What exactly do you believe libertarians would disagree with in your post? I'm not a libertarian, but that the government privatizes gains and socializes losses, that they grant subsidies and monopolies to businesses, taking the risk out of them, seems perfectly aligned with what I read from libertarian sources.
Libertarians don't disagree that the government funds businesses, they disagree that it should do so.
Libertarians view of government is, 'I want to be allowed to do whatever I want while everyone else is restricted to doing what I want them to do.' It's a dumb ideology that falls apart with literally any amount of thought.
Aren't libertarians all about the absolute sanctity of private property over all other concerns?
How is a pro-business ideology remotely justifying government intervention in the practice and moderation decisions of a private company? Wouldn't the rectification involve the government specifically dictating their business behaviour?
That's not libertarianism. Libertarianism strongly supports private charity; it's government charity it's opposed to. Private charity is how it's supposed to work.
Your post made me wonder what libertarians think about things like llcs and corporations - the legal shields they provide are a massive government subsidy.
That's cronyism, and has no relation to Libertarianism whatsoever. Libertarians will never support government bailouts, as the only way they are possible is by taking money from someone more productive to give to someone less productive, backed by the threat of force. Nothing Libertarian about that.
I would like to add that a true libertarian would be aghast at the thought of a state bailing out private ventures, especially without assimilating them, no matter how big or small.
Most people don’t dive deep into ideologies. They stay in the surface and end up believing whatever the media outlet expresses as a “truth widely acknowledged”.
Also, the concept that businessmen contributing to libertarian causes are in it so that they can capture regulatory agencies/contracts/etc misses that a lot of companies just want the government out of their way.
> Libertarianism by itself is flawed because many corporations will establish monopolies or duopolies, stop innovating, raise prices, and call it a day.
Whereas with big government, they'll never ever hire lobbyists to ask for bailouts, subsidies and protectionist legislation...
Any place a libertarian supposes just government intervention it is to allow coercion-free individuals life, liberty, and property.
Roads: In general, I prefer privatized roads, like the 407 near where I live. If roads are to be built they should be financed by individuals, corporations, counties, townships, and regions. Ideally these would be funded by donations. Social pressure could be used (ie, a Google map of every house that didn't pay its share of the cost) to expose to the community who the cheapskates are, but tolls at city entrances are fine too. I could talk all day about an ideal libertarian state with contracts being enforced everywhere, but for practical purposes this is a non-issue once brought down to the township and one of the last things that would be worth privatizing. Take the example of an enemy of yours buying up all the land around you and stopping your freedom of movement, do you not have right of way to leave? The way these things should be paid for if they are to be done by the government is through the rent of land from the government. No one created land. No one can morally claim first ownership of it.
Radio: Radio should be treated like property. Rented from the state, just as land should be. People have the right only to jam the radio signals within their own airspace, no further. The state has the right to enforce destruction of property.
National Defense: No standing armies. Lots of nukes paid for through the rent of land. Make it a impossible for another nation to attack you. When all you have is nukes the whole world knows how you will respond to an attack. Voluntary organized (by the government) army and navy reserves for responding to national disasters and enforcing national waters.
Rat Poison => Tylenol: Fraud. Murder. The problem with the FDA is the "F" and the whole idea that they can stop a fully informed adult from taking a drug because it doesn't have their stamp on it. This could also be done through organizations like Consumer Reports. Quibble: Do people sell street hot dogs with rat poison in them? No. People are generally good and we don't need to assume Rat Poison is behind every Tylenol bottle. We would save more lives by subsidizing vegetables (which granted, I'm also against).
Public Schools/Voucher: Ideally donations and paid for by the parents. The whole system needs to be reworked. Why can't I teach math to highschool kids? Oh right. The government says that, regardless of whether or not I'm teaching at a public school, I need to have a teaching certificate. That's a problem. Schools are prisons that only server the bottom 90th to 70th percentile until at least grade 10. But again, this, if done through tax, should be local _only_. No child left behind is a terrible program and a perfect example of letting cities and states be the deciders of education.
When I say pro-government interventionists I (generally) mean the government interfering with mutual exchanges between consenting adults absent force or fraud.
Libertarianism is fundamentally about self interest. If the government is doing something in their interest, you can be pretty sure that they won't complain.
It seems there is a divide between libertarians who support liberty and libertarians who would like government to be even deeper in the pockets of billionaires.
A true libertarian wouldn't support corporations at all. They are as bad as tyrannical governments. Proprietorships and partnerships would limit exposure to tyranny of the corporation. They focus the responsibility of the business on the owner and not some protected class of employee.
Libertarians disagree with your assertion that the government has implemented free-markets, and therefore reject the idea that they support current policy.
Libertarians are generally the ones making assumptions--that the private sector will provide health care to everyone without government regulation, that the private sector will provide housing, food, and other necessities to the poor and elderly without government assistance, that the private sector will refrain from pumping poisonous substances into the air and water without government regulation, and so forth. There's insufficient empirical evidence that any of this would happen, but it means less taxes and less government so it must be good.
There's a darker strain of libertarians who genuinely don't care whether the congenitally frail receive health care or whether the poor can afford food and shelter, because there's no human right to food and shelter, but there is a human right not to pay taxes. Even most libertarians shy away from this by asserting that somehow private charity will take care of it all, but the empirical evidence is insufficient.
The key thing to understand about libertarianism is that all of the arguments against governments apply equally to any organization with sufficient coercive power.
Many libertarians believe that if not for government interference, monopolies wouldn't form in the free market. Those people are right in some cases (e.g. payment processing) and wrong in others (e.g. roads). But the dogmatic position asserts that it's true in all cases, and then no corporation would have sufficient coercive power so you only have to worry about the government.
If you take the practical approach and accept that there are always going to be some private monopolies and oligopolies, or even the pragmatic approach that they actually exist today and we have to deal with them today even if the wonder of the free market will eliminate them in the future, then we have to hold sufficiently coercive corporations to the same standards as governments. And at the same time try as hard as we can to destroy their coercive power, so that we can stop needing to do that.
I don't consider myself a libertarian by any stretch, but isn't their argument in favor of a completely free market? If so, any government regulations that protect these de facto monopolies would not be supported either, as they are by definition creating a regulated market.
Libertarians don't disagree that the government funds businesses, they disagree that it should do so.
reply