[Comrade Ogilvy]

I know most liberals that sit near to, and sometimes in, the libertarian spehere, such as Isiaih Berlin, stress that "liberty should not be confused with her sisters, equality and fraternity", but, there is a relationship that is consistently ignored by libertarians which make a relationship between equality and freedom unavoidably intertwined.

My question is this:

If we take freedom as a supreme value that libertarians belive in, should this freedom not be spread as widespread as possible in order for ALL to enjoy the fruits of the supreme value and enjoyment of freedom?

I am implicitly referring to "freedom to", which Berlin called "positive" liberty - if we all dont have equal acees to, then we are less free than others to do what is desired. Surely, this unequal distribution of freedom proves that libertarians love and cherish freedom, but only for themselves and not for all.

Freedom, therefore, if it is such a wonderful thing, must be availiable to all, which implies a degree of equality of freedom. If it you disagree with this, then surely you dont belive freedom is the higest value, cos you are not willing to share it with others - yet , to me, a "highest" value implies universality and a duty for all to experience.

[Noumenon]

Libertarians want to ensure only negative freedom, or freedom from others using you without your consent (slavery). It is impossible to ensure positive freedom without sacrificing negative freedom. However, ensure negative freedom, and positive freedom follows. That is called the free market. If people are free from government control, then positive freedom results when wealth is created. The wealth may not be equally distributed, but even the poor benefit. The statistics show that the poor do not get poorer, but instead somewhat richer, in the somewhat free US. Libertarians believe that if our markets were more free, the poor would benefit even more. So ensuring negative freedom allows for more freedom overall.

[SpiderMonkey]

Libertarians want to ensure only negative freedom, or freedom from others using you without your consent (slavery). It is impossible to ensure positive freedom without sacrificing negative freedom. However, ensure negative freedom, and positive freedom follows. That is called the free market. If people are free from government control, then positive freedom results when wealth is created. The wealth may not be equally distributed, but even the poor benefit. The statistics show that the poor do not get poorer, but instead somewhat richer, in the somewhat free US. Libertarians believe that if our markets were more free, the poor would benefit even more. So ensuring negative freedom allows for more freedom overall.

Population below the poverty line (according to the CIA world factbook):

US 12%
France 6.5%

(I wanted to add some more countries, but I looked at Germany, Norway and Sweden and they have 'NA%' under this heading. However, I think the example of France will be sufficient.)

This is not to mention the fact that in the US, unlike more socialised countries, things such as health and higher education are too expensive for working class people.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Population below the poverty line (according to the CIA world factbook):

US 12%
France 6.5%

(I wanted to add some more countries, but I looked at Germany, Norway and Sweden and they have 'NA%' under this heading. However, I think the example of France will be sufficient.)

This is not to mention the fact that in the US, unlike more socialised countries, things such as health and higher education are too expensive for working class people.

All right boss, to begin with, the US is nowhere close to a capitalist country. It's barely more capitalistic than western European nations. We have the highest corporate tax rate in the western world, we have a central bank that exports fiat dollars all over the world so that our government and debtors can live beyond their means, and we have a welfare system which is designed primarily to serve special interests. Hell, we spend as much on public sector healthcare (per capita) as France does! We also spend more on education that the vast majority of other OECD nations.

[Noumenon]

Unemployment rate (2004)

US: 5.6%
France: 9.6%
Germany: 10.3%
Belgium: 12.8%

Also remember that the US has a very large number of immigrants per year (more than a million), many of them poor. That keeps the poverty rate higher than it would otherwise be. France has about 50,000 immigrants per year. Its stupid to compare two mixed economies to try to prove the superiority of capitalism anyway. US is nowhere near laissez faire capitalism.

[Liberal]

We must not forget that most of the poor in the USA have higher standard of living then the poor in Western Europe. No need to compare the poverty in USA and the Third world countries. This is what a research on poverty in the States discouvered:

The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

*Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. *The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census *Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
*Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
*Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
*The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
*Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
*Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
*Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
*Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
And, yes, I belive that the negative freedom comes first. It is essencial. The positive freedom can come only as a result of the negative freedom.

[Todd D.]

I think that TAFKA DTGuittarist echoed my sentiment exactly, but I just wanted to add something.

This is not to mention the fact that in the US, unlike more socialised countries, things such as health and higher education are too expensive for working class people.

The question is: Why are these costs so high? Is it because of lack of subsidies, or is it because beaucratic and regulatory costs are so sky high that it amounts to little more than a consumer tax?

