[PhilosoFlea]

I'm sure I will be considered a troll for asking this here, but it bothers me the new generation of "patriotic" right wing libertarians in America. Most of the platform they represent is anti-libertarian and in my experience the only liberty they seem to be concerned with is the 2nd amendment. And even most of them do not understand it. For instance the text of the amendment says:

"Article [II.] A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "

Note here it says, "well regulated" and no firearm regulation has ever been stricken down on grounds of the 2nd amendment. Ergo, regulating arms usage is not against the constitution.

I've also heard of libertarians who are not concerned with the Patriot act and or other bills encroaching on freedom and privacy as outlined in the 4th amendment. This is a very non-libertarian stance and seems like it is based in right wing partisanship.

Initially I wanted to become a libertarian because I thought standing up for our liberties as outlined in the constitution (every one of them) was honorable. But in my experience the American libertarian movement is libertarian in name only. I'd be delighted if someone could provide me examples to the contrary.

[Todd D.]

First of all, this isn't trolling. It was actually well thought out and rational.

I'm sure I will be considered a troll for asking this here, but it bothers me the new generation of "patriotic" right wing libertarians in America.

First of all, this isn't trolling. It was actually well thought out and rational. Second of all, I don't know why you would call Libertarians "Right Wing". What, just because of Gun Control? We support gay marraige, drug legalization, etc, hardly "right wing" ideals.

Most of the platform they represent is anti-libertarian and in my experience the only liberty they seem to be concerned with is the 2nd amendment. And even most of them do not understand it. For instance the text of the amendment says:

"Article [II.] A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. "

Note here it says, "well regulated" and no firearm regulation has ever been stricken down on grounds of the 2nd amendment. Ergo, regulating arms usage is not against the constitution.

"Well regulated Militia" is merely a reason, and not the only reason, that the right to bear arms is neccessary. Well regulated militia is one word, and simply one instance where the right to bear arms is important. The key here is the last sentence: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed".

The reason that no gun control law has been struck down is because it would be political suicide to do so, and they know it. Even the Republicans, the ones who pander to the gun owners, support ban on assault weapons, etc. In the two party system, they know that they will not get their party support if they attempted to strike any sort of gun control.

I've also heard of libertarians who are not concerned with the Patriot act and or other bills encroaching on freedom and privacy as outlined in the 4th amendment. This is a very non-libertarian stance and seems like it is based in right wing partisanship.

I have never heard any Libertarian say that they support the Patriot Act. The official positiuon is that they are very much agianst such an obvious intrusion of our privacy and our civil rights.

Initially I wanted to become a libertarian because I thought standing up for our liberties as outlined in the constitution (every one of them) was honorable. But in my experience the American libertarian movement is libertarian in name only. I'd be delighted if someone could provide me examples to the contrary.

Go to www.lp.org to see official party positions on almost every issue.

[PhilosoFlea]

Thanks for the great response Todd.

I guess I feel like I have seen a divergence between the beliefs held by many practicing libertarians and the party's stated ideals. I guess the reason could be because libertarianism feels like its somewhere in between conservative and liberal thought so many people may have a bias one way or the other. But I'm serious when I say I've met libertarians who are not concerned about the patriot act, and that totally blows my mind. (But then again, every party has their share of dunces)

To change the subject slightly (and stimulate a bit of discussion) I'm curious what opinions you all might have on the following questions:

What is the philosophical basis for libertarianism? Is it because man is meant to be free from government tyranny?

And...

What would be considered the ultimate goal of a libertarian society (or how would you envision one)?

Pretty open ended questions I know, just curious how libertarian's typically envision these things...

[Todd D.]

What is the philosophical basis for libertarianism? Is it because man is meant to be free from government tyranny?

Basically it's based on the philosophy that the individual is just that, an individual. The government is there to protect the individual from coersion, fraud, or force. It's not there to coerse or force those that they are trying to protect.

What would be considered the ultimate goal of a libertarian society (or how would you envision one)?

I'm not sure what you mean by "Ultimate Goal". See, Libertarians aren't like Communists that feel they are working towards something. All they want is to be left alone. The goal is to achieve a form of government that does exactly what I state above, protects from coersion, force, or fraud. It does not force it's citizens to work together, have any obligations towards the state, forces citizens to help each other, anything like that. Just remember one very simple phrase: "First do no harm". After that everything just falls in to place.

