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grrgyle ,
@grrgyle@slrpnk.net avatar

Omfg this is perfect

megabat ,

I've never understood the hate for libertarians. It seems to me some of the biggest injustices in the world never could have happened if governments weren't allowed to have the authority to control those aspects of individuals lives. Such as the legalization of slavery, manifest destiny and illegalization of drug use, gay marriage, gender affirming care, birth control, abortion were all aspects of government controll in our lives that they had no business dictating IMHO. Edit - missed a word

Cethin ,

Because Libertarians don't care about people's rights (in the modern US usage at least). For example, without government legalization of slavery would be the default since nothing is stopping it. Libertarianism would say if you can afford to buy a person, and they ended up in slavery because they weren't good enough or whatever, then it's fair that you should be able to purchase them.

Libertarianism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. They're the people who want to remove government so they can fuck children and exploit people. They don't want liberty. They want authority, but by rich people not voters.

What you are talking about is Anarchism. Government shouldn't be telling people how to live their lives but should provide protections and assistance to allow them to live the best they can.

megabat , (edited )

I don't agree with the assessment on slavery because in that system nobody would have the authority to sell another person in the first place. Although I suppose you could sell yourself and have indentured servitude.

Edit and I guess I'm going to get all "no true scottsman" over here and say a libertarian that doesn't believe in liberty and freedom isn't a libertarian at all. But thanks for explaining it a bit.

Cethin ,

I don't agree with the assessment on slavery because in that system nobody would have the authority to sell another person in the first place. Although I suppose you could sell yourself and have indentured servitude.

The issue is that, without protections, do people really get a choice. If all land is owned by the owner class and you need food, water, and shelter for you and your family to survive, and there is authority ensuring you can't make use of things you don't own, what choice do you have? You can die or you can work for the owners.

It's really not that different to today (what many will call wage slavery), except without protections they'll force you to sign a contract ensuring you can't work anywhere else without their permission. Without competition, they can force you to do whatever they want. You will "willingly" sign away your right to bodily autonomy because they won't give you necessities unless you do.

Edit and I guess I'm going to get all "no true scottsman" over here and say a libertarian that doesn't believe in liberty and freedom isn't a libertarian at all. But thanks for explaining it a bit.

They believe in certain liberties and freedoms. You can't believe in all of them because some are exclusive. Do you have the liberty to own slaves or does someone else have the liberty to never be owned? Do you have the liberty to rape a minor or do they have liberty to not have them happen to them?

The name sounds great. However, liberty for some comes at the cost of liberty for others. If someone has the liberty to have authority of others, they're depriving those others of their own liberty.

Umbrias ,

legalization of slavery

I'm sorry but do you think private commerce had zero interest in the trade of flesh?

A government is not some magic special construct. Am authoritarian governance system is the same whether it's enacted by something with a national moniker or a corporate one.

megabat ,

What no I'm not saying that, of course they did. I'm saying slavery was allowed under the authority of the government and backed by state sanctioned violence. Corporations don't have that same authority over our lives the way governments do. Under an actual libertarian system it's impossible to to have slavery without violating a persons liberty.

Umbrias ,

Under the extremes of libertarianism the logic for why slavery would not happen isn't that "it wouldn't be allowed", remember, they view a government system as bad, there's not strictly a government to enforce a lack of slavery.

The extreme libertarian position is that the market will self regulate moral bads, so slavery would only be disallowed inasmuch as it was uneconomical to forcefully enslave people. This, under their reasoning, might be true because you're under contract with a security company who keeps you from getting enslaved, among other services, and will actively go to corporate war to protect the sanctity of their contracts for fear of losing business in the future.

This is obviously a fantasy.

Libertarians generally have no qualms with slavery, not in a strict sense. Some libertarians certainly dislike it, but don't have a strict philosophical backing for why it wouldn't be allowed under true zero government systems.

megabat ,

I can see why that kind of libertarianism is unpopular. Thanks for the explanation. I'm coming from the "every person has freedom to do all that they will, provided they infringe not the equal freedom of any other person" school of thought where slavery is absolutely not allowed and there's government to protect people's liberty and freedom.

