11 ms·

The libertarian and anti-government sentiments aren't saying that we shouldn't be all in this together, but that we shouldn't be forced to be all in this togeth

by avar 13y ago

The libertarian and anti-government sentiments aren't saying that we shouldn't be all in this together, but that we shouldn't be forced to be all in this together. That difference is what the entire argument is about. Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". That's a very profound difference, it's why having the government make anything its business anywhere in the world is always controversial.

bmelton 13y ago
I just made a very long post that tried to say exactly that. Kudos for your more elegant and succinct answer that captures in four sentences what I'm not sure I did in eight paragraphs.
scarmig 13y ago
That argument is tiresome. Many libertarians want to enforce a very particular and ahistorical version of property rights, one dictated from above and with a studied blindness for the reason we've invented the group of rights we think of as property. They want to subject everyone to a society where state violence is used for and only on behalf of people who in the past were granted monopoly access to some material good. Force seeps through everything we do in a society, because it's a good like any other. Many libertarians demand everyone be forced into a machine of their own invention. And that's not any more damning of them than of anyone else, but they should own it. They're not hoping for a world where people aren't forced into things, but a world where people are forced into their own narrow vision of what's moral and righteous.
- avar 13y ago
  What I'm pointing out really has nothing to do with libertarianism, for what it's worth it's not a political position that I personally adhere to. I'm pointing out that whatever your political leaning you don't "just" get the government involved. Even if you think you should have a larger government than you have now the question is what kind of larger government, and once you make the wrong choice there's a huge inertia in the system that makes correcting that choice very hard. So even people that agree that government should do more aren't easily brought on the bandwagon of the something the government wants to do being the right version of that "more".
  - saraid216 13y ago
    > Even if you think you should have a larger government than you have now the question is what kind of larger government, and once you make the wrong choice there's a huge inertia in the system that makes correcting that choice very hard. To quote Theodore Roosevelt, > The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and indeed undesirable to realize. The impractical visionary is far less often the guide and precursor than he is the embittered foe of the real reformer, of the man who, with stumblings and shortcoming, yet does in some shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the hopes and desires of those who strive for better things. Woe to the empty phrase-maker, to the empty idealist, who, instead of making ready the ground for the man of action, turns against him when he appears and hampers him when he does work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember how sorry and contemptible is the figure which he will cut, how great the damage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his own life, strive measurably to realize the ideals that he preaches for others. Let him remember also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined by the success with which it can in practice be realized. We should abhor the so-called "practical" men whose practicality assumes the shape of that peculiar baseness which finds its expression in disbelief in morality and decency, in disregard of high standards of living and conduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the body of politic. But only less desirable as a citizen is his nominal opponent and real ally, the man of fantastic vision who makes the impossible better forever the enemy of the possible good. tldr: don't make perfect the enemy of good. This comes several paragraphs after the famous "Man in the Arena" bit.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    My point is this: the concept of a larger government is very murky, so we should be very careful when we're talking about it. The stereotypical libertarian will propose universal, strict enforcement of violence used to protect people to whom the State has granted monopoly access to material goods. I don't recognize that as a smaller State than someone who proposes that except annually taking some proportion of it and redistributing it. One state may be better than the other, but it's still all pile of violence, configured in a different way.
- nickff 13y ago
  One might say that socialists want to enforce an oft repeated history of slavery and theft.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    ... if one was trying to grandstand and spout meaningless platitudes.
