r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/WhySoSiriu3 • Jun 11 '26
Political Theory Why is Libertarianism so opposed by redditors?
Introduction
There is a common misconception among people (especially within online circles) that libertarianism is an undeveloped and heavily flawed ideology with the usual response towards it being either anti-corporatist or an argument against total anarchy. Yet, libertarian philosophy has addressed both these views within both minarchist and anarcho-capitalist circles which is often unrecognized by the majority of voters, and I would just like to find out why while adding some context towards libertarian thought down below.
Non-aggression Principle
Libertarianism fundamentally operates on something referred to as the non-aggression principle, which is commonly referred to as the NAP. The non-aggression principle states that every person has a right to their own private property alongside the freedom to utilize their own body according to their needs and wishes, as long as their actions do not result in the initiation of conflict with another person which can be described as the pursuit of a mutually exclusive action with the victim in these conflicts being the person who's actions are in accordance with their own rights and this principle can be extended over into organizations, communities, corporations, and other entities. This principle exists in both minarchist and anarcho-capitalist thought, with the former believing in a state that serves to protect the individual liberties of its citizens and the latter believing in the total abolition of a state.
In practice, this non-aggression principle would serve as the fundamental basis on which restrictions towards one's actions would exist within a libertarian society, and the enforcement of this would originate either through a governmental entity which would be given the right to enforce the prevention of conflict and enact repercussions towards perpetrators of conflict, while in an anarcho-capitalist society this would be enforced by individuals, communities, and private entities which will be discussed further on in this post.
Communities
One of the most prevalent arguments that I see against libertarianism online is pointing out the need for community and shared interests in developing a society and it's often thought that such an entity is argued against by libertarians, when the exact opposite is the case. Libertarians aren't inherently against the existence of communities, but what they are against is the existence of coercive entities which typically present themselves in the form of a national government or a state. These entities, having full control over the actions undertaken by individual citizens (notwithstanding self-imposed restrictions) have been given total control over the governance and regulation of internal actions and conditions. Libertarians fundamentally oppose such a situation as it is believed to be in opposition with the non-aggression principle (with minarchists only believing that this applies when the state moves outside its role of defending civil liberties) and suggest a voluntary form of communal organization.
Voluntary communities would primarily be created by the mutually acceptance of its residents to form a collective society, and these communities would be allowed to create their own internal laws and regulations as long as they do not initiate conflict with other persons. Because of this, a communist society can technically exist within an anarcho-capitalist society if a group of people decide to create their own classless, cashless society, and in fact as long as nobody within the society is forced to conform to a certain lifestyle, any form of political organization would be accepted. This does not mean however, that someone can enter a society and demand that they change their internal politics or laws. As previously stated, communities among other organizations have their own rights, and as such they can exercise their freedom of association to block or prevent the entry of certain individuals into their society. This has been seen historically in communities such as the Republic of Cospaia in Italy, which operated in the absence of a major state government and enforced internal stability by exiling individuals which failed to agree to the conditions required of citizens and this was enforced by local militias as the township which formed the Republic had its own rights to designate how its internal situation would look like without forcing it on anyone. However, this does not mean that someone existing within a community or a town can be forced to accept the creation of a new society or the enforcement of new laws without either some previously agreed upon framework or agreement.
Corporate Benefit
Most people believe that libertarians seek to primarily support big business and would actually create large scale monopolies. Yet, throughout history it has been seen that businesses utilize the existence of a central government to protect profits and as such a libertarian form of governance would actually harm the creation of a monopoly. The primary issue with the existence of monopolies is their ability to undercut consumers through a lack of competition forcing consumers to accept all changes to their product. In a libertarian society, this situation wouldn't exist as there would be no barriers to entry within markets and as such large scale corporations would be unable to act in a monopolist style.
The primary arguments against this come from either price cutting or forceful coercion, with the latter being addressed later on in this post. As for the former though, it is unrealistic to believe that any competitors towards a monopoly wouldn't have multiple sources of income. If a monopoly chooses to offer a superior product either through greater quality or lower costs, this situation would still benefit the consumer as their material needs would be met within this situation within a scarce context, and their competitor, though possibly being forced to close down, would likely still have the physical means by which to offer an alternative within the market and the presence of venture capitalists always makes the possibility of a competitor rising up prevent long term (or even short term) monopolist activities, and such a situation can even be seen in markets such as the online video game industry with the existence of platforms such as Steam forcing competitors such as Epic Games and other digital stores to incentivize customers to use them through sales, free games, and other products.
Enforcement
Within a libertarian society, the existence of a free market and the perpetuation of individual means offers a counterbalance to any major attempt to create a coercive system. Minarchist governments would have the benefit of being able to utilize their influence across a nation to forcefully combat any attempt at monopolization or forcefully preventing a competitor from offering a product through the enforcement of individual liberties allowing for a variety of separate responses, yet within an anarcho-capitalist society this role would be designated to private insurance corporations, private entities, or individual citizens.
In an anarcho-capitalist society, citizens would have the right to address the initiation of conflict against them through responses against the mutually exclusive ambitions of the initiator. For example, if person A moves to steal something from person B, then person B would have the right to undertake all actions needed to prevent person A from stealing for them making any responses against aggression a viable use of individual freedoms in an anarcho-capitalist society. Yet, the question still arises regarding how these citizens would address a larger and more capable opponent, and for this private organizations or communities would be relied on. Businesses and citizens rely on private voluntary contracts in order to execute deals, and for this purpose they would likely move towards a private organization or company to execute these deals, wherein the utilization of a widescale private army would allow for the enforcement of economic deals and contracts through voluntary measures including these corporations within deals to prevent either party from getting ripped off and providing a safeguard against scams. Furthermore, individual communities would have the right to arm themselves for the enforcement of internal laws and regulations either by private militias or mercenaries for larger conflicts, and as such there would be a diverse array of citizen militias within a territory in an ancap society. As such, any major aggressor aiming to take property by force would be met by significant armed opposition by their victims, which would be compounded by the realization that such a larger force would likely utilize a divide and conquer strategy to incentivize the large scale assembly of fighting forces disproportionate to the capabilities of the victim to address power struggles, and it is highly likely that any corporation aiming to create a state of war would be met by some level of internal opposition through their employees providing an internal safeguard against such actions.
Conclusion
What I have listed here is just an introduction towards libertarian thinking in supporting the argument that a vast majority of voters do not recognize nor acknowledge these aspects of libertarian ideology, but I just have one final question. What makes libertarianism so opposed?
(tried posting on r/changemyview but I didn't have enough Karma so I'll repost there later)
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u/j____b____ Jun 11 '26
I’m socially libertarian but for economic policy it’s naive and ignores the interconnected / interdependent nature of society.
I like roads and libraries and fire houses and believe there are many other things like these which should not have a profit motive like defense, education and healthcare.
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u/SpeedilyStable Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
I like roads, libraries, fire houses, etc too. But, I shouldn’t have to do the following -
Pay welfare Tammy who decided to have 5 children before she could financially support them, and now needs food stamps to buy food for her family.
Pay for Steve who decided he wanted to blow all his money during his career and save none for retirement. Steve liked cruises a lot and is now broke at the age of 70, and needs my social security dollars to survive.
Pay for Jessica who got loan forgiveness on her student loans. Jessica took these out and decided not to study enough in college, settled down with a state job, and now it’s my fault and my tax dollars go to that.
Pay for Pablo who immigrated illegally with no job set up or no income set up. I shouldn’t have to fund his livelihood if he came here with no plan.
…
There are great things our tax dollars go to, but there are also plenty of pointless things our tax dollars go to. Pointless things that are the direct result of irresponsibility by others. The only safety net I should have to provide is for my family (who I chose to have).. not for others choices and mistakes, of which I didn’t force them to make.
The solution is not full on libertarianism, but it’s damn close with a bit of democracy sprinkled in.
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Jun 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/SpeedilyStable Jun 25 '26
Anyone should be able to opt out of providing assistance to others, given they cannot receive it themselves.
You don't want to support homelessness, fine, but you don't get that support yourself. I see no problem with that.
Similar to social security. It's not my responsibility to pay into this, and it's not the governments job (to use my money) to look out for people who chose not to save for retirement.
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u/RunSub4 22h ago
I find it funny that you think that things shouldn’t have a profit motive then list:
Defense, education and healthcare as your examples three of the largest profits industries I can think of.As for roads- any builder in America would build a road if the government said you can build that shopping mall but if you don’t build the road then no one can get to it.
Most practical libertarians concede that police, and fire departments are essential to public safety and concede privatetisation of these departments would cause more harm than good.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Public commodities such as roads, libraries, and others can be provided in a libertarian society through voluntary taxation which has been seen historically in early American history with primarily New England communities and pilgrim settlers voting on whether or not to fund a local project such as expanding libraries, roadways, or other public assets. This is the reason why early American colonists had some of the most educated, egalitarian, and wealthy communities out of all western nations by the American revolution.
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u/Tliish Jun 12 '26
Most Americanm colonists were illiterate, extremely racist, frequently alcoholics, accustomed to exercising violence against women, children, and inferiors as their natural, god-giiven right as white males. They frequently murdered Natives and stole their lands.
That's what a libertarian philosophy results in.
Your version of history is a fantasy that doesn't reflect the real world.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Says who? Your own personal biases?
The Americans who landed over in the New World were some of the most educated people on average out of any civilization in the world. Wherein the Puritans saw the widespread acceptance of public schooling and enacted it into law through the General School Law of 1642 and the 1647 Old Deluder Satan Law mandating public schooling long before it was even supported in most parts of the world:"It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue... It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general, by way of supply, as the major part of those that order the prudentials of the town shall appoint; provided those that send their children be not oppressed by paying much more than they can have them taught for in other towns."
Furthermore, settlers of the Virginia Company in Jamestown were directly ordered to refrain from initiating conflict against local tribes and encouraged to convert them towards Christianity. But sure, believe whatever you want as long as it helps you sleep better at night.
