GhostWriter16
Deity
True
I've wondered what I would say to my fifteen year old self if I went back in time and talked to him. I wonder how long it would take me to convert mysel to libertarianism
Rep. Stephen Fincher: If the Poor Want Their Children to Eat Sell them as Slaves.
- Thread starter FriendlyFire
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True
I've wondered what I would say to my fifteen year old self if I went back in time and talked to him. I wonder how long it would take me to convert mysel to libertarianism
More than three years
GhostWriter16
Deity
Lord of Elves
Suede-Denim Secret Police
- Joined
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Libertarianism is the nihilism of politics. It is, more than anything else, a philosophy of historical and institutional laziness.
GhostWriter16
Deity
I bet I could convert myself within seconds
Actually, it took people who are smarter than me at least two years to convince me.
I wouldn't admit they were smarter than you.
Do you at least think I've improved at all since then?
Well, your above statement about being less hardline on the death penalty shows that yes, you have.
True
If I talked to my 15 year old self, I'd give him a Gray's Sports Almanac-ish List and tell him to make lots of money by betting on the outcomes of games.
Yes, I know 15 year old me can't legally do that. Shut up.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Libertarians are hardly nihilistic. That would imply a rejection of all authorities, while they merely reject those which are inconvenient to the free reign of property.
GhostWriter16
Deity
I'm OK with that. I don't claim to be an anarchist of any sort. I simply believe that as long as I don't aggress against someone else or their property I should be left alone, and offer the same courtesy to other people.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Which kind of falls apart when you hit the whole "wage-system" thing, but whatever.
GhostWriter16
Deity
How are wages in any way opposed to what I said?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
When people have a choice between doing what you tell them or starving, it's hard to maintain a pretence of voluntarism.
GhostWriter16
Deity
My idea of "Voluntarism" is clearly different from yours...
You'd probably deny that even Murray Rothbard was a "Real libertarian". Enjoy.
You'd probably deny that even Murray Rothbard was a "Real libertarian". Enjoy.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Well, think about it: to say that something is done "voluntarily" is to say that it's done freely, that a person could have chosen to do otherwise. In the strictest sense, this simply mean that it's not the result of some pre-concious compulsion, but in practice we extend it to cover circumstances in which the action is consciously undertaken, but because the alternative would not be reasonable. We don't say that a person held at gunpoint "voluntarily" hands over their wallet, for example, even though they could very well have refused, because we recognise that the consequences of refusal make it unreasonable for them to do so. We accept that in certain circumstances "I must do X to achieve Y" is practically identical to "I must do X".
If we imagine a Jeffersonian world of yeoman farmers, then most commercial interactions would be of this voluntary kind. If the farmers are largely self-sufficient, and there exist enough variety of sources for those necessities which they cannot themselves produce, then it would be fair to say that their commercial actions are voluntary. They need metal tools, but there exists such competition as to prevent monopolies or cartels. They want tea, but that's a luxury. In this world, a logic of market-based voluntarism may work.
But, that isn't our world. In our world, most people own very little or no economically productive property, while a few people own a very large amount of productive property. For the dispossessed majority to survive, they have to self themselves into the service of the possessed minority. The alternative is starvation, or at least, assuming a baseline of welfare or charity extended even to those who are unwilling to work, intense poverty. That does not appear to be very much of a choice, so it seems difficult to regard this as a wholly voluntary choice. Perhaps a degree of free reign is retained, in that the dispossessed might be able to choose between employers, or set some conditions of employment, especially in times when their labour is in relative demand. But the basic compulsion to work, to seek employment, to sell oneself into servitude, remains. It is not a free choice. It is not voluntary.
Where you go wrong, I think, is to mistake the form for the content. To assume that, because the voluntary relation of the yeoman farmer take the form of a money-for-commodity exchange, this form must embody a certain kind of content, that of voluntary action. You look at the exchange of labour for wages, see the same form of exchange, and conclude that the content must be similarly voluntary. But as we've shown above, that isn't the case. So regardless of whether the logic of your voluntarism is valid within its own terms, it very quickly breaks down when those terms are exceeded. When the yeoman of independent means is replaced by the worker enmeshed in utter dependency, to talk of "voluntarism" is either to suggest a radical break with the current social order, or to speak in a language so anachronistic that you'd almost expect to find it carved in runes onto the bones of a sacrificial bull, rather than on a computer screen.
If we imagine a Jeffersonian world of yeoman farmers, then most commercial interactions would be of this voluntary kind. If the farmers are largely self-sufficient, and there exist enough variety of sources for those necessities which they cannot themselves produce, then it would be fair to say that their commercial actions are voluntary. They need metal tools, but there exists such competition as to prevent monopolies or cartels. They want tea, but that's a luxury. In this world, a logic of market-based voluntarism may work.
