[GandalfTheGrey]

Chomsky has an uncanny knack of giving you that "hmmm I never thought of it that way" feeling.

I was particularly interested in this idea that American libertarianism completely opposes the classical libertarian idea of having right to access information - thus creating an effective tyranny.

The rest of the interview is definitely worth a read - and expands on this concept that the American system is specifically designed to protect and consolidate the tyranny of big business - the less than 1 per centers. His example of how the contracts for the CEO's bonuses had to be honoured, but the contracts to honour teacher's pensions didn't - I found particularly outrageous.

Libertarianism has a special meaning predominantly in the United States. In the United States, it means dedication to extreme forms of tyranny. They don’t call it that, but it’s basically corporate tyranny, meaning tyranny by unaccountable private concentrations of power, the worst kind of tyranny you can imagine.

It picks up from the libertarian tradition one element, namely opposition to state power. But it leaves open all other forms of — and in fact favors — other forms of coercion and domination. So it’s radically opposed to the libertarian tradition, which was opposed to the master servant relation.

Giving orders, taking orders — that’s a core of traditional anarchism, going back to classical liberalism. So it’s a special, pretty much uniquely American development and related to the unusual character of the United States in many respects.

America is to quite an unusual extent a business-run society. That’s why we have a very violent labor history. Much more so than comparable countries, and attacks on labor here were far more extreme. There are accurate libertarian elements in the United States, like protection of freedom of speech, which is probably of a standard higher than other countries. But libertarianism is designed in the United States to satisfy the needs of private power.

Actually, it’s an interesting case in connection with the media. The United States is one of the few countries that basically doesn’t have public media. I mean, theoretically, there’s NPR, but it’s a highly marginal thing and is corporate funded anyway. So there’s nothing like the BBC here. Most countries have something or other. And that was a battleground, especially when radio and television came along.

The Founding Fathers actually were in favor of different conceptions of freedom of speech. There’s a narrow conception which interprets it as being a negative right, meaning you should be free of external interference. There’s a broader conception which regards it as a positive right: you should have a right to impart and access information, hence the positive interpretation. The United Nations accepts the positive interpretation, and theoretically, the US does too.

If you look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I think Article 19 says that every person must have the right to express themselves without constraint and to impart and receive information over the widest possible range. That’s the positive right.

That was a battleground in the 1930s and 1940s. Particularly right after the Second World War, there were high level commissions taking both sides. And the position that won out is what was called corporate libertarianism, meaning corporations have the right to do anything they want without any interference.

But people don’t have any rights. Like you and I don’t have the right to receive information. Technically, we can impart information if we can buy a newspaper, but the idea that you should be a public voice that people, to the extent that this society’s democratic and participatory, was eliminated in the United States. And that’s called libertarianism. Meaning mega-corporations can do what they like without interference.

https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/creating- ... -chambers/

[Joe Liberty]

Libertarians generally believe the dynamics of the marketplace will be a check on corporate power, since most corporate power actually involves a cozy relationship with government, which protects them from the pressures of competition and the full consequences of their actions. Libertarians are not so much champions of corporate power, but we recognize that a large part of that equation is government protection.

[ReallyBig]

What a bunch of nonsense. If Chomsky (who is a blithering idiot) actually knew anything about Libertarianism then he would be aware of NAP, the non aggression principle, which applies to EVERYONE, not just the state. What an idiot.

[mikema63]

You can say that, but so many libertarians never really fully consider how you would enforce the NAP against a corporation that doesn't give a fuck about the NAP and can hire mercenaries with guns. Which you can't do because taxes are evil.

[ReallyBig]

Yes because in the several economics courses I have taken so far we have learned all about corporations acting like thugs and committing atrocities to drive up sales....NOT! That kind of abuse ONLY happens when government allows business to get away with it specifically by guaranteeing them contracts and income that they have no fear of losing. This applies to countries like China where government and business are so closely intertwined its impossible to tell where one begins and the other one ends.

