Do you support a Libertarian Utopia?

[ParadigmShifter]

Let's say you remove tax in the state, say 30% or whatever. Then you pay for using a road. You pay for a gun to protect yourself. You pay for a lawyer to sue anyone who does something you don't like. You buy insurance in case anything goes wrong. You pay for both kinds of bummed in the gob insurance (properly/improperly) since your first bummed in the gob insurance had a loophole, and you couldn't afford to get a lawyer to check the contract. You pay for a wall to keep out people who want to bum you in the gob. You pay for a private police force because the other police force only protect walls lower than 2.5m, and not on Thursdays since that's national let's bum each other in the gob day.

This must be just like living in macclesfieldparadise.

 

[warpus]

You also have to crap in a box, cause there are no sewers.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Only if you pay for the box.

 

[Crezth]

Let's say you remove tax in the state, say 30% or whatever. Then you pay for using a road. You pay for a gun to protect yourself. You pay for a lawyer to sue anyone who does something you don't like. You buy insurance in case anything goes wrong. You pay for both kinds of bummed in the gob insurance (properly/improperly) since your first bummed in the gob insurance had a loophole, and you couldn't afford to get a lawyer to check the contract. You pay for a wall to keep out people who want to bum you in the gob. You pay for a private police force because the other police force only protect walls lower than 2.5m, and not on Thursdays since that's national let's bum each other in the gob day.

This must be just like living in macclesfieldparadise.

My question is basically why would anyone ever want to live like this.

 

[Cutlass]

My question is basically why would anyone ever want to live like this.

To be fair, most of them really don't think it will be like that. But most of the reasons that they have those beliefs just don't hold up to scrutiny.

 

[galdre]

I'm far too cynical to believe in any kind of utopia

 

[warpus]

From my experience (and it is somewhat limited) libertarians are most interested in their ideology, which revolves around the idea of "personal liberty".

So whatever increases personal liberty is good in their eyes, no matter what implications it has.

I bet they'd be singing a different tune if they were thrown into a purely libertarian society, having to deal with the reality of it rather than just the ideology.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

My question is basically why would anyone ever want to live like this.

Accountants ("Math is hard" - Barbie) and Lawyers ("I like reading but love money more").

 

[Tahuti]

I'm far too cynical to believe in any kind of utopia

Yes. The myth is that we never had utopia's, while the reality is that all utopia's we had so far were and continue to be major letdowns.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yes. The myth is that we never had utopia's, while the reality is that all utopia's we had so far were and continue to be major letdowns.

Isn't that a contradiction in terms? "Utopia" is not identical to "utopian project".

 

[Tahuti]

Isn't that a contradiction in terms? "Utopia" is not identical to "utopian project".

Good point, but wouldn't Montesquieu consider the current western democracies to be utopia's? Or am I off again?

 

[Traitorfish]

Good point, but wouldn't Montesquieu consider the current western democracies to be utopia's? Or am I off again?

"Utopia" generally denotes a perfect or ideal society, and that's not something which I think that anyone would use in reference to Western democracies. Montesquieu may have considered the political models now employed to be "utopian" in his day, in the pejorative sense of being unrealistic or impractical, but that doesn't really tell you anything about the models themselves.

 

[Berzerker]

That Jetsons/Flintstones crossover from 1987.

Libertarianism. It isn't a synonym for minimal-statism.

I said libertarianism /= no government

what are you talking about?

 

[NYHunter]

I'd prefer a libertarian society in New Mexico governed by Gary Johnson.

 

[Traitorfish]

I said libertarianism /= no government

Only since the tedious neopaleoconservative crowd got hold of it. Until then it pretty specifically meant "no state" (skipping over the sloppy American use of "government" for just a minute) and in most cases "no private property" either. (The term was coined by the French anarchist-communist Joseph Déjacque, to give you some idea of its genealogy.)

 

[amadeus]

Given that the meanings of words describing political ideologies has changed so significantly over time, I'm frustrated at anti-capitalist/anti-property anarchists giving anarcho-capitalists/libertarians a hard time over their use of the "anarcho-" prefix and "libertarian."

For the record, I would not at the time being move to a stateless, libertarian Texas.

 

[Leonel]

I suspect the poll has rather loaded options...

In any case, has there ever been an instance where libertarianism has succeeded?

 

[NYHunter]

I suspect the poll has rather loaded options...

In any case, has there ever been an instance where libertarianism has succeeded?

No. Eventually a state is formed, or a foriegn power conquers such a society.

 

[amadeus]

In any case, has there ever been an instance where libertarianism has succeeded?

Two questions: how do you measure success? Can we only measure success in a "total" libertarian society?

 

[Leonel]

Two questions: how do you measure success? Can we only measure success in a "total" libertarian society?

It sounds like the same arguments made about communism. There's never been a libertarian "success" nor has there been a communist "success" and that they've never been properly implemented. Both ideologies don't seem to account for the depths of human greed and in reality, a balance between the two ideas of government is what's needed.