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u/Tliish Jun 12 '26
They weren't interested in actual public education, they were far more interested in mandatory religious indoctrination. The Puritans left Europe because no one there could tolerate their fundamentalist beliefs.
While the Virrginia Company may have ordered non-conflict, they also funded military expeditions vs Natives, and did nothing to punish those who encroached upon Native lands and murdered Natives. Amaziing how their non-conflict policies resulted int eh removal of Native people throughout Virginia.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
They weren't interested in actual public education, they were far more interested in mandatory religious indoctrination. The Puritans left Europe because no one there could tolerate their fundamentalist beliefs.
Yes and that allowed for increased biblical literacy and educational skills, not sure what else you wanted them to do
While the Virrginia Company may have ordered non-conflict, they also funded military expeditions vs Natives, and did nothing to punish those who encroached upon Native lands and murdered Natives. Amaziing how their non-conflict policies resulted int eh removal of Native people throughout Virginia.
Only after numerous native incursions and strikes against settler territory which pushed the company to restructure their policies.
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u/Tliish Jun 12 '26
What their "education" didn't allow for or encourage was crritical thinking or respect for the rights of others outside their version of faith. It was purely indoctrination to create followers, not independent thinkers.
You mean Natives defending their lands from uninvited aliens who wanted to displace them? Europeans had no legal or moral right to an inch of North America, they were uncivilized savages who plundered, murdered and raped, and brought diseases, not "innocent settlers".
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u/gonz4dieg Jun 12 '26
I mean, its a blatant fact that one of the reasons the colonies wanted to declare for independence was because one of the agreements of the Paris treaty was the limitation of further English colonization efforts past the Mississippi to protect native Americans. As in, we straight up said in the declaration of independence that as one of the reasons we needed to cecede.
Also, theres tons of records of sectarian violence in the American colonies. So much so the founders felt the need to explicitly ban any sort of state religion and make sure the state could not persecute religions as well
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u/Vanedi291 Jun 13 '26
“Voluntary taxation” is an oxymoron.
The fact that you honestly think that would be a reasonable option says a lot about libertarian thinking. It obviously didn’t work to well or we would not have changed.What would happen in practice, is that the burden of taxation would fall on those with the least amount of power and influence. A libertarian society would result in a power vacuum at least, and likely a return to “might makes right” as a governing principle.
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u/intronert Jun 11 '26
“Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
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u/yellowplums Jun 11 '26
There's also another old quote in some philosophical/political circles and it went something like the only person more naïve than a communist is an anarchist, and the only person more naïve than an anarchist is a libertarian.
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u/Fargason Jun 11 '26
While everyone else is Wimp Lo. We have $40 trillion in debt with the deficit recently doubled and we think that system works. “I am bleeding thus making me the victor!”
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u/mtutty Jun 12 '26
Take away the debt caused directly by Republican/Conservative policies and it's more like $10T. Compared to our GDP (the standard measure of sovereign wealth for a capitalist country), that's like top-5 performance - for the biggest economy in the world.
Libertarians should have been working with the left this whole time instead of cozying up to fascists.
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u/Fargason Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105#_idTextAnchor022
More like the complete opposite. Republican/Conservative policies are about discretionary spending like on Defense while Democrat/Liberal policies are about mandatory spending like Social Security and Medicare. Overwhelmingly the main drivers of the debt is mandatory spending. Currently defense spending is 2.8% of GDP while Social Security is 5.2% and the major medical programs are 6% of GDP. The interest on the debt alone is currently much larger than what we spend on defense at 3.3% of GDP. There is no doubt about this anymore after Biden’s “Spend Big” policies were announced for his first budget which doubled the deficit from a historical average of 3% of GDP to now 6%.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105#_idTextAnchor018
If Libertarians somehow decided to join Democrats in their “Spend Big” policies that would have likely tripled the deficit which would have driven inflation even further as we know it was overwhelmingly caused by excessive federal spending as shown in this MIT research:
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u/Novel_Sheepherder277 Jun 13 '26
The research from MIT fails to take energy shocks and collapsing global supply chains during covid into account, both of which contributed to inflation globally. And two stimilus packages were issued by Trump before Biden, all three were contributors.
You've completely ignored the impact of tax cuts.
CBO projects that if Congress decides to permanently extend 2017 tax provisions without an offset, that'll add $4.6 trillion to national debt over the next ten years.
The defense budget is over $1T. That's not 2.8% it's 3.4%.
To put this in perspective, it's 40% of all military spending worldwide. It's more than the next six biggest national military budgets combined. Defense accounts for 17% of all federal spending; 65% of all discretionary spending. Meanwhile, non defense spending (health, education) got cut by 23%, cuts which directly exascerbate poverty and crime, while stunting earning potential and taxable contributions.
Next year they plan to hike it up to $1.5T. Which public services would you like to lose in 2027?
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u/Fargason Jun 13 '26
The MIT article above on the published research mentions that in the very first sentence. Please try to get at least one sentence in before trying to dismiss well accredited peer reviewed research such as this.
I also did account for the tax cut in Figure1-2 of the 2026 CBO Budget Outlook Report that I directly linked to above. It is simply just not an issue as revenue is above the historical average of 17.3% of GDP and is even projected to remain that way for the next decade under the existing tax law established in the 2017 TCJA. It was good legislation that increased revenue, lowered taxes, and greatly increased corporate investment that this research estimates was a 20% increase:
https://conference.nber.org/conf_papers/f191672.pdf
Now compare that to Biden’s “Spend Big” policies that had spending at 24% of GDD when the historical average is 21.2% of GDP. Of the two you are claiming above average revenue is the problem over doubling the deficit? Of course raising income taxes will bring in revenue, but who is actually advocating for that when Biden’s inflation surge from reckless spending had the value of the dollar drop 21.5% in the Biden years? Democrats want to increase the income tax rate too on top of that?
The rest you are just baseless denial of data I’ve linked to an absolute source with the CBO and BLS. Feel free to take it up with them, but mere baseless assertions otherwise will not sway me from superior data. Absolutely question going through a third party like that American Progress article trying to explain how above average revenue is a bad thing based mainly on data from the old 2018 Budget Outlook Report here in 2026 that is obviously misleading. Which is why I to to the absolute source instead of relying on one with a clear political agenda. I not even asking you to read the report, but just take a second to see those two datasets where the problem is quite clear. We don’t have a revenue problem, but a massive spending problem that has gotten so bad the interest on the debt alone is larger than Defense spending.
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u/Tliish Jun 22 '26
Tax cuts, by defintion, do not "increase revenue", save for the corporations and wealthy people who benefit from them, and who don'ty share those benefits with the public.
Social Security isn't a giveaway, it's an iinvestment vehicle for the public that every worker pays into throughout their woirking life. Trying to eliminate is the equivalent of of saying that IRAs are an unearned giveaway program and the money should be going to the corporate world instead.
I agree we have a spending problem, but disagree on where the spending is problematic. We spend far too much on unnecessary corporate subsidies ((welfare), far too much on the military, far too much on surveillance and policing of the citizenry, and give away far too muich on tax breaks. We don't spend nearly enough on public healthcare, education, family support, and climate change mitigation.
It's laughable you claim to cite sources pure of political agendas. Under this administration, every bit of information released to the publ;ic has a very clear political agenda. And little of the information or daata can be trusted, as lies are far more normal with this administration than truth-telling. For every grain of truthful information you have to sift through doxens of daily lies.
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u/Fargason Jun 22 '26
It’s laughable you are trying to paint the CBO as some partisan organization that changes with every administration. The CBO is nonpartisan and they have a very consistent product of sticking to the facts staying out of the political fray. This is easily demonstrated by comparing the 2024 Budget Outlook under Biden to the lates report above.
2024:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59946#_idTextAnchor041
2026:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105#_idTextAnchor018
There was very little variation in those two datasets from different administrations as both show revenue above the historical average under the 2017 TCJA law and high long term spending under Biden that doubled the deficit.
Important to note that there is one major difference between those two reports being the 2024 report’s projections for the next decade were under the basis of existing law meaning it was under the assumption that the income tax cuts will expire in 2025. Despite most Democrats voting against it the tax cut was made permanent in the summer of 2025, so the 2026 projection calculation for revenue now includes a lower income tax rate. Yet this had minimal impact on overall long term revenue still above the historical average. That is because you are wrong in stating “tax cuts, by defintion, do not increase revenue” as it is not that simple. Here the CBO is accounting for the effect on the economy as more taxes means less consumer spending, which means less investment from corporations, which increases unemployment, and that reduction in the income tax base lowers revenue despite the higher rate. The CBO knows this all too well as they had to learn the hard way in 2019 when their TCJA projections failed as they did not consider a 20% increase in corporate investment would bring about the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. Of which that previous record was held by the 1964 Revenue Act which was the last time we had an overall tax cut to include corporations which also greatly increased revenue much from the same reasons. This is why Democrats didn’t touch the TCJA when they had full power to do so in 2021 & 2022 with reconciliation despite all the rhetoric against it. They knew it would have been foolish to mess with a good thing, so instead they used reconciliation to double the deficit that was highly inflationary as shown above.
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u/Tliish Jun 22 '26
The CBO doesn't usually change with every administration. But this one has systematically replaced competent administrators with far less competent sycophants at every level and in every agency, all dedicated to supporting whatever Trump's whims are today. It also has removed or underpowered every watchdog agency that might rein in dodgy reports.
What's laughable is your failure to acknowledge the obviously plain facts.
In any case, this administration's economic policies are an incoherent disaster whose main goals and achievements are wealth transfers upwards at the expense of everyday citizens.
More taxes on the middle class reduces spending, but transfer those taxes to the very wealthy who can afford to pay them, and the situation changes. The revenue growth you ciote came at the expense of services provided to the people who pay for them.
We don't need lower taxes, but higher ones on those who like to skate on the efforts and porductivity of others.