People would stop buying their products or sue them in court or any number of remedies that pop into mind immediately. If they can't sell a product then they lose money and they lose their power. By contrast tell me how exactly you oppose the government doing the very same things you claim might happen since they take their revenue by force and don't have to fear legal repercussions in most cases.....certainly at the Federal level which can't be sued at all.

Even assuming your Wild West world view came to be I am not sure why you think that people would be incapable of fighting back. We have the most guns per capita in the entire world and it wouldn't take much to get people pissed off enough to go after that particular corporation if they did start using hired mercenaries to threaten or kill people.

I suggest that you read up on Sandy Springs. Its how things should be run. I think the secret sauce in why this town managed to get it right while others have failed is in how they structure their contracts. They are only one year contracts and they give out several of them at a time. That way if one company doesn't hold up their end they are immediately fired and replaced by the next guy in line. The services are WAY better and they cost significantly less than using government employees and bureaucracies who as we all know generally don't give a fuck about customer satisfaction.

http://www.economist.com/node/21559633

[JohnRawls]

Your new here but this has been discussed so many times. Bottom line is that NAP is non-enforcable without the existance of strong state aparatus in the face of a military, courts and police. Even if you sack all other programs(Healthcare, education, subsidies etc). Standard function that you are outraged will still remain (tax office and taxes) because you will need to fund the state aparatus in the face of the above + legislature + local governments + federal government. (Unless you wanna sack all democratic process also).

Also regulations are not sackable, they can be removed and applied again depending on the situations but they will always exist( They exist for a reason as a balancing effect to smoothen/lighten the effects of pure capitalism ). They were implemented to prevent Socialists/Communist from coming to power. As much as you don't like Marx, Engels etc, they were correct about pure capitalism. Federal bank will probably also exist because without a stable monetary policy, the existance of large corporations is problematic (Unless you want to turn to barter system of some sort).

The existance of libertarian system is a paradox.

[Conscript]

The existance of libertarian system is a paradox.

Pretty much. They eschew the state but depend on it, and so long as the state exists at least nominally for the nation and not just to protect private property, it will work with corporations and give concessions to wage-labor, all out of national interest. Thus there will forever be 'crony capitalism'. It's part and parcel to liberal-capitalism, and the libertarians and neo-classicals will embrace and defend it regardless should any other, non-Western/anti-liberal system arise. Hell, they've even gone so far as to defend a liberal dictatorship and praise fascism.

I can only see libertarianism working if all nation-states just disappeared. This is probably why they try to set up libertarian communities without any sort of national or ethnic basis, where the state would exist for basically nothing more than to protect private property rights.

[JohnRawls]

Nation states all disappearing is only 1 part needed for libertarianism to work, human natures needs to change also (Do you really think that all will willingly follow NAP and not abuse the ability to steal, kill, rob etc when the state looses the monopoly of violance and they will get the ability purchase said monopoly of violance)

[Conscript]

Well, I think when it comes to NAP the idea is that you'd relegate state duties to the individual, who has a jurisdiction over his property-statelet or would hire private police, and people would agree to settle in private court. I don't know, it sounds awful and kind of feudal. I think communism is more feasible, but maybe I'm biased.

[Nunt]

You can say that, but so many libertarians never really fully consider how you would enforce the NAP against a corporation that doesn't give a fuck about the NAP and can hire mercenaries with guns. Which you can't do because taxes are evil.

I have heard this line of reasoning many times before.

It starts out by assuming that when an organisation gains enough money and power, it will use that power for evil and the organization cannot be kept in check by the broader society.
It then proposes as a solution that we form an organisation with enough money and power that can be kept in check by the broader society.

So which is it? Either we can keep powerful organisations in check or we can't. If we can find a peaceful way to keep the all-powerful government in check, we should be able to find a way to keep private organisations in check as well.

