, respectively: they provide the principle by which all other actions are held to account.
- jobeirne 15y ago
  And that principle differs irreconcilably in NAP and Kantianism, so using "deontology" here is not helpful.
  - cmhamill 15y ago
    Except that Kantianism is by no means the only form of deontology, and in fact has nothing to do with any of this. I do _not_ mean deontological in a derogatory sense. I mean it descriptively in contrast to consequentialism. Edit: To quote your own source, "The non-aggression principle, also known as the non-aggression axiom and zero aggression principle, is an ethical stance which states that any initiation of force is illicit and contrary to natural law. It is the basic moral axiom of deontological libertarianism, most upheld by philosophers such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard.[1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics#Non-aggre...

sliverstorm 15y ago

First, I don't quite understand how you can be socialist and anarchist at the same time. Second, 'libertarian' means 'anarchist' in the same way 'Republican/conservative' means 'fascist' and 'Democrat/liberal' means 'socialist'. Anarchist/Fascist/Socialist are extremes, and libertarian/conservative/liberal are regions along the spectrum. IMO.

cmhamill 15y ago
> First, I don't quite understand how you can be socialist and anarchist at the same time. Simple: anarchism refers to the belief that governments are unnecessary and/or unjustified; socialism refers to the opinion that the means of production ought not to be owned by private individuals or entities. > Second, 'libertarian' means 'anarchist' in the same way 'Republican/conservative' means 'fascist' and 'Democrat/liberal' means 'socialist'. Anarchist/Fascist/Socialist are extremes, and libertarian/conservative/liberal are regions along the spectrum. IMO. Depends who you ask! These words all have different meanings across societies and cultures. I don't think these ideologies can be collapsed into points or regions along a spectrum.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Simple: anarchism refers to the belief that governments are unnecessary and/or unjustified; socialism refers to the opinion that the means of production ought not to be owned by private individuals or entities. Hmm... I had forgotten about that particular definition of socialism- but, if the means of production are not owned by individuals, they must either be commons or government owned. In anarchy there is no government, so the means must be "owned" by all, but how do you maintain such a structure in a government-less society...
  - cmhamill 15y ago
    Very good question. That's probably one of the largest sources of division between various anarchist schools. One way to tackle the problem is to separate governance from the state, and say that we want a governance structure accountable to the workers, and populated by workers, but no associated state apparatus—no police, no army, no state lines, etc. Many forms of anarchism turn into a kind of pastorial agrarianism because of this. It really is hard to come up with a governance structure beyond a certain size that meets the accountability requirements for the kind of society socialism wants, and so many socialist anarchists see the answer as the self-governance of communities small enough to manage some kind of general council.

derleth 15y ago

> most anarchists are socialists or communists How would this work? How would they enforce a 'no-ownership' or 'communal-ownership' principle without a state to prevent people from claiming and defending private property?

cmhamill 15y ago
I never said the position was coherent or viable. ;) That said, I think there are various answers. One is to have a militia to enforce those kinds of principles. Anarchists who are also pacifists naturally reject this option. Another option is to claim that in a society where everyone's needs were met, there'd be no desire by anyone towards private property, and that the desire for private property is a historically conditioned product of capitalism, and feudalism before that. Another argument is that it wouldn't much matter as long as the default state was no private property. John T. Private can take his guns and go live in the woods if he wants to, what is essential is that the majority of property is public and therefore private property does not give a specific class control over the output of others' labor. Another position, and this was Proudhon's, is that there is a distinction between personal property and private property. Proudhon would actually say that a family's household is an empowering, important kind of property which must be protected and preserved. Ownership of capital, however, Proudhon objected to, because it allowed, in his view, for those who owned the factories, machinery, mills, and plantations to present those who had no stake in the means of production to either work for one of them or to fend for themselves. As industrial society developed, fending for yourself because less and less plausible, and eventually the choice was between selling the output of your labor for (a socialist would say) less than its cost, or dying, basically. Calling that choice barbaric is the essence of the social-anarchist critique of capitalism.
- derleth 15y ago
  > One is to have a militia to enforce those kinds of principles. How is that not a government? > Another option is to claim that in a society where everyone's needs were met, there'd be no desire by anyone towards private property, and that the desire for private property is a historically conditioned product of capitalism, and feudalism before that. I'd like a society that can plausibly exist in the world as it is now, thanks. > Another argument is that it wouldn't much matter as long as the default state was no private property. This would work on a small scale in the presence of massive social pressure to conform. All anarchy seems to be predicated on the existence of massive peer pressure to conform to their social norms, and we all know where not being able to question peer pressure leads. > Proudhon would actually say that a family's household is an empowering, important kind of property which must be protected and preserved. Ownership of capital, however, Proudhon objected to, because it allowed, in his view, for those who owned the factories, machinery, mills, and plantations to present those who had no stake in the means of production to either work for one of them or to fend for themselves. This is incoherent because it tries to force a distinction where none exists. The very existence of cottage industries and family farms puts the lie to the concept. In other words: My family farm is empowering until I hire on my first field hand to help bring in a big harvest, at which point I become an evil capitalist oppressor.

