Assimilation is not a dirty word
In 1968 identifiable federal government spending on indigenous affairs was $10 million. In 2004, this figure was nearly $3 billion. Even taking inflation into account the increase has been tremendous. Despite this additional spending – brought about by political parties out-bidding the other during election campaigns – we have not seen the drastic improvements needed in indigenous health, education and housing.
In the meantime, substance abuse and sexual violence has continued. With such massive amounts of money being spent on indigenous affairs, Helen Hughes and Jenness Warin suggest (PDF file) the funds are not reaching their intended destination. But as with all aid monies the effects have been minute when compared with what the market system could have achieved. The market encourages self-sufficiency, whereas aid encourages dependence.
I don’t advocate forced assimilation. However, Aborigines in remote communities should be given the opportunity to choose to assimilate or integrate, just as immigrants do. The present system makes voluntary assimilation difficult, although the numerous indigenous people migrating to towns and cities indicates there is demand. Such indigenous migrants do not seem to value cultural retention as highly as commentators like Mick Dodson and Diana McCarthy.
All Aborigines should live under the same type of system as everyone else. Once those in remote communities are given freehold title, it would be feasible to move quickly and eliminate the different policies for Aborigines and begin treating them like ordinary Australians.
An important strength of integration, as opposed to separatism, is the sharing of cultural and other knowledge between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. This has the potential to lead to greater mutual understanding and would benefit all Australians.
The Liberal Democratic Party is inviting suggestions for indigenous policy here.
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“The Liberal Democratic Party is inviting suggestions for indigenous policy here.”
There shouldn’t be one. There’s no Italian policy no Greek policy and no newly arrivied young Brit policy
All indig policies ought need to be closed down within a period of 5 years after which the gravy train stops and there will no such thing as indig policy.
After the LDP is voted in, wage rates will be market determined anyway so indig shouldn’t have problem finding work.
It goes without saying that native title should be immediately done away with and individuals be give title for the land from the core to the heavens….which i may add is far more ownership than the white fella gets.
In general, there should be no indigenous policy. People have rights because they are human beings, not because of their biological race. Even where the rights are welfare rights, the criterion of entitlement should be need, for example glaucoma or low literacy, rather than Aboriginality itself.
Race-based rights pressuppose that Aboriginal people are either intrinsically inferior, congenitally pathetic and unable to compete on an equal basis with their fellow human beings, or the opposite: that they enjoy some kind of moral superiority, a natural aristocracy, based necessarily on their genetic inheritance. It must be one or the other; otherwise there would be no objection to the principle of equal rights, which indigenous policy violates at ever turn.
Five seconds’ reflection shows that race-based rights are so obviously bad in principle, and inconsistent with human dignity and rights, that it is a wonder such a vast program of institutionalised failure and junketing ever saw the light of day.
However, there are real issues of justice outstanding in respect of Aboriginal people. The first is to come to terms with the question: what happened to the property rights of the Aboriginal people? Until Mabo’s case, it was generally assumed that they were extinguished by Cook’s annexation of Australia to the British Crown. Mabo’s case held that British settlement did not extinguish the pre-existing native title to land; though later inconsistent enactments did.
It is hard to see how libertarians could countenance the wholesale confiscation without compensation of the property rights of the prior owners, and their heirs.
Intervening history has hopelessly confused and muddled matters in the meantime. Yet a perpetuation of race-based welfare rights and community title, encouraging a culture of dependent helplessness and crying victimhood, is not the answer. The libertarian policy should be to settle outstanding claims by a final financial settlement, just as with other claims to damages at law.
The other outstanding issue is the so-called stolen generations. Whatever the similar wrongs to other peoples in the same time, the fact is, the forced removal of children and destruction of Aboriginal families by the state, indulging in social engineering, was a program of serious human rights abuses on a large scale. It continues to seriously affect Aboriginal families today, because of the original abuse of destroying families, the disruption of identity, the institutionalisation of the removees, and the damaging consequences.
Again, libertarian policy should be the same as with other civil wrongs. Outstanding claims should be rendered in damages and paid out once, finally and forever.
The entire Aboriginal portfolio should then be abolished.
A friend of mine took up a position in Darwin hospital last year. Some of the stories she tells me about aboriginal health are very despairing. It is not uncommon to see aborigines in their 30’s with multiple end stage diseases.
We keep hearing a lot about the terrible health problems confronting aborigines and typically these problems are seen as our failing. Yet as my friend suggested, if aborigines wish to retain their traditional lifestyle then it is going to come at costs and one of those is that there is no way they can expect to achieve the health outcomes of the general populaton. I even suggested to my friend that surely providing vitamin and nutrient supplements would help but she said they won’t even take these. There was also a recent report indicating high levels of cadmium in turtles and dugongs, traditional foods of aborigines. Cadmium is a dangerous heavy metal and given the very high rate of kidney disease one just has to wonder. Yet even in this report the researchers did not advocate abandoning eating these foods, possibly because any “attack” on traditional lifestyles is typically perceived as racist.
You should put aside questions of racism and traditional lifestyles. We should focus on the consequences of cultural and individual choices. If people choose to live in certain ways then they choose the benefits and risks associated with those ways.
I agree. A step in this direction is the proposed removal of the permit system in remote communities. This system makes it more difficult for business and the media to enter remote communities and understand what really happens in these areas. It is only fair that the common law action of trespass be left to protect Aborigines, just as it protects all other Australians.
It is only fair that the common law action of trespass be left to protect Aborigines, just as it protects all other Australians.
Common law trespass is only available to those with property rights. That would not be true in the case of aboriginal “communities”. So the first step, as you have suggested, is to convert the title over property in aboriginal communiites to freehold.
However, that won’t be enough. There is an assumption that those in communities will continue to live in the traditional communal/tribal manner (plus grog, petrol sniffing etc in many cases). That assumption needs to be challenged. Those who choose to live like living fossils can do so, but I think it is reasonable to assume most want to live like Australians generally. The policy needs to reflect that.
The reason they live like that is largely systemic. There seems to be little productive work in remote communities and nor can aborigines create something entrepreneurial using their intricate knowledge of the bush, because all they’re expected to do is hunt, fish and gather. No real property rights, no sense of secureness that other Australians enjoy. Expecting them to pack up and move is easy to say, but I think giving them property rights and a sense of secureness would be a decent start while they get to the point of moving to the cities and towns and then integrating.
The jobs they get are menial and created by aborigine focussed government programs and aren’t real private sector jobs that lead to good career outcomes. Predictably, idleness rots the brain and a whole range of social ills ensue. And then we have politicians like Mal Brough blaming customary law instead of blaming the culture of dependence created by the government’s own programs!
The LDP policy shouldn’t subsidise their rural lifestyles, but it shouldn’t deny them a sense of ownership and the opportunity to prosper through freehold title. Who knows? There could be untapped tourist potential that Aborigines are best placed to capitalise on. Something needs to be done in the interim to get entire communities productive and moving, and land rights is the best way to do this.
It is hard to see how libertarians could countenance the wholesale confiscation without compensation of the property rights of the prior owners, and their heirs.
This is a common argument based on European notions of property. I question whether it is valid.
The aborigines were hunter gatherers. They did not “occupy” land, they harvested food from large areas, moving camp frequently depending on hunting success. While the land had symbolic significance, it was no more than you would expect from living off the land and an oral history.
To ascribe property rights to the land based on that is equivalent to giving property rights to fishers. Fishers can take fish from an area of the sea (that area being defined in terms of agreements with neighbours, etc), moving from location to location according to catch success, with no title created in the area of sea even when it has continued for generations.
The reality is, the aborigines did not “own” the land prior to European settlement. They relied on it for survival. That is the logic behind the Native Title concept and it’s valid as far as it goes.
The trouble is, Native Title is of no practical value. It freezes aborigines in time, as living fossils. It does not integrate them into the community.
I don’t think justice for aborigines depends on paying compensation for lost property. It requires an assumption that aborigines are individuals like everyone else, who want the best for themselves and their children and will pursue it when it seems like the most reasonable thing to do.
Present day aborigines should not be given compensation in monetary form. It has to stop somewhere. Otherwise, a lot of us could trace back our roots and go demand our land back just because our ancestors were once kicked off the land during barbaric times. In fact, that’s the main problem with adamantly fighting historical wrongs when it’s the present and future that is of main concern. Take the Israel/Palestine situation for example.
The only reason I suggest giving aborigines land is not because it’s compensation, but because it is in our present and future self-interest.
David,
Your analogy with fishers is interesting. However if I was to declare large tracts of ocean as now being my private property (where no such property title existed before) would there not be a case for compensation?
Regards,
Terje.
if I was to declare large tracts of ocean as now being my private property (where no such property title existed before) would there not be a case for compensation?
You could not “declare” the ocean to be your private property. Private property only exists if it is acknowledged by others and can be defended (by law or otherwise).
I seem to recall that property rights have been assigned to coastal fisheries in some countries (including New Zealand) in recognition of cultural links, but not over the ocean itself. Australia has declared a large area of the Southern Ocean a whale sanctuary, but other countries (particularly Japan) do not recognise it. That’s a long way from claiming a property right. Obviously, no compensation is possible in such cases.
Sukrit said: Present day aborigines should not be given compensation in monetary form. It has to stop somewhere. Otherwise, a lot of us could trace back our roots and go demand our land back just because our ancestors were once kicked off the land during barbaric times.
It does stop somewhere Sukrit. Common law (ie following Mabo’s case) does not grant land rights to Aborigines because they are Aborigines. Only a small sub-set of the total population of people who are descended in whole or part from the Aboriginal race, are eligible for native title land rights at common law. They have to demonstrate a continuing connection with the land, such as preserves the original incidents of native title. This in effect excludes most of today’s population that is otherwise categorised as ‘Aboriginal’ in law. It is similar to the situation with non-Aboriginals. For example, my family were dispossessed of their traditional tribal lands in Scotland by the English. It is known when it happened – 1745, which was less than 50 years before the first English dispossession of Australian Aborigines. So it’s not all that long ago. I have been there and visited the glen, which I was told about by my father, who was told about it by his father. But I don’t think my claim would stand up under the common law of native title a la Mabo’s case, because the dispossession has prevented us from exercising the incidents of tenure.
So it is not true that all of us, having come from somewhere else, could raise a native title to land by that fact alone. In fact, native title is recognised in only quite limited circumstances, which do not apply to most people, including Aborigines.
As to John’s point about the Aborigines being hunter gatherers not ‘owing’ the land, I don’ t think that can be sustained. Obviously their use of the land was different. Our land law came from feudal tenures; theirs from nomadic hunting and gathering. But given their different use of the land, I can’t see why, in principle, notions of property or of law should not apply. Why not? So they used it in a less intensive, more nomadic way – so what? Why does that disqualify them from the name of property? If their usages did not have the character of law, I can’t see how ours could be in any better position. Liberty is based on opposing ‘might is right’.
If they used the land and defended the land they I would think they have a case for claiming that it was property.
Justins account of his ancestral lands in Scotland is a good one and I think it brings some clarity to this issue. In terms of native title co-existing with freehold title I believe there are also some British precedents in terms of ancestoral trade routes in England that cross private land and have continued to be used as a right of way in an unbroken tradition since antiquity. In fact many English people recognise the need to use it or lose it and organise regular scrambling to ensure that the right of access continues. I am not entirely sure about the rights of access that used to be afforded to fox hunters but these also seem to follow similar common law rights of passage.
JC,
Giving title from the core to the heavens seems silly. A more reasonable suggestion would be to transfer all mineral rights from the state to the land owners. Access to the core can be on a first come first served basis. And the same for satellite slots.
Regards,
Terje.
p.s. Does the LDP have a position on mineral rights?