  - trekky1700 13y ago
    Or one could stop looking to the extreme as an inevitability in either case.
  - modfodder 13y ago
    One might say the conservatives are doing the same (in the name of capitalism).
- vidarh 13y ago
  I used to freak right wing libertarians out by following this like of thought with them when I was politically active. I had one in tears during a break in a debate because I was there representing a Marxist party, yet I agreed with him about most issues. He could not understand why, and he saw it as destroying his credibility. I pointed out that to me, as a marxist (some would argue the term libertarian socialist, or left communist would be more descriptive), his arguments for individual freedom was the right starting point for evaluating most policy, but the only logical conclusion is to limit government recognition of property rights too, as a large portion of the laws to protect private property takes away more rights from the public at large than what it offers to the public as owners: I may gain exclusive rights to a small area, but I lose access and even limited rights to most of the world. And In fact most countries do recognize that property rights must be limited to various extents to safeguard the rights of the population as a whole, through things like guarantees of access to land areas held in common (or owned by the government) that will not be sold, or legal protections for access to beaches or wilderness that often extends to granting legally protected public access to privately owned land. The question is not whether or not property rights must be limited, but where to draw the balance. Yet somehow right wing libertarians tends to want to want to tighten property rights, while at the same time they argue for reducing government intervention in pretty much everything else. The inconsistency is glaring to me.
saraid216 13y ago
> Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". And while this makes sense from a naive perspective, it always rapidly breaks down in reality. That's why Simon, and others, call it juvenile. The complexity isn't hard to see: just use one level of meta. Given an action or policy or whatever S, have the policy S' of "Do not force everyone to do S". Now take S' as the policy S, and have the new policy S'' of "Do not force everyone to not force everyone to do S." This isn't contrived. The paradox of tolerance has been a major problem in liberal philosophy for a long, long time. The simplistic notion of "Don't force them" just refuses to engage with any kind of depth, and in doing so, perverts and defeats itself. This is also assuming that the relevant species of libertarianism under discussion isn't purely economic fundamentalism; that is, it has actual concerns for social libertarianism rather than vapid one-off claims that permit oppression by failing to oppose it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance [2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/
- anoncowherd 13y ago
  >> The paradox of tolerance has been a major problem in liberal philosophy for a long, long time. The simplistic notion of "Don't force them" just refuses to engage with any kind of depth, and in doing so, perverts and defeats itself. Nope, the idea of not forcing anyone to do anything is rooted in the Non-Aggression Principle, which stipulates that any initiation of force (violence/coercion) is forbidden. The flipside of this is that everything should be voluntary. It makes sense if you allow yourself to think about it for a moment. Never mind "but self-defense is violence too!!" - that is clearly seen for the distraction it is, when you draw the line at initiating violence. The aggressor is always in the wrong. This fits together perfectly with The Golden Rule too: don't do anything to others that you wouldn't want done to yourself. In reality, there are no "victimless crimes". Whenever someone gets thrown into jail for being in possession of a certain plant, there is no victim, and no crime. Laws represent coercion one way or another. It's either: 1) don't do this or you will be punished, or 2) do this or you will be punished. Now, when people get punished for attempting to keep their property, something is very wrong. Who's the victim of you trying to keep your property? -No one. OK then, who's the victim in taxation.. ? -Why it's you, of course.
adriand 13y ago
> The libertarian and anti-government sentiments aren't saying that we shouldn't be all in this together, but that we shouldn't be forced to be all in this together. That difference is what the entire argument is about. That's the kind of facile, juvenile argument the OP decries in this article. To make an analogy, I could equally say, "I shouldn't be forced to be in a family. Families are great and everything, but why do I have to have one?" Well guess what, I have one because I'm a human being and got born into one. You're an American (or a Canadian or a Briton or whatever). You are part of a society and part of a nation whether you like it or not. So let's make it work for everyone.
