[ExI] we need socialism

[Samantha Atkins]

On 05/24/2014 08:25 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
> Libertarians don't like authority, or at least question it severely if
> it is some sort of science thing.  But look at the needs of society:

What a cheap characterization.  Libertarians believe in voluntarism. 
That is they do not agree that any good is achieved by some humans
initiating force against other humans to make them act contrary to their
own best judgment.     Or to put it a different way.  Libertarians
believe in self ownership.  Which means that you have the right to do
whatever you think best in all situations as long as you do not abrogate
the right of others to do the same and do not harm them.    

We have no problem with authority as such unless you are using it as a
euphemism granting the authority the right to initiate force. 

>
> Somebody has to :
>
> take out trash
> fix roads
> put out fires
> catch bad guys
> etc.

Libertarians do all of these things and more.  So what is this canard
implying that we do not?

>
> So what we do is pool out money through taxes and pay others to do
> this.  OK, so this is kindergarten level, but wait.

Libertarians have no problem with voluntary contracts with people to
provide all these services and more.  The keywords are 'voluntary' and
'contract'.   We do have a problem with claims that only government can
perform many of these services.  We find them quite spurious generally
and unbelievable.  It also leads to monopoly by government fiat in an
area of endeavor and those to less innovation and worse products for
worse prices. 

And we have a problem with people with a "government" label taking money
from us by force to do whatever they think is best regardless of what we
think.  Most of the "services" provided with this money are actually
total disservices such as the War on [some] Drugs and locking up nearly
1% of the adult population mainly on charges that are not legitimately
"crimes" or any business of government or anyone else at all. 


>
> We have a right to hate communism based on its record in Russia, N
> Korea, Cuba and others.  But wait:  all of these are
> authoritarian-based.  Aside from some hippie communes, where has
> libertarian socialism been practiced?

Relatively high freedom was rampant in the US in the 19th century and
early 20th century and has been steadily eroded to where we approach
everything not explicitly permitted by government regulators being de
facto forbidden. 
> So we need socialism, like police departments - its' just a question
> of how much we will have.  This group knows this, and knows that
> people on the right and people on the left will never ever agree on
> how much to take from individuals to benefit society.

There is nothing about providing protection against criminals that
requires the task be performed by government at all, much less that the
country be socialistic.  You have heard of minarchy, haven't you?

Society is not some separate super-being a la the theories of marxists
and nazis with individuals only the tiny insignificant cells in some
super-being.  Societies are sociological organizations that continue
with some modification across individual member life times.  The
individual contributes to the increased viability of that society to the
extent the individual produces more value than they consume over their
lifetime.  The value surplus increases the wealth  available to all
members of that society be it in art, knowledge, technology, or whatever
form.    What is value?   It is whatever is valued by members of the
society - that which they seek to acquire and retain or appreciate
enough to exchange value for it.

Free markets where all member are free to value what they value and
exchange what they produce of value to others for those values are
completely voluntary and thus maximize value production and flow - that
is they make for a richer and better society.

- samantha

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