Eliminate the BS regulation of both the health and education industry, and you will see costs plummet, that's simply Managerial Accounting, not to mention that if you lower regulation to eliminate certain government protected monopolies (the FDA, the Dept of Education), competition will rise up and will ALSO lower costs. Supply and Demand, it's a beautiful thing.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

The debate should not have been distcrated in this way. My question was a philosopohcial one, which requires a philosophical answer, since any belief in econmoics is subjective and unproven, or equally, has contrary evidence on the polar hand.

I would therefore like to refocus the question:


What you consider more valuable:

1. A Higher net increase in negative liberty for a smaller group of people, or,

2. A Smaller net increase in negative liberty for a larger group of people?

[Todd D.]

Not everyone has equal "negative freedom" - should libertarians not make this an absolute aim, before furthering the negative freedom of one group.

Under a Libertarian society, negative freedom plays a central role in the ideology. EVERYONE has a right to be left alone, provided that they do not infringe upon the rights of others. There is no discrimination here, because everyone would be left alone equally. No hand outs to underprivelidged, no special treatment for people who historically have been discriminated against, everyone is equal in the government's eyes.

As a subpart of this question I would like to ask what you consider more valuable:

1. A Higher net increase in negative liberty for a smaller group of peopleor,

2. A Smaller net increase in negative liberty for a larger group of people?

3. Absolute Negative Liberty for all groups of people.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

It is not necessaily possible in implimentation for maximisation for all. For every piece of legistlation, or law, there are winners and losers. You are sugesting that all requirements of liberty can be maximised, which simply isnt possible.

[Todd D.]

Not true. Maximization of Positive Liberty is impossible, because the public sector isn't big enough, and there simply is not enough funds to provide services for every member of society.

Negative rights are different. By defenition they are "freedom from" certain things. As a result, cutting spending and cutting programs would bea way to ensure that the negative rights of all citizens are protected. It does not take increased legislation, indeed just the opposite, it requires the striking down of current legislation to ensure that every citizen has a right to be left alone by the government.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

I mean negative liberty - how can it be maximised for all?

Some people will be intruded on more than others.

For example, lower classes commit more crime, and, as wrong as such crime may be, the statistics show that this group is being but in jail more than the affluent classes.

Therefore, if you are to free that class from the state, and to make their negative freedom the same as the affluent classes - who do not commit as much crime - then surely, we must improve their condition, in order to remove the desire and imperative of their crimes, which leads to a greater infrignement on their freedom.

In other words, rightly or wrongly, their theft, say, is their free will. And to jail them for this act of free will is to decrese their sphere of liberty (free from),

Now if you concur that poverty is a major source of crime, then surely you must aim to eliminate poverty in order to reduce their free will to commit crime, which, as explained, leads, rightly or wrongly, to their inprisonment.

Their is therefore, a link between economic status and freedom from the state.

[Todd D.]

For example, lower classes commit more crime, and, as wrong as such crime may be, the statistics show that this group is being but in jail more than the affluent classes.

If they commit a crime, then they are violating the rights of others to be left alone. In essense, their disrespect for others' negative rights are forfeiting their own, regardless of the reason.

Therefore, if you are to free that class from the state, and to make their negative freedom the same as the affluent classes - who do not commit as much crime - then surely, we must improve their condition, in order to remove the desire and imperative of their crimes, which leads to a greater infrignement on their freedom.

Imprisonment is voluntary forfeiture of freedom. They de facto consent to being put in jail the moment that they violate the rights of others. I don't care the reason, it's still a violation of someone's rights. In fact, leaving them be would be a violation of OTHERS negative rights.

In other words, rightly or wrongly, their theft, say, is their free will. And to jail them for this act of free will is to decrese their sphere of liberty (free from)

A restriction of their freedom that they consented to.

Now if you concur that poverty is a major source of crime, then surely you must aim to eliminate poverty in order to reduce their free will to commit crime, which, as explained, leads, rightly or wrongly, to their inprisonment.

Of course the aim is to, to the greatest degree possible, minimize poverty.

Their is therefore, a link between economic status and freedom from the state.

Freedom from the state is not contingent upon economic status, it's contingent upon human activity.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Your last points proves the focus of mine.

You said:

Freedom from the state is not contingent upon economic status, it's contingent upon human activity.

