That the desperately poor exist and need genuine help is orthogonal to the question of how to get good governance. Anytime the question of good governance gets sidetracked into the zero sum narrative of the rich vs the poor, crappy governance wins.
I've heard it said that "only the middle-class can afford to be communists". The implication being that "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities" only seems attractive when you equate "needs" with "middle-class standard of living". If you worked out what the actual standard of living would be if everyone's "means" were evenly distributed, communism suddenly becomes a lot less attractive.
Similarly, I think only the middle-class or wealthy can afford to be libertarians. Take, for example, the case of firefighters letting a house burn over an unpaid fee: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefight... . This is the world libertarians envision, and I'd wager most of them respond to news like this with "It's only $75 per year! That's not much at all..."
They also tend to talk like people who've never had a payment get mislabeled or misfiled by either a company or the government. Harmless when you're ordering a computer and get delayed a week. Devastating when your house is on fire.
Sorry, I hate these one liners, I should elaborate.
First, there is the grinding irony of highlighting the doings of a government body as a libertarian vision. I'm not sure exactly what a libertarian fire brigade would look like, but it must likely wouldn't have a monopoly over the high-density, thus profitable, city and indemnity to screw over the less profitable rural areas.
Second, you speculate on the victim's hypothetical poorness. However, in the article it's stated unambiguously that they had made a conscious decision to forego the fire brigade subscription. I see the practicality, but I struggle with the ethics of forcing them to pay for a service they've made a conscious decision they don't want.
Finally, and a little off-topic, there's a the question of contents insurance. If you've decided that the fire brigade isn't for you, you most likely did not take out insurance for the contents of what looks like a mobile home. A fire in a mobile home, even when doused with water, is unlikely to leave you very many useful possessions. Never mind the structure itself, which is likely to be a write-off, even if only half burned down.
Given this, I assume you are as vigorous in campaigning for universal contents insurance as you are in blaming this family's fate on libertarians? Or are you happy with people loosing all their things, as along as the government makes sure to pour water on them (for free) first?
Well the average income would be ~43000USD (bls.gov), which is not that bad. Also you should consider that communism would turn the world upside down, to stand on it's feet. Meaning a lot of professions would simply fade away, mainly the ones created solely because of the fetish of "making money." And the true product would arise. Science and technology could flourish as government grants, and so on would be of no use. Everybody could study without thinking about the useless dept. Financial bubbles that cost so much would simply be eradicated. But then again, it is the simple thing, that is hard to realize.
As with chocolate cookies, not everything that feels pleasurable is good for you. And it certainly isn't good for our hapless readers who have to read through all the angry comments your blog post inspired.
Criticizing political ideologies isn't very productive (especially when its party has never won a seat in congress), but if you're going to do it, please follow this example: http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html.
The author addresses specific issues and injects a bit of humor into his responses. He uses statistics and facts instead of anecdotes. Most importantly, he doesn't strawman or condescend. That's the sort of writing that convinces people. The submitted post will most likely just annoy any libertarians who read it.
The original link isn't titled "Why Libertarianism Doesn't Work", it's called "How I Outgrew Libertarianism". He's just writing a personal anecdote about why he no longer agrees with a political philosophy. Does everything on HN have to be laid out as an academic paper?
>Does everything on HN have to be laid out as an academic paper?
No, but a personal anecdote about libertarianism as a political ideology is the sort of thing that breeds argument, but no debate.
EDIT: So I went ahead and looked up "debate" in a dictionary and it apparently doesn't mean "principled argument", I'm not sure what the word for that is, but basically a post like this generates a lot of noise but produces little to no signal.
I see it more as an interesting read than anything else, and enlightened me to one person's issues with libertarianism. Sort of like reading a novel with political viewpoints: you can agree with it or disagree with it. It doesn't have to "produce signal".
That raikoth link is really good, but isn't this a case of "you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into"? I mean the raikoth article is just a big list of lies that libertarians believe, some subtle and complicated, some just plain stupid. How did they get so convinced without investigating these things? I welcome stigmatizing such fervent belief in comforting (to the believer at least) lies as childish.
And I say this as someone, like the author of your link, who sees great value in some of the free market ideas.
"'you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into'?"
