My Dinner with Mike

In a college town coffeehouse, two political theorists engage in an intellectual conversation about the viability and vulnerabilities of a Libertarian Government.
by Gary Trieste
(libertarian)
Saturday, July 23, 2011

 It is an Autumn lateday weekend in a college town, multicolored leaves still on the trees and spattering the street, streetlights coming on, and a light chill in the air portends the winter to come.

The hussle and bussle of a very busy coffeehouse comes to view, and within.

The coffee staff behind the counter attending to impatiently waiting customers in line. The sounds of whipping lattes, espressos and cappucinos reverb throughout the establishment. The clinking sounds of cheese cake slices on little plates with tiny forks, bottled waters thumping on the counter. The cashier ringing up purchases.

A cacophany of overlapping conversations fill the air, caffeine fueled enthusiasm, laughter, and the esprit of young minds with passions and convictions still intact banter back and forth on topics big and small, important and mundane.

We see in the back, near a corner window, two men sitting at a small table with two large cups of coffee in front of them, conversing intently.

One of them, Mike, an older man, slightly balding with wireframe glasses, wearing a tweed jacket and scarlet mock turtleneck. His intelligent eyes are comfortable with his knowledge, his movements are composed and deliberate, and his affect is one of honest open engagement in the conversation.

The other, Gary, sips his coffee while intently listening to Mike's commentary. He has some notes and diagrams written on the back of the placemat and napkins in front of him. He has a brown leather jacket on with a calculator in the front pocket, and a pen in his hand. His straight black hair, tousled and slightly unkempt, covers just below his ears. His intense attention seems aggressive on first sight, but is really just passion and purpose.

Mike finishes his point as we begin to clearly hear the conversation . . .

Gary:

Mike, you make a lot of good points, and you might still think I am a Randian, because of  how what I say tracks her overall oratory, but really I am not.

Notwithstanding that, I still stand by my statement:

“Giving the government a superior interest is the Socialist view of the relationship between individuals and society.
Basically saying the individual is inferior to the collective.”

Although in political and governmental theory, there may be a distinction, in practice socialism acts almost identically to authoritarianism.
Much as the Soviet & Maoist communists always gave lip service to the political theory that was ostensibly the basis for their governments, in both cases they acted like dictatorships.

Much as in religion, the priest or shaman acts a proxy for God, and speaks for him, and in his name, in Socialist systems the Government acts as a proxy for the ideals of Socialism and makes sweeping policy, legal and social/moral decisions in its name.

In both cases, political power is not flowing from the pure and noble origins, but rather concentrated in its stand-in, a changling who is not so pure and noble.
And much like God, who cannot speak for himself, socialism likewise cannot speak for itself. Again both cases, human leaders inevitably corrupt the administration of the theoretically correct.

Governmental power will alway become corrupted unless and until that power is truly distributed among the people.
Socialism seeks to do this by making all contribute equally and sharing equally, by edict from above.
Libertarianism seeks to do this by empowering the people individually directly, giving them the same rights and discretions over themselves as government traditionally monopolized for itself.
Whenever power is centralized, as in a socialist society, that power gets usurped, and it quickly becomes indistinguishable to authoritarianism.
In both cases, the Government speaks for the people, and reserves for itself the superior privilege to decide what shall be right for any individual in particular, in the People’s name, and in People’s governmental interest.

And that is why I equate the two, for all intents and practice.

Also, I am not a Randfan. She was cute, had a few interesting perspectives, many of which overlapped libertarian theory, but I ain’t gaga over her.
So who cares if she liked liberarianism or not. I sure don’t.

Mike:

Gary, you are setting up a “straw man”.

It is a common mistake in the US. We look at the history of the USSR and China and confuse their brand of totalitarian/communists with socialism. I’ve known dedicated true communists of the Communist Party and of the Maoist branch. They hated socialists/socialism, which they considered bourgeois and effete.

