How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart
vice.com
vice.com
Libertarianism: Shitty and selfish people not condoning the use of violence against shitty and selfish people and their property.
I wonder how many of them have, rather than burning the book, decided to read it and think about it for themselves?
Cause if you do-- you would no longer be a leftist.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
~John Rogers
If a person rapes, murders, beats, stabs, uses force or otherwise is violent against another person, then libertarians would call that "violence".
Statists seem to believe that all of the above is not "violence" when done by a government or an agent of the government.
It seems that by definition the Statists are watering down the word violence.
Why is it wrong to molest a child... unless you're in an Airport and wearing a TSA uniform?
Because government is somehow magical, right?
Please.
In any case, if that's your definition of violence, then libertarians are actually anarchists - there can be zero law or tax at all, because as soon as you don't feel like complying, any enforcement becomes 'violence', since ultimately, at the end of the chain, it has to be enforced physically. Unenforceable laws and zero taxes = anarchy. And anarchy is not particularly workable above the level of hunter-gatherers and nomads.
I pay my taxes, various kinds, gladly and without a hint of violence anywhere. As does almost everyone (perhaps a few are resigned rather than glad, but still no violence). It's only when you refuse to pay that a chain of events begins which eventually ends up with you being manhandled by government agents, and then only if you're continuing to physically resist. At that point you can call 'violence', but before then, you're just speaking nonsense.
Edit: Also, you might just find it isn't just libertarians who have a problem with minors and TSA pat-downs. You don't have to classify that as 'violence' to have a problem with it. You say governments aren't magical. I'm saying the word 'violence' is not magical. Something doesn't have to be considered violence to be wrong.
> I certainly haven't heard of anyone being raped because they didn't pay their tax.
Oh really? IF you don't pay tax you go to jail. What happens in jail? Do you know the statistics on rape investigations in jail? Well, lets put it this way- they basically don't bother to investigate, and consider it part of the punishment.
Libertarians believe the initiation of force is immoral. Many of them are anarchists because, yes, it is quite hard for a government to exist without initiating force given the definition of government is basically "the mafia that conquered and rules a geographic region." But still there are many libertarians who support the idea of a voluntary government.
>And anarchy is not particularly workable
Prove it.
>without a hint of violence anywhere
Oh really? But you just made the threat of violence quite clear:
>In any case, if that's your definition of violence, then libertarians are actually anarchists - there can be zero law or tax at all, because as soon as you don't feel like complying, any enforcement becomes 'violence', since ultimately, at the end of the chain, it has to be enforced physically.
So, which is it. Are you paying taxes under the threat of "physical enforcement" aka violence? Or are you free to not pay your taxes?
Are you free to not be mugged?
>Something doesn't have to be considered violence to be wrong.
Not the point. Initiating violence against the innocent is wrong.
We point this out to force people like you to admit that you want to do violence against innocent people to pay for things that you value but that you don't want to pay for yourself (what you call taxes.)
By the way, given that Democrats voted for Obama and Obama is the one who signed the legislation that has the TSA molesting children, and the Republicans have done nothing to oppose it, yes, you DO have to be libertarian to claim to oppose the TSA. Otherwise what should we believe? It's not y our fault that this government whose violence you endorse is using it in way you don't approve of? Did you vote for Obama the second time? If so, you endorsed the TSA molestation regime.
No I don't, because I'm not fucking American^. You're so wound up in this story of yours that you've got blinders on, and can't see the outside world. You're so proud of this 'third way' that libertarians think they've got the lock on, when my country has multipolar politics, as do several others. In my country, Australia, there are two major political blocs (and one of those is itself made of two blocs), but the balance of power is currently held by small parties and independent politicians. So fuck you, fuck you very, very hard for trying to imply that I endorse TSA pat-downs, characterised by you as 'molestation' to make it sound like I was a sex offender by association. I should probably note that at this point in my life, I feel far more abused by libertarians than by the tax department, despite libertarians prattling on about not doing harm to others.
You're so proud that your libertarianism is the 'only' alternative (in your eyes), because if you're not Republican or Democratic, you have to be libertarian? Fuck, Australia considered itself a member of "Third Way" politics[1] decades ago, and that 'third way' is not 'libertarian'. Have you even seen Germany, which has no political parties strong enough to rule in their own right, so they have to form coalitions to get a majority?
