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Richard Murphy says:
February 11 2017 at 10:09 am
Right wing libertarianism is an abuse of the idea of Liberty because it is indifferent to the liberty of others

It’s actually the definition that my liberty extends only so far as it does not constrain your.

From a left wing perspective the need to reconcile the absolute reality of conflicting aims is apparent and mechanisms for doing so are recognised to be necessary

Which is why left wing libertarianism is the only true form of the idea because the right wing form is actually an excuse for abuse

Still entirely missing it. Even the Randians agree that where rights conflict a resolution mechanism is needed.

36 thoughts on “Lordy”

  1. But it’s *his* definition of right-libertarianism that he’s against.

    Whether his definition is generally accepted ouside of his shed is, frankly, sophistry.

  2. He is dong his old trick of squaring the mess he has got himself into by defining a ridiculous straw man and using that as a target.

  3. The freedom of agent x is freedom from y to do z.

    Negative freedom is the absence of constraint or coercion — ie freedom from. Postive freedom — ie freedom to — is the ability to take control of one’s own life and purposes to achieve a degree of self-realisation.

    While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is often attributed to groups, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given groups.

    Generally, the left places the emphasis on positive freedom, while the right places the emphasis on negative freedom. (Thus the left favours a strong version of equality of opportunity, while the right favours a weaker version.)

    The left favours equality of freedom, achieved by social engineering. The right favours J S Mill’s harm principle – that our freedom is limited only when it causes harm to others. (The harm principle works well as a rule of thumb and in a culture with homogeneous values. In a pluralist society, what constitutes harm can appear subjective – hence, for example, the snowflake phenomenon.)

    The distinction between negative and positive liberty or freedom was identified by Isaiah Berlin:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty

  4. Yes Berlin’s concepts of freedom is one of my favourite pieces of philosophy, because it’s at the root of so many practical issues, and I wish it was understood much more in everyday politics

  5. Libertarianism is a shallow fraud that treats people as gnats as much as is Marxist competitors .
    A Conservative would learn to pay the piano, a Libertarian would sit on it and pretend the freedom if his untutored and ample buttocks made the vile consequence a thing of beauty.
    The position UKIP is even more absurd trying to make Hayek and some dim Fascist notion of tribal collectivism sit happily together. They do not , and neither does Free trade and a campaign built on blaming foreigners for everything
    Most Libertarians are nothing of the sort they only use the idea as a stick to beat left wing collectivism .Its just the same way that most of the Volk who are shocked by FGM actually couldn`t give a f– they just like another way of having a go at Muslims
    Same for those fat little Nazis who complain EU freedom of movement is racist and they would like more Indians here …. Yeeeaaaright you would

  6. Newmanis: his untutored and ample buttocks

    People whose buttocks have been tutored figure where precisely on the alphanumeric roll of deviance?

  7. “agree that where rights conflict a resolution mechanism is needed”

    You’ve not learned about the comma splice.

  8. Sorry, I find Berlin to be word salad.

    The classical definition of liberty is freedom from arbitrary or despotic government. There’s no + or – to it.

  9. So Much For Subtlety

    Theophrastus – “Negative freedom is the absence of constraint or coercion — ie freedom from. Postive freedom — ie freedom to — is the ability to take control of one’s own life and purposes to achieve a degree of self-realisation.”

    Which brings us to the third alternative – the forgotten world of the Distributionists. Who would have tried to maintain the minimalist state, but had reasonably high levels of taxation in order to ensure a more even distribution of wealth through-out society. We pay taxes in order to hand out money to moral degenerates and to keep them in that state of moral degeneracy. It would be better to hand out money in order to help people start a business or buy a farm.

    Suppose we saved up all our taxes and gave everyone a trust fund when they turned 18? God knows how much money it would be, but presumably it would be a lot. They could then do with it as they pleased. Sink or swim.

  10. “The classical definition of liberty is freedom from arbitrary or despotic government. There’s no + or – to it.”

    “Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”

    “Still entirely missing it. Even the Randians agree that where rights conflict a resolution mechanism is needed.”

    I think Randians would argue that if they conflict they’re not rights.

    But Ritchie is talking about “aims”. Randians would say the problem is that some people aim to keep what is theirs by right, and others aim to mooch or loot what is not theirs, and that they have not earned, and claim it as their “right” on the basis of their “need”.

    The difference between them is not that one has a method of conflict resolution and the other does not, but that they each use it to resolve the conflict by supporting opposing sides.

  11. Well, he’s got one thing right.
    Don’t suppose anyone’s much bothered about the liberty of Richard Murphy. He hasn’t earned the concern, has he?
    Tedious little prick.

  12. Murphy needs to understand the libertarianism is not ‘rightwing’ (nor is it ‘left-wing’ – it exists in *opposition to*, not *along the* statist axis) and it is completely and utterly all about the ‘liberty of others’.

    A couple of its major tenants are reciprocity – I leave you alone to do what you want, you leave me alone – and equality before the law.

