Originally posted by Emperordmb
Well I'm not even a libertarian, I'm a classical liberal which is pretty close though. Knowing a few libertarians and being close enough to one myself I felt the need to speak up in their defense. Really though it was the implication of moral superiority to socialism over libertarianism I couldn't stand because **** that ideology.
I understand where you're coming better now, yeah. I was being somewhat dismissive of the entire ideology, which was silly of me. Although I was mostly just defending socialism, as I think it can be applied well, just not on its own. I'm certainly not a socialist myself but I know a lot of socialists and many of them are able to expound their ideas in a way that makes sense.
Originally posted by Emperordmb
I mean look the thing about your personal experience with libertarians is that there's no way for me to argue against it. But all of the arguments from libertarians I've personally seen argue from the point of principle that the government shouldn't be involved in forcibly taking and redistributing your property without your consent... as well as practical issues with government entitlement programs such as how they drive up the debt, how they draw in a lot of economic migrants that take more from the system than they give back, how most of the money gets sucked in by the bureaucracy involved in the programs and are therefore inefficient, etc. Maybe you've seen differently but I've never once seen a libertarian specifically say "I deserve to spend all of my money on myself" I've only seen them specifically say say, "It's my property I should have the legal right to spend it how I see fit" and the reason I don't often see them say "I'd give to charity anyways" is because it's irrelevant to the point of principle of their right to their own property.
The thing is, I actually mostly agree with that core part of libertarianism and liberalism. If we're talking "perfect world" scenarios then I'd include it in part of a theoretical utopia. Pure socialism is something I generally disagree with for most of the same reasons you posit, in that it is essentially stealing from individuals for the sake of 'society', limiting what people can achieve, and not offering much for the best and brightest to strive to achieve other than self-satisfaction. I've definitely heard people saying stuff like "This is my money, why should I give it to poor people? It's their own fault for being poor" - essentially from what I can tell a lot (far from 'all', of course) of libertarians are libertarian because they are already rich and don't like parting with their wealth. While the freedom that that form of liberalism poses is good, it has drawbacks that can lead to large faults in the society around them.
Originally posted by Emperordmb
If I act in accordance with my principles and give to charity despite not being in favor of the welfare system, how does that not benefit humans or society?
It does benefit society, and that's how I wish people saw it generally. But I'd go one further and say rather than just giving to charity, the best things that the wealthy could do with their money is actually taking the initiative to form their own social programs that directly lift up working people as well as benefit themselves. Free training programs, welfare for low-wage earners, stuff like that. Eventually the wealth would return to them from the people they could hire from these kind of programs.
Originally posted by Emperordmb
I don't see why it would be in the self-interest of even greedy rich people to restrict social mobility to a dystopian extent. They need people to have money to buy their shit, and they definitely need middle class people and upper-class people to serve as high skilled labor for their enterprises.How would they even go about doing that? And what about our society now keeps them from doing that that wouldn't be there if we lived in a more libertarian society?
Personally, things are already fairly dystopian. The fact that 1% of the population own 50% of the world's wealth is that fact in a nutshell: they just aren't willing to give up their money and would rather horde it. The (debatably) richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is personally extremely wealthy whilst avoiding tax and paying many of his employees incredibly low wages. That is a sign that even in a system that isn't entirely libertarian or economically liberal, people will often, even regularly, use their freedom primarily for their own benefit, at the expense of the rest of society. If America were fully libertarian, I suspect that the class divide would grow to dystopian proportions within a couple of years.
Originally posted by Emperordmb
I mean, Liechtenstein has a pretty hard libertarian economy, and it has one of the absolute highest GDP's per capita in the entire world, one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world at 1.5%, and its population enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. Not exactly screaming dystopia or failure at me tbh.
Because apparently the people there are doing it right. Most ideologies have their own theoretical benefits that, if applied well and by righteous people, would make for a good society. Liechtenstein is also very small, which makes it easier to manage. Imo overpopulation is possibly the largest danger to humanity as the more populous a country, the harder it is to spread human necessities around. There's nothing wrong with the base idea of libertarianism, I just think it's naive to be strictly libertarian or liberal as it clearly has its pitfalls when applied to different cultures, and the same goes for socialism. There are soft-socialist countries with good economies and very high statistics for happiness, but in other places it is taken too far and turns into a horrific authoritarian regime. So I find it hard to back a single system, as I've yet to see a system that works every time.
Originally posted by Emperordmb
Well you were saying the ideology that suggests that people should have a much more protected and uninfringed upon right to their own property was selfish, whereas the ideology that suggested people should have it forcibly taken from them and given to other people was selfless. So I was jokingly applying that notion to sex.
I get it now. But as I'm not a socialist, those ideals do not form my opinions on sex and private lives. Also, everything is based in context, so one idea that could work for an economy does not necessarily work with other realms. Example, using libertarianism: sex is totally okay regardless of circumstance! Sex with kids? Well, it's that person's right to have sex with kids! Rape? Not a real thing, it's just an individual exercising their right to ultimate personal freedom!
So whilst somewhat witty, it still doesn't make much sense, as the contexts are very different.