Question for libertopian ideologues

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This is probably the main sticking point to me. Libertarians and Anarchists I know love to go on about how property rights are oh so important and theft is bad (mostly based on the USA) but they never seem to realize or care that most land was taken by force (i.e. stolen). Especially with Americans: most of them are on land that was outright stolen from the natives or from Mexico, but they don't seem to see the hypocrisy. I think this sums it up best from Paul Kienitz's excellent essay (http://world.std.com/~mhuben/pk-is-against-liberty.html)

It has to be remembered, without the government that the libertarians seem to regard as evil, property rights wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on. Who enforces those property rights, or even acknowledges that they even exist, other than the government?

It has to be remembered, without the government that the libertarians seem to regard as evil, property rights wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on. Who enforces those property rights, or even acknowledges that they even exist, other than the government?

You're confusing libertarians and anarchists. Again. Still.

It has to be remembered, without the government that the libertarians seem to regard as evil, property rights wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on. Who enforces those property rights, or even acknowledges that they even exist, other than the government?

But the line between libertarianism and anarchy is blurring in certain, very vocal circles.

Those questions, alas, aren't exactly settled ones. Some would suggest that hunting gives you usage rights in the land, which remain until you stop hunting, and so if farming would interfere in such rights, it is not acceptable to do so. Others disagree with that. But mere admiration, I think, is not a valid reason to claim ownership.

Of course, you *could* implement a Geoist scheme which would deal with these troubles, by issuing every citizen 1 of N inalienable shares in the land, where N is the number of citizens. A share would entitle the citizen to occupy 1/N of the land - if they wish to occupy more, they have to rent the rights off someone else. So if Alice wants to occupy 50% more land than she is allocated, and Bob is willing to rent half of his allocation to her, she would be able to. If Bob decides that protecting part of Yosemite is more important to him than the money from Alice, however, he would be able to use his unused portion to stake a claim to that part instead. You could apply the same idea to non-renewable resources - you can extract as much as people are willing to sell to you. So is Geoia has a population of 5 million, and there are 5 million barrels of oil available for extraction, each Geoian has the right to a barrel of oil. If a company wished to extract all 5 million barrels, they would have to purchase all of the shares from the population.

I'm not saying that a am for implementing such a system, but it's a potential solution to certain problems.

This is probably the main sticking point to me. Libertarians and Anarchists I know love to go on about how property rights are oh so important and theft is bad (mostly based on the USA) but they never seem to realize or care that most land was taken by force (i.e. stolen). Especially with Americans: most of them are on land that was outright stolen from the natives or from Mexico, but they don't seem to see the hypocrisy. I think this sums it up best from Paul Kienitz's excellent essay (http://world.std.com/~mhuben/pk-is-against-liberty.html)

I wonder how those same people would feel if China or Russia came in and stole their land? Would they be so quick to recognize the property rights of the new 'owners'? I found out the hard way that many of the well off who were cheerleaders for libertarianism were that way because it befitted them personally not due to any ideology. But I suppose US history books love to whitewash history, like how our local history books in school just mentioned how the natives 'went extinct' with no further explanation of how that might have happened so suddenly.

Under libertarianism, the state would be so small, functionless and titular it would fade into irrelevancy anyway.

But the line between libertarianism and anarchy is blurring in certain, very vocal circles.

C'mon man, you're being no better than the far-rightists who characterise the centre-right as Stalinism.

Most libertarians want a state that enforces laws against violence, theft, and fraud, and enacts punishments. Don't say that they don't.

A better criticism, just to provide you with an example, would be that state funded education is the only way of guaranteeing all can be educated and that drives down crime.

The 1983 American Heritage Dictionary defined fascism as: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
Fascism originated in Italy, and Mussolini claims to have invented the word itself. It was actually his ghostwriter, Giovanni Gentile, who invented it and defined it in the Encyclopedia Italiana in this way: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

In other words, fascism is corporate government – a Libertarian’s wet dream. It’s a government in which the Atlas’s of industry are given free rein to control the economy, just how they’re regulated, how much they pay in taxes, how much they pay their workers. It should be noted here that, ironically, John Mackey describes himself as a Libertarian.

In 1938, Mussolini finally got his chance to bring fascism to fruition. He dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Members of the Chamber were not selected to represent particular regional constituencies, but instead to represent various aspects of Italian industry and trade. They were the corporate leaders of Italy.

Imagine if the House of Representatives was dissolved and replaced by a Council of America’s most powerful CEOs – the Kochs, the Waltons, the Blankfeins, the Dimons, the Mackeys, you get the picture.

Actually, that’s not too difficult to imagine, huh? But, that’d be similar to what Mussolini defined as fascism.

I don't know why you think the entire world would be a concrete jungle if no government were around to stop people building anywhere. What would be the economic return from turning Yosemite into New York? You'll have spent all those resources to create something no-one wants.

This is called the Captain Planet Model of Pollution. It is based on the assumption that people who damage the environment do it for the evulz. It is wrong.

Re. property granted by the state, you'll be hard pressed to find people claiming that state granted land rights are legitimate. Seriously. Stop trolling.