Your statement about “socialism in practice operates almost identically to authoritarianism” is based on two systems that were not socialist, but communist. Philosophically, that makes a huge difference. Tell me about the “authoritarianism” in Sweden and Denmarkfor instance. Again, what about England, France, Canada, Germany, etc. that all have what you would call “socialized” medicine? Are they authoritarian in your view? You would probably answer me that their health care systems are authoritarian because any time government is involved in anything but basic services, that is authoritarian. To me this is a tautology. This is exactly where we differ and where I think that Libertarianism as thought of in the US is a lovely theoretical philosophy, but a terrible way to run a society.

Just as you feel socialism per se would always lead to totalitarianism, I believe that Libertarianism leads to the same thing. For a percentage of all humanity, lets say 10% for instance, the will to power and wealth is a lure that goes far beyond the sexual fantasies of testosterone crazed young males. Indeed for people with that “will to power,” gaining it is far better than sex and once gotten sex follows anyway. In a Libertarian society these, sociopathic types, will always win. This is because in the end, the result of all human power struggles comes down to whose got the weapons and the soldiers. We are still on the level of the Great Apes, where the ape at top the hierarchy runs the show and gets to mate with all the females.

That to me is the inevitable result of the libertarian philosophy: Survival and victory of the strongest. That the hierarchy is one person, or an oligarchy makes no difference to the rest of us who wind up getting ruled. Now I don’t know, this result may seem appropriate and just to you. For all I know you’re a seven footer, adept in martial arts, expert in weaponry and already wealthy. If that describes you, a society based on Libertarianism would suit you just fine.

You offer up the USSR and China as examples of socialism gone bad. Can you show me any examples of Libertarianism working out into a society that isn’t run by a few. I don’t think you can. In human history in areas where no government existed, the society that evolved was always run by a few.
Take the US Western Frontier for instance. See the Lincoln County Wars, for instance. Whether you have minimal government, or a lot of government, it always comes down to the sociopaths who covet power. My preference is I’d rather have a government to protect me from those thugs who like to
be in charge.

You say that in both cases, political power is not flowing from the pure and noble origins, but rather becomes concentrated in its stand-in, the changling who is not so pure and noble.

You should read up on the man who runs Blackwater and tell me this guy wouldn’t try to take over a Libertarian based society. Also tell me how pure and noble his thoughts are. The other problem presented by a Libertarian Society is that you have to have basic laws, or it’s every person for themselves and the one with the most firepower gets their way. Who administers those basic laws and how are they kept from being corrupt? Then too, you have supposed Libertarians like Ron Paul, who would impose their anti-abortion religious beliefs on a Libertarian society, which would instantly destroy its’ libertarianism.

Gary, it is a philosophy that is really appealing in theory, but can’t work in practice. Then too, most idealistic political philosophies seem ideal in conception, but don’t work in practice. Marx, for instance was an idealist, but would have been appalled with where his followers took his beliefs. Adam Smith produced good economic theory, but now finds his beliefs cherry picked, by those using him as an authority. To paraphrase Shakespeare: “The fault dear Brutus lies not in the stars, it lies within us.”

Gary:

Much as you point out my possible straw man in comparing Socialism to Communism, I believe you are mistaking Anarchism for Libertarianism.

Under a Libertarian system, the government’s law enforcement system is just as strong and vibrant as it is for system’s that you implicitly condone. Stronger even, insofar it would not be burdened and distracted by dozens of victimless vice ‘crimes’, and could devote it energies to real crimes.
So, people would not be free to plunder, terrorize and pillage each other anymore than they can today in any western civilized country.

Your poised doomsday scenarios refer to systems of Anarchism, an a governmental philosophy I do not ascribe to. In fact I agree with you that Anarchism would quickly devolve into Totalitarianism, survival of the fittest, and a much nastier arrangement than most.

Although different, Communism and Socialism are kissing cousins in their economic basis concerning an individual’s right to the money, or other work product, that they produce.
Socialism seeks to constrain that control to economic matters only, Communism continues on to everything else.

Much like we haven’t had a pure Libertarian system, neither have we had a pure Socialist society. Usually it is watered down with or melded with varying amounts of arbitrarily permitted capitalism.

