If you are a Libertarian and hold liberty as your core value, why do you not believe in universal healthcare? Nothing impacts liberty more than sickness and death.
Libertarians don’t give a flying fuck about liberty. It is an authoritarian movement that aims to eliminate any force standing in the way of their organizing society into a rigid hierarchy predicated upon wealth. A government that is answerable to the people is a countervailing force against the formation (or re-formation I suppose) of such a system. That was indeed the whole reason such a government was invented in the first place.
I don't think it's quite so organized as this mindset leads to extremely self-absorbed and selfish people who arent good at organizing en masse. Multiple times now, libertarians have tried to form their own communities on land and sea and it always falls apart once they actually try to form the communities as it just turns into government rules and taxes like we have now. They don't even want to live by their own group's authority.
I'm really upset that the coinbro boat didn't actually get to set sail. That article was insane. Reading it was like watching a pilot episode to one of the finest shows ever conceived, then learning the show got canceled.
Libertarians are political extremists who hate anything related to the government but don't care about being oppressed by private businesses, or they think that it simply won't happen in their utopia. Libertarians are everything they hate about the woke left, only applied to the government.
Libertarians are political extremists who hate anything related to the government but don’t care about being oppressed by private businesses
This is simply describing the idea of "negative liberty" which is, essentially, what libertarianism is more inline with.
My anecdotal experience is 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires' lean Libertarian and imagine they'll be young and healthy until they're old and wealthy.
Libertarians don’t give a flying fuck about liberty.
Are you talking about people who are misappropriating the term, or the actual philosophy of libertarianism?
Famous libertarian Friedrich Hayek supported universal basic income. As a libertarian myself, I always ask myself: “Will this make people more free?” If the answer is yes, then I support it because that’s what true libertarianism is. In the case of UBI and universal healthcare, both of those would unequivocally make people more free. People will be more free to choose a profession they like rather than one that merely keeps a roof over their heads. America already has a form of limited universal healthcare. It just happens to be restricted to the military and maybe some other government servants. Those members don’t have to worry about their healthcare and it allows them to focus their attention on more important matters, as their healthcare needs are met. Clearly the government has seen that universal healthcare is beneficial.
The sovereign citizens and the right wingers masquerading as Libertarians have given the ideology a bad name.
I recently got out of the military and it's been a complete shock how bad the private healthcare system is. So much red tape, so many charges, so much money being spent on both ends: to the insurance company, again to the insurance company (copays), and then to the provider when the insurance company won't cover things.
With Tricare? "Hey doc, I need this med for my migraines." "Alright, here you go." No charge.
The American health system is a complete scam keeping people under the boot of their employers and of the for-profit insurance companies.
In the case of UBI and universal healthcare, both of those would unequivocally make people more free.
It is important to note that, specifically, they are examples of positive liberty.
The sovereign citizens and the right wingers masquerading as Libertarians have given the ideology a bad name.
I agree.
If anarchists are often misunderstood I'd imagine libertarians even more so. Both philosophies advocate for the lack of a state, splitting between preference towards the community/collective vs individual, and are often misinterpreted to mean every thing the state does or should provide today can't exist without it.
[Libertarianism] advocate[s] for the lack of a state
No it doesn't. Anarchism advocates for the abolition of the state, libertarianism advocates for minarchy — the minimization of the state.
Famous libertarian Friedrich Hayek supported universal basic income
That's a lie people love to repeat. Hayek was in favor of helping people who needed help, he explicitly was against money for freeloaders.
American "Libertarians" consider liberty as self-sufficiency, not just freedom from a government, but from being required to contribute to society as a whole.
Also, their liberty to exploit you for profit.
This is a bit of a loaded question and very poorly written. Bad troll is bad.
The problem stands that modern "Libertarians" have been corrupted by corporations and conservative bigots to mean "elimination of government and regulation" and not "government to uphold liberty" like it originally did. A correctly Libertarian government would write laws that solely uphold the power of the individual's self determination, which inherently requires restriction of the power of capital.
I consider myself Libertarian, but I feel there now has to be a distinction made between "Capital Libertarians" and "Individual Libertarians". One wants the liberty of capital, the other wants the liberty of the individual. I find myself in the latter. Corporations can go fuck themselves, the individual is paramount.
"Socialist" things like public infrastructure, and yes, public healthcare, would be supported by individual libertarianism. Social support structures like these support individual liberty but restrict capital liberty by requiring taxes to support them, whereas supporting capital liberty by making it "pay as you go" does nothing but remove the individual liberty of the population that finds themselves without any capital through no fault of their own. I absolutely support universal healthcare.
100% Libertarianism originated as a left wing movement in the 19th century. Right wing libertarianism didn't ooze out of the swamp till nearly a century later. In the mid 20th century. Post red scare when actual leftist were keeping their heads down due to fascist witch hunts. And unable to really call out the posers.
Real libertarians don't have a problem with government. They just believe that it should be focused on maximizing freedom, and access to it. Where the larpers are all about maximizing their personal freedom (privilege) and don't care if others have access.
Right wing libertarianism didn't ooze out of the swamp till nearly a century later.
Like any good system that is a threat to those in power, it was co-opted and corrupted to remove the threat and turn public perception against it.
This is also known as "Libertarian Socialism." Interestingly enough, this idea predates the current definition of Libertarianism by decades.
Interesting! I didn't know this existed, but I can align myself pretty well with this terminus. Thank you :)
This is probably where I align economically, but I support statist mandates that are inconsistent with "individual libertarianism" or "civil libertarianism."
For example, we should decriminalize drug use, but there should absolutely be a strong statist intervention where people are forced to stop using drugs.
"Socialist" things like public infrastructure, and yes, public healthcare, would be supported by individual libertarianism.
Huh??????
A capital libertarian government would not fund public roads. You would need to pay a toll to drive on every privately built road, because your capital is free to move. But roads to certain places would cost more than others, thus restricting the individual's liberty to their ability to pay.
A individually libertarian government funds public roads. Individuals then retain the right to self-determination to decide where they want to go without restriction. How they go on those roads might be subject to their capital restrictions- whether they walk, bike, drive, rollerskate, or whatever. But they are at least allowed to use those roads.
Certain things will always be needed in our society for humans to function. If humans are not functioning correctly, they are not free to self-determine their path. Gating such a simple thing as healthcare, which again, humans absolutely need to function, behind the ability to pay is inherently restricting their individual liberty in an immoral way.
I feel there now has to be a distinction made between “Capital Libertarians” and “Individual Libertarians”.
You might be interested in Isaiah Berlin's "Two Concepts of Liberty".
Basically, there is no absolute thing called "liberty", because anything you do changes the material world and the state of the material world also shapes what you're able to do. So you can't talk about simply "liberty", and must always describe it in terms of those two relationships. What Berlin calls "freedom to" and "freedom from".
For instance, I might consider my liberty to mean that I have the "freedom to" shoot a gun in the air. My neighbors might consider their liberty to mean that they have the "freedom from" falling bullets.
We can't create a policy which guarantees both "freedom to" and "freedom from" for all people. But we can create a policy that guarantees both for some people. We just have to allow that some people get to enjoy both the rights and the protections, while other people lack the rights and must suffer the consequences of others' actions.
