Libertarianism: The Official Thread Of Freedom As An Ideology.

[JagerIV]

Its a little bit unclear to me given your responses if you don't understand the argument, or that you don't agree with the premises of the argument. Let me try maximally simplifying the basics of the argument:


Premise 1: Pure libertarianism is only concerned about Liberty.

Premise 2: Liberty alone is an insufficient basis of a practical ideology.

Conclusion 1: Pure libertarianism therefore is not a Practical Ideology.

Premise 3: Most Libertarian's want a practical Ideology

Conclusion 2: Most Libertarians do not want Pure Libertarianism.

Premise 5: Libertarians want to be Libertarians.

Premise 6: Libertarianism can be made more practical by adding other ideologies.

Conclusion 3: Most libertarians add other ideologies to get a more practical ideology.

Therefore, most Libertarians are not pure Libertarians.

Does the argument make sense, and your criticism is with the premises, or do you have criticsm with the argument itself?

 

[Bacle]

Its a little bit unclear to me given your responses if you don't understand the argument, or that you don't agree with the premises of the argument. Let me try maximally simplifying the basics of the argument:


Premise 1: Pure libertarianism is only concerned about Liberty.

Premise 2: Liberty alone is an insufficient basis of a practical ideology.

Conclusion 1: Pure libertarianism therefore is not a Practical Ideology.

Premise 3: Most Libertarian's want a practical Ideology

Conclusion 2: Most Libertarians do not want Pure Libertarianism.

Premise 5: Libertarians want to be Libertarians.

Premise 6: Libertarianism can be made more practical by adding other ideologies.

Conclusion 3: Most libertarians add other ideologies to get a more practical ideology.

Therefore, most Libertarians are not pure Libertarians.

Does the argument make sense, and your criticism is with the premises, or do you have criticsm with the argument itself?

You are engaging in a massive 'no true Scottsman' fallacy of thinking that libertarianism cares about 'purity'.

It doesn't and most people who see themselves as libertarians do not care too much about purity beyond the NAP.

 

[Abhorsen]

Premise 2: Liberty alone is an insufficient basis of a practical ideology.

Yeah, you haven't shown this, and there are problems with other premises. But also, some of the argument doesn't follow.

Conclusion 2: Most Libertarians do not want Pure Libertarianism.

Even if we accept premise 2, we don't have conclusion 2. Wanting a practical ideology doesn't mean not wanting a pure ideology. Libertarians would love an AnCap society, for as long as it lasted. To ensure it lasts, people are fine making compromises, but that doesn't mean they don't want the perfection. It's just impossible to have and keep it.

Conclusion 3: Most libertarians add other ideologies to get a more practical ideology.

Conclusion 3 is wrong as well. At the very least, it does not follow, and observationally, I'm skeptical of it. Many people who advertise themselves as libertarians aren't, like Mo Brooks for example. I know a guy from the Libertarian Party of AL who talked to Mo Brooks, who said we're on the same side and that he's basically a libertarian. No, Mo Brooks is just an authoritarian that isn't in power. Mo Brooks maybe (I doubt it, but beyond scope) could be considered Libertarian + Conservatism, but he is not a conservative libertarian, as he fails to uphold basic NAP principles.

Also, most of the Libertarians I know are just basic bitch Libertarians. I do know some that add other things, but most of us are primarily Libertarians, and the ones that do add something extra don't do it out of a failure of libertarianism, but because they are religious.




But also, there's a huge problem with the entire argument itself. Namely, the difference between 'pure libertarianism' and 'practical libertarianism'. The difference here is not a philosophical one, or at least a very minor one. It's an implementation question: how does one create a NAP-centric society that lasts? All libertarians must, by definition, be onboard with trying to obey the NAP as best as possible, so they all believe in the same ideal, the NAP.

Basically, even the 'practical' libertarian must also be a pure libertarian in prioritizing the NAP.

Some decide to add stuff to this ideal. That is usually fine, as long as the NAP still has priority. If they'd violate the NAP because of other ideals, they are no longer a libertarian.

But some of the examples you've shown? They violated (or advocated for a society that would violate) the NAP because of those other ideals. They are thus not libertarians. For example:

Like, a Christian Libertarian believes in a Christian end, and believes a libertarian methodology would be effective to achieve that end, and their belief of that end informs where they think the boarders of that methodology lie. A Christian, for example, is likely not going to be in favor of particularly liberal divorce laws.

