It is the right to not be interefered with. It’s a negative right.
Only if you create strawmen.
Insofar as liberalism varies as much as you think it does, it is not a single theory: just a name which the proponents of several theories are contending for.
This from an advocate of positive “liberty”, a doctrine in which the “liberty” of one necessarily intrudes on the “liberty” of another.
So then, does everyone who purportedly wants to make the world a happier place a libertarian?
Smith and Ricardo were flawed economists. They were also somewhat politically liberal. That Marx was influenced by their flawed economics does not imply that he was influenced by their political philosophy.
That is most decidedly not true. Most conservatives think liberalism is and has always been what the likes of Michael Savage, author of Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, say it is. And most liberals have no idea how illiberal they would seem to most historical self-professed liberals. Libertarians are the ones who are most thoughtful about this stuff: you almost have to be to end up holding such a heterodox worldview.
One holding a position, and not convincing you personally with one’s arguments for that position, does not constitute “double-think”.
It is only a “gain” to someone who happens to be a consequentialist.
“Freedom, or well-being” is an equivocating two-step that betrays the utilitarianism you’re trying to hide. Your “maximization of positive liberty” is “maximization of well-being” by another name; and that is pure utilitarianism.
Freedom /= well-being. Read Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty again, it is a great critique of the misleading conceptions of freedom spread by the likes of Hegel and Marx. Freedom is not well-being, or justice, or fairness, or “finding a suitable place on society” or anything but the simple right to be left alone.
Insofar as liberalism varies as much as you think it does, it is not a single theory: just a name which the proponents of several theories are contending for.
True, and all of them are pretty much vacuous nonsense - essentially all an outgrowth of Christian mythology that’s been humanized. Sadly, the natural rights, equality and liberty of all men are neither true, nor meaningful.
This from an advocate of positive “liberty”, a doctrine in which the “liberty” of one necessarily intrudes on the “liberty” of another.
Libertarianism has positive elements, property is an entitlement. Furthermore, if you think I am an ‘advocate’ of anything, you miss me altogether. My ‘doctrine’, as you mistakenly call it, is that no one has any obligations whatsoever. It is totally consistent, that is to say, consistently inegalitarian and consistently indifferent towards normative opinions.
So then, does everyone who purportedly wants to make the world a happier place a libertarian?
If they believe it is best achieved by increasing the autonomy and decreasing coercion against individuals then - yes. Libertarianism obviously includes a strong element of inherent violence - IE, against all property ‘violators’.
Smith and Ricardo were flawed economists. They were also somewhat politically liberal. That Marx was influenced by their flawed economics does not imply that he was influenced by their political philosophy.
It’s hard to find much of anything from Marx that isn’t just a synthesis of classical liberalism, republican radicalism (related to liberalism) and minor elements of German Idealism. Tabula-Rasa (blank slate man, who can be remade by his environment) is a major theme in Locke, Smith and Marx. It’s the basis of Marx’s plan to make his libertarian society.
That is most decidedly not true. Most conservatives think liberalism is and has always been what the likes of Michael Savage, author of Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, say it is. And most liberals have no idea how illiberal they would seem to most historical self-professed liberals.
Yes, but they also evolved into what they are naturally - the liberals took over the government, and the liberals became the establishment. Libertarianism is the cranky, unpopular wing. And whatever consequentialist arguments are in its favour, Libertarianism simply has no great claim to the title ‘liberal’ against left-liberals - it’s Propertarianism. Of course anyone you disagree with is ‘illiberal’ if you define ‘liberty’ as ‘property’. But thats a consequentialist, and not a priori or ethical argument.
One holding a position, and not convincing you personally with one’s arguments for that position, does not constitute “double-think”.
The double-think really sets in because none of these people can make counterarguments - they have been falsified. Yes, this is my opinion - well, so what? Who the Hell elses would it be?
It is only a “gain” to someone who happens to be a consequentialist.
It’s a gain to someone who lives in the real world and not Rothbard’s Fantasy Land.
“Freedom, or well-being” is an equivocating two-step that betrays the utilitarianism you’re trying to hide. Your “maximization of positive liberty” is “maximization of well-being” by another name; and that is pure utilitarianism.
