Do you support a Libertarian Utopia?

[Cutlass]

That was a time of increased government intervention, so I don't see how it represents any form libertarianism. Conservatism, perhaps.

FYI, it may have been a time of increased government, but that still amounted to very, very, little.

Well my problem is I don't view today's state-employed police as any better.

There is a practical difference between a group that's indifferent to your welfare and a group that is paid to harm you. Private police are paid to harm you. It's the reason that they exist.

It's not that I think everything the government does is the result of some effort to serve special interest. But, that theoretically any power that the government has can be twisted and abused for those purposes should people with questionable motives be put in charge of it. Non-libertarians propose we put faith in democracy to keep those sorts out. I don't have much faith in democracy to do that; which is why I prefer to not grant government those powers to begin with.

That reminds me of the quote by Washington that I used to have as a sig:

No man is a warmer advocate for proper restraints, and wholesome checks in every department of government than I am; but neither my reasoning, nor my experience, has yet been able to discover the propriety of preventing men from doing good, because there is a possibility of their doing evil. - George Washington

The problem is that if you prevent the government from the possibility of doing bad, you prevent it from the possibility of it doing good. And most of the good government can do amounts to is controlling those private citizens who intend to do bad, and who the private market will not retrain.

Don't forget that the opposition to Washington's views on government came from slavers. Not from people who wanted liberty. Even though they used liberty as their excuse.

One of the hardest things to overcome in giving the libertarian viewpoint a fair hearing is that so many of them use the same arguments as slavers.

And slavery only ended because government ended it. There is an argument that economics may have ended it eventually. But not for 100 years after the government did, and not all economists agree that the market would have ever ended it.

Likewise poverty to the point of certain early death only ended because government ended it. Pollution to the point of crippling the health of millions only ended because government ended it. Lead in gas and paint only ended because government ended it. Unsafe food only ended to the point that government ended it. The list is endless.

You see, markets not just don't end those things, they fundamentally can't end those things.

Not to mention all the things government does do. It's not actually an accident that government intervention in the economy increased long run growth to the point where the total GDP of the nation doubled over time over the pre-intervention trend.

The private sector creation of wealth is greater when the predatory nature of the economic actors is kept in check.

So you are right that the government has to be kept in check. But if you go so far and cripple the government altogether, you not only set free those that deliberately harm others for their own profit, you cripple all the creation of wealth that the government facilitates.

And, for all of that, do you get more individual liberty? Really, no you don't. Because those who would take your liberty have far more power over your life than the government of the US has ever contemplated taking.

The poor already recieve the poorest quality of police service. They have almost no respect in the urban and rural poor areas. To admire the police is a strange middle class phenomena, and not even in all of those communities. People fear the police more than they do criminals. Also, I don't expect private players who plan to screw me over to do it any worse then the state already does.

While there is some truth in that, you still have to consider the alternative: Protection payments far in excess of the costs of taxes and a "police" who is literally the criminals who you need to be defended from.

 

[Oruc]

Who doesn't want to live in a utopia?

 

[NYHunter]

Then you're completely out of touch with any kind of reality.

So convince me I am wrong.

Even an atrociously bad government is still way ahead complete anarchy -

Anarchy is not what I am advocating for.

Being oppressed and killed by officials is no worse than being oppressed and killed by any random passerby that happens to fancy it,

Well if it's no worse, then that also means it's no better so why bother with it?

and the former in a society tends to happen quite less often than the latter in anarchy, and has a lower level of arbitrariness.

The rate of which an act of horror occurs isn't my only concern. Private players slaughter, but only the state has been capable of the organization of mass slaughter and complete disreguard for human rights to the level that we have seen it perform many times.

 

[Traitorfish]

The rate of which an act of horror occurs isn't my only concern. Private players slaughter, but only the state has been capable of the organization of mass slaughter and complete disreguard for human rights to the level that we have seen it perform many times.

Actually, there've been plenty of private entities that have shown themselves just as willing, given the chance. The British East India Company was brutal even for its time, Dutch East India Company committed some of the worst atrocities on record, and the privately-owned Congo Free State was probably the single worst regime in human history. Even before we introduce very long-term, low-level violence against workers by employers and tenant-farmers by landlords, counting only the outright atrocities, the private sector attains up a level of negative karma that would surprise even most anti-capitalists.

The difference isn't intrinsic to private or public entities, it's about how much power each are generally allowed to exercise. A private company is no more intrinsically benevolent than a Hunnic warlord, it just has less opportunity to make that known, because the state, like all bullies, doesn't like to share power.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

And I believe humans have the ability to address those issues much better without a state.

Don't stop there. Tell me what makes you believe that.

And since you reacted to my post, be mindful about my reservations towards a pure Libertarian society. They're in the same post.

 

[Akka]

So convince me I am wrong.

You can only be convinced if you are willing, and the fact you somehow think that a state is a separate malevolent entity is enough to show that it's not the case.

Anarchy is not what I am advocating for.

Actually it is, lack of state (and as such of laws) is exactly what anarchy is.

Private players slaughter, but only the state has been capable of the organization of mass slaughter and complete disreguard for human rights to the level that we have seen it perform many times.

I'll refer you to the answer of Traitorfish on this one.

 

[Leoreth]

Actually, anarchy is the lack of any form of hierarchy. Which I don't think will happen in a libertarian "utopia". The hierarchy will only be even more dominated by money and capital than it is now.