So, what the heck is libertarianism? by SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Well, no. Actually it shows that Signym's "everything leads inevitably to monopoly" scenario is not true.

Every time you get in trouble you pull out the strawman. I should have known. I have repeatedly said that monopolies form when the cost of entry is high.

I noticed, however, that while you were busy misrepresnting my views and asking questions where you kept moving the goalposts (i'll point those out later, if you wish) you never really did answer my question.

Also, you misrepresented the scenario that I posed about water monopoly. I never said that the water monopoly was selling below cost. In fact, I said that the costs were lower due to superior technology and economies of scale. So, let the customers view "my" books- I'm OK with that! And, isn't that the Ayn Rand storyline? That a group of extremely innovative people find better ways to do things, and would take over the economy if "the man" wasn't constantly getting in their way, and "forcing" them to take care of the less propertied? And didn't they decide to take their marbles and play elsewhere, kind of like my intrepid water-baron who decides who she wants to sell to?

Yanno, Geezer, there seems to be a deep chasm embedded in libertarianism: Libertarians themselves can't seem to decide whether their economic philosophy is about property or about liberty. I can think of far too many scenarios that are not only plausible but quite likely where the two ideals will conflict. And I also noticed that libertarians tend to start talking about "liberty" when their "property rights" argument runs into trouble.

Is there property that is "inalienable" under libertarianism? Do I own "my" air? Do I have the "right" to water? Can I sell myself into slavery? Does the person who "owns" more have more "rights"?

Seems like the conflict between liberty and property hasn't really been fully worked out, and I don't think it can be.

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Sunday, August 4, 2013 7:24 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Yeah, the strawman - his favorite standby.

"...while you were busy misrepresenting my views and asking questions where you kept moving the goalposts (I’ll point those out later, if you wish) ..."

I know it's late and all, so I don't expect an answer right away - but even if he doesn't wish, I do. Could you see your way to accommodating me at some point in the future?

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Sunday, August 4, 2013 7:32 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
name one nationwide monopoly on any item most everyone neeeds

then changed it to a 100-mile limit. Really?? 100 miles? 100 miles around here would encompass about 18 million people, maybe more.

The funny thing is, there IS a nationwide monopoly that not only didn't get help from the gubmint, it was actually charged with unfair (monopolistic) practices by the DoJ. They got their monopoly the old-fashioned way- threatening retailers that if the retailer sold a competing product their very own "special pricing" would go away, and buying up and killing competing producers.

And, as far as I can tell, there is nothing in libertarian-land that makes it at all unethical.

So, Geezer, IS there something unethical about these practices in libertarian-land? 'Cause as far as I can tell, this would only be considered contractual arrangements... people freely buying and selling (even if the parties were vastly different in economic power).

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Monday, August 5, 2013 4:06 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Every time you get in trouble you pull out the strawman.

Unlike the strawman of "I have this process to clean dirty water that's cheaper than just pumping clean water out of the ground"?

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Monday, August 5, 2013 6:45 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Assuming there is clean water to be had. If you look at my example, I did stack the deck in my favor by sying the the groundwater had been contaminated from fracking or from other industrial processes. It's something we here in LA know about, because many of our major aquifers have already been contaminated.

Also, if you look at my example, I patented the cleanup process, so there's no getting around that, either.

You keep quibbling around the edges, but have not addressed what seems to me to be the major conflict between "liberty" (rappy calls it "freedom") and "property". The libertarian mantra seems to be: Free to do whatever you want with your property, as long as force or fraud isn't involved.

But what if I own a huge ranch, and decide to turn it into a monoculture, killing off a number of rare species? Who owns "biodiversity"? What if I corner a water supply? What if, due to my huge fishing fleet and superior fish-finding satellites, I decimate a fishing ground that other people use?

Where are the ethical limits on such behavior, if any, under libertarianism, and what are those limits based on? That is one of the conundrums I keep bumping into with libertarianism, and one of the reasons why- no matter how much I think about it- I can't make it make sense.

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Monday, August 5, 2013 8:21 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Assuming there is clean water to be had. If you look at my example, I did stack the deck in my favor by sying the the groundwater had been contaminated from fracking or from other industrial processes. It's something we here in LA know about, because many of our major aquifers have already been contaminated.

Well, I would first propose that in Libertopia, ground water would probably not be contaminated by fracking or mining.

Groundwater is the property of the person who owns the ground.

If a bunch of guys wanted to start fracking or mining, other folks would file suit against them to, for example, stop them based on the likelyhood of such actions damaging their ground water, based on what happened back in the old U.S.A. Or they might sue to require posting of a bond large enough to remediate any possible spillage, with the understanding that any spillage would be cause for a shutdown of remaining operations. Probably other legal tacks this could take.

Now the government in Libertopia is limited to enforcing contracts and protecting people from aggression and injury. They don't care about job creation, increased tax revenue, energy independence for Libertopia, etc. They care only about if you violate a contract with me, mess up my property, or initiate force against me. Given the history of fracking and mining, I'm pretty sure that such a government would see it as a valid threat. You'd keep it clean, or you wouldn't do it.

Quote:
Also, if you look at my example, I patented the cleanup process, so there's no getting around that, either.

Somebody patented the VHS tape, as well, other people developed a different system - well actually several different systems - to do the same thing better. Are you the only inventor?

Then again, folks might not trust your process, sort'a like the fear of GMO foods. I could truck in Geezer Geyser Natural Spring Water and sell it on the supposed benefits of it being "natural", "organic", or "gluten free".

Quote:
You keep quibbling around the edges, but have not addressed what seems to me to be the major conflict between "liberty" (rappy calls it "freedom") and "property". The libertarian mantra seems to be: Free to do whatever you want with your property, as long as force or fraud isn't involved.

And as long as what you do on your property doesn't injure other people or their property.

Quote:
But what if I own a huge ranch, and decide to turn it into a monoculture, killing off a number of rare species? Who owns "biodiversity"?

This doesn't happen now?

And maybe I (or I and a bunch of like-minded people) buy a huge ranch and run it as a biodiversity reserve, with maybe a little hunting thrown in. That happens now as well.

Quote:
What if I corner a water supply?

I've written several pages on how very extremely unlikely this is.

Quote:
What if, due to my huge fishing fleet and superior fish-finding satellites, I decimate a fishing ground that other people use?

That'd be fishing grounds other people own, by right of first claim, or purchase. There's lots of writing about first claim, but one of the conditions is that if you claim it and don't use it, you lose it, probably through litigation.

Quote:
Where are the ethical limits on such behavior, if any, under libertarianism, and what are those limits based on? That is one of the conundrums I keep bumping into with libertarianism, and one of the reasons why- no matter how much I think about it- I can't make it make sense.

Going back to my first post in this thread, I'll edit down and sometimes expand on the Wiki definitions of the flavor of Libertarianism I like.

BTW. Since I don't have unlimited time, this will have to do as an answer for some questions and misconceptions from other folks aw well:

"Libertarianism is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism. Libertarians advocate a society with minimized government or no government at all."

Which means to me that Libertarians want the maximum amount of liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association for EVERYBODY, not just themselves.

Next we have the Non-aggression principle.

"The non-aggression principle is a moral stance which asserts that aggression is inherently illegitimate. NAP and property rights are closely linked, since what aggression is depends on what a person's rights are. Aggression, for the purposes of NAP, is defined as the initiation or threatening of violence against a person or legitimately-owned property of another. Specifically, any unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property or person, no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner's free will and interfere with his right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership."

Seems pretty straightforward. Don't hurt, or threaten to hurt, other people or their stuff.

Then we get into flavors. I generally like Propertarian:

"Propertarian libertarian philosophies define liberty as non-aggression (an arrangement in which no person or group "aggresses" against any other party), where aggression is defined as the violation of private property. This philosophy implicitly recognizes private property as the sole source of legitimate authority. Propertarian libertarians hold that societies in which private property rights are enforced are the only ones that are both ethical and lead to the best possible outcomes. They generally support the free-market, and are not opposed to any concentration of power (e.g. monopolies), provided it is brought about through non-coercive means."

I understand that the non-concern about monopolies is based on the concept that if such a monopoly jacks up the prices too much, competition will arise. Given that such a monopoly could do little against competition except lower prices (NAP, etc), which would return things to the status quo (except for a loss of trust, and folks probably trying competition anyway), I can see this point.

Then there's Minarchism:

"Minarchism (also known as minimal statism) is a libertarian capitalist political philosophy. It is variously defined by sources. In the strictest sense, it holds that states ought to exist (as opposed to anarchy), that their only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and that the only legitimate governmental institutions are the military, police, and courts. In the broadest sense, it also includes fire departments, prisons, the executive, and legislatures as legitimate government functions. Such states are generally called night-watchman states."

So if you threaten me or my stuff, the State has the power to protect me. If you break a contract (which could actually be seen as a threat not to pay what is owed) the State uses your resources to make me whole.

Seems to me you end up with a society of folks who believe that everyone's rights to liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are paramount. That believe that initiation of force, or threat of initiation of force, is wrong, and can morally be responded to. That believe that a person has a right to own him/herself and the fruits of his/her labor. And believe that the what government they have should be limited to protecting their rights and enforcement of contracts.

Seems the "ethical limits" from this philosophy would be pretty clear. Don't take people's liberty or political freedom. Don't deny the right of free association, or force them to associate when they don't want to. Don't threaten or hurt other people and their stuff. Have only enough government to enforce these ethics.

I've understood this as an ethical model from the first. Perhaps you have a different idea of what an ethical model is. Perhaps you want a defined answer for every possible occurrance in advance. Can't be done, in any relatively free system. Situations and circumstances vary. That's why there are courts in any relatively free system, to interpret the basic rules, note the circumstances, and apply them as best as possible.

I have to admit that I'm really puzzled at the animus shown by several folks here to the idea of a society where the people believe that everyone's liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are paramount rights; with a near-universal abhorance to the initiation of force against anyone; with the belief that everyone is entitled to the ownership of his/herself and the fruits of his/her labor, and government limited to protection of rights and individuals only.