But, that isn't our world. In our world, most people own very little or no economically productive property, while a few people own a very large amount of productive property. For the dispossessed majority to survive, they have to self themselves into the service of the possessed minority. The alternative is starvation, or at least, assuming a baseline of welfare or charity extended even to those who are unwilling to work, intense poverty. That does not appear to be very much of a choice, so it seems difficult to regard this as a wholly voluntary choice. Perhaps a degree of free reign is retained, in that the dispossessed might be able to choose between employers, or set some conditions of employment, especially in times when their labour is in relative demand. But the basic compulsion to work, to seek employment, to sell oneself into servitude, remains. It is not a free choice. It is not voluntary.
Where you go wrong, I think, is to mistake the form for the content. To assume that, because the voluntary relation of the yeoman farmer take the form of a money-for-commodity exchange, this form must embody a certain kind of content, that of voluntary action. You look at the exchange of labour for wages, see the same form of exchange, and conclude that the content must be similarly voluntary. But as we've shown above, that isn't the case. So regardless of whether the logic of your voluntarism is valid within its own terms, it very quickly breaks down when those terms are exceeded. When the yeoman of independent means is replaced by the worker enmeshed in utter dependency, to talk of "voluntarism" is either to suggest a radical break with the current social order, or to speak in a language so anachronistic that you'd almost expect to find it carved in runes onto the bones of a sacrificial bull, rather than on a computer screen.
GhostWriter16
Deity
I am actually interested to address the point, but I don't honestly think I'm the right person to do so. Traitorfish is definitely smarter than I am
I get the distinction that is being made, but I don't see why its useful. Even in the yeoman farming world, its still the reality that, unless people voluntarily extend charity towards you, if you don't work you don't eat. To my understanding, you would say that that's not "Consent" since either you work or you starve. I would tell you that this is irrelevant. I'm not defining freedom as the ability to do what you want whenever you want. That society would be entirely unfree, not to mention that it is fundamentally utopian. I believe that the use of force against adults who have not harmed anyone else or their property is immoral, but that it is not immoral to use force against adults who do harm others or their property (I use "Adults" because I really do think kids are more complicated, and I don't really want to address that difficult issue here, if for no other reason than that I'm never 100% sure what I think about it). I view this as being the maximum realistically attainable degree of freedom, but more importantly, I believe that it is fundamentally just, which is the most important element to me. I may well be able to use a million dollars more than Bill Gates can, but I still view it as unjust to use force to transfer that money to me.
I must confess I don't fully understand how your dream world of no property rights at all could possibly work, but I feel like it would lead to mass starvation or at least close to it since there's no incentive to work. I've got no incentive to do something if I don't have anything to gain from it, and if someone can simply take my possessions, I don't gain anything from possessing them, or working to make things that I can trade for them. I believe that to destroy property is to utopianistically expect people to work for "The common good" or some such, but I believe history has shown that such societies can only be sustained at the point of a gun, and even still, the people with the guns come out on top, or their leaders(Lenin, Stalin, exc.)
I get the distinction that is being made, but I don't see why its useful. Even in the yeoman farming world, its still the reality that, unless people voluntarily extend charity towards you, if you don't work you don't eat. To my understanding, you would say that that's not "Consent" since either you work or you starve. I would tell you that this is irrelevant. I'm not defining freedom as the ability to do what you want whenever you want. That society would be entirely unfree, not to mention that it is fundamentally utopian. I believe that the use of force against adults who have not harmed anyone else or their property is immoral, but that it is not immoral to use force against adults who do harm others or their property (I use "Adults" because I really do think kids are more complicated, and I don't really want to address that difficult issue here, if for no other reason than that I'm never 100% sure what I think about it). I view this as being the maximum realistically attainable degree of freedom, but more importantly, I believe that it is fundamentally just, which is the most important element to me. I may well be able to use a million dollars more than Bill Gates can, but I still view it as unjust to use force to transfer that money to me.
I must confess I don't fully understand how your dream world of no property rights at all could possibly work, but I feel like it would lead to mass starvation or at least close to it since there's no incentive to work. I've got no incentive to do something if I don't have anything to gain from it, and if someone can simply take my possessions, I don't gain anything from possessing them, or working to make things that I can trade for them. I believe that to destroy property is to utopianistically expect people to work for "The common good" or some such, but I believe history has shown that such societies can only be sustained at the point of a gun, and even still, the people with the guns come out on top, or their leaders(Lenin, Stalin, exc.)
Berzerker
Deity
freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint, armed robbery isn't
It aint my fault you gotta eat and farming is hard work, but I doubt people 200 years ago had to pay hefty taxes on their land. Kinda hard to live off a few acres if the state wants you to pay "rent"
This may come as a surprise to you, but many people do things simply because they enjoy them. When they become more skilled, their talents become valuable to other people. Before they even notice, they have fallen into a career. Without trying to.
They don't labor because of some external incentive initially, but it may develop into that after a while.
GhostWriter16
Deity
There is truth to that, of course, but I seriously doubt nearly as much would get done. Especially the more menial tasks that do kind of need to be done but few particularly enjoy would likely not get done.
Personally, I'd write even if it didn't benefit me at all. But that's about the only work I'd do. If I could that's probably all I'd do. The reality is, I'm probably not good enough at it to do that
Which is life.
If you are given incentive to do something other than write, does that make the world a better place?