Umbrias ,

That's not ancap libertarianism nor effectively even mundane libertarianism, ultimately. In a practical sense that libertarianism is only opposed to strictly chattel slavery (at best! Get many libertarians behind closed doors they may not even go that far!), not things like debt slavery, wage slavery, company scrip, etc.

Because they ultimately don't generally care about market freedom, they want the unrestricted power to be feudal lords of their polities.

grrgyle ,
@grrgyle@slrpnk.net avatar

It's because the good libertarians just call themselves anarchists or maybe even syndicalists.

Your typical online libertarian is like the stereotype of the "parasitic socialist" who doesn't want to work and just wants free stuff.

To continue my gross simplification: libertarians want to be able to boss around poor people using their wealth, but don't want poor people to be able to band together to stop them from doing so. And they definitely don't want to share their wealth.

megabat ,

I see. It sounds like "liberty for me, not for thee". Not cool.

Noodle07 ,

Sounds like fascism with extra steps.. Oh wait!

AeonFelis ,

Just because you are not familiar with any other word doesn't mean that every bad ideology is fascism.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Liberals, lul

AeonFelis ,

I used to consider myself a libertarian because I believe, as you say, that government authority is responsible for all these things and we are better off without it. I never went to the extreme of saying we should get rid of it (I can elaborate, but that'd be digressing). But I still believe in the core values of libertarianism.

Thing is - in all the libertarian communities I've visited/joined online, I've noticed that the other libertarians treat these values not as principles but as aesthetics. Half of the activity there (the other half was criticizing everything the government does, whether it's good or bad) was about using the NAP as a creative limitation - how do we control the populace without technically infringing on individual freedom?

  • Want to censor people, but you can't because "freedom of speech"? Just take their stage from under their feet (other than the air though which their voice vibrates, everything was considered "public property" which they are not allowed to use for their "personal" agenda) or have their employers fire them (they don't have to employ them - that would infringe the employer's liberties)
  • Want to enforce regulations? Just use insurance companies. Make it so it's impossible to operate without insurance, and then the insurance companies can impose whatever regulation they want or else they won't insure you.
  • Want brutal law enforcement, but that's a literal violation of the NAP? Just call it "private security companies" and everything is okay. Actually, the idea here is that the private security companies won't want to fight each other, so they'll come to an agreement between them and force that agreement on their customers. And if that sounds like how organized crime families work, then
  • Slavery is a big no no, so how do we get slaves? Debt slavery to the rescue!

And these are the relatively reasonable things. At some point I had to conclude that either none of them was a true Scotsman libertarian - or that maybe I should just abandon libertarianism itself (though not necessary all its teachings)

Eldritch ,
@Eldritch@lemmy.world avatar

Modern, specifically American libertarians are imposters. Rejecting basic concepts of actual libertarianism like public ownership of natural resources. And are ideologically at least (economic) liberals. Not libertarians. Who chant weird self defeating tautologies that have nothing to do with libertarianism like the Non Aggression Principle.

Basically they're Libertarians in the same fashion Marxist Leninist are communist. Not.

nifty , (edited )
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

The interconnectedness of the world and our systems make it too complex for small government now. I mean, what’s the libertarian answer to global pandemics or climate change? Hands off doesn’t work in all cases

SpaceCadet ,
@SpaceCadet@feddit.nl avatar

I read that as librarians and was very confused.

PanoptiDon ,

Same same

niktemadur ,

tHiS iS sO mUcH bEtTeR bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe

Chuymatt ,

Impecable use of this meme format.

explodicle ,

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/2758a1f3-866a-4c87-b996-cfaaacd51852.jpeg

Mikufan ,
@Mikufan@ani.social avatar

Thats more true.