Does the LDP have a position on mineral rights?
No. All policies are on the web here: http://www.ldp.org.au/federal/policies/index.html
Warning:
When I enter into this territory I typically am accused of racism.
Justin said,
Race-based rights pressuppose that Aboriginal people are either intrinsically inferior, congenitally pathetic and unable to compete on an equal basis with their fellow human beings, or the opposite: that they enjoy some kind of moral superiority, a natural aristocracy, based necessarily on their genetic inheritance. It must be one or the other; otherwise there would be no objection to the principle of equal rights, which indigenous policy violates at ever turn.
—
Aborigines are niether intrinsically inferior or congentially pathetic, these are cultural statements not scientific ones. However, aborigines are different.
1.
Aborgines are the most genetically isolated of all humans, circa 60,000 years with very limited contact via PNG and Timor in the last 10,000 years and no definitive evidence of gene mixing arising therefrom. Anthropologists regularly distinguish the aboriginal phenotype from other types. If we’re all ” biologically equal” (stupid concept), explain that.
2.
Aborigines consistently score lower on standardised tests, their scores being similiar to sub Saharan Africans. There are many confounders here, childhood environment and nutrition being critical (I could write pages about the importance of childhood nutrition on cerebral maturation but that’s another story). Nonetheless, after all is said and done, it does appear that over time there are distinctive differences. Forget about that “we’re all genetically equal” nonsense, it is predicated on silly ideas about genetic homogeneity and effect. In any event the FDA has recently approved a blood pressure medication specifically for African American because of genetic differences that make a big difference in treatment. It is becoming a contentious issue because modern medicine is finding that different ethnic groups do require differing approaches to medical treatment.
3.
Race is a cultural concept, not a biological one. The qualities of a particular person do not impact on their humanity. This is an important point and one people are prone to forget. To dismiss people as inferior because they look different, have different beliefs, are less intelligent etc, is nothing but disgraceful and stupid arrogance. If I adopted that attitude, I would rate most of modern humanity as being little more than homo habilis. Compared to me most people are incredibly ignorant, I am consistently surprised at how much people don’t know.
4.
Aborigines are not a homogeneous group, there are significant sub-divisions within the same but because of the political climate this is rarely mentioned.
5.
An example of prominent cerebral difference. In a 1995 study in Brain Research it was established that aborigines have remarkably large visual cortices, twice the size of the average caucasian. People often assert this is because of the nomadic lifestyle etc and it is environmental not genetic. This argument is false but I’m not going to address it here. In addition, the study found that this effect was more pronounced in a sub-division of aborigines.
Visual acuity is also striking in sub Saharan Africans, the Tuskagee airmen were a good example of this and if you’ve ever wondered by aborigines can excel in some sports now you have some idea.
Another striking example of visual superiority in aborigines comes from WA. A teacher of aboriginal teenagers noted that they were incredibly good at realistic natural setting painting(note: not aboriginal style, just your typical Western naturalism). He took some of these paintings to WA Uni but no-one there would believe that teenage aborigines could produce such remarkable paintings. The paintings were incredible. This accords well with autopsy studies of painters which found enlarged visual cortices and greater connections therein. This is a generic principle of cerebral dynamics, the more you use a skill the larger the relevant cortical areas become and also increase in dendritic density. Visual acuity, typically perceived as being just a function of the eye, has a great deal to do with the maturation of the primary visual cortex and in relation to aborigines I suspect the “dorsal visual pathway” is also distinctly different. However, it is very hard to make the argument that these differences are environmentally driven.
6.
Aborigines experience extremely high rates of degenerative diseases. A friend of mine works at Darwin hospital and she related to me how aborigines regularly show up there with end stage multiple organ diseases at ages 30-50, when typically with Caucasians this happens in the 70’s. Nearly 50% of aborigines are either on dialysis or have big kidney problems. The reasons for this remain obscure. Diabetes is rampant, this is typically attributed to the mysterious “thrifty” gene. Again, a big confounder here is nutrition (eg. turtles and dugongs, favourite traditional foods, have very high levels of cadmium, which is very bad, particularly for kidneys). However, I’m still inclined to believe there is a genetic component here.
7.
I think it was Nugget McCoombs who suggested that aborigines are so different from us that integration will never be fully possible. I believe this is true and it does present profound problems about how we address the aboriginal problem.
8
Aboriginal politics is dominated by the Left, in my opinions their views are as loony as those from the Right. Both wings are mired in prejudices and unscientific speculations. To see how much this influences our attitudes one only has to compare the way Australian anthropologists write about aborigines and the way overseas anthropologists write.
9
One of the most persistent and stupid mistakes people make when look at statistical studies is to make the presumption that because study A found that peoples’ B show these traits ipso facto all indvidiauls within that group share that trait. A statistical study only makes valid statements about the group, it cannot make valid statements about a individual within that group.
10.
I have absolutely no doubt that aborigines can live fulfilling and productive lives but these will be different from Caucasians. Improving childhood education, nutrition, and environment will have profound effects on aboriginal health and general ability. The recent ruckus about children abuse in aboriginal communities is deeply disturbing because research makes it abundantly clear that childhood abuse has great potential to induce cerebral, endocrine, and immunological abnormalities that can plague the individual for the rest of their life. This is not a “psychological problem”, I regard the distinction between this category and “physiological problems” are spurious, misguided, and a ghost of dualism. Until such time as we can find a way to encourage aborigines to put the same effort into raising children as the West has done (in my opinion this is one of the greatest strengths of Western civilisation) aborigines will never realise their full potential and be free of many of the problems that beset them.
11.
In regard to Native Title, this has been a big con. The “noble savage” myth has dominated, there has been a persistent refusal to acknowledge that the real problems of aborigines are cultural and health, not loss of land. I don’t have a problem with aborigines wanting to claim ownership of some land, given our disgusting past treatment of aborigines they deserve some recompense for our ancestors’ sins, but I do not think that land rights in themselves will ever make a significant impact on the real problems besetting aborigines.
12
Until aborigines recognise that their future lies in their children nothing will improve. Nothing improves an indivdual’s prospects more than a wonderful childhood.
Dead Soul,
To be a racist means treating people a certain way on the basis of their race rather than on the basis of their merits as an individual. The fact that you observe particular group traits in one race of people does not in my view make you a racist.
However it is not entirely clear to me whether you are for or against race based rights. Whether you are making a claim that different races require different laws or whether you are merely sharing insights that are of a more general nature. Anybody with eyesight can observe that there are differences between aborigines and irish or chinese people. The question is whether the law should apply differently.
Regards,
Terje.
Dead Soul
Your observations make a lot of sense to me. I suggest you pay a visit to Steve Sailer’s site. He’s very interested in and writes on a lot of this stuff
I don’t see the point in running down Steve Sailer. He is obviously right on a lot of counts despite being an obsessive. Our very own Steve Edwards is not far removed and I know that Jason doesn’t dismiss him as easily.
Who was dissing Sailer? Did the comment get removed because I don’t see it?
Yeah Sailer is a bit of an obsessive and policy wise I agree with him on very little. But he’s good value intellectually.
Terje said
Whether you are making a claim that different races require different laws or whether you are merely sharing insights that are of a more general nature. Anybody with eyesight can observe that there are differences between aborigines and irish or chinese people. The question is whether the law should apply differently.
–
Just more my general thoughts Terje, I’m certainly not well enough formed to move from these observations to the practical implications. In my view the problem isn’t strictly a legal one, it is a cultural one but you raise an important legal issue: should we treat people differently under the law. My natural preference is towards “No”.
As Noel Pearson has so eloquently elaborated upon, the “special rights” given to aborigines and the excessive welfare have done little if anything to help their plight. In any event I don’t see that anything in my post indicates that aborigines needed to be treated differently in the legal realm. I think where this has occurred, as in NT, it has created more problems than it solved.
So no, I’m not for race based rights. The fact that aborigines are different from us does not mean they need special treatment. The differences in your average aborigine, with the caveat that they did have a good childhood and adult circumstances, are not that significant as to justify any special treatment. The differences would accord well with the differences we see in sub populations amongst Caucasians. Our society offers ample opportunities for well raised aborigines to be productive and find meaningful employment. And in spite of my previous comments I have no doubt many aborigines could excel in many professions.
I got a bit carried away with that post, probably because for most of adult life I have looked on the aboriginal problems as being hopelessly mired in Left\Right dichotomies and mythology. It is a terrible terrible thing to see so many children living in such dire straits that such high numbers of them will go on to have all sorts of problems.
which
Aborigional policy in this country is a vindication in the main of the old saying, The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Not all intentions have been good, going back to the early colonial era, when some settlers tried to exterminate them. I remember my great-grandfather talking of his childhood on a property well out of town, with aborigional children as his only playmates.
Some of these involved putting hunting parties off their trail. From him I learned a great respect for them. Sadly he died when I was very young,and I sometimes wonder what his advice would be for the current situation.
Sadly,while our intentions have in the main been good, we have always seemed to stuff it up,through paternalism, following social scientists pet theories, profligate throwing of money,with no proper checking of results, political footballism, or failure to analise what the problem is in the first place.
Two points that have been mentioned above, have aroused my interest:- that of isolation from the gene pool, and a “thrifty gene”, (which I have not heard of before)
I have believed for some time, that living in genetic isolation for over 10,000 years in a harsh environment, has probably resulted in a population which is geneticaly adapted to such conditions, through survival of the fittest, with the attendant problem of possibly not being adapted to the western diet, which took over very quickly, and would explain a high diabetes rate and so on.
I am not a geneticist, just a practical guy, whose line of work has placed me in close contact with these people over many years.
I should point out that none of us is adapted to the rapid cultural change to fast as well as easy pre prepared foods of doubtful value, which is causing an epidemic of obesity,with attendant health problems, in the mainstream population, so I do not consider the above comments as racist.
Private property rights are essential as there is little incentive for people to respect land which is communaly owned, or persue enteprenurial activities, on it.
Where health, social, or other problems exist, they should be properly and scientificaly investigated,and solutions sought.
The current system seems designed to build beaureucratic empires on the backs of the people,with a vested interest in advertising their own importance, seeking greater authority, more money.etc despite a consistent lack of results.
To have departments dedicated to paticular ethnic groups is in itself a racist concept.
Funny how quickly you lot have dropped your commitment to private property when its black peoples’ property being taken away. As usual the semantic cowboys have ridden in to redefine property in a way that suits them – apparently according to another thread, libertarians don’t care how individuals use their property, but in this thread we find that when Aborigines use their property for a nomadic existence it is no longer property. Neat trick, that.
Flash,
Who or what are you referring to?
Regards,
Terje.
Terje, here are examples.
Denial of land ownership:
Terra nullius, anyone?
Denial of compensation for lost land:
Along with these ideas comes, surprise surprise, the idea that Aboriginal people shouldn’t get “Special Treatment”. Of course, this is a euphemism: everyone else (that is, everyone who recognises the existence of a thing called “society”) recognises that special treatment in this case is (an attempt to provide) justice for past wrongs. I would suggest that libertarians posting on this website see justice as a useful mechanism for preventing theft of property, but ascribe it no intrinsic moral value. To most posters here, I would guess, the Crimes Act has the same moral weight as the Trade Practices Act. As a consequence you can’t understand the difference between special treatment and an attempt to achieve a just redress for past wrongs. You confuse compensation with (oh god! dread! Shock horror!) government largesse. As if Aboriginal people in remote communities are somehow the same as middle class Vaucluse women getting a baby bonus.
With this failure to understand the real and symbolic importance of the quest for justice, you can create false dichotomies like this:
ignoring the third possibility, that race-based rights presuppose that Aboriginal people need compensation for past wrongs.
