Problems with Libertarianism (David D. Friedman) - The Turney Collection - Libertarianism.org

[@konberner170]

Now *this* is a real philosopher! I've gone from a skeptic of David, to impressed, to a fan... at this point, I'm leaning towards him being among the top political philosophers, and perhaps one of the best actual promoters of clear thinking around freedom of all time.

[@konberner170]

***** After viewing this I read though some of his recent stuff, and he even endorses my own favorite "freedom solution" of micro-states these days. Takes a true intellectual giant to keep working on the same extremely difficult problem for over 30 years and still be improving his perspectives.

[@giaourtlou]

+Kon Berner Definitely. I've never met anyone who doubts DF is a very serious intellectual. Even people who take a less economic and more moral approach (like George Smith) still agree, I believe, that DF is an important thinker, worth discussing with. The fact he points out difficult issues does not mean he is dismissing other libertarians, or that other libertarians dismiss him. On the contrary, libertarians usually appreciate people who ask hard questions, because libertarians usually enjoy thinking. :)

[@chadshockley5364]

So was his dad Milton Friedman.

[@konberner170]

c Shock Yes.

[@omarx4139]

"he even endorses my own favorite "freedom solution" of micro-states " isnt that essentially a return to tribalism more or less ?

[@StateExempt]

I think we all agree - these dilemmas are problems present in all political/economic arrangements. Still, Friedman should be commended for taking an open-minded look at when simple moral principles fail to answer possible dilemmas that may come up. Nothing is perfect, we just want the *least* imperfect solutions.

[@SwipeSide19]

very well put

[@giaourtlou]

These questions are indeed tough, but non-libertarians don't have good answers either. They don't even have a method to arrive at an answer. The government comes up with some arbitrary rule, by fiat, and that's it. No justification, no claim of optimality, no consistency check, no alternative to compare, nothing. So, yes, these are tough questions, and it's good to discuss them, but we don't have to beat ourselves too hard, as if it was only us who don't have perfect answers. At least we try. :)

[@giaourtlou]

***** Perfectly understood, and I agree.

[@harderm123]

+Dr. Castor Doesn't nature arrive at optimality through various forms of evolution? Trial and error. Trial and success. Three steps forward, two steps back? In any social system, it seems to me, the long-term consequences of its collective choices are dimly known - war is arguably the epitome of this principle. Thus, social policies are really social experiments. Since the naive public engages in black and white thinking, elites deny that their policies are experiments, lest they be regarded as useless fools, when they would prefer to be regarded as omniscient sages. Reality, of course, is a lot messier than that.

[@slightlygruff]

+Thomas Hägg I didn't know Zeitgeist proposes central planning. Aren't they aiming for decentralized planning Michael Tellinger style?

[@l000tube]

''These questions are indeed tough, but non-libertarians don't have good answers either. '' Science and philosophy can and have been used to find answers to these problems for centuries, ofcourse whether the evidence gathered or conclusions made are listened to by politicians is another thing. If libertarians had their way carte blanche society would be directionless, we would have no overarching story as a guide to our long term future and that would lead to stagnation, stagnant societies dont last too long, for example, why would we have worked so hard to get to the moon in a pure libertarian society? the technologies that came out of that endeavour radically altered society. The other problem, which is already happening, and which the state to some extent is preventing (where i am in the world at least), is the monopolisation of business, this is a form of tyranny (on normal people at least) which also leads to stagnation and market dictatorships, its anti-democratic in that the normal people i just alluded to have no say in its operation. Non libertarians have provided some solutions to those things, in the form a regulation and oversight but that has created an arms race between regulation and avoidance and corruption. I personally believe democracy is probably the best solution for leadership change, its non violent, but even that has been corrupted by money, propaganda and powerful interests. Perhaps we should create some minimum standards for democratic participation like accurate information on the candidates compiled by an independent body and which should be reliable and easy to access, time to consider the candidates can be given to each person (voting day is an automatic holiday) and everyone must cast a vote. Im not sure? But there are ways in which it can be improved. Transparency and oversight are going to be the only solutions until we can find other ways of solving those problems, i dont think we should blow the whole thing out because a minority of people want more 'freedom' whatever that is supposed to mean.

