The easiest way to show this is just ask some woke stars on their views of libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves.
One of the more ridiculous ideas to come out of this is that “everything is a human construct”. For example, it appears to be a woke idea that mathematics, science is some human (more specifically, white) invention and we should explore “alternative mathematics” or “alternative science”. Perhaps a new (and most importantly less oppressive) scientific method is right around the corner.
Like a long forgotten music video that you talked about with all your friends, most of these ideas will end up with no relevance and are completely meaningless. Wokeness is primarily an attention-seeking social phenomenon where influencers can tell you the new hot woke which you can mention later to impress your friends or get a date.
Do you have a source for this? I’ve never heard of either of these terms, the closest being the “alternative facts” of one of Trump’s press secretaries.
At some point - once an adult - you have to call bollocks when you see it.
Signed,
A person who can speak five languages.
"This tool provides teachers an opportunity to examine their actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics. The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by making visible the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture (Jones and Okun 2001; dismantling Racism 2016) with respect to math. Building on the framework, teachers engage with critical praxis in order to shift their instructional beliefs and practices towards antiracist math education. By centering antiracism, we model how to be antiracist math educators with accountability."
Math teachers need to know (1) math; and (2) how to teach it.
The argumet is that this falls into the second category.
I am not claiming to have read any evidence that it is effective, or even that there is any. I do think this shallow dismissal is improper.
That sounds a bit unfair, especially considering that anyone who would seriously try to provide such evidence would probably commit a career suicide, by being called a racist and cancelled.
* "Math should always have one answer and this idea that there could be different ways of doing things is evil and will corrupt our youth. Objective = one answer." Ugh. As a mathematician this is the one I hate the most. This is what led Pythagoreans to campaign against irrational numbers, some Catholics to campaign against imaginary numbers, some folks to react against distributions/generalized derivatives/generalized functions in analysis. The whole point of math, the whole creativity and beauty and opportunity for innovation, is to see how you can break the rules!! Hyperbolic and spherical geometry are not tools of the DeViL!!! Nor are they woke. David Brooks, get a frikkin education [1].
* "You shouldn't talk about race in math because math is objective." Math is a human activity, humans are embedded in society. Brown vs Board was decided within my parents' lifetime. Racial segregation was the official policy of many educational institutions for most of US history and students will come with different educational histories. When you're teaching, you want to connect with students and you want to trace the intellectual history of the topic. It is more intellectually honest to acknowledge the unfairness of history than pretend it doesn't exist, and for students to understand the intertwined evolution of mathematics and technology they must understand historical context as well. When you're trying to motivate kids, especially, role models and stories from history and today can be useful, which is why ET Bell published Men of Mathematics [2] which inspired folks like Freeman Dyson, and we today include Power in Numbers by Talithia Williams, Mathematically Gifted and Black at https://mathematicallygiftedandblack.com/, Lathisms at https://www.lathisms.org/, Mathematicians of the African Diaspora at https://www.mathad.com/home, and more. There's not much point in dwelling on race/gender/sexuality, but intentional censorship (pretending Alan Turing wasn't gay, pretending Elbert Frank Cox had equal employment opportunities) is deeply dishonest.
* "Math should not be a tool for social justice." Um, what should it be? As I wrote in my other comment on this thread, everything is a tool. Math is a tool for justice, for oppression, for carpentry, for art, for software design, for computer games, for gerrymandering and anti-gerrymandering. As a mathematician I just want everyone to have access to this tool, rather than only some people! The idea that education can help people and society better them/itselves is not new. Check out the work of Bob Moses during the Civil Rights Movement [3]. It's a good read as everyone in America agrees the Civil Rights Movement was Good but many of those people believe "wokeness" is Bad -- because the concept of wokeness is also a tool used for many purposes. The argument is just over how people get to use this tool and who gets to use it.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/this-is-how-woken...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_Mathematics
[3] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/206027/radical-equa...
