[Daktoria]

Is there any relationship between the idea of libertarianism and selfishness?

It's really just the opposite.

A libertarian is someone who wants to preserve the meaning of manners by NOT FORCING people to use them.

For example, it would be nice if we say "please" and "thank you" and gave hugs and kisses to each other.

However, if you force people to do that, it defeats the purpose. You don't know if people are being nice because they care, or if people are being nice because they're following the rules.

You can't love a robot.

There's also the matter of forced favors. I'm a big boy, so no, I don't need people to wipe my ass, lol.

I mean can you imagine a society where shoe shiners ran around all day on the sidewalk shining people's shoes and then claiming they're entitled to be paid for it?

[Wolfman]

No, government is not a voluntary institution; defenders of the state shouldn't pretend that this is the case.

Is someone forcing me to live under the government? Am I not free to leave if I feel so inclined? I could move to areas with no government, either in the woods, or in an unregulated area of another country such as Mexico. I am perfectly free to leave, so in what way is government participation not voluntary?

Is it safe to say that none of the ultimate goals of any ideology is possible?

Ultimate goals? No, it isn't possible. Any ideology with "ultimate goals" has them as probably impossible things that need the complete change of humanity.

Sorry to ruin the good atmosphere of discussion...

It was a thread in the Libertarian section I'm posting in. A turn to violence is unavoidable.

It's really just the opposite.

Only in your idealization of society. Historically and currently, the less government regulation into society, the worse the income inequality. There's a reason why Social Democracy is as popular as it is, because without welfare type systems (empirically) there is just an ever growing difference between rich and poor.

[Eran]

Let me first address the original post, and then some of Rei's comments.

I think eugenekop is touching on a valid and important point, though I would phrase it somewhat differently.

Every civilized system of organizing society includes means for resolving conflicts between individuals. Conflict can only arise with respect to (rivalrous) assets which I will refer to here is "property".

To enable the resolution of conflicts, every property has to have one or more people that have the final decision authority with respect to the property. Those people are the effective owners (even though some other people may have nominal ownership).

In out current government-run society, government is the effective owner of virtually all property within its jurisdiction. While our society recognizes "private property", the meaning of the concept is merely that certain additional steps must be taken by government before it can realize its effective ownership (e.g. passing a new law).

Underneath that level of potential control, democratic politics result in numerous opportunities for people to exert partial control over other people's property. Zoning, professional licensing, public hearings, IP, drug laws, and on and on, all mean that a person is likely to have only partial control over what is theoretically "their" property.

In contrast, libertarian society starts off with very crisp lines demarcating effective control. When you own a property, you really own it. Nobody can tell you what to do with your property (provided, of course, that you do not invade another person's property). Those crisp boundaries can become somewhat blurred through contractual relations.


Rei,
I don't see where, within libertarian ideology, you find any suppression of group identity. In fact, the critical significance of one group membership today - namely citizenship in a political unit - tends to come at the expense of alternative group associations.

Why bother bonding with your family, neighbours or co-workers if the answer to an increasing fraction of life's problems is coming from your government? Only so you can influence political outcomes more effectively as a group.

In a free society, without the (suffocating) safety-net of the State, people will return to natural group affiliations voluntarily.

A free society gives MUCH more power in the hands of ordinary men and women. Some people even express concern about the complexity of exerting all that power.

Another outcome which is not specifically targeted but is felt across the realm of political debate, is that it deliberately obfuscates when it speaks of the state as though it were some kind of thing separate from the civil society, as though it is a 'parasite' attached to the structure, rather than what it actually is: a command post tent over society which is actually instructed and constructed by the hegemonic class from the rear or from various positions in the field.

Perhaps you can explain the distinction between a parasite and "a command post tent... constructed by the hegemonic class..."?