[@rickelmonoggin]

Not true.These questions are trivial for statists. These questions are only hard if you accept libertarian principles and they show that libertarianism is wrong.

[@jred7]

Wow! This was a good talk.

[@StateExempt]

Amazing how the Cato Institute is still able to dig all these treasures from their archives. These old videos they post for their Libertarianism site go perfectly well with Brian Doherty's "Radicals for Capitalism: A Free-Wheeling History of the Modern Libertarian Movement."

[@capoman1]

That smile is contagious, he looks so damn jolly, just has me grinning! Love this guy. Love the whole family. And WOW the Libertarian movement was pretty strong even in the late 70's and early 80's? AND ANARCHIST SPEAKERS WERE STILL HEADLINING THESE LIBERTARIAN EVENTS! Even today this is true. Stefan Molyneux is the headline speaker at Porcfest and LIbertopia.

[@falamble]

The world needs more people with this kind of unrestrained skepticism and intellectual curiosity.

[@StateExempt]

I can't say any person within the anarcho-capitalist camp that manifested heavily in the 70's has influenced me more than this guy. Not Rothbard, or the Tannehills, though they were all excellent too. Years later I still appreciate the fact that David Friedman was willing to highlight limitations so as not to oversell a set of ideas. Can't wait for the third edition of "The Machinery of Freedom" to come out. Just read the second edition for the dozenth time last week.

[@JonGunnarssonDotA]

It's not absurd. The problem there is the free rider effect. Someone may be willing to spend $X on defense, iff other people also contribute a similar sum and he might also prefer to have defence that everyone pays for to not having defence at all. I'm not saying that we need taxes for military defence, but the position is certainly not absurd.

[@Konzon]

Good questions. There are a lot of potential answers, but still good questions.

[@00Trademark00]

I don't think you understand the definition of the public good. Have you listened to the talk? Public good is simply something that the producer has no control over who gets it (in some preexisting group of people, such as people living in a geographical area that is protected by a anti-warhead defense system). The problem is that whether I pay for it or not has little effect on whether I get it. So the "what is worth producing to someone gets produced" argument does not work with public goods.

[@RyderSpearmann]

wonderfully expressed... well done, Mr. Friedman.

[@adammarxist]

This is why libertarianism only works in a social context. It is not that we need a state, but that there are times that we need to come together as a community to decide on punishments, etc, when people step over the line. If you bring it only down to the individual then it will always be completely arbitrary and subjective. We should always keep it local, small and open, basically like was done in ancient times, before the state was large and when these matters were solved by local people.

[@doncollins7743]

+Sky Arundel I understand that individuals are arbitrary in making decisions, but I do not understand that if government does it in some way that it isn't still an arbitrary decision, only now it gives the responsibility for that to someone ïn government"thus alleviating the consequences of the decision, good or bad and leading the individuals that voted for that government to the conclusion that they have no responsibility for those decisions. In essence, it was the governments fault. War is a great example. We literally had no interest other than the Truman doctrine to go to war in Vietnam, spent billions and the lives lost and for what? Because if communism spread the world would come to an end and the US form of government would be threatened. Well, Vietnam won, got what it wanted and we are still here....how did that work out for us. The decision by government was arbitrary, and proved unfounded. Not having a huge ability to raise a standing army through the draft would have made that war impossible. Individual states being able to say, hey for common defense ok, but not when we are not in danger, we are not sending our citizens, there would have been no war. Same with Iraq, same with a bunch of wars except maybe WWII, because Japan did attack us and it was after we declared on Japan that Germany wanted some. Imagine all the resources that would have been put to work in other areas, the people that would be alive producing whatever if war was a darn sight harder to make. But the common defense is so important that it is worth a few wars to make sure the protection of the whole US is always covered. Personally, I don't think so

[@alanb8971]

The theft deterrent problem can be dealt with through private property. If associations of property owners are voluntary, rather than coercive, those entering cities formed by voluntary association could be asked to agree with a set of rules that had penalties for violation spelled out. The association could make them as severe as they deem necessary. It is the coercive nature of cities and states and nations that make pure deterrents a subject of individual rights rather than contract.