All throughout your diatribe you're using simplistic concepts and overdramatised demonisation (like tax = street muggings), which you consider 'inescapable logic' or somesuch. The simple, plastic, PlayMobile philosophy you peddle is directly offensive (you're not a libertarian? then you condone rape!) and has no understanding of political nuance or necessity.
So, I leave you with this: If you hate government as much as you say you do, then move to Vanuatu. Good weather, happy people, no tax at all (unless you're a landlord). Less than a thousand police, and they also double as the army. Tiny government. It's exactly what libertarians say they want, and yet few seem to want to move there - they seem to much prefer the infrastructure bought by taxes. So, you don't want to pay for anything that you're not going to use yourself? Then put your money where your mouth is and move to Vanuatu, instead of implying that people who disagree with you are child molestors.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
^Edit: I don't have anything against the US, I'm just pissed off at being associated with child molestors just because I disagree with libertarians.
two relevant videos:
George Ought to Help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs
You Can Always Leave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fasTSY-dB-s
After all, if you stick around and don't comply with the request to leave the bar, the bouncers and then the police will get involved.
I'll admit some libertarians might use "violence" to indicate "badness" a little too readily and/or implicitly in these kinds of analogies (because they likely would be okay with violence to enforce property rights), but both thinks are fundamentally enforced with violence.
This admission doesn't make the analogies meaningless. Eg, a libertarian might say "I'm okay with using violence to enforce property rights, but I'm not okay with using violence to do [other thing]".
This is the irony of libertarianism: "Freedom for everyone, but I get to keep all my goodies!". It's not actually freedom for everyone; it enshrines privilege with the people who already have a lot of wealth. It works against levelling the playing field and against people advancing by merit. If you're born into wealth, you're protected by libertarianism - you'll get better schooling, better networking, better secret-handshake memberships. If you're born into poverty, libertarianism handwaves and mutters something about charity (which is always amusing, because private charities have never amounted to anything like public welfare), but really doesn't care about helping you improve yourself, giving you the tools to become wealthier. The poor don't have private property, so libertarianism flips them the finger. If the poor get shafted by someone's actions, the libertarian answer is "take them to (the skeletal remains of) the court system", something which the poor cannot leverage at all. Factory spewing toxic smoke into your house? Take them to court... oh, you can't afford a lawyer, or at least one that stands a chance. Pity - there are no regulations on air pollution, because that curtails 'freedom' and is 'big government' and so the supposed answer instead is 'take them to court'.
I watched your second video. It's funny that the creator gave libertarianism a great loophole: "Oh, wars of conquest make it alright if the losers have all been killed". It's basically hand-waving away the indicated moral issues about taking things by force and translated means "I get to keep my stuff". It's a bad video full of leading statements and bad assumptions, though it does have nice production values. The entire video frames libertarianism as a mechanism to keep your material goods all to yourself - unsurprising, really, since this is what really underpins the philosophy.
Fundamentally, libertarianism is about people who want to maintain their social privileges and wealth, and not actually about fair opportunity. It's an incredibly selfish philosophy, but it's wrapped in attractive-sounding rhetoric. In any case, to answer the libertarian question "Why should I help anyone else at all?"(paraphrased, but ridiculously clear on every discussion regarding tax), the answer is basically "Because you're human, and humans are social animals that rely on each other; they are not self-sufficient without extreme effort".
As I said, this is not a special definition of violence.
> Why is it okay to use violence (libertarian definition of) to protect private property rights, but not to protect public property rights?
This follows from the libertarian view of rights. People own themselves and the product of their labor and have rights to trade voluntarily. Public property rights (not sure exactly what you're referring to by that, but guessing) tend to conflict with private property rights.
> It's not actually freedom for everyone;
Whether or not what follows this is relevant/worth discussing, I'm not sure what any of it has to do with libertarianism not being freedom for everyone. From a glance it sounds like a mix of interesting (but common) discussion points and straw-men. I'll respond if I have some time later.
The notion of perpetual ownership of any finite resource is antithetical to the principles of the free-market, because it allows one to purchase an infinite amount of something (i.e. perpetual rights to a piece of land, including perpetual rent collection) for a finite sum.
