Libertarianism

[Seth]

Yes you did:

That does not change the nature of the fundamental Organic right to property. A million people may desire to take what I have built or earned but that does not make their theft moral or ethical even if they make a "law" giving them permission to do so. What's mine is mine, and I may not morally be divested of that property without my consent.

Fair enough.

[Cormac]

Timely - article by George Monbiot in the Guardian the other day. I'd broadly agree with it. The "freedom" pushee by libertarian policy groups is the freedom of big business and the rich to exploit the poor, without let or hindrance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... oppression

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Rightwing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers' Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Policy Exchange. Their concept of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side, and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms. These freedoms were most clearly defined by Isaiah Berlin in his essay of 1958, Two Concepts of Liberty. It is a work of beauty: reading it is like listening to a gloriously crafted piece of music. I will try not to mangle it too badly.

Put briefly and crudely, negative freedom is the freedom to be or to act without interference from other people. Positive freedom is freedom from inhibition: it's the power gained by transcending social or psychological constraints. Berlin explained how positive freedom had been abused by tyrannies, particularly by the Soviet Union. It portrayed its brutal governance as the empowerment of the people, who could achieve a higher freedom by subordinating themselves to a collective single will.

Rightwing libertarians claim that greens and social justice campaigners are closet communists trying to resurrect Soviet conceptions of positive freedom. In reality, the battle mostly consists of a clash between negative freedoms.

As Berlin noted: "No man's activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. 'Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows'." So, he argued, some people's freedom must sometimes be curtailed "to secure the freedom of others". In other words, your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. The negative freedom not to have our noses punched is the freedom that green and social justice campaigns, exemplified by the Occupy movement, exist to defend.

Berlin also shows that freedom can intrude on other values, such as justice, equality or human happiness. "If the liberty of myself or my class or nation depends on the misery of a number of other human beings, the system which promotes this is unjust and immoral." It follows that the state should impose legal restraints on freedoms that interfere with other people's freedoms – or on freedoms which conflict with justice and humanity.

These conflicts of negative freedom were summarised in one of the greatest poems of the 19th century, which could be seen as the founding document of British environmentalism. In The Fallen Elm, John Clare describes the felling of the tree he loved, presumably by his landlord, that grew beside his home. "Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom's ways / So thy old shadow must a tyrant be. / Thou'st heard the knave, abusing those in power, / Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free."

The landlord was exercising his freedom to cut the tree down. In doing so, he was intruding on Clare's freedom to delight in the tree, whose existence enhanced his life. The landlord justifies this destruction by characterising the tree as an impediment to freedom – his freedom, which he conflates with the general liberty of humankind. Without the involvement of the state (which today might take the form of a tree preservation order) the powerful man could trample the pleasures of the powerless man. Clare then compares the felling of the tree with further intrusions on his liberty. "Such was thy ruin, music-making elm; / The right of freedom was to injure thine: / As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm / In freedom's name the little that is mine."

But rightwing libertarians do not recognise this conflict. They speak, like Clare's landlord, as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even – among the gun nuts – to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights. They characterise any attempt to restrain them as tyranny. They refuse to see that there is a clash between the freedom of the pike and the freedom of the minnow.


Last week, on an internet radio channel called The Fifth Column, I debated climate change with Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas, one of the rightwing libertarian groups that rose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist party. Fox is a feared interrogator on the BBC show The Moral Maze. Yet when I asked her a simple question – "do you accept that some people's freedoms intrude upon other people's freedoms?" – I saw an ideology shatter like a windscreen. I used the example of a Romanian lead-smelting plant I had visited in 2000, whose freedom to pollute is shortening the lives of its neighbours. Surely the plant should be regulated in order to enhance the negative freedoms – freedom from pollution, freedom from poisoning – of its neighbours? She tried several times to answer it, but nothing coherent emerged which would not send her crashing through the mirror of her philosophy.

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free. It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people. This bastardised, one-eyed philosophy is a con trick, whose promoters attempt to wrongfoot justice by pitching it against liberty. By this means they have turned "freedom" into an instrument of oppression.

