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Charles Justice's avatar

The problem with libertarianism, in a nutshell, is demonstrated in the naive mistaken view that David Boaz takes in the above essay towards government. To decry the growth of government as somehow a disutility, as somehow a correlation between government size and decreasing freedoms is simplistic and frankly wrong. Hasn't the size of economies and human population grown exponentially in the last two hundred years? What is government for then? With the increasing economic size and population comes increasing consequences when things go wrong: conflicts between individuals and groups, and increasing "externalities", downstream effects of economic activities that can harm "third parties" and the environment that supports agriculture and the natural world. Global Warming is the mother of all externalities, and it's obvious that economic growth is making it exponentially worse. Markets alone are a big part of the problem, and solving it or at best alleviating or mitigating its effects requires government regulation and coordination between governments on a global scale. From my interactions with various libertarians I have seen a lot of denial surrounding climate change: denial that it is happening, denial that it is caused by human activity, and denial that it is a serious problem. In my view this is evidence that libertarians in general are evading the issue mainly because it undermines their simplistic view that "government is the problem" and that markets can always provide the solutions. To pretend that a threat to society does not exist when it does exist, and to eschew the means to prevent or mitigate this threat because it conflicts with one's pure philosophy is the height of irresponsibility. The exponential increase in disinformation and out and out lies, and the popularity of fascist politicians like Donald Trump is a direct result of these kinds of evasion.

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Doc Ellis 124's avatar

I am not interested in saving the world; fuck the world.

I am only interested in hands-on-local service: periodically cleaning up a stretch of highway or helping distribute food to unfortunate folks. or helping folks needing a helping hand.

I have no interest in helping unfortunate folks in other parts of the world; speaking only for myself, fuck 'em all, let the devil sort 'em out.

This essay is otherwise a well-written description of what I do think at a local level.

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