>Fascism in all its varieties is very distant
>from libertarianism. How could a state which
>foments organized violence be attributed to
>a philosophy which sees a limited role for
>the state? Nor do I doubt that a libertarian
>could appreciate the lack of difference between
>organized state violence and organized
>extra-parliamentary, corporate-based violence.
>If libertarianism has a first principle,
>speaking as a non-believer, I would venture
>to say it is the illegitimacy of violence
>against persons by other persons.
This is true. If you visit the Libertarian Party home page, they tell you that they reject the notion that one individual can initiate force against another. But this view cannot be reconciled with a belief in free market capitalism based on property rights. The fact that property rights exist is already an imposition of force on the non property holder. If property rights mean anything, the property owner has the right to exclude others from using/being on his or her property. And this can ONLY be assured through the use of force, be it by some public body (police) or private (privately hired bodyguards or security force). The libertarians are not logically consistent.
>The lack of a public sector is equated
>here to a tyranny of business. But the
>libertarian vision is that free of government
>conniving, competition will discipline
>business behavior. We might disagree --
>I certainly would -- but it cannot be
>denied that the State creates and supports
>business abuses, including support for
>monopolistic practice. More generally,
>government has been known to advantage
>rich over poor, and capital over labor (duh!).
>So the libertarian position isn't as
>dumb as it's being made out to be.
Here is another logical inconsistency in libertarian thinking. How can the free market operate without the government, or at least some pseudo-governmental authority? How can contracts be enforced without a government? What's to stop people from stealing from store owners or other businesses? Without some sort of legal system (can this really be private?), free market capitalism can't function.
As far as monopolies are concerned, in a laissez faire environment, there is no mechanism to break up a monopoly once it gets going. So I don't see how the libertarians can claim we could have "perfect competition," especially in light of the American experience during the "Gilded Age," when monopolies and trusts were facts of life.
Government may indeed favor business over labor, but this is not always the case. After all, it was government that busted up the trusts at the turn of the century, and it was government that instituted social security and unemployment payments. And as I said earlier, government is responsive to popular sentiment in a way that business will never be. This is not to say that business is unresponsive to popular pressure, because it is (through embargos, strikes, or lack of demand, etc.). But I think its fair to say that the institution of government is more democratic than the institution of business, at least in the US, and that putting more power in the hands of business would be a step backwards.
>The libertarian vision is not inconsistent
>with a world of worker-owned enterprises
>and self-governed communities. The key
>proviso is that participation in all such
>activities be strictly voluntary.
Theoretically this is true, but does anyone doubt what the real outcome would be? Are we to believe that GM and Microsoft would crumble and that every industry would be populated by little mom and pop stores, democratically run? This is fantasy.
The notion that all activities in a free market economy are voluntary is also nonsense. The choice between working for a wage or starving is not much of a free choice. This is akin to saying that the victim of a mugging who is told "your money or your life" is also making a free choice. He is, in one sense, but the real crux of the issue is all of the options that have been forclosed to him (like buying dinner with his money). The choices you have in a captialist society depend on who you are. If you inherit a lot of money, you can get others to work for you and you can live a luxurious lifestyle. If you are born in a slum, you'll have to work for a living, most likely in poor working conditions for a lousy wage. Setting up such unequal circumstances, and then claiming everyone's decisions are "strictly voluntary" is an outrage.
>Those who cede the ideal of freedom to
>the right certify their own political
>irrelevance.
I refuse to cede the ideal of freedom to the right, but I also refuse to let the right use a sham claim of supporting freedom to mask their real agenda of further concentrating power and wealth into their elite hands.
Brett