Libertarianism Defined and Frequently Asked Questions

[CatoMinor]

So, if a libertarian was President in 1941, would he or she not go to war with Germany?

I would hope so, since Germany declared war on the US first.

^^^^^

Yeah, in this case, we did not throw the first punch. WWI on the other hand, we had no business get in on.

[Mechaman]

So, if a libertarian was President in 1941, would he or she not go to war with Germany?

I would hope so, since Germany declared war on the US first.

^^^^^

Yeah, in this case, we did not throw the first punch. WWI on the other hand, we had no business get in on.

Yeah really if anybody gives me a solid answer besides "HURR GERMANSSS!" I'll sell them a bridge in China.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

How do Libertarians feel about Clinton's lack of action regarding the Rwanda Genocide?

[dead0man]

Again, it would depend on the libertarian.  Most would probably approve of his handling of it (ie, letting almost a million people die for no good reason even though we could have fairly easily turned that into a few tens of thousands of deaths (many of those bad guys that instead are still alive, being dicks)).  I like helping though....if I can.

[tpfkaw]

I think Al once claimed that the 1968 Race Relations Act has improved quality of life in Britain. Assuming he is correct, why advocate an ideology antithetical to the improvement of quality life (assuming the 1968 Race Relations Act is antithetical to libertarian principles; if it isn't, explain why por favor)? Do you feel as if libertarianism is too rigid in terms of its applicability to all contexts? Or are winners and losers within a system an unavoidable tenet of human existence (not quite sure if that sentence if grammatically correct)?  

I would take issue with the assertion that such laws generally improve the quality of life.  (Nearly) all government actions almost by definition do improve the lives of some and make life worse for others; but I find that pretty consistently across the board the harm (which is generally more widely distributed among the population) is greater than the positive effects (which generally benefit only a select few).

It's difficult to correctly ascertain the effects of that legislation in Britain, which is relatively mono-racial, but somewhat easier in the US.  Prior to 1964, there was widespread discrimination in white-owned public accomodations in the South against blacks.  Of course, black people still wanted or needed to patronize hotels or restaurants, so what this actually provided was a niche in which black-owned businesses could fill the void.  Entrepreneurship among blacks to cater to black patrons created a substantial black middle class of entrepreneurs.  Then all public accomodations were forced not to discriminate due to race.  Blacks started patronizing white-owned establishments, obviously.  However, since you can't legislate away racism, whites still boycotted black-owned establishments.  The effect is that many black-owned businesses started failing, taking the emerging black middle class with them.  To this day the black middle class is still smaller than it was pre-1964.

The provisions regarding hiring were similarly harmful.  Prior to 1964 the black unemployment rate was actually lower than the white unemployment rate.  Then a law was passed saying that blacks could sue their employers if they were fired.  The effects were rather obvious; employers rushed to fire their black employees before they could be sued for doing so, and increased their discrimination in hiring (since they didn't want to be sued later on).  The black unemployment rate shot upwards and has remained above the white unemployment rate ever since.

Then there's the issue that Southern whites simply sought another outlet for their racism.  The modern-day racist policies of the US government, including the drug war and various "tough on crime" measures were introduced soon after 1964 and are widely supported among Southern whites.

Contrast that, for example, to gays.  It used to be that in just about any "respectable" establishment, obviously gay patrons would be asked to leave.  There was never (at least until very recently) any law passed saying public accomodations must not discriminate against gay patrons.  Of course, just like blacks, this created opportunities for gay business-owners.  In many major cities a "gay district" came into existence, with gay bars, apartment buildings, etc.  Cornering that market was quite lucrative, and eventually other businesses realized that they were missing out.  "Respectable" establishments began gradually allowing gays to patronize them over the last 20 years or so.  Meanwhile, as gays gradually integrated into mainstream society, popular prejudice rapidly decreased, and instead of disappearing or turning into slums the "gay districts" are now somewhat popular as tourist destinations.  Yes, just like we unrealistic libertarians say, the free market did end discrimination, and in a far less harmful manner than government-forced integration was for blacks.