Oh, and the "Libertarians will all have to think alike" misunderstanding.

This is pretty much like saying all Democrats, or people who oppose slavery, will have to think alike. No. They only have to think alike on their common interest.

The only thing that Libertarians would have to think alike on is the principles above. Otherwise, they could disagree all they wanted.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Monday, August 5, 2013 10:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

Seems to me you end up with a society of folks who believe that everyone's rights to liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are paramount. That believe that initiation of force, or threat of initiation of force, is wrong, and can morally be responded to. That believe that a person has a right to own him/herself and the fruits of his/her labor. And believe that the what government they have should be limited to protecting their rights and enforcement of contracts.

Seems to me that you've ended up with a society where there aren't any "unfortunate, poor, oppressed by reality, or ruled" people. Whatever happened to them? Do they not exist? How, exactly, do we evolve from where we are, where those folks are, to where you want us to end up? DO you not care about them? When or where have YOU focused on them in your postings, in this thread?

Hey, that question sounds familiar. Are you planning to ever answer it, or do you just hope it'll go away?

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Monday, August 5, 2013 10:09 AM

Hey, Sig, would you care, for clarity's sake, to explain the difference between a hypothetical argument and a strawman argument? I think I know the difference, but somebody here seems to be confused about it.

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Monday, August 5, 2013 9:59 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Groundwater is the property of the person who owns the ground."

Skidded to a halt right here. If I'm on the upstream side of the aquifer then whatever is under my feet is all mine. I could suck it dry and it's my right as the 'owner'. The downstream people wouldn't have a thing to say about it. OTOH they could claim that they USED to own the aquifer that flowed under their property and I stole it from them, denying them something they used to own. In which case I'm not allowed to use any of it, since my use of any amount diminishes their property.

Private ownership doesn't seem to apply here, as it leads to irresolvable conundrums of who has ownership rights of the water.

Starting up again "Or they might sue to require posting of a bond large enough to remediate any possible spillage, with the understanding that any spillage would be cause for a shutdown of remaining operations. Probably other legal tacks this could take." And if the person refuses to comply - then what?

"But what if I own a huge ranch, and decide to turn it into a monoculture, killing off a number of rare species? Who owns "biodiversity"?"
"This doesn't happen now?"

That's where that nasty big brute of a gummint comes in and tells you you can't do that.

"What if I corner a water supply?"
"I've written several pages on how very extremely unlikely this is."

Spoken like an easterner where streams, creeks, ponds, lakes, and everything in between are no more than a quarter mile away from anywhere, and rain and/or snow fall year round. There are whole parts of the world where that isn't true.

"That'd be fishing grounds other people own, by right of first claim, or purchase."

Very similar analogy to an aquifer. You can ruin another person's fishing without ever going off your 'property'.

But even more, you contradict your own argument about rare species. You claim that it might perchance be possible that conservation-minded people would set aside land to preserve biodiversity (also, you seem to accept the idea that if that doesn’t happen, and species are lost - even keystone species of an ecosystem - oh well, that's a small sacrifice to made made to preserve the owner's rights.) But couldn't a person who wants to preserve aquatic biodiversity want to do the same thing? In your system isn't that their right, as owner? But then you say this about fishing: "That'd be fishing grounds other people own, by right of first claim, or purchase. There's lots of writing about first claim, but one of the conditions is that if you claim it and don't use it, you lose it, probably through litigation." Isn't that a limitation on property rights you hold so dear?

"where aggression is defined as the violation of private property"
That's interesting - you prefer to reduce people to the sum of their possessions.

"I understand that the non-concern about monopolies is based on the concept that if such a monopoly jacks up the prices too much, competition will arise."
What about a company town where the monopoly owns everything, and the ability of anyone else to accumulate enough goods to create a competitor is nil?

"Given that such a monopoly could do little against competition except lower prices (NAP, etc) ..."
How long will the NAP stand when powerful monopolies can't be challenged?

"that their only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and that the only legitimate governmental institutions are the military, police, and courts"

That are the sole possessors of the right of violence. Because what if the person refuses to comply?

And where does the punishment begin and end? Let's take a particular example: what if the person the court rules against is the sole supporter of - oh children and sick people, who aren't in a position to go out and make it on their own. In providing property redress, the courts may be condemning the dependents to death. Is that allowable?

"Seems to me you end up with a society of folks who believe that everyone's rights to liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are paramount. That believe that initiation of force, or threat of initiation of force, is wrong, and can morally be responded to. That believe that a person has a right to own him/herself and the fruits of his/her labor. ... Have only enough government to enforce these ethics."

Seems to me if you define people's rights as strictly property rights all those other things you write about like liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are moot. That a 'moral' response to force is more force from a larger group. And that property is a poorly defined concept that you seem to trust to government.

"I have to admit that I'm really puzzled at the animus shown by several folks here to the idea of a society where the people believe that everyone's liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are paramount rights ..."

Because it's mostly about greed. It's about you being inseparable from your private stuff. It's about you not recognizing that there is a 'commons' we all depend on, and that one doesn't have the right to threaten the commons under the guise of 'property rights'. It's about you assuming that the benefits of society will be there for using: roads and other infrastructure, education and a literate workforce, technology and modern medicine, a money system, a government-enforced property ststem, and the enforced 'right' to 'own' resources that nature provides for free. And at the same time you assume the responsibilities of contributing to those social resources, and restrictions on you against destroying the commons, don't apply to you.

It's so very one-sided.

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 2:19 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Seems to me that you've ended up with a society where there aren't any "unfortunate, poor, oppressed by reality, or ruled" people. Whatever happened to them? Do they not exist? How, exactly, do we evolve from where we are, where those folks are, to where you want us to end up? DO you not care about them? When or where have YOU focused on them in your postings, in this thread?

Hey, that question sounds familiar. Are you planning to ever answer it, or do you just hope it'll go away?

Not sure how you get there. I'd guess there would be unfortunate (whatever you mean by that. Unlucky?) poor, or oppressedy by reality (Once again, what? people with mental health problems?) in most societies.

No one would be ruled. Everyone supports individual liberty for everyone. Everyone is willing to act to obtain this liberty for everyone.

About the poor. Libertarian philosophy, from what I understand, is that with more opportunity through lack of government constraint on trade, and the extra money available in a society with little or no taxes, it'd be easier for anyone with a philosophy of independence, which would include sel-reliance, to make a buck if they worked for it. Remember that I don't expect a Libertarian society until a good majority of folks are libertarians. If there are folks who don't want to work, they'll be poor. I'd guess there would be voluntary organizations (like soup kitchens, food banks, Salvation Army, e.g.) to provide for these folks.

Define "unfortunate" and "oppressed by reality" and I'll discuss those.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 2:20 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
It's so very one-sided.

Yes it is.

Since you wish me dead, I'm dead to you, and will no longer respond to your posts.

Have a nice, bitter, life.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 3:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Seems to me that you've ended up with a society where there aren't any "unfortunate, poor, oppressed by reality, or ruled" people. Whatever happened to them? Do they not exist? How, exactly, do we evolve from where we are, where those folks are, to where you want us to end up? DO you not care about them? When or where have YOU focused on them in your postings, in this thread?

Hey, that question sounds familiar. Are you planning to ever answer it, or do you just hope it'll go away?

Not sure how you get there. I'd guess there would be unfortunate (whatever you mean by that. Unlucky?) poor, or oppressedy by reality (Once again, what? people with mental health problems?) in most societies.

No one would be ruled. Everyone supports individual liberty for everyone. Everyone is willing to act to obtain this liberty for everyone.

About the poor. Libertarian philosophy, from what I understand, is that with more opportunity through lack of government constraint on trade, and the extra money available in a society with little or no taxes, it'd be easier for anyone with a philosophy of independence, which would include sel-reliance, to make a buck if they worked for it. Remember that I don't expect a Libertarian society until a good majority of folks are libertarians. If there are folks who don't want to work, they'll be poor. I'd guess there would be voluntary organizations (like soup kitchens, food banks, Salvation Army, e.g.) to provide for these folks.

Define "unfortunate" and "oppressed by reality" and I'll discuss those.

A couple of little things that speak volumes:

I deliberately phrased the question, "How, exactly, do WE evolve from where WE are?" To which you replied, "Not sure how YOU get there." Emphasis added. Are you sure you aren't Ross Perot? Wasn't that HIS thing? "YOU PEOPLE have to solve YOUR OWN problems."

and

"About the poor. Libertarian philosophy, from what I understand,..." All of a sudden, you're not so knowledgeable, not such a great expert, don't believe something yourself, you just "understand.."

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 4:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Seems to me that you've ended up with a society where there aren't any "unfortunate, poor, oppressed by reality, or ruled" people. Whatever happened to them? Do they not exist? How, exactly, do we evolve from where we are, where those folks are, to where you want us to end up? DO you not care about them? When or where have YOU focused on them in your
postings, in this thread?

Hey, that question sounds familiar. Are you planning to ever answer it, or do you just hope it'll go away?

Not sure how you get there. I'd guess there would be unfortunate (whatever you mean by that. Unlucky?) poor, or oppressedy by reality (Once again, what? people with mental health problems?) in most societies.

No one would be ruled. Everyone supports individual liberty for everyone. Everyone is willing to act to obtain this liberty for everyone.

About the poor. Libertarian philosophy, from what I understand, is that with more opportunity through lack of government constraint on trade, and the extra money available in a society with little or no taxes, it'd be easier for anyone with a philosophy of independence, which would include sel-reliance, to make a buck if they worked for it. Remember that I don't
expect a Libertarian society until a good majority of folks are libertarians. If there are folks who don't want to work, they'll be poor. I'd guess there would be voluntary organizations (like soup kitchens, food banks, Salvation Army, e.g.) to provide for these folks.

Define "unfortunate" and "oppressed by reality" and I'll discuss those.