- cinquemb 13y ago
  > You're an American (or a Canadian or a Briton or whatever). You are part of a society and part of a nation whether you like it or not. So let's make it work for everyone. Regardless of which lines one did not to choose to be drawn around them, not everyone has an affinity for them, and if history is any example of such, blood will be drawn for those to fight for their will to reconstruct such lines to their choosing…
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Regardless of which lines one did not to choose to be drawn around them, not everyone has an affinity for them Yes -- there are always selfish pricks, who think that they should have a say in if they'd have affinity to their family or society or fellow humans. It's like seeing a child drowning and saying, "well, I don't know this kid or feel anything for this, so why should I do anything to help it?" -- instead of just jumping in just cause it's a fellow human.
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      Yes -- we can all pick examples at the extremities that may exemplify how one feels and throw names about in order to convince or deride the fellow human being into a lockstep of some sort. Yet such men (and women), who stand on the pillars of history, who have helped create the social constructs we find ourselves living by to some degree today, were "selfish pricks" to those who apposed them and died in their wake.
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
Take this as sampling bias if you will, but most of the well-reasoned argument that I've heard from libertarians or anarchists are really just arguments that we should go back to building societies on the scale of city-states, and stop having them on the scale of the US.
- wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
  Scale is where the comparison between those two will break down. The first is power-assertive on an small scale (usually individual). The second has no scale, because the driving motivation would be the questioning of any power structure (not necessarily destruction, as it's usually stereotyped). But I'm describing the textbook version here, not everyday interpretations. (Edit: i was trying to keep this out of quick searches, but to be clear, lib-----ian vs a-----ism ;)
ant512 13y ago
> Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". There are four guys in a crippled spaceship. They have 7 hours of oxygen left if they continue to breathe normally. If they all make a concerted effort to breathe slowly they could extend the oxygen to 8 hours. The rescue ship arrives in 8 hours. They are all in it together. There's nothing that can be done about that. Now the libertarian astronaut insists that he won't be forced to change his breathing pattern. No way is he going to be forced to do anything different. He's not going to be forced to be in it with the other guys. No amount of cajoling, threatening or reasoning will get this guy to give up his "one-man island" philosophy. But he is in it with the other guys. Sticking his head in the space-sand doesn't change the hard facts of 7 hours of oxygen and rescue in 8.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Do you have a permit from the EPA to burn all of that straw?
  - ant512 13y ago
    It's a contrived analogy, mainly because - as Simon points out in the article: > Their eyes glaze...It's too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected. It seems to me that people struggle to deal with this issue when scaled out to a population beyond their immediate social circle. That's one of the problems. The other is, as soon as you scale it back to a comprehensible size, people shout "straw man!" and the debate goes nowhere.
- VMG 13y ago
  Contrived example time? What is the political system on the spaceship that allows three of the four to hold a vote and kill off the least popular guy on the spaceship?
  - jjoonathan 13y ago
    It's contrived but it highlights a real problem: free markets are very poorly suited to the task of avoiding tragedies of the commons. Unless you think tragedies of the commons don't happen in real life, the contrived example is relevant.
klintcho 13y ago
So everyone should be able to consume resources on this earth but not be forced to give anything back? I fail to see how this will give us a viable future when some people will be able to "opt out" of society?
Zigurd 13y ago
There is a simple way to address the libertarian argument, IF that argument is honestly about being "forced" to act as a group: Devolve political power until you start being able to say "we" enough of the time to act together. If you can't agree there is such a viable grouping that enables consensual government action, that's anarcho-capitalism, not libertarianism. Big nation states make big mistakes, like multi-trillion dollar wars. Smaller governmental groupings are not capable of mistakes on that scale. The world also needs more diversity of social, economic, and legal systems - the opposite of the monoculture of IP laws treaties like TPP want to create.
