Has libertarianism ever been tried in the real world?

[Darth Rotor]

I am aware that you aren't a libertarian, so I am surprised that you are defending libertarianism so enthusiastically. [/COLOR]

Ever heard of The Devil's Advocate? I suspect that is the role Zigg is playing here.

DR

 

[Francesca R]

I am surprised that you are defending libertarianism so enthusiastically.

I don't see why. There is plenty about libertarianism that is enthusiastically laudible. As there is with utilitarianism. And religion for that matter.

 

[Ziggurat]

What about the truck Laws that I mentioned? Prohibiting the payment in company scrip?

While not strictly libertarian, this seems like a pretty good idea to me. It can prevent a number of abuses, and it's fairly market-neutral in the sense that it doesn't dictate wages. And the company can always then sell company scrip, so if company scrip is really a good deal they should be able to find buyers among their workers.

What is the libertarian answer to slum landlords?

That slum landlords are largely the result of land use restrictions and policies that distort the market for its allocation. The former is rather easy to understand, the latter is sometimes not so obvious.

I am aware that you aren't a libertarian, so I am surprised that you are defending libertarianism so enthusiastically.

Darth is partly right, I'm partly playing devil's advocate (be honest, this thread would be boring if someone didn't), but I'm also sympathetic to many of their arguments, and think they deserve consideration even when one reaches a different conclusion.

 

[Phrost]

Responding to page 1: Anyone who references Somalia as an example of "libertarianism" with sincerity deserves a kick to the crotch.

It's the statist's Godwin.

 

[tyr_13]

Responding to page 1: Anyone who references Somalia as an example of "libertarianism" with sincerity deserves a kick to the crotch.

It's the statist's Godwin.

I always have found it a humorous data point.

If you don't mind, could you explain exactly why it is such a bad example of libertarianism? Not that it is especially important to the thread here, but as far as I've seen, the only way Somalia is an unsuitable example is that there is no 'contract enforcement' (even though there are plenty of libertarian philosophies that say even that is unneeded and against libertarian ideals).

Is it that they are poor? No existing infrastructure? How are those things addressed in libertarianonia? These are open questions, not directed at you Phrost.

 

[Francesca R]

Somalia does not have a cental authority which is credibly enforcing property rights and binding contracts, or credibly enforcing against harm and foreign attacks.

Libertarians call for the state to do all of those. Anarcho-capitalists believe that profit-seeking interests will do it (if it's worth doing)

 

[Suddenly]

law[/i] which makes children uninterested in working for $0.50/hr? Do you think that many parents would force their children to work for such wages but are only stopped from doing so by these laws? That is the curious claim, not mine.

Your point is based solely on incredulity and assumed irrelevant facts.

First of all, you pull the $.50 figure out of thin air, thus making the at best collateral issue of a fair wage the centerpiece of your claims. The going market rate for child labor is not some sort of absolute. If parent one won't make his kid work for X amount, this says nothing about the parent being offered 10X or more.

I no more think it is the law that keeps most parents from making their kids work for money than I think it is the law that keeps parents from sexually molesting their children. When making laws, it isn't the reasonable and decent people that merit our concern.

Again, you are appealing to present societal norms, norms heavily influenced by the assumption that child labor is illegal. What a parent would do right now isn't relevant. The issue is how society and those that stand to gain from child labor will market themselves and justify their actions. It is the height of naivety to think that they will just pass on what amounts to a vast expansion of the pool of unskilled labor.

It isn't 1899. My guess would be that we would see free (or even schools that pay parents or, more to the point, other guardians) vocational training boarding schools that offer just enough education to be schools under the law (assuming we don't torch the state regulation of schools while we are at it) but are thinly disguised sweatshops of some form or another.

 

[oldhat]

If you don't mind, could you explain exactly why it is such a bad example of libertarianism?

It brings the idea that libertarianism is little more than an angsty teenage boy's fantasy into sharp relief?

 

[Ziggurat]

Your point is based solely on incredulity and assumed irrelevant facts.

And yet, you have marshaled no facts to contradict it.

First of all, you pull the $.50 figure out of thin air

You are wrong. You will find that I discussed earlier in this thread the sort of labor market child workers in the US would normally be competing against. And it's sweatshop labor in the 3rd word, where $0.50/hr is common enough, and not even the bottom of the ladder.

I no more think it is the law that keeps most parents from making their kids work for money than I think it is the law that keeps parents from sexually molesting their children.

Then you agree with a position you just attacked. That is... strange.

