Change My View: Can someone explain to me why Libertarianism isn't selfish, stupid, and a bad idea for society?

[MCheetah]

The short version that I've heard from every Libertarian ever is that we essentially should have no government whatsoever and let "the free market" rule things. Which only works if you're rich enough to pay for your own law enforcement, fire department, road maintenance, trash pickup, etc. And if you're powerful enough to stop the super rich from just buying all the services, roads, maintenances, etc, all up and leaving the everyday person with nothing. I mean, we already have corporations RIGHT NOW being too powerful and acting like lordes and royalty over us "common folk" and thinking because they have money, they should be able to make actual laws and policies and control how the rest of society works. And Libertariansm is saying ALL OF SOCIETY should be like that!

So, honest question here: How the hell isn't Libertarianism just a way for rich and powerful people to get away with doing whatever they want in society with literally no regulations or pushback?

Libertarianism would somewhat make sense if it was about limited federal government, as in presidents and Congress. But even that wouldn't work, as humanity has proven time and time again it cannot govern itself and prefers to have an oligarchy of supreme leaders ruling them, no matter how corrupt, incompetent, and mentally incapable they may be.

Updates

+1 y

I am learning a few things, although people are mostly calling Libertarianism (as it's been explained to me) "anarchism."

[nightdrot]

Libertarianism is the reductio ad absurdum of political philosophy. It neglects both human nature and the complexities of society and thus government. It also absent the society from any collective moral judgments, and thus conduces to a least common denominator culture.

The 18th century British statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke said, "The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do as they please. We ought see what it will please them to do before we risk congratulations." That is, if people should use their freedom to build a business and hire people, all to the good. If they should segregate the lunch counters in that business, it becomes a more problematic issue.

Libertarianism lacks any consistent basis for resolving these questions and thus, by default, conduces to a culture in which power determines the right. The abortion question being the classic example. "Right to life" vs. "right to choose." One right is pitted against another with no objective criteria for resolving it, and thus those with the power decide the fate of those with none.

Man has the potentiality to be good, but it is not a spontaneous thing as the libertarians are left to assume. Nature must be nurtured, and man's capacity for virtue must be shaped, in part, by the culture that surrounds him - including law and government.

Thus did Burke also write, "To make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.”

[TurboKid]

What you're describing sounds closer to anarchy to me than libertarianism. A limited federal government is actually the brand of consequentialist libertarianism I stand behind along with the non-aggression principle (NAP).

I think this video demonstrates the potential benefits of voluntary exchange vs. force:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/67tHtpac5ws

Yet I think we can also look at economic freedom indices and see, empirically, how much freer markets (there is no such thing as a perfectly free market, of course) correlate with desirable and prosperous places to live. I think there's a reasonably tight correlation there where the freest countries have longer life expectancies, superior living standards, fewer problems with abject poverty, an absence of child labor, etc.

Yet the reason I favor freer markets is because I favor the underdogs. Markets that are freer make it more accessible for people who aren't rich to start their own businesses and create their own jobs. All markets have their top dogs who tend to dominate the market, but the freer the market, the less those top dogs have their power over the economy cemented in stone.

Take Steam as a video game example. Steam is still an internet market with some basic regulations, but it has allowed even college students who can barely pay the rent to match the success of the biggest AAA game studios. That's the benefit of freer markets as I see it. It allows the underdogs to actually have a fighting chance to compete with the top dogs. Heavily regulated markets will tend to have such steep regulatory burdens that they will shut out all those underdogs.

[TurboKid]

Not all libertarians are necessarily even against welfare (consequentialist types can compromise on NAP if it produces superior consequences); they simply favor freer forms of it. You look at someone like Milton Friedman and he proposed a negative income tax (similar to UBI). The difference is that instead of requiring citizens to apply for a maze of welfare programs like SNAP, TANF, public housing, etc (where a large chunk of the resources go to the social workers and middlemen instead of the people in need), and being told by the state what they can and can't do, we just hand them money.
https://youtu.be/NH-3HlrnHQs
https://youtu.be/ZakHrQ1m34M

[TurboKid]

With the update, there are a lot of brands of libertarianism although it never quite reaches anarchy. Some get very close to minarchy. The type I favor is actually not too different from classical liberalism. It focuses on the government's prime job as protecting citizens' rights from forceful infringement of others (and including from their own government).