Don't forget that this applies to you as much as anyone else. None of the rebuttals presented by the author of the "faq" are that strong as far as I am concerned. You would say that is because I have irrational beliefs and I would say that it is because the author completely ignores (as far as I can tell) the corporatocracy that big government enables; uses empirical evidence of phenomena from a big government environment and instead of attributing these phenomena to that environment, uses them as evidence against libertarian philosophies; and in general uses arguments that aren't particularly compelling.
Now the truth is probably somewhere in the middle but I think it is important for you to at least acknowledge that your dismissal of other ideas or beliefs as lies can probably be attributed to bias as much as the converse. In which case, "stigmatizing such fervent belief in comforting (to the believer at least) lies as childish.
" is not a very good idea.
> show me a Libertarian, and I'll show you someone with a sheltered upbringing
Very well put. I think it applies to pretty much all neo-conservatives. Conservatism is about being rich and wanting stability to remain rich. Neo-conservatism is about wanting to be rich and stay rich because you never knew any other aspiration than wealth. (Funnily enough, this applies to both people born into wealth and poverty, with the first often selling this aspiration to the second, to their distinct disadvantage.)
Similarly, Libertarians argue that everything will work out since it's all a level playing field from their perspective and everybody would have a good life if they just put effort in. They just never knew any other starting point to aspire from than their own.
And liberalism is about feeling guilty about your success when others suffer and trying to absolve for your sins by shaping the state in a way to redistribute wealth, regardless of how effective that might be in actually increasing economic mobility.
Do you see how it's kind of dumb to make wide sweeping statements about political groups based upon basic strawman arguments?
No, actually, your depiction of liberalism is mostly accurate except for the motivation part. I don't think it's about absolving sins. I also don't think that economic mobility is the main objective. This again speaks to the unrecognized entitlement: When all you strive for is your own economic mobility, you project the same on poor folks. Most of the time, they would like to be on the scale of economic mobility to start off with, not advance on it.
Can you elaborate on how exactly the use of the word "increasing" is some smoking gun for unrecognized entitlement? If I'm understanding your point it seems absolutely ridiculous. Obviously "increasing economic mobility" includes conceptually providing mobility to those who currently have no mobility at all.
> show me a Libertarian, and I'll show you someone with a sheltered upbringing
For what it is worth...
When I read that, I had a flashback to the first man I ever met who identified himself to me as a libertarian. I was probably about 13 years old and I didn't even know what a libertarian was. He was a middle-aged black man of average means who, I think, was born in Indiana and had ended up living in Pahoa, Hawaii (one of the cheaper places to live in the state).
Ironically, his name was Obama Buckner (Obama was his first name, unlike the president). I googled him when the president won the election but he had died a couple of years prior. I wish I had thought to reconnect with him sooner because he was a big part of the local BBS scene, and made a major difference in my young life. I would really like to have talked to him now as an adult with more perspective on libertarianism so that I could understand what path led him to his beliefs.
1. Understanding that there isn't always one noun to describe the particular mix of beliefs that work for you.
2. Understanding that a belief system isn't always the same as the dominant group that is claiming that belief system for themselves at a given point in time (say "the" libertarian party)
3. Understanding that written statements of principle are always approximations to reality. Reality always has complications and exceptions.
4. Rule: there are always exceptions. There are no exceptions to that rule.
5. Competition tends to war as rules tend to zero.
6. Be ready to change your mind when confronted with new data.
7. NEVER identify yourself with your beliefs. If you do, an attack on your beliefs become an attack on you. Then you'll never see things straight.
Not to mention many of the ones he calls "libertarians", probably never were actual libertarians, but were just paying lip service to it, or were libertarians, and became corrupted down the road, and instead of caring about everyone's liberties, they started caring only about the corporation's liberties, or something like that.
It's like calling the warmongering, civil liberties anti-Christ, and whistleblower-persecutor - Obama - a "liberal", and then saying your "outgrew liberalism".
I agree with the idea behind the article, most libertarians are shocked at each penny spent subsidizing people in wheelchairs while turning a blind eye to the fact that Forbes 500 gets enormous subsidies from the government and that list would look completely different if not for government regulations favoring them especially and or outright subsidies. This is not only a blind spot for libertarians, this is a blind spot for most lefties as well. They call for higher taxes that will eventually end up in CEO bonuses. Until this blind spot is addressed there's no point in discussing politics.
