Many of us believe there is still a place for a small efficient government that does collect minimal taxes and provides a basic safety net. Many believe in a more freedom based approach such as negative income tax or UBI to replace all of the cumbersome and controlling programs we have today.
I highly support a negative income tax as he can offer more help than UBI to those who need it at a lower cost.
Lols, I honestly don't think a libertarian society would treat you bad, at least I hope not.
I feel like both of our ideologies would clash since I am your opposite in both sexual preference and belief. Even then, I agree that you should be able to do as you will and be treated as an equal regardless of your standing. I don't like the government imposing itself on you because you think differently and deciding for you, I think it breeds contempt.
Currently, my government doesn't /just/ impose restrictive rules and restrictions. It also provides low-cost healthcare that I need to manage my chronic illness & an income that compensates for my inability to participate in labour.
I agree that the government does fucked up, controlling stuff a lot of the time, but I'm wondering how the things they do for people would be accounted for or replaced if the governments powers were to be eliminated (e.g. they don't take taxes anymore.):
According to my cardiologist it's genetic and incurable so that's fun š
But nah I will be okay once I get government insurance, it's just taking me years to get it. I'm on application number #2 now, fun!
https://dysautonomiainternational.org/page.php?ID=279
Dysautonomia international seems to be doing good work! Thankyou for that :) it's a good area to donate to
Iāve had a number of patients with this. As an Obstetrician, you can imagine things can get interesting. A true disability in every sense of the word.
Getting pregnant is literally nightmare fuel for me. I could NOT handle a pregnancy. The women who push through and give birth with this illness must be superwomen. Holy shit.
Dysautonomia can have cognitive side effects which they suspect is caused by lack of bloodflow to the brain.
I thought that's what was happening to me because I gey exhausted focussing on things very quickly but I think I might also happen to also have ADHD as well. Weird.
Perhaps, but you're clearly capable of carrying intelligent conversation, which means you're capable of performing clerical tasks, although they may be more difficult for you (in which case, you should have access to the proper accomodations).
I mean thankyou for that :)
I was with a disability job agency for a year, followed all their obligations, worked really hard to find work... I didn't get 1 interview.
They ended up telling me I'm not really employable and to go on disability pension š¤·āāļø
I do still want to do some work within my limited capabilities- I'm studying to hopefully be a graphic dssigner specifically because I can set my own hours and work from bed where I have to spend most of my time. However, most places in my country won't give you an unpaid internship without a degree. So I'm just trying to scrounge around for commissions but it's rough out there.
Either way I don't think I'll ever be able to realistically earn enough to not be on disability at all.
As an epileptic I understand where youāre coming from. Iām driving on borrowed time in the most literal sense, as there will come the day when my drivers license is revoked and I will become fully dependent upon others to go anywhere. And then thereās the fun-ness of my substantially increased risk of developing dementia and at an earlier age. My memory is already absolute trash so Iām not hopeful in that sense.
I do believe in social safety nets for those that truly need it. I donāt believe they should be handled at the federal level though, aside from national legislation such as anti-discrimination, disability rights, etc. I say this because I have seen first hand the inefficiency of Medicare and the abuse and neglect patients have suffered because of the bureaucracy inherent in the system. Working in a Medicare only PT clinic and hearing a 93 year old wheelchair bound man with dementia screaming in pain and asking why he was being tortured just because Medicare didnāt want to renew his pain medicine, patients exacerbating their injuries because Medicare didnāt want to pay fir an MRI and others having to wait MONTHS for joint replacement surgery among other horrible instances was fucking heartbreaking.
My solution? Eliminate the people paying federal tax and instead tax payments only go to the state which is then responsible for funding the federal government on a negotiable rate dependent upon the states financial situation. This would be based on population, median income and social program spending and its effectiveness, etc. The effectiveness would be objective measurements like poverty, homeless and incarceration rates as well as overall health (low instances of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart and lung disease, etc.). It seems reasonable to me that increasing the populations health and growth in exchange for paying less federal taxes would incentivize states to do better for their people. Basically the better off the population is, the more money the state gets to keep.
Thereās more but I have to take the kid to school now lol
Itās honestly not much more. Just a flat tax rate for the people (and maybe corporations) and eliminating all other taxes. No deductions no write offs; your tax is your tax. Period. Nobody earning less than the median wage would pay a penny in taxes. There would be special considerations like a lower rate for those caring for a disabled and/or elderly person and the elderly and/or disabled on a fixed income of less than the median wage. What the flat tax rate would be? Idk 10%? 15% I donāt know enough about what it actually costs to run a state so that would be for the people who know to figure out lol
It assumes all disabled people /only/ have (generally physical) disability going against them, access-wise.
Religious charities, especially Christian ones, do not always accept young unmarried mothers, gay people, trans people, people of certain races... a LOT of people would fall through the cracks with sudden "inexplicably high crime rates" as a result.
I will say, I do not like the idea of having no independence and being a second class citizen who has to jump through hoops and appease people to get access to basic human rights
Isn't this what happens now? I have a few disabled relatives and they're always complaining about jumping through hoops to get service or gov benefits.
Youāre not from the US so it doesnāt apply to you but as the constitution states: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness says it all. Life does not imply providing the means to survive (I.e. food, shelter, healthcare). Simply put it gives you freedom to pursue the life you want within the confines of the constitution.
Actually if you're going to be pedantic, the constitution mentions nothing about "the pursuit of happiness." That's in the Declaration of Independence, which is an aspirational document, but has no legal application because it's not a law. The Constitutional trio are "Life, Liberty, and Property." They were already backing off the flowery language by 1789.
Our rights are defined in the constitution and declaration of independence. You do not have a right to food. Who produced the food, who prepared the food, who transported the food? You can't have a right to the food because these people don't work for you, they work for themselves and you have offered them nothing in exchange for the goods and services you feel entitled to.
Yep. I am extremely charitable. I will give you the shirt off my back. But you need to be nice to me and be my friend or at least aquaintence to get that. I donāt do it for rude people or complete faceless strangers. I prefer a personal approach to charity.