[Noumenon]

What is the philosophical basis for libertarianism? Is it because man is meant to be free
from government tyranny?

There are several types of libertarians:

Natural rights libertarians - I'm in this group. I believe that rights are not social constructs (i.e. arbitrary and meaningless things that society decides people must have). They are natural. It is natural law that man does better when he produces rather than steals from his neighbors. That is why stealing is against natural law, and you have a natural right to not be stolen from (property right). Violations of this property right, to any degree, results in less prosperity, peace, and liberty for mankind.

Non-aggression libertarians - Instead of relying on natural rights, they rely on the concept that initation of force against another person or his property is wrong. Leads to virtually the same conclusions as natural rights theory.

Utilitarian libertarians: The other types of libertarians are also utilitarian (they believe that a libertarian system works the best and ensures the most happiness) but this type relies a lot less on morals. Instead, they rely heavily on economics to show that libertarianism is the best system.

Fake libertarians - Includes people who call themselves libertarians because its the "party of pot" and such.

Moderate libertarians - Usually not affiliated with the Libertarian Party, these people are mainly utilitarian. They believe in more freedom, but they don't adopt the philosophy of libertarianism.

Anarcho-capitalists - Believe in the philosophy of libertarianism, but take it to the extreme. They believe that government is not at all necessary, and protection of rights can be accomplished through the use of private law enforcement.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

What is the philosophical basis for libertarianism? Is it because man is meant to be free from government tyranny?

There are three philosophical wellsprings for the libertarian ideology. One is that which you mentioned. Basically, this is the natural law basis, and natural law, as interpreted by libertarians, states that man by nature is driven to acquire property, and is born free. As such, man should be free to enjoy the fruits of his labor, acquire property, and trade without interference.

The second wellspring is a form of utilitarianism, as exemplified (to a degree) by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. This simply holds that capitalism is the most efficient and productive economic system, and that any state inteference will slow the wheels of capitalism.

The third, and the one championed by most modern libertarians, comes down to a single principle: that it is immoral for any party to initiate force against another party for any reason. Since government regulation and coercion constitutes force, it is illegitimate.

What would be considered the ultimate goal of a libertarian society (or how would you envision one)?

The most radical of libertarians, such as Hans-Herman Hoppe or the late Murray Rothbard, are anarcho-capitalists believe that the ultimate goal ought to be the elimination of the state itself. Most libertarians (or at least most you'll meet on this forum) believe that the goal is to reach a decentralized, federal society where the government's only function is to prevent the initiation of force, stop fraud, and defend our borders from invasion; additionally, these people feel that all revenue to the government ought to be voluntary. So-called "moderate" libertarians (I use the term moderate loosely, as all libertarians are extremists) seek to restore a government such as the United States had prior to the Civil War, with some exceptions (no slavery, free trade, and no state banks).

Fake libertarians - Includes people who call themselves libertarians because its the "party of pot" and such.

I call them pot-smoking republicans.

Moderate libertarians - Usually not affiliated with the Libertarian Party, these people are mainly utilitarian. They believe in more freedom, but they don't adopt the philosophy of libertarianism.

I'm not sure I agree with this viewpoint. Many, many moderate libertarians come from a jus naturale perspective (though admittedly very few come from a non-aggression standpoint). A large number of these people are indeed libertarian, but usually are not well-informed and active enough to see that the Republican Party (occasionally the Democratic Party) cannot serve their interests (excepting one Ron Paul).

Anarcho-capitalists - Believe in the philosophy of libertarianism, but take it to the extreme. They believe that government is not at all necessary, and protection of rights can be accomplished through the use of private law enforcement.

It should be noted that nearly all anarcho-capitalists are natural law libertarians.

[Garibaldi]

I'm not sure I agree with this viewpoint. Many, many moderate libertarians come from a jus naturale perspective (though admittedly very few come from a non-aggression standpoint). A large number of these people are indeed libertarian, but usually are not well-informed and active enough to see that the Republican Party (occasionally the Democratic Party) cannot serve their interests (excepting one Ron Paul).

