X-Message-Number: 22931
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:01:11 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Libertarianism

Jerry Searcy, #22918, says

>The type of government proposed by libertarians, to a certain extent has been
>tried. It was what came out of the constitutional convention back in the
>eighteenth century...not exactly libertarian as I imagine it, but fairly
>close.


To me it wasn't that close. Yes, the federal government was more limited 
back then, but there was no Constitutional provision specifically aimed at 
enforcing a libertarian system. Toward that end, an amendment to the 
Constitution could have been enacted that would have forbidden laws 
restricting the freedom of citizens in good standing, save for the 
prevention of harm to others (this being Mill's principle). This would have 
covered force, fraud, and the rest. Such an amendment should also have made 
clear that the citizen in good standing would be the final arbiter of what 
constitutes harm done to him/herself, so that consensual acts would be 
permitted. Finally, it should have clarifed what constitutes "good 
standing." Mainly, one should be of majority age, not adjudicated mentally 
incompetent, and not currently under legal restraints such as serving a 
sentence for a crime. Some further clarifications would have been needed, 
but this is the idea. As it happens, Mill himself wasn't born yet, and his 
principle may not have come to mind in its full flower even among the 
progressives of the Constitutional Convention, who did, in fact, do a great 
service relative to existing governments of the time.

But my main point is that I don't think a real libertarian system has been 
tried yet, _and succeeded_, showing it really is something that can work, 
and work better than alternatives. I remain highly sympathetic to 
libertarianism and Mill's principle in particular, but again question 
whether these ideas will work in pure form, given human nature as it is. 
Jerry comments: "Yes, there is something in human nature that resist this 
type of government. It is called ignorance and disregard for the rights of 
others." He further comments, in #22921, "From the dawn of civilization 
humans have been trading with each other. That is natural. Unfortunately, 
the rulers quickly discovered they could garner support from the parasites 
among us in return for stealing loot from the basket of prosperity created 
by the free market then redistributing some of it to the parasites." In the 
U.S., though, the "rulers" are elected by the people. Apparently the voting 
majority, which must include the producers as well as the parasites, is not 
sufficiently moved to feel that a Mills-type amendment must be put into 
law. It strikes me too that dividing society in this way (producers versus 
parasites) is problematic, since there is no doubt much in the way of gray 
areas, overlap, difficulties of interpretation, and so on. For instance, is 
a scientist who works under an NIH grant, and who does brilliant and useful 
work, a producer or a parasite? What if his work is brilliant, but only 
starts having uses 20 years from now, or 50 years from now?

As for what features of human nature might run counter to libertarianism, I 
can imagine one being the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, 
understood as the idea that people are more interested in looking out for 
their own families and furthering their genes than in others who are not 
carrying their genes. So indeed there is not unlimited respect for the 
rights of others, and parasitism, coercion, stealing, and so on are 
strategies some will try and get away with and many others may tolerate, 
especially in some of their subtler and less clear-cut forms. As long as we 
are still human we may be stuck with this kind of problem. Another thought 
is that religion plays an important part in the lives of many people, 
particularly in the U.S., and some of the non-libertarian laws are strongly 
endorsed by religious beliefs (laws against prostitution, for instance). 
Religion too is tied in with survival--societal and cultural survival in 
particular, but ultimately getting back to the survival of people and their 
genes. So here again is something clearly connected with being human, and 
which could stay with us as long as we are in that form.

Jerry continues, in #22921, "the alternative to a free market, taken to is 
extreme, was demonstrated by th U.S.S.R. and is now on exhibit in North 
Korea and Cuba. Move there!!" But I think it's worth emphasizing that an 
alternative to pure libertarianism is _not_ necessarily "taken to its 
extreme," nor does it put one's society, inevitably, on a course to such an 
extreme. In between is probably an equilibrium point.

Mike Perry

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