patcon 13y ago
I'm torn here. If you insist everyone make every moral choice for themselves, then we will be unable to maximize the "right" choices. For example: If I want to buy ethical foods, I'd rather shop at a place where all these criteria are enforced. It would be mind-numbingly draining to have to make all these choices myself. Frankly, I would tune out. In a libertarian society, every person would need to be educated on food systems, why some are ethical and why some aren't, etc. And only then could we have an equitable system that is supported by choice. But people don't want to invest that much into understanding the thing that keeps them nourished. This is the problem I see with libertarianism. Without some form of, hopefully mild coercion, people just tune out based on gut feeling. If they don't want to participate and contribute to something after the quick-and-dirty explanation, then they're out -- nevermind the 3 year study and expert panel that analyzed the issue and recommended process/measure/regulation X. I agree that our legislation and regulations need to be more responsive and aligned with reality, but gunning for everything to be "opt-out" does not seem sustainable. Sorry, I go back and forth. I'm not libertarian by any means, but being so highly involved in open source community, I see the value of properly structured voluntary communities. Basically, I'm really torn about everything I've said above :)
- anoncowherd 13y ago
  >> I'm torn here That's good. You're sensing that something is wrong. >> If you insist everyone make every moral choice for themselves, then we will be unable to maximize the "right" choices Why would "we" need to "maximize" the right choices? Who's we anyway? Aren't we all just individuals, with our own goals and desires that are constantly changing anyway? Who's anyone to "maximize" the "rightness" of your choices, as long as you don't harm others? How bad should you want that bar of chocolate tomorrow at noon? What about in the evening? See, economies consist of exchanges between people, and whenever an exchange is voluntary, it leaves both parties better off. There's no "optimization" necessary there. It's all based on each individual's subjective preferences. If you want an apple, and have a dollar, you can give that dollar to someone in exchange for an apple. If you do this, it means you valued the apple higher than your dollar, and the other guy valued your dollar higher than his apple! -Bam. Both are better off. No "maximizing" necessary. >> In a libertarian society, every person would need to be educated on food systems, why some are ethical and why some aren't, etc Really? Is it really unclear to anyone that treating animals well is better than treating them horribly? Why would anyone prefer the meat that's produced through treating animals horribly, or even badly, compared to a more "organic" alternative? Sure, prices are a factor, but just about everyone would like to support treating animals well, right? So if organic production is increased, those prices will fall. It may still be a bit more expensive, but organic, non-GMO food comes with the additional benefit of not being harmful to your health, and that's quite valuable too. >> nevermind the 3 year study and expert panel that analyzed the issue and recommended process/measure/regulation X. Who are the "experts"? -Where do they come from? What are they affiliated with? Who paid for the study? What kind of regulation are we talking about? Why would it be good? What's the alternative? How often is coercion better than no coercion? (Pro-tip: never) .. And so on.
rayiner 13y ago
The minute you institute property rights, you're forcing everyone to recognize and play along with certain rules. Classic libertarians have no opposition to government intervention when it comes to violently preventing poor people from taking their property. They deem it perfectly legitimate to coerce someone with economic threats but not physical ones. Its wonderfully self-serving for an educated class that tends not to have much in the way of physical strength to force everyone to abide by these rules that devalue physical strength. To me, the only thing that needs to be said in this debate is that people, given the freedom to structure their society as they wish, have gravitated toward social democracy all over the West. They want everyone to be in it together not just when it comes to certain rights like property that libertarians like to pretend are handed down by God, but also when it comes to taking care of the poor, sick, and disabled and ensuring social mobility through education. In my view, its immoral to create government to force everyone to follow certain rules, then deny people the right to decide for themselves what those rules should be. But that's the whole premise behind libertarian limited government.