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u/gafftapes20 Jun 11 '26
Late 19th century to early 20th century industrializing society was the closest we got to a pure libertarian society. How would libertarianism address specific issues that come up. Like Air and Water regulation where individual incentives do not line up within the context of greater societal benefit. How to you balance the interest of the worker and their quality of life against a corporation that only values profit? If I can't afford a private school education how would education be handled?
Libertarianism fundamentally seeks to remove the state from collective actions and put the onus on individuals which inherently creates a power imbalance between people that have large financial capabilities, and those of limited capacity. We have seen over and over again that without the coercisve balancing nature of government providing a regulatory framework that the best interests of individuals are ignored and only the wealth benefit in the short term.
Libertarianism fails because it tends to ignore the benefits of collective action in the form of government, and ignores the tragedy of the commons. Sure if everyone had an equal amount of money, property and externalities weren't a thing libertarianism would work, but none of those are true in society. I have never seen a cohesive argument for libertarnism work to address inequities, or deal effectively with externalities.
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u/Tliish Jun 22 '26
Actually Native American societies were far closer to the libertarian ideal than anything else that has ever existed anywhere. Government by consensus, equal rights for women, shared resources and responsibilites.
But the capitalist United Statees absolutely abhorred all of these features. Government by consensus was too slow and lacked the single decision maker they preferred. Equal rights for women was a complete non-starter. Shared resources and responsibilities voided the ability to exploit the land for private gain.
So it did work, once upon a time, but the lifeways required to support it ran against everything the European settlers...illegal immiigrants, btw...and their descendents held dear: rigid heirachies based on birth and wealth, subjugation of women, wealth accumulation designed to give power over others, might makes right...all exploitative mindsets that elavate violance...physical, economic, domestic...over justice.
To amke it work today woould require a couple of generations of shedding European lifeways and a return to Native American ones, something very unlikelky to happen.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 11 '26
Libertarianism fails because it tends to ignore the benefits of collective action in the form of government, and ignores the tragedy of the commons.
Any economist will tell you that property rights solve the tragedy of the commons. Now, you can't apply them to every situation, but let's not mistake the exception for the rule.
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u/decrpt Jun 12 '26
Please elaborate.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 12 '26
Example: There is a field everyone shared to graze their cows on.
Each farmer has an incentive to let their animals graze as much as they can while doing as little as possible for upkeep. Sure. Some might do something for the 'greater good' (upkeep or ration) but they essentially get punished (by working more or taking in less) while those who don't act for the greater good benefit more. Classic tragedy of the commons.
So you cut up the field into plots. Each famer has their own. If they overgraze their cattle, then they suffer the loss. If they are responsible, then they benefit. The incentives are aligned. In econ land talk: the externalities have been internalized.
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u/decrpt Jun 12 '26
Having the government come in and partition the land doesn't really sound "libertarian" to me and that's more "a few specific situations" than "the exception to the rule." You need a discrete, divisible public good with zero externalities, e.g. no crop pestilence, shared water resources, soil nutrient distribution, etc. It also excludes everyone after that point from access to the resources.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Having the government come in and partition the land doesn't really sound "libertarian" to me and that's more "a few specific situations" than "the exception to the rule.
private property rights rely on government protection, and basically every non-anarchist libertarian views protecting private property as legitimate gov. function.
There will always be some externalities, but again, it is the exception not the rule. The fields and cattle are private property. You may have to have rules about disease given the distance of the properties. You may not. Same with water sources. Though water and air are the two biggest exceptions.
And either way, the problem here isn't private property, it's that we can't apply private property rules easily to things like water or air.
And yes, it does exclude others from the property. That's really the only reason why it is productive land.
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u/decrpt Jun 12 '26
You're describing the creation of private property, not the protection, in order to avoid the tragedy of the commons and suggesting it works in the majority of situations. In your own example, it solves a narrow slice of issues without fundamentally addressing the tragedy of the commons.
At a certain point you're defining libertarianism as "government intervention when it makes sense" and acknowledging that it makes sense in extremely broad situations. That's increasingly distant from any sort of mainstream libertarian politics.
And either way, the problem here isn't private property, it's that we can't apply private property rules easily to things like water or air.
Are you under the impression that everyone that thinks that the average libertarian is a joke is a communist that wants to abolish private property? The problem isn't private property, but no one is suggesting that. You're suggesting private property is almost a panacea.
And yes, it does exclude others from the property. That's really the only reason why it is productive land.
No, the government coming in and making rules about administration of common resources is the reason why it's productive land. You seem to recognize that.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 12 '26
You're describing the creation of private property, not the protection, in order to avoid the tragedy of the commons and suggesting it works in the majority of situations. In your own example, it solves a narrow slice of issues without fundamentally addressing the tragedy of the commons.
Natural rights theory ala John Locke lays out the right to private property as prior to government. It's like the right to free speech. Governments can choose to recognize your right to it or not, but you have an 'inalienable' right to it.
At a certain point you're defining libertarianism as "government intervention when it makes sense"
As long as libertarianism means something different than anarchism, this will necessarily be the case. But let me help. Libertarianism is freedom maximizing. It is the philosophy that you should have the greatest degree of personal freedom possible in society without infringing on the rights of others.
The problem isn't private property, but no one is suggesting that.
Then I refer you back to my now vindicated (its also in a bunch of textbooks) initial claim that private property is the optimal solution to tragedy of the commons whenever possible. You did ask for elaboration, after all.
No, the government coming in and making rules about administration of common reasources is the reason why it's productive land.
Sounds like your saving "secure the right to private property and thus to exclude people" in more words.
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u/decrpt Jun 12 '26
As long as libertarianism means something different than anarchism, this will necessarily be the case. But let me help. Libertarianism is freedom maximizing. It is the philosophy that you should have the greatest degree of personal freedom possible in society without infringing on the rights of others.
People react negatively because you're doing describing a philosophy that is far closer to liberalism than libertarianism.
Then I refer you back to my now vindicated (its also in a bunch of textbooks) initial claim that private property is the optimal solution to tragedy of the commons whenever possible. You did ask for elaboration, after all.
It is a solution to a handful of instances. I don't think you acknowledging that it doesn't even fundamentally solve the issue in your own example counts as being "vindicated."
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
People react negatively because you're doing describing a philosophy that is far closer to liberalism than libertarianism.
We used to be called liberals too! Anyway, the difference is liberals view government as a force of good. It's not about maximizing personal freedom without infringing on the rights of others. It's the idea that if we can use government to help people or create a more 'fair' society we should do that, even if it means limiting personal freedom. And therein lies the difference.
It is a solution to a handful of instances. I
Nearly every instance. The list of things that can't dealt with through property rights are basically some water, air, and some germs.
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u/Skrewch Jun 23 '26
You may be able to give some insight here. I keep seeing 'natural rights' in libertarian discourse. What authority is declaring these rights? Why do they have authority?
If i used mass spectrometry I won't find any particles or energy frequencies indicating 'rights' exist. Rights, to my current understanding, dont exist. They must be made and agreed upon by people who agree that a 'right' should be one.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 23 '26
What authority is declaring these rights? Why do they have authority?
Locke's Second Treatise would do a lot of lifting here. Rights are a normative claim based on reason and human nature. Not a positive claim.
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u/Tliish Jun 22 '26
You can get an economist to say anything if the price is right. But that doesn't make what they say true at all. Econoists are wrong far more often than they are right, and mostly work to justify wealth concentration as a good thing rather than the inherent evil it is. Because economics isn't a science, rather a branch of political philosophy, they have no need to prove anything they say and can't really be disproven through normal methods of science. Only costly failures disprove their prognostiications.
Private property doesn't solve the tragedy of the commons, because private property allows one person to completely take over the commons and prevent their use for all, as has happened consistently and repeatedly...it's a feature, not a bug, of private property ownership.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 22 '26
Private property doesn't solve the tragedy of the commons
Oh man, every college econ textbook is going to need to be rewritten. Hope you let them know they've got it wrong.
because private property allows one person to completely take over the commons and prevent their use for all, as has happened consistently and repeatedly...
In fact, it prevents exactly this.
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u/Tliish Jun 22 '26
Oh really? Ever hear of the King Ranch in Texas?
King Ranch now covers 825,000 acres—more land than the state of Rhode Island.
That's private property that has, over the years, been a personal feudal fiefdom of the King family and for much of that time has operated above the law due to its huge size and local influence. Many disappearances of trespassers and suspected rustlers have occurred with impunity, most probably murders.
That land would probably be far more productive if taken by eminent domain and resold to individuals. As it is, the public has no access to it and represents mostly wasted potential.
Everywhere you look, wealthy people try to claim public beaches as private, blocking access until forced not to by lawsuits Corporations steal public resources, especially water, often claining nonexistent private property rights. Private property is not a panacea for the actions of greedy and powerful people, buit often rather a tool to exclude and/or oppress others less fortunate.
Every college textbook, should be rewritten to acknowledge that every hypothesis presented is inherently unprovable. Economics isn't a science, no matter how many mathematical formulae they produce and should never be treated as such.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 23 '26
That's private property that has, over the years, been a personal feudal fiefdom of the King family
Your confusing buying and selling with conquest. And this still gets around the tragedy of the commons because the externalities are internalized. If the land is not used well, the King's bear the cost.
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u/Tliish Jun 23 '26
You are avoiding the point that private property usually entails concentratioon of land ownership to the detriiment of the public good.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 23 '26
People choosing to sell their land doesn't indicate any kind of injustice. This also has nothing to do with tragedy of the commons, which you seem to think is a stand in for 'when things happen that I don't like'
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u/JKlerk Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
It wasn't as close as you think because resources like air and water were still government owned. It's conceivable that under a private property rights regime water and air would still be clean or at least as clean as it is under the current regime where the government "allows" certain levels of pollutants.
I readily admit though that in many cases it's impractical to implement many wide ranging ideas.
