Comment by Plastic_Ramses@lemmy.world on A mile rule

In my heart, i am a libertarian.

In my brain, im not stupid enough to believe that the general public is smart enough to make it work.

sounds like you are stupid enough.

An accurate rejoinder would be “In my brain, I am not stupid enough to believe that the market is an omniscient omnipotent God that makes everything perfect in all places and all times, in the absence of public input. I am not stupid enough to think that individuals and corporations are perfect benevolent actors that can do no wrong, because doing wrong always means making less profits and doing good always means more profits” FTFY

I’m just not stupid enough to believe the general public gives anywhere near enough of a shit about anyone else than themselves to make it work.

(Actually, I was stupid enough to believe that once. I went through a librarian phase in my 30s.)

If we had more carrots we would need a lot less sticks

The eternal problem of “the general public” is that they’re a product of their material conditions. They don’t emerge from the soil and engage with the world on first principles.

When you grow up in a community that has been heavily privatized and financialized, socially owned and operated community functions have to be developed from the ground up rather than inherited. Any kind of proposed social change will grow out of the body of the system that came before.

Libertarians grow up in countries where it is easier to believe in the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

How do you define libertarian?

Also, are you from the USA?

I’m not him, but technically anybody who isn’t an authoritarian is a libertarian. Economic theory is Left Right. Freedom is up down. It’s a spectrum.

Though apparently I’m one of the minority libertarians as I believe in egotistical altruism. Caring about the planet etc.

You contradict yourself in the first paragraph.

It is a spectrum, which is why “anybody who isn’t an authoritarian is a libertarian” is not true.

I don’t understand why you think that is a contradiction. You both agree there’s a spectrum between the two. Technically, if you’re not 100% authoritarian you have a greater-than-zero alignment with libertarianism.

Now, if you’re trying to say landing somewhere in the middle of the spectrum means you’re neither, then I tend to agree with you (labels suck). However, I’d take it a step further and say that nobody is going to be the 100% perfect embodiment of either end of the spectrum, and therefore, no true authoritarian or libertarian exists. I think, to say either one of you is wrong is just arguing semantics.

I’m aware of the chart. You are saying that only the two very extremes exist. That’s silly.

You either like authority or you don’t. That’s binary. How much you like or dislike it is the spectrum.

Any assertion in chart form must be true!

Edit: ok now that I’m getting downvotes I feel I need to explain: the conventional usage of the word libertarian is not commensurate with it covering such a wide range of the political spectrum. Usually we mean people who favour mildly anarchistic views (minimal governmental institutions, low taxation, low intervention). Representing that niche as half of the political spectrum is highly disingenuous

the word libertarian literally does mean what I’m telling you though . What your experiencing is that your personal definition is not matching up with everyone else’s reality. You’ve just been misinformed and have only been exposed to a subset of libertarian ideals . To put this in an analogy it’s like if I said truck and you assumed I was talking about a Ford F-350 when in fact I’m referring to all trucks. From tiny k trucks to 18 wheeler big rigs

You should look into Libertarian Socialism or Anarchism. Maybe starting with this video

Oh I’m fully aware. I’m not a socialist though. I still think capitalism is the best model for innovation it’s just the current system is geared to fuck the small mom and pop and only benefit massive conglomerations. If I was hypothetically in charge I would fully cut corporate welfare and redirect all of that directly to proper funding of essential services and safety nets and infrastructure. If your company requires government handout money to run, it should go under. That’s the capitalism I want to see.

I still think capitalism is the best model for innovation

I disagree. Ever heard a Youtuber saying “I can take the risk of doing something outside my usual videos because of my Patreons” or “my really experimental stuff is on nebualar”? Many scientific innovations stem from state funded projects like the internet or RNA vaccines. The market actually hems innovations because the best way to know that something works is that it worked before. Mark Fisher gets that very well in “Capitalist Realism”.

I’m not trying to be argumentative friend but historically capitalism has led to far more innovation than markets and policies led by State planned production of goods and services. Small independent thinkers and movers have always been able to shake things up far better than the large unwieldedly fist of the state. You are 100% correct though that the major failing factor of this system is convincing other people to fund your ideas. And more intrensically the lack of a safety net to allow creatives to flourish. But I will say if somebody’s life work is to produce media on a platform like YouTube and nobody finds their content moving enough to support it thats a them problem. But if they had the safety nets that I mentioned in my prior comments, then that wouldn’t really be an issue if they didn’t have to worry about starving and going homeless. They may not live very well or be able to fund their side projects very well, but I’d be totally happy with that system.

Sounds like you might like agorism. (Free Market anarchism).

So libertarian equals extremism?

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