I think you have done that quite well. It needs no elaboration.

repeat

This has been an interesting, useful discussion for me, but I've never thought we would convince each other of anything significant. You and I won't change our minds based on what we've said here. Even so, my thoughts on these issues have become clearer, at least for myself.

I hope it is merely irony to advocate for the regulation of everyone’s lives just in case powerful people were to enslave us. — NOS4A2

Powerful people have been exploiting the less powerful for their own benefit forever. This is not news. There probably hasn't been any significant change in human nature for 200,000 years. It's what we do unless there's someone or something there to stop it.

Let's stop the obfuscation - what is your answer to my question? Do you as a libertarian/liberal have a responsibility not to benefit from the exploitation of others.

They want to disable services to the undeserving, like third-world people with tiresome diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, and so on. — BC

You needn't add 'undeserving'. The position doesn't consider deserts. Nor should it, imo. BUt my response still wouldn't be unilaterally removing support. The 'undeserving' aspect seems (and I wanted to broaden this to "us v them" discussions more generally, so read this as a vehicle for a wider, rather than a personal attack) to be added by the critic in order to morally condemn the position.
An example of how this could work would be: are the slaves of North African not deserving of our aid money? Our human resource? Our time? If so, why do Democrats think them undeserving of our aid?

Well, that's simply not what Democrats think, even when arguing for a denial of aid to those slaves. You can reverse this for most positions. That's why I, personally, require a decent discussion about goals before gettign into policy in a political discussion.

Powerful people have been exploiting the less powerful for their own benefit forever. This is not news. There probably hasn't been any significant change in human nature for 200,000 years. It's what we do unless there's someone or something there to stop it. — T Clark

Yes. I'm in agreement with much of what you've said on this thread. Don't have anything much to add. Utopian thinkers, whether Left or Right forget that when you build a utopia, pretty soon you're going to need to build a small concentration camp.

I’d be interested in hearing your response to the question I’ve asked @Tzeentch and @NOS4A2. Do we have an obligation not to benefit from the exploitation of others?

Do we have an obligation not to benefit from the exploitation of others? — T Clark

It's a weird wording. Prima facie, no. We don't. I don't think exploitation is ipso facto bad, though. I would like to maximally exploit all the talented people around me, and hope i have skills that would lead to the vice verse. There are other rights violations that have my back in certain (though, typical) instances of exploitation.
I don't think we have an obligation to interrogate everything we do/consume for exploitation, though. Its a nice thing to do, of course.

I would like to maximally exploit all the talented people around me, and hope i have skills that would lead to the vice verse. — AmadeusD

I don't think that kind of benign exploitation is what he's talking about. More like, should I boycott products that involve child labor or people working in horrific conditions akin to modern day slavery or that result in environmental exploitation? We can even broaden it to animal exploitation. Do I have an obligation to not benefit from the horrific exploitation of animals? Yes, to all of that. I have a moral obligation to be vegan and live like a monk. But I don't wanna.

Let's stop the obfuscation - what is your answer to my question? Do you as a libertarian/liberal have a responsibility not to benefit from the exploitation of others.

Absolutely.

Suppose there are two methods by which man’s economic needs and desires can be satisfied, through production and exchange, or through the appropriation of the production and exchanges of others. One is diligence, the other exploitation. Government employs the second method.

Do you believe you have the same responsibility?

I have a moral obligation to be vegan and live like a monk. But I don't wanna. — RogueAI

This tells me either you, or your moral system, is quite obviously defective. If you don't want to and that trumps all this suffering, that's on you. If you actually do want to, but find other things more enticing, perhaps the moral system is a bit bankrupt. Personally, my take is that you're obliged at all.

I agree with your premise, I'm just making the point (in the previous comment/s) that exploitation isn't the issue.

If everyone lowered their economic/wealth expectations to the same level, that is barely above hand to mouth, and did their expected social obligations, this OP would be unnecessary..
But what's the chances of that without a brain altering pandemic? Even cataclysmic world events haven't.
It's not a hypocrisy of political leanings. It's obfuscation by rhetoric. Government and business may change its shape but never its yearning for power, its vulnerability to corruption and the target on its back for the disaffected. And we all know it but it suits some of us to claim otherwise.
Just a suggestion.

smile

Earlier in this thread I wrote that, at base, this does not need to be about taking responsibility for other's lives, it can just be about not benefitting from the suffering of others. I had never thought of it explicitly in those terms before. This issue has not been addressed in previous responses. I'd like to hear what both of you have to say. — T Clark

I think any reasonable person would, on some basic level, be against exploitation. I certainly am, and there is nothing in the classical liberal position that should suggest otherwise.