by avar 13y ago

bmelton 13y ago

I just made a very long post that tried to say exactly that. Kudos for your more elegant and succinct answer that captures in four sentences what I'm not sure I did in eight paragraphs.

scarmig 13y ago

That argument is tiresome. Many libertarians want to enforce a very particular and ahistorical version of property rights, one dictated from above and with a studied blindness for the reason we've invented the group of rights we think of as property. They want to subject everyone to a society where state violence is used for and only on behalf of people who in the past were granted monopoly access to some material good. Force seeps through everything we do in a society, because it's a good like any other. Many libertarians demand everyone be forced into a machine of their own invention. And that's not any more damning of them than of anyone else, but they should own it. They're not hoping for a world where people aren't forced into things, but a world where people are forced into their own narrow vision of what's moral and righteous.

avar 13y ago
What I'm pointing out really has nothing to do with libertarianism, for what it's worth it's not a political position that I personally adhere to. I'm pointing out that whatever your political leaning you don't "just" get the government involved. Even if you think you should have a larger government than you have now the question is what kind of larger government, and once you make the wrong choice there's a huge inertia in the system that makes correcting that choice very hard. So even people that agree that government should do more aren't easily brought on the bandwagon of the something the government wants to do being the right version of that "more".
- saraid216 13y ago
  > Even if you think you should have a larger government than you have now the question is what kind of larger government, and once you make the wrong choice there's a huge inertia in the system that makes correcting that choice very hard. To quote Theodore Roosevelt, > The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able to achieve them in practical fashion. No permanent good comes from aspirations so lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and indeed undesirable to realize. The impractical visionary is far less often the guide and precursor than he is the embittered foe of the real reformer, of the man who, with stumblings and shortcoming, yet does in some shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the hopes and desires of those who strive for better things. Woe to the empty phrase-maker, to the empty idealist, who, instead of making ready the ground for the man of action, turns against him when he appears and hampers him when he does work! Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember how sorry and contemptible is the figure which he will cut, how great the damage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his own life, strive measurably to realize the ideals that he preaches for others. Let him remember also that the worth of the ideal must be largely determined by the success with which it can in practice be realized. We should abhor the so-called "practical" men whose practicality assumes the shape of that peculiar baseness which finds its expression in disbelief in morality and decency, in disregard of high standards of living and conduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the body of politic. But only less desirable as a citizen is his nominal opponent and real ally, the man of fantastic vision who makes the impossible better forever the enemy of the possible good. tldr: don't make perfect the enemy of good. This comes several paragraphs after the famous "Man in the Arena" bit.
- scarmig 13y ago
  My point is this: the concept of a larger government is very murky, so we should be very careful when we're talking about it. The stereotypical libertarian will propose universal, strict enforcement of violence used to protect people to whom the State has granted monopoly access to material goods. I don't recognize that as a smaller State than someone who proposes that except annually taking some proportion of it and redistributing it. One state may be better than the other, but it's still all pile of violence, configured in a different way.
nickff 13y ago
One might say that socialists want to enforce an oft repeated history of slavery and theft.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  ... if one was trying to grandstand and spout meaningless platitudes.
- trekky1700 13y ago
  Or one could stop looking to the extreme as an inevitability in either case.
- modfodder 13y ago
  One might say the conservatives are doing the same (in the name of capitalism).
vidarh 13y ago
I used to freak right wing libertarians out by following this like of thought with them when I was politically active. I had one in tears during a break in a debate because I was there representing a Marxist party, yet I agreed with him about most issues. He could not understand why, and he saw it as destroying his credibility. I pointed out that to me, as a marxist (some would argue the term libertarian socialist, or left communist would be more descriptive), his arguments for individual freedom was the right starting point for evaluating most policy, but the only logical conclusion is to limit government recognition of property rights too, as a large portion of the laws to protect private property takes away more rights from the public at large than what it offers to the public as owners: I may gain exclusive rights to a small area, but I lose access and even limited rights to most of the world. And In fact most countries do recognize that property rights must be limited to various extents to safeguard the rights of the population as a whole, through things like guarantees of access to land areas held in common (or owned by the government) that will not be sold, or legal protections for access to beaches or wilderness that often extends to granting legally protected public access to privately owned land. The question is not whether or not property rights must be limited, but where to draw the balance. Yet somehow right wing libertarians tends to want to want to tighten property rights, while at the same time they argue for reducing government intervention in pretty much everything else. The inconsistency is glaring to me.

saraid216 13y ago

> Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". And while this makes sense from a naive perspective, it always rapidly breaks down in reality. That's why Simon, and others, call it juvenile. The complexity isn't hard to see: just use one level of meta. Given an action or policy or whatever S, have the policy S' of "Do not force everyone to do S". Now take S' as the policy S, and have the new policy S'' of "Do not force everyone to not force everyone to do S." This isn't contrived. The paradox of tolerance has been a major problem in liberal philosophy for a long, long time. The simplistic notion of "Don't force them" just refuses to engage with any kind of depth, and in doing so, perverts and defeats itself. This is also assuming that the relevant species of libertarianism under discussion isn't purely economic fundamentalism; that is, it has actual concerns for social libertarianism rather than vapid one-off claims that permit oppression by failing to oppose it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance [2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/

anoncowherd 13y ago
>> The paradox of tolerance has been a major problem in liberal philosophy for a long, long time. The simplistic notion of "Don't force them" just refuses to engage with any kind of depth, and in doing so, perverts and defeats itself. Nope, the idea of not forcing anyone to do anything is rooted in the Non-Aggression Principle, which stipulates that any initiation of force (violence/coercion) is forbidden. The flipside of this is that everything should be voluntary. It makes sense if you allow yourself to think about it for a moment. Never mind "but self-defense is violence too!!" - that is clearly seen for the distraction it is, when you draw the line at initiating violence. The aggressor is always in the wrong. This fits together perfectly with The Golden Rule too: don't do anything to others that you wouldn't want done to yourself. In reality, there are no "victimless crimes". Whenever someone gets thrown into jail for being in possession of a certain plant, there is no victim, and no crime. Laws represent coercion one way or another. It's either: 1) don't do this or you will be punished, or 2) do this or you will be punished. Now, when people get punished for attempting to keep their property, something is very wrong. Who's the victim of you trying to keep your property? -No one. OK then, who's the victim in taxation.. ? -Why it's you, of course.

