I like the idea of universal healthcare. I have zero trust in the US federal government to implement it properly. I think it would be a clusterfuck and make things worse for everyone, especially with Republicans on the warpath doing everything they can to sabotage it.
I can’t really understand the tradition of never trusting the government in the US. The government is designed in a way that enables, even requires public oversight, public opinion. If that is not the case, you are not living in a democracy. Many Americans trust private initiatives, charity more than taxes and a working public system. People have no say in what corporations do. If people don’t trust the government the attitude should be towards fixing it and enabling trust, not to accept it as is. I am not judging, maybe a little bit but not really. I live in a middle eastern country. We really don’t trust the government but we keep working on steering it in the right direction. We are many times smaller than the US but we have minimum income, universal healthcare, unions are the norm, etc.
I can’t really understand the tradition of never trusting the government in the US
I used to trust them, before 9/11 when I was young and naive. Then the attack happened. We ended up with bipartisan legislation to strip our civil liberties, torture captives, spy on citizens in direct violation of the bill of rights, and invade 2 countries that had nothing to do with it. Never again.
People have no say in what corporations do
Shareholders do. They get a vote. The government is essentially a mutual fund you’re legally obligated to buy into.
If people don’t trust the government the attitude should be towards fixing it and enabling trust, not to accept it as is.
I agree. I also believe we should take care of that before we go granting them vast additional powers.
We are many times smaller than the US but we have minimum income, universal healthcare, unions are the norm, etc.
Thats a good example of why universal healthcare doesn’t need to be at the federal level here. States like New York and California are larger than many countries which have universal healthcare. What’s stopping them from passing it themselves?
I agree. I also believe we should take care of that before we go granting them vast additional powers.
completely agreed
Shareholders do. They get a vote. The government is essentially a mutual fund you’re legally obligated to buy into.
yes but they vote to maximize profit not overall social benefit
but they vote to maximize profit not overall social benefit
They’re the same people that are voting in elections.
They are a very small subset of those people, and they are not a proportional representation of all types of people.
But corporations hold each other accountable. They have to compete for your trust. If corporation A does something shady then it’s im their competitors interest to call them out in order to raise people’s trust in themselves. There are also countless charities and third party sites to grade them. I can choose which programs I fund. I don’t get any say in what government gets my taxes or what the government does with my taxes. What if I don’t want to fund war but want my money to go to charity to help the poor? How effective is universal healthcare where you are?
93% of stocks are owned by just 10% of people… They own all the companies, and are diversified… They aren’t really competing with each other in any meaningful way
Then don’t shop at those companies? Go buy produce at your local farmers market etc etc. You get to choose what you spend money on. Or you can start your own business if you feel there is a market gap. You cant start your own government.
Most people are not “free” enough under current system to shop at farmers markets haha
The reason the government is garbage is because most of them are working for the corporations. If we heavily regulated the corporations and made it so they couldn’t interfere with politics, the government would be better… They’d actually be working for the people and our interests, like they’re supposed to
The problem isn’t government, it’s corporate control of the government
Privatizing things will always cost more because then you need to account for profits as well. Publicly controlled=x cost, privately controlled=x costs+profit for the rich
Even the most corrupt government employee is only getting a pay check (no profits). They make their corruption money by colluding with corporations and rich people
Well said.
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But corporations hold each other accountable. They have to compete for your trust.
Yes, but only if there is competition. In an anti-competitive market (thus a non-capitalist system), this balance breaks.
Wow, you seriously still believe that corporations compete with eachother in the healthcare sector despite the fact that most insurance companies have a “network” specifically so that they don’t have to compete with eachother? How is healthcare a competitive market that drives towards efficiency exactly? The more you privatise healthcare the lower life expectancy you get and the higher you all pay!
The government is designed in a way that enables, even requires public oversight, public opinion.
If one trusted their government, then, arguably, none of these checks would be required.
Many Americans trust private initiatives, charity more than taxes and a working public system.
The trust in private enterprise is predicated on one’s ability and ease to opt out of such a system. The same cannot be said for the government.
I imagine it’s a “negative liberty vs positive liberty” conundrum.
American libertarianism seems to consistently skew towards negative liberty, which is complete autonomy to anything but without any power or resources. I believe this predilection came from Ayn Rand and Reaganism, and that It now manifests mostly as anarchocapitalist sentiments.
I’m a bigger fan of positive liberty - possessing the resources and power to do what you desire within a constrained system.
