Libertarianism Doesn't Work

[crimzonsol]

The Reason I say that Libertarianism Doesn't work is because at any given time half the people in the world have blew average IQs and since Average isn't that smart the prospect for an Idealogoy like Libertarianism, which relies upon peoples ability to think, seem as only a dream.

[Drocket]

Libertarianism is a lot like Marxism - they're both pretty good sounding forms of government, but they simply don't work as long as we're talking about human beings.

[Cobra]

Well it's never been tried. I like the idea myself but see the potential pitfulls if it was ever implamented in a real sense. WHy not just a nice mixture of ideas, not totally one thing, not the other.

[Drocket]

Well it's never been tried.
Sure it has. It just tends to fall apart the instant someone does something bad (average lifetime of a true Libertarian community: 0.0002 seconds.) Libertarianism, like Marxism, simply can't handle human beings acting like human beings. Both of them rely on human beings choosing to willingly behave in full accordance with the ethics of Libertarianism/Marxism. The instant someone doesn't, you either have a dictatorship, or you have to establish a form of government capable of punishing people who refuse to cooperate. Either way - bye-bye golden ideal.

Real reality exists between those two extremes. Different people can disagree with each other over where exactly the 'sweet spot' is on the scale, and that's fine (the sweet spot, in fact, varies over time), but when someone starts claiming that only the ultimate extreme is 'pure enough, well, the conversation tends to not be worth having. It's like talking with someone refuses to accept anything less that complete and utter perfection. That's nice and all, but the rest of us live in the real world.

What I tend to find amusing is that Libertarianism originally was an attempt to find the sweet spot between the extremes. Adam Smith, one of the most influential early libertarians, spent his life writing about essentially finding the sweet spot. You can claim with 100% honesty that our Founding Fathers were Libertarians. All of them would also put their face in their hands and sigh wearily if forced to interact with a modern Libertarian...

[crimzonsol]

I would like to ask for some Libertarian imput into what I am saying, if you either agree or disagree please tell us hear what you have to say. I also would like to I completely agree with Drocket on this matter.

[firefox]

Adam Smith was what one would now call a "classic liberal". He was an influence in developing the theory of capitalism, but some critical workings had not been worked out yet, such as the (negative) effects fiat currency has on the market, and what makes the business cycle (http://www.mises.org/story/606). Just out of curiosity, what do you all think of when you think of libertarianism? I have my thoughts, as you know, but I think it would be more constructive beginning with your own likes/dislikes/questions and moving from there.

[crimzonsol]

I see libertarianism as privatization of the services a government preforms in modern society, I would go into more detail, but it seems unnecessary due to the fact that many people within libertarianism vary on how much they would privatize individual enterprises. Firefox, I have a question for you, do you believe in the free market because you will be able to profit in it, or do you believe in the free market because you believe the principles are the best way to better society?

[firefox]

Ideally, both 8-). To better clarify, I will say that at some point I'll probably end up in jail for my beliefs. When it comes to liberty, you must have liberty for everyone, or liberty for none. There isn't really anything in between, if you think about it. That said, crim, what do you like about what you know so far?

[tony mitra]

I am not sure of the definition of Libertarianism, and if it is an American term or a global term.

Regarding free market my views are as follows:
In a true free market, nobody should get an illegal advantage and competition would be free and fierce. In such a market, the most economically successful firms should benefit and make good profits. Same time, the consumer should get quality product at the most reasonable price. In general, true free market should result in growth of a plethora of successful companies and not sustain a handful of mega-companies. In a really free market, subsidies should be removed from the Government, to give the free market a fair shot. In a truly free market, local firms will have the advantage in local markets due to local knowledge. All in all, it should be not only good for global trade, it should also be good for indigenous firms and workers.

Both the local and the global community should be better off with better jobs in their respective nations focussing on areas they have a natural advantage. Global economy should improve and poverty should reduce in the long run.

However, there are some caveats : This increased zeal for trade should not damage the environment, deprive locals of their livelyhood and cause huge imbalance in wealth creation. Nations should not be influenced by their own mega-corporation's private agenda and subvert the negotiations on creating global free market. Theories of a free market should be strictly and completely followed.

What we have, however, is far from a true free market. Therefore, using this model to either applaud, or denigrade free market principles, would be wrong in my view.

What we have is a twisted version with Governments negotiation under heavy influence from their business lobby and export/import lobby, with a clear penchant for taking most of the profits out of a third world nation without re-investing in long term growth for the region. What we have, according to some on both sides of the rich-poor divide, is economic imperialism. Big words but perhaps with grains of truth in them.

The biggest lesson to learn and remember out of this free market and globalization issue is - Everyone's global market is someone's local market as well as his lifestyle.

Cheers

[3.14]

The Reason I say that Libertarianism Doesn't work is because at any given time half the people in the world have blew average IQs and since Average isn't that smart the prospect for an Idealogoy like Libertarianism, which relies upon peoples ability to think, seem as only a dream.


I would disagree. It doesn't so much depend upon people's ability to think for themselves, rather, more upon people's willingless to take responsibility for their own actions. . .

[crimzonsol]

I would disagree. It doesn't so much depend upon people's ability to think for themselves, rather, more upon people's willingless to take responsibility for their own actions. . .


Same thing, but people who can't make good decisions don't want to take responsibility for their actions so they are interlinked.

[3.14]

Whether they want to take responsibility or not should be immaterial - point is, they should HAVE to take responsibility.

3.14

[Labrocca]

The Reason I say that Libertarianism Doesn't work is because at any given time half the people in the world have blew average IQs and since Average isn't that smart the prospect for an Idealogoy like Libertarianism, which relies upon peoples ability to think, seem as only a dream.


Interesting you don't believe libertarianism can work citing below level IQs. I noticed you have a variety of spelling and grammatical errors in your post. Thankfully you are not a libertarian. :dizzy:

[crimzonsol]

The Reason I say that Libertarianism Doesn't work is because at any given time half the people in the world have blew average IQs and since Average isn't that smart the prospect for an Idealogoy like Libertarianism, which relies upon peoples ability to think, seem as only a dream.


Interesting you don't believe libertarianism can work citing below level IQs. I noticed you have a variety of spelling and grammatical errors in your post. Thankfully you are not a libertarian. :dizzy:


Nice attacking a 15 year old about spellling. I always thought that ina debate you were supposed to argue about the points, but that could just be my low 99.997 percentile IQ.