This is because American Libertarianism conflates the two ideas "I should be free to do almost anything I want" with "I owe nothing to other humans (and vice-versa)." The Culture is absolutely about the former and absolutely not about the latter.
My explanation of it, which I think is closely related, is that they're very focused on a peculiar kind of freedom, freedom from the power of the state. Freedom from want, freedom from ignorance, disease, malnutrition, freedom from oligarchy: all ignored.
It all comes across to me as a dressed-up version of "YOU'RE NOT MY DAD!!!" Plus a fair bit of "I've got mine, so fuck you".
It make me a bit sad, because the first Libertarians I met, now decades ago, seemed to be very different. They showed me the Nolan Chart [1] and I thought: yes! This is brilliant! Finally I understand why I don't feel comfortable with the left-right spectrum! I don't know if they changed or I did, but what I see of modern Libertarianism seems to me to be a fundamentalist, reptilian form of what I learned about back then.
If I have to choose between freedom from food-borne illness and the freedom of kitchen workers not to wash after they wipe, it seems like an easy choice to me.
I think the problem, and this is just a personal theory, is that many libertarian ideas need to come in duplets or triplets to be effective. Take carbon emissions for a quick (and not completely accurate) example. I've had conversations with libertarians that have argued that carbon emissions should not be fined, capped, traded, or in any way regulated. Basically, when the people care enough about the environment, they will vote effectively with their dollars.
Crazily enough, this could actually work, but it needs help. Either carbon emissions would have to be valued (so that companies had to pay to emit carbon, most likely via a tax), or all products would be required to state how much carbon was emitted in that item's production, as well as educated as to what that meant, so they could make an informed decision.
In reality, the first idea will be picked up and heavily trumpeted by the energy industry (no government taxation!), but the follow up ideas will be completely ignored or torpedoed. As a result, you end up with the type of modern American Libertarianism you describe. The more this sort of selective trumpeting occurs, the more self-describing libertarians will self-select membership, and the more radical the group may become.
That nolan chart is a great example. When I first saw it, it was and still is a great way of introducing people to various types of political theories. But the example you linked is horrendous. The questions underneath the economic freedom section are incredibly misleading, and the result of decades of selective trumpeting. They are NOT the same questions I was shown when I was originally shown the nolan chart all those years ago.
> many libertarian ideas need to come in duplets or triplets
Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think markets are really neat mechanisms for balancing outcomes, but they require certain conditions to work.
I also think there's a certain kind of ignoring-air-resistance theme common to a lot of the sort of Libertarianism I find dangerous. E.g., the "let people vote with their dollars" thing. It can work reasonably well for issues where people have enough time and attention to devote, where the results of their choices are relatively clear, and where people get to make choices frequently enough to build up a body of knowledge. But all that subtlety gets discarded, with arguments seeming to come from an assumption of perfect information, perfect rationality, and infinite processing power.
It all feels very fundamentalist to me. Of course, a positive feedback loop like you describe, one that radicalizes, would head toward fundamentalism.
Its a bit like watching a group petition Ford motors to make an electric car, but one without any batteries because batteries are dangerous and expensive, and then get confused and upset with Ford's "corruption" and the "inability of corporations to do anything right" when Ford makes them an "electric" car with a gasoline engine.
Not quite. It confuses freedom with ownership, and thus reasons, "I can only become free by acquiring ownership of more and more of the world around me", with the ultimate conclusion "I can only be free by owning others before they own me."
(That's baked in from the start, since the proprietarian ethic was originally designed for a slave society!)
"I give a lot to my fellow human beings, because they are obligations enshrined by law."
"I give a lot to my fellow human beings, out of the goodness of my heart."
And that's what "Anti-Libertarianists" don't get.
Where in a country of low taxes you'd be able to afford to provide care for your close ones out of the goodness of your heart, in a country of heavy taxation, it's much harder for you to do this. The inefficiency of government benefits and subsidies inflates the cost of health care on one hand, while inability for policies to customise benefits per patient means often benefits are distributed unfairly.
