I'm not a libertarian.

Miscellaneous General
1

So, I’ve been reading this site and forum for awhile now; just the other day, in fact, it struck me that it’s actually been several years. I started reading as a leftist, and have stayed that way. I’ve often intended to come in here and debate/argue/discuss a bit but I’ve never gotten around to it, so with the forum supposedly closing I figure I might as well start now. As something of a preface, I’ve got a lot of respect for this site and many of the posters here (though I think they views espoused are often wrong, or at least not ot my liking), and I certainly am not coming in with the idea of “teaching these silly Libertarians a lesson” as it seems is often the case with people who come here to debate. I’ve never really argued with serious, thoughtful libertarians on the level this forum has, so I hope we can have resonable discussions.

I’ll start off as if someone asked me a simple question: “Why aren’t you a libertarian?” Hopefully the 73 millions points attending the answer can be gotten to in time as people hopefully respond. Frankly, you all may just convert me, who knows.

Why aren’t I a libertarian?

I’ll start with one reason:

  1. I believe in the Welfare State.
  • I think that social welfare programs are a moral and practical good. The difference in, say, “social health” between relatively low-service America and relatively high-service Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, etc etc (you know the drill) is reasonable evidence for their practical efficacy. Relatively lower housing and health subsidies, for example, contribute to a greater homeless problem in the US. Lower subsidies of higher education make social mobility harder for the working and less affluent middle classes. Laxer labor regulations make it harder for the less-skilled to attain a decent living – fine, they should took it upon themselves to attain skills throughout their lives anyway! Well, this lack of financial stability then effects their children, negatively impacting THEIR ability to eventually obtain a decent life for themsleves (social mobility being correlated rather strongly with parental income, and rather moreso in nations with relatively lesser social services). In all major studies on the matter I’ve read, nations with high levels of social welfare programs seem to have much better quality of life metrics than those with comparatively little. I’m open to considering evidence to the contrary, but I’ve not seen it.

Now, I’m aware of some libertarian solutions. We can think of America v. Norway, for an example, as two countries playing “the same game”(ie, mixed economy) with different tweaks – Norway more tweaked toward providing welfare programs. Mises types way then propose(not to put words in your mouths!) a “whole new game” – no state, so supposedly everything will be different:

Elimination of the minimum wage will help social mobility. For people with low skills, employment opportunities are forclosed for them as they do not already have the skills to warrant 7.25/hr or whatever you like. Further, many low-skilled people in certain situations(single mothers) find welfare just slightly more renumerating in the short run than a minimum wage job, so they don’t even take those minimum wage jobs – hurting them in the long run for the following reason. In a free market, there would be a job available, at some level of pay, for everyone willing to work. Those people will take those jobs, gain transferable skills, and eventually be eligable for higher-skilled, higher-payed work.

This argument has never convinced me. For one, why isn’t this principle already at work on a smaller scale? Most of the ‘lower classes’ in the US are still able to find employment in minimum-wage jobs: why is social mobility in the US still so relatively low? I’ve rarely come across people who’ve had an awfully difficult time finding low-level minimum wage retail employment. I have come across many who have worked such jobs for many years, yet have not found themselves much more skilled and employable. I haven’t seen any evidence of holding low level employment for some time, by itself, being a dependable route to making oneself eligable for higher paying jobs. How will giving people more access to even low-paid jobs lead to many of them becoming skilled enough to warrant higher pay? Why should we expect this to happen, instead of expecting people to just continue trudging along as they always have, but now with an even lower level of pay?

That’s probably enough on the practical side to get some dialogue started. Of course, you spend much time here devoted to the moral dimension. Government services are backed by force – if you don’t pay up, men with guns will come to your door, and force you to pay lest you be imprisoned or killed. Thus, the whole apparatus must be torn down as it is not morally permissable.