adriand 13y ago

> The libertarian and anti-government sentiments aren't saying that we shouldn't be all in this together, but that we shouldn't be forced to be all in this together. That difference is what the entire argument is about. That's the kind of facile, juvenile argument the OP decries in this article. To make an analogy, I could equally say, "I shouldn't be forced to be in a family. Families are great and everything, but why do I have to have one?" Well guess what, I have one because I'm a human being and got born into one. You're an American (or a Canadian or a Briton or whatever). You are part of a society and part of a nation whether you like it or not. So let's make it work for everyone.

cinquemb 13y ago
> You're an American (or a Canadian or a Briton or whatever). You are part of a society and part of a nation whether you like it or not. So let's make it work for everyone. Regardless of which lines one did not to choose to be drawn around them, not everyone has an affinity for them, and if history is any example of such, blood will be drawn for those to fight for their will to reconstruct such lines to their choosing…
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Regardless of which lines one did not to choose to be drawn around them, not everyone has an affinity for them Yes -- there are always selfish pricks, who think that they should have a say in if they'd have affinity to their family or society or fellow humans. It's like seeing a child drowning and saying, "well, I don't know this kid or feel anything for this, so why should I do anything to help it?" -- instead of just jumping in just cause it's a fellow human.
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    Yes -- we can all pick examples at the extremities that may exemplify how one feels and throw names about in order to convince or deride the fellow human being into a lockstep of some sort. Yet such men (and women), who stand on the pillars of history, who have helped create the social constructs we find ourselves living by to some degree today, were "selfish pricks" to those who apposed them and died in their wake.

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago

Take this as sampling bias if you will, but most of the well-reasoned argument that I've heard from libertarians or anarchists are really just arguments that we should go back to building societies on the scale of city-states, and stop having them on the scale of the US.

wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
Scale is where the comparison between those two will break down. The first is power-assertive on an small scale (usually individual). The second has no scale, because the driving motivation would be the questioning of any power structure (not necessarily destruction, as it's usually stereotyped). But I'm describing the textbook version here, not everyday interpretations. (Edit: i was trying to keep this out of quick searches, but to be clear, lib-----ian vs a-----ism ;)

ant512 13y ago

> Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". There are four guys in a crippled spaceship. They have 7 hours of oxygen left if they continue to breathe normally. If they all make a concerted effort to breathe slowly they could extend the oxygen to 8 hours. The rescue ship arrives in 8 hours. They are all in it together. There's nothing that can be done about that. Now the libertarian astronaut insists that he won't be forced to change his breathing pattern. No way is he going to be forced to do anything different. He's not going to be forced to be in it with the other guys. No amount of cajoling, threatening or reasoning will get this guy to give up his "one-man island" philosophy. But he is in it with the other guys. Sticking his head in the space-sand doesn't change the hard facts of 7 hours of oxygen and rescue in 8.

CamperBob2 13y ago
Do you have a permit from the EPA to burn all of that straw?
- ant512 13y ago
  It's a contrived analogy, mainly because - as Simon points out in the article: > Their eyes glaze...It's too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected. It seems to me that people struggle to deal with this issue when scaled out to a population beyond their immediate social circle. That's one of the problems. The other is, as soon as you scale it back to a comprehensible size, people shout "straw man!" and the debate goes nowhere.
VMG 13y ago
Contrived example time? What is the political system on the spaceship that allows three of the four to hold a vote and kill off the least popular guy on the spaceship?
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  It's contrived but it highlights a real problem: free markets are very poorly suited to the task of avoiding tragedies of the commons. Unless you think tragedies of the commons don't happen in real life, the contrived example is relevant.

klintcho 13y ago

So everyone should be able to consume resources on this earth but not be forced to give anything back? I fail to see how this will give us a viable future when some people will be able to "opt out" of society?