Your opening statement is correct, but Monbiot is spectacularly wrong about banking and regulation. Banks are heavily regulated. The issue is that the regulation is wholly idiotic.

[Seth]

Timely - article by George Monbiot in the Guardian the other day. I'd broadly agree with it. The "freedom" pushee by libertarian policy groups is the freedom of big business and the rich to exploit the poor, without let or hindrance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... oppression

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

Through the lies and mischaracterizations of Progressives and Marxists, that's how.

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy.

Nope. The banks went wild because the regulators who were supposed to keep watch decided not to do so, not in the name of "freedom" but in the name of bureaucracy and a nefarious plan to use the lax administration of existing regulations and the ensuing bad behavior by the banks as an excuse to forward the Marxist/Progressive agenda. If the regulators had done their jobs, none of this would have happened.

In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut.

Because they pay the lion's share of all tax revenues collected already (in the US, more than 40 percent is paid by the top one percent) and because cutting their taxes allows them to invest more money in the economy, in business, and in JOBS FOR EVERYONE ELSE.

In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours.

Because minimum wage laws actually harm entry-level and unskilled workers chances of ever getting a job by making new job entrants non-competitive in the job market and because work hour limitations negatively impact the ability of companies to turn a profit, which means fewer jobs available for the middle class.

In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare;

Because there is no such thing as "effective public healthcare." It's an oxymoron. Public healthcare is ALWAYS inferior to the free market, it costs more, it's less efficient, and it drives nations to bankruptcy.

the government rips up our planning laws;

Really? I don't think so.

big business trashes the biosphere.

Define "trashes the biosphere" and identify which big business do so, when, where and how. Hyperbolic generalities are useless and we all know that many companies operate very responsibly.

This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Meh. Marxist claptrap.

Rightwing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others.

Lie.

In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers' Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Policy Exchange. Their concept of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

Hey, they want to make money. So do you.

So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side, and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterised as a clash between negative and positive freedoms. These freedoms were most clearly defined by Isaiah Berlin in his essay of 1958, Two Concepts of Liberty. It is a work of beauty: reading it is like listening to a gloriously crafted piece of music. I will try not to mangle it too badly.

Lie. The mischaracterizations here are the ones you provide of Libertarianism.

Put briefly and crudely, negative freedom is the freedom to be or to act without interference from other people. Positive freedom is freedom from inhibition: it's the power gained by transcending social or psychological constraints. Berlin explained how positive freedom had been abused by tyrannies, particularly by the Soviet Union. It portrayed its brutal governance as the empowerment of the people, who could achieve a higher freedom by subordinating themselves to a collective single will.

Rightwing libertarians claim that greens and social justice campaigners are closet communists trying to resurrect Soviet conceptions of positive freedom.

That's because they are.

As Berlin noted: "No man's activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. 'Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows'." So, he argued, some people's freedom must sometimes be curtailed "to secure the freedom of others". In other words, your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. The negative freedom not to have our noses punched is the freedom that green and social justice campaigns, exemplified by the Occupy movement, exist to defend.

Of course there is always a balancing of rights involved in any society, but the notion that the Occupy movement, or any Marxist Progressive liberal movement, is in the least bit interested in balancing anything is ludicrous. What Occupy wants is pure undiluted Marxist forcible redistribution of wealth, nothing more or less.

While my freedom to swing my fist ends at your nose (the Libertarian principle of not initiating force), your freedom to extract from me what I have labored for and earned in order to fulfill your, or someone else's needs unrelated to actions of mine that might justify imposing that burden on me is likewise limited (the Libertarian principle of "no fraud," what is mine is not yours to take and dispose of at your pleasure).

Berlin also shows that freedom can intrude on other values, such as justice, equality or human happiness. "If the liberty of myself or my class or nation depends on the misery of a number of other human beings, the system which promotes this is unjust and immoral." It follows that the state should impose legal restraints on freedoms that interfere with other people's freedoms – or on freedoms which conflict with justice and humanity.

That depends entirely on exactly how he defines "misery," "unjust," "immoral," "interfere," "other people's freedoms," "justice" and "humanity." It is not the case that what he thinks these terms mean are immutable definitions not subject to interpretation or question.

