Continuing from arguments of utilitarianism, Sandel moves to the antithesis in Libertarianism citing Robert Nozick (1) throughout. The main arguments in part 1:
Libertarian Government:
No one harmed, no one's rights violated
1) No paternalistic legislation ex car seat belt
2) No morals legislation ex gay marriage
3) No redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, as this is a type of coercion which violates the fundamental Libertarian Principle of Self-Possession (2).
No one harmed, no one's rights violated
1) No paternalistic legislation ex car seat belt
2) No morals legislation ex gay marriage
3) No redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, as this is a type of coercion which violates the fundamental Libertarian Principle of Self-Possession (2).
What does this government look like?
Can have limited govt for (per Nozick) "what everybody needs, natl defense, police, judicial to enforce contracts + prop rights, but that's it"
Self Possession chain of reasoning to slavery
Nozick's argument against taxation: "taking of earnings" any form of taxation essentially forced labor = slavery principle of self-possession therefore utilitarianism is false ipso facto.
part 2
Can have limited govt for (per Nozick) "what everybody needs, natl defense, police, judicial to enforce contracts + prop rights, but that's it"
Self Possession chain of reasoning to slavery
Nozick's argument against taxation: "taking of earnings" any form of taxation essentially forced labor = slavery principle of self-possession therefore utilitarianism is false ipso facto.
part 2
Objections to Libertarianism
1) The poor need the money more
2) Taxation by consent of the governed is NOT coerced
3) The successful owe a debt to society
4) Luck is involved in success
The exotic-looking girl puts it well, "... because I live in a society I cannot [kill another as this would be a logic end of self-possession]... it's self possession to an extent because I have to take into account I live in a society and there are people around me."
Sandel obviously himself, while attempting to remain impartial, is for this kind of re-distributive taxation or at least against Libertarianism.
When listening to the arguments and assumptions for Libertarianism, I find the idea to be just as fantastical as socialism yet more appealing to the average idiot because it has a subtext of anti-government, anti-establishment and appeal to selfishness which in my experience works very well on the average person. It's difficult to make a set of two or three assumptions by which man is supposed to live and then have a society expand on those assumptions, but in this case clearly the assumption of self-possession as an absolutism is absurd. And I'm not sure if I'm mis-understanding it, but it would seem to treat commerce itself as something different than I see it. Let's not romanticize the average person; while certain rights should necessarily be maintained, no one in a stable state of mind would think that the lone ant is not part of a larger community in the ant colony and as unpalatable as it is to say, we are all slaves to that community to some extent but hopefully we benefit more than we lose by being a part of it.
1) Nozick wiki access 5/19/11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nozick
2) Self-ownership access 5/20/11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership
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As an aside to this conversation however, at no point did anyone address the economic system itself. Redistributive tax in my opinion is also a "barrier against the peasants revolting" to some extent. Poverty breeds crime and crime is instability and instability leads to revolt(ution). It's like David Simon says in that interview with Moyers, we don't need 10-15% of society and so they can remain unemployed or involved in illegal enterprise. I think someone somewhere is keeping track of the percentage of people we don't need, realizing that if it ever becomes too high that there's a risk to the entire system itself.
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