True enough: the means to run government programs are obtained through the implicit threat of force. I don’t really have a problem with this. I often hear libertarians rhetorically ask “What right does someone have to demand the resources of another?” And sure, I am not aware of any ledger floating in the metaphysical ether that says “X has a right to demand Y from Z by threat of force.” Neither am I aware of such a ledger saying “X has a right to demand Y not agress against him.”

We have to ask ourselves what our desired ends are and how the achieve them. My desired end isn’t necessarily to have a totally voluntary society. I don’t think a “voluntary society” as some platonic ideal stands on its own as something objectively good. What matters in any society is the quality of life of those who inhabit it. From what I see, the best way to create a society with the highest general living standard is to have one with a strong welfare state, which to my thinking is best administered by a government – if the means to do so must be collected with implicit force, so be it.

So, that would be a general outline of my answer as if someone just asked me the simple question, “Why aren’t you a libertarian?” Hopefully the complexities of each topic can come up as people try to pick apart different parts of my post. I’ve been thinking about libertarianism quite a lot lately, and am open to conversion if I can be satisfied (however much I doubt it).

2

How does your ideal differ from Greece, and why will it not go bankrupt like Greece?

3

I don’t care what you believe. Would you drag me off to prison/beat me up/shoot me in the head when I refused to pay up your social security taxes? That is the real question.

It isn’t a question of whether you want money to rain down on the unemployed and the poor. What the welfare state actually means is violence against all who refuse to pay, low-paid workers and single mothers included. Do you support that, the opression of the refusniks and would you be willing to carry it out yourself, in first person if necessary?

So actually it is not a question, if you are a libertarian. It is a question of, if you are a human being. Are you?

4

"It isn’t a question of whether you want money to rain down on the unemployed and the poor. What the welfare state actually means is violence against all who refuse to pay, low-paid workers and single mothers included. Do you support that, the opression of the refusniks and would you be willing to carry it out yourself, in first person if necessary?"

An overwhelming majority at least oblige the state. The number of people with who the state has to resort to outright coersion is miniscule. Even in a libertarian society, there will be people from whom it would be in their own preference to be serial killers, or violent rapists, etc. Whatever private security forces that attend to whatever geographical area those people operate in may have to stop them by force, perhaps even going up to killing them. Not to liken those who may refuse to pay taxes to murderers or rapists, but just to say that in any conceivable society there will be people who will be forced into conforming to some set of norms. Even in a voluntary society, there will be agencies that will force people to obey some certain set of norms because they feel there are compelling social reasons for going so – the outcomes are “good enough” to warrant it. Sure it would be regrettable if someone put up such a resistance to paying taxes that violent force was necessary, but the benefits of well funded social programs are worth it for society.

Would I do it myself? I’m not sure exactly what arm of the police, or FBI, or whathaveyou takes part in those operations. Either way my back and knees are sort of in bad shape, I’m not sure how well I’d meet their physical criteria. I don’t think it’s a job I’d enjoy anyway.

“So actually it is not a question, if you are a libertarian. It is a question of, if you are a human being. Are you?”

But of course, this is all completely academic, because no one would refuse to pay taxes anyway, since social programs help people. This isn’t a question of being a libertarian, or a social democrat, or whatever – it’s a question of being a human being. Right?

A related question: if the government had a mechanism set up, where at the 18th birthday of every citizen (or pick any random date you like), a government official goes around and has a contract for them to sign, basically a literal “social contract,” in which they explicitly agree to pay taxes, etc. If they refuse, they are immediately deported to a foreign land and left to their own devices and not allowed back in the country, though they can take whatever property they want with them and can still manage whatever immovable property they have in the country(though not while being there physically). Would the demands of the state then be just for those who remain?

5

I agree. The question is who should provide the welfare. Do you believe the government does superior job than the market in allocating resources? If not, why in the case of welfare is it superior, but not in other matters?

I don’t know what this means.

These are merely baseless assertions that will take a lot to back up.

Another baseless claim. This happens all the time.

6

What makes you think that you have the right to someone else’s money and resources just because there exists a need?