I agree with you that we are being controlled by (and for the benefit of) a ruling class. I see that ruling class as being made of politicians and the politically-powerful. Some of the politically-powerful are also economically-powerful (e.g. many American industries) while some are not (e.g. teacher unions). Some of the economically-powerful or politically powerful and some are much less so.

With a new libertarian order, nobody will be politically-powerful. Economic power is very different from political power:
1. It is never truly concentrated
2. It is very fleeting, constantly changing (how many of the leading corporations 50 years ago are still leading corporations?)
3. It is based on, and requires to be sustained a never-ending race to best meet the preferences of consumers

People in a free society can only become wealthy by giving other people what they want!

The new libertarian order will see some of the existing power-players remain significant for a while, but with the elimination of the political power currently in the hands of the "titans of industry", their ability to remain such will be greatly compromised. The economy will become much more dynamic, with faster changes to, amongst other things, the composition of the economically-powerful.

Put differently, economically-powerful elements in society currently use the political system to maintain their economic power. Without that political power, they will be much less able to do so, and are likely to be replaced much more quickly.

[eugenekop]

So Eran, do you agree with me that the main goal of libertarianism is to provide a just way in which to solve conflicts between individuals in a way that maximizes personal freedom.

[The Immortal Goon]

I like to think I'll post with more detail in a bit, but right now this should be
Addressed:

Perhaps to better see it let's take Crusoe as example. Crusoe is completely free, but now Friday comes along. If Crusoe and Friday agree to live in a libertarian society, the life of Crusoe will not change very much. However if they decided to live in a democracy or Anarcho-Socialism Cruseo's life would completely change because everything Friday does will immediately affect him.

What about Friday? Why doesn't he deserve the "freedom" despite the fact he ends up doing the serving and labor?

[Eran]

So Eran, do you agree with me that the main goal of libertarianism is to provide a just way in which to solve conflicts between individuals in a way that maximizes personal freedom.

I guess, though I would be quite careful - it is difficult to quantify and compare an abstract notion like "personal freedom".

Imagine, for example, a libertarian society in which thieves who cannot pay back the amount they stole are restricted to working prisons, a solution which (as far as I know) is perfectly consistent with orthodox anarcho-capitalism.

Now consider a change in the "rules" of the society, stipulating that any act of theft is automatically forgiven after one year. Many people currently imprisoned for theft (for over one year) are now released.

Has the rule change increased or decreased personal freedom?

What about Friday? Why doesn't he deserve the "freedom" despite the fact he ends up doing the serving and labor?

Both Crusoe and Friday are free to act as they wish, subject only to the limitation imposed by the other person's property rights. Being longer established in the island, Crusoe is likely to have more property than Friday, but the principle applies equally to both.

[Wolfman]

What's to stop Crusoe from claiming the whole island as his property and from saying that Friday is violating his property rights just by standing on the beach?

[ThePublicOpinions]

Since becoming a libertarian I have became more selfish. I view this as a positive change in my life.

[The Immortal Goon]

Both Crusoe and Friday are free to act as they wish, subject only to the limitation imposed by the other person's property rights. Being longer established in the island, Crusoe is likely to have more property than Friday, but the principle applies equally to both.

How would Friday's life not change very much now that he finds himself trespassing on Crusoe's property and completely dependent on Crusoe's resources?

This is the whole problem with Libertarianism is that they get simple commodity production confused with capitalism. Crusoe isn't going to start a shop and then sit there while Friday opens up a shop, and then exchange goods back and forth. What Marx brought to understanding capitalist production, amongst other things, is keeping society in the loop. In Adam's work (and others) a loaf of bread is more important to the theory than the relations between the people exchanging the bread. This is, obviously, a vast simplification as the value of the bread that people put on it, what it means, and how people want to get a hold of it is completely dependent upon the individual.

Which is why Marx wasn't as interested in political emancipation - which bourgeois economists pontificate - but human emancipation.