Again, you are appealing to present societal norms

If you want to talk about the effects of child labor laws in present society, those are rather the relevant norms.

norms heavily influenced by the assumption that child labor is illegal.

I do not believe that to be the case, and you have presented no facts to demonstrate it.

The issue is how society and those that stand to gain from child labor will market themselves and justify their actions. It is the height of naivety to think that they will just pass on what amounts to a vast expansion of the pool of unskilled labor.

The world is not short of unskilled labor. It is short of skilled labor. Adding more unskilled labor will simply further depress the wages of unskilled labor, making my wage estimate quite reasonable indeed.

My guess would be that we would see free (or even schools that pay parents or, more to the point, other guardians) vocational training boarding schools that offer just enough education to be schools under the law (assuming we don't torch the state regulation of schools while we are at it) but are thinly disguised sweatshops of some form or another.

Such vocational schools might actually do their charges good, especially compared to the dismal failure of so many inner-city schools. The best profit model for such a school would be to turn their charges into skilled workers so that they could produce something of value for the school, and that could benefit the students considerably upon graduation. Keeping them unskilled would be of little use even to those wanting to exploit them.

 

[Suddenly]

While not strictly libertarian, this seems like a pretty good idea to me. It can prevent a number of abuses, and it's fairly market-neutral in the sense that it doesn't dictate wages. And the company can always then sell company scrip, so if company scrip is really a good deal they should be able to find buyers among their workers.

Company script is but one of many devices historically used to place workers in a state of near slavery. Taken in abstract and out of historical context, it can seem harmless, but as practiced leads to significant abuse.

As it was used in American history, company script is generally only redeemable in company stores with inflated prices. This includes the tools needed to work, and usually the house you "rent," ... but don't worry, they will front you that and run a tab to keep you going, and credit your future wages to same. Also, there is nothing stopping the company from making said script non-transferable, thus crippling any third party competitor from offering like goods as the script is worthless to them.

So if you quit, everything you own goes to paying off your tab. Good luck finding another job when all there is anywhere near here is coal and we tend to require references... or at least have a black list. If this is after WWII, or in the north /or you are white, the good news is that it is unlikely you will be prosecuted for "breaking contract" if you quit, otherwise you wind up being sent to jail, the sheriff then rents you right back to the mine, and you now are at least free of the illusion of any sort of freedom.

Making a company pay people in actual legal currency cuts most of this nonsense off at the start. Learning the history of labor in America is essential in understanding why some labor regulations are as they are, the whole "doomed to repeat" deal.

 

[jimbob]

What about the truck Laws that I mentioned? Prohibiting the payment in company scrip?

While not strictly libertarian, this seems like a pretty good idea to me. It can prevent a number of abuses, and it's fairly market-neutral in the sense that it doesn't dictate wages. And the company can always then sell company scrip, so if company scrip is really a good deal they should be able to find buyers among their workers.

It is a good idea, and was needed because this was a common abuse in England in the 18th Century.

I see no libertarian argument as to why one should ban this, which was my point.

What is the libertarian answer to slum landlords?

That slum landlords are largely the result of land use restrictions and policies that distort the market for its allocation. The former is rather easy to understand, the latter is sometimes not so obvious.

Again this is something where I see no libertarian argument against. At least in principle, because at least some very unpleasant ones are self-made men:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_van_Hoogstraten

What is the libertarian argument against restricting someone's right to own property, and to have tenants? Even if the landlord abused his greater economic power to get the tenants in the first place.


If you are talking about a libertarian system, what is to stop a magnate buying the bridges out of a town, or otherwise buying up the access to a block of housing, and then bleeding the inhabitants dry? Or just buying some utility.

I have a mental image of one of the standard plots for a Western with the cattle baron buying up something (often the "good rancher's" water supply) in an attempt to force a sale.

Can a libertarian system protect against abuses of economic power whilst remaining a true libertarian system? I would argue that it can't.

I am aware that you aren't a libertarian, so I am surprised that you are defending libertarianism so enthusiastically.

Darth is partly right, I'm partly playing devil's advocate (be honest, this thread would be boring if someone didn't), but I'm also sympathetic to many of their arguments, and think they deserve consideration even when one reaches a different conclusion.

I suspected as much, although I also suspect that you have more sympathy with their arguments than I would...

(OT but still, I have found The Cassini Division by Ken MacLeod an amusing story comparing anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-communism)

 

[jimbob]

Actually I would say that there is a situation where libertarianism is tried with much success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

 

[Suddenly]

And yet, you have marshaled no facts to contradict it.

