Trish Anderton of New Hampshire Public Radio reports that Libertarians want to take over a state, and they're looking at New Hampshire.

Listen to the audio story here:

http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.j...ml?wfId=1311107

Good for them! Be a refreshing alternative to the socialists taking over Taxa, er, Massachussets and California.

I wish socialists had taken over these or any other states. Unfortunately, they have not. Oh well, I'll keep thinking positive.

As for a Libertarian state, I think it would be an interesting experiment. I can't predict what would happen, but I can't wait to see the results both socially and economically.

Ah yes, the Free State Project. This wouldn't be like the Rajneesh's followers coming in and taking over a town, because there aren't enough libertarians to do that to a state, even a small one. It'd be several thousand, enough to be a significant percentage, but they'd have to win over enough of the locals by persuasion to elect anybody statewide. But still if it happens it'll be interesting. New Hampshire seems a good prospect because it tends to be relatively libertarian anyway.

There were a bunch of Free State Project folks at another site I used to frequent. It's interesting to hear their story change over time. About a year again they were unequivocal about wanting to take over at least a county; now they're talking about integrating into the community that's already there. Personally, I predict failure for at least three reasons:

• A lot of the people who claim to be "committed" are likely to become less so if this ever becomes real. They'll decide they don't want to uproot themselves, give up their jobs, and move to some place where they're not likely to be very welcome and the job market will be totally oversaturated. The only way to prevent this would be to enforce the new social contract in exactly the same way that libertarians claim to abhor.
  
• Once there, people might realize that living in a place where there are no public facilities and everyone else is just as selfish as they are might not be so hot after all. What do the jackals eat when there are no animals around but other jackals?
  
• Their political influence will be almost nil. Does anyone really think the current residents, plus activists of every other political persuasion, will just let themselves be passive guinea pigs in someone else's grand experiment? Of course not. They'll mobilize and solidify their opposition to whatever agenda the transplants push.

It's just a pipe dream. Must be some good stuff.

Any state smart enough to impose Libertarianism would be successful. Capital and wealthy individuals would flow into the state. Welfare recepients would leave. It would probably be politically most likely in a rural western state.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that to "impose" anything went against Libertarian belief. Also, what makes you think that "welfare recipients" would just up and leave? If they're on welfare, its very unlikely they'll have the resources to move to another state. However, I do agree with you about it happening in a rural western state...lots of tight wallets and loose morals.

If you're going to make the insulting claim that libertarians are more selfish than others and compare them to jackals, you'd better back it up. Do you perhaps have some data that libertarians contribute to charity less than others in their income range? That would surprise me because the libertarians I know are on the whole at least as generous with their own money as any random sample of people. That they're less generous with their neighbor's money is evidence of respect for their neighbor, not of selfishness.

I am talking about democratically elected officials imposing freedom on the citizen's of it's states. We would see how the next election came out. The welfare bums would scrape up the money to move somewhere that they could continue their lifestyle. Loose morals. really?

It is amazing how generous liberals are with other peoples money. A state that prohibits legalized theft would be economically successful.

No one appreciates being compared to such scavengers. It would be useful for us L/libertarians to know when we are debating you if you honestly feel we are the equal of such animals.

Do you happen to have any data - not mere anecdotes - to prove otherwise? As it happens, I went out and did some research, and you might have a point. I compared charitable giving (from tax returns) to percentage of libertarian votes (from the 2000 presidential vote) and there actually is a noticeable correlation. Yeah, I know, it's not very scientific, but good data are hard to come by. Aren't you glad someone - not a libertarian, of course - was honest enough to look for answers instead of just spewing dogma?

Not that any of this has anything to do with the substance of my post, let alone the topic of the thread. Would it be too much to expect that someone might actually address those, instead of fixating on an unfortunate but utterly inconsequential metaphor? If our resident liberals were so quick to digress every time they were called names by the conservatarians, we'd never get any debating done.

Hugo, are you really so naive as to believe that if there was no government, things would just "work out?" Because that's pretty much what you're saying. Taxes, or "legalized theft" as you spin them, are the only things that makes a government work. Please, enlighten all of us as to how everything will turn out peachy without police to protect us.

Lock up your woman and load up the shotgun, the Libertarians are coming to town.