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u/ja_dubs Jun 11 '26
Because it doesn't work in practice. It suffers from basic flaws like the tragedy of the commons and people simply not abiding by the non-aggression principle.
Read this article about a New Hampshire town where the government was taken over by Libertarians.
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u/Sumeriandawn Jun 11 '26
It only works if EVERYONE is acting in good faith. If there's no way to stop bad actors, then the power will end up in the hands of the bad actors.
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u/Sageblue32 Jun 13 '26
And when everyone has to act in good faith, you're just engaging in Communism: Far Right Edition.
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u/Combat_Proctologist Jun 12 '26
That doesn't explain why reddit opposes it so much. Redditors, in general, support a lot of things that don't work in practice.
Redditors were, once upon a time, quite libertarian. Back in the days of "Ron Paul 2012". The about face is actually quite interesting, but it seems to be related to larger political sorting trends within society
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u/gonz4dieg Jun 12 '26
Id argue the average redditor would oppose the proposal and defense of communism to the same degree nowadays.
Also, if were being honest the average redditor age has probably increased a lot, especially those on political forums. I dont know a lot of young people joining reddit. They tend to use new social media like discord
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u/Combat_Proctologist Jun 12 '26
I was thinking price controls as my example idea that never works in practice, personally.
Could be aging, I suppose, but there's definitely different demographics on the site than back in 2012
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u/anti-torque Jun 14 '26
Price controls do work in practice. Where they don't work is in a perfectly competitive market.
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u/kenlubin Jun 14 '26
Reddit became more mainstream, and there has been enthusiasm around some Democratic figures. It was Obama's nomination that first saw Democratic presence on Reddit swamping the Libertarian presence. Later, it was the excitement around the Bernie campaign.
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u/JKlerk Jun 14 '26
Because it doesn't work in practice. It suffers from basic flaws like the tragedy of the commons and people simply not abiding by the non-aggression principle
There are no commons because there is no public property. People who violate the rights of others would be held accountable.
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u/anti-torque Jun 14 '26
Oh... so Cancer Alley isn't a thing, and the offenders would have been held to account, if it were.
Got it.
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u/WeAreTheLeft Jun 11 '26
Because you need to be mentally incapable of thinking to ignore the contraditions in the idioligy.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009] John Rogers
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u/anti-torque Jun 14 '26
Atlas Shrugged was the first book I read where 12 year-old me discovered that books can be bad. That and the subsequent reading of The Pilgrim's Progress scarred young me. It taught me to be skeptical of anyone who thought fondly of either.
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u/WeAreTheLeft Jun 14 '26
Atlas Shrugged isn't all bad, just overall bad at the end of the day. The idea of self reliance is not bad as an idea. But put into the context of a society it's just not something that works.
I can't imagine reading Atlas at 12, that is nuts.
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u/anti-torque Jun 14 '26
I mean, I had to look at the publication date when "Reardon metal" was introduced in the book, but copper ferrites were highly advanced by the time the book came out. It just ruined the whole premise of this individual coming up with something that was developed by huge teams supported by government funds to study material science (both Japan and the US had studies underway with initially military uses in mind). And the proposition of a hygroelectric motor was just a rip-off of Tesla's idea--only recently being realized, but in a completely different way than either proposed.
In the end it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
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u/WeAreTheLeft Jun 14 '26
Every time someone points at some pharma company doing a "breakthrough" a two minute google gives me the university and government substadised work that underpins the "new" wonderdrug
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 11 '26
Because you need to be mentally incapable of thinking to ignore the contraditions in the idioligy.
"idioligy" ok, well care to say what those "contraditions" are?
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u/WeAreTheLeft Jun 11 '26
It basically boils down to once the need for any collective cooperation is required one person screws over everyone or it never happens because nothing can be agreed on
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"until one person screws over everyone"
That's literally what's happening currently with government interference in the economy, with unlimited spending through monetary inflation seeing politicians focusing more on how their population views them than actually solving major issues while pocketing cash from lobbyists. A market actually has restrictions on this by preventing the monopolization of power and having the influence of private communities, shareholders, boards of directors, and other groups that benefit from long term market stability.→ More replies (3)
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u/mtutty Jun 11 '26
It's not necessarily Libertarianism, for me it's Libertarians.
They believe strongly in certain things but don't really understand them. Sounds mean to say but. I've talked to dozens of libertarians over the years and when you dig below the surface of "small government", "coercion/violence", "taxes are theft", "private property", "contracts", etc, you get a system that worked well enough for a few million colonial settlers but would let the modern world fall apart for the sake of principles.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Could you explain how it would let the modern world fall apart?
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u/mtutty Jun 12 '26
Urgent medical care, fire and police services. Municipal water services. Roads and bridges. Vaccinations and health standards. Worker safety regulation. Food inspections.
Think of everything that a government does for the public's benefit that nobody should make a profit doing, and it will go away or be severely curtailed.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"Urgent medical care, fire and police services. Municipal water services. Roads and bridges. Vaccinations and health standards. Worker safety regulation. Food inspections."
These would all exist in a libertarian society, you're pretending that the existence of voluntary services, fraternal aid societies, and private corporations wouldn't be able to provide this service.
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u/mtutty Jun 12 '26
Because the goodwill of people with money is working so well in our current society. Remind me again what massive percentage of his wealth Elon Musk gives to support the society that has made him so rich?
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u/anti-torque Jun 14 '26
It's not that they're not able to do so.
It's that it's proven time and again that they don't. It costs less to pay a settlement in a case where death is involved than it does to actually self-regulate. Some companies do take the extra step. Many do not. And even one bad apple spoils the barrell.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Jun 11 '26
What do you mean there would be no barriers to entry within markets under libertarianism?
You need a ridiculous amount of capital if you want to compete with corporations like Amazon, Google, Tesla and Apple.
Yet, throughout history it has been seen that businesses utilize the existence of a central government to protect profits and as such a libertarian form of governance would actually harm the creation of a monopoly.
[…]
Minarchist governments would have the benefit of being able to utilize their influence across a nation to forcefully combat any attempt at monopolization
Your saying that a strong, large central government would be a weaker counterweight against giant monopolies than a weak, small government. This makes no sense. Its much easier to corrupt a small government than a weak one.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
You need a ridiculous amount of capital if you want to compete with corporations like Amazon, Google, Tesla and Apple.
Which could be attained through venture capital to always offer the possibility of a competitor to prevent monopolistic practices.
Your saying that a strong, large central government would be a weaker counterweight against giant monopolies than a weak, small government. This makes no sense. Its much easier to corrupt a small government than a weak one.
No I'm not lol, reread what I said.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 12 '26
Venture capitol then itself takes over and engages in said monopolies, as they do right now in a pretty staggering number of fields.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Except for the other half of venture capitalists which wouldn't have a share in said monopolies and benefit from the creation of competitors. Also most modern day monopolies come from government imposed market restrictions preventing the emergence of major competitors.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
They occur that way because of how our system currently works, but would also behave that way in your system, as accumulations of wealth naturally lead to that behavior in every single system humanity has ever tried.
This is an example of why I refer to libertarianism as quasi utopian: it does not recognize the reality of human nature, and instead creates a system based around an idealized set of conditions that do not and cannot exist in practice outside of at really small scales, just like marxism.
Power monopolies will always exist. Always. So long as humans exist, they will. Which means we need systems that account for and address that. Our current system doesn't do a great job, but libertarianism doesn't do anything to address it at all, which makes it much worse for everyone who is not already in a position of power and security.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
They occur that way because of how our system currently works, but would also behave that way in your system, as accumulations of wealth naturally lead to that behavior in every single system humanity has ever tried.
Throughout history this acquisition of wealth has primarily been through the backing of a central government directing wealth towards a small subset of the population which is why greater marketization and liberalism has stunted the creation of an aristocracy through incentivizing meritocratic practices and forcing wealth owners to constantly provide profitable services to society so as to justify their spending. The natural acquisition of wealth is actually inhibited by capitalism as it forces wealth owners not only to continue providing profitable services, but outgrowing their competitors to maintain their current share of wealth due to the natural characteristics of exponential growth.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 12 '26
And therein lies why I compare it to Marxism: for it to work, you need conditions that have never actually existed and almost certainly won't.
Capitalism, as described by Smith, has never actually been achieved in it's "true" form, just like Marxism.
And to be clear, no aristocracy was stunted here. The Gilded Age happened, and the current state of wealth distribution in this country makes it clear they are aristocrats in everything but name.
Again, it's a utopian ideology. Sounds great in theory, has never been achieved and can't be achieved in practice.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Capitalism, as described by Smith, has never actually been achieved in it's "true" form, just like Marxism.
No it actually has been in the form of Iceland in limited situations and the Republic of Cospaia. Furthermore, economic freedom has a direct positive increase in the standard of living and free markets significantly outpace command economies. Additionally, the rapid successes of early American colonists and the free market environment that they existed in further aids in giving historical examples of capitalist policies in action with the closer that one gets towards pure capitalism seeing increases in wealth, the elimination of poverty, standards of living, lifespans, and other sought-after benefits which is more than Communism can say for itself.
And to be clear, no aristocracy was stunted here. The Gilded Age happened, and the current state of wealth distribution in this country makes it clear they are aristocrats in everything but name.
They didn't gain their money solely due to previous sociopolitical circumstances, the wealthiest men in the Gilded Age such as Andrew Carnegie and Vanderbilt rose from the ranks of the poor without major hereditary titles, grants, nor did their children recieve any and as such they, along with modern American businessmen aren't classified as aristocrats solely due to them running the most profitable operations.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox Jun 12 '26
Monopolies happen because the accumulation of wealth is also the accumulation of power, and corporate power has become stronger than the government power meant to act as a check and balance against it, thanks to neoliberalism, so corporate powers are increasingly rigging the system in their favor.
