do you consider yourself a libertarian?

New Zealand is something of a testbed for bonkers libertarianism, as they've been deregulating everything that moves and cutting away all government intervention in the economy and social welfare provision.

Its true that New Zealand economy post 1984 and the Second labour government has been viewed as a test bed for deregulation of the economy. However something had to be done , we were in a real mess in 83 though clearly you dont remember those days?We had "petrol free" days, (you could only purchase fuel on certain days), crippling state debt and inflation and interest rates out of control.

What is in question is the "rate" and "order" of change that occured, not whether such change was necessary. Its true that few other countries have gone such a rapid transformation of their economy, still compare our current welfare, health and education provisions to the USA and Id say we have got the balance about right(except student loans).

amusingly the process has seen New Zealand slide inexorably down the league tables of national wealth per capita.

I dont find it all that funny. Economists of all persuasions agree that the NZ economoy under Muldoon needed drastic attention. To argue that increased govt spending and state asset provsion would have helped us is absurd. The loss of the access to the British market after EEC in 73 and reducded world demand for commodity prices, an aging unskilled poulation, increasing public debt to sustain an out of control welfare state etc etc has been whats crippled us. Our company tax structure, geographic isolation and small skilled labour and capital base are also going to make it difficult for us to compete in the future.

But hey blame de-regulation if you like. ps I voted labour too

clue: what does the word "absolute" mean to you?

If the principle is conceded that it is legitimate for the state to curtail certain individual freedoms for the public good, then "Libertarianism" must be argued as a relative, not an absolute position.

This may seem so obvious as not to be important; not so, because the continual, often deliberate and manipulative, confusion of abolute and relative is a ongoing part of the modus operandi. As previously said, much Libertarian rhetoric is based on the assumption that abstract principles like "freedom" and "individual liberty" are self-evidently and purely good things, that we can't have too much of them. If the "real" argument is something along the lines of, "well we accept that there has to be a trade-off between individual liberty and public good, but we think the line has been drawn in the wrong place", then that is the argument that libertarians are required to make. Not the simplistic and quasi-mystical invocation to pure principle that some use cynically and others, more worringly, actually seem to believe.

ArfArf is (korrektly) pointing out that libertarians also often play such games with definition, so the unfairness is not that unfair after all.

So it's not entirely just a caricature of their absolutism: they've actively assembled themselves as such and are happy to sink further into it. This is true of really any fringe party in the U.S. -- the only way to work the fringe is with some clever easily-digested panacea like "yes we are the flat-tax party," which occasionally makes them good launching pads for issues but rarely makes for a widely coherent platform.

Of course, the other side of the statement you put in as a 'position paper' (i. e. you don't believe it or claim anyone else does but it's there to make a point) is that in a Libertarian 'society' each child would have the absolute social liberty not to be killed by serial child killers. Or, as I sometimes put it, negative rights supersede positive rights. This is just a different side of the coin from Ayn Rand's 'mutual uncoerced consent.'

Hmmm. Does 'absolute social liberty' have any meaning 1 to a Libertarian 2 at all?

Following are two quotes from http://www.self-gov.org/libfaq.html

Drugs:
All of the hard drugs were legal before 1914, and there were few addicts. Studies show that even addicts can be productive, and also that they do not engage in crime when they can get their drugs inexpensively.

"We have addicts today despite drug criminalization. We also have the violence that is caused by drugs being illegal. Let's decriminalize drugs so we stop the violence and get help to those who need it."

I subcribe to this point of view, all drugs should be made legal. I want total souvereignity over my own body.

Guns:
"Libertarians,, like other Americans, want to be able to walk city streets safely and be secure in their homes. We also want our Constitutional rights protected, to guard against the erosion of civil liberties. In particular, Libertarians want to see all people treated equally under the law, as our Constitution requires. America's millions of gun owners are people too. "

I do not subscribe to the typically American point of view to gun ownership. Cfr Bowling for Columbine http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/flash-01.php

Take the skinheads bowling! --Camper Van Beethoven

fuck libertarians, fuck them all three holes.

blimey get me on this thread

The dude I was talking about in the batshit facebook thread considers himself a libertarian..

guess what's in my other window: facebook libertarians.

Groups
30 of 67 groups.See All

Libertarian Conservatives ▪ I ♥ Brisbane ▪ Have you ever disgraced yourself at a Law related function? ▪ SYDNEY IS BETTER THAN MELBOURNE! ▪ Mr Gormsby's Class 5F ▪ Ludwig Von Mises Appreciation Society(1881-1973) ▪ Global Warming is a Hoax ▪ I proudly support the State of Israel & I don't care that it's not trendy! ▪ Right-wingers have more fun ▪ Pro Tobacco ▪ ANTI-united nations, anti-EU ▪ In Support of the Death Penalty ▪ Capitalist Student Network ▪ Sydney University Liberal Club ▪ Abolish Welfare! ▪ The Justice J. D. Heydon Appreciation Society ▪ WorkChoices sucks - the labour market is STILL overregulated ▪ Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy ▪ The movement to legalise duelling ▪ I oppose WorkChoices on federalist grounds ▪ I always wear sun glasses because the sun never sets on the British Empire ▪ Young Liberal Movement ▪ Richard Dawkins Created the Meme ▪ The Will Ferrell is GOD Collective ▪ Chief Justice Harry Gibbs Appreciation Society ▪ Proud WASPs ▪ Justice Callinan Fan Club ▪ Flat Rate Tax ▪ The Anglo Saxon Group ▪ I support John Howard

hahaha i support palestine (like a football club) only because it's trendy.