However, when one gets to the particulars of what constitutes exploitation and/or benefitting from the suffering of others, the subject often becomes a lot more murky. And in order to stage an effective government intervention, a general agreement that 'exploitation is bad' is not enough.

Here's my simplistic understanding of history. In the US Constitution, the government was set up restrict the power of large institutions which control social and economic life - the church and the government itself. Since then, I guess as a result of the industrial revolution, another institutional player has entered the field - business and especially corporations. That very powerful institution has a vast amount of power over our lives which our society is not set up to limit. That kind of limit is needed. Where can that come from if not government? — T Clark

Corporations are state-authorized, public entities - they exist by virtue of the state. If we need the government to protect us from the power of corporations, they should probably just stop creating them.

That aside, government intervention should be a last resort, and first and foremost the market should be organized in such a way that it lowers the bar of entry.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are the natural enemy of large businesses, because there is no way a gigantic multinational can compete with you buying eggs from your local neighbor. This is why natural monopolies are essentially impossible.

Rules and regulations (which governments love) are the natural enemy of SMEs, however. And that's where big business and government find each other. Big business wants to raise the bar of entry for the competition, and governments want more control and more tax revenue.

So to echo your question: if businesses and corporations accumulate undue power and privileges, where can that power come from if not from government?

Is that the answer? I don't have to pay a living wage because I can count on families to fill in the gaps. That's incredibly cynical. — T Clark

I don't see what's cynical about it.

In fact, if people have their families to fall back on, there's a much greater chance that they won't have to accept an unreasonably low salary in the first place. Their families and social networks may help them bridge the gap between finding jobs for reasonable pay, or help them find better ones.

Furthermore, it's not like the problem of low wages is easy for solve. If simply raising the minimum wage was the clear-cut solution, then I wouldn't complain. But again, that money has to come from somewhere, the market will react, and the final results will not be what one had hoped for.

This is how government intervention often fails: it cuts off one of the hydra's heads, and several more grow back. Government then, in its unyielding belief that more rules and more intervention has to be the solution, keeps cutting off heads until the market eventually becomes completely and utterly broken.

Prima facie, no. — AmadeusD

I think any reasonable person would, on some basic level, be against exploitation. I certainly am, and there is nothing in the classical liberal position that should suggest otherwise. — Tzeentch

Absolutely. — NOS4A2

Thanks for the answers. This is a bit different from the direction I thought this thread would go when I wrote the OP, so I'm not adequately prepared to have this discussion right now. Maybe I'll start another thread later.

Thanks for the discussion.

Corporations are state-authorized, public entities - they exist by virtue of the state. If we need the government to protect us from the power of corporations, they should probably just stop creating them. — Tzeentch

I don't think that's a realistic scenario, but it does highlight a point I made earlier - business as it is currently practiced can not exist without government regulation.

That aside, government intervention should be a last resort, and first and foremost the market should be organized in such a way that it lowers the bar of entry. — Tzeentch

How would that work? Who would organize the market if not the government?

This is why natural monopolies are essentially impossible.

Rules and regulations (which governments love) are the natural enemy of SMEs, however. And that's where big business and government find each other. — Tzeentch

This is something similar to what I wrote in the OP. I wasn't directly calling for more regulation, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of using regulation to aid business while resisting doing the same for workers, customers, and people in general.

I don't see what's cynical about it. — Tzeentch

We disagree.

@Tzeentch, @NOS4A2, @AmadeusD

While we're all here, I'd like to bring up another specific instance of government support for business. I alluded to it earlier but did not follow up. As I understand it, one of the most important issues for libertarianism and other similar ideologies is protection of property rights. Establishment and protection of property rights is probably the most fundamental of all government regulatory practices. Ownership of all property is ultimately traceable back to government action - either grants, sales, leases, or legal recognition. Whether we like it or not, God does not establish property rights, governments do. I'm not sure about elsewhere, but the charters for property granted by British kings and queens here in the eastern US included specific obligations of the grantees to the Crown. Those obligations were passed on with the properties when they were transferred.

This struck me when I was thinking about the broadcast industry. Back in the 1920s, the US government created a completely new and lucrative property right and gave it to business by issuing permits for their operations. Those rights were protected by preventing others from infringing on the frequencies specified in those permits. Clearly, the broadcast industry could not exist as we know it without communications regulations.

Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this.

I don't have many. I agree. Broadcasting, generally, requires regulation.

The state is the source of rights. I see nothing that could upend that bare statement.

[...] business as it is currently practiced can not exist without government regulation. — T Clark

Corporations aren't the only form of business.

