Talk:Libertarianism

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Significant rewrite needed

To be frank, this article is currently a mess. Different sections contradict themselves: see the Critical definition section (more or less correctly) citing the NAP as the moral basis for libertarianism, and later sections saying that the moral basis of libertarianism is utilitarianism. These two things can't both be true at the same time, since the NAP is not a utilitarian principle.

As another example, see the tone difference between the Tendency towards bigotry section and the rest of the article. The very first sentence of that section decries that libertarianism "does not denote an anti-government philosophy as much as a co-optation of left-wing anti-authoritarianism as a means of justifying (or simply denying) the social and economic hierarchies under capitalism under the guise of freedom.", which not only commits an ad hominem fallacy of appealing to motive (they only say these things in order to justify/deny hierarchies!), but also tacitly assumes that social and economic hierarchies under capitalism must be a morally bad thing and must be antithetical to freedom, which can hardly be trivially assumed. It also directly contradicts earlier parts of the article, which gave an overview of different sorts of libertarianism and stated that it was a big tent ideology united only by its distrust of government, and not some right-wing conspiracy to co-opt left-wing authoritarianism.

Probably the most hilarious self-contradiction is within a single sentence: the last sentence of the Inspiration sentence identifies argumentum ad cellarium as a fallacy, and then immediately goes on to endorse said fallacy by citing a lengthy comment comparing libertarians to basement-dwellers and commenting that, indeed, the concerns of libertarians do precisely mirror that of basement-dwelling teenagers.

As it stands, the article needs a significant rewrite to clear up inconsistencies like this, as well as reduce the obvious ideological bias of the authors seeping through some of the sections that can't be covered under SPOV in even the most charitable of interpretations. MistressOfTheMoon (talk) 04:51, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

To-do

Before trying to get it promoted, I thought I'd write a list of what needs improvement. Essentially, it has 44 references, way to little for an article of this length, leaving unsourced swaths. Please fix it. --Andrew5 (talk) 00:29, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Yep, class struggle. Class struggle, Carl!

It seems that RW is really turning into not just a leftist, but a Marxist garbage dump. The whole article is extremely moralizing and is written with hatred for the market and freedom. Well, where, WHERE do the Marxists get the fucking theses that capitalism purposefully oppresses some groups? Answer one simple question: if the capitalists tear their asses for profit, how do they pay women less? Here or - or! Your "welfare" whine to libertarians ignores the simple fact that your morality is not the only option. Libertarians simply have a different morality. They have no goal of caring for the "general welfare". For them, the state PRINCIPALLY should do nothing but protect the freedoms of the citizen, because the intervention of the state WILL VIOLATE, BITCH, FREEDOM, you fucking assholes! To the question "what about the work, they pay little everywhere" answer me the question: who pays your salary? "A person still has no choice, because he needs to eat and work" - the SAME PEOPLE, like you, give work! The capitalists are not saurians from Nibiru, they came from the same people as everyone else! How many years have we been hearing whining about "monopolization", back in 1917 Lenin proclaimed that the "concentration of capital" has ended, it can be nationalized. Why is this "monopolization" still not completed? Here's what I want to say: I'm from a post-Soviet country. The USSR was a POOR country in which they wiped themselves with newspapers, and a man with rolls of toilet paper on the street aroused admiration and envy. Everything that Hoppe writes about DDR, I saw with my own eyes. And trust me, you don't want to go there. The Bolsheviks littered the entire middle zone of Eastern Europe with hogweed. The largest environmental disasters have occurred in communist countries. There was a cellulose plant, which no one needed for a long time, but they could not close it, because people would have to be fired, so it littered the entire ecology with waste! Yes, there are many pictures where during the Great Depression milk was poured into pits, but in GD NOT A SINGLE person died of starvation, and under Stalin 2 million people were starved to death! You probably really believe that Fox News morons are spreading conspiracy theories about beautiful communism. Yes, Fox News is morons. But look with your own eyes at any Marxist regime, and if you are honest with yourself, you will become anti-communist. Nothing leftish works and will never work. I said everything. ^{— Unsigned, by: 188.187.129.41 / talk / contribs}

Yes you 'said everything', including a meltdown in the middle, before barely regaining your composure. You apparently don't see the contradiction you concluded your rant with, which was to tell us all how terrible communism is, and conclude from that that, "Nothing leftish works". So because the extreme of something doesn't work, a moderate version can't. That's just extreme in itself, and not pragmatic. Who cares if libertarians have a different set of 'morals', as you claim, what matters is what happens when you implement boneheaded ideas, and libertarianism is one of the most boneheaded rigid ideologies imaginable. If you try to make libertarianism anything close to workable you have to make allowances for social infrastructure, which is antithetical to libertarianism, so it can't be done. Rational people are sick of having to wade through hoards of homeless people when they dare to venture out of their homes. Do you really think we're stupid enough to blame communists for all the shit we have to put up with in this ultra-capitalist society, where boneheaded libertarians who have the power to vote are hardly a rarity? Where billions of dollars is spent by billionaires to promote right-wing stupidity? If you libertarians had your way the already out of control homeless population would increase a hundredfold, and I'm already sick enough of tent shantytowns in every park in my city. Like I said, we don't care about your morals, your fantasies, or your auto-erotic methodologies. We don't even care about your stupidity until you demand the rules be tailored to suit your destructive naivety, which is why we call it out in articles like this one. If our western countries ever turn into 'communist' regimes, we'll deal with the problems those create if and when it ever happens. Right now we can't even keep up with the problems right-wingnuts perpetually foist on us. There are hundreds of Republicans elected to various levels of government who publicly iddentify as 'libertarian', whereas there is not a single successful politician calling himself a 'communist'. So what do you suppose is the greater threat? Here's an idea, why don't you try mustering some courage for a change, and join us, rather than doing all you can to signal your masters that you are the most diligent conformist you can be? FairDinkum (talk) 10:17, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Question

To what extent is libertarianism more likely to produce 'the tragedy of the commons' than other systems? Anna Livia (talk) 13:47, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

It depends of the level of libertarianism. If we're talking about Ayn Rand levels of libertarianism, I'd say the same as socialism. While I'm skeptical of the horseshoe theory, I think it works in some cases, this is one of them. Armen Alchain, perhaps the greatest microeconomist that didn't get the Nobel Memorial Prize wrote about how socialism leads to the tragedy of the commons too. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 14:15, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Adam Smith and economics in general

Adam Smith was not for "relatively" free markets but for free markets, period. Someone with a background in economics should go through this article, as it is really a mess in that respect. Also, libertarianism is for well defined property rights, which reduce the tragedy of commons. Many other misconceptions abound.... ^{— Unsigned, by: 142.1.13.84 / talk / contribs}

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. Carthage (talk) 22:03, 23 April 2024 (UTC)