J'accuse le libertarians

So I've gone off and read some Von Mises as instructed.

The reviews on Amazon for Human Action are almost all gushing in praise. The most important book of the century, a masterpiesce etc. Its so good that they have published it online giving it away for free here: http://mises.org/Books/HumanActionScholars.pdf checking out Von Mises it seems even Milton Friedman thought he was a dick. He was of course in common with the heroes of libertarianism a supporter of fascism.

If its so good then why isn't it taught in any serious Economic departments?
Why don't companies like Goldman Sachs use it?


So to start with the tone of the piece is totally like any libertarian you come accross, pompus, superior and full of semantics. It also spends a lot of time talking about percieved enemies rather than his own philosophy. Where have I seen that before!

Bewildered, people had to face a new view of society, In the eyes of these babblers, These grumblers


He goes onto this idea called Praxeology:
Praxeology rejects the empirical methods of the natural sciences, because the observation of how humans act in simple situations cannot predict how they will act in complex situations

So one can't predict how humans will react in simple situations. From this he goes on to predict how people will react in complex situations! Praxeology starts with things called axioms, these are basic rules that are taken as a given by the Austrian school. Hang onto your hats folks one of them is "The proposition that humans act" omg finding this out really blew my mind humans do stuff. There are many others and there is debate about the wording of them, couldn't find a difinitive list anywhere. Maybe one of the libertarians could help out? The main thing is that "the very attempt to deny it will result in its affirmation" wow, denying them or proving them wrong actually affirm them!! Even if proven wrong the axiom is right. There is only one true church, sounds cultish, check out this stuff too very cultish. Even Ron L Hubbard would have trouble with this http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec2.asp

The axionms alone are all very nice and wishy washy like a lot of libertarian slogans. "Free Markets", "do what you like so long as it doesn't harm others" then when you scratch the surface you find justifications for starving your children to death!

The Ethics of Liberty by Murray N Rothbard
"The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive.[5] (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g., by not feeding it)? The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die."

and stuff like companies won't pollute if there are no anti-pollutions laws.

One can also give themselves up for "voluntary slavery"!!!!!!!

Yes they believe this!!

I guess it comes down to wether you belive economics is a science or a philosophy. If I have money to invest I think I'd look at empirical data, history, projections etc to decide what to do with it instead of sit in a room saying "people act" and expect an answer.

I know the libertarians will come back now and say " well obviously you don't undertand this read this pamphlet from 1850" but the basics are true and its all based on bolloxeolgy.

I keep asking for a libertarian to describe a libertarian society but they refuse to do so (in fairness two geve it a weak shot) instead prefer to engage in semantics, "educate yourself" and avoid the question. This is because a libertarian society would be so obscene to any decent person it would put them off it for life. They also refuse to describe praxeolgy in their own words because if they did they would sound like some brainwashed cult member. Still this does not stop the libertarian commenting on pretty much every other topic but when it comes to libertarianism they go quiet.

All this would be fine if kept as a theory as I said in the op yet the libertarian foolishness is leaking off the internet into real life.

Back in 2007/08 when the financial institutions started to go bankrupt libertarians would have let it happen. Millions would have lost their life savings, no social welfare, a worldwide economic collapse, millions thrown into poverty. For the libertarian this is preferable to having a deficit! Of course this would have been unthinkable and any politicial proposing it would not get elected. Thats why the libertarians are so fond of dictators none of that democracy business getting in the way.

Currently in the US you have a small group of republicans playing brinkmanship with the worlds economy. They are refusing to increase the debt ceiling (despite Reagan doing it 17 times and Bush 7). They want to make massive cuts to the poorest in society rather than put a small tax increase on the richest people on earth! 70 million cheques for social welfare, disabled people, food stamps, medicade and even veterans cheques will be stopped just so the richest few will not have to pay a few percent more tax. This is the type of world the libertarian wants. In any scenario, using history and empiriacl evidence a libertarian society would end up as some kind of fcuk up country with a serf class of people doing all the work for survival type wages, people dieing of simple diseases because they have no insurance, large parts of society going without healthcare or education, a small cabal controling everything. Sounds like pre-revolutionary France. Don't think there will ever be a libertarian society as people would not stand for it but the influence of these idiots is causing a lot of gief in the world.

matthew8 wrote: »

Libertarian thinking:
Individuals>government

Non libertarian thinking:

Government>Individuals

I know which side I'm on. But 20cent and company believe the government knows best how to spend my money.

This is the question in the op, care to try?:
What I'm asking for is for a libertarian to describe what the society they would like to see. I don't mean wishy washy stuff like well we would be free to do whatever we want so long as it does not harm others, but a bit of detail . Pretty much everything we do affects others what is meant by harm? Smoking in public harms others so would that be allowed? If someone gets sick or injured in a libertarian society and they don't have insurance what happens to them?



Or do you prefer to just reaffirm the other contention that :
the only discernable use for libertarianism is to allow one to be a pompous smartarse on the internet.

RichieC wrote: »

I'll have a crack. I would consider myself quite socially libertarian but not economical.


Privatised health care - if you cant afford it you go to a charity to be treated - it's more than likely the charity will be linked to some religion or other, so you may either have to lie about your faith or find some other charity.

Roads would be maintained by private companies, so toll bridges would be everywhere.

Privatised water treatment - balooning prices. In Chile during their ahem.. economic miracle they privatised the water, many people took to collecting rain water, so they made collecting rain water illegal.

The Gap between the rich and poor would continue to widen. crime would increase as a result, eventually you'd have the rich and middle classes living in gated communities and fortresses like you find in south africa.

Police force and fire stations would of course be privatised, so no money, no justice. the poor would have to come together to protect each other which would lead to all sorts of problems. rival vigilante gangs and others I haven't thought of.

regulations on the environment, health and safety, employee rights would of course be a thing of the past. the magic hand of the free market would be the only regulator.

Education - all of course privatised, the poor would slip back to being largely illiterate within a generation.

Prisons would be privatised and turned into slave labour camps like you find in the US. more convicts, more money.

Safe to say that unless you had the means to look after yourself the libertarian utopian state would be nothing but a nightmare... even the rich would be living in fear of gangs of poor breaking into their homes and robbing/ murdering them.

Sounds like what I thought.