[For Marx] Therefore liberal rights are rights of separation, designed to protect us from such perceived threats. Freedom on such a view, is freedom from interference. What this view overlooks is the possibility — for Marx, the fact — that real freedom is to be found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found in human community, not in isolation. So insisting on a regime of rights encourages us to view each other in ways which undermine the possibility of the real freedom we may find in human emancipation. Now we should be clear that Marx does not oppose political emancipation, for he sees that liberalism is a great improvement on the systems of prejudice and discrimination which existed in the Germany of his day. Nevertheless, such politically emancipated liberalism must be transcended on the route to genuine human emancipation.

In your example, one is the lord and the master even if it's theoretically possible to be equal - it is not actually possible. The emancipation of everyone, for Marxists, is key. Not just Crusoe's rights over those of Friday's.

[Lightman]

This is, obviously, a vast simplification as the value of the bread that people put on it, what it means, and how people want to get a hold of it is completely dependent upon the individual.

Isn't that sort of view more strongly implied by modern theories of value than Marx's LTV?

[The Immortal Goon]

The Labour To Value Ratio?

That's largely what Marx started with. Alienation and other consequences of capitalism is really where Marx started. The above quote came from explaining the Jewish Question.

[Eran]

What's to stop Crusoe from claiming the whole island as his property and from saying that Friday is violating his property rights just by standing on the beach?

Libertarian property right theory is based on "facts on the ground", not mere claims. If we assume that Crusoe and Friday's interaction is based on that property right theory, Crusoe would have had to homestead the entire island - not an easy or quick job.

If he did - if the entire island was cultivated, for example, he would indeed have every right to exclude Friday, or, which makes more sense, strike a mutually-beneficial deal based on Crusoe owning the island, but still benefiting from Friday's labour (in exchange for some of Crusoe's property).

In the more likely case that Crusoe only cultivated a small part of the island, he can only justly claim that part and no more.

Freedom on such a view, is freedom from interference. What this view overlooks is the possibility — for Marx, the fact — that real freedom is to be found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found in human community, not in isolation.

Could somebody please explain why anybody thinks there is any contradiction or even tension between freedom from interference on the one hand, and relations with other people, community, on the other hand?

Just because I am free to be isolated doesn't mean I ought or will be isolated. It merely means that the relations struck with other people, the community which is undoubtedly critical for human survival (not to mention flourishing) is a voluntary rather than a coerced one.

Consider the issue of religious observance. For centuries, states dictated religious observance to their members. Then came the American Revolution and its radical idea of separation of State and Church. A writer in the mid 18th century could have expressed concern in words to this effect:

"Freedom of religion on such a view, is a freedom from interference in your religious practice. What this view overlooks is the possibility that real freedom of religion is found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found in the worship of a religious community, not in isolation".

In the US today, people are free not to worship at all, or to worship in isolation. Yet faith-based communities flourish. In fact, they are much more vibrant part of American life than they are in Europe, with its long tradition of state-sponsored religion.

The analogy works for economic and other relations as well. The freedom to be isolated doesn't imply isolation. The freedom to choose your community doesn't imply no community.

[Wolfman]

Libertarian property right theory is based on "facts on the ground", not mere claims. If we assume that Crusoe and Friday's interaction is based on that property right theory, Crusoe would have had to homestead the entire island - not an easy or quick job.

Wasn't Crusoe there for like a year before he met Friday (it's been quite a while since I read the book)

If he did - if the entire island was cultivated, for example, he would indeed have every right to exclude Friday, or, which makes more sense, strike a mutually-beneficial deal based on Crusoe owning the island, but still benefiting from Friday's labour (in exchange for some of Crusoe's property).

Like what, slavery? Friday wouldn't own shit, has no claims to property, and has to work anyways. That sounds like slavery to me.

[The Immortal Goon]

Consider the issue of religious observance. For centuries, states dictated religious observance to their members. Then came the American Revolution and its radical idea of separation of State and Church. A writer in the mid 18th century could have expressed concern in words to this effect:

"Freedom of religion on such a view, is a freedom from interference in your religious practice. What this view overlooks is the possibility that real freedom of religion is found positively in our relations with other people. It is to be found in the worship of a religious community, not in isolation".