Not admittedly for corporate welfare, but their priority is stopping the pennies going to wheelchairs first and then maybe look at corporate subsidies.
Studied political philosophy, middle class background, wanted to work as a musician. How did this guy end up being a Libertarian in the first place? Perhaps he was influenced by a group of privileged people around him who were identifying with Libertarianism to justify their own selfishness. I'm only speculating wildly here.
Myself, I'm the guy who dropped out of school to support myself, no family support to fall back on (in fact, I support them now) and I've managed to overcome that and make a success of my life. I started out believing in socialism and my own successes lead me to Libertarianism. The article surprised me, because I also outgrew Libtertarianism, because I know that even though I made most of my luck I am still more fortunate than many others. I believe that with the productivity gains we've made in society, unnecessary toil and suffering should be limited. However, when it comes to how to share around this wealth, I'll still tilt over to the Libertarian side. I don't see it as some kind of utopian system, I see it as a direction. You can go in the direction of more centralised control and power to try to impose fairness, or you can go in the direction of less concentrated power and decentralise it more.
>>> Myself, I'm the guy who dropped out of school to support myself, no family support to fall back on (in fact, I support them now) and I've managed to overcome that and make a success of my life. <<<
I would love to hear your story, would it be possible for me to drop you a line? (your email ID isn't listed on your profile page)
Reads more like "How I Outgrew Political Party X" since all the reasons are very undersatandable and mostly correct (at least for me). I only have difficulties to see where any of the points has something to do with the philosophy of Libertariasm. But again, that's maybe just me.
Another reason why I think we really should steer clear of politics is that the discussion level isn't all that high. Actually, some of the arguments are the kind that 4chan laughs at[1].
There's so much that libertarians ignore that you can point out, criticize, even mock but their answer to "No lifelines, no backup plans, no connections" is well known and straight-forward. It's "charity" and it is far from obvious that this is somehow a worse plan than "massive bureaucracy to administer welfare funded by confiscating 40% of people's incomes."
If every system is corruptible then this argument cannot be really used against any system in particular. We know democratic institutions are sometimes captured, officials are bribed, public funds awarded to friends and family... but democratic governments limp along. They do better than many alternatives. Pure libertarian government may be utopian or theoretical, that does not mean that moving in its direction wouldn't make governance better.
If this was all that took to convince you to move away from libertarianism then either you were never one, or you're rationalizing a change made for other reasons.
I don't want to agree that all political systems are doomed to not work. But I agree that it applies to all the currently known systems. There is no proof yet that stable system is not possible.
All the current systems has one property in common - a build-in reliance on someone within the system to be honest and nice to others. Would it be honest ruler, honest politician or judge or honest voter. The difference between the systems is that they have different degrees of reliance on honesty and that reliance put in different layers. If there were a proof that it is possible in certain conditions to shift the reliance of honesty away from people to say P != NP, that would make the system bullet-proof. I would call it a pure system. That would also mean that there is more than one pure system possible, in fact infinite amount. We can already see that things like currency can be made and sustained without governance, I want to believe same will one day be possible with government itself.
It's not that all political systems are doomed not to work. They will work, just for various durations until they are replaced by another system that solves the problems that the previous one couldn't, which then itself has it's expiry date.
I assume you meant "doomed not to work"? They "work" in the same way prisoners dilemma works, and the expiration date is until the moment one of the prisoners do not cooperate. This is what you describe as "problem" - and the another prisoners dilemma is created (another political system), which solves previous "problem" - makes it that "prisoners" have to work in different way, and the expiration date is until they figure out how to game the system. My idea is that there is no proof yet that it is impossible to create such system that to an arbitrary small probability you could be sure you are not being gamed, and that is what i referred to "pure system", or may be called zero-trust system as well.
It may be that it is unknowable whether such system could exist or not, in that case the search for it might be eternal.
As a counter-anecdote, I'd like to mention that I've grown into many small "l" libertarian ideas as I've grown older (~40) and started to raise a family, and I've led a life that's very far from sheltered.
Traditionally, I've leaned toward bleeding heart liberal with a strong emphasis on civil liberties, but having seen what our government has done with its power over the past decade+, I'm starting to place much more faith in the promise of small communities and local markets than in big government and corporate cronyism.
