Fasces wrote:Breaking news: Revolutionary ideologies advocate revolution.
Semantics. I meant "revolutionary ideologies" in the sense of ideologies calling for a revolutionary (i.e. radical) change in society. The means towards that end need not involve a rapid, not to mention violent "revolution".
How exactly does this distinguish libertarians from anything again?
All ideologies fantasise about a peaceful, prosperous society as their end-goal. Lenin didn't motivate people by describing his goal as a permanently-violent, strife-ridden, secret-police-controlled, poverty-stricken, war-like society.
Libertarians are unique in being consistent - our means match our ends.
Rei Murasame wrote:Indeed, all I'm gathering from this is that libertarians seem to think that they don't need a revolution. Maybe they think that, because they think the established powers can be persuaded that it's for their own good to become libertarian, but I wouldn't call that a selling-point.
Libertarians recognise that in the field of violent force, governments will always have a competitive advantage. We can observe historically how established powers change in response to changes in societal norms. We are aiming to change the norms (as well as rational understanding) of members in society. This change would force changes in established powers.
Travesty wrote:So it sounds like they could use Ghandi like non-cooperation with the state. It also sounds like they don't necessarily reject violence to attain their goals.
Once we have sufficient numbers, non-cooperation would be very effective. Violence would not likely be necessary, except defensively, once the legitimacy of the state has melted away.
The Immortal Goon wrote:But it's childish to look at all the good stuff and completely ignore why it's there and any bad stuff that may have happened.
I agree. It is childish to paint an entire historic period with a single colour, ignoring nuances and the interplay between different forces within capitalist societies.
Fascism was supported by the capitalists far more than the communists, who were in the streets fighting it from day one.
With the notable exception of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
But now that it's out of vogue you wash your hands of it and pretend only rainbows and unicorns have come from capitalism with absolutely no negative in any way whatsoever.
Not at all. Remember your comment about being childish?
Here is an adult perspective. Capitalist societies, in the past, have been responsible for both great good (as you acknowledged) and great evil (as I acknowledge here).
But in an adult spirit, and seeing how both of us are advocating societies which have never existed in the past, we ought to carefully analysis the internal working of those capitalist societies.
My claim is that all the evils of those societies can be traced to the intervention of governments. Most people on the left either (1) argue that government intervention is inherently inseparable from capitalist economies, or (2) that a capitalist economy without government interference would still fall short of an alternative economic form.
I am happy to argue either (or both) forms of criticism. But from you, all I see is insistence that the negative aspects of historic capitalism are enough to foreclose any further discussions of the potential merits of a society that shares some similarities to, but is in important ways different, from those historic experiences.
Again, you have this utopian idea that everyone just agrees to property rights.
I have no illusion that everybody agrees to property rights. I made the point that aggression can be objectively ascertained - it isn't a matter of subjective perspective. Clearly, not everybody agrees with me. Yet.
Are you honestly saying that taxing the land that the government cleared out, improved, built roads to, irrigated water to, regulated trade with, printed money for, and provided education for the people living on is the same as having your wife raped?
I am saying that taxing the land that an individual (not government) cleared out, improved, built roads to, irrigated water to, etc. shares with wife-raping the attribute of being a form of aggression. The severity of the aggression is clearly different, but its character as such isn't.
Further, libertarians—as is quite clear—don't mind murdering everyone, taking their land, and executing anyone that opposes them—as long as we can white-wash this from history and pretend that everything is the same now as it always has been.
I object to murdering anyone and taking anybody's land. So does every libertarian I know of.
The question over which we may differ isn't whether such actions are legitimate or not - all libertarians agree they aren't - but rather what should be done about criminal actions that took place centuries ago.
Rei Murasame wrote:The means are actually important because the means shape the environment in which the ends will be realised.
I whole-heartedly agree.
I will also add, that libertarians still haven't actually explained why they supported Pinochet, given what his methods were. They are just all like, "I cannot believe that people are accusing us of this!"
If libertarians are anything, they are individualistic.
I, Eran, have not supported Pinochet. Nor do I feel the need to justify the positions of other people with whom I partially (but only partially) agree.
Murray Rothbard, whose image is my avatar, is probably closer than most to my views. Yet I still disagree with his views on some important issues.
You really ought to address the views that libertarians here express, rather than those of others who may or may not have characterised themselves as libertarians.
KurtFF8 wrote:This is quite facile way of categorizing ideologies and making libertarianism "distinct." Libertarians focus on an "end" as much as any other ideology, I'm not sure what point you're driving at here.
I think the point is that libertarians are unique in being consistent - advocating for a peaceful end, while also calling for exclusively peaceful means of getting to that end.
Free men are not equal and equal men are not free.
Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.