sc94597 said:
Even if one supports conscription for extreme cases, which is an arbitrary exception, Mises knows very well that what is considered "extreme" differs from person to person, so it would easily be abusive to add such a proviso. Supporting conscription in the marginal instance denies individuals full self-ownership, but you recognized that with "I can concede that he is not 100% Libertarian in when it comes to that particular viewpoint." "What you are referring to in pooling resources and or expecting people to hand over sole proprietorship to the worker in allowing them not only a fair share of profit but equal say in the individuals company is more of a pipe dream than a realistic expectation. You’d assume that every entrepreneur/owner would be willing to hand over this without coercion or force. Its rather nonsensical and unrealistic. The majority of individuals who have built their business from the ground up an sacrificed time with family in order to provide financially would never go along with the idea." https://mises.org/library/rothbards-left-and-right-forty-years-later "Indeed, he would later argue that any nominally private institution that gets more than 50% of its revenue from the government, or is heavily complicit in government crimes, or both, should be considered a government entity; since government ownership is illegitimate, the proper owners of such institutions are "the 'homesteaders', those who have already been using and therefore 'mixing their labor' with the facilities." This entails inter alia "student and/or faculty ownership of the universities." As for the "myriad of corporations which are integral parts of the military-industrial complex," one solution, Rothbard says, is to "turn over ownership to the homesteading workers in the particular plants."16 He also supported third-world land reforms considered socialistic by many conservatives, on the grounds that existing land tenure represented "continuing aggression by titleholders of land against peasants engaged in transforming the soil."17 And here again Rothbard is following that wild-eyed leftist Ludwig von Mises, who wrote: Nowhere and at no time has the large-scale ownership of land come into being through the working of economic forces in the market. It is the result of military and political effort. Founded by violence, it has been upheld by violence and by that alone "
I agree with Rothbard that any institutions that benefit greatly from state-privilege should be homesteaded, and I agree with Mises that large scale alienable ownership over land would be very expensive to protect without a state to subsidize that protection. Therefore, monopolies over land would be costly, and more people would have access. Combined, both of these set up an environment where market socialism (particularly mutualism) can compete with capitalism. There is nothing wrong with that. I am for markets more than I am for employer-employee wage relationships, and if the latter lose out the prior, so be it. At the same time, abolishing capitalism through force, is obviously illibertarian, no worthwhile libertarian-socialist would argue for such actions. I have done contract work as a sole-propriertor, so to an extent. The problem with your argument is that the reason why cooperation is difficult, is because large vertical institutions benefit greatly from economies of scale as well as outright privileges (subisidies, legal monopolies, etc) provided by state. Furthermore, one must consider the economic calculation problem (thank Mises for this one.) The larger the insitution (not just government) the less efficient it is in planning, because the knowledge is not being directly inputed to the person making the decisions in the market. One can argue that large vertical firms only remain healthily profitable because the workers and lower management often ignore central management, because they have more information on the status of the market. "This calculation argument can be applied not only to a state-planned economy, but also to the internal planning of the large corporation under interventionism, or state capitalism. (By state capitalism, I refer to the means by which, as Murray Rothbard said, “our corporate state uses the coercive taxing power either to accumulate corporate capital or to lower corporate costs,” in addition to cartelizing markets through regulations, enforcing artificial property rights like “intellectual property,” and otherwise protecting privilege against competition.)" So it is errenous to believe that a free-market would have the same winners and losers as our current one. Without the state, markets would manifest differently in certain ways and similarly in others. Small businesses, and cooperatives would definitely have a much better time if 1. diseconomies of scale took over, and 2. the state did not provide large companies with subsidies, anti-competitive legislation, and legal protections against torts (limited liability.) There is already cooperation within any firm, but it is very hierarchial. Small businesses tend to be less hierarchial and more horizontal, and that is all that socialists want. "While it would work for an individual proprietorship where the business would only require a single owner such as a small business computer repair shop, multilevel marketing or some small service that can be provided to the public, those who already own a business or who had ideas to create a product on a mass scale would then be forced under the society to share ownership. I personally would not want a society in that manner because the reality is some people are of higher intelligence than others." The bolded is not true at all. If somebody can find people to work for them, then they can own the means of production and provide a wage. Nobody is contesting that. The argument being made is that fewer people will want to work for somebody if they have better alternatives. Within these democratic/socialist firms, compensation does not have to be equal either. The people within the institution can vote to reward the person who has the most and the best ideas if it means everyone else will be better off by keeping them happy. Nobody is being forced to do anything. There would just be less of a monopoly over most forms of capital and credit (without the state), and therefore people would have more choices in the organization of their firms, as well as more bargaining power if they do choose to work in a capitalist firm, as the labor market would be more competitive.
