I don't know about the D&D's past, but yes statists make up the majority of those who frequent it nowadays. But as others have said, most people are statists, so that's not surprising. Incorrect. Some good reading on the topic.
I am kind of curious about this philosophy and might take a look at those books. Just asking you though what do you consider the bare minimum of government? Would you be willing to limit government down to only enforcing property rights and contracts?
No. Libertarianism is an ethical position regarding social interaction. It is based upon the non-aggression principle (NAP). Anything which goes against the NAP - anything that is an initiation of violence - is against libertarianism. All states, at the very least, rely on taxation, which is not acquired voluntarily. This makes all states invalid to a libertarian. So, to me, all libertarians who follow the logical implications of the NAP would be anarchists. Obviously, many libertarians disagree with that, but their arguments against libertarian anarchism are just terrible. To accept the NAP and just grant the state an exception is not only intellectually incoherent but dishonest and (in the eyes of a libertarian) dangerous. (I didn't mean for that to sound preachy or know-it-all-ish, although it could read that way. Just trying to sum up libertarianism as briefly as possible so as to answer the question.) I don't know if most libertarians are anarchists, but I would be willing to say that most libertarians under the age of 30 are anarchists. And I would say that nowadays older (40+ year olds) are much more accepting of libertarian anarchism than that age range would have been a decade ago. Specifically, most are Rothbardian anarchists.
"You think it is unethical to engage in aggressive violence? Then why don't you go to Somalia!!" If you don't understand why your question is both stupid and irrelevant, I can't help you.
No, there are very few place on earth that do not have government rules, since Libertarians want anarchy, why don't they all go to places like Somali and make it libertarian heaven? Guess what, most libertarians live in countries like US, where they can do all the cheap talks.
Once again, it is an ethical position. So your apparent objection that it doesn't work is irrelevant. Rape is also ethically wrong, but we will never be rid of it. So should we chastise those who try to raise awareness about it?
Haymitch, thanks for your posts. I have to admit the ideas leave me a tad confused too. Respectfully and sincerely, it seems to me that a commitment to non-violence means a commitment to a social contract, and that, once you have more than two people, a government of *some* sort results. The world of no state does (historically and practically) lead to a Hobbesian end point. (e.g. Somalia, give or take.)
No, it doesn't, and it never did. That is a good point. I didn't take the time to differentiate between a state and a government, which would have made the position clearer. In everyday conversation I use them interchangeably, but that is simply laziness on my part. Libertarians reject the idea of a social contract for a number of reasons (one being because libertarians understand what a "contract" actually is, but I digress...). They instead subscribe to what can be called the "conquest theory of the state." Franz Oppenheimer's The State (1908) remains one of the greatest works on the nature of the state. The book is a good read but the quotes I'm providing come straight from his Wikipedia. (And FWIW, Oppenheimer wasn't a libertarian. He considered himself a "liberal socialist.") The State, completely in its genesis, essentially and almost completely during the first stages of its existence, is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished, and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad. Teleologically, this dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors." "No primitive state known to history originated in any other manner. Wherever a reliable tradition reports otherwise, either it concerns the amalgamation of two fully developed primitive states into one body of more complete organisation, or else it is an adaptation to men of the fable of the sheep which made a bear their king in order to be protected against the wolf. But even in this latter case, the form and content of the State became precisely the same as in those states where nothing intervened, and which became immediately 'wolf states'." Later... "There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one's own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others.... I propose in the following discussion to call one's own labor and the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others, the "economic means" for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the "political means." So the state can be briefly defined as an organization of the political means. The political means being the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others. Anything other than that is not a state. Let's say we all crash on a deserted island. If a few folks gather together to provide instruction and advice here and there, they could rightly be called a government. And no libertarian would have a problem with it per se. And if this, to you, is a "social contract", that's perfectly fine. We'll then just have to debate the meaning of some words. If, on the other hand, they started demanding - with violence or the threat thereof - everyone provide them coconuts for sustenance while they ponder our plight, it would effectively become a state and would be anti-libertarian.
I don't think the character of the D&D has changed much since the beginning, so if we're statist now, then I guess we always have been. I can't speak for the others, but I'm very much a statist -- probably more authoritarian than outight totalitarian -- and I've been that way here since before D&D was born. So, if you got a Bud Light when you ordered a Heineken, blame me.
Warning: Statist implies libertarian bot speak. Libertarianbot will repeat same couple ideas 1) Taxation is theft. 2) Government and unions bad. Huge corporations good. 3) Unlimited spending by the rich and corporations on electing politicians good. 4) There has never been a libertarian society in the modern world but trust us it will be utopia.
What if some of the islanders couldn't comprehend basic survival, and chose to hold onto wood for whittling, while a majority decided the wood might best be gathered to build a boat to get the hell off the island or to burn as a signal for rescuers? Would your overriding axiom against using compulsion kick in? Principles over starvation? What if the islanders, left to their own devices, imprinted by their culture, used force on each other? Is there no right to use force to stop force? I mean, most modern economic libertarian ideas are basically nice dinner party discussion items. Meanwhile, in the realm of powering an actual, functioning economy, most people have moved on. I'd say people are doing rather well for themselves and the era of the "state"===the most properous century in human history.
thanks very much, Haymitch. Appreciate the time you put into that, even if we have our semantic differences. Cheers.
Did the OP start this thread and then take a vacation? He's not defending his statement about "statists," although there have been some interesting posts made about the subject. Weenie.
1 is true. Theft is theft, even if the person committing the theft was told by 51% of the population to do so. 2-4 are not libertarian platforms (if there are such things as libertarian "platforms") but are just things said by those who don't understand libertarianism.
To me, the philosophical downfall of libertariansim has always been the reconciliation of their economic philosophy with their social philosophy. Q. What would be the greatest threat to the wonderful social freedoms espoused by libertarian social philosophy? A. The unfettered corporate tyranny unleashed by libertarian economic philosophy. You think statism is a problem?
We should finance social projects with central bank print pressing. wait, printing is theft Or just leave private agents to underinvest in public goods. is underinvestment theft?
