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How how specifically would a libertarian government be better?
Because it won't take our money, won't obstruct our enterprises, won't cost us much of what we work for, and won't play favorites, deciding who wins and who loses.
Maximum individual freedom from coercion is the ultimate expression and goal of civilization. Liberalism is the opposite of that.
But don't communities already have local governments as well? I never get this response because we have state and local governments that are designed to have a direct effect on local communities. The people who govern where I live also live in the same neighborhoods I live in, they don't live in DC. There are things on a federal level that I vote for to have a state representative from my state to represent me and everyone in my state who probably don't all have all the same views as me.
They do, but Washington DC controls almost everything, leaving the local governments twisting in the wind trying to meet their demands.
All you'd be doing is giving power that the state, which theoretically answers to the people to some extent, has and giving it to big business, who do not have to answer to anything as long as they are making a profit.
I know ideally many libertarians would see neighbors, charities and so on taking the place of what the government does but in practice that would just mean the unfortunate in America who didn't have family and friends to rely on would be impoverished. Not only that but it requires a centralized government to create many of the modern amenities we enjoy, at least the way the world works now. The only organizations that could offer something somewhat comparable would be big business so basically big industries would just become the new government.
Regulations on business exist for a reason. They prevent people from getting sick, and from being abused by their employers.
REGULATIONS DO NOT EXIST TO PROTECT CITIZENS. Regulations exist to protect government power and Big Business profits. Period. Business people know this. Government people know this. The only ones who don't know are the naive citizens who haven't been burned--yet.
I was once scammed by a pool contractor who collected large pool deposits and then ran off with the money, not even paying the subcontractor who had dug the pool hole (and I was legally liable to then pay the subcontractor to avoid a lien on the home, on top of losing my deposit). When I went to the Contractor's Certification Department and thought at least they could take the business license of this scam artist, they laughed at me. The guy never lost his contractor's license--the ONLY THING that mattered was that he took his required courses and paid his licensing fees.
The only recourse you have as a citizen, if you are harmed by business, is to sue--but generally you have to have lost over $10,000, and have been harmed by someone with easily attachable assets (which never happens) to so much as break even with the cost of lawyers.
Powerful centralized government is BY DEFINITION tyrannical, evil, militaristic, and destructive to a free citizenry--and the empire activities it inevitably undertakes always put the nation into bankruptcy, collapse, and disaster. Think Adolph Hitler. Think America after 1913 when the Constitutional prohibition against income tax was overthrown so our leaders could get us embroiled in WWI--and particularly after the WWII-era withholding of income tax basically made the entire working class slaves to Washington.
The federal government does not provide public services like the States and local governments do--and because of that it should not be the federal government which is the major tax burden on the working class. The State and local governments average around a 10% total tax burden for providing ALL the necessary public services, while a working couple loses more than that to JUST the Social Security tax system. It is a disaster to allow federal government the power to confiscate huge amounts of income--because government is ONLY limited by how much it can confiscate. And once government has exceeded all sane limits, it no longer even limits its growth to how much money it can grab. It starts "borrowing" from other nations, then when that fails, it "borrows" from itself and basically prints fiat currency until it collapses.
And that is how far down the road to collapse our Big Government has already gone. The economy has been dying for decades, upward mobility is gone, and working class doesn't even have the option of working like a slave for minimal quality of life. Our future as a nation is total collapse or more decades of decline, and THAT IS THE PRICE WE PAY FOR NOT GUARDING THE GIFTS OF LIMITED GOVERNMENT that our Founding Fathers gave us on a silver platter.
All you'd be doing is giving power that the state, which theoretically answers to the people to some extent, has and giving it to big business, who do not have to answer to anything as long as they are making a profit.
I know ideally many libertarians would see neighbors, charities and so on taking the place of what the government does but in practice that would just mean the unfortunate in America who didn't have family and friends to rely on would be impoverished. Not only that but it requires a centralized government to create many of the modern amenities we enjoy, at least the way the world works now. The only organizations that could offer something somewhat comparable would be big business so basically big industries would just become the new government.
Regulations on business exist for a reason. They prevent people from getting sick, and from being abused by their employers.
not big business the individual.
decentralization of all things would be ideal
here are the pros and cons of decentralization vs centralization of power
Pros
centralization = efficiency
cons
centralization = corruption
Pros
decentalization = less corruption
cons
decentalization = less efficiency.
thus you pretty much need a balance of centralization and decentralization in the middle.
dictatorships are an extreme example of centralization.
they can be efficient but wasted it on corruption because the higher ups steal all the efficiency gained.
and refuse to pass on the gains of centralization to the populace/workers/consumers and just keep the efficiency to themselves.
example: Federal Reserve centralization of money printing giving only to member elites.