[@donstacy7012]

I think a "creation of peril" approach - life boat owner cannot eject passengers if the owner invited the passengers because ejection would clearly place passengers into a perilous situation - can partially solve some of the original "lifeboat situation" problems.

[@ekklesiast]

Speaking of which government is better, there's an example in WW2. During German invasion in USSR a lot of Soviet people didn't want to fight for Soviet regime, because they didn't see the difference between Stalin and Hitler. They even welcomed German soldiers as liberators. So, sometimes people don't support government not because "free market didn't work", but because they just don't want to.

[@TowerOfTheWest]

Does anyone know if the follow up lecture in Denver that he mentions multiple times is up anywhere? I’m interested in the answers to the questions he discussed here.

[@DavidFriedman1]

I don't think so, but you can find a good deal of it in my _Law's Order_ (book). A late draft can be read for free from my web page: www.daviddfriedman.com

[@OctoBox]

The "answer" is a Meritorious Minarchy...as LvM and Ron Paul have suggested and eliminate the absolutist arguments that arise from Propertarian-Anarchy which is oxymoronic from jumpstreet.

[@asphaltwindows3437]

That is not an answer to any of the problems he posed.

[@spencerantoniomarlen-starr3069]

This guy is so damn smart!

[@ElasticGiraffe]

Georgism (or geolibertarianism) provides solutions to the many problems associated with property in land, and it provides a partial ethical justification for minarchism. Thanks to the Internet and open-source culture, a lot of creative solutions to the free-rider problem have developed and circulated, such as assurance contracts and crowdfunding.

[@00Trademark00]

If you're more interested in reputational punishments and how they worked in history, look at David Friedman's draft of a book "Legal systems very different from ours", the chapter about Imperial China (and read till you reach the part about Taiwan and local business "law" which was entirely reputational and in adddition to that, had to deal with the problem of essentially no judicial support...the reason of which is clear by the rest of the chapter. It is available on his website for free)

[@ekklesiast]

The guy at 51:59 made a good point about a national defense: if people are willing to create a government to give him taxes to support war, then it's absurdly to say they won't finance it voluntarily the same way but without government. Government is only needed when you want to go against peoples will. Saying that people won't pay taxes voluntarily is an equivalent of admitting that taxes today are spent on something they don't want. Again, rich people spend billions on charity even today.

[@michaelsuede]

Commenting on the first problem of punishment mentioned: David isn't thinking about the problem from the perspective of a completely free society that this problem would take place in. In a free society, reputation is king. All that would need to be done is publicizing of the crime and proof of the person's guilt. Job loss, ostracism, loss of insurance, etc.. etc.. would result and be enough of a deterrent. Nothing would need to be done too the criminal by the victim directly.

[@nikependragon]

Molyneux touches up on trespassing. He says that, in any case, we can assume that even though explicit consent is not given to a "perpetrator", if it is fine with the "victim", then it is not a rights violation. In a society with more of a stake on reputation, extreme consequence for petty crimes would be reduced. In a society in which we consult another agency before taking things into our own hands, extreme consequences for petty crimes would be reduced. Those agencies could be very much like Molyneux's DROs (Dispute Resolution Organisation) or Friedman's REAs (Rights Enforcement Agencies). In a society in which we carried handhelds that alerted us of any "yellow trespass regions" would be easier for agencies to approve. Significant regional law changes could be "red major policy change regions" such that your agency cannot enforce you there and will call you to tell you if you get too close. Technology enables dispute minimization and allows us to fight for a moral society if we are clever enough.

