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This is my humble attempt to define what "libertarian" means to me. Why the vast majority of people are against such a philosophy is beyond me. Perhaps someone can point to the evil of human freedom and the goodness of human bondage. Again, what follows is my perception of libertarianism.
Libertarians believe that the ONLY role of government is to protect individual freedom. Abiding by this belief leads to the result of consistently following this creed without wavering which is the following. Libertarians seek to MAXIMIZE individual freedom while MINIMIZING government or state power.
Furthermore, libertarians defend this position with morality by asserting the following. There is no just force or aggression which is initiated which is not defensive in nature. In other words, force, whether by government, group, or individual is never to be used unless it is to defend individual freedom. Any attempt to force, threat, intimidate, manipulate one's actions or freedoms which is not in the defense of another's freedom is immoral and unjust.
I was thinking sort of the same thing after the medicinal marijuana thread. I think the libertarian ideas sound good, but I have a few doubts. The main question I have has to do with labor. Before government regulation we had child labor, unsafe working conditions and stuff like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Obviously there are still going to be some issues, but workplace safety has come a long way. Do libertarians think there should be no regulation of businesses at all?
All of your social programs go out the door...no Unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, all programs to feed or care for the indigent. How wonderful of a world would it be to live in a world where when you retire you bankrupt yourself because of your health, and die alone in the gutter? How many people now would be permanently living on the street because they lost their jobs with no buffer?
Worse that without the regulations that ER's must take people to stabilize their life irregardless of your ability to pay, if you are without your health insurance card they will turn you away. Without state regulatory boards to certify practitioners of medicine, how do you know it's not some paranoid schizophrenic in a lab coat?
Without a currency trade would stop. No one in California would want New York money. Translating the currency in each community would be an additional cost at each community just to pay for gas and food for the driver, let alone to pay for the item.
No regulatory agencies. The snake oil salesman would be back. Selling poison as cures to people who have no idea what actually works. Natural monopolies would charge whatever they please for their product. If you think the deregulation of power in CA was bad when they starting increasing prices, it's a drop in the bucket. Other companies would become monopolies or collude, robber barons would come back into force like in the early 20th century.
That's just a few points. I'd rather have a more efficient government with less waste, but not this way.
I was thinking sort of the same thing after the medicinal marijuana thread. I think the libertarian ideas sound good, but I have a few doubts. The main question I have has to do with labor. Before government regulation we had child labor, unsafe working conditions and stuff like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Obviously there are still going to be some issues, but workplace safety has come a long way. Do libertarians think there should be no regulation of businesses at all?
I cannot speak for all libertarians, but I will try to address your concern. Were there abuses by business before we arrived at our current government/business collusion? Sure.
However, I can point out the obvious also. Our current government market, which is nothing even remotely related to a free market in any sense, has led to a great utopia right? Obviously, there are far more and much larger businesses in place now even with the near infinite amount of regulation that interferes with the market. Actually, the biggest and most detrimental businesses are now immuned from failure by their collusion with the government. Strange isn't it?
Would some businesses provide an unsafe workplace today if not regulated? I am sure that some would. But free people can choose not to work for a particular business too. As to child labor, well I can only say that parents should not offer up their children as labor to someone else.
To be clear, I don't believe in "business" as an entity. The invention of fictional entities such as "corportations" and "limited liabilities" only serves to confer special rights which are used to have an unfair advantage over individuals. "Businesses" should have no legal standing so that the owners can be held directly responsible for their actions. That is what will have the most chance of reigning in the excessive power of "business" in our current government market which is more akin to Mussolini style fascism than free market capitalism.
So do I personally wish to see no regulation of business? No. I wish to see no establishment of fictional entities that have special rights and freedoms. "Businesses" are nothing more than owners and employees acting in the market. Treating them as people who are equal and identical to every other person will make them subject to every moral law protecting other's individual freedom.
Finally, it is important to stress that the current insane expanse of "business" law has not led to some "just" market but merely a convoluted manipulation of all people through government force. What it has accomplished is to strip many freedoms from all individuals who participate in the market, read everyone.
All of your social programs go out the door...no Unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, all programs to feed or care for the indigent. How wonderful of a world would it be to live in a world where when you retire you bankrupt yourself because of your health, and die alone in the gutter? How many people now would be permanently living on the street because they lost their jobs with no buffer?
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No subsound, i think you're completely way off base in your assumptions. While there is a part of the liberatarian movement that advocates complete anarchy, that is not what most of us advocate.
Yes, social programs that coerce individuals to do good with other peoples money would go away. However, it is my strong belief, that through the creation of fair/just laws, most individuals in society will not have any reason to divide themselves along party, racial, gender, occupation, class, and other social lines. The unfair/unjust laws we create give power to discrimination, which in my opinion make it profitable for individuals to divide themselves. For instance who says a doctor is a more valuable member of society then a plumber? Well, for one you had to be told by someone and for them to make this outcome possible they had to legislate and advantage being a doctor over a plumber. (I'll explain further at the bottom)
Personally i think given the option of holding more of your money and having more say of where it goes would give individuals even more incentive to help their follow man. If their fellow man is truly in need.