It’s a short step from this kind of ridiculous straw man to the idea that historical government policy towards Aborigines was “well-meaning” but mistaken, which at least one comment suggests. This of course ignores the stated aim of early Australian colonists to exterminate Aboriginal people.
But of course all of this is irrelevant because of “intervening history” muddying the waters (oh it certainly has!) – so Aborigines have lost their land (which some of you think they never really owned), and within libertarian ideology’s straitjacket you cannot extend rights to someone who owns nothing, unless it be by means of compensation – which you have conveniently chosen to deride as special treatment.
Terra nullius
Terra nullis had nothing to do with the occupation and conversion of Australia from a populated land without nationhood to crown land with the vestiges of state. It is a modern concept that in no way influenced the British and subsequent colonialists in their policy regarding aboriginals. For reference, try Keith Windshuttle’s The Fabrication of Aboriginal History.
The aboriginals at the time of original British settlement of Australia were not British subjects, and therefore were afforded few rights, especially since they had no recognised Government in which to defend such rights. Once Britain had established soveriegnity both in letter of the law and in practical exercise of soveriegnity, they did become British subjects and subsequently Australian subjects, but not full citizens until the 1967 referendum. This is a point of law, not morality. The law at the time did not consider that they owned the land, they held no title and they did not defend (successfully) any claim to the land that they may have felt themselves.
Property rights of a nature may have existed under Aboriginal culture and customary law, but these were so primitive so as not to be able to withstand occupation by 1373 First Fleet settlers, or be recognisable to the new comers. Aboriginals would abandon land at a whim, would leave physical property like tools unattended and undefended and were unable to mount more than a nuisance level of opposition to settlers’ actions. Any sort of coordinated action may well have overwhelmed the First Fleeters, but this did not happen. Is it moral to ascribe Western concepts of property on people who do not share that concept? Is it moral to judge our ancestors who acted within their morals and within their law? The best we can do is act within our morals, and compensation for acts we ourselves would consider if we commited them immoral or illegal, would not be an obligation.
What a surprise that I should read references to the arch-faker, Windshuttle, darling of the dispossessive right, on a libertarian blog. Semantic cowboys must love arguments about sources, I am sure.
How unsurprising as well to read, on a libertarian blog, a whole paragraph defending the notion that might is right and whoever has the greater power is entitled to the land…
“They weren’t using it as we would, and they couldn’t defend it, so we didn’t really steal it.” It’s the sort of argument the rest of us gave up in preschool. As for the question of whether it is moral to ascribe western concepts of property on people who do not share that concept … well, I suppose it would be if one believes one should do unto others as one would want done to oneself. I don’t think there is a great deal of evidence of this particular aspect of morality in action on the early frontier.
These are perfect examples of a “semantic cowboy” at work. Halfweeg has redefined land use as it suits him (they weren’t using it the way I would), he has redefined morality to suggest that the only moral course was for the first fleeters to ignore their own morality and apply the (supposed) native system of ethics (conveniently allowing them to steal all the land in the process); he has redefined all the history of the struggle between Aborigines and whites to the moment of the First fleet (because surely if the entire Aboriginal nation had ganged up on those 1373 first fleeters everything would be different); and through it all he assumes some fluffy morality on the part of the invaders, so that if only they could have seen some legal systems at work, or been given some indication of Aboriginal land ownership, they wouldn’t have accidentally run around rampantly stealing everything in sight. Witness the Windshuttle Libertarian History Department at work.
As for the question of whether it is moral to ascribe western concepts of property on people who do not share that concept … well, I suppose it would be if one believes one should do unto others as one would want done to oneself.
I think I made it obvious that I was talking in retrospect. Applying modern concepts of morality and law onto historical events is not a useful way to analyse the events. Using modern morals is lazy, and takes events out of context.
“They weren’t using it as we would, and they couldn’t defend it, so we didn’t really steal it.”
Land use has everything to do with it. What ever links to the land the aboriginals had were not recognisable to the settlers as exercising property rights as they knew or understood them.
Halfweeg has redefined land use as it suits him (they weren’t using it the way I would), he has redefined morality to suggest that the only moral course was for the first fleeters to ignore their own morality and apply the (supposed) native system of ethics (conveniently allowing them to steal all the land in the process)
The British did think they were superior to the Aboriginals, and they would have based this on several factors, such as religion, technology, lack of government and not least to mention race. They saw it as their moral right, even obligation, to spread civilisation and their right to make use of land in a way that they considered the most profitable. The fact that Aboriginals did not seem to profit from their civilising influence, only lowered their opinion of them.
redefined all the history of the struggle between Aborigines and whites to the moment of the First fleet (because surely if the entire Aboriginal nation had ganged up on those 1373 first fleeters everything would be different)
No it wouldn’t be different, because the Aboriginals were unable to organise because they didn’t have the means (organisational, technological) to defend themselves. They still would have been overwhelmed by superior force, however the outcomes may have been different if their society was more developed with regards to recognition of property rights. There were no treaties with Aboriginals because there were no tribal chiefs with sufficient authority to make treaties as there were in New Zealand and North America, there were no Aboriginal Wars like the Indian Wars in the USA, as there was no organised threat.
We are talking about history, not present day events. I can’t change what happened in the past, but I can state that I am opposed to government actions that interfere in individual’s lives today. Thus I feel it would be better for the state to keep out of Aboriginal’s lives as well and let them get on with finding their own place in the world.
Halfweeg, are you suggesting with this:
that the early settlers had no morality to apply to the question of others’ land? That despite their experiences in Polynesia and America, white people had not come to recognise that there was a general native resistance to the taking of land, that that land was held in common use by those natives, and that there was a moral question as to how these disagreements should be treated? Because if so you show breathtaking ignorance. At the time of the settlement of Australia there was much debate as to how to respond to the moral question of land ownership, and it was well within the moral framework of the settlers of the time to recognise Aboriginal ownership of the land and do something within the moral framework of the times to credit it. A treaty entered into voluntarily, for example. That the settlers did not do this merely indicates that they were ignoring the finer points of morality being made clear to them at the time. This was the point of my making mention of the principal of “doing unto others…” The settlers ignored this principal because it was convenient to do so, and they did not want to recognise the evidence of their senses and the forceful argument of the times, that Aborigines were people too.
As a consequence of the settlers’ willingness to ignore their own morality (the morality of the time), land was stolen from Aborigines and given to whites. Later, Aborigines worked on that land and were not paid; later still, Aboriginal children were stolen from their parents and handed to white families as servants or, in some cases, slaves. Through these processes, white Australians today are wealthier than they would otherwise be. This is theft. As libertarians, your Aboriginal policy should include redress where possible for this theft. Instead, you spend a lot of breath trying to justify the theft – or claim that there was no theft by primary school sleight of hand -, pretend that Victorians had no morals, argue that history has muddied the waters, and ignore the relationship between modern Australian wealth (particularly farming and mineral wealth) and past Australian immorality.
And for your last sleight of hand, you represent the compensation as “government interference” in Aboriginal lives. I’m sure that there are Aborigines in the community who could very clearly describe what constitutes “government interference”, and they would not be referring to just restitution of their land or compensation for its loss.
What about all the white people who suffered under the laws and morality of Imperial Britain? Specifically, those convicts who were transported to Australia and robbed of all their possessions for crimes that would not even rate a fine nowadays?
Should we pay reparations to them too?
The 1800’s were like the dark ages compared to today. Lots of people were wronged by nasty governments and organisations. Not all of them were black.
Paying reparations for dastardly deeds that occurred 150-200 years ago would simply be a neverending cycle of monetary transfers and would result in massive amounts of dead-weight loss.
I still like the idea of following the US model and granting crown lands to Aboriginal groups, and allowing them the freedom from state and federal law that the US system allows.
This way the aboriginal groups involved could actually make real money for themselves, rather than warm fuzzy feelings (by building casinos, uranium mines, theme parks or what have you) and hopefully lift themselves out of poverty in a much more rapid fashion than could be accomplished by any government program.
Applying modern concepts of morality and law onto historical events is not a useful way to analyse the events. Using modern morals is lazy, and takes events out of context.
This statement has nothing to do with whether the settlers upheld their own morals or not, but on current analysis of historical events analysing those events in the context of modern morality. If Libertarian thought was as developed in the 19th century as it is today, Libertarians would have been opposed to the dispossession of aboriginals, not because of property rights, but because dispossession would represent an initiation of force against them. However, that was not the case, and it is pointless to analyse the event in such a framework. My philosophy is about making the future brighter and freer for everyone, not about redressing historical events, whether they were perceived as injustices then (but ignored) or re-analysed as injustices in modern times.
I’m sure that there are Aborigines in the community who could very clearly describe what constitutes “government interference”, and they would not be referring to just restitution of their land or compensation for its loss.
Nothing the state has done with respect to Aboriginals has resulted in a net benefit for them. If we are going to talk about government programmes to improve their lives or for the purposes of restitution (of the case for which I am not convinced), the onus must be on the people proposing the government intervention. Giving free title to crown land to current living aboriginal individuals has some merit from a utilitarian perspective, at least this would give current Aboriginals and their descendents an economic base from which to begin. This could be a least worst solution, as any injustice to other Australians from an allocation of land to aboriginals would be offset by the benefits that ownership of land would ultimately have, even if this takes a few generations to realise. Crown land is a wasted resource, better it be owned by someone, anyone.
I still like the idea of following the US model and granting crown lands to Aboriginal groups, and allowing them the freedom from state and federal law that the US system allows.
I’m not sure, but I think it only frees them from state taxation and duties, Federal law and taxation apply. Plus gambling in Indian reservations is controlled by Federal legislation.
I think individual title would be better, but this may be difficult to administer, since not all land is equal. Perhaps settlements could be given to individuals and title to non-settled crown land be given to Tribal corporations and shares issued to current individuals. Caveats on share ownership could possibly mean that the board must approve to whom shares can be sold to or transferred to by will and testament. The company could dispose of land any way they see fit (including selling it), and only be subject to corporations law.
Crown land in states is subject to state law and federal law, only crown land in the territories is subject to only Federal law. There is no one Crown, and land must be transferred to the Federal government from the State for Federal use for airports, military bases etc. It also comprises something like half the nation’s land, including Crown land leased to individuals and companies.
As discussed on the LDP blog, some land was granted to Aboriginal groups by Wran in NSW, but not having individual transferable shares in the real estate made this ineffective.
Transferable individual rights for all members of groups of traditional owners granted land rights – which should be freehold.
Halfweeg said:
This blog opposes public health, the minimum wage, unions, any curbing of private property rights, capital gains tax, and income tax. Its commenters support the taking of property from indigenous people by the law of might is right, and wish to return to an aboriginal policy of “assimilation”. It seems to me that all the policies described here are very much those of the 19th century, and generally the less enlightened half. Perhaps what you meant to say was
He then said:
which just confirms my point above: libertarians cannot distinguish between a legal framework for protecting property and a legal framework for punishing wrongdoing, i.e. for achieving justice.
“It seems to me that all the policies described here are very much those of the 19th century, and generally the less enlightened half. ”
Please show a net benefit ever created by public health, minimum wages or favouring any party by default in contract law….
Public goods arguments, indeterminancy of wages and class struggle…so 19th century. Foisted on the masses by elites who should have known better.
“libertarians cannot distinguish between a legal framework for protecting property and a legal framework for punishing wrongdoing, i.e. for achieving justice.”
How do you protect property let alone enforce contracts of there is no mechanism for remedy such as damages, equitable remedies or criminal sanctions?