[@KeeganIdler]

1) On a private market where rights enforcement agencies can come to agreement based on how much each stands to lose on whichever decision is made. I.e. the level of maximum efficiency at satisfying people's desires for protection and justice. I suspect it will be double damages plus the cost of enforcement and a variable level of punitive damages paid to charity of choice of the victim. 2) Rights don't really exist, there is simply what one can do and should do. I personally don't think the person should shoot, but also should not be punished for shooting. It is immoral but understandable, in such situations as these I'd say the best solutions are to rely on the judgment of the individual in question. 3) Property rights are not absolute in this sort of way. David Friedman actually cleared this up for me long after he made this video when he explained that all rights come from committal strategies. The person flying the plane is willing to go through more to ensure that he can fly where he wants to than the potential property owners are willing to go through to stop him. If it is truly important to you, you can set up no fly zones and try to enforce that by tracking down any plane that flies over your land, and if it really matters enough you can make it so it isn't worth their while to violate your property in this intensely small way. As far as the risk they violate your rights, there is always this risk. With everything. But you only are able to prosecute violations not risks of violation, unless courts and rights enforcement decide that it is criminally negligent (which again is based on what consumers want). 4) This is where the idea of homesteading came from. Its not a great answer but it is better than any other I have heard of. The origins of ownership of land are really unimportant, so long as it ends up owned. Because after it is owned it can be traded and the incentives are for it to be put toward its most productive uses. 5) Just because not all things will be created doesn't mean anything. No one knows which things should be created and while some public goods may be exist in smaller amounts than in the statist system, different things will be created. But the things that will be created will be subject to the test of cost benefit analysis. Perhaps public goods won't be created (I think it likely that they would be), but there is no test whether these public goods should be created. National defense is a wonderful example. How much should be created? It is likely that there will be less national defense than should be if there was no such thing as a free rider problem, but we can be positive that no system will create the 'proper' amount of public goods. I have faith that social reinforcement alone would be enough to provide public goods. People doing something as simple as creating songs about martyrs generally produces more than enough of them. And yes, even if it turns out that we can't produce public goods (as unlikely as that is), I still wouldn't be willing to tax you. If a people cannot defend themselves without resorting to theft then they do not deserve freedom. Although it seems absurd that the majority want defense but cannot figure out a way to provide it. If it was somehow proved that national defense is impossible without violating rights, then I might change my mind, but until seeing that freedom and security is impossible we shouldn't assume they are incompatible. Let justice be done until we are sure that the sky is falling.

[@KeeganIdler]

I change my answer on number 1 (appropriate punishment)--not that my answer is wrong, but I think I have a better one. The guy who asks the first question is on the right track, just tweak it a little. Make the punishment restitution, with wage garnishing or slavery for judgement proof defendants, then fine people the cost of the television multiplied by the proportion of people that get away with it plus a fixed nominal estimate for the cost of enforcement. This way competition keeps the number of arrests high, while the costs to the criminal balance the costs to society, the costs to the criminal outweigh the benefits, and enforcement is proportional to the amount of crime. Incentives seem yield a perfectly balanced response. There is still the problem of estimating the number of uncaught criminals, and fair cost of enforcement. I think someone sufficiently resourceful can come with more exact numbers, but I would estimate the number of crimes simply by number of crimes reported, since there is incentive to report. Estimates of cost of enforcement is more difficult, since not all crimes are the same so you can't just do a direct average. Instead, do the average, and then proportion it to the payout for the crime. However, this may lead to an overpayment to defendants, so the best way would be to make them whole, and then require punitive damages be paid to a charity of their choice. This seems as close to perfect as you can get. Perhaps some extra tweaking for punishment of false accusations would make it even better.

[@ekklesiast]

Lights/breathing problem is ridiculous. If you try to forbid my breathing and my lights, then you should expect the same actions from my side, and you'll not like it. So if you want to live in peace and breathe freely like I do, then you'll have to make a deal with me. Those who bring up such "problems" should remember the fact that the world today has no "state" above all nations, and every country is free in its actions, and it doesn't cause a permanent war. More freedom means less wars.

[@mirzal8141]

Brilliant talk.

[@kire271MK]

It would be really nice if the year this happened in was somewhere in the description.