Not my problem. It is impossible to contradict an assumption that in your alternative universe X will be true.

We have history when child labor was legal, and the results of same. Most of this is sanitized for some reason and the abuses of the beginning of the industrial age radically downplayed in popular American history. We then have people able to gloss over the real world atrocities resulting from lack of labor regulation who argue these policies in the abstract simply assuming those abuses are in the past.

 

[Chaos]

Who ever said I am?

Your constant railing against it does.

Except that's not a benefit at all.

Parents being able to do something they otherwise couldn´t is not a benefit to parents? Factory owners being able to hire cheap labor is not a benefit to factory owners? I think you misunderstand the meaning of the word "benefit".

To label it as such is simply to poison the well. A genuine benefit would be to allow children for whom school offers little benefit a chance to enter the work force and learn marketable skills at an earlier age, with a possibly very large increase in their lifetime earning potential.

That´s the child´s benefit, which is something neither factory owners nor libertarians give a damn about. Just take one ****ing look at a history book. Child labor isn´t about giving the children skills. It is about making children earn pitifully low wages to help feed themselves and their families, and allowing factory owners rake in even more profit.

And the children for whom this could be most beneficial are precisely the ones that end up at the bottom of the social ladder right now, the ones every bleeding heart wants to help so badly but never seems to manage to.

And making them do dirty, dangerous, unhealthy work for minimal wages 14 hours a day helps them... how?

As with almost everything, there really aren't only benefits to enacting child labor laws. You are attempting to justify such laws not on any serious analysis of the relative weights of those benefits versus drawbacks, but simply on the position that there are only benefits and no drawbacks. But that's simply not the case.

In a system like we have now, in which the poor can get support if they have too little money to feed themselves, and in which free schooling is available for children, there are no drawbacks to enacting child labor laws. Except, of course, if you consider it a drawback that factory owners need to pay real money to hire adults to work for them instead. Or if you consider it a drawback to allow children to go to school, or not making them work 14 hours a day, six and a half days a week.

You have no idea whether or not I'm in favor of eliminating child labor laws. You only assume as much because I haven't adopted your absurd absolutist position.

I get the very clear idea that you constantly blast child labor laws as being a bad thing that has only drawbacks. That sort of gives me the idea that you´re against them.

 

[jimbob]

Company script is but one of many devices historically used to place workers in a state of near slavery. Taken in abstract and out of historical context, it can seem harmless, but as practiced leads to significant abuse.

As it was used in American history, company script is generally only redeemable in company stores with inflated prices. This includes the tools needed to work, and usually the house you "rent," ... but don't worry, they will front you that and run a tab to keep you going, and credit your future wages to same. Also, there is nothing stopping the company from making said script non-transferable, thus crippling any third party competitor from offering like goods as the script is worthless to them.

So if you quit, everything you own goes to paying off your tab. Good luck finding another job when all there is anywhere near here is coal and we tend to require references... or at least have a black list. If this is after WWII, or in the north /or you are white, the good news is that it is unlikely you will be prosecuted for "breaking contract" if you quit, otherwise you wind up being sent to jail, the sheriff then rents you right back to the mine, and you now are at least free of the illusion of any sort of freedom.

Making a company pay people in actual legal currency cuts most of this nonsense off at the start. Learning the history of labor in America is essential in understanding why some labor regulations are as they are, the whole "doomed to repeat" deal.

Pretty much the same in the UK, except that it was banned a lot earlier...

 

[Ziggurat]

Your constant railing against it does.

You have not been paying close attention to what I am actually saying, but have rather made assumptions about my position. Your assumptions are wrong.

That´s the child´s benefit, which is something neither factory owners nor libertarians give a damn about.

You are wrong about libertarians.

Just take one ****ing look at a history book. Child labor isn´t about giving the children skills.

Such language. Really now, Chaos, one might think you're a child laborer yourself. It would explain the venom with which you approach the current topic, but it really does no good.

And your appeals to history are, well, rather lacking in any actual historical perspective.

It is about making children earn pitifully low wages to help feed themselves and their families

And what happens if they can't earn that money, Chaos? Are they really better off? Your own statements would suggest they would not be.

And making them do dirty, dangerous, unhealthy work for minimal wages 14 hours a day helps them... how?

By your own words, it keeps them from starving.

In a system like we have now, in which the poor can get support if they have too little money to feed themselves, and in which free schooling is available for children, there are no drawbacks to enacting child labor laws.

