Libertarianism - Good or bad?

[SpaceMarine93]

Everyone may already Ron Paul recently announced his presidential candidacy for 2012. I had always been curious about why he was so popular so I went to check on his political standing.

I became interested when I learn that he adheres to the ideology of Libertarianism. I have heard of it before, but I never bothered learn much about it until now. I want to understand its standing and appeal. Can someone please explain fully what it is about, why it sounds so good and, being the pessimist, its potential drawback.

Perhaps weighing whether the benefits and drawbacks are greater and why you think it is so?

[Lord of the Abyss]

It's nasty and it's stupid. Like Communism it is a nice sounding political theory that can't possibly work as advertised in the real world with real people.

[Straha]

It's good in its ideals and concepts, especially socially. It's pretty damn terrible in practice.

[Akhlut]

Everyone may already Ron Paul recently announced his presidential candidacy for 2012. I had always been curious about why he was so popular so I went to check on his political standing.

I became interested when I learn that he adheres to the ideology of Libertarianism. I have heard of it before, but I never bothered learn much about it until now. I want to understand its standing and appeal. Can someone please explain fully what it is about, why it sounds so good and, being the pessimist, its potential drawback.

You've never heard of wikipedia, I presume?

Anyway, it depends on what you mean by libertarianism. Much like socialism and Socialism, there is libertarianism and Libertarianism. Small-L libertarianism, in the US, at least, is essentially the idea of paring back the government to the minimum needed to ensure the good functioning of society. There is a strong faith in the idea that humans will quickly reach an equilibrium where no one is exploiting anyone else unduely (i.e. there are no super-oligarchs forcing workers to live in company towns and executing runaways or forcing people into debt slavery, nor super-unions eliminating all profit margins and brutalizing non-union labor), and that people will be free to exercise any choice that does not harm anyone else, no matter how self-destructive. It is basically the idea that men are, in fact, islands unto themselves to some degree. There is a rule of law, though, and some mechanism for taxation and all that jazz. They don't want to drown the government in the bathtub, as it were, but they'd like to see a significant reduction of it. Most want the government large enough to be effective for helping out when warranted (disaster aid, functional courts and police, a nuclear regulatory agency, etc.), but mostly unobtrusive (no blue laws, no smoking bans, etc.).

Capital-L Libertarianism, on the other hand, blurs the lines between it and anarchy. The main difference is that Libertarianism supports the existence of large corporations that operate without regulation and with minimal laws and generally says that, outside of a military (maybe), the government is an outright hindrance to human endeavor and that government ought to be small and ineffective (small enough to drown in a bathtub, as has been said). It's a much uglier philosophy, and would allow for legal discrimination, rampant environmental pollution, and the existence of company towns and debt slavery.

Perhaps weighing whether the benefits and drawbacks are greater and why you think it is so?

I'm a socialist, so I think it's not particularly great, though I can halfway respect and thoroughly understand small-L libertarianism, but I think that Capital-L Libertarianism doesn't have enough protections for regular people built into it and serves mostly as a philosophy for people who think that the Gilded Age was something to be idealized and emulated.

[Mr Bean]

There's also the difference between Social Libertarianism and Economic Libertarianism. I'd easily say I'm a Social Libertarian because I don't want the government involved in lots of social issues period. But I'd never say I'm an Economic Libertarian because I favor Government control of lots of things like Air and Water safety, Heathcare for all, Watchdoing out industries to make sure Baby Foot is not being cut with sawdust to make it cheaper or some Bank has invented legalized gambling and my entire financial sector is doing it (Third Party Credit Default bets).

[evilsoup]

At its most basic, libertarianism is focused around liberty and freedom, just as utilitarianism is focused around the greater good. The concept of 'human rights' are a libertarian idea, though of course you can easily create a utilitarian construct to support them, just as you can have a libertarian construct to justify most versions of socialism (by which I mean: one can recognise that capitalism is terrible at maximising freedom, what with millions working as wage-slaves and millions more starving due to the inadequate system and so not free to do what they choose, and so conclude that some kind of government redistribution is neccessary - forcing people to be free, in a sense).

