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(or Boshkoism rears its ugly head after a long haitus)
(or some thoughts on the feasibility of libertarianism)
One thing that I've noticed in that in Libertarian debates libertarian types tend to focus solely on moralistic theories and tend to dodge questions of feasibility entirely. For once I'd like to talk with 'poly's libertarians without getting into the moral side of things (especially what libertarians believe to be the defintions of theft and freedom). Basically I want to talk about under what conditions would a libertarian set up be feasible.
Basically, as far as I can see it there's three possible ways to get libertarianism:
-institute libertariansism despite most people thinking its a bad idea (the "stop taxing us or we'll shoot you" solution). However I don't think that libertarians have much of a shot at instituting a functional Dictatorship of the Randians or whatever. I guess if enough big corporations decided that libertarianism was a good idea they'd have enough financial mussle to push it through against the wishes of the majority, but then you'd end up with a pretty nasty place that resembles some of the sillier of Cyberpunk distopias. Doesn't seem very workable really...
-institute libertarianism while having most people think its a good idea for moral reasons (the "moral utopianism" solution). A while ago I talked to Imran and this was his basic approach. Basically it means getting to libertarianism by fundamentally changing people's views on what is moral and make libertarian "new men" (think David Floyd). However, from what we know about human nature this is almost laughable difficult. I really don't think all that many people will be voting against any and all government benefits because they have moral objections about "stealing" from people richer than them. So unless libertarians somehow convince poorer people to be selfless in order allow perfectly self-interested capitalism to have free reign this isn't going to work either, after all there can only be so many David Floyds in the world.
-institute libertarianism because its in people's economic best interest (the "I already have plenty to eat, I don't need a handout" solution). This is the only one that makes any sense. However, its very important for even the most rabid of libertarianism to realize that it isn't always in the economic interest of the majority.
As a thought experiment, let's take two fairly extreme examples. In the first case there's an island country which is 90% owned by a giant foreign banana company that ships just about all of its profits back home with the bananas and the vast majority of the people on the island work on the banana plantation for subsistence wages. In this case the less libertarian the government is the better off just about everyone on the island is since the banana farmers would get money sucked out of the profits of their banana-planing employer in the form of health/welfare/retirement/educaton/whatever benefits and not really have to give up much of anything in order to get it. Also its in their interest to have government health/saftety/etc. regulations in order to minimize the deaths due to banana trees falling on them or whatever. As long as this economic situation persists its never going to be in the interest of much of anyone to have a libertarian set up.
Then there's a nearby second island also almost completely covered by banana farms. However on this island all the banana farmers own their own little farms and all these little banana farms are about equally sized. The local fertilizer and banana export companies are run on a co-operative basis by the banana farmers (this isn't anything terribly exotic, a lot of the biggest US food processing and marketing companies like Land O' Lakes butter are farmer co-ops). In this case it would be in the interest of the just about everyone to have a libertarian set up on their banana-filled island. After all, since they all make about the same amount of money selling their bananas, if there were government health/welfare/retirement/educaton/whatever benefits all they'd get is about as much money as they paid in after bureaucrats took a chunk. It'd be easier for them all to just pay of all of that themselves, since they could all afford it and nobody is poor enough to have to rely on the government for the basics. Similarly, they wouldn't want governmet workplace regulations since they'd all be self-employed.
Those are extreme examples, but basically to have libertarianism be in the interest of most people you need a massive middle class and very few people who need any government assistance at all to cover the basics. Also having as few filthy rich people as possible makes libertarianism more feasible since they're always such a tempting target for taxes. So basically I have a very very hard time seeing how libertarianism could possibly work unless you've got a very egalitarian socio-ecnomic system. I can't think of any cases at all where you get anything close to libertarianism without a whole lot of egalitarianism side by side (except in cases where you have something like libertarianism while the majority of the population doesn't want it and then proceeds to get rid of it as soon as possible or in cases where there's a small enclave of extreme prosperity where people are so much richer than the surrounding population that they feel that they don't need any government assistance). So basically libertarians won't get what they want without an egalitarian economic system and the biggest thing standing in the way of this is the inequalities generated by modern capitalist economics. Got to love the irony.
The only way I could possibly see libertarianism working over a long period of time over a widespread area without being imposed by a small minority at the point of a gun and without having a utopian change in human nature is to have some kind of bizarre economic change that leads to a massive renaissance of small businesses/self-employed people, a union movement with enough backbone to stamp out a lot of inequality and ensure everyone gets decent healthcare from their employers, (so they don't need the government to do it for them) or even better take over companies and hand over ownership to the employees (shouldn't be all that hard to do, ie "sell us the company really cheap or we'll go on strike until you do"). And so, because inequality is the biggest impediment to libertarianism all libertarians should be good (libertarian) socialists, right?
And if I'm wrong what has to change for libertarianism to succead? After all, libertarianism is stronger in the US than anywhere else and the LP only polls are percent or two and not even mass-migrations to New Hampshire will change that...
