A libertarian paradox?

[Scam of God]

Sure, sounds good.  As long as it's shrinking the size and power of the govt (especially in the areas I hold dear, mainly the victimless crime, guns and taxes stuff) and doesn't create any new restrictions on my liberty or the liberty of the free market I'd be on board with pretty much anything.

Very good. Now, there are probably two main preconditions to establishing such a society:

* In a hypothetical libertarian Administration, workers co-operatives would have to go untaxed for a significant period of time, while hierarchical industry would see its taxes merely lowered.

* Those areas of research which can create the technology necessary for such progress would either be funded with grants, or pay no taxes, whichever you prefer. And when the technology had matured, it would need be exempt from all tax.

More policy changes are doubtless needed, but this is the minimum feasible demand.

[Earth]

I don't see where generic libertarian positions come across as wanting more oppression from someone other than the govt.

I don't mean wanting, or not being concerned with oppression from the private sector, but that this ideology of neglect leads to it.

Sure, sounds good.  As long as it's shrinking the size and power of the govt (especially in the areas I hold dear, mainly the victimless crime, guns and taxes stuff) and doesn't create any new restrictions on my liberty or the liberty of the free market I'd be on board with pretty much anything.

The latter is going to the make the former difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

[Scam of God]

The latter is going to the make the former difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

You know, I honestly don't think so. I imagine a society in which business is massively decentralized, and largely localized - a free-market on thousands of very small scales.

[Earth]

The latter is going to the make the former difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

You know, I honestly don't think so. I imagine a society in which business is massively decentralized, and largely localized - a free-market on thousands of very small scales.

That would be preferable, but if we're just looking at the situation we have now, their "liberty" is incompatible with our aims. The undercurrent that runs through this idea is that liberty is comparable to liberty elsewhere; that their liberty equals our own. The notion that a business can be considered a person with the same legal benefits.

[Scam of God]

The latter is going to the make the former difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

You know, I honestly don't think so. I imagine a society in which business is massively decentralized, and largely localized - a free-market on thousands of very small scales.

That would be preferable, but if we're just looking at the situation we have now, their "liberty" is incompatible with our aims. The undercurrent that runs through this idea is that liberty is comparable to liberty elsewhere; that their liberty equals our own. The notion that a business can be considered a person with the same legal benefits.

I think it can be accomplished fairly pragmatically, using existing structures. I take as my example the rise of the personal computer in the 1990s: as soon as the desktop manufacturing technology crosses a necessary threshold and people realize they can use it to advance themselves, it will become virtually ubiquitous nearly overnight. Everything afterwards should fall more-or-less neatly into place.

There is, however, one thing that we really need to do: radically reform our copyright laws.

[Earth]

I think it can be accomplished fairly pragmatically, using existing structures. I take as my example the rise of the personal computer in the 1990s: as soon as the desktop manufacturing technology crosses a necessary threshold and people realize they can use it to advance themselves, it will become virtually ubiquitous nearly overnight. Everything afterwards should fall more-or-less neatly into place.

There is, however, one thing that we really need to do: radically reform our copyright laws.

The ubiquitous nature of consumer technology, though, isn't dependent upon it's particular use. In regards to knowledge, at least. How many are content simply using it for entertainment, or work?

While I really consider this technological boom an overall positive as far as information, and knowledge is concerned, the private sector, many of the same companies, are actively monopolizing information and access, or trying to. This is what I mean about our aims not lining up to theirs.

As an example, the proliferation of music online, and youtube's rise to the top of the heap. Technology allowed for those without much means to create, and disseminate work virtually without limits, but over the past few years, we've seen corporate giants assimilate the average person's information into their business practices. Youtube, Myspace, Facebook has become a de facto gathering place for homegrown creation. It's decentralization of production, followed by "recentralization" into corporate hands.

These structures we have in place can be used in a much better way with a few improvements, but it comes down to us to draw a line where corporate influence can have a say. I don't even mean in a legal sense yet, but even as a small decision made by thousands of people to limit their interaction with industry online, for starters.

I agree completely with reforming copyright; we need the same protections it offers without the backlash of it's abuse, and something as flexible as creative commons, but stronger. Once again, not to sue each other to death, but to protect from industry appropriation, and theft-for-profit.

[Scam of God]

Well, I fundamentally agree with you - I want radical decentralization over an extended period of time. But this is in essence a new ideology, and "libertarianism" may not be the perfectly appropriate label for it, even "left-libertarianism" doesn't quite suffice: we do not even have an appropriate language to fully express it yet, and, being newly born, it can't at any rate yet speak all the things it might one day. Let's test the waters first - encourage some reforms largely based around the new technology - before we begin pushing for deeper reforms.

Which isn't to say I'm happy with the status-quo: I am not. But I think these things have a way of working themselves out. For instance, the desktop manufacturing principle operates along the lines of the downloading of blueprints - which, if it's adopted on a wide scale, will almost certainly lead to natural conflicts with copyright law, and which in turn may very well end in a deeper public engagement with these issues.

I want you to do something for me: compile a list of various concrete proposals that might hypothetically be adopted along these lines, and send them to me, if you would. Then we can pare them down and present them to the forum and see what the atmosphere is like for them.

In the meantime, I'm going to go to sleep soon. If you can give me some serious, credible policies fashioned on the principles of decentralization and democratization, then I can give you the rhetoric to match.