Of course in America (and over here to a slightly lesser extent), libertarianism has been contaminated by that Randian/Objectivist right-wing anarchist non-sense.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Yeah that sums it up rather well. There are many things that are simply unviable being done by the private sector, you NEED a large government that can do projects that don't require a profit. Lord sums it rather simply, but to go into things a bit more.

The "Draw" of Libertarianism is very appealing. it assumes that if, people are just left to themselves, "they" know how to govern themselves better then the government. It basically says if there are no rules, no restrictions, nothing to hold people back, that they shall flourish. It currently appeals mostly to conservative because they inherently shun "rules and regulations" such as, Environmental regulations, job regulations, etc. It does however appeal to others as well, the same people who say they want the EPA torn down also say things like there should not be bans on drugs or pot, or even gays marrying. After all such things are all evil and nasty "rules"

However, Libertarianism, as imagined by its supporters, can only work under a great many false assumptions.
It begins by assuming that every possible aspect of civilization can be done by a private company without a central government.

It next assumes that, much like Communism, that everyone will help each other out of of the kindness of their heart. That say, a private Fire fighting service would never be tempted to go "Boy, that home of yours looks REALLY flammable, shame if anything happened to it"

The basic root is that it simply cannot work as they envision it.
In order for private business to make things work, they MUST make profit. Now while a power company can make a profit, who will spend the billions to build and maintain the electric infrastructure? A trucking company makes a profit, but does it make enough to build a nation wide road network and maintain it? Also any program that works out of charity is doomed.

Who would create a replacement program for helping the unemployed and jobless benefits?
Who would create a replacement for Social Security? For Medicare?

In the words of the great Homer Simpson, it seems good In Theory.. In Theory Communism works

[Knife]

Libertarianism I often equate with Laissez Faire capitalism. Most people would agree that in a lot of situations capitalism is a good system of distributing goods, services, and wealth; laissez faire capitalism on the other hand takes it that next step further and removes regulation from a good system. Libertarianism is like that. To work you need a good system, a society, in which to work. Once you have that good society where everything works, you then take away all the rules and regulations and let everyone do what they want. The problem with that is once everyone gets to do what they want with little in the way of regulation, society breaks down. Once the society breaks down, you don't have that strong society for libertarianism to work with and it devolves into anarchy. Which is really what libertarianism is, small scale anarchy in wrapped in a system. IMO it's a vampire of ego and vanity sucking the life out of a society.

[evilsoup]

It next assumes that, much like Communism, that everyone will help each other out of of the kindness of their heart. That say, a private Fire fighting service would never be tempted to go "Boy, that home of yours looks REALLY flammable, shame if anything happened to it"

I don't want to derail too much, but that isn't the problem with communism - at practised, communism has a strong central government that forces people to do the neccessary. As I see it, the problem with communist states was that they all emerged from bloody revolution, which selects for a certain sort of person (for a non-communist example, see Oliver Cromwell); PLUS that every communist government I can think of emerged in predominantly agricultural countries, when according to Marx et al the revolution is supposed to happen in capitalist, industrialised nations.

It is very annoying that libertarianism has such a wide number of meanings; in real life I tend to refer to the American-style Randists as anarchists. Theirs is a particularly venemous style of anarchism (corporate anarchism? Anarcho-capitalism?) that doesn't seem to take people's needs into account, only their 'freedom' to rise or fall by the whim of fate, unencumbered and unhelped by anyone else. It puts me in mind of that quote of the week...

To American exceptionalists, "freedom" means being able to do what you want unencumbered by obligations to your fellow citizens. It is a definition of freedom the rest of the world finds bewildering.

This brings me to another point, anarcho-syndicalists. These people believe that society can be organised along the lines of small, self-sufficient communities on a voluntary basis. There are a few rules under most of these systems, mostly to prevent any individual from gaining too much power ... but I think this is getting off-topic. My point is that (I think) some forms of anarchism can work, but the anarcho-capitalism that has stolen the name 'libertarianism' is not a useful theory.

