What is libertarianism ? (part 2)

We need more control in order to prevent crime. Well, it depends how you define "crime". If you take our current standards of criminality, then of course a libertarian society would not stop non-victim "crimes". If you mean people using force on others, there is no correlation between freedom and force or lack thereof. Besides from the fact that less people will have to use force to support a cause that they find just, there is no correlation because crime has as its roots false ethical premises. A more permanent solution to eradicate crime must start from education, not politics.

Freedom would destroy the moral fiber of society ! And this is usually seen as a bad thing. However this is not necessarily the point of view that we should adopt. Compared to the freedom of the pursuit of happiness, a quite abstract and subjective notion like "moral fiber" seems rather unimportant (and sounds more like something you'd get from eating cereals). This term is often used by absolutists to peddle their own religious precepts or "pop philosophy" morality, while claiming that diversity promotes moral relativism. But that is an invalid jump, for there is nothing in a libertarian system that encourages a form of ethics in the individual : someone can be an altruist and live that way, as long as he does not use force.

Capitalism was built on war, and feeds on war. This is not as much a deductive argument than an historical one. Opponents of capitalism do not try to show that capitalism in itself necessarily entails a tendancy to warfare, but draw from past experience with the extermination of the American Indians as a proof that capitalism needs warfare in order to be established. Sometimes an argument is added to this. It usually goes like this : since capitalism is built around the notion of property, and since you need land to have property, a capitalist system can only be subsist by acquiring more land, entailing warfare against its neighbours.

Unfortunately for the shelf life of such pieces of evidence, libertarianism is usually associated with minimal interventionism in exterior affairs, and societal growth, in any normal society, is furthered by other, peaceful means - such means including technology, production and wise investment on the part of the individuals involved. The economy is not a zero-sum game ! While socialists often seek to whip up the frenzy of wartime in order to facilitate the taking of power, capitalists know that war is not good for business, especially in this age of globalization. Money that is not invested on warfare can be used to more productive and progressive means.

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