But my analogy to the Soviet and Maoist regimes is still appropriate, namely that they did not even even live up to their namesake of Communism, while all the time touting its virtues and justifying everything they did under its aegis.

But Socialism would inevitably have the same problem; once you centralize the power to control all peoples’ money, you have the power to control everything else about their lives. If you are familiar with Libertarian tracts, you may aware of the adage that if you can control a person’s property, you control their personal freedoms as well.

Given that kind of centralized power, it too would devolve into oligarchy.

Remember what Winston Churchill said just prior to the British election in 1945:

. . . a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

Mike:

I’m well aware of the difference between Anarchism and Libertarianism. I would never compare Anarchists to Libertarians because to me Anarchism is totally immersed in wishful thinking, i.e. we can all live together peacefully in an unstructured society based on barter, where as Libertarians are for the most part serious thinkers, with some sensibility’s that match my own.

But you also seem to think that under a Libertarian system, the government’s law enforcement system would be just as strong and vibrant as it would be for the systems I am talking about.

Here though is where we begin to diverge. While it is true that “victimless crimes” would be eliminated, what about Ron Paul, a purported Libertarian (I don’t know what you think of him) would have the victimless crime of abortion regulated?
We then come back to who has power within that society and whose personal ox is being gored. For instance, one would presume that in a Libertarian society people would have the right to form labor unions. However, a Libertarian Government
under pressure from industry might declare labor unions an illegal restraint of trade, as do many Republican’s. We both know the history of labor strife in this country where the Government actually stepped in to smash labor unions.

Now you, yourself might think that labor unions would be an illegal restraint of trade, but if that is the case than you would be redefining a construct where everyone is free to utilize the rights of their own property and also be able to negotiate their own terms of employment, however, they choose to bargain.

And your analogy to the Soviet and Maoist regimes is true, in that they did not even even live up to their namesake of Communism,

Where I think you miss my point is that why should we expect a Libertarian system to stay closer to its ideals, when in fact the determining factor in all  political/economic system is that they are run by individuals and individuals who attain power are almost by definition ego driven, with a strong will to power. The USSR was ruled initially by Lenin, a ruthless bastard carried away by his own fanaticism and then by Stalin, a highly paranoid psychopath, who shaped the USSR and set its’ destructive path. Mao, was also an egotist, who no doubt believed himself infallible. I’m not a fan of Karl Marx, but even he would have been shocked and disgusted by Mao’s attempt to implement his vision.

I would put to you that it is every bit as likely that any Libertarian leader, would be just as ego-driven, just as pseudo-doctrinaire and just as filled with the will to power, that sacrifices individuals on the altar of ideals. I believe this because in my years of living and hopefully growing I’ve come to the conclusion that the ills of society stem mainly from the hierarchical nature of how we humans organize ourselves. Those who are ego driven, or narcissistic, or sociopathic are generally the people who achieve power under any system. Some have enough self control and humanity to check their impulses and be able to empathize with others. Another minority of the potential leader pool have the traits, but do not suffer the hubris and so are humbled by the task, which moderates their behavior.

I am familiar with Libertarian adage that if you can control a person’s property, you control their personal freedoms as well.

There is some truth to it. Again though the “devil is in the details.” The details I refer to are if you take that premise, not a bad one on its face and then apply it to a large corporation a problem occurs. The sole purpose of a Corporation, I think you will agree, is to maximize profit. The quickest road to profit maximization is to control one’s market. That can be done by elimination of competition. Many corporations can do this by attaining a certain size and then undercutting the prices of the competition to the point that the smaller entities simply can’t compete. They could also use the Microsoft Method, which was to huckster a ubiquitous OS and then move into other software and eliminate it simply because most PC’s were using their an MS/OS, that made other apps incompatible. There are no doubt many other paths, which no doubt include things like industrial espionage, etc.

