Libertarianism In A Nutshell

[elfs]

Brad DeLong lends us this analysis of Nozickian Libertarianism:

1. The only criterion for justice is: what's mine is mine, and nobody can rightly take it from me. Only by my uncoerced consent does it cease to be my property.
2. Something becomes mine if I make it.
3. Something becomes mine if I trade for it with you, if it is yours and if you are a responsible adult.
4. Something is mine if I take it from the common stock of nature as long as I leave enough for latecomers to also take what they want from the common stock of nature.
5. Eventually, everything is owned; without an enforcement mechanism, nothing prevents each individual from depleting the common stock of nature.
6. Latecomers would be poorer under any other system (be it a statist system of intervention and regulation, or an anarchic situation in which nobody owns any property),
7. Therefore a monopolistic corporatist dystopia is the most moral outcome. In fact, it is the only possible moral outcome.

There are two points at which this argument falls apart: the first in the lack of an enforcement regimen in all points of the discussion, from the ability to determine who is "a responsible adult" capable of trading, to limiting the taking from the common stock of nature leaving enough for future generations. The definition of "latecomer" makes no consideration for circumstances. And finally, there is the assertion, deep in the middle, that "latecomers would be poorer under any other system." This assertion is pure and unadulterated: there is no attempt to back it up or justify it. It just is.

But if you believe that this kind of stuff is beyond the pale, realize this: Members of Congress believe it as gospel.

Comments

[caraig.livejournal.com]

"Something is mine if I take it from the common stock of nature as long as I leave enough for latecomers to also take what they want from the common stock of nature."

There's a lack of enforcement here, as well. There is zero incentive for someone to take from the common stock of nature and then replenish.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, who decides what is "enough"?

It also works from the (admittedly culturally normal) assumption that "nature" doesn't have any ownership rights to any of that common stock--even the individual bits of nature have no ownership over their own bodies. Which makes it "libertarian for me but not for thee", when "thee" doesn't look like "me".