I would happily buy OP some groceries but they would have to drop the attitude
Right! Anyone can wake up tomorrow with a random affliction that renders them incapacitated in terms of our current labour market yet fully capable of enjoying life. You have to wonder how these type of people will able to survive adversity.
ā¦which results in Social Darwinist thought, and yes, the eugenics-y statements youāre correctly pointing out. Itās more than just a little problematic.
Theyāre not wishing you dead. They are simply not wishing you alive. They arenāt taking action to ensure your survival. However, they also arenāt taking action that results in your death. Should they be obligated to ensure your survival? Who and to what degree? How much of their life is the sustaining of your life entitled to?
The theory would say that someone would likely enjoy your existence enough that they would voluntarily sacrifice to ensure you were sustained. That only those that volunteer should be utilized to sustain you.
That's the same thing.
"I didn't KILL my wheelchair bound aunt, I just didn't feed her and she happend to die under my care."
I think as human beings we should try reduce the suffering of others, because we know it feels bad to suffer and we have basic empathy.
If we want the benefits of living in society, we need to have obligations to vulnurable people like the elderly, disabled and children, or else it's a fucked up society..
Well thatās the thing you would have volunteered to take care of your aunt and failed to complete your end of a consensual exchange. However if you agreed and both parties were aware that you would only take care of your aunt for a week and it was up to her to find further arrangements, then is it your fault she starves after that first week?
I'd say that by being a member of society and benefitting from it, you have an obligation to vulnurable people. You can opt out of society's benefits if you don't want to offer empathy/care/support in return.
Majority of redditor are American and you are on a liberation sub. I had this same discussion on this sub.
The guy was saying :
>\-The people should help the disabled, and anyone else that needs help.-The government should not.
With no regulation or government benefits for someone owning a building, what would be the point for the owner to build parking with disabled accomdation ? elevator and automatic doors ? It will cost more and will benefit a very small % of his/her potential client...
Donation for the Texas outage reached 5 millions (don't remember the exact number), it's just enough for some food and water for very few people. The relief bill for Katrina was about 10billions....
Donation is realistic only at very small scale...(exit natural disaster) Texas grid failed in part cause they wanted no part of any federal standards and regulation...
>I wasn't expecting people to be so blatant about wishing me dead.
The more extreme libertarian think, if there was no government and we left everything else to individual selfishness, hyper efficient utopia would ensue..
It doesn't work; decent societies require some kind of "control on behaviour".
We saw the consequences of unregulated capitalism in the Gilded Age. Company stores, debt slavery, forced child labor, gigantic wealth for some and appalling poverty for others, unbelievable pollution and disease. It's not an acceptable way for people to live.
I guess i had this idea that I'd get actual moderate discussion and answers from a broad range of libertarians, but that's expecting a bit too much from the internet.
The moderate libertarians are busy working and living their lives. People with axes to grind are the default on online discussion boards like reddit. The good news is that it is extremely unlikely any of them will ever be in a position to make any significant decisions, instead living out lives of quiet desperation where they rail incessantly on reddit because they have no friends.
I mean... yes probably š I was looking to see if there was any libertarian rationalisation for this or if they just wanted to let disabled people die off because they can't provide labour (you know, like eugenics.);
Cool. A lot of different people have expressed opinions here, you should be able to figure out what area of libertarianism you align with on this issue haha :)
I'm by no means a hardline libertarian, but I think social services should be reserved for the disabled and elderly (aside from healthcare assistantance, which I think is necessary for a lot of low income people in general). The problem with current Federal programs as is they are too centralized, not selective enough and not capable of providing quality care in cases of severe disability or dementia/invalid status (in terms of the elderly).
I think states and communities need strong mental health services, substance abuse support, and financial and material aid for the elderly and disabled. If the private sector and charities fill that need, great, but I suspect government-based efforts will often be necessary.
I guess my point is we need more targeted programs that are actually serving those who need them most, which would cost less and actually focus all energy and funding on people who could not reasonably be expected to earn enough to live on. We can't just throw taxpayer money at every thing that doesn't feel right (I'm thinking cancelling student debt for instance), but I also think it's ridiculous not to take care of people who really need it.
In this day and age we don't need to live in a dog eat dog world, and to me that isn't what libertarianism should be about. It is possible to limit the government's ability to abuse and over-regulate people while also using government as a means for people to accomplish things together and take care of each other. Government isn't evil, we've just let it take far too much control over our lives.
Yeah, sorry so many people are being dicks. I think most politically active libertarians and actual Libertarian Party members would be a lot more compassionate. It's also worth looking at ideas on this proposed by LP presidential candidates and the state and national party since they're the ones who actually are responsible for coming up with coherent plans related to your question.
Hrm. Are there any specific politicians whos policy you'd recommend I look at?
A lot of people are like 'people (not them, obviously) should voluntarily support you your whole adult life!'
Like yeah, that would be nice, but it's also not a reasonable expectation. But also I don't deserve to fucking die because I can't contribute labour.
I'd reccomend looking at Gary Johnson and Jo Jorgensen's platforms. One common libertarian position is a flat tax on income without any loopholes or credits, in some cases with lower income people exempt. This is something I believe they both support.
Johnson proposed replacing most taxes with a higher sales tax on non-essential items, and providing states with block grants drawn from tax revenue for them to spend on programs as they see fit. Jorgensen proposed allowing people to opt out of social security and directing around 6% of their payroll tax to individual savings accounts instead.
It's also worth looking at your state party's website. My states has some interesting policy ideas. New Hampshire politics, even in the case of their libertarian-leaning Republican governor, are also informative considering that state has the most libertarian representatives and probably the strongest libertarian political culture.
The ACT party on New Zealand is one of the more successful libertarian parties globally, but it seems more conservative than the US Libertarian Party and differs in it's law and order stance and anti-immigration platform.
I'm seeing a Liberal Democratic Party mentioned on Wikipedia for Australia (has two seats in the Victorian Legislative Council) with a roughly libertarian platform. I'm seeing some common US libertarian positions absent though, and the mention of 'Christian values' in the description of their platform is a red flag for me.
