Hacker News Reader

Comment by orblivion | Hacker News Reader

> Seems to me that the precursors to a volitional libertarian state are radical reductions in violence both within and between nations, a highly educated and healthy populace that is capable of taking care of itself, and the abolition of caste systems (e.g. sexism, racism, classism, guild systems, etc.). A basic income is a step in that direction.

Does the libertarian within you believe that the State will accomplish this goal, without worse repercussions? Why remove the state at all if you think it can engineer society for the better in this way?

View on HN

If you remove the state from a violent, fraud-ridden, still very feudal system, you will simply unveil the underlying less centralized tyranny latent in that system.

There's also a massive blind spot in most conventional libertarian thought with regard to soft power and indirect coercion. Eliminating direct coercion but leaving caste systems in place only frees those who are rich or powerful enough to evade those caste systems. The rest are consigned to poverty and oppression through manipulation instead of force.

So yes, I do think the state can play some role at this time in history at uplifting the human condition and empowering the general population in ways that could -- given a lot of time -- eventually lead to a future that is better and freer in multiple ways. Or it could not. The state can't be trusted, but I also don't think we can dispense with it (yet).

Simple reductio ad absurdium: imagine actually dispensing with the US Federal Government. Most US states in the interior would establish theocratic feudal totalitarianism along Christian Reconstructionist / Dominionist lines, and the coasts and anywhere resource-rich would probably be invaded.

A libertarian could be a minarchist, and anarchist, or simply someone who looks at our current governance architecture (state control focusing on finance and asset wealth growth) as counter intuitive.

> Does the libertarian within you believe that the State will accomplish this goal, without worse repercussions?

The libertarian in my worries that a state would either abuse a system for the benefit of a small elite, or purposefully skew results in favor for their brand of narrative (didn't work, too expensive, just not possible, abolishing labour laws because it needs to be done!, etc...).

Personally it depends on the policy details to me. If this leads to the abolishment of all other forms of social assistance, and can reduce the amount of government employees who simply decided who got them in our older models, then sign me up. A system would also have to not discriminate, neither down nor up in regards to income.

That said if our choices are current social assistance, negative income tax based minimum income, or minimum income for all without deductions, then both NIT-MI and MI work for me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com