Nation states all disappearing is only 1 part needed for libertarianism to work, human natures needs to change also (Do you really think that all will willingly follow NAP and not abuse the ability to steal, kill, rob etc when the state looses the monopoly of violance and they will get the ability purchase said monopoly of violance)

Human nature doese not need to change. We just need to develop the correct instutitions to deter those who are willing to murder and steal. I am optimistic that this can be deceived. For example, if we look at today's governments. They are very powerful, they are the only ones with an army. If corporate leaders would be tempted to use their power for evil in a free society, then today's leaders of government would be even more tempted. So why doesn't the country's leadership listen to the courts and choose to be bound by all those rules? Why don't they use the military power that they have for evil?

Why are people so readily to assume that if a military is part of government, it will be easy to control the military? But in the same society, they assume that a private organisation will be out of control?

The fact that we can control the military, is a strong signal that we would be able to control the private organisations as well.

[Cartertonian]

It's always dangerous to oversimplify things, I know, but to me the central issue with Libertarian thought is that removal or radical minimisation of a state relies upon the rational, sensible, willing participation in the ensuing society of its citizens. You don't need rules and a controlling state if everyone knows how they should conduct themselves. The snag is that human beings are not rational, sensible or otherwise compatible with a society that does not need rules or enforcement thereof. Left Libertarians, as I see it, aspire to such a society but acknowledge that the human species is not yet ready to accept such a society, whereas Right Libertarians want to enact such a society right now.

As I said, oversimplification is dangerous, but in pretty much every exchange I've seen on Libertarianism in eight years posting here, it's boiled down to pretty much that central division. Neither Right- nor Left-Libertarianism can work with the human race right now, but Left Libertarians seem more chilled about it.

[JohnRawls]

Human nature doese not need to change. We just need to develop the correct instutitions to deter those who are willing to murder and steal. I am optimistic that this can be deceived. For example, if we look at today's governments. They are very powerful, they are the only ones with an army. If corporate leaders would be tempted to use their power for evil in a free society, then today's leaders of government would be even more tempted. So why doesn't the country's leadership listen to the courts and choose to be bound by all those rules? Why don't they use the military power that they have for evil?

Because accountability of the government depend on people trust in them that get reelected in 3-5 year cicles usually. On the other hand corporations are not elected and they are interested only in profits which in a world of utility means that if the use of military/police save them more money than the damage done by the use of said military there is nothing stopping them from doing so. Specially since they are the law now, there are no international convention that can be enforced, there are no federal governement to enforce both local and federal laws that would prevent that.

Whole premise that corporation are better at everything is not correct because some thing are not measured by simple utility(Cost-effect ratio. They are not even always good at cost-effect compared to some government programs). You can not put a cost effect ratio lets say on the Human rights convetion nor the limitation on armaments that can be used durring war. It is more simpler to do war when you can use chemical weapons, minefields, biological weapons to defeat your opponent (Very cost effective), but there is a reason why it is banned.

[ReallyBig]

Your new here but this has been discussed so many times. Bottom line is that NAP is non-enforcable without the existance of strong state aparatus in the face of a military, courts and police. Even if you sack all other programs(Healthcare, education, subsidies etc). Standard function that you are outraged will still remain (tax office and taxes) because you will need to fund the state aparatus in the face of the above + legislature + local governments + federal government. (Unless you wanna sack all democratic process also).

Also regulations are not sackable, they can be removed and applied again depending on the situations but they will always exist( They exist for a reason as a balancing effect to smoothen/lighten the effects of pure capitalism ). They were implemented to prevent Socialists/Communist from coming to power. As much as you don't like Marx, Engels etc, they were correct about pure capitalism. Federal bank will probably also exist because without a stable monetary policy, the existance of large corporations is problematic (Unless you want to turn to barter system of some sort).

The existance of libertarian system is a paradox.

Most Libertarians don't have a problem with the state existing as it has to enforce contracts, you need someone around to enforce contracts. Most Libertarians still think we need at least some military albeit heavily curtailed from what it currently is and ONLY used for national defense purposes. I believe you are referring to anarcho-capitalism which is just nuttiness taking to the extreme. Believe me I know a couple and we argue all the time. Libertarianism is not about getting rid of the state entirely it is about limiting it as much as possible and preventing the state or anyone else from using aggressive force and also removing government from our daily lives as much as possible. Regarding taxes the problem many Libertarians, at least the ones I know, are that they are completely unfair. Why should people get a discount simply because they are married? Why do some people pay higher rates while others don't have to pay any Federal taxes at all? What is wrong with a national sales tax or hell even a flat tax instead of the idiotic system that we have now? Why are we paying taxes on some services that would be less costly and provide better service if they were fee based?