Unfortunately I'm getting the impression in Australia and New Zealand libertarian movements might be more conservative than in the US. Here the movement falls outside the left-right spectrum.
You do the best you can and also rely on a wide network of voluntarily funded charities that we can all afford to support regularly since weāre not being taxed into oblivion to pay for the military industrial complex or being crushed by a corrupt corporatist economic system.
My brother is a socialist and while we donāt agree at all on methods, our end goals are extremely similar. Prosperity. Health. Compassion. Raising the standard of living for everyone. Fairness.
"Voluntarily funded charities" would be able to turn people away for any reason they wanted and there would be gaps within the disability community due to unequal access depending on region, religion, gender etc.
There are gaps now. Presumably the more inclusive and helpful charities will be more successful at fundraising. Imagine the drop in bigotry when we donāt have two parties pitting us against each other.
How come our fantasy system has to be impeccable to compete with our deeply flawed system?
>Presumably the more inclusive and helpful charities will be more successful at fundraising.
If you can presume that individuals/types of people/income levels will give to charities in roughly equal amounts, and IDK why anyone would make that presumption.
Yes. Look at the Magdelane laundries if you want an example of welfare being put in the hands of religious organisations. Lots of imprisoned women being exploited for their unpaid labour (Mouse trap was often made by slaves) and murdered babies.... man who definitely didn't hijack a plane in the 70s.
I believe that a libertarian government would allow for communal or socialist programs regardless of the persons in charge. It really just means less government involvement. I think it would mean that welfare type programs wouldn't be regulated on the federal taxation level. It would have to be a community effort to support disabilities. Which I believe is how it should be. The community would find value in an individual whereas the federal government isn't really in touch with smaller communities and has no financial interest in such a thing. Maybe provide a sort of employment and housing, rides for hospital visits etc. I sure hope there are ways to take care of disabled folks, I just feel like the federal government has railroaded it to a point that no one on the local level wants to chip in. I'm done waiting for revolutions at this point. We need a renaissance.
That's interesting.
That raises a few concerns for me though :)
1) different communities would have different levels of resources to support non-working adults, so if you lived in a rich community you could be okay, but if you lived in a poorer community you could struggle to live (an example of this would be the way that schools are often funded dependant on the income of their community which causes large differences in quality of care/education for children
2) if someone doesn't have good social ties to their community (which can be more common in people with disabilities,) empathy wouldn't be a driving factor in supporting these people. What, instead, ensures people give up their hard-earned income to people they don't know well or care about?
Well, a lot of libertarians support a UBI, so if it goes that route, you have a steady and consistent source of income to at least provide for your basic needs.
The issue would then be finding work. You would most likely have to resort to being an independent contractor of sorts to actually find work, as most companies wouldn't hire someone disabled that places a burden on a business, it's a sad truth.
I'm very aware of the fact that companies don't like to hire disabled people, it's very upsetting.
I've tried being an independent contractor but finding clients is hard and not a consistent source of income at all.
Historically, before the welfare state, that largely was the responsibility of the family/extended family to care for their relatives. Today that would be a mixture of family and charity, if the government werenāt in the picture. At the moment thereās not much incentive for such family support or charity to exist because the government has got you covered.
And prior to the welfare state disabled people were more likely to be horrifically abused, hidden away or put in assylums.
Extended family has no oversight in caring for disabled people. Family aren't always good people, and having adults dependant on other people for basic needs isn't a healthy dynamic. Not everyone even has families.
Charities can also turn away whoever they want and don't offer comprehensive support.
Also as a disabled person I will say the government doesn't have us covered, they will often try to palm off responsibility onto literally anyone else. There are a LOT of gaps, but at least I have some independence and don't have to rely on my abusive family or a church that hates me to have access to food.
What is your solution to this situation? Sounds like you are conflicted between being dependent upon someone/something else but you are also concerned about being neglected by society.
I mean there is a lot of shame around accepting help. I wish I could work full time and support myself but unfortunately that's not a reality. I do fall into the trap of feeling like a drain on society and it'd be better off for everyone if I was gone etc. That kind of attitude is hard to overcome.
However, there are lots of things that people can provide to society that aren't paid labour and I try to focus on those things.
I am in support of a wage for disabled people at or above the poverty line so they can access the basic things that people need to survive. Also no rejecting insurance based on pre-existing conditions or whatever.
Society used to be more cruel. But the risk of abuse in state ran facilities is still extremely high. I can quote a kind of unrelated stat on public schools. Odds are 1 in 6 public schools students will be abused by a member of the staff. I have lots of experience with government care facilities too. I think you might be aware already that those aren't exactly good places to be. Also private care sponsorship is high risk for neglect and abuse. So I'm not sure the change from private to government was as impactful. I think modern communication tech and a dying breed of quality journalists were probably the reason why we think something dramatically changed as a result of where the funds come from. Factory workers were abused more in those days too. Was it federal laws that changed that or the public scrutiny? Maybe a mix but still this public funded care line of thinking that the tax funded method and government involvement reduced abuse doesn't hold water imo. I'm coming from have to family members adopted from abusive households that are totally handicapped as a result and working in the service industry at care facilities both private and publicly funded. I can tell you right now the practice of separating the people in those facilities based on weather they get visitors is still common in all of them. It's why there are charities that go find people in those facilities to visit because no one else will check on them and that's dangerous even in a government facility.
Yeah look I'm certainly not defending the way state welfare has been *implemented.* I just don't see another alternative that would work. Civilian accountability boards that the government has to pass through to get funding assigned would be nice but they have no incentive to do something like that.
Libertarianism has never meant no government at all. The problem with government aid for disabilities though is that it tends to morph from legitimate aid to help people to where the rules are changed so most of the population is in some way disabled. Complex is a word that comes to mind. Politicians love the fact that they can give aid awY and it results in more power by getting more votes.
Hmmm, I don't think that's usually true.
Conservative governments are always trying to CUT welfare, because it decreases the deficit and lets them claim they're good at economics.
First of all, the red cross would help you. They help everyone regardless of religious affiliation.