    The fascism and socialism that he has been promoting however, promotes the dominance of government over the governed and gives the government (and by extension, those who rule that government) *rights* instead of extending privileges – creating a multi-tiered society where some are exempt from law, some are crushed by it arbitrarily.

    Mr Murphy may choose to be a slave because he see’s himself working in the house – he can go fuck himself.

  13. He won’t see himself as a slave. Some have to lead, someone has to advise those who lead…which is where he thinks he comes in.

    Reality is that he’ll annoy those who supposedly he is advising and they decide to argue something at which point he’ll break away from them.

    I wouldn’t put it past him to break away from the Judean Popular Front, he’s over there…. Splitter!

  14. Murphy needs to understand the libertarianism is not ‘rightwing’ (nor is it ‘left-wing’

    Libertarians are, necessarily, not collectivist. Therefore to Ritchie they must be right-wing.

    He can’t imagine a non-collectivist, economically dry, libertarian left.

    That’s the path I prefer, and I have even had the luck of voting for a party that for a while (as much as any actual political party can) had those ideals in the New Zealand Labour Party. Sadly they have drifted off into knee-jerk anti-capitalism, the free money tree and identity politics, and now wonder “why will no-one vote for us?”.

  15. – “Libertarians are, necessarily, not collectivist. Therefore to Ritchie they must be right-wing.”

    Which is actually true. Axiomatically so.

    – “He can’t imagine a non-collectivist, economically dry, libertarian left.”

    And neither can I, because it’s an oxymoron.

    – “I have even had the luck of voting for a party that for a while (as much as any actual political party can) had those ideals in the New Zealand Labour Party.”

    This makes sense if it’s a reference to the days of Roger Douglas, rather than the vile collectivist Helen Clarke. Back in Douglas’s day the NZ Labour Party really could claim to represent the average worker, as opposed to today where it’s just the corrupt political wing of the state-sector unions and other bludgers.

  16. It’s a shame that ACT drifted off into the wilds of right wing populism (almost as bad as left wing populism).

  17. – “It’s a shame that ACT drifted off into the wilds of right wing populism”

    Polling around 0.5%, I don’t think ACT can be accused of courting populism: though I rather wish they would, since today’s “populism” seems to be nothing but an awakening to the end of history that leftists are promoting.

    Hopefully they will get a boost now that National has made the mistake of choosing the dismal failure Bill English to replace John Key, which might give them a little more influence to do some good; such as expand the pitifully small number of charter schools and so rescue some of the poorest children from the clutches of failing state schools.

  18. NewRemainia–You must be a wealthy man to keep paying to have your pram cleaned every time you shit it during your tantrums. Your EU masters are on their way out. Fact. Your scummy rantings aren’t going to change that. And your pointless hating on those who love freedom is pathetic. Trash like you have a nice cozy life and want others to have only the freedom to obey orders from middle-class Marxist scum.

    Of course childish tantrums are all you have left aren’t they? Now piss off and help your bum chum Jackal-Heart paint his face faux-Union-Jack colour for the next match or whatever the fuck he wastes his time on. Bogus sports-patriotism is the best a traitor like you can ever manage.

  19. “indifferent to the liberty of others”

    I think he means “unwilling to pay (through taxes) for the choices of others”

  20. ““He can’t imagine a non-collectivist, economically dry, libertarian left.” And neither can I, because it’s an oxymoron.”

    The libertarian right concentrate on opposing mooching and looting by the poor, the libertarian left concentrate on opposing mooching and looting by the rich. A lot of them tend to be of the anarchist, ‘hippy commune’ persuasion. They don’t impose their way of life on anyone else, but demand the right to live that way themselves if they choose. (Anyone else remember Neil from ‘The Young Ones’?) All very 60s, as it was originally before the puritan fanatics got into it.

  21. So we can add philosophy to the long list of things that the “professor” does not understand. He is not a libertarian in any sense. I think he really wants to define himself as a “high liberal” in the Rawlsian sense. Although his positions are anathema to all the forms of liberalism I can think of – even the bit that is extreme in its quest for egalitarianism. (I’m thinking of Dworkin and luck egalitarianism here.)

  22. NiV

    “Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”

    Sorry, that’s bilge: society is not an agent. Whoever wrote that hadn’t understood the fallacy of reification:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)

    The tyranny of the majority describes a scenario in which a majority of an electorate places its own interests above those in the minority in a tyrannical or despotic manner. Western democracies generally have various institutional checks in place to prevent this occurring.

    Western democracies suffer much more from the tyranny of the minority — where narrow and well organised minorities are more likely to assert their interests over those of the majority…

  23. NiV:

    “The libertarian right concentrate on opposing mooching and looting by the poor…”

    Simplification. The libertarian right generally oppose the indiscriminate state handouts that lead to the parasitism of welfarism. They want to encourage self-reliance, though many would accept a minimal safety net for the disabled, chronically ill etc and short-term, time-limited support for those down on their luck. Most right libertarians are compassionate, decent people.