See, the above wouldn't be a libertarian for 2 reasons. First, they are only following a libertarian methodology, they don't believe in libertarian goals. To them, its just a tool. Second, they apparently believe in using force to keep two people together against at least one of their wills, a direct violation of the NAP (I mean, marriage laws even existing is beyond what government should do, but if they must exist, this is a further violation). So this person is a Christian who might be libertarian on a few issues. That is not a libertarian anymore than a pro-gun liberal is a conservative.

This person isn't a 'pure' libertarian or a 'practical' libertarian. They aren't any kind of libertarian.

Now there are Christian libertarians. They believe in the NAP because the Bible says so (I don't pretend to know the exact theology here, so I won't try to attempt it, just take that they believe it as a given). They believe that although gay sex is wrong, and so is divorce, it's up to you personally not to do these things, and it would be wrong of them to use government to stop you. Your sins that don't affect others (i.e. don't aggress on others) are your business.

 

[ShieldWife]

I wouldn’t call myself a libertarian, though I have respect for libertarianism and the NAP. I think that the NAP is a a nearly necessary default assumption for a civilized society in much the same way that the presumption of innocence is a vitally important component to a just legal system.

The NAP need not be absolute, but it should be the default assumption and so a strong argument is needed for the NAP to be violated, in much the same way that the accused person’s innocence is assumed until strong evidence can be provided of wrong doing. We should default to no government activity, which is to say no initiation of force, unless we can provide strong evidence that such initiation of force is needed to prevent greater harms.

If the NAP isn’t the default, it means that we can initiate force against others as we please unless strong evidence can be provided that we shouldn’t, then it would be difficult to maintain a civilized society or to prevent a tyranny.

I think in some level, most people feel this way, that initiating force is wrong unless it can be justified for some greater good, but most people do justify the initiation of force for some greater good.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

that initiating force is wrong unless it can be justified for some greater good, but most people do justify the initiation of force for some greater good.

I think you are mistaken here.

The right of Self Defense does not require a greater good. It DOES require justified use in defense of self or others.

 

[ShieldWife]

I think you are mistaken here.

The right of Self Defense does not require a greater good. It DOES require justified use in defense of self or others.

Self defense has nothing to do with the initiation of force. You can completely adhere to the NAP and still support violent self defense or even retaliation.

I was talking about the initiation of force for a greater good - meaning that you go out and use violence against someone who is leaving you alone because you claim it serves the Tau’va.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

@ShieldWife
You've got to define "the Greater Good" then before any real discussion can take place.

 

[ShieldWife]

@ShieldWife
You've got to define "the Greater Good" then before any real discussion can take place.

For the most part, everyone agrees on what the greater good is. At least on the great majority of things. Everybody wants more peace, less crime, more prosperity, less disease, less suffering, more happiness, and so on. There are differences in opinion about how to achieve those things, but almost everybody agrees that those sorts of things are a greater good that might justify violating the NAP.

Most people aren’t Anarcho-capitalists, so most people do believe that maintaining a state, and the intended benefits of doing so, are worth at least some degree of NAP violation.

 

[Abhorsen]

For the most part, everyone agrees on what the greater good is. At least on the great majority of things. Everybody wants more peace, less crime, more prosperity, less disease, less suffering, more happiness, and so on. There are differences in opinion about how to achieve those things, but almost everybody agrees that those sorts of things are a greater good that might justify violating the NAP.

No, almost all aren't worthy of violating the NAP, as they can be obtained without doing so, and usually the great lie of big government is that violating the NAP is the only solution. It's "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

The few exceptions are the things you list here that mean less violations of the NAP: less crime and more peace (i.e. less war). Hence we have cops, jails, judiciary, a prison system, and a military. The libertarian argument for these is basically that in this imperfect world, having some violations of the NAP is important to stop bigger/more violations of the NAP.

Alternatively, one could argue that it isn't aggression even though the punishment is years removed from the action, which is possible, but I find it dubious.

Second, the devil is in the details, and nobody agrees in what the greater good is. I note you left out both equality and freedom in that list. There are large chunks of the population who define the 'greater good' by those metrics.

 

[JagerIV]

I wouldn’t call myself a libertarian, though I have respect for libertarianism and the NAP. I think that the NAP is a a nearly necessary default assumption for a civilized society in much the same way that the presumption of innocence is a vitally important component to a just legal system.

