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Can the Libertarian party or policies ever work?

Should/Can libertarianism work?

  • Yes of course but first we need to become more known.

    Votes: 18 31.6%
  • Yes but we will never get elected.

    Votes: 5 8.8%
  • No and I'm damn glad of it.

    Votes: 27 47.4%
  • No because we will never get well known/enough votes.

    Votes: 7 12.3%

  • Total voters
    57
I think that the mitigating factors need to be felt more by the individuals who make irrational decisions.
When it is less of a deciding factor, the moral hazard comes into play more and more.
We have to figure out how to keep the moral hazard at bay.

Yep. Immoral behavior will be a problem in any system. For me, the question usually comes down to, which system is best at limiting the damage of these types of choices. However, you are right, the same responses which limit damage for another usually limit damage for person making bad choices as well.
 
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Yep. Immoral behavior will be a problem in any system. For me, the question usually comes down to, which system is best at limiting the damage of these types of choices. However, you are right, the same responses which limit damage for another usually limit damage for person making bad choices as well.

An example was the bank bailout.
The banks know the government will back them if they take hazardous risks, so they can over leverage themselves.

On top of that the good and punished with the bad, even though it isn't a particularly harsh deterrent.

BB&T bank was forced to take tarp funds even though they were well capitalized.
Our system has gotten a bit crazy.
 
An example was the bank bailout.
The banks know the government will back them if they take hazardous risks, so they can over leverage themselves.

On top of that the good and punished with the bad, even though it isn't a particularly harsh deterrent.

BB&T bank was forced to take tarp funds even though they were well capitalized.
Our system has gotten a bit crazy.

I think its going to get worse as time goes on. As we get more technologically advanced, we become more dependent on things working as they should, all the time. The reason is that technology builds on other technology, which effectively makes more links in the chain. If any of those chains are broken, the whole thing could potentially fail.

As our technology gets more advanced (and fragile), so does our society. We are dependent on our lifestyle, as humans tend to be, and because of that, we will be forced to make these sorts of decisions. Banking is like that, we invent new monetary technology, however it all depends on the fundamentals. Since by nature it is more fragile than doing things the old way, we are forced to react more strongly to failures. The top bankers understood this, but I don't think most people really do. They just see it as unfair.

However, I don't think it is government's fault, they just happened to be in the position that had to make these sorts of decisions. The basis of the decision however is our common society.

Also, I am convinced that we would have less capacity to build or sustain these technologies without some sort of stabilizing control (government).

That is how I see it at least. For me, it is about which system has the most advantages.
 
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I think its going to get worse as time goes on. As we get more technologically advanced, we become more dependent on things working as they should, all the time. The reason is that technology builds on other technology, which effectively makes more links in the chain. If any of those chains are broken, the whole thing could potentially fail.

I actually see the opposite in the future, which is why I take my stance against patents and copyright.

When you look at information reproduction it is becoming almost free to copy and share.

As our technology gets more advanced (and fragile), so does our society. We are dependent on our lifestyle, as humans tend to be, and because of that, we will be forced to make these sorts of decisions. Banking is like that, we invent new monetary technology, however it all depends on the fundamentals. Since by nature it is more fragile than doing things the old way, we are forced to react more strongly to failures. The top bankers understood this, but I don't think most people really do. They just see it as unfair.

I understand the need to supply them with additional funds and I do think it is unfair/unethical.

I have yet to form a new way of dealing with money outside in a centralized economy.
I think more decentralization is needed so that instead of entire nations being subject to a failure, localities are.

However, I don't think it is government's fault, they just happened to be in the position that had to make these sorts of decisions. The basis of the decision however is our common society.

Also, I am convinced that we would have less capacity to build or sustain these technologies without some sort of stabilizing control (government).

That is how I see it at least. For me, it is about which system has the most advantages.

I'm not an anarchist but decentralization is the core of my philosophy.
It decentralizes risks as well as rewards, a greater share can be had by more people, more equally than with centralized economies.
 
Long term rational self interest.
I'd venture a guess that that hadn't worked out too well for most of us for a long time, hence the rising power for government. Long term self-interest causes big companies to become monopolies, which don't exactly benefit society any. Maybe that's where the "rational" part comes in in your statement, but it didn't stop people from doing it before the government forbade it.
Living examples can be great a motivator.
People need to feel more of the cause and effect of their choices.
How is this to be accomplished? Human nature isn't going to change on its own. Somewhere, somebody is going to have to step in, and history has shown little hope for the great mass of people to try to think every decision through on their own--and arrive at the conclusion that they should do what's best for society, not merely themselves.
 
This has been a very intresting thread, with a lot of good concepts brought up. Most posters have contributed substantially to the discussion: kudos (almost) everybody.


