The Libertarian Myth

[RobDownSouth]

I try not to cut-n-paste very often, but this systematic deconstruction of the Libertarian pseudo-philosophy was too good to pass up.

A bunch of libertarians have taken great offense at my earlier post on libertarianism in Somalia. The key part of that post was:

This, by the way, is why racism, theocracy and libertarianism go hand in hand, when from a philosophical point of view they should have little to do with one another. The negative effects of the lack of a central government are so obvious in developing countries that wherever the social order fails as in Somalia, it must have been due to bad religion, or the defect of having been born to an inferior race.

Ron Paul fans must reassure themselves that such things would never happen to white, Christian folk. They're immune from the Somali problem by virtue being of different stock and different values, you see.


The "Somalia" argument is a sore spot for libertarians. They either fall back on the old line of race and religious prejudice I outlined, or they claim that it isn't true Libertarianism, you see: it's anarchy. True Libertarians believe in just enough government to protect private property and personal safety; without those protections, they argue, anarchy ensues.

The only problem for libertarians is that they cannot point to even a single current or historical example of a government that functions as they imagine it should. They have no concrete, real world examples, so they ply their arguments in a theoretical construct.

Each and every example of places with little centralized government is dismissed by libertarians as an anarchistic situation, not a "true" Libertarianism. It's the "no true Scotman" fallacy, Ron Paul edition. The hellish situation in Afghanistan is blamed on 30 years of war and tribal anarchy, rather than the lack of a central government. The case of Somalia is blamed again on war, on American intervention, and again on tribal anarchy. Historical examples of feudalism arising in the absence of a centralized state, or the repeated Dark Ages that arise after civilization collapses, are dismissed as either irrelevant to the modern world or invalid because of war and anarchy. The fact that corruption and the Mafia are more prevalent in southern Italy where tax collection and central government are weaker than in the North, is again dismissed as a cultural or anarchistic issue. It's always the same argument.

Libertarianism, in other words, is infallible. Wherever it fails, it does so because the people weren't ready for it, or there was too much violence to allow it to work, or because the government wasn't powerful enough to protect people from harm.

Libertarians fail to realize that there has never been--and never will be--a government that functions according to their principles because it runs entirely contrary to human nature.

As any libertarian understands when it comes to statist authoritarians, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. When you decentralize and remove the modern welfare state, leaving only essentially a glorified police force in charge to protect private property and personal safety, one of two things happens:

1. The central police force turns into a right-wing military dictatorship invested in stamping out all leftist thinking, then appropriating the country's wealth for themselves and their friends (e.g., Chile under Pinochet)
   
2. All central authority and protection break down completely as power localizes into the hands of local criminals and feudal/tribal warlords with little compunction about abusing and terrorizing the local population (e.g., feudal France, Afghanistan, Somalia, western Pakistan, etc.) As I said before:

Feudalism is the inevitable historical consequence of the decline of a centralized cosmopolitan state. That's because the exercise of power by those in a position to wield it does not end with the elimination of federal authority: rather, it simply shifts to those of a more localized, more tyrannical, and less democratically accountable bent.

Urban street gangs in under-policed neighborhoods, mafias in under-taxed countries, and groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon invariably step in to fill the void where government fails.

When the Japanese government wasn't able to adequately help the population after the earthquake and tsunami, the yakuza helpfully stepped in to do it for them.

The devolution of local authority and taxation into the hands of criminal groups willing to provide a safety net in exchange for their cut of the action is the invariable pre-feudal result of the breakdown of the government-backed safety net. It happens every single time. The people will want a safety net where utter chaos doesn't prevent it: they'll either get it from an accountable governmental authority, or from a non-governmental authority of shadowy legality. Both kinds of authority will levy their own form of taxation, be it legal and official, or part of an illegal protection scheme.

...

(Bend over, AJ, Here It Comes!) Libertarianism is a philosophical game played by those without either enough real-world experience of localized, non-state-actor tyranny, or enough awareness of history to understand the immaturity of their political worldview. Unfortunately, the harm they do to the social safety net and to governmental checks and balances is all too real, and all too damaging.

David Atkins, Hullabaloo LINK

 

[1sickbastard]

As an independent with libertarian leanings, I find this deconstruction of libertarian philosophy spot on.

 

[RoryN]

Libertarians fail to realize that there has never been--and never will be--a government that functions according to their principles because it runs entirely contrary to human nature.

That's why dorks with no social skills are all over Libertarianism.

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

I try not to cut-n-paste very often, but this systematic deconstruction of the Libertarian pseudo-philosophy was too good to pass up.



David Atkins, Hullabaloo LINK

AJ will of course disagree with you.

What I want to see is someone corner him on why he doesn't donate to the Seasteading Institute and make good on his beliefs.

http://seasteading.org

 

[Monkey_Face]

Libertarians don't exist?

So, if a Libertarian bites you, you don't start digging your own well?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

From what I know about Indians, their societies were pretty much libertarian.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Yeah, this is the second of these threads in as many days, the first one was easily dispatched, this one, by a troll, so hardly worth the effort, so I offer but a couple of observations before I go.

