NationStates Jolt Archive

I have an issue that I have been pondering since I began looking more seriously into libertarianism and I don't mean this as flame bait or anything.

I can understand and even relate to the idea of government not regulating how people want to lead their lives and that should be solely the right of the individual to run his/her own life. The idea of smaller government in that sense is extremely appealing to me. But my issue is with the economic freedom that Libertarians push for. This idea of extreme laissez-faire with regard to Capitalism.

Given our past experiences with companies such as Enron or even entire periods of history, ie. the Gilded Age, where economic restrictions were non-existent and corporations ran rampant doing whatever they pleased. How can you justify a system of Capitalism that is reminiscent of said Gilded Age? How can this system lead to helping an individual while not harming another? and What is the ideal system that Libertarians or Anarcho-Capitalists are trying to achieve?

I apologize if this has been done before but being relatively new to NS I haven't seen any posts about this subject recently.

There is no ideal system. Libertarianism if you want to call it that is a philosophy, but not an ideology. It espouses that there is a best way to run things, but certainly not a perfect way to run things.

Not all Libertarians, and I should even say MOST Libertarians are not anarcho-capitalists as you suggest. Libertarians and their "libertarian" counterparts are minarchists. That is, the government that rules least, rules best (note, BEST, but not perfect).

This does not imply that economic regulations should not exist. Not at all. In fact, a key tenet of Libertarian policy and general philosophy is an opposition to the unjust initiation of force or fraud.

Misrespresentation, misuse of corporate power, the scamming of investors, broken legal commitments and contracts (like pension agreements) these are all considered morally and legally reprehensible to Libertarians.

There are differences of opinion on Insider Trading (the act of trading with new information is as victimless an act as personal drug use, and only illegal because of what the SEC might call "unfairness", though it is a nature market force that hurts no one), but mostly, the Libertarian Party is the strongest advocate for consumer and investor rights.

You won't see the mainstream Democrats and Republicans railing against Corporate Welfare, targeted tax-cuts or farming subsidy. But Libertarians are against all of the above.

What the Libertarian Party hopes to achieve is the freest America possible, and the freest America must have the freest market. That means the government should not be complicit in deciding which businesses get to succeed and fail. That means students and parents should have a right to decide where they go to school. And the cost of living and doing business should not be artificially increased by the government to grow a greater burden on the people.

We believe government has a few important priorities that are to be spread around and efficiently addressed. The Federal government should run the military. The state government should run the schools. The city government should take care of the road and keep the police well paid.

But what we have right now is the Federal government doing all of those functions through the Federal Income Tax, which it uses as a means to hold the cities and states victim to the availability of Federal grants.

You saw this yesterday in the President's budget. Why should he even HAVE the power to decide which local police departments get money and which ones don't? A smaller, less expensive Federal government that protects our rights and not much else is the goal of the LP.

...Maybe you should consider lending a hand. :)

Hope this helped.

www.lp.org

How would the idea of monoply be handled in this type of government? Or ensuring worker's rights, ie. worker unions?

I didn't mean to suggest that Libertarianism or Anarcho-Capitalism are one in the same, just that they share this idea of laissez-faire Capitalism in some varying level of extremity.

How far would regulations go in this system? What would be dropped from our current government if the Libertarian Party got hold?

I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near gung-ho for the libertarians since several other political thoughts share the same level of social and political freedom that I agree with so much. Its just the idea of business and corporations that have always been "seedy" in my mind and it seems to me some kind of well placed regulations need to be in place so we aren't faced with another Industrial Age period of corruption and greed.

Sorry, that was me actually :)

That name is for my joke NS

I am a libertarian. My political philosophy is founded in economics as described by the "Austrian school." I strongly recomend you visit lewrockwell.com (http://www.lewrockwell.com). It will not answer all of your questions right away, but if you check into it once in a while it will answer more of your questions faster than any other website IMO. Some of the articles will be over your head, some will be boring, but I'm sure there a many you'll find interesting. Lew Rockwell is the founder and president of the Mises Institute (http://www.mises.org) and was a student of my hero, Murray N. Rothbard (http://www.mises.org/content/mnr.asp). There is also the Cato Institute (http://cato.org), which is not quite as radical. If you want simplistic answers there's this (http://capitalism.org/faq/index.htm).

For the record:
1. regulations cannot stop greed
2. unions exist primary to eliminate competition
3. your government school understanding of history could probably use some revision.

How would the idea of monoply be handled in this type of government? Or ensuring worker's rights, ie. worker unions?

I didn't mean to suggest that Libertarianism or Anarcho-Capitalism are one in the same, just that they share this idea of laissez-faire Capitalism in some varying level of extremity.

How far would regulations go in this system? What would be dropped from our current government if the Libertarian Party got hold?

I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near gung-ho for the libertarians since several other political thoughts share the same level of social and political freedom that I agree with so much. Its just the idea of business and corporations that have always been "seedy" in my mind and it seems to me some kind of well placed regulations need to be in place so we aren't faced with another Industrial Age period of corruption and greed.
Regulations go as far as to prevent force or fraud. More specifics vary from person to person. You can believe whatever you want about monopolies. Some economists argue that they don't have to be bad, though. As soon as they begin to abuse people, new competition will sprout up.

Businesses may be seedy, but when it comes to potential for abuse, the government is far worse. Businesses have no means to force you to pay for something. This gives you a form of non-violent protest. Neither does the government have a motivation to reduce waste.

Your concerns about past economic systems are ill-founded. The laws against fraud were either non-existent or could not be enforced. The story today is much different.