Again, essentialist nonsense. And the same criticism could be made of libertarianism, since it’s definition of ‘freedom’ is property. And ‘utilitarianism’ implies a rule or method of sorting utilities, which is impossible (or arbitrary). As I said earlier, libertarians need to stop conflating utilitarianism and consequentialism. Especially since almost every worthwhile libertarian argument (and most worthwhile libertarians) are consequentialists.
No, the liberal aspects of Christianity are an outgrowth of natural human morality that was spiritualized.
Property rights are wholly “thou shalt nots”. Property rights are only positive in that making any assertion can be considered a positive statement.
You have voiced your support of the belief that “no one has any obligations whatsoever”. Therefore, you have advocated that doctrine.
So Marx didn’t advocate coercion?
Nobody’s denying that. (Of course, be careful to distinguish between violence and aggression.)
So you’ve gone from conflating economics and political philosophy to conflating the latter with epistemology. You know Aristotle and the Epicureans went on about the “uninscribed tablet”; I guess Marx is basically a closet ancient Greek Atomist-cum-Peripatetic.
No, the crypto-Tory Federalists took over the government. They fell out of power, but retook it by co-opting Republicanism. They fell out of power again, then evolved into Yankee pietists, and then into the Progressive Movement, in the form of which they took power again, and then co-opted the term “liberal”. The groups that ACTUALLY tended toward liberty in American history were the founders of Rhode Island, the Quakers, the colonial era Baptists, the anti-Federalists, the Jeffersonian Republicans, the Jacksonian Democrats, the late 19th century Catholic Democrats, the anti-WW2 Old Right, and the post-Rand/Rothbard libertarians. None of these groups evolved into what is today commonly called “liberal”.
A definition is not an argument. But there is a strong argument for having a property-based definition of liberty: it is what the ordinary person, not beset with your tortured word-stretching, thinks of when he imagines being free: the freedom to do what he will, within the constraints of REALITY, with himself and his stuff, and to not be aggressively assaulted, robbed, or enslaved.
If you recognize that it’s impossible to sort utilities in a non-arbitrary way, then you should also recognize that it’s impossible to sort interpersonal welfare and interpersonal positive liberty in a non-arbitrary way. If you’re a non-utilitarian consequentialist, then what non-utility consequences are you concerned with?
A little bit of Saint-Simon here, a pinch of Hegel there…
Both Berlin and Popper have criticized the transformation of the meaning of “freedom” through Hegelian dialectic, the latter at length in the Open Society and Its Enemies. Is Popper an essentialist as well in your view?
They evolved into what they are by assimilating socialist ideas into classical liberal thought - that is the libertarian criticism. How it happened is an interesting subject, but I don’t see how it’s relevant to the discussion at hand.
“Obviously” nothing. There is nothing “valuable” to me in a kind of freedom that entails that others might coerce me to get what they want out of me, whatever “needs” it is they have (“need” for a sex slave for instance?) As for property one doesn’t even need “supra-human” bonds for it. Just the relation created by altering it by homesteading, and of course the injunction of others from interfering (which makes it a negative, not a positive, form of liberty - regardless of whether it enables the enjoyment of the former.) Nothing “supra-human” about that.
Negative liberty =/= putting “free from” in front of something
Negative liberty is being free from aggressive interference. Negative liberty can be absolutely (legally) maximised by having no legal aggressive interference (i.e. no government), although there is no way to completely predict the relationships that will come about in illegal ways (that was clumsy but what I was trying to say is: people may aggressively coerce despite its illegality, as many do today).
Don’t take this as me trying to “prove” libertarianism, but I don’t at all think your assertion is justified.
Freedom means a specific thing, when the existence of acting individuals is accepted. Given that you seem to see the existence of individuals, and thus their individual actions as unbacked metaphysical rubbish, there is no way I can relate this to you. But given the framework of existing acting individuals, there can be a quite specific meaning of freedom, and that is non-interference. Positive freedom is effectively the ability to negate negative freedoms. I ask you this: are you really “freeing” someone when you allow them to enslave someone else?