[K. A. Pital]

By now libertarianism has been decisively centered on economic freedom ideas (the classic bourgeois economic freedoms as devised i the XIX century, nothing more at all). Other facets of this ideology are almost insignificant. Civil and even human rights are expendable in the name of classic bourgeois economic freedom, as evidenced by the fact most libertarians consider the Pinochetian experiment in Chile a "miracle" and ardently support it even if they acknowledge Pinochet was a dictator.

[Simon_Jester]

It next assumes that, much like Communism, that everyone will help each other out of of the kindness of their heart. That say, a private Fire fighting service would never be tempted to go "Boy, that home of yours looks REALLY flammable, shame if anything happened to it"

I don't want to derail too much, but that isn't the problem with communism - at practised, communism has a strong central government that forces people to do the neccessary. As I see it, the problem with communist states was that they all emerged from bloody revolution, which selects for a certain sort of person (for a non-communist example, see Oliver Cromwell); PLUS that every communist government I can think of emerged in predominantly agricultural countries, when according to Marx et al the revolution is supposed to happen in capitalist, industrialised nations.

Ultimately, this may be a problem with Marx's model of revolutions- they don't work the way Marx expected they would. Lenin and Mao both correctly figured out how to get a revolution that would bring about a state committed to communism. They correctly diagnosed that Marxist class-consciousness isn't all that common in the working classes who are supposed to create Marx's revolution.* So to bring about a revolution of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie you wind up needing a party that can push that revolution... but in the process of inventing such a thing, they wound up with other ancillary problems (as you say, see Cromwell). Which undermine the eventual goal of achieving "communism," as opposed to achieving "proletarian dictatorship."

*Blame it on mystification, blame it on Marx's theories not capturing the imagination of the masses, blame it on increasing standards of living making workers too fat and happy, blame it on whatever you want.

It is very annoying that libertarianism has such a wide number of meanings; in real life I tend to refer to the American-style Randists as anarchists. Theirs is a particularly venemous style of anarchism (corporate anarchism? Anarcho-capitalism?) that doesn't seem to take people's needs into account, only their 'freedom' to rise or fall by the whim of fate, unencumbered and unhelped by anyone else. It puts me in mind of that quote of the week...

I've been calling them anarcho-corporatists, as a variant on anarcho-syndicalism but with different attitudes on the kind of self-organization human beings ought to achieve in the absence of regulation and compulsion.

[General Mung Beans]

It should be noted there are many degrees of libertarians ranging from classical liberals (like say Milton Friedman) to anarcho-capitalists

[K. A. Pital]

Friedman is a dictatorship-loving hypocritic corporate whore who lost the right to be called a 'classic liberal'.

[Formless]

The short of it has already been covered: large-L economic Libertarianism is a truly frightening ideology that paradoxically leads to a form of authoritarianism in which the rich enslave the poor.

Personally I contend that small-L social libertarianism is little better, and leads to a lot of the problems we have today. The reason being that when you grant people too much autonomy and too little civic responsibility you encourage self destructive behavior which is more than just self destructive and encourage a culture which in the long run isn't compatible with democracy. For instance, its hard to convince people that its in their self-interest to preserve the environment because in all honesty it isn't always. The people who suffer from choices made in the present may be removed by thousands of miles or multiple generations. Its in humanity's interests, but many individuals do not care about their relationship to their own community let alone comprehend an entity that can only be seen in the faces of other individuals like themselves. War is the same way, its Not In My Back Yard so it doesn't matter to most people if they support a government that likes to stomp around in third world nations. On a more personal scale, someone may make horrible decisions in the now because they lack the foresight to realize how something will screw them in the future. They may vote in politicians with large-L Libertarian beliefs because they have tunnel vision around the few issues the Libertarians are sane about, then wonder where all the money for (say) higher education went. They may choose to send their own lives in directions that suck for everyone, like becoming a drunk driver and thus Yet Another Statistic in Road Collisions.

And of course, they may not participate in politics at all because that requires people to have a sense that something needs to be done even about issues which do not (directly) effect them. Again, without some sense of civic responsibility democracy just can't function.

