Left-libertarianism: a summary

Tim Myers said:

May I ask: What happens in a country when everyone living in it has the same amount of money??.....

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Who's proposing such a model?

Well, if it is not the Left-Libertarian model, then I have misunderstood......

Tim Myers said:

Well, if it is not the Left-Libertarian model, then I have misunderstood......

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You apparently have.
The Left-Libertarian model is opposed to the creation of power MONOPOLIES
, where a few individuals appropriate a disproportionate amount of natural resources to the detriment of others. But that's not the same as everyone having the exact same amount of money. Far from it.

Okay, so using the Left-Libertarian model, who gets to have the most money and the most power??

Jane_the_Bane said:

Unfortunately, the current German government (and the "New Labor"-esque government that came before) follow the approach of "copying the US as closely as possible is the route to success", and "the market will put everything to rights if we remove as many controls as possible".

Even in Germany, the last two decades have seen the rich grow all the richer, while the middle class and their rights are gradually eroding to bolster the profits of major corporations.

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I'm sorry to hear that.

When the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful then logic suggests they will use their power to push the nation further to the right.

Demographics suggests the opposite, that the few people have lots of money the more will want a more equitable nation.

Big factors are 'corporate benevolence' in the Universities and the control the very rich have of the media,


but the clincher appears to be how corrupt the voting system becomes

In this country the Conservative head of the local government forbade any member to run against the Conservative candidate, so he got in and is our Prime Minister and running the total farce we call our government. And we ended up in the 2004 election with all main parties offering the same unpopular set of policies

And before and during the Iraq War the population was 70% against and the government 70% in favor


In the US it takes a billion to make a President and needless to say the rich have a big say in who gets in and will determine his re election fund.


Is that your understanding of what is happening?

is there any way out?

no because if there was someone to come in and try to fix it the media will make sure they're thrown out really quick, and the cycle starts over.

jonsun80 said:

no because if there was someone to come in and try to fix it the media will make sure they're thrown out really quick, and the cycle starts over.

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Yes

It would take a freak set of circumstances to get in owing to the need for long term support from rich & powerful sponsors, there was a (Tom Hanks?) movie about a gardener becoming President as a result of being misunderstood by rich and powerful backers.

But it did happen with Jimmy Carter, and he did a very good job and survived very well until Bush with all his contacts pushed Jimmy out and on the ticket with Reagan nominally in charge, got in.

How does someone get rid of human competitiveness?

Social anarchism and communalism sound nice on paper or within a very small social unit like an extended family. But it doesn't really work when there's a large population with a high degree of anonymity.

If there's no regulation from a "state-like" institution then how do you stop people from thinking, "Yea, but if I screw this person over who has no connection to me or my family, then I can benefit myself and my family".

Even if you manage to create such a perfect, utopian-style economic system, it just takes one person to have that thought and act on it and then you slowly make your way down the road to state-sponsored capitalism.

The way I see it, this is essentially the evolution of economy. We started out with small family units or tribes that were all communal. As cities developed, anonymity increased but people continued to only look out for their family unit or tribe rather than the collective whole because the collective whole was too large for a human being to fully fathom or actively care about. So you started getting people competing inter-tribe within close confines for resources, bartering-ability (aka money) and land. Communalism died and capitalism followed all because someone thought "Hey, but what if I just screw this guy over anonymously so that I can get ahead?"

I'm not sure if trying to go back to some form of communalism would really work especially in our highly resource-scarce, globalized world.

Also, there was a question evaded earlier: who would build roads?

leftrightleftrightleft said:

How does someone get rid of human competitiveness?

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Answer 1: You don't. You just find a way to channel it into the least destructive direction, yet still give people the satisfaction of feeling that an additional effort brings additional benefits - just without letting them screw others over in the process.

Answer 2: at least another millenium of social evolution, methinks. Not that long ago, people still thought that torture and public executions qualified as justice, and that social status was something you were born with. In the last century, however, the death penalty has gradually disappeared from most societies.

Social anarchism and communalism sound nice on paper or within a very small social unit like an extended family. But it doesn't really work when there's a large population with a high degree of anonymity.

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I agree. People grow increasingly ruthless when it's just a bunch of faceless strangers or distinctly "foreign" groups being screwed over.

However, by delegating all authority WRT humanitarian control to the state, people see little reason to intervene, or check their own behaviour - that's what the authorities are for, after all.

It's a variation of the bystander effect.

leftrightleftrightleft said:

How does someone get rid of human competitiveness?

Social anarchism and communalism sound nice on paper or within a very small social unit like an extended family. But it doesn't really work when there's a large population with a high degree of anonymity.

If there's no regulation from a "state-like" institution then how do you stop people from thinking, "Yea, but if I screw this person over who has no connection to me or my family, then I can benefit myself and my family".

Even if you manage to create such a perfect, utopian-style economic system, it just takes one person to have that thought and act on it and then you slowly make your way down the road to state-sponsored capitalism.

The way I see it, this is essentially the evolution of economy. We started out with small family units or tribes that were all communal. As cities developed, anonymity increased but people continued to only look out for their family unit or tribe rather than the collective whole because the collective whole was too large for a human being to fully fathom or actively care about. So you started getting people competing inter-tribe within close confines for resources, bartering-ability (aka money) and land. Communalism died and capitalism followed all because someone thought "Hey, but what if I just screw this guy over anonymously so that I can get ahead?"

I'm not sure if trying to go back to some form of communalism would really work especially in our highly resource-scarce, globalized world.

Also, there was a question evaded earlier: who would build roads?

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I have a few thoughts about this.

One is that any position - left libertarian, right libertarian, authoritarian - all of these have different extremes. Most people tend towards being moderate. Lots of people might have an underlying philosophy that tends towards libertarianism but also see the need for cooperation at a higher, formal level for particular purposes.

Personally I consider myself a distributist. On political tests I tend to show up as a moderate left libertarian, but I don't see myself as really being right or left, and I am probably more authoritarian than it seems. None the less, I think it is important that responsibilities always be devolved to the lowest appropriate level.

THat doesn't mean that I believe in utter individualism though, or tribalism. There are some issues - air pollution comes to mind - which are essentially global, and there needs to be some mechanism to deal with it on that level. That probably means some kind of governance. And there would need to be governance for other issues as well.

I am not sure that human competitiveness is such a problem. There have been times when the economic systems did not rely to the same degree on it. Not that it didn't exist, but it was seen as something to be careful about, and not the bringer of truth and a moral force.

As far as roads, there are all kinds of ways to deal with that - it could potentially be pretty local as it was in the past.

I think your point about anonymity is important. There is a reason people who favour this viewpoint tend to really push local living in human scale communities, and that is because interpersonal relationships are key. I think that if we can't live well with the people around us, we certainly can't live well in a global culture. Living at the level of neighbourhood or village as much as possible makes for happier people, and it is also far more environmentally sustainable. Unfortunately few people really appreciate the importance of local politics.

I don't think communalism died just for the reasons you suggest though. I think there was a conscious decision to move in that direction, and to erect economic structures and regulations that favour that. People always want to imply that the type of economy we have is based on a free market, but it isn't - there are all kinds of artificial structures that favour and encourage certain elements. I heard someone suggest recently that if corporations want to be able to act as persons under the law, they should also have the same responsibilities and limits as persons - so if they get convicted of a crime, they should "go to jail" and have to shut down for a period. Which would be totally impractical in many ways, but it goes to point out what an artificiality the whole thing is.