Libertarian confusions
Since I gave up on libertarianism, I have struggled to explain concisely why it doesn't work to people who still buy into it. This is an attempt to do so.
Incompatibility with desirable outcomes
Bluntly – libertarianism is a delusion that unconditional property rights can be had at the same time as some non-dystopian social outcome.
More specifically – we cannot have all three of the following:
Unconditional property rights.Freedom of reproduction.Equality of opportunity. (Not of outcome!)You can have any two of those, but not all three. The combinations that work are:
Unconditional property rights + freedom of reproduction: poor people give birth to more poor people, who do not have equality of opportunity and live and die in squalor.Unconditional property rights + equality of opportunity: this combination has not been seriously attempted, but it means sterilizing poor people so they can't have children who would have unequal opportunity.Freedom of reproduction + equality of opp…
Incompatibility with desirable outcomes
Bluntly – libertarianism is a delusion that unconditional property rights can be had at the same time as some non-dystopian social outcome.
More specifically – we cannot have all three of the following:
Unconditional property rights.Freedom of reproduction.Equality of opportunity. (Not of outcome!)You can have any two of those, but not all three. The combinations that work are:
Unconditional property rights + freedom of reproduction: poor people give birth to more poor people, who do not have equality of opportunity and live and die in squalor.Unconditional property rights + equality of opportunity: this combination has not been seriously attempted, but it means sterilizing poor people so they can't have children who would have unequal opportunity.Freedom of reproduction + equality of opp…