Nothing more than a personal anecdote, but that's all I'm responding to.
I would think corporate cronyism is what liberalism tries to solve, by regulating it with law. It's hard for me to see how a Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, or McDonalds would come close to being regulated without any federal government. Given, it's far from being effectively taken care of right now, but I can't help but think removing any kind of regulation around large corporations would be good for society.
There are also a lot of bad kind of regulations, that support corporate cronyism. In fact big corporations know that and spend large amounts lobbying for their interests. It's about the right regulations and removing the wrong regulations, not just regulation. And the more complex regulations become the more inaccessible it becomes for the general public.
With regards to "the Poor", let me add a 'reply from Mises' with regards to "the Fight Againt Poverty" (although I think poverty in the US has risen sharply after he wrote this) : http://mises.org/daily/4652
What's wrong with the title of your article is that it boxes Libertarianism into a single movement or general attitude, which it is not. What you really meant to say is "How I grew up and started to give a shit about less fortunate people".
Libertarians (at least those I affiliate with) are not heartless people, but hold a general subversive attitude to government overreach. It has little to do with not helping the poor, but rather not let the government do it by means of force, and do it on a more personal, voluntary, connected, human level. And avoiding the mistakes of crony governments so that there are less poor people in the first place.
Coming from France where I grew up, you would be very surprised by the level of resentment instilled in the fabrics of the French society by socialism. People being tired of giving most of their earnings in taxes have little willingness to help people around them on a personal level.
It reminds me of an article I read (can't find it anymore) about how Silicon Valley was not the Libertarian land it was painted because Silicon Valley companies were much more generous in sharing their success with employees through stock options. Well, again it was a misguided attribution, being generous has nothing non-Libertarian in it. At the contrary, low involvement of government restrictions and taxation in US companies in general (not that it is the lowest in CA), does allow these kind of thing to come about privately. It's unheard of in Europe.
Over time I've moved from being practically Libertarian (believing it to be achievable and useful and conceived) to being theoretically Libertarian (asking "Why not the libertarian solution?" before deciding on practicality).
In the end I believe that Libertarianism to be the best and most consistent of the political philosophies out there. Unfortunately none of them work fully as theorized in today's day and age, and none of them are being faithfully represented by their advocates. So in the end we have to make compromises.
For me one turning point was realizing that the Ayn Rand fanatics are the worst co-workers, and that there is something to be said for not all being in this strictly for itself. The game theory ideas of co-operation also convinced me of the importance of collectivism on some things.
Libertarianism really is the ultimate representation of naivety. It assumes everyone and everything operates in an altruistic, consistent way.
Companies don't need regulations because they will never bend the rules or take the easy way out. Governments should be minimal because people can look after themselves. The market always self optimises to the benefit of everyone involved.
Well… the funny part is, that Libertarianism is NOT about economics, rich people, etc. It is about: 1. "liberty as the highest political end" 2. Non-aggression principle
So, this article should be named "how I outgrew self-proclaimed libertarians".
I outgrew big L Libertarianism as in the specific brand of political ideology that is in keeping with the idea of trying to destroy the current force initiating political institutions whilst actually attempting to co-opt the mantle of those force initiating political institutions.
By way of analogy, so you're in your classically inefficient violently useless modern political nation state and suddenly by some abject miracle, you are granted political power. Fix everything whilst sticking to both authoritarian political guidelines necessary to actually qualify as a government, and the general idea of eradicating authoritarianism due to its inefficiency which got you there in the first place.
Although I can totally sympathise with the thinking of classically political libertarians, I think they simply don't follow the observations they make on the nature of the efficiency of force initiating political institutions and free markets through to their logical conclusions.
That said, there's another kind of libertarianism too which is the kind that can be directly contrasted with the authoritarianism of modern classical political actors and their bloated nation states. I'm all for that kind of libertarianism, and I think it should be acknowledged by people that aren't that to the extent that they are not libertarian in this sense, they are actually authoritarians and accept all of the uncomfortable inferences that implies about them and their positions.
To me the key passage was this: I looked into his eyes, and realized, with overwhelming empathy, that this guy, who'd worked hard all his life, and who was a really good, conscientious fellow, was hanging by a frigging thread, and had lived his entire life with one foot in the abyss. No resourcefulness, no connections, no education. Crappy genes, crappy family. And none of it was his fault. He was truly doing his very best with what he had.
