But that can quickly devolve into arguments as to what counts as a 'right': the most obvious examples being food, water, shelter, healthcare and education. That 'minimum' is an arbitrary line.
Freedom from coercion, baby. Simple as that.
For a more thorough discussion, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
What libertarians propose is that all coercion be in defense of property ownership. This seems "fair" until you realize that "property ownership" is itself a complex historical object. The feudal system is named after a form of property ownership - the feodum or fief. The colonial system created property for Europeans by appropriating it from natives. The system of slavery was also based on a certain kind of property definition.
Saying "don't use coercion except to defend legitimate property rights" is like saying "don't use military force except to defend against legitimate threats." It seems like common sense, but all the complexity of politics is swept under the rug in these phrases "property rights" or "threats". In my view, no one is born with a "right" to property, property is just a concrete representation of the political equilibrium that exists at a certain time.
Most property in the world can be traced back to an original owner, from whom it was stolen (war, colonization and similar events). That original owner might have stolen it from someone else.
But that is a completely different point, that really has nothing to do with libertarianism, or any reasonably capitalist society, where property ownership is permitted. It's my impression that a symptom of a mature capitalist society is that historical property disputes are settled in a sense that can be considered fair. That someone might not accept property rights is an interesting discussion, and it certainly rules out any form of capitalist system, but it doesn't really apply in this discussion.
Nobody is born with a right TO anything, but rather a right to NOT be coerced. The consequence of this is that you have the right to do whatever you want with your property (which includes your body and anything you do with that, i.e. work), as long as you don't interfere with other peoples right to do the same - i.e. coerce them.
One important distinction between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism is how to resolve conflicts that will inevitably be over property. A-C doesn't accept any state-like structures like police and courts, but libertarianism does, and the only people that get to coerce other people physically are the police, answering to the courts.
a) Property rights are a form of coercion.
b) 'Property rights' is a wide umbrella under which almost any form of coercion could be justified.
b) If the enforcement of property rights justifies coercion, then almost any kind of coercion can be justified if the prevailing property system is chosen correctly. For example, if a totalitarian state were to have a system where everything belongs to the state, including the citizens, then it would have the right to do whatever it wants with its property, and any assertion of personal freedoms would be theft.
b) If someone is free too coerce anyone he owns, and he can arbitrarily choose who he owns, then he is free to coerce everybody. It's a tautology, but not a very useful one.
b) The point is that the concept of property rights is mostly vacuous unless you specify which system of property rights you are speaking of. cia_plant was pointing out that what one person considers oppression, another might consider fair use of property. Therefore any state can be considered libertarian unless you specify restrictions on what counts as a valid system of property.
Since all people need to be cared for until a certain age, all people who survive past the first few days of their lives are born into coercion under a strict meaning of the word. Some would escape by living as hermits in desert land or remote islands that nobody cared to enforce law on. Hell - if you're going to be a pedant why restrict it to human coercion? The weather itself is a form of coercian. As are the laws of physics themselves.
Although in a strict sense you're right, I think you're wasting time. However, I have a morbid curiosity for some things and would be genuinely interested to learn what axe you're grinding.
Well - gravity.
I mistook your motive. I've read the thread a few more times and see you've been quite specific in your responses.
I was born with a right to not be coerced by gravity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity
What entity is charged with enforcing my right to non-coersion-by-gravity?
In any case, I would say that instead of discussing in rather vague terms whether more government is better / worse than less government, it would be sensible to think of what kind of government.
By principle, I believe that goverment bureaucracy and interference should be kept to a minimum. However, I would rather live under a Scandinavian-like government (even though it's big government) than in a Somalia-like anarchy. We all agree on the goals: freedom, prosperity, etc. Sometimes we disagree on how to get there. I vote for pragmatism over ideology.
Yes, I've totally cut up your point, and I'll take this over Somalia any day. But Scandinavian government (Denmark in this case) couldn't care less about prosperity. Right out of college, you're in the top tax bracket, paying 63% on everything above $64.000 annual income (and just under 50% on everything below). Buying a car? 180% registration tax, and slap 25% sales tax on top of that.
But yeah, we've got worse schools than Portugal and free mediocre healthcare, but most importantly: we have high economic equality.
So no, unfortunately we don't agree on the goals.
Denmark and most of the rest of Scandinavia used to have a very classically liberal (~libertarian) mind set. It is the work ethic that has maintained much of the prosperity. Many of Denmarks large successful export businesses come out of this period.
As I like to say. Denmark is prosperous despite their welfare state and not because of it.
Without a strong focus on wealth creation, instead of the constant preaching to the mediocre and the "good enough", we're not going to have much to show once the Chinese and Indians get started.
In short: Prosperity is not a goal to attain, it's a continuous effort, and we just stopped trying.
On the necessity of wealth creation, I fully agree with you. I think the Germans, Danes, Swedes (etc) will soon find out that they will have to work a whole lot more than their parents to enjoy the same standard of living their parents could enjoy. It's not a pleasant thought, but then, the prosperity that Old Europe has enjoyed over the last few decades is pretty much an historical anomaly.
I could not agree more that prosperity is a continuous effort. I suppose the old Europeans are just a bit blasé and refuse to look at the facts. The world has changed.
http://www.skovgaard.org/europe/denmark.htm
The Danes believe Denmark is the best country in the world, that Danish beer is the best in the world, and that anything they do is better than anywhere else in the world. But however contradictory it may seem, between them, they don't like to see others being successful. Thus, they do everything they can to bring down the brightest amongst them. The communist tax system that has brought the highest overall taxation level in the world is an effective way of doing so.
Most importantly, most parties aren't communist, they are "social democratic", definitely very left leaning compared to anything. There is a general (far from thorough) respect for private property, something you wouldn't expect from communists.
The Seasteading project might result in some anarcho-capitalist societies: http://www.seasteading.org/
Protection from contagious disease falls into this category, for instance.
//not that there's anything wrong with that.
An efficient government is a laudable thing that everyone should want, and so cutting away the fat is a natural thing to do in any sort of political light.
I don't know why libertarians at large seem to claim ownership of this notion.
There are plenty of good people working in the civic media area, so there's a good talent pool to draw from.
In the past, if economists discovered an inefficiency in the market, they would say "and the government should correct this inefficiency with policy X". Public choice economists don't ask if governments should do X, but rather will they do X.
It turns out the incentives facing government actors aren't very good. They have much fewer incentives to act efficiently than market actors. It is possible to have competent officials at the head of a small bureaucracy produce good results. However, I doubt this is possible for the United States, which owns the largest bureaucracy in the world.
So, there are real reasons for limiting the scope of government.
Done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_Sta...
The subsidy programs give farmers extra money for their crops, as well as guarantee a price floor. For instance in the 2002 Farm Bill, for every bushel of wheat sold farmers were paid an extra 52 cents and guaranteed a price of 3.86 from 2002–03 and 3.92 from 2004–2007.[2] That is, if the price of wheat in 2002 was 3.80 farmers would get an extra 58 cents per bushel (52 cents plus the $0.06 price difference).
.
Also, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIC_Program
Roads, defense, control, vaccines... all have significant effects outside of the markets, and thus their price does not reflect the benefit to society.
Where do you stop? Surely you'd have to include financial companies? A financial company that makes up 10% of the financial market will calculate a phony 90% discount on any systemic risk it creates: after all, if the system fails, only 10% of that failure will be realized as a loss.
What about "the poor"? The classic answer is "you will not be prevented from helping them".