And that might be why the contemporary conservative version of so-called "libertarianism" plays so well with a notion of a superior social class, whether that's economic, religious, or racial. You can invoke the word "liberty" in support of your attempts to bully others, and then you can invoke it again as a protection against others' attempts to bully you.
My bad....
I consider myself Libertarian, but I feel there now has to be a distinction made between “Capital Libertarians” and “Individual Libertarians”. One wants the liberty of capital, the other wants the liberty of the individual. I find myself in the latter. Corporations can go fuck themselves, the individual is paramount.
It may be better to stick with existing terms like positive and negative liberty.
It’s not really about liberty, it’s about freedom from taxes and consequences. They don’t get far enough in the reasoning to understand that they would benefit.
But I'm 20 and healthy, why should I have to pay for healthcare for mrs. sickey over there? Did she even try being born without a chronic illness? Doubt it.
Because eventually you will be old and sick. It’s short sighted not to consider that.
Don't forget lowering the age of consent
This is anti-libertarian, imo. Libertarianism does revolve around upholding contracts made through individual consent. For this to work, one must be able to give concious and uncoerced consent. Lowering the age of consent does not support this — as it stands, the age of legal consent is, arguably, too low. Being able to provide consent comes with maturity.
It’s not really about liberty
Individual liberty is core to the philosophy of libertarianism.
it’s about freedom from taxes
This is a complicated issue, and it is not a cut and dry opinion of all libertarians to oppose all taxes in their entirety. A core idea in libertarianism is to avoid excessive government abuse of power — taxes are often viewed as one such abuse. Those that are more libertarian oriented, but are more favorable towards some types of taxes are, imo, more accurately referred to as Georgists, but it of course relies on exactly what taxes they support, and their rationale.
it’s about freedom from [...] consequences.
If you are referring to consequences from infringing on the freedoms of others, then that is not libertarian. Supporting the idea of liberty is to also support the liberty of others.
Libertarians: maximum freedom for everyone!
Everyone: what about healthcare?
Libertarians: you're free to die in a gutter!
What you're describing is the difference between positive and negative liberty. In the case of healthcare, negative liberty would be one's freedom from having to pay taxes to support the healthcare of others, positive liberty would be one's freedom to get equal and fair access to healthcare. Libertarianism does concern itself more with the idea of negative liberty, as it seeks to separate from the state's interference in the lives of the individual.
Because (so-called) "libertarians" aren't.
The term "libertarian" has been hijacked in the anglophone-world (starting in the US, of course) to essentially just mean "fundamentalist capitalist" - they are right-wingers who have been immunized from reality and mindlessly support only "liberty" as it applies to private corporations and their interests. Therefore, it shouldn't surprise anyone that you can find these (so-called) "libertarians" anywhere you find neo-nazis and the KKK.
In the non-anglophone world, the term libertarian still holds it's original meaning - a socialist... or, more specifically, an anarchist.
It does seem to now mean "people that don't want to pay their taxes".
Libertarians do tend to support the idea of negative liberty which would include ideas like freedom from compulsory taxes (that's not to say that all libertarians are of the same opinion). To say that it is only that, however, is quite reductionist, and rather ignorant.
It means "I am afraid of gay people but like smoking weed."
"Libertarian" became popular in the US when it started being incorporated into various science fiction novels. Probably the most famous is "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress." I love the book as science fiction, but the society the author creates depends on so many caveats that even the author has the old style 'free' system fall apart as soon as an actual government [as opposed to prison regulations] is formed.
“Libertarian” became popular in the US when it started being incorporated into various science fiction novels.
They got their que from right-wing economic grifters like Rothbard and Hayek - people whose beliefs wouldn't be out of place in Nazi Germany. That's why olden days US sci-fi writing was a festering hole of fascism - nothing else could have produced people like Heinlein.
I'd personally prefer to not give them the satisfaction of calling themselves "libertarians", and to, instaed, call them out on their missapropriation — the philosophy should be defended from those who would tarnish it.
Libertarians want all the benefits of libertarianism AND socialism, but they don’t want to pay for any of it.
That’s it. That’s the entirety of the political belief.
Or they delude themselves into thinking everyone will pay their fair share voluntarily, forgetting that rich people exist who don't give a fuck about the common good.
So... Taxes?
"Bb-but.. I w-wanna.. !"
How childishly reductive. I can’t believe this got upvoted.
How childishly reductive
Just like libertarian talking points!
Libertarians want all the benefits of libertarianism AND socialism, but they don’t want to pay for any of it.
This is conjecture. Based on what are you making this claim? Libertarianism's main focus is on maximizing the negative liberty of the individual.
Money Babies.
They want state-enforced socialism for themselves and crushing capitalist competition for all the people they feel are "beneath" them.
In that sense, you are correct.
Libertarians want freedom from government force. They want to be able to fund healthcare by choice. They want the freedom to not have taxes being used to send weapons oversees. Libertarians are for social and economic freedom.
Used to think I was libertarian. But now I think it's too absolute of an ideal to be any good for humanity. I definitely think free healthcare, housing, food, and education should be guarenteed for everyone.
Your comment precisely expresses my attitude. When it came up i used to say that I was fiscally conservative and social liberal. A Libertarian.
But the older I get the more I realize that Libertarianism isn't the fiction of Atlas Shrugged. There are many people of great worth that cannot be Dagny Taggart or Howard Roark.
Rand failed to take into account that the allure of increasing wealth subverts many bright creators into becoming resource vampires that in turn become oppressors. Ayn Rand would have loved Mark Zuckerberg's rise through intelligence and hard work, but what would she think of what he's ultimately built and what it's done to society?
Real people aren't as altruistic has her characters.
I agree. The world requires way to much subtlety to function well for everyone for single truth ideas and ways of doing things to work at large scales.
Because they really just don't want to pay taxes, which are needed to fund universal healthcare.
Also most people who say they're libertarian have no clue what the word means, and are morons.
Because they really just don’t want to pay taxes, which are needed to fund universal healthcare.
That is rather reductionist — it is more complicated than that.
Also most people who say they’re libertarian have no clue what the word means, and are morons.
I would be very hesitant to say "most" but there is indeed a faction that misappropriates the term.
They don't want to pay taxes because they don't like how government uses taxes and don't trust the government to do a good job. Plus, it's an additional layer of bureaucracy at the top which costs more money and is less efficient.
No, that's saying too much. They don't want to pay. Full stop. That's it.
They don’t want to pay taxes because they don’t like how government uses taxes and don’t trust the government to do a good job.
The opposition to taxes is generally due to a power imbalance resulting in compulsion through the use of force. Taxes are in opposition to negative liberty, which is what libertarianism generally aligns with.
Libertarians only care about 2 things: lowest taxes possible and legal weed, and they would gladly sacrifice the latter in favor of the former. Anything else is nothing more than lip service.
Universal healthcare means taxes, and that is the one thing Libertarians hate above all. Never mind that it would be cheaper than private insurance. They relish in the fact they can skip buying insurance, and if they get hurt, ERs are required to treat them anyway.
