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Originally Posted by R3B3LCAUSE Voluntary economic association is Capitalism. Capitalism is not about big business, its about the freedom to choose your own destiny, without the government there to tell you otherwise. And Libertarianism is essentially the epitome of Capitalism |
Capitalism merely means that the means of production are owned privately--kept out of control of the workers. Libertarianism is the maximisation of personal freedom and liberty, not just outside of the workplace, but in every facet of life. The worker should, therefore, be in control of the means of production instead of ordered how to go about his job, otherwise, where is the liberty?
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I have no master. An employer is not a master, and he oppresses no one.
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This is scary. Read what you said. An employer has so much control over a worker's life: if the employer fires or doesn't pay the worker, how will he eat or afford his shelter? Think of workers before working-hour laws were passed. What about the daily sexual and racial harassment from management toward employees? The firing or harassment of queer-identifying people? There is nothing Libertarian about oppressing minorities.
In regard to all of the quotes I have collected below: I want to challenge you to think OUTSIDE a liberal, Capitalist frame of reference before constructing your responses. Where have either of us made any reference to government? Centralised government/authority and Libertarianism are yet another contradiction in terms, just as Capitalism and Libertarianism are. Government is hierarchical.
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And while I know that Libertarianism was thought of by the left, Left-Libertarianism doesn't seem logical. There are only two ways to get people to collectivize their property; government force (not Libertarian) or people voluntarily choosing to give up everything they own to feed everyone else, including the lazy. This seems both highly idealistic and completely impractical. What if someone doesn't want to share, are you going to use coercion to make him?
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There is a big distinction between private property and possession. Private property is the private ownership of the means of production (a wage-master owning a machine that processes coal), something that is legally/state-protected that is used to exploit a human or land. Possessions on the other hand are things we accumulate throughout or lives that are not used to exploit others (a toothbrush or a home). Yes, a home is possession, but if that home were to be rented out, it would become private property.
Property is something that is protected legally and by the state, and thus a reason why Capitalism cannot survive without the state, and another reason why Capitalism and Libertarianism are a contradiction in terms.
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ALL of us are in support of capitalist Libertarianism. My father would rather work himself to death for an unfair employer by his own choice than give his life to the government to decide its fate. My older brother holds more resentment for those precious "workers rights" that keep him from being able to do a lot of things he wants to do, than he does for any employer he has worked for.
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I don't think your family would be resenting precious workers rights if they were literally locked in a factory, working 16-hour work days, making only a couple dollars, while his boss is profiting like mad, surrounded by luxuries, and lobbying the government like hell to work against your mobility or escape from the system. Of course, much of this is still the reality. How is that suffering, that being a slave to your boss Libertarian?
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We are talking about an issue of right or wrong. The working class (or at least EVERYONE I know who falls in that category) prefers to be "oppressed" by the laws of the market than by a government (or societal coercion, which would be necessary to create and maintain a left-libertarian nation)
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Everyone? Really? You seem to be ignoring left labour movements all around the world. You seem to be ignoring the past couple centuries of the anarchist labour movement in the US. You're ignoring the Haymarket Affair, the Paris Commune, the Spanish anarchists, and all of the anarchist and left-wing movements in Asia and Africa and South America.
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I don't see a trickle either direction. The rich are beneficial to society and so are the working class, no one more than the other. If something benefits the rich, it also benefits the working and vice versa. there is no 'us vs them'
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And again, think outside a Capitalist frame of reference. In Libertarianism there would be no trickling because top-down hierarchical relationships would cease to exist. This basis of hierarchical relationships is the main reason why the two a contradictory--hierarchy not only limits freedom, but *enables* systematic and institutionalised oppression.