Unfortunately we live in a society which provides neither. The amazing results of constant compromise.
I really like your answer but to me this is what motivated me towards libertarianism. We have been voting between two parties that both are authoritarian in different ways and the result stinks. Let’s try the other half of the compass for a change. If government sucks then don’t vote for more government to fix the corrupt system. Vote to limit government and give power back to the people.
The problem is defining what acceptable positive rights involves. There are people who think that having to “work to survive” is somehow a major human rights abuse. I don’t think that anyone should be entitled to not have to work unless they are severely disabled and can’t work. At the same time, expecting people to work multiple jobs is corporate oppression.
Libertarians want all the benefits of libertarianism AND socialism, but they don’t want to pay for any of it.
That’s it. That’s the entirety of the political belief.
Libertarians want all the benefits of libertarianism AND socialism, but they don’t want to pay for any of it.
This is conjecture. Based on what are you making this claim? Libertarianism’s main focus is on maximizing the negative liberty of the individual.
“Bb-but… I w-wanna… !”
They want state-enforced socialism for themselves and crushing capitalist competition for all the people they feel are “beneath” them.
In that sense, you are correct.
Libertarians want freedom from government force. They want to be able to fund healthcare by choice. They want the freedom to not have taxes being used to send weapons oversees. Libertarians are for social and economic freedom.
Until they get a tooth ache I guess.
Is it morally right to make you pay ten times more when you need it (at the dentist /hospital/…) because you didn’t want to pay before?
I’m not sure what you are implying. An individual can pay for insurance or not. They are free to choose. Or they can pay for the entire cost upfront when problems arise.
Exactly!
So I pay my taxes for decades, and you don’t?
Just going to the doctor for the first time at say 30 (imagining you started working at 20 but “decide” to not pay taxes) would cost you houndred of thousands of missed back pays before you get let into the building.
Is that your libertarian thing? Or do you think you just would never go to the doctor/hospital/dentist/need an ambulance ride, … ?
Or worse, you get it basically free?
Libertarians want freedom from government force.
So where were you “libertarians” when BLM and other leftists were calling to defund and abolish the police?
The police can use a bit of de-funding; also wp:Waukesha Christmas parade attack.
Probably defending their shops from BLM rioters
Just be honest about how badly you want to see black people lynched in the streets, white supremacist.
Don’t hide behind dog-whistles.
Man whatever drugs you on, pass them
I’m not doing white supremacism sprinkled with liberal handwringing - so curb your enthusiasm.
Did Stalin do white supremacism when the USSR was the first country to recognize Israel?
At this point it’s hard to tell
I don’t.
non-socialist ≠ necessarily racist
Libertarians are, to an individual, categorical idiots who don’t seem to have the mental capacity to seriously and rigorously analyze and understand what a true “free-for-all” hypercapitalist society would imply. They just want to not pay taxes.
There is no need to be rude. OP asked for libertarian views.
Yeah, but libertarians are antisocial asshole idiots by simple virtue of the fact that they think libertarianism is a viable concept. It’s just not, nor will it ever be going forward.
I can put it another way: I find the ideology offensive and societally caustic in the extreme. We do not live in a vacuum. We live in a society (in a literal sense - not going for the meme here). To pretend that we don’t is incredibly dumb.
Or they delude themselves into thinking everyone will pay their fair share voluntarily, forgetting that rich people exist who don’t give a fuck about the common good.
So… Taxes?
Money Babies.
How childishly reductive. I can’t believe this got upvoted.
How childishly reductive
Just like libertarian talking points!
Nothing impacts liberty more than sickness and death.
Or old and sick. Or old and dead. “It’s better be young and healthy, than old and sick”.
New quote in my quotational quotes quollection.
It’s not really about liberty, it’s about freedom from taxes and consequences. They don’t get far enough in the reasoning to understand that they would benefit.
With the general state of health in America, it’s probably better for the fit 0.1% if they don’t have to share healthcare resources with the rest.
Because (so-called) “libertarians” aren’t.
The term “libertarian” has been hijacked in the anglophone-world (starting in the US, of course) to essentially just mean “fundamentalist capitalist” - they are right-wingers who have been immunized from reality and mindlessly support only “liberty” as it applies to private corporations and their interests. Therefore, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that you can find these (so-called) “libertarians” anywhere you find neo-nazis and the KKK.
In the non-anglophone world, the term libertarian still holds it’s original meaning - a socialist… or, more specifically, an anarchist.