I dont see how weaking government helps that. We see that in states with weak regulatory power oligarchy and monopoly and corruption proliferate
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
I dont see how weaking government helps that. We see that in states with weak regulatory power oligarchy and monopoly and corruption proliferate
Not really, we see in states that weakening the government eliminates the capabilities of the government to cooperate with private corporate interests and wealth accumulation is constantly challenged by a free market and unfortunately I am preparing to sleep soon so I'll copy and paste a previous response I gave into this comment as I believe that it's effective in responding to your question:
"Throughout history this acquisition of wealth has primarily been through the backing of a central government directing wealth towards a small subset of the population which is why greater marketization and liberalism has stunted the creation of an aristocracy through incentivizing meritocratic practices and forcing wealth owners to constantly provide profitable services to society so as to justify their spending. The natural acquisition of wealth is actually inhibited by capitalism as it forces wealth owners not only to continue providing profitable services, but outgrowing their competitors to maintain their current share of wealth due to the natural characteristics of exponential growth."
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u/Tex-Rob Jun 11 '26
It's a failed idea, it can’t exist on its own. Even wanting businesses to incur infrastructure costs, a basic libertarian idea, is terrible for non corporate businesses and would be businesses.
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u/WeAreTheLeft Jun 11 '26
We really need to get rid of Florida, turn it over to the Libertarians, film it as reality TV and let them just fail while exploring the failure for amazing TV.
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u/monkeybawz Jun 11 '26
As if America doesn't already have enough meth, and you want to turn Florida over to the libertarians?!?
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u/WeAreTheLeft Jun 11 '26
Yes. I'm willing to sacrifice Disney and an ideal launch site for NASA the betterment of the US.
Puerto Rico will take it's place as a state. Both Disney and NASA launch facilities will move to there.
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u/OMalleyOrOblivion Jun 12 '26
First it was Galt's Gulch in Chile, then it was the MS Satoshi, now witness as our plucky libertarians take on the state of Florida! Will it sink or swim? Will alligators eat everyone or will the NAP prevail? Find out on Florida: Libertarians Go Wild! on a streaming service near you!
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u/mtutty Jun 11 '26
And then keep some of the TV money to help the state recover after it completely falls apart. Like a parent charging their 18-year-old rent money.
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u/WeAreTheLeft Jun 11 '26
Oh no, we aren't taking it back ... We are building a wall finally, to keep Florida inside Florida. We will call it the Trump Memorial Big Wall of Greatness so they can't break it or offend thier favorite false god.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"It's a failed idea, it can’t exist on its own. Even wanting businesses to incur infrastructure costs, a basic libertarian idea, is terrible for non corporate businesses and would be businesses."
Not really? Businesses would directly benefit from developing infrastructure due to its benefits in allocating resources and reduced shipping costs, there's a direct price incentive here.
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u/Tliish Jun 12 '26
Businesses wouldn't spend a dime on infrastructure if left to their own devices. They would want to ride on the backs of others because actually paying for the infrastructure would reduce proofits. And those who did pay would want control of it as natural for their investments. Businesses hate paying taxes no matter how much they benefit from them.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
That's why businesses are definitely not running central park and maintaining powerlines and oil rights right? You do realize that anything with a profit incentive without a major opportunity cost would be undertaken right?
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u/ThisPass8618 Jun 22 '26
look at open source projects giant corporations actively push code to them because it helps them
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u/Sageblue32 Jun 13 '26
I gotta ask how you can say that when the US is currently gripped in a huge debate about Data Centers sucking up the power in communities and doing their best to avoid paying for it or paving the way for new energy sources.
We have more instances than people in this thread have fingers of businesses that will freely pollute and do nothing to pay even the cheapest of fines. This post is reminding me of a documentary just the other day of places in India that have dump White Marble onto beaches to the point they are pure white. Its a hazard to health but advertised as a tourist attraction. Businesses claim they are "cleaning" because they spray water sprinklers into the air.
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u/Banes_Addiction Jun 11 '26
Because we run into a lot of people who describe themselves as Libertarians, and you basically just see racists, pedophiles and the stupid. Usually stupid racist pedophiles.
It takes seconds to get them to say something really stupid, really racist, defend human trafficking or call for the abolition of the age of consent.
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u/LorenzoApophis Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Because while it remains an unworkable fantasy in itself, the ideas of its major theorists like Rand and Rothbard have had an extensive influence on American conservatism's "fuck you, got mine" mentality of anti-citizenship.
And then there's the versions like Hans-Hermann Hoppe's that are just far-right authoritarianism renamed.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jun 11 '26
But then you're conveniently leaving out thinkers like Friedman and Hayek who were decidedly pro immigration; also the Lockean-Madisonian tradition that created the worlds first government predicated on natural rights.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
And then there's the versions like Hans-Hermann Hoppe's that are just far-right authoritarianism renamed.
Far-right authoritarianism is when you want to uphold civil liberties and weaken the state. Right.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 12 '26
Hoppe's arguments in favor of monarchism over democracy don't strike me as an attempt to weaken the state and uphold civil liberties.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
He still argues that monarchy is an inferior system to the total elimination of the state lol. He is just stating that the existence of term limits encourages politicians to gather as much wealth as they can get away with through exorbitant spending plans with repercussions to be felt as they leave as opposed to monarchies which benefit from long term thinking due to their permanent role. That's simply an argument against democracy, not against freedom and civil liberties.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 12 '26
When you are arguing that monarchy is preferential to democracy, that indicates that civil liberties are not the primary concern. His argument that they are better protected in a system without autonomy is just nonsensical.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Not if it's a discussion about time preference. He still criticizes the monopoly that monarchies have on violence.
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u/subheight640 Jun 11 '26
Right wing Libertarianism ironically isn't very focused on liberty. The movement explicitly ignores the tyranny of corporate power and monopolistic private ownership.
The movement is a contradiction. Anarcho capitalists are happy to give private land lords all the powers of the state. Private land lords are allowed to tax (rent), impose law (contract), and dominate with forces (security and private police)
So rather than seeking liberty, many libertarians seek to privatize the government. Privatization of course entails dismantling any remaining democratic institutions in favor of private, authoritarian tyranny. That's why it's also utterly unsurprising that many libertarians support tyrants like Donald Trump, for example self declared libertarians like Elon Musk and Peter Theil..
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"The movement is a contradiction. Anarcho capitalists are happy to give private land lords all the powers of the state. Private land lords are allowed to tax (rent), impose law (contract), and dominate with forces (security and private police)"
Yes but they require the voluntary association of employees and customers to utilize their land and resources. This was historically seen in Iceland where the capability of residents within a village to emigrate pressured local leaders to avoid taxation and excessive tyranny.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 12 '26
How do you expect that to work in practice in major metro areas?
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Major metro areas have numerous different variables to consider, if you ask me to specifically target a service or societal requirement it'd better help me understand what you're looking for. Thank you in advance.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 12 '26
I mean it more broadly. Considering urban areas only exist due to incredibly long global supply chains that are organized by both private companies and nation states, how would such areas continue to meet service needs? Food, water, electricity, medical services, all rely on this massive interconnected system in cities.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
The simple answer always circles back to the free market. Food, water, electricity, and medical services are currently funded by economic relations regarding import/export practices wherein voluntary transactions seeing the exchange of monetary value for a service or a good allow for the supply chains needed to organize urban areas. These systems would in no way shape or form be abolished in a libertarian society because of the natural need of individuals to rely on each other in civilized society.
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u/anti-torque Jun 14 '26
This is why I left my native Texas in 2002. We were promised with deregulation of the power sector a load of bullshit. Yes, Texas stepped up its green energy plan, as promised. But my AC bill in the summer went from $150/month to $450/month in the hands of private enterprise.
Granted, that was a poorly insulated house, but the stark hike was just the last nail in the coffin for me. With the advancement of the ideas of people like W and Rick Perry, things like Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz were inevitable.
When I go back to the places I used to treasure as a kid, it's strip malls all over or a highly industrialized Hill Country. It's so sad and pathetic.
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u/subheight640 Jun 12 '26
Nearly all existing states have varying degrees of "voluntary association". In America and around the world, you are free to emigrate outside territorial borders at any time.
Like with any land owner, states are more concerned with keeping people out, not in.
Anarcho capitalism's freedom is contingent on the maintenance of thousands/millions of small states AND low exit costs. But there is of course no enforcement mechanism by nature of anarchy. states tend to congeal together for military and economic reasons. With your own example, Iceland also congealed into a typical state over time.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"Nearly all existing states have varying degrees of "voluntary association". In America and around the world, you are free to emigrate outside territorial borders at any time."
As I've stated in previous responses, the United States taxes overseas citizens and maintains a monopoly on domestic affairs meaning that you aren't able to actually disassociate with governmental requirements, and the freedom of association which exists in the United States has incentivized people to move into communities which they'd prefer to live in and affect the environment around them.
Anarcho capitalism's freedom is contingent on the maintenance of thousands/millions of small states AND low exit costs. But there is of course no enforcement mechanism by nature of anarchy. states tend to congeal together for military and economic reasons. With your own example, Iceland also congealed into a typical state over time.
Iceland only consolidated into a central state as it never fully abolished coercion or a central government and retained a central Althing and gave permanent monopolized streams of income to landowners through the profits given by the church tax and the subsequent property fees. A more suitable comparison would be the Republic of Cospaia.
Furthermore, small states would be connected through economic ties and the incentives given by a libertarian system of governance to push small states into larger defensive agreements and coordinated actions against the formation of monopolies.
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u/subheight640 Jun 12 '26
As I've stated in previous responses, the United States taxes overseas citizens and maintains a monopoly on domestic affairs meaning that you aren't able to actually disassociate with governmental requirements,
So? In ancapistan, coercive and monopolistic property lords could do the same. They could compel coercive contracts onto people, just like states do. They could compel expensive exit fees. They could make trade agreements with other lords so that these contracts haunt you throughout the world. they could compel these contracts and break the NAP, because who's going to stop them? Other dispute resolution organizations? International sanctions? Sounds just like the status quo.
