The 'Libertarians' Who Say the Private Sector Is the Real Threat to Freedom

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PestyNomad@reddit

the classical liberals (also known as “libertarians,

I think there is both a modern and historical usage of the term "classical liberal" and the way it is used here feels all sorts of wrong.

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natermer@reddit

Libertarianism is just the modern version of Classic Liberalism.

Like the American revolution was a Liberal revolution. It was a revolt against the economic exploitation by the British crown.

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PestyNomad@reddit

I understand the premise, just explaining the confusion with its common vernacular use.

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McMaken is right to criticize Zwolinski for characterizing mere denial of service or employment as "private aggression," but also fails to address the core of Zwolinski's article, the distinction between a constraint based vs goal oriented notion of liberty. Instead, he points to each of Zwolinski's examples, simply states that they're not real coercion, and moves on.

I think the fact is that Zwolinski is right that a legitimate branch of libertarianism emphasizes a positive view of liberty as more fundamental than opposition to the state and McMaken is correct that it's being anti-state that defines libertarianism. There are plenty of non-libertarian social liberals, conservatives, and socialists who are able to wax poetically about liberty exactly because they value the positive version of the concept that Zwolinski does while disagreeing with him on the descriptive questions of whether constraining the state in many cases supports that liberty. So being "pro-liberty" isn't enough. Hayek wasn't a libertarian because he believed in liberty and wanted to maximize it, Hayek was a libertarian because he drew a wide variety of anti-state conclusions in pursuing that liberty.

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xEvanna456x@reddit

Impostor libertarians

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PM_ME_DNA@reddit

Lolberts

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rampants@reddit

Corporations can wield coercive power both independently and through their influence on government. Perfectly libertarian to understand and reject this.

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OffWalrusCargo@reddit

Exactly someone crushing the liberties of others government or private are tyrants, end of story. If you don't believe this you are likely anarco-capitalist not libertarian.

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Gabeeb3DS@reddit

libertariansc an ancaps or minarchist milton freidoman types

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OffWalrusCargo@reddit

Typos?

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JohnnyHendo@reddit

They should have put a colon after the word "two."

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natermer@reddit

Corporations wouldn't exist without the state. This is by definition. Corporations are created through civil law.

Before 1899 it required special legislation to create business corporations. They were made for a specific purpose and had a specific lifespan. Meaning that corporations were dissolved after a certain time limit.

Modern business corporations are "General Corporations" and this didn't exist until 1899 when Delaware passed the first general corporation law.

Prior to that businesses were mostly privately owned and established through common law. Things like private property and contract law. They didn't register with the government, they were not corporations, they paid the same taxes everybody else did.

Which means that big public corporations are a 20th century phenomena.

The meaningful difference between a public corporation and private business is that public corporation strips ownership from having most of its meaning. Instead public corporations are ran by bureaucrats and custodians appointed to run the business. They operate under strict corporate law and can't do whatever they want like a private owner would.

For example a private business owner can take a stand against government or make a moral judgement that would reduce the profitability of his business. Such behavior is technically illegal for a CEO.

Of course there is a ton of law and details around this how board of directors work and "whales" in the stock market and buy up public corporations and privatize them or have a degree of control, but for the average person buying stock ownership has very little actual meaning.

This is all a product of Progressive ideology. It is all part and parcel of rise of the Wilsonian Administrative State, founding of the Federal Reserve, debt-based currency and the highly regulated financial markets.

It is all, by design, intended to produce these large public corporations.

It is all very messy, very haphazard and is something that occurred over decades of transformation, but the Administrative State is nothing without public corporations. They are two sides of the same regulatory coin.

It is impractical, for a variety of reasons, for the central state to go and and try to control the lives of each individual in a place like America. It would cost too much, require too much manpower, and would counter too much political resistance.

So instead of that they have ensure that public corporations dominate the economic life of Americans.

And, thus, through regulating corporations they regulate you.

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DanTheAdequate@reddit

A bit disingenuous to pretend the private sector is all mom and pops.

Corporations are ultimately extensions of the state: you can't create a legal person without a legal system to enforce it's rights and protect it's constituent officers, members, and shareholders from liability.