Let me give you a hint - you don’t. Any and all “welfare” should be voluntary, and none of it should be compulsory.

7

Are those the only reasons? They seem just too historically contingent to consider oneself an ideological leftist, and so open to the black/white swan criticism.

Back to the main points: (1) what data did you use? I can find that America is equal to some european countries in the Human Dev. Index and that indeed, most european nations are beneath the US in the same index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index (the index itself seems strange though, since saudi arabia is equal to Mexico in its degree of development).

(2) If it is true that the absense of a min. wage does not cause social mobility, then it is equally clear that leftist policies do not since there are many people on the minimum wage who do not climb the ladder of society.

8

Those indices are absolutely useless. They don’t mean anything Only a liberal-progressive gives credence to such things.

9

Precisely. OP avoided answering the question by saying he won’t do it, but that he if fine that other people will do it. Which means he thinks its acceptable to murder anyone who does not agree with his arbitrary preferences …

And furthermore, the state does not exist for the provision of welfare. It exists to extract tribute from people (as Spencer showed how it historically arose). Other bandits rob and murder all at once, others settle to extract tribute and only murder those who refuse. They defend by necessity from other bandit groups, who would otherwise take what they would extract. They make up lofty goals to get people to give tribute with less passive resistence. And many of the people from whom tribute is extracted desire to themselves become bandits, to get that same feeling of power, and tolerate this society for the slightest opportunity of themselves gaining part of that tribute (added La Boetie and later Bastiat).

10

You have to get over these relatively miniscule objections. Think of the grand scheme. Relatively capitalist economies have lifted hundreds of millions from destitute poverty to having standards of living on par, if not superior to royalty of past.

Welfare is now only a consideration because we are so much richer than ever before in history. And look at welfare. Examine it. It’s literally a blind redistribution of wealth with awful administrative costs, from centralized administers who know practically nothing about the recipients, if they even know them at all. Even if the mass of payments to the poor were larger in monetary terms under modern systems, the returns are diminishing because the way in which they operate is vapidly uncared for. I mean, what an asinine solution; give poor people money, then they won’t be poor. This basically implies a diagnosis of “poor people are poor because they don’t have enough money” A child could think of this.

Only politicians in a centralized bureaucracy, so withdrawn from the actual needs of its subjects would “think” of such a thoughtless solution. In reality, the reason why people are poor is many. Some live destructive lifestyles, wrought with drug abuse. Some had destructive childhoods and families (I’m sure there is spillover between these two groups). Etc. I’m sure there are many more reasons that I can’t even come close to pinpointing, but this only goes to serve my larger point: poor people are poor for a multitude of reasons, most of which stem from poor individuals choices. This is not to blame. In fact, I have the utmost sympathy for people who were misled by their families, and those they rely on as guides.

Therefore, no solution to these problems is easy, and none is certainly as simple as throwing money at the destitute. To think this is a solution is callous and careless to the point where I get infuriated. These people need help. To throw money at them is insulting, and in many cases harmful, because it only subsidizes the poor choices they are making. This is the essential reason we need “welfare” directed by the market in a decentralized manner. Even if the mass of funds going to the poor is less, they will be in the form of solutions that will almost surely be far more marginally effective. They will build institutions full of people who want to dedicate their life to help the poor, and who can see the results first hand of their attempted solutions.

Thinking in terms of decentralization is key. The current form of welfare which exists today is so obviously nothing more than a way in which suburban whites can guiltlessly turn their eyes away from the atrocious problems which the poor face on a daily basis. It is this reason and only this reason why welfare is such a sacred cow in America.

And when I say to look at the larger picture, I mean to say that the productive forces of capitalism have already made the problems of wealth largely obsolete, and this would only be further the case if we had yet a free-er market. To think the poor are suffering because we are not capable of producing food for them as a collective is ridiculous and proven false by the fact that we do in fact provide for them. It is not a problem of resources; it is a problem of the way in which they are used. There is no reason why poor communities cannot produce enough to garner a share of the food, clothing, housing, etc that we are easily capable of providing. It is a problem of them needing human help, from people who care and can direct them to make and build responsible communities. You can find documented on this site the numerous ways in which the gov’t destroys these communities, and thus is achieving the opposite ends it claims.