That's not fair. They also really care about getting rid of age of consent laws!
I think there are roughly three subgenres of libertarian; the two you identify (wants hierarchy with warlords and wants public heroin use without jail time) but then there is also a third group that has focused a lot of rage on age of consent laws for some reason.
Libertarians only care about 2 things: lowest taxes possible and legal weed, and they would gladly sacrifice the latter in favor of the former. Anything else is nothing more than lip service.
This is a very ignorant statement.
Libertarian care about maximizing social and economic liberties. Liberty being defined as freedom from authority. Taxes are forced on citizens so libertarians generally want to limit taxes to a minimum. I see no reason to believe that universal healthcare would be cheaper than insurance. The government is an inefficient monopoly where private insurance companies have to compete for the lowest rates.
You want to maximize liberty, but have a funny way of showing it. Libertarians vote for the most authoritarian they can, as long as they will cut taxes. Even if that means banning abortion, keeping marijuana prohibition, forcing religion on children in schools, supporting civil forfeiture, preventing people from choosing sustainable energy, and so much more.
As has famously been said, taxes are the price we pay for civilized society. The non-aggression principle I believe is absolute bullshit. Libertarian would happily screw over anyone, claiming they are simply exercising their personal liberty. They couldn’t care any less about the well being of anyone else but themselves. Absolute barbarians if you ask me. Personally, I’m happy to get good services for my taxes, and not see my money go to a greedy asshole CEO. Sure, politicians are also greedy assholes, but at least the people can vote them out.
It would cost less because a single entity, costing much less overhead. Also, a single entity would have far more buying power. Almost every doctor would have to accept them, eliminating out-of-network costs. And we wouldn’t have hundreds of overpaid executives that pat themselves on the back with multimillion dollar bonuses for denying sick people coverage. And we can see it in action. Most industrialized countries already have some form of universal healthcare, and they all cost less per capita. People that actually have universal healthcare generally love it. And don’t talk to me about waiting lists. I’ve been on plenty of waiting lists right here, and lots of people can’t even get on them because they can’t afford the care they need.
Competition simply does not work in the healthcare market. When people are sick, they are limited typically to one option. And it has inelastic demand, so changing prices don’t change demand, and thus hospitals and doctors can charge whatever. The system, built on the economic principles libertarians espouse, is god-awful.
How is having numerous private companies all concerned with billing in any way efficient? Imagine if everyone was covered and the money and time and intelligence used to decide how much they pay and how much you pay went towards actual healthcare. The whole existence of health insurance is an inefficiency.
I consider myself a libertarian and I believe in free healthcare. I think certain industries should not be run for profit. It creates perverse incentives that harm the common man. For example healthcare.
If there's a profit incentive in bealthcare, there is incentive for drug companies or hospitals to raise their prices. This would mean less people getting treatment or more people in medical debt.
Another industry I think shouldn't be for profit is education. We want an educated population. It should be encouraged, so it should be free for anyone who wants it.
In my view, libertarianism is a perspective that the government should interfere with the personal liberties of the individual as little as possible.
Every single government action should be heavily scrutinized and challenged. Some actions are justified. For example regulating healthcare I think is justified. You are taking away the liberty of starting a hospital - but the benefits outweigh the costs.
I believe that cooperatives should be encouraged if not explicitly mandated for large companies.
I think to Chomsky's conception of anarchism. Look at all hierarchies of power and challenge them. Some are justified - the power a father has over his child. Some are not - the power a cash advance place has over their customer base.
I think governments often make mistakes and through heavy handed actions end up screwing the average person. By dramatically limiting government action, you help prevent this.
Remember the government is not your friend.
Remember the government is not your friend.
The government is working out just fine for people in Nordic and other EU counties
There are benevolent kings every once in a while. Doesn't mean monarchy is a good system in the long term. Nordic countries have some of the highest wealth inequalities in the world. They keep the working class content with the programs and benefits. They have been able to afford it up to now, but the system is straining.
In the long term they cannot sustain this and we see it with their indicators slowly falling over time to match other Western European countries.
French & UK citizens are not fans of their government.
Less power the government has unnecessarily, the better. Doesn't mean the government shouldn't have power, just we need a mentality that we always need to be trimming the fat.
There's examples that swing both ways of a government being benevolent and self serving. The more likely outcome is the government being self serving. I personally anticipate every government to eventually go that route. For instance Agustus and a few following Roman emperor's had set a good example. But once corruption had set its teeth within the government it became incredibly difficult to be a "good" emperor. Not impossible but discouraged.
So yeah. Just because there's good examples doesn't mean you shouldn't be cautious even in their cases. Enjoy the prosperity and encourage it but do have a Killswitch of sorts just in case
How do you deal with bears?
Dinner and plenty of lube.
You just described a somewhat progressive leaning liberal.
You believe that the government should stay our of our homes, socially. Progressives have been leading that charge for decades, and moderates have been on board for a while now.
You believe in universal Healthcare and income. Those are very progressive ideals. Those are about as anti libertarian as it gets, because they take away a lot of "individual" freedom, because to fund that, roughly half of your income will need to go to taxes. Maybe more, I haven't looked at the numbers in a long time, but plenty of current examples to pick from.
You believe in industrial regulation to combat bad actors when necessary. That is a general liberal ideal.
Nothing besides keeping the government away from your personal life is even marginally libertarian. And that's pretty much the only overlap between libertarianism and liberalism.
This is all from a U.S. point of view.
You just described a somewhat progressive leaning liberal.
There is, indeed, a lot of overlap, but, imo, the differences usually tend to revolve around one's mentality — how they rationalize their arguments.
Those are about as anti libertarian as it gets, because they take away a lot of “individual” freedom
You are half right — universal healthcare isn't classically liberatarian because it is an example of positive liberty, whereas libertarianism tends to align more with negative liberty.
I think certain industries should not be run for profit. It creates perverse incentives that harm the common man. For example healthcare.
I agree. The way that I generally look at it is that a lot of healthcare results in leonine contracts which cannot be fairly consented to. The free market requires conscious and uncoerced consent to be given by all parties involved.
Another industry I think shouldn’t be for profit is education. We want an educated population. It should be encouraged, so it should be free for anyone who wants it.
Personally, I would argue that it's a bit more complicated — it depends on the type, and manner of education. But, in a general sense, I would be inclined to agree.
In my view, libertarianism is a perspective that the government should interfere with the personal liberties of the individual as little as possible.
I agree.
Every single government action should be heavily scrutinized and challenged. Some actions are justified. For example regulating healthcare I think is justified.
I agree.
I believe that cooperatives should be encouraged if not explicitly mandated for large companies.
I have no issue with a large company/organization, so long as it is acting competitively. I personally think that the best place for cooperatives is where intrinsic monopolies appear, e.g. utilities.
Look at all hierarchies of power and challenge them.
I agree.
I think governments often make mistakes and through heavy handed actions end up screwing the average person. By dramatically limiting government action, you help prevent this.
I agree.
Remember the government is not your friend.
At the very least, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The feedback loop does seem to trend towards large government and overreach.