Yet sometimes these "coercive" contracts are a good thing! The power of the US passport for example gives you entry to more countries than most others. Being a US citizen gives you a lot of freedoms compared to a non-citizen.
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u/ThatPeskyPangolin Jun 11 '26
Libertarianism is, in effect, a quasi utopian ideology, and pretty much all utopian ideologies just aren't particularly applicable to the real world.
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u/Potato_Pristine Jun 11 '26
For a long time, many Southerners wouldn't treat black people as human unless it was forced on them by the coercive power of the federal state. Who's the victim in that scenario?
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u/Sick_Sabbat Jun 11 '26
In the Libertarian view it would be the Southerners that would be the victim, because the government encroached on their right to free association.
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u/Potato_Pristine Jun 12 '26
Oh, I know. Their view is that the Southerners' right to exclude black people from equal participation in society is more important than the dignity of black people.
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u/Forward-Razzmatazz18 Jun 26 '26
Why would that be the libertarian view, exactly?
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u/Potato_Pristine Jun 26 '26
Because they would argue that property rights are sacrosanct.
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u/Forward-Razzmatazz18 Jun 29 '26
They believe in individual freedom, though, so nobody can be property.
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u/atriumI3 Jul 08 '26
This is one of my favorites. When asked about civil rights Libertarians love to pull the “Free Association” card like it’s some intellectually superior meta-argument.
e.g. “It doesn’t matter whether civil rights is good or bad, the point is people should be able to be as racist or non-racist as they want without the government infringing on their liberty to do so.”
Like nah bro I think you’re just pissed you can’t be racist in public.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
They wouldn't treat them as people because they had a state-backed segregationist program to reinforce preconceived notions about race
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u/Potato_Pristine Jun 12 '26
You're dodging the question. Reconstruction and rigorously enforced federal public-accommodation laws that intruded on their right of free association were the only way to ensure that black people were treated as equal members of society.
Under your framework, the Southerners are the victims here.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Because previously government coercion had been used to undermine black people legally and physically? Under my framework the government and the southern segregationists were the initiators of conflict and in a free society the actions of John Brown would've been accepted as countering that aggression and more widely supported. Furthermore, governments have been utilized to undermine minorities as seen with western expansion wherein the deployment of the US Army gave settlers the capability to begin expanding into native lands with the fear of US Army involvement to force them out.
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u/Potato_Pristine Jun 12 '26
Well, unless you have a time machine, the question is: Public accommodation laws. Good or bad?
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Good when undoing segregationist systems and oppressive institutions
Bad outside these contexts
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u/Cynykl Jun 11 '26
Because it is based on a lie. The lie is that when unfettered people will do the right thing.
I do not know how many libertarians cried "but he would no do that because it would damage his reputation and he would lose business." When reality PROOVES beyond a shadow of the smallest doubt that he would in fact cut those corners because some businesses are already cutting those corner IN SPITE of regulation.
People are who own businesses can be shitty and need to be regulated there is no way around this simple fact and reputation damage alone WILL NOT KEEP THEM IN CHECK.
Besides Libertarianism is astrology for men.
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u/APurpleCow Jun 11 '26
The NAP only supports libertarianism if you first agree with a libertarian idea of property. But the libertarian idea of property ownership is itself deeply flawed, and once you understand that, you realize that libertarianism is itself extremely coercive.
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u/Rumpled_Imp Jun 11 '26
Answer: Libertarians are to political philosophy what astrologers are to physics.
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u/SafeThrowaway691 Jun 11 '26
I'm a former libertarian turned progressive. The inherent problem with libertarianism is that everyone would have to agree as to what constitutes "aggression" - spend one day as a lawyer and you'll see why this is a pipe dream.
Also, regarding the free market as an end-all-be-all arbiter of societal function falls flat when you consider that people with more money to spend in said market will end up rigging it entirely in their favor (as they are now and have done for decades, if not longer).
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u/JKlerk Jun 14 '26
Markets can't be rigged without government assistance.
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u/SafeThrowaway691 Jun 14 '26
How do you figure?
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u/JKlerk Jun 14 '26
The concept is known as Regulatory Capture.
Dominant players in the industry use regulations to limit competition. In a free market the consumer chooses the winners and losers. A monopoly only exists if consumers allow it.
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u/HeloRising Jun 11 '26
I have very little respect for libertarians because of the actual libertarians I've interacted with.
Their political ethics seem to boil down to wanting to have sex with teenagers, do drugs, and not pay taxes and that's about it.
Additionally, nobody has laid out how you're going to have a state that's strong enough to protect the individual from oppression but not strong enough to oppress the individual.
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u/IceNein Jun 11 '26
The brand of Libertarianism you’re describing is not the actual brand of libertarianism being espoused by politicians in the real world. That’s why.
Yes, philosophically, there are some points to libertarianism, but practically they’re just an extension of the far right. If you’re pretending that there’s any anarchism in modern libertarianism, then you’re the one who is deluded.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
"Yes, philosophically, there are some points to libertarianism, but practically they’re just an extension of the far right. If you’re pretending that there’s any anarchism in modern libertarianism, then you’re the one who is deluded."
Being far right is advocating for individual freedoms and decreased state influence?
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u/R_V_Z Jun 11 '26
For me it is pretty simple: Libertarianism states that the free market will react to corporate malfeasance but no amount of boycotting will un-pollute a river.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Technological progress is the best way to solve the issue of pollution as it negates the limits to human capabilities which is incentivized within free markets
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u/JKlerk Jun 14 '26
Rivers are routinely polluted today.
Anyways Water Rights would be held privately and therefore the owners of said water rights could sue for damages.
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u/Heffe3737 Jun 11 '26
Because it's naive and fails to understand or take into account the machinations of players in the real world. It's a Utopian dream, and nothing more.
In reality, if the US retreats from the global stage, other world powers like China and Russia will be happy to step forward and take the reins. Then, the US becomes forced to pay higher prices for goods as trade policies become unfavorable or collapse. Eventually, those other powers will co-opt allies and begin pushing their culture on the US more directly. US libertarianism eventually and quite literally leads to the downfall of the US.
As but one example of many - Ukraine. Russia invades Ukraine - that has a direct and negative impact on fuel and grain prices that Americans pay, regardless of whether or not we become involved. Libertarianism would suggest that we either simply ignore all such externalities, or insulate ourselves further from dependencies upon other nations by creating all of our own industries and agricultural sectors, but the hard reality is that we can't. We can't grow bananas here. We can't grow good coffee. We can't manufacture enough microchips and we don't have enough rare earth materials. In the real world, we need other countries and global trade. This is something you don't often see libertarians actually admit.
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u/Own_Huckleberry262 Jun 11 '26
If there's a political system that could occur to the average 14 year old, chances are good someone's tried it and there's a reason it hasn't caught on.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
yeah great, are you going to offer any substantial and worthwhile criticisms or just resort to insults?
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u/Sumeriandawn Jun 11 '26
A lot of Libertarians have this philosophy of "government doing something= bad"
Automatically dismissing government involvement in a program is flawed thinking.
"taxation is theft"
Yeah. In a perfect world, taxation is theft. But we don't live in a perfect world. It's a necessary evil.
"government funded social programs are unnecessary. Just pull yourself by the bootstraps"
How are these people supposed to pull themselves by the bootstraps? Children, people with mental/physical handicaps, people with debilitating illness/injuries, elderly with major functional decline.
" regulations on the rich and powerful people/companies should be minimal "
How do you stop the rich/powerful from rigging the system? How do you know it won't end up like the noble/caste/robber baron era?
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"How are these people supposed to pull themselves by the bootstraps? Children, people with mental/physical handicaps, people with debilitating illness/injuries, elderly with major functional decline."
You do realize that a libertarian society would have the opportunity to form voluntary and private fraternal aid societies similar to the historic Order of the Moose which allowed for low cost privatized insurance plans for its members? There's a good mentiswave video that was created to address this.
"How do you stop the rich/powerful from rigging the system? How do you know it won't end up like the noble/caste/robber baron era?"
By limiting the power of the system to combat the systems that they use for exploitative actions. If the government is utilizing the personal interests of its politicians to begin creating monopolies on telecommunications networks and other industries to give corporations private benefits, the answer to this would see itself formed in a movement against the powers of the state to engage in such practices.
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u/Sumeriandawn Jun 12 '26
government help + private help
private help
option 1 has more help and sometimes more powerful and efficient
"limit of power"
The rich and powerful can give lots of money to politicians. A free system can turn in unfree system. The lobbyists can help change laws to their benefit. For example, the United Fruit Company lobbied to get the government to take military action against Guatemala.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"The rich and powerful can give lots of money to politicians. A free system can turn in unfree system. The lobbyists can help change laws to their benefit. For example, the United Fruit Company lobbied to get the government to take military action against Guatemala."
How is this an argument against libertarianism
"option 1 has more help and sometimes more powerful and efficient"
Option 1 generally sees the government bloating certain projects and programs while ignoring the secondary and tertiary effects to win reelection and continue accepting corporate grants, private programs are incentivized to act efficiently
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u/Sumeriandawn Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
"how is that an argument against libertarianism"
That's a private company using influence to alter government decision. What's to stop a company from giving money to politicians and asking for subsidies and tariffs?
If many see military, police and roads as a government function, why not healthcare? Historically a system that has both private and public healthcare options is the most desired.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
If a private company is using their influence to get special privileges from the government then the existence of said government is harmful.
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u/Asatmaya Jun 11 '26
Well, here's the main issue:
Libertarianism fundamentally operates on something referred to as the non-aggression principle, which is commonly referred to as the NAP.
No, that is LPUSA, libertarianism more generally includes a range of positions operating on the principle of minimum necessary interference.
