this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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Libertarianism requires its members to engage in due diligence in order to execute their libertarian ideals properly and make the choices that are correct for them.
This, unfortunately, excludes the lower-60% of all Americans, who are so ground down, economically terrorized, and mentally overwhelmed with their daily struggles to survive that they have little to no opportunity to approach any major choice with anything even vaguely in the realm of due diligence. They just don’t have the headspace to do so, and are forced to spend all their available mental efforts on just putting one financial foot in front of the other.
This is why having social support frameworks enforced/provided/funded by the government is so important for so many working-class people - it allows them to put those issues on autopilot, significantly reducing their own cognitive load and allowing them to better process the most important issues in their lives.
Ergo, libertarianism is a wealthy person’s toy. It is something that they can champion, because only they have the economic options and financial freedom to fully and properly engage with it.
Until everyone has vanishingly few catastrophic-level issues on the horizon (like one missed paycheque leading to homelessness, or a sudden illness leading to medical bankruptcy), any attempt to implement libertarianism will only bring mass amounts of misery and destroyed lives to anyone beneath the Parasite Class.
And when you have those kinds of widespread government-provided supports that lift all boats - and not just the megayachts - why bother with libertarianism? We should continue to use what got everyone into that safe state in the first place -- socialism.
Remember, the Parasite Class already uses socialism for themselves. It’s called grants and bailouts and subsidies, and allows the Parasite Class to privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
It’s just at a scale that makes it impossible for working-class people to leverage.
This is a feature, not a bug
This is the far right libertarianism, which has essentially become an extremist, authoritarian form of capitalism. In essence, those with immense power tell us that nobody has any right to oversight and regulation over others. Their power becomes insurmountable, and their control over the economy becomes absolute. We live according to the standards they provide, because we have no alternative.
Every system of government becomes corrupted like this when thieves and liars take control. This is not libertarianism, it is simply the flavor of authoritarianism this go 'round.
Real liberterianism comes in many forms, along the left to right spectrum. On the left, there is a belief in redistribution of natural resources to the community. Personally, I believe we should be embracing local cooperatives for food, energy, medical care, and beyond. On the right, there is more allowance for imbalance by embracing business to drive innovation. Those who innovate succeed, and accrue wealth. But a true libertarian should support a near 100% estate tax, which would limit the imbalance, because you should have what you've earned for yourself.
The thing that we lost that leads libertarianism to fail, is our sense of community, a sense of humanity. A responsibility when you see your neighbors suffering, to help them. Once the rich went off to live in their ivory towers, they lost sight of the rest of us.
I don't see how any system could succeed, considering the circumstances.
[Edit] And honestly, we need to stop vilifying entire philosophies because they were previously corrupted. Just because communism was implemented in a manner that oppressed millions, doesn't mean there is no good to the philosophies behind it and socialism.
We should be borrowing the good from everything, and remembering the bad. A blanket condemnation of failed experiments makes both impossible. No singular philosophy will be effective in this imperfect world, only in theory is that level of refinement possible.
I understand what you mean. The issue is when people use the word “libertarianism”, the mean the far right one.
Left wing libertarian nowadays usually refer themselves as anarchist.
Then people are wrong, and we should correct them. Left wing libertarians stand in direct opposition to capitalism, and have more in common with true right wing libertarians than the extremist capitalists who are taking over the mind space of the philosophy.
I'm a libertarian in Brazil, so my takes may be different from yours (I'm not even sure if the word means the same thing for me and for native English speakers).
Big corporations (which, I agree, are a cancer to society) lobby regulatory powers to weaken local and mid business and to evade taxes in ways small business simply can't, that's the source of their power. A lack of government regulation would not be good for them, because it would empower their competition, and that's the last thing they want.
To me, the big problem with libertarianism is that it requires a big level of maturity from the population. It requires private regulatory and certification companies, union of workers to seek working rights in a non-violent way, and people to support charity initiatives that help the poor and endangered. All of that is not impossible, but people are very used to that being a government responsibility, it won't happen over night
This is how they do it when there is some regulation, they abuse the regulation. But without regulation, they would be free to destroy the competition with unlimited anti-competitive practices.
This is the problem with every philosophy, it's an ideal that someone dreamed up. Over the last 100 years or so, we've lost a lot of self-sufficiency as individuals and communities, but also made some progress in other areas like civil rights. It's a constantly changing landscape, with stronger and weaker among us, and different people trying to help or take advantage. So I agree, nothing can happen overnight, and no single social or political philosophy can be directly implemented, successfully. These philosophies should be seen as altruistic goals, with a series of challenges that society faces along the path.
Those challenges are why I'm concerned with our vilification of past failures. We can learn from those failures, and borrow the good ideas, to address challenges going forward. Knowledge of the past allows us to adapt to the future, and create a system that truly suits what we become.
But if we don't start caring for our neighbors, as well as those across the globe, we're lost. My morning cup of coffee, or pack of cheap t-shirts, should not lead to someone living in poverty. Likewise, my purchasing it should not enrich some individual too far above others.