First off, that's not true, and secondly, the fact that there are few drawbacks is just the flip side of there being little benefit, both of which stem from the fact that they have little effect at all nowdays.

Or if you consider it a drawback to allow children to go to school, or not making them work 14 hours a day, six and a half days a week.

As if that's what children would end up doing if child labor laws were repealed. Don't be stupid, Chaos. Adults in the US don't work those conditions, why would children?

I get the very clear idea that you constantly blast child labor laws as being a bad thing that has only drawbacks.

I have said nothing of the sort, Chaos.

 

[Ziggurat]

We have history when child labor was legal

Indeed we do. But child labor laws are far from the only difference between then and now. You seem to have assumed that those laws are the only relevant difference in regards to the living conditions of those children who worked under terrible conditions, but there is no logical reason for such a view, and good reason (which I have detailed and which you have not addressed) to think that far more important factors were at play.

 

[Francesca R]

What is the libertarian argument against restricting someone's right to own property, and to have tenants?

?? There isn't one.

Even if the landlord abused his greater economic power to get the tenants in the first place.

In libertarian philosophy there is little/no concept of "abusing economic power" unless it is to harm people or coerce them by denying them free choice of their alternatives.

If you are talking about a libertarian system, what is to stop a magnate buying the bridges out of a town, or otherwise buying up the access to a block of housing, and then bleeding the inhabitants dry? Or just buying some utility.

I am not aware of anything but you need to explain the highlighted part

Can a libertarian system protect against abuses of economic power whilst remaining a true libertarian system? I would argue that it can't.

See above. Libertarianism does not consider there to be a difference between someone who can choose between a rock and a hard place, and someone who can select from abundant riches. Both of them are equally "free" and the unlucky one has no right to anything beyond being able to choose from available alternatives.

 

[Ziggurat]

Again this is something where I see no libertarian argument against.

We seem to be talking past each other. I am not saying there are libertarian arguments against letting landlords be terrible people who provide little to and demand much from their tenants, and are "unfair". I am saying that libertarians would argue that without land use restrictions and market interference in housing, competition would provide powerful incentives against such behavior, and make such cases rare and limited.

What is the libertarian argument against restricting someone's right to own property, and to have tenants? Even if the landlord abused his greater economic power to get the tenants in the first place.

If the housing market is competitive (which in many places it is not), then such restrictions become largely unnecessary. And while the intended goals of regulations are often noble and beneficial, the unintended side-effects can be worse than the benefits, particularly if market forces are permitted to keep those bad effects in check.

If you are talking about a libertarian system, what is to stop a magnate buying the bridges out of a town, or otherwise buying up the access to a block of housing, and then bleeding the inhabitants dry?

In a libertarian system, the sellers of those houses or bridges could turn around and use their newly acquired cash to build new houses and new bridges and jump back into the market. The ability to monopolize such markets depends to upon the ability to erect barriers to entry for new competitors, which typically happens through such mechanisms as land-use laws which restrict new construction. Get rid of those, and the game changes.

Or just buying some utility.

Utilities are often considered natural monopolies, and as such pose a bit of a problem for libertarians. But not all utilities actually need to be operated that way (even if that's the most efficient option). And in any case, housing is NOT a natural monopoly, and so doesn't have this difficulty.

Can a libertarian system protect against abuses of economic power whilst remaining a true libertarian system? I would argue that it can't.

No system can protect completely against abuses of economic power. When you give government the ability to stop abuses, you inevitably give government the ability to create abuses as well. The libertarian position is that the tradeoff is not worth it. My own position is that the tradeoff is very risky.

 

[Francesca R]

We seem to be talking past each other. I am not saying there are libertarian arguments against letting landlords be terrible people who provide little to and demand much from their tenants, and are "unfair". I am saying that libertarians would argue that without land use restrictions and market interference in housing, competition would provide powerful incentives against such behavior, and make such cases rare and limited.

That is beside the point though. libertarian philosophy makes no statement about [landlords being terrible people] even being unfair, just so long as they don't restrict others' free choice. The opposition to land use laws is not for the purpose of giving unlucky tenants a better deal. It is because the law is believed to be harmful to putative land owners.

If the housing market is competitive (which in many places it is not), then such restrictions become largely unnecessary.

Same thing again. There is no statement embedded in libertarianism about any need underlying the restrictions, or whether that need is better served without the restrictions, or even served at all. The exclusive focus is on the restriction being a violation of the liberty of those who could otherwise own and use housing as they wish.

To speak of the positive spillovers as ends in themselves is to advocate dismantling regulations for reasons that are not to do with libertarianism.