..and why progressive liberalism is the way :)
http://weeklysift.com/2011/08/22/why-i-am-not-a-libertarian
(hope that wasn't posted before)
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
As you read, try to imagine a Libertarian approach to a serious plague. I don’t think there is one.
Freedom not = automatic stupidity. I'd guess a sane person would stay away from public places during a plague anyway. Just look at workers in a company: they'd do anything for a sick day.
Global warming is a collective problem, and there is no individualistic solution to it.
Besides, like, you know, the courts. And not supporting companies which pollute. And carbon dioxide filters. Plus, free doesn't mean that there won't be voluntary collective organizations.
Property ... something else here...
Doesn't do one bit to refute property besides saying that government is needed, which is wrong.
The industrial economy is in the same condition. You can’t go down to the Ford plant and start working on your new car. You have to be hired first. You need an owner’s permission before your labor can start to create property for you. If no owner will give you that permission, then you could starve.
Zomg, and a government fixes all of that! Because in a free society all factory owners will prevent everyone from getting jobs but in a democracy these same factory owners will make a government to prevent themselves from being evil!
Seriously, this "compare to democracy" argument is a great thing in favor of libertarianism. Some naysayers says that something would never happen under libertarianism? Well, how does it happen in democracy? People want it. People's wants ain't gonna change switching the political system (besides wanting to violate NAP, that gets removed), so the the same wants will build the same social structures. Bam. The one good thing democracy has done is show us that people want good things. Hence, if they truly want them, in libertarianism they can still do them.
Our fear is that the owners of the means of production won’t grant us access, so we will never have the opportunity to apply our labor.
Again, because factory owners hate workers so much that they don't even want to see any in their factories...
I meet very few able-bodied adults whose first choice is to sit around demanding a handout.
Congratulations on staying with the classy people.
I also meet young people who would be happy to study whatever subject and train in whatever skill would get them a decent job. I am frustrated that I can’t tell them what subject or what skill that is.
Am I missing something or is this not an argument?
Access to the means of production should be a human birthright.
Like his sister?
What’s more, everyone should get the benefit of the increased productivity of society. No individual created that productivity single-handedly. No individual has a right to siphon it off.
Flawed logic. So if one individual doesn't create the wealth, he can't keep it all. But everyone should suddenly share in it. Because... everyone helped to create it? No. No one siphons off productivity. There are only voluntary activities. Production is anarchistic.
But instead, our society has a class of owners, and everyone else participates in the bounty of the Earth and the wealth of human progress only by their permission.
Owners, which, of course, by default, hate our guts. Sort of like most dog owners in the US beat their dogs when they get up in the morning, right? Dude, dogs are our slaves and we treat them well. Really?
Increasingly, they maneuver into a position that allows them to drive a hard bargain for that permission.
Because 5% of the population surely is stronger economically than the other 95%...
And so higher productivity means higher unemployment
Productivity = unemployment? As in lazy people don't wanna get jobs because they entail work? I guess so...
and the average person’s standard of living decreases even as total wealth increases.
Because our standards of living are so much lower now than like 100 years ago.
I anticipate this objection: “You want to go back to being hunter-gatherers. We’ll all starve.”
Hoho. He got me there! Exactly what I had wanted to object with!
It is the proper role of government to balance that injustice, to provide many paths of access to the means of production, and to compensate those who are still shut out. To prevent government from doing so, in today’s world, is no way to champion freedom. Quite the opposite, it’s tyrannical.
Most certainly. Letting government control our lives is the only path to freedom. Also the key to a long and healthy life is tying yourself to a 100 pound rock about to be flung over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Good thing there are people like this in the world. When we turn to AnCap and pray to our AnCap gods who want a sacrifice this man will be willing to take any punishment for the sake of humanity.
Summary:
1. How can you stop plagues unless there's a govt telling everyone to not gather in public places? Just read The Great Influenza by John Barry.
2. How can you solve global warming without a govt? [btw, do a search for CERN global warming].
3. Every property system in history (and all the ones I’ve been able to imagine) are [sic] unjust.
4. You need a govt to have property.
But defining what can be owned, what owning it means, and keeping track of who owns what — that’s a government intervention in the economy that dwarfs all other government interventions. You see, ownership is a social thing, not an individual thing. I can claim I own something, but what makes my ownership real is that the rest of you don’t own it. My ownership isn’t something I do, it’s something we do.
5. Everything is already owned, so newborns are doomed to eternal poverty.
6. In fact, right now no one can even get a job, because all capital goods are owned. That's why we have high unemployment.
7. When I do the work, the owner of the means of production [which I should own, not him, as it is my birthright] siphons off all the profits.
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
The Stefan Molyneux video located in the comments section does a great job reconstructing the points made in the article.
Just a comment from my reading: this guy has the stupidest theory of property I've ever heard, and the conclusions he draws from it are even stupider.
Thanks for the summary :) You've saved me at least 10 minutes of life.
"6. In fact, right now no one can even get a job, because all capital goods are owned. That's why we have high unemployment."
hmm...this sounds vaguely familiar...
Here's the Molyneux video:
Yeah, that's what caused my "corporation" question.
That's absolutely ridiculous to say that you need government to demarcate property. All a government does is make a claim that says people should obey them; nothing more, nothing less. People need to get away from the idea that if the government says something, it somehow gets this magical property of being "official." They are just people acting in the same fashion as you or me.
His point about property being a "social" phenomena isn't actually a bad point, he just draws the incorrect conclusion from it. Of course if the relevant subjects around you don't believe in property the way you do, they can take it from you with an air of legitimacy. If nobody around me thinks I own my computer, they can take it by sheer force or threat of force. But this is all beside the point as this is a descriptive and not a normative definition of what property is.
All a government does is make a claim that says people should obey them; nothing more, nothing less.
What less could it want? :P
Statists never fail to underwhelm me with their "critiques" of Libertarianism. Jesus guys, I'm begging for a decent rebuttal.
This feels somewhat like bringing an AT-AT to a destruction derby, but how about this: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html
Praetyre: This feels somewhat like bringing an AT-AT to a destruction derby, but how about this: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-am-not-libertarian.html
Meh.
Uh... I think the non-aggression principle is really the lynchpin of libertarian thought. If you respect the NAP, you are libertarian. If you don't, you are in favour of the state, regardless of how you want to structure it, justify it, and euphemistically refer to it.
The thing is that the NAP isn't well qualified, as it includes aggression against property rights, which some people don't completely believe in. So you can believe in NAP and the state... as long as you don't believe in firm property rights.
Wow, I guess that voluntary collective action doesn't exist...
What do you base the NAP on, if not property rights?
All rights are property rights, or derivatives of property rights. Ownership is the ultimate, unlimited real right from which any other kind of right under law must logically derive. All rights concern the legitimate expectation, under law, of the authority to dispose of scarce resources. One's body is a scarce resource, hence a legitimate expectation under law that you won't have your body assaulted or imprisoned must either come from a property right you have in your own body, or a personal right granted against someone else's property right in you.
Common sense? But besides that, I am not well-read enough on property rights to tell you whether I agree with you or not.
Wheylous: What do you base the NAP on, if not property rights? Common sense?
Common sense?
That is a very very dangerous road, my friend.
But besides that, I am not well-read enough on property rights to tell you whether I agree with you or not.
You should look into it. While there are plenty of objections to Hoppe's argumentation ethics, it offers a pretty decent foundation...See here.
That is true. I shall look into those these days.