Zigurd 13y ago

There is a simple way to address the libertarian argument, IF that argument is honestly about being "forced" to act as a group: Devolve political power until you start being able to say "we" enough of the time to act together. If you can't agree there is such a viable grouping that enables consensual government action, that's anarcho-capitalism, not libertarianism. Big nation states make big mistakes, like multi-trillion dollar wars. Smaller governmental groupings are not capable of mistakes on that scale. The world also needs more diversity of social, economic, and legal systems - the opposite of the monoculture of IP laws treaties like TPP want to create.

patcon 13y ago

I'm torn here. If you insist everyone make every moral choice for themselves, then we will be unable to maximize the "right" choices. For example: If I want to buy ethical foods, I'd rather shop at a place where all these criteria are enforced. It would be mind-numbingly draining to have to make all these choices myself. Frankly, I would tune out. In a libertarian society, every person would need to be educated on food systems, why some are ethical and why some aren't, etc. And only then could we have an equitable system that is supported by choice. But people don't want to invest that much into understanding the thing that keeps them nourished. This is the problem I see with libertarianism. Without some form of, hopefully mild coercion, people just tune out based on gut feeling. If they don't want to participate and contribute to something after the quick-and-dirty explanation, then they're out -- nevermind the 3 year study and expert panel that analyzed the issue and recommended process/measure/regulation X. I agree that our legislation and regulations need to be more responsive and aligned with reality, but gunning for everything to be "opt-out" does not seem sustainable. Sorry, I go back and forth. I'm not libertarian by any means, but being so highly involved in open source community, I see the value of properly structured voluntary communities. Basically, I'm really torn about everything I've said above :)

anoncowherd 13y ago
>> I'm torn here That's good. You're sensing that something is wrong. >> If you insist everyone make every moral choice for themselves, then we will be unable to maximize the "right" choices Why would "we" need to "maximize" the right choices? Who's we anyway? Aren't we all just individuals, with our own goals and desires that are constantly changing anyway? Who's anyone to "maximize" the "rightness" of your choices, as long as you don't harm others? How bad should you want that bar of chocolate tomorrow at noon? What about in the evening? See, economies consist of exchanges between people, and whenever an exchange is voluntary, it leaves both parties better off. There's no "optimization" necessary there. It's all based on each individual's subjective preferences. If you want an apple, and have a dollar, you can give that dollar to someone in exchange for an apple. If you do this, it means you valued the apple higher than your dollar, and the other guy valued your dollar higher than his apple! -Bam. Both are better off. No "maximizing" necessary. >> In a libertarian society, every person would need to be educated on food systems, why some are ethical and why some aren't, etc Really? Is it really unclear to anyone that treating animals well is better than treating them horribly? Why would anyone prefer the meat that's produced through treating animals horribly, or even badly, compared to a more "organic" alternative? Sure, prices are a factor, but just about everyone would like to support treating animals well, right? So if organic production is increased, those prices will fall. It may still be a bit more expensive, but organic, non-GMO food comes with the additional benefit of not being harmful to your health, and that's quite valuable too. >> nevermind the 3 year study and expert panel that analyzed the issue and recommended process/measure/regulation X. Who are the "experts"? -Where do they come from? What are they affiliated with? Who paid for the study? What kind of regulation are we talking about? Why would it be good? What's the alternative? How often is coercion better than no coercion? (Pro-tip: never) .. And so on.

rayiner 13y ago

The minute you institute property rights, you're forcing everyone to recognize and play along with certain rules. Classic libertarians have no opposition to government intervention when it comes to violently preventing poor people from taking their property. They deem it perfectly legitimate to coerce someone with economic threats but not physical ones. Its wonderfully self-serving for an educated class that tends not to have much in the way of physical strength to force everyone to abide by these rules that devalue physical strength. To me, the only thing that needs to be said in this debate is that people, given the freedom to structure their society as they wish, have gravitated toward social democracy all over the West. They want everyone to be in it together not just when it comes to certain rights like property that libertarians like to pretend are handed down by God, but also when it comes to taking care of the poor, sick, and disabled and ensuring social mobility through education. In my view, its immoral to create government to force everyone to follow certain rules, then deny people the right to decide for themselves what those rules should be. But that's the whole premise behind libertarian limited government.