Liberals not for liberty?

[cosmicvortex20]

I have a friend thats a die hard libertarian. I was speaking with him recently and he made the statement that liberals paid lip service to liberty, but they really didnt like freedom anymore then conservatives...

I asked for clarification and he said that conservatives tend to like freedom in the economic arena, but they like tight controls on social freedoms. Inversely, he said liberals like wide open social freedoms, but tight controls on economic issues.

He brought up the idea that only libertarians were for freedom both economically and socially.

Im not quite sure how to respond here. I tried pointing out that some controls were needed on certain economic issues, and he simply said... fine, dont complain when the conservatives start pulling social freedoms as the left is guilty of the same action in principle.

Any ideas?

[freetobegay]

1. libertarians are more whacked in the head than neocons!

& by the way libertarians are ex-neocons that couldn't make it with them. Why even bother?

[loveable liberal]

2. try telling him....

to have a "nice cool glass of 'shut the hell up'".

[cosmicvortex20]

3. Thats not exactly the cogent intelligent responses I wanted...

He was polite and seemingly logical when discussing it. Me just tossing insults back seems a bit crude.

[Northwind]

6. Personal liberty cannot be had by all

Or even many.

Without tight controls on the economy.

This has been proved beyond dispute. A century ago.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

4. Ask him what 'tight controls' he means

Would he prefer that food, drug companies were not required to list the ingredients in their products? What about deceptive advertising? Should companies be allowed to say their products do things that they do not in fact do?

'Tight controls' is emotionally loaded rhetoric that is meaningless without some reference to an actual regulation or law. Deal with specifics, because it is when confronted with the actual world that libertarianism is revealed as nothing but a fantasy.

[cosmicvortex20]

10. So would that follow for social liberties as well then?

Im sure the question will come up. If economic controls are so needed, then why not on the opposite end of the rights spectrum?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

25. What I said was to deal in specifics, the real world.

Not a phony abstraction like some 'spectrum' in which he defines all terms of the debate.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. American "Libertarians" give "libertarianism" a bad name.

The real "libertarians" - Kropotkin, Proudhon, Goldman, Tolstoy, Gandhi, believed in the community, and the primacy of the cooperative community as the ideal. They were against the powerful. Whether it be the government, the military, or the wealthy.

American "libertarians" glorify the individual and unbridled "freedom" no matter what the cost to the community.

Think Donald Trump.

[leftyandproud]

7. he's got it right

I'll admit it...I tend to be an economic authoritarian...A little socialism never hurt anyone.

Just don't expect our congress critters to say this...they wouldn't last long ;)

[cosmicvortex20]

13. So once again, if hes right, then your suggesting...

either

A, Its ok to support liberty for social issues, but not economic ones - and just to be inconsistant.

or

B. Social liberties can be minimized since in principle freedom isnt the goal.

[Trajan]

35. You are purposely confuting the notion of 'liberty' ...

... across dissimilar entities ...

The 'national economy' is NOT the same as 'personal liberty' ...

The notion of Free Speech, for instance, is NOT absolute ... We accept certain limits on speech in the interest of public safety ... Screaming 'FIRE" in a crowded theater is rightly against the law, yet it clearly restricts 'free speech' ....

The notion of a 'free market' is also limited through the restriction of acts which harm the public interest .... certain economic actions or structures, like monopolistic corporate structures, or collusion in the marketplace to artificially fix prices, are deemed to harm the public interest .... The public, through legitimate, legislative fiat, has the RIGHT and DUTY to act on behalf of the public interest to protect the citizens from such unfair business practices ...

Some libertarians pretend that such 'regulations' are overbearing and a 'restriction to freedom' .... hogwash .... They are the result of the PEOPLE'S desire to police their own marketplace through the legitimate execution of the legislative process .... There is no explicit 'right' to a absolutely regulation-free economy embodied in the US Constitution .... No one has a 'right' to screw citizens in the economic sphere ....

FDR saved this nation from the ravages of the 'laissez faire' marketplace bazaar .... And we thank him for placing those 'reasonable' restrictions into the marketplace ....

To say that 'because you desire greater personal liberties you must also promote an unregulated marketplace or you are a hypocrite' is a fallacious ad hominem argument, and an intentional non sequitur ....

I would, if I were you, rethink the supposed connection: there is none ....

[DieboldMustDie]

8. The world economy is dominated...

by a relative handful of huge corporations. In the absence of controls of some sort, these will consolidate into fewer and fewer, ever larger corporations that will dominate the lives of everyone on earth; actually, we're pretty close to that situation right now.

Corporations, being a creation of society, ought to serve the well being of society as a whole. As for small businesses, particularly proprietorships, I think the libertarian position is a more reasonable one.

My 2¢ :shrug:

[Columbia]

9. Technically, he is correct

But you must remind him that money does buy certain freedoms. Without money, we do not have the leisure time to do what we want to do. Would you consider the homeless truly free? Of course not, they are extremely limited in their choices in life. Money buys choices. Period.

In order to ensure that everyone has at least an equal or more fair opportunity to create wealth, we have to implement certain economic controls to ensure that the ultra-wealthy do not overly-profit over the everyone else. By doing so, this allows more people to have the chance to generate more wealth, and thus more liberty.

