Adurentibus Spina wrote:
I'm talking about issues of distributive, or social, justice. These are precisely the sorts of things that libertarians deny have any merit. Hayek EXPLICITLY denies that there is any such thing as 'social justice'. What I argue above is that on the libertarian's own grounds, their commitment to maximization of negative liberty (the same thing as what you mean by 'limiting the federal government') commits them tacitly to considerations of social justice whether they like it or not, because maximation of negative liberty --- the principle which justifies their limiting of the federal government in the first place --- actually results in having to increase the size of the federal government.
I'm still not seeing an example of how this applies to a Libertarian society.
I am not ignoring contracts and lawsuits.
But the way this is most efficiently and most justly corrected is not through the market, but through explicit legal means,
Wut
i.e., the formation of laws, and institutions to oversee the implementation and adherence to these laws (like the FDA or the EPA)."
I disagree. The threat of your company being completely ruined by an efficient legal system, one not bogged down by ant civil liberty drug laws for instance, is a great motivator to do it right the first time. I'd argue that this is more effective that having a beaurocratic government agency attempting to regulate it.
What happens now when these agencies fail at their jobs (as they often do)? People sue. Companies recall their products.
You can't respond to that by pointing to legal measures that are implemented AFTER injustice has been done, because the whole debate is about the best way to structure just institutional arrangements, i.e., how we should set up the most just form of government. It's blatantly obvious that a system in which wrongs that could have been prevented are not prevented and are only dealt with after they inevitably occur (to deny this is insane) is a less just system than one in which we find ways to prevent these wrongs from happening in the first place without thereby doing more harm than good.
And what evidence can you provide that shows it is more effective, and provides more liberty, to have a beaurocratic entity implement laws for an entire nation (composed of many different types of agriculture, geography etc.) than it is to have local laws and local agencies dictating those laws? For instance, the anti drug laws. People in various locales have voted to allow medicinal marijuana, yet the federal government comes in and shuts them down because there is a federal law against it. Why does the federal government better understand the needs and best safety measures for that particular community? That can be extrapolated out to cover a wide range of federal laws and regulations.
[/quote]Just as a further point, it might be the case for any particular federal policy or agency or institutional arrangement, that it would be better, or more just, if we got rid of it or trimmed its size or made other sorts of changes (the Office of Faith Based Initiatives irritates the hell out of me, btw, I'd axe that if I were Obama), but this is not the same thing as adhering to Libertarian principles of justice, since these are, as principles, applied universally.[/quote]
I think the larger Libertarian point is that these types of measures are best handled as locally as possible. People seem to get confused in to thinking the elimination of a federal entity meands the elimination of the goals or even accomplishments of that entity. It's simply a desire to allow the states, the cities, the towns to determine whether a ban on marijuana, or a ban on raw milk, is appropriate for that locale.
If people don't like the laws of that locale, they're free to pursue one that offers the type of living they subscribe to.
That style of living will likely be the most sought after resulting in more people living in that area and supporting it. Locales with kooky ideas and laws that dont work will eventually find it difficult to thrive.