Dhaka factory disaster - owner arrested

[Benj]

Depressing to say that these incidents are inevitable during a country's development phase. There were very similar disasters in Britain and the US a century ago.

This is not true. There was the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, but there were far fewer deaths and it was a fire, not a building collapse, which is a different situation. Early 20th century American factories didn't just collapse haphazardly. Building codes are not that hard to enforce.

Well, mainly because the cheap construction materials and strategies available now were unknown back then. It's pretty hard to build a brick building that will just fall apart within a few years. But the advent of concrete has made that easy.

[Benj]

As for law enforcement, that belongs to the state. In fact, that is the entire purpose of the state.

Wait, I thought libertarians didn't believe in the state/government. Who's paying for the state? Tax is theft?! I thought libertarians didn't believe in or coercion, yet it seems they do? Why can't the state then do everything else, beyond protecting privilege, on the same basis?

     It may surprise you to know, but libertarians are not ideologically monolithic. Whether a state should exist or not is an important debate within the libertarian movement, and a common view is that the state is a necessary evil that should exist to protect the life and liberty of those who live under its jurisdiction. Taxing people for law enforcement is wrong, but the thing that it stops (general lawlessness) is a greater wrong.

But that's not a view unique to libertarianism. Everyone feels that way. Social democracy feels that welfare programs stop a greater wrong than whatever wrong is imposed by taxation. Even communism feels that it's balancing good things against negatives. It just finds a different equilibrium.

[Leftbehind]

It has to do with the idea of natural rights. You are your own property, so you should have the right to do with yourself as you please, without interference from others, as long as you do not interfere with the similar exercise of others. Along those lines, every law ascribes to property rights. Murder is a violation of property rights.

     Health care and education do not fit into the picture in that sense, though political theory is very academic, no matter the paradigm. Some programs that do those things are inevitable. I would suggest that they be structured towards efficiency, so as to limit the damage done insofar as is possible. The structure of education in the United States is terribly inefficient, as children spend primary and secondary school learning nothing of particular value to actually holding a job in the world.

You'll forgive me my honesty, but it just seems to me Libertarianism has cleverly found a way to elevate and enshrine property rights as something natural and above debate by conflating it with human rights, whereby they can protect their own privilege whilst arguing other comparable societal obligations, that aren't immediately in their self-interest like property laws are, as immoral. As you can probably tell, I'm not all that knowledgeable about libertarianism given the absolute absence of any appeal it holds to me, but this is the first time I've read an identifying Libertarian acknowledging there would also have to be other forms of social welfare under it.