If as a libertarian you cannot concede these points, we cannot have an intellectually honest discussion of what a libertarian world would be like.
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[1] http://geolib.com/welcome.html
[2] Are you a Real Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7076632
[3] http://povertythinkagain.com/controversies/a-word-from-the-s...
Can you elaborate on this? Ownership is based on both owning the product of your labor and the ability/right to trade property.
> Secondly, the finite natural resources and space (land) of the planet can NEVER be considered the product of anyone's labor, and thus can NEVER be treated as private property in any strict sense
I think there are a wide range of views on this among people who call themselves libertarians. A popular view is homesteading, which says that you own land once you improve it/mix your labor with it. I think there's some subtle variations in the view with respect to things like whether you own the land itself or just the improvements to it or things like that. Personally I agree that land isn't really something that can be owned. Constructed houses and the like can be owned and people can have rights to these houses but not to the land itself.
> The notion of perpetual ownership of any finite resource is antithetical to the principles of the free-market, because it allows one to purchase an infinite amount of something (i.e. perpetual rights to a piece of land, including perpetual rent collection) for a finite sum.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying its antithetical to free market principles to own anything indefinitely? Or just land?
I do wonder if they were forced to eat broccoli too much as a kid as that is the parents holding a gun to their kids heads.
The definition of libertarian: People who believe the initiation of force is immoral.
Thus, those trying to forcibly take your property are initiating force. Nothing about that being immoral precludes you from defending yourself or your property.
That is, what is your definition of "harm" which is broad enough to cover, say, non-violent theft (as my example) and incarceration, but narrow enough to exclude, say, polluting a river? (Or choose another example where you think the government overreaches.)
Further questions:
If I am Libertarian and sovereign me believe polluting a river harms me, so I shoot you; does that give you or your family, who does not believe polluting a river to be harm/violence, the Libertarian-moral standing to shoot me? i.e. do we settle this Hatfield and McCoy style? Would the winners be those with the biggest guns, or do Libertarians, in an attempt to belay further violence, put things to a vote and only initiate force against those who go against the vote?
If I am Libertarian, but am infirm and thus unable to properly defend myself, is it Libertarian-moral to outsource my force-initiation to an outside group? If so, how do the services this group provide differ materially from the services the executive branch of the government provides? If not, what is my recourse; should I die because I am physically weak?
The other big problem with the micronation / charter city idea is that people get killed over land and water rights in developing nations. Just because you have the national government onside doesn't mean it's safe to ignore angry locals.
Rather, it looks like some people either gave their money to a scammer or a guy who just wasn't competent to achieve his plans. As the article says, that doesn't seem like it's anything particular to any political viewpoint.
I'm more interested in the politics in trying to approach nations to effectively take a chunk of land out of its jurisdiction. I doubt any state around today is really privy to the idea, and in this context I doubt Chile agreed to anything close to giving this town independence.
Plenty of libertarian types are fine with enough of a state that you can sue someone for breach of contract. I don't know whether these guys were. Maybe some are and some aren't. Just because they like Rand enough to name the place Galt's Gulch doesn't mean any or all of them were actually expecting hard-core anarchy.
Libertarian simply means one values the principles of liberty and free will. The only people I have ever met who bash libertarians are liberals who cannot see beyond the narrow world view that has been fed to them by a system hell bent on controlling and exploiting them for its own benefit.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20422644
Building a company has nothing to do with "high group instinct".
> Libertarian simply means one values the principles of liberty and free will. The only people I have ever met who bash libertarians are liberals who cannot see beyond the narrow world view that has been fed to them by a system hell bent on controlling and exploiting them for its own benefit.
Where Libertarians define "liberty and free will" to mean "absolutist property rights".
But you know, I'm probably just some brainwashed liberal unlike user "911isajoke".
No. Human rights. Basic human rights, such as the ones referred to in the pre-amble to the Bill of Rights (well worth reading, and far less widely read than the amendments themselves.)
By the way, using the word "absolutist" and "rights" in the same phrase is kinda redundant. If it's not an "absolute right" it's not a "right". That's the difference between a right and a privilege. Privileges can be taken away, and often were in the government of King George, resulting in a revolution, many declarations and discussion to figure out what rights man had, etc.