[TurboKid]

Unfortunately, libertarianism can get a bad rep because there are some really extreme types out there who want to pay zero taxes and want to be able to do things like drive on the road without a license. I'm not one of those extreme types.

[JDavid25]

Well with Libertarianism there is no law that would prohibit taking those rich people down if it came to that.. But, it couldn't work like you say it works because those rich people in a free market get rich off of regular people.. And if they get outta hand and regular people don't support them that's the end of them. Also all those things you mentioned wouldn't be relegated to the state but to communities.. Libertarians want little to no Government involved..
Although, there are levels to being a Libertarian like other things. Some just want the Government basically out of the way for most things, but still think we need a body to regulate our freedoms.. Also if people want to start businesses there wouldn't be any Government regulations to stop them.. Big Business is flourishing right now under the Democrats so Libertarianism would be a much better alternative at this point than what we have know. I lean more toward the Libertarian viewpoint of little to no Government.. But I'm not an Anarcho Capitalist or anything.. I think we should still have some tiny Government body to do what the founding fathers made it to do.. Protect our Liberties..

[MCheetah]

"But, it couldn't work like you say it works because those rich people in a free market get rich off of regular people.. And if they get outta hand and regular people don't support them that's the end of them."

That sounds nice on paper, but that doesn't even work in the world we live in now. How many people actually like Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, or Bill Gates, especially when they're censoring and de-platforming even United States presidents. Some people are too rich to be touched.

"Some just want the Government basically out of the way for most things, but still think we need a body to regulate our freedoms."

But that would simply be LESS government though, not enough to warrant being a Libertarian. I think MOST people want less government interfering in the lives of everyday people, and more government regulations towards hundred billion dollar corporations powerful enough to meddle with elections, like Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon.

"I think we should still have some tiny Government body to do what the founding fathers made it to do.. Protect our Liberties."

The way I see it, government is not the problem and never has been. *POLITICIANS* are the problem. I've never had an issue with government when it works correctly. The issue is getting it to work correctly, and you do that by putting the right people in charge, not the most corrupt assholes you can find. I can agree with your logic if we got rid of most of Federal government, but state government is mostly fine as it is (unless you live in California).

[JDavid25]

"Some people are too rich to be touched.".. Of course.. You are right that even in a Free Market there would still be elites who think they know what's best for the people.. But while that is true, Capitalism and the free Market does work itself out..

Also I think Libertarianism is different from Anarchy.. As Libertarianism is closer to Conservatives and Republicans.. Who all want limited Government and think people shouldn't have some elites telling them what to do.. With Libertarianism there is a chance some people would do that, but they couldn't make laws to prohibit people are take away their freedoms like the Government we have now.. Well at least what they are trying to do..

[Not_Average]

I have a lot of libertarian views, and I think what you’re really describing is anarchy. I believe in limited government. I think state and local government should have more power. I think the government is filled with corruption and cronyism, so I rather do without them. Without rampant subsidies, price floors, price ceilings, the market would actually be free thus granting everyone who wants it social mobility and more opportunity. Those who want success could get it. Market equilibrium would be achieved.

[Sargentcaptain]

"The short version that I've heard from every Libertarian ever is that we essentially should have no government whatsoever"

That's not libertarianism, that's anarchism. Those are two very different things, with the latter being an extremist ideology, compared to the relatively milquetoast libertarianism.

"Which only works if you're rich enough to pay for your own law enforcement, fire department, road maintenance, trash pickup, etc."

Literally no libertarian wants this. Libertarianism is defined by a minimum government, not by the lack of it. These are some of the services that libertarians still want the government to provide.

Most libertarians are already in favor of regulation on companies like F

[Sargentcaptain]

Most libertarians are already in favor of regulation on companies like Facebook, and are in favor of stopping government bailouts and special privileges they give to private4 companies and glorified duopolies.