Its commenters support the taking of property from indigenous people by the law of might is right
I don’t think you’ll find one single Libertarian that would support current government action that disposses any individual (aboriginal or otherwise) from their property in modern Australia. What happened in the past cannot be undone by further injustice today – or do you advocate forcibly removing assets from one group of Australians to transfer to another set of Australians? This is what financial compensation represents. Why should current Australians compensate the descendents of people there ancestors wronged and that if they were alive then (and had the benefit of 21st century understanding) may well have opposed?
No matter what you say, I am not going to feel guilty about what a bunch of people did 100, 200 a thousand years before I was born, whether they were related to me or not, whether I personally benefited or not. Perhaps I should commit suicide, since if Hitler hadn’t invaded Holland, my grandparents never would have met – because I benefited from the Second World War through my very existence, should I not therefore, under your logic, feel guilt associated with the Third Reich? What about Australians who have only recently migrated, the South Vietnamese boat people of the late 70s and 80s for instance, should they be blaimed for benefiting from the actions of previous British and Australian rulers of this land?
Talk about utilitarian solutions to raising the living standards of Aboriginals, but don’t try to sell me a guilt trip, I refuse to buy a ticket.
I said nothing about guilt. How does talk about justice, redress and compensation imply guilt? I simply pointed out that past government policy benefitted one group of currently existing people over another. That is, an identifiable group (not a random sample of the population, as Yobbo suggests with his straw man argument about general cruelties 150 years ago). The South Vietnamese boat people will just have to suffer the loss of a little bit of their income because that`s what people in society do – sometimes we have to wear a loss that isn`t our fault in order to maintain this thing called society.
The problem here is that libertarianism has no answer to the situation as it stands. Historically, a group collectively owned land. They were dispossessed o that land collectively by another social group, and as a consequence are collectively disadvantaged. Because libertarianism refuses to recognise the role of the collective, you have no better answer to the problem than to say that you (and it is you, libertarians being mostly white and middle class) shouldn`t be held accountable for something your government did 100 years ago, even though you (and it is you, libertarians being mostly white and middle class) benefit collectively from those actions. And because you don`t understand the concept of justice, you can`t comprehend that redressing current inequalities is important. Therefore you set up a group in society who will always be disadvantaged (especially since economically you want to get rid of all forms of tax which might shift income from those who own capital to those who don`t). This is a political philosophy best described as callous, pitiless and self-defeating.
(And, interestingly, whose adherents always seem to end up parroting the language of the far right – isn`t that interesting in a supposedly independent political philosophy?)
The problem here is that libertarianism has no answer to the situation as it stands.
What’s your solution then? Both Yobbo and I have proposed handing freehold title to unoccupied crown land to either individuals or groups of individuals, giving Aboriginals back the land that was taken.
Come on, give us your best ideas, then. If you want to talk about past injustices and not worry about the future wellbeing, so be it. Like I’ve said before, I’m more interested in the future than the past. Saying sorry and handing over welfare payments will not provide Aboriginals with a solid foundation for future prosperity.
you have no better answer to the problem than to say that you (and it is you, libertarians being mostly white and middle class) shouldn`t be held accountable for something your government did 100 years ago, even though you (and it is you, libertarians being mostly white and middle class) benefit collectively from those actions
I cannot be held accountable for being born, let alone being born of Northern European heritage and into the middle class. I cannot, ipso facto, be accountable for actions that I had no role in – the sins of the father are not passed onto the son.
Therefore you set up a group in society who will always be disadvantaged
Libertarians had nothing to do with the subjugation of Aboriginals, and neither do we work to actively keep them second class citizens. Inequality is a fact of life, however we do beleive that a freer society would be the best way for Aboriginals to raise their lot in life.
And, interestingly, whose adherents always seem to end up parroting the language of the far right – isn`t that interesting in a supposedly independent political philosophy?
If you don’t understand the difference between advocating absolute freedom and fascism, I can’t help you, nobody on this forum can help you.
Your solution might work if the valuable land had not already been stolen, and if the collectively dispossessed group didn’t want the land back collectively. Redress and compensation means not just handing back the discarded land, but finding a way to hand back to Aboriginal people the valuable land which they cannot now get access to because it is being farmed or mined or (like property in Western NSW) is locked up in special title which has probably now extinguished any title Aboriginal people can claim.
If you cannot hand back stolen land, then the obvious answer is compensation, which could of course be paid for by earnings from the confiscated land. Fortunately the government has lots of earnings from that confiscated land, in the form of company tax paid by mining companies on profits earned from the stolen land. I think you can see where this line of logic is going … and it’s counter to everything your ideology supports, since you claim that taking money from people who made their money on stolen land is itself theft. By some wierd libertarian logic, no doubt.
Of course, the issue of how to deliver this compensation successfully to Aborigines is an entirely different one, which the rest of society mostly looks at as one of good governance, rather than constructing some fetish about how government always fails to deliver decent services.
So, the broad outline of an idea might be: ask some Aboriginal people what to do (and fyi, that means more than your anti-welfare mate Noel); sign a treaty which recognises compensation; say sorry; offer compensation to individuals whose lives were wrecked by forcible abduction under child removal policies; and provide funds to rural Aboriginal communities (not necessarily under the umbrella of compensation) to build the kind of basic services which government has always happily provided to white people. For example, sewerage, public housing and clean water. It may surprise you to know that the clean drinking water you currently enjoy is not a product of private investment, and that it is not always available to Aboriginal people simply because they are black.
You might also like to try cataloguing the supposed welfare services which Aborigines get which you don’t have access to. You might be surprised by how limited they actually are. Then you could ask yourself if they really make a big difference, given what society is up against in trying to redress past injustices. And all the while without feeling any guilt, since as you say you weren’t responsible for any of it. Think of it as having a whip around to buy back something which Hugh Morgan’s grandpappy stole from that Black chap down the road – is that more of the kind of language you libertarians understand?
As for the difference between absolute freedom and fascism, I understand it – doesn’t mean I think one is any better than the other. And it doesn’t mean that when you discuss certain issues you sound any different.
So, the broad outline of an idea might be: ask some Aboriginal people what to do (and fyi, that means more than your anti-welfare mate Noel); sign a treaty which recognises compensation; say sorry; offer compensation to individuals whose lives were wrecked by forcible abduction under child removal policies; and provide funds to rural Aboriginal communities (not necessarily under the umbrella of compensation) to build the kind of basic services which government has always happily provided to white people.
So more welfare is your solution, more of the same sort of programmes that have already been tried and shown little success. We did have a Aboriginal council once, it was called ATSIC, run by Aboriginals, elected by Aboriginals, paid for by Australian taxpayers, but that didn’t seem to have much success, did it? Corruption, child abusing council leaders, money intended for aboriginals ending up in lawyer’s coffers chasing Mabo and Stolen Generation law suits. That all worked great, didn’t it?
Sorry, you’ll have to do better and present a more comprehensive reason why free title is worse than wishy washy Native Title and welfare dependence.
You might also like to try cataloguing the supposed welfare services which Aborigines get which you don’t have access to. You might be surprised by how limited they actually are.
I don’t want access to any welfare services, and I don’t want Aboriginals to have access to welfare services either. You can’t get fairer or more equal than that.
Think of it as having a whip around to buy back something which Hugh Morgan’s grandpappy stole from that Black chap down the road – is that more of the kind of language you libertarians understand?
That would be fine, since it would be voluntary. No problem with voluntary charity.
You missed my point about good governance, moving on (as predicted) to fetishize government and collective action as the source of the problem. As with all right wing arguments, yours also completely fails to draw the connection between welfare-based solutions to these kinds of problems and the failure of living standards in Aboriginal communities. Instead you use the latest buzzword, “welfare dependence” – news for you Halfweeg, welfare isn’t a drug and any attempt to use the language of addiction is just cheap grandstanding.
You can, Halfweeg. Give individuals who start with less, more assistance to achieve the same goals. That is what makes people equal. You prefer a society where people without capital or resources are consistently beaten to the good things of life by those with those resources. In this case, resources stolen by past generations. Social democracy attempts to rein in this kind of inequality, without resorting to the inefficient and patronising method of the voluntary charity you libertarians love.
God, is there any problem for which you don’t have a solution straight from 1850?
Flash — if you get the chance, watch this video to see some of the reasons for the negative characterisation of welfare.
Social democracy attempts to rein in this kind of inequality, without resorting to the inefficient and patronising method of the voluntary charity you libertarians love.
Charity may well be inefficient, it may even be patronising, but no more so than “sit down money”, and at least charity has the one redeeming feature of being voluntary.
Any way, I’ve gone way OT on this discussion, I shall no more.
Why shouldn’t it be patronising? When people line up at Centrelink what do you think they are doing? They are begging. Begging takes away one’s dignity and provides an incentive to get off welfare, unless the poor (excluding long-term disabled, etc) actually begin to think they are entitled to taxpayer money.
Dole recipients should be reminded that they are nothing more than beggars and that ‘welfare’ is the politically correct term used to describe this.
Some taxpayer funded alms are needed to maintain a humane society. The trick is reducing government welfare to the essentials and letting private charity take care of the rest.
Sukrit, I know all about welfare and the reasons for characterising it negatively. Your characterisations are unreasonable, however. I have paid taxes, if I lose my job or leave my job, I have the right to go down to the welfare office and collect my dole. I wouldn’t recommend calling such a person a beggar in their earshot if I were you. I’m sure if you found yourself on hard times you would very quickly change your tune about welfare – and wouldn’t appreciate being patronised while you do it.
yet another solution from the Victorian era. If it’s been shown to be cruel and inhumane and ineffective, you guys are all for it aren’t you?
If it’s been shown to be cruel and inhumane and ineffective, you guys are all for it aren’t you?
It is pointless having a discussion with you, since you clearly have nothing to constructive to contribute. If you have an argument against libertarian thought that consists more than a simple characture of eveil money grabbing capitalists, like some sort of money bags cartoon, then it might be worth discussing them with you. But all you seem to have is bluster and bullshit.
“If it’s been shown to be cruel and inhumane and ineffective, you guys are all for it aren’t you?”
What are you bloody talking about – Government based welfare is associated with generational poverty, for a number of reasons, including poverty traps and so on.
Who do the poor get Christmas hampers from, and who do they get counselling from? Which system is better at resettling refugees? Which system imposes regressive income, excise and import tariffs on them?
Who’s advocating socilaism? Who’s advocating ideas from the 1850s that simply don’t work?
So many myths about welfare in two tiny little posts. My argument against libertarianism is about much more than evil money-grabbing capitalists, who at least value society. No, libertarianism is a more base ideology than that, asserting as it does that there is no such thing as society.
As for the idea that government-based welfare is associated wtih generational poverty, has it occurred to you Mr. Hill that this might be because poverty is generational, and that perhaps in societies with decent welfare systems poor people are less trapped than in those with none?
You quote poverty traps but you know full well that these are a consequence of a particular welfare system, not welfare generally. They can be engineered away, and the difficulties of escaping poverty in a society without a minimum wage are well known.
And Christmas hampers – now that`s surely the best way to beat a poverty trap. In any case, these services were not provided so extensively by churches and other charities until recently, when competition was opened up between public and private providers of welfare. Witness the staggering failure of Job Network as an example of your much-vaunted private charities falling on their arses.
I think you are confused because you know what the propblem is but reject a rational solution because you are tied to a socilist agenda. Part of the way to actually get rid of poverty traps is to get rid of minimum wages as part of a negative income tax.
Welfare does cause dependency and generational poverty.
Cases in point:
1. Aboriginal welfare since 1967.
2. A five-fold increase in the proportion of society on DSP since its inception, despite better medical care and better safety equipment.
3. The savings patterns of long term welfare recipients.
The best way to get around this is to give them both a choice not to be on welfare (rather than giving them perverse incentives to stay on welfare) and not to price their labour out of the market. Finally, ending regressive taxation of their income vis a vis income taxes and excise taxes will help their disposable incomes and thus general welfare and utility.