My point is once a given corporation controls a given market and make no mistake under a Libertarian System they will, then since the State must not “control a person’s (businesses) property,” that particular market loses its’ freedoms and has the potential buyers at its’ mercy. To follow the thought further what if the market in question is oil, energy, natural gas, or even water. These monopolists can have society literally by its’ throat. At that point we’ve passed beyond the libertarian Ideal, into an oligarchic paradise.

Now, you being an intelligent man, might well counter this by stating that a true Libertarian Government would not allow such a thing to happen and I would counter by saying that at that point it would cease to be a true libertarian Government and become a system more like ours. Once you make laws controlling the market, or property, you are no longer adhering to the principle that the government should not decide how people handle their own property. You also might say that under a Libertarian System, corporations would be outlawed, as not having the same rights of person hood. I would answer that it would be immaterial because a business run as a partnership or consortium of individuals would act in the same way.

Finally, Libertarianism does envision a government entity, if only to run a legal system, police and a defense system.
How would people get elected to this system? How would that differ with today’s electoral system which is for the most part controlled by Corporate money and dictated to by lobbyists? I believe that it wouldn’t differ, except to make it worse, in the sense of more bought politicians, due to wealth being freer of restraints. That is why I asked for an example of where Libertarian Philosophy has worked, because in fact it never has.

If we could postulate a world where people are fully inculcated in Libertarian ideals and thus act accordingly the system might have a chance and in fact be preferable.
Such a world cannot exist for now, or into the far future, because we humans aren’t capable of the maturity a system like that would need.

Gary:

I too think Anarchism is pie-in-the-sky thinking, if only we would get along wouldn’t it be great?
Yeah, but ‘if’ is a big word.

Although here you say you are aware of the differences between Libertarianism and Anarchism, I believe your previous example used Anarchism as the strawman to denigrate Libertarianism.
That’s why said that; here you make a better analysis.

Ron Paul’s opinions do not Libertarian make. Paul leans socially conservative, he has had unsubstantiated accusations of racism, and certainly holds the more extreme view of embrionic rights, via the ridiculous fiction that an embryo is a human being. That if true of course then leads to the state’s obligation to protect it, even under Libertarianism.
Otherwise Paul is a fairly good example of a Libertarian protagonist.

In a Libertarian society anybody has the righ of free association, including labor unions.
I don’t even know if there could be something called illegal restraint of trade under a Libertarian system, assuming no other laws were broken, but those would be the laws broken, not ‘restraint of trade’.
Any employee, unless bound by contract, is free to strike, and not run afoul anything libertarian.

I don't defend Libertarianism on the basis of whether people in power can abuse their pubic charter. It has too many other laudable things going for it.
But to answer your question, the reason why a Libertarian system would be more resistant to public corruption or usurpation of its adminsitrators, is because the governemental power is that much more distributed directly to the people. No one is obligated by law to perform anything for the government, and the government has no charter to provide any entitlements to the people (other than the minimalist justice administation and law enforcement, and other fundamentals). Thus there is nothing for which its adminstrators to coerce with, or be coerced by.
Sure it could happen, but the propensity by inception is far smaller than any other political system.

Of course I know a business’s purpose is gain profit, maximise, whatever.
This is of course always a boogeyman; a business/corporation will someday become so successful it will drown out its competition by swamping the market with its own products.
My first thought on that is though, if it has products that people want to buy over competitors’ products then perhaps that is the way it should be.
If it has inferior products, but somehow prevents its competitors wares from reaching the marketplace, I would just have to wonder how they would do that without breaking the law (fraud, blackmail, extortion). The market will naturally tropicate toward better products. Competitors will reach their consumer base, if they have a better product.
In the past it has often been the government who has aided by law the monopoly of private firms. Remove those legal restrictions, and there will always be an available competitor to break a monopoly.

I don’t see how a Libertarian government could affirmatively break a monopoly, if that monopoly was not breaking any (Libertarian) laws.
A new theory of commercial freedom infringement might have to be grafted on, but I would be skeptical it could pass muster.