As I've mentioned before, I'm a libertarian-ish conservative with a few atypical positions.

I have my doubts that a "pure" Libertarian State, based purely on ideological libertarianism, would be workable. Those who have cited the problem with people making immoral/malevolent/stupid choices are one reason. A lack of pragmatism in foreign policy would be another.

However, a "pure" (fill in the blank, anything) State rarely if ever exists. Almost all States with an ideological basis are actually compromises... America being one example. The Jeffersonians had to compromise with a slightly-more-statist block, those who valued liberty for all had to compromise on the slavery issue. In more recent decades, America has compromised itself into a much more central-gov oriented federalism with strong social-welfare aspects.

One thing that nearly half a century of experience has taught me is that having one ideological group fully in charge generally doesn't go well. Both Dems and Repubs tend to go "overboard" in certain specific ways when they have full power. This is why I favor gridlock in the current political climate.

I would like to see Libertarianism become a major political ideology, possibly even the dominant one...but not necessarily the sole-and-exclusive ideology. If we had, for instance, a three-way political matrix with Conservatives, Liberals and Libertarians all vying for power and holding roughly equal support (with variation from election to election, of course) I think we'd come out a lot better than our current Left/Right dichotomy.

Of course our system is so entrenched in the two-party matrix that it seems improbable that would happen. The Libertarians would probably do better, to do what they've been doing: infiltrate the Republican party and try to steer it in a somewhat more Libertarian direction. As someone said, they could do the same with the Democrat Party perhaps.

In any case, I think a strong admixture of Libertarianism would do us a lot of good, and probably more good than a "pure Libertarian State" would for the reasons given above.
 
I'd venture a guess that that hadn't worked out too well for most of us for a long time, hence the rising power for government.

How does the government doing something even mean that it had to fix something to begin with? We live in an imperfect world.

Long term self-interest causes big companies to become monopolies, which don't exactly benefit society any. Maybe that's where the "rational" part comes in in your statement, but it didn't stop people from doing it before the government forbade it.

Natural monopolies are very rare. It's extremely difficult to convince buyers to buy only your product for any stretch of time. What we have in this country and most others is a corporatist economy. More regulations and taxes usually help big business at the expense of the small, because big business can more easily get around or absorb the impact of them. They often even write legislation. Small business is left in the dust.

How is this to be accomplished? Human nature isn't going to change on its own. Somewhere, somebody is going to have to step in, and history has shown little hope for the great mass of people to try to think every decision through on their own--and arrive at the conclusion that they should do what's best for society, not merely themselves.

I agree that human nature won't change, but the "humans aren't rational argument" applies equally to politicians and beauracrats.
 
I'd venture a guess that that hadn't worked out too well for most of us for a long time, hence the rising power for government. Long term self-interest causes big companies to become monopolies, which don't exactly benefit society any. Maybe that's where the "rational" part comes in in your statement, but it didn't stop people from doing it before the government forbade it.

Long term rational self interest is a pretty loaded term with lots of specific ideas behind it.
It stems from Objectivism.

Most of the things that come with monopolies have been short term self interest.
Doing things only for the immediate benefit in the near future.
In the long term, you don't want to piss all over your customers, take advantage of people, etc.

It's a change from immediate profit to long term profitability.


How is this to be accomplished? Human nature isn't going to change on its own. Somewhere, somebody is going to have to step in, and history has shown little hope for the great mass of people to try to think every decision through on their own--and arrive at the conclusion that they should do what's best for society, not merely themselves.

I don't have a problem with government making the ground rules and even though monopolies are mostly unnatural, anti trust laws and things of that nature are fine as well.
We have to let more people feel the consequences of their actions, not necessarily to the death but something they won't forget easily.

Shame used to be a big disincentive for people to not do wrong things, that has mostly fallen to the way side.
 
I think the two go hand in hand, honestly. Americans are used to buying a safe product and are used to making a safe product because we have regulatory mechanisms of accountability for products that cause injury.

They may go hand in hand, but the primary difference is in culture. Americans tend to be perfectionists and idealistic. We are pragmatic in wanting highest quality for the best buck. Chinese peasants don't typically buy many luxury items. They are pragmatic out of necessity.

For a simplistic example: I build bird houses. I do this out of love for birding and the natural world that I watch daily. I build my birdhouses well because I get satisfaction from a job well-done. If I build one for a friend, I am even more inclined to do a good job. I'm perfectionistic in my tendencies, and this is ingrained in me by my culture of a love for the world around me. I have had the luxury of not having to perform slave labor in order to exist. I had the choice of making my life better and the way I want it due to educational opportunities and the idea that my success or failure depends on my drive and my desires. I like excellence- I want to be excellent in my endeavors.