> For decades, America’s schools have tried and failed to close gaps on math test scores between White students and students of color. That’s not because math discriminates by race, and it’s not because some groups of students are inherently more suited to math. It’s because we give students of color and students from lower-income families the least access to critical resources, from the most qualified teachers to the best technology to the most advanced courses. And it’s because instructional materials and practices—even good ones—are influenced by culture and perspective.
> When we think narrowly about teaching math, we create barriers for students; we allow them to fall into the trap of thinking they’re “not a math person.” But the truth is we can all be “math people.” The goal of “A Pathway to Equitable Mathematics Instruction” is to engage as many students as possible in not just solving math problems but understanding math concepts so they can apply them across a wide range of real-world applications. Math problems, of course, have correct answers. But students can arrive at the right answer without understanding the bigger concept or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong.
> The toolkit was written by educators, and it doesn’t tell teachers how to do their job—it asks them to think about how they do it. For example, when we ask students to show their work, we should think about how and why. The point should be to have a dialogue about their process and their learning, not require every student to follow the exact same path to the right answer. A child of immigrants might have learned a different way to solve a problem because that’s how their parents were taught where they grew up. If we just tell that student their way is the wrong way, we risk turning them off to math for life. If we take the opportunity to explore why there are different ways to approach the same problem, it can be a learning moment for the entire class
There are many post-positivist research traditions in many fields that you will be able to look up and read more about if you are interested in specific citations and authors that do this kind of work.
> School district leaders in Seattle, Washington recently released a proposal to incorporate ethnic studies in the mathematics curriculum at all levels from kindergarten through grade 12. This initiative is part of an ongoing redesign of the district’s entire core subject curricula based on identity politics. The plan will be reviewed and voted on by the school board before the next academic year.
> Published by an Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee (ESAC), the new math curriculum is based on four major themes. These do not include, as one might think, numerical literacy, logic and problem-solving, or reasoning by analogy. Instead, the framework for K-12 will be Origins, Identity, and Agency, identified as “the ways in which we view ourselves as mathematicians”; Power and Oppression, based on the “disenfranchisement” of “people and communities of color”; History of Resistance and Liberation, the “stories, places and people who helped liberate people and communities of color using math, engineering and technology”; and Reflection and Action, urging young people to identify “mathematicians of color” and empower “their identities as mathematicians.”
Note the complete lack of 'math proficiency' theme. Fortunately it appears the proposal has not made it into the actual curriculum. https://www.seattleschools.org/departments/mathematics.
I don't know how to reconcile these two things. There are surely people stuck in environments for whom it completely describes their experience. But like the wokeness narratives themselves, there are also going to be people facing adversity for other reasons who end up misattributing their difficulties to "wokeness".
Perhaps it's just the same social bullying behavior there has always been, but couched in new criteria. Perhaps these new terms are just foreign to us (eg we're used to school bullying in terms of who plays football), and the overall situation is actually getting better. Or perhaps not.
I think in order to discuss it with the weight of a societal problem, there at least needs to be some measurable framework and resulting data showing effects and trends. To do otherwise is just stoking the identity politics dumpster fire.
Like any movement, I’m sure there are some valid points being made. And like any movement, this one appeals to some legit human needs: significance, connection, contribution, etc.
I think my main beef with wokeism is how disempowering it ends up being to an individual subscriber. The ideas being perpetuated (I am a victim, I am an oppressor but will now be a white savior) are useless and counterproductive in the real world.
The very sad and unfortunate thing is that some naive people are tying up their whole identities with this crap just to feel validated or connected to some group. No judgement, we all need those things. My concern is that they will end up figuring out way too late that internet points don’t pay the rent.
So yes, your criticism of wokeism is valid. The question is how relevant it is. You mention "some naive people". Yes, in a highly connected world of 8 billion people, some people are doing literally anything. The question is whether there is enough of a new trend to make for an actual concern, or whether it's being blown out of proportion and context. This matters because opposition to wokeness seems to be its own strain of identity politics.