Our Founding Fathers were LIBERALS. That's what Libertarians used to be called until the Socialists adopted the title as surely as they changed first from the Communist label and then later to the Fabian Socialist and Progressive labels.

The "opinion piece" (and boy, do these guys like Throb usually hate opinion pieces, demanding instead facts and when they don't like the facts "independent" facts) is nothing more than an exercise in ad hominem, mainly ad hominem by Circumstance (class), full of ill-defined terms like "real-world experience...."

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

From what I know about Indians, their societies were pretty much libertarian.

They had no property rights.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

They had no property rights.

Just their drugs and jeeps. I seen BILLY JACK!

 

[RobDownSouth]

Yeah, this is the second of these threads in as many days, the first one was easily dispatched, this one, by a troll, so hardly worth the effort, so I offer but a couple of observations before I go.

Our Founding Fathers were LIBERALS. That's what Libertarians used to be called until the Socialists adopted the title as surely as they changed first from the Communist label and then later to the Fabian Socialist and Progressive labels.

The "opinion piece" (and boy, do these guys like Throb usually hate opinion pieces, demanding instead facts and when they don't like the facts "independent" facts) is nothing more than an exercise in ad hominem, mainly ad hominem by Circumstance (class), full of ill-defined terms like "real-world experience...."

*laughing my ass off*

Yep, it is an opinion piece, but the author does make one salient point, a point that libertarians such as yourself cannot or will not address, namely:

Tell us one....ONE....example of a successful Libertarian government.

Of course, this is a feudal ... oops, futile....exercise, because a successful Libertarian government has never existed.

I'm bookmarkin' this thread for quick access the next time AJ starts waxin' poetic about the innate greatness of a hypothetical Libertarian gummint.

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

*laughing my ass off*

Yep, it is an opinion piece, but the author does make one salient point, a point that libertarians such as yourself cannot or will not address, namely:

Tell us one....ONE....example of a successful Libertarian government.

Of course, this is a feudal ... oops, futile....exercise, because a successful Libertarian government has never existed.

I'm bookmarkin' this thread for quick access the next time AJ starts waxin' poetic about the innate greatness of a hypothetical Libertarian gummint.

He could always help form a Libertarian government... offshore.

http://seasteading.org

 

[JohnnySausage]

Libertarians exit. It's their votes that are impotent.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Tell us one....ONE....example of a successful Libertarian government.

Having had this argument with AJ countless times, I can tell you that he regards the Articles of Confederation era colonies as such an example.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Yeah, this is the second of these threads in as many days, the first one was easily dispatched, this one, by a troll, so hardly worth the effort, so I offer but a couple of observations before I go.

Our Founding Fathers were LIBERALS. That's what Libertarians used to be called until the Socialists adopted the title as surely as they changed first from the Communist label and then later to the Fabian Socialist and Progressive labels.

The "opinion piece" (and boy, do these guys like Throb usually hate opinion pieces, demanding instead facts and when they don't like the facts "independent" facts) is nothing more than an exercise in ad hominem, mainly ad hominem by Circumstance (class), full of ill-defined terms like "real-world experience...."

Too fucking funny after your blatant display of ad Hominem (shoot the messenger) against the NYU voter fraud study yesterday. You disagreed with the facts presented and rather than find a study supporting the idea that voter fraud is a pervasive problem requiring ID laws to compensate you demanded I find an "independent study" instead of seeking out one of your own. Likely because all studies point to the same set of facts, even that of the RNLA.

You started rambling that I hadn't proved that it was racist (which I never even mentioned) or a poll tax to require specific ID to vote (which it clearly is if you have to pay out of pocket for the ID that is required to vote).

I'm still waiting for you to show me the incidence of voter fraud over the past few decades.

What was it you just said about demanding facts, then "independent" facts when you don't like the facts?

Cap'n Hypocrite to the bitter fucking end. No surprise here.

 

[zipman]

Too fucking funny after your blatant display of ad Hominem (shoot the messenger) against the NYU voter fraud study yesterday. You disagreed with the facts presented and rather than find a study supporting the idea that voter fraud is a pervasive problem requiring ID laws to compensate you demanded I find an "independent study" instead of seeking out one of your own. Likely because all studies point to the same set of facts, even that of the RNLA.

You started rambling that I hadn't proved that it was racist (which I never even mentioned) or a poll tax to require specific ID to vote (which it clearly is if you have to pay out of pocket for the ID that is required to vote).

I'm still waiting for you to show me the incidence of voter fraud over the past few decades.

What was it you just said about demanding facts, then "independent" facts when you don't like the facts?

Cap'n Hypocrite to the bitter fucking end. No surprise here.

On the bright side, at least he's consistent.

Consistently hypcritical that is.

 

[KingOrfeo]

They had no property rights.

So they were Libertarian Socialists? (That's what Noam Chomsky calls himself.)

 

[renard_ruse]

So they were Libertarian Socialists? (That's what Noam Chomsky calls himself.)