lol richard dawkins, NO SURPRISE THERE.

proud member since oct 06

libertarianism in america = fundamentally a misreading of jefferson, who wanted a republic of local township-republics, who would vote on everything to do with themselves, athens-style, and leave only the major stuff (defense, welfare, etc) to the feds.

libertarians read this as getting RID of government, when it's really just a radical redistribution of it. their "ideal" country would provide no means of breaking up monopolies or even overthrowing a tyrant because libertarians fundamentally deny what hannah arendt took to be the most important thing in politics - the right of citizens to come together to make something happen, which they dismiss as "collectivism." (reducing all human experience to "collectivism" and "individualism," as libertarians inevitably do, is also pretty dumb: one could fairly argue that both existed in nazi germany.) an actual libertarian state would be impossible for the simple fact that libertarians wouldn't admit any laws to check the power of ANYONE "outside the state," so there'd be no way to prevent any ambitious and talented businessman from essentially running the country.

libertarians also assume that economics ALWAYS precedes politics, which is why their screeds (when they're not entertainingly arguing that blackmail should be legalized) are so unreadable.

Libertarians are cute, like handicapped puppies. They're special.

libertarians also assume that economics ALWAYS precedes politics, which is why their screeds (when they're not entertainingly arguing that blackmail should be legalized) are so unreadable.

more's the shame, then, that ofttimes (with some notable exceptions) their grasp of economics is pretty shitty. (i.e., there's a reason why the Austrian School isn't exactly in the mainstream among academic economists and it isn't b/c academic economists are closet "collectivists"/Commies.)

Given that no-one is self-identifying as libertarian, isn't this a strawman thread? I would at least start to defend *aspects* of libertarianism, but the thread is already marred by unhelpful simplifications.

Less strawman than gangbang, I'd say.

Milo OTM.

anyone who wants to defend libertarianism or refute any of my points is entirely welcome.

an actual libertarian state would be impossible for the simple fact that libertarians wouldn't admit any laws to check the power of ANYONE "outside the state," so there'd be no way to prevent any ambitious and talented businessman from essentially running the country.

my understanding of libertarianism is that they believe that government exists to prevent people from violating the rights of others. if government couldn't pass laws to check the power of private citizens, wouldn't that just be anarchy?

also i don't think that libertarians deny citizens a right to do things together. maybe you meant they don't want government to make citizens do things together?

i'm not a libertarian but this is some stupid straw-man bullshit, like saying that republicans are gonna steal the 2008 general election.

Ahh well, I guess at least we've learnt that Will Ferrell is acceptable to libertarians.

my understanding of libertarianism is that they believe that government exists to prevent people from violating the rights of others. if government couldn't pass laws to check the power of private citizens, wouldn't that just be anarchy?

since libertarians inevitably oppose any effort to interfere with businesses' right to do whatever they want (rarely bothering to distinguish between, say, enron and the mom and pop store down the street), it's hard to see how their high and mighty john stuart mill principles really translate into anything, in practical terms, except "every dog for himself." as for anarchy, plenty of the best-known libertarian thinkers basically were anarchists - murray rothbard, for one.

also i don't think that libertarians deny citizens a right to do things together. maybe you meant they don't want government to make citizens do things together?

government "making people do things together" is mainly an issue in the kind of society libertarians claim they want - a society where the citizens ask nothing and get nothing from their government. a country where people are actually involved in their government, on a community by community level, isn't likely to give way to tyranny (and the fact that the united states, despite the fact that the vast majority of cities don't measure up to jefferson's ideal of the township-community, has never fallen under a dictatorship is some testament to the effectiveness of this system).

by contrast, all libertarians can offer is some dickensian ideal state where every businessman is a benevolent ebenezer scrooge (post-conversion) who takes care of any problems we might have (and hey, if you're not satisfied, you could always just become rich yourself!) libertarians are right about a lot of the problems in america, but they're clueless when it comes to what to do about them.

Given that no-one is self-identifying as libertarian, isn't this a strawman thread? I would at least start to defend *aspects* of libertarianism, but the thread is already marred by unhelpful simplifications.

-- paulhw, Tuesday, 14 August 2007 00:15 (6 hours ago) Link

i guess you must be a libertarian.

louis, i'm toying with that. c-word though.

I think it was Boyd Rice, of all people, who said something along the lines of "Libertarians are just anarchists without the leather jackets."

That said, as far as pure logic goes, taking the study of rhetoric into account and all that, it's one of the more attractive political philosophies, wouldn't you agree?

