My second criticism of libertarianism is still valid and hasn’t been confuted to my satisfaction. Although criticism can apply to applied to other political philosophies too so it isn’t specific to libertarianism; for instance, I (and “we” would also be an appropriate pronoun) doubt that the political parties in the US are even aware of our “problems” and that they have the proper incentives or capabilities to address them.

I use a number of pseudonyms on blogs and I never enthusiastically endorse “Keynesianism” although I do believe in state interventionism. Regarding time horizons, many people are not capable of having a long term time horizon even for events constrained to the near future. The personal benefits for long term thinking are naturally constrained to a person’s expected lifetime although this can be extended to the lifetime of their first or second generation posterity since most people are interested in passing on their genes to the next generation. I cited the “Maes-Garreau Law” before when discussing optimism and time horizons. To rephrase this objection using some hyperbole: does the libertarianism offer profoundly exceptional event like a “technological singularity” within our lifetimes or just lower taxes?

I doubt our moral philosophies are even congruent since my objections are delivered from a consequentialist utilitarian perspective while the majority of commentors and Mike seem to be natural rights libertarians.

“I became a philosophical conservative, with a strong libertarian streak.”

As for me, I run a social democratic main deck with a paleoconservative (I am sympathetic to paleocons such as Paul Craig Roberts, Pat Buchanan, and Kevin MacDonald) side deck

Libertarianism and anarchism are more about the recognition that political engineering of “pragmatic” solutions to alleviate human suffering is just what you mentioned: a utopian vision. Unfortunately other ideologies are given WAY too much credit for simply “attempting” this without actually achieving results.

Whether particular ideas “appeal” to vast numbers of people or not is not very interesting to me. I’m more interested in whether the ideas are true and accord with principles of justice, human dignity, and individual rights.

As far as time horizons go, we are living in Keynes’ disastrous “long run” which the refusal to consider long-term consequences eventually produces. And I don’t agree that people will always and inevitably gravitate to ideologies promising short-term comfort. If no one had ever been willing to suffer short-term pain for the sake of long-term benefit, human beings would still be scraping out a meager existence on the African savanna.

If that what you are saying, I have to say that I completely disagree. What about large companies? Just voluntary action there. And because society is hierarchical, we don’t all need to know one another - the management of an auto company doesn’t need a relationship with the laborers in a steel company that supplies them, just with its management.

I do agree with you here, however: “I do not see how a “libertarian” government is sustainable even if we do fervently agree to the ends of libertarianism; it is inevitable that it would be hijacked by special interests for personal gain by using their market power (even if acquired justly in a Nozickian way) to convert their economic power into political power.”

That is always the problem with any government — economic power or the power of numbers leads to unjust use of the government’s monopoly on force.

I do think that a constitutional republic based on non-intervention and self-responsibility is the best government. Charles is right — though it was never perfect and has been under attack from the start, the US truly is one of history’s success stories.

I am not presenting these ideas as unequivocal fact, but offering them as tentative hypotheses. If someone has a better explanation (or an equally appealing alternative hypothesis) for why human cranial capacity expanded, then I am open to such suggestions.

I am going to repost this about my criticism against libertarianism. To say concisely, libertarianism does not have much to offer: it does not offer an infeasible utopian vision, nor does it even attempt to solve any real problems and alleviate human suffering in a pragmatic fashion. For example, look as Mish’s blog: a major theme is that he is against “high wage employment” because it does not reflect its “value” in the free market. Since most people deem low wages, foreign competition, and unemployment as problems, Mish’s libertarian ethos would not appeal to most people nor does it solve any real problems on a time horizon where most people would see a significant benefit.

One reason that I am not a libertarian is that it lacks on manifestation of a positive vision: what does a world of “liberty” would look like? Surely, it would not be a utopian paradise, but I do not such a vision solving any of the real maladies of the world (no I am not thinking about global warming here). If we regard economic liberty as sacrosanct, I suppose the ideal outcome would be Hong Kong as it has the highest “Economic Freedom” rating (conducted by the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation) but it is not clear how most people would benefit since that country has a high gini coefficient meaning that people would still be in poverty since prosperity did not “trickle down”. In other posts, you made the argument that libertarianism and limited government lead to technological advancement by correlating the advances of the Industrial Revolution with limited government environment. Even if we do accept a casual relationship, another question we have to ask is how long will it take for great progress to come to fruition? Remember, people usually discount the future for the present, and in order to convince people you have to make the predictions of progress fall into the Maes-Garreau Point i.e within our lifetimes. (Wiki “Maes-Garreau Law”: it is a law that optimistic futurists make optimistic predictions that would happen within their lifetimes. For example, Ray Kurzweil predicts the Singularity will happen in 2045; he probably would not live this long with existing medical technology, but he thinks that intermediate medical advances will allow him to live long enough to see it.) I might concede that social democratic countries are less innovative than the US; but they are good bicyclists behind the slipstream of the innovator taking their innovations and using them to stay at a close second.

But my main point is that I do not see how a libertarian nation would be superior to a social democratic ethically homogeneous country with moderate intelligence (if we believe the work of Richard Lynn). I do not see how a “libertarian” government is sustainable even if we do fervently agree to the ends of libertarianism; it is inevitable that it would be hijacked by special interests for personal gain by using their market power (even if acquired justly in a Nozickian way) to convert their economic power into political power.

I agree also that the best we as individuals can do is to structure our lives for minimal involvement with the state, and to just learn to live with those predations that are inevitable. If your goal is a harmonious and healthy life, you can’t fight history too hard. Writing anonymously is about all I’m willing to do — that and writing checks to Ron Paul and the Mises Institute.