What would happen if you gave printing power instead of to congress directly to the people?
they would vote based on which class is more plentiful at the time instead to increase or decrease money supply of course for their benefit. but this means the people decide. but they would take a while to do it as such more debate and less corruption.
efficiency means how fast something can be done.
do we want things done quickly or slowly?
somethings are better done slowly than quickly imo.
besides all/most innovation were created by hackers in the first place those are not of centralized power.
remember Tesla which gone against Edision?
but centralization of power only spreads the innovation more quickly not create innovation.
innovation needs the power to be decentralized.
so here is the balance proposition.
libertarians innovates faster because of decentralization
but spreads innovative ideas slower
Centralization innovates slowly
but has access to more POWER therefore they can spread ideas fast.
ahem control of mass media.
anyway I would say libertarians should or are for the individual
rather than big business.
big business is mostly associated with government socialism of corporations therefore
that is not libertarian.
it should be the individual right to choose what they want and not have others tell them what they have to do or not.
if it was not for government putting road blocks on competition the worker can just make their own shop and compete against their employer.
but laws make it difficult.
therefore the big business was saved by laws and regulations.
why can not the mcdonald worker just go outside of mcdonalds and sell hamburgers outside his vehicle wait that would be against the law because they need to pay licenses and mcdonalds would file a complaint instead of competing.
the mcdonald worker would make much more than if he would work min wage at mcdonalds. btw.
he would of course need to source supply lines for his competition.
but once that is done he is set to compete.
can you do this now?
is it legal?
All you'd be doing is giving power that the state, which theoretically answers to the people to some extent, has and giving it to big business, who do not have to answer to anything as long as they are making a profit.
I really don't understand how you figure that. Does Walmart have the power to tell you what size soda you can get at the movie theater? Does Home Depot have the power to set your tax rate? Does McDonald's have the power to mandate what kind of health insurance you buy?
Taking power away from the federal government does not mean giving that power to anybody else. It means keeping it for the individual to make their own decisions.
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I know ideally many libertarians would see neighbors, charities and so on taking the place of what the government does but in practice that would just mean the unfortunate in America who didn't have family and friends to rely on would be impoverished.
And your proof of that is what, exactly? Nothing. Lots of people say that, but nobody every demonstrates that it's true. It's just a supposition.
How do think America survived prior to the Great Society? Did you know that America survived the Depression without a food stamp program? Food stamps were instituted in 1939, after the Depression. We have 10% unemployment and Obama expands the food stamp program by tens of billions. But during the Depression unemployment was at 25% and America got through it without food stamps.
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Not only that but it requires a centralized government to create many of the modern amenities we enjoy, at least the way the world works now.
No, it doesn't. What amenities do we have that Europe doesn't? Europe is a patchwork of individual sovereign states. There is no centralized government running Europe. The EU isn't a central government.
Quote:
The only organizations that could offer something somewhat comparable would be big business so basically big industries would just become the new government.
Big business has no power to force people under threat of imprisonment to follow its dictates. Big businesses compete with other big businesses, while government has a monopoly on anything and everything it chooses. Those are distinctions you seem to be missing.
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Regulations on business exist for a reason. They prevent people from getting sick, and from being abused by their employers.
They also force businesses to expend vast amounts of resources on paperwork. They also force businesses to hire and promote based on social engineering rather than merit. They also encourage businesses to hide their profits overseas rather than in our own economy to avoid taxation. They also enable big companies to get loopholes into law. They also enable big companies to use political influence to get favorable laws passed that upset fair competition. They also drive up the cost of American products so that they can't compete in world trade. They also prevent Americans from benefiting from domestic energy sources. They also prevent people from starting up new companies through massive amounts of red tape and licensing fees. They also interfere with the workings of the market through subsidizing some companies and not others. They also interfere with business efficiency through forcing them to use unionized labor.
There's one question asked that shuts all these "government is the only thing keeping business from exploiting everyone" arguments. That is if minimum wage is $7.25 and government is all that stands between us and exploitation, how come anybody makes more than minimum wage?
It would lead to corporate tyranny w/o a government there to do things like break up monopolies, make sure buisiness is done ethically, etc.
And one day they might even do that.
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