Well, in my original point to Sig, the one you objected to, I wrote

Quote:

1. Libertarianism focuses on the successful, the rich, the powerful, the rulers. It's about them, which is how the Libbies see themselves. IT ignores the situation of the unfortunate, the poor, the oppressed by reality, the ruled. E-T-A: it's that "social Darwinism" thing I mentioned way up at the top of this thread. They evolved into losers, they deserve what they got.

Ya see, there was a neat match-up of categories there: the successful and the unfortunate, which certainly could mean unlucky; the rich and the poor; the powerful vs the oppressed by reality (I chose not to say "in reality." Too polite for my own good); the rulers and the ruled.

You asked where I got that opinion. By observation, of posts like yours, of posts you didn't make until pressed, of things that you "understand" but obviously don't believe

and the poor: from what you "understand":

Quote:

it'd be easier for anyone with a philosophy of independence, which would include sel-reliance, to make a buck if they worked for it.

if they wasn't so "shiftless", if "them boys would just work", if they "wanted to", they wouldn't be poor.

and:

Quote:

Remember that I don't expect a Libertarian society until a good majority of folks are libertarians.

Boy, if there was ever a circular argument, that one is it. It'll work after it works. Because-- uh-- it'll work... because--uh -- it did... if it does... NOt buyin' it.

E-T-A: missed this --

"the ruled... Would they not exist?" " No one would be ruled." Not buyin that one either.

NOBC sez: " this post violates NOBC's Rule, it's too long."

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 10:18 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
A couple of little things that speak volumes:

About how your mind works, perhaps.

Quote:
I deliberately phrased the question, "How, exactly, do WE evolve from where WE are?" To which you replied, "Not sure how YOU get there." Emphasis added. Are you sure you aren't Ross Perot? Wasn't that HIS thing? "YOU PEOPLE have to solve YOUR OWN problems."

Nope.

"Not sure how you get there" was in response to your idea that Libertarian society would leave out the "unfortunate, poor, oppressed by reality, or ruled". I don't know where you get the idea these people would be left out.

Still waiting for your definitions of "unfortunate" and "oppressed by reality", BTW.

and

Quote:
"About the poor. Libertarian philosophy, from what I understand,..." All of a sudden, you're not so knowledgeable, not such a great expert, don't believe something yourself, you just "understand.."

I provided what I understand the Propertarian, Minarchist, Libertarian solution to the poor would be. There are doubtless other Libertarians who'd quibble over the details. Do all Democrats understand their party to be exactly the same thing?

So you'll ignore what I said because you think I don't know everything about all flavors of libertarianism. Good dodge on your part when you have no substantive arguments.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 10:37 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Well, in my original point to Sig, the one you objected to, I wrote
Quote:

1. Libertarianism focuses on the successful, the rich, the powerful, the rulers. It's about them, which is how the Libbies see themselves. IT ignores the situation of the unfortunate, the poor, the oppressed by reality, the ruled. E-T-A: it's that "social Darwinism" thing I mentioned way up at the top of this thread. They evolved into losers, they deserve what they got.

I'm trying to square this with people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. I can't. Explain it to me.

Quote:
Ya see, there was a neat match-up of categories there: the successful and the unfortunate, which certainly could mean unlucky; the rich and the poor; the powerful vs the oppressed by reality (I chose not to say "in reality." Too polite for my own good); the rulers and the ruled.

I'll say it again.

I'm trying to square this with people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. I can't. Explain it to me.

Quote:
You asked where I got that opinion. By observation, of posts like yours, of posts you didn't make until pressed, of things that you "understand" but obviously don't believe.

So I haven't mentioned that Libertarians are people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else?

Really?

And how do you figure I don't believe this? Because I used the word "understand" to indicate that to me this is what most Propertarian, Minarchist Libertarians believe? I'm thinking your comprehension is disturbed by your biases.

b]

Quote:
[/and the poor: from what you "understand":
Quote:

it'd be easier for anyone with a philosophy of independence, which would include sel-reliance, to make a buck if they worked for it.

if they wasn't so "shiftless", if "them boys would just work", if they "wanted to", they wouldn't be poor.

Okay, so you can't think of an argument against people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. so you go to insult.

How usual.

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Remember that I don't expect a Libertarian society until a good majority of folks are libertarians.

Boy, if there was ever a circular argument, that one is it.

Why? There wasn't a society that outlawed slavery until a good majority of folks were opposed to it. This is different how?

Quote:
E-T-A: missed this --

"the ruled... Would they not exist?" " No one would be ruled." Not buyin that one either.

Okay. You don't accept that there can ever be people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else.

Is there any reasonable argument that one could make that would cause you to accept that this might be possible, or are we done here?

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Tuesday, August 6, 2013 1:53 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Since you wish me dead, I'm dead to you, and will no longer respond to your posts."

Not exactly what I posted, but whatever. That wouldn't be the first time you misrepresented someone's post.

And, SO COOL! that you're not going to respond! YOU may not respond to my points, but other people may read them. If they find them convincing and you have no countervailing argument on offer, then they just might end up agreeing with my position. I'm glad I have the floor unopposed.

ETA: The one thing I get out of your posts is that you don't know how the system will adjudicate imbalances between conflicting rights; or provide for the young, ill, weak and disabled (let alone the poor); or protect the commons; or muster resources to sustain physical, social and technological infrastructure; or avoid the use of force on non-compliant members ... but you BELIEVE! Hallelujah! And if everyone else would just convert PRAISE THE LORD! to your superior system and reach your exalted level of development, and TRUST in the system's diviness to eventually provide, then we could all enter the promised land and live in heaven on earth AMEN!

In other words, it's a religion. Also, egotistical.

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Wednesday, August 7, 2013 5:43 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Well, in my original point to Sig, the one you objected to, I wrote
Quote:

1. Libertarianism focuses on the successful, the rich, the powerful, the rulers. It's about them, which is how the Libbies see themselves. IT ignores the situation of the unfortunate, the poor, the oppressed by reality, the ruled. E-T-A: it's that "social Darwinism" thing I mentioned way up at the top of this thread. They evolved into losers, they deserve what they got.

I'm trying to square this with people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. I can't. Explain it to me.

Quote:
Ya see, there was a neat match-up of categories there: the successful and the unfortunate, which certainly could mean unlucky; the rich and the poor; the powerful vs the oppressed by reality (I chose not to say "in reality." Too polite for my own good); the rulers and the ruled.

I'll say it again.

I'm trying to square this with people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. I can't. Explain it to me.

Quote:
You asked where I got that opinion. By observation, of posts like yours, of posts you didn't make until pressed, of things that you "understand" but obviously don't believe.

So I haven't mentioned that Libertarians are people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else?

Really?

And how do you figure I don't believe this? Because I used the word "understand" to indicate that to me this is what most Propertarian, Minarchist Libertarians believe? I'm thinking your comprehension is disturbed by your biases.

b]
Quote:
[/and the poor: from what you "understand":
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it'd be easier for anyone with a philosophy of independence, which would include sel-reliance, to make a buck if they worked for it.

if they wasn't so "shiftless", if "them boys would just work", if they "wanted to", they wouldn't be poor.

Okay, so you can't think of an argument against people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. so you go to insult.

How usual.

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Remember that I don't expect a Libertarian society until a good majority of folks are libertarians.

Boy, if there was ever a circular argument, that one is it.

Why? There wasn't a society that outlawed slavery until a good majority of folks were opposed to it. This is different how?

Quote:
E-T-A: missed this --

"the ruled... Would they not exist?" " No one would be ruled." Not buyin that one either.

Okay. You don't accept that there can ever be people who believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and who believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else.

Is there any reasonable argument that one could make that would cause you to accept that this might be possible, or are we done here?

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

Is there any reasonable argument you can make to dissuade people of the idea that if, like in your perfect libertarian Utopia, people were all perfect and perfectly reasonable, then perfect socialism and communism wouldn't work just as well as your libertarian ideal?

The problem with all of these systems is that people AREN'T all the same, and they all have differing ideas of what perfection, "freedom", and liberty mean.

How will you codify what "liberty" is? And realize that once you write it down in a code of law, you've just decided that people - ALL people - need to "be ruled over".

What you're trying to propose here is your perfect world, your world without conflict. Maybe you can call it "Miranda".

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Wednesday, August 7, 2013 7:10 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Is there any reasonable argument you can make to dissuade people of the idea that if, like in your perfect libertarian Utopia, people were all perfect and perfectly reasonable, then perfect socialism and communism wouldn't work just as well as your libertarian ideal?

The problem with all of these systems is that people AREN'T all the same, and they all have differing ideas of what perfection, "freedom", and liberty mean.

How will you codify what "liberty" is? And realize that once you write it down in a code of law, you've just decided that people - ALL people - need to "be ruled over".

What you're trying to propose here is your perfect world, your world without conflict. Maybe you can call it "Miranda".

Let's see.

When did I ever say it would be perfect? Or that all the people would be perfect or perfectly reasonable?

All I said, over and over again, is that a pretty sizable the majority of the people would believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and would believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. That seems a reasonable goal to me. You don't want these things?

As I've also noted, we seem to have societies where almost everyone opposes slavery pretty strongly (the U.S. Civil War comes to mind. More people were killed in a fight over slavery than any other American war), or where almost everyone believes in preserving representative democracy (American Revolution, WWI and WWII, Cold War, e.g.). And those beliefs work, sometimes at great cost to the folks who believe them, although imperfectly. Also, the people in those societies aren't all the same, as witnessed by the folks here in RWED.

All I'm looking for is less imperfectly.

I suppose that if a majority of people believed strongly enough in Socialism or Communism, such a society could exist without government coersion. I don't think I'd enjoy communal ownership, lack of individuality, and State control very much. Perhaps you would.

Now there is a flavor of Libertarian though that espouses communal ownership, so you might like that better.

From the Wikipedia article on Libertarianism:

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Non-propertarian libertarian philosophies hold that liberty is the absence of capitalist authority and argue that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite. Implicitly, it rejects any authority of private property and thus holds that it is not legitimate for someone to claim private ownership of any resources to the detriment of others. Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production. The term libertarian socialism is also used to differentiate this philosophy from state socialism. Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in decentralized means of direct democracy such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions and workers' councils.