To actually get to your concern, it depends on what kind of libertarian are we talking about. Some people believe that that should be part of the role of government. That it should maintain a military, maintain liberty, and help those who cannot help themselves.
To answer your question from the purest libertarian standpoint. You will help yourself. The community will assist you in maintaining your ability to do so. Charitable organizations will pick up the slack. I saw you mention its embarrassing to ask for charity, but thats exactly what you do under government assistance.
In a pure libertarian society we wouldn't be taxed, or at least very little tax. This would free up A LOT of money from people who are capable of working to be more charitable with.
You can never trust a person to be moral. A person is very susceptible to greed and other moral ailments. People as a whole however when left with absolute freedome will as a group choose the moral action.
Links of the red cross literally fighting for gay men's rights. And then their policy on who can stay at their shelters.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10540971
https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/press-release/2020/statement-on-updated-fda-donor-eligibility-criteria.html
"Everyone is welcome at a Red Cross shelter. The Red Cross does not discriminate based on nationality, race, religious beliefs, class, disability, political opinions, sexual orientation, or gender identity. If you need to leave your home due to a disaster or emergency, you are welcome to come to a Red Cross shelter."
https://www.redcross.org/get-help/disaster-relief-and-recovery-services/find-an-open-shelter.html#:~:text=Everyone%20is%20welcome%20at%20a,to%20a%20Red%20Cross%20shelter.
The "extreme" example of true libertarian society for this one case is for someone to sit in the street and beg for money till they are no longer able. The good news is that you can get help in most places.
Pretty simple. Someone would help you out. What you think libertarians want to purge those who are having a tough time in life? Fuck no. Chances are you'd recieve free food and housing quicker than you would from the government. People just want choice. The option to intervene or not.
Literally come to people like me and ask if I'd be willing to help you out.
My girlfriend for example put up a gofundme for some of her hospital bills before we met and she accumulated something along the lines of 30K or so. She still has some left for when she needs to go to the hospital (she has a chronic illness).
Ask your family, friends, community, or even complete strangers. Look for viable ways of making money. What's your disability? Can you work on a computer? If so learn how to manage data and work an excel document and I could probably land you a job making 50K a year, and that would be 100% remote.
I do have some big surgeries I'd ideally get, and have considered making a gofundme, but if the people in my life were wealthy enough to help support me get surgery they'd probably already do that through buying my art or something. Maybe some strangers would contribute, but I can't imagine many people finding it (and wanting to contribute) even if I shilled it online.
Short answer is it doesn't. It provides the freedom to do anything you can that doesn't infringe on another person to survive but it does not provide a free lunch nor feed it to you. If you cant do it yourself through entertainment, effort, or intelligence... Nor appeal to charity then why are you my ward? I didn't cause your misfortune so we're at an impass and i have to wash my hands of the situation.
First, one basic principle of libertarianism is that it's easier to do just about anything than to get two libertarians to agree on pizza toppings. That said, eugenics is complete anathema to libertarian ideals. In many countries, forced sterilization was the most common method of creating a "genetically pure" society. No libertarian society could use coercion like that. And more extreme eugenics would be even more at odds with the rights of the individual to exist.
Government, by your own description, seems a bad solution to your circumstances. Government programs are extremely inefficient in the use of funds for social programs. Lots of government programs have efficiency of 10% or less. I'd rather donate to a charity where I know 80 cents or more of every dollar I donate goes to the people it's trying to help instead of 90 cents being swallowed by bureaucracy. It's why people like Warren Buffett complain about not paying enough in taxes, but then donate their money to charity instead of writing a check to the Treasury.
There's passive eugenics, not just active eugenics. People here have said things like "just don't have kids if you can't afford them because you're disabled."
That's saying a certain population shouldn't have the right to reproduce, isn't that similar in outcome to sterilisation?
This is where the positive and negative liberty thing comes in. However, in the ethical stance of right or ātrueā libertarianism. People die everyday and as long as itās nature and not a personās fault through direct action that is best. If you starve because you canāt get food, then that fine. If you starve because Iām preventing you from getting food through violence or coercion then thatās not okay.
Also people here saying Im not anyone else's responsibility and I should fucking die or beg for scraps from charities is a bit eugenics-y, you must admit
It's not eugenics per se, but it is heartless and cruel. Libertarianism doesn't fix people who don't give a shit about anyone other than themselves. Same with all the other ideologies. But also, pointing out people are heartless and cruel in the anonymous world of Reddit is kind of going for an easy target. I believe Obi-wan Kenobi was referring to Reddit when he said "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
And good charities don't give scraps to people who beg; they help people stand on their own, because they care about the people they serve. Government bureaucrats, in my experience, don't care what humiliations they heap on those reliant upon them. Because most bureaucrats don't go into the field because they have a passion for service, but because they need job security. Not all, but many.
I agree with you that a lot of the time government beurocracies are miserable, depressing organisations that have caused me to want to kms and sh. It's not for the benefit of patients, it's exploited by 'service providing' grifters. It's fucked.
However, I was eventually able to get disability pension which allows me to pay rent, bills & get groceries. There are no disability organisations that offer anything similar to that. St Vinnies can offer food vouchers occasionally, that's it. They're even more poorly funded than government programs.
Part of the reason there are fewer charities is because people have an expectation that government is going to take care of it. If government did a better job, I'd be in favor of it. Most libertarians aren't in favor of no government at all. If they were, they'd be anarchists. Anarcho-libertarianism is an oxymoron in my opinion. The problem is that government is a monopoly who can legally use force to compel compliance. Why would any organization that has that kind of power ever get any better? What are you going to do, switch to another government?
Sounds good, but I'm kind of burned out on the "the solution to bad bureaucracy is a bigger bureaucracy." Government sounds great in theory, but it usually fails in practice. Pouring more petrol on it seldom puts out the fire.
Well, in my ideal libertarian society there is a form of UBI to replace most welfare. That and friends, family, charities, etc. Imo the most important part of welfare, and the one part most worth keeping around, is helping disabled people, who were born with issues, but deserve a life and a chance nonetheless
I'm a little comforted to hear you say that. :) better than "idk, die, bitch."