The goal of a libertarian society would be to make sure all legislation pertaining to citizens is equal across the board. The extension of freedom would not destroy the ability to do good. You've been indoctrinated to think, the only way individuals will do good for others is through force and coercion, but there is no evidence to make this empircally true.
Our country is coerced into giving to Social Security, Medicare, Medcaid, Welfare, UnEmployment to the tune of trillions of dollars. However, our society also willingly gives more than 300-400 billion dollars a year to charities. Could you imagine how much money could be given to charities each year without the threat of government coercion?
Do you know how many people would rather do good with their own money than use other citizens money to do good with?
A libertarian society would allow the freedom to pursue whatever made you happy as long as you did not impose, impede, and trample upon the individual rights of others.
Business stand point it would align the interest of both the Corporation and the Worker through the creation of fair and just laws, which do not seek to give the corporation an unjust advantage over the common citizen. If the owner is fully responsible for all debt and assumes all risk he is certainly given more of an incentive to spread this risk across his employees! Thus enabling hte employees, owners, investors, to all reap the fruits of their labor. It would actually give more power to both employees and employers.
You don't need regulatory agencies and other such goverment interference if you have applied fair/just laws to all facets of society. If there is no legal framework with which to derive unfair/unjust outcomes, how the heck would they happen?
I'm a strong believer that the natural moral order of the human being is to promote freedom and the biggest enemy of freedom is the creation of legislation that seeks to advantage one group over another, which leads to divide and pits human beings, who would not be against one another against each other.
The focus of a libertarians soceity would be the understanding that we can all collectively live peacefully amongst one another. We could all express our own views, thoughts, and opinions, without the threat of legislation disadvantaging anyone that follows the simple rule of not violating another citizens inalieable right to pursue liberty, happiness, and the utmost freedom.
Most of the laws we have on the books are not there because of a moral position, but because they were unfair and unjustly designed to advantage some citizens at the disadvantage of others, which is morally wrong and i'll repeat creates division.
Capitalism could work, but as long as we legislate the outcomes and attempt to pick winners/losers and continue down the path of creating societal outcomes, the free market will always be flawed.
Fact (as an example)
In a real free market a doctor wouldn't be highly paid
Why - Well we've legislated or picked their outcome by requiring licensing and eliminating competition, thus enabling them to command higher salaries then a real free-market would allow. Remember the plumber i mentioned earlier, so let's say we legislated plumbers to licensing that requires 200k for 8-12 years of education and we kept the competition out of plumbing. The natural forces in this "free market" would favor the plumber and he'd command a much higher salary then the doctor. However, it is not because the free-market made it so, but because we legislated the outcome. There's nothing free-market about legislative outcomes.
The same can be said for lawyers and a number of highly paid occupations.
Is this right or wrong? Well, since it's been legislated into existence and did not occur on its own who knows? My position is it is morally wrong (yes, we are all for the most part allowed to take advantage of this legislative outcome, but perhaps most of us do not want to become investment bankers, doctors, or lawyers, so why should someone legislate what your salary should be in the free-market. Wouldn't you rather have citizens extremely knowledgable about thier own production and entering into voluntary contracts, that are not legislated to one side or the other, but are automatically entering into fair/just voluntary contracts where no side has an advantage???
All of your social programs go out the door...no Unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, all programs to feed or care for the indigent. How wonderful of a world would it be to live in a world where when you retire you bankrupt yourself because of your health, and die alone in the gutter? How many people now would be permanently living on the street because they lost their jobs with no buffer?
Worse that without the regulations that ER's must take people to stabilize their life irregardless of your ability to pay, if you are without your health insurance card they will turn you away. Without state regulatory boards to certify practitioners of medicine, how do you know it's not some paranoid schizophrenic in a lab coat?
Without a currency trade would stop. No one in California would want New York money. Translating the currency in each community would be an additional cost at each community just to pay for gas and food for the driver, let alone to pay for the item.
No regulatory agencies. The snake oil salesman would be back. Selling poison as cures to people who have no idea what actually works. Natural monopolies would charge whatever they please for their product. If you think the deregulation of power in CA was bad when they starting increasing prices, it's a drop in the bucket. Other companies would become monopolies or collude, robber barons would come back into force like in the early 20th century.
That's just a few points. I'd rather have a more efficient government with less waste, but not this way.
Would we even have health insurance under libertarians?
I mean the insurance companies would have all the power to draw up their own contracts and put all sorts of loopholes and whatnot in them and then you've spent all this money paying them every month just for them to pull the rug out from under you.
I like SOME libertarian ideas but some of them just wouldn't work in the real world. We'd be getting ripped off at every turn.
Would we even have health insurance under libertarians?
I mean the insurance companies would have all the power to draw up their own contracts and put all sorts of loopholes and whatnot in them and then you've spent all this money paying them every month just for them to pull the rug out from under you.
I like SOME libertarian ideas but some of them just wouldn't work in the real world. We'd be getting ripped off at every turn.
The biggest disaster to hit our country was perhaps when the government gave corporations the rights of people.
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