[@MTread545]

says 1981 at the very beginning of the video

[@00Trademark00]

Friedman does not assert that radio broadcast is an insoluble (without coercion) public good problem. First, he was talking about analogue radio broadcats. Remmember that this talk is from 1981 (he said until very recently also, so that would exclude digital and coded broadcast that then came into existence). Analogue radio broadcast comes with a public good problem...which has a neat solution of tying it up with advertisements. But that is not a general solution to all public good problems.

[@joshuamoyer4141]

Wow. Turns out libertarians are better at criticizing libertarianism than statists too.

[@ekklesiast]

"Flight/nuclear permission problem" raises a question where exactly lies the boundary between my property and yours. Again, a single government with violent monopoly is not able to solve this question properly. It can be solved by free collaboration of free people, seeking for a compromise. Just like free nations decide how to share the cosmic space above Earth, without any coercion from a single government.

[@alanb8971]

When people are free to secede from political unions, and small unions are free to leave larger ones, the collection of rules decided by these unions can be accepted or rejected by staying or leaving. It may be worth putting up with something you disagree with if you find the majority of rules agreeable. And the overall all package, plus the value of being part of a larger union, are better than going it alone or joining a neighboring union.

[@ekklesiast]

"National defense, defense against nations" also has been solved successfully during WW2 without an involvement of a single world government. Several free countries have united voluntarily without any coercion to fight a common enemy. Noone of the allies was forced to take part in providing the defense. People are able to cooperate voluntarily when they need, when they really need.

[@00Trademark00]

...and the complication is that it always has to be clear who of the two people who interacted was actually at fault. If it is not clear, the rational reaction to such gossip is to stop trusting (or trust less) both involved parties. Therefore there is no incentive for the self-percieved victim to tell others - he will end up worse off. This can be solved (among other methods) by arbitration. You both agree on a judge in advance who will decide. Then it is easy for others to find out who is who.

[@weasyeasel]

That's possible but people aren't completely stupid. They might realize that this problem happens a lot and then could find ways to solve it, maybe by using long distance communication to warn others about this guy. And the worse the crime, the more effort they will put in to make sure he is ostracized. I really like the reputation punishment idea, I've never heard about it before.

[@00Trademark00]

The important thing is what is in your interest. Is it in your interest to warn others? Yes, because that way you provide detterence of future crimes against you - you say "look, if you do this to me, everyone will know, so you better not do that". It is not clear how much it is in your interest. It could be that warning other sufficiently simply costs you more than benefits you (in the long term) and then the reputational system cannot work on its own...there is one more complication with that

[@00Trademark00]

And if this builder does not want to help, there surely will be some who will. In order for the reputational system to work, you simply need it to deter crimes enough. In the case of a company that has to build its reputation and cheating its customers or business partners would be a one time gain, but a long term loss (reputation is worth more to it) it can ofthen work well. A judge who is known to take bribes loses his job. But to a thief with no reputation, 100 million is a very good deal.

[@falamble]

Why are you saying he's wrong when you didn't bother listening? Friedman has written multiple books about replacing current government functions with the freemarket (he mentions this in this video had you watched it), so what you say is irrelevant. You're an example of everything Friedman is arguing against, aka libertarians who attach themselves to blind stock answers instead of addressing hard questions with complex answers. Friedman is arguing for better libertarian thought, not government.

[@libertarianjury]

It's as if he doesn't acknowledge that there has been over 800 years of common law tradition. Sure, he'd have figured that out if he was a classical liberal, but not as a libertine "anarchist." The argument between anarchy and minarchy is a false debate, a prediction of a future state of voluntaryism, that is not useful at this point. Consent of the governed is what matters, the further you get from that, the further from libertarianism.

[@00Trademark00]

There is a difference between a few national goverments doing something and millions of people doing something. This is a different scale. Yes, the problems of public goods are not much to worry about if your "public" consists of 5 members. They can easily control each other. But if you have 5 or 50 millions, well, that is a different story. The governments of those countries were not forced...their citizens were.

[@alanb8971]

No doubt, voluntary unions will have language that prevents people from leaving unions in order to escape their debts or suffering a punishment.