“Witness the staggering failure of Job Network as an example of your much-vaunted private charities falling on their arses.”
Government, not market failure.
Job network is a very bad system. Subsidies to HR firms who give those on the dole a job – the Government subsidises the recruitment of the unemployed, or more correctly, those who qualify as unemployed over all else.
Again, does the Government give any disadvantgaed people the same level of support and actual care private charities do?
It used to, but in any case this is not its job. Its job is to prevent people from falling below a certain level of poverty.
Your argument regarding not pricing poor people out of the labour market sounds seductively sensible, until you consider the consequences – that wages drop so low that people cannot live on them, and because welfare has to be lower than the minimum wage, people are forced into poverty. The minimum wage is based on this fundamental idea – that capitalism will have to adapt its economies to ensure that when it employs someone it does not exploit them so brutally that they cannot feed, clothe and house themselves. Everywhere where the minimum wage does not exist, this class of people do exist, and they usually cannot leave this class. You cannot pretend this dos not happen – all you can do is claim that it is for their own good, or that they deserve it, or produce the ludicrous solution of assuming that if they work harder they will get ahead.
all you can do is claim that it is for their own good, or that they deserve it, or produce the ludicrous solution of assuming that if they work harder they will get ahead.
Nobody claims anything of the sort. You are the one being ludicrous. Libertarians do not presume to know what is best for anyone. They let them make their own choices. You, by contrast, think you are entitled to interfere.
No minimum wage in conjunction with a negative income tax would prevent poverty and enable anyone who wants to earn more to keep most of it. Currently, the poor lose most of what they earn.
capitalism will have to adapt its economies to ensure that when it employs someone it does not exploit them so brutally that they cannot feed, clothe and house themselves.
Fiddlesticks. Not that I expect you to understand, but work is a matter of choice which most people gladly make. It increases dignity and economic well-being.
Not only that, but the proletariat aspires to become the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie employ people by choice and must pay them sufficient that they choose a particular employer. Quite a few of the proletariat then become capitalists themselves and employ others, by choice.
I imagine you are pretty familiar with such terms.
You obviously have never been offered work for less than you can earn to feed and clothe yourself – dignity is not so important then, and increased economic wellbeing only possible against the alternative of homelessness or starvation. You probably even think that this kind of employment practice is a distant memory in the West, and therefore not something we need to concern ourselves about. It is not a distant memory, and would become more widespread if the system we have now were to be changed to that which you want.
And how is my statement “fiddlesticks”? Are you suggesting that when a minimum wage is fixed by government, capitalism doesn`t have to adapt itself to ensure that when it employs someone it does not exploit them so brutally that they cannot feed, clothe and house themselves? If not, what is capitalism doing in Australia now? Failing to adapt? Doesn`t look like it to me.
why do you have a political party then? You think that a society without government interference is best for everyone. Therefore, you think that having no minimum wage is best for everyone, because those on the bottom will have to work their way up. In fact you state what you think “everyone” does: “aspires to become the bourgeoisie”. You want policies which support that aspiration. It just so happens that people who aspire simply to work with dignity and live their lives, not necessarily always competing for the best job and to get ahead, will be pushed to the bottom in your society by those who aspire. You claim this is their “choice”, and thus are able to pretend that your ideology is morally neutral and avoid the ugly reality that the “bottom” in your society is a nasty place.
The LDP exists for the same reason defence lawyers exist. The argument for freedom deserves good advocates. The voters do not need to accept the arguments but it would be a tragedy if freedom was rejected merely because nobody ever bothered to advovate for it. In any case an argument that people should make their own choices freely in life and take responsibility for the outcome is not telling other people what to do.
You obviously have never been offered work for less than you can earn to feed and clothe yourself – dignity is not so important then
It’s not a matter of what I have or have not done, it’s a matter of choice. If I wish to accept a job for low pay, who are you to stop me? In any case, homelessness and starvation are not the only alternatives.
if the system we have now were to be changed to that which you want
I doubt if you even know what system we want. Most of your assertions above on that are simply false. You keep repeating them, which is why everyone else has given up on you.
Are you suggesting that when a minimum wage is fixed by government, capitalism doesn`t have to adapt itself to ensure that when it employs someone it does not exploit them so brutally that they cannot feed, clothe and house themselves?
Capitalism adapts by only employing those that contribute to a business return. Those who could be profitably employed at lower rates (assuming they choose to be employed) are left without work and lose their dignity. That’s the system you are advocating.
It just so happens that people who aspire simply to work with dignity and live their lives, not necessarily always competing for the best job and to get ahead, will be pushed to the bottom in your society by those who aspire.
Ah, so you dislike aspiration? Interesting. Perhaps you think all wages should be the same irrespective of your job or how hard you work? That would avoid any risk of being pushed to the bottom. Everyone would be there.
the “bottom” in your society is a nasty place
Do you know what negative income tax is?
Redneck employs the distorted language of choice again. He also assumes that I don’t like aspiration, simply because I pointed out what would happen in your competitive world. It’s all about dichotomies for you lot isn’t it?
Your negative income tax won’t make the world a happier place while you are busily gutting public services, public health and public education. But I suppose it would be altogether unaspirational to hope to be able to send your children to school for a reasonable fee, get your healthcare at a reasonable cost, and be able to choose your mode of transport, wouldn’t it? And to be able to get them into university even though you were only earning the minimum wage.
But maybe there’s a better phrase for that kind of aspiration: wanting what the quality have decided you don’t deserve.
You forgot to note that the minimum wage would be zero. So it is highly unlikely that anybody would work for the minimum wage (except volunteers who already can and do work for zero anyway).
Your negative income tax won’t make the world a happier place while you are busily gutting public services, public health and public education.
Happiness is a matter of choice, not a government responsibility.
How about education vouchers as a way of ensuring your children can go to school?
How about being able to choose your own health insurance, with the type of cover you need, as a way of ensuring your healthcare is affordable?
How about a tertiary education system reliant on benefactors and student fees, competing for students on the basis of teaching excellence, career prospects, fees and philanthropy? (Similar to the US system.)
All of these are libertarian policies, with not a public servant in sight.
But you are not listening, are you?
Why do you guys even bother? There are more productive ways to spend your time than arguing with retards. If you want to do that go to Indymedia or anonymouslefty…
“Your argument regarding not pricing poor people out of the labour market sounds seductively sensible, until you consider the consequences – that wages drop so low that people cannot live on them, and because welfare has to be lower than the minimum wage, people are forced into poverty. ”
1. How does this happen?
2. Why isn’t everyone currently employed therefore paid minimum wages?
Sam – I am an idiot.
I know Yobbo, but I get the feeling Flash_heart doesn’t know what he’s in favour of. He’s just against everything. He’s picked up a few leftie ideas but doesn’t understand them.
He reminds me of Dead Soul (except in this case I’m being the good cop). If it turns out he really is a retard leftie, that would make him Are Soul.
Yes, I agree. My point was more theoretical though — no one has an innate right to other people’s money. If you had voluntarily paid a certain sum of money every fortnight into an insurance fund to cover for unexpected situations such as losing your job, then that would be different. It’s your money.
To receive temporary relief from the taxpayer (above and beyond what you yourself paid into the system) you’d need to democratically persuade your MP that your’s is a worthy cause. Which perhaps isn’t as difficult as it should be, since MPs are looking to get re-elected.
Lobby groups (eg farmers) who ask for taxpayer funded assistance may feel they are equally ‘entitled’ to money which isn’t all theirs. In my book though, that’s begging. Whether there should be some taxpayer funded temporary assistance for people going through hardship (I think there should be) is a normative question, but at the end of the day, the people on the receiving end are beggars. They didn’t ‘earn’ the money, so to speak.
I should mention that by my definition I am a beggar too (I have received/continue to receive government subsidies for study, etc.). It’s hard to resist the temptation, when you live in a welfare state as large as Australia.
And to pre-empt a possible objection: I’m not exactly sure how I’d classify someone who uses publicly financed infrastructure such as roads. I don’t know if this is inconsistent, but it seems to me that there are certain core functions mainly pertaining to law and order that governments have a role in providing. As more research has been done, the definition of what can be feasibly provided by the private sector (ie. what aren’t public goods) has changed, so at that point people who insist on the government obtaining money from others to fund these things probably become beggars. Health used to be universally accepted as a public good, but that’s changed.
Beggars are those like me who receive/accept an individual subsidy that goes directly into their bank accounts (First Home Buyers Grant) or relieves the stress on their bank balance (HECS). This sort of discretionary spending is done to shore up votes among the masses of beggars out there, not to preserve order by carrying out the proper functions of government.
Same goes for Medicare. The card I have is in my name and the subsidy is effectively directed to individuals. Roads and the like are not the same, so using them and asking for them to be financed publicly probably isn’t begging. Asking for money and being on the receiving end of individual subsidies is, however.
But you are not a beggar.
In times gone by, you would have received legal training as a law clerk either for a practiscing solictor, in a firm’s law department or for the bench (Fulvio comes to mind).
Furthermore, the private sector could have employed you with lower non-wage costs.
Taxes have societal costs greater than what the taxpayer actually coughs up, so society pays in terms of output and prices when it opays for nationalised roads and so on. A welfare recipient in a VB commodore may have paid a lot less excise tax (not as a % of income however) than a businessmen in his CLK to drive on the road, but a lot of the tax paid by the CLK owner could have gone into paying for new goods and services produced by a newly employed commodore owner.
There is no moral hypocriscy, you were never given a choice.
Ditto to the idea that most people are very useful, and only public service positions such as the Office for the Status of Women is ostensibly parasitic.
I think I’ve just confused myself…this thinking out loud thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The aboriginal problem is intractable. People will now spend their time arguing over who made the biggest mistakes. In my view that began under Hawke and Keating, when the Noble Savage myth gained dominance, when anthropological investigations were limited by a Left wing agenda that went so far as to lead to Alan Thorne at the ANU being the principal defender of the now discredited Multi Regional Hypothesis, enabled aborigines to do what is generally bad for human beings to do: blame someone else for their own problem. Irrespective of the truth of the matter the healthy individual turns away from blaming and towards doing. Such a choice is an individual one that has profound cultural implications which will do more to benefit aborigines than all this rhetorical bullshit.
Irrespective of the truth of the matter the healthy individual turns away from blaming and towards doing. Such a choice is an individual one that has profound cultural implications which will do more to benefit aborigines than all this rhetorical bullshit.
Wow, that makes absolutely perfect sense and I agree. Follow that line of thinking through on a few other topics and you might even see where we are coming on some of the other ideas libertarians have. Personal responsibility for your own welfare, what a concept.
the healthy individual turns away from blaming and towards doing
I take it all back, there’s hope for you yet.
Yobbo,
The point of politely countering arguments by the likes of Flash_Heart is not purely because Flash_Heart may actually be open to persuasion. It is because most blogs such as this have a lot of people who read without ever showing themselves via comments. If you leave socialist arguments unrefuted you leave the impression that perhaps they can’t be refuted. As such the persuasion of a much wider audience is at stake.
Calling people such as Flash_Heart a retard does little to nothing for the libertarian cause (IMHO). It is a petty ad hominen attack that is good for libertarian solidarity but useless for expanding the following. In my view expanding the franchise is more important than solidarity. A better means of showing solidarity (without harming expansion) would be to praise the finer points of Mark Hills contribution (and others).
I don’t mean to single you out. However I think that libertarians have more to gain from a positive approach to debate than from the negative angle. I was not always a libertarian and I know that the people that were the most persuasive were those that offered meaningful counter points and facts rather than those that hurled personal abuse.
Regards,
Terje.