Most of the anarchists I know (and most of the anarchists throughout history, I think) are left-leaning, so they do believe in collectivism and collective action, just not authority. I guess libertarianism is close to right-wing anarchism, but that has always been a weaker strand in the history of anarchism.

I guess anarchism and libertarianism have a similar philosophical idea in their core, but the conclusions and political actions they've reached from from that have been quite different.

those conclusions and political actions again:
"let's sit this one out (feat.self-regarding commentary)"

i think only quite young and able-bodied people can really sign up for libertarianism.

young, able-bodied and COMIC BOOK GUY

i think only quite young and able-bodied

and rich and privately educated and fucking superior. it's a fucking SCOURGE at cambridge.

that group has quite an amusing wall-posting:

As a true Tory I have little time for Libertarians. Why take something as wonderfully sensible and straightforward as conservatism and make an ideology out of it? The strength of Tories is that we don't need to waste our time with committees and mission statements and all that nonsense. All the same, I still think that as a mostly leftist gathering, someone really ought to tell you all to go to hell.

Go to hell.

You think he's joking?

since libertarians inevitably oppose any effort to interfere with businesses' right to do whatever they want (rarely bothering to distinguish between, say, enron and the mom and pop store down the street), it's hard to see how their high and mighty john stuart mill principles really translate into anything, in practical terms, except "every dog for himself."

libertarians only appose govt. regulation. that doesn't mean individuals or groups cannot interfere, protest, boycott, and expose big business anyway. also why do you mention John Stuart Mill? (or did you mean utilitarianism?). i don't know that libertarianism advocates "every dog for himself" although coming from the right collective action is often demphasized. libertarianism is part of the US social fabric and if you accept that there are libertarians on the left too then the wobblies and people who lived in communes and hunter s thompson and dorothy day are libertarians too.

also i don't think that libertarians deny citizens a right to do things together. maybe you meant they don't want government to make citizens do things together?

by contrast, all libertarians can offer is some dickensian ideal state where every businessman is a benevolent ebenezer scrooge (post-conversion) who takes care of any problems we might have (and hey, if you're not satisfied, you could always just become rich yourself!) libertarians are right about a lot of the problems in america, but they're clueless when it comes to what to do about them.

this is just silly.

i get the sense that a lot of people are taking libertarianism as something like the social darwinist or randian 'survival of the fittest' and assuming that naturally follows from reducing the size of the state.

i like the mark s comment about linguistic communities and message boards. libertarians and anarchists aren't against order as such just power with the former focusing on the state and the latter on capitalism.

well gosh darn if the libertarians haven't gone all out to correct that impression.

xpost

I think Wobblies were more anarchosyndicalists than "libertarians on the left", whatever that means. Like I said, the core philosophy in these two is quite similar, so we have to take practice into account, and in practice anarchists have leaned on the left and libertarians on the right. Also, it seems quite true that libertarians have focused more on opposing the state and defending free enterprise, whereas anarchists on opposing capitalism and defending workers's issues. Have there ever been any self-proclaimed working-class libertarians?

it's a difficult question because the word has been comprehensively taken by the right. its meaning has shifted so far (as with 'conservative' i guess) that using the word just confuses things.

i was thinking though, that it seems to have spread among basically apolitical young people far more than the anti-globalization movement c. 2001 did.

probably because libertarianism is the most anti-political ideology i can imagine.

ooh, interesting footnote from george woodcock's anarchism:

"Sébastien Faure, who founded Le Libertaire in 1895, is often credited with having invented the word libertarian as a convenient synonym for anarchist. However <Joseph> Déjacque's use of the word as early as 1858 suggests it may have had a long currency before Faure adopted it." (p263, Pelican edn, 1963)

Déjacque also ran a magazine called Le Libertaire, in New York (1858-61): he was an upholsterer.

(haha he also FORESAW ILX: "In Déjacque's world of the future, the great metropolises of the 19th century will disappear, and on their sites will rise enormous monumental; meeting halls, called cyclideons, each capable of holding a million people, and conceieved by Déjacque as 'altars of the social cult, anarchic churches of Utopian humanity'. There, in the total liberty of discussion, 'the free and great voice of the public' will be heard...", ibid., p264)

"we have to take practice into account, and in practice anarchists have leaned on the left and libertarians on the right"

anarchists:
http://www.wolfstone.com/images/20010222Twins.jpg

libertarian:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/27/45017300_07a6caaa47.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmKViuyUcAA1CCg?format=jpg&name=small

Hell yeah baby! We stan our queen

Nice!

so she’s clearly gotta be “Deep State” now on the Q, right??

no

Legalize child labor.

Children will learn more on a job site than in public school.

— Libertarian Party NH (@LPNH) June 7, 2021

Yes. Children should especially learn how to pick our crops. Since they are already low to the ground they are ideal for picking lettuce, strawberries, cucumbers and similar edibles. Their job site would be open air, they'll get lots of exercise, and they'll learn every day what it feels like to be devalued, exploited and abused. Invaluable lessons to carry them through their miserable lives.

counterthought - children will learn more watching Libertarians being set ablaze and screaming for their lives

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/237/129/e97.jpg