We see the world through the lens of social media optimised to make us angry at other groups of people.
Most of the people I know are queer and extremely leftist, and they're all massively annoyed at some of the bullshit performative wokeness we see. It's only a very very small minority of people who actually behave like that.
It's like what the linked article mentions with only 4% of people actually caring about the use of latinx. You get angry at people pushing for this and think progressives are stupid, but actual progressives are also annoyed at it because they know it's going to be used as an excuse to make their communities look stupid.
Idk what's a good conclusion on all this but I'd just say, keep in mind that extreme stuff you see online is usually not reflective of any sizeable amount of people
And these people actually have power, as journalists, film directors, etc. they do set the talking points.
So I think it’s completely fair to react to this in a negative way, because it is actually happening.
It would be great if the normal woke minority would reject these people and stand up against them and say they are too extreme, but they don’t.
Libertarianism fails really hard in situations where you have a lot more overall prosperity if you limit everybody. Libertarianism misses these opportunities because of its blindness to anything but individual freedoms. In economic terms it mostly refuses to deal with the tragedy of the commons. And it likes to pretend negative externalities don't exist, or that the most free markets would make negative externalities magically disappear.
Let's get concrete with a real life example.
Air pollution will very likely shorten my life by a couple of years (if the science is to be believed). A very moderate libertarian might be willing to discuss preventative regulations, but the vast majority of libertarians' response is "oh well, you can only sue after the damage has been done". Which puts the entire burden on the victim and after preventable damage has already been done. It's too late.
It's far cheaper and more effective for me to support a government that stops them from damaging my health and stops them from inteferring with my freedom to breath clean air. The complaint from libertarians is that I'm interfering with their freedoms using the threat of government force. Damn right I am! Because the only thing that has worked over the decades to clean up the air I breath is government regulations interferring with the freedoms of car manufactures, and the freedoms of consumers to buy and operate excessively polluting vehicles. Along with government interference in other polluting industries. Government inference 1, free markets 0. If I could find viable candidates who would intefere and regulate at a much faster pace, they would get my vote. Because it increases a freedom I deeply value.
Libertarianism would be a lot more interesting if the libertarians I talk to were actually interested in my freedoms and priorities (which are often collective freedoms to enjoy a shared resource) instead of only being interested in maximizing individual freedoms and their own priorities.
As far as asking "woke stars on their views of libertarianism" can you give examples and sources?
All models are wrong, but some are useful
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night-watchman_state#Philosoph...
Minarchy as described in that article would do a very poor job of regulating negative externalities and the criticisms I made in my parent post still apply. I know it's a big world our there and I could probably find a minarchist or even a libertarian who has a reasonable take on regulation of negative externalities, but so far I've been consistently disappointed. And it's not like it's tough to find debates around these subjects.
For example, I’ve yet to meet a libertarian who cares about their carbon emissions, even though that affects everybody else via climate change. Same goes for coronavirus - they don’t care if they spread the disease to others, but they feel like it’s oppression if they have to wear a mask.
And the same goes for trampling on the feelings of others, or passively accepting that they’ve been given huge advantages over others in society. They feel like they should be able to do anything short of actually stealing from or hurting others physically, and don’t consider the subtle ways they impact others in society.
And you should read up about why the aclu did this, they say some very relevant things to today.
Nice neighborhood y'all have here, eh? It'd be a real shame if crime went up around here...
Something tells me you’ve yet to a meet a libertarian at all. Being held accountable for your pollution of others’ property is a tenant of libertarianism.
> Same goes for coronavirus - they don’t care if they spread the disease to others
This sounds quite the opposite of libertarianism. Hurting/killing others isn’t part of the ideology.
It sounds like you’re just describing people who don’t understand science, which has nothing to do with libertarianism.
If you are unaware of how resistant self-described “libertarians” are to wearing masks, taking vaccines, or reducing their carbon emissions, then you are the one who is ignorant.