Libertarians merely would like to see all human rights respected and protected.
Unfortunately, many people feel like they deserve privileges that violate other peoples rights, but don't wish to admit that they want to violate other peoples rights (like the current popular movement to amend the constitution to remove the right of freedom of speech to people when gathered in groups).
In my experience, most self-declared libertarians aren't very good business-people, and a surprising number work in institutionally-coddled enterprises like real estate, medicine and law. As such, it's no surprise that they're ill-equipped to deal with scam artists.
The Free State Project in the US (which aims at what amounts to a democratic coup in New Hampshire: https://freestateproject.org/) is the only scheme of this kind that seems remotely plausible, but that's in part because their ambitions are relatively modest. They want to get enough like-minded people together in one American state that they can have a significant influence on the local government. They are aiming at a state that already has notable libertarian leanings. And they aren't aiming for an anarcho-capitalist utopia, although some of them are anarcho-capitalists. It's a great democratic experiment, and while my money is on failure it has at least a modest chance of success, and either way it should be fascinating to watch.
> most self-declared libertarians aren't very good business-people
This kind of broad smear is exactly the point of the article-- to give you cover so you feel comfortable impeaching your intellectual integrity.
"How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart"
Oh wow, much better!
Secondly, if you have an example of that happening, please, do present it.
IF you're referring to this article, well, you believe what you read in hit piece hatchet jobs?
1. This was an obvious bad idea to anyone who has been in Chile (such as myself) given its location. Namely they wanted to build a "farm" and sustainable development midway between Santiago and Valparaiso, along a main highway, in an area that is borderline desert, yet which has a fair amount of development already, housing neighborhoods, businesses, olive pressing plants and the like... meaning effectively the chilean version of suburbs (convenient to the big city yes) and not a rural farm appropriate area.
Alas, one thing americans do too often[1], especially when buying real estate outside the country, is they want to fly in, buy the property over a long weekend and fly out. I think it's too easy to project american standards for property transactions onto other countries. Any time you're spending thousands of dollars, do your due diligence, and if that means buying a retirement property in another country, spend at least a summer there to make sure you like the country! Chile is really wonderful in many ways, but like everywhere else it has its things that are annoying.
2. It never got off the ground. There are thousands of terrible real estate deals that never got off the ground in the USA, especially after 2008. But no sensationalist articles about them. Why? Because the purpose of this article is purely political... it's to give the people commenting in this thread an opportunity to spew their hate.
3. There is, actually, a libertarian "paradise" in chile. Not only is much of the country pretty close to that definition on a lot of scores, but there's a successful sustainable housing / real estate development there which predates this effort by several years. (I'm not going to mention it by name because they deserve their privacy.)
But of course, you'll never hear about that operation on the pages of Vice or Salon, or any other leftist rag. Unless, of course, they become well known enough and need to be "taken down a few notches", like Ayn Rand seems to every few months, despite being dead for nearly 40 years. (such power to reach out from the grave! If only people felt the need to make up stuff to write 2,000 word articles to bash me with 40 years after I'm in the ground!)
[1] as reported in a variety of expat forums and magazines, and based on the way some of these "gringo focused" operations market themselves. For example, the same property in many central and south american countries is listed online at one price much higher (but with a full service real estate agent attached) online, than it is listed in the local listing services. OR pay dollars and pay twice to three times as much when you buy with pesos.
Also. Highly individualistic ideologies struggle against moderately collectivist ones. And highly collectivist ideologies struggle against moderately individualistic ones.
Better organization and flexibility will generally win against rabble and/or inflexible arrangements.
I'm assuming you're not believing libertarians are pacifists, but since you brought it up in an example, the definition of libertarian is: "One who believes that the initiation of force is immoral". This was a pledge that the LP required all members to sign for many years.
Note the initiation of force is immoral to libertarians, not its use in self defense, or in defense of another.
I do invite you to come hang out in any place where libertarians gather. You'll find that they are nothing if not flexible, as half of them are anarchists, half are not, and none think that they all have to believe the same to work together. (half are pot smokers, half tee-totalers, half pro-life, half-pro choice (though they do agree government should be out of it) half are high tech, half are old school, etc.)