Economics are not as simple as you claim. Everything just doesn't start working out fine when you lower taxes. If you've ever taken a class on economic (which I assume you have) you'll know that there are a multitude of factors that affect the economy, and just lowering taxes will not always stimulate growth, nor will just generally decreasing government control. In reality, government interference can be either a good or a bad thing, depending on the situation. For example, the Federal Reserve brought us out of recession in the 80's, not Reagan's tax cuts as some claim. In Brazil, Socialist President Lula reduced the interest rate from like 80% per month to something like 2%. If when the government touch the economy it always leads to failure, how do you explain these instances? How about the tax cuts pushed through by both Bushes did nothing to help the economy during their respective Presidencies?

I wish the "lower taxes = higher growth" myth were true. It would make economics a lot easier. But in reality, nothing is that simple. The economy is one of the most complex systems in existence, and dumbing it down to saying "if the government does less, the economy will perform better," is an insult to economists. Of the multitude of factors the affect the economy, taxes and government control is only one, and both can affect the economy positively, negatively or not at all, depending on the situation. It's foolish to think otherwise.


You're just as idealistic as even the most burnt-out hippie liberal. Why don't you just come over to our side? Over here, we actually have a voice outside of internet forums .




And you know this how? How do you know they wouldn't just starve, along with their children? If an American city ended up looking like Somolia, I doubt that state's government would last past the next election, regardless of whether they have Ayn Rand's face tattooed on their butt or not.




Imposing freedom? Now that’s a classic. If I ever write a book about Libertarians, that’s what I’m going to call it.

People who advocate "no government" are anarchists. Anarchists are not Libertarians. Thus, we cleverly came up with two separate words for each group.

I invite you to check out the LP Homepage. And please keep in mind, like all political groups, we come in many shades of grey

If there's no taxes, there's no government (seeing as the government would need money to function, obviously,) meaning there's anarchy. That appeared to what hugo was advocating. Had you continued reading the paragraph you took that quote from, you might have seen that

I'm not so sure about Hugo's position on taxes, but most libertarians - including me and including the Libertarian Party - recognize the necessity for at least some taxes since we're in favor of a very small government, not none at all.

I happen to live in a western state. 80% or so is considered rural.

I take offense to that statement, and find it unnecessary and inflammatory.

*************

An interesting prospect. A 3rd party taking over a state. Well, I wish them luck. In a lot of ways, I hope they succeed. I wouldn't mind seeing what happens to a state controlled by someone other than a repub or dem. It would be a great experiment. Succeed or not, it would be beneficial to everyone.

--cheers

Oh, calm down. I was simply being facetious.

Tight wallets - economically conservative

Loose morals - socially fancy-free

Sounds like a libertarian to me...

I would be very interested in seeing that experiment. Frankly, I doubt it will succeed, Platy's first point

being at least part of the reason why.

It would be interesting to see how it would work out. The problem I see with the LP (capital-L libertarians) is that the philosophy seems to echo the classical liberals; and it should be remembered that they were conceiving of an "libertarianism" which was for the benefit of the landed gentry, not the "masses." Those classical ideas could have worked, supported as they were by either actual slavery or practical slavery (indentured servitude), for the minority who were white, male landowners.

I do think that one of the necessary elements for an effective democratic libertarianism is restructuring the relationship between corporations and the state; we would have better luck returning to the market structure Adam Smith advocated. If we completely decentralize government, and yet retain centrally planned and perfectly autonomous corporations, libertarianism is doomed to failure. The market must be first and foremost a local entity. Concentrated production and longer-termed goals would be very specifically chartered, and the only entities recognized as "individuals," constitutionally, would be actual people. Since the likelihood of this happening is about zero, I think what we would see instead is a rising inequity and less economic mobility. Just my opinion.


Hugo:


Hard to tell (as usual), if you are serious. What welfare bums are these? Please give some specific examples of "welfare bums" who enjoy their "lifestyle" choice. Can you source this? Back it up in any way? We don't always agree, but in most areas you strike me as anything but naive. How then do you arrive at this conclusion? I honestly don't understand.

An interesting argument, Quarkhead, and yet seemingly based on the premise that free market economics has not advanced since Adam Smith. Somehow I think Friedrich A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James M. Buchanan - 20th Century free market economists of different schools, each with a Nobel Prize to their credit - would be shocked to learn that.

(Of those three distinguished gentleman, Friedman calls himself a small-l libertarian, Hayek called himself a classical liberal or eccentrically, an Old Whig, and I have no idea what political label, if any, Buchanan uses though his Public Choice School is essential to modern libertarian thinking.)

