Good God...My friend is a libertarian.

[bobalot]

I met up with a friend i haven't seen in a while and after a bit of conversation I ran into a horrible realization, he was a libertarian.

I should have realized after I kept hearing talk about the gold standard, the worthlessness of fiat backed currencies, the wonderful power of the free market and repetition that government can create nothing of value.

I tried the usual counters. I pointed the Human Genome project as a example of government creating value from a project the the private sector would never consider (A decades long project without any guarantee of immediate profits). Pointed out the with the Gold standard, there were long periods of boom and bust and depressions. I pointed out that in many cases government intervention is not necessarily bad, that sometimes if left to a free market many people would starve to death (The Irish Potato Famine comes to mind).

He made the claim that this would never happen in a free market as someone would realize that there is a market for the poor (which misses the point that they are poor and cannot afford food). The ridiculous of this argument stunned me at the time, I had no response.

He kept repeating that I simply didn't understand the free market, that it was a system "that had no central planning, nobody telling somebody else which job they had to do". I pointed out that other that North Korea, just about every economic system in the world resembled the system he just described. Many systems require central planning such as roads network, city planning, water systems, power systems, railway systems, fire station networks, placement and manning of police stations, etc. But of course the free market would find a way. They were interventions by government and this was bad by definition. I'm not quite sure why. Any question would be answered with "Well how you would you do it [Insert rant about fiat, poor government planning etc.]", not an actual answer to my question.

When I challenged him to point an example of a successful Libertarian state, he describe early America up to 1913 (The creation of Fed) as a golden era. I pointed that there was massive government support for the railways and huge tariffs to protect local industry. He quickly changed the subject.

The conversation become so frustrating, that we both avoided talking about it. Have any of you have friends who turned into Libertarians?

[K. A. Pital]

I pointed out that in many cases government intervention is not necessarily bad, that sometimes if left to a free market many people would starve to death (The Irish Potato Famine comes to mind).

He made the claim that this would never happen in a free market as someone would realize that there is a market for the poor (which misses the point that they are poor and cannot afford food).

Wait, so you had pointed out something that really happened, but he claimed that it could have never happened and carried on with the denial? There's nothing that can be done. His sense of logic must have degraded so strongly that it's no longer even comparable to the average human's logical capabilities.

The ridiculous of this argument stunned me at the time, I had no response.

The best response: "So how the hell did that Irish Famine happen then?"

[Serafina]

Well, sounds like the common "appeal to freedom"-fallacy to me.
Free market is about freedom, right?
Well, everyone wants to be free, thus, free market is a good thing.
The government is trying to regulate something?
They are taking away our freedom!

I do not think he sees the logical fallacy with the "Irish famine"-issue:
After all, there was no truly free market at that time. Thus, our totally unobserved, non-profitable, illogical "market for the poor" did not come to work - he was held back by the evil government!

A (possible solution): A massive smackdown.
Collect tons of examples and arguments that are used by libertarians, and put them down.
Not just one or two, at least half a dozen.
Double-check your counter-arguments for fallacies and logical gaps. If you want to, you can leave some of them in place and prepare answers if he points them out.

This method should work, at least if your friend is able to sound to reason. It sure worked for me.

[Patrick Degan]

I pointed out that in many cases government intervention is not necessarily bad, that sometimes if left to a free market many people would starve to death (The Irish Potato Famine comes to mind).

He made the claim that this would never happen in a free market as someone would realize that there is a market for the poor (which misses the point that they are poor and cannot afford food).

Wait, so you had pointed out something that really happened, but he claimed that it could have never happened and carried on with the denial? There's nothing that can be done. His sense of logic must have degraded so strongly that it's no longer even comparable to the average human's logical capabilities.

Classic Wall of Ignorance. Once they're too far into the Cult, they can never be reasoned with for as long as the Cult's mantras continue to flood the brain.

I toyed with libertarianism briefly but was never able to see how it could be made into a workable political system in the modern world, and I never could abide the idea of simply leaving millions of people to their fates. Reading the history of the movement led me further in the direction of classical libertarian socialism but it became clear that it wasn't workable either even if it had its heart in the right place.

That's the difference. I never got into the Cult.

[Erik von Nein]

You think having a friend who's a libertarian is fun? Well, think what life is like when you're father's one. Especially when you see what's wrong with his stance before you've moved.

