I admit I am new here and just learning the ropes. I find the Mises Institute education fascinating and the ability to debate and ask questions refreshing.
But I was astounded to find so many socialist thinkers on the forum. How do they reconcile this thinking with the anti -coercion principle, or have they found a way around that?
It is said that until you can understand and credibly argue the position that your opponent takes, you have not done enough homework. So educate me:
How is it possible to be a libertarian, believe in individual liberty and yet justify socialism, which by definition takes liberty out of somebody’s hands.
It is possible and quite common actually in our world to hold contradicting ideas simultaneously. People do this all the time. Just sayin, don’t mind me
I think it’s fine to be a socialist as long as it doesnt violate the non-aggression principle and forced on me. For example, freetown christiania in denmark is a socialist society but its not forced on anyone.
It depends on the definition of socialism. The term is sometimes used to mean a system of collective ownership and/or absence of private property rights. In that definition it has nothing to do with the state and it’s perfectly compatible with non-agression.
Sure those are examples of experiments in socialism, but those are not libertarian socialists by any stretch.
Your property is one of the biggest liberties that libertarians believe in. By definition, these “communes” expect you to sacrifice all your property and all your earnings to the group. How is this not like a 100% tax?
And who administers it? Some group leadership now not only take 35% of your income, they take it all and they own and control everything. There can be no bigger government than that!
Besides who enforces this voluntarily donation? What if someone cheats? Do they just let it be or do they enforce it with aggression?
See I still think the two philosophies are incompatible.
The association of libertarian and socialist is actually older than the modern (implicit) association of libertarian with capitalism.
Basically, they don’t believe in private property for individuals (at least over the means of production) instead the property should be held by unions, councils, assemblies or what have you.
I suppose they’d consider private ownership to be an illegitimate form of authority and be justified in “smashing it” or something.
I think you could have some kind of collective ownership of property via contract, but to do that it has to “start off” with an owner that can claim production on the property.
We do this in some form today, with some monasteries/convents and secular communes.
The thing with socialism and anarchism is the tendency to see capitalism as a government based issue, they don’t see corporatism, we are so used to seperating the two, that’s why it seems so absurd.
There will never be a form of governing a country that everybody agrees with.
So under a libertarian-capitalist society, libertarian-socialists would be allowed to proceed in their communes provided they volunteer and use no force. In fact libertarian-capitalism would allow any belief to exist in any community under the same provisions. The only rule is, no man makes a law or a government that takes away private property. (Even if some of these private properties belong to communes.)
But if libertarian-socialism was decided to be the dominant theory, what are they going to do with the capitalists? Lock them up? Trade with them? Would they jail their citizens for buying products produced in a non socialist factory? Do they expect the whole world to submit?
In an anarchist society there wouldn’t have to be one government that everyone agrees with. Neither capitalist nor socialist anarchism would be as such ‘decided upon’ to be the dominant theory. People would simply decide how they want to live. Even if 98% of the country becomes a socialist commune, the rest of us could continue to be capitalists. Of course that’s not going to happen, socialist communes break down after a while because it’s incompatible with human nature. But in theory they would do their sharing thing in their communes, and trade with us if they want to or boycott us because we’re greedy exploiters. It’s fine as long as they don’t force anyone to participate.
How is it possible to be a libertarian, believe in individual liberty and yet justify socialism, which by definition takes liberty out of somebody’s hands.
Well, if it by definition takes liberty away one can’t. Perhaps you are using a different or wrong definition?