Now I have to assume that these Libertarians, to be called Libertarian Socialists rather than just Socialists, would still have to believe in the independence, political freedom, and voluntary association basic to Libertarian thought, and in the NAP.

As to defining what freedom is, define it as you will. Remember, though, that the Non-aggression Principle prohibits you from using your freedom to initiate force against anyone else. Whatever you want to do to yourself, carry on.

So, yeah, there's a rule. Don't initiate force against other people. That rule would be enforced. So, in my Propertarian flavor, would rules regarding contracts.

But remember that I'm not an Anarchist, but a Minarchist, who sees a limited role for government in enforcing a limited set of rules covering mostly fulfillment of contracts and following the NAP.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Wednesday, August 7, 2013 8:19 AM

KWICKO

In other words, you believe in a government ruling over people, even if, as you say, it's *mostly* fulfillment of contracts and enforcing "a limited set of rules".

What's the "limit"? We already have a "limited set of rules"; it just doesn't comport with your idea of what that limit should be.

Your oppression is someone else's libertarian paradise. And your libertarian paradise looks like oppression to someone else.

You propose a majority rule. Is that not more or less what we have now, with a majority of voters deciding who gets to represent them?

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Wednesday, August 7, 2013 12:52 PM

STORYMARK

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

Unlike the strawman of "I have this process to clean dirty water that's cheaper than just pumping clean water out of the ground"?

Uh, do you even know what "strawman" means?

Excuse me while I soak in all these sweet, sweet conservative tears.

"We will never have the elite, smart people on our side." -- Rick "Frothy" Santorum

"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Thursday, August 8, 2013 2:55 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
In other words, you believe in a government ruling over people, even if, as you say, it's *mostly* fulfillment of contracts and enforcing "a limited set of rules".

Yep. As a Minarchist, I see that government has a place in the enforcement of contracts and protection of folks from aggression.

It doesn't have a place in deciding how you use your personal independence.

Want to use drugs? Want to marry someone of the same sex? Want to marry several people? Want to paint your house purple? Want to graft on a third arm? Want to start a business? Want to own a dog? Want to drive a car? As long as you don't aggress against or injure anyone else, go to it.

Quote:
What's the "limit"? We already have a "limited set of rules"; it just doesn't comport with your idea of what that limit should be.

Given the idea of maximum independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression, I'd have to say that "limit" is a good bit more "limited" than the current "limited set of rules".

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[n]Your oppression is someone else's libertarian paradise. And your libertarian paradise looks like oppression to someone else.

So who's oppressed in a libertarian society? (I never said it was a paradise, BTW)

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You propose a majority rule. Is that not more or less what we have now, with a majority of voters deciding who gets to represent them?

Where did I say that? I said the majority of the people would have the same philosophy, but since that philosophy is about having the absolute minimum of rule possible...

BTW, since I'm answering your questions as best I can, seems it would be only fair that you answer one I posed earlier.

"All I said, over and over again, is that a pretty sizable the majority of the people would believe that everyone's independence, political freedom, and right of voluntary association is very important to them - and would believe it is immoral to impose force on onyone else. That seems a reasonable goal to me. You don't want these things?"

Oh, and don't forget the question in this post. "Who'd be oppressed in a Libertarian society?"

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Thursday, August 8, 2013 11:24 AM

Can I run a couple of scenarios past you, to see if they fit into your libertarian society.

I'd like to manufacture and sell drugs from my house. I'm your neighbour. Okay?

You live in a normal residential street, and I've bought one of the nice neat bungalows. I'm going to tear it down and build a hamburger joint. This will employ 30 people, so you should be pleased that I've brought jobs to your community. Okay?

You live in a seaside town. You have a two storey home with a nice view of the sea. I have bought the block in front of you and want to build a unit complex with 15 apartments. This will obscure your view of the sea. Okay?

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Thursday, August 8, 2013 6:31 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

OK Geezer, I read your responses and the responses of others. I grok your version of libertarianism, and now that I know what it means (to you) I can say in all honesty that I like it even less now than before. But before I get to that point, I want to address this:

Quote:
Since you wish me dead, I'm dead to you, and will no longer respond to your posts.

HUH??? Okay, I might have skimmed past the reponse that prompted this statment, but I can't find anything anywhere that would cause you to say this. Care to elucidate? Or was this really just a diversion? Because it seemed to me that KIKI offered some excellent questions and counterpoints that you didn't answer.

Quote:
Well, I would first propose that in Libertopia, ground water would probably not be contaminated by fracking or mining. Groundwater is the property of the person who owns the ground.

The corollary to this is if you don't own land, you have no water rights.

So, what about air? I "get" that you mean that owning land means owning everything underneath is and everything above it, delimited by the shape of the property extending outward into space and inward toward the center of the earth along invisible radii, but... what if I don't own any land at all? Does that mean I have no right to air or water?

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But what if I own a huge ranch, and decide to turn it into a monoculture, killing off a number of rare species? Who owns "biodiversity"?-signy
This doesn't happen now? -geezer

No, because of the Endagered Species Act, which a lot of corporatists like to complain about

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And maybe I (or I and a bunch of like-minded people) buy a huge ranch and run it as a biodiversity reserve

And maybe it doesn't. What then? Every environment is more resilient because of biodiversity, and everyone who lives in that environment gains a benefit from it.

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What if I corner a water supply?-signy
I've written several pages on how very extremely unlikely this is. -geezer

And I've written pages about how I think it is not only possible, but nearly inevitable.

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What if, due to my huge fishing fleet and superior fish-finding satellites, I decimate a fishing ground that other people use?-signy
That'd be fishing grounds other people own, by right of first claim, or purchase. There's lots of writing about first claim, but one of the conditions is that if you claim it and don't use it, you lose it, probably through litigation.-geezer

In other words, you envision every single square inch of land and body of water being "owned" by somebody. "Ain't no mountain high enough, Ain't no valley low enough..." not to be somebody'e property.

Quote:
"Libertarianism is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism. Libertarians advocate a society with minimized government or no government at all."

Bull. Shite. Libertarianism is based on ...

Quote:
private property as the sole source of legitimate authority.

and all those fancy words about

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unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property or person, [hmmm...interesting that you would list 'property' first...] no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner's free will and interfere with his right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership."

is all about nobody getting between your and your "stuff" in any way whatsover.

Quote:
Seems to me you end up with a society of folks who believe that everyone's rights to liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are paramount. That believe that initiation of force, or threat of initiation of force, is wrong, and can morally be responded to. That believe that a person has a right to own him/herself and the fruits of his/her labor.

Up to there, you are talking in generalities that anyone would agree with, which hide rather than reveal the core of libertariansim (at least as far as you're concerned.)

Quote:
Seems the "ethical limits" from this philosophy would be pretty clear. Don't take people's liberty or political freedom. Don't deny the right of free association, or force them to associate when they don't want to. Don't threaten or hurt other people and their stuff. Have only enough government to enforce these ethics.

But where, oh where, is that all-important vision of propertarianism? Nowhere.

So, out of all of that, what I get is that you envision a society in which everybody has SOME "stuff" of value, and they derive their rights and freedoms from that owernship of "stuff", which provides them leverage in the larger society and give them access to things like water and air, and opportunity to engage in various activities and opportunities, all based on the "stuff" that they own.

You yourself said that you don't expect to see libertarianism taking hold until most people are libertarian. But if people become as self-interested as you think they should be, this transition won't take place until most people actually own something of value, and wealth is more-or-less evenly distributed. Our economic history is really trending the other way, so it seems that libertarianism is a dead issue.

Or putting it another way, that it would be an act of sheer self-delusion (on the part of the vast majority of today's non-owners) or sheer brainwashing (on the part of TPTB) if libertarianism were to be instituted under circumstances of extreme disparity of wealth.

So, you can forget trying to convince me and most others here, because we are more self-interest than you seem to think.

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Thursday, August 8, 2013 9:24 PM

I find the water issue an interesting one, coming from somewhere where fresh water can be scarce.

One of the issues that has arisen is around river water usuage and who gets to take water out of the system. If one person upriver decides to use river water for rice farming and pulls out enough water from the system, the farmers and towns dwellers and city folk further down the system don't have enough water to survive. The river system needs to be managed as a whole, not through individual land owners doing entirely what they want.

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Friday, August 9, 2013 2:08 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Can I run a couple of scenarios past you, to see if they fit into your libertarian society.

I'd like to manufacture and sell drugs from my house. I'm your neighbour. Okay?

Don't see why not. Drugs won't be illegal, so you'll be a maker of a product, just like anyone else. As long as you use safe manufacturing means, and don't damage my property.

Quote:
You live in a normal residential street, and I've bought one of the nice neat bungalows. I'm going to tear it down and build a hamburger joint. This will employ 30 people, so you should be pleased that I've brought jobs to your community. Okay?

If you want to set up a fast food business on a residential street with little traffic and not too big a customer base, that'd be your right. If the noise from your operation is too loud, prepared to get sued for damaging my right to sleep. When you go broke due to lack of business, I might by the lot and expand my bungalow.

Quote:
You live in a seaside town. You have a two storey home with a nice view of the sea. I have bought the block in front of you and want to build a unit complex with 15 apartments. This will obscure your view of the sea. Okay?

Guess so. My two story house blocks the sea view of the bungalow behind me.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Friday, August 9, 2013 3:24 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Since you wish me dead, I'm dead to you, and will no longer respond to your posts.
HUH??? Okay, I might have skimmed past the reponse that prompted this statment, but I can't find anything anywhere that would cause you to say this. Care to elucidate? Or was this really just a diversion? Because it seemed to me that KIKI offered some excellent questions and counterpoints that you didn't answer.

http://fireflyfans.net/mreply.aspx?q=y&mid=945052

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Also, by 2024 I hope to have outlived you. Let's see ... by 2024 I'll be ... yes, statistically very doable.