I've found not talking about it is a very good solution.

[bobalot]

I pointed out that in many cases government intervention is not necessarily bad, that sometimes if left to a free market many people would starve to death (The Irish Potato Famine comes to mind).

He made the claim that this would never happen in a free market as someone would realize that there is a market for the poor (which misses the point that they are poor and cannot afford food).

Wait, so you had pointed out something that really happened, but he claimed that it could have never happened and carried on with the denial? There's nothing that can be done. His sense of logic must have degraded so strongly that it's no longer even comparable to the average human's logical capabilities.

The ridiculous of this argument stunned me at the time, I had no response.

The best response: "So how the hell did that Irish Famine happen then?"

Stas, I find with Libertarians there is no arguing with them. Nothing has reached the perfection of a free market, therefore Libertarianism has never failed. I used the example of using water and food quotas during times of great hardship (such as WW2). He countered by saying that it only lead to a black market. He missed the entire point that while there was a black market, the food rationing system ensured that everybody regardless of ability to pay didn't starve to death during a time of great upheaval such as disaster or war. There MUST be rationing after disasters like Katrina, or people would die.

BTW, he claims that Katrina is an example of private charities being better at disaster relief than the government. He doesn't seem to realize private enterprise doesn't have the funds or long term vision to rebuild the roads, sewage systems, power distribution systems, schools, libraries, levies etc. when asked how they would do this (there is no example of private enterprise rebuilding an entire city in the world), he still claims they would be better. How? These social investments would take decades to provide a return. I can think of no charities that rebuilt entire cities. Empirical proof is like kryptonite to a Libertarian.

He even says the current financial crisis, is because of government regulatory bodies. They apparently gave a false sense of security to investors, who then invested in dodgy schemes like Madoffs. I would point this kind of thing happened in regular intervals before the fed and government regulation. There would regular boom, busts and depressions. I would counter the financial crisis is simply an example of bad regulation with poor oversight, there are plenty of countries whose banking systems did not make such dodgy investments. Once again, empirical proof is waved away.

Without regulation or oversight many industries would never do the socially right thing. The old industrial yards where I used to live has craploads of heavy metals and other toxins in the soil. The old factories that were there used to simply just dump their waste in the soil (and why not? They used to argue "it's our property! Regulation was a intrusions by the government!"). Regulation eventually put a stop to these companies dumping waste on their own properties. How would a libertarian society stop this type of abuse? Apparently with lawsuits. I wonder how can we sue these companies decades after they no longer exist. Perhaps we could build a Libertarian time machine using the awesome power of the free market.

You think having a friend who's a libertarian is fun? Well, think what life is like when you're father's one. Especially when you see what's wrong with his stance before you've moved.

I've found not talking about it is a very good solution.

I find Libertarians ironically have a strong aversion to reason and empirical data. There is not much use talking to them. You still live at home with him?

[Archaic`]

*hangs his head*

I've considered myself a libertarian for a long time, but people like this calling themselves libertarians just make me want to hang in the towel. Is this a particularly American brand of libertarianism or something? Right wing economically to the point of anarchism? From how I've always seen it, libertarianism should not mean no government, or no government intervention, but instead should be having governments of a reasonable size that work efficiently and cost-effectively. Instead of the unreasonable expectation that governments never interfere with anything whatsoever, a libertarian should be expecting wide ranging civil and economic rights, with the government stepping in to correct market imbalances, to set the regulations necessary to provide a stable and fair level playing field, to manage certain sectors of the economy where there's a natural monopoly situation due to infrastructure requirements (such as in telecommunications, electricity distribution, water and sewerage), to handle things such as defense, policing, and so on and so forth. In all honesty, a stable and effective libertarian society probably wouldn't be all that much different to how things are run in many 1st world nations currently on the economic side (and might even have more government interference, in those natural monopoly areas), with the biggest differences instead being in the area of social and civil liberties.

Let me guess, this guy was one of those LOLbertarians who thinks that there's no place for a social security system in a libertarian society, isn't he?