In the US today, people are free not to worship at all, or to worship in isolation. Yet faith-based communities flourish. In fact, they are much more vibrant part of American life than they are in Europe, with its long tradition of state-sponsored religion.

The analogy works for economic and other relations as well. The freedom to be isolated doesn't imply isolation. The freedom to choose your community doesn't imply no community.

Really, what you asked is pretty much what Marx addressed specifically in the above link, but a good enough crux of the argument might be:

The limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact that the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really free from this restriction, that the state can be a free state [pun on word Freistaat, which also means republic] without man being a free man. Bauer himself tacitly admits this when he lays down the following condition for political emancipation:

“Every religious privilege, and therefore also the monopoly of a privileged church, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons, or even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil religious duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them as a purely private matter.” [The Jewish Question, p. 65]

It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.

But, the attitude of the state, and of the republic [free state] in particular, to religion is, after all, only the attitude to religion of the men who compose the state. It follows from this that man frees himself through the medium of the state, that he frees himself politically from a limitation when, in contradiction with himself, he raises himself above this limitation in an abstract, limited, and partial way. It follows further that, by freeing himself politically, man frees himself in a roundabout way, through an intermediary, although an essential intermediary. It follows, finally, that man, even if he proclaims himself an atheist through the medium of the state – that is, if he proclaims the state to be atheist – still remains in the grip of religion, precisely because he acknowledges himself only by a roundabout route, only through an intermediary. Religion is precisely the recognition of man in a roundabout way, through an intermediary. The state is the intermediary between man and man’s freedom. Just as Christ is the intermediary to whom man transfers the burden of all his divinity, all his religious constraint, so the state is the intermediary to whom man transfers all his non-divinity and all his human unconstraint.

The political elevation of man above religion shares all the defects and all the advantages of political elevation in general. The state as a state annuls, for instance, private property, man declares by political means that private property is abolished as soon as the property qualification for the right to elect or be elected is abolished, as has occurred in many states of North America. Hamilton quite correctly interprets this fact from a political point of view as meaning:

“the masses have won a victory over the property owners and financial wealth.” [Thomas Hamilton, Men and Manners in America, 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1833, p. 146]

Is not private property abolished in idea if the non-property owner has become the legislator for the property owner? The property qualification for the suffrage is the last political form of giving recognition to private property.

Nevertheless, the political annulment of private property not only fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. The state abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these distinction, that every member of the nation is an equal participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state. Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation, to act in their way – i.e., as private property, as education, as occupation, and to exert the influence of their special nature. Far from abolishing these real distinctions, the state only exists on the presupposition of their existence; it feels itself to be a political state and asserts its universality only in opposition to these elements of its being. Hegel, therefore, defines the relation of the political state to religion quite correctly when he says:

“In order [...] that the state should come into existence as the self-knowing, moral reality of the mind, its distraction from the form of authority and faith is essential. But this distinction emerges only insofar as the ecclesiastical aspect arrives at a separation within itself. It is only in this way that the state, above the particular churches, has achieved and brought into existence universality of thought, which is the principle of its form” (Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1st edition, p. 346).

Of course! Only in this way, above the particular elements, does the state constitute itself as universality.