Tldr non partisan answer: Libertarian philosophy favors negative rights over positive rights.
Negative rights oblige others to not impede (like not censoring free speech).
Positive rights oblige others to provide something (like healthcare).
Imo, it would be better worded as follows:
Disclaimer, I am not a libertarian by a long shot.
But - there is a difference between freedom to and freedom from. I think in general libertarians believe in freedom to, not freedom from. So you are free to yell, but not free from noise. You are free to walk in traffic, not free from being run over.
It almost makes sense, I don't think people should be free from seeing things that offend them, right? Or free from consequences. So no, they don't think freedom from sickness is a right.
You're right especially in that it almost makes sense - the only people I've seen who are more allergic to nuance than libertarians are Trumpists
there is a difference between freedom to and freedom from
The terms that you are looking for are postive and negative liberty, respectively.
Itt, people being downvoted for answering the question.
Gotta love Lemmy. Lol
I don't think being downvoted for answering the question in good faith should happen, but I do see a few bad faith answers that absolutely should be downvoted
I haven't gotten to the depths yet, but some responses seem earnest. Different degrees of proof needed when confirmation bias is in play.
Kinda thought lemmy was the better reddit. Seems it's just a different reddit.
All of the extremists from Reddit came here.
It seems like you have an interesting definition of liberty. Liberty (to me) is freedom from authority. Libertarians core value is not having government force individuals to do anything. If people want to opt into a universal healthcare private system they are free to do so (kind of like insurance). A big motivation for this is lack of trust in government to handle the job well. Libertarians see government as inherently prone to corruption and thus want to limit their power as much as possible. The extent to which a given libertarian wants to limit government varies. By appointing government authorities to the system the cost of everything rises as in addition to health care you also have to pay the government workers who oversee the system and it's not very efficient. Not to mention politicians get to decide how much money goes to these programs etc etc. do you really want politicians involved in your health? With all the inefficiency and corruption in politics why do you trust them to handle your health?
To me, this reads like it implies that government and govt programs are bad because of the govt employees, but if you were to take those same "corrupt" politicians and put them to work at private companies that they would stop being "corrupt." Like it is a belief/reaction to one specific bad instance of a large government/program. "The government sucks at program X, so if we get rid of that program, the same general population will gain empathy, morals and efficiency if working for a company to run program X."
It's a about competition. I'm not saying business owners aren't corrupt. But if one company, say nestle, turns out to be rotten then you can buy your chocolate chips from another company. But with government I don't have a say. If I don't pay taxes I go to jail and if I don't like how my taxes are spent then too bad. There is no alternative.
All monopolizations of power should be held under the utmost scrutiny.
Damn, you'd have to be completely brain dead to still believe anything is more efficient than single payer healthcare. The US has the worst outcomes for the highest cost in terms of life expectancy. Same with roads, utilities, schools etc... the more you privatise the more expensive things get for a lower quality product.
A well regulated, competitive market is good for many things, but for others it's atrocious. An unregulated market has never produced good outcomes on any scale larger than the board of directors.
If you're seriously summarizing the libertarian agenda then I can't believe any one over 14 could hold these ideas unless they were VERY sheltered from reality.
the more you privatise the more expensive things get for a lower quality product.
Err, well, no — a competitive free market will ensure that prices are driven down. What I think you are trying to get at is that healthcare, generally, doesn't function in a capitalist market, and I would agree. The reason healthcare doesn't function well under capitalism is because purchases are made under a leonine contract.
Same with roads, utilities, schools etc… the more you privatise the more expensive things get for a lower quality product.
This is the same sort of issue as mentioned above, but for somewhat different reasons — public utilities are intrinsic monopolies, which are inherently anti-competitive.
A well regulated, competitive market is good for many things, but for others it’s atrocious.
It is good under the exact restricitions that you initially described. As soon as you deviate from those restrictions, it breaks down.
Libertarians see government as inherently prone to corruption and thus want to limit their power as much as possible.
I prefer voluntary interaction to using force or violence. Personally I believe we're obligated to help each other and our community and would voluntarily be a collectivist - I'm just not willing to force everyone else to.
We still need to modify liability and IP law to disincentivize megacorps and not use violence to benefit the wealthy.
Government programs IS US HELPING EACHOTHER. Sure corporations have been undermining democracy, but the government is OUR corporation. It's the only one that we get the choose what it does. The fact we're obligated to pay taxes is EXACTLY the implementation of your statement "we're obligated to help eachother"
I don't understand how you can make statements like this. The threat of violence? The government's monopoly on violence is rephrased as the will of society to ban violence in public life by restricting violence only to the enforcement of democratically selected laws. There is no other way I can conceive. Should more people have the ability to use violence to enforce their views on others? Should corporations have that right? If no one has that right how can we stop someone who decides THEY have that right?
The whole "government monopoly on violence" is for me the most absurd librarian statement of them all. What's the alternative? Who should decide what deserves violence? Who should use violence? What do we do if someone breaks this compact? Because the current answers are at least ideally "the people, through democratically enacted, clear and transparent laws", and "the people, through the police they pay for accountable only to the people" and "apply fair and balanced justice through the judiciary system, run by the people and accountable only to them". I'm in no way saying that it's working perfectly as is clear in recent politics, but it's certainly trending in the right direction in social democracies. We're closer to that ideal now than we have ever been. As far as I've seen libertarian ideology has only come up with absolutely HORRIFYING answers to these questions, or wishy washy nonsense.
How do libertarians generally handle minority rights? Is it as bad as conservatives? A good example are all of these anti-trans and anti choice in abortion bills. What would a libertarian think of these?
Looking on the internet it kind of feels like libertarians are usually suburban people or people so out of the way that the messes in Washington don't affect them as hard as those in the cities. So I have only met one and he didn't seem to fond of our black coworkers, if you get what I mean.
Libertarians are just like other political parties. There are different groups that subscribe the the term libertarian each with slightly different beliefs. Whatever extremists people are out there in the Internet do not represent the whole. I really suggest watching some of the 2024 libertarian debates. They are educated smart people who are informed about the complex issues like those you mentioned. This whole thread has been really eye opening for me. I had no idea people had these conceptions about libertarians. I am guessing there are a bunch of far right groups that like to identify as anarchists and throw around the term libertarian while they do. But if you listen to the rhetoric of the political party and the representatives you will see that those ideas are not held by the party as a whole.
To answer your question, libertarians are, in general, pro personal liberties and pro economic liberties. They believe the individual should get to choose. A common line they use is government should not exert force one way or the other. This means they tend to agree with Democrats on issues like race, drugs, LGBTQ etc. The people who actually get a stage in the political party are absolutely against racism, sexism etc. There was a debate recently where the candidates (about 7 primary) were Asked their stance on abortion. Most of them said they were personally pro life BUT they would still veto any bill or cut funding to any program that forced that perspective on others. Any person who goes around saying they think this and they want the government to force and regulate that disagrees fundamentally with the libertarian perspective. I said most, because one of the candidates was unapologetically pro choice. Please don't think that whatever alt right edge lords are out there actually have any idea what libertarianism is.
Liberty (to me) is freedom from authority.
