Are there any self-identified libertarians left? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Classical liberalism. The individual before the state, non-interventionist, free-market based society.
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#14446127
mikema63 wrote:Many seem to have jumped ship after the elections, or turned to different ideologies.

Taxi is a monarchist now for instance.

Which elections?

Indeed I am monarchist. I don't identify as a libertarian any longer, though I am still in favour of laissez-faire economics. As far as law and order, international relations and military matters go I don't believe an-capism is viable, for those spheres of interest government is necessary and a monarchy is best.
#14446175
I believe in a (long term pragmatic process that leads us to a) minimal government with strong rights to private property, free markets, and minimal central regulation. One big difference between this and a modern neo-Lockean right-libertarian view is that I believe that only property which accords to the Lockean Proviso is legitimate, and I also believe that as you get further away from self-possession, who is breaking the NAP becomes less and less clear cut, so I would support weak absentee ownership and enforcement of contract, thereby making kinds of expropriation legitimate, leading to something which could be called free market socialism (though not in the Marxist sense). Co-operatives in a free market.

I believe that if we transform unowned things into property with our labor, then the labor of so many workers gives them a good claim to their factory as their project, against the boss's claim that it is his because he acquired it voluntarily. Property is fluid on the basis of labor, just as it stems from labor in the first place.

The other difference is strategic: I don't believe that we are likely to be able to have a libertarian society by convincing people to minimize government just willy nilly. I believe a technical solution, whereby government services become more and more automated, making them cheaper and cheaper, and detaching them from the tax base, until they simply become public good services without a coercive backbone.

Significant numbers of people accepting free markets as they are and being willing to cut taxes and reduce government spending sounds way more unlikely.

....

tl;dr

I believe in classical liberal principles in the general sense, but I think that non-violent "expropriation" by factory workers through sitdown strikes and then homesteading is legitimate, and I also think that we need technical solutions to achieving classical liberal outcomes rather than simply philosophizing our way there.

That given, we probably still align on basic questions about whether a more individualistic, free society is desirable.
#14446674
Saeko wrote:No, they were all wiped out in the purge. And good riddance.

Nunt wrote:Why always so hateful towards libertarians. Sure, we don't believe in the same ideals but I have always been curteous on these forums.

I think Saeko was being ironic. After all, communists and fascists have actually had purges where thousands or even millions died.
#14446704
Nunt wrote:I am specifically asking about the libertarians ranging from minarchist-classical liberal beliefs to ancap beliefs?

More often than not I feel like I am the only one who is defending such views here. So who is still left?

Ancap-libertarian here. Haven't been checking in on the forum as often over the past couple of months though due to the business and my social interests taking up more of my time.

Although I've learnt a lot from this site, no-one has been able to posit credible arguments against the core philosophies (and indeed have reinforced them). Primarily I been sent off in the direction of fleshing out the history and workings of the social aspects of a voluntarist society as opposed to the "cold" economic rationalist side of things.
#14446710
Although I've learnt a lot from this site, no-one has been able to posit credible arguments against the core philosophies


It's almost impossible to discredit value judgements, for instance mine have never changed this entire time. Philosophy (in so far as you refer to philosophy proper) is similarly hard to discredit when you already believe in it. Thats really the problem with lots of politics.
#14446712
mikema63 wrote:It's almost impossible to discredit value judgements, for instance mine have never changed this entire time. Philosophy (in so far as you refer to philosophy proper) is similarly hard to discredit when you already believe in it. Thats really the problem with lots of politics.

Yes and no. Some truths are universal. This is true in philosophy and logic as well. Whether or not you accept them is different. Many people don't accept the truth of evolution for example. The specifics may be debatable (or subject to further inquiry) but the fundamental principles are untouched.

BTW Some of your comments are what led me to actively thinking about and researching the "social" aspects. So thanks for that. It has been enlightening
#14446720
Voluntarism wrote:Ancap-libertarian here. Haven't been checking in on the forum as often over the past couple of months though due to the business and my social interests taking up more of my time.

Although I've learnt a lot from this site, no-one has been able to posit credible arguments against the core philosophies (and indeed have reinforced them). Primarily I been sent off in the direction of fleshing out the history and workings of the social aspects of a voluntarist society as opposed to the "cold" economic rationalist side of things.


How does an Ancap-libertarian/Voluntarist determine what can be and what can't be someone's property? How do you determine that Joe has more of a right to the crude oil at site X than Tim? How do you determine that Mr. Monocle has more of a right to the land than his tenant farmers? What gives one person more of a right to land or a natural resource than another? What is the basis of such property? Let's see some of that core philosophy.
#14446730
Paine wrote:How does an Ancap-libertarian/Voluntarist determine what can be and what can't be someone's property? How do you determine that Joe has more of a right to the crude oil at site X than Tim? How do you determine that Mr. Monocle has more of a right to the land than his tenant farmers? What gives one person more of a right to land or a natural resource than another? What is the basis of such property? Let's see some of that core philosophy.

This has been done to death in a variety of threads, but for your benefit I'll knock together a few basic elements for you. As Murray Rothbard said: "The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the "nonaggression axiom." "Aggression" is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion."

The nonaggression principle is dependent on property rights, since defining what aggression is depends on what our property rights are. If you hit me, it is aggression because I have a property right in my body. If I take from you the apple you possess, this is trespass — aggression — only because you own the apple. One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim.