The NAP need not be absolute, but it should be the default assumption and so a strong argument is needed for the NAP to be violated, in much the same way that the accused person’s innocence is assumed until strong evidence can be provided of wrong doing. We should default to no government activity, which is to say no initiation of force, unless we can provide strong evidence that such initiation of force is needed to prevent greater harms.

If the NAP isn’t the default, it means that we can initiate force against others as we please unless strong evidence can be provided that we shouldn’t, then it would be difficult to maintain a civilized society or to prevent a tyranny.

I think in some level, most people feel this way, that initiating force is wrong unless it can be justified for some greater good, but most people do justify the initiation of force for some greater good.

I think here though your also highlighting why the NAP is so, insufficient: everyone has something very close to it. The idea of "do not do unjust violence" is not a particularly strong claim. All the important questions come down to questions of justice, or if some other goal exceeds the "cost" or reducing freedom. For example of an earlier issue brought up, is loyalty and the freedom reduction loyalty necessarily brings worth it? How much can a pledge of loyalty like marriage vows actually bond someone? By Abhorsen's argument, the libertarian answer is not at all, being bound to your word is unacceptable. Which, given just the NAP, makes sense.

Notably however, very few Libertarians I've talked to save basically Abhorsen say you can't be bound to contracts and your word. The general argument I've seen is something along the lines that breaking a contract is a violation of the NAP by committing fraud, which is defined as a type of aggression. However, they are also generally iffy about a contract to, say, sell yourself into slavery, even for a short period, being an enforceable contract.

This is one of the issues with Libertarianism of the Abhorsen school, that practically speaking, a whole bunch of things are not determined individually: just about every contract and agreement holds at least an implicit enforcement method from a third party, and an explicit one with any truly formal contract. This means collective decisions have to be made if nothing else on what is and is not a valid contract/agreement: can one make a lifetime binding contract on Marriage? What about for work? Can companies make a legally binding contract to fix prices between themselves?

I don't think you can really have a practical ideology with out dealing with questions of Justice, the good life, and the Common good. I think probably the majority see that Libertarianism doesn't really deal with the real questions in any sort of effective way.

Most of the Libertarians I've known thinking back on it do have answers on the question of Justice, the good life, and the common good because practically they have to, but pretend they don't, sometimes even deceiving themselves, leaving them with a whole bunch of other axioms they practically lived and which shaped their philosophy, but they lacked any self awareness of them, leaving, I'm not really sure the right word for this, jumbled? Seemingly illogical? Where the argument is not really about what the argument explicitly is about.

Eh.

 

[Abhorsen]

I think here though your also highlighting why the NAP is so, insufficient: everyone has something very close to it. The idea of "do not do unjust violence" is not a particularly strong claim. All the important questions come down to questions of justice, or if some other goal exceeds the "cost" or reducing freedom. For example of an earlier issue brought up, is loyalty and the freedom reduction loyalty necessarily brings worth it? How much can a pledge of loyalty like marriage vows actually bond someone? By Abhorsen's argument, the libertarian answer is not at all, being bound to your word is unacceptable. Which, given just the NAP, makes sense.

Um, being bound by your word (by which I mean contracts in general), is completely inline with the NAP. Violating an agreement is aggression.

This comes from the principle of self ownership. I own myself, therefore I am free to enter into contracts with others (as it would take aggression to stop them). Then the contracts obligations and duties become effective property of the parties to the contracts beneficiaries, so to violate the contract would be to aggress against the contracts other beneficiaries.

So one could (in a libertarian society) actually write up a decent contract for a marriage defined how both parties wanted marriage to work (as opposed to how the state wants it to work), and have both people sign the contract to get a marriage out of it.

Again, if you want to start criticizing an ideology, please learn the barebones basics of it. You have a failing knowledge of it.

 

[JagerIV]

So, now you do accept that you can have a marriage enforced by the state? You stated earlier this made someone not a Libertarian, which so surprised me because the standard Libertarian line was as you stated. This is one of the things that makes you so frustrating to argue with, your position seems to change post to post.

Edit: this may or may not have something to do with the current argument, but it popped up in my recomends, and seemed like it might be good for this thread.



Haven't finished watching it myself, but if its good probably something thought provoking if nothing else.

 

[Abhorsen]

So, now you do accept that you can have a marriage enforced by the state? You stated earlier this made someone not a Libertarian, which so surprised me because the standard Libertarian line was as you stated. This is one of the things that makes you so frustrating to argue with, your position seems to change post to post.

