Hacker News Reader

Comment by guelo | Hacker News Reader

I find radical libertarian ideology more childish and ahistorical than socialism. A strong state is a miracle that has enabled humanity's most amazing achievements. There is almost no history of societies without a strong state because without a strong state humanity has proven time and again that it is unable to achieve much more than violent tribalism.

View on HN

The State is a parasite that feeds off the productive class. People have been prospering as a result of technology and the market in spite of the state.

> "There is almost no history of societies without a strong state"

Umm, what about the Renaissance which happened in relatively small & weak Italian city-states.

Human beings have always lived in organized societies, and indeed cannot survive without them.

Once you move from foraging to agriculture, inevitably it leads to large states. The only question is how much power the state will have. There has never been a large society in which the state has as little power as the libertarians wish, and I doubt there ever will be.

As to the market and modern technology, they exist only because there is a state to guarantee things like paper money and contracts, and to sponsor scientific research and also new technologies like the internet.

Organized society != State. Agriculture does not require a large state. Just because we haven't had a large society without the state doesn't mean it isn't possible. Money can be provided without government paper, for instance Bitcoin. Contracts can be make without the government, for example etherium. Anarcho-captitalism provides a framework for which contract enforcement can be provided in a distributed p2p fashion. People may still pool their resources to sponsor scientific research and new technologies. Considering that people are willing to do these things nowadays means that people will still be willing to do these things without a state.

Laughable. Strong states exists off satellite cultures, until they collapse from the plaque of stupid that grows around their weak inbreed elite.

What does libertarianism do to avert the breeding of "weak elites"? it seems to me that it is a justification of accumulation of wealtha nd social power and therefore would be even worse in terms of enabling inbred dumb elites coasting on accumulated power

Reply on news.ycombinator.com