    “…the libertarian left concentrate on opposing mooching and looting by the rich.”

    That’s collectivist tyranny in a clause.

    “A lot of them tend to be of the anarchist, ‘hippy commune’ persuasion.”

    So ‘social(ist) anarchists’. They prefer not to institute rules or laws, but to accept consensus (or the collective pressure to conform, because there are no secret ballots). So the tyranny of the majority holds sway…which you inveigh against above. Self-contradiction?

    “They don’t impose their way of life on anyone else, but demand the right to live that way themselves if they choose.”

    Self-described “anarcho-communists”, like the risible Laurie Penny, are only too willing to impose their eco-fascist, feminist, communist dictatorship on tbe rest of us. Wake up!

    “(Anyone else remember Neil from ‘The Young Ones’?)”

    Popular ‘culture’ is not my thing. Anyway, if it was on tv, I wouldn’t know about it.

    “All very 60s, as it was originally before the puritan fanatics got into it.”

    So ‘free’ love was such a great idea?

  24. Theophrastus said:
    ““…the libertarian left concentrate on opposing mooching and looting by the rich.” – That’s collectivist tyranny in a clause.”

    Probably usually correct in practice, but theoretically there’s scope for a left-wing objection to bailouts, corporate welfare, excessive government payments to corporations, cosy defence procurement contracts, government opera subsidies, eco-subsidies, farming protectionism, etc. etc. from a libertarian standpoint rather than just a class-warfare one.

  25. “Sorry, that’s bilge: society is not an agent. Whoever wrote that hadn’t understood the fallacy of reification”

    Nobody said society was an agent. And I’m astonished that so-called libertarians didn’t recognise the quote.

    “The tyranny of the majority describes a scenario in which a majority of an electorate places its own interests above those in the minority in a tyrannical or despotic manner.”

    The most common scenario is that society legislates what other people are allowed to do “for their own good”. It’s not that they put their own interests ahead of the minority, it’s that they put their own judgement as to what is the minority’s own interests ahead of the minority’s.

    Obvious example – consider Twitter mobs who bombard an individual with hate if they say something they don’t approve of, and their employer as well until they get fired. That’s not government, that’s society. Remember Tim Hunt, the Nobel-winning cancer research scientist? It wasn’t the government that got him fired…

    “Western democracies generally have various institutional checks in place to prevent this occurring.”

    They have checks in place to prevent it only so long as it’s something society disapproves of – or at least, is not brave enough to be seen publicly *not* disapproving of.

    “Simplification. The libertarian right generally oppose the indiscriminate state handouts that lead to the parasitism of welfarism.”

    That’s what I just said.

    “That’s collectivist tyranny in a clause.”

    Not at all. Libertarians oppose the looter mentality in both rich and poor. Since we’re talking Randian philosophy, consider characters like James Taggart or Orren Boyle – businessmen who use protectionist measures to exclude competition and operate monopolies and cartels to the detriment of the market. Adam Smith himself said “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

    Do you think all those businesses in favour of EU tariffs are the sort of people we on the right should be supporting? No? Then that’s hardly collectivist tyranny.

    “So ‘social(ist) anarchists’. They prefer not to institute rules or laws, but to accept consensus (or the collective pressure to conform, because there are no secret ballots). So the tyranny of the majority holds sway…which you inveigh against above. Self-contradiction?”

    No, because consensus isn’t compulsory. It’s about freedom of association – people who want to live a certain way can band together and do so. People who don’t can go form their own community.

    “Self-described “anarcho-communists”, like the risible Laurie Penny, are only too willing to impose their eco-fascist, feminist, communist dictatorship on tbe rest of us. Wake up!”

    Liberal groups on both left and right commonly get taken over by authoritarians. I think I might have mentioned this before?

    “So ‘free’ love was such a great idea?”

    It’s utterly irrelevant whether or not it was “a great idea”. The point is, it’s nobody else’s business. Once you start clamping down on stuff consenting adults get up to between themselves because it’s “not such a great idea” (in your opinion), you’re into ruling other people’s lives “for their own good”.

  26. This makes sense if it’s a reference to the days of Roger Douglas

    That was the peak.

    I didn’t think Clark was that collectivist. What she was, that really irritated at lot of the right, was socially very liberal.

    She moved, for example, the legalisation of prostitution in NZ, which is a good libertarian position.

    And she was economically very dry. Which I love in governments.

  27. NiV:

    “Nobody said society was an agent.”

    Errr….you quoted, approvingly:

    “Society can and does execute its own mandates”

    I repeat, society is not an agent.

  28. “Errr….you quoted, approvingly: “Society can and does execute its own mandates” I repeat, society is not an agent.”

    Translation: “Groups of people can and do execute their own mandates”.

    Society isn’t an agent, it’s a group of agents. Unless there’s another valid distinction you’re trying to get at between the collective noun and all the individuals in it, I don’t see how it’s relevant to Mill’s point.

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