usr0110 15y ago

> what do you say to the implicit threat of force which establishes the principle of property in the first place? One has a natural right to at least one property: one's own body. A natural right that is routinely violated in most so called 'free' societies; I should add. This notion of property is established (and recognized) without the threat of force, implicit or otherwise. Now assume the existence of only one person on the entire planet. None of our political philosophies have any effect on the dealings of that one person. If another person is added however, the two have now the possibility of interaction over a limited resource. The two can attempt aggression as a means of securing the resource, or they can attempt to set out a contract. That is, a set of rules that determine how the two deal with scarcity. For example, they can agree that the person who finds something first shall consider it their property. The two can reach this conclusion in the absence of any force, implicit or otherwise. They can reach this conclusion in the spirit of cooperation, or for entirely selfish reasons: to avoid or at least minimize the stress of conflicts. The two can indeed introduce the possibility of aggression as a means of enforcing the contract. But if you think closely, you will see that this aggression is not defined as an initiation of force, but rather as a response to it. That is, contract or not, the first person to go against the will of the other is the aggressor. And since there is no political philosophy which prohibits one to defend themselves - libertarianism included - it seems safe to assume that everyone would agree: the return aggression is justified. So all the contract winds up doing, is codifying the interaction and determining exactly what the two view as aggression. For example, unilateral contract termination is typically viewed as such. When scaled up to more than two persons, the complexities increase, but the principles remain the same. A contract is a document that governs interaction. This is markedly different from a person who governs interaction in that the contract requires the agreement of all parties involved, whereas a tyrant simply imposes his or her will, unconcerned about the will of others. Libertarianism is a way of thinking that rejects the initiation of force. It is not a way of thinking that denies the existence of force. Neither does it deny the necessity of force -- but only in response to it.

eldude 15y ago

I've heard the "Libertarians are one step away from anarchists" argument multiple times before, but I've honestly always found it perplexing. At least with regards to my own libertarian views, government is essential. In libertarianism, the government is the objective enforcement of contract laws and the defender of rights. Without the government, you would have anarchy, which is a rule by force by intrinsically dishonest people resulting in the exact opposite of the upholding of contract law and rights. That is the _opposite_ of libertarian desires for freedom from the desires of others. Why would any libertarian desire this? I'm going to speculate, as I'm not well versed in the history of libertarianism, but I suspect it grew out of anarchism inasmuch as it was a righteous rejection of government abuse. You see this occurring today with the Occupy movement; the government has failed and rejected its duties, therefore they reject the government. I consider this throwing the baby out with the bath water. With regards to the NAP and force, the American founding fathers regarding the 2nd Ammendment did not even believe the government should have a monopoly, but instead the whole of the populace should hold its propensity for tyranny in check with its own force so to speak. This is consistent with the libertarian value of the right to defend oneself. Force is therefore permissible whenever necessary to rectify the violation of one's rights (contract law being subsumed by this). As far as whether violating my (property) rights is an initiation of force, according to the NAP[1] it is: Specifically, any unsollicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property, including that person’s body, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficiary or neutral to the owner, are considered violent when they are against the owner’s free will and interfere with his right to self-determination, as based on the libertarian principle of self-ownership. So at the end, the obvious glaring disparity between socialist and libertarians is whether the right to own property is in fact a right. Socialists as you see here (comments), obviously refuse to acknowledge the assumption of this right. Unfortunately, the natural progression of having no right to own property is the socialist value that everyone else has a right to your own mind, sweat, etc... Or in other words, we are all beholden to the desires of others as all that we own, even ourselves, are community property. This in my mind is the most unimaginable tyranny of all, and thus I see socialism as fundamentally incompatible with libertarianism. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

15y ago

javert 15y ago

The fact that the non-aggression principle cannot stand without an underlying philosophy is precisely why Ayn Rand, who originated that principle, rejected the U.S. libertarians' attempts to promulgate that principle in a way that was divorced from her philosophy.

olalonde 15y ago

Libertarianism is basically anarchism + property rights + government that enforces freedom.