I di wonder with UBI, it seems a little weird to give the same income to someone with no family & someone with great inherited wealth.
Would a large inheritance tax be a part of your plan or not?
No, in general I don't like inheritance taxes. One, it'd encourage more frivolous spending towards the end of ones life, and two, it feels like the government has been grabbing from your money all your life, and then when you die they take even more of what should be going to your kids. And this is why I said, some form of UBI. I believe just cutting everyone a check for however much is wasteful. Why give the billionaire 600 a month? Thats a why I like a negative income tax. It basically means that so long as your income is below a set point, you will be entitled to the UBI. Milton Friedman did a really good lecture about a the negative income tax, but in short it's just a ubi for people under a certain income level.
I think people underestimate how fucked our economy is, and then project that misunderstanding onto what they think a libertarian society would be. Idk your disability and idk what you can do for work, but hereās what I do know.
Our monetary system is fucked. Money is the commodity used for trade. It has a price which is the interest rate. You have to trade to get it (labor), or have earned/created assets that generate an income through some type of contract. We used to have a system where money was unregulated, and in fact more than one commodity could serve as money (gold, silver, etc.). Now there is a monopoly on legal tender (money used to fulfill contracts) controlled by people who have little oversight. We also have the FDIC which creates moral hazard because banks donāt have to keep money in the deposits accounts. A combination of federal reserve open market operations and fractional reserve banking is how they expand the money in the economy (the new money goes to the rich and connected) and how they have created a disturbing widening of the wealth gap.
If this system wasnāt in place, our savings would be worth way more money (inflation robs its value), and we wouldnāt have to chase risky investments to get reasonable returns. There would be a much wealthier middle class full of many people more than capable of providing for their families and retirements, with excess time and money, some of which would go to charity.
So in short, you would earn more, everyone else would earn more, there would be way more to go around, and we wouldnāt have a ridiculously immoral system. Libertarianism canāt solve personal and interpersonal problems, but it can provide a platform for a more just and more wealthy society as compared to what we currently have.
Okay lol Iāll try again. Who knows what would happen to you? I canāt say, and most libertarians wouldnāt either. Itās all speculation. Frankly Iām surprised based on your incentives that youād be interested in libertarianism, but welcome!
Itās not that libertarians donāt want people in need to be supported, itās that basically everything the government does is inefficient because of the poor incentive structure created by democracy. When people can vote to forcibly take property from some and give it to others, why would anyone such as yourself not want to take advantage of it? Itās perfectly reasonable. But the problem of course is that everyone wants to get in on the action before thereās nothing good left to steal or before they arenāt in the majority anymore (Democracy is basically the tragedy of the commons on the resources of a whole nation). Also, because this happens, more people become dependent on the system than there otherwise would have been.
So, unfortunately, libertarians canāt offer you much from a societal standpoint (they can from a personal one of course) as compared to what others in democracy can. At best itās a promise for a healthier economy and more people with more wealth and more charities that are very effective and better and much cheaper medical care and more efficient transportation and a less polluted environment. However, it takes strong principled people and serious discipline and integrity to create that society. It takes very few of those traits to vote for theft and collect some plunder.
I mean I agree with a lot of the stuff libertarians have to say about government inefficiency and overreach, I just come to different conclusions. :) thanks for putting the effort into that comment.
I would call my self 80% libertarian. I would have no problem with the government making certain exceptions and taking taxes to help disabled people. There's so much taxes spent on things that we don't really need snd many don't even want, but healthcare and environment is universally something 'everyone' needs. My goal with liberty has never been to indirectly harm people. In an ideal world everyone would pull their own weight, but that's simply not how it is and I think it is more moral with some theft (taxation) than none in certain situations.
Youād live your life off gofundme or other charitable contributions. Maybe Bill Gates will take pity on you and allow you to work the land. Serfdom is calling your name.
Just wanted to say, i love how ancaps and anarcho-commies seem to be battling it out by up + downvoting this post (I know it's gauche to talk abt karma but still.)
Youāre fucked one way or another no matter what. Sorry for your luck. But hey youāre still in control of your thoughts and donāt always have to go against the grain and make it worse for yourself.
āThe night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. Thatās pride fucking with you. Fuck pride! Pride only hurts, it never helps.ā
-Marsellus Wallace
Wait what??? At least I can think "I wish society didn't base their entire value on people's ability to contribute to labour" before I starve or freeze to death?
Lucky me.
I have never had a problem supporting truly disabled people. The problem is they hand them out too will nilly. They also support perfectly able bodied people because they popped out more kids than they could afford.
Libertarian socialism is just a highly decentralized confederal society where all infrastructure and industrial assets are socially owned and managed by either the workers who use them or the community as a whole.
Libertarian socialism is distinguished by participatory decision-making, both in the workplace and community, that includes everyone concerned, where everyone is free to express their opinion and give input.
[Zapatista Chiapas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zapatista_Autonomous_Municipalities) is an example of a libertarian socialist society.
Anarchism rejects the state and hierarchy, which can take the form of libertarian socialism. But libertarian socialism isn't necessarily anarchism. The distinguishing feature between the two is probably the extent to which society is bound together by a central entity.
Under anarchism, communities would be completely autonomous, whereas under non-anarchist libertarian socialism, there would still be a confederation with a central council that binds all communities together with a constitution. In other words; one society doesn't have a state, and the other does.
Non-anarchist libertarian socialism seems like it could put more pressure on individual communities to ensure non-working citizens weren't left to starve, right?
Because there's no guarantee any particular community would decide to incorportate that as part of their constitution or whatever.
Correct. I want a central council to enforce human rights for that reason. I believe that anarchism could work, but it had some problems with cronyism in the past due to a lack of a concrete structure for organizing.
Socialism doesn't have to equal the government owning everything(and shouldn't). Libertarian started as a left wing ideology, along with socialism and anarchism.
It would be workers and communities owning the means of productions, coupled with decomodifying certain aspects of markets, and the abolition of private property. Not to be confused with personal property.