Quote:
Quote:
Well, I would first propose that in Libertopia, ground water would probably not be contaminated by fracking or mining. Groundwater is the property of the person who owns the ground.
The corollary to this is if you don't own land, you have no water rights.

So, what about air? I "get" that you mean that owning land means owning everything underneath is and everything above it, delimited by the shape of the property extending outward into space and inward toward the center of the earth along invisible radii, but... what if I don't own any land at all? Does that mean I have no right to air or water?

Do folks who don't own land now - who live in an apartment, for example - have water rights? They can buy water from the landlord or the city, but don't own any. Not sure of your point here.

I would expect that you'd own the space above your property for as far as you could use it - to build a building for example - but not claim it to infinity. Folks could still fly over. If you wanted to try and build a box to keep all the air in, I suppose you could. If you can't keep it in your space, it's not yours. I now expect your "air baron" scenario where you discover some method of cornering the air market.

Interesting discussion in Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" about "free as air", since on the Moon, air is a commodity that has to be manufactured, and so is not free.

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But what if I own a huge ranch, and decide to turn it into a monoculture, killing off a number of rare species? Who owns "biodiversity"?-signy
This doesn't happen now? -geezer
No, because of the Endagered Species Act, which a lot of corporatists like to complain about

Ever drive through Nebraska, with miles and miles of corn, wheat, sunflowers, etc. Monoculture? Yep.

Quote:
Quote:
And maybe I (or I and a bunch of like-minded people) buy a huge ranch and run it as a biodiversity reserve

And maybe it doesn't. What then? Every environment is more resilient because of biodiversity, and everyone who lives in that environment gains a benefit from it.

I could ask you to prove this. Then again, I could note that very few of us live in a very biodiverse environment now.

Quote:
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What if I corner a water supply?-signy
I've written several pages on how very extremely unlikely this is. -geezer
And I've written pages about how I think it is not only possible, but nearly inevitable.

Yep. And I can only buy Miller Lite and Taco Bell.

Quote:
What if, due to my huge fishing fleet and superior fish-finding satellites, I decimate a fishing ground that other people use?-signy
That'd be fishing grounds other people own, by right of first claim, or purchase. There's lots of writing about first claim, but one of the conditions is that if you claim it and don't use it, you lose it, probably through litigation.-geezer

If they are using it, and don't mess up other peoples property, pretty much. If a bunch of people want to buy wilderness and leave it for folks to pay to come and see, that'd work too.

Consider what an outfit like Ducks Unlimited does now in conservation, wetlands purchase and conservation easements, wetlands restoration, etc., and all they want to do is shoot ducks.

Quote:
Quote:
"Libertarianism is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism. Libertarians advocate a society with minimized government or no government at all."
Bull. Shite. Libertarianism is based on ...
Quote:
private property as the sole source of legitimate authority.

Not really. The Propertarian flavor of Libertarianism, which I like, does support private property, but also espouses the emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association.

And, as noted above, there's also a flavor called Libertarian Socialism.

Here's the definition again.

"Non-propertarian libertarian philosophies hold that liberty is the absence of capitalist authority and argue that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite. Implicitly, it rejects any authority of private property and thus holds that it is not legitimate for someone to claim private ownership of any resources to the detriment of others. Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production. The term libertarian socialism is also used to differentiate this philosophy from state socialism. Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in decentralized means of direct democracy such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions and workers' councils."

But these folks would still espouse the emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association.

Could you get behind Libertarian Socialism, since it has that communal ownership, decision by direct democracy, etc. that you seem to like? Or is the individualism a deal-breaker?

Quote:
and all those fancy words about
Quote:
unsolicited actions of others that physically affect an individual’s property or person, [hmmm...interesting that you would list 'property' first...] no matter if the result of those actions is damaging, beneficial, or neutral to the owner, are considered violent or aggressive when they are against the owner's free will and interfere with his right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership."
is all about nobody getting between your and your "stuff" in any way whatsover.

As long as you and your stuff don't injure anyone else, that's one part of it. Again, along with independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression and harm for EVERYONE.

Quote:
Quote:
Seems to me you end up with a society of folks who believe that everyone's rights to liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association are paramount. That believe that initiation of force, or threat of initiation of force, is wrong, and can morally be responded to. That believe that a person has a right to own him/herself and the fruits of his/her labor.
Up to there, you are talking in generalities that anyone would agree with, which hide rather than reveal the core of libertariansim (at least as far as you're concerned.)

No. I'm being as straightforward with you as I can. If you think I'm lying to cover up some devious plot, we can stop right now.

Then again, generalities can be important. "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" comes to mind.

ETA: Oh,yeah. Or, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Quote:
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Seems the "ethical limits" from this philosophy would be pretty clear. Don't take people's liberty or political freedom. Don't deny the right of free association, or force them to associate when they don't want to. Don't threaten or hurt other people and their stuff. Have only enough government to enforce these ethics.
But where, oh where, is that all-important vision of propertarianism? Nowhere.

Sure it is. "Don't take people's liberty or political freedom. Don't deny the right of free association, or force them to associate when they don't want to. Don't threaten or hurt other people and their stuff." defines all flavors of Libertarians, be that Socialist, Propertarian, or whatever. Propertarianism just emphasizes ownership of private property, including ones own self, and uses that as a basis for these rules.

Quote:
So, out of all of that, what I get is that you envision a society in which everybody has SOME "stuff" of value, and they derive their rights and freedoms from that owernship of "stuff", which provides them leverage in the larger society and give them access to things like water and air, and opportunity to engage in various activities and opportunities, all based on the "stuff" that they own.

Not very close. What I see is a society where - here it comes again - most of the people believe in independence, political freedom, right of free association, and freedom from aggression for everyone. As Propertarians, they believe that they have an absolute right to their property, which includes themselves, as long as they don't aggress against anyone, damage anyone, or violate a contract. As Minarchists, they believe in the minimum government necessary to enforce contracts, gain restitution for harm, and prevent or gain restitution for aggression.

Quote:
You yourself said that you don't expect to see libertarianism taking hold until most people are libertarian. But if people become as self-interested as you think they should be, this transition won't take place until most people actually own something of value, and wealth is more-or-less evenly distributed. Our economic history is really trending the other way, so it seems that libertarianism is a dead issue.

Not sure about that. I think it would have more to do with folks thinking they had a better chance of getting ahead.

I don't expect we'd see a full-blown Libertarian society until like-minded folks can get off the planet and find a place to build where the weight of the current societies isn't in play.

However, I think that there can be move in the direction of the goals of independence, political freedom, right of free association, and less government.

Just for fun, here's the site of the Libertarian candidate for Governor of Virginia. http://www.robertsarvis.com/

Tell me what you think of his platform.

Quote:
Or putting it another way, that it would be an act of sheer self-delusion (on the part of the vast majority of today's non-owners) or sheer brainwashing (on the part of TPTB) if libertarianism were to be instituted under circumstances of extreme disparity of wealth.

So, you can forget trying to convince me and most others here, because we are more self-interest than you seem to think.

Okay. So I'll ask you again, what's your solution? I can't get any response from you to even a simple question on your "Answer to the world's problems" thread.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Friday, August 9, 2013 3:27 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I find the water issue an interesting one, coming from somewhere where fresh water can be scarce.

One of the issues that has arisen is around river water usuage and who gets to take water out of the system. If one person upriver decides to use river water for rice farming and pulls out enough water from the system, the farmers and towns dwellers and city folk further down the system don't have enough water to survive. The river system needs to be managed as a whole, not through individual land owners doing entirely what they want.

I'd suppose that a lot of that management currently involves litigation. I'd also suppose that this wouldn't change much in my Propertarian, Minarchist Libertarian society.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Friday, August 9, 2013 3:31 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Because it seemed to me that KIKI offered some excellent questions and counterpoints that you didn't answer.

If you want to rephrase them out of KIKIscreed into English, I'll try to answer them.

Not gonna do the "Please tell KIKI...", "Please tell Geezer..." thing through third parties, though.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Friday, August 9, 2013 7:50 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Since you wish me dead, I'm dead to you, and will no longer respond to your posts.-geezer
....
Also, by 2024 I hope to have outlived you. Let's see ... by 2024 I'll be ... yes, statistically very doable.- kiki, geezer

You went all the way to another thread to drag in ONE line (which BTW doesn't seem all THAT terrible to me?) and failed to address the significant points that KIKI brought up? (Also OBC, FREM, MAGONS, and KWICKO all brought up relevant points which you didn't address.)

Let's go to biodiversity... It's "owned" (insofar as land is owned) by patchwork of interests - farmers, business owners, homeowners- which divide up the land and shores in lines that are as arbitrary to nature as the political lines in Africa are to the tribes. I imagine the same for geezerland's oceans- invisible fences cutting willy-nilly across fish breeding grounds, kelp forests, coral reefs, petroleum reserves etc.

No single person "owns" it, but everybody benefits from it. BTW- You asked for proof about the benefits of biodiversity. Really??? It's not obvious to you?

Quote:
Here we describe a long-term study of grasslands, which shows that primary productivity in more diverse plant communities is more resistant to, and recovers more fully from, a major drought. The curvilinear relationship we observe suggests that each additional species lost from our grasslands had a progressively greater impact on drought resistance. Our results support the diversity–stability hypothes

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v367/n6461/abs/367363a0.html

Lets look at clearcutting. Ideally, trees should be harvested individually to reduce fuel load but still keep the soil intact. The benfits are that mudslides are mitigated, and there is no washed-down soil from cleared land, which makes stream turbid reduces fish stocks. So the benefits of NOT clearcutting accrues to people downslope or downstream, but the costs accrue to the landowner. However, it only takes one owner in the drainage system to ruin the streams for everyone, and only one owner upslope to cause mudslides.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2008674714_glenomaslides27m.htm
l

Wetlands slow down floods, filter nutrients out of the water before it flows into the river (and thence to estuaries, bays, deltas, and the ocean), absorb carbon, and recharge aquifers. Protecting and reconstructing wetlands would require that many farmers set aside land around each ditch, stream, creek, and river to form a contiguous and "working" whole, and agree to forgo pesticides, tilling practices, and excess fertilizers which will poison the system downstream. Again, one holdout can ruin a large part of the system.

