For what its worth, I think most people who agree with your first to sentences would have no problem with cutting the things you list in the third.

I am one of those people.

Though what you forget to add is that we'd rather pay to have such services in our communities by ourselves, of our own volition, rather than it being taken from us without our explicit consent. This discussion always boils down to consent.

The thing I've come to realize after being alive for a while is, the world you want to live in is pure fantasy.

The idea that we'd do away with a democratic state and replace it with all-volunteer contracts and shit, it has absolutely no resemblance to reality at all. It's an even bigger fiction than a communist paradise, from each according to his ability and all that.

BUT...my ideal world (for simplicity's sake, star trek--post-scarcity, people can explore and make art, etc) is also fiction. I get that. I don't think we're there, of course, though I'd like to see us get closer.

The difference between our aspirational fictional worlds is, whenever people take steps toward yours (think America in the late 1800s, which is probably the best proxy for the libertarian paradise we could look at in the West), lots of people suffer. Private charity simply didn't--and wouldn't--work the way libertarians think it would/should. Life is hard for a lot of people, and shitty, and we've moved beyond that because it doesn't have to be a cruel world like that.

But when people take steps toward my ideal post-scarcity world (think, broadly speaking, Scandinavia, or even anywhere with universal health care, like Canada), it actually kinda works. Health care systems get funded, people can be artists without starving. People suffer less.

Maybe you prioritize the libertarian ideal of personal freedom (which is not what I'd even consider freedom in any way) over the suffering of a bunch of people, and hey, that's your prerogative.

But looking at the outcomes of one or the other, man I know where I throw in.

I'm genuinely curious, how do you go about executing this? Not everyone will consent, so how do you selectively apply those services? In the winter, I pay for snow plows and salting the roads, but my neighbor doesn't, so...?

I am really having a difficult time seeing how to actually make this happen.

Roads would be plowed by the companies that owe them. I.e. as a service to the people that are renting usage of the road. And yeah, we envision a society where all land can be owned, including roads.

Of course, transitioning to such a system where currently all roads are owned by everyone else and simultaneously by no-one, would be a tricky thing to solve. Though it has been "solved" in certain parts. E.g. If you consider large gated communities. It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent.

It took me the longest time to reconcile a bunch of these things when it came to Libertarianism (or further). Eventually I did "get it" when I started thinking about how I would solve these problems in the absence of a state and only having access to the concepts of "private property" and "contracts". Having a state there, ready and ever-present to fix all our problems is a cushion/crutch when it comes to solving the problems that a community would have to deal with.

"It's not a perfect example, but it does hint at the possibility of people coming together to solve a communal problem using communal funding, and individuals having the option to leave if they don't like it and don't want to consent."

Not unlike the way that (for example) local road maintenance in a particular city is typically funded by citizens of that city, who always have the option to leave should they tire of paying the taxes the fund said maintenance.

True, but does it matter? Because in such a hypothetical stateless land, you also have no courts, and therefore no way to enforce agreements other than via direct threat of violence. So it would be difficult to have members of said hypothetical community agree to contribute to a (for example) road maintenance fund.

> So it would be difficult to have members of said hypothetical community agree to contribute to a (for example) road maintenance fund.

One reason why I want to give up part of my land and pay for road to be developed is that it will increase value of the land. That reason would suffice for 99% cases.

Also its safe to assume that Humans are also cooperative and neighourly bunch.

I think you're missing my point, which has to do not with the desirability of entering into such an agreement, but rather with how to enforce such an agreement in the absence of any sort of state.

You wont be able to enforce every arbitrary agreement. The constitutional courts will only rule on limited matters such as physical aggressions.

And (for example) for Oracle to enforce non-compete, It will have to come in agreement with big corps such as Google/Amazon/Facebook/etc. This will work for most cases. But former-employee of Oracle will be able to work at Joyent.

In conclusion, You have to get help from others to enforce an agreement not enforced by Govt.

Also note, constitution ~= what everyone consents on. That is, 1. It will be short & sweet. Everyone will be able to understand it. No suprises. 2. It will never have surveillance measures.

Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick? Who pays for those things that everyone benefits from but no one sees? International trade agreements, armed forces, border controls, research, pest control, safety regulation, building regulation, civil defence etc etc.

> Who pays for those who can't support themselves? Orphans, elderly, infirm/sick?

They die.

This is considered a feature, not a bug. Beneath the smokescreen rhetoric of consent and personal freedom, the core ethos of libertarianism is "survival of the fittest."

I'm really glad the pretty words and nice imagery are coming off this fact. I've seen a lot more acknowledgement lately that this is how libertarian societies work out for people lacking any ownership of their own resources.

So... "Family and community" seem not to be working for today's homeless and hungry. Why not?

Are taxes so strangling that families and communities simply cannot afford not to let their neighbour/uncle sleep on the street/eat from the trash? Bear in mind that people spend $20B/year on pay-to-play games on their phones.

Is the overbearing nature of the nanny-state confusing the libertarian "ethos", i. e. by creating the illusion that there are no homeless, or by requiring true libertarians to temporarily redirect their spending to PACs until such time when true freedom is achieved and the ethos can fully unfold?

If "family and community" are your support group, how much (actual) freedom do you have to – for example – come out as gay as a member of a conservative family in a likeminded small community?

Most poor people are concentrated within a few communities, and poverty often runs in families. Conversely, someone living on Cape Cod probably can't find a poor person within 20 miles or in their family. Should the brunt of care for poor people be born by others in or near poverty?

Many homeless have severe mental health problems. Those can make them quite annoying, or hostile, or otherwise unsympathetic. Would people give equally to all needy? And, if not, do you believe homeless people deserve assistance in correlation to their ability garner sympathy?

>"Most poor people are concentrated within a few communities, and poverty often runs in families. Conversely, someone living on Cape Cod probably can't find a poor person within 20 miles or in their family. Should the brunt of care for poor people be born by others in or near poverty?"

By community I meant any arbitrary level of "distance" between the person needing help and the one willing to give it. Some will want to only take care of the people within their near community or family. Others will go out of their way to feed people in distant continents, as I'm sure some do right now. Heck, if there weren't people like that existing right now, then who in the world convinced governments to send aid to third-world countries? Noble politicians? I'm sure polls would answer that.

>"Many homeless have severe mental health problems. Those can make them quite annoying, or hostile, or otherwise unsympathetic. Would people give equally to all needy? And, if not, do you believe homeless people deserve assistance in correlation to their ability garner sympathy?"

That's not up to me to decide. That's up to those people that want to give to charity and help whatever type of needy person they want.

But if you ask me, I'd put orphans at the top. Does that make me an evil person for not prioritizing mentally-ill individuals that can't function in society? Depends on who you ask, but I'd say no of course. It's a complicated problem. I told you my preference above. Other individuals have other motives and preferences, just like some want to distribute their money equally (such as yourself?).

> Family and the community. But go ahead and label us evil because apparently our core Libertarian "ethos" is that we want the sick and infirm to "die".

Then by all means prove me wrong. What, as a Libertarian, do you think should be done for sick and infirm people without their own financial support?

It's a circular argument. The response will be "their family and the community will look after them". But if there's no family, and even if there is, "community" will be some nebulous concept with no practical example, nor method for which to reliably and practically have any impact.

The argument is loaded. Of course not everyone will be covered. Of course there will be people that fall between the cracks of family, community and charity.

Really, you demand perfection of a hypothetical system, yet there are millions starving right now. Millions killed, forgotten and neglected due to negligence of the state, or by active effort. All while countless others are forced to pay a state to fix those very things, while the state doesn't do it or does it half-assed while funding gets sent to low-priority causes.

And to answer your question. I don't know. I can hypothesize, and we could argue the merits. But really, you will fundamentally disagree with every single suggestion. Or you'll find some little flaw or hole that gets missed(just like you did above), and automatically you'll declare that it is a bad solution and we could never do it.