[@saltysnacky]

"Like free market won't feed 1000 people with 5 breads." Actually, Milton Friedman once fed an entire Chinese village with only four saltines. Learn some history you statist.

[@jred7]

who does the intro?

[@StateExempt]

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel. He's been a research fellow/adjunct scholar at a number of freedom-minded institutes, and rather prolific at that. David Friedman ended up dedicating the second edition of "Machinery of Freedom" to him.

[@jred7]

StateExempt cool, thanks. He kind of looked like my uncle back in the day. Did everyone have that hair and mustache back then? lol jk

[@OptimalOwl]

To be fair, a free society might be a lot more restrictive about admittance and participation in society. Owners might be reluctant to let you onto their property if you have not arranged a legal compact whereby you may be penalized for any infractions you commit, and inclined to ban you outright if you're a known criminal. Your mode of policy analysis produces systematic errors when analyzing government policy, and it's almost completely unapplicable to a market law society. You're looking -

[@00Trademark00]

That is a good punishment in a society that is sufficiently small. But ours is not such. Reputational punishments may still play an important role in detterence of crime, but the criminal can simply move around. It is unlikely everyone in that society will recognize him. If the only detterence I get from stealing an equivalent of today's 100 million dollars is that people in one area will ostracize me, it is not very sufficient. I can steal that and move somewhere else, where noone knows me.

[@sebastianviruzab7986]

trevor phillips is the best ancap ever, his morals principles should guide us, he always defends his NAP

[@ekklesiast]

"Radio broadcast/public good problem" is about so called intellectual property. Already solved. The maker of such "public good" will find a way to make a profit of it. Subscription service is just an example. HBO/Netflix. "Game of thrones" made huge money in spite of piracy, or even thanks to piracy. No government needed at all.

[@00Trademark00]

Is it? I (and so does David Friedman) hope that there is a good way to provide the public good of "national" defense without coercion. There are good arguments for it...but there is nothing that would make the assumption he makes impossible. If it is not impossible, you should be able to deal with it...or prove that it is impossible. The last statement (if people don't want ... ) is not necessarilz true due to the nature of public goods (see my other response to your comment).

[@AndersHass]

Punishment is easy, you repay all the damage you have done.

[@daoshen]

this person is smarter than their father

[@mcentirejg]

That's a pretty shallow analysis. What you are talking about is a fairy tale. Something has to be done. You act like ruining someone's reputation will stop them from committing crimes. We lock people away in cages for life and yet people still commit crimes.

[@00Trademark00]

Internet is useful, sure...but only as long as others can be sure the info about you is correct. You can solve that either like they did in Taiwan or through a systems of courts and judges who actually have a reputation and who ruled a decision. That might be better as it is less restrictive. Still, if I steal those 100 million and now want to spend 20 million on a house, the builder might be reluctant, but if I pay him 5 million extra he will be much keener. Reputation is not always enough.

[@KeeganIdler]

It seems that when you look at the countries we have invaded, we destroy their national army quickly, though the wars last a long time. They provide reasonable defense (given their level of economic development) even though they have no government defense. Therefore it seems defense is not dependent on a consistent pay structure.

[@sebastianviruzab7986]

what if the child consents tho ? hardest libertarian problem

[@danramallo9016]

Children can’t consent simple as that. But I don’t think 18 and 16 year old couples should be a crime

[@gabbar51ngh]

Guardianship. Children can't consent.

[@OptimalOwl]

- at a system which contains thinking parts, anticipate predictable problems. Therefore, your analysis ought not end with identifying the initial problem, but should also concern itself with who is likely to react to it, how and when. This is not to say that we should assume that all problems have emergent solutions. As with the old ideas of group selection, nature sometimes produces solutions which seem farfetched to us only because of our sensibilities. But, you're not even really looking -

[@ekklesiast]

I think what he saying is misleading. Those are not specific problems of libertarianism, because they cannot be solved automatically by introducing a state, as he implies. What are justified actions against a criminal? There are no reasons to think that a state can know a better answer to such questions. Giving up a decision to someone else, including a state, doesn't solve a problem.