Sukrit, you are completely wrong about the reasons for things like HECS – they were invented to reduce inequality in society, not to buy votes. I won’t dispute your take on the first home owners’ grant though.
Yobbo, the reason people dispute me has been nicely described by Terje. The reason you don’t is that your politics is about proving what a rugged, individual, non-gay man you are, and how you’re tougher than all those poncy lefties. Debate to you is a chance to score points and prove how hard you are. Also to have an excuse for perving on schoolgirls. I’ve seen the quality of your “arguing” with AnonymousLefty (always last to join in the bullying – were you like that at school too?) and I have to say, you really have added a great deal to the intellectual life of your nation.
I’m amused by how you guys make an exception of your ideals for the massive subsidization of public roads. By your own logic you should be coughing up the cash every time you turn a corner, to whatever fly-by-night company built that bit of road, but you know it doesn’t work that way. The reason you can’t extend the same logic to the other public goods – health, welfare, etc. – is because you’re confident that you will never have to rely on a public system for these. But you want to make damn sure that you don’t have to pay even one extra cent of tax to maintain the system for those that do – even though you insist on an economic system which demands a proportion of people be too poor to afford private education, health and in some countries transport. Maybe this is the reason so many people in the community think of libertarianism as an elaborately intellectualised philosophy of greed?
“Maybe this is the reason so many people in the community think of libertarianism as an elaborately intellectualised philosophy of greed?”
Greed is where you look at what someone else has got and say ‘that looks good, I’ll have a bit of that’ without having earnt it or having any entitlement to it. Like when a left-winger looks at someone who has made a go of their lives through their own sweat. It seems to me that it’s the left who have the greed and envy problems, while libertarians advocate a position of earning your way and taking responsibility for yourself in order to bring out the best in society. You seem to be advocating a society where everyone tries to live at everyone elses expense, and everyone tries to use government to force their ‘morality’ on everyone else. That’s not a society in which I want to live. Would you?
“I’m amused by how you guys make an exception of your ideals for the massive subsidization of public roads”
And yet again, Flash_Heart/DeadSoul shows what he doesn’t know about Libertarianism.
I’d be quite happy for everyone else here to debate you all year. The fact is I just don’t care any more. There are so many people like you in Australia, it just proves that you are right. I have no hope for freedom in this country, I only look forward to leaving it.
“I’m amused by how you guys make an exception of your ideals for the massive subsidization of public roads. By your own logic you should be coughing up the cash every time you turn a corner, to whatever fly-by-night company built that bit of road, but you know it doesn’t work that way.”
We do. The fly by nighters are called Governemnt departments. The rest of your thesis which rests on this is invalid. Public or private, we pay dearly for road use. The point is that the public system gives you shortages, less quality, less choice and higher prices, for all goods.
We just think institutionally the private system works better. This has been shown to be true at the micro level and especially at the macro level.
Your argument rests on the discredited idea that we need to go through life not using public goods, otherwise we are hypocrites. You are wrong on two counts:
1. We were never given a choice.
2. What we are arguing for is essentially an argument that private institutions are better than public ones, and everyone will benefit.
“Maybe this is the reason so many people in the community think of libertarianism as an elaborately intellectualised philosophy of greed?”
Then why is socialism about taking other people’s money without their consent?
Flash Heart,
Libertarians demonstrate strong faith in human nature, much stronger than I would entertain. There is something of a blank slate\naive behaviorist approach to it, as if the right culture will have a transformative effect on human behavior. Ironically this belief is similiar to that entertained by socialists, the idea that human beings will behave appropriately without various sanctions is so contradicted by a mass of evidence that one wonders at its persistence until one recalls the great psychological heights once promised by humanistic psychology. We always want to believe we are better than we are. Reminds me of a study which found that 80% of people considered themselves to be of above average intelligence.
‘Libertarians demonstrate strong faith in human nature, much stronger than I would entertain.’
Libertarians acknowledge the true human nature, and suggest that if we work against this it will be to our detriment.
as if the right culture will have a transformative effect on human behavior
Humans created society for their own survival and improvement of their own condition. In doing so, they create the culture of that society. The culture doesn’t have a ‘transformative effect’ on them. They transform the culture to produce better outcomes for themselves. You have made the common (mostly left-wing) mistake that there is this ethereal, omnipresent, overarching thing called ’society’ which people have no choice but to live within. The society is the collection of individual people, and they produce the culture from the values they have created within themselves.
the idea that human beings will behave appropriately without various sanctions is so contradicted by a mass of evidence that one wonders at its persistence
One thing libertarians acknowledge about human nature is the fact that it’s individualistic. You can’t sanction or legislate a morality. It has to come from the values within the individuals in that society. If human behaviour was not to a certain moral standard human beings would cease to exist. If human behaviour was not to another higher certain moral standard there would be no such thing as civilisation. The government cannot make society civilised, or ‘fair’, or productive, or law abiding, or peaceful, or benevolent if these values are not present within the members of the society that created the government. There is no great ’sanction maker’ that produces the irresistible and immovable ’sanctions’ to ensure that people conduct themselves in the ‘right’ way.
Ironically this belief is similiar to that entertained by socialists
The socialists believed that if you made bread free then everyone would have this essential staple food, and no one would go hungry. Libertarians know that wile farmers will use the free bread to feed their pigs, and people prefer pork chops anyway.
“Reminds me of a study which found that 80% of people considered themselves to be of above average intelligence.”
This simply reasserts that political power should be decentralised and the state should be minimal.
We’re better off letting that 80% make their own mistakes than to let them (based on their inflated intelligence) install decision makers who think are smarter than the 100%.
Reminds me of a study which found that 80% of people considered themselves to be of above average intelligence
This to me seems to be exactly what you should expect. I think it’s safe to assume that around 50% of society is above average intelligence (I think we could assume most sensible measures of intelligence across society would result in a Gaussian distribution or bell curve). Combine that with any number of desireable human traits necessary for a healthy society, like individual pride, confidence and optimism, and the fact that civilised society (rightfully) encourages people to specialise in their own areas of interest, and you’ll probably get a figure quite a bit above 50%. Especially if you ask people who haven’t thought about it before to respond quickly for a survey. Eighty seems about right to me.
The Liberal Democratic Party is inviting suggestions for indigenous policy here.
Perhaps getting an Indigenous person, academic, leader to write a piece on assimilation for your party would be a good start.
It would be certainly prove to be more informative than this post -colonial, ‘assimilationist, unreflective tripe written above.
Subrik,
Are you really a floppy eared bunny rabbit? Your avatar suggests that you are. I loved the book and animated movie Watership Down. Watership Down was the title of Richard Adams’ novel about a group of rabbits who flee from their doomed warren and face many dangers to find and protect their new home. Kind of ironic this, don’t you think?
Libertarians acknowledge the true human nature, and suggest that if we work against this it will be to our detriment.
The “true human nature”. There’s a thought, I have no idea what “true human nature” is. In my view aborigines are proof positive that human nature is highly variable and this confronts with moral dilemmas most would prefer to avoid, instead opting for easy options like moral imperatives and individual responsibility and typically failing to realise that these human traits are as variable as any other hence invoking such objects to explain the failing of specific individuals is to commit a logical fallacy. Hell, I don’t even using concepts like “rationality” anymore yet here I am expected to start thinking about what constitutes “true human nature”?
Humans created society for their own survival and improvement of their own condition. In doing so, they create the culture of that society. The culture doesn’t have a ‘transformative effect’ on them. They transform the culture to produce better outcomes for themselves. You have made the common (mostly left-wing) mistake that there is this ethereal, omnipresent, overarching thing called ’society’ which people have no choice but to live within. The society is the collection of individual people, and they produce the culture from the values they have created within themselves.
The market is a collection of individual people, and they produce a market from the values they have created within themselves.
If society does not exist then libertarians cannot claim that the introduction of their ideas into culture will have a significant impact on human behavior in general. Hence your whole enterprise is doomed because you do not believe society exists yet you believe by changing societal structures you will somehow change human nature. This is another fallacy but not one I’m worried about because I do firmly believe that society does affect peoples’ behavior.
If society does not exist than nor does the weather, selves, most of economics and why the hell not set theory as well. Abstractions are useful things but cheap cognitive tricks as per Margaret Thatcher irritate me because the proponents of the same have typically come up with some catchy phrase purportedly pertaining to some philosophical profundity but typically lacking in alliteration and thoughtful analysis hence the popularity of the same I wish people would really pay much more attention to how words can so strongly change thinking in erroneous ways.
One can argue that society does not exist but to consistently apply that logical rule leads to all sorts of problems. Actually “rules for logic” is almost oxymoronic but let’s not go there. Ideas don’t strictly exist yet are our most powerful creations. “Society” is an idea. Let the materialists argue about sucn ontological quirks, my concern is whether or not a concept is useful. Whether or not a concept is true is more for history than me to decide, and even that’s problematic.
People do not create morals, they inherit them. People do not think through most of their ideas, they just inherit them or choose whichever “sounds right”. There is no “centre” in us, morals arise because of our interaction with the world in general and people in particular. Without such interaction there would be no need for morals. You are engaging in what some call “epistemological dualism”.
You are engaging in what some call “epistemological dualism”.
Yes, I subscribe to the theory that knowledge of the universe is obtained by each individual through sensory data put into a framework of reason. I’m not exactly the lone ranger here, and I absolutely reject the notion that this prevents us from knowing absolutes. I believe that’s what you are referring to?
You, however, seem to take the intriguing path of rejecting reason, i.e.
Hell, I don’t even using concepts like “rationality” anymore
actually “rules for logic” is almost oxymoronic but let’s not go there.
If you reject reason, I can’t really see how you’re going to answer this question:
my concern is whether or not a concept is useful.
but, anyway, I agree, the primary concern is the utilitarian good. So to answer this question lets see if we agree on some basics:
1. Humans need to have control over their own lives to be happy.
2. Humans have free choice.
3. Humans are capable of thinking and this is how they make decisions on what they should do (as distinct from acting primarily on instinct like animals).
4. Humans seek to improve their condition i.e. make life better for themselves through their labours and other efforts.
5. Civilisation, or civil society, is the condition where human beings interact with each other voluntarily for their mutual benefit.
Pick which ones you don’t agree with and I’ll debate themd with you. If you agree with this summary then I’d say it follows that libertarianism is the best way to optimise the human condition. As for this one:
People do not create morals, they inherit them. People do not think through most of their ideas, they just inherit them or choose whichever “sounds right”.
you’ve contradicted yourself. If you inherit morals, or fail to think them through, then you have done a completely different thing to choosing the one that ’sounds right’. The latter involves thought, choice and an assessment of right and wrong on your part, where the former does not.
perhaps getting an Indigenous person, academic, leader to write a piece on assimilation for your party would be a good start.
It would be certainly prove to be more informative than this post -colonial, ‘assimilationist, unreflective tripe written above.
I don’t know any libertarian indigenous people. You know what we’re on about, why not write something for us? You might find some value in exploring our ideas and how they would work for indigenous Australians.
Incidentally, there was (and maybe still is) a Maori fellow in the ACT party in New Zealand. Their ideas are similar to ours. I read some articles by him a few years ago dealing with similar issues to the ones you allude to. He believed the libertarian philosophy would solve some of the social issues between indigenous and non-indigenous New Zealanders. Just a thought.