A system of property rights exists to assigns a particular owner to every scarce resource. Without property rights, there is always the possibility of conflict over contestable (scarce) resources and under the NAP this is invalid. As Hans Hermann-Hoppe has shown, the assignment of ownership to a given resource must not be random, arbitrary, particularistic, or biased, if it is actually to be a property norm that can serve the function of conflict-avoidance. Starting with the universal right of self-ownership, this property right claim is valid because the person themselves has the best claim on the property of their person which avoids conflict and permits the peaceful, productive use of the resource in question. It is also universalizable.

In terms of external property, then, as Kinsella said "Unlike human bodies external objects are not parts of one's identity, are not directly controlled by one's will, and — significantly — they are initially unowned. Here, the libertarian realizes that the relevant objective link is appropriation — the transformation or embordering of a previously unowned resource, Lockean homesteading, the first use or possession of the thing. Under this approach, the first (prior) user of a previously unowned thing has a prima facie better claim than a second (later) claimant, solely by virtue of his being earlier." The acquisition of external objects is indeed fundamental to maintain and further one's life. Hence, the right to ownership of external objects is automatically implied by the right of self-ownership and the deprivation of owned property is an act of aggression.

Hence, back to your question. The only assignment of external property titles that is not random, arbitrary, or particularistic and which is assigned based on an objective, ascertainable link between an owner and the resource claimed, is one that is based on Lockean "first-use-first-own" and contractual transfer of title. Latecomers' claims are inferior to those of prior possessors or claimants, who either homesteaded the resource or who can trace their title back to the homesteader or earlier owner.

(Note also, the distinction between ownership and possession. The first is the right to control, use or possess a resource while the latter is just the physical control of the resource.)

On a final note, non-scarce things where my subsequent possession of something that you own does not infringe on your rights or alter your continued ability to own the thing does not constitute aggression. This is why intellectual property is not regarded as "true" property by libertarians.
#14446733
Voluntarism wrote:This has been done to death in a variety of threads, but for your benefit I'll knock together a few basic elements for you. As Murray Rothbard said: "The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the "nonaggression axiom." "Aggression" is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion."


Why is this given the status of an axiom? Seems like a completely arbitrary and unproven claim to me...
#14446735
Saeko wrote:Why is this given the status of an axiom? Seems like a completely arbitrary and unproven claim to me...

As far as I know I don't think Rothbard himself ended up doing so clearly but his student Hans-Hermann Hoppe did. No doubt people have written summaries to Hoppe's writings by now, but as I don't know where they may be I'll instead refer you to Chapter 11, "From the Economics of Laissez Faire to the Ethics of Libertarianism" in his book "The Economics and Ethics of Private Property". (Skip ahead to Sections II and III.) A free PDF is available HERE

His argumentation method is by excluding all other possible options - which are quite exhaustive (and exhausting to read) so I won't post here - and ends with "Hence, one is forced to conclude that the libertarian ethic not only can be justified and justified by means of a priori reasoning, but that no alternative ethic can be defended argumentatively." (Edit: A basic reason is possibly universalizability.)
#14446829
All rational arguments for philosophies have starting points which aren't rational. The starting point is basically a value judgment, in this case; aggression against muh property is evil (although arguably this itself stems from the lower judgment that people need things to live). You have to have some sort of initial preference to then use logic to create a system which will allow that preference to be extant. Goal and method.

As mikema63 notes, you can't really discredit the axiom of a philosophy. You could disagree with it, but all you are saying is that you use a different axiom. We have to argue about methods and outcomes, because these we can put rationality to. Someone could be mistaken about the actual realities of the ways markets work and so on.
#14446896
Voluntarism wrote:As far as I know I don't think Rothbard himself ended up doing so clearly but his student Hans-Hermann Hoppe did. No doubt people have written summaries to Hoppe's writings by now, but as I don't know where they may be I'll instead refer you to Chapter 11, "From the Economics of Laissez Faire to the Ethics of Libertarianism" in his book "The Economics and Ethics of Private Property". (Skip ahead to Sections II and III.) A free PDF is available HERE

His argumentation method is by excluding all other possible options - which are quite exhaustive (and exhausting to read) so I won't post here - and ends with "Hence, one is forced to conclude that the libertarian ethic not only can be justified and justified by means of a priori reasoning, but that no alternative ethic can be defended argumentatively." (Edit: A basic reason is possibly universalizability.)


His whole argument is based on the practicalities of two people literally arguing with each other, but not on the properties of arguments in and of themselves. His whole idea seems to be that you "can't" have an argument with another person unless you "accept" (which apparently means to not flagrantly violate) the NAP. But that breaks down as soon as you realize that arguments exist independently of any debate between two people, and certainly one person may consider many arguments. Specifically, I can argue against myself about the NAP by thinking "Well, I don't see any reason to believe the NAP that holds any water, so I don't think I should believe it", and quite obviously I just disagreed with the NAP without aggressing against myself. Furthermore, just because one happens to comply with some ethical principle in one instance, does not mean that they accept it in general, and also just because someone doesn't accept a certain ethical principle does not mean that one has to violate it constantly.

ThereBeDragons wrote:That's what axioms are.

If you could prove them they wouldn't be axioms.


Not quite. Some claims in mathematics which were once thought to be axioms have been shown to be provable from simpler axioms. Axioms should also be statements which are considered to be intuitively true and also very simple. I just don't agree that the NAP is true.

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