Anybody else see the similarity between this poster and a certain other, here too,
The only similarities I see are Stirnerism and a method of quoting.
libertarians are loathe to kill moral agents, they are not so loathe to destroy their own owned property or to destroy property that the owners allow them to destroy. would a libertarian be loathe to kill/destroy vichy? it would not be murder since she does not claim a moral right to be uncoerced, she denies even the meaning of the word consent, and also denies its opposite. she can only report to us her feelings and wishes, and attempt to instruct us to avoid her and not harm her and the like, but so could a wind up toy that is not a moral agent. the wind-up toy can be heard denying the possibility of moral agents. it could be lying, so it is a moral agent, but in rejecting to hold meaning in the terms consent and coerce, to other moral agents this is a signal that there is no-one to morally ‘argue with’ and so no-one whose rights are in danger of being infringed, to those who understand ‘consent’ it is as though a blanket consent to not morally dispute any invasive act has been given.
besides you have elsewhere ridiculed consequentalists approaches, because they are an approach to Ethics, which is an entire field you deny.so why do you promote them in this thread? you say the whole cake is rotten and will kill you, but here, this piece is so obviously better than the others, eat it!
quite the troll storm you have wrecked on the boards recently.
And the insistance the we read Marx and Rawls. Same troll if you ask me.
What are the IP’s looking like? lol [:)]
The bio’s talk in third person too. Erasing the “I”. Noticing how this power-talk is being thrown around, this erasing could quite possibly mean literally. Earthly life is a mere convention for the lords on high, unless that convention is taken a bit more seriously and heartfelt, but I’m not seeing that thus far.
Not to my mind or yours, but that’s not going to get you anywhere in a debate with a common person. So far as they are concerned the state is a legitimate authority. And when they use that authority it’s not always in Satan’s service. Sometimes they actually see legitimate short comings in the world and are trying however imperfectly to solve them. You need to stop looking at things from high philosophy of the state as instutionalized violence and start realizing that it exists as such because violence is a part of human nature. It is in fact easier to take than to produce often. As i get older though I have just realized I can’t automatically determine someone is evil because they decided to do the former and not the latter sometimes.
Indeed. Now here’s the crux: what if they are right? What if freedom leaves them wanting and charity doesn’t deliver, and it is their very life at risk? What then? What is more or less ethical? Perhaps an analogy: you’re stumbling through a snow storm and will surely die, and you see a cabin ahead. You don’t have the time nor the ability to track the owner down to get his permission to enter, so do you let yourself freeze to death or do you steal from him and use his property without his permission? Surely this doesn’t characterize every case of government theft, but neither does the simplistic view of portraying every person asking for government help as some kind of robber or highwayman.
As for Rand, do not ever say that force is always wrong. Powerlust and stupidity are not the only motivators of the people with whom you disagree, unless you’re an early twentieth century novelist with a simplistic view of capitalism and mediocre talent. Rand’s focus was too much on the individual. There is such a thing as society, the crux of the issue is not the individual vs the collective but coersion vs volunteerism, and the fact that not everyone who resorts to the former is necessarily evil nor is everyone who exemplifies the latter always available to offer help when it’s needed.
After looking at a lot of these comments, libertarianism’s weakest link is its strongest: ridiculous decentralization.
Minarchists, vulgar libertarians, Rothbardian libertarians, Cato-people, mutualists, agorists, I’ve even seen fundamentalist Christian anarchists. It’s made up of quite a lot of different views of thought. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of infighting on what is already a small group.
This is an excellent post.
I do not know about strongest, but I would definitely agree that it is the weakest. Ron Paul believes in immigration laws. Lew Rockwell thinks nuclear proliferation is bad. Judge Napolitano believes in the Constitution.
Those are value judgments. Of course different people have different opinions and values.
Has Lew proposed that force be used against people who develop nuclear weapons? Is Ron Paul’s immigration stance just a populist spin on property rights? I can’t address the Constitution. Those who want to follow it, should. But it has no authority as a social contract upon others.
Both are self-described ‘amoralists’ - that’s all. Thinking they are the same person is unwarranted IMO. Besides Moore was sympathetic to free markets.