Dead Soul, I think you are right about the libertarian ideology’s naivete. I think there are two “great” ideological movements derived from modernity, and one squalid ideology still bobbing its head up every now and then. The “great” ones are socialism and fascism. Socialism believed that human morality and culture were mechanically derived from history and class, and attributed all the solutions of social problems to understanding and/or mitigating these two movements. Fascism believed that human morality and culture were derived from history and race, and instituted nastier solutions to the latter cause. Both of these ideologies have been shown to be flawed. Libertarianism is the remaing squalid ideology derived from modernism; it seems to believe that human culture and morality is derived from nature, survival of the fittest and our fundamental animal heritage. It is Darwin’s hangover, I suppose. I don’t know that I would agree with your suggestion that it ascribes great faith in human nature, it seems to have no respect for the higher human moral traits at all. Maybe the naivete lies in their belief that the worst won’t happen when humans are given power.
I refer to socialism and fascism as “great” because they convinnced people to believe in them; libertarianism is squalid because no-one thinks it’s a goer, and it just keeps hanging around like the pimply economics nerd at the frat party.
Wandi,
there is a very interesting illustrated children’s book called “the rabbits”, by John Marsden, which characterises white invaders in Australia as rabbits. It has excellent pictures.
Flash Heart says,
Maybe the naivete lies in their belief that the worst won’t happen when humans are given power.
Camus says:
“The rebels starts by begging for justice and ends up wanting to wear a crown. ”
“The entire history of mankind, is in any case nothing but the prolonged fight to the death for the prizes of absolute power and universal prestiage”
The Rebel.
You’re right, this is a big hole in their thinking about human nature. What I cannot understand with their point of view is their constant criticisms of government power as if this is some sort of unique power. History makes is perfectly clear that anyone with any sort of unrestrained power, be that statist, economic, or military power, will tend to abuse the same. Yet libertarians believe that businesses will not exploit workers, that this ethereal “market force” will ensure that everyone is treated fairly (their argument is entirely circular here: market forces are justice! Doh!). Why did trade unions form: if bosses had not been such bastards back then there would have been no need. So on the one hand they are saying: you can’t trust governments with power (no argument there) but you can trust business leaders with power (big argument there). It’s called class bias and touches on your earlier comments that libertarianism is a philosophy of greed. If you don’t believe me, trawl through these blogs and see how many comment are made about the abuses of business compared to the abuses of government, trade unions, greenies, lefties , … .
As to Darwinian thoughts, “survival of the fittest” was coined by Herbert Spencer, who influenced Nazi type ieas, and while Darwin initially embraced Spencer’s phrase he latter came to regret that, as he notes in the introduction to the 6th ed of O of S:
Darwin on Spencer:
“I am not conscious of having profited in my owkr from Spencer’s writings. His deductive manner of trating every subject is wholly opposedto my frame of mind. His conclusions never convince me … . They partake more of the nature of definition than of laws of nature.
You touch on an important point about relying on Darwinism to explain human behavior. There was an emerging field called “evolutionary psychology” that was premised on this notion. Some of the ideas emanating therefrom are interesting but for the most part inconclusive and wishful thinking, more in the style that Darwin criticised Spencer for using. The clearest example of how silly this all became was all those silly attempts to explain altruism.
In any event how silly is it to think that one can gain insight into the most complex process in the known universe by reducing it to a cliche? In my world, even trying to define “human nature” represents a monumental challenge. It is an abstraction, like “society”, so libertarians should not even make reference to it because they don’t believe in abstractions like “society”.
Flash heart, you’re a cop out. You have no answers and you know it.
Libertarianism is the remaing squalid ideology derived from modernism; it seems to believe that human culture and morality is derived from nature, survival of the fittest and our fundamental animal heritage.
Libertarianism doesn’t deny that these things exist, as distinct from religious philosophical systems that try to explain these things away by the presence of a higher being.
Libertarianism states that we are capable of a higher cultural and moral condition because of our intellectual capabilities, i.e. we can acknowledge reason as a human virtue and choose or create the greatest good. Libertarianism is the means that a rational person would use to elevate society to it’s highest possible condition.
Sure, if you looked around the world today you can’t point to a libertarian utopia. But the world isn’t that simple. The reason the Western world has produced so much wealth, and enjoys so much happiness and peace as compared to pretty much everywhere else is because of individualism, capitalism and all the ideas of classical liberalism. There are societies at various periods of history which were as close to libertarianism as humanly possible. Two examples that spring to mind are England post Enlightenment, and the United States in its early days. You might notice that both these periods resulted in the rise of cultures and nations that changed history and contributed significantly to civilsation. The United Kingdom basically set the framework for the modern state and the United States became the leader of the free world. In terms of human progress to date I would say it is unquestionable that the classical liberalist philosophy is the highest point.
Libertarianism hasn’t been adopted en masse, but is this so surprising? Most of the cultures of the world are still basically tribal in nature, people still blow themselves (and lots of innocent others) up for their gods, nations with an abundance of natural wealth still live in poverty and leaders like Mugabe and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are heads of state. We may be half way through a great technological age, but morally we are struggling and the highest point of civlisation to date has been the Western ones under a classical liberal philosophy. As Martin Luther King said ‘we have guided missiles, but misguided men’.
And you, Flash, are just another one of the misguided men. You don’t have the moral courage to acknowledge the hard truths and you are not really willing to put your shoulder to wheel to progress humanity. The best you can do is pretend to have the high moral ground and then sling shit from afar. Knock yourself out, you’ve got nothing.
*I’m* not willing to put my shoulder to the wheel? You embrace an ideology which promises you have to sacrifice nothing to get everything, while believing that I prefer to live in a society of lost opportunities and excessive tax slugs. I work, too, and am willing to accept a pretty high tax slug (and the state interfering to a certain extent in my life). By your measure, my suggestion for the best society involves me making sacrifices – indeed, I am even willing to give up the right to have sex with my own sister, even if she consents! This is more than some people on this blog have been willing to accept. So who is making the sacrifices? Damnit man, my sister’s a babe! Libertarianism, on the other hand, promises that *all* you have to do is work. You don’t have to care about anyone else (or at least not act on your cares), and often the best thing that you can do is knock other people aside in your rush for the goodies. You don’t have to challenge yourself thinking about any kind of extended network of social or ecological interactions, you just get on in there and haul in the cash! Yours is the ideology which doesn’t want to put its shoulder to the wheel.
As far as your two historical examples – where are they now? The British Empire collapsed in the shortest time of any empire in history, and the US (a society based on slavery) tore itself apart over slavery – over the very nature of who should be free. Some models. Its also a long stretch to say that these societies’ libertarian hallmarks were the reasons that they came up with all their great advances (especially when I can point to advances like the fight against cholera which were clearly achieved by people thinking of others, asking the state for help, and demanding collective action to solve the problem, sometimes with the result of imposing a collective burden on others). You have a broad brush, my friend, with which to be tarring me.
MS
Yes, I subscribe to the theory that knowledge of the universe is obtained by each individual through sensory data put into a framework of reason. I’m not exactly the lone ranger here, and I absolutely reject the notion that this prevents us from knowing absolutes. I believe that’s what you are referring to?
—-
Not really, epistemological dualism refers to the habit of thinking about human behavior with the assumptions of self and soul lurking about in the background. It is very common and very difficult to eradicate, I’m still working on that. Absolutes are quite rare. 9.8 m2? Not always, gravitational fields vary. Absolutes belong to the realm of religion. Avoiding religious thinking is very difficult, as the mathematical physicist Barrow notes:
“If we define a religion to be a system of thought which contains unprovable statements, so it contains an element of faith, then Godel has taught us that not only is mathematics a religion but it is the only religion able to prove itself to be one.”
Sure, go looking for absolutes, but as the more you look the less certain things appear to be. I saw a similiar example in a book I read recently by a Professor of Mathematics (ET Bell) wherein he stated that as we approached the end of the last century many of the given “proofs” in mathematics were being subject to challenge.
The extent to which people embrace reason is in part contingent on what they deal with in their daily lives. For example, some of the things I am trying to understand drive me mad with frustration because I know that I currently lack the skills and tools needed to address these problems so I am giving up on a few of those goals. Now if I were an engineer or a mathematician I might have much greater faith in rationality but because my current interests make a mockery of the so called limitless potential of human rationality I am much more cynical than most.
MS
If you reject reason, I can’t really see how you’re going to answer this question:
–
Not rejecting reason, simply expressing the same reservations that many other share about concepts like “rationality”. I lean more towards Popper’s view that the best we can do is have ideas that are irrefutable, not provide ideas that can be proven to absolutely true. The problem with absolutes is the temporary nature of the same. We used to think that the speed of light was an absolute limit but there more than enough evidence to refute that. It used to be absolute that adult brains do not grow new cells now we know of many regions in the brain where this occurs. The world is not round, it is more like an orange and it used to be flat … .
1. Humans need to have control over their own lives to be happy.
Yes, loss of control is a primary cause of many problems. By constantly depriving a person of control you can even damage a person’s brain. Or one study which found that those British public servants who did boring repetitive work ended up with higher rates of heart disease than those higher up the scale (this seems to be generally true, the higher up any social ladder you climb, the better off healthwise you will be.) Loss of control over one’s environment or more specifically loss of of the ability to change one’s environment is a good precursor towards depression so with the increasing rates of depression one has to wonder what is happening in the modern world …. .
2. Humans have free choice.
I would argue limited choice. “Free choice” is a concept I cannot grapple with because my choices are constrained. I am not free to choose any path I like, I often have to make decisions because of necessity, not because of freedom. I have a range of freedom in my choices but how I exercise those choices is contingent on so many things whereas “free choice” implies some level of absolute freedom in our decision making. That we experience decision making does not mean we actually make decisions in any free manner. After all, I experience the world as flat but know that is not true.
People tend to forget that evolution drove us towards surviving, not thinking. As Alan Cromer notes
“Many studies have shown that more than half of adult Americans never reach the stage of formal operations (Arons and Karplus, 1976), meaning that they can’t analyze a situation with several variables or understand a simple syllogism.”
That is, most of what we call “thinking” is actually quite reflexive. So as the Isaac Singer once quipped”We have to believe in free will, we have no choice.”
3. Humans are capable of thinking and this is how they make decisions on what they should do (as distinct from acting primarily on instinct like animals).
As much as I dislike Freudian ideas there is some evidence to suggests that our instincts (another shady concept) play a much larger role in determining our thinking than we would like to think. Just look at all that advertising promising new sexual prowess and attraction if only you get X. Advertisements are proof that our thinking can be swayed by our instincts. Thus the Freudian notion, which Freud derived from Nietzsche, who probably got it from Schopenhauer, that instincts play a fundamental role in our lives still holds sway today, as the below quote indicates.
McDougall (1924) realized that we are driven to action by instincts; instincts are the ‘‘springs of
energy’’ and ‘‘prime movers of all human activity.’’
The distinctions between instinct, emotion, and rationality are so blurred as to make such categories meaningless for understanding human behavior. Thus I would not even accept instincts as being prime movers of human activity because this is a statement based on extrapolation of existing understandings, not one empirically derived. We are a mish mash of causations.
Neuroanatomy tends to bear this out, you’ll search long, hard, and typically fruitlessly to find an “emotional centre” or “rational centre” in the brain. What neuroanatomy does tend to suggest is that cognition is related to motor functions. That makes perfect evolutionary sense.
4. Humans seek to improve their condition i.e. make life better for themselves through their labours and other efforts.
Generally yes but the sad fact is that you only need a few fuckbrains to spoil the whole show. Human beings only act to improve their condition when they believe that the society within which they live is fair to them and offers good opportunities. Once people start perceiving substantial bias favouring one group over another, over time people tend to stop co-operating and start destroying. So rebels are trying to improve their lot by ruining the lot of others, which generally doesn’t work because then the others come chasing after your lot … . The goal for libertarians will be to demonstrate how their philosophy and politics will lead to greater inclusion and benefits of indviduals into society.
5. Civilisation, or civil society, is the condition where human beings interact with each other voluntarily for their mutual benefit.