You are referring to what I said here?:

They believe that although gay sex is wrong, and so is divorce, it's up to you personally not to do these things, and it would be wrong of them to use government to stop you.

The above is in reply to your comment about Christian 'libertarians' not being in favor of liberal divorce laws:

Like, a Christian Libertarian believes in a Christian end, and believes a libertarian methodology would be effective to achieve that end, and their belief of that end informs where they think the boarders of that methodology lie. A Christian, for example, is likely not going to be in favor of particularly liberal divorce laws.

Marriage as done by our government isn't very inline with the NAP, as a contract that should have two parties has a non-optional (i.e. not in line with the NAP) third party, the government. Marriage to the extent that it is defined and then enforced by the state, is wrong, as a third party to the contract (government) can suddenly change the contract when divorce laws change. I'd argue that such a marriage is not a NAP abiding contract, as ones right to engage in contracts of your own choosing has been violated (as there is only the government option or nothing).

So, given there is only one option for a marriage contract instead of the plurality of options available in a libertarian society, the way to maximize freedom would be to liberalize the laws and then have people add prenups on top of them to complete them as desired.

The biggest problem with non-liberal divorce laws is when there is no desire between the parties to stay wed but government enforces it. This is a definite violation of the NAP.

So tl;dr:
Divorce laws specifically are wrong, because that's using government force on people who didn't agree to that, as a) the laws can change, but more strongly b) the NAP was severely violated by the government while it was agreed to.

Contract law and enforcement is fine, and one could write a contract to do a marriage if one wished. But as that currently isn't done, marriage laws should be struck down entirely, but barring that, we should make them as liberal as possible so the amount of NAP violation is as small as possible.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

One thing a lot of critics of libertarianism in its modern form seems to forget is that Lolberts, aren't libertarians. They're more like liberals who hate paying taxes.

A great example of that is the NAP debate I'm and of itself. Most people forget the "founders" of the philosophy were totally okay with Pinochet doing what he did and supported Shek and Videla to an extent as well. And seemed perfectly content to make personal sacrifices and support cargo planes for commies into the nearest large body of water.

Ie: their concept of the NAP included a clause that recognized that you only needed to abide by it when dealing with people who followed it and that you absolutely should be preemptive in your defensive measures when addressing communism.

This has been a good debate and I'll read the pages in greater depth later but I wanted to add that bit because I think the distinction should be taken into consideration when addressing Libertarianism.

 

[Abhorsen]

A great example of that is the NAP debate I'm and of itself. Most people forget the "founders" of the philosophy were totally okay with Pinochet doing what he did and supported Shek and Videla to an extent as well. And seemed perfectly content to make personal sacrifices and support cargo planes for commies into the nearest large body of water.

If you are talking about the Chicago School, not really. They advised on the economic policy, which stopped people from being poor, but disapproved of the mass killings.

As for the NAP, whether killing commies is justified varies somewhat (communes are fine if they don't force people to join or stay, but the second they come for your stuff, even legally, weapons are free).

 

[Scottty]

As for the NAP, whether killing commies is justified varies somewhat (communes are fine if they don't force people to join or stay, but the second they come for your stuff, even legally, weapons are free).

Yeah, a bunch of hippies wanting to go live in a commune is harmless... until they find out for themselves why that never works.

The Communists would claim that you are the one violating the NAP by claiming anything for yourself and trying to prevent other people from using it.

 

[Bacle]

 

[Abhorsen]

Yeah, a bunch of hippies wanting to go live in a commune is harmless... until they find out for themselves why that never works.

So Communes that are small enough can sorta work. And really, families are kinda sorta run according to communist principles (from each according to their ability, to each according to need, as decided by the parents). It's when someone thinks that's a plan for more than a few people that it gets to be a problem.

The Communists would claim that you are the one violating the NAP by claiming anything for yourself and trying to prevent other people from using it.

Yes, and then when they try to grab your stuff you shoot them.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Just to bump this thread up, apparently there's some sort of civil war going on with the US Libertarian Party?

I follow a fair number of random "Liberty Twitter" people plus there's a lot of Libertarian ideas and articles one just absorbs via Reason or FEE or whatever so it was kinda on the radar... but I still have no idea what's really going on.

Maybe someone can shed some light on it?



Huh... wha??? No idea what's happening.

Mises Institute?

Cato Institute?

Who is Nicholas Sarwalk?

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Lolberts and Pedos are being driven out the LP and this is is somehow a Nazi plot?

The Libertarian movement needs more far right fuckers not less.