[Patrick Degan]

*hangs his head*

I've considered myself a libertarian for a long time, but people like this calling themselves libertarians just make me want to hang in the towel. Is this a particularly American brand of libertarianism or something? Right wing economically to the point of anarchism? From how I've always seen it, libertarianism should not mean no government, or no government intervention, but instead should be having governments of a reasonable size that work efficiently and cost-effectively. Instead of the unreasonable expectation that governments never interfere with anything whatsoever, a libertarian should be expecting wide ranging civil and economic rights, with the government stepping in to correct market imbalances, to set the regulations necessary to provide a stable and fair level playing field, to manage certain sectors of the economy where there's a natural monopoly situation due to infrastructure requirements (such as in telecommunications, electricity distribution, water and sewerage), to handle things such as defense, policing, and so on and so forth. In all honesty, a stable and effective libertarian society probably wouldn't be all that much different to how things are run in many 1st world nations currently on the economic side (and might even have more government interference, in those natural monopoly areas), with the biggest differences instead being in the area of social and civil liberties.

Let me guess, this guy was one of those LOLbertarians who thinks that there's no place for a social security system in a libertarian society, isn't he?

You got it when you observed that it's a peculiar American definition of the term, as opposed to how libertarianism is understood in Europe. To boil American libertarianism down to it's essentials: "I've got mine, fuck everybody else, and no government has the right to say otherwise".

[Vultur]

Hmmm... wow.

I've called myself a libertarian at times, mostly because I'm extremely dissatisfied with the gigantic size and wastefulness of welfare and social security, but nothing like this. Denying booms and busts and depressions? That's weird ... I always realized that would be a factor, but all systems have downsides, and I'd be more willing to accept the busts in exchange for faster technological development in general and more personal freedom. My biggest worry with a really libertarian system would be environmental concerns, which is why I think society should hold off on libertarianism until we're off the oil economy.

(I *don't* think the Irish potato famine is a particularly good example of the failure of a free market, though, because it wouldn't have happened without very specific conditions that resulted from Ireland's being managed basically as a conquered territory by Britain. If you're talking about Ireland having a weak government, definitely, but *no* economic system can help if the total resources aren't sufficient to feed everyone, and they weren't anymore because it had mostly been leached off by Britain.) I'd point out labor abuses like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, sweatshop conditions, and such as bad consequences that are more likely to occur in a country that wasn't poor originally, like the US or most countries with a significant libertarian movement.

[Count Chocula]

Building on what Vulture said, in part: booms and busts are a part of any capitalist system, and are primarily psychological circumstances. A lot of the boom and bust cycle, in general, lies in market participants extrapolating forward erroneously without understanding such things as asymptotic growth or even capacity to pay. A fiat currency system, with its manifold opportunities to inflate the "money" supply, exacerbates a normal part of the capitalist economic system.

On the Irish potato famine: it was caused, in large part, by the Enclosure Acts, which IIRC was a massive expopriation of private farms by the English aristocracy to 1) make large tracts of land available for their favored elites to farm sheep, and thus provide wool for the burgeoning English industrialized textile industry, and 2) provide a ready-made source of homeless, penniless labor for the virtual slave conditions of the urban (London and other cities) factories. If anything, it's an example of BIG government abuse and your "lib" friend is way off base citing it as an example.

[Junghalli]

I have a hard-core lolbertarian on my own message board. He was the one who thinks that if we had the technological capacity to implement a postscarcity society we shouldn't do it, because it'd be wrong for people to not have to suffer if they're too lazy or incompetent to succeed in a cut-throat capitalism system. Seriously, that's some serious shitcockery right there. My jaw dropped reading it. To myself I was like "dude, that's almost comic book villain stuff right there".

It's a very small online community (only a handful of people), so I think it sorta counts.

[Vultur]

I have a hard-core lolbertarian on my own message board. He was the one who thinks that if we had the technological capacity to implement a postscarcity society we shouldn't do it, because it'd be wrong for people to not have to suffer if they're too lazy or incompetent to succeed in a cut-throat capitalism system. Seriously, that's some serious shitcockery right there. My jaw dropped reading it. To myself I was like "dude, that's almost comic book villain stuff right there".

It's a very small online community (only a handful of people), so I think it sorta counts.

That's a ... bizarre take. I would worry about people spending their entire lives wastefully (i.e. not producing any new science/art/technology/anything else contributory) but not about THAT. I don't feel any particular desire to live in one myself*, but it would certainly be a vast improvement in the lives of ... well, everybody really poor, which is a disturbingly large section of humanity. (And most of them DO work hard...)

