I am planning on making a post about socialism aimed at possibly converting some liberatrians, or at least making them think about socialism. To be honest I'm getting bored with making threads and partaking in threads about socialism/capitalism only to have the capitalists quit, as has happened in the defense of socialism thread at the moment and also the capitalism thread, and as has happened many times before. But before I make the post I would just like to clarify some of the oppositions to socialism that libertarians have. I would imagine that it would be in the perceived lack of freedom to own property and to work for oneself, and possibly in the perceived unfairness in the system when it comes to lazy workers, these rather than the control of recourses and production.

Am I right? if not please correct me and add any of your own criticisms, but only libertarians please, I'm not interested in any other people arguing with me here, if you want to do that respond to me in the defense of socialism thread.

thanks everyone.

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

Levi wrote: Yes, you got that right. To expand on that, it would be unfair for Person A, who may be able to work circles around person B, to not receive extra compensation for doing more work. I am concerned about not being able to own property, which is a right I consider to be very important. I love my little piece of Paradise in the holler and I like having enough land where someone else cannot build a house just a couple of feet away from mine.

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Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

It's slavery. I am against slavery. Therefore, I am against socialism.

No, I don't agree. The property rights game doesn't interest me any more than as a symbolic expression of liberty. Liberty is what matters, the means to liberty is negotiable. As a general rule, liberty of property has been proven to be a good defense against tyranny, and thus, it is held to be a conditionally good thing. Only liberty is an end in itself. Property (or capital) is merely a means to liberty.

Likewise, lazy proles are of little concern. They are a dime a dozen and always have been (indeed, this ought to be a big concern for utopian socialists).

As for 'unfairness', socialism certainly has lots of that, but no more so than capitalism, so that's moot point and of little concern. Fairness and a buck might buy a cup of coffee.

The liberty to work for one's self is certainly important - it is integral to liberty. Marx correctly noted that 'man is a productive animal'. But the liberty to NOT work for one's self is also equally important.

My critique of socialism is thus entirely based on the fact that socialism is not an economic system. There is no mode of production that is socialism. Thus, socialism can only function by using the capitalist mode of production. They do this by substituting state authority for the role of the free private capitalist. Thus, authoritarianism (anti-liberty) is produced (and production becomes inefficient, ineffective and insufficient).

This totalitarian/authoritarian tyranny that is necessary to force/control/direct production under socialism is hideous and lacks any pretense of liberty and this is the basis of my complete rejection of all socialist theory.

There is nothing in capitalist theory that precludes the usage of slavery (other than its comparative inefficiency).

The choice of slavery or not-slavery is entirely a political choice.

White Rabbit/Dumpy Dooby: are you libertarians?

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

Depends on your definition.

If you use the conventional American "Libertarian Party" definition, the answer is categorically no. If you use the classical liberal definition, then absolutely yes.

Liberty ought to be the highest goal and aspiration of the human species. Limitations on liberty must be demonstrably necessary, limited in scope and no other option avialable or the limitation is unacceptable.

That ought to make my libertarian views quite clear.

As a general rule, Americans are starting to observe that there are two varieties of 'libertarians' out there. One is hard-core rightwing (Libertarian Party). The other is the old classical liberal school - often called 'left-libertarians' due to the emphasis upon social liberty as opposed to economic liberty.

I somewhat agree with this, but I think the distinctions are different.


I think the distinction is more accurately derived from the introduction of neolibertarianism. Neolibertarians get their label from their alignment with neoconservatives on various issues, specifically on the issue of interventionism. The Libertarian Party generally expresses the tenets of neolibertarianism. This year, for example, the Libertarian Party candidate is going to be Wayne Root, who is a staunch neolibertarian. The LP, but not necessarily all neolibertarians, has a tendency to be too focused on social issues like drugs and abortion. Neolibertarians are often called "pro war" libertarians. CATO Institute has a large amount of these types of libertarians.


There are also paleolibertarians who are the ones that are more focused on economics and often pay very little attention to social issues. And generally, when social issues are addressed, they're done from an economic standpoint. Murray Rothbard is probably the best example of one. Ron Paul might be another, but I'm not sure if he calls himself one or not, but considering that Austrian economics plays a big role in paleolibertarianism, I'm guessing that Paul likely is one.


And then there are libertarians that would probably not like to be grouped with either of those two flavors.

The primary issue for me is the role of government. Socialism seems to want a significant role for government while at least this Libertarian believes the role of government should be extremely limited. For example, I believe government should (among other things) get out of the education business, the marriage business, the healthcare business, and the business of dictating to people what substances they may or may not ingest.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

I agree with everything that Chan just wrote.

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Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."