Where in a communist nation the government reduces inequality by making everyone poor, a nation that taxes heavily to provide universal benefits reduces inequality (of family connections) by making everyone face their problems alone, with only the help of a regular bank deposit from the government as well as the occasional union with a family member. It divides us from a strong network with many connections between each node to one of spoke and hub, where the spoke is an individual and the hub the state.
Sometimes you might feel lonely and have no one to turn to, even as you have dozens and dozens of friends. This is why.
I'm not saying that I'm against government funded programs, only saying your argument of the inefficiency of human goodness is not a valid one, when talking about building a society that maximises a utility measure that includes material as well as emotional wellbeing.
In a democratic society, the laws are, broadly speaking, an expression of the voice of the people. The laws of my country of residence require that I give a significant amount of my income, plus 25% VAT on anything I buy. That's a societal choice, and the popular consensus is that it is a fine system, and the lesser inequality and better social services resulting from it make it entirely worth it.
Another most sacred American Libertarian tenet is the notion of personal responsibility and credit, that each of us in a free market is solely and entirely to blame for our poverty and deserve all the profit and wealth we obtain, that in a free society society is not responsible for our personal condition nor us for society's. How does the importance you give to "when in-grained into society" in your straw-man setup jive with that?
Perhaps the important distinction you missed is "American Libertarianism", as opposed to libertarianism in general, which runs the gamut from Ayn Randian worship of selfishness, laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights to libertarian socialism and Libertarian Marxism.
I'll walk back to the anarchy camp.
Public benefits can be shared more efficiently and more benevolently by a government around the corner than by one thousands of kilometres away hiding behind lines of police, security guards and lobbyists.
I'm just going to leave this here.
"Footage shows homeless black man Milton Hall being shot at 46 times by police in the US" http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/footage-sho...
Some people will thrive no matter what: centuries of warlordism, robber barons, gangsterism and piracy prove that.
But most people who make a lot of money -- whether from a well-paid job, running a successful business, or a fruitful investment portfolio -- can only do so, and can only enjoy the benefits of doing so, with the support of the trappings of a modern civilised society. E.g.:
- a settled body of law, with a justice system to enforce it
- a more or less ordered and peaceful society
- a more or less stable currency
- civil infrastructure, including transport, utilities and communications
- public health (private medicine will only go so far in protecting the rich in a society rife with infection; plus employees and customers dying of preventable conditions is bad for business)
- public education (all but the most menial jobs require at least basic literacy and numeracy, and most require significantly more)
- some kind of safety net for the poor (impoverished people make poor customers, and angry young impoverished people can get a bit handy at the barricades)
These cost money.
The rich get to be rich, and to enjoy their riches, because of the taxes they (and everyone else) pay, not in spite of them.
I pretty much agree with all your points: surveillance overreach is unacceptable, police power abuse is disgusting, mandatory private health insurance is unethical (though the previous situation didn't exactly work either so I'm unsure that would be better), and I think almost all monopolies are the enemy of both free markets and social protection.
Fixing these things does not require libertarianism or socialism or whatelsehaveyouism. They need political pragmatism, courage and common sense.
- a settled body of law, with a justice system to enforce it
yes, and they want more of it. What they don't want is codifying morals and customs into law (eg: gay marriage or not, anti-abortion, anti-most stuff), except for the very basics (thou shalt not kill and stuff).
- a more or less ordered and peaceful society - a more or less stable currency
well, actually that's one of the central points for most libertarians. Giving the government the power to print money (and to punish private transactions) is very problematic. See: Argentina right now. Or Venezuela.
- civil infrastructure, including transport, utilities and communications
well, yes, but they can be privatized and work as well.
- public health (private medicine will only go so far in protecting the rich in a society rife with infection; plus employees and customers dying of preventable conditions is bad for business)
this one's very debatable, yeah, most libertarians are against public health. I still don't know which is the best option (insurance companies certainly aren't)
- public education (all but the most menial jobs require at least basic literacy and numeracy, and most require significantly more)
most libertarians are against public education, but that does not translate to not helping everyone get basic literacy, it can be archieved through grants or coupons or stuff. Plus at least in my country there are several free private schools available (paid for by religious or other NGOs), of much better quality than public ones.
- some kind of safety net for the poor
some are in favor of that one, they disagree on the how (and very especially on the how it's done now).