These conflicts of negative freedom were summarised in one of the greatest poems of the 19th century, which could be seen as the founding document of British environmentalism. In The Fallen Elm, John Clare describes the felling of the tree he loved, presumably by his landlord, that grew beside his home. "Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom's ways / So thy old shadow must a tyrant be. / Thou'st heard the knave, abusing those in power, / Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free."

The landlord was exercising his freedom to cut the tree down. In doing so, he was intruding on Clare's freedom to delight in the tree, whose existence enhanced his life. The landlord justifies this destruction by characterising the tree as an impediment to freedom – his freedom, which he conflates with the general liberty of humankind. Without the involvement of the state (which today might take the form of a tree preservation order) the powerful man could trample the pleasures of the powerless man. Clare then compares the felling of the tree with further intrusions on his liberty. "Such was thy ruin, music-making elm; / The right of freedom was to injure thine: / As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm / In freedom's name the little that is mine."

But rightwing libertarians do not recognise this conflict. They speak, like Clare's landlord, as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even – among the gun nuts – to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights. They characterise any attempt to restrain them as tyranny. They refuse to see that there is a clash between the freedom of the pike and the freedom of the minnow.

Hyperbolic strawman red herring nonsense. The landlord was exercising his freedom to deal with his property as he sees fit. Clare has not established that he has any "freedom" (or right) to expect that the landlord will respect his desire (not right) to delight in the tree. The tree is not common property, it is private property and therefore Clare has no claim upon it or it's inherent delight.

As for the pike and the minnow, it's an asinine metaphor because pike and minnows enjoy only the most primitive form of rights: the Organic right to acquire resources necessary for survival and to defend the exclusive possession and use of those resources. The vindication of that right depends on the strength or cunning of that which claims it as a right, and the arbiter of disputes over such rights is nature, red in tooth and claw.

Before you can claim a "clash" between the freedoms of one versus the freedoms of another, you must first support the notion that one or the other has such a freedom to begin with, and that in this particular exercise of each of the competing freedoms, one or the other of them lies higher on the "food chain" hierarchy of rights than the other.

This fellow is trying to assign moral and legal equivalence to the liberties of the landlord in re his tree and his own liberties in re his desired object of delight. In that calculus, his "liberty" is subservient to the liberty of the owner of the tree, not equal to it. And that's how it is with ALL rights, to one degree or another. They form into a hierarchy by which conflicts can be resolved by outside agents (the law) and that hierarchy is a reflection of the contemporary values of the society that creates them.

Last week, on an internet radio channel called The Fifth Column, I debated climate change with Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas, one of the rightwing libertarian groups that rose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist party. Fox is a feared interrogator on the BBC show The Moral Maze. Yet when I asked her a simple question – "do you accept that some people's freedoms intrude upon other people's freedoms?" – I saw an ideology shatter like a windscreen. I used the example of a Romanian lead-smelting plant I had visited in 2000, whose freedom to pollute is shortening the lives of its neighbours. Surely the plant should be regulated in order to enhance the negative freedoms – freedom from pollution, freedom from poisoning – of its neighbours? She tried several times to answer it, but nothing coherent emerged which would not send her crashing through the mirror of her philosophy.

Then she's not a particularly articulate Libertarian, which says nothing about the strength of Libertarian principles. My analysis of the lead plant is quite simple: The owners of the lead plant are initiating force and fraud in violation of Libertarian principles by exporting harm (in the form of harmful pollutants) from their factory property to other properties which they do not own, and they are doing the same to the individuals they are poisoning whom they are initiating force upon by exposing them to the effluents exported from their smelter without their consent. Therefore, each and every member of the community as individuals, and as a voluntary collective are fully authorized to use force to prevent the exported harm without violating Libertarian principles, which have always allowed for the use of force in self-defense.

Pretty simple, really, if you really understand Libertarianism. Which Monbiot clearly does not.

Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint.

This is either a lie or gross ignorance of Libertarianism. I suspect it's a lie because it's one I hear so often from the detractors of Libertarianism and have debunked so often, only to have it stubbornly regurgitated as if the rebuttal never happened so many times I've lost count.