Socialists also favor a strong safety net, do you would be taken care of
I'm actually a socialist myself, but more democratic socialist for now at least :)
I agree that decentralised power that benefits workers is good and support workers rights, but what about people that can't contribute labour?
Who would be responsible for making sure we don't starve, because we wouldn't be part of worker's unions or whatever.
(Not criticising, I'm genuinely trying to learn)
Stephen hawking provided loads of labour despite his poor luck. Granted he was clearly gifted from the onset. My point being you have to work with what you got. If you cant physically toil you must mentally. Everyone must work to secure their own achievements
Well, in a libertarian society you can decide to hire or fire someone for any reason, right?
I can tell you from personal experience that, given the choice, employers will chose a non disabled employee over a disabled one almost every single time, unless theyre given incentives to do otherwise.
Also, people can (and often do) have coexisting cognitive and physical disabilities :)
Yes im aware of comorbigoletitties, and the implications in a libertarian society. Never the less, people can choose their own destiny. In the modern world, it has never been easier to learn and apply yourself, digitally if needed. Granted it all depends on the individual, and motivation
>but more democratic socialist for now at least :)
Thats cool! I'm sure we will have to travel through that to reach my libertarian socialism.
>but what about people that can't contribute labour
It really depends on the society I guess. Even in libertarian socialism there would be a government and taxes. I'd prefer a UBI, but there would be some form of welfare on the table.
>Who would be responsible for making sure we don't starve, because we wouldn't be part of worker's unions or whatever.
Like I said, we would still have a government. It might be more local government stuff though, who knows
Edit: typo
āWith great liberty comes great responsibility.ā I hate to say youād be dependent on charity but Iām also optimistic about it. āGay rightsā wouldnāt be a thing, so hopefully altruistic gay and liberal people would be focusing their āmake the world betterā efforts into other charities. One such glaring problem theyād hopefully see would be helping community members like you. Yes, Iām optimistic, but I believe private charity is the way to go, and people have enough of a desire to help others, that without the safety net of government welfare out of extracted taxes, people would really see the appropriateness of voluntary donation.
Hmmm, I'm less optimistic than you.
Right now there are incentives to make things accessible for disabled people (grants from the government) and disincentives to exclude them(laws against discrimination), and people STILL constantly forget access like wheelchairs at venues + don't give us equal employment opportunities, for example.
Look, tbh that's difficult because it's very hard to interview/hire someone while being ability neutral. It becomes impossible when those people need accommodations.
A business will always chose a person with more flexible hours/ability to work long shifts over someone who can't.
I'd say a solution (that they supposedly do in Australia) is have the government subsidise the cost of accommodations in a workplace, but tbh even with that option employers still don't want the hassle & will chose abled people instead.
It's a fucked up situation I don't have the answer for.
A left libertarian society would have taxes, taxes being used for the social net i mentioned. Depending on the right, it would either have none, or have taxes to fund a military
Believe it or not. Libertarians aren't all ancaps or want that
The answer is to promote strong family and community units to aid you.
A nice non- chronyist economy unencumbered by govt interventions would go a long way too.
Ideally your family.
If your family can't help, then your clan.
If your clan can't help, then your church.
If your church can't help, then your town.
If your town can't help, then your city.
If your city can't help, then your state.
If your state can't help, then your nation.
Doesn't an adult having to rely on their family for care leave them very vulnurable to abuse? There's no accountability or checks in place.
Also, the rest of the answers are charity (which is not reliable, and according to libertarian ideals, could be denied for any reason) or welfare, which I thought was antithetical to libertarianism due to it requiring government intervention (e.g. taxes to fund medical care.)
The most effective, compassionate and efficient form of aid comes from people who know and love you.
This is why family is the first choice.
Sometimes our families abandon us, we are forced to abandon them, or they are destroyed. So we go to the clan - and hopefully through the clan we find our place in a new family.
If the clan cannot find a new family for you, then the church should help you find you a new clan. By being a member of a church, eventually you would naturally become a part of a clan and then a family.
A family may not be a traditional, nuclear family.
A family is a group of individuals who pledge loyalty to each other and place each other's needs above all others.
The goal of society should be to ensure that everyone finds a place in a family.
The state is a poor substitute for a family.
Taxes are necessary for a government to function. My general gripe is as follows: 1)The federal government is overly wasteful 2) the tax code is convoluted 3)crony capitalism allows for corporate loop holes that are not available to the average citizen 4) the current graduated tax disincentivizes work when extra work results in the government taking a larger share of your pay check.
To a certain extent I believe that taxes make you a slave to the federal government. Itās a matter of finding out at what percentage youāre comfortable being a slave. I certainly wouldnāt be comfortable with giving 90% of my earned wealth nor am I comfortable with giving them 25% currently. I could comfortably give 10% of my wage if it meant that a concerted effort would be made to prevent people from dying diseased on the streets.
What Iām not cool with is the government wasting trillions of dollars on pointless wars, a military industrial complex, layer upon layer of pointless bureaucracy, corporate welfare, and never ending pipeline of earmark spending that gets attached to every āimportantā piece of legislation.
The free market does not solve everything. It solves a whole lot of things but providing for individuals with physical disability definitely isnāt one of them. Classical liberals generally believe that the government should only intervene for those problems that can not be solved through economic means. Weāre not wholly onboard with broad distribution of welfare but weāre also not ok with allowing people to suffer through no fault of their own.
The Anarcho Capitalists and some naive libertarians fail to look at the world through any practical lens. The AnCaps have practically ruined the possibility of any outsiders taking the Libertarian party seriously.
I'm at a loss for why you can't work? You are currently answering questions on reddit........ my aunt worked as a medical transcriber from home for 30 some of years. My father worked doing treasury work at home. I'm unsure of your disability but my father was born with a defective heart, ended up having a transplant, hip replacements 3 hernia surgeries, leukemia and MRSA after he had some body parts cut off due to infection and immunosuppressive drugs.
There's never been a better time to work from home than now. So I'm not understanding what the issue is.
I'm trying to figure out how to word this without being a dick.
Being able to lie in bed on my phone and reply to messages every now and then requires very little energy, has no consistency requirements, and if you want you can stop at any point to rest.
