A version of this article appeared in The Libertarian Opinionizer at HubPages.com
Commentary
Old saying: “Know your enemy.” The anti-freedom anti-individualist anti-voluntaryist crowd sees libertarians as their enemy yet knows virtually nothing about libertarianism. This becomes obvious when a non-libertarian tries to tell a libertarian what libertarianism is.
A meme posting that has been around for some time, purported to be the brain burp of the progressive Common Culture community, lists nine reasons to call libertarians “regressive.” Yet every single attack is a disingenuously crafted strawman designed to fool the unwary about libertarianism.
In a true libertarian society all property would be privately owned, either individually or collectively through mutually agreeable means, which would eliminate “the tragedy of the commons,” and the economic system would be a laissez-fair free market in goods, services and ideas, not crony capitalism or “corporatism” so beloved by both the left and right alike.
That’s right. Democrats obsessively rage against the multimillionaire Koch Brothers for donating to politically conservative causes while casually pretending that the bulk of their own political donations don’t come from liberal multimillionaires.
A libertarian society would have a voluntarily funded and operated “government” or a post-statist form of “governance.” That’s because of the fundamental definition of libertarianism that non-libertarians always want to ignore, overlook, sidestep or pretend doesn’t exist so they can rant, rave, rage and rail away at what they pretend is libertarianism. To do that they willfully ignore the libertarian non-aggression principle against coercion, intimidation and fraud.
The dishonest anti-libertarian points from the Common Culture poster are listed below. In depth details can’t possibly be fully expounded upon in one short article like this, or even be adequately refuted, but based on the anti-coercion and pro-voluntary principles of libertarianism each “regressive” smear can at least be answered one at a time. This won’t be enough to change the made-up minds of freedom hating anti-libertarians but maybe it will be enough to help some open-minded non-libertarians rethink their embrace of the world’s coercive societies.
“Let corporations pollute as they wish”
A business concern becomes a corporation only when it files incorporation papers with a government, giving it special privileges, protections, subsidies and advantages unavailable to honest enterprises. A laissez-faire free market economy would put an end to corporatism. All unwanted pollution from some property owners imposed on other people’s property would be treated as a violation of the non-aggression principle, triggering the right of self-defense against the polluter.
“Eliminate all spending on public infrastructure”
All infrastructures will be private and funding will be accomplished by the entities that most benefit from it. For example, the road building industry will build the roads because the automotive, truck freighting, bus, tourist, taxi, insurance industries and every other single producer of consumer goods and services who need to reach customers will fund the roads in any number of innovative and voluntary ways that likely haven’t even been thought of yet.
“Stop investing in educating America’s youth”
There’s no such thing as “America’s youth,” there are only “parent’s youth” and once the massive government non-educating propaganda warehousing institutions are abolished a free society will see a flourishing of educational possibilities never dreamed of before because parents care about their children’s real education while bureaucrats and teachers union bosses primarily care about their own power, incomes and career positions.
“Let employers pay below-poverty wages”
In the incredibly competitive economy of a marketplace free from corporatist-government protectionism employers will be fighting to win and keep the employees they hired and trained and the best way of doing that is to pay them more than their competitors.
“End social security and let the elderly fend for themselves”
End the taxpayer-funded government-manipulated social security ponzi scams and return social programs to civil society where they thrived before special interests shut them down, thereby allowing free people to produce a wide range of social programs that actually work.
“Let the sick fend for themselves”
Same as the previous myth. Stop the corrupt, bloated, inefficient, crony-operated social programs and the marketplace of free ideas will develop multiple kinds of systems that actually work.
“Let Wall Street police itself’
In a free market every single participate polices every market entity through a wide array of methods like voting with their feet, with their dollars, with their voices, opinions, loyalty, word of mouth. How could that be any worse than crony-government’s failure to police Wall Street?
“Eliminate worker safety laws”
Same as employers paying below-poverty wages. In a highly competitive marketplace workers will flee unsafe businesses and go to safe businesses. It’s competition, not unions or government, that serves all workers the best.
“Eliminate the Voting Rights Act”
In a post-statist society free people won’t be voting for corrupt ruling class politicians who manipulate the outcomes behind the scenes anyway so what good is a government-contrived “Voting Rights Act?”
Note 1
Right now government doesn’t prevent any problem that statist scaremongers imagine will happen in a free society. Under government, pollution happens, infrastructures collapse, education fails, employers pay low wages and violate safety laws, the elderly and sick fall through the cracks, Wall Street, public voting and other institutions become corrupt. Yet everyone is supposed to ignore these government failings and give up their freedoms because statists say so.
Note 2
Notice how many times the word “let” shows up in this list. It’s an unconscious confession that progressives are arrogant elitist narcissistic psychopathic snobs convinced of their own superiority. They, like so many of their rightwing mirror images, think they have some magic “right” to “let” or “not let” everyone else peacefully live their lives.