This is true, although the only "moderate" libertarian I know of only joined the Republican party to get a job, and wasn't so much moderate as completly obvious he should be a member of the libertarian party.

[PhilosoFlea]

Great responses from everyone, thanks.

I must quibble on one thing, however:

I'm not sure what you mean by "Ultimate Goal". See, Libertarians aren't like Communists that feel they are working towards something. All they want is to be left alone. The goal is to achieve a form of government that does exactly what I state above, protects from coersion, force, or fraud. It does not force it's citizens to work together, have any obligations towards the state, forces citizens to help each other, anything like that. Just remember one very simple phrase: "First do no harm". After that everything just falls in to place.

"Ultimate goal" was probably not the perfect choice of words for what I was asking. However, a lot of people believe lack of foresight is a big problem with libertarianism. I personally think it is naive to not imagine the societal ramifications of any political system you are seriously considering, especially one that gives so many freedoms to individuals.

The question comes down to: if left alone will individuals and organizations really do no harm? Capitalism is somewhat based on the idea that many people acting greedily will benefit society overall, but even capitalist systems need some regulation or they will run amuck. There are many ways to be greedy and not all are non-harmful (example: monopolies form out of greed but are generally considered to be harmful to choice).

I like the ideals in libertarianism but they are just that--ideals. How is libertarianism any less utopian then communism, anyway?

Don't get me wrong I would love to live in a libertarian society but help me here, how could I prevent my neighbor from buying the land surrounding my house and forcing me to pay a fee every time I wanted to leave or comeback?

Does this make any sense or am I spouting non-sense?

[Comrade Ogilvy]

"Ultimate goal" was probably not the perfect choice of words for what I was asking. However, a lot of people believe lack of foresight is a big problem with libertarianism. I personally think it is naive to not imagine the societal ramifications of any political system you are seriously considering, especially one that gives so many freedoms to individuals.

Trust me, libertarianism (and our forebears, the classical liberals) have been grappling with this issue now for over two hundred years, and have a good number of historical examples to examine.

The question comes down to: if left alone will individuals and organizations really do no harm? Capitalism is somewhat based on the idea that many people acting greedily will benefit society overall, but even capitalist systems need some regulation or they will run amuck. There are many ways to be greedy and not all are non-harmful (example: monopolies form out of greed but are generally considered to be harmful to choice).

The great libertarian revelation is that capitalist systems DO NOT need regulation. Capitalism spawns a self-regulating "spontaneous order", which efficiently provides all of the goods and services that a given society can muster. The idea of a monopoly is a false one, as a monopoly cannot even form in a free market (consult the economics and capitalism forum for more on this), as competition is the strongest medicine against monopolies. In theory, a monopoly can form where something deals with natural resources, though this is unlikely, as natural resources are truly vast. In any case, many libertarians do view natural resources as different from other property (which is simply capital), though in practice, we treat it the same. The only real monopolies that have ever formed in history have either been government monopolies (e.g., US Postal Service) and government-sanctioned monopolies (e.g., the East India Company).

I like the ideals in libertarianism but they are just that--ideals. How is libertarianism any less utopian then communism, anyway?

Libertarianism is less utopian than communism in that communism requires forceful state action (and, indeed, can never be reached--the transition from socialism to communism is impossible, no matter what Jaako and Ixabert try to tell you), whereas libertarianism simply requires the absence of state coercion. We've had a number of societies in the past that were close enough to libertarian societies that we can get a good snapshot of what a truly libertarian society would be like (good examples include the US outside of the slave states from 1815-1916, the UK from 1846-1911, and Australia from 1856-1914).

Don't get me wrong I would love to live in a libertarian society but help me here, how could I prevent my neighbor from buying the land surrounding my house and forcing me to pay a fee every time I wanted to leave or comeback?

You can't. This is why I view natural resources as seperate from capital, but in practice, they should be treated the same. Fact of the matter is, that's HIGHLY unlikely, and there's nothing to stop your neighbor from doing it now, but it doesn't seem to be happening anywhere.

Does this make any sense or am I spouting non-sense?

Just the usual newbie qualms about libertarianism.

[PhilosoFlea]

The great libertarian revelation is that capitalist systems DO NOT need regulation. Capitalism spawns a self-regulating "spontaneous order", which efficiently provides all of the goods and services that a given society can muster.

