Hi Nostriches
Im pretty sure most nostriches and bitcoiners are libertarians.
But are there any libertarian socialist/left here? Or most of you are libertarian capitalist/right?
Can someone help me understand how can libertarian left make sense? Because to me freedom/liberty means little to no control, it resonates more with 'invisible hand'.
How can freedom remains if there is a need/wants for shared control of the means of production?
Why couldn't you have shared control of cooperations in a libertarian capitalist society? It's freedom to do what you want without much interference from the state. Cooperation is human nature, that's not left.
Sure. That's just like company. Nobody forcing anyone to work in certain company. People choose where they want to work. That's capitalist kind of cooperation
It's libertarian right
What I don't get is libertarian left.
Or you can build business together with some dudes and share ownership with them. That is still libertarian right
It starts going leftward if the business adopts leftward principles of co-operative ownership. For instance, if the business required new employees (or new customers) to buy into its governance & capital structure as a condition of doing business, I think that would read as “left.” But it’s still “voluntary” in the libertarian sense.
That would make it left just within that business scope then. Not the larger whole community
And the need to pay to join in makes it kind of capitalist.
My main problem grasping the concept of libertarian left is on associations/municipalism/etc to maintain/manage the means of production. But any form or organisation bound to have a leader, or at least key influencer in the decision making. Which then make it tend to the Auth spectrum rather than lib spectrum
Im still thinking the political spectrum should just have 3 section
Auth left, Auth right, and libertarian
At which libertarian is in the middle, not exactly left or right. It is gonna be on the right side for bigger scale, but gonna be on the left side on the smaller scale (family is a lefty structure/organization)
Freedom defined in the Cambridge dictionary is as follows: 'the condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited:'
Whose freedom do you mean? If everyone followed the exact definition, that would be total anarchy. Ironically, I think the point of Libertarianism is exactly that. Freedom (for everyone) to do as they please.
I'm sure everyone who understand what 'the left' (socialism, taxes, health-care, UBI etc.) provide with some requirements are happy to conform to *some* restrictions in their freedoms. The alternative seems worse in comparison (no taxes, no health-care etc.) even though it might satisfy the freedom part more fully.
Why do you suddenly make the assumption that there is no healthcare?
People are free to provide and get healthcare at the right price
People are even free to provide free healthcare if they want to do charity.
The existence of healthcare doesn't depend on restriction of freedom
I might have expressed myself in a confusing manner. Apologies. All I meant to convey was that the current system (by 'the left') seems better in comparison to what could be. I should have specified that no taxes would (most likely) lead to no 'free' health-care but your point about charity does stand.
Yes yes, people are free to do as they please. Yet society imposes some restrictions upon people. In my example of taxes & health-care I wanted to convey that paying taxes is an restriction of freedoms in exchange for assurances/help in the future. That is a restriction of freedom that I'm fine with. But it is obviously up for debate where does the 'line' stand. (how much of your freedoms will you give up for in exchange for X)
Sure thing. But since that involve some kind of tax to fumd public healthcare that wouldn't make it libertarian left.
Hence my original point in the thread. How can there be libertarian left if it have to involve shared means of production
I might have misunderstood how political leaning goes but my understanding is that 'the left' advocates for social programs. But to be frank the political divide between 'the right' & 'the left' is naive. Politics is a spectrum not a dichotomy like it is portrayed in the great U S of A.
There's a wiki page on Left-libertarianism at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism
It describes state politicals as follows: 'There are a number of different left-libertarian positions on the state, which can range from advocating for the complete abolition of the state, to advocating for a more decentralized and limited government with social ownership of the economy.'
They also speak of UBI in the 'Economics' section
Ya, sorry mate. I still don't get it
UBI - where does the money to finance it come from. If from tax doesn't seem libertarian
Abolition of state - not exactly exclusive to lib left. May fall under lib right too.
Social ownership - this is what I don't understand, who will manage what, who will take charge. Even on decentralized kind of structure, there will always be someone that is taking more leadership role / key influencer in the decision making. So it will naturally goes towards Auth overtime.
The only thing that I feel may fall under lib left to show how social ownership works in practice are open source protocols. Like bitcoin and nostr. BUT
1. BTC and nostr as Jack said are the only two truly decentralized protocol left. All else have. Become centralised (more like Auth than lib)
2. BTC protocol isn't exactly lib left. It is more toward center. It have things that fall under lib right like incentive for miner, it's not for equality of outcome actually. The security continue to be strong because the incentive works and the adoption continue to go because of NGU tech, not exactly pure social mission
So yeah, I'm still confused. I still think the political spectrum can't have the 4 quadrant. Only 3
Or 3.5, as pure libertarian/anarchy doesn't seem to suit left idea. At least that's how it is to me now. Happy to have anyone to change my mind
As I understand politics, what they (political leanings) wish to convey are ideals. And the ideal libertarian politics would be total anarchy as everyone did what they wanted. So understandably some freedoms have to be restricted in order to have a working state.
Politics is always compromises, like I earlier wrote, some restrictions of freedom are 'necessary' (i.e. the alternative seems worse) as is the case of taxes.
In social ownership, the volunteers are the first to 'gain control' (of the code-base, decision making, etc.) but ultimately 'the users' (those who run the software, spend their money, etc.) decide. I would think that gaining most users incentivizes the developers & volunteers.
2. >the incentive works
Indeed. Freedom to do as they (miner) wish. It is usually towards the enrichment of self :D
Why does the political spectrum have to be in quadrants inside a circle? I think of it more like a line, where on the left we have fully socially constructed & owned state (an utopia) and on the right the state controls the individuals (a dystopia) - our political leanings land somewhere on that line with varying ideals. I see no contradiction in left-leaning libertarian... Just gotta ease a bit on the ideals ;)
Also if “left” has any meaning, it definitely includes not policing “social issues” (literally not policing them), so, decriminalizing cannabis is a “left” viewpoint.
In the political compass the left and right is about economic though. Not about social
Being able to freely buy and sell any kind of drugs including cannabis is more of an economic right though. Milton Friedman want to legalize all kind of drugs
Economy doesn't exactly have moral/social value.