[wuushew]

11. Libertarians are just Republicans that want to smoke pot

n/t

[cosmicvortex20]

12. Ive heard that, but this one doesnt smoke pot or drink even

I have to give it to him though, hes anything if not consistant. He doesnt do drugs, but supports the rights of others to do so.

That doesnt sound very conservative to me.

[DaveSZ]

14. I think he's right to some extent

The problem is that we've tried unregulated capitalism, and we got the Great Depression as a result.

I believe in most of the "wide open" social freedoms that your friend probably does, but I also believe there is a place for an EPA, Securities Exchange Commission, etc.


Look what happens when you have deregulation - you get Enron bilking billions from Californians.

The robber barons will always try to get away with that kind of thing.

[cosmicvortex20]

16. So the answer is yes... were philosophically inconsistant?

Seems a bit troubling if thats the case, but thx for the input.

[merh]

30. You get the media being owned by corporations that have an

interest in world events that they control with the media. Like what we have now. No fair reporting, slanting reporting to further the interests of the corporations.

Some economic controls are necessary. imho

[wuushew]

24. Life is less about freedom than happiness

sure freedom of association, religion etc are nice to have if you can meet certain material requirements. However the nature of our society dictates that people are "free" to fail in economic and legalistic ways. In capitalism the have nots always outweigh the haves by a wide margin. Since true economic coercion will always benefit the majority, iron-fisted "leftist" tactics can never be said not to be populist. Any system that taxes or redistributes wealth at a rate less than 100% will always leave incentive to earn or exploit people further. That the rate of taxation falls so lightly on the rich is part moralistic and part mistaken naivete. Something like 19% percent of people feel they are in top 1%, so from a voting perspective it can be understood why some people would vote that way.

Most liberals are not the ones calling for censorship, sexual behavior laws, anti-privacy laws etc. In addition certain behaviors left unregulated have very deleterious effects. Libertarians and conservatives hate affirmative action even though it levels the playing field and prevents stratification of society that is in no way based on merit, the very thing they claim to espouse. The libertarian concept of small business entrepreneur is simply not applicable to our modern civilization where wealth and legal scope are very complex and interwoven. Libertarian ideals are lethal to the environmental movement as well, any competitor producing a product will never voluntarily take on unnecessary costs. How would libertarian government deal with shared resources like water rights or international treaty obligations? There is no agreed upon libertarian framework that all people accept, therefore the sole role of government(besides common defense)is to enforce property rights which are inherently unnatural.

[ContinentalOp]

15. Here's what you do...

Get into this argument with him again when there are other people around. Get him to agree that he is against any sort of economic regulation anywhere ever. If not, he's not really a libertarian. If so you can easily steer the discussion toward a topic like child labor which he will be forced to defend. This will embarass him and discredit libertarianism in front of whatever sane people are present. Hopefully later he'll think his ideology through a little more.

But if you want to argue the point on a purely intellectual level you'll have to point out that there is no such thing as a "free market" because the market doesn't even exist without restrictions, laws, and regulations. The very basis of any market is the private ownership of property which is an artificial human concept agreed upon by society and enforced by laws, rules and regulations. You can also point out that our country wouldn't even have a marketplace if it weren't for public investment into infrastructure. Without government involvement in the marketplace we would have had no railroads, highways or airports to name just a few key essentials to trade. This line of argument will be a little tougher because he will argue to the death that all of these services would have been better provided by private industry. You will have to bring in historical facts and figures which will be pointless because you're essentially debating a brick wall.

[cosmicvortex20]

18. That doesnt address why social freedoms dont need restrictions

I agree with you fully that some controls are needed, but hes going to point out the same argument is going to come from the right over social freedoms. His logical derivitive will be if we expect government control of the economy, we cant complain when conservatives want government control of social moores.

[ContinentalOp]

21. See my post down below.

Just as I finished typing my first post I wrote another about the social angle.

[Djinn]

23. My answer would be that

who said anything about "freedom" I actually don't want people to be free to start a sexual relationship with a 12 year old or to sell headache tablets that make you go blind. So YEP I'm in favour of "controls" in BOTH the social AND economic arenas.

The actual difference between most libs and most conservatives is that they want to regulate stuff that has NO bearing on the community as a whole whereas libs tend to regulate for the benefit of all.

To be honest I'd shut him up by asking if he cares that the "beef" he buys actually IS beef and isn't rancid camel and to read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle - for just one example of "control" that I bet he has no problem with. I bet it'd take me only 15 minutes to find some inconsistencies in HIS stated belief in pure freedom

[antigone382]

Morality is debatable; exploitation is not.

A person who chooses to watch x-rated films, sleep with a person of the same sex, or drink alcoholic beverages may be engaging in activity that others find reprehensible, but the fact remains that there is no concrete physical harm being done to another person in the process. In a secular society you cannot clearly define right and wrong, and so must give others the right to enjoy life as they see fit, provided they don't harm anyone else.