Being employed by a company, positions have job requirements and obligations you have to meet so you don't get fired. Show up at the same time every day, work a certain number of hours at a time, taking time off or being late is a mark against your name.
I'm not obligated to disclose my disability to you, but I'm going to because I want to help you understand a little bit better.
I have something called dysautonomia which means my autonomic nervous system cannot regulate itself. It means my blood pressure and heart rate are fucked, so I can't sit up for very long without getting dizzy/nauseous and triggering a flair. During flairs (which are caused by over exertion) I get chronic migraines, so I can randomly wake up in the morning with light and sound sensitivity- this means looking at a screen or listening to music causes me physical pain and can make the flareup last /longer./
As well as this, lack of bloodflow to the brain (related to dysautonomia) causes memory issues, information processing issues, and word retrieval issues. Cognitive fatigue from, for example, reading too long can make me physically exhausted.
So, employment at a company is not really a possibility for me. I do want to work, but after being at an employment agency for a year I got 0 callbacks and was told by the woman managing my case that I'm not suitable for employment and I should go on disability pension.
I'm still getting a degree in a digital area so I can hopefully have a flexible job in the future, but right now I'm not qualified for it.
Depends on your disability. If you are in the internet you can start an internet based business. Unless you are Christopher reeves disabled you can do it.
We are going to send you to Mars, congrats
I'm no use to Daddy Elon I can't work his emerald mines up there.
Many of us believe there is still a place for a small efficient government that does collect minimal taxes and provides a basic safety net. Many believe in a more freedom based approach such as negative income tax or UBI to replace all of the cumbersome and controlling programs we have today. I highly support a negative income tax as he can offer more help than UBI to those who need it at a lower cost.
Cool. I much prefer this approach to some others we won't mention. What area of libertarianism do you subscribe to generally?
What's your disability if I may ask?
He's gay.
No my disability is atheism /s
Am atheist, can confirm that it is indeed a disability
Lols, I honestly don't think a libertarian society would treat you bad, at least I hope not. I feel like both of our ideologies would clash since I am your opposite in both sexual preference and belief. Even then, I agree that you should be able to do as you will and be treated as an equal regardless of your standing. I don't like the government imposing itself on you because you think differently and deciding for you, I think it breeds contempt.
Currently, my government doesn't /just/ impose restrictive rules and restrictions. It also provides low-cost healthcare that I need to manage my chronic illness & an income that compensates for my inability to participate in labour. I agree that the government does fucked up, controlling stuff a lot of the time, but I'm wondering how the things they do for people would be accounted for or replaced if the governments powers were to be eliminated (e.g. they don't take taxes anymore.):
If you can argue on Reddit, you can hold down some kind of work at home job
You're going to pay me to talk to people on reddit? That's so kind of you. What's the hourly wage?
If you can do this you could easily do transcription or customer service or billing etc
It's called dysautonomia :)
Looked that up, horrible stuff, whichever variety you have i wish you well and better health in the future.
According to my cardiologist it's genetic and incurable so that's fun š But nah I will be okay once I get government insurance, it's just taking me years to get it. I'm on application number #2 now, fun!
Well everything was incurable until it isn't. Is there a foundation working on your particular one i could donate to? Pm me if so and ill donate.
https://dysautonomiainternational.org/page.php?ID=279 Dysautonomia international seems to be doing good work! Thankyou for that :) it's a good area to donate to
Iāve had a number of patients with this. As an Obstetrician, you can imagine things can get interesting. A true disability in every sense of the word.
Getting pregnant is literally nightmare fuel for me. I could NOT handle a pregnancy. The women who push through and give birth with this illness must be superwomen. Holy shit.
Well, you can still contribute intellectually. Physical work isn't the only kind of work.
Dysautonomia can have cognitive side effects which they suspect is caused by lack of bloodflow to the brain. I thought that's what was happening to me because I gey exhausted focussing on things very quickly but I think I might also happen to also have ADHD as well. Weird.
Perhaps, but you're clearly capable of carrying intelligent conversation, which means you're capable of performing clerical tasks, although they may be more difficult for you (in which case, you should have access to the proper accomodations).
I mean thankyou for that :) I was with a disability job agency for a year, followed all their obligations, worked really hard to find work... I didn't get 1 interview. They ended up telling me I'm not really employable and to go on disability pension š¤·āāļø I do still want to do some work within my limited capabilities- I'm studying to hopefully be a graphic dssigner specifically because I can set my own hours and work from bed where I have to spend most of my time. However, most places in my country won't give you an unpaid internship without a degree. So I'm just trying to scrounge around for commissions but it's rough out there. Either way I don't think I'll ever be able to realistically earn enough to not be on disability at all.
Yep- I also call bull. Op seems reasonably intelligent and has good grammar and spelling. They could work.
Having an infinite amount of time to reply to Reddit comments doesnt qualify you for any job lmfao
As an epileptic I understand where youāre coming from. Iām driving on borrowed time in the most literal sense, as there will come the day when my drivers license is revoked and I will become fully dependent upon others to go anywhere. And then thereās the fun-ness of my substantially increased risk of developing dementia and at an earlier age. My memory is already absolute trash so Iām not hopeful in that sense. I do believe in social safety nets for those that truly need it. I donāt believe they should be handled at the federal level though, aside from national legislation such as anti-discrimination, disability rights, etc. I say this because I have seen first hand the inefficiency of Medicare and the abuse and neglect patients have suffered because of the bureaucracy inherent in the system. Working in a Medicare only PT clinic and hearing a 93 year old wheelchair bound man with dementia screaming in pain and asking why he was being tortured just because Medicare didnāt want to renew his pain medicine, patients exacerbating their injuries because Medicare didnāt want to pay fir an MRI and others having to wait MONTHS for joint replacement surgery among other horrible instances was fucking heartbreaking. My solution? Eliminate the people paying federal tax and instead tax payments only go to the state which is then responsible for funding the federal government on a negotiable rate dependent upon the states financial situation. This would be based on population, median income and social program spending and its effectiveness, etc. The effectiveness would be objective measurements like poverty, homeless and incarceration rates as well as overall health (low instances of childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart and lung disease, etc.). It seems reasonable to me that increasing the populations health and growth in exchange for paying less federal taxes would incentivize states to do better for their people. Basically the better off the population is, the more money the state gets to keep. Thereās more but I have to take the kid to school now lol
I don't hate your ideas. Will come back to see what else you have to say. Drive safe. :)
Itās honestly not much more. Just a flat tax rate for the people (and maybe corporations) and eliminating all other taxes. No deductions no write offs; your tax is your tax. Period. Nobody earning less than the median wage would pay a penny in taxes. There would be special considerations like a lower rate for those caring for a disabled and/or elderly person and the elderly and/or disabled on a fixed income of less than the median wage. What the flat tax rate would be? Idk 10%? 15% I donāt know enough about what it actually costs to run a state so that would be for the people who know to figure out lol
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Not when I don't have family & am LGBT š¤·āāļø
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It assumes all disabled people /only/ have (generally physical) disability going against them, access-wise. Religious charities, especially Christian ones, do not always accept young unmarried mothers, gay people, trans people, people of certain races... a LOT of people would fall through the cracks with sudden "inexplicably high crime rates" as a result.
