
Introspection: Libertarianism - CMartucci
http://whatblag.com/2011/10/01/introspection-libertarianism/
======
tzs
Speaking of Libertarianism, I'm curious what the HN Libertarians think of
Murray Rothbard. Based on what Wikipedia says, and what I've seen from
occasionally reading of /r/libertarian on Reddit, he seems to be a major
Libertarian theoretician with a significant number of followers.

In his book "The Ethics of Liberty" he says some things that I find hard to
believe that, frankly, anyone who is not mentally ill could consider
acceptable for a government and legal system in a civilized society, so I'm
looking to get some other opinions. Is Rothbard really a respected Libertarian
thinker, or are his followers just a small subset of Libertarians who happen
to be quite vocal (kind of like the Tea Party for Republicans)?

In particular, see chapter 14, "Children and Rights", available online here:
[http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=e407b9ac-8791-4e1e-b23f-6...](http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=e407b9ac-8791-4e1e-b23f-6b06c70c8e9d)

He applies the basic libertarian principles of self-ownership and non-
interference in property rights to determine what is proper law in regard to
children. He reaches the interesting conclusion that the law shouldn't
distinguish between children who are not born and children who are born,
concluding that the extreme pro-choice conclusion he reaches on abortion (that
it should be allowed at any time) must also apply _AFTER_ birth, with the only
change occurring at birth being that the parents can no longer actively kill
the child. They can let the kid starve if they wish, or decline to provide
clothing and shelter. (He does say that _morally_ this isn't good, but it
wouldn't happen often because under Libertarianism there would be a free
market in children and so the parents would sell the kid rather than let it
starve).

Note that the child has the right to leave, so if parents say to their 10 year
old, "We aren't going to provide for you any more", the parents cannot stop
the child from leaving. You might wonder how a 10 year old who leaves is going
to earn a living, but under Rothbard's system there would be no child labor
laws. On those, he criticizes them because they have "systematically forcibly
prevented children from entering the labor force, thereby privileging their
adult competitors" (yup...child labor laws oppress children). (And of course
prostitution would always be an option...Libertarianism, at least as envision
by Rothbard, it seems to me would be a paradise for those who like their sex
partners young, plentiful, and inexpensive).

------
civilian
Very little meat in this post. Also-- the freedom to sexually mutilate young
women is a horrible example, because anyone doing that would be violating her
right to life & liberty.

libertarians want government to stop force & fraud, and that's it.

~~~
CMartucci
But this whole "liberty" concept confuses me. Can't we just say it's a bad
example because we'd be violating her right to life? Because when we bring
liberty into the picture, we are in fact saying that her liberty is more
important than the persecutor's liberty. So it's not really liberty that has
the final say, but life. And then, even if we say that, its not always the
case that violating the right to life is ALWAYS bad (think trolley example).
So I think "consequentialism" suffices.