In the case of demarcated socialized services, one cannot say the whole subject system is a Socialist one, but that is the slippery slope, first you have this service provided for by the govt, then another etc., until you have Socialism.
In our proposed one’s, I believe there is still some room being left for competition, so there is some wiggle room to say it is not real socialism, where the govt has a monopoly on the subject service.

In the case of ala-carte socialism, the Authoritarianism occurs in sub-tyrranies, within the realm of those services. There the administrators have their dictatorships, until the populace revolts against it.

Mike:

When you said that I have used Anarchism as the strawman to denigrate Libertarianism, you've make a valid critique and I was unclear in my statement.

And when you said, “Ron Paul’s opinions do not Libertarian make.”

We agree.

But when you say, “I don’t even know if there could be something called illegal restraint of trade under a Libertarian system, assuming no other laws were broken, but those would be the laws broken, not ‘restraint of trade’.”

Wouldn’t you say that is a potential problem, depending on who is in power? My worries with any government do not revolve around the politic/economic set up per se, but how the leaders, once in power define them. Returning to Paul for a little bit, while he considers himself a Libertarian clearly in power he wouldn’t govern like one when it comes to individual social rights.

And when you said that the reason why a Libertarian system would be more resiiant to public corruption or usurpation of its adminsitrators, is because the governemental power is much more distributed directly to the people, and that there is nothing for which its adminstrators to coerce with, or be coerced by. Well I have and issue with that.

Haven’t we seen innumerable instances where justice and police powers are abused, despite the agreed upon legal and constitutional principles? In fact isn’t a lot of that, like drug law enforcement, the very reason that has made the idea of Libertarianism more popular these days? In my view the modality for coercion is the law and police. The modality of coercing leaders is the age old method of money, power and dare I say sex.

Today’s best example of why your faith is not necessarily well-placed is Microsoft.

They developed an initial OS. It was flawed, but through good marketing became ubiquitous in PC’s for both home and business. Due to their ubiquity they began to expand their software product. Excel, clearly inferior to Lotus, destroyed that product because of inbuilt factors that hampered its’ compatibility with later Windows versions. MS Word was also clearly inferior to Wordperfect, but the same result occurred.
Ditto with MS Access. Internet Explorer explorer prevailed over much superior browsers again due to the power of market share. Microsoft controls an overwhelming share of its market that is akin to a monopoly and the truth is its’ products are inferior, prices outrageous and their activities were nominally legal.

Imagine a huge company like Exxon-Mobil that begins to buy up power companies, LNG producers, nuclear power, and all other energy entities. They could wind up controlling all energy production/distribution and in essence then run the country, or turn off its’ lights. Even Adam Smith was wary of the “free market” and clearly wrote that there needed to be some governmental control to check such excesses.

Our main source of disagreement is where you say you cannot see how a Libetarian Government can legitimately break a business monopoly.

I believe that the natural tendency of business is to try to monopolize, or form cartels, based on the simple fact that they are by nature profit making entities. I foresee, with I think history’s backing that under a Libertarian System, we would eventually wind up with monopolies/cartels in all field of major endeavor. This would be particularly true with energy, food, health, water, media and shelter. If these fields are controlled via monopoly/cartel there is then no “free market” and indeed no freedom because they hold the keys to society’s existence. A Libertarian Government, despite being run by principled people would be powerless in the face of the coercion put forth. The society would then turn Oligarchic and ultimately Fascist, in set up.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Libertarians are not fascists and in fact as I’ve stated before there is much to be admired in the philosophy and in fact I wish it would be workable. Where we differ is in the fact that I think it inevitably can’t work in any way beneficial and you believe it can and would be preferable. We both think we’re right, but we’re also both people of good will. We can at least focus on those areas where we do agree which is civil liberties.