Firstly, allow me to start by saying that NO OTHER political movement in the United States today seriously advocates the amount of personal freedom as advocated in the Libertarian Party.

Democrats or Greens may promise that, but they fall far short both in their economics and their cooperation in current Unconstitutional policies.

Now, as for business and regulation (which by the way, applies to all of us, not just the big guys)...

It depends which Libertarian you ask about which Federal departments should be eliminated and which shouldn't be. But at its heart, Libertarians will promise that as many as can be reasonably eliminated, should be eliminated at the Federal level and replaced by comparable services.

We do advocate the abolishment of the Federal Deparment of Education (Education is a state issue), the FCC (we are thoroughly against censorship), the IRS (We oppose Federal income taxation) and the NEA (the one that breaks into invalids' houses and takes their drugs, not the teacher's association...we oppose the Drug War).

Some Libertarians oppose the FDA and the NIH. I do as well in its current form. Firstly, because the FDA and the NIH (Food and Drug Administration and National Institute of Health) overlap each other in the services they provide. That means we pay twice for the same thing, and it happens in thousands of instances in the Federal government.

The government thinks this fosters competition, but we know better. Only a free market in which the people have choices can there be an increase in productivity from competition. That's why for many regulations and licensure conditions, we advocate privatization. For electronics, we believe Underwriter's Labs for years does a much better job than the FCC. For product quality and safety, we believe Consumer Report, Internal Trouble shooting from companies and other dedicated and private sources works much better than the government.


Part of this reason for this is that the big bureaucracies like the FDA are in the pocket of the big corporate drug makers, approving some "drugs" while denying the right for alternative medicines and therapies (many which are much safer and more natural than synthetic drugs) to be recognized. This has a profound impact on U.S. laws toward certain drugs and even legitimate medicines being used successfully elsewhere. This increases the cost of medicine and healthcare, because the Federal government claims a monopoly on the distribution and approval of these services and products.


It's not just a hypothetical. People have died because of the FDA's behavior, and they should absolutely be scaled back to the point that they act only as a centralized information bureau, and not the guardian to America's healthcare choices.

To make my long story short:

Regulations would go as far as they needed to go to protect people from what would obviously be an unjust use of force or fraud, but not as far as to compromise our basic right to choose services and make our own choices. That's the bar Libertarians base regulation on.

Breaking a contract is a crime, causing bodily or property harm to others and refusing to pay for the damage one does is a crime. Lying about your product or service is fraudulent and criminal. The use of public funds to support private business, in many states, is Unconstitutional (not that it often stops the Councils and Congress anyway), and Libertarians believe it to be wrong and criminal. These are areas in which business should absolutely be regulated. We have Attorney Generals not only in Washington but in all fifty states to handle prosecutions against corporate offenders and they should absolutely be used as necessary when the legal defense the people provide themselves is inadequate.

It's not as simple as "Libertarians want to dismantle everything". Libertarians are reformers. We believe that the bureaucracy can be scaled back to make such government is doing our job, and that government doesn't prevent us, as citizens, owners of businesses and customers of businesses (which aren't just monolithic bodies, but groups of people like you and me) from doing our jobs of fairly and legally exchanging goods, services and ideas.

That's the Libertarian Perspective.

You are right Battery Charger, I don't have the greatest grasp on history and politics. Maybe the reason I'm asking the question in the first place...?

I'm just one guy trying to understand something new and thank you Democratica City, that was a very informative answer to my question.

Most libertarians aren't full laissez-faire (I'm not, for one). I do want one or two restrictions, but mostly ones that deal with corporations committing force or fraud and the like . . .

And on the issue of monopolies: If a natural monopoly arises simply because the people like to buy the company's product(s), it shouldn't be interfeered with. But (obviously) if it breaks laws concerning force or fraud it can have charges leveled against them

You brought up monopolies. This is funny because most real monopolies are held by the government.
You've also mentioned Enron and other attrocities comitted by huge, multinational corporations. Wasn't the government already on the clock when these things occurred? And once the government did get involved, did anyone really get their money back? Really?

Here's the elephant in the room: These things will happen (and continue to) simply because under the current system, they're above the law.
If you don't know, Washington is not full of consumer watchdogs (as some Democrats and liberals imagine), but Lobbyists.
Big business has big government by the balls. They own both parties.

Most regulations on the books do not protect anyone from corporate abuse or theft. They are lobbied for by big businesses (via politicians) to gain quasimonopolies that keep small businesses from competing with them.

Regulation just keeps entrepeneurs (the very spirit of the American Dream) out of the picture. They work against the people, not for them.

As the current system is, any vote other than one for the LP is a vote for big business.... period.

Anything else is rhetorical bullshit.

*bump*

First bump ever! :D

your talking about libertarian as in a member of the american libertarian party right?

*grind*

I don't think I've bumped before.

I agree with you, though I would not have used such strong language. The Democrats' and Republicans' policies create more monopolies than they prevent. Their voting members' ideals are quite separate from the parties' actions.

I'd like to see libertarian parties all over Europe. I am not an anarcho-capitalist libertarian though.

I do not fully agree with libertarianism, but I think it would be a great way to create a better balance. They'd also pull away protest votes from far-right wing parties.

I'm rather pragmatic about this though, but to me "blame the government" sounds better than "blame the foreigners."

I'm rather pragmatic about this though, but to me "blame the government" sounds better than "blame the foreigners."
Would you call Sweden and fill them in on this? :p

:) Yay! Libertarian brethren!