The term for this is "negative liberty": the freedom from something; whereas, "positive liberty" is the freedom to do something. Libertarianism, generally, aligns with the idea of negative liberty.
The problem with this is that in a free democratic system, government is something you do, not something which is done to you. You can't just pick and choose which aspects of government you like. Part of the social contract is that if you want clean water and plumbing and shit, then you agree to abide by fair democratic consensus. If you don't, I suppose you are free to go live in the woods.
The problem with this is that in a free democratic system, government is something you do, not something which is done to you.
It is both.
I imagine it's a "negative liberty vs positive liberty" conundrum.
American libertarianism seems to consistently skew towards negative liberty, which is complete autonomy to anything but without any power or resources. I believe this predilection came from Ayn Rand and Reaganism, and that It now manifests mostly as anarchocapitalist sentiments.
I'm a bigger fan of positive liberty - possessing the resources and power to do what you desire within a constrained system.
Unfortunately we live in a society which provides neither. The amazing results of constant compromise.
The problem is defining what acceptable positive rights involves. There are people who think that having to "work to survive" is somehow a major human rights abuse. I don't think that anyone should be entitled to not have to work unless they are severely disabled and can't work. At the same time, expecting people to work multiple jobs is corporate oppression.
I really like your answer but to me this is what motivated me towards libertarianism. We have been voting between two parties that both are authoritarian in different ways and the result stinks. Let's try the other half of the compass for a change. If government sucks then don't vote for more government to fix the corrupt system. Vote to limit government and give power back to the people.
I'm not a Libertarian, but I sympathize with some of their economic viewpoints -- significantly more so than tends to be welcome here. Unlike some of you, I don't speak to the motives and attitudes of all libertarians, only my own. I'm not a Republican. I don't smoke pot. I did vote for Jo Jorgensen in 2020. I do give a flying fuck about liberty. I don't confirm or deny being a myopic cunt.
Oddly enough, I do support some form of public healthcare. I'm well aware that most libertarians don't. A hundred years ago, maybe even 50 years ago, I wouldn't have either. The problem is that medical science has advanced to where a free market insurance model doesn't work as well as it used to. Health insurance used to be a luxury when lung cancer would kill a rich man almost as quickly as it killed a poor man. That's no longer the case, and the costs have accelerated to where the treatment can bankrupt an uninsured middle class man.
The real sinker however is pre-existing conditions. You can't insure a house that's already on fire, and we don't ask homeowners policies to do so. Waiting periods for costly conditions sometimes almost work, except for patients born a pre-existing medical condition. If the insurer had the choice, they'd just refuse to write the policy, even if treatment is cost-effective from a public policy standpoint.
So I support free market solutions where they exist. Health insurance may be one of the few situations where it doesn't.
I always assumed it was impossible for a free market to exist in healthcare. One important tenant of a free market is being able to freely enter and exit the market at will. Exiting the healthcare market is impossible. You can't reasonably choose to leave the market when life is forcing you to engage in it, or choosing to leave the market would lead to death. It's the equivalent of having a gun put to your head.
Exactly. To me all the basics of life, the bottom tiers of Maslow's pyramid can't be privatised. Healthcare, utilities, education, infrastructure, social safety nets, you need those things as a PREREQUISITE to participation in the market. The market can't provide its own prerequisites. If you don't provide these things you simply cannot have a competitive free market in the first place.
The main issue with healthcare, imo, is that it is a leonine contract. Because of that, it is incompatible with capitalism.
So I support free market solutions where they exist. Health insurance may be one of the few situations where it doesn’t.
The main issue with healthcare is that it is a leonine contract. Because of that, it is incompatible with capitalism.
Libertarians are people who imagine living in their idea of personal, fictional, utopia. Their utopia is one where they pay for only what they want, nobody else gets any of their money, corporations will do no harm, and somehow, magically, they have all the conveniences of modern life.
They just completely ignore that their miserly financial outlook undoes centuries of understanding that an educated society reduces poverty, crime, and unrest, hence the need for public education. Corporations still cause environmental ruin and poison the land, sea, and air…as if giving them minimal or free rein would improve that. Usually their solution to anyone intruding on their ideal world is to shoot them, no need to pay for cops.
In other words, they’re all about their Liberty to do what ever they want. Their version of liberty for you is “You’re free to sink, swim, or die on your own.” They just assume they’ll always be fine or have enough money to do whatever they need. No need to chip in for anyone els’s health care if a) they can’t pay for their own or b) they have their money to pay for theirs, and you’re not getting any of it.
Libertarians are the right wing version of 20 year old socialists who want free stuff and have no understand of what really drives and motivates people.
I tend to lean left but I'm incredibly disappointed with the state of the political landscape.
In other words, they’re all about their Liberty to do what ever they want.
I disagree. What you are describing is positive liberty. Libertarianism, generally, aligns more with negative liberty.
Do not be deluded by the abstract word Freedom. Whose freedom? Not the freedom of one individual in relation to another, but freedom of Capital to crush the worker.
-- Karl Marx, On Free Trade
This is more a distinction between positive and negative liberty. Positive liberty is the freedom to do something, and negative liberty is the freedom from something.
Utopias aren't real, and authoritarianism ends the same way whether you're a fascist or a tankie.
So far, outside of a classroom, the only “Libertarians” I’ve seen in real life are people who vote republiQan and refuse to take accountability for it.
Or people who don’t vote, and allow republiQans to rule while taking no accountability for it.
So, they don’t support universal healthcare because republiQans don’t, and that’s what they really are.
Actually, not voting is one of the most ideologicaly consistent things someone who is extremely libertarian could do. Because if you voted for something and got it passed. Technically your will could be used to infringe against perceived rights of others. So by rights any true ideological libertarian should never vote. But you'll almost never see that on the right.
So far, outside of a classroom, the only “Libertarians” I’ve seen in real life are people who vote republiQan and refuse to take accountability for it.
This is, imo, most likely a symptom of a first past the post voting system. It results in people not voting for whom they believe in, but, instead, to vote strategically in the very general direction of what is actually wanted.
Wanna be free to stay unwell.
I wanna eat buckets of cheese
This is the problem with "ism"s. At whatever point you decide that philosophy X is the answer to everything, you start being wrong about a lot of the world, because whatever it is, there's at least like 30% of situations (and potentially a lot more) that your particular ism actually isn't the answer to.
Libertarianism or anti-imperialism or ACAB or socialism or pro-the-Democrats or anarchist or whatever it is, it's never always the answer. Trying to hold a debate about, well is it philosophy X or philosophy Y that's always right about everything, or any other discussion that feeds into the basic wrong premise, is just compounding the imaginary non-situation-dependent way of looking at it.
Although yes some of them are wrong a lot more of the time than some others.
Before applying any of these so-called "isms" to the collective, the most important step, imo, is to ensure that there is synchronization on the collective's ideals and principles. In general, understanding all extremes, their benefits and drawbacks, is the best approach forward. One must be rooted in their ideals and draw from diverse pools of experience to round out one's beliefs.