Gary:

On this monopoly/cartel issue, you raise very good points there. And to be sure, looking at it top down, monopolies are almost always no good for society at large.
You assert that without some kind of meta-law, companies under a Libertarian system of government would inevitably grow larger, buy up all means for their competition to even reach their customers, proprietorize all the interfaces to using their products or services, possibly blackmail their customers against using other companies, etc., until they have achieved complete domination of subject goods and services and effectively locked out the possibility of competition.
Worse yet, you raise the more serious spectre of such companies gaining control over a commodity or service that the public simply cannot do without, and thus begin to control far more than their commercial offerings realm, into an area of national security.
And you point out that all this could be done legally under a Libertarian set of laws, since at no point did they threaten or do violence to another, and any infringements they did were all in the realm of voluntary merchantile competition.

To tell you the truth, I will have to dwell on these scenarios a little bit more in depth; your arguments have the ring of plausibility, though in the past most super-monopolies were made possible by governmental charter. You assert that this will happen even without govt’l regulation supporting it up, and without governmental regulation keeping it down.
This is of course you making a claim that there is an axiomatic hole in the commercial system of free-enterprise, basically runaway success of a company (at the expense of all companies in the same field).
I would reluctantly agree that if such a total overarching success is possible in a free-market system, then that success would compromise the free market.
But I wouldn’t say that Microsoft was that total, it was vast and ubiquitous, but there still was competition going on.
It would seem there might be a number of libertarian laws that would be broken for such a monopoly to form. There are concerns related to the contract of adhesion, and the tragedy of the commons.

If I could not find a viable libertarian retort to this problem, I might concede to some kind of top-down law based upon libertarian principles. Libertarian law almost as a base principle does not like laws from above (edict or fiat laws), but has a faith that all meaningful complex laws are a resultant emergent phenomena from the the few base principles of libertarianism (e.g. you can do anything you wish as long as it does not harm another in the process).

In this way it seeks to keep society a self-organizing entity with as little centralized decision making as possible.

I think more about this, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Mike:

Well, I thank you for considering the issues I raise in your ideas of Libertarian governance.

To reiterate, I would actually love to see a world where we could have such a society. I style myself as an iconoclast and as we’d both agree I would fit best in a Libertarian framework, where presumably people would be non judgmental of others.

I do not think humans are evolved enough socially to be able to handle a Libertarian Society, without it being taken over by the sociopaths among us. While during my career as a Social Worker/Psychotherapist I actually worked with, and sometimes for sociopaths. They are most difficult people to deal with, particularly since they are generally completely charming and charismatic. Human society and human science are barely able to cope with them now and won’t be for a long time coming.

In fact we would probably agree that most of our political leaders are to a greater or lesser extent sociopathic. Set them loose in a Libertarian framework and they will tear it to shreds, while convincing many they will be implementing it.

That is of course, however, my surmise but the basis of it was set years ago in my teens, after reading Rand, being enthused by her ideas being myself an outre’ nonconformist in High School and then ultimately dismissing them not for their lack of attraction, or for ideas of human psychology, but for American History particularly Teddy Roosevelt’s battles.

If I owned a lot of stock in a major corporation I would expect the CEO to be profit driven in outlook. I would want her/him to keep maximizing profits and gaining market share.
That is the value neutral purpose of any business. What we’ve seeing recent years is that attitude on testosterone. In the past part of the equation was to grow the business/profits, while ensuring its future viability and sustainability. Now the object is to just increase profits and hope someone bigger gobbles you up. The trend is definitely towards creating mega-entities and thus gobbling up the entire market.
In Microsoft’s case anti-trust laws finally took notice, since their business practices evolved into greater ruthlessness. Then to the EEU also stopped them to an extent.

The question then becomes how can a Libertarian Society be structured in a way to ensure that oligarchy and corporate blackmail won’t be the ultimate undoing of its principles? I don’t know of any ideas and/or theories that would ensure this and I suspect most Libertarians would bridle at the concept.

The reality is if people like us, coming from different viewpoints can find some basis of agreement, then maybe sometime in the future we really can find a way to humanely and fairly govern ourselves allowing each person to live up to their own potential.

Gary:

But Mike, my fears about the sociopath taking over in a Libertarian Society is far less than yours.
I can see the possibility of runaway success, driven by whomever, sociopaths or just avaricious businessmen, causing it to crack, but that is only at the highest levels of success within the society, where influence by mass scale is the enabling component. And of course these things must viewed relatively to other governmental systems - does a sociopath have an easier time doing those things under a Libertarian government than other governmental models?