A libertarian state, economically, I'm all for it, but as you guys probably know, I'm not all for this do what you want social system, don't think that part would work.

CP

I'm glad that this thread exists because I was going to post something similar. I get really tired of the common right wing assertion that the only thing that prevents the nebulous conglomerations of sheeplike individual decisions known as "the market" to work as a utopian benefit to the whole human race is government regulation and interference.

And of the tendency to suggest that if all were removed, and everyone "paid for what they used" both society and the economy would be incomparably improved.

So I'm just dying for somebody somewhere to try out all of the sacred cows laissez faire economics, government minimalism, and the rest to show us all, once and for all, that they are (as I suspect) just as unworkable and open to abuse in practice as the social and economic theories of the extreme left.

At least the Russians and Chinese did us the favour of actually implementing a form of government inspired by the ideas of utopian socialism, so we now know that they don't work. We need to see that the ideas of "utopian capitalism" (for want of a better expression) are just as much bunk, and that the mixed economies we actually have - with all their flaws - are the best way forward.

Of course this would just leave a few extremist apologist on both sides claiming that the real time experiments didn't implement the "real" utopian ideals, and if they had, it would have worked, etc.

But at least those of us on the left would get the opportunity to laugh at the right and write them all off as "supporting Libertaria" the same way they get to ignore everything sensible the left ever comes up with because some deluded people still think Marxism might work.

I just hope that the experiment actually takes place somewhere a long way away from me, and that the rest of the world is kind enough to step in and stop the experiment before millions die, rather than just using them for rhetorical flourishes fifty years later.

Absolutely, Julian. I feel sorry for any children brought up in such an environment - few public facilities, nothing to stand in the way of developing kleptocracy, costs to society ignored instead of being charged back, oversaturated job market with little enthusiasm for assisting those left out, endless conflict with the prior residents and neighbors - but letting the Free State Project folks try their little experiment might be good in the long run. The suffering of those few might help to educate the many.

Oh wait, I can see a diminished claim on the radar, incoming. "That's not what we want" is on the horizon. Yeah, riiiiiight. I heard an interview with one of the FSP leaders. They were walking around some town - Burlington VT I think - and he was talking quite explicitly about how the town hall and the parks and so on would be sold to the private sector. If what the FSP folks want is not what I've described above, they don't need the FSP (or the FSP is the wrong vehicle) to get it.

Unfortunately, there's also a strong possibility that the FSP will fail for reasons (2/3 of those I gave earlier, and which opponents have declined to address) unrelated to the economic system in question. Those reasons might apply to any similar effort, even a socialist one, and therefore we might not learn the hoped-for lesson from the failure.

I love how people tend to insult those with ideas that differ from themselves.

It makes me laugh.

I tend to agree with Platypus that the FSP is doomed because of reason #1. Most people will sign up for such a project, fully expecting it to never come to fruition. When the time comes, most will not want to leave their cushy jobs to move to Utah, or Vermont, or wherever.

If you check out their message boards, it is filled with what I can only describe as "hippies". People without corporate jobs, or jobs that are very portable (making bead jewelry or leather products, etc.) These types of people cannot, in my opinion, form the basis of a successful modern economy.

A libertarian ideal of self-reliance is certainly laudable.

Classic liberal philosophy as it pertains to the indigent was to feed them, clothe them, etc., but discourage continued reliance on aid by making the aid unpleasant or by publicly labelling them as poor. This practice would be almost universally deplored today, but I think the aim of it is true: don't make it "easy" or "acceptable" for someone to continuously rely upon the aid of others.

Another libertarian point : taxes as legalized theft. Taxes over and above the amount required to fulfill certain basic, Constitutional duties is what they are referring to. Direct transfer payments from one group of people to another, to be precise. If the government takes $10 from me in order to give it to someone else (let's say a homeless guy), THAT is legalized theft. If I were to rob my rich neighbor in order to give the money to a charity, it would be outright theft and I would be expected to be put in jail, even though my motives were pure.

Similar to Harry Browne's analogy of Social Security as a Ponzi scheme:

Taxes above certain levels are legalized theft, differing from outright theft only because Congress will not arrest themselves (in EITHER sense of the word.)

I hope this experiment happens quite close to home. Unlike your utopian socialist example, libertarianism does not require attacks on private property and resulting attacks on liberty. In fact just the opposite is true.