The less politically sophisticated groups were communal tribalists, which is in fact the "normal" human form of social organization historically speaking. Of course, there were more organized pre-Columbian civilizations that were very sophisticated empires as well.

Libertarianism hasn't been tried yet, so no there are no examples (duh). Why not give it try for a few years and see if it works? It can't make things any worse than what we've had in recent years with Social Democracy (aka "liberalism") and Neo-Conservatism. I'm open to giving it a try, even though I don't like all of aspects of it. Its definitely the "up and coming" ideology, and there's nothing you can do to stop that, so why not ride the wave?

 

[Sean Renaud]

The less politically sophisticated groups were communal tribalists, which is in fact the "normal" human form of social organization historically speaking. Of course, there were more organized pre-Columbian civilizations that were very sophisticated empires as well.

Libertarianism hasn't been tried yet, so no there are no examples (duh). Why not give it try for a few years and see if it works? It can't make things any worse than what we've had in recent years with Social Democracy (aka "liberalism") and Neo-Conservatism. I'm open to giving it a try, even though I don't like all of aspects of it. Its definitely the "up and coming" ideology, and there's nothing you can do to stop that, so why not ride the wave?

For starters it has been tried and is in practice in many places of Africa right now. It's never gotten beyond that point because it can't and fuck yeah it can get a lot worse than things are with the other systems you mention. It's not up and coming, it's what came before civilization and shall never again come to pass.

 

[renard_ruse]

For starters it has been tried and is in practice in many places of Africa right now. It's never gotten beyond that point because it can't and fuck yeah it can get a lot worse than things are with the other systems you mention. It's not up and coming, it's what came before civilization and shall never again come to pass.

Boloney. There are no explicity, avowed Libertarian governments in the world, and playing on ignorant racial prejudices (conscious or sub-conscious) against Africa is pretty low.

Young people think its cool, and that's what really bothers the Social Democrats. Why "we (Social Democrats) are supposed to own the minds of the young, after all we spend all that time brainwashing them in school and through television and now they reject us for Libertarianism??? Whatever shall we do?" Social Democracy is done, and Libertarianism for all its flaws could very well be the knife to finish it off once and for all. I say good, Social Democracy (aka "liberalism") has done more to damage and harm the world and humanity than any other ideology in history even the totalitarian ones, well it is a totalitarian one too but it won't even admit that.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Boloney. There are no explicity, avowed Libertarian governments in the world, and playing on ignorant racial prejudices (conscious or sub-conscious) against Africa is pretty low.

Young people think its cool, and that's what really bothers the Social Democrats. Why "we (Social Democrats) are supposed to own the minds of the young, after all we spend all that time brainwashing them in school and through television and now they reject us for Libertarianism??? Whatever shall we do?" Social Democracy is done, and Libertarianism for all its flaws could very well be the knife to finish it off once and for all. I say good, Social Democracy (aka "liberalism") has done more to damage and harm the world and humanity than any other ideology in history even the totalitarian ones, well it is a totalitarian one too but it won't even admit that.

It has nothing to do with prejudice against Africa and everything to do with the fact that they have several contries with little if any centralized government.

Young people think its cool until they have it explained to them and the brainwashing is a myth. Good luck with your dream but it's never going to happen. The history of the world has been a steady march to the Left since the beginning and it's not going to stop any time soon. If anything it's going to pick up steam and really get going. When we get a time machine we'll be sure to drop you off sometime that would suit you but stop blocking progress. It's annoying.

 

[badbabysitter]

Boloney. There are no explicity, avowed Libertarian governments in the world,
that.

Yes , there is.. it's called Somalia

no government interference, no regulations, complete free market, complete lack of government spending on social programs

this should be heaven for you

 

[renard_ruse]

It has nothing to do with prejudice against Africa and everything to do with the fact that they have several contries with little if any centralized government.

Young people think its cool until they have it explained to them and the brainwashing is a myth. Good luck with your dream but it's never going to happen. The history of the world has been a steady march to the Left since the beginning and it's not going to stop any time soon. If anything it's going to pick up steam and really get going. When we get a time machine we'll be sure to drop you off sometime that would suit you but stop blocking progress. It's annoying.

"Progress" toward what exactly?

 

[renard_ruse]

Yes , there is.. it's called Somalia

no government interference, no regulations, complete free market, complete lack of government spending on social programs

this should be heaven for you

Somalia is not governed by a Libertarian party.

A Libertarian government would defend liberty from gangs and thugs who would take it from others. Its not anarchism. Different ideologies completely.

 

[Sean Renaud]

"Progress" toward what exactly?

Who knows? You make it sound like the Founding Fathers were consciously working towards women's sufferage or gay rights. The fact is that's how life works, we keep changing and your plan is to go backwards.

 

[renard_ruse]

Who knows? You make it sound like the Founding Fathers were consciously working towards women's sufferage or "gay rights." The fact is that's how life works, we keep changing and your plan is to go backwards.

In fact, homosexual activity is biologically backwards. Its degressing.