“Libertarian” became popular in the US when it started being incorporated into various science fiction novels. Probably the most famous is “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.” I love the book as science fiction, but the society the author creates depends on so many caveats that even the author has the old style ‘free’ system fall apart as soon as an actual government [as opposed to prison regulations] is formed.
“Libertarian” became popular in the US when it started being incorporated into various science fiction novels.
They got their que from right-wing economic grifters like Rothbard and Hayek - people whose beliefs wouldn’t be out of place in Nazi Germany. That’s why olden days US sci-fi writing was a festering hole of fascism - nothing else could have produced people like Heinlein.
I got mine from the Libertarian party, a few decades ago.
They didn’t seem too fascistic back then.
Heinlein was a huge friend to Philip K. Dick, and any number of Jewish science fiction writers. He was one of the first writers to have an African woman as a hero, one of the first to have a transman character. Stop using the word ‘fascist’ for anyone on the Right. It dilutes the term.
and any number of Jewish science fiction writers.
And?
He was one of the first writers to have an African woman
And?
one of the first to have a transman character.
Again… and?
Stop using the word ‘fascist’ for anyone on the Right. It dilutes the term.
All right-wingers walk the same path. If you write fascist drivel, you are a fascist. Heinlein was a fascist. Stop making excuses for him.
And then you wonder why the Left loses pretty much every election.
The best description for the modern “libertarian” I’ve heard is that they’re just conservatives who smoke weed
I’d personally prefer to not give them the satisfaction of calling themselves “libertarians”, and to, instaed, call them out on their missapropriation — the philosophy should be defended from those who would tarnish it.
It does seem to now mean “people that don’t want to pay their taxes”.
The liberty they believe in is different than the more common use of the word, perhaps.
“liberty to” rather than “liberty from”.
So far, outside of a classroom, the only “Libertarians” I’ve seen in real life are people who vote republiQan and refuse to take accountability for it.
Or people who don’t vote, and allow republiQans to rule while taking no accountability for it.
So, they don’t support universal healthcare because republiQans don’t, and that’s what they really are.
Actually, not voting is one of the most ideologicaly consistent things someone who is extremely libertarian could do. Because if you voted for something and got it passed. Technically your will could be used to infringe against perceived rights of others. So by rights any true ideological libertarian should never vote. But you’ll almost never see that on the right.
Yeah. Lots of fake or failed Libertarians then?
A shit ton. Enough that most people have no idea there are any other kind.
So far, outside of a classroom, the only “Libertarians” I’ve seen in real life are people who vote republiQan and refuse to take accountability for it.
This is, imo, most likely a symptom of a first past the post voting system. It results in people not voting for whom they believe in, but, instead, to vote strategically in the very general direction of what is actually wanted.
Don’t expect unbiased learning about politics on Lemmy.
I’m not a Libertarian, but I sympathize with some of their economic viewpoints – significantly more so than tends to be welcome here. Unlike some of you, I don’t speak to the motives and attitudes of all libertarians, only my own. I’m not a Republican. I don’t smoke pot. I did vote for Jo Jorgensen in 2020. I do give a flying fuck about liberty. I don’t confirm or deny being a myopic cunt.
Oddly enough, I do support some form of public healthcare. I’m well aware that most libertarians don’t. A hundred years ago, maybe even 50 years ago, I wouldn’t have either. The problem is that medical science has advanced to where a free market insurance model doesn’t work as well as it used to. Health insurance used to be a luxury when lung cancer would kill a rich man almost as quickly as it killed a poor man. That’s no longer the case, and the costs have accelerated to where the treatment can bankrupt an uninsured middle class man.
The real sinker however is pre-existing conditions. You can’t insure a house that’s already on fire, and we don’t ask homeowners policies to do so. Waiting periods for costly conditions sometimes almost work, except for patients born a pre-existing medical condition. If the insurer had the choice, they’d just refuse to write the policy, even if treatment is cost-effective from a public policy standpoint.
So I support free market solutions where they exist. Health insurance may be one of the few situations where it doesn’t.
I always assumed it was impossible for a free market to exist in healthcare. One important tenant of a free market is being able to freely enter and exit the market at will. Exiting the healthcare market is impossible. You can’t reasonably choose to leave the market when life is forcing you to engage in it, or choosing to leave the market would lead to death. It’s the equivalent of having a gun put to your head.