All I want for the federal government to do is things like national defense that no corporation would be able to do........and that is about it. Other laws are to be handled and enforced by the States and so on down the chain with most of the power being at the municipal level. Fortunately I am winning as more and more services are outsourced. New York's Central Park has been privatized for years, most people aren't even aware of that. More and more of the government is utilizing shared services instead of just relying on shitty government employees. Costs are lower and service has improved overall. What the State government can do is enforce the contracts between the municipalities and the companies and make sure that neither the companies nor the municipalities abuse their positions and violate the citizen's rights.

As someone pointed out already there is the assumption that corporations are inherently evil. All you need to do is contrast China with Taiwan or Singapore to see the fallacy in that line of reasoning. China's government is heavily involved in their market system, often determining which companies get which jobs. Singapore and Honk Kong (for the time being at least) have far less government intrusion in their markets and we all have seen how Chinese businesses are the ones putting toxic chemicals in toys and pet foods and Chinese workers are treated far worse with ridiculously long shifts and poor working conditions compared to those in Taiwan and Singapore. Google Foxconn. You will want to throw out every electronic device in your home after you read about some of the stuff they have done.

I will be the first to admit that I am only about 80% Libertarian and don't subscribe to some of the nuttier ideas like legalizing ALL drugs including meth, cocaine etc. I also believe in maintaining a strong military because we are long passed the days of being able to quickly train up a force in a few weeks since technology is so heavily integrated in today's military. Militias won't cut it when Canada eventually invades.

An interesting read about how government is slowly moving in the direction I want to see.

http://www.phsharing.org/wp-content/upl ... rnment.pdf

[SolarCross]

Because accountability of the government depend on people trust in them that get reelected in 3-5 year cicles usually. On the other hand corporations are not elected and they are interested only in profits which in a world of utility means that if the use of military/police save them more money than the damage done by the use of said military there is nothing stopping them from doing so. Specially since they are the law now, there are no international convention that can be enforced, there are no federal governement to enforce both local and federal laws that would prevent that.

Whole premise that corporation are better at everything is not correct because some thing are not measured by simple utility(Cost-effect ratio. They are not even always good at cost-effect compared to some government programs). You can not put a cost effect ratio lets say on the Human rights convetion nor the limitation on armaments that can be used durring war. It is more simpler to do war when you can use chemical weapons, minefields, biological weapons to defeat your opponent (Very cost effective), but there is a reason why it is banned.

Corporations (by which you mean commercial enterprises*) are elected by their customers with the money they choose to pay them. Every dollar or yen is a vote to keep doing what they are doing: digging coal, making cars, selling radios, baking bread etc.

Your democratically elected government with it's politicians plying for votes to get jobs is a system that was explicitly created to behave like a market; votes are currency and the customer is king. It is as much a market now as ever was.

* Technically a corporation is a legal device for allowing property and consent to be ascribed to a name that doesn't have a life of it's own and includes all republican governments, municipalities, most charities, many social clubs, sports teams as well as commercial enterprises (which also includes worker co-ops).

[fuser]

Yeah, if money = vote, then simply put, rich people get to have more votes. No, thank you we don't want our society to regress and further proof if one needed any, why libertarianism is inherently anti poor.

[JohnRawls]

Corporations (by which you mean commercial enterprises*) are elected by their customers with the money they choose to pay them. Every dollar or yen is a vote to keep doing what they are doing: digging coal, making cars, selling radios, baking bread etc.

