AlpsStranger
Jump jump on the tiger!
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2009
- Messages
- 5,820
I asked myself one pointed question and I think it killed my little bit of remaining libertarian streak.
Why, if your system has no OTHER moral components ( no concern for the marginalized, no concern for the general well-being of others, etc. ) should you arbitrarily exclude "force?"
The more I think about it, the anarcho capitalist/libertarian Non-Aggression Principal is really silly. If I'm going to watch someone die of cancer while I put a down-payment on my third yacht, then why not just take it a step further and let the truly strong rule? Why should the Koch brothers or the Walton family rule and not an Al Capone or Vladimir Putin type?
And that, to me, becomes the real problem with all of these anti-statist economic ideas. If it's perfectly morally okay to brutally neglect people to get ahead, then why draw some silly arbitrary line saying you can't rob, murder and threaten to get what you want?
Sorry but, if I'm honest with myself, it just sounds like an arbitrary moral position that happens to be very good for the already rich, and that's really about it. Basically, I'm rich ( or at least comfortable, ) so I favor the law of the jungle to the precise extent that I am most free to abuse others and put least at risk. Too little jungle and I get less power over others, too much jungle and suddenly the whole evolution metaphor is a little too real and I've got to face real physical danger to be big and powerful.
Why, if your system has no OTHER moral components ( no concern for the marginalized, no concern for the general well-being of others, etc. ) should you arbitrarily exclude "force?"
The more I think about it, the anarcho capitalist/libertarian Non-Aggression Principal is really silly. If I'm going to watch someone die of cancer while I put a down-payment on my third yacht, then why not just take it a step further and let the truly strong rule? Why should the Koch brothers or the Walton family rule and not an Al Capone or Vladimir Putin type?
And that, to me, becomes the real problem with all of these anti-statist economic ideas. If it's perfectly morally okay to brutally neglect people to get ahead, then why draw some silly arbitrary line saying you can't rob, murder and threaten to get what you want?
Sorry but, if I'm honest with myself, it just sounds like an arbitrary moral position that happens to be very good for the already rich, and that's really about it. Basically, I'm rich ( or at least comfortable, ) so I favor the law of the jungle to the precise extent that I am most free to abuse others and put least at risk. Too little jungle and I get less power over others, too much jungle and suddenly the whole evolution metaphor is a little too real and I've got to face real physical danger to be big and powerful.