On the other hand, a corporation which does not pay its workers enough to survive, pollutes the environment, makes products that don't work or are dangerous, and drowns out all of its competition, is causing discernible harm to society and needs to have restrictions placed on it. I used to be a libertarian, and the idea of a society in which individuals and businesses are able to exist in total freedom is all very nice. However, it does not work in real life. Corporations do not and should not have the same rights and freedoms as individuals, because the purposes and capabilities of the two are entirely different. Comparing social freedoms to economic freedoms is like saying you should care for your pet dog the same way you should care for a household appliance.

On Edit: now that I think about it, IMHO, liberals aren't really for unnecessary economic restrictions. Laws against murder, rape, etc. are social restrictions designed to prevent harm being brought by one person upon another. In the same way, the limitations on businesses that I mentioned above are economic restrictions, designed to prevent harm to other businesses or to individuals.

[depakid]

17. Ask him if he's ever heard of "The Gilded Age"

A more splendid example of "rugged individualism" coupled with economic oppression would be hard to find. At the heart of the matter, that's what libertarianism is all about... A truly bankrupt and amoral philosophy, if there ever was one.

[cosmicvortex20]

19. Thanks, Ill do some research. I havent heard of that one.

Ill check into this guilded age. Thanks!

[DaveSZ]

22. I think

I think libertarians (and Republicans) tend to look at corporations as if they were people.

[depakid]

29. During the "Gilded Age" corporations gained "personhood"

thanks to a Supreme court in 1886 that was easily as corrupt as the majority on today's court....

This Court went on to become infamous in legalizing segregation (seperate but "equal"), striking down womens' and child labor laws (reasoning that it was their "freedom of contract to work 18 hour days in appalling conditions) and assorted other regulation meant to protect people from abuses or protect the community from corporations externalized costs.

This is what you get when Laissez faire capitalism- i.e., economic libertarianism, rules the country.

[Columbia]

28. An age of government corruption

May not be the best example to use against libertarianism.

[depakid]

31. Why not?

It seems to me that unregulated monopolies and oligarchies were part and parcel to the unmitigated corruption in government in the first place- which in turn fueled the populist and progressive reform movements that later became what we (used to?) call liberalism.

The fundamental flaw in libertarianism is that if government leaves corporations unregulated, they will squeeze people for all they're worth- and trash the environment- and other businesses- in the process. That's as true today as it ever was....

[ContinentalOp]

20. In regard to social liberties...

Libertarians can't claim any ideological purity in this area either. Taken to it's logical conclusion, absolute social liberty would have to allow for murder, theft, rape, etc. If he can agree that some social rules and restrictions are beneficial to society then he has to give up his absolutist ideology and argue each topic on a case by case basis. In other words it's not a simple More Liberty -- Less Liberty spectrum. As a society we have decided that some social and economic restrictions are essential to our survival and therefore each and every instance of government involvement in social and economic issues is potentially beneficial and must be evaluated individually.

[guitar man]

26. It's great in theory

But a disaster in practice. If unchecked libertarianism were allowed to roam the earth, they might just cut down all the trees, being there would be no environmental regulation. No trees, no air to breathe,right? Now some big corporation in their unchecked "free market capitalism" system will have figured out how to manufacture air and bottle it up for sale. Out of work and afford any air? You suffocate. In the end you wouldn't have been "economically viable" and "the market" ultimately determined your fate.

I know this example seems a little extreme, but I think it illustrates the failings of an absoultely unchecked economic system. Some regulations are a must for the good of all.

[cosmicvortex20]

27. Actually, I have used this one on him already...

I get back from him that trees are a renewable resource and that a company that uses trees would have to replant if they wanted to stay in buisness. He mentioned some stat about there being more trees now then in the 60s because of supply and demand, but Im not sure where he got that from.

[guitar man]

32. He needs to understand

That companies CANNOT be trusted to do the right thing as regards the general welfare of the population. They have proven time and time again where their loyalyies lie and those loyalties do NOT include the nation at large. Libertarian economics is an "every man for himself" proposition and simply leaves no room for the greater good.

[flaminbats]

33. liberal comes from the word liberty..

If someone doesn't love liberty, then by definition they are not liberal.


"I asked for clarification and he said that conservatives tend to like freedom in the economic arena, but they like tight controls on social freedoms. Inversely, he said liberals like wide open social freedoms, but tight controls on economic issues."

Seems like your friend just needs to take Politics 101! His description matches the profile of a New Deal Democrat. But at some point economics and social issues meet. Are healthcare, social security, and public education economic rights or controls? Is government regulation the enforcement of law and justice in the private sector, or is it the limitation on the right of corporations to have the same legal status and rights of human beings? Is national healthcare the right to never be denied treatment because of a pre-existing condition, or is it the limitation on an insurance company to cherry-pick or ripoff the consumer?

In short, liberty does not equal anarchy. But aristocracy and imperialism does result from survival of the fittest. This is why our government was created.."to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed."

[el_gato]

34. Freedom belongs to people not Corporations

fuck Exxon,

Corporations have no right to claim personhood.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

36. I feel like a psychiatrist listening to someone say 'I have this friend..'

Your responses don't sound very much like someone who is talking to their 'friend' about this issue....lol