The basic goal of trying to maximize individual liberty is certainly sound. But we have to remember that as a species we evolved as groups, not just as individuals. The evolutionary fitness of a group is in part a function of how well its members act as though they're all in the same boat, as opposed to every man for himself. (As just one example, a basketball team that works together will usually beat a squad of prima donna ball-hogs. See Robert Wright's book Non-Zero for more details in a popularized format.)
In addition, we humans are inherently flawed -- to one degree or another:
+ We cling to easy answers, even when they're wrong.
+ We seek immediate gratification, ignoring the long-term downside.
+ We want to be free to do whatever we want and for "someone else" to clean up any resulting mess. (Think of the teen-aged boy who just drops his clothes on the floor, knowing that later his mother will pick them up. Or the banker that writes "liar loans" knowing the government will bail them out. Or the business that pours its waste into the local sewer system by night.)
So we humans still need some regulation, with an eye toward the longer term.
44 comments
[ 120 ms ] story [ 2669 ms ] threadSimilarly, I think only the middle-class or wealthy can afford to be libertarians. Take, for example, the case of firefighters letting a house burn over an unpaid fee: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefight... . This is the world libertarians envision, and I'd wager most of them respond to news like this with "It's only $75 per year! That's not much at all..."
But what if it is?
I almost can't hear you over the strawman klaxon.
EDITED to add (@1h):
Sorry, I hate these one liners, I should elaborate.
First, there is the grinding irony of highlighting the doings of a government body as a libertarian vision. I'm not sure exactly what a libertarian fire brigade would look like, but it must likely wouldn't have a monopoly over the high-density, thus profitable, city and indemnity to screw over the less profitable rural areas.
Second, you speculate on the victim's hypothetical poorness. However, in the article it's stated unambiguously that they had made a conscious decision to forego the fire brigade subscription. I see the practicality, but I struggle with the ethics of forcing them to pay for a service they've made a conscious decision they don't want.
Finally, and a little off-topic, there's a the question of contents insurance. If you've decided that the fire brigade isn't for you, you most likely did not take out insurance for the contents of what looks like a mobile home. A fire in a mobile home, even when doused with water, is unlikely to leave you very many useful possessions. Never mind the structure itself, which is likely to be a write-off, even if only half burned down.
Given this, I assume you are as vigorous in campaigning for universal contents insurance as you are in blaming this family's fate on libertarians? Or are you happy with people loosing all their things, as along as the government makes sure to pour water on them (for free) first?
As with chocolate cookies, not everything that feels pleasurable is good for you. And it certainly isn't good for our hapless readers who have to read through all the angry comments your blog post inspired.
Criticizing political ideologies isn't very productive (especially when its party has never won a seat in congress), but if you're going to do it, please follow this example: http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html.
The author addresses specific issues and injects a bit of humor into his responses. He uses statistics and facts instead of anecdotes. Most importantly, he doesn't strawman or condescend. That's the sort of writing that convinces people. The submitted post will most likely just annoy any libertarians who read it.
No, but a personal anecdote about libertarianism as a political ideology is the sort of thing that breeds argument, but no debate.
EDIT: So I went ahead and looked up "debate" in a dictionary and it apparently doesn't mean "principled argument", I'm not sure what the word for that is, but basically a post like this generates a lot of noise but produces little to no signal.
And I say this as someone, like the author of your link, who sees great value in some of the free market ideas.
Don't forget that this applies to you as much as anyone else. None of the rebuttals presented by the author of the "faq" are that strong as far as I am concerned. You would say that is because I have irrational beliefs and I would say that it is because the author completely ignores (as far as I can tell) the corporatocracy that big government enables; uses empirical evidence of phenomena from a big government environment and instead of attributing these phenomena to that environment, uses them as evidence against libertarian philosophies; and in general uses arguments that aren't particularly compelling.
Now the truth is probably somewhere in the middle but I think it is important for you to at least acknowledge that your dismissal of other ideas or beliefs as lies can probably be attributed to bias as much as the converse. In which case, "stigmatizing such fervent belief in comforting (to the believer at least) lies as childish. " is not a very good idea.