Yes
MS
you’ve contradicted yourself. If you inherit morals, or fail to think them through, then you have done a completely different thing to choosing the one that ’sounds right’. The latter involves thought, choice and an assessment of right and wrong on your part, where the former does not.
–
Read some neuroeconomics then tell me “choice” is rational! Yes, I did overstate my case and we do deliberate upon our morals but that does not mean that morals arise from solely within us, notwithstanding evidence suggesting that certain moral traits are strongly genetically determined. This is where it can get rather scary, if you look at separated twin studies the degree of concordance in behavior is quite remarkable: choosing similiar mates, voting the same way, even the same bloody hairstyle! This is where the line between “instinct” and “rationality” becomes rather blurred and its a real bugger of a problem. .
This isn’t getting anywhere.
flash heart doesn’t accept the nefits of economic and social liberalism, and so is content to inflict poverty and oppression on others. flash heart doesn’t realise libertarianism isn’t about work and careerism, it is about choice.
dead soul believes we can’t be free (for many competing reasons, and incentives and disincentives cannot be produced to alleviate this) we can only perceive freedom.
So which is the correct objection to liberty? It doesn’t exist, it has no net benefits or you have perceived it to be about soemthing else other than choice?
“nefits” –> “benefits”, sorry.
Mark Hill said,
dead soul believes we can’t be free (for many competing reasons, and incentives and disincentives cannot be produced to alleviate this) we can only perceive freedom.
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Not quite true Mark, I believe that the problem with the concept of freedom is that precisely the absolutist terms it is often couched in. There are degrees of freedom and the structure of society plays a large part in determining that level of freedom. A long time ago I read “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” (BF Skinner) and thought it was fascist nonsense. Over time I have come to appreciate how mistaken I was back then. “Beyond Freedom” may be a hard idea for libertarians and most to come to terms with but what Skinner is driving at is that the concept of freedom doesn’t sit well with the realities of human behavior.
I think one of the problems for libertarians is that while *they* think proclaiming freedom is good many in the general community will ask, “what are you talking about, this isn’t Stalinist Russia”. Certainly, governments are curtailing our freedom in sometimes unnecessary ways, but the same can be said about morals and the people around us. Libertarians need to demonstrate how their policies will increase freedom for the average Joe, and trust me on this, ending drug prohibition and droppin the gun laws is of absolutely no import to most peoples’ freedom. You need something much more universal.
Freedom is an abstraction, you must make it real for the average Joe.
Thanks for the advice, I agree. This is why we support ideas like making Government programmes pass cost-benefit tests, so we first engage in utility enhacing policy and when money is spent, people know what the opportunity costs are. The drug laws would not come up to scratch and would be seen as a bad policy we no longer need. People would see the benefit of switching from a mix of inefficient, highly rated taxes to a small set of low rated, more efficient taxes.
I can’t agree about human nature. You even reckon there is no such thing as “true human nature” so how can you define absolutist freedom within a larger idea like human nature (which you can’t seem to define).
Freedom requires both free will and strong private property rights to exercise free will. Private property emerges as a convention (as it did on the Californian goldfields) so it becomes part of human nature once people begin trading or working as neighbours. So again it seems to me you don’t believe in free will.
“Libertarians need to demonstrate how their policies will increase freedom for the average Joe, and trust me on this, ending drug prohibition and droppin the gun laws is of absolutely no import to most peoples’ freedom.”
DS, we don’t need to do those things. We merely have to point out that everyone is affected by choice. They can make that choice themselves or let others (specifically the government) make it for them. They will choose the former, because most people like to think they have control over their own lives.
Drug prohibition affects most people through crime rates. Once that is understood, most will choose less regulation.
Gun control affects people through their right to self defence. Once that is understood, most will choose less control.
It’s not such a difficult feat. I’m sure you agree, and despite your protestations you are not really any different from most people.
Flash heart you are forced to accept a tax slug. Will doesn’t come into it. You are no better than the tax payer who hates taxes. Unlike businesses, governments often cannot convince people their services are useful, so they use force.
You also say that libertarianism is an ideaology where you hope to “sacrifice nothing and gain everything”. But self sacrifice, discipline and responsibility are all free choice activities. Free market systems involve sacrifice. Eg/ saving up for something you want and prioritising.
When you have more choice available to you, you have to think more about how your actions effect others. If you “knock people aside in a rush for the goodies” you will get knocked back. The mob rule that you imagine already exists today in the form of governments and populism. If you are simply forced to follow rules, how are you thinking about the welfare of others? Do you think you’re superior for enjoying paying taxes? Forced charity is not charity. A libertarian society would increase charity and bonds between friends and family.
Also, there are not a finite amount of “goodies”. Value is created. It’s not looted. Is there some higher entity saying, “there is x amount of money in the world only”.
“The US tore itself apart”!? The US is still arguably the greatest nation on earth. And the civil war was about sedition (as quoted by Abraham Lincoln himself), not slavery.
As discussed, scientific principles of nature work very well but are not absolute. The theory of gravity for example. The gravitational constant G is only known to a finite number of decimal places and is only relevant on earth.
Either we have right and wrong or we don’t. If we do have right and wrong they exist in the real world (applicable to conscious beings) and are a part of nature and reality. The idea of objectivist philosophy is to define nature and reality as accurately as possible. And like in science, principles are developed such as “initiary force is immoral”. It’s not free choice in all contexts as claimed by Dead Soul. What is your solution to defining morality? Mob rule? Memes? “I am right because you cannot convince me otherwise?” Is a woman in an Islamic country wronged if she gets raped? Or is it all just in our heads?
Evolution is a terrible example of lack of free choice. Especially considering most of evolution occured before humans were conscious and capable of rational thinking. Humans have obsoleted the process of traditional evolution. Evolutionary pressures are non-existent in our mixed society simply due to numbers and distribution. And diseases are cured faster than we evolve resistance. There is plenty of evidence to say that genetics do play a big role in our personality traits. So what? Doesn’t this increase the need for more choice in society? The libertarian point is to not initiate force. Governments do this. Businesses do not.
You say that morals are instinctive then use the example of hairstyle, voting preference and choosing mates? Big moral issues there.
I’m not a psychologist but I’d agree that children instinctively know right and wrong in a kindergarten playground. However governments/ monarchs have become very good at disguising the fact that they play by a different set of rules. The need to follow a leader is probably a relic from times when humans were less conscious and more animal. Humans are a very social animal and fear alienation. Just look at how much money religion scams out of people. But again, religion isn’t forced on you like government regulations.
There are some examples of libertarian type societies that I know of: Harold Barclay has written two books documenting anarchistic societies. CULTURE: THE HUMAN WAY (1982), PEOPLE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT: AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF ANARCHY.
David said,
DS, we don’t need to do those things. We merely have to point out that everyone is affected by choice. They can make that choice themselves or let others (specifically the government) make it for them. They will choose the former, because most people like to think they have control over their own lives.
Drug prohibition affects most people through crime rates. Once that is understood, most will choose less regulation.
Gun control affects people through their right to self defence. Once that is understood, most will choose less control.
It’s not such a difficult feat. I’m sure you agree, and despite your protestations you are not really any different from most people.
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Can’t agree there David, I think it is important for any political party to make their philosophy “seen” in the real world. “Choice” is just too ambiguous for most people, typically they would prefer something more concrete like the right to choose for private health insurance or pay for public health system. That sort of thing is what I am driving. Simply promoting “choice” will not win the day.
Yes, I think many people, when appropriately informed, will opt for a radicaly different approach to the drug problem. Steady and carefully though, not a full blown legalise everything approach because we don’t know yet where that will lead. Interestingly though, the drug problem may markedly wane with the changing demographics. (recently read some interesting stuff on how the popn of men 18-30 years figures very highly in crime, drugs and violence and with an aging population … ). Surely though David you would have to admit that many parents would be terrified by the prospect of blanklet legalisation? I don’t think society is ready for that yet. Steady as she goes …
What is wrong with it exactly?
1. Indigenous person: Talk about reverse racism… aren’t aborigines Australian? So am I.
2. Academic: what makes these people better than the rest of the non-university going population? I completed a semester length university subject in indigenous affairs and I plan to take more subjects in this area as part of my law degree. In the arts subject I did, I noticed that the course was heavily biased in favour of the sort of views you advocate, both in the marking and presentation of the course. Some balance is needed in the indigenous policy debate. I have offered what I think is a classical liberal perspective.
3. Leader: ok, you got me there. I’m not one of those people who goes around on a taxpayer salary claiming to speak on behalf of an entire population. That hasn’t interested me so far, perhaps it should. However, I know that this is another appeal to authority and I can understand that it’s necessary to demolish my personal credibility when you have no actual arguments to offer.
What do you mean? Moderate economic libertarianism is the norm in Western societies. That is what has made them wealthy. Australia is by and large a libertarian society. Where the disagreement with the status quo arises is that it doesn’t go far enough. There is much to be improved upon.
Libertarianism is basically what happens when you leave people alone. An example of a non-libertarian society would be India. A comparison of the levels of economic freedom between India & Australia would show there is a causal link between the degree of freedom and the common man being better/worse off. The best book on this general theme is Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.
Just because the intellectual links take time to develop does not mean it is a discredited philosophy. I think pretty much everyone here started off a socialist. No one is ‘born’ a libertarian. That takes time and lots of persuasion (people need to be convinced libertarianism is not anarchy).
I think Dead Soul makes some valid observations about “freedom” but perhaps misses the meaning of freedom in the political context. The word “freedom” when used generally by libertarians means “freedom from physical force and coersion”. It is not meant to mean freedom from the consequences of society and physical reality.
In terms of instinct, human population is now too large (and interconnected) to allow any significant further biological evolution.
Surely though David you would have to admit that many parents would be terrified by the prospect of blanklet legalisation? I don’t think society is ready for that yet.
I do agree. That’s the principal reason the LDP has not adopted it as policy. I’m not sure why you think anyone is advocating it.
Terje said,
I think Dead Soul makes some valid observations about “freedom” but perhaps misses the meaning of freedom in the political context. The word “freedom” when used generally by libertarians means “freedom from physical force and coersion”. It is not meant to mean freedom from the consequences of society and physical reality.
In terms of instinct, human population is now too large (and interconnected) to allow any significant further biological evolution.
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Thanks for the correction Terje.
Evolution never stops, the contingencies may change but evolution is inexorable.
David L said,
I do agree. That’s the principal reason the LDP has not adopted it as policy. I’m not sure why you think anyone is advocating it.
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Thanks Dave but there may be a lesson for libertarians here: be careful about how you state your policies. A number here have advocated a full loss of prohibition in what appears to be a one off move.
This raises an issue that I thought I might be useful. When the LDP states a policy it should also state a strategy to reach that policy. This will help lessen the “radical” import of the policy and help people to see how to get there.
A number here have advocated a full loss of prohibition in what appears to be a one off move.
When the LDP states a policy it should also state a strategy to reach that policy.
This blog is the Australian Libertarian Society blog, not the LDP blog, not to be confused. I advocate absolute legalisation of currently illicit drugs as an end goal, this is my opinion, not the LDP’s. I still support the LDP’s position over either the Labor or Liberal parties.
be careful about how you state your policies.
The LDP’s policies are quite carefully stated under the link below. All else is personal opinion, some being very good, some the other kind.
http://www.ldp.org.au/federal/policies/index.html
I agree with Brendan and have stated on the “something somewhat persuasive” comments that my opinions have nothing to do with LDP policy.
I beleive the arts, science, technology (eg/ the internet) and business pressure will lead to continual increases in liberalisation of society rather than politics initiating this. So I personally prefer to focus my energy on these pursuits rather than politics.
However clearly to me, the LDP has far superior underlying principles and policy to that of the Labour and Liberal parties.