Environmentalism poses a problem for libertarian ideology

[Pointedstick]

And to expand on Tech's point, the beauty of the free enterprise system is that it pits the strong against the strong. The weak actually benefit from the struggle in the form of continuously improving products and falling prices. Take computers. Remember how much computers cost in 1990? Now you can buy a pocket-sized computer with more power than all of NASA in the 80s for like $300. All because strong firms like Nokia and Apple and Samsung and Motorola and Google and Microsoft turned their energies toward trying to battle each other rather than exploit the weak.

[Kshartle]

That's a good question. And perhaps I should. But I also think that government is just too irresistible an opportunity for the strong to use it to oppress the weak. That's why they're attracted to it like a magnet. We will always have strong people and groups, and weak people and groups. But the government is an organization that is taken over and co-opted by the strong far, far more easily than it is by the weak. And as a result, all too often it becomes used as a weapon against the weak, which is exactly what's happening here.

It's not just the AMA. They're just an example of the general problem of government being seen as a vehicle for furthering one's own goals at the expense of others that the clever and slightly immoral elements of society can understand very clearly.

I generally agree with this.

But I still hold the AMA, etc. responsible for their own actions.

And I would contend that a group that views government lobbying as an "irresistible opportunity" to be taken advantage of at the expense of the weak will take advantage of other opportunities at the expense of the weak, even if there were no such thing as government.

More generally, is there any sort of system/entity that isn't taken over and co-opted more easily by the strong than by the weak?  This is sort of what defines the strong, isn't it?

There is a system that isn't taken over very easily by the strong. It's called free enterprise. In that system, anyone who wants to offer a product or service can do so without being told not to by a "government", and no one can stop someone else from doing the same. This gives the consumer, poor or rich, much better choices than a cartelized governmentally rigged system.

The plantation owners have to constantly tell the slaves fairy tales about how without the protection of the slavers....the slaves would be very vulnerable. I think the southern plantation owners told them all kinds of stories of how northerners were devils with tails and would eat their children and crazy nonsense.

Harry Browne and so many others have taken on this fairy tale that greedy capitalists will take advantage of people with out the government. It's so silly. How can I take advantage of someone in a voluntary trade of property? All the advantage taking is a product of violence. Businesses lobby the gun to point itself at us to force us to give the lobbiest our money. It's not the fault of the businesses people. It's that we accept the existance and use of the gun to decide things.

[Kshartle]

And to expand on Tech's point, the beauty of the free enterprise system is that it pits the strong against the strong. The weak actually benefit from the struggle in the form of continuously improving products and falling prices. Take computers. Remember how much computers cost in 1990? Now you can buy a pocket-sized computer with more power than all of NASA in the 80s for like $300. All because strong firms like Nokia and Apple and Samsung and Motorola and Google and Microsoft turned their energies toward trying to battle each other rather than exploit the weak.

There is no weak with free enterprise. The supposed "strong" are at the mercy of the weak....appealing to them to buy the products and services. The "weak" are actually the strong and the businesses people have to work harder and harder to offer more for less to compete. Free enterprise is the only honest, moral and beneficial system to all (except the violent and unscrupulous who thrive under mixed economies, socialism etc.).

[Pointedstick]

I agree with you, Tenn, that the strong will inherently try to manipulate systems to their advantage. But I also believe that government represents the best possible system ever invented for this purpose.

The market isn't perfect, of course not. But it's a systematic improvement over government in that producers have to please their customers. A producer or seller who poisons their customers can only continue in this vein for so long before they're run out of town on a rail--unless they're protected by government, of course.

And yes, I am against "intellectual property". And I've put my money where my mouth is: all the software, art, writings, and designs I could have patented or copyrighted I've deliberately put in the public domain instead.

[Tyler]

More evidence of the environmental havoc caused by those pesky libertarian ideologues in China:



http://www.nbcnews.com/business/chinas- ... 2D11765770#!

[dragoncar]

More evidence of the environmental havoc caused by those pesky libertarian ideologues in China:



http://www.nbcnews.com/business/chinas- ... 2D11765770#!

Lets sue China for their negative externalities!