I’ve been thinking about doing a post on libertarianism for quite some time, but libertango has beaten me to the punch here.
Franklin Veaux's Journal
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I’ve been thinking about doing a post on libertarianism for quite some time, but libertango has beaten me to the punch here.
Hell yeah! Thanks for the link.
Hell yeah! Thanks for the link.
At times it seems to me that Libertarians are closet Communists.
-Vijay
Wha? I can’t fit this idea into my head at all. In a true Communist society, everyone works to the best of their ability, the sum total of the product of their labor is confiscated by the government, and then it’s redistributed back to the population according to their need. It is, in effect, a welfare state with 100% taxation.
Libertarians, on the other hand, strive for minimal government intervention in their lives, minimal taxation, minimal welfare, and the right to keep what one earns.
Your statement makes as much sense as claiming that Bush is a closet Muslim.
Actually, I can see where he’s going with that.
Libertarianism and Communism both start from many of the same premises, and hold many ideas in common about the nature of man; they simply draw opposite conclusions from those premises, that’s all.
Communistgs believe that people are basically good, and that people will take responsibility for their lives and for the well-being of their fellow man if they are freed from the yoke of working for the benefit of someone else. If they are not forced to work for the profit of another, the reasoning goes, then they will work for the well-being of everyone.
Libertarians believe that people are basically good, and that people will take responsibility for their lives and for the well-being of their fellow man if they are freed from the yoke of government regulation. If they are freed to do anything they want to do, the reasoning goes, then they will work for the well-being of everyone, because working for the well-being of everyone is profitable.
Communists ignore the fact that people are not basically good, and that people may care for the well-being of their friends and neighbors but do not care about the well-being of humanity as a whole. They also ignore the reality that if you remove the reward for hard work, you also remove the motivation for hard work; if I gain nothing personally by working hard, I will not work hard.
Libertarians ignore the fact that people are not basically good, and that people may care for the well-being of their friends and neighbors but do not care about the well-being of humanity as a whole. They also ignore the reality that if you remove the consequence of poor or fraudulent behavior, you also remove the disincenteve for poor behavior; if I can lie, sell unsafe or unproven products, or screw others, without penalty, I will do so.
The perfect example of how one can expect a government to behave in a Communist society is China. The perfect example of how one can expect a corporation to behave in a Libertarian society is Enron.
In a way, your analogy of Bush and Islam is ironically apt. People like Bush and people like Saddam Hussein really are the same, not different. They differ only in detail, but they are both on the same side–the side of violent Fundamentalism against the side of reason.
At times it seems to me that Libertarians are closet Communists.
-Vijay
Wha? I can’t fit this idea into my head at all. In a true Communist society, everyone works to the best of their ability, the sum total of the product of their labor is confiscated by the government, and then it’s redistributed back to the population according to their need. It is, in effect, a welfare state with 100% taxation.
Libertarians, on the other hand, strive for minimal government intervention in their lives, minimal taxation, minimal welfare, and the right to keep what one earns.
Your statement makes as much sense as claiming that Bush is a closet Muslim.
Actually, I can see where he’s going with that.
Libertarianism and Communism both start from many of the same premises, and hold many ideas in common about the nature of man; they simply draw opposite conclusions from those premises, that’s all.
Communistgs believe that people are basically good, and that people will take responsibility for their lives and for the well-being of their fellow man if they are freed from the yoke of working for the benefit of someone else. If they are not forced to work for the profit of another, the reasoning goes, then they will work for the well-being of everyone.
Libertarians believe that people are basically good, and that people will take responsibility for their lives and for the well-being of their fellow man if they are freed from the yoke of government regulation. If they are freed to do anything they want to do, the reasoning goes, then they will work for the well-being of everyone, because working for the well-being of everyone is profitable.
Communists ignore the fact that people are not basically good, and that people may care for the well-being of their friends and neighbors but do not care about the well-being of humanity as a whole. They also ignore the reality that if you remove the reward for hard work, you also remove the motivation for hard work; if I gain nothing personally by working hard, I will not work hard.
Libertarians ignore the fact that people are not basically good, and that people may care for the well-being of their friends and neighbors but do not care about the well-being of humanity as a whole. They also ignore the reality that if you remove the consequence of poor or fraudulent behavior, you also remove the disincenteve for poor behavior; if I can lie, sell unsafe or unproven products, or screw others, without penalty, I will do so.
The perfect example of how one can expect a government to behave in a Communist society is China. The perfect example of how one can expect a corporation to behave in a Libertarian society is Enron.
In a way, your analogy of Bush and Islam is ironically apt. People like Bush and people like Saddam Hussein really are the same, not different. They differ only in detail, but they are both on the same side–the side of violent Fundamentalism against the side of reason.