There are things about which social libertarian beliefs are common sense, like Gay marriage. Who does it hurt? No one. Free Speech? Actually, it hurts more to take it away. However, you cannot always rely on that question having such a convenient common sense answer.

[TheFeniX]

I became interested when I learn that he adheres to the ideology of Libertarianism. I have heard of it before, but I never bothered learn much about it until now. I want to understand its standing and appeal. Can someone please explain fully what it is about, why it sounds so good and, being the pessimist, its potential drawback.

Any politician running as a Libertarian is 99% likely to be batshit insane or just a scumfuck (well, that's all politicians, but I digress). Libertarianism is based on the premise that the government is protecting the rich through all this legislation and if they removed it all, everyone who worked hard would be millionaires. The free-market would sweep in and lift those worthy from the dredges of poverty. They act like the industrial revolution never existed. Yea, it was a time of great progress, which also came with a high-cost in dead or mangled bodies and absolutely brutal monopolies. They convince people without a lot of money that the legislation is keeping them down instead of the reality of stopping business from totally bending them over a barrel. They also focus a lot on gun control and have pretty decent ties with the NRA (the primary reason I'm not a member).

I consider myself a social libertarian, which I've always looked at as someone who asks "why shouldn't I be able to do X" rather than "why should I be allowed to do X." Social libertarians demand the government provide just cause for restricting freedoms. Words should never be grounds for legal action against someone unless violence is implied, neither should people be subject to harassment by authorities without cause. This ideology is why I despise airports and will not fly anywhere voluntarily.

Economic libertarianism is either totally fucking evil or insane, depending on how you look at it. It's basically like the fictional universe of "Shadowrun" (read: Cyberpunk) in that the rich have the government and police exist specifically to protect their investments, or they hire their own security forces. As I said before, it's like the industrial revolution all over again. Workers literally have no rights. Things we take for granted like Worker's Compensation, OSHA, the EPA, Child Labor Laws, minimum wage, and other agencies/laws designed to protect the worker and the environment would be gone, yet proponents of libertarianism claim large corporations would keep these protections out of the goodness of their hearts, even though that idea is idiotic no matter how you look at it. If you manage to crawl your way to the top (or are lucky enough to be born into money), it's a sweet deal. If not, have fun begging in the street when you get injured on the job and they fire you, leaving you with no recourse.

[evilsoup]

Man, these 'Libertarians' are a bunch of pussies if they want the police around. Under proper anarchism, there would be no police; people would enforce what they think is right with the power of the mob. Think of it as direct democracy. Good luck trying to abuse the proletariat when there's nothing stopping them from stomping on your head and taking your shit. Of course, under proper anarchism, there'd be no money either; and ownership would be an almost meaningless concept.

(Yes, I'm aware of the obvious flaws, that's why I'm not an anarchist)

[Archaic`]

I've always considered myself a "small-l" libertarian, though by the definitions presented in Akhlut's post above I probably wouldn't even be considered a libertarian at all. There's certainly a huge breadth of meaning attached to that term, with US meanings tending far far to the right wing compared to international perspectives.

For instance, Akhult defines "small-l" libertarians as wanting to pair "back the government to the minimum needed to ensure the good functioning of society", which I would in principle agree with. However, Akhult then goes on to say "Most want the government large enough to be effective for helping out when warranted (disaster aid, functional courts and police, a nuclear regulatory agency, etc.), but mostly unobtrusive (no blue laws, no smoking bans, etc.). From my perspective on libertarianism however, I see governments as having certain moral responsibilities in terms of healthcare, education and other fields, to provide a certain base threshold of care and support for its citizens. Not a "minimum base threshold", but a high quality gold standard. I also feel that the government does have a social responsibility to protect the public from harm, which a smoking ban would fall under, though which things like blue laws and censorship largely would not (excepting cases only where actual harm takes place in the production of the materials, such as bans against child porn and snuff films).

Altogether, this adds up to a view that the "minimum government" needed to ensure a good functioning of society is actually fairly large, at least by American standards. . To me, it seems like American "libertarians" got too obsessed with cutting and making things smaller. Making things more efficient and productive is a good goal, but when you've cut too much, what you need to be more efficient and productive is to make it larger and stronger.