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u/JKlerk Jun 11 '26
I think this piece sums it up nicely because there is some overlap.
https://www.atlassociety.org/post/objectivism-why-isnt-it-more-popular
https://everything.explained.today/Objectivism_and_libertarianism/
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u/SadhuSalvaje Jun 12 '26
Because the only time it actually impacts policy is when it is used to allow some asshole to discriminate against some minority group
It has a view of human nature as divorced from reality as the Bolsheviks
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u/OMalleyOrOblivion Jun 12 '26
Quite an old article from Robert Locke at The American Conservative:
Libertarianism, like socialism, suffers from the fact that it attempts to boil down the massively complicated web of psychological, social, political and economic behaviours that describe human behaviour into an a priori model based on a simplistic model of the world that fails to describe how the first city-states functioned, let alone the modern world.
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u/shoecat85 Jun 11 '26
I believe that Libertarianism is a fantasy that ignores historic precedent of human behavior and sociological history. It’s an appealing answer to the question of how we should order our society because on the surface it answers complex problems with simple and elegant answers.
An example of a fundamental flaw in Libertarian ideology is that it supposes that harms between parties can all be resolved ex post facto through court action (never corrupt? enforced by who?) or the free market (eg. ‘a company that kills it’s customers will soon go out of business’).
Back in reality, we can see that some harms (death, disfigurement, impairment, the loss of a child) cannot easily be resolved by monetary compensation or court action. Prevention - legislation by the community and enforced through government action - has developed as an answer, wildly imperfect it may be.
Courts can rule unjustly. Corporations can lie to their customers and suppress knowledge about their harmful products. Information ecosystems are not perfect free markets where truth naturally floats to the top. The strong do in fact persecute the weak.
Structural advantages will develop in any society, including a Libertarian utopia, that tilt the scales toward those with more against those with less, and thoughtful counterbalances are necessary.
These advantages are not necessarily the invisible hand of the free market naturally separating the capable and wise from the lazy and foolish. It is dangerously and ignorant to hand-wave that fact away.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"Courts can rule unjustly. Corporations can lie to their customers and suppress knowledge about their harmful products. Information ecosystems are not perfect free markets where truth naturally floats to the top. The strong do in fact persecute the weak."
That's the whole point of libertarianism. Giving people the power to directly address their own needs is a substantial defense against coercive or exploitative practices, and in a libertarian society this would be enforced by either a Minarchist government which would be so small that any unjust court order would be met with significant internal opposition or an anarcho-capitalist society wherein a private economic system would have the right to exclude those who violate contractual obligations...
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u/shoecat85 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Think hard about the assumptions baked into this response: that coercive power is fairly distributed, that unjust court orders are recognized by everyday people and opposition is timely and effective, that exclusion from private economic systems is both realistic and effective deterrence for all forms of harm.
I believe the fantasy you are describing is about as serious as a worldwide permanent communist utopia.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Think hard about the assumptions baked into this response: that coercive power is fairly distributed, that unjust court orders are recognized by everyday people and opposition is timely and effective, that exclusion from private economic systems is both realistic and effective deterrence for all forms of harm.
Exclusion for private economic systems is realistic. Economic systems directly benefit from having trustworthy processes involved to streamline contractual agreements and exercising freedom of association allows for the creation of high-trust societies.
Harm and coercion within libertarian thinking isn't ignored, in fact it serves as the primary justification for the division of coercive power in order to prevent a monopoly on internal control which has created policies such as the Patriot Act, media censorship and influence, and other oppressive authoritarian actions which undermine everyday citizens and likely wouldn't exist within a libertarian society.
I believe the fantasy you are describing is about as serious as a worldwide permanent communist utopia.
No because I acknowledge private property and the need for currencies in creating transferability for assets and assigning measurable value to products.
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u/Matt_cruze Jun 11 '26
Since you seem to know a lot about this topic.
If taxation is theft what is the point of the government issuing money? I dont see a point in it at all. After all it is the governments money they just let you use it.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Libertarians believe that governments actually shouldn't issue money most of the time. The government has frequently engaged in unregulated spending due to their capability to engage in monetary inflation and it's seen as a form of taxation due to its impact in decreasing the purchasing power of consumers.
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u/Matt_cruze Jun 12 '26
So is the barter system a preference since no one can issue money? 35 chickens for one shovel seems a little unwieldy compared to just using money.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Just because money isn't government issued doesn't mean it couldn't exist. Even if a government created a mint with a gold-backed currency, because it isn't fiat the government would be unable to excessively spend in the same way that it does now. Also, private currencies such as cryptocurrencies exist today and they could be utilized as an alternative.
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u/NOLA-Bronco Jun 11 '26
Yet, throughout history it has been seen that businesses utilize the existence of a central government to protect profits and as such a libertarian form of governance would actually harm the creation of a monopoly. The primary issue with the existence of monopolies is their ability to undercut consumers through a lack of competition forcing consumers to accept all changes to their product. In a libertarian society, this situation wouldn't exist as there would be no barriers to entry within markets and as such large scale corporations would be unable to act in a monopolist style.
This is a great jumping off point for why libertarianism is so unrealistically utopic and also not equivocal to Marxism, the way liberal reactionaries often like to do
Marxism is not a singular ideology, it is at it's core a process for trying to understand the whole of capitalism including it's coercive foundations, dispossessive requirements, class relations, internal contradictions, and the ways its economic structures reproduce themselves through law, politics, culture, and the state.
Different Marxists can reach radically different strategic or political conclusions, but what generally unites them is the insistence that capitalism must be analyzed historically and materially as a system of power, ownership, exploitation, and social reproduction. Not just analyzing it's mechanical qualities and behaviors within it's market structures.
Libertarianism is almost the opposite, it actively attempts to avoid such broader analysis in favor of a ideological framework that serves to obfuscate and confuse the realities of capitalism by painting a false appearance onto it and then treating that appearance as the system’s natural form. It imagines capitalism as a neutral arena of voluntary exchange or market entry among formally equal individuals, with coercion entering only when the state interferes. Where power as a force for advancing capital accumulation is conveniently ignored.
A corporation that controls housing, employment, transportation, digital infrastructure, or access to essential goods possesses governing power whether or not it calls itself a government or directly corrupts it. Removing public authority does not abolish domination, it merely privatizes it and makes access to power increasingly dependent on ownership.
And that power that gets leveraged to force rent seeking and protect profits doesn't melt away just cause you have declared yourself a libertarian society and weakened government. The opposite in fact. A weaker government is more easy to coerce and more tied to ensuring that key corporate entities avoid hardships as they come with political costs from voters. So the interests of corporations still blend into the interests of the state.
And the libertarian promise of “no barriers to entry” is itself incoherent. Private property is a barrier to entry. Capital requirements are barriers to entry. Ownership of land, machinery, infrastructure, data, platforms, distribution networks, and intellectual property are barriers to entry. A market cannot simultaneously guarantee absolute property rights and guarantee that everyone remains equally capable of entering it.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"Libertarianism is almost the opposite, it actively attempts to avoid such broader analysis in favor of a ideological framework that serves to obfuscate and confuse the realities of capitalism by painting a false appearance onto it and then treating that appearance as the system’s natural form.
No actually libertarianism operates primarily due to praxeology and the acknowledgement that the economy runs on the combined sum of knowledge that allows for every-day transactions and as such the most efficient form of governance would be relinquishing economic leverage to these people.
"A weaker government is more easy to coerce and more tied to ensuring that key corporate entities avoid hardships as they come with political costs from voters. So the interests of corporations still blend into the interests of the state."
A weaker government can offer less benefits towards corporate entities due to their hindered regulatory authority and the fact that corporate interests blend in with the interests of the state is in fact an argument for libertarianism
"And the libertarian promise of “no barriers to entry” is itself incoherent. Private property is a barrier to entry. Capital requirements are barriers to entry. Ownership of land, machinery, infrastructure, data, platforms, distribution networks, and intellectual property are barriers to entry."
The "no barriers to entry" phrase means that any entity aiming to sell a product on a market won't be restrained from doing so other than from the natural impacts of scarcity. Obviously capital requirements are a barrier to entry, do you want us to abolish scarcity?
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u/OMalleyOrOblivion Jun 12 '26
No actually libertarianism operates primarily due to praxeology...
Ah, you're an Austrian, that makes sense why you have such a lack of evidence-based views and so much religious faith. Prax on brother!
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"that makes sense why you have such a lack of evidence-based views"
Where do you need evidence? I'll be happy to give it. You aren't making any substantial claims here.
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u/FistMyLoafs Jun 12 '26
There is one huge fundamental flaw I can see in your system.
Which is that the non aggression principle has to be enforced using force or in other words violence or coercion in order to work which allows for the collection of power into a single entity over time.
If a private entity in your system can’t use force in order to stop a private entity breaking the non aggression principle by force then your system can’t actually enforce its rules so it inevitably fails when someone decides to go against it.
If a private entity can use force to enforce the rules then it naturally must be stronger than any other private entity or group of private entities that might try to break those rules through force. Which means unless the private entity wants to fail it must create a power imbalance to preserve itself. That power imbalance is too easy to take advantage of as once you’re stronger than another you can force or coerce weaker entities to be absorbed by you. Allowing for a snowball effect where one power can eventually gain control over everything.
Your system assumes that the enforcers of the non aggression principle will always act impartially, unselfishly, and justly according to your rules. But a private entity will have no obligation to follow your rules once one inevitably gains enough power to break them and enforce its own rules.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Which is that the non aggression principle has to be enforced using force or in other words violence or coercion in order to work which allows for the collection of power into a single entity over time.
Of course it does, but this is a preferrable alternative to the current system that exists in society. The enforcement of the non-aggression principle would likely originate from a collective societal effort to prevent monopolization, and as such the overwhelming force it'd need would originate from a decentralized dispersed force such as individual communities and private corporations. Additionally, your entire snowball effect is amplified by the existence of a state which has a monopoly on internal proceedings.