*EDIT: I think a better way to phrase that is that I don't think I'd do anything really sybaritic (hundred-room mansions, truffles and caviar, private airplanes or cruise ships, etc.) even if I had the resources, and I'd probably mostly associate with people who made the same choices. So my life probably wouldn't be as drastically different as most people's.

[Count Chocula]

If I follow the thinking correctly, and I think I do, one of the arguments for libertarianism against welfare programs is the overall wealth of the society. The thinking goes: if free markets, free everything works, then the overall standard of living will be so high that literally anyone (save the seriously dysfunctional or crippled) could earn enough to make a "get-by" income (food, shelter, water) with only a few hours' worth of work per week. Therefore, the living is easy, and if you're not retarded or crippled, you have no excuse not to work at least a few hours every week to get by in the world.

That's the theory. The closest country, in practice, seems to be the US. And, um, I don't recall just working a few hours to get by once I was out of my parent's house.

[K. A. Pital]

People will always find some government inference when it comes to famine, but the role of greedy exporters in the deaths of millions of peoples, in countless famines over the world is undeniable. India, Ireland, Bangladesh, Russia - dozens of places suffered famine when the abundant harvest was exported instead of being sold to poorer people, and this argument should never be "overlooked" and arguments about sweatshops used instead.

In reality, the famine dilemma should be hammered down every libertarian's head, until he comes up with one of the two possible replies: "These people are poor and therefore deserve death" or "Nothing happened/The exporters of food are not at fault for following the market", which is basically admitting the same or denying everything.

[Vultur]

But the people taking all the food (and wealth in general) out of Ireland weren't really free market exporters -- it was more in the nature of absentee lords backed by the British government, which didn't care much about the Irish.

And as a sort-of libertarian, I would say that famines won't happen in a country that's rich enough for economic libertarianism to be feasible (it's not a good idea in really poor countries like the ones you listed - well, India is poor per capita despite having a high GDP). The US didn't have famine problems even in the incredibly unregulated era of the latter half of the 1800s.

But the way people on this forum use 'libertarian' seems to mean something different than I've always heard it used for. What I've heard it used for is basically 'government doesn't regulate morality, lower taxes and thus lower government spending' (agreeing with Republicans on the economy and Democrats on social issues) rather than 'effectively no government'. My college government professor used it that way, too, so I don't think it's just a misuse of the word - I wonder why the difference?

[K. A. Pital]

But the people taking all the food (and wealth in general) out of Ireland weren't really free market exporters

Who were they? Name the culprits. Were they forced to export it to Britain under the threat of death?

And as a sort-of libertarian, I would say that famines won't happen in a country that's rich enough for economic libertarianism to be feasible

Famines won't happen in a country that is well-off enough, that's right. The libertarians however think that you should apply libertarianism at any stage of poverty - thereby allowing the free market to act as an agent of pauperisation and starvation if such circumstances arise that exporting is more beneficial than feeding the dying. And that libertarianism brings wealth, not a growing wealth makes power more and more liberal towards the market.

[PeZook]

When arguing with idiots, you should use simple arguments. You can point out the GPS system as a massively useful project which is a fruit of more than sixty years of continous government investment. The American space program cost anywhere between 250 and 300 billion 2008 dollars over all these years, which translates to 4 billion dollars per year over sixty years, with any sort of monetary return only manifesting itself after decades.

Then tell him to show you a single company which would be willing to invest 4.1 billion dollars per year for several decades into developing the necessary technology.

Take note: GPS was conceived by the US DOD in 1973. The US space program began in the mid-1940s. Thirty-three years of investment necessary just to create the technology needed to conceive of the idea to make the tools to build the system with.

What company could possibly display undertake such a project? Even Wal-Mart, the world's single biggest company, only earns 12 billion dollars yearly, so would have to commit 1/4 of its total profit to this investment - which would most likely kill the company.

Maybe oil companies could do it, since they have a naturally longer planning period. Maybe.

Also, anybody can use GPS for free, anywhere in the world, and it spawned an entire host of hi-tech industries on its own, while improving practically every facet of life from food transportation to rescue operations. Yeah, useless government waste of money.

[Surlethe]

In reality, the famine dilemma should be hammered down every libertarian's head, until he comes up with one of the two possible replies: "These people are poor and therefore deserve death" or "Nothing happened/The exporters of food are not at fault for following the market", which is basically admitting the same or denying everything.

