Keep evil people from gaining power by giving evil people power?
[*-)]
This is true of some libertarians, and continues to be the weak point allowing criticisms such as these, which nevertheless ironically collectivize libertarians as a homogeneous group. Logical reasoning from ambiguous starting points based on the theorist’s own biases always leads to absurdity. The absurdities are then waved off as “lifeboat situations” in a most arbitrary manner, apparently without realizing that everyday life is full of more-or-less fringe situations.
The other hand-waving option has been to say that private courts will decide the details; but where is the cut-off point? It inevitably raises the question of why such principles are to be ordained in the first place.
Maybe, but that is a rather weak argument for anarchy. A more persuasive reason is that monopolies have undesirable consequences.
This, in my opinion, is a superior defense of liberty and anarchy. It starts where the principle-based theories leave off, and ends up making a far more convincing and broadly-appealing case against the State.
And how does granting a monopoly to wise overlords to determine standard procedures yield me more liberty? Did the market somehow become incapable of delivering voluntary standardized solutions? Are cd’s or dvd’s bad for the individual? Would I have missed out on high definition because the wise overlords did not like the standard?
You mean evil people like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Castro, the guy from Cambodia, Nero, Caligula, Bush, FDR, Wilson, the guy from Iran, et al?
Absent the state there will be not many markets.
Explain please.
Markets require legal order.
also legal order requires markets.
they are co-emergent. state is a wrench in the works.
Is that not a market good?
Ethical egoism is also a principle. Does that make it collectivist?
Unless the general public is well educated in the virtues of anarchism, somebody WILL gain power, won’t they? Better to give it to a lesser evil and to constrain it through democracy and constitutional law, then to let it be usurped by Hitlers and the like.
Libertarians believe that initiating force is always wrong because it benefits one individual at the expense of another. In other words, it is not good for the individual, unless you believe that sacrificing others to yourself is good for the individual–which Rand certainly did not.
Did you parse this sentance for logic and history?
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. Eh, forget I said it. It was a really poor way of expressing what I’m thinking anyway.
No, not very much.
A million thanks for clearing that up so perspicuously. Unfortunately, that’s a rather hollow assertion.
I think he means that since markets are based on legal order you have to have legal order before you can have a market.
Ah yes that magical argument, which says what is essentially an economic good must be provided by an economic institution that is a monopoly by law, because it’s a precondition of exchange… yeah, makes so much sense. Guess what, food, transport, water &c. are also preconditions of exchange. Socialism ftw?
If you already had a market (defined as the absence of aggression) before you had legal order, you wouldn’t need legal order, since the whole purpose of (good) legal order is to prevent aggression.
Right?
Absence of aggression =/= services to ensure that absence. The provision of those can be carried out by the market, since any monopoly on them in the end will itself be a service provider exempting itself from market forces as best it can, i.e. rather than being outside the market it will be a part of it that tries to isolate itself from competitors. BTW with no living beings to carry out exchanges there can be none, so how on earth can the market provide food, as it is a precondition of its existence?
lolwut
Oh really? And how do you propose to finance your “legal order” before you have a market in the first place?