And I say: Economic status affects human activity since it is fatally wrong, as many liberals do, to have such an atomistic conception of society, where they invisage indiduals as being able to make rational decisions, completely unaffected by surroundings - in a word, like living in a vacuum. When they commit "crimes" it may not even be there automonous mind doing it, it may be more a result of the agentic state where actions are a result of group situation, or particualr structure. Liberals have always wrongly put too much emphasis on the agency of the indivdual.

Crimes, therefore, are indeed a result of human activity, but this activity grows from a number of structural forces, both overt and covert, real and imaginary, ubiquous and remote. Such action, therefore, is not entirely voluntary and is affected by economic situation - amongsth many other things - otherwise there is no logically deduction that can explain why the working classes commit more crime. It is a direct result of their position in society, which, because of a libertarians refusal to remove, stays largely the same, thats is, poor and alienated, and the govt therefore sews in the inevitables seeds of crime for itself. In a word: reducing, indirectly, the sphere of the negative for the working class.

[Noumenon]

4. Absolute negative liberty for those who have not intruded on the negative liberty of others.

Now if you concur that poverty is a major source of crime, then surely you must aim to eliminate poverty in order to reduce their free will to commit crime, which, as explained, leads, rightly or wrongly, to their inprisonment.

There are two main ways of getting wealth: 1. through producing and free exchange with other people, and 2. Through stealing, either individually or through the force of government. I assume that the way you want to eliminate poverty is through force of government, which is just another form of theft. The poor would be a lot better off if instead of being dependent on the parasitic route (stealing or letting politicians steal for them), they became independent wealth-producers. So we need to abolish welfare, and do what we can to stop private theft (get rid of gun control laws). The poor would then have no choice but to go the peaceful and moral route of number 1, which would lead them out of poverty if they applied themselves.

I don't know how many of these poor people are committing real crimes (aggressions against the property rights/negative freedom of another), but my guess is that most of them are in prison for drug-related crimes or other victimless crimes. A libertarian society would free those innocents from state oppression.

In other words, rightly or wrongly, their theft, say, is their free will. And to jail them for this act of free will is to decrese their sphere of liberty (free from),

I don't think people should be jailed for theft. They should give the money back, and then the victim would decide on a fine up to and including the amount stolen. If they are unable to pay, they would have to earn the necessary money.

Of course this reduces the criminals negative liberty, but the criminal invaded the victim's negative liberty by stealing. So this a deterrent, it results in more negative liberty overall.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

The poor would then have no choice but to go the peaceful and moral route of number 1, which would lead them out of poverty if they applied themselves.

"If they applied themselves" - Again, here, you are suggesting they sit in their predicament because as a collective whole they have done somehting wrong, as if , such opression was somehting which they have brough onto themslevs due to, presumably, given your tone of language, some sort of laziness.

Most are born into a system that propagates itself from which there is very little escape. It has nothing to do with choices made on their part. Other than the fact that a very small minorirty of a particular dispostion, managed to escape the cycle. These are however, exceptions, not the rule.

For what reason, and I need explicit answers here, do libertaraians perceive the disaperance of such negative impacts under their ideological system. Your points thus far have been little more than the standard line of arguemnts that all libertarians use and follow, yet has little concrete weight in either the empirical of even philosophical grounds. For what reasons are the postions as such, as result of welfare capitalism, and not capitlaism itself, or less radically, the system at its stands alone now, whaetever one might call it?

[Comrade Ogilvy]

The law of "supply and demand" that Daovonnaex refers to is based on the concept of "scarcity", which means "not enough." In the example he gives, by eliminating the "price floor" on labor, you can employ more people. If you raise it from zero however, this eliminates jobs. Why? "not enough" money to serve as wages. Now, suppose that this collective group of people decided to stop being hypothetically "lazy" and seek better employment. After hard work, training, education, etc. they are now each worth more than they were in terms of wages. Their "net worth floor" has been raised in much the same fashion as the artificial "price floor," but there is still "not enough" wages to pay them, so they remain poor. Since there can only be a limited amount of "wages" in any society (since increasing it lowers its value), wages cannot be gained without getting it from other people, either "voluntarily" or not. Therefor the belief that everyone can be "not poor" would appear to be impossible, under any conditions of scarcity.

Your argument is fundamentally flawed, as it implies that the conditions of scarcity--which, contrary to the arguments of the utopian socialists (aka technocrats)--will ALWAYS exist, means that labor is a zero-sum game. Nothing could be more false, as this presumes that the entire economy is static, where "money is never made or lost. It is transferred." Just because Gordon Gekko said so, I'm afraid, doesn't make it true. Increasing wages do not reflect decreasing wages from someone else. Rather, they reflect increased productivity. Simply put, as the marginal productivity of one's labor goes it up, it gains in value NOT because the worker has somehow stolen this productivity from someone else, but because this worker is has produced more.