[@00Trademark00]

One more point: You can hide from the internet. I could make a new profile and comment here in support of you or of me and you would not know that it is me again. You can buy a lot of stuff directly online today. I steal the 100 million, change my name, move somewhere else, buy stuff online. Some won't recognize me and won't spend the time and effort checking, some will but still will be willing to help me, definitely they will if I offer more in exchange...and I buy the other stuff online.

[@martinjoe1325]

The answer is due process . (I'm only 13 minutes in while writing this)

[@sebastianviruzab7986]

me : 16:02 PUSH THE FUCKING BUTTON

[@ekklesiast]

The "public good argument" is basically flawed. Saying that free market may not create a needed public good implies that someone (i.e. government) knows better what a "public good" is, what public needs. This implication of course automatically leads to that conclusion. But this is a statist implication, not libertarian. Excuse me, but government is always worse, by definition, even if some president thinks that he knows what's better for people, without asking them.

[@KeeganIdler]

Just create a defense kickstarter

[@michaelsuede]

Rock'n the fro, banging the Elton John shades. He just needs Don Johnson suit jacket.

[@ImTabe]

So many of these arguments against Libertarianism are assuming things, others are just blatant strawmen.

[@franscobben9044]

Just laws are necessary for freedom for all

[@ekklesiast]

"Suppose we can't provide national defense without forcing people". This guy calls himself libertarian? I can prove anything this way: "suppose government makes better food than free market". This is not a "libertarian problem", this is a statist demagogy. When free market "fails" it's either a) government doesn't know what people really need, i.e. it wasn't a fail, or b) it wasn't a free market. if people don't want your defense, means they don't see much difference between you and your enemy.

[@sab2871]

Am I just being to touchy here but Friedman , is he not condescending , I mean there are far better ways to project one's voice ! His father could be condescending also but that was done when argueing with Leftists !! Conservative vs Libertarian is a no brainer , there should not be a shred of attitude between them , there should be NO ARGUEING , ANIMOSITY , FRICTION , this is not LEFT VS RIGHT !! He did say he is not a Economist , although he is professionally an Economist , Physics , isn't that the field Keynesianism / Marxism / Socialism / Communism / Utopian Collectivism embraced , ala the Scientific method ! Yes Chicago school sadly embraced mathmatics equations also but I hold out hope that Conservativism for all its good points and then there are those bad ones is truely more Libertarian in many aspects when practiced the way it should be ! Conservatism should always look to Libertarianism and Libertarianism should look to Conservatism also , the danger sign is when NO MORE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS , ORGANIC RIGHTS , UNALIENABLE RIGHTS EXIST OR MATTER !! Conservatiism has been tainted by BRUTUS LIKE FIGURES and that is giving a bad name to BRUTUS ! As someone who was alway a Conservative , raised by Conservative parents , I see where Friedman is going with his arguements and he made some great point sin favor of the Conservative logic , I do see though where Libertarianism is a good check on Conservativism and vice verse . We are all scared of government , the HAND , which slaps us down , oppresses out lives but neither side can lose their grip on the Commonalities that exist as well as the issues !! thus I call myself a Conservative / Libertarian or Libertarian / Conservative . The Problem with Conservativism is not the concept , its the backstabbers who have stabbed us in the back !! I love this , he brought up William the Conquer / Harold Godwinson , the Hastings battle , the Confiscation of the people's land in 1066 ad by the Duke of Normandy aka William the Conquer as he bear the man to be elected king , Harold Godwinson , the Early of Wessex ( Wales ) as he was the supported candidate by Edward the III who was dying !!

[@smate333]

+sab287Leporidae I certainly disagree with the notion of declaring that there should be no argument between libertarians and conservatives. Libertarians are progressive, perhaps even more than liberals or liberal democrats, and Libertarians definitely don't preach about values as conservatives constantly do and would never base their ideology on those values.