A person selling their chicken's eggs to their neighbors is a business. No government interjection necessary.

Who would organize the market if not the government? — T Clark

A state/government creates a basic framework of laws within which the market functions. It's not strictly necessary, but it's a modern reality.

Other than that, it should be left to the free market except when the free market clearly fails for reasons directly attributable to the free market, and assuming a government intervention is the most fitting solution.

I wasn't directly calling for more regulation, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of using regulation to aid business while resisting doing the same for workers, customers, and people in general. — T Clark

I don't think that's a matter of hypocrisy. It's a problem of the people have no lobbying power while big businesses do.

That will virtually always remain the case, which is why I would focus on reducing the government's ability to bestow privileges, thus making it senseless to lobby, and lowering the bar for SMEs - big businesses' natural enemy - to indirectly put the power back into the hands of the average Joe.

Ownership of all property is ultimately traceable back to government action - either grants, sales, leases, or legal recognition. Whether we like it or not, God does not establish property rights, governments do. — T Clark

If you're talking in a legal sense, that's rather obvious. Governments make the laws, which they then enforce through their monopoly on violence. (In that sense they are not so different from the feudal lords of old)

But a sense of property is a fundamental human trait that can already be observed in toddlers. No government necessary. Of course, governments can play a constructive role in resolving disputes.


What strikes me as rather odd is this distrust and underestimation of the average person, that apparently they need government supervision to do anything. I think it's typical of a state-centric view of mankind.

However, mankind throughout the ages got around just fine without governments micromanaging every facet of their lives. The 'nanny state' really is much more modern than people think. Even the Soviet Union didn't achieve the level of micromanagement that modern states do.

However, mankind throughout the ages got around just fine without governments micromanaging every facet of their lives. The 'nanny state' really is much more modern than people think. Even the Soviet Union didn't achieve the level of micromanagement that modern states do.

This is true, but they had other institutions to do what the state has increasingly become responsible for: collegia, guilds, churches, families, extended-family/clan networks, religious orders, much tighter-knit communities. For instance, if you look at natural disasters in 19th century America, there will be less of a role for insurance (requiring massive state regulation) or FEMA, because of things like neighbors rebuilding each other's homes. Aside from a loss in relevant institutions, market specialization has also made this sort of thing more difficult (e.g. home repair is no longer a default skill set). But even things like friends giving each other rides to the airport, or bringing each other food while sick have been taken over by on-demand services provided by anonymous contractors, supported by Big Tech apps, and eventually state regulation.

That's one of the ironies of the liberal state. In order to empower individuals to increasingly act as individuals, to "free" them from past institutions, the market or state must step in to fulfill the hole left by institutional erosion. The right/left divide is often about which should fulfill these gaps. Often the market moves in first, but then externalities, gross inequalities, systemic risk (e.g. insurance), etc. force a later movement by the state further into public life. Plus, the modern "market" now requires a vast administrative state wherever it expands.

Entertainment is an interesting example because both drama and musical performances long had been primarily religious events, and still retain something of this even in their commercialized forms.

In terms of self-determination (an important sort of liberty), I think it's worth noting that people often positively identify with the prior sorts of institution. They are a member of a parish, a military regiment, a guild, a family, a clan, a religious order (perhaps as a lay tertiary), etc This sort of positive identification of the self in the institution that Hegel sees as foundational for positive freedom is much more difficult with the anonymized market and mammoth welfare state. I think the thread on the NHS is a good example of this. People feel powerless, dependent on forces lying wholly outside the ambit of their personhood, whereas a man might be asked to risk his life for his regiment and feel quite empowered.

I don’t believe government makes property rights—or any rights—because I believe in something like natural rights. State rights are merely the concessions of our collective servitude, in my view.

But I’m still not a complete anarchist yet. If the government protected our natural rights and made justice costly and accessible, then went no further, I would voluntarily pay for such a service. It would be a government as illustrated in the Declaration of Independence, and I’d be one of its biggest cheerleaders.

You're going to need to explain where a 'right' even exists, besides from 'on high' as it were

I believe in something like natural rights — NOS4A2

I own a house on land in Massachusetts. It was originally included in a grant from the King of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The colony then portioned out smaller grants to people who wanted to start communities. The leaders of those communities then granted properties to people who wanted to move into that town. Over the years, those granted properties were subdivided, sold, and developed until the real estate system we have today resulted. I don't see any "natural right" in this process. Governments took the property by fiat and created the property rights out of the air. Ownership was legitimized and documented by the government, which also enforces the laws that protect property rights.