And most poor people know this. This is why they often don't try to get better jobs, they know it is hopeless. Many others do try on a regular basis because there are the material incentives to do so, but then become frustrated be the lack of opportunities. The "success stories" that Libertarians like to cite are very few and far between, representative of the opportunities available to such people, not of inherant human capabilities. Sorry for straying a bit off-topic, but it seemed at least bit relevant here, given your question.

Actually, most Americans, even today, in the lowest quintile of incomes, move up to the next quintile within seven years (on average), their places taken by new, struggling workers. Granted, you are correct in that most poor people never become fantastic success stories as Andrew Carnegie or Henry Ford, and that wealth WILL tend to stay with the wealthy. The wealthy have advantages in that they tend to be better educated, tend to have access to better experiences, and even tend to "breed" with better people. However, prior to the introduction of income taxation and the FTC in the US, it was rare that vast wealth stayed with any single group for a long time. Alexis de Tocqueville observed during his tours of America, "In America, fortune turns with remarkable rapidity. It is rare that wealth stays concentrated in any one family for more than three generations." Whence comes the maxim, "It takes the first generation to make the money, the second to enjoy it, and the third to lose it." I'm not saying that poor people will all become Andrew Carnegie or Larry Ellison given the removal of government created barriers. However, they will work harder, save more, and generally be more prosperous, and have a legitimate chance at becoming entrenched into the middle class.

[Noumenon]

Actually, most Americans, even today, in the lowest quintile of incomes, move up to the next quintile within seven years (on average), their places taken by new, struggling workers. Granted, you are correct in that most poor people never become fantastic success stories as Andrew Carnegie or Henry Ford, and that wealth WILL tend to stay with the wealthy. The wealthy have advantages in that they tend to be better educated, tend to have access to better experiences, and even tend to "breed" with better people. However, prior to the introduction of income taxation and the FTC in the US, it was rare that vast wealth stayed with any single group for a long time. Alexis de Tocqueville observed during his tours of America, "In America, fortune turns with remarkable rapidity. It is rare that wealth stays concentrated in any one family for more than three generations." Whence comes the maxim, "It takes the first generation to make the money, the second to enjoy it, and the third to lose it." I'm not saying that poor people will all become Andrew Carnegie or Larry Ellison given the removal of government created barriers. However, they will work harder, save more, and generally be more prosperous, and have a legitimate chance at becoming entrenched into the middle class.

And heres the evidence of upward mobility in the US:

US does have upward mobility. I don't know where your getting this "poor getting poorer" information, but it certainly doesn't apply to the US. According to a US Treasury Department study, 85.8% of tax filers in the lowest income quintile in 1979 had moved up out of that quintile by 1988. 60.1% of those in the second quintile had moved up, while only 10.9% of them became poorer and went into the lowest quintile. So why does the poverty rate remain at 11-12%? Well for one thing, the poverty threshold keeps changing, and for another, a million immigrants, many of them dirt poor, come here every year and get counted in the census as poor.

http://www.house.gov/jec/middle/mobility/fig-2.gif

...all of the quintiles' mean incomes are increasing (even after adjusting for inflation).

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie1.html

"If they applied themselves" - Again, here, you are suggesting they sit in their predicament because as a collective whole they have done somehting wrong, as if , such opression was somehting which they have brough onto themslevs due to, presumably, given your tone of language, some sort of laziness.

When you give the poor the option of of living parasitically off of others (welfare), of course they will choose that over working and being productive. I'm not calling them lazy, they're just acting in their self-interest.

Most are born into a system that propagates itself from which there is very little escape. It has nothing to do with choices made on their part. Other than the fact that a very small minorirty of a particular dispostion, managed to escape the cycle. These are however, exceptions, not the rule.

I think my evidence above pretty much disproves that.

For what reason, and I need explicit answers here, do libertaraians perceive the disaperance of such negative impacts under their ideological system.

You mean the disappearance of poverty? Libertarianism is not utopian; we realize poverty will always exist. However, we think the evidence shows that capitalism works, and it does improve the standard of living for even the poorest among us. There is no libertarian society that I can point to, and show explicitly that positive freedom improves in such a society.