It doesn’t work for almost anyone
You don’t believe that upholding, and maximising individual rights, and freedoms is a net positive?
You’re forcing a black-and-white dichotomy where one does not exist, which is a nice oversimplification that’s the exact sort of thing I’m talking about.
Everyone loves freedom! Like the freedom to:
- pay a child to work in a mine
- schedule workers for 80+ hours a week
- drive without speed limits
- use as much water out of the local river as desired
- dump waste into that same river
- sell unregulated, untested medicine
So obviously there are “freedoms” that mainly serve to infringe on the actual freedoms of others. Those just happen to be the ones that libertarians don’t talk about so much but are really what they’re after.
You’re forcing a black-and-white dichotomy where one does not exist, which is a nice oversimplification that’s the exact sort of thing I’m talking about.
I apologize, I neglected to write a specific part of my comment that ties in its intent. When I said “Maximize individual rights, and freedoms”, I did not mean to infer “Maximize individual rights, and freedoms at the expense of another”. The limit to the maximization of rights and freedoms is that they cannot infringe on the rights and freedoms of another. This was my mistake. I apologize for this confusion.
pay a child to work in a mine
I don’t believe in child labor. I believe that a child is not capable of giving consent. I believe that a civilized, and free society is dependent on the ability of one to give consent. Exploitation arises out of inability to give consent.
schedule workers for 80+ hours a week
If one consents, then there should be no issue.
drive without speed limits
Speed limits, and public roads are an interesting issue for sure. They are actually rather complicated issues to tackle. That being said, specifically for speed limits, I would argue that they are justified as an individual driving dangerously fast is recklessly endangering the lives of those around them – this would be a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle.
use as much water out of the local river as desired
This is also a difficult issue to tackle. I think this is where Georgism typically comes in. I am inclined to say that one cannot freely take water from a river for the same reason that one cannot freely emit pollution. That being said, in terms of tort law, it would probably be easier to make a claim against a polluter than one taking water from a river. Perhaps a limit could be imposed on the exploitation of a natural resource through a tax (this, I think, is in line with an argument that a Georgist would make).
dump waste into that same river
This would be pollution, and could be handled through tort law, and other environmental protection laws.
sell unregulated, untested medicine
I generally see no issue with this. One cannot willfully endanger the public without repercussions. I suppose the argument could then be should it be preventative, or remedial. That being said, the FDA, for example, does not only mandate a drugs safety, they also mandate it’s efficacy. There is an enormous difference between mandating a drug’s efficacy vs. mandating it’s safety.
[source] Congress amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1962 to require that new drugs be shown effective, as well as safe, to obtain FDA approval.
I appreciate your thorough response, but I think it’s clear that “maximize individual freedom” is a BS marketing phrase given how much nuance you had to use when rejecting the “freedoms” I proposed.
But also. No problem with coercing workers to do 80 hour weeks? I don’t think you’ve ever been in a situation where someone had that kind of power over you.
And selling junk but “safe” medicine is as dangerous as selling cyanide labeled as aspirin. Or are you content suing the drug company after your kid’s asthma rescue inhaler was actually just full of nothing and they asphyxiate to death?