If you want to say that those people are not true libertarians, fine, but I don’t see how you can pretend that relying on personal responsibility is actually effective.
You’re associating anti-science with libertarians, which is just lazy. Not poisoning and killing others is a pretty core tenant of individual liberty.
But sincerely thanks for being a better person than some of the libertarians that have a bigger audience. I appreciate you being super careful about your carbon emissions. I am curious though - do you simply leave carbon emissions to personal choice and hope that everyone is as respectful of our shared resources as you are?
The air we share and breath isn't "others' property" though is it?
Like the parent commenter, I've also met and debated many libertarians over the past couple of decades. I've yet to meet one who cares in the least bit about polluting the air I breath. Or if they do claim to care they offer solutions that history has proven to not work: just remove every last regulation and the magic of free markets will make abuse magically disappear. When the opposite is true. The very worst air pollution happened when there were no regulations.
It is. It can be modeled as shared property. Libertarianism does not imply you don’t believe in commons.
> I've yet to meet one who cares in the least bit about polluting the air I breath.
Well allowing pollution is a violation of property rights. So again, it sounds like you’re just debating people who don’t believe in pollution. You encounter anti-science regardless of market regulation ideology.
> just remove every last regulation and the magic of free markets will make abuse magically disappear. When the opposite is true.
No, a libertarian solution to this problem would be something like cap and trade. Use the government to enforce the protection of the air and then allow the free market for carbon credits to find the best solution.
> The very worst air pollution happened when there were no regulations.
Well China has terrible air pollution and far more regulations than the US. The government regulating every aspect of life is irrelevant if the government isn’t regulating the right things. Some of the worst atrocities in the last couple of centuries were done at the direction of a government authority.
It's already shared property by its very nature, so I'm not sure what the extra step of it being "modeled" as that does. But sure, let's do it. Can you explain how my air would no longer be polluted using this model? Or how pollution would at the very least be significantly reduced on a year by year basis until it is no longer polluted?
> Use the government to enforce
Wait, a libertarian asking for government regulations and enforcement? Not the libertarians I talk to. Unless they are very very moderate in their libertarian views. All the libertarians I talk to are against government regulations. They want free markets and insist that it's regulations cause all the problems and prevent free markets from functioning properly.
I also think that calling cap and trade a market solution is disingenuous. The important part of it is the cap. It does all the heavy lifting of achieving the actual goal of reducing carbon emissions. A cap without the trade would achieve the goal, although possibly would be politically unpopular. Trade without the cap would be meaningless.
So at very best its a hybrid solution. And not one that I'm against. Markets are good at some things. But without the cap itself, markets would do almost nothing to improve the situation. Or they would start when it's already far too late.
But the point is that I'm not libertarian and I think cap and trade is a reasonable approach. So do many people. So we are really talking about a very moderate libertarian stance in the case of cap and trade. Because again, the important part of it is the regulation part.
> Well China has terrible air pollution and far more regulations than the US.
How many regulations does China have compared to the US and what's your source?
When you look at a city like Beijing for example, the air pollution was so bad because you had literally millions of people individually burning coal for their personal heat. Personal and individual liberty at work.
When they banned heating coal (along with other measures), PM2.5 levels went from 89.5µg/m³ to 58µg/m³, a reduction of about 35%. Very quick and effective. Not very popular, but for everyone who values the freedom to breath clean air it was a quick and significant accomplishment that benefited everyone by limiting everyone These are the kinds of liberties that libertarianism fails hard at achieving. Because of the part where you have to limit everyone in one area to achieve an overall shared liberty in another area.
> if the government isn’t regulating the right things
Who determines what the right things are?
> Some of the worst atrocities in the last couple of centuries were done at the direction of a government authority.
That's the spirit! Exactly the kind of arguments I've heard from libertarians when they insist that regulations are the wrong approach and we must just trust that free markets will somehow sort it all out.
