Incompleteness of Libertarianism

Photos

good place for a starbucks

see larger image

uploaded by DrMarty

The libertarian believes that everybody is his own responsibility; he also believes that one's only
responsibility is toward himself.

What he forgets is that, without science, most of what business sells would not exist; without education, most people would be unemployable; without parenting, nobody would have survived past infanthood; and without nature and the environment, nobody would be alive.

This leads libertarian-influenced people to any number of errors - such as cutting science and thus reducing competitiveness; cutting education and thus making fewer people capable of other-than-menial employment; attacking motherhood and thus badly hurting children; and blindly destroying nature, without sight for the future and without respect for what made it possible, and thus destroying things of greater richness and greater complexity than anything that he has himself been able to create, while greatly compromising people's well-being.

The libertarian is part-right, but not fully right. He is right to assert people's freedom over their lives; he is wrong to claim that that's all that is there, that that's all that is natural, or that that's all that is human. A being that has evolved as himself, as part of humanity, and as part of life, will have natural orientation toward all the preceding; which means that it will be natural for him to care about all three and to seek to do constructive action that benefits all three.

Thus, it is just as natural for people to want to do work that benefits humanity outside their immediate selves, and to do work that leads to environmental sustainability, as it is for them to advance their economic self-interest. And all three directions, being function of natural fact, are rational and valid by that measure. To deny two of these directions is to commit an error fatal for someone who claims his conclusions to be based in reality and reason: The error of denying what is in fact a vast part of reason and reality.

The libertarian sees property as nature converted into constructive use; but he sees no value in nature or its existence as something other than resources. The libertarian sees anything that takes another person's property (such as taxation) as force and fraud; but he does not see the extent to which him having acquired or created his property is owed to science and education - endeavors that are altruistically valued and, in most cases, funded by the government - and also the vast contribution that government projects such as the Interstate system and the Internet have done for prosperity. The libertarian believes that responsibility consists of taking care of oneself, but does not realize the extent to which people being able to do that beyond subsistence level is a result of altruistically-valued endeavors such as science and education. In short, he fails to see a vast part of reality and based on that makes choices that are ill-informed and that, being ill-informed, lead to negative consequences: Consequences such as blind plunder of natural treasures, gutting of the educational system, reduction in the productivity of science, and privatization of government services to result in such abuses as the Florida prison system, which has been privatized, having an incentive to lock up as many people for as long as it can lock them up and doing just that.

Libertarianism does not suffer from lack of positive intention; rather it fails by its own standard - reason and reality. A being that exists as himself, as part of humanity, and as part of life, will find it natural to benefit all three, rathar than just one, of the preceding. And the economic well-being they value is owed vastly to action that is not based on economic self-interest: Action such as scientists and teachers passing by the opportunity for riches to achieve knowledge and impart education; government implementing such projects as the Interstate and the Internet; people concerned for environmental well-being putting into place technologies that reduce poisoning of the environment; and people raising and nurturing new life.

Libertarianism describes a part of the picture, but it fails to see the whole picture. And over the long term these oversights build. An ideology that is incomplete needs to be met with what it fails to consider. This is one effort toward that effect.