There's a third possibility: "Sorry, but that's just the way things are. The occasional famine and accompanying suffering is less than the suffering caused by the widespread destruction of wealth by the welfare state." How would you respond to that?

[K. A. Pital]

There's a third possibility: "Sorry, but that's just the way things are. The occasional famine and accompanying suffering is less than the suffering caused by the widespread destruction of wealth by the welfare state." How would you respond to that?

Heh. That means we made our imaginary libertarian make a positive statement, and that requires proof. "Prove that the state coercion in the famine alleviation would result in the same or greater amount of deaths (degree of malnourishment). That would be the equivalent or greater suffering."

[Vultur]

There's a third possibility: "Sorry, but that's just the way things are. The occasional famine and accompanying suffering is less than the suffering caused by the widespread destruction of wealth by the welfare state." How would you respond to that?

Heh. That means we made our imaginary libertarian make a positive statement, and that requires proof. "Prove that the state coercion in the famine alleviation would result in the same or greater amount of deaths (degree of malnourishment). That would be the equivalent or greater suffering."

How would you prove either side of an argument like that? There's never been a libertarian society, so...

But now I have no idea what to call myself. I don't approve of widespread tax-based welfare (only when it's an absolute necessity) or retirement aid (except for veterans and disabled people and I'm sure something else I'm forgetting), but think the poor should be helped in other ways. I think there should be some regulation of consumer products (but don't like the current agencies such as the FDA). I think corporations getting too much power would be bad, but not nearly as bad as an over-powerful government. I think the government is fairly wasteful and services that could be handled by private industry without being abusive should be. I think that the government should not be involved in your private life as long as you don't hurt anyone not willingly participating. I think the environment must be protected, but that a more proactive approach (working with corporations but having stronger goals rather than setting hard lines which will encourage them to find loopholes or just pay off Congress) would work better. I used to think that was libertarian, but now I'm not sure.

[Darth Wong]

There's a third possibility: "Sorry, but that's just the way things are. The occasional famine and accompanying suffering is less than the suffering caused by the widespread destruction of wealth by the welfare state." How would you respond to that?

In the martial arts, it is said that the best way to deal with a charging enemy is to sidestep his momentum rather than attempting to stop it. In a debate, that can often mean conceding a point, and then showing how that point does not actually support his overall case.

In this case, you can point out that widespread destruction of human life is worse than widespread destruction of capital, if one has to choose between the two as he insists.

[Junghalli]

How would you prove either side of an argument like that? There's never been a libertarian society, so...

As a matter of fact, I would say that the sort of society the more moderate economic libertarians want has already been tried, and found badly wanting. I speak of America in the early twentieth century, or England in the nineteenth. Those societies had many of the things economic libertarians like to wank to (no welfare state, minimal regulations on businesses etc.) and we all know what great places they were to live as a result.

[K. A. Pital]

How would you prove either side of an argument like that?

The only thing our imagined opponent needs to prove is that forced redistribution of goods (i.e. wealth) to alleviate famine would lead to greater or similar suffering as in fact the deaths of people. As DW already pointed out, that's pretty hard to claim - the destruction of capital is not as bad as the destruction of human life. But at the very least it's a thesis which can be proven (or disproven), so if he can show a proof, he will. If he cannot, and resorts to "well, there has never been a libertarian society", I'll just consider the debate won because it's a sidestep to irrelevant issues, and an outright refusal to answer the question.

[Surlethe]

Mike and Stas, you both make good points. The only problem I see is that I'm not sure a libertarian would agree that widespread loss of human life is always worse than widespread destruction of capital. That's because he'll try to put a monetary value on human life, and he can support his claim with the fact that society already does this (e.g. this). It seems to me that the best one can do in this circumstance is simply deny that wealth maximization is a valid goal and cut the legs out from under his entire position, rather than trying to refute (or require proof of) this particular argument.

[K. A. Pital]

I'm not sure a libertarian would agree that widespread loss of human life is always worse than widespread destruction of capital [...] That's because he'll try to put a monetary value on human life

This position is morally repugnant. For a side observer, it would signify that this person is commited to a deeply flawed ethical system. For himself... I doubt it's even possible to convince someone who thinks you can put a "monetary value" on human life. Alternatively, if the worth of human life per person is small enough in his view - he can be pressed for a concrete estimate - you can ask if he would end his life if offered such an amount of money. This would immediately show that he values life much more in practice than he does in theory.