WHY is anarcho-libertarianism wrong?

[Surlethe]

Libertarianism's proposal is a little different. It does't make any assumptions about decency, actually. It acknowledges people will act totally egoistically, but it will work out for the common good through the all-powerful market - i.e. it makes a broken logical leap that people individually acting like assholes towards each other would bring a prosperous, just and socially well-off society.

How the hell does this even happen I don't understand. Communist line of thinking is that humans need to be extremely collectivist and empathical for everyone around for communism to truly work, but libertarianism doesn't have any caveats that go against human nature. It's acknowledging human egoism, but it completely ignores the real results of total individualism and mass egoism.

The core idea is actually very simple. The key assumptions are: willingness to pay measures value and maximizing total utility is the goal. From this follows that a good's contribution to social utility is maximized when the price is at the market equilibrium. There's a lot more, but the essence is the deduction from above: social utility is at its greatest when goods are distributed through voluntary interactions in a free marketplace.

Now, there are a host of assumptions that go into this -- not least that consumers are rational operators, etc. But the idea is very simple and appealing, and, unlike communism, this model actually works crudely.

[Teleros]

"The free market will fix things" in that sense includes the people & institutions that make it up I think. So whilst the system itself cannot fix anything, using it properly will fix things (assuming you buy into the idea that this will work of course).

[Surlethe]

It's not really so much that "the free market will fix things", it's that "the free market will automatically reach a stable, socially optimal long-run equilibrium."

[ray245]

It's not really so much that "the free market will fix things", it's that "the free market will automatically reach a stable, socially optimal long-run equilibrium."

More like the free market will look stable on charts when you are looking at the market's stability over 1000 years or more.

Many economist didn't even bother to specify how long is the long run to begin with. The market will not reach an equilibrium by itself. It requires people to act within the market to begin with.

[Rye]

Now, there are a host of assumptions that go into this -- not least that consumers are rational operators, etc. But the idea is very simple and appealing, and, unlike communism, this model actually works crudely.

Communism does work crudely. That's why Marx and Engels pointed to religious communes as examples, and why it's named after such communes. Communism is limited by human physiology, though. Our "monkeysphere" only reaches to about 150 people, which is in line with brain-body ratios and group sizes with the other great apes.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Communist line of thinking is that humans need to be extremely collectivist and empathical for everyone around for communism to truly work, but libertarianism doesn't have any caveats that go against human nature. It's acknowledging human egoism, but it completely ignores the real results of total individualism and mass egoism.

Depending on who you talk to, they often do acknowledge the effects of making self-interest the only guiding force in society and don't see anything wrong with it. Human suffering belongs to those who didn't grip hard enough on those BOOTSTRAPS, and much like abstinence-only fundies who admit that incredible suffering is in store for everyone subject to that system, they consider reducing suffering to be a distant second moral imperative to upholding arbitrary dogma.

[montypython]

Strangely enough I see quite a bit of the anarcho-libertarian fallacies in fantasy stories yet are portrayed as being a 'natural' order of things, however destructive these are to people.

[Samuel]

Now, there are a host of assumptions that go into this -- not least that consumers are rational operators, etc. But the idea is very simple and appealing, and, unlike communism, this model actually works crudely.

Communism does work crudely. That's why Marx and Engels pointed to religious communes as examples, and why it's named after such communes. Communism is limited by human physiology, though. Our "monkeysphere" only reaches to about 150 people, which is in line with brain-body ratios and group sizes with the other great apes.

Depends on what you mean by "works crudely". The Soviet Union managed to work... of course if you mean communism where they abolished money, than no. Lenin tried that and the results were... poor.

Strangely enough I see quite a bit of the anarcho-libertarian fallacies in fantasy stories yet are portrayed as being a 'natural' order of things, however destructive these are to people.

I guess I should parrot my usual answer to this kind of question. Hobbes Leviathan. It isn't perfect by any means and his end conclusion has problems but the Hobbesian State of Nature is the libertarian ideal world in real form. Life is nasty, brutish, and ultimately short. The end.

Or, in other words it IS the natural state of things. Governments, the social contract, cosmopolitanism, humanism... none of these are "natural".
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Of course, given that most fantasy takes place in Middle Ages replicas, having it libertarian is ridiculously insane.

[Darth Wong]

Nevertheless, small-scale communes work just fine. What small-scale anarchist societies exist? Even in a unit as small as a family, there are individuals in charge, enforcing rules. Even social clubs have rule enforcement.

[montypython]

Now, there are a host of assumptions that go into this -- not least that consumers are rational operators, etc. But the idea is very simple and appealing, and, unlike communism, this model actually works crudely.

Communism does work crudely. That's why Marx and Engels pointed to religious communes as examples, and why it's named after such communes. Communism is limited by human physiology, though. Our "monkeysphere" only reaches to about 150 people, which is in line with brain-body ratios and group sizes with the other great apes.

Depends on what you mean by "works crudely". The Soviet Union managed to work... of course if you mean communism where they abolished money, than no. Lenin tried that and the results were... poor.

Strangely enough I see quite a bit of the anarcho-libertarian fallacies in fantasy stories yet are portrayed as being a 'natural' order of things, however destructive these are to people.

I guess I should parrot my usual answer to this kind of question. Hobbes Leviathan. It isn't perfect by any means and his end conclusion has problems but the Hobbesian State of Nature is the libertarian ideal world in real form. Life is nasty, brutish, and ultimately short. The end.

Or, in other words it IS the natural state of things. Governments, the social contract, cosmopolitanism, humanism... none of these are "natural".
\
Of course, given that most fantasy takes place in Middle Ages replicas, having it libertarian is ridiculously insane.

I meant to say 'natural' in the sense of being presented or implied as more ideal than having the aforementioned social structures and ideas like humanism.

[Zixinus]

Of course, given that most fantasy takes place in Middle Ages replicas, having it libertarian is ridiculously insane.

Most fantasies try to have set pieces of the medieval ages (castles, swords, bows), but actually are set in a world not really structured according to the genuine medieval structures and models (at least not in any of the fantasy I've read). Rather, it is the idealised world and since a good deal of fantasy authors are American, libertarian mindset is bound to sink in.

[Surlethe]

Now, there are a host of assumptions that go into this -- not least that consumers are rational operators, etc. But the idea is very simple and appealing, and, unlike communism, this model actually works crudely.

Communism does work crudely. That's why Marx and Engels pointed to religious communes as examples, and why it's named after such communes. Communism is limited by human physiology, though. Our "monkeysphere" only reaches to about 150 people, which is in line with brain-body ratios and group sizes with the other great apes.

That's a fair point. Actually, for small groups, communism is a much better description of society, value derived, etc., than basic free-market economics in its stomping ground. I should note that by "crude model", I mean something like "when price goes up, quantity demanded declines".

[Rye]

Depends on what you mean by "works crudely". The Soviet Union managed to work... of course if you mean communism where they abolished money, than no. Lenin tried that and the results were... poor.

I meant it works on a small scale but doesn't extrapolate to nation-sizes properly.

[K. A. Pital]

I should note that by "crude model", I mean something like "when price goes up, quantity demanded declines".

That's just a model of economic interactions. It's a circular logical model though - "price goes up, quantity demanded declines" is only true when demand is defined in the economic sense of "effective demand" - including only those transactions where people are willing and able to pay the price. The rest of the demand is still there, but the people lack the means to realize it, making it "ineffective demand". The balance between effective and ineffective demand is shifting dependent on price, whilst the overall demand follows more complex rules than that.