Exactly. To me all the basics of life, the bottom tiers of Maslow’s pyramid can’t be privatised. Healthcare, utilities, education, infrastructure, social safety nets, you need those things as a PREREQUISITE to participation in the market. The market can’t provide its own prerequisites. If you don’t provide these things you simply cannot have a competitive free market in the first place.
The main issue with healthcare, imo, is that it is a leonine contract. Because of that, it is incompatible with capitalism.
So I support free market solutions where they exist. Health insurance may be one of the few situations where it doesn’t.
The main issue with healthcare is that it is a leonine contract. Because of that, it is incompatible with capitalism.
When you combine “Libertarian” with the greed that is typical in the ultra wealthy, their core value typically only includes liberty for themselves and no empathy for others. You can use any party label you want but without empathy, members of every party are nothing more than selfish pieces of shit. Just to be clear, I am not a “they’re all the same” idiot, as Republicans clearly think empathy is a four letter word. But there are sociopaths without empathy everywhere in society, especially in the US.
As far as universal healthcare is concerned, we can’t even agree as a society to provide clean water to our population by removing leaded pipes. Why would we expect something as reasonable as universal healthcare?
Disclaimer, I am not a libertarian by a long shot.
But - there is a difference between freedom to and freedom from. I think in general libertarians believe in freedom to, not freedom from. So you are free to yell, but not free from noise. You are free to walk in traffic, not free from being run over.
It almost makes sense, I don’t think people should be free from seeing things that offend them, right? Or free from consequences. So no, they don’t think freedom from sickness is a right.
there is a difference between freedom to and freedom from
The terms that you are looking for are postive and negative liberty, respectively.
You’re right especially in that it almost makes sense - the only people I’ve seen who are more allergic to nuance than libertarians are Trumpists
Nice to see so many pleasant replies from all sides! Didn’t know how casually people viewed this topic.
Because no one should have the rights to someone else’s labor. If it’s a completely voluntary system, that’s a different story
So, society as we know it shouldn’t even remotely exist. None of it.
Libertarian thinks he can subsist without utilizing any public infrastructure.
Democrat advocating for slave labor. Nothing new for the past 200 years.
you hate the fire department? you hate representional democracy?
Wut
Roads? Slave labor. Taxes? Slave labor. Taxes that fund the police? Somehow not slave labor.
Like you’re not wrong, democrats do advocate slave labor in the form of supporting the prison-industrial complex, but I know you’re not talking about that.
I am. ACAB
But you understand that cops, above all else, exist to protect the institution of property correct?
Do they really though with policies like qualified immunity and civil asset forfeiture?
They protect the institution of private property, not any individual’s personal property.
If libertarians had their way, there wouldn’t be a minimum wage and wage slavery would be even worse.
don’t even get them started on ‘age of consent’ laws, they always seem to bring those up too
They’d bring back company script.
And then get eaten by bears.
I don’t think libertarians really see wage slavery as the worst thing.
I think the fundamental difference is that libertarians don’t care about outcomes. Or, at least they don’t think that they do as long as they have food in their stomach and a barrier against the cold.
In their minds, it’s all about them not being compelled to partake in anything they don’t want to. If that means starving, fine (so they say, and I’m very suspicious of this claim), but at least there was no authority over them.
Most sane people strike a balance between valuing good practical outcomes, and more abstract notions like liberty and justice.
Full authoritarians say that only outcomes are important, that abstract notions like freedom are impediments to the greatest good, and you end up with things like the USSR.
So you’re right that there wouldn’t be a minimum wage… But you’re wrong to appeal to the concept of wage slavery because it presupposes a libertarian values satisfactory outcomes. They don’t.
Honestly there is no talking down a libertarian without first convincing them their lives are worth more than some definition of liberty.
Because no one should have the rights to someone else’s labor. <
They should just lord over the true value whilst paying peanuts to the workers? Cause that’s where we’re at already.
true value
Glad you brought that up. The US Dollar hasn’t meant anything since coming off the gold standard, and we can’t control it’s value so long as the Federal Reserve controls interest rates, and the government has a monopoly over what currencies we can and can’t use. (No this isn’t advocation for company script, if you can’t spend it anywhere else it’s not currency)
With actual competition between companies, the laborer could actually compete for the best jobs and get the best compensation for their labor.
Capitalism will NEVER allow free competition, nor for the workers to be paid their true value.
So long as government meddles in it, yes you are correct.
🙄 regulations are the only thing that slow the unfettered greed built into the system.
Ya’ll have some weird and completely incorrect fantasies.