Isn't this what i just said in the previouse posts? So what prevents those corporation/enterprises to use violance/military force etc if the use of violence will make them more profit compared to not using it? (Be it used for stealing, destroying competition, dispersing dissent, non-compliance to security standards, better worker pensions/salaries if the people will demand it etc)

I will be the first to admit that I am only about 80% Libertarian and don't subscribe to some of the nuttier ideas like legalizing ALL drugs including meth, cocaine etc. I also believe in maintaining a strong military because we are long passed the days of being able to quickly train up a force in a few weeks since technology is so heavily integrated in today's military. Militias won't cut it when Canada eventually invades.

An interesting read about how government is slowly moving in the direction I want to see.

This is good to hear, then you are atleast a reasonable libertarian that i can argue with. The most fundamental issue of libertarianism is scapping most government, if a libertarian system will come to exist someday (Somalia doesn't count here it wasn't voluntary), then you still need to keep the core services up and runing ( Military, Police, Courts, Legislature ). Some of the other services can be scrapped though because they are remnants of the past like postal service, non-private infrastructure (energy grid, water supply etc to make it more effective and under the premise of increasing either quality of service or decreasing the price through effectivness) That i do agree on.

On the other hand there are some functions that in modern days can be still left to the government to manage or atleast highly control, like Healthcare and education (I would consider them a human need/right of sorts that you can't live without in the modern age). I know you would say that enterprise can do those sectors better than government but i would argue against that, British and French health care systems have been proven numerous times to be better than american one ( As much as you want to laugh about Obamacare there is a reason why it started in the first place, be it done correctly or not). As for education, you can not have equality without equal access to it. I am not saying here about keeping the multi-culti stuff(Because multi-culti in education is an american thing, and should not be a part of the education system at all) but about the ability of simple folk to get it who want to get it. Is it possible to keep it fully free of charge? Perhaps, but it doesnt have to be that way also. Again this is something that needs more substantative research becides simple Public-Private sector argument.

Most Libertarians don't have a problem with the state existing as it has to enforce contracts, you need someone around to enforce contracts. Most Libertarians still think we need at least some military albeit heavily curtailed from what it currently is and ONLY used for national defense purposes. I believe you are referring to anarcho-capitalism which is just nuttiness taking to the extreme. Believe me I know a couple and we argue all the time. Libertarianism is not about getting rid of the state entirely it is about limiting it as much as possible and preventing the state or anyone else from using aggressive force and also removing government from our daily lives as much as possible. Regarding taxes the problem many Libertarians, at least the ones I know, are that they are completely unfair. Why should people get a discount simply because they are married? Why do some people pay higher rates while others don't have to pay any Federal taxes at all? What is wrong with a national sales tax or hell even a flat tax instead of the idiotic system that we have now? Why are we paying taxes on some services that would be less costly and provide better service if they were fee based?

Downscaling the military is a touchy subject, in theory it is possible. In reality, it is not, especially for the United States. US works as a global police along with the other p5 countries in their respected regions. The p5 form sort of protection business for the world trade routes first and foremost, without them global trade would either collapse or suffer imensely and prevent international enterprises from functioning properly ( What is the use of goods produced in the US or China or Russia or the EU if you can't move them to places where you can sell them). Also agressive policy of nations always existed and always will exist, so downscaling of the US military will require an UPscaling in Europe. You will also start loosing allies and shipping lanes in the middle east, Africa, Central Asia and Africa because Russia and China will start taking the void along with Europe.

Regarding taxes, i mean if some function of government still remain then taxes will exist also. Usually militaries take a large chunk of the national budget along with maintaining a working government. Yes taxes will be lower but tax system in itself will still have to remain. There is no going about that. Point is, somebody needs to pay for the services that the government provides. Nowadays deppending on coutry 1 class pays more than the other. Usually middle class and the poor shoulder the majority of the bills because of their inability avoid them. Rich people, percentage wise, pay a lot less taxes than middle class and poor class. The only exception to this are inheritance laws in some countries. What scares most people away from libertarianism is the fear that have nots will start bearing FULL responsibility for all the bills while the Rich will just profit from this.