Much more can be said, but I will leave it at that. Statistics have their use, but you must frame them in a larger chain of reasoning or you will lose sight of the real problems and solutions.

11

To make my point less abstract, think of something like this.

Many poor families are single-parent households. This is a failing of a historically extrememly important institution - the two parent family. What does the state do? It provides welfare to the mom, subsidizing this extremely inefficient arrangment. Further, children from single-parent households within cities are notoriously prone to crime, poverty, and otherwise destructive lifestyles (look up the statistics - you will be astounded).

So in this instance, the state solution is vehemently destructive.

Now consider something like this. I have a organization which pairs single women with single men. I pay out a welfare payment to any formation of a couple which happens through my institution. Now, the welfare payment need not be as large because there are two parents. This will provide them a better quality of life in many ways, and will lead their kids on a statistically far brighter path, which will reduce poverty in the future.

This is an ample example of how a smaller amount of money dispersed through decentralized means is more productive than a larger amount of money dispersed through (coercive) centralized means. It is obviously a hypothetical, but the to the extent it is successful, it will be replicated; and to the extent it is a failure, it will be replaced by better methods.

You must think through these things reasonably. It is not a problem of our productive capability. It is a problem of community organization which prevents able-bodied people from producing the relatively small amount they must to earn a living. The gov’t destroys opportunities for the poor, and subsidizes harmful institutions.

12

I’m tired at the moment, so I will just give a short response, for now. The State may “help” the poor, but a State isn’t necessary to do that, before there was State Welfare programs there were mutual aid societies. For something more in depth on the subject you may be interested in: http://www.amazon.com/From-Mutual-Aid-Welfare-State/dp/0807848417/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346631082&sr=8-1&keywords=Beito

Not only were mutual aid societies effective, much more psychologically beneficial than the current welfare system (under the current system many people become hopelessly dependent, damaging their self-esteem and dignity), they provided the services completely voluntarily.

I understand you want to help the poor, so do I, I even grew up poor. The question is, why would you want the State to provide welfare, which uses the veiled threat of aggression, when the same services can be provided in a more peaceful way?

13

14

Tim, I’m happy to inform you that you are probably already converted – you may not be fully aware of it yet.

I think that you will enjoy these two short books:

  1. Beyond Democracy

"Why democracy does not lead to solidarity, prosperity and liberty but to unrest, runaway spending and a tyrannical government.

Democracy is widely considered to be the best political system imaginable. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that democracy has become a secular religion. The largest political faith on earth. To criticize the democratic ideal is to risk being regarded an enemy of civilized society.

Yet that is precisely what Karel Beckman and Frank Karsten propose to do. In this provocative and highly readable book, they tackle the last political taboo: the idea that our salvation lies in democracy.

With simple, straightforward arguments they show that democracy, in contrast to popular belief, does not lead to freedom, civilization, prosperity, peace, and the rule of law, but the opposite: to loss of freedom, social conflict, runaway government spending, a lower standard of living and the subversion of individual rights.

They debunk 13 great myths with which democracy is usually defended. What is more, they offer an appealing alternative: a society based on individual freedom and voluntary social relations.

Do you wonder why government keeps growing bigger and the public debt keeps getting higher, while your freedom and prosperity look ever more threatened? After reading his book, you won’t wonder anymore - you know why it is happening and what can be done about it.

Beyond Democracy is a groundbreaking and fascinating book for everyone who wants to better understand current social problems and the economic crisis."

  1. Looking Backward: 2012-2162 A View from a Future Libertarian Republic

"What would a free nation actually look like?

Professor Julian West is all too aware of the problems facing the United States in 2012: poverty, endless wars and corporate corruption of democracy. He believes that government could fix these ills, if only government could do more. But following a fluke accident, West awakens after 150 years of slumber in a new nation that has largely resolved these issues - although not through the government solutions he has yearned for.