I agree: private industry and capitalist systems will provide society with all the goods and services they need, when there is a profit motive. However this says nothing about good business practices, accountability of business, corruption etc.

Lets imagine a hypothetical scenario with a pharmaceutical company ChemCo Inc., which is developing a medication for treating diabetes. They devote a large amount of money to research and development so they need to make a handsome profit to improve their shareholder value. Now in a libertarian society with no regulations and no FDA they are not required to do drug testing and if they did it would be overhead and would lower their profit margin, so they decide to forgo testing. Note: this is not a leap; given the choice a company will almost always take the cheaper route to maximize shareholder value. Now lets say the diabetes medication slowly causes people to die.

Well (families of) the people who are injured as a result of taking the medication can sue the pharmaceutical company for damages, right? (Assuming your conception of a libertarian government includes a judicial branch). But the problem is that the pharmaceutical company can and will negotiate legal deals with the individuals who have been harmed by the drug (unless they believe they have legal recourse) and chalk it up as the "cost of doing business", this occurs all the time in our society as it is now, which is far more restrictive then a libertarian society. Usually, as part of the agreement when "settled out of court" is a clause stating the harmed individual can't talk to the media about the case in question. The end result: people get harmed, the company continues doing business.

All kinds of variations of corporations that conduct business in this kind of way exist. Generally as a rule, if a company can conduct business in a way where it can increase its profit margins it will, regardless of the side effects to individuals or society in general. It's this short-term profit minded "increase shareholder value" thinking that (in my opinion) would wreck a libertarian society. I don't believe in trusting corporations to self-govern and self-regulate, it just won't happen, and I don't know when (and how) we cultured this ubiquitous trust in companies to do good inherently.

[PhilosoFlea]

No one has an opinion on my post?

[Todd: Please don't bump threads just to get a response]

[Flea: Sorry 'bout that sir!]

[Fernando]

Flea, Todd is right. I suffer this with what I think are interesting topics, but is the subject. if everyone does this we would have apparently current debates when there is no more than post requesting attention for the thread.

Although I am not a libertarian I think you can not avoid corruption or bad business practices in State deeds.

In your example I think that FDA is necessary. Anyway if the public has the knowledge it will simply won't buy their products. I work in a big corporation and we know we can not go too far.

For Dao: Could you please explain why a free market can not create a monopoly?. If explained in other thread / site a link is enough.

[nach0king]

To give a very simple reply, I wouldn't buy a diabetes medicine that had gone untested and wasn't clearly labled. I doubt many others would either. If some people did, and it killed them, there are some possible outcomes:

a) The bottle was mis-labled or the ingredients were misrepresented; this is fraud and thus the company would be liable for prosecution.
b) It was a genuine error, the companygoes out of business. Lives are lost, which is tragic, but the market stops it from happening again.

It's not as if dangerous items don't already slip through the net. Food inspection even in developed countries is far from perfect. Those companies that chose to put profits above safety in a world where there are no government safety nets or handouts might soon find themselves in dire straits.

[nach0king]

To address Fernando, I don't think an FDA is necessary per se, but I think in order to do commerce, products must very clearly be labled. I believe this comes under the fraud ruling. If you write "Chocolate Bar" on a candy wrapper, and then put, say, a synthetic product inside, and someone dies as a consequence, you have defrauded them by using a non-cocoa based product when the language you used made that clearly understood. So, to reduce ambiguity, I think labling everything clearly and citing every ingredient (as we do now) would not in fact necessitate a sprawling FDA-type organisation, rather it would come under the "First do no harm" principle as it removes entirely the scope for food fraud.

[Fernando]

nach0king, I am not saying per se, but I really think you need an independent organism to regulate this subject, unless you wish a label one kilometer-long.

Of course the surveillance organism needs not to be state-owned. As a example (or counter-example) auditors are not civil servants.

Talking about helath, I don't trust company-owned organism and I prefer a state one.

[nach0king]

I don't trust most companies these days either, which is why I don't buy from many of them. Those that failed to earn the trust of consumers - or endangered them in any way - will fail. Consider the BSE crisis as an example. There is nothing worse than unsafe products to put people off.