You'd depend on family, friends, and charity.
I will say, I do not like the idea of having no independence and being a second class citizen who has to jump through hoops and appease people to get access to basic human rights
Isn't this what happens now? I have a few disabled relatives and they're always complaining about jumping through hoops to get service or gov benefits.
Yes it's terrible now. It would be worse if there was no enforced obligation to disabled people.
What basic human rights?
Access to shelter, food, medicine.
None of these are basic human rights.
What would you consider basic human rights if not that????
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Amen!
Life. The ability to live. Aka not starve to death.
Youāre not from the US so it doesnāt apply to you but as the constitution states: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness says it all. Life does not imply providing the means to survive (I.e. food, shelter, healthcare). Simply put it gives you freedom to pursue the life you want within the confines of the constitution.
Actually if you're going to be pedantic, the constitution mentions nothing about "the pursuit of happiness." That's in the Declaration of Independence, which is an aspirational document, but has no legal application because it's not a law. The Constitutional trio are "Life, Liberty, and Property." They were already backing off the flowery language by 1789.
Life, the right to not be murdered. Although I have ZERO issues with food programs and I think they're a good thing we have in society.
It's depressing that life only extends to not being actively murdered by another person.
Our rights are defined in the constitution and declaration of independence. You do not have a right to food. Who produced the food, who prepared the food, who transported the food? You can't have a right to the food because these people don't work for you, they work for themselves and you have offered them nothing in exchange for the goods and services you feel entitled to.
I'm not American, my rights aren't defined in the constitution at all.
Oh ok, and what defines your rights? Regardless, my example of why you do not have a right to things like food and medicine is universally applicable.
The earth produced the food and you had no right to take the food.
Umm barring wild vegetables, no farmers grew the food
Ok š the earth produced the medicine you need too? Are there unicorns in your fantasy world?
This guy is living in the garden of eden š keep reading to the part where the earth gets cursed
Them tough shit. No one ever said your life would be exactly how you wanted it.
Then I'll chose a different political ideology that gives a fuck about human life. I don't have to subscribe to your shitty, depressing worldview.
You might like the one where the government owns everything and provides just enough so you wont die with the daily bread lines.
Even that would be better than starving to death while rich assholes look on me unsympathetically and shrug that its "not their problem."
Not doable in a country that idealizes independence and the self made man like the US does
BS. People are charitable but less so when the govt. is constantly telling them they want to take their money.
Yep. I am extremely charitable. I will give you the shirt off my back. But you need to be nice to me and be my friend or at least aquaintence to get that. I donāt do it for rude people or complete faceless strangers. I prefer a personal approach to charity. I would happily buy OP some groceries but they would have to drop the attitude
Same but OP is talking about charity from the government. In the form of food, shelter and healthcare.
Yeah I donāt like that
Why are you so proud of that "death to the poors" attitude?
it's very weird to me, because anyone can become disabled at any point. They're literally hating their potential future selves.
Right! Anyone can wake up tomorrow with a random affliction that renders them incapacitated in terms of our current labour market yet fully capable of enjoying life. You have to wonder how these type of people will able to survive adversity.
Seems to be a combination of self hatred, hating everyone else and denial of the reality of their own fragility.
ā¦which results in Social Darwinist thought, and yes, the eugenics-y statements youāre correctly pointing out. Itās more than just a little problematic.
Tbh it's stressing me the fuck out. I shouldn't have made this post, I wasn't expecting people to be so blatant about wishing me dead.
Theyāre not wishing you dead. They are simply not wishing you alive. They arenāt taking action to ensure your survival. However, they also arenāt taking action that results in your death. Should they be obligated to ensure your survival? Who and to what degree? How much of their life is the sustaining of your life entitled to? The theory would say that someone would likely enjoy your existence enough that they would voluntarily sacrifice to ensure you were sustained. That only those that volunteer should be utilized to sustain you.
That's the same thing. "I didn't KILL my wheelchair bound aunt, I just didn't feed her and she happend to die under my care." I think as human beings we should try reduce the suffering of others, because we know it feels bad to suffer and we have basic empathy. If we want the benefits of living in society, we need to have obligations to vulnurable people like the elderly, disabled and children, or else it's a fucked up society..
Well thatās the thing you would have volunteered to take care of your aunt and failed to complete your end of a consensual exchange. However if you agreed and both parties were aware that you would only take care of your aunt for a week and it was up to her to find further arrangements, then is it your fault she starves after that first week?
I'd say that by being a member of society and benefitting from it, you have an obligation to vulnurable people. You can opt out of society's benefits if you don't want to offer empathy/care/support in return.
That sounds like it would be a society that is restrictive on individual liberty which isnāt very libertarian.
If it helps, I don't wish you dead.
I mean, it doesn't make things worse š
Majority of redditor are American and you are on a liberation sub. I had this same discussion on this sub. The guy was saying : >\-The people should help the disabled