Join the astonished and dubious West as he learns what caused the Decline and Fall of the former United States and how multiple new republics were formed out of the ashes of that failed state. West now inhabits the Free States of America, a nation of limited government, free markets and civil liberties, with freedom and prosperity for all who desire it.

This modern retelling of Edward Bellamy’s 19th-century socialist utopian novel “Looking Backward: 2000-1887” is updated for the 21st century, based on what we know now about the failure of collectivism. It is an enjoyable and easy-to-understand introduction to the ideas of libertarianism and offers a hopeful, encouraging and ultimately credible view of what a truly free nation might look like."

15

  1. The government, since it is always run in an unwise way, will always waste a significant amount of funds and handle things poorly. Any positive model for eradicating povery which could be implemented will be implemented in a substandard way. This failure is inherent within the democratic system. State agencies are inflexible and usually poorly constructed, they atrophy and can’t adapt in any meaningful way. Why is it that you want something you value so much to be handled by the idiots who are incapable of PASSING A BUDGET and DEALING WITH SOMETHING THEY BELIEVE WILL CAUSE A RECESSION?

  2. Government actions which hamper capital growth, entrepreneurship, and economic expansion result in lower living standards over the long term for everyone in society

  3. Government action crowds out any voluntary efforts which might have occurred. These would be more intelligent and susceptible to consumer demand and social entrepreneurship, both of which are things which would make the system much more adaptive, flexible, and positive. If we could channel a fraction of the energy which is spent on political action every year into real actions which help individuals really escape poverty then we would be on the right track to dealing with and ending poverty. This is not some wild theory but it is also backed up historically. History is filled with societies in which significant mutual aid networks have evolved and in less developed parts of the world there are still large communal networks. As the state grows it eradicates all of these things because they are no longer necessary since the welfare state takes their place.

  4. Government actions often have negative side-effects. The welfare state has destroyed millions of families in America and kept their children in dire poverty and in a perpetual state of poverty. Many attempts have been made to rectify this through the welfare state and they have all failed. You are making a false dichotomy. It is not a choice between poverty and the solution to poverty, but instead between a system which perpetuates and expands poverty and a system which slowly eradicates poverty. Many government actions which are aimed at providing healthcare to all have instead increased its price and made it more inaccessible to everyone and this has only been made more true with the recent healthcare law.

Now I’m much more enthused about making people happy than making them rich, but the fact is that the system which you have proposed is counter to everything that you claim to want. Your system would expand poverty, hamper wealth creation, and perpetuate poverty so long as it is implemented and you are inconsistent and foolish for advocating it.

16

Ahhh! This ought to be “Why am I not a libertarian?” Aren’t is a contraction between “are” and “not,” and you certainly wouldn’t say, “Why are not I a libertarian?” or “Why are I not a libertarian?” right?

17

Tim, what are your thoughts on this article about Norway?

“Why Norway is a BS Argument for Higher Taxes” - SovereignMan.com

18

Well, friend, I find it odd that more people aren’t libertarians, or perhaps more specifically why most people I’ve met have a strong aversion to the term. Libertarians are oft blamed for skewing elections and being idealists. While I admit that some I’ve met are a bit too idealistic, none I have met are stupid. Frequently, libertarians are the most well-informed people in the U.S. in my experience.

I would say the approach you’re using is one of democracy. You mentioned “our desires” and how to achieve them. I must ask, what of individual desires? Where does the individual belong in your schema? One need not form an entire basis on ethics to understand/convert to libertarianism. However, principles are–no doubt–very important, as you likely understand.

I’m obliged to start with the basics, so I’ll ask: can you think of an instance where it is a good thing to have your rights infringed? I’m curious to see a specific example, and I’ll be happy to respond from there buddy.

19

Why not?

20

JJ it’s grammatically incorrect to use a plural verb conjugation for a single person subject.