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People do not like libertarianism because it makes their lives harder. It does not support the view that Americans are better and more deserving of a disproportionate share of the world's resources. It does not use the state to create benefits for a specific group of people. It does not shift the costs of now onto the future. It does not allow people to use the power of the state to stop unpopular ideas, criticism, or offensive material. It does not allow the majority to enforce morality through law.

It is not a fun way of life. Imagine living someplace where the state had no moral control over actions and behaviors that do not violate the rights of others? It would be total chaos. People could enter into legal relationships with those of the same sex or people that they are related to. People could use illegal drugs. they could sell organs. Maybe they would be saying things that you find offensive.

That would be a terrible place. The state exists to serve me. I am owed everything and no one should ever do anything that offends or inconveniences me.

I believe in unicorns, too!

My favorite thing is voting.  I love it.  That's because hen you write someone's name down on a piece of paper and enough millions of people check off the box beside the name on that piece of paper, that the person who was chosen has undergone what is formally known as the "rite of purification by ballot", and that all negative aspects of their human nature that might exist have been washed away by the will of the majority, and they will only use their armies of hundreds of thousands of men with guns and free reign to use them indiscriminately, without consequence, will be the greatest, bestest thing for all of us!

Reductio ad absurdum, expertly done.

Yes it does, in many ways, but not for the reasons you detailed above.
Good job defeating that straw-man though. I'm sure it was hard work.

You're not familiar with Poe's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law), are you?

Libertarianism will actually work, yes. But even as a libertarian I really wonder sometimes if the anarcho-capitalists and self-described libertarians on this forum realize that with liberty does come responsibility. You can't fraud your way to success, folks. You've got to take the "responsibility" angle seriously, and be able to own up to your own actions.

+1 but some of us do realize that. ;)

Welcome back Atlas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I8BPDjUgKI

That's not why I don't like libertarianism. Try again.

Good catch. I just dislike Libertarians because they write nonsense like this. I usually just ignore them. QED.

Well I tend to use the moniker Mutualist or simply "Anarchist" (without any adjectives) to describe my views.

My one grip with Libertarianism isn't really with the ideology itself but many of the followers of said ideology. You see I have a problem with what Roderick Long calls "Left-Right Conflation-ism" and Kevin Carson calls "Vulgar Libertarianism".

An example of this would be how some view modern day "Corporations" who buy political power. Those institutions are not legitimate. Their wealth was made by way of utilizing means not accessible to any of us. They also tend to be safe from Market competition due to regulations they've purchased. Simply chalking it off as "well they did the best they could under the current conditions" does not cut it.

Their wealth ought to be stripped from them, as we do with bureaucrats and others Statists, the moment Freed Markets takes shape. They are enemies of Liberty and Freed Markets.

Yeah! I'm sick of choices. I want the state to take them away so the only decision I have to make is, "Coke or Pepsi?"

I agree Corporations are in the same league as Governments. Same abuse of power when you get to the depths of it.

They're the same thing these days. The only ones that think there's a difference are the average voters.

Sure, but only to an extent.  I can walk out of walmart without spending a dime.  Try "not spending" on sending other people's kids to school and paying those public teacher bureaucracies.  See how far that gets you and if you don't have men showing up at your house with guns taking your house from you because you "owe" them.

I don't see any walmart cops grabbing people off the sidewalks and dragging them into the store because they "owe" walmart for shelving and stocking all these products on behalf of the public.

Wal-mart is one of the lesser evils when it comes to corporatism. They act more like clouty market participants than anything.

I look more to Monsanto and BP who bribe their way to government benefits and bailouts.

For instance, Monsanto evades Puerto Rico's constitutional land limit by using several LLC names. They are looking for a monopoly on Puerto Rico agriculture.

Everybody else is forced to follow the rules.

better?

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Monsanto might retain some benefits by bribing the state (again, only possible when the state exists in the first place).

But their biggest fascist benefit is in patent law (which is immoral, in all cases, along with the entire concept of IP).  They can patent a planet, are waived from all consequences that their modified food might impose upon consumers, and if anyone DARES to take that and improve it or make it safer, they are sued into oblivion and/or locked into a cage.  It is the artificial monopoly that is the real killer, because the monopoly is where they shirk all accountability, and every natural mechanism of the market is beaten down to a pulp.

Don't be an idiot.

Better?

How would you use illegal drugs if no government outlawed drugs? Unpossible imo.

As I figured.

Hey, when you start dropping some truth, let us know.

+1

Yeah, well put.  Fuck Monsanto.     

Rather sad with all the potential of modern science and genetic engineering, that with our fascist system we have held them down so low that the very best polymerase chain reactions have brought for us is "roundup ready" and "terminator" plants. 

Great!  Food plants that require extra industrial pollution and don't even give you seed back!  There's progress!

Clearly Americans thousands of years ago were much more skilled agricultural engineers.  I bet their success was in part due to embrace of the ideas of libertarianism.     

Has there been a single libertarian society that was able to prosper or out-compete another, non-libertarian society for an extended period?