Libertarianism has nothing to do with "exploiting without restraint." Precisely the opposite. Libertarians are required by our philosophy to consider the effects of our actions carefully to ensure that we do not initiate force or fraud upon others, and that all agreements between individuals are completely voluntary on both sides. If I want to smelt lead, and I cannot keep my effluent from leaving my property and polluting yours, I may not smelt lead unless and until I receive your assent to that act, which you are free to refuse if the terms I offer are not sufficient to satisfy your needs.

It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free.

Because they do no such thing, and recognize this claim as the Marxist class-warfare propaganda that it is.

It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people.

Well, sort of. It denies the need for A state to curb them because it expects each person and corporation to carefully assess the impacts of their actions on others so as to avoid the initiation of force or fraud in EVERY circumstance, bar none. And, it leaves the bringing of complaints in regards to alleged initiations of force or fraud up to those upon whom the malfeasance has been perpetrated while leaving room for collective voluntary enforcement action by the community should the perpetrator refuse to cease and desist or compensate the victims of its malfeasance.

In other words, Libertarianism is reactive, not proactive. It depends on those who are being harmed taking action to see the harm redressed when and if it actually happens to them, rather than the prospective process of regulating everybody, everything and sundry in the absence of some actual force or fraud being initiated by some individual. In other words, if I don't mind if you pollute my neighboring land with lead effluent and therefore don't make a complaint, you are free to go about your business and do so. But if I do complain, you must cease your export of harm or be forced to do so by individual and/or community action.

If you move in next to my established pig farm, you have no cause to complain about the stench because its your responsibility to examine the environs for such pre-existing allowed (by the previous owners) uses and exports before moving in. On the other hand, if I establish a pig farm where none was before, and I export the harm (stench) to your property (which includes airspace) then I am violating Libertarian principles and may be forced to cease the export of harm. But, if I do so, by let's say covering the waste pits and using a methane collection system to collect and burn the gasses so that they don't export harm, you cannot complain about the fact that I'm running a pig farm just because you don't like looking at or living next to a pig farm. Unless I actually export some harm (and the aesthetic sensibilities of observers looking INTO MY AIRSPACE are never a valid claim of harm) I'm free to go about my business as I see fit, without your interference.

This bastardised, one-eyed philosophy is a con trick, whose promoters attempt to wrongfoot justice by pitching it against liberty. By this means they have turned "freedom" into an instrument of oppression.

Except what he's describing has nothing whatever to do with actual Libertarianism or its philosophy. It's on great big strawman that he erects that's utterly false in every respect.

Your opening statement is correct, but Monbiot is spectacularly wrong about banking and regulation. Banks are heavily regulated. The issue is that the regulation is wholly idiotic.

[/quote]

And whose fault is that? Not the banks'. They are just obeying the regulations. If those regulations are inadequate, then it's the government regulators who are at fault is it not?

[pErvinalia]

Nice quote work there, Seth.

Basically, libertarianism is social darwinism. Morally repugnant.

[Audley Strange]

Moanbot has a SERIOUS tree fetish and he should have read Berlin much more closely. I think there is a danger in conflating libertarianism with certain plutocratic cocksuckers who I'm sure both Seth and rEv would equally delight in putting up against a wall and executing. Just the same way the left has been fucked up by crackpots who think they can solve the worlds problems through the potent motivating tools of arcane literary criticism and the right has been fucked up by cultists who want to ruin the fuck out of this mudball so God on a stick will return.

In short, our Politics are run for and by fools no matter what political persuasion you might hold, unless you're a crackpot, they don't give a fuck about your vote. It's all about the noisemakers and public appearances, celebrity politics, becoming part of The Spectacle.

[Cormac]

Your opening statement is correct, but Monbiot is spectacularly wrong about banking and regulation. Banks are heavily regulated. The issue is that the regulation is wholly idiotic.

And whose fault is that? Not the banks'. They are just obeying the regulations. If those regulations are inadequate, then it's the government regulators who are at fault is it not?

As it happens, I know a bit about this topic. And, the reality is, it is a little from column A and a little from column B.

