r/Libertarian: For a Free Society

"Do you hate the State? Javier Milei, the current president of Argentina, seems to. “The State is a killing machine.” “The State is a criminal organization.” “Taxation is theft.” “Philosophically, I am an anarcho-capitalist.” These are quotes from Milei, a man who offered Argentina a “true liberal option”—classical liberalism. He claims to be a “liberal-libertarian” and an admirer of Murray Rothbard (1, 2, 3). He has said he is a minarchist in the short run, but willing to embrace anarcho-capitalism in the long run..."

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/05/no_author/a-rothbardian-dissection-of-javier-milei-part-i/

Part 2:

"Though privatizations have not yet arrived, the state-owned airline is on the agenda. The company was renationalized in 2008, forcing taxpayers to prop up an airline that has been directly bailed out by the government since 2021. For true privatization, all regulation prohibiting competition and all taxation in the industry should be abolished—falling short of this, it should come with deregulation and less taxation. Milei has proposed to give the company’s shares to its employees and thereby transfer ownership to them. They would either bear responsibility for the company or sell their shares. While this may be the most expedient method toward privatization in a country where unions have so much influence and power to negotiate, it is not a just course of action..."

https://mises.org/power-market/rothbardian-dissection-javier-milei-part-ii

with

For the 2028 presidential election I’m predicting the party obtains at least 5%. This may seem like a wild prediction, but after this election, with a strong Republican face like Trump likely out of the mix regardless of this year’s results, Republicans may have no choice but to return to their generic “conservative” candidate if no one else jumps into the mix. Democrats will inevitably nominate a corporate, establishment puppet or left wing lunatic. Both options will appear unattractive, especially to young people who get their news from social media & see the likes of Dave Smith & others constantly. This time around, Trump is a strong candidate & has strong opinions about him on both sides & Biden will likely be voted for by generic Democrats & people that just don’t like Trump. Younger folks & I’m using the term “young” pretty broadly, im talking 40 & younger are dissatisfied with the system in place & have the power of social media in their hands. If two establishment candidates duke it out next go around, be prepared for a serious third party candidate to arise, & in my view it could be the libertarians chance to show some strength at the polls. What do you all think? Do you have any hope for the future of the Libertarian party?

I consider myself more libertarian than anything else. I want to learn more about this philosophy. Which books would you recommend that would explain libertarianism? I know of Ayn Rand and her writings, but who are other writers that I should check out?

For instance, I see a lot of folks calling for some sort of government regulation of companies to prevent them from “buying up all the real estate”. But personally I think that there should be less zoning regulation/building restrictions. What say the you?

I would like to share a utopia of mine. I don't know if it is original or not. I want to ask for your opinions on it. Like would you want to live in it, do you think such a land would never exist, etc.

Each citizen has a public-private key pair that they memorized. And they verify their identity by cryptography. Each person has made themselves lots and lots of tiny robot sensors that measure tempreture/wind direction, and so on. These robots and people are connected by an almost completely distributed web. Robots have a similar ID as well. There is a distributed ledger (like a blockchain) that runs on this web as its basic application.

All measurements made by tiny robots are being stored in the ledger. Nodes on the web have a consensus mechanism. They store all measurements, but the official measurement is determined by an algorithm- a smart contract. Using these determined measurements, the ledger has a connection with outside word. So one can create a real life insurance company using the ledger. You can even form your small country using the ledger.

This way, laws would really be laws. People would join a country by signing its "social contract", just like French revolutionaries imagined. What do you think?

I am seeking to understand the Libertarian philosophy better. So far, based on my understanding, one of the primary objectives of the philosophy is to maximize human flourishing by removing barriers to freedom, especially things like government regulation.

So, I am curious, in some future state where the role of government is diminished or eliminated entirely, does the capitalists not fill this power vacuum created by the weakening of government?

Does the freedom of capitalists result in a new form of tyranny that is different from, but just as impactful as, government sanctioned tyranny?

In a Libertarian utopia, how does one prevent the capitalists from simply replacing one form of servitude with another?

Just to preface, I'm quite brought into ancap philosophy, and have read numerous books and watches several lectures on how a free society would function (don't mass downvote plz). However, I'm not entirely brought on if the NAP really works. I'll give two examples.

(1) This ones from Friedman. Suppose Jim fall off a building and to save yourself, you aggress on someones property by grabbing their flag post, in order to climb back to safety. In a libertarian world, aggression is immoral, meaning you ought not do it. Would it then follow that Jim's actions are immoral?

(2) Let's suppose Jim is forced to steal (aggress) a dollar from Sam, in order to save the entirety of humanity. Like the former example, libertarian philosophy has it that aggression is never justified, so would Jim be justified in stealing this dollar? Some anarchists like liquidzulu bite the bullet and believe that the theft is immoral, but I don't buy it.

(2.1) Let's say there's some justification for 2 - maybe you argue that Jim will be initiating greater aggression by allowing humanity to perish if he does not steal. But this seems to just completely move away from libertarian logic. Suppose that you are a billionaire who is non-philanthropic. If we apply the same logic which justifies stealing a dollar to save humanity, you can apply it to critique this billionaire for not donating - they are initiating greater aggression by not donating a drop of their income to save some in the third world.

I see the only way of evading 2.1 is by biting the bullet on 2, but that in itself seems absurd. I would be interested if anyone has anything to say about what I've posed.

I understand unions as a free association of individuals that unite to negotiate with their employer. This, even though it has a inherent collectivistic background, as long as it is free, it should not be against libertarianism.

And I understand strike as the main method of unions to pressure the company owner, since going on strikes makes the company lose benefits and firing them makes the owner lose skilled labourers. As long as it is voluntary and the owner is still able to fire them I don't see how it would be against libertarianism.

But that's my question, is my analysis wrong?