On a little game I play (CyberNations, maybe some of you have heard of it), a thread was made where the thread-creator would try to defend or debate a position presented to him. I asked him to defend Libertarianism. He did so, and this is what he wrote:
Libertarianism, by which I assume you mean the Capitalist variety rather than the Anarchist one, is a perfectly defensible philosophy. It holds that people do not need much in the way of direct control and as such will do best when left to their own devices. Further, it recognizes, as most do, that when people work for their property they should be entitled to keep it. Those who do the best with property will get more of it, those who don’t will not. While it may not provide the socio-economic security that other structures have, who is to say it is necessary to begin with? Some will die, some will live in squalor, and while not everyone can make it to the mountaintop, anyone can, and those who do will do so largely on their own merits. While it can be argued that much of those who do will be born into it, at the same time, why is that a problem? If one wants to spend their money on their family, to ensure they have a bright future, why shouldn’t they? Why is giving money to people you know and love considered worse than giving it to poor people you don’t even know? It may not be a level playing field but if someone produced legitimate labor in such a degree that they can unbalance things in their favor, why should they not be allowed to?
I would appreciate some comments on this. Is what he says true or makes sense? Please note, he is in fact a communist [:P]. Thanks!
However another person replying in the same thread (an Anarcho-Syndicalist) said:
yeah who cares about poverty or injustice screw you I got mine
The thread creator replied with:
By what reason do I owe you anything? If someone wants to give money to charity, they are certainly welcome to. However, the very fact it is considered charity to give to the poor and the sick and the destitute should tell you there is no obligation there. It is hardly immoral to not go above and beyond your obligations. Sure, you may be a great guy if you help the little man, but by what logic are you required or obligated to do so?
Syndicalist:
Just saying that if you want to come up with a compelling moral defense of libertarianism, it might behoove you to try an approach that has a chance of convincing anyone with more empathy than Mr. Burns. Saying “so what?” to children dying of malnourishment and disease in order to defend your “right” to an unsustainable standard of living because present circumstances happen to make your abilities marketable probably isn’t going to cut it.
I’m not really interested in posting their back and forth arguments, but I thought it would be a little interesting.
How much I’ve come to dislike this word. It’s a perfectly useful adjective and, used in the proper context, most certainly helpful, but every time I read it, I think of some enviro-commie trashing my truck and lecturing me that it was for the greater good.
I really consider it to be a doomed, incoherent ideology. Mostly it seems based on the notion that since the government screws everything up, surely your boss at work will get it right. A lack of oversight in a market economy leads to all manner of lying, cheating, stealing, and even less desirable activities in an effort to get to the top. Further, it leads to situations like the truck system, wherein employers pay their employees in vouchers for a company store (never enough to make end’s meat, forcing them to run up a tab that would then be called were they ever to attempt to leave the company). Further, it leads to gross abuses of civil rights, like child labor, as employers scramble against one another to increase their labor pool. Sooner or later, companies will merge and buy each other out until one, or only a handful remain which becomes, in effect, a new government. When left to its own devices, wealth tends to concentrate which is why anti-trust laws were first created.
The market in and of itself is bad but an unregulated one is immeasurably worse.
Who said the free market would be unregulated? Why do people think the State can only do this? There is such a thing as Common Law. You can become a grand juror today in a court of Common Law. And even though these types of courts are not set up by the State, the State by law still honors grand juries. Meaning, this is the free market at work, and the State has not, as of yet, rid it. If you are not from the U.S., then jurisdictions do not abundantly honor Grand Juries and the Common Law, but it does not mean it doesn’t work daily; just not formalized, and is corrupted by the State you currently live in.
Sierra Leone is false. An unregulated free market is the absence of coercion, or the ability of private citizens to arrange security for themselves and their private property. Sierra Leone had neither.
Just wrap up your one image response with a lenghty, procrastinated diatribe on how communism, contrary to majority believe, will not lead everyone to Kobold, but will lead people to embrace libertarianism.
This is mainly because once everyone realizes what a great time their having, they’ll just get too bored with themselves.
So, libertarnism then reverts to mutualism because hey, the commies are bored of the libertarians yelling at those kids who won’t get off their damn lawns!
Finally, everyone eventually gets bored with the drama of The Reel World of political theatre & they revert to anarchism.
At some point, a bald man in a red uniform suit, aboard a spaceship, addresses the planet assuming that there’s a world government there to help him find out who is going to stop First Contact, but he shrugs off at the appearence of the 4-Chan flag of “The LOLganistan Federation of Pirate Territories”, and returns back to his time of the 24th century, with the remains of Christopher Lloyd in tow, which will provide an obviously humorus bottle-neck show for the audience.
Scarcity is eventually addressed when man & machine unify accordingly to The Singularity, which was only possible when everyone & anyone had access to any & all technology, & not just the hand-me downs from the gracious natural elites and/or oligarchies, and was able to mass produce useful things via incredibly mobile, nanotech factories.
A new day of the week, previosul Sunday, dubbed TGICEMCAHIT (Thank God I Can Eat My Cake And Have It Too, or it’s colloquial term “Cakeday”) is established.
Humanity eventually coallesces into a collective known simply as Dues & after costructing various Dyson Sphere’s around the galaxy, among other things, Dues then decides they are going to both simunetansouly restart their existience, while exploring the rest of the universe at the same time, via some incredibly complex mathematical explanation that probably involves chromotons & extra dimensions.
The Big Bang occurs, ya da da da, some lemmings jump off a cliff, Marx, Mises, Rothbard, Einstien, etc. are born. The moon landing is fak-oops.
And finally, Kevin Carson eventually spends 4 years writing a book about some guy with his head up his ass; a tribute to Salinger, obviously.
In summation, there is no Keysa Söze, just as there is no communism.
Nope, in the long run, we are our own grandpas.
T H E <>E N D
Cast (In Order Of Appearence) -
Nitroadict…THE VOICE
James Woods.. Himself
Communism…Benny The Dog
Libertarianism…Casey Affleck
Anarchism… Gary Oldman
Creative Consultants… Soren Kierkegaard
Alburt Camus
Master Shake
Mr.1001nights
Lighting… LCD Technologies
Best Boy… Friedrich Nietzsche
Writer… Nitroadict
Special Effects… TiMe PaRaDOX Studios
Private Investigator… Eddie Valiant
Credits Operator… A monkey
a kthxbai! Production, in association with Mises @ The Movies ™
NO TIMELINES WERE LEFT ALTERED IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST
No. I can’t provide examples. It is blatantly obvious. I gave a definition of a free market. Sierra Leone does not fit it. There currently is no free market, anywhere in the world, and one could argue, there may never have been one. So for someone to argue that free markets are bad, or that they have failed, is a blatant falsehood, unless they can explain what failures can occur in the absence of coercion or the decentralization of power.
I see, and thank you. I just didn’t want to walk into an argument without having any specific examples as to why Sierra Leone isn’t a free market. Now I see that it doesn’t matter much, heh.
