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PT Libertarianism, was: Re: rfc3501 - fallacy kingOnce upon a time I was Libertarian. No, as far as I could tell, the god botherers had little to nothing to do with the libertarians. A couple of people I knew called themselves Christian and were rather wearing it on their sleeve, but they were the mostly sensible sort, and were as committed to separation of church and state as were the rest of us. To the best of my knowledge no religious organization nor zealots had anything to do with the heirarchy of LPUSA proper. I began to doubt libertarianism when I learned a bit about economics and how hard currency MUST lead to economic busts (a "leak" or increase in savings reduces the amount of currency available ... it becomes a self reinforcing phenomenon). Some means to create and issue currency to prevent this is required for a stable society and accomodate growth. Fractional reserve banking isn't a perfect answer but it does address the problem in a dynamic way with at least some interaction with the market as a whole. Secondly, even when I was a libertarian, I felt the libertarian "answers" to ecological problems were far too glib. There just isn't any way to practically force internalization of all ecological costs into a market model. Thirdly, and this was the point at which the LP's inability to answer, despite my searching for their thoughts on it, eventually caused me to drop capital L standing, none of their programs or ideology address the market inequity posed by corporations. Finally, and returning to the first point, the heart of libertarianism is the "what you've earned, you should be able to keep" simply does not reflect material reality. Any material wealth more complex than a pile of bricks degrades (often rather quickly) with time without regular (and often costly) maintenance and protection.. Libertarianism's "keep yours" philosophy focuses, naturally in an economic milieu, on money ... but money is a completely artificial store of value across distance and time, and being artificial, is dependent upon the society that created it. Which is a long way around to say that nobody earns their money solely by their own labors. Simplistic philosophy aside, no man is an island. Ultimately I simply had to conclude that libertarian ideology is not a good match for the real problems posed by real human civilization. -- TWZ |
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