"And Libertariansm is saying ALL OF SOCIETY should be like that!"

It literally wants the exact opposite. You're not arguing with libertarians, but with anarchists. Libertarians want the government to be fair to everyone and to stay out of private businesses, so long as there are no monopolies and similar abuses of power.

"So, honest question here: How the hell isn't Libertarianism just a way for rich and powerful people to get away with doing whatever they want in society with literally no regulations or pushback?"

Because libertarianism predicates itself on the appropriate use of government power over companies. Libertarians just don't want Walmart to get grants from the government while their competitors are left helpless. Libertarians still want the government to be involved in the economy, they just want less of it and a more equal playing field which would give small businesses a better shot than what they have now.

"Libertarianism would somewhat make sense if it was about limited federal government,"

It literally is. That's all that libertarianism is.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you've been talking to some goofy libertarians. Ron Paul wasn't like that.
He just wanted a smaller government that wasn't the nanny state.

Why in the fuck do we need a department of education? What do they do? Aren't states capable of handling this simple task?

When Ron ran for the presidency, he scared the hell out of dems and Republicans. They didn't know quite what to make of him.

Ron thought that these endless wars in the middle east were stupid.
Ron was so feared by Republicans, that they refused to let him on one of the primary debate stages.
But once on stage, he was asked if he's grant amnesty to the millions of illegals in the US.
He said: "I can't, because it's unconstitutional."

Wow, what a breath of fresh air.

[Gray-Wisp]

You'd have to pick a type of libertarianism before you could even debate about it to be honest. Watered down libertarianism? Minarchism? Anarcho-Capitalism? The logical conclusion, as in when your logic doesn't contradict anymore is anarcho-capitalism. Libertarianism and minarchism aren't logically sound and many of them become AnCaps because of this. Even if you said anarcho-capitalism there's at least two types or so to debate on. Any of this systems would take up hundreds of thousands of words to explain. This is almost a specialty area of mine.

[Gray-Wisp]

These systems*

[MCheetah]

I don't know all *that* much about Libertarianism, so you'll have to forgive me, but what exactly is the difference between Anarcho-Capitalism and "watered-down" Libertarianism other than the former have a little more balls? The associates and co-workers I alluded to being Libertarians basically described it as being what I just looked up "Anarcho-Capitalism" to be.

[Gray-Wisp]

Libertarian + More: https://gyazo.com/e070e5d83aad44239466a413b4a00629

A standard U. S. Libertarian is likely the most diverse and hard to pin down type of Libertarian. They could be a one issue voter that just wants weed legalized or they could be knowledgable about economics and think that people being socially free while having a free market will produce the most happiness and create a society that they'd want to live in. They could realize how bad the federal reserve is and realize that inflation is theft or they could just want lower taxes. It's often a mixture of all of these things and all of these types of people. You will find the crazy Libertarian who takes their shirt off at a Libertarian conference and starts dancing because they're insane and the Libertarian that is a well educated economist. Being a Libertarian in the modern sense just means you want a good amount of social freedom, a good amount of economic freedom, and you want a small federal government while often transferring a good amount of the responsibility to local governments.

[Gray-Wisp]

Minarchy Ball: https://gyazo.com/a35f6d294cbdf26836cbb00fceea6f01

A minarchist is a Libertarian but more radical (and more based). Minarchists usually advocate for a 'Night Watchman State' or some variation of this model. They want to SEVERELY limit the federal government and have created the night watchman state model to serve as the foundation of this. You can google it of course but the key point of the Night Watchman state is that the government only funds three things - Courts, the military, and emergency services such as police, fire fighters, and emergency medical services. They have it this way because they believe that otherwise the government will have too much power. This is the best way to have low taxes, and it eliminates almost all friviolous spending that governments are known for. They also have those three things funded in order for the government to uphold contracts, protect people, and protect property. These are of course three major jobs of the government.