[@sab2871]

smate333 ACTUALLY LIBERTARIANS ARE NOT PROGRESSIVES , this is the NEW DEFINITION and it is the word ' LIBERAL' THAT WAS HIJACKED , thus Libertarian is used by right wingers also ! Milton Friedman called himself a Libertarian , you know that although maybe he felt that Conservatives having the BLUE PRINT appoach is what distinguished them from the Libertarian but both are FREE MARKTERS , CAPITALISTS , belive in Individual rights , Organic rights, Natural rights, as given by the Judeo Christian God or for that matter as merely children of the Universe . Human being s!! God no Conservatives and Libertarains argue HELL NO , they are the same with the exception of a few points , Dave does bring some out !! Conservatives need to CHECK Libertarians and vice versa , THEY SHOULD NEVER BE AT WAR , FIGHT , ARGUE , HELL NO !

[@sab2871]

smate333 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along The Watchtower (Official Audio) JimiHendrixVEVO

[@themfu]

Are these still considered hard problems? I am 18 mins into the video and have solutions for all the problems mentioned thus far. The "solutions" are basically removing implicit but incorrect assumptions. For example, the first problem regarding what rights a criminal has, the answer is whatever "rights" his private security firm can secure for him. The false assumption in the problem statement is that there should be one correct answer. That cannot be the case. If the criminal is an "outlaw" (in the sense of outlawry), he has no defensible rights. If he is not an outlaw, he has some "rights". And if he is all powerful, he has all the rights and nobody else has any rights. The problem of rights is one of how the capability to wield physical force happens to be distributed among actors, which continually shifts due to advances in tech and human actions. It is not a problem of how to define "rights" so that everything works out on paper.

[@justinblake8521]

Keep in mind mate, this speech took place 34 years ago. A lot of solid solutions have been thought up since then. Also, the world was very different... What with the threat of nuclear war and what not. Today, with trade so globally interconnected as it is, the problem with defense against nations is a much easier one to solve.

[@francoparnetti]

What if we still were in the border of a nuclear war tho. Libertarianism, or any system for that matter, should work for all times and circumstances.

[@asphaltwindows3437]

These are still hard problems for anyone who has followed the Rothbard -> Hoppe branch of libertarianism.

[@OptimalOwl]

- at the problem yet.

[@garymorrison4139]

I do not see the problem with Libertarianism. The electorate has figured out that capitalism sounds better on paper than it performs in practice. People also figure with some justification that the more things change the more they remain the same. It is increasingly difficult to explain how any rational person could believe that we are better off ruled by a private government of unelected businessmen. When libertarians start advocating public elections to select the boards of directors of the Fortune 500 who would then be commissioned to set a socially responsible agenda for big business, they might win some votes.

[@rickelmonoggin]

Kind of an incredible speech this. It could have easily have been titled: 'Why libertarianism is wrong'. It seems like an incredibly act of self delusion to bring up these points in the interests of 'intellectual honesty', but then to not follow through on the natural conclusions.

[@DrDave21]

The natural conclusion is 'there is no utopia, stop pretending that your preferred political system is one, and stop making bad arguments.' The conclusion is not 'therefore libertarianism is wrong'.

[@asphaltwindows3437]

"Libertarianism is wrong" would not be the natural conclusion of this logic unless you yourself have already indoctrinated yourself with some other ideas not unlike the libertarians that he addresses this speech at have.

[@michaelsuede]

You can't hide from the internet.

[@alexxzeroxx5444]

You can justify anything with hypotheticals

[@doubtunites168]

forbidding people to breath. very libertarian..

[@Zorn101]

what a garbage argument. I do not own my self. therefor I can not be responsible for any of my actions.

[@00Trademark00]

Internet is useful, sure...but only as long as others can be sure the info about you is correct. You can solve that either like they did in Taiwan or through a systems of courts and judges who actually have a reputation and who ruled a decision. That might be better as it is less restrictive. Still, if I steal those 100 million and now want to spend 20 million on a house, the builder might be reluctant, but if I pay him 5 million extra he will be much keener. Reputation is not always enough.