Modern banking regulation has evolved as follows:

1. Herstatt Bank (a German bank - so much for their vaunted conservatism) collapsed overnight on the 26th/27th June 1974. This precipitated a liquidity crisis in banking, because monies lodged in Deutschmarks in Germany could not be debited in New York the following morning.
2. The Bank for International Settlements coordinated a negotiation of proposed banking regulations to (supposedly) deal with such risks in the future. These regulations eventually became known as Basel I, and became Internationally obligatory in 1992.
3. Several crises came and went from 1974 to 2004, when a new set of regulatory standards was issued - supposedly to remove the faults in Basel I that had turned out to exacerbate the problems.
4. Basel III was drafted in response to this current crisis, and aims to resolve the fact that Basel II, in particular, encouraged liquidity problems. Basel III is to be implemented by Banks from 2014 onwards.

The common thread amongst these is that they are predicated on a "bell curve" "normal" distribution of risk, and based on this kind of "analysis", risk capital can be "calculated". This is a fallacious assumption.

Since the 1980s in particular, banks have hired economists and put them in charge of their risk departments. These economists for some reason forget the basics, and act as soothsayers in prognosticating risk. As this is actually impossible, their presence has increased the systemic risk posed by the Basel Regulations.

Here is where things get a bit complicated.

BIS is comprised of appointees from Central Banks around the world. Mostly, these are people who have worked for large banks at one time or another in a senior role. They may or may not have bounced through a public service role in a Central Bank.

Governments, being unfamiliar with, and afraid of, the technicalities of financial services, and in particular the arcane language involved in Capital Adequacy, tend to hire in senior bankers to advise them on Public Policy.

BIS refers to large banks for advice on the regulations.

At both ends, therefore, banking regulation suffers from what is known as "Regulatory Capture" - when the regulatory process itself becomes effectively controlled by the industry subject to the regulation. This occurs because of an abdication of responsibility by government as regards framing the regulation for industry.

When this is combined with the circle of conflicted interests (Shareholders - Senior Bankers - Ratings Agencies - Brokers - Ratings Agencies - Senior Bankers = Massive short-term profits, Fraudulent Securitisations, Massive Liquidity Crisis and Global Losses inflicted on private citizens and the public purse), it destroys the ability of the market to regulate itself. The market has been gamed by a small number of players - to the long term detriment of most people.

Banks control the regulations, and some of them may even think that the regulations are capable of minimising risk. Most just accept the rules and work diligently and honestly to ensure compliance with the given regime.

Monbiot is dead wrong about banking - but it doesn't surprise me. Very few journalists or politician have any notion at all about banking and financial services - except a handy soundbite now and again to ensure that they seem in tune with the baying mob (who are equally clueless).

There are many bankers who should be in jail for fraud, along with a number of the leading players in the ratings agencies, and a large number of brokers who created fraudulent securities documents in order to falsely qualify clients for mortgages to which they were not suited. Banks went along with this, because they knew that they'd have punted on these dodgy mortgages within two months, and in return for this they'd get huge bonuses, and ratings agencies went along with it because their own reputation was at stake if they didn't give the same rating for these mortgage books at sale that they gave when the bank borrowed in the first place.

Lots of innocents, some very guilty parties. It is essential that these people are seen to be held to account before the law for such fraudulent and reckless trading.

[Coito ergo sum]

Basically, libertarianism is social darwinism. Morally repugnant.

Except that, basically, it is not. If you would review the Milton Friedman video above, and its three other parts, you'd find out that you are, quite simply, wildly wrong.

[Beatsong]

So what if it was a "war of conquest" (whatever the fuck that is)? The government could take your land and we could call it a "war of conquest". You'd accede, of course?

They could try. Whether they obtain title through right of conquest depends on who is the victor in the fray. Which is why I'll keep my guns, thank you very much.

Oh so it's NOT a moral issue, it's simply a question of who ends up more powerful?

Except that it isn't, of course - although it still is. In the sense that it isn't...

[pErvinalia]

Basically, libertarianism is social darwinism. Morally repugnant.

