By Robert S. Siegel
Radio talk show host Neal Boortz says that most Americans are Libertarians. On the other hand, I believe most Americans, including Boortz, belong to the Mind Your Own Damn Business Political movement because I think most Americans believe in our Principles.
Boortz focuses on the need for limited government, a need which neither the Democrats nor Republicans are even attempting to address. Therefore, Boortz and others like him think that they fall into the Libertarian camp.
Libertarians believe in a sort of private political power that is comparable to feudalism. Feudalism and libertarianism establish political power through a network of private contracts. There is little to no government for the common good, i.e. roads, bridges, police and fire fighters. Individuals contract for these services. Some forms of libertarianism are hostile toward government.
Mind Your Own Damn Business maximizes liberty and accomplishment where government and the people focus on what the U.S. Constitution says and why the Constitution says it. MYODB recognizes the value of minimal but efficient government. MYODB is in line with Classical Liberalism however, we have added a 21st century twist; that the government and the governed should Mind Their Own Damn Business. Classical Liberalism opposes modern liberals big government and heavy control of private property and economic activity.
Adam Smith, author of Wealth of Nations, supported free enterprise and understood the need for government, specifically for public works such as roads, canals, and bridges, i.e. common good. He was a Classical Liberal and would no doubt been an active blogger on this site.
The key difference between Libertarianism and MYODB? MYODB Politics supports minimal and efficient government for the purpose of setting all people equal before the law. Libertarianism relies on wealth, power, and connections, instead of law.
I think Boortz would be inclined to join our movement if we can get the word to him.
{ 8 comments }
It seems that you are in violent agreement with libertarian minarchists.
The libertarians you object to are anarchists. And it really is not fair to compare them to feudalists. They do not believe in, for example, an exclusive royal right to own property and bear arms which excludes peasants.
What a horrible thing to write about Libertarianism. Saying that libertarians believe in absolute no goverement programs is like saying Democrats believe in total government and can be compared to communists and Republicans are compared to fascists. Ignorant people like this have been giving Libertarians a bad name for too long. And the worst part is his ideas most closley match a Libertarian. Its like the word leaves a bad taste in his mouth so he wants to remove himself from it. I have an idea; read a book about real Libertarianism or stop talking about things you know nothing about.
Dallas & Jonathan: I have to agree with Bob on this one, but feel free to enlighten me. If the guy who owns the land and the road, for example, gets to set the toll and the speed limit (instead of the government), then landowners get to make the rules rather than government making the laws. It’s not that peasants don’t have the right to own property, but once the property is owned, the system could be compared to feudalism. Now the Libertarian Party may not be advocating quite that system, but the ideology is not the same as the political organization. The LP seems to be backing away from legalizing drugs as a big part of their cause, for example, but not based on libertarian principles.
Lynn, I don’t even understand your argument.
If the guy who owns the land and the road, for example, gets to set the toll and the speed limit (instead of the government), then landowners get to make the rules rather than government making the laws.
And….. This already happens today in our heavily regulated society. There’s toll roads right? And there’s taxpayer funded roads operated by the government correct? Having a libertarian government isn’t going to change that. Libertarians understand that there has to be some government control. Just as little as possible. No one is arguing to disband the military and let private citizens pay to defend their property. Libertarians want to cut out the useless bureaucracy. Social Security, Homeland Security, Dept of Agriculture, etc. Do you ever really think about how much you pay in taxes? Not just payroll, sales, and income but also the tax on the goods you purchased. Its probably close to 60 percent of your income. Its funny that Robert compared Libertarianism to Feudalism which couldn’t be further from the truth. We live in Feudalism now, we are nothing more than serfs.
This article is so inaccurate its disgusting. Libertarians are as close to Classical Liberals as H2O is to water.
Libertarianism is like Fuedalism? My friend, if I were you I would vote Libertarian so that what ever your smoking will be legalized.
This has to be one of my favorite comments since I started this blog, and I have liked them all, “if I were you I would vote Libertarian so that what ever your smoking will be legalized.” Wonderful! Thank you.
