It’s amusing to see a libertarian suggesting that it’s probably good for the few to suffer for the sake of the many.
Eh. There are two camps in libertarianism: the moral libertarians, and the technical libertarians. The moral libertarians derive their policies from principles- force is wrong, taxation implies the threat of force, and thus we need to build a society without taxation if we want to live in a moral society.
The technical libertarians derive their policies from economic arguments and history. It doesn’t matter whether you think it’s moral or immoral to lend money for profit- let’s look at societies which allow that and societies which don’t, and see which ones prosper more, and apply theoretical principles to expect which should be the case.
And so the atheist moral libertarian looks at gay marriage, and says something along the lines of “the state shouldn’t be involved in marriage at all!” or, if you’re lucky, “the state should recognize a marriage contract between any two consenting adults!”. (The Christian moral libertarian probably thinks that gay marriage is wrong for the standard Christian reasons.) The technical libertarian, though, will be willing to ask about the tradeoffs involved- sure, allowing gay marriage makes gays happier (and, if the institution of marriage alters their sexual practices, probably healthier too), but what does it do to the rest of society? When the little boy breaks a glass window, the glazier is happier too, but we need to consider both the seen and the unseen.
Which is what I thought the article was mostly about- libertarians are very quick to jump to complicated and far-seeing analyses for economic issues, and are sometimes reluctant to do them for social issues. But if you’re a libertarian because you think it’s what history and theory tell us will be best, then when considering what will be best on another issue, perhaps you should apply some history and theory!
Eh. There are two camps in libertarianism: the moral libertarians, and the technical libertarians. The moral libertarians derive their policies from principles- force is wrong, taxation implies the threat of force, and thus we need to build a society without taxation if we want to live in a moral society.
The technical libertarians derive their policies from economic arguments and history. It doesn’t matter whether you think it’s moral or immoral to lend money for profit- let’s look at societies which allow that and societies which don’t, and see which ones prosper more, and apply theoretical principles to expect which should be the case.
And so the atheist moral libertarian looks at gay marriage, and says something along the lines of “the state shouldn’t be involved in marriage at all!” or, if you’re lucky, “the state should recognize a marriage contract between any two consenting adults!”. (The Christian moral libertarian probably thinks that gay marriage is wrong for the standard Christian reasons.) The technical libertarian, though, will be willing to ask about the tradeoffs involved- sure, allowing gay marriage makes gays happier (and, if the institution of marriage alters their sexual practices, probably healthier too), but what does it do to the rest of society? When the little boy breaks a glass window, the glazier is happier too, but we need to consider both the seen and the unseen.
Which is what I thought the article was mostly about- libertarians are very quick to jump to complicated and far-seeing analyses for economic issues, and are sometimes reluctant to do them for social issues. But if you’re a libertarian because you think it’s what history and theory tell us will be best, then when considering what will be best on another issue, perhaps you should apply some history and theory!