As someone pointed out already there is the assumption that corporations are inherently evil. All you need to do is contrast China with Taiwan or Singapore to see the fallacy in that line of reasoning. China's government is heavily involved in their market system, often determining which companies get which jobs. Singapore and Honk Kong (for the time being at least) have far less government intrusion in their markets and we all have seen how Chinese businesses are the ones putting toxic chemicals in toys and pet foods and Chinese workers are treated far worse with ridiculously long shifts and poor working conditions compared to those in Taiwan and Singapore. Google Foxconn. You will want to throw out every electronic device in your home after you read about some of the stuff they have done.

The examples that you give don't really work in your favour on this. As much as China is State capitalist it is not well regulated while countires like Honk Kong and Taiwan are highly regulated countries with norms for working hours, safety standards etc. The only reason companies could do that in China is because of either no oversight or no regulation. Also the example is not fully comparable, your comparing 2 countries with different levels of economical development. Its fair to compare lets say Western Europe and USA. Not South Korea and North Korea.

[SolarCross]

Isn't this what i just said in the previouse posts? So what prevents those corporation/enterprises to use violance/military force etc if the use of violence will make them more profit compared to not using it? (Be it used for stealing, destroying competition, dispersing dissent, non-compliance to security standards, better worker pensions/salaries if the people will demand it etc)

Commercial enterprises are the very epitome of civility, where there is civility they prosper, anyone who prospers becomes a target in the eyes of those that prefer to steal rather than create (political people). So if the govs give up their protection racket to the street gangs and hordes of zombie lumpen proles lead by abjectly lying demogogues (communists) then they will have to defend themselves or go bust as shops, factories and goods vehicles are trashed and raided on a daily basis and all their customers and employees are brutalised, enslaved, driven away and murdered. Vive la revolution heh. I am not saying you are wrong just you emphasis is off. Amazon, Cartright plastics, BP, or Joe Pertwee's building contractors are not warlord material, they have invested their resources and whole mindset into civilian activities but the feral hominid lurks within us all and as soon as there is any kind of power vacuum out it comes in all of us and they will have to adapt accordingly.

[JohnRawls]

You didn't give me an answer Taxizen, you just said they won't do it. There is no argument at all why they won't do it when i actually explained that those action will simply come out of their existancial basis.

[SolarCross]

You didn't give me an answer Taxizen, you just said they won't do it. There is no argument at all why they won't do it when i actually explained that those action will simply come out of their existancial basis.

They will have to tool up to protect themselves or go bust (in the most brutal sense of the word; torn apart by robbers). Biologically we all have a basically economic drive to our actions: get food, get mates, survive and reproduce. Commerical enterprises emerge as efficient ways to do that in a civilian context, where protection is basically uncontested. Those that have adapted the most to succeed in a civilian context will be the first to fail in a military context. Do you not see? Some flabbly stock broker who has adapted himself to succeed at life by figuring out how to squeeze a profit out of trades on a computer screen is going to fail hard when shiv weilding feral hominids roam the streets in hockey masks. You are worried Joe the Baker will become a warlord if the govs give up but actually it will more likely be Joe the Baker will become some lumpen prole's bitch slave. You are not wrong just your emphasis is off.

[mikema63]

I have heard this line of reasoning many times before.

It starts out by assuming that when an organisation gains enough money and power, it will use that power for evil and the organization cannot be kept in check by the broader society.
It then proposes as a solution that we form an organisation with enough money and power that can be kept in check by the broader society.

So which is it? Either we can keep powerful organisations in check or we can't. If we can find a peaceful way to keep the all-powerful government in check, we should be able to find a way to keep private organisations in check as well.

First off, evil is subjective and if we start moralizing politics we will never get anywhere.

An organization is not evil for looking out for it's interests, a corporations interest is always to profit. A corporation will use all available means that may maximize it's profits. This is not necessarily evil, but getting rid of competition and forming a monopoly charging enormously unfair prices is just one likely result.

The governments interests depend on what sort of government you create. The politicians who run the US government get most of their money, and thus their power, from corporate donations and the very rich. It is in their interests to continue to get that money. Thus most politics is run to benefit corporations and the very rich, or to maintain votes.

Both organizations simply follow their own interests, it has nothing to do with them simply getting power and doing "evil".