[ChaserGrey]

I've been calling them anarcho-corporatists, as a variant on anarcho-syndicalism but with different attitudes on the kind of self-organization human beings ought to achieve in the absence of regulation and compulsion.

The more (extreme/honest/circle adjective of your choice) ones refer to themselves as "anarcho-capitalists", which I always thought covered it pretty well.

Generally I don't have much to add that wasn't in the first two responses in this thread, but I will proffer some observations:

• One popular Libertarian position that hasn't been mentioned thus far is hard money- that is, all money must be backed by some inherently valuable item. Mostly this means a gold/silver standard, although there have been proposals for currencies backed by (say) oil reserves. Exactly who is enforcing this strict monetary policy and making sure all the currency in circulation is backed by what the issuer says it is- that's usually handwaved away.
• The Libertarian Party in the U.S. tends to be a sort of general refuge for cranks, conspiracy theorists, separatists, and tax dodgers. Whoever said that a politician identifying as a Libertarian is 90% likely to be nuts was being generous, at least in the USA.
• It is highly unlikely that you will find any actual Libertarians on this board to explain why they think the way they do. I believe (but cannot prove) that I'm significantly right of center among board members, and I think Libertarians are pretty much all nucking futs. If you want an actual rundown on what Libertarians believe and why they believe it, going somewhere you can ask some actual Libertarians would be a good step.
• There are so many different stripes of Libertarian that asking "good or bad" is like asking the same thing about liberals or conservatives. It's so general as to be almost totally uninformative, unless you're just looking for affirmation that "Yeah, those guys are nuts/evil/stupid/fascists/circle adjective of choice".

Edit: Forgot to subscribe to thread in the unlikely event anyone finds this worth responding to.

[General Mung Beans]

Friedman is a dictatorship-loving hypocritic corporate whore who lost the right to be called a 'classic liberal'.

Do you mean Pinochet?

[Kingmaker]

SDN is a pretty terrible place to ask this question.

[Formless]

SDN is a pretty terrible place to ask this question.

Why?

[Purple]

From my perspective on libertarianism however, I see governments as having certain moral responsibilities in terms of healthcare, education and other fields, to provide a certain base threshold of care and support for its citizens. Not a "minimum base threshold", but a high quality gold standard. I also feel that the government does have a social responsibility to protect the public from harm, which a smoking ban would fall under, though which things like blue laws and censorship largely would not (excepting cases only where actual harm takes place in the production of the materials, such as bans against child porn and snuff films).

You sound about like me. And in European terms that would make you a socialist.
In essence, the idea being that the government should not only not stomp on peoples freedoms but should at the same time also be obliged to supply the necessities for people to actually practice and enjoy said freedoms in the first place. The idea being that education, health care and things like that are not a luxury to be worked for but an essential right that should be guaranteed to you as a base from which to build on.

[Simon_Jester]

I've been calling them anarcho-corporatists, as a variant on anarcho-syndicalism but with different attitudes on the kind of self-organization human beings ought to achieve in the absence of regulation and compulsion.

The more (extreme/honest/circle adjective of your choice) ones refer to themselves as "anarcho-capitalists", which I always thought covered it pretty well.

I would argue that they go beyond "capitalist" to "corporatist." A capitalist might reasonably be expected to acknowledge that monopoly corporations aren't optimally efficient, even if corporations in general are.

What we see, at least in the US, is corporatism: the anarchist sentiment is extended to every form of civic power and organization except the corporation, and people have no legitimate "interests" in need of protection except the economic interests secured by corporations.

[madd0ct0r]

there is also the strange cousin of libertarianism, which seeks to maximise real freedom.

ie, having the right to do something is really worthless unless you can afford it.

under this idea, taxation is high to ensure a basic minimum income for all. If you wish to be a poet, then you are free to do so.

[J]

Friedman is a dictatorship-loving hypocritic corporate whore who lost the right to be called a 'classic liberal'.

Do you mean Pinochet?

Read up on the history of Friedman and the Chicago School sometime. Or if you want the brief summary, read this book.