I don’t concede that it is a fundamental defect at all, and with a little thought (presuming it is even found to be a mathematical modeling instability at all), the problem can addressed within an expanded application of the base libertarian principles.

My concession is not that it actually is a problem with libertarianism, but rather I can see it could be, and requires some more thought on it on my part before I feel competant to take a stand.
I can’t say yet, but just as an example, it is also possible that the monopoly question, in a truly free market, it is a self limiting possibility, that the abused consumer base would eventually revolt, or that competitors would eventually make a concerted major thrust to break such a monopoly, creating products that are cheaper, better, are compatible with the monopolizer’s products, or the monopolizer gets so bloated and complacent it implodes from its own inefficiency. Take for example the old Soviet Union, possibly Iran, and even what would have been the fate of the People's Republic of China, although they are climbing out of their socio-economic hole by adopting capitalism in practice while still saying they are Communists. Or any number of other possible self-limiting outcomes that I have not had time to consider.
I am not saying this will happen, I am just saying these are natural also plausible possibilities of entropic self-limitation.

But at the more normal levels of domestic life, sociopaths would have a far tougher time manipulating the system and manipulating people in any legal sense.
Sure there can be con men, abusers and narcicists, but they can exist in any system of govt; the target question here is would they prosper anymore under libertarianism, and I would say not.

There is less to manipulate in a libertarian system, decision making and control is far more distributed and harder to glom.
Libertarianism in its simplicity is harsher in many ways, but also purer in its blatant realism to the society’s members. They know they can’t expect to get away with the same inefficient/lie-to-yourself crap, and plan accordingly.

It is in complexity that immoral people can “play the system”, there is simply less play in a libertarian system.

Mike:

Gary, I think we’ve reached the point where we will have to just agree to disagree. Many of the points you made I disagree with, such as, your apathy about sociopaths  more easily taking over in a Libertarian Society, and the enhanced vulnerability of Libertarian rule to monopolies and immoral people gaming the system.

Now we disagree on all of the above points and while I could muster arguments against it, it would devolve on my opinion vs. yours and in truth one of us could be wrong, or we could both be wrong and there is too little evidence for a Libertarian system even coming into play to provide for “for instances.” While I believe I’m right, I’m also fully aware that that belief is based on my opinion and view of the world. You probably feel the same and neither of us can provide actual facts to prove our propositions.

Yet our meeting tonight and our dialogue has been fun for me and I hope for you. We must always, in my opinion, constantly assess and reassess our concepts about the world. You have given me much food for thought also and I can see that I need to review my premises and my arguments. Like you, not as a retreat per se, but as a renewal to see which have become stale and which need to be revised.

The happy part of this is what we both agree on. We both are strong for people’s liberties and against the encroachment of any entity on those liberties. We may see the politics and social constructs from different perspectives, but when it comes down to basics, we’re on the same side. I’m looking forward to further discussions on other issues.

Gary:

I totally concur.
At some junction often the best conclusion in discussion is an understanding that certain fundamental expectations about the topic are simply different. That doesn’t necessarily make one wrong on either side, just that the premise(s) will lead to different conclusions.

And yes, we both want the best for the individual in society is strong individual liberties that are protected from encroachment.

You know Mike, we've had a lot longer conversation than I planned for this evening, but oh my god it has been so invigorating and enjoyable.

I do have to cram for some classes tomorrow, as I am sure you have some reports to grade.

I hope to pick on this conversation later, and who knows maybe we can change the world for the better, if only!

Til later . . .

Mike: Sounds good Gary, it has been enjoyable for me too.

Gary shakes hands with Mike, and picks up his writings, downs the rest of his coffee, and shuffles through to the entrance door.

Mike sits back and ponders, drinking his coffee slowly.

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©2011 Gary Trieste, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Saturday, July 23, 2011
Last modified: Saturday, July 23, 2011

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