Like it or not, God didn't give us our properties, the government did. It's a service it provides. I think protection of property rights is very important - the quality of my life depends on it - but it's a legal and not a moral responsibility.

:100:

But a sense of property is a fundamental human trait that can already be observed in toddlers. No government necessary. — Tzeentch

That's a pretty naive way of looking at it. So, all I need to justify my ownership of my home is a "sense of property?" I just claim it's mine and, I guess, maintain possession of it against any who disagree with me, and that makes it so?

That will virtually always remain the case, which is why I would focus on reducing the government's ability to bestow privileges, thus making it senseless to lobby, and lowering the bar for SMEs - big businesses' natural enemy - to indirectly put the power back into the hands of the average Joe. — Tzeentch

Do you think there is any possibility that the nature of our economic system will change to allow small businesses and the average Joe to be in charge. Short of a total collapse of civilization. Given that it will never happen, it is reasonable to use government regulation to create a more balanced system.

That's a pretty naive way of looking at it. So, all I need to justify my ownership of my home is a "sense of property?" I just claim it's mine and, I guess, maintain possession of it against any who disagree with me, and that makes it so? — T Clark

I think he's saying that even toddlers have a sense of what is theirs. Not that they can willy nilly make claims to stufff. But This is a result of their parents behaviour, anyway. Not innate. So he's still wrong, if that's what he's getting at.

I'm going to be on the road until next Monday and may not have a chance to respond much till then.

So, all I need to justify my ownership of my home is a "sense of property?" I just claim it's mine and, I guess, maintain possession of it against any who disagree with me, and that makes it so? — T Clark

I never said any of that. I merely pointed out that people's sense of ownership is fundamentally human and far precedes government arbitration.

As I noted earlier, you grossly underestimate people's ability to get by without governments micromanaging their every transaction, while grossly overestimating governments' ability to provide fitting solutions to complex problems.

If you think that what you wrote sounds ridiculous, consider that that's exactly how governments operate. It has a sense of what belongs to whom, and uses a big stick to enforce that view.

Do you think there is any possibility that the nature of our economic system will change to allow small businesses and the average Joe to be in charge. Short of a total collapse of civilization. Given that it will never happen, it is reasonable to use government regulation to create a more balanced system. — T Clark

Sure. SMEs used to be the backbone of the Dutch economy, until the Dutch government got ever more involved, bestowed ever more privileges on large multinationals like Shell, ASML, Tata Steel, Philips, Unilever etc.

The Dutch economy used to punch far above its weight class, and that's how we used to finance our elaborate socialist policies.


Also, it should be clear from what I said that I am not categorically against government intervention. But I do recognize it as the double-edged sword that it is.

I own a house on land in Massachusetts. It was originally included in a grant from the King of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The colony then portioned out smaller grants to people who wanted to start communities. The leaders of those communities then granted properties to people who wanted to move into that town. Over the years, those granted properties were subdivided, sold, and developed until the real estate system we have today resulted. I don't see any "natural right" in this process. Governments took the property by fiat and created the property rights out of the air. Ownership was legitimized and documented by the government, which also enforces the laws that protect property rights.

That’s not quite the case. Many puritans purchased land off the natives, in spite of the government fiat. Even Joh Winthrop said the natives had natural rights. Natural rights influenced much of the founding of the country, at least nominally.

Like it or not, God didn't give us our properties, the government did. It's a service it provides. I think protection of property rights is very important - the quality of my life depends on it - but it's a legal and not a moral responsibility.

Another New England example would be Rhode Island, purchased from the natives by Roger Williams. All the services of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, like religious persecution, compelled Williams to flee from that colony to found one of his own. The natives were not a part of any government, had no law and especially no government rights, but the just transfer of property between one holder and another occurred anyways.

I have already spent words on political philosophy. We have to be liberal. Both communism and anarcho-capitalism are crimes against humanity. Liberalism must be enriched with a theory of perpetual basic rights. Welfare must exist, thus there must always be a right to health and, for example, a right to education. Monarchy is a crime against humanity; also, monarchy has been already defeated. We have to stop criticism against democracy. I feel the danger of anarcho-capitalism; you cannot imagine the pernicious effects of anarcho-capitalism. The individuals stating that taxes must be eradicated (or reduced to the very minimum) are, willy nilly, supporting anarcho-capitalism. Constitutionalism is the supporter of a theory of basic rights. Constitutionalism and democracy must be contextualized within a free market. Everything has to do with the preservation of Constitutionalism and Democracy. My suggestion is to defend our values by contrasting in a virulent manner those criticizing the public expenditure that is needed for supporting the State and its public nature. There is no way to substituting the functions of the State with private agencies.