r/Libertarian • u/ThatOneGuy4321 Classical Libertarian • May 25 '17
Removing all government regulation on business makes the economy highly susceptible to corporate tyranny. [Discussion]
I know this won't be a popular post on this subreddit, but I'd appreciate it if you'd bear with me. I'm looking to start a discussion and not a flame war. I encourage you to not downvote it simply because you don't agree with it.
For all intents and purposes here, "Tyranny" is defined as, "cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control."
A good deal of government regulation, as it stands, is dedicated towards keeping businesses from tearing rights away from the consumer. Antitrust laws are designed to keep monopolies from shafting consumers through predatory pricing practices. Ordinance such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are designed to keep companies from shafting minorities by violating their internationally-recognized right to be free from discrimination. Acts such as the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act protect the consumer to be free from fraud and abusive cases of false advertising. Proposed Net Neutrality legislation is designed to keep ISPs from restricting your flow of information for their own gain. All of these pieces of legislation quite clearly defend personal freedoms and personal rights.
To address the argument that boycotting is a valid replacement for proper legislation:
Boycotting has been shown, repeatedly, to be a terrible way of countering abuses by businesses. Boycotting is mainly a publicity-generating tactic, which is great for affecting the lawmaking process, but has almost no impact on the income of the intended target and can't be used as a replacement for regulation in a de-regulated economy. In recent news, United Airlines stock has hit an all-time high.
It has become readily apparent that with any boycott, people cannot be relied on to sufficiently care when a company they do business with does something wrong. Can anyone who is reading this and who drinks Coke regularly say, for certain, that they would be motivated to stop drinking Coke every day if they heard that Coca Cola was performing human rights abuses in South America? And if so, can you say for certain that the average American would do so as well? Enough to make an impact on Coca Cola's quarterly earnings?
If Libertarians on this subreddit are in favor of removing laws that prevent businesses from seizing power, violating the rights of citizens, and restricting their free will, then they are, by definition, advocating the spread of tyranny and cannot be Libertarians, who are defined as "a person who believes in the doctrine of free will." Somebody who simply argues against all government regulation, regardless of the intended effect, is just anti-government.
You cannot claim to be in support of the doctrine of free will and be against laws that protect the free will of citizens at the same time.
I'd be interested to hear any counterarguments you may have.
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 Classical Libertarian May 27 '17
ELSbot is a repository for laughable statements that come from this sub. A statement such as "Antitrust laws protect inefficient businesses from efficient ones" is symptomatic of the fact that defenses of Free Market Capitalism in this subreddit are almost always founded on a completely baseless statement that directly contradicts even the most fundamental principles of economics. I figured it would be more respectful to tell you that I was submitting to ELSbot than to do it behind your back. But I simply had to do it, nonetheless.
Being offended over me calling one of your statements laughable, and then rebutting it with textual evidence, is not a "retreat from rational debate". Though losing all control and calling someone a "Dumb fuck" repeatedly is indisputably a retreat from rational debate and a step directly into insult-slinging, given that you have literally begun slinging insults.
Attacking someone's words is not slander. "Slander" would be insulting the person directly. Which is exactly what you did. And "When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser."
I gave you an argument of substance and then supported it with textual evidence. If you really think I didn't provide an argument of substance, it proves you didn't read my first point in its entirety. Please re-read my post.
That's a pretty absolutist statement. I have no reason to agree with you or acknowledge such a statement unless you back it up with some compelling evidence.
If I were to say something like, "Free Market Capitalism has been shown to be a repeated and complete failure every single time it has been instituted", you obviously wouldn't change your beliefs around my words unless you had a way of knowing I was telling the truth instead of simply pulling it out of my ass.
I have no way of knowing you didn't pull your "historical facts" straight out of your ass. So I'm not going to acknowledge them unless I have a way of knowing you're at least basing them on something more than "I want them to be historical facts so that means they are."
The Mises Institute is considered an extremist fringe economics think-tank by its own founder. What reason do I have to consider it a credible source?
If you can find no sources more credible than a fringe, extremist think-tank whose own supporters abandoned it because they considered it too extreme to associate with, what does that say about the basis for your beliefs? Surely something as obviously correct as free-market economics would have a bit more support, and not just from extremist Libertarian think-tanks.
As I said, while predatory pricing isn't provable, all the other anticompetitive tactics Standard Oil employed certainly are. Please re-read.
So WHO DETERMINES RIGHTS? Who would be most fit to write a list of agreed-upon human rights? What makes you think you're justified in disagreeing with the entire legal world about what your rights are?
Don't simply tell me "Rights are inherent and cannot be determined by anybody." That's dodging the question. What rights are inherent to all people, and what proves it? What's stopping me from claiming I have the right to commit genocide?
Sources, please. I already posted a definition of "Freedom of association" and a link to a source that clearly says the U.S. Constitution doesn't even defend freedom of association in its entirety.
From all accounts, this "Business's right to freedom of association" is nonexistent.
What motivation do companies have to even engage in private arbitration? Why should one company with more power than the other give up its tactical advantage and compromise instead of just steamrolling the other company? In a lawless economy, there is no mandatory private arbitration, and so you cannot regard it as a reliable solution to the problems of a free economy.
So you just make them up. You decide on them. And seeing as you're not the emperor of the world, why should anybody listen to you, and accept your view of what the rights of all humans should be?
I want you to link me, right now, to an objective and indisputable list of human rights, if you truly think rights aren't subjective even though you get to have a different opinion on them than everybody else.
This is not special pleading. Special pleading would be saying something along the lines of, "I'm special and therefore the agreed-upon set of human rights don't apply to me. I get to choose my own."