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One thing I don't understand about advocating what are called 'markets' from a left perspective: suppose we agree that right-wingers aren't being honest when they say they are for free-markets, because they actually favor propertarianism (or corporatism, or whatever). Wouldn't that imply that although they are dishonest, that the LP is cloest to true freedom exactly because they advocate semi-free-markets?
But in advocating those free-markets, they're promoting some of the worst types of inequality imaginable, a form of tyranny that exploits the workers etc. etc. (The evidence here is just overwhelming even from a liberal, or mainstream, social science perpective.)
I support freedom on the basis that there are no unnatural hierarchies, and if there is a hierarchy, it better have a damn good reason for existing. Not this "they mixed the labor with their resources a hundred years ago" when it was really govt. creating a system in which they could succeed over everybody else.
So you can see where I'm going with this.
Does LP stand for Libertarian Party? Yes they are being dishonest, and they aren't really advocating true freedom. Semi-free-markets, which is what we have now, still count on inequality of opportunity to continue exploitation.
Well, they are not advocating really free markets, just a "freer" status quo.Originally Posted by IcarusAngel
agreedOriginally Posted by IcarusAngel
To speculate is human; to hedge, divine
[FONT=Arial]The Libertarian Party is a confusing blend of different ideologies suppressed under the majority's paleoconservative Godhead. I don't know if one could define the Libertarian Party as being the "closest to freedom," because I'm not aware of all the fragmented third parties that exist, and I tend to uphold freedom to do instead of freedom from restraint (otherwise all possessions run into a problem of enforcement issues). Is the LP platform "freer" than the Republican, Constitutionalist, Green, and Democratic alternatives? Probably.
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That's one department where distinctions can be made. I don't necessarily have a clear idea as to what constitutes "anarchism" because, again, you run in to the issue of possession being a necessary limitation on a different person's freedom, but I tend to think of it as minimizing authority to the smallest degree possible. Meaning that for some authoritarian situations a larger authority must get involved to suppress the issue. While me laying down in a pocket of sand technically intrudes on your ability to move wherever you want, pushing me aside or even going so far as killing me is a larger authoritarian act. On the flip side, stripping an abusive parent of their children actually limits the existence of authority.
Of course that has no positive quantities to it, all normative...
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[FONT=Arial]It depends on what you mean by freedom. If freedom means freedom for the land owners, then yes, Libertarianism provides more freedom than the Democrats and even than the Republicans, since the land owners could do things they couldn't do under Republican administrations, and the smaller land owners wouldn't be as harmed by the state.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]If freedom means provding people with more choices, access to a higher quality of living, more transparency in government, more voting options, the ability to change the law, then Libertarian Party would be anti-freedom. Plutocrats, monarchists, and other elite rulers believe in freedom for themselves, not in freedom for the majority. Freedom for the majority is 'democracy' as the ancient philosophers described it, and that is what I would call freedom.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]If there must be 'authorities,' it gives the people in authority more options on how they would actually gain their authority - not just in manipulating markets. And of course, by leftist theory, no one would ever have enough authority to actually force people to submit themselves to it.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]Yes. It is pretty easy to tell what is and what isn't a hierarchy.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]Yes. Property is an authoritarian issue. That means the government has to get involved when the business owners start to become more oppressive. That would indicate that the Democrats and the Greens are right, especially the greens, giving that they want to expand local communities, free up the airwaves, punish corporate crime, and on and on.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]Of course, if the ultimate goal is elimination of these landed rulers, then it really doesn't matter which one is 'freer.' But it does matter to people's lives today, and I wouldn't want to return to a gilded age society.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]If you went onto someone else's land that he acquired (ignoring how he got it), him pushing you off it would be a slightly less authoritarian act because he is defending himself against your aggression. You would be the ''first push' in the situation. If he shoots you, he has overstepped his bounds. In most every state in the country it's illegal to shoot someone for stealing a tire, for example. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial]If the guy declares a thousand acres to be his property, then he is committing a huge authoritarian act. Why not just declare the whole world his property? It makes much more sense to work together as a community, and given that all property is ultimiately different, it makes sense to deal with property on a case by case basis, not on a philosophical basis that holds no basis in reality.[/FONT]