Since you specifically mentioned homelessness, here's a good example of care provided by "family and the community" back in the days when those were the sole sources of relief:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_penny_coffin

Do I understand correctly that this kind of thing is what you consider normal in your ideal society?

Charity.

So yes, that is the standard Libertarian answer. But the problem is that it is in direct opposition to the philosophy of looking after oneself. How can you give charity if you're looking after yourself?

Charity in fact would deny someone else the ability to look after themselves, which would be denying them rights.

So charity doesn't really fit with the morality of Libertarianism.

http://atlassociety.org/commentary/commentary-blog/4271-char...

>"So yes, that is the standard Libertarian answer. But the problem is that it is in direct opposition to the philosophy of looking after oneself. How can you give charity if you're looking after yourself?"

I'm not sure who or what has been creating a vilified image of the Libertarian for you. Libertarianism has nothing to do with "looking after oneself", and you're probably just dressing up the word "selfish" by stating that. It has everything to do with consent, and freedom from coercion. Now, what kind of world we choose to make after those principles dictates what kind of society we are in right now.

Also, what the other person said. You're posting a link that is making commentary about Objectivism, not Libertarianism.

Objectivism isn't libertarianism.

And no, giving charity does no deny another a right. They can choose to forego their rights. And I would suggest not giving to those who do so out of choice.

Charity is a choice, not an obligation enforced through violence. As such it is the correct answer.

Whether we live in such a society or not, charity exists and provides for those who cannot or cannot yet provide for themselves. It works pretty well.

Is it in my interest to give to another? If I am free to make that choice then yes.

How do you solve these problems?

1. I do not wish to consent to the contracts of your community. However, I was born here, and lack the resources to leave, or any goodwill that may assist me in doing so. Perhaps I am LGBT in the deep south.

2. Somebody is murdered. A person can be demonstrated to be the killer, but they do not consent to jailing or court.

3. Somebody is emitting carbon dioxide on their own property, as I suppose is their right. But the expanding sea is now trespassing on my island, flooding my property.

4. I buy up all the land surrounding your property, and erect a wall. I refuse to grant you passage onto my property (and thus, off of yours) unless you sign a contract agreeing to turn over to me a portion of all value you produce.

How are "taxes theft" but landownership is not? Why does someone get to claim exclusive ownership over some land and another person does not (just because the first persons ancestors reached the land first (in some cases, only if you conveniently ignore the native population))?

Well, one is where your labor and the benefit of it (earnings) get taken from you without consent. The other is land ownership, I'm not sure how else to digest that? Are you implying that land belongs to everyone and someone claiming exclusive ownership of it is somehow theft?

The usual response about how land "becomes" owned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle

I really can't think of any fair way of distributing land other than the mechanism above which is essentially "first come first serve" along with a "use it or lose it" expiry mechanism.

How do you account for the free rider problem? Suppose you live in a small town how do they collectively pay for expensive medical services if one member of the small community gets an illness that requires lots of resources to treat? Isn't it better to distribute the burden over a larger population? Wouldn't there be a massive amount of administrative overlap if all services truly were done at the community level? How do you prevent the race to the bottom mentality if everything is done at the community level?

One of the big problems I have with this theory is the way "consent" is being defined: I find it illogical to think that every person should have to explicitly agree to every possible law they could be held accountable for. Exercising this would become the biggest farce and waste untold amounts of money.

Well, Libertarianism usually means very little government and as a consequence, very few laws. So there is no need to have elaborate mechanisms to "consent" to countless laws. Though the precise amount of "laws" varies depending on which Libertarian you speak to.

They will all, however, agree on property/ownership law and the Non-aggression principle. It's actually quite elegant, because you could define all sorts of "laws" or prescribed/prohibited behaviors simply by following through with the consequences of the above principles.

E.g. Fraud, or breaking a contract. The money and ownership of goods was transferred from one entity to another. If one side "refuses" to hold up their side of the trade, then they're effectively depriving the other party of the use of the property that they own.

Probably not police but certainly schools.

Cut Medicaid/Medicare?