I think one important thing to consider, is that the society right-libertarians, left-libertarians, and libertarian-socialists want might be different, but the path to get there is the same -- abolish the state. In order to be a libertarian they can't prescribe unprovoked violence, and that is where all three groups agree. Whatever comes from abolishing the state does not matter, because it would be illibertarian to oppose it. If it is socialism, so be it. If it is capitalism, so be it. If it is something in between or a mixture of the two, keeping eachother in balance (as I suspect it would be), so be it. The ends don't matter as much as the means. I thank you as well, for the conversation. It is pretty civil and interesting as far as political conversations go. |
Shit! My apologies. I didn't even noticed you responded, for some reason the blue icon didn't show up until last night when I checked vg for Switch updates (lol).
Yes, I do say I prefer civil debate as well. At least ideas can be shared and disputed with using actual thought versus a lot of conversations on this site where it turns into ad-hominem and factless debate. I don't agree with you on a fair amount of your ideological standpoint but I can respect the time and actual thought process you display which is quite freshing compared to previous discussions I've had here.
I still believe that despite some wavering views Mises had in comparison to the modern day Libertarian, when comparing all his viewpoints, especially concerning the market economy, he would still be classified as the father of modern Libertarianism, especially, if you are going to group in any form of socialism, even if it is non-institutional with Libertarianism (which I vehemently disagree with).
Though classified as a Utilitarian at the time, here is an excellent argument as to why A Libertartian/Utilitarian economy can integrate similar ideology.
“compared with other institutions, markets do the best job of promoting social happiness without depending on people trying to promote social happiness. Markets solve two major problems for utilitarianism. First, most people don’t desire to maximize social happiness as opposed to their own happiness and the happiness of a relatively small circle of family and friends. Second, even if people desire to maximize social happiness, they generally don’t know how. As individuals, we know very little about the distribution of the world’s resources and particular people’s desires for those resources. Consequently, we lack the information we need to produce an optimal match between resources and people. But markets provide both the incentives and the information that people need to advance the happiness of strangers. Markets generally make our moral and cognitive limitations work for us rather than against us. They channel self-interest toward the public interest.”
Libertarianism is not necessarily abolishing the state completely as most believe that having a small form of government, limited to protecting the rights and freedoms of the people of said state is the only role that it should stay active in. Abolishing the state completely pushes the ideology into the realm of anarcho-capitalism, communism, etc.
Your experience as a contractor in a sole proprietorship, would not necessarily give the same knowledge and experience as running a small-medium sized business that employees 20+ people. I’m not saying that to be rude, I’m just trying to establish a line of thought and reasoning as to why I believe your analysis is incorrect.
See, under a true and not branch off, by means or definition of an actual Libertarian society, any system within a community or competition as you described between wage relationships, between the employer and employee, competing against companies that went the route of mutualism would fit in that realm due to the freedom of being able to choose any platform desired. The issue with what you describe as Libertarian socialism is that by definition, any society that would allow the existance of the sole proprietorship to remain and wage agreements would then render the deifinition null and void. While no worthwhile Libertarian would argue for such actions as you claimed, it is impossible not to have some form of force, if it is through a central planned economy by the collective society to be able to implement that society. It would require the use of force in one manner or another despite your objections or else how would resistance against it be met?
The reason my friend is not the monopolies or mega corporations that influence the government to implement the regulations that make it difficult to compete, that are the deciding factor as to why cooperation would be difficult(especially in business) but a little thing called individualism. The reality is, while everyman is created equal (as I believe in the eyes of god) in terms of having natural rights and freedoms, we have differing opinions and levels of intelligence. While an employee can contribute input to a business, it doesn’t mean that they should have a decision in steering or given a voting right to determine what acceptable pay is and in what direction a company should take. Many entreprenuers who have started out in partnerships end up disagreeing on what direction they want to go in and split. While you could always leave said companyand start or join another, many of us prefer to beour own bosses and then if they decided to grow that idea into a larger company, they would once again be limited in being able to steer the proverbial ship of their destiny due to the restricions of your society.
I never stated that I believed a free market would produce the same winners or losers. Quite the contrary. I completely agree with you on most of the point you made in your statement. Except of course of what socialists want,lol.
The problem with your argument is that we already have that in society. It all comes back to the non-aggression principle. You simply cannot have a society that is classified as Libertarian, even if you want to add a term as an offshoot and not agree on private ownership of property and in the means of production. In your society while maybe more polite would still require the demand that private property be abolished although through the collective instead of the state. You cannot simply convice people to give up their private property in order to transition to the society that you are describing. If you allow them to keep it then you simply have a Libertarian society. You can operate the type of more freedom leaning socialism you are describing in a Libertarian society but not in reverse.
All forms of political thought can have similar agreements while still be entire separate entities that cannot be classified as the same doctrine.
To be quite honest, Libertarian socialist just seems a more polite term for Anarcho-Socialist .
" Rebellion Against Tyrants Is Obedience To God"