>Want to Win a Political Debate? Try Making a Weaker Argument (http://www.psmag.com/politics/why-even-your-best-arguments-n...)
I am not saying this is great, but personal anecdotes might work better...
Very well put. I think it applies to pretty much all neo-conservatives. Conservatism is about being rich and wanting stability to remain rich. Neo-conservatism is about wanting to be rich and stay rich because you never knew any other aspiration than wealth. (Funnily enough, this applies to both people born into wealth and poverty, with the first often selling this aspiration to the second, to their distinct disadvantage.)
Similarly, Libertarians argue that everything will work out since it's all a level playing field from their perspective and everybody would have a good life if they just put effort in. They just never knew any other starting point to aspire from than their own.
Do you see how it's kind of dumb to make wide sweeping statements about political groups based upon basic strawman arguments?
I pick my strawmen carefully.
For what it is worth...
When I read that, I had a flashback to the first man I ever met who identified himself to me as a libertarian. I was probably about 13 years old and I didn't even know what a libertarian was. He was a middle-aged black man of average means who, I think, was born in Indiana and had ended up living in Pahoa, Hawaii (one of the cheaper places to live in the state).
Ironically, his name was Obama Buckner (Obama was his first name, unlike the president). I googled him when the president won the election but he had died a couple of years prior. I wish I had thought to reconnect with him sooner because he was a big part of the local BBS scene, and made a major difference in my young life. I would really like to have talked to him now as an adult with more perspective on libertarianism so that I could understand what path led him to his beliefs.
1. Understanding that there isn't always one noun to describe the particular mix of beliefs that work for you.
2. Understanding that a belief system isn't always the same as the dominant group that is claiming that belief system for themselves at a given point in time (say "the" libertarian party)
3. Understanding that written statements of principle are always approximations to reality. Reality always has complications and exceptions.
4. Rule: there are always exceptions. There are no exceptions to that rule.
5. Competition tends to war as rules tend to zero.
6. Be ready to change your mind when confronted with new data.
7. NEVER identify yourself with your beliefs. If you do, an attack on your beliefs become an attack on you. Then you'll never see things straight.
It's like calling the warmongering, civil liberties anti-Christ, and whistleblower-persecutor - Obama - a "liberal", and then saying your "outgrew liberalism".
Many libertarians want to get rid of the corporate income tax both because it is inefficient and because it is a sandbox for corruption.
Myself, I'm the guy who dropped out of school to support myself, no family support to fall back on (in fact, I support them now) and I've managed to overcome that and make a success of my life. I started out believing in socialism and my own successes lead me to Libertarianism. The article surprised me, because I also outgrew Libtertarianism, because I know that even though I made most of my luck I am still more fortunate than many others. I believe that with the productivity gains we've made in society, unnecessary toil and suffering should be limited. However, when it comes to how to share around this wealth, I'll still tilt over to the Libertarian side. I don't see it as some kind of utopian system, I see it as a direction. You can go in the direction of more centralised control and power to try to impose fairness, or you can go in the direction of less concentrated power and decentralise it more.
I would love to hear your story, would it be possible for me to drop you a line? (your email ID isn't listed on your profile page)
There's so much that libertarians ignore that you can point out, criticize, even mock but their answer to "No lifelines, no backup plans, no connections" is well known and straight-forward. It's "charity" and it is far from obvious that this is somehow a worse plan than "massive bureaucracy to administer welfare funded by confiscating 40% of people's incomes."
If every system is corruptible then this argument cannot be really used against any system in particular. We know democratic institutions are sometimes captured, officials are bribed, public funds awarded to friends and family... but democratic governments limp along. They do better than many alternatives. Pure libertarian government may be utopian or theoretical, that does not mean that moving in its direction wouldn't make governance better.
If this was all that took to convince you to move away from libertarianism then either you were never one, or you're rationalizing a change made for other reasons.
[1] http://i.imgur.com/3F501i3.jpg
All the current systems has one property in common - a build-in reliance on someone within the system to be honest and nice to others. Would it be honest ruler, honest politician or judge or honest voter. The difference between the systems is that they have different degrees of reliance on honesty and that reliance put in different layers. If there were a proof that it is possible in certain conditions to shift the reliance of honesty away from people to say P != NP, that would make the system bullet-proof. I would call it a pure system. That would also mean that there is more than one pure system possible, in fact infinite amount. We can already see that things like currency can be made and sustained without governance, I want to believe same will one day be possible with government itself.