The perfect political state is, by its nature, man’s species-life, as opposed to his material life. All the preconditions of this egoistic life continue to exist in civil society outside the sphere of the state, but as qualities of civil society. Where the political state has attained its true development, man – not only in thought, in consciousness, but in reality, in life – leads a twofold life, a heavenly and an earthly life: life in the political community, in which he considers himself a communal being, and life in civil society, in which he acts as a private individual, regards other men as a means, degrades himself into a means, and becomes the plaything of alien powers. The relation of the political state to civil society is just as spiritual as the relations of heaven to earth. The political state stands in the same opposition to civil society, and it prevails over the latter in the same way as religion prevails over the narrowness of the secular world – i.e., by likewise having always to acknowledge it, to restore it, and allow itself to be dominated by it. In his most immediate reality, in civil society, man is a secular being. Here, where he regards himself as a real individual, and is so regarded by others, he is a fictitious phenomenon. In the state, on the other hand, where man is regarded as a species-being, he is the imaginary member of an illusory sovereignty, is deprived of his real individual life and endowed with an unreal universality.

...Hence, man was not freed from religion, he received religious freedom. He was not freed from property, he received freedom to own property. He was not freed from the egoism of business, he received freedom to engage in business.

The establishment of the political state and the dissolution of civil society into independent individuals – whose relation with one another on law, just as the relations of men in the system of estates and guilds depended on privilege – is accomplished by one and the same act. Man as a member of civil society, unpolitical man, inevitably appears, however, as the natural man. The “rights of man” appears as “natural rights,” because conscious activity is concentrated on the political act. Egoistic man is the passive result of the dissolved society, a result that is simply found in existence, an object of immediate certainty, therefore a natural object. The political revolution resolves civil life into its component parts, without revolutionizing these components themselves or subjecting them to criticism. It regards civil society, the world of needs, labor, private interests, civil law, as the basis of its existence, as a precondition not requiring further substantiation and therefore as its natural basis. Finally, man as a member of civil society is held to be man in his sensuous, individual, immediate existence, whereas political man is only abstract, artificial man, man as an allegorical, juridical person. The real man is recognized only in the shape of the egoistic individual, the true man is recognized only in the shape of the abstract citizen.

Therefore, Rousseau correctly described the abstract idea of political man as follows:

“Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.”

All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships to man himself.

Political emancipation is the reduction of man, on the one hand, to a member of civil society, to an egoistic, independent individual, and, on the other hand, to a citizen, a juridical person.

Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being has become a species-being in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular situation, only when man has recognized and organized his “own powers” as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.

[Drlee]

The role of libertarianism is to give college students an excuse to argue with professors while not so angering their parents that said parents cut off their allowance.

It is a flash-in-the-pan political movement that will not last.

[ThePublicOpinions]

Well that flash started with Aristotle so I guess... any day now...

[Wolfman]

How the hell are you going to claim that Aristotle was a Libertarian?

[Drlee]

How the hell are you going to claim that Aristotle was a Libertarian?

They claim everyone who's name appears in the Cliff notes of the books they did not read.

You forget Wolfman. There is very little real scholarship behind the moderen libertarian "movement".

[Wolfman]

I know that, it just completely dumb founds that anyone would even try to claim Aristotle is on their team, unless their whole ideology is what Aristotle said about politics.

[The Immortal Goon]

Man, Aristotle was a libertarian now? So that's, what, the Founding Fathers and the Ancient Greeks that are both libertarians all of a sudden now?

Also in this thread, since Crusoe is only truly free when he has complete control over Friday, can we just chalk libertarianism up to industrialized slavery already and be done with it?

What anybody would find appealing about an ideology that demanded that the vast majority of the population slavishly lick the hands of their masters is beyond me.

The role of libertarianism is to give college students an excuse to argue with professors while not so angering their parents that said parents cut off their allowance.

It is a flash-in-the-pan political movement that will not last.

That's about it. On SE a few years ago now a lot of the Stalinists jumped ship and became libertarians. It was so prevalent that it's a meme over there to say, "I have drastically changed ideology" - or some such variation (like, "I have drastically changed my pants.")

They were all the most militant kids. The left used to rely on kids getting on the internet and finding something cool to use to virtually rebel against the system. Now they become libertarians. Bluntly, the left is better without them.

Look at how much libertarianism has changed on this board since SmashTheState and a few others left, leaving libertarianism to the True Believers.