On a political spectrum, the term libertarian should relate to anti-authoritarian. So, I can see how the case can be made against socialized healthcare for them. It's not really about true freedom or liberty. And in the US anyway, it's largely just facade co-opted by the fascist [authoritarian and wealthy] right wing, ironically.
The word "Libertarian" in US has less relation to the dictionary definition than "Republican" and "Democrat". These are names of parties over here, even if they have a namesake of governmental mechanisms.
Examples:
Ron Johnson said in a single breath that he was a libertarian and opposed the legalization of marijuana.
Find the average "libertarian" policy position on border policies.
US politics is unfortunately entrenched in tribalism rather than searching for the right tool to match a job or solve a problem and maximize outcomes, the libertarians over here are no exception.
Big L little l.
Big L is the party - and yeah, it's just Republicans in a different T-shirt.
Little l is the ideology, which in many ways matches up with what I think, but to get there you need so many social programs to put people on even ground that we should have but don't. Universal healthcare being only one of so, so, so many.
Edit: And just to add, I think Rand was just a precursor to the Big L Libertarians, and little to nothing to do with the little l. You can have true individual liberty without the protections and support to enable those liberties.
It’s not really about true freedom or liberty.
I think the terms that you are instead looking for are positive and negative liberty. Libertarianism, generally, aligns with negative liberty. Universal healthcare is an example of positive liberty.
And in the US anyway, it’s largely just facade co-opted by the fascist [authoritarian and wealthy] right wing, ironically.
An unfortunate outcome that should be resisted.
On a political spectrum, the term libertarian should relate to anti-authoritarian
Sure, but we're not on a political spectrum. Political names are codified as part of a propaganda campaign advanced by the original party leaders. Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Constitution Party, Reformers, Socialists (both National and International) are - at their heart - marketing taglines, fully divorced from the beliefs and policies of their constituencies.
Ron Johnson said in a single breath that he was a libertarian and opposed the legalization of marijuana.
He's only the latest iteration. I might send you back to Murray Rothbard and Ludwig Von Mises, the OG American Anarcho-Capitalists, both of which had some bizarre theories about what constituted "small government" from the perspective of a Washington DC insider.
Marijuana consumption, much like miscegenation and immigration and unionization, might seem at first glance to be a consequence of independent human agency. But they all carry potential social consequences, particularly against individuals with claim on private property.
By getting high, you're turning yourself into a public nuisance - possibly even a violent threat - to your landlords. By crossing international borders, you are acting as a member of an invading army and threatening the economic livelihood of prior landed gentry. By unionizing, you are forming a labor cartel - almost certainly crafted through the violent agitation of wicked foreign governments employing the mind-altering ideology of Marxist-Leninism. By miscegenating, you are robbing me of the commodity of a virginal daughter to be traded on the open market.
All of these are acts of violence that threaten the property and security of the rightful landed man. We must rely on the good, honest, well-trained battalion of law enforcement officers in order to uphold the security of that property.
US politics is unfortunately entrenched in tribalism rather than searching for the right tool to match a job or solve a problem and maximize outcomes
The US is focused first and foremost on the claim to private property and the fruitful extraction of wealth from that property. Libertarianism, as an ideology, revolves around defining the extent to which individuals can go in defending that property from evil foreign aggressors and corrupted domestic residents. It endorses a state solely for the upholding of this ideology.
When you combine "Libertarian" with the greed that is typical in the ultra wealthy, their core value typically only includes liberty for themselves and no empathy for others. You can use any party label you want but without empathy, members of every party are nothing more than selfish pieces of shit. Just to be clear, I am not a "they're all the same" idiot, as Republicans clearly think empathy is a four letter word. But there are sociopaths without empathy everywhere in society, especially in the US.
As far as universal healthcare is concerned, we can't even agree as a society to provide clean water to our population by removing leaded pipes. Why would we expect something as reasonable as universal healthcare?
When you combine “Libertarian” with the greed that is typical in the ultra wealthy, their core value typically only includes liberty for themselves and no empathy for others.
I would argue that, at that point, they are no longer libertarian. To uphold liberty, as described in libertarianism, is to uphold it universally.
You will know the answer if you look more specific at what exactly different people understand as "liberty"
Libertarians usually define liberty narrowly as "freedom from government".
Freedom does not mean the ability to do as you please, but rather the ability to not be told what not to do, or to be made to do something you do not wish to do.
A libertarian usually does not object to wage slavery, and would disagree with the concept of wage slavery entirely, on the grounds that you were not forced to work a job you dislike, since you could always choose to starve instead.
What you're looking for is one of the schools of anarchism.
Although usually painted as "anti-government, anti-society", it actually derives from being against hierarchy, and is characterized generally (there are many schools) as being opposed to involuntary power hierarchies.
Sometimes government is the best way to reduce the total amount of coercion in the system, since forcing a lot of people to pay a little can free many, many people from being forced to do stuff they loath to survive.
Libertarians aren't pro-liberty they're anti-government, and anarchists aren't pro-chaos they're anti-coercian. They're both entire political schools of thought, so I've obviously not encapsulated them entirely in two paragraphs.
This is exactly right.
However, you are on Lemmy where the vast majority of users are from the US which means they have their own weird skew on libertarianism and liberalism, thanks to their media and social media. Somehow it's distinctly Republican, conservative (lol, yes), and pro-capitalism, which obviously isn' correct because of their many, many, many, anti-liberal views.
Only in the US can socialists be mad about a school of thought that values social equality and welfare, because a form of media informed them it's pro-capitalism and the red-cap redneck that cries "Liberty!" with their AR-15 must be liberalism or libertarian.
Libertarians aren’t pro-liberty they’re anti-government.
Libertarians are pro liberty. Generally, they align the most with the upholding of negative liberty. Libertarians are not anti government; libertarians advocate for the minimization of government — that is, minarchy. Anarchists are anti-government.
I like the idea of universal healthcare. I have zero trust in the US federal government to implement it properly. I think it would be a clusterfuck and make things worse for everyone, especially with Republicans on the warpath doing everything they can to sabotage it.
I can't really understand the tradition of never trusting the government in the US. The government is designed in a way that enables, even requires public oversight, public opinion. If that is not the case, you are not living in a democracy. Many Americans trust private initiatives, charity more than taxes and a working public system. People have no say in what corporations do. If people don't trust the government the attitude should be towards fixing it and enabling trust, not to accept it as is. I am not judging, maybe a little bit but not really. I live in a middle eastern country. We really don't trust the government but we keep working on steering it in the right direction. We are many times smaller than the US but we have minimum income, universal healthcare, unions are the norm, etc.
The government is designed in a way that enables, even requires public oversight, public opinion.
If one trusted their government, then, arguably, none of these checks would be required.
Many Americans trust private initiatives, charity more than taxes and a working public system.
The trust in private enterprise is predicated on one's ability and ease to opt out of such a system. The same cannot be said for the government.
I can't really understand the tradition of never trusting the government in the US
I used to trust them, before 9/11 when I was young and naive. Then the attack happened. We ended up with bipartisan legislation to strip our civil liberties, torture captives, spy on citizens in direct violation of the bill of rights, and invade 2 countries that had nothing to do with it. Never again.