In China, the general population has not been encouraged toward individualism and accomplishment. They are like an ant colony. They work under a heavy governmental hand who tells them how many children they may have with the threat of violence. As an example of how the Chinese manufacturing mind works, I have a friend who is a purchasing manager for a company here who sells fiber-optic cable. They buy parts from a chinese manufacturer who sends X amount of parts per shipment. When my friend's company found that 33% of these parts were defective,, they contacted the Chinese manufacturer whose response was, in effect, "You ordered 1000 parts, you got 1000 parts, we don't guarantee the quality of each of these parts, and we will not replace the defective ones". In other words, you buy it, you're stuck with it". Those Chinese workers don't care about quality. If the government told them they must make quality parts, they might do so because they feared the government, but it wouldn't be because they care about quality. Americans care about quality as a general rule.
 
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They may go hand in hand, but the primary difference is in culture. Americans tend to be perfectionists and idealistic. We are pragmatic in wanting highest quality for the best buck. Chinese peasants don't typically buy many luxury items. They are pragmatic out of necessity.

For a simplistic example: I build bird houses. I do this out of love for birding and the natural world that I watch daily. I build my birdhouses well because I get satisfaction from a job well-done. If I build one for a friend, I am even more inclined to do a good job. I'm perfectionistic in my tendencies, and this is ingrained in me by my culture of a love for the world around me. I have had the luxury of not having to perform slave labor in order to exist. I had the choice of making my life better and the way I want it due to educational opportunities and the idea that my success or failure depends on my drive and my desires. I like excellence- I want to be excellent in my endeavors.

In China, the general population has not been encouraged toward individualism and accomplishment. They are like an ant colony. They work under a heavy governmental hand who tells them how many children they may have with the threat of violence. As an example of how the Chinese manufacturing mind works, I have a friend who is a purchasing manager for a company here who sells fiber-optic cable. They buy parts from a chinese manufacturer who sends X amount of parts per shipment. When my friend's company found that 33% of these parts were defective,, they contacted the Chinese manufacturer whose response was, in effect, "You ordered 1000 parts, you got 1000 parts, we don't guarantee the quality of each of these parts, and we will not replace the defective ones". In other words, you buy it, you're stuck with it". Those Chinese workers don't care about quality. If the government told them they must make quality parts, they might do so because they feared the government, but it wouldn't be because they care about quality. Americans care about quality as a general rule.

i think if what you said were actually true, then the japanese, german and presently south korean auto makers would not have been able to gain a foothold in the American auto market

as far as the defective parts, i suspect there is more to the story. business does not survive by underperforming on its contracts (unless they have the vice president as their former CEO). many buyers do not know what they want/need and do not take the time to find out. only after they examine the material they have a acquired do they realize it was not a good fit. could be the supplier was in it for a quick buck, but if i had to speculate, i would guess your friend's company was clueless about what it was buying
 
i think if what you said were actually true, then the japanese, german and presently south korean auto makers would not have been able to gain a foothold in the American auto market

Lizzie didn't say that this was the only perfectionist culture.
 
We've never seen masses of people turning to the streets and demanding libertarian policies. Nor have outspoken libertarian parties ever had any electoral success outside of a small segment of true believers. The large-scale experiments with libertarian policies we have has only been possible when combined with a brutal dictatorship as in Chile.

Those libertarians who have managed to get into power through fair elections have been forced to moderate their policies. For instance even Margaret Thatcher did not dare to abolish the NHS although it would have been a top priority for a libertarian.

Libertarianism will never become popular. And how should we expect an ideology that patently leads to bad results for everyone but a small elite to win wide popular support?

Among non-libertarians there is a wide consensus that libertarian policies don't work. I disagree with that notion. I think the dangerous thing about libertarianism is that it is ruthlessly effective. It don't provide any good results for ordinary people and it is an outright disaster for the most unfortunate members of society. But that has never been the objective of libertarianism. If one sees an increase in wealth and privilege for the elite as the main objective of libertarianism then all those insane and anti-democratic policies associated with libertarianism suddenly makes sense - They are weapons in the class war waged by the elite against the rest of society.
 
We've never seen masses of people turning to the streets and demanding libertarian policies. Nor have outspoken libertarian parties ever had any electoral success outside of a small segment of true believers. The large-scale experiments with libertarian policies we have has only been possible when combined with a brutal dictatorship as in Chile.

Those libertarians who have managed to get into power through fair elections have been forced to moderate their policies. For instance even Margaret Thatcher did not dare to abolish the NHS although it would have been a top priority for a libertarian.

Libertarianism will never become popular. And how should we expect an ideology that patently leads to bad results for everyone but a small elite to win wide popular support?

