What I hate about libertarians…

You want to know what I hate about libertarians? They're radicals. Every flippin one of them. There isn't a moderate or passive person in their entire philosophy. In my opinion it has become one of the most vicious of the rising political philosophies behind the republican party. Every libertarian you meet, you get the feeling they've glanced at the texts defining their philosophy, and fell in love with how selfish it allowed one to be. Most will even admit to how great a virtue greed and selfishness is for society and the economy. Every libertarian I've met to this day, when debating with them for less than five minutes reveals bluntly that they think everyone who believes in labor laws, government regulation on the economy, or healthcare and social security, are complete morons who actually have a mental illness resulting from an emotional attachment to the very devilish social contract which birthed them. They are also experts on the economy, having fallen in love with capitalism after reading Atlas Shrugged or The Fountain Head, they believe in something they call "laissez-faire." It's all about free-trade, free-trade, free-trade! It sounds so good because it has the words "free" and "trade" in it. Unfortunately what that ultimately means, most libertarians are reluctant to admit, is that they actually want a world of "survival of the fittest." It's the only logical way libertarianism works. Only the
strong, intelligent, and hard-working, deserve civic well-being, and the rest must step it up or die off. Because once you add in crime, you need a justice system to provide rulings and protect contracts, and then you need law enforcement to enforce the justice system, and libertarians believe these could also somehow be privatized? What happens when two privatized justice systems rule against each other, or two enforcement agencies cross paths for two different clients? It would be anarchy!  War.  Not only that, but how do we achieve a postal system or a standing army to defend our society?  Do we all just voluntarily chip in?  Apparently no libertarian has heard of the collective action problem.  But once you get past all the nonsense, eventually most libertarians will admit for the need of some kind of state, but one that has little but a monopoly on force and justice, but not on economic policy in general, or the moral values of its citizens. Why would they want a state like this? Because every human being who likes this philosophy view themselves as intelligent enough to survive in such a world, and they envision with this awareness (and their own biased judgment of themselves) that in a libertarian utopia they would be freer than they have ever been. Unfortunately, most libertarians are dumb as rocks because modern economics has demonstrated its failure as an economic theory, and history has shown it to be a fallacious political theory.

 
Isn't libertarianism (aside from how selfish it depicts society) a little too simple? What about our old people? What about people with children? What about people with no family? What about healthcare for those who work but still can't afford it? What about crippled people who can't work? The only answer libertarians provide is that of an optimistic appeal to charity, which they believe would take care of everything thanks to the abundance of capitol that people would magically have in a libertarian world. Employers would treat employees well because they are so happy with all the money they have and they want the wealth and the well-being that comes with it to trickle down… Thus the wealth will trickle down, allowing all of the poor an opportunity to rise up with all the wealth raining down upon them at the benevolent charity of those masters who survive above them. This magically raises their well-being (health, economic power, education) enough to provide them every opportunity to compete with everyone else, or at least survive. In other words, for there to be a utopia in the libertarian philosophy, humans must be assumed to be basically good and charitable people. But where in history have we seen evidence of this without the formation of society, under a contract of state that provides political and economic guidance? Where? The answer is we do not. The weaker the government in a society is, the more impoverished and closer to anarchy become its people, in every case we look at. In the absence of government we see freedom yes, but we also observe disease, war, and lack of any social progress such as medical science to increase quality of life and life span, or technology and education. So where in history do we see libertarian thinking work? Well…It doesn't because we are naturally a social being and we survive as such by caring for our fellow human beings, but left without leadership, as individuals we destroy each other trying to rise to the top.

 
Throughout history the strongest civilizations, the longest lasting, and with the strongest economies, have always been shown to provide healthcare, well-fare, public education, and limits on the economy to prevent tyrants from rising out of wealth to crush the state and the people it protects. A social contract cannot survive without a coercive check on rights that allow other rights to be had, and without the people's payment to that contract which funds the enforcement of its rules towards the greatest good of society, so that ALL can prosper and have a chance at not only a right to life, but a healthy life, and a safe life. Liberals want free trade too, but we also want safety of transactions and enforcement of those transactions not just for ourselves but for all of us. We also agree to pay taxes so that we can ALL have public healthcare, public roads, a public justice and law enforcement system, and so that we can ALL live harmoniously under a state that protects us from each other's vices. A society cannot exist without cooperation, and a bunch of individuals do not cooperate. Citizens do. A citizen is a member of a social contract, whose certain rights are protected under that contract, and who voluntarily agrees to pay certain sacrifices for that contract to exist. You understand as a citizen that your own protection requires cooperation for the sake of others, in order for that contract to exist.

 
Libertarians hate all of this. They want enforcement of contract sure, but they want that enforcement to be privatized. Everyman and his hired enforcement mercenaries for himself. This doesn't solve the destructive competition problem and it doesn't solve the "who will guard the guards?" problem. In a libertarian society you will see massive economic boom (but massive increases in poverty) and then after the state fails to regulate foreign trade, it collapses as those businesses which have risen to the top have no incentive or coercive agency that requires it to aid that state's economy in anyway. It can just move its offices to its offshore companies. The point is people; economics should be a part of politics, but not a political system in itself. Survival of the fittest is war. It's Hobbes' state of nature. It cannot possibly have any place inside a social contract that was created for peaceful exchange of goods. In libertarianism, what you can get away with is moral. It allows for the rape of all anyone in that society views as weak. And mostly that weakness will be defined by their economic power. But under a democratic socialism, the state and its economy would be in the hands of the people, there would be employee owned companies, where both employee and employer benefited from a mutual responsibility. There would be credit unions where clients own the wealth of the bank they invest into it. All citizens would have healthcare, and free education. And the taxes, though a heavy cost, would be paid gladly for peace, freedom, and security. In libertarianism if you are born into poverty, all you have to sell is your labor power. But in a democratic socialism if you are born into poverty, you would be given enough well-fare to survive, and a free education to have a chance at contributing something great to the world. Obviously there will be crime and abuses, but much less than there would be in a libertarian utopia where ever thing is free to all who have the power to take.  


"Libertarianism is attractive because (1) it provides significant moral liberty of action, (2) it provides significant moral protection against interference from others, and (3) it is sensitive to what the past was like (e.g., what agreements were made and what rights violations took place). It faces, however, the serious objection that it gives too much protection from interference and not enough attention to making the future better (e.g., by meeting people's basic needs, making people's lives go better, or promoting equality). As with all prominent moral and political theories, the overall assessment of libertarianism is a matter of on-going debate." It is the last objection where libertarianism fails, because no one would form any kind of social contract without this being a major objective of the state envisioned.


Anyway, here are some interesting articles to look at:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/saul-friedman/libertarians-the-paranoid_b_620966.html


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/the-libertarian-delusion-_b_812427.html


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iris-lee/libertarian-experiment-in_b_172961.html


http://nevadasagebrush.com/blog/2009/04/13/libertarian-beliefs-lack-pragmatic-approach-societal-accountability/