Responding to Libertarianism

[Oswy]

Libertarians are scary. Among other things, they advocate defending the rights of people to torture their pets (because pets are 'property' and the owner should have absolute rights to do what they like with that property) and the advocate the rights of people to make racial verbal attacks on the basis that it is a 'freedom of speech' issue.

Anyway, libertarians keep coming up with ideas like 'self ownership' and 'rights' to defend these things. What is the best way to address these concepts?

[Demogorgon]

TO a libertarian "rights" and "sel ownership" are slogans that they use in the belief it justifies their views, even though they mostly don't understand them. Ask them what rights are. Get silly if you want asking them where they are or what they are made of. Anything to upset their attempt to beg the question and try to claim they are self evident. THey might appeal to metaphysics. Show them why that is junk. THey might if they are weak arguers appeal to the US constitution (!). Tell them you aren't American (even if you are), that will upset their argument. They might appeal to God, though that is unlikely. Use atheistic arguments n that case. Ask them why the rights they claim exist so conveniently match their political prejudices exactly.

As dfor self-ownershi[p. Try and get them to define what it means. Ask them if it entails slavery (if you pown something you can sell it, hence if you own yourself you can sell yourself). If they say no then they don't believe in self ownership. If they say yes, then again they don't believe in it for obvious reasons (see how the argument is contradictory). Try to get them to define exactly how you get from self ownership to their position. THey will make huge leaps of logic and rhetorical flourishes to do so. Trip them up each time they do.

Really if you get a Libertarian trying to make these kinds of arguments not even bringing economics in then you have a complete gift because their argument will be a non starter

[MT5678]

Libertarianism is not an ideology, but a religion. All they want to do is deregulate and deregulate so the companies can better exploit people.

The next time you see one of these priests:

Be sure to bring up Nicaragua under Chamorro (post-Sandinista) as an example of the horros of unchecked markets.

Pinochet is good, too: his neoliberal pillage has been resoundingly discredited.
Find some statistics, like: Real wage down 40%, economic output decline almost 20%, extreme oligopolization of industries (this is real).

Brazilian National Security State from 1964 to 1980-something.

Indonesia under Suharto.

Be sure to mention the nasty power politics of neoliberalism as well. All these cases fit the bill.

Bring up real world cases: this will shatter their free-market fantasies.

As Demagorgon stated, libertarians know nothing about economics. So just bring up these cases.

Inevitably, a libertarian will start talking about how "competition will lead to super-efficiency". A few real world cases should solve this trouble. If they mention school vouchers and efficiency...well, I started a thread about this in OI.

Oh yeah...in case they turn the tables and start attacking socialism, be sure that you are fluent in Marxist apologetics.

We are correct. These fetishistic neoliberal cultists are not.

[Great Helmsman]

How do you respond to libertarians? You don't.

[Killer Enigma]

Pinochet is good, too: his neoliberal pillage has been resoundingly discredited.
Pinochet was regarded for being one of the few authoritarian neoliberals, utilizing immense governmental force to keep markets as free as possible. He cannot be used as an example of a libertarian.

[MT5678]

But you said it yourself: keep markets as free as possible.

And if our libertarian in question knows about Pinochet's authoritarian ways, ask them: how else would they impose their free-market neoliberalism? It usually (ok, almost always) takes place in the context of nasty power politics.

Contest our cultist libertarian friend with that. Talk to him about "failed states" and how libertarian free-market states have all failed their people.

After all this, you explain how neoliberal pillage is a direct corrolary of the ideology. Should be easy enough.

Oh yeah, be prepared for him to contest you on "failed" socialist states. If this comes up, be sure to talk about how if these regimes "failed", they did so due to revolutionary model problems and implementation troubles.

We can easily discredit these libertarians.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Herein lies the flaw of libertarianism- the failure to understand that private property owes its existence to the state. Other than this, I remember informing a libertarian that if he wanted to see Lassaiz faire in action, he should see Russia today. Of course there is always some muttering about how there is government intervention here or there so it is not "true" capitalism. They continually move the goalposts until capitalism is a utopian state that has never existed. Kind of like a mirror image of Trots I guess.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

For-profit elderly homes are wonderful. When allowing customers to die is more profitable than taking their money, run. :rolleyes:

[Killer Enigma]

But you said it yourself: keep markets as free as possible.
The difference is everything. Pinochet believed in immense economic freedom but did so via social control and authoritarianism. Libertarians believe in less government involvement in all matters, including social control. They would prefer the reigns to be simply turned over to businesses. Most libertarians actively support labor unions, also. They digress on matters pertaining to the state and government.

You ought to revise some of your arguments before attempting to use them in an actual debate. Straw man arguments and drawing extremes from statements do nothing to help your side.

[MT5678]

Yes, you're probably right.

