Libertarianism is a strange ideology in that its adherants present almost utopia-like visions of what the world would be with their system in place, and yet can offer no real examples in the world or at any time in history where Libertarianism in "pure form" has ever existed to demonstrate that their claims are true.
The Libertarian ideology has much in common with Anarchy- it is opposed to "government intervention" in mostly every form. In Anarchy of course, there is no government, and what you get is a system where the strong thrive and the weak perish. Libertarianism however, allows for a very limited form of government, where people voluntarily pay for this government to exist and set some basic laws aimed at protecting people from "force and fraud", enforcing these laws using a police force and military.
It is important to note that taxes under a Libertarian system are voluntary. Central to the Libertarian argument is the idea that "taxes are theft" and that the government has no right to take your money if you do not choose to give it.
So if the government stops collecting taxes then how does it provide things like schools, hospitals, roads ect? The answer is, under Libertarianism - it simply doesn't. Everything gets privatised.
There is confusion as to whether Libertarianism is to be defined as a Left Wing or Right Wing ideology. Many Libertarians will reject the "Anarchy" label.
This is strange because lets suppose under their system people voluntarily decide NOT to pay any taxes- how then can the government afford to provide a military or police force if it has no money? There is no use in setting laws if there is no means to enforce them, therefor this system would be no different to anarchy.
This scenareo is hardly unlikely. Libertarians constantly complain about taxation and yet they expect once the system they support comes into practice, suddenly these very same people will all start VOLUNTEERING to pay taxes to the government!
Libertarianism can be an attractive ideology because it is (at first glance) seen to be a consistent ideology- it supports non-government intervention in both economic AND social matters whereas other ideologies are a mixture of different ideas. However this consistency falls apart when one realises that in a debate on any given issue, the biggest division is not between Libertarians and non-Libertarians, but amoungst Libertarians themselves who seem to endlessly bicker.
Debate and discussion with Libertarians is something that personally I have found to be frustrating. The ideology is very rigid. Basically it is Libertarians Vs. the world- if you support anything other than Libertarianism, you are a supporter of "big government fascism" or you are a "communist" or whatever.
Ultimately I find the problem with Libertarianism is that it does not mesh with reality. Libertarianism talks a lot about "individualism" and how there is no such thing as society. Libertarians "just want to be left alone" from "government intrusion" ect. Yet the reality is, we all live and interact with other people all the time and have to function in wider society.
The assumption behind Libertarianism is that government action = loss of freedom.
Actually, I think there are plenty of instances where lack of government action has equaled a lack of freedom and plenty of examples where government action has enhanced rather than diminised peoples opportunity, freedom and safety.
Libertarians do not believe in Democracy- which they loosely define as majority rule, because they consider it to be a form of "tyranny" and at risk of the "majority" making bad decisions. A free market system, Libertarians argue, is much more responsive to peoples needs. Under a free market system, we vote with our money. We have the power to "take our business elsewhere" if we do not get our needs met. Since businesses must make a profit to survive, it is argued that businesses will yield to peoples demands.
I think there are two things to be said about this argument. The first is that on the one hand, Libertarians oppose "majority rule", but at the same time they support a system which essentially is "majority rule" anyway. Think about it. A business is going to become bigger and more dominant the more people buy their products. That doesn't mean to say the majority of people are making rational decisions. The products being purchased might be bad for them or bad for the environment ect. But if it's what lots of people are buying- then that business becomes bigger and more dominant. On other hand, if only a small number of people demand a certain product, there is going to obviously be a much smaller market. So the whole market is shaped around "majority choice".
The second thing to be said about this is that if we vote with our money, then this clearly is not "fair", since some have a lot more money than others, and consiquently a lot more power to shape the market.
Libertarians are extremely selective when promoting their ideology. They will say "look at this country, it has higher living standards - this is due to it having Libertarian charactaristics and if it were only even MORE libertarian, it would have even higher living standards!".
They will then point to "government intervention" as being to blame for virtually every social and economic problem in existance.
The reality is, many countries in the world today have a mixed economy consisting of both private and public and Libertarians are simply trying to attribute everything positive to their ideology and everything negative to "government intrusion"- and yet they ignore many achievements of government intervention and ignore the many failiures of the "laissez faire capitalist markets".
This blame game is very ironic because Libertarians often speak of how they consider "taking responsibility" to be a very important attribute.
I have personally come to reject the ideology of Libertarianism because I feel that if it were put into practice in the real world, it would basically result in Anarchy - where the most ruthless in society end up controlling everything at the expense of everyone else.
