In California, something like 53% of the land is public or state property meaning that California has even more land for the public to use than Washington. Poor sap tricked himself into thinking Texas was so great. Texas is a shithole. Sorry not sorry.
A lot of Libertarianism sounds great on paper, so it’s an easy trap to fall into. Once you consider the human element and factors like greed, it stands out as an exceptionally abusable political model; but if you don’t think about it critically (which is a LOT of people), it’s just liberty this and non-aggression-principle-that and it all sounds just oh-so peachy… again, on paper.
Have a look into libertarian socialism aka anarchism (among other ideologies). An internally consistent ideology that accounts for humanitys shitty side while maximizing human freedom. With a decent track record to boot
Unfortunately so many are indoctrinated through language to not understand such an abstract. Anarchism/anarchy is “chaos”. Not to mention the horrible representation of the much more visible oxymorons. Anarcho-capitalists are a contradiction in themselves.
But there is one compelling argument for people to learn and understand it. Understanding it will piss off anarcho-capitalists and Big L Libertarians to no end. And take away any of the mystique or good will others might have towards them. No freedoms but social freedoms. If you have a freedom that is personal to you that others do not get to enjoy or share. That is a privilege and not a freedom. And even pointing this out will cause both groups to sethe and sputter ineffectually
TBH, “libertarianism” was originally a left-wing ideal. Proudhon famously said “property is theft” and Malatesta (the most famous libertarian from Italy, where I live) was an anarchist. Right-wingers just co-opted the term like they did with many others.
(like they co-opted d’annunzio, a famous Italian poet. Now everybody knows him as “a fascist” but the nation he founded, the free state of Fiume, was the first nation to recognize the USSR (and the USSR recognized them back, irrc) He was also a member of a left-wing party, saying he was “going towards life” But as always, fascists appropriated a lot of things ideated by him. Worker’s unions had real power in Fiume, compare it to fascist Italy where they were basically 100% subservient to the party and you start to get a more nuanced and “controversial” picture of d’annunzio and Fiume. I suggest people that believe him to be a fascist to study him more, that’s all, from a guy that lives in Italy and has studied him. Rant over. )
the ideological justification behind privatizing everything is to make every man a king. the thing about that is, it means that any time you leave your kingdom you have to deal with several fickle idiot kings whose rules can change from moment to moment and who can ignore everyone and do whatever he wants without appeal. with public ownership there is one king, and he may suck but there are limits on what he can do and if we all don’t like what he does we can replace him or change the limits.
I’ve read most of his books and missed this, or it never stuck with me.
Thanks for posting it. Dude was smart.
I’d like the source, please.
3rd edit:
Asimov, The Sun Shines Bright, Ch. 17 Nice Guys Finish First!, pp 124.
It’s actually a footnote and not part of the text, so here’s some context:
Within these units co-operation has been brought about, despite the natural tendency to destructive competition, by the application of governmental authority, internal police and, most of all, the strictures of custom, social pressure and religion. The general advance in the size of the units within which co-operation is maintained has, at the present day, produced governmental control over a population of 950 million people in China; 22 million square kilometres of area in the Soviet Union; and one third of the real wealth of the world in the United States. The advance has not been smooth and steady. The stresses of internal decay and external pressure have led to the fall of empires and the periodic destruction of central authority and its replacement by smaller units. Such periods of regression usually result in a ‘dark age’. (4)
—
(4) There are people who, disturbed by ‘big government’ today and its tendency to curb the advantages they might gain if their competitiveness were allowed free flow, demand ‘less government’. Alas, there is no such thing as less government, merely changes in government. If the libertarians had their way, the distant bureaucracy would vanish and the local bully would be in charge. Personally, I prefer the distant bureaucracy, which may not find me, over the local bully, who certainly will. And all historical precedent shows a change to localism to be for the worse.
—
Today, the world undergoes centrifugal decomposition politically, as the old European empires break up and as cultural minorities demand nations all their own; but economic units continue to grow larger and the only economic unit that makes sense today is the whole planet. In one way, it’s the political units that count, for it is they who wage war. Though peace is maintained within the units (if we ignore endemic crime and violence, and occasional terrorism, rebellion and civil war) there is war between them. City-states warred against each other interminably in ancient Greece and in Renaissance Italy; feudal estates did so in medieval Europe and early modern Japan; nations did so in early medieval China and modern Europe, and in all cases until modern times there were conflicts with barbarians on the fringes. The intensity and destructiveness of the conflicts shows a general rise with advancing technology, so that despite the growing size of the units within which co- operation can be counted on, competitiveness may still win out. Destruction still threatens to outpace the capacity for recovery. We now live at a time when the outcome clearly hangs in the balance. One more all- out general war and civilization will probably be destroyed - possibly for good. Indeed, even if the realization of this keeps the war from happening, the existence of potential conflict keeps the minds and energy of all the competing nations on each other as the enemy and not on those true enemies which threaten us all - overpopulation, resource depletion and technology inadequacy. Nasty guys will finish last.
Hes not wrong, just didn’t have the zeitgeist to add climate change to the list.
Asimov published four books in 1980: Casebook of the Black Widowers, How Did We Find Out About Oil?, In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1978 and How Did We Find Out About Coal?
Of those, Casebook of the Black Widowers was a collection of mystery short stories and the “How Did We Find Out About” books were childrens’ non-fiction, which leaves only In Joy Still Felt as a potential candidate for this quote. I downloaded an EPUB version of this book and did a search for “libertarians” and found nothing.
Either the OP got the year wrong, or they just pulled this quote out of their ass.
Hm. Did a search for a couple quotes from the text. Absolutely no returns on 4 search engines. One would think Asimov’s work would be pretty easy to find, especially a quote so timely. I’m now skeptical.