But then here is the point: the libertarian theory is fundamentally flawed. We know-and history has vindicated us-that private property shall go on to subvert the state to its designs (Marx, Communist Manifesto, Part 1).

Incidentally, supporters and sponsors of the Pinochet coup included oligopolistic firms such as International Telephone and Telegraph and Anaconda Copper.

I heard that some anarchist group bombed ITT a year after the coup in revenge. :D

Another thing: perhaps you can give me a description of the libertarian religion: post it here, i hardly check my PM.

[Marxist1917]

One of the best ways to argue with a Libertarian is to point out how they completely ignore the class distinctions in capitalism. This willful ignorance allows them to assume that property rights are beneficial to all, when in reality it is beneficial only to a small minority.

[Patchd]

There's one who I'm arguing with on a gay forum, and he's very very very arrogant.


Palachinov, judging by your signature and posts, you seem like an intelligent boy going through a silly phase. If you're in favor of allowing anyone to do whatever they want so long as no force is imposed, then you're really in the wrong camp. The libertarians are waiting for you -- come, come to us! (We need more members to look viable!)

Of course, to be a libertarian, you'd have to like, you know, understand how the free market works (in other words: have a basic understanding of economics), and anyone silly enough to label themselves a "Communist" doesn't understand economics. It's really not even market forces that Communists don't understand: it's just economics, period.
...just remember to keep your cool during debates, the first to act rashly will be the first to falter.

[MT5678]

I am unfamiliar with libertarian religion? Do you mean libertarian outlooks on God, various faiths, etc.?

By libertarian religion, I am alluding to Noam Chomsky's continual reference of neoliberal capitalists as a "priesthood" which merely preaches the values of markets while ignoring their implementation and their actual effects.

I would say that Year 501 is an excellent resource to counter bourgeois lies. Just be sure to supplement it with some of your own research, because the book i almost 15 years old.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Self-ownership makes absolutely no sense. You are yourself. If you own yourself that means you can be bought and sold, be trivialized like just another item.

[Easterbrook]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 01:54 am
Self-ownership makes absolutely no sense. You are yourself. If you own yourself that means you can be bought and sold, be trivialized like just another item.
I think libertarians would agree with your third sentence.

In a capitalist society, a worker contracts to "sell" his or her labor for $XX.XX per hour (or year); a prostitute contracts to "lease" his or her body to a customer for some price.

Of course, to them this makes 100% sense.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 11:59 pm
There's one who I'm arguing with on a gay forum, and he's very very very arrogant.


Palachinov, judging by your signature and posts, you seem like an intelligent boy going through a silly phase. If you're in favor of allowing anyone to do whatever they want so long as no force is imposed, then you're really in the wrong camp. The libertarians are waiting for you -- come, come to us! (We need more members to look viable!)

Of course, to be a libertarian, you'd have to like, you know, understand how the free market works (in other words: have a basic understanding of economics), and anyone silly enough to label themselves a "Communist" doesn't understand economics. It's really not even market forces that Communists don't understand: it's just economics, period.
...just remember to keep your cool during debates, the first to act rashly will be the first to falter.
It is a deeply ironic quote, because Libertarianism really is the ultimate silly phase for teenagers who think they are smart to go through.

That silly talk of understanding economics is pretty spectacular unintentional humour. To be sure you do get supporters of free-market capitalism who can quote economics at you until they are blue in the face. But most of these so calle dLibertarians don't have the first clue how it works. After all Government intervention is one of the absoute most important features of capitalism and they want to see it as not being capitalist. Says it all.

Mind you quite a lot on the left are a bit weak on the side of economics too, but for those on the Libertarian side to criticise that is the ultimate case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[syndicat]

They are interested in the idea of "self-ownership" for two reasons. First, because if you own yourself, you can rent or sell yourself, as in the labor market. Some Right-libertarians argue that slavery is legitimate because people can and have sold themselves into slavery voluntarily if they are desperate enough.

Seondly, they want to maintain that property is a natural right, independent of laws and the state, not merely a package of legal rights. The way to reply in regard to "freedom of contract" is that you have to consider the context a person makes an agreement in. Market exchanges are most often not made between equals. When you rent your ability to work to a capitalist firm, you are dealing with a class monopoly of the capitalists over the means of production and the firm has vastly more power to hold out than workers do if workers were to refuse their offers. The relationship of workers to employers is unfree for two reasons: People are forced to sell their time to employers to live, and they must do what management says, they lose their right to self-management, control over the use of their working abilities in the capitalist firm. But control over one's life is what freedom is. Since the Right-libertarians say that rights of owners of productive property come first, they're really propertarians. Liberty isn't really their first concern. Or, to put the same point another way, they are concerned with the liberty of capitalists, not the liberty of the working class or the oppressed.

Left-libertarians are by contrast interested in the liberty of the working class and the oppressed.

[Oswy]

Thank you for all the replies - they have given me plenty of new scope to respond to libertarianism.