Now, I ask you, and the others that have become so offended by this post to please read it carefully. I wrote that the comparison is: “Feudalism and libertarianism establish political power through a network of private contracts. There is little to no government for the common good.”
I did not bring serfs into the discussion. Feudalism had more to it than serfs. The comparison was to how the feudal lords arranged their lives through alliances with other feudal lords and by contracting for services. I am unaware of anything that would bring serfs into a comparison with libertarianism, and would not write that. And Dallas, I am also unaware of anything that would bring serfdom into our current socialist democracy.
Dallas commented that we are nothing more than serfs right now. First of all, come on Dallas, life in the 21st century, here in the United States of America is just too good for that kind of talk. Yes, we can certainly do a lot better than what we are doing today and it is the desire to make our country better that gets people like you to make the effort to debate through blogs like this. And thank god for you cause we certainly need these debates and we need a lot more people that care enough to take the time, but we are not serfs. .
As for Not Impressed’s comment that Classical Liberals are as close to Libertarians as H20 is to water, I stand by my statement that: “Some forms of libertarianism are hostile toward government.”
The Classical Liberal is noteably more accepting of government, albeit a minimalist governement. The Classical Liberal is more likely to believe that there are certain areas of civil interaction that work best with the power of government to control them. I suggest that the manufacture, use, and disposal of harmful chemicals is an example where the threat of prison – government – has kept some dishonest individuals from causing harm thus enabling honest businesses to perfom more efficiently. But that’s much to long for this reply, or at least for this writer to condense to this reply.
I encourage all of you that commented to look through my other posts and add your thoughts to those as well. I promise you plenty to disagree with. Thank you!
Wow. I just had my argument dissected because I used a play on words. I’ll try again without any similes or exaggerations.
First off, I never made an accusation that libertarianism was being using in conjunction with serfdom. I used the term ‘serf’ because by definition it is the socio-economic status of unfree peasants under feudalism, which would more closely resemble an given tax-paying American under our current government as opposed to a theoretical libertarian one. While you, the author had compared libertarianism to feudalism, albeit a different reason.
And secondly, stating that classical liberals are more likely to believe in government interaction is still not getting the picture. Classical liberals are libertarians. Raimondo Cubeddu sums it up nicely,
“It is often difficult to distinguish between ‘Libertarianism’ and ‘Classical Liberalism.’ Those two labels are used almost interchangeably by those whom we may call libertarians of a minarchist persuasion: scholars who, following Locke and Nozick, believe a state is needed in order to achieve effective protection of property rights.”
A Classical Liberal is not more notably accepting of anything. They are the same thing.
You’re a closet Libertarian, along with most Americans. But on a side note, great site and great topics, keep it up!
You might want to find out what Libertarianism is. Normally, I advise people to do this *before* they write about it, but better late than never.
You *seem* to be writing about AnarchoCapitalism, which would also not have the effects you describe.
Unless the Obamunists have done more than I thought, when you walk into a private home, you are subject to the rules of the house. When you walk into a business, and make a purchase, you pay the price that the evil capitalist — feudal lord that he is — has decreed. So why don’t businesses jack up their prices as high as they can, rather than giving us the reasonable prices we see in most businesses? *SURPRISE* they do jack up prices as high as they can. But the laws of economics dictate that in a (more or less) free market, that’s not very high. That is because they are really there to turn a profit, and you don’t turn a profit by convincing your customers to go elsewhere.
I will grant you that if, for example, one owner was suddenly granted title to all the land in America, it might look like what you fear. But that’s impossible for anyone to accomplish except by government. This is because, as one buys property, one raises the price of all other property. And one generally has to pay the current owner *at least* enough that he can get himself another place. Trying to approach total ownership of a country would be like trying to approach the speed of light. At first, it would look like you were doing OK. You’d go faster and faster. But it would get harder and harder to accelerate, and eventually you would run out of gas … no matter how much you started out with.
BTW, a feudal lord *WAS* a government official. So even your straw man is fatally flawed. Feudalism was an early form of Socialism.
{ 1 trackback }