On 12/05/16 11:54, Russell Coker wrote:
Do you own a house if banks can destroy your neighborhood by robo-signing forclosure documents that the residents can't afford to legally oppose?
Libertarianism opposes fraudulent practices. Hopefully down the track AI will make legal procedures a lot cheaper.
Do you own a house if corporations own the roads, water, and electricity supplies and can cut off your entire neighborhood if it's not profitable or if there are mostly non-white people living there (IE Flint)? The Flint water crisis was actually caused by corrupt *government* officials. I doubt private company subject to the rigors of the free market would have engaged in such dubious practices. Do you own a house if a corporation can pollute the air and give you a high probability of cancer if you choose to keep living there? It's true that the environment is the Achilles heel of libertarianism. I've come up with a possible solution the air pollution that does sound far fetched I agree but may go some way to addressing this problem. So basically the atmosphere is treated as an asset and all people living on the earth are given an equal share in the atmosphere as an asset. Industries that pollute must basically pay compensation to the shareholders. This is very much like a carbon tax except that it is more market based and would ensure polluting is dis-incentivised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
If you look at the comparison of countries by tax rates Australia doesn't seem that high. With a couple of exceptions it seems that the countries with higher tax rates than Australia are places you probably wouldn't mind living (Belgium, Finland, Sweden are all good places to live). The countries with the lowest tax rates include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE - places where I don't even want to change flights. The middle-eastern countries with low tax are also fairly positive towards slavery, no-one who likes liberty wants anything to do with that. I have an old school friend that lives in Kuwait -- he seems to live the life of Riley regularly flying to Europe for the weekend due the the middle east's centralised location. Libertarianism is all about liberty for the super-rich and serfdom for people like us. I'd rather be poor and free than rich and overburdened by regulations. Additionally regulations seem to be being used by corporations to entrench their position in the market rather than to give the consumer benefits. Of course this stifles economic mobility. Libertarianism is about helping the powerful subjugate the weak. That's why mistreatment of children is so important to influential libertarians such as Rothbard and Rewart.
I believe that society should protect the weak. We need a legal system to protect children from sexual abuse etc, a welfare system to prevent them from starving etc. The Libertarian approach of legalising child porn, ceasing welfare, and essentially forcing children into sex work is unacceptable to me. This is a ridiculous strawman.