So is libertarianism too rigid?  Maybe.  I don't think so.

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration announced that it would send around one hundred soldiers to aid in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army, a brutal central African rebel group known to murder, rape, abduct, and mutilate its victims. Assuming that the soldiers function solely in an advisory capacity, engaging in combat only in self-defense, would their deployment violate any libertarian principles?

The soldiers wouldn't be violating libertarian principles but their deployment would unless all the soldiers volunteered for the deployment and it were funded by private donations.  The charge of the US military is to protect US citizens, i.e. the ones who are forced to pay for them, not Ugandan.  It's worth noting that the Ugandan government is hardly better than the LRA; about a year ago liberals were demanding that aid to Uganda be stopped because the Ugandan government had introduced the death penalty for homosexuality.

1. Much of what you posted seems to accord more with flat-out anarchism than libertarianism.  Would you explain how the non-aggression principle is more libertarian than anarchist?

This thread was actually meant to clear up some confusion on the definition of libertarianism.  A lot of people are confusing libertarianism with (classical) liberalism.  Liberalism is the idea that all people are endowed with certain natural rights with which the government cannot interfere, generally involving political self-expression and possession of property they make or earn.  Libertarianism essentially takes it a step further by pointing out that all those rights can be derived from the non-aggression principle, and state that this principle ought to be the basis of law.  Libertarianism is either anarchist or nearly so (so-called "minarchists" advocate a "night-watchman state" consisting of police, courts, and the military, funded either by user fees and/or private donations).

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I'm being slightly unfair to Rand's position; she was against intervening in Vietnam in the first place but also against withdrawing: http://books.google.com/books?id=-2D6VqMXfFIC&pg=PT86&lpg=PT86&dq=ayn+rand+vietnam+war&source=bl&ots=D8YCK7tw7q&sig=iUB5B2ofmgbNa4Fn2AJwEgk4rKw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3Xj7TtKZKKnV0QGh9tyQAg&ved=0CHAQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=ayn%20rand%20vietnam%20war&f=false

As you can see from the rest of that interview, she was quite the cold warrior.

If it wasn't Coolidge, then why did the economy go down so much when for the last almost decade, laissez-faire policies we're used?

Not quite laissez faire, but that was, as most recessions, caused by inflationary monetary policy (in this case from the newly-created Federal Reserve) fueling a speculation boom which went bust.  Hoover exacerbated it by more than doubling income taxes and tariffs, and attempting to centrally plan the economy (his insistence to business leaders that they not cut wages had disastrous effects on the unemployment rate).  Contrast this to 1920, when there was an even greater negative shock to the economy and the stock market than there was in 1929.  The perennially-underrated Warren Harding responded by... doing nothing.  The recession ended within a year.

How do Libertarians feel about Clinton's lack of action regarding the Rwanda Genocide?

Nonchalant, but appalled by France's instigation of it.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Q: Should businesses be allowed to fire any worker who is known to take even if on an infrequent basis substances such as Alcohol, Marijuana or Tobacco? Even if this hypothetical worker has never imbibed such substances in the actual workplace?

If so, how do you propose protecting the right of the individual to do what one pleases if employers (and if employers act this way - en masse, the "market" in general) can have such power over their employees. This is not just a hypothetical - Employers in most business would prefer to hire people who are the most productive and are thus less likely to hire those who smoke or drink - especially if the substance has a downer effect. To give an example.

Q2: Why is competitiveness a virtue?

[tpfkaw]

Q: Should businesses be allowed to fire any worker who is known to take even if on an infrequent basis substances such as Alcohol, Marijuana or Tobacco? Even if this hypothetical worker has never imbibed such substances in the actual workplace?

