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Libertarianism and Market Critique
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www.billmoyers.com, Questions -…
Libertarianism and Market Critique
www.billmoyers.com
The Minimal State
Libertarian theory of right: each of us has a fundamental right to liberty—the right to do whatever we want with the things we own, provided we respect other people’s rights to do the same :arrow_right: many activities of the modern state are illegitimate, and violations of liberty.
Only a minimal state—one that enforces contracts, protects private property from theft, and keeps the peace—is compatible with the libertarian theory of rights.
:no_entry: The libertarian rejects three types of policies and laws that modern states commonly enact:
- No Paternalism. Libertarians oppose laws to protect people from harming themselves.
- No Morals Legislation. Libertarians oppose using the coercive force of law to promote notions of virtue or to express the moral convictions of the majority.
- No Redistribution of Income or Wealth. The libertarian theory of rights rules out any law that requires some people to help others, including taxation for redistribution of wealth. Such help should be left up to the individual to undertake, not mandated by the government.
Do we own ourselves?
Selling Kidneys
Self-Ownership
- Libertarian's believe if they own their body, they should be able to sell their bodies anyway they want
- "Central core of the notion of a property right in X... is the right to determine what shall be done with X".
Advocates of organ sales sometimes do not accept the libertarian logic. :!!:
- The value of kidney's in the market is to help save people's lives. Therefore, if the libertarian logic is used on the notion of owing your body, then the reason for selling your kidney cou;d be because it pleases you. The peoples lives you impact would be beside the point.
Atypical Case 1
:red_cross: Should a prospective buyer of a spare kidney that is ideally healthy be able to offer $8000 to a "peasant in a developing world, because he is an "eccentric art dealer who sells human organs to affluent clients as a coffee table conversation pieces?".
- If you detest this notion, then your justification for there market would not be based on libertarian logic. The premise of unlimited property right for ones body would be false.
Atypical Case 2
For a subsistence farmer to send his son to college, he sold a kidney for money. Should he be free to sell his second kidney for his second son, even though he might die?
- Sandel illustrates that if the moral case to donate organs was up to the notion of self-ownership, the answer would be yes.
- An objection could be that a person should not have to sell their life for money, however, if the farmer truly owns his body, then he has a right to sell it.
Assisted Suicides
For libertarians, laws against assisted suicide is unjust.
- "If my life belongs to me, I should be able to give it up", especially if it a voluntary agreement.
Case for permitting suicide
- Is argued in accordance of dignity and compassion
- Terminally ill patients should be able to speed up their death, instead of suffering in pain.
Assisted suicide entangles libertarian rationale with compassion rationale. However, looking at a assisted suicide that doesn't involve a terminally ill patient helps us examine the libertarian logic by itself.
Michael Jordan's Money/Nozick's Distributive Justice Critique
- All players start with an equal base salary for the season
- Those who want to see Jordan play place $5 in a box that goes straight to Jordan
- Many want to see Michael play, by the end of the season Jordan has earned $31 million more than the other players
Two Critiques
- If income inequality is seen as unjust, intervention in a free market will be required regularly
- Taxing Jordan's income to help the less fortunate is a violation of his freedom
- Nozick see's taxation as a form of slavery, if the state takes 30% of your income, they have taken 30% of your time. They may as well of forced you to work for the state unpaid for 30% of your time
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Consensual Cannibalism
Bernd-Jurgen Brandes & Armin Meiwes
:!!: And ad posted my Miewes, seeking for someone willing to be killed and eaten, was responded by Brandes. With Brandes consent Miewes proceeded to kill Brandes and cosumed forty pounds of him :!!:
Miewes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years, however, was overturned the ruling for being too lenient and sentenced to life in prison.
Consensual cannibalism constitutes the best test for libertarian logic.
- Since its a severe form of assisted suicide, the self-ownership logic is contested.
- If the libertarian claim is correct, than its unjust to ban consensual cannibalism, and a violation of the right of liberty.
Market Critique
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Pregnancy for Pay
:baby: William and Elizabeth Stern were a professional couple who wanted a baby but couldn’t have one on their own. They contacted an infertility center that arranged “surrogate” pregnancies and they found find Mary Beth Whitehead, a woman who was willing to carry a baby to term for them in exchange for a monetary payment. But after 9 months pregnant, Mary Beth Whitehead decided she could not part with the child, and wanted to keep it.
Judge Harvey R. Sorkow, the trial judge in the “Baby M” case was not persuaded by either of these objections:
- Mary Beth’s consent somehow tainted.
- No babyselling was involved. The payment was for the service 9pregancy), not the product (baby).
However, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned Judge Sorkow:
- Mary Beth’s agreement to bear a child and surrender it at birth was not truly voluntary, because it was not fully informed. The mother is in a better position to make an informed choice after the baby was born.
- This is the sale of a child, or, at the very least, the sale of a mother’s right to her child, the only mitigating factor being that one of the purchasers is the father.
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Free Market Philosophy
:silhouette: Robert Nozick offers a philosophical defense of libertarian principles and a challenge to familiar ideas of distributive justice:
- Individuals have rights “so strong and far-reaching” that “they raise the question of what, if anything, the state may do”
- Only a minimal state, limited to enforcing contracts and protecting people against force, theft, and fraud, is justified. Any more extensive state violates persons’ rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified.
Robert argues that distributive justice depends on two requirements—justice in initial holdings:
- The first asks if the resources you used to make your money were legitimately yours in the first place.
- The second asks if you made your money either through free exchanges in the marketplace or from gifts voluntarily bestowed upon you by others.
:arrow_forward: If the answer to both questions is yes, you are entitled to what you have, and the state may not take it without your consent.
Provided no one starts out with ill-gotten gains, any distribution that results from a free market is just, however equal or unequal it turns out to be.
Questions
Should we change the way we recruit troops? Should we try to adjust the conditions in the society such as people have more an equal chance to succeed in this world so they are not as in some cases desperate to join the military :question:
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