No, it isn't. Its core is to enforce private property rights? That will very likely not translate into "letting everyone be themselves".
If, to be yourself, you need to claim someone else property, then Libertrarians would say it goes against the core principles of liberty, because to execute this claim you exercise coertion.
But as long as you do not exert coercion on no one else, you're free to be yourself anyway you like.
Then they will hold a monopoly over necessary resources for a few generations until someone innovates around them.
You have to realize it’s a good thing to see others go without just to make sure I never have to share my excess wealth /s
He was an anarcho-communist and the first publisher of libertarian political texts.
Right-wing libertarianism is about a century younger, and e.g. people like Rothbard very intentionally tried to find common ground between what he saw as the anti-authoritarian parts of the left and the right, but was largely rebuffed by the left, where left-libertarians, many of whom are anarchists, saw the right-libertarian obsession with property rights as fundamentally incompatible with the goal of maximising liberty.
How can you make this claim when Frederick Bastiat was a contemporary of Dejacque's? Many of today's leading libertarian-minded thinkers (Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, etc.) consider Bastiat core to their beliefs and you can hear Bastiat's writings echoed in their works.
Libertarianism as such was founded as a rejection of "moderate" anarchism, and a more extensive rejection of authority than that of Proudhon, along with an absolute rejection of property rights as oppressive.
That he was later adopted by some right-wing libertarians does not mean he invented libertarianism. Many people toyed with similar ideas. Dejacque was the person who gave it a name and promoted it as an explicit ideology.
You'll also not that Bastiat did not take things nearly as far as Dejacque did. E.g. Bastiat argued in Justice and Fraternity even for limited state provided welfare, so he did not even go as far as many right-libertarians. But whatever the size, he argues for a state, not the total dismantling of the state, which was the origin of libertarianism.
As such, Bastiat looks libertarian to right-libertarians because they took left-wing libertarianism and gutted the commitment to liberty of Dejacque to add in state restrictions on liberty to enable property, and in doing so shifted the ideology far to the right. But he's far less libertarian by its original definition than e.g. an anarchist like Proudhon. To left-libertarians he's just another statist.
[1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...
I don't recall reading anything like state provided welfare in Justice and Fraternity. It has been a very long time since I've read it, but that sounds antithetical to some of his other writings which I've re-read more recently. I would be curious to see the specific passage.
To my knowledge, communal arrangements (like Dejacque seemingly favors) have not proven practical outside of relatively small communities.
You've got a silly proconception that mankind is endemically neurotic. Virtually every interaction you make throughout the day is self-organized, I'd conjecture the vast majority of it is done without direct, indirect, or conditioned coercion, and unsupervised. Multiply this by 7bn. That is to say that most all hierarchical authority isn't even preventative, and is almost exclusively reactionary, which further extends into reasoning that the "order" promised by the institutions is largely illusory outside of the directives offered, which could just as well be derived through any other system.
You see that historically libertarianism follows directly from classical liberalism. They just changed the name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
and the broader thread, in context, is traced here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
One point that may make the distinction clear is that in this sentence, from the article you linked: "During the mid-20th century, many with Old Right or classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as libertarians." The "Old Right" were opponents of Roosevelt, who himself sits at the base of the branch of what the "Liberalism" entry calls "Modern Liberalism"—but both are under the tent of liberalism, as were others then and earlier whose views did not line up with libertarianism.
Liberalism was not renamed libertarianism, even just in the US, and that's certainly not what's meant by liberalism internationally.
'Liberalism' as used when refering to Democratic Party policies in the US, is generally refered as social democracy or social liberalism in Europe.
Here's another source from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_Unite...
It's a core inconsistency of right-libertarianism that the artificial creation of property rights are taken as an exception that is elevated to something almost holy.
But because of the coercive nature of property rights, there isn't a country on earth that doesn't have huge carveouts to reduce their applicability. Ranging from zoning, to regulations of what you can do on your land to access rights and easements.
