By Cake Boy

So I was listening to this debate from some years ago.

And I want to respond to it.

Libertarians are so lazy in their thinking. And they are very ‘technical’. They act as if the world is a sort of puzzle that they can solve. As if it’s that easy. They act as if politics is the same as maths. As if it’s the same as fixing a car. Where the philosophical questions start is where these libertarians end. The moment we start asking questions, they end the conversation, because they know the right formula.

So, we see some problems here. The non-aggression principle? What is aggression? This isn’t as easy as it might sound. Ok, we have the very blunt form of aggression, like, I beat you on your head kind of aggression. But, often, aggression is very subtle, very subconscious.

If a guy hits on a woman, one woman might see it as a bold/masculine move, the other (feminist) woman sees it as a form of aggression. Who is right? The judge will decide. But who is the judge? And what are his/her interests? And what are his/her political/cultural views? A Trump judge has different ideas from a Harris judge.

Giving someone drugs, while you know this person has mental health issues, and could suffer from these drugs, and all of this could become dangerous. Is this aggression?

The ugliness in the world often manifests in subtle forms of exploitation and manipulation of people. Violence isn’t black/white in a short period. Usually it’s grey, for a very long period. Libertarians paint a very vulgar version of what violence/aggression means.

What is aggression? Isn’t poverty aggression? So, let’s say a nation suffers from the effects of colonialism, and now they are dependent on all kinds of predatory loans from the World Bank. They are in a situation of post-colonialism. It’s still colonialism, it’s still the same, but we don’t call it that way. Isn’t this aggression? No, this is ‘free trade’ according to silly libertarians. There are no options, no alternatives, because of decades of colonialism, force, fraud, and this is the reason these countries are in this position. You have to see the whole and the context. If you don’t see these things, you can’t have a clear image.

Then there is the problem with land monopolization; landlordism is the cornerstone of the libertarian religion. But if I own all the land, then you don’t have a place to grow your food. So, you have to work for me. How is this not a form of aggression? Work for me, or starve, because I happen to have all the land. According to libertarians, this is about free choice. But there is no free choice in landlordism. If states and capitalists own all the natural resources, then people are dependent on the states and landlords. In libertarianism, the landlords would buy up all the land in the world, and the ‘minarchist’ state would facilitate all of this.

Meanwhile, the masses would starve to death. If a starving person would steal a bread, this would be seen as a ‘violation of the NAP”. Most people could see that something strange was going on here.

The last thing. The NAP is ‘a principle’. But, what is the worth of your ‘principle’. I mean, nobody can do anything with a ‘principle’. It’s like saying: I wish there were no war. It’s a bit like: I think that if people are married, then people shouldn’t cheat. I believe that horrible things shouldn’t happen. It’s a bit as if you say: I don’t like pain. The ‘I don’t like pain principle’. I don’t like things that i don’t like, and that most people don’t like principle.

Also, you can have these ‘principles’, but who says you live up to them when the situation becomes really complicated?

When we look through the Realpolitik lens at the subject, you can have all kinds of ‘principles’, but if you can’t manifest them, then they are nothing.

In the end, a ‘right’ only exists as long as people defend these rights. We have seen that when America wants to get raw minerals, it suddenly doesn’t care about ‘rights’ anymore. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with giving people rights. But, in the end, it’s just a reality that exists on paper. When you are in Gaza, it seems you don’t have any use for these paper ‘rights’.

Does might make right? Well, let’s put it this way: without might, your rights are nothing. Without a social lawyer, the landlord won’t fix your toilet, although you have the contractual right to a working toilet. Without money, you don’t get a lawyer in a lot of countries. So, this means the poor person has no ‘rights’. And the landlord can buy a lot of lawyers to secure his ‘rights’.

I used to rent a place. The landlord didn’t make my toilet. I go to the lawyer, and he says: I cost 200 an hour. The landlord knows that this is too expensive for me to pay, which is why he doesn’t make the toilet. Would we call all of this aggression? No, the autistic libertarian says. But if we can read between the lines, understand power dynamics, then we get the picture, and we see the structural violence in these situations.

The libertarian would say: Just make more money so that you can pay the landlord. (Even though the neoliberal market is rigged against working-class and middle-class people, according to the same libertarian) (so, they say, the system isn’t fair, but get along with it )

You should also not forget that if I were a famous and dangerous criminal, the landlord would never do this to me. Why is this the case? Because then he would suddenly care about my rights?

Libertarians reduce everything to abstractions. Abstractions that sound sweet, that taste good, that make you seem like a ‘real good person’. But it doesn’t have that much meaning in the actual cold world out there.

A libertarian says: I’m against aggression. As if other people like aggression. As if all the other people in the world like to shoot a person, or beat a person up, or rape a person. They say: if you disagree with us, then you are some psychopathic person who likes aggression. Is it that easy? Todd cites Tolstoy as an example of someone who, although not a libertarian, is not about aggression. And you can also see Buddhists as an example. They don’t believe in the NAP, but they also propagate nonviolence (as much as possible). I’m not a libertarian, but I’m also not aggressive.

The last thing. So, my country is more social democratic than America. We have healthcare here, for example. At the same time, Americans have to sell their organs if they get ill. Then libertarians say, “This is theft!” You steal to pay for a social democratic system. But don’t forget, people can also leave this country. Libertarians tend to forget this, often. If I were to live in America, I would go to America, where I don’t have healthcare, and where I get paid 4 $ an hour. If I were to prefer Ayn Rand’s country over European countries, I could visit it. Ayan Rand Disneyland.

What do libertarians do? No wand than, they homestead some place in the world to live like this liberland thing, or another thing. I don’t see a problem with this. But often, libertarians are just defending the rights of landlords and capitalists within the neoliberal context. They fight for the capital of the rich. That’s their function, and that’s their perception of ‘individual liberty’. It’s often said that these institutes, like the Cato Institute and Mises, are funded by Wall Street. You can’t proove this, but i wouldn’t be suprised. These ‘institutes’ function to create pseudo intellectual bro science arguments for the social realities the people in the neoliberal countries are living under.

Libertarianism will probably disappear in the current years. I don’t think it’s relevant anymore. The landlords and capitalists now have MAGA as their vehicle. MAGA is more vulgar, and more Realpolitik, and therefore in a way more honest.