If so, how do you propose protecting the right of the individual to do what one pleases if employers (and if employers act this way - en masse, the "market" in general) can have such power over their employees. This is not just a hypothetical - Employers in most business would prefer to hire people who are the most productive and are thus less likely to hire those who smoke or drink - especially if the substance has a downer effect. To give an example.

Yes; being hired by a business is a privilege that requires you keep up your end of the bargain just as they must keep up theirs.  If you do not like the policies of your current employer, you are free to go looking for an alternative one or to become self-employed (the latter is presently easier said than done given the expensive or time-consuming (as in becoming a plumber/electrician/realtor etc.) artificial government-imposed barriers to entry in doing so).  An employee who really dislikes such policies on the part of employers might negotiate to have their employment contract changed such that they would agree to take a cut in pay or benefits in exchange for the assurance they will not be fired due to the use of narcotics outside of work.  If government were to mandate this, it would only result in said cut in pay or benefits being applied to every worker, punishing those who don't abuse narcotics in favor of the minority who do.

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It increases productivity and therefore the standard of living.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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But let's imagine a policy where to drink alcohol makes you unemployable to the vast majority of employers. This, as we should be aware, is hardly fantasy. Powerful business groups drove the prohibition movement on the grounds that would make workers more productive. In this case, I'm talking so much about a cartel of businessmen making decisions together so much as a code of behavior - a culture so to speak. This would make certain behaviour essentially impossible or at least very difficult if one wished to function as a member of society.  How is it not a form of governing people's behaviour? And how is it less arbitrary than the law?

Now let's stretch the argument further - In a libertarian society could an employer be able to fire you for holding a political or religious belief or of being a certain race or of being female (and pregnant)?

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But . Furthermore, as a worker, is it really my interest to be more productive and increase my standard of living? Do I want to?

Q3: One argument libertarians often use in favour of abolishing the welfare state is that local community and family as well as local social groups (such as churches) can fill the need that state provided beforehand - the follow up argument is that such institutions are being weakened by Statism. Ignoring for one minute the question of whether the above is empirically true (or the cynicism it reveals about certain attitudes towards institutions), I want to ask is this really a benefit? Your neighbours are more likely to know more about you than any state bureaucrat, in Ireland and in many countries we have a long history of private church run institutions which abused children? Extended family can often be very judgmental over personal behaviour. How do you propose that these problems be solved in any hypothetical libertarian society?

Finally, the question that connects the others: How is libertarianism in this sense not just another form of 'oppressive' statism but with the market - which nobody controls - playing the role of the state - disciplining human behaviour to towards certain goals considered desirable by men who are not representative of the population (and are certainly not 'individualists')?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I'm waiting...

[dead0man]

Well, to be fair to everybody who didn't respond (everybody in the world), the argument in your first paragraph was lame (meaning it wouldn't happen and to think it would or even could is a bit nutty) and then you said you were going to "stretch the argument further" and I stopped reading.  Other people may have had the same thoughts.

[tpfkaw]

Sorry, didn't notice your reply/have been doing other things.  I'll get back to you tonight.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Well, to be fair to everybody who didn't respond (everybody in the world), the argument in your first paragraph was lame (meaning it wouldn't happen and to think it would or even could is a bit nutty) and then you said you were going to "stretch the argument further" and I stopped reading.  Other people may have had the same thoughts.

Please expand upon its lameness.

[dead0man]

Do you really think you could convince ALL employers to agree to anything, especially something as unlikely as alcohol prohibition?  The only way they could get it done, even in a political environment more favorable to it at any time before or since, was to force the government to get involved.  I'm not sure why you would want to use that as an argument.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Do you really think you could convince ALL employers to agree to anything, especially something as unlikely as alcohol prohibition?  The only way they could get it done, even in a political environment more favorable to it at any time before or since, was to force the government to get involved.  I'm not sure why you would want to use that as an argument.

