EMNofSeattle
Regular Member
I will admit, I have libertarian leanings, but by no means am I a libertarian.
I fully understand posting this will make me rapidly unpopular here but this is how I feel regarding full libertarians.
This is an article I found the other day
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html
Now some Excerpts that I found really good were
The best paragraph in this entire article
The entire article in context, makes a clear argument, that rule of law and government maintained order is essential for society, the libertarian utopia is not possible, and is just as dangerous a myth as perfect communism.
I fully understand posting this will make me rapidly unpopular here but this is how I feel regarding full libertarians.
This is an article I found the other day
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html
Now some Excerpts that I found really good were
Despite the claimed horror at 'collectivism', libertarians share the general liberal preference for collective forms of decision-making - above all, the market. This is often legitimised by a claimed universal necessity, to 'balance' or 'weigh' preferences. This is an ancient metaphor, and very popular since Newton, but the 'necessity' is not self-evident. No-one can show why preferences should be balanced, or weighed: to want them weighed or balanced is a preference in itself, and by definition a preference for collectivism. In practice, free-market decisions are always collective: supply of one product, by one maker, to one customer is not a free market. A free market in the libertarian sense needs at least three parties: with only one buyer and one seller there is no competition. In a free market with multiple parties and mutual competition, all parties influence the final state of affairs. No individual can decide that outcome alone. While claiming to reject autocracy, libertarianism has in fact abandoned autonomy.
There is no self-evident way to apply the non-coercion principle: it must be applied to someone or something. The question is, to what, to whom? This is the problem which rights theorists faced, when people started claiming rights for animals, for species, for ecosystems, for land, and for rocks. The non-coercion principle also has a limits problem. May fish legitimately be coerced into nets? Is it coercion to demolish a building? May collectivities benefit from non-coercion? In other words, is the principle of non-coercion exclusive to natural persons? Some libertarians do say that, but even this is unclear. Libertarians can not agree on whether an abortion is initiation of force, because they disagree on whether the fetus is a natural person.
The best paragraph in this entire article
A simple example: two islands exchange crops, to reach a minimum healthy diet. Soil conditions mean that a full range of crops can not be grown: without the exchange the inhabitants of both islands will die. Then an external trader arrives, and sells the necessary crops to one of the islands. The trader sells honestly at fair prices: both parties (trader and one island) are satisfied with the deal. Nevertheless, the inter-island exchange ends. On the other island, the population dies of malnutrition. Obviously, they never contracted to this, yet some libertarians would claim that they are in some sense more free.
The entire article in context, makes a clear argument, that rule of law and government maintained order is essential for society, the libertarian utopia is not possible, and is just as dangerous a myth as perfect communism.