It is quite a stretch to infer libertarianism will not work, simply because it's polar opposite did not. In fact the history of so-called communist governments can be used to emphasize the destructive efffects of all forms of socialism, government bureaucracy and stifling of production and attack on personal freedoms.

Only to the extent that the failure of one extreme can validate the opposite extreme. In fields from nature to computer design that extent is practically nil, and I've yet to hear a convincing reason why economics should be any different.

Julian,

I really hope you don't believe that "millions will die" if the government gets smaller and stops handing out welfare checks.

Unlike African countries (for example, where starvation is rampant) there exists a large private charity network, one which can collect millions (if not billions) of dollars in a VERY short time. Look at how private charities reacted to the 9/11 crisis in New York City. PRIVATE charities funded a lot of the families who lost their bread winner on 9/11.

Americans are very generous and are not at all likely to allow people to die in the streets, regardless of the size of the government.

Jackals are upper level predators, not individualists, who group together to overcome large prey. Doesn't sound like a Libertarian to me. There are much more representative parties to that type of mindset.
I believe that the public is smart enough to know that there is an interest to society in helping the indigent. They don't need the intervention of a partial, completely unaccountable, and egregiously expensive middle-man to make that happen. Private facilities could replace public, because there is an interest to the public in having them. I see maximized efficiency.

As I recall, the "free market" didn't work too well in America the last time we tried it. Remeber that little book by Upton Sinclair?

The situation is different now. One of the keys to the success of the free market is education and (probably more importantly) mobility. In the 1800s, it was not easy to travel from city to city looking for work. Today, you don't even need to leave home in order to search for jobs across the country. Web sites even compare the relative costs of living for you, so there is little guesswork as to whether making $30k in Colorado is better than making $28k in Ohio.

America is no longer made up of the "unwashed masses". The labor movement not only changed the laws, it changed people's attitudes towards what is expected from a job. People will not stand for unsafe working conditions (or perhaps they will and then sue later on...). The people working in "The Jungle" did so because there was little alternative to go elsewhere. Today, that is not the case.

The fact that we can drive around would alleviate all the problems of safety, quality and living conditions that we saw in turn-of-the-century America? I don't think so. Companies all over the country would all do whatever it took to increase profits, and that would mean lowering safety, quality and wages for unskilled workers. That's the way business works: you've got to keep up with the Jones. If Acmecorp has machines that run 3 times faster but tent to cut off peoples' arms, you better get them too, or else they'll outpace you in production.

As for people not standing for lower conditions, you're absolutely right, and that's why no one's going to elect a libertarian government, or at least not keep it for long if they do. Like it or not, the freedom to get paid next to nothing working in an unsafe facility is a "freedom" that people don't want.

Is the government more partial or unaccountable than its replacements would be in a laissez-faire system? Hardly. My representative in Congress might not be perfectly representative of my wishes, but it's a lot better representation than I get on the board of Exxon or United Way. Private enterprise might - might, if it has competition and thus incentive - be more efficient than government, but it's certainly not the solution to these other problems. What magic is the FSP going to work that solves partiality/accountability problems other than through reduced scale? Even communes can work when everybody knows and feels responsible to/for one another.

BTW, let's try not to turn this into just another generic laissez-faire vs. socialism war. The topic is whether the FSP or something like it can succeed in the midst of a society that does not share their fervor for "free" markets.

I don't consider all taxes as legalized theft. If your were up to date on libertarianism, you wpuld see that legalized theft is primarily used in reference to transfer payments. There are legitimate functions of government, which must be paid for, taxes is usually the most efficient way to generate income for the government programs that are needed.

Another attempt to label Libertarians as anarchists. It is getting kind of old.

Let me repeat corporations and wealthy individuals would migrate to a state that offered substantially lower taxes. Thus increasing capital, which is a good thing for a state. Actually Libertarianism would work better with a state then a nation. The Supreme Court would probably find a right to welfare in the Constitution, though.

Addressing the social side, a libertarian state would probably attract more than it's share of prostitutes and drug users. I think most of the hard core addicts would stay in states with a welfare system.

Isn't that all or nothing reasoning termed the 'fallacy of the excluded middle' or somesuch? Seems I've heard that somewhere before...

Actually it's a little more of a slippery slope, or maybe a strawman, but they're all closely related. The important thing is that people recognize them as fallacies.