Yeah, it looks like it’s from the article “Nice Guys Finish First!” That article was apparently published in a magazine in 1980, so technically the OP is right, although it wasn’t collected into a book until the following year.
“Nice Guys Finish First,” collected in the book “The Sun Shines Bright,” but originally published in the April 1980 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
I just did a search on both of those books and “libertarians” doesn’t show up. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be in a Foundation book anyway, since those are science fiction books set in the distant future and don’t mention contemporary political movements directly.
The book was already identified in this thread, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Foundation. It’s a compilation of a bunch of non-fiction magazine articles. Why are you still beating this horse?
You’re clearly an idiot so I’m not going to continue this thread any further, except to make it clear that my position is that Foundation is a science fiction series set in the distant future where a passage like this one, where the author voices an opinion on a contemporary political movement (naming it directly rather than using some sci-fi equivalent for it) would be completely out of place. I don’t know what you think my “outlandish stance on government in the series” is, and at this point I don’t care.
Just want to point out that there is a difference between “Libertarian Capitalism” and “Libertarian Socialism”; and as per usual, the capitalists were the one who stole the label.
Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers’ self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other forms of libertarianism by its rejection of private property. Broadly defined, it includes schools of both anarchism and Marxism, as well as other tendencies that oppose the state and capitalism.
The oxymoron “Libertarian Capitalism” is an propagandistic rebranding of landlord feudalism, engineered by a right-wing grifter who thought Adam Smith was a pinko commie.
It’s the ultimate lie of Neoliberalism - it’s not about Freedom for people (when you are born into a World were all places you could sleep in or grow your food in are owned, you are not Free), it’s about Freedom for Money. Neoliberalism actually strengthens the rights of property, reducing the rights of non-owners.
So if you aren’t one of the 1% you’re even less Free under Neoliberalism than straight Capitalism.
That’s why I provided all the criteria. Some I agree with and others I do not. Taxation seems to weight heavily in their score.
Yes we are taxed heavily in Oregon but it takes money to maintain the roads, etc. the roads are pretty good out here and we have lots of public parks. I mean a lot.
I’m fiscally conservative but I don’t hate taxes. I want something for my tax money and I think Oregon for the most part delivers.
One of Catos complaints is something about building or land use. We do restrict and we should. Air needs to be clean. Same with water. We need nature
I’m not trying to start shit or anything like that, I’m genuinely curious. What do you consider to be fiscally conservative, and how would that differ from what you consider to be fiscally progressive?
Being fine with taxes seems like something someone who would apply a conservative label to themselves appears a bit contradictory. I get it, I’m a libertarian socialist and would abolish taxes (among many other things) given the right conditions. Which might look contradictory on the surface depending on your understand of socialism.
Taxes are a necessary evil of living in a civilized society. As such the state should spend our money on a responsible way and not on pork fat projects.
Not sure you understand conservatives if you think we oppose taxes. We just don’t like wealth distribution.
It depends on the flavor of conservative, it’s just been a while I’ve seen people describe themselves specifically as fiscally conservative. And a lot of the people I’ve known to use that term are very much free market types that dislike any form of regulation, taxation or government interference in industry/commerce.
Im not going to put a label on you that you don’t welcome but your (brief) description of your preferred economic policy is in line with the “left leaning” side of liberals, and old establishment democrats. Austerity politics is big in the DNC, despite their virtue signaling. (I was re-reading this and noticed I assumed you were from the US, apologies if you’re not.)
Wouldn’t you consider taxes to be a form of wealth distribution? On paper, the wealthy are supposed to pay taxes to fund public projects. That’s obviously not how that happens but I’m sure we can both agree that this is how it’s sold to us. It’s quite literally taking more money from the wealthiest than the poorest and using that money for the betterment of all, which the less wealthy individuals in society benefit the most from.
I’m not opposed to regulation or taxes. Companies are not another form of government and they need checks and balances. Companies serve at the will of the state.
I am just against excessive or needless regulation. We all want safe airplanes as an example and that isn’t something the market should decide.
What sets me apart from most conservatives is I’m not religious. As such I don’t have the moral baggage they carry. I’m not anti-gay or anti-trans or anti-much that doesn’t impact me. You want to hire a hooker? As long as it’s consensual it’s shouldn’t be illegal.
Taxes by itself are not a wealth transfer. They should be used for the generic common good. Law enforcement, roads, parks, etc. that isn’t a wealth transfer. That’s maintaining a society we all want to live in.
Give cash to poor from my tax money is a wealth transfer. If wages are not high enough, increase wages. Don’t take my money and hand it to someone else. The government controls minimum wages and should increase it to avoid wealth transfers with tax money.
And no I would never fit into the democrats. I’m neither woke nor a racist. I’m more inline with old school republicans before the religious right invaded the party.
I see where you’re coming from and agree on some points. I have a lot of semantic differences and view things like what constitutes a transfer of wealth differently. The conclusions I draw from those differences are obviously different as well, but taking what you’ve written at face value we’re on the same page.
And your last bit is interesting. Have you read about <a href="">the southern strategy</a> or the great party switch? The party switch started around the civil war but was only really solidified until the 1980s. If you find your values more in line with old school republicans, you may find more common ground among Democrats. I don’t care for either but it’s intriguing to me that you’re identifying as a conservative but you’re saying things that would find you a lot of like-minded company among Democrats. If anything, I’d say you’re more isolated and hold broadly unpopular values among conservatives based on their recent actions.
What’s “woke” to you? That term has become so watered down in the last ~10 years it’s basically meaningless. The Democrats as an institution are definitely racist, I won’t disagree with you there. But the Republican party and outlying right wing groups are significantly more racist and oppressive. It’s essentially a part of their platform. The Democrats just pretend to not be racist and sign racist legislation when nobody’s looking.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.
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