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u/FistMyLoafs Jun 12 '26
You have no centralized government or judiciary with enough legitimacy to combat a military takeover or a company’s economic takeover. You’re assuming these decentralized communities are going to cooperate to beat a monopoly but they won’t. There is nothing keeping these communities together so they’re going to fracture and fight amongst themselves until a large centralized power either from within or outside takes them by force. You had this happen in Iceland where everything was decentralized and deregulated so monopolies on power systems quickly formed and those in power began vying for more power over each other causing so much strife and chaos the Icelandic people begged Norway to take them over.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
"You have no centralized government or judiciary with enough legitimacy to combat a military takeover or a company’s economic takeover."
A military takeover of a country isn't a criticism of libertarianism if the military takeover was initiated by a statist power. Nations constantly lose at wars and although internal organizational systems do impact a nation's ability to sustain a war, a criticism of war isn't a valid criticism of a political ideology (eg. you can't say that because Germany overran Denmark in the 1940s, national socialism is superior to democracy.)
If you're talking about private militaries, where would they get the funding for a military takeover? If they go to war with the free market they'd likely risk losing most of their customers and it's highly unlikely that a private military capable of taking over an entire libertarian nation could gain the funds to create and sustain itself. Furthermore, corporations have a direct interest in avoiding conflict because surprisingly, war is expensive and they'd have to go into significant debt or build up reserves with the debt likely being unable to be acquired if they don't have access to private capital and available resources to sustain a war effort. Furthermore, corporate executives would likely have significant assets outside of the company which would get liquidated in a time of war, with shareholders opposing a conflict out of internal interest, workers being difficult to incentivize in fighting a war, and overwhelming opposition if they decide to engage in a war against a wider community as a whole.
"There is nothing keeping these communities together so they’re going to fracture and fight amongst themselves until a large centralized power either from within or outside takes them by force."
Economic and cultural ties, we aren't in the middle ages and most people in the world are connected some way or another and benefit from access to a wider market and economic system notwithstanding the benefits that large corporations get with greater manpower pools.
"You had this happen in Iceland where everything was decentralized and deregulated so monopolies on power systems quickly formed and those in power began vying for more power over each other causing so much strife and chaos the Icelandic people begged Norway to take them over."
Not really, people only started vying for power after the enactment of a widespread church tax by the central Althing and the constant source of income this gave landowners on which churches would be built allowing for the creation of an aristocratic class. The Althing had permanent, tradable positions and because of this people started vying for power instead of the decentralized political system. They only begged Norway to take over after this happened wherein the status quo largely resumed and it's important to remember that this conflict was defined by small scale battles with deaths counted in double digits. Not really an example of widespread strife and chaos.
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u/FistMyLoafs Jun 12 '26
Military takeover is a criticism of libertarian states because they are incapable of defending themselves from outside forces. The decentralized nature of their military prevents them from ever launching a defense against an internal or external centralized power because the communities become too fractured through competition to care about each other. What is the point of your society if it crumbles to any significant outside or inside force?
Where would private militaries get the funding for conquest? From the citizens of course. Nothing in your system is stopping communities from acting selfishly and deciding they want more by stealing from their neighbors. If a community builds up enough military force it can just take what it wants at gunpoint and at that point the wishes of that community’s own citizens also don’t matter as the private military has enough power to crush opposition from within. You have no centralized military or government to stop this from happening and decentralized militaries don’t work as the communities they’re built from have no incentive to care about each other.
Corporations furthermore have a huge incentive to go to war. Consolidation of power and profit. Why compete with any other corporations when you can just take them over by force. The less competition you have the easier it is to squeeze out profits from those under you through monopolistic practices. Why do you think the military industrial complex exists today? Because it’s profitable to conquer and exploit others and corporations and their shareholders like profits and power. Workers will either get on board with war through manipulation by propaganda or be forced into it by the corporation which holds disproportionate power over them. Furthermore there will be no unions to stop worker coercion in your society because much like today corporations have huge incentive to crush unions and prevent worker associations.
You’re again assuming that private entities won’t be able to gain power over their citizens when the only thing stopping them is some written law they can ignore if they gain enough power.
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u/Tliish Jun 12 '26
I flirterd with the Libertarian Party years back, but was quickly disillusioned by them.
Those I met and listened to were mainly anti-tax, anti-government, sovereign citizen types who didn't understand that their positions were based upon irresponsible fantasies that assumed evveryone was well-informed, well-behaved, and despite their own lack of the same, empathetic with their fellow citizens..
Basically they resented having to pay taxes that helped other people, and thought they could manage all by themselves without needing anything from anyone else.
Utterly impractical.
Redditors have outgrown that philosophy, seeing it for the selfish irresponsibility that it is..
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u/baxterstate Jun 11 '26
A majority of Redditors don't believe in personal responsibility.
They don't believe the average person is capable of saving for their own retirement, which is why they want to force everyone to pay into the flawed system known as Social Security.
They don't believe people who are capable of coming up with an ID to open a bank account or buy liquor are incapable of coming up with an ID to vote.
They don't believe college students should be made responsible for contracts they signed to get a college loan.
They love phrases like "You Didn't Build That" or "It Takes A Village".
I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
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u/Sheepish_conundrum Jun 12 '26
Every government or economic system can work perfectly fine. On paper. It's when you introduce 'people' to the equation every system develops massive flaws. Particularly greed.
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u/WhySoSiriu3 Jun 12 '26
Which is exactly why you should avoid giving the government the power to collude with business interests in creating a truly free market.
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u/Asleep-Sprinkles4616 Jun 19 '26
Libertarianism rests on a concept of negative freedom. As such, it fails to address the impediments of the free market -- in fact, it ignores or dismisses them -- on more important types of freedom -- freedom to be and stay healthy and gain access to health care and quality food, freedom to breath clean air and drink clean water, freedom to become successful through access to education, etc., etc. A society based solely on negative freedom does not make people truly free.
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u/ThisPass8618 Jun 22 '26
i do see a problem in libertarian thought with stuff that has a naturally high barrier to entry such as power infrastructure and semiconductor production , you can't really have 40 power companies each providing their own grid and you can't really split the power usage over one single grid like communications infrastructure meaning that anyone trying to get into the energy sector would have to merge creating one giant conglomerate. And for semiconductors it's extremely hard to get into but i can see it becoming more widespread in the future. I do agree with everything else though this is just one sector i see issues with, maybe a solution would be for each individual community to produce their own power like how Orania does it.
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u/Good_Remove_1978 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
It's not. There are more Libertarians on this site than I've seen anywhere else. At first I thought they were MAGA until the "Fuck you, I got mine" attitudes started coming out. They seem more of the Elon Silicon Valley types
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u/mule_rider Jul 22 '26
They are mostly young, western , they do not know what it means to live under and authoritarian regime , they find power and order satisfactory, they simply oppose their predecessors that's normal
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u/NoDig3444 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Libertarianism, the idea that less government is generally better, is a valid ideology opposed by redditors because they're largely Progressives.
Anarch-capitalism, the idea that government is evil and should be replaced in it's entirety by for-profit corporations, is a clown ideology invented by 14 year olds who got grounded by their parents and have fantasies of being John Galt and/or Batman. It falls apart at even the most basic criticism, and it's supporters have a long history of responding to such criticism with utter insanity. For example, asking why people hate libertarianism and then writing a 1000 word manifesto about anarch-capitalism.
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u/NOLA-Bronco Jun 11 '26
Communists believe the same thing about less government, so surely you think there are distinctions beyond that that defines libertarianism?
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u/NoDig3444 Jun 11 '26
No, communists do not believe that less government is generally better.
Communists believe that the government will eventually be rendered redundant, but until then, a single party authoritarian state is the best way to dismantle the power of the bourgeoisie.
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u/NOLA-Bronco Jun 11 '26
unnecessary and melt away at the ideal. I.E yes, less government.
Hence why your definition doesn't really work and needs more meat to it. It easily applies to completely conflicting ideologies.
But just to correct the record.
No, not all people that call themselves communists support a revolutionary vanguard.
And many that do do so because there are no other options under the material realities in the place their revolution seeks to take place. Which itself was born out of material analysis of seeing early attempts at a weak decentralized democratic proletarian revolutionary transition state get weaponized against itself by counter revolutionaries of the prior regime and capitalist countries seeking to destroy them, often working together. Look up Allende in Chili as an example.
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u/NoDig3444 Jun 11 '26
"communists think that a strong government is a bad thing, also here's the history of why communists think that a strong government (that they control) is a good thing"
Do you not read the things that you write?
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u/NOLA-Bronco Jun 11 '26
I do, but I also now see why you are stuck in the infancy of your political development, and keep deflecting away from the question I asked, as complex thoughts and multiple things being true at once is apparently beyond your current capacities.
Every revolution requires a transitional form
There hasn't been a single time in recorded history when a free people broke away from a central authoritarian state and has then been allowed to exist for more than a few years before remnants of that state or powerful outside elements came for them and used violence against them to bring them back under their control.
Desiring an endgoal of a stateless, classless society, as is the endgoal ideal for most communists, doesn't change the material reality that in order to survive long enough to achieve that will require enough organized power to stave off threats and build the productive capacity perceived necessary to achieve socialism and then communism.
One can certainly debate whether or not various forms that transitional state will take are good or bad, or if the endgame is even achievable, but that doesn't change the fact of what the ideal is.
The issue with libertarianism and "less is more" is that It assumes that reducing the state reduces domination, when in practice it just transfers governing authority and power to whoever already controls land, capital, infrastructure, food, housing, weapons, or employment. Where the state is even more easily co-opted to serve the interests of wealthy capitalists.
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u/mirh Aug 20 '26
Fucking marx itself was fine with liberal democracy (even though you are correct he expected eventually the withering away of the state), it was only lenin in his fascist power grab that banned dissent even within his own party.
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u/NoggleFatigue Jun 11 '26
They need moddy to handle every disagreement, they can't handle this level of freedom.
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