This article, though, really has nothing to do with libertarianism.
I think you misunderstand the test. It is not whether an ideology has a growing number of believers over an extended period of time (On that measure, Islam is doing far better), but how well it does when actually implemented (i.e. in practice not theory).
The article is claiming that this story is an example of failure when implemented.
The article itself is an opinion piece with a little bit of facts that don't at all support the opinion. I tend to be more pragmatic still... I feel that the role of a limited central government should be to ensure expected infrastructure to the greater community over time.
That doesn't mean privatizing everything, or socializing it all either. It could mean reassigning roles when things aren't working.. it could mean staying the hell out, and it can mean relaxing regulations in certain ways. It really depends on the situation. For example, health care, I would have rather seen the resources government already spends in an open, competative non-profit insurance corporation. Then establish that as a baseline anyone can buy into... that would act as competition for other hmo's and insurance companies.
FedEx and UPS compete fine with the postal service, though the USPS is fairly locked down with regulation, and could do with some ability to adapt without congressional approval.
It really just depends on a given scenario. Rarely does the government taking over a function as a whole serve anyone better than some level of competition.
Libertarianism, while not out on the cliff edge of individualism, at least has reserved seats for a great view of it. (I'm being very careful here not to call libertarianism an "extreme" ideology, because I don't think that's a fair assessment).
There are highly collectivist ideologies way out on the other end of the axis that have entirely different, but equal structural issues (and before you say "communism" that's not necessarily what I'm thinking of).
In either case, highly individualistic or highly collectivistic ideologies almost never survive sustained contact with more moderate, pragmatic outside groups.
Survival of groups of like-minded end-point ideologists almost always require isolation-like implementation approaches because of this simple issue.
Does libertarianism "work"? Hell if I know. I think most evidence points to it not working well over sustained periods. Most "pure" ideologies don't, and the more "pure" the ideology, the less likely it is to be able to sustain itself, even superficially, on the tenants of its core concepts for long. The world is just too messy and libertarianism is just not road tested enough to have figured out what really doesn't work and adjust.
A fully implemented, fully sustaining, libertarian paradise would likely not be much like present day libertarian ideological tenants, but something more moderate in approach, and it might not even be superficially much different than regimes it would be replacing...the differences would be more in small details and guiding philosophy than in more noticeable things.
For the amount of seemingly rational and intelligent believers and press this "philosophy" gets, I would expect there by now to be countless of obvious example of it working.
there are many examples of the more free market society doing better than its counterparts.
I wish more people were up to speed with political history because it really gets my goat every time I see someone make this mistake.
Statism has no place in the startup community.
Have you got something more than name calling?
> That you have chosen this as your avenue of response, I take as a concession of my points in completion and admission of intellectual bankruptcy.
> No, but they are uncomfortable, hence the down votes. Alas, this is not a site with high intellectual integrity.
> I wonder how many of them have, rather than burning the book, decided to read it and think about it for themselves?
> so you feel comfortable impeaching your intellectual integrity.
> But Hacker News has had a very strong left bias, and a draconian moderation policy going back at least to 2008. You risk being hellbanned for linking to scientific papers here if the papers don't agree with the ideology of the moderators (who, like all unaccountable entities, like to remain anonymous.)
But Hacker News has had a very strong left bias, and a draconian moderation policy going back at least to 2008. You risk being hellbanned for linking to scientific papers here if the papers don't agree with the ideology of the moderators (who, like all unaccountable entities, like to remain anonymous.)
I don't live in Silicon Valley, so I can't tell you any of my first-hand impressions of the area, being that I have none. But what I have noticed is what I perceive to be an increase in articles that discuss 'libertarianism' stemming from the startup scene, often with some alarm. This gets mentioned in conjunction with things ranging from Uber turning its nose up at taxi regulation, to Google's efforts to provide private bus service to its employees, to the effects of gentrification in San Francisco.
That said, again, I don't live there. I'm in the Ottawa, Canada area, which is a relatively sleepy town of bureaucrats that also happens to have a fairly healthy tech scene. You wouldn't call this area 'libertarian' by any remote stretch.