To my understanding the answer is no, but I will leave that discussion to all of you.

The reason libertarianism sucks is because it promotes wealth/power over merit. There is a reason that we have public schools. We all pay for them and we reap their rewards when someone like Steve Jobs, and all of the awesome people from humble beginnings achieve great eminence, success, and glory. Without these requirements that everyone pay for the future of society only those who start from a position of power have a chance at success(for the most part). We, as a society, need to do all that we can to see that all the possible Einsteins actually become Einsteins. It is only through harvesting every ounce of our intellectual capability that we will succeed, prosper, and further the human race.

In general I am not in favor of arguments such as "my *ism is a great word and this other word, **ism, is total failure for everyone that tried it" because in the end these things come down to definitions, which are not agreed upon. 

On the other hand, sometimes the debates can lead to mention of specific issues of import, and so they are not entirely useless.  There is nice discussion on this weeks Keiser report on what is libertarianism really, if you're stuck in this thread I would recommend a trip over to maxkeiser.com to hear the 2nd half of Max's show. 

There is no way to argue against a no true scotsman fallacy. Define your parameters and argue from there. I'm not going to listen to a long diatribe from your particular prophet, i don't have the time.

If I were you, I would bring up example of more libertarian states that out-competed less libertarian states. That would allow for some discussion of the merits of libertarianism. 

For now, all I can see is a half-assed defense that can't come up with the theorized(by you) dominance of a libertarian society over more collectivist societies.

This just in, Denninger is a fucking blowhard. If you trust this guy for information then i have some options to sell you.

He does a good job deconstructing libertarianism with respect to globalization.

Denninger has some inconsistencies with regards to political philosophy but with regards to macroeconomic analysis he's very good.

Some people don't like him because he generates his graphs from verifiable sources, so it's possible for anyone to recreate the same spreadsheet he made the graph from to check his work.

It's hard for establishment apologists to call Denninger wrong when he uses the data published by the Federal Reserve on its own website to make his points so they typically resort to ad hominem attacks instead of addressing the data.

If the state did not exist, corporations would find it necessary to invent it.  The state would almost certainly be on a smaller scale (e.g. company towns), but that doesn't make it any less a state.

Data is data, but the conclusions he draws are far from self evident. From my 15 minutes of listening to the guy, he seems to think he knows everyone and their motivations better than they do, which is simply ridiculous.

Ignore the inflammatory headline. The important part is the graph and its interpretation: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=210976&findnew#new (http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=210976&findnew#new)

And he lost me when he said this

"This is the lesson of Japan, where instead of allowing the liquidation of bad bets to take place they instead subsidized and transferred those losses to the taxpayer.  Suppression of interest rates was "successful" but over time the innovation that drove the Japanese economy has departed because good ideas were no longer able to outcompete bad ones. "

What? Low interest rates make it harder to compete? Really? Last time i checked having a lower cost of capital is good thing, and any failing business is at the very least spending money and employing someone.

This guy is a nut. Arguing for increased interest rates in the current environment is like asking to put out a fire with gasoline. No reputable economist would argue for it.

You are a danger to yourself and others.

Throwing away capital by pouring it into a failing business makes things worse because all the resources tied up in that business are being pointlessly consumed instead of redirected into something successful.

OK I'll play, thanks for the invitation.   

Lets start with:

1) US 1773 - 1950   
2) China 1985 - 2010 

As examples of more libertarian enclaves that out competed their less libertarian groups.

Oh God yes. I'd point to the US after the civil war till the Spanish American War for one, though some would go all the way to WWI or the Great Depression as a prime example of a libertarian society out-competing others.

Much of early Rome's early history was considered libertarian in nature, though slavery was still common. In fact, Rome basically expanded not by conquest, but because whenever some city-state surrounding it had problems with tribes, they'd just call Rome to fulfill their part of the defensive alliance/pact called the Cassian Treaty. Rome continued to expand by more and more city-states and tribes signing pacts with it, till eventually it had control of all of Italy. It continued to expand from there as now entire territories wanted in on this huge nation that had immense power of force without any demands or regulations (just "user fees" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_fee)). It was like the entirety of Europe was outsourcing security to Rome.

Others might point to mid evil Iceland as a libertarian society as there were essentially tribes run by Judges. In fact, the book of Judges in the Christian Bible also describes another form of libertarian jewish state, but the people always ended up clamoring for a king.

Hong Kong after WWII has been pretty libertarian, even up until recently they never had a minimum wage. For the previous nearly sixty years there was none. Sure, over time there's been tons of criminal activity there, but low comparative deaths, and it survived for so long as a safe haven for wealthy Chinese to escape communism.

These are just a few societies/instances off the top of my head.

Libertarians only exist today because there is the rest of the country around to support them.

Fixed.

yjacket, please write an essay on the source of "low interest rates," your views on property rights, and the "cost of capital" as sourced via theft.

It's true. Who is begging for the tax breaks?

the ill gotten gains will leak out, I promise you. Only the strong survive.