It may be that it is unknowable whether such system could exist or not, in that case the search for it might be eternal.
Traditionally, I've leaned toward bleeding heart liberal with a strong emphasis on civil liberties, but having seen what our government has done with its power over the past decade+, I'm starting to place much more faith in the promise of small communities and local markets than in big government and corporate cronyism.
Nothing more than a personal anecdote, but that's all I'm responding to.
I would think corporate cronyism is what liberalism tries to solve, by regulating it with law. It's hard for me to see how a Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, or McDonalds would come close to being regulated without any federal government. Given, it's far from being effectively taken care of right now, but I can't help but think removing any kind of regulation around large corporations would be good for society.
1) your too intelligent
2) you thought something through
3) you brazenly said that you were wrong
For that, I salute you.
Libertarians (at least those I affiliate with) are not heartless people, but hold a general subversive attitude to government overreach. It has little to do with not helping the poor, but rather not let the government do it by means of force, and do it on a more personal, voluntary, connected, human level. And avoiding the mistakes of crony governments so that there are less poor people in the first place.
Coming from France where I grew up, you would be very surprised by the level of resentment instilled in the fabrics of the French society by socialism. People being tired of giving most of their earnings in taxes have little willingness to help people around them on a personal level.
It reminds me of an article I read (can't find it anymore) about how Silicon Valley was not the Libertarian land it was painted because Silicon Valley companies were much more generous in sharing their success with employees through stock options. Well, again it was a misguided attribution, being generous has nothing non-Libertarian in it. At the contrary, low involvement of government restrictions and taxation in US companies in general (not that it is the lowest in CA), does allow these kind of thing to come about privately. It's unheard of in Europe.
In the end I believe that Libertarianism to be the best and most consistent of the political philosophies out there. Unfortunately none of them work fully as theorized in today's day and age, and none of them are being faithfully represented by their advocates. So in the end we have to make compromises.
For me one turning point was realizing that the Ayn Rand fanatics are the worst co-workers, and that there is something to be said for not all being in this strictly for itself. The game theory ideas of co-operation also convinced me of the importance of collectivism on some things.
Companies don't need regulations because they will never bend the rules or take the easy way out. Governments should be minimal because people can look after themselves. The market always self optimises to the benefit of everyone involved.
So, this article should be named "how I outgrew self-proclaimed libertarians".
By way of analogy, so you're in your classically inefficient violently useless modern political nation state and suddenly by some abject miracle, you are granted political power. Fix everything whilst sticking to both authoritarian political guidelines necessary to actually qualify as a government, and the general idea of eradicating authoritarianism due to its inefficiency which got you there in the first place.
Although I can totally sympathise with the thinking of classically political libertarians, I think they simply don't follow the observations they make on the nature of the efficiency of force initiating political institutions and free markets through to their logical conclusions.
That said, there's another kind of libertarianism too which is the kind that can be directly contrasted with the authoritarianism of modern classical political actors and their bloated nation states. I'm all for that kind of libertarianism, and I think it should be acknowledged by people that aren't that to the extent that they are not libertarian in this sense, they are actually authoritarians and accept all of the uncomfortable inferences that implies about them and their positions.
The basic goal of trying to maximize individual liberty is certainly sound. But we have to remember that as a species we evolved as groups, not just as individuals. The evolutionary fitness of a group is in part a function of how well its members act as though they're all in the same boat, as opposed to every man for himself. (As just one example, a basketball team that works together will usually beat a squad of prima donna ball-hogs. See Robert Wright's book Non-Zero for more details in a popularized format.)
In addition, we humans are inherently flawed -- to one degree or another:
+ We cling to easy answers, even when they're wrong.
+ We seek immediate gratification, ignoring the long-term downside.
+ We want to be free to do whatever we want and for "someone else" to clean up any resulting mess. (Think of the teen-aged boy who just drops his clothes on the floor, knowing that later his mother will pick them up. Or the banker that writes "liar loans" knowing the government will bail them out. Or the business that pours its waste into the local sewer system by night.)
So we humans still need some regulation, with an eye toward the longer term.