People have no say in what corporations do
Shareholders do. They get a vote. The government is essentially a mutual fund you're legally obligated to buy into.
If people don't trust the government the attitude should be towards fixing it and enabling trust, not to accept it as is.
I agree. I also believe we should take care of that before we go granting them vast additional powers.
We are many times smaller than the US but we have minimum income, universal healthcare, unions are the norm, etc.
Thats a good example of why universal healthcare doesn't need to be at the federal level here. States like New York and California are larger than many countries which have universal healthcare. What's stopping them from passing it themselves?
But corporations hold each other accountable. They have to compete for your trust. If corporation A does something shady then it's im their competitors interest to call them out in order to raise people's trust in themselves. There are also countless charities and third party sites to grade them. I can choose which programs I fund. I don't get any say in what government gets my taxes or what the government does with my taxes. What if I don't want to fund war but want my money to go to charity to help the poor? How effective is universal healthcare where you are?
Do you mean ancaps? Because I'm pretty sure most libertarian would be for universal healthcare. I have heard Americans use libertarian for ancap which are pretty opposing ideologies, I'm not sure what's up with that.
American libertarians hate anarchy and love order. They believe there should be zero government to enforce that order. They also believe they should not be held to any laws.
There's not a lot of thinking behind those eyes.
Anarchy and order are very much not opposites (There's an O in the logo!), you might be thinking of anomie which means the absence of (legal, social) norms.
From the random yanks I see on the net the dividing line between ancap and libertarian is how open and/or conscious they are about their radicalism, though even ancaps of course fall short of admitting that they're neo-feudalists. Basic differentiating factor from ordinary monarchists is that they want their King (not too uncommonly, it could also be a Queen) to rule by grace of capital instead of god. Which, if you ask Stirner, isn't really much of a distinction both are spooks.
I’m pretty sure most libertarian would be for universal healthcare.
I'd be hesitant to say "most", but some, for sure.
Why the hell do you think that libertarians don't believe in universal healthcare?
This I believe is the 3rd party the US needs. People should redefine the meaning of being a Libertarian in the US and take it away from the crazy.
Actually, education and health are the 2 things I think the government should take care of in a serious way. That said, I still Believe people should be able to pay for alternative education or health care if they wish, I just think I should never see a bill for either of those two ever. Especially for children. Wtf are we doing if we as a society cannot afford for children to be healthy or educated?
the issue is that everyone needs to have equal opportunity.
Is it okay for parents to purposefully give their kids a worse opportunity for education and health than every other American? (I know homeschooling is a controversial topic, but sadly the vast majority are just dumb as a box of bricks religious nut jobs)
I'm sorry, I genuinely don't understand the question of, is it right to give a worse education. Are you saying that homeschool is worse? Sorry not trying to deter from the topic, but I might just not be reading it right.
I will say this in response though, I don't agree that everyone should be given a completely equal opportunity. What I do think is that everyone should be given a very superior baseline of opportunity.
Chasing completely equal opportunity seen like a fools errand. But we really should be putting education and health first, unfortunately we just don't.
The question was "Why do you not believe in universal healthcare?" not "Why don't you like the libertarian movement?" Jeez, guys.
Honestly it's just an ethical stance against forcing one to pay for another, emphasis on force.
We all pay for it when a child with potential gets sick and dies because their parents couldn't afford health care. We all pay in one way or another when health care bankrupts a family. We are all going to pay for it anyways, and if someone in a worse financial position than you needs health care and your taxes can provide that, you're garbage if you feel you're being forced or you're mad cause a poor person got medicine with your taxes.
No. I'm a Canadian that actually knows what socialized programs like healthcare do to a country. It's not great. Socialized medicine is one of the major of the hundred little cuts impoverishing Canadians. Mississippi and Alabama have higher per capita average income and personal wealth than the richest Canadian province, before and after taxes. Despite the huge amount of wealth transfer to the government for reallocation, they inevitably start acting like its their money, wasted in ridiculous ways aside from the original point, a bureaucratic mafia forms intent on nothing but its own continuance, and then you've Canadians denied health insurance either formally (I'm not allowed to have it because I've not a fixed address in the province I pay income tax, but i can't just not pay taxes either) or informally by denial of needed care (that's the common one). I do have American health insurance. I spend 5 months a year in the states, acquiring insurance was as simple as paying for it.
The liberty they believe in is different than the more common use of the word, perhaps.
"liberty to" rather than "liberty from".
The terms that you are looking for are "positive liberty" and "negative liberty". Positive liberty is the freedom to do something, negative liberty is the freedom from something. Libertarians, generally, align more with negative liberty.
Correct
Libertarians are a bunch of myopic cunts.
I am libertarian-ish, but generally don't like all the loud libertarian nuts (I register Dem and vote Dem because the things I care about aren't represented anywhere on the ballot anymore).
For me, it comes to a very simple economics truism: Governments are pretty damn inefficient and tend to waste a lot of money because of the process and bureaucracy. Markets on the other hand, tend to be really efficient at allocating capital when left alone. The times a government should step in is when the market has created a form of externality that breaks things. The old economics example is the people downstream from a chemical plant are paying the price for the plant's pollution.
From a libertarian lens:
Unfortunately the things I'd like to see from a libertarian don't actually show up.
Finance management major here, I'd argue that governments aren't inherently inefficient.
On a local level, government organisations are essentially the same as non-profits. The only difference is in who they are accountable to. Even KPI are pretty much the same.
The inefficiency of a government in contrast to the free market is in its inability to adjust to people's needs quickly on a global scale. Imagine a company that has to sell a little bit of everything and then some. What kind of resource does it need to have to fully satisfy the demand? It's practically impossible to make a vertically integrated system that would do this amount of research, let alone organize all the production and supply chains. It doesn't matter if it's a government or an entity. They all will drown in beurocracy, except the government is usually stricter as they tend to play it safe.
Hence, it's really a non-issue if a government takes control over parts of the market. And because they can't facilitate it all, they take over socially significant parts of it, like municipality governance, military, and healthcare.
Also, you (the person reading, not the person I'm responding to) should never be mistaken in thinking that the free market is perfectly efficient. It isn't. Creating points of inefficiency drives a lot of revenue. Think purposefully limiting demand to drive prices up. This is what's happening with insulin in the US, for example. If you have perfectly inelastic demands, you can make your product infinitely expensive.
Having worked a decade each in private and state positions in my experience they're just different brands of inefficiency. The big difference is that in private industry inefficiency doesn't really matter as long as you're making money. A business that starts in the right market at the right time can do everything wrong and still turn a profit for decades and no one will question their efficiency because they're profitable. If they're well established enough they can be relatively immune to competition because the market doesn't justify enough investment to create competition, so they dominate regardless their failings but still get celebrated as a successful business.
The state is judged by completely different metrics of success and no matter how successful, people will still ask if it could have been done more efficiently. In private industry success is the only measure of success.
I also don't think governments should be held to business efficiency standards. It's meant to be social, not profitable.
I responded already but a perfect example of government efficiency is Medicare, which is 16% cheaper than private Medicare replacement programs for the same services in the same population. And Medicare has better outcomes as well.