The same with the ocean, and the shorelines, There are breeding areas that restock the oceans with fry. In Geezerland, somebody (or several somebodies) who "own" these areas could destroy the fishing stock for everybody by deciding that they need to get SOME economic benefit from their stake, and fish out all of the small fish. According to YOU, it would be NECESSARY for them to make SOME nominal "use" of the property because

Quote:
"That'd be fishing grounds... if you claim it and don't use it, you lose it, probably through litigation."

So, your notion that "a" landowner or even a small group of land/ocean/ shoreline-owners can protect biodiversity is poor. One needs contiguous areas which follow natural drainage systems, mountain chains, reefs, shorelines etc because animals can roam and fish can swim in and out of small "protected" areas, and water flows everywhere. Conservation is a problem, but it is not about to be tackled by individuals, and seems to be actively discouraged in Geezerland.

You failed to address the idea of the "company town". These developed in remote, isolated areas which had so little to do with gummint that they paid in their own scrip. It doesn't take a government to create a monopoly... isolation, or economies of scale, profit, and competition will do that quite nicely.

So, speaking of money... nobody asked about currency. Money is ubiquitous and convenient for trade. Which entity has the right to make it?

Quote:
Yep. And I can only buy Miller Lite and Taco Bell.

I can buy bottled water at the grocery store, but I'm not about to buy bottled water to water my lawn, wash my clothes, take showers; or irrigate my fields, and water my stock. Water use depends on a CONTINUOUS HIGH VOLUME delivery system.

Quote:
"Libertarianism is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism. Libertarians advocate a society with minimized government or no government at all."-geezer

Bull. Shite. Libertarianism is based on ... private property as the sole source of legitimate authority.-signy

Not really. The Propertarian flavor of Libertarianism, which I like, does support private property, but also espouses the emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association.-geezer

So, when the two conflict, which system of ethics comes out on top?

Quote:
And, as noted above, there's also a flavor called Libertarian Socialism.
Here's the definition again.
"Non-propertarian libertarian philosophies hold that liberty is the absence of capitalist authority and argue that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite. Implicitly, it rejects any authority of private property and thus holds that it is not legitimate for someone to claim private ownership of any resources to the detriment of others. Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production. The term libertarian socialism is also used to differentiate this philosophy from state socialism. Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in decentralized means of direct democracy such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions and workers' councils."

More what I'm looking for. However, even under libertarian socialism, "individualism" is not likely to be practiced as much as you think. The ability to do what you want with your "stuff" is likely to be controlled by some sort of collective- either a city council, or a producers/ users collective. There are a number of communal ownership situations, like the high mountain meadows in Switzerland where goats are grazed, which are under the collective control of the goat-owners. One can't just graze out the meadows and leave everyone else with nothing, and since it's important that EVERYONE follow the rules, no one gets to be the exception. Those rules are pretty strictly enforced. Everyone knows everybody so there's no hiding!

Regarding libertarian's "fancy words": unsolicited actions, right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership, independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression and harm for EVERYONE... that only works when individuals are pretty much independent from each other... when they own sufficient PROPERTY to meet their own needs. Otherwise, everyone is forced into associations they probbaly don't like (Do you really LIKE your co-workers, your boss, and your customers?) and will never have self-determination because of economic necessity. In other words, nobody is able to globally say "fuck you" to anyone and everyone (as 6IX so elegantly said) because the economic consequences could be dire. Even in geezerland very few would be able to be fully "independent", unless they're living off the land in primitive mode; or have amassed so much wealth they can tell EVERYONE "fuck you". So much for freedom of association!

Quote:
You yourself said that you don't expect to see libertarianism taking hold until most people are libertarian. But if people become as self-interested as you think they should be, this transition won't take place until most people actually own something of value, and wealth is more-or-less evenly distributed. Our economic history is really trending the other way, so it seems that libertarianism is a dead issue.- signy

Not sure about that. I think it would have more to do with folks thinking they had a better chance of getting ahead.-geezer

How? We're already living in a world where half of wealth ownership is in the hands of about 700 people, and 90% of is in the hands of the top 5%. Where is the opportunity, and how does it apply to the majority of the people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_concentration
Propertarianism might work in a frontier state, where staking a claim was all that you needed to get ahead. But now that much of the world is already owned, and the rest is already controlled by other interests, there is no "frontier" to run to. As I said, I think libertarianism is a no-win policy for the vast majority of people.

Quote:
Just for fun, here's the site of the Libertarian candidate for Governor of Virginia. http://www.robertsarvis.com/
Tell me what you think of his platform.

Okay, I'll look.

Quote:
So I'll ask you again, what's your solution? I can't get any response from you to even a simple question on your "Answer to the world's problems" thread.

Whatever the solution is, it's not libertarianism. It's also not corporatism. State socialism may be PART of the answer because some things can only be done on broad scale, like maintaining a currency and banking system, and responding to regional issues like watershed management and navigation. But I prefer that agency be pushed downward as much as possible, so I envision a mix of individual and communal rights and responsibilities, size dependent on the problems that they are trying to address.

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Friday, August 9, 2013 9:00 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I read Robert Sarvis' campaign site. Sounds like a great guy, very sincere, but also proposing mnay things which have been shown NOT to work in the past.

Quote:
Virginia needs open-minded, economically literate leadership, not culture wars and class wars. Here's my plan for Virginia:

Empower parents by championing school choice.

Charter schools don't do any better than public, and because they don't have to take EVERYbody, they get to "cherry pick" the best students. You'd think they'd do better than that.

Quote:
Provide tax relief and job growth through tax reform.

Cutting taxes does not make the economy grow. Unless he gets more specific, I can't evaluate any further.

Quote:
Protect gun rights

Umm...what rights does he feel are being intruded on? I would be more impressed if he said "privacy rights" and "economic rights"

Quote:
AND Recognize gay marriages.

good

Quote:
Reform our drug laws to reduce violence, rebuild communities, restore civil liberties, and save money.

If he means "decriminalize drug posession and put people in therapy rather than jail", or even just "decriminalize pot" that'd be great! But he's talking political-ese, so ... what does he really mean?.

Quote:
By protecting personal & economic freedom, we can make Virginia the envy of the world, with a growing economy that adds jobs and raises incomes, and a system of laws providing equality and justice for all.

There is no politician of ANY stripe who will say that s/he wants to impose on personal freedoms and tank the economy. The question is whether or not the steps being proposed are sufficient, or at least not counterproductive.

My response to this candidate is like my response to MANY libertarian candidates... about 50/50. There are some things I agree with 100%, and some things I disagree with 100%. The parts I disagree with are so fundamental, I could never see myself voting libertarian when the Green Party is on the ticket. And if it was a choice between libertarian and democrat, I'd have to look long and hard at each one's record, because there are some democrats who are head and shoulders above some libertarians, and vice versa.

I think I've figured out at least YOUR stripe of libertarianism, geezer. I appreciate the education. However, I won't convince you to change and you certainly won't convince ME to change, so unless you feel that you have an amazingly compelling point to make, I prolly won't be responding much more to this thread. But thanks again for the valuable insights.

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Friday, August 9, 2013 12:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I find the water issue an interesting one, coming from somewhere where fresh water can be scarce.

One of the issues that has arisen is around river water usuage and who gets to take water out of the system. If one person upriver decides to use river water for rice farming and pulls out enough water from the system, the farmers and towns dwellers and city folk further down the system don't have enough water to survive. The river system needs to be managed as a whole, not through individual land owners doing entirely what they want.

I'd suppose that a lot of that management currently involves litigation. I'd also suppose that this wouldn't change much in my Propertarian, Minarchist Libertarian society.

Not currently, as water is largely owned by state government, who also operate service provision. You get bickering between the states and large water users, but not litigation.

The issue with litigation is that it generally ends up being vastly more favourable for those who are wealthier, who have more money to fund legal processes further. I can see that under your proposed system, you'd get more litigation and more injustice rather than less. Is that a concern, or is justice and fairness not really significant issues for libertarianism. Or am I missing something that would make a difference?

The concept of invididuals owning water seems incredibly problematic to me, when water systems are usually enormous, and usuage is going to impact on so many people, not to mention whole eco systems which can be damaged. Would your system have any laws around what people can and can't do with 'their' water? ie would there be limits?

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Friday, August 9, 2013 12:40 PM

Sig, I surely hope this guy in Virginia wins and implements his LIBERTARIAN, stand on your own, self-reliant platform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state

Wikipedia lists VA as 48th out of 52 (DC, Puerto Rico, and 50 states) in net tax revenue, at -$6239 per capita. The sooner they stand on their own, the less tax burden there will be on us out here in California.

Until then, he's just whining about his freedom while he's sucking on the big old Federal tit

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Friday, August 9, 2013 5:17 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Also, by 2024 I hope to have outlived you. Let's see ... by 2024 I'll be ... yes, statistically very doable. - kiki,

Since you wish me dead, I'm dead to you, and will no longer respond to your posts. - geezer

That’s just Geezer's inability to read. Again.

I didn't wish anything bad for him, merely that I wished something good for myself - that I would outlive him.

But out of curiosity I threw this against his precious NAP:

Did I CAUSE him HARM? No.
Did I CREDIBLY pose a threat, as in, do I have the means to do him harm by knowing where he lives, for example? No.
Did I threaten to DO anything bad to him in any way? No.
Did I SAY I wished him dead? No.

All I did was say I hoped to outlive him, and (given our relative sexes and ages) that it was statistically do-able.

All without violating his NAP. I guess he doesn't like it when people follow his dicta for utopia.

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Friday, August 9, 2013 7:35 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I guess he doesn't like it when people follow his dicta for utopia.

Well, he'd better get used to it, people tend to do that. (Altho I really think that he was just trying to distract from all of those annoying questions that you asked!)

