You could argue that both pretend to escape politics: liberalism via its commitment to proceduralism (by pretending that every substantive dispute can be reduced to a procedural one) and libertarianism in the manner that you describe.
Well said. You're trying to be polite and circumspect, which is fair. But honestly libertarianism doesn't deserve it. It's a transparently stupid account of humanity with near zero relation to reality. A social species has organization and institutions. That is a simple fact. Politics is the word we give to how we go about deciding who has the power and in what forms to decide how to shape and operate those organizations and institutions. Political-economic philosophy pretending that is ignorable is like physics pretending one of the four nuclear forces is ignorable. It's just nonsense. An elaborate theology of bullshit.
This post takes the distinctions between “public” / “shared” and “political” / “non-political” as obvious. But this ignores much of the controversy.
What is impossible is the elimination of necessarily shared resources and some process by which the participants decide how such resources may be used, and on what terms. But libertarians do not demand that resources never be shared or that only property rights be used to determine how resources are used. In fact, they claim that sharing and the processes for controlling shared resources on a decentralized basis will tend to give better results than the alternative. A critic should be careful in pointing out the differences that motivate the alternative approaches and what makes them superior, not make vague claims about “ending politics” that could be interpreted as “ending sharing.”
Many libertarians might agree that “politics” refers exclusively to the business of the state, and so “office politics” and similar uses of the word are mere metaphors. But using that approach requires one to discuss the distinction between sharing via the state and sharing via other means. The post proceeds as if libertarians expect all such business to cease when “politics” ceases. The critic should show how libertarian proposals prevent or discourage beneficial activities or encourage detrimental ones.
There are many criticisms that libertarians need to respond to. But talking about the end of politics just seems like handwaving without some further details.
You could argue that both pretend to escape politics: liberalism via its commitment to proceduralism (by pretending that every substantive dispute can be reduced to a procedural one) and libertarianism in the manner that you describe.
Well said. You're trying to be polite and circumspect, which is fair. But honestly libertarianism doesn't deserve it. It's a transparently stupid account of humanity with near zero relation to reality. A social species has organization and institutions. That is a simple fact. Politics is the word we give to how we go about deciding who has the power and in what forms to decide how to shape and operate those organizations and institutions. Political-economic philosophy pretending that is ignorable is like physics pretending one of the four nuclear forces is ignorable. It's just nonsense. An elaborate theology of bullshit.
This post takes the distinctions between “public” / “shared” and “political” / “non-political” as obvious. But this ignores much of the controversy.
What is impossible is the elimination of necessarily shared resources and some process by which the participants decide how such resources may be used, and on what terms. But libertarians do not demand that resources never be shared or that only property rights be used to determine how resources are used. In fact, they claim that sharing and the processes for controlling shared resources on a decentralized basis will tend to give better results than the alternative. A critic should be careful in pointing out the differences that motivate the alternative approaches and what makes them superior, not make vague claims about “ending politics” that could be interpreted as “ending sharing.”
Many libertarians might agree that “politics” refers exclusively to the business of the state, and so “office politics” and similar uses of the word are mere metaphors. But using that approach requires one to discuss the distinction between sharing via the state and sharing via other means. The post proceeds as if libertarians expect all such business to cease when “politics” ceases. The critic should show how libertarian proposals prevent or discourage beneficial activities or encourage detrimental ones.
There are many criticisms that libertarians need to respond to. But talking about the end of politics just seems like handwaving without some further details.