Governments are pretty damn inefficient and tend to waste a lot of money because of the process and bureaucracy.
I wish you would take a look at how government works in places like Scandinavia and much of Western Europe. Their universal healthcare systems are very efficient and cost-effective.
Other than politics and gone-wild ideology, there's no reason the US couldn't do the same.
there's no reason the US couldn't do the same
They already do. Medicare is 16% cheaper than private replacement programs, with better outcomes.
The biggest government program is socialized medicine, aka Medicare. The “market” aka private health insurance, costs on average 16% more than Medicare for the same services and population. Your view of government efficiency is tilted by decades of corporate media manipulation and is blatantly false.
I register Dem and vote Dem because the things I care about aren’t represented anywhere on the ballot anymore
First past the post doing first past the post things.
Governments are pretty damn inefficient and tend to waste a lot of money because of the process and bureaucracy.
The reason for this is, imo, because they are a monopoly. They have no incentive to reduce costs.
The old economics example is the people downstream from a chemical plant are paying the price for the plant’s pollution.
This is actually more of a Georgist philosophy than libertarian, imo.
The government should negotiate SPH b.c. it’s obvious that markets failed and we’d all be better off (spend less money) if everyone had healthcare.
Cooperatives could potentially be a solution.
The government should stay out of people’s bedrooms and love lives, it has no business there.
I agree.
The government should use UBI and then eliminate every other deduction, and tax break, and subsidy (Social Sec, . The office running UBI could be one guy sending checks out once a month (exaggerated obvi)
In principle, it sounds great, but I personally feel there are some potential economic issues that could get in the way of UBI being a success. An alternative to UBI could be a negative income tax, specifically that which was proposed by Milton and Rose Friedman.
I really recommend people who are actually curious about libertarians to watch the 2024 free and equal debate on YouTube (link below). A lot of people here have some strong words against libertarians but don't really understand what they stand for. I think that is a dangerous mindset. I imagine a lot of feminists, BLM or LGBTQ folk understand how frustrating that can be.
I would take anybody in the free and equal debate over the two choices presented by the democratic and Republican party. I personally feel the libertarian candidates resonate with me but make your own decision. Vote for who you feel will represent your views best.
https://www.youtube.com/live/Bmidtp1_K-Y?si=A62jmReZvv8zt1n6
Libertarian doesn't just mean "dumbshit conservative who likes smoking weed."
There is a whole spectrum of leftist libertarian traditions which uphold the egalitarian and worker-first ideas of socialism, but reject the authoritarianism of Marxist Leninism. Though I admit it would be hard to know this if your only exposure to leftist ideas was via the internet, which tends to tilt heavily towards these ML traditions, and very confused anarchists who think MLs are allies for some reason.
Don't expect unbiased learning about politics on Lemmy.
Nice to see so many pleasant replies from all sides! Didn’t know how casually people viewed this topic.
I am not THE libertarian to fully hold this argument and as others have mentioned there are libertarian arguments for universal healthcare, but I will present the best case I can from those I've heard be against it.
The primary case is the idea of negative rights vs positive rights. Where the idea that the state should protect you from others wanting limit your rights vs providing you the ability to do something.
So using the state to punish someone for who is trying to stop you from providing healthcare service is justified use of violence as it protects your negative rights and define and preserves you and the violators boundary. Whereas using state violence to force you to provide healthcare someone you don't want to would not as it violated your negative right.
This is primary argument against any positive right, is that since it requires a service to be fulfilled the state would be use violence (the basis of state power) to enforce it. Making it tantamount to slavery.
Now the reality of it though is that most libertarians do support this slavery at least in service of giving the state the monopoly on violence (police, military, etc) in order to protect their defined negative rights. And because of our current material abundance we are able to have a fractionalized slavery extracting wealth from people to small enough degree that most people don't find as aborrent full servitude of an individual.
I believe in universal basic income, because it is simple and easy to define, and therefore doesn’t have these two problems
Universal healthcare is problematic because of two things:
problem where a ton of attention and discussion is required to determine what’s covered and what isn’t
Criticizing aspects of the current insurance-based system but claiming they're about Universal? Classic libertarian move.
Universal Healthcare doesnt have that problem, it's what universal means.
It becomes a “to each according to his need” scenario where “his need” is being determined by the central committee
This happens at the health insurance company now, and they are profit driven. They need to deny coverage in order to make their investors money.
Yes, but universal basic income instead of universal healthcare has two issues as well:
I often hear criticisms of some "committee" deciding whether you're gonna get healthcare or not, like here. In an alternative when it is ruled by money, it's how much you earn that decides it. Someone in a critical condition might not receive help simply because they are poor. Someone will always be cut off, and it'd better be someone who needs the help the least or requires too much resources to help that could be better spent saving more people.
This is constantly ommitted by the haters of planned systems, which I think is very unjust.
Nothing impacts liberty more than sickness and death.
Or old and sick. Or old and dead. "It's better be young and healthy, than old and sick".
New quote in my quotational quotes quollection.
I'm not a libertarian, but from what I've seen of their positions on this, they don't think that it's possible in an effective way. There's two possible versions: the government pays for everything, or there's public and private health care. A lot of countries have both, which is probably the best option since driving out competition is going to make everything go to crap.
The problem is that there are some arrangements that simply can't work or the existing system would implode in the transition.
There are also a lot of people who don't want to pay because someone who refused to get insurance for years finally decided to sign up for public health care because they suddenly got a serious health problem. In some possible arrangements, it would be necessary to force people to have health insurance, which is its own rabbit hole.
Do they not realize that universal health care has been done successfully and at a lower cost than privatized healthcare, in many other countries? Seems like a weak argument when there's so much proof against it
I want there to be a viable public option that exists. The alternative would be to require that everyone get coverage.
There’s two possible versions: the government pays for everything, or there’s public and private health care. A lot of countries have both, which is probably the best option since driving out competition is going to make everything go to crap.
There's a potential third option through cooperatively run hospitals.
"The problem is that there are some arrangements that simply can’t work or the existing system would implode in the transition."
can you even cite a real world example of this or is this another runaway hypothetical?
Google Libertarian Socialism. Not all liberians are evil
Edit: docking autocorrect
liberians
Yeah, but what about libertarians?
Some people from Liberia are quite nice in fact
I am one
As a socialist libertarian that access health care, yes I think is a great step forward, I see all this social services that benefit the proletariat given by a government as positive part of the transition, but it's also a double edge sword if people become too dependent or get use to it once stops been an urgent matter people stop demanding it because they forget that's even there and end up voting for politician that would take it away, I'm thinking about Sweden or the uk. The correct way is demand these services to become more decentralized, f.e. having fully equipied clinics everywhere instead of just big hospitals
Libertarians are Republicans that smoke weed. They are identical at their core.
Little of what the republican party seems to support aligns with libertarianism.
I disagree. Libertarians are more evil and stupider than Republicans.
Republicans are pretty awful all round, yes. But have you tried selfishness-extreme, our new flavor? Now with less self-awareness!
With the general state of health in America, it's probably better for the fit 0.1% if they don't have to share healthcare resources with the rest.