Among non-libertarians there is a wide consensus that libertarian policies don't work. I disagree with that notion. I think the dangerous thing about libertarianism is that it is ruthlessly effective. It don't provide any good results for ordinary people and it is an outright disaster for the most unfortunate members of society. But that has never been the objective of libertarianism. If one sees an increase in wealth and privilege for the elite as the main objective of libertarianism then all those insane and anti-democratic policies associated with libertarianism suddenly makes sense - They are weapons in the class war waged by the elite against the rest of society.

How can you call any of those libertarian?

You're comparing state capitalism with libertarianism.
They are not the same thing.
 
Libertarians don't take human nature into account? That's ironic and comical since the defining work of libertarian economics is a book called Human Action! :doh
 
I think libertarians in fact do take human nature into account; which is why we are libertarians and not anarchists.
 
I think libertarians in fact do take human nature into account; which is why we are libertarians and not anarchists.

I actually should be an anarchist, but I can't make that leap, and I don't know how others can. The principles of libertarianism work when you don't allow force or fraud. How can it ever work if you leave private companies the use of force? I don't trust them. I don't trust the government much either, but at least they are accountable to us. How exactly does a 3rd party company get control to use force against us? I can't see it working in the context of contract theory.

But of course, you get into the problems of vigilante justice (the first Death Wish was amazing on this subject, btw), and at times this can be better than the police. But do I trust it on a large-scale level? Hardly. It's just so hard to offer any other argument other than it being a necessary evil because we can't trust private citizens to enforce law.
 
Hard to say. They worked fine for the first 100 or so years

too many people have become addicted to entitlements and nanny state government which was the intent of the New Deal, Great Society etc. Dems created legions of addicts and going cold turkey would cause major upheavels as the parasites, the addicts and those who pander to them would revolt

Yeah, damn that middle class! :roll:
 
No vote, of course.
IMO, Libertarianism can work, and will work when all men become educated/intelligent/civilized, maybe in the year 3000.
Today?
Just look around.
 
I actually should be an anarchist, but I can't make that leap, and I don't know how others can. The principles of libertarianism work when you don't allow force or fraud. How can it ever work if you leave private companies the use of force? I don't trust them. I don't trust the government much either, but at least they are accountable to us. How exactly does a 3rd party company get control to use force against us? I can't see it working in the context of contract theory.

But of course, you get into the problems of vigilante justice (the first Death Wish was amazing on this subject, btw), and at times this can be better than the police. But do I trust it on a large-scale level? Hardly. It's just so hard to offer any other argument other than it being a necessary evil because we can't trust private citizens to enforce law.

I see anarchy as the pipe dream and I think that perhaps it's very similar for many libertarians. If everything could be perfect and work out, the best form of government would be anarchy. But human nature as it is, anarchy is not actually feasible. Thus, some amount of government is necessary to secure the rights and the liberties of the People. So I would say that anarchy is the ideal, noting that it can't work in reality, but it's the ideal. I don't think it's a bad ideal, and we can use that as well. While the ideal may not be practical or feasible, we can move towards the ideal; which is where the idea of minarchism comes into play; and where many libertarians lie. It's the minimization of the government and its powers. You need some amount of government, but you shouldn't grow it past that.
 
Of course libertarian policies work.

Freedom is what built this country.

Duh.
 
Libertarianism will never become popular. And how should we expect an ideology that patently leads to bad results for everyone but a small elite to win wide popular support?

Only a socialist would believe that individual freedom is a bad result.
 
I think the Libertarian Party is just a distraction.

It would be my preference that they unite behind Ron Paul, and mobilize to take back the GOP, which was founded on many of the ideas that libertarians hold dear.

Anything other than that is going to be a hard and long fight.
 
I think the Libertarian Party is just a distraction.

It would be my preference that they unite behind Ron Paul, and mobilize to take back the GOP, which was founded on many of the ideas that libertarians hold dear.

Anything other than that is going to be a hard and long fight.

No, the GOP wasn't. The Democrats were actually founded in libertarian principles. The GOP was mostly the party of big business (protectionism, etc.) until FDR. Once we had FDR, then the Old Right developed which was like modern libertarianism. Then the New Right hijacked the GOP (with the presidency of Ike) which is the party we know today (neoconservative). The DNC is basically the party of FDR. The transformation of the DNC began really took off during Wilson, but it was started long before then. We could see the transformation start with the emergence of the Bourbon Democrats (which were the equivalent of modern day libertarians) in the late 1800s. So let's say before the populist movement of the late 1800s, the Democrats were the libertarians and the Republicans were the interventionists. Now, both are interventionists, but Republicans less so. In terms of foreign policy THEY ARE THE SAME.
 
Only a socialist would believe that individual freedom is a bad result.

And only a libertarian would think that increasing the power, wealth and privilege of the economic elite promotes individual freedom for the general public.
 
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