Daxtron2 ,

V1 onion link eww

pineapplelover ,

I've never seen .bit

RaoulDook ,

Another person who's never read the platform of any actual Libertarian politician. Supporting tyranny of any kind is inherently antithetical to those platforms. The root word of Libertarian is Liberty, my dudes. That is what they are primarily about.

MrMakabar OP ,
@MrMakabar@slrpnk.net avatar

You mean abolish all labor laws and enforce all contracts to the letter by the government. We know that this is going to lead to company towns, slave contracts and similar setups. We had those everywhere before the workers won those laws. You end up with a capitalist class ruling everything in a nearly aristrocatic fashion. This is already the case in many ways, but this would make it so much worse.

explodicle ,

Clearly a moderate position is needed here. Let's start by repealing the Taft-Hartley Act.

RaoulDook ,

Proving my point - you have not read anything about the Libertarian party platform, because those are not positions they hold. You are talking about the cartoon version of libertarians that you made up out of the whims of prejudice.

Here's what they actually stand for: https://www.lp.org/platform/

MrMakabar OP ,
@MrMakabar@slrpnk.net avatar

2.11 is very clear about abolishing all labor laws. 1.0 is very clear about "Individuals are inherently free to make choices for themselves and must accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make. " hence slave contracts are legal, as long as you do sell yourself for any reason. The rest is just pure and simple logic. States are one of the systems redistributing wealth, obviously not perfectly, but richer people are supposed to pay more taxes then the poor. The rest is distributed via social security, which the Libertarian Party is against as stated in 2.13 and 2.14. With contracts being enforced and no limits on contracts being placed, they replace many current laws. Hence you get an aristocratic class. Eve worse 3.7 expressly allows for governments to be completely ignored, if they hurt their freedoms.

I have no doubt that most libertarians are actually good people and mostly are pissed at a lot of stupid government rules, which are absolutely real. However it is like a lot of things an overreaction, which could hurt a lot of people.

RaoulDook ,

I guess you could read that into it when you are determined to believe that's what they stand for, but I don't read it with such a pessimistic outlook. I understand that the general premise they are going for is individual liberty and not freedom for businesses to do whatever they want.

But anyway there's no chance they could do any of that, even if a member of the party was elected President. They could at best achieve some improvements to our liberties and at worst no changes. So I will keep voting for them unless a better option is available.

Cethin ,

What you want to look at is anarchists. They want government protections for people from exploitation and harm, and freedom for the individual. Libertarians want freedom for the rich and powerful to exploit people however they can/want and for governments to protect them doing this.

Basically boiled down and (over)simplified, Anarchism = freedom for the people, and Libertarianism = freedom for those with the means to hold it.

Srh ,

I guess you don't read into it with any historical outlook. because historically slave contracts are what happened when we had no labor laws. They could do worst the no regulations has done terribly worse. And most issues with today are lack of regulations we let corporations do whatever they want.

tigeruppercut ,
@tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip avatar

2.2 Environment

Competitive free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources. 

The free market will protect the environment? Please explain, because that sounds absolutely absurd on its face.

anarchist ,
@anarchist@lemmy.ml avatar

I think the downvotes you are getting are from people who have only heard "Libertarian" in american context.

American libertarians are conservative/capitalists

In Classical definition/for the rest of the world, Libertarians are closer to Anarchists

frezik ,

Nah, you're giving GP too much credit. He's the American right-libertarian variety.

Cornelius_Wangenheim ,

Typically capital "L" Libertarian refers to the Libertarian party. You'd use a lower case "l" for ideological libertarians.

BarbecueCowboy ,

To be fair, it's super rare to see a Libertarian Politician gain any following without a platform that isn't textbook conservative but with more weed or absolutely batshit insane.

JackGreenEarth ,
@JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee avatar

Don't know exactly how you define 'libertarians', but if you mean right wing/small government advocates, I'm with you.

fah_Q ,

Libertarian definition 1.Conservatives who like to smoke weed.

Blackmist ,

Taxpayers who'd rather not.

jaschen ,

Closer to Trump supports that smoke weed. I was once a conservative but the party shifted from my views to racialized Christians.