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Saturday, August 10, 2013 6:19 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You went all the way to another thread to drag in ONE line (which BTW doesn't seem all THAT terrible to me?) and failed to address the significant points that KIKI brought up? (Also OBC, FREM, MAGONS, and KWICKO all brought up relevant points which you didn't address.)

I guess calumny is in the eye of the insulted.

As to not directly answering every question from you, KIKI, Magons, NOBC, Frem, Mike, and others ask, I don't have the time. Sometimes I try to roll up several sets of similar questions in one overall answer, but apparently everyone wants individual attention. I also note that I've asked folks a lot of questions that remain unanswered.

Quote:
Let's go to biodiversity... It's "owned" (insofar as land is owned) by patchwork of interests - farmers, business owners, homeowners- which divide up the land and shores in lines that are as arbitrary to nature as the political lines in Africa are to the tribes. I imagine the same for geezerland's oceans- invisible fences cutting willy-nilly across fish breeding grounds, kelp forests, coral reefs, petroleum reserves etc.

Could be. I'd expect that at the start, there'd be a good bit of litigation about who owned what, what parts of it that actually moved around (fish, e.g.) they owned, what would classify as damage to someone elses' property, etc.

Quote:
No single person "owns" it, but everybody benefits from it. BTW- You asked for proof about the benefits of biodiversity. Really??? It's not obvious to you?

Quote:
Here we describe a long-term study of grasslands, which shows that primary productivity in more diverse plant communities is more resistant to, and recovers more fully from, a major drought. The curvilinear relationship we observe suggests that each additional species lost from our grasslands had a progressively greater impact on drought resistance. Our results support the diversity–stability hypothes

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v367/n6461/abs/367363a0.html

So a biodiverse grassland is more resistant to drought. This benefits everybody? What about the folks who eat the corn or grain grown on the former grassland that's now an agricultural monoculture?

Quote:
Lets look at clearcutting. Ideally, trees should be harvested individually to reduce fuel load but still keep the soil intact. The benfits are that mudslides are mitigated, and there is no washed-down soil from cleared land, which makes stream turbid reduces fish stocks. So the benefits of NOT clearcutting accrues to people downslope or downstream, but the costs accrue to the landowner. However, it only takes one owner in the drainage system to ruin the streams for everyone, and only one owner upslope to cause mudslides.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/
2008674714_glenomaslides27m.html

So the owner of the property upstream damages your property? As noted ad nauseum, he'd have to restore it.

Quote:
Wetlands slow down floods, filter nutrients out of the water before it flows into the river (and thence to estuaries, bays, deltas, and the ocean), absorb carbon, and recharge aquifers. Protecting and reconstructing wetlands would require that many farmers set aside land around each ditch, stream, creek, and river to form a contiguous and "working" whole, and agree to forgo pesticides, tilling practices, and excess fertilizers which will poison the system downstream. Again, one holdout can ruin a large part of the system.

And again, you damage my property, you have to fix it. Most reasonable folks would understand that if the alternative is doing simple stuff like leaving natural strips around watercourses, it'd be cheaper to do so. The unreasonable would pay.

This would be a good spot to note that "would pay" applies to the individual, or individuals, that damage your property. The corporation is not responsible. The people who run it are. No corporate personhood.

Quote:
The same with the ocean, and the shorelines, There are breeding areas that restock the oceans with fry. In Geezerland, somebody (or several somebodies) who "own" these areas could destroy the fishing stock for everybody by deciding that they need to get SOME economic benefit from their stake, and fish out all of the small fish. According to YOU, it would be NECESSARY for them to make SOME nominal "use" of the property because
Quote:
"That'd be fishing grounds... if you claim it and don't use it, you lose it, probably through litigation."

As noted above, depends on how such use litigates out.

Quote:
So, your notion that "a" landowner or even a small group of land/ocean/ shoreline-owners can protect biodiversity is poor. One needs contiguous areas which follow natural drainage systems, mountain chains, reefs, shorelines etc because animals can roam and fish can swim in and out of small "protected" areas, and water flows everywhere. Conservation is a problem, but it is not about to be tackled by individuals, and seems to be actively discouraged in Geezerland.

The Appalachian Mountian Club of Maine owns about 100 square miles of conservation and recreation land, with easments guaranteeing public access for recreation in perpetuity. http://news.cision.com/appalachian-mountain-
club/r/appalachian-mountain-club-s-maine-woods-ski-network-is-the-largest-in-new-england
-for-lodge-served--,c9200817

Sure I could find others like this.

Then again, in a possible change to libertarian government, if the interest of the people was there, the government might be allowed to keep particular areas of wilderness or biodiversity in common for all, or distribute them to private voluntary associations that would contract to keep them natural and grant access for recreation - probably for a fee.

Quote:
You failed to address the idea of the "company town". These developed in remote, isolated areas which had so little to do with gummint that they paid in their own scrip. It doesn't take a government to create a monopoly... isolation, or economies of scale, profit, and competition will do that quite nicely.

I haven't addressed lots of things. The folks who wrote the Constitution didn't address school discrimination. You deal with stuff like that as it comes up, based on the establishing principles of your government.

I imagine it's sort'a like Thomas Jefferson (not that I'm comparing myself to Jefferson) sitting there working on the Constitution, and a fellow walks up and says, "But Mr. Jefferson, your Constitution says nothing about the Yuan/Dollar exchange rate, and its effect on trade with the Peoples Republic of China. This government will never work".

Quote:
So, speaking of money... nobody asked about currency. Money is ubiquitous and convenient for trade. Which entity has the right to make it?

Who knows? At various times, governments, private banks, and businesses have all made currency. Some folks support hard currency only. In this electronic age, there are various e-currencies. Any means of exchange based on the value of a particular commodity could work. Lots of possibilities.

Quote:
Quote:
Yep. And I can only buy Miller Lite and Taco Bell.
I can buy bottled water at the grocery store, but I'm not about to buy bottled water to water my lawn, wash my clothes, take showers; or irrigate my fields, and water my stock. Water use depends on a CONTINUOUS HIGH VOLUME delivery system.

So? Can't other folks run pipes, or truck water in? Oh. I forgot. You own all the water and all the pipes and all the trucks and all the roads and all the gas and all the land and all the sky and all the air and all the vacuum in space.

Still not buying it.

Quote:
Not really. The Propertarian flavor of Libertarianism, which I like, does support private property, but also espouses the emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association.-geezer

So, when the two conflict, which system of ethics comes out on top?

The system of ethics that espouses the emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. If you want to found a Libertarian Socialist enclave in Geezertopia, I'd buy from and sell to you. Obey the system of ethics that espouses the emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association, and honor your contracts, and we're good.

Quote:
More what I'm looking for. However, even under libertarian socialism, "individualism" is not likely to be practiced as much as you think. The ability to do what you want with your "stuff" is likely to be controlled by some sort of collective- either a city council, or a producers/ users collective.

Yep. But you voluntarily put yourself under that control. "Right of voluntary association". You might even contract to do so, I'd expect with some set time limit.

Quote:
Regarding libertarian's "fancy words": unsolicited actions, right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership, independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression and harm for EVERYONE... that only works when individuals are pretty much independent from each other... when they own sufficient PROPERTY to meet their own needs.

Cites? Proofs? Just askin'.

Fancy words like "Emancipation" seem to work somewhat when most everyone believes in them. Folks have died for words like that. Don't see any reason that "right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership, independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression and harm for EVERYONE", couldn't arouse such emotion.

Quote:
Otherwise, everyone is forced into associations they probbaly don't like (Do you really LIKE your co-workers, your boss, and your customers?)

Never said you had to LIKE it, just that you enter into it voluntarily. I very seldom liked working, but as a responsible person, I knew that I had to earn the resources to provide for myself.

Quote:
Quote:
You yourself said that you don't expect to see libertarianism taking hold until most people are libertarian. But if people become as self-interested as you think they should be, this transition won't take place until most people actually own something of value, and wealth is more-or-less evenly distributed. Our economic history is really trending the other way, so it seems that libertarianism is a dead issue.- signy

Not sure about that. I think it would have more to do with folks thinking they had a better chance of getting ahead.-geezer

How? We're already living in a world where half of wealth ownership is in the hands of about 700 people, and 90% of is in the hands of the top 5%. Where is the opportunity, and how does it apply to the majority of the people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_concentration

Yet people do establish new businesses, and invent new things, and develop new ideas. Hard to say how a libertarian society would come about. Who'd have believe the American colonies could gain independence from the world's greatest superpower of the day? Sorry for having hope.

Quote:
Propertarianism might work in a frontier state, where staking a claim was all that you needed to get ahead. But now that much of the world is already owned, and the rest is already controlled by other interests, there is no "frontier" to run to. As I said, I think libertarianism is a no-win policy for the vast majority of people.

I might observe that apparently you think any form of government is a no-win policy for the vast majority of people. Why more trouble with Libertarinism?

Quote:
Just for fun, here's the site of the Libertarian candidate for Governor of Virginia. http://www.robertsarvis.com/
Tell me what you think of his platform.

Okay, I'll look.

Quote:
Quote:
So I'll ask you again, what's your solution? I can't get any response from you to even a simple question on your "Answer to the world's problems" thread.
Whatever the solution is, it's not libertarianism. It's also not corporatism. State socialism may be PART of the answer because some things can only be done on broad scale, like maintaining a currency and banking system, and responding to regional issues like watershed management and navigation. But I prefer that agency be pushed downward as much as possible, so I envision a mix of individual and communal rights and responsibilities, size dependent on the problems that they are trying to address.

So what's your ethical component for this? As noted, Libertarianism's (pretty much all flavors) is unsolicited actions, right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership, independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression and harm for EVERYONE.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Saturday, August 10, 2013 6:36 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Charter schools don't do any better than public, and because they don't have to take EVERYbody, they get to "cherry pick" the best students. You'd think they'd do better than that.

Briefly on this point.

