Libertarianism Defined and Frequently Asked Questions

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Q: Should businesses be allowed to fire any worker who is known to take even if on an infrequent basis substances such as Alcohol, Marijuana or Tobacco? Even if this hypothetical worker has never imbibed such substances in the actual workplace?

If so, how do you propose protecting the right of the individual to do what one pleases if employers (and if employers act this way - en masse, the "market" in general) can have such power over their employees. This is not just a hypothetical - Employers in most business would prefer to hire people who are the most productive and are thus less likely to hire those who smoke or drink - especially if the substance has a downer effect. To give an example.

Q2: Why is competitiveness a virtue?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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But let's imagine a policy where to drink alcohol makes you unemployable to the vast majority of employers. This, as we should be aware, is hardly fantasy. Powerful business groups drove the prohibition movement on the grounds that would make workers more productive. In this case, I'm talking so much about a cartel of businessmen making decisions together so much as a code of behavior - a culture so to speak. This would make certain behaviour essentially impossible or at least very difficult if one wished to function as a member of society.  How is it not a form of governing people's behaviour? And how is it less arbitrary than the law?

Now let's stretch the argument further - In a libertarian society could an employer be able to fire you for holding a political or religious belief or of being a certain race or of being female (and pregnant)?

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But . Furthermore, as a worker, is it really my interest to be more productive and increase my standard of living? Do I want to?

Q3: One argument libertarians often use in favour of abolishing the welfare state is that local community and family as well as local social groups (such as churches) can fill the need that state provided beforehand - the follow up argument is that such institutions are being weakened by Statism. Ignoring for one minute the question of whether the above is empirically true (or the cynicism it reveals about certain attitudes towards institutions), I want to ask is this really a benefit? Your neighbours are more likely to know more about you than any state bureaucrat, in Ireland and in many countries we have a long history of private church run institutions which abused children? Extended family can often be very judgmental over personal behaviour. How do you propose that these problems be solved in any hypothetical libertarian society?

Finally, the question that connects the others: How is libertarianism in this sense not just another form of 'oppressive' statism but with the market - which nobody controls - playing the role of the state - disciplining human behaviour to towards certain goals considered desirable by men who are not representative of the population (and are certainly not 'individualists')?

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I'm waiting...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Well, to be fair to everybody who didn't respond (everybody in the world), the argument in your first paragraph was lame (meaning it wouldn't happen and to think it would or even could is a bit nutty) and then you said you were going to "stretch the argument further" and I stopped reading.  Other people may have had the same thoughts.

Please expand upon its lameness.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Do you really think you could convince ALL employers to agree to anything, especially something as unlikely as alcohol prohibition?  The only way they could get it done, even in a political environment more favorable to it at any time before or since, was to force the government to get involved.  I'm not sure why you would want to use that as an argument.

They don't have to agree intellectually... Market forces can force them to agree, that's the point. In a highly competitive environment, there will be further pressure put on employees to adjust their behaviour to that deemed desirable by the company, especially if rivals are also doing it and are shown to be successful in doing so.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I understand what you're saying, I just think it's amazingly unlikely to happen.  Governments do a much better job at banning things and altering behavior "for the greater good" than any cabal of businessmen in tall towers ever could dream of doing.

I disagree and you should disagree too given that you are a libertarian, after all aren't you the sort of people who always harp on about how efficient the free market is?

What I'm not arguing is "a conspiracy of businessmen" hypothesis, what I am arguing is that that this is an inevitable consequence of free markets- because free markets paradoxically encourage conformism towards a goal of behaviour - whatever behaviour is suitable to the market. The actual individual beliefs of businessmen are actually pretty irrelevant here (though by and large they tend to be overwhelming conservative except in some industries).

When the British empire arrived in central Africa at the end of the 19th Century they found a population that by and large was not accustomed to the western concept of "hard work". That is to say, working at a fixed set of hours, for a set wage under an employer or owner of sort. This meant that Africans were very unreliable labour for the British. Eventually they got around this problem by forcing Africans to pay tax in cash, cash they had to earn through working in mainly British owned industries and so then they could buy British owned goods. This worked and the native subsistence economy collapsed. And this is how the liberal world economy was first introduced to Anglo-Africa....*

* (Okay, yes, yes, it is something of a massive simplification - it ignores slavery and the trade in it for example - but hardly untrue. It also shows that market behaviour is itself deeply cultural and I didn't even get around to mentioning the response of Africans to the imposition of the cash economy on their own one... which could be rather varied, to say the least. Libertarians can also note the connection between this form of government imperialism and the commercial economy).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

what I am arguing is that that this is an inevitable consequence of free markets- because free markets paradoxically encourage conformism towards a goal of behaviour - whatever behaviour is suitable to the market.

I'm not seeing why that would be the case.

Please Elucidate.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Does it even matter what I say?  But ok...seems to me capitalism gives one a lot of choices.  We don't have 4 flavors and 2 brands of salad dressing, we have 34 flavors and a dozen brands. 

Is that a necessary good thing...

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I never advocated a controlled economy on the Soviet or Third-worldist type model.

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You are talking about consumption, I'm talking about behaviour.