Now my political stance is closer to liberal.

uis ,
@uis@lemm.ee avatar

I'd say go hard on crack.

BossDj ,

I think another implication here is they trust a corporation more than a government

d00ery ,

I'm not condoning this, but one argument I've heard is that it's easier to pick a different corporation (i.e. don't buy from them) than it is to change your government (every 4 years ish) and it's only the political party, not the civil service / employees (or whatever it's called in the USA) that change.

Of course monopolies, huge barriers to entry for new companies, etc, weaken this argument.

As a final note; I think the combination of unions, govt., and private enterprise is the best we can hope for under the existing system.

MrMakabar OP ,
@MrMakabar@slrpnk.net avatar

We have cooperatives in a lot of forms being part of our existing system. This is in the form of housing coops, cooperative banks, cooperative stores and worker owned companies. All of them survive and some even thrive in our current system. Mostly they are growing slowly, if at all, but are much more stable and fiscally conservative. They can even work very well on natural monopolies as utility cooperatives have shown.

There are also legal setups like trusts, which can be very benefitial, if done right.

GraniteM ,

it's easier to pick a different corporation (i.e. don't buy from them)

This argument also falls apart when the thing you want to buy is essential and/or all of the companies selling it are horrible (or the very concept of selling it at a profit is horrible), e.g. health insurance, water, housing, staple foods, and so forth.

chicken ,

I'm not sure I'd characterize any of those as a ".com" though

Strykker ,

But that's exactly what libertarians want to do. They want the government to manage nothing and just let corps do everything with no oversight.

Ziglin ,

Hear me out: Instead of companies we have various non profit organisations that evenly supply people with goods and have to keep their expenses completely transparent.

I'm sure there's some issues with this and I'm curious to hear them but I feel like this would still be far better than corporations and especially monopolies or oligopolies trying to take our money. (I hope it's clear that these organisations wouldn't have to be like existing ones just operate similarly and I don't care about it not counting as a non profit organisation in some existing government.)

toaster ,
@toaster@slrpnk.net avatar

I think they're referring to right-wing libertarians specifically.

WhatAmLemmy , (edited )

The only libertarians in the general population's consciousness are right-wing, as libertarian political parties were literally financed by fossil fuel, tobacco, and weapons manufacturer oligarchs — the US Libertarian parties first presidential candidate was a fucking Koch bro (billionaire fossil fuel oligarch) — all because they wanted to pay less taxes and deregulate their businesses, after regulations like the clean air act meant they could no longer destroy waterways and create acid rain without consequence.

99% of the human population have no idea that left-wing libertarians exist, or that libertarianism was considered left-wing and progressive prior to right-wing appropriation in the 1960/70's.

RvTV95XBeo ,

prior to right-wing appropriation in the 1960/70's.

Because when its been this way for long enough to be considering retirement, the way it used to be is pretty irrelevant to the discussion.

It's like calling Republicans the party of Lincoln. It has no connection to today's politics.

III ,

It has no connection to today’s politics.

"We are the party of Lincoln, so let us fly our confederate flags!" I mean, it does connect... just in an "opposite day" kind of way.

WhatAmLemmy ,

Libertarian politics is not Libertarianism. Do you consider the Democratic Republic of North Korea to have forever tainted the concept of Democracy?

Eldritch ,
@Eldritch@lemmy.world avatar

100% this. And it's sad. Because there actually aren't any right wing libertarians. They are (economic) liberals. Rejecting basic tenants of Libertarianism like public ownership of natural resources , and tack on insane BS like the NAP. The man who coined the term libertarian, defined what it was, fought in the fucking French Revolution. He also rallied and fought against the same Liberals larping as libertarians today.

toaster ,
@toaster@slrpnk.net avatar

Libertarian is the opposite of authoritarian on the political compass. It's a shame that it's had a phase shift in meaning and most people assume it's right-wing libtertarianism, i.e. turbo capitalism with no rules/regulations.

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