[Gray-Wisp]

Ancap Ball: https://gyazo.com/8ed4d12018a428c34ad7aa495a167c1e

When it comes to anarcho-capitalism you are being very theoretical (and very based). There's two main people in anarcho-capitalism and they're closely related, they are Rothbard and Hoppe. Hoppe was basically Rothbard's student and saw anarcho-capitalism slightly differently. I have read much of Hoppe but not really Rothbard. Rothbard generally embodies the naïve, progressive, 'let's all get along' political person. Hoppe generally embodies the 'hard to swallow facts', conservative, confrontational political person. Anyway, back to anarcho-capitalism itself. Ancaps follow the NAP (Non-Aggression Principle) and have built their ideology around it. It really comes down to society as 80% of society will conform to whatever system they're in. If you already had an AnCap system it'd likely end up succeeding but getting to that point would be very difficult. I can link a video that explains things like how laws would work and what-not as explaining it here would take up many posts. The reason I like it is because Hoppe proposed the reality that covenant communities would likely form and each have their own rules for living within that community. People who don't understand anarchism will say "tHaT's nOt rEaL aNaRcHiSm" then proceed to argue for a direct democracy and call it real anarchism, which is absolutely bogus.

[Gray-Wisp]

Anyway, back to covenant communities. Imagine a gated community that is basically just a better version of a home owners association. For example, if we lived in Ancapistan I wouldn't want to live with degenerates so I would ban X, Y, and Z from living in there but it depends on how the covenant community is set it up. I don't know what rules would be there initially, the amendment process for rules, etc. would be as it would vary from community to community. Some AnCaps will even get salty when you want to ban homosexuals from your community. Just ignore them, they're degenerates.

Hoppean Snake: https://gyazo.com/2a29e06f481ad7353471b63104d82e67

AnCap Legal System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o

[Gray-Wisp]

There's a few more types of right wing libertarianism but I will spare you them.

[NaultD]

There is a reason why we can't have nice things. Libertarians have a brain dead approach to history. There was a time when you can get away with free market. Bad things happened and people got to gather made laws as a limited federal government and they all eventually died. then new people wonder why we have such restrictions without actually thinking why.

[NaultD]

One of the hot topics today is "right to repair" to basically being able to fix your own stuff. You see this in basically everything, cell phones, McDonald's ice cream machines, to vehicles. We have been dealing with planned obsolescence for our entire life time that is factually made worse products for consumers as a business strategy.

If that law was made today people will not have to take off a tire to change a car battery and there won't be an argument against it. But 100 years from now people will argue for it without knowing the content why it was created in the first place.

[Lliam]

The only kind of Libertarianism that's represented in the U. S. is right-libertarianism. It has a laizzez faire attitude toward worker's rights and corporate behavior. It's a throwback to the 19th and early 20th century.

People don't know about left-libertarianism, aka libertarian socialism, which sounds like an oxymoron. But it actually makes sense, although it is a broad philosophy with lots of variations. I lean strongly in the direction of certain aspects.

[Snakeyes7]

The only libertarians I have come across want the government to get out of the peoples back and only be there to defend the human rights of the citizens in accordance to the bill of rights or whatever is similar.

[joeldalton]

How is wanting to take someone’s money that they earned an unselfish act?

[MCheetah]

The selfish part comes from wanting a society with no government because Libertarians usually have enough money to not need public services and local government, while the vast majority of everyone else gets screwed. The irony comes from Libertarians typically being right-leaning, thus against BLM and the idea of abolishing the police, but that is essentially what they desire.

[joeldalton]

That’s not an answer to my question.

[MCheetah]

It is an answer. Just not one you're satisfied with. So you're not going to get another, especially when you failed to provide one yourself.

[MCheetah]

Any society without taxes can't work. Anything else outside of that I never even brought up.

[joeldalton]

How are you not selfish when you demand someone else’s money?

[MCheetah]

Because if it's taxes, it's not "their" money. If someone wants to keep "100% of their labor," they can move out into the middle of the woods and leave civilized society.

And none of this is related to the question (a point you first brought up).

[joeldalton]

Yes it is their money. They earn it. There’s a word for taking people’s property without consent.