They don't have to agree intellectually... Market forces can force them to agree, that's the point. In a highly competitive environment, there will be further pressure put on employees to adjust their behaviour to that deemed desirable by the company, especially if rivals are also doing it and are shown to be successful in doing so.

[dead0man]

I understand what you're saying, I just think it's amazingly unlikely to happen.  Governments do a much better job at banning things and altering behavior "for the greater good" than any cabal of businessmen in tall towers ever could dream of doing.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I understand what you're saying, I just think it's amazingly unlikely to happen.  Governments do a much better job at banning things and altering behavior "for the greater good" than any cabal of businessmen in tall towers ever could dream of doing.

I disagree and you should disagree too given that you are a libertarian, after all aren't you the sort of people who always harp on about how efficient the free market is?

What I'm not arguing is "a conspiracy of businessmen" hypothesis, what I am arguing is that that this is an inevitable consequence of free markets- because free markets paradoxically encourage conformism towards a goal of behaviour - whatever behaviour is suitable to the market. The actual individual beliefs of businessmen are actually pretty irrelevant here (though by and large they tend to be overwhelming conservative except in some industries).

When the British empire arrived in central Africa at the end of the 19th Century they found a population that by and large was not accustomed to the western concept of "hard work". That is to say, working at a fixed set of hours, for a set wage under an employer or owner of sort. This meant that Africans were very unreliable labour for the British. Eventually they got around this problem by forcing Africans to pay tax in cash, cash they had to earn through working in mainly British owned industries and so then they could buy British owned goods. This worked and the native subsistence economy collapsed. And this is how the liberal world economy was first introduced to Anglo-Africa....*

* (Okay, yes, yes, it is something of a massive simplification - it ignores slavery and the trade in it for example - but hardly untrue. It also shows that market behaviour is itself deeply cultural and I didn't even get around to mentioning the response of Africans to the imposition of the cash economy on their own one... which could be rather varied, to say the least. Libertarians can also note the connection between this form of government imperialism and the commercial economy).

[dead0man]

what I am arguing is that that this is an inevitable consequence of free markets- because free markets paradoxically encourage conformism towards a goal of behaviour - whatever behaviour is suitable to the market.

I'm not seeing why that would be the case.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

what I am arguing is that that this is an inevitable consequence of free markets- because free markets paradoxically encourage conformism towards a goal of behaviour - whatever behaviour is suitable to the market.

I'm not seeing why that would be the case.

Please Elucidate.

[dead0man]

Does it even matter what I say?  But ok...seems to me capitalism gives one a lot of choices.  We don't have 4 flavors and 2 brands of salad dressing, we have 34 flavors and a dozen brands.  How is that going to lead conformity?  In controlled economies everybody is driving the same sh**tty cars or they import them from capitalist places if they are in the Party.  Out here in Freedonia, you have what seems like thousands and thousands of options, from the very small to the very large, from the opulent to the most bare bones thing you can imagine.  I don't see how having more options in everything we buy or entertain ourselves with would lead to conformity, maybe you can "elucidate" me on why you think it would?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Does it even matter what I say?  But ok...seems to me capitalism gives one a lot of choices.  We don't have 4 flavors and 2 brands of salad dressing, we have 34 flavors and a dozen brands. 

Is that a necessary good thing...

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I never advocated a controlled economy on the Soviet or Third-worldist type model.

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You are talking about consumption, I'm talking about behaviour.

[dead0man]

Does it even matter what I say?  But ok...seems to me capitalism gives one a lot of choices.  We don't have 4 flavors and 2 brands of salad dressing, we have 34 flavors and a dozen brands.

Is that a necessary good thing...

Well it's not necessary, but it is certainly a good thing, how could it not be a good thing?

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I never advocated a controlled economy on the Soviet or Third-worldist type model.[/quote]How much you want?  PRC levels?

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You are talking about consumption, I'm talking about behaviour.
[/quote]Ok, are you ever going to elucidate me on how the free market is going to make us all the same?