(or some thoughts on the feasibility of libertarianism)
One thing that I've noticed in that in Libertarian debates libertarian types tend to focus solely on moralistic theories and tend to dodge questions of feasibility entirely. For once I'd like to talk with 'poly's libertarians without getting into the moral side of things (especially what libertarians believe to be the defintions of theft and freedom). Basically I want to talk about under what conditions would a libertarian set up be feasible.
Basically, as far as I can see it there's three possible ways to get libertarianism:
-institute libertariansism despite most people thinking its a bad idea (the "stop taxing us or we'll shoot you" solution). However I don't think that libertarians have much of a shot at instituting a functional Dictatorship of the Randians or whatever. I guess if enough big corporations decided that libertarianism was a good idea they'd have enough financial mussle to push it through against the wishes of the majority, but then you'd end up with a pretty nasty place that resembles some of the sillier of Cyberpunk distopias. Doesn't seem very workable really...
-institute libertarianism while having most people think its a good idea for moral reasons (the "moral utopianism" solution). A while ago I talked to Imran and this was his basic approach. Basically it means getting to libertarianism by fundamentally changing people's views on what is moral and make libertarian "new men" (think David Floyd). However, from what we know about human nature this is almost laughable difficult. I really don't think all that many people will be voting against any and all government benefits because they have moral objections about "stealing" from people richer than them. So unless libertarians somehow convince poorer people to be selfless in order allow perfectly self-interested capitalism to have free reign this isn't going to work either, after all there can only be so many David Floyds in the world.
-institute libertarianism because its in people's economic best interest (the "I already have plenty to eat, I don't need a handout" solution). This is the only one that makes any sense. However, its very important for even the most rabid of libertarianism to realize that it isn't always in the economic interest of the majority.
As a thought experiment, let's take two fairly extreme examples. In the first case there's an island country which is 90% owned by a giant foreign banana company that ships just about all of its profits back home with the bananas and the vast majority of the people on the island work on the banana plantation for subsistence wages. In this case the less libertarian the government is the better off just about everyone on the island is since the banana farmers would get money sucked out of the profits of their banana-planing employer in the form of health/welfare/retirement/educaton/whatever benefits and not really have to give up much of anything in order to get it. Also its in their interest to have government health/saftety/etc. regulations in order to minimize the deaths due to banana trees falling on them or whatever. As long as this economic situation persists its never going to be in the interest of much of anyone to have a libertarian set up.
Then there's a nearby second island also almost completely covered by banana farms. However on this island all the banana farmers own their own little farms and all these little banana farms are about equally sized. The local fertilizer and banana export companies are run on a co-operative basis by the banana farmers (this isn't anything terribly exotic, a lot of the biggest US food processing and marketing companies like Land O' Lakes butter are farmer co-ops). In this case it would be in the interest of the just about everyone to have a libertarian set up on their banana-filled island. After all, since they all make about the same amount of money selling their bananas, if there were government health/welfare/retirement/educaton/whatever benefits all they'd get is about as much money as they paid in after bureaucrats took a chunk. It'd be easier for them all to just pay of all of that themselves, since they could all afford it and nobody is poor enough to have to rely on the government for the basics. Similarly, they wouldn't want governmet workplace regulations since they'd all be self-employed.
Those are extreme examples, but basically to have libertarianism be in the interest of most people you need a massive middle class and very few people who need any government assistance at all to cover the basics. Also having as few filthy rich people as possible makes libertarianism more feasible since they're always such a tempting target for taxes. So basically I have a very very hard time seeing how libertarianism could possibly work unless you've got a very egalitarian socio-ecnomic system. I can't think of any cases at all where you get anything close to libertarianism without a whole lot of egalitarianism side by side (except in cases where you have something like libertarianism while the majority of the population doesn't want it and then proceeds to get rid of it as soon as possible or in cases where there's a small enclave of extreme prosperity where people are so much richer than the surrounding population that they feel that they don't need any government assistance). So basically libertarians won't get what they want without an egalitarian economic system and the biggest thing standing in the way of this is the inequalities generated by modern capitalist economics. Got to love the irony.
The only way I could possibly see libertarianism working over a long period of time over a widespread area without being imposed by a small minority at the point of a gun and without having a utopian change in human nature is to have some kind of bizarre economic change that leads to a massive renaissance of small businesses/self-employed people, a union movement with enough backbone to stamp out a lot of inequality and ensure everyone gets decent healthcare from their employers, (so they don't need the government to do it for them) or even better take over companies and hand over ownership to the employees (shouldn't be all that hard to do, ie "sell us the company really cheap or we'll go on strike until you do"). And so, because inequality is the biggest impediment to libertarianism all libertarians should be good (libertarian) socialists, right?
And if I'm wrong what has to change for libertarianism to succead? After all, libertarianism is stronger in the US than anywhere else and the LP only polls are percent or two and not even mass-migrations to New Hampshire will change that...
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Morality is dead, long live utility.
. I'll keep it as the 
.
.
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