What is Liberty?

[Final-Fan]

palou said:

Final-Fan said:

But now haven't you abandoned the absolutist position you desired?  Doesn't every transaction inherently affect other possible transactions?  This is an extreme example, but hasn't the hoarder in your hurricane example just built a different sort of "wall" around those essential goods?  Donald Trump could put a door in his wall and make John pay a fee to get stuff:  a tariff, basically, but not one imposed by a government. But no more so than the hurricane vulture selling his goods is charging "taxes". 

The difference (to a libertarian) is that the hurricane vulture, at that instance, has the property rights over the resource - obtained through a consensual transaction. While Donald is preventing transactions between different people. 

Again, I personally support a morality based on expected value, rather than liberty.

The way I see it, you're conflating two different things:  not being constrained in your actual transactions (i.e. you are not stolen from or forced to buy/sell), and not being constrained in your potential transactions (i.e. you are allowed to buy/sell whatever you want).  The vulture, if you think about it, is constraining the potential transactions of every other buyer in the local market, and this is somehow less of a violation of the principle than constraining the potential transactions of John Mexico and the people who happen to want to trade with him? 

P.S.  I think you will find that the principle proposed in your OP simply doesn't say anything on the subject of preventing people from making transactions.