Don't know about everywhere, but when D.C. tried school vouchers, the cost per pupil of the public schools was between $16,000 and $30,000 per student, depending on who you ask, and the public schools had all their physical facilities already built. The vouchers averaged $7,500 and charters had to obtain property, furniture, equipment, etc. Seems like a stacked deck.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Sunday, August 11, 2013 6:48 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Well, it wasn't a wish for him to be dead.

"I guess calumny is in the eye of the insulted."

calumny, definition: A false statement maliciously made to injure another's reputation. 2. The utterance of maliciously false statements; slander.

And it's not calumny, either.

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Sunday, August 11, 2013 6:56 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Regarding libertarian's "fancy words": unsolicited actions, right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership, independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression and harm for EVERYONE ... that only works when individuals are pretty much independent from each other... when they own sufficient PROPERTY to meet their own needs.-signy

Cites? Proofs? Just askin'.-geezer

Are you effing kidding me??? It's just logic that leads to that conclusion.

Examining three of those "rights:

The "right" to self-determination is only meaningful when you have many options to choose from. But if you have no resources and you're left with the choice of work for a wages that will let you starve slowly, or don't work and starve faster you will probably choose to starve more slowly. It may be "voluntary" but is it REALLY "self-determination"?

Choosing the next word, "independence", the "right" to independence only applies when you do not "depend" on anyone or anything... in other words, when you're so well-off that you can live self-sufficiently, without societal input such as trade, roads etc.

You demonstrated this point yourself, in your discussion about "freedom of association"... you are "free" to choose working with people you dislike, when the other option is to not work. Let me extend this - You are "free" to work with people who demand sex as a job requirement, when the other option is "no job at all".

It's the same with every "right" that libertarianism supposedly grants - those rights are empty for the poor because they can't exercise them, and pointless if already acquired through wealth. Let me repeat that: Every "right" that libertarianism grants is a "right" that the wealthy already have, and a "right" which the poor do not have and never will have under your system. There is no floor below which the poor cannot fall. So, OOC, since people "own" themselves... can they "sell" themselves into slavery? Or does libertarianism require that people only rent themselves out by the hour?

Quote:
Fancy words like "Emancipation" seem to work somewhat when most everyone believes in them. Folks have died for words like that.

So libertarianism is a religion, just like socialism and uptopianism, which can't be explained to the majority of the people as to how it will benefit them. And you're hoping that enough people will be bamboozled into believing your religion so they will vote for a system that benefits you and people like you (ie the well-off), but not them. Got it.

Quote:
So what's your ethical component for this? As noted, Libertarianism's (pretty much all flavors) is unsolicited actions, right to self-determination and the principle of self-ownership, independence, political freedom, right of voluntary association, and freedom from aggression and harm for EVERYONE.

As I pointed out earlier, those "rights" are meaningless without the capacity to enforce them. But as written, libertarianism does not enforce rights for the non-propertied.

In all of your detailed explanations about resolving property disputes, none of your posts address the concerns of the un-propertied: those who own nothing except their bodies. There is no inalienable right to life, such as the right to clean water, clear air, and the right to a job. Therefore, in your system, non-propertied individuals are "free" to starve to death, while the complacent and well-protected property-owners wash their hands with the cleanser of non-involement, and the state smiles down benevolently.

Also, in libertarianism, it's all about individual property. But many problems can't be solved by your system. We live on a planet that doesn't care about people's fantasies, or where we've so neatly drawn property lines: when the hurricane comes, or the sea rises, or global warming shrivels all crops in the midwest, libertarianism will be seen as the conceit that it is. Many problems- especially large ones- require extensive, collective, focused solutions- the kind of effort that libertarianism is especially designed to thwart.

Also, hubby points out that any state which is large enough to "enforce" property rights is - of necessity- large enough to take them away. He says that you would benefit from taking a course in logic and rhetoric, or a course in physics (if you're feeling ambitious). He also said that the notion of "property" is a sweet poison which fills you with satisfaction. But once you think in terms of "ownership", you start thinking that your property could be "taken away". It is the basis of a rentier economy- one on which owners "make money" on the basis of sheer ownership (finacialism, rent) rather than production. "Ownership" is the basis of the pathology of the wealthy that KIKI pointed out in "SignyM's answer to the world's problems". You keep polishing that button of thought about ownership and property, but haven't performed a self-critique, nor made it relevant to the real world.

Again, I will not convince you, and you will not convince me. I think libertarianism is morally abhorrent, but I've learned a lot about libertarianism, and I appreciate your responses.

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Monday, August 12, 2013 3:08 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Again, I will not convince you, and you will not convince me. I think libertarianism is morally abhorrent, but I've learned a lot about libertarianism, and I appreciate your responses.

Okay. Let's call it.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Saturday, August 17, 2013 8:44 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, re-reading this, this is what I get out of the discussion:

As Mal4 pointed out, Geezer's entire contention is that if enough people (80% is the figure he put out) believe the way he believes, then the society will create a durable optimum for all.

There are serious problems with his contention. The first is whether a society can exist where 80% of people find his exact vision of utopia to be compelling.

The second is that even within the framework he posits, there are significant gaps and conflicts (for example the commons and the 'rights' of ownership regarding it), without invoking any other forces . He has no resolution for these inborn gaps and conflicts except to say he has faith 'the system will provide' (which frankly sounds like religion).

The third is that he has no understanding at all of a systematic drift that - even if slight - will dominate the end state of his utopia > given enough time <. It's the point that SignyM keeps bringing up over and over, and that Geezer is so completely unable to grasp that he can't address the question, let alone try to formulate an answer.

So I'll take a stab at describing it:

Assuming 80% of people believe in Geezer's utopia and are willing to do what it takes to maintain it
- to spend the extra money for the sole purpose of keeping a competitor in business rather than buy from the vendor with the lowest prices
- OR alternatively to develop your own item (assuming that's possible)
- OR alternatively to do without (assuming it's not a necessity)
- to keep the government as an honest broker rather than as a tool of the more monied by spending their own time, effort and money to investigate and publish the sources of money and influence, and the past dealings of people running for office as a minimum for a fair vote
- to be able to insist the government fairly resolves disputes between single individuals/ small groups vs large numbers of people and/or large and/or wealthy organizations, rather than succumb to a majority/ powerful side
- to voluntarily come together in sufficient numbers and expend sufficient resources to maintain the human, infrastructure and technological commons
- to adjudicate the use and maintenance of the environmental commons ...
- etc

So, at this point there is a large majority of people who will mind other people's business enough that they will use their time, effort and resources to take active steps to not let themselves or their neighbors be infringed on.

That leaves a 20% minority who don't follow the rules. Will they ALL be brought to heel by the power of the people? The answer is no, since nothing is perfect. So let's assume a failure rate of bringing those people in line of 0.1%, which most would consider a very small number. Therefore there wiil be 0.1% of 20%, which is is 0.02%, of people who will have accumulated a non-libertarian amount of property and/or power. At the next generation, there will be 80% - .02% base population, 20% of those will be slackers at libertarianism and 0.1% of them will get away with it ... and so on. It doesn't matter how gradually it happens, or how quickly - the endpoint is that there will come to be a population of rich powerful people who do NOT follow the libertarian model, and who will have accumulated enough to be beyond its strictures.

SignyM's question is a reasonable one - what then? If the libertarian model doesn't respond to that process of partial but repeated failure, it will eventually succumb to its imperfections. That's the second point where Geezer's argument fails, and he falls back on a very religious-sounding statement of faith that it just wouldn't happen. Amen.

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Saturday, August 17, 2013 9:07 PM

and
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?481683-Europe-crumbles-und
er-the-devastating-Impact-of-Mass-Immigration

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, to get back to the SYSTEMATIC problems of various economic/ social systems:

As I've posited a few times already, the very fact of an accumulation of resources by a very few is BY ITSELF the cause of a lot of social pathology. I think there's enough human and non-human studies that back that up as an idea for consideration.

To prevent that, I've proposed a system of taxation that will remove that accretion from individuals and organizations. The virtue of this proposal is that it's not extreme - it doesn’t propose the destruction of money, the dissolution of banks, stock markets etc ... instead it uses a very familiar mechanism to achieve the goal.

I'm curious what other people think.

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:38 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

Libertarianism is a stand against the Obama, O'rielly McCain BS

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Tuesday, November 10, 2015 3:17 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

Winner, winner chicken dinner. You're exactly right.

have you seen the latest from the alternative conspiracy heads and libertarians?

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Tuesday, November 10, 2015 9:51 AM

THGRRI

Wrong link for your immigrant post JANEZSTOWN

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Wednesday, July 13, 2022 8:02 PM

JAYNEZTOWN

a better option than Green Party?

https://www.axios.com/local/raleigh/2022/07/08/nc-green-party-november
-election

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Thursday, July 14, 2022 2:50 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

wow, we used to have good discussions here!

In re-reading parts of the thread, I think I still stub my toes on whether libertarians can't decide whether it's about property or liberty. If it's about protectingproperty rights, then it will protect the most propertied.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Thursday, July 14, 2022 3:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
wow, we used to have good discussions here!

In re-reading parts of the thread, I think I still stub my toes on whether libertarians can't decide whether it's about property or liberty. If it's about protectingproperty rights, then it will protect the most propertied.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

I was thinking the same thing. I learnt a lot even if I didn’t necessarily agree

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Thursday, July 14, 2022 5:32 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by MAGONSDAUGHTER:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
wow, we used to have good discussions here!

In re-reading parts of the thread, I think I still stub my toes on whether libertarians can't decide whether it's about property or liberty. If it's about protectingproperty rights, then it will protect the most propertied.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

I was thinking the same thing. I learnt a lot even if I didn’t necessarily agree

Me too. I wouldn't have come to what I think is the essential conundrum about libertarianism if ppl hadn't hung with me while I re-approached the discussion many times from many angles, asking the same or similar questions with different emphasis. I especially appreciated GEEZER's posts bc he clearly favored libertarianism but didn't devolve to a flame war as he responded to my many examples and honed my thoughts.

How's life down under, MAGON's? It's early winter there for you. Life and weather treating you well?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Thursday, July 14, 2022 10:30 PM