Some more than others. E.g. in Norway where I grew up, a private property owner can't deny you access to walk through forests or other non-urban land, nor can they deny you the right to forage or camp, as long as you're a certain distance from dwellings, as such restrictions have always been seen as undue restrictions on the liberties of the public to the point where it was for a long time the only uncodified area of Norwegian law, as it was seen as so inherently obvious it didn't need to be. Sweden has similar rights in their constitution.
But left-libertarians reject property rights entirely because they see it as entirely incompatible with liberty to apply coercion to exercise a claim of land at all by denying others access.
In practice, it means lack of government coercion because that's the easiest kind to oppose. Weaken government too much, and other forms of coercion will come to the fore. Changing that would require changing human nature though, so most libertarians prefer to turn a blind eye to it.
In any case, of cause, the reality is much more complicated, if there is a dispute over property rights or a form of coercion you go to court to decide who is right and who is wrong. Libertarianism is not anarchism. At the same time, in spite of all the complications of the real world, there is a clear difference in ideology between libertarianism and social democracy, for example. And one can claim the difference stems from the core principle where the two worldviews differ in certain values.
Or the exact opposite of slavery.
Private property IS coercion.
What exactly makes wealth such a sticking point in these arguments against libertarianism? It's not considered wrong to be "too" intelligent, or "too" handsome, or "too" strong. But for some reason using these qualities and abilities to obtain money, supposedly in excess of some "moral number" like $1B, results in being "too" wealthy and thus "wrong". Wealth and private property are a representation of value earned through choices made. I would think that one would want more value in his life not less. In a free market, value is generated by choosing to vote with one's dollar, gold bar, or bitcoin. Private property is NOT coercion. Coercion implies you own nothing and owe everything.
While choice is not without context, that context is individually determined by the one's interests and rational faculties. One doesn't know what he doesn't know. However a person still has the freedom to to take a calculated risk if he deems the payoff worth it. That a person doesn't need to know everything to exercise his agency is what demonstrates choice exists and is not simply the rationalization that you claim it is.
As far as ownership is concerned, why in your view is that direct or indirect coercion? Why is buying or owning something force?
You've made weird deductions and extrapolated on top of that then you reject that caricature you've created. That has never been stated.
It would be helpful if we can try to keep this in plain English.
> Either one has the agency to make and agree to a contract or one does not
People can have both agency and still use that agency into making an indirectly coerced "choice". The fact remain that it's coerced, and thus not particularly free as in freedom.
How are you defining coercion or assessing its presence in a given agreement? Ignorance? Being in want? Genetic differences?
When, in your view, are people not coerced?
Weren't the 19th century coal miners coerced by economic necessity to accept life threateningly bad working conditions?
Weren't the parents of the child laborers coerced by economic necessity?
How is this in any way shape or form even hard to understand and admit to?
> When, in your view, are people not coerced?
When one's general well being and access to necessities are not dependent on accepting the terms of the agreement.
No it’s not, it’s freedom from being coerced into doing things. Quite literally the opposite of slavery.
No you can’t violate people’s liberty like that. Come on Mike, you’re not that stupid. Don’t attack strawmen.
People will do with what they own, wether it be land or its inhabitants.
Your original categorization is apt in describing how property taxes and the USDA farm subsidies work, but not free enterprise.
In your view, is it acceptable that the USDA can dictate the prices of one's crops or put liens on someone's farm land for producing food in manner that isn't produced according to government dictates? Do you think that's the same as coming to an agreement with an equal on certain terms, even if one isn't necessarily happy with all of them?
The difference in practice is that someone can walk away from a deal, but no one can walk away from the government.
Why would you otherwise feel the need to rephrase it and are still unable to explain the practical difference?
> A deal isn't a coercive act. Having a metaphorical gun to one's head is to practice labor is.
Yes, and for the masses without property? I think I hinted at indirect coercion by "to feed yourself".
and I have no interests in going off into some USDA tangent.