Except that, basically, it is not. If you would review the Milton Friedman video above, and its three other parts, you'd find out that you are, quite simply, wildly wrong.

I'm not going to waste my precious time watching videos of that nut. I've read enough from Seth and other libertarians (including Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul) to have a pretty good hold on what it actually entails. Libertarianism is more than just an economic ideology, hence Milton has only limited input to the discussion (unless he is talking about more than just economics in the videos).

[pErvinalia]

So what if it was a "war of conquest" (whatever the fuck that is)? The government could take your land and we could call it a "war of conquest". You'd accede, of course?

They could try. Whether they obtain title through right of conquest depends on who is the victor in the fray. Which is why I'll keep my guns, thank you very much.

Oh so it's NOT a moral issue, it's simply a question of who ends up more powerful?

Except that it isn't, of course - although it still is. In the sense that it isn't...

Yep. Never ending contradictions. Thus it has been for years now debating with Seth.

[Beatsong]

Debating? We're long past any pretence of that.

The World According To Seth descended into a parody of itself years ago.

[Coito ergo sum]

Basically, libertarianism is social darwinism. Morally repugnant.

Except that, basically, it is not. If you would review the Milton Friedman video above, and its three other parts, you'd find out that you are, quite simply, wildly wrong.

I'm not going to waste my precious time watching videos of that nut. I've read enough from Seth and other libertarians (including Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul) to have a pretty good hold on what it actually entails. Libertarianism is more than just an economic ideology, hence Milton has only limited input to the discussion (unless he is talking about more than just economics in the videos).

Translation: I don't care what libertarianism really is. I only care what its critics misrepresent it as. Seth doesn't describe libertarianism. His is a hybrid philosophy, more in line with your social darwinism descriptor.

Friedman is talking about more than just economics in the videos. He's not a "nut" either. He's a highly intelligent, accomplished economist and professor. It is a childish mistake to start with the proposition that he is a "nut."

The thing is -- if you really did know anything about libertarianism, particularly the consequentialist libertarianism that is the dominant school of thought, you'd know that social darwinism in the sense of the strong having a right by nature to oppress and dominate the weak, is the OPPOSITE of libertarian principles. The general libertarian principle of "equal freedom" is the opposite of a principle allowing stronger to oppress the weaker. And libertarians are opponents of things like slavery and military imperialism (I have heard Seth suggest that slavery would be o.k. if a person initially consented to himself becoming a slave, which of course is not something classical or consequentialist libertarianism supports).

[Beatsong]

Coito - where's the link to the videos? I'd be interested to take a look.

[pErvinalia]

Well, free-marketeering, like I thought Friedman was an advocate for, would naturally lead to accumulation of capital, and therefore accumulation of power. How do libertarians propose to avoid that situation?

Oh, and by the way, Rothbard and Paul aren't critics of libertarianism. They are liberatarians themselves. They may or may not meet your criteria you just set above, but I don't have any reason to accept your criteria over self-avowed libertarians.

[Coito ergo sum]

So what if it was a "war of conquest" (whatever the fuck that is)? The government could take your land and we could call it a "war of conquest". You'd accede, of course?

They could try. Whether they obtain title through right of conquest depends on who is the victor in the fray. Which is why I'll keep my guns, thank you very much.

Oh so it's NOT a moral issue, it's simply a question of who ends up more powerful?

Except that it isn't, of course - although it still is. In the sense that it isn't...

Yep. Never ending contradictions. Thus it has been for years now debating with Seth.

Don't confuse that with libertarianism, though. The right of conquest is an old-school common law right that evolved out of ancient Anglo-Saxon law under a monarchical system. It has nothing to do with libertarianism, which does not support military aggression at all and therefore does not support the so-called right of conquest.

The US adopted, ages ago, the right of conquest into its common law -- see the 1823 case of Johnson & Graham's Lessee v. McIntosh -- http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal ... /case.html - as the case describes, this law was adopted from the English common law principles of the day (before anyone gets too sanctimonious about it). But, the point is -- the law was not libertarian in nature, at all, and under libertarian thought there is no right of conquest. Just because Seth supports it doesn't mean it's libertarian.