Because your "definition" implies a lack of agency in an agreement between contracting parties. That is a practical difference and one that was noted in my last sentence which you either didn't read or avoided addressing. To quote: "The difference in practice is that someone can walk away from a deal, but no one can walk away from the government".
>Yes, and for the masses without property? I think I hinted at indirect coercion by "to feed yourself".
I read your statement as implying the usual anti-libertarian argument: property is coercion. I thought that the "to feed yourself" line was a throwaway example of a "limited" freedom "granted" by a property owner made to support your mistaken thesis that a top-down structure exists between individual parties freely engaging in a deal. My approach was to explain how property owners can't grant freedoms, as people have their freedoms or trade them for expedience, and that this top-down structure has, in the past and the present, implicitly and explicitly been practiced by government. I couldn't have read your statement in the way you implied simply because I've never conceived of any such claim being made seriously that choosing to feed oneself, whether one owns property or not, is evidence and a product of force. But now that you've made that clear, I can only say that it's ridiculous.
>and I have no interests in going off into some USDA tangent.
The USDA is not a tangent. It's an example of my point that someone without the ability to decide what do with his own property is better defined as coerced under your original phrasing. It's also a counterpoint to your claim that my point is a euphemistic rephrasing of yours.
Because if you do I have no idea how you can come to the idea that one can just "walk away".
> The USDA is not a tangent
It is, you're switching the topic to be about government, and a contemporary setting, instead of continuing on the topic of a private property owner and a hypothetical libertarian society.
Libertarians seem to have a bad habit of using unnecessarily convoluted language.
And yes, people can walk away. Human beings have being walking away for tens of thousands of years. You don't need to read libertarian literature to know the phrase "vote with your feet".
A government with a monopoly on force and enforcement of contracts is as much a feature of a libertarian society as it is in a contemporary one, and so the comparison involving the USDA is germane. The contention is one of degree and nature involvement. A private property owner in a libertarian society must still follow the law to the extent that such laws don't violate his rights.
and there you have it. why libertarianism in it's propertarianism form has nothing to do with freedom and all to do with giving power to the property owners.
> And yes, people can walk away.
You surely can't believe that people can just walk away from their only source of income?
There aren’t any frontiers anymore. Everything is owned
The coercive act is hidden by giving you a choice on who to deal with, but the coercision is still there in that you're forced to make a deal with some property owner. There's no choice to not make a deal with the cartel
A postscript on voluntary slavery. I am on record on numerous occasions in support of voluntary slavery; some other libertarians support me on this issue as well. See Andersson, 2007; Block, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007A, 2007B, 2009A, 2009B; Lester, 2000; Nozick, 1974, pp. 58, 283, 331; Philmore, 1982; Steiner, 1994, pp. 232.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/01/walter-e-block/scurrilou...
It does not mean chattel slavery, or involuntary servitude, or even involuntary government seizures.
You can argue what truly voluntarily slavery would look like in a modern world, but involuntary chattel slavery is what conflicts with principles of private property.
I'd argue things like athletes signing away future percentages of potential earnings (which was a fairly popular idea until the current NCAA name and likeness rules changed) would be one potential version.
So freedom is the core.
What you are talking about is more Austrian economics.
No, it's just the what libertarianism means 99 times out of a 100 when talking on HN or well, just Americans in general.
https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
Dejacque, the father or libertarianism criticised Proudhon, the father of anarchism for being a "moderate anarchist, liberal but not libertarian", but strongly supported his infamous "property is theft".
Incidentally I think everyone should read Dejacque's open letter to Proudhon [1], irrespective of their political views - it's just one of the most poetically written political texts I've read (and his first use of the term libertarianism). Also somewhat relevant to the discussion here as an early example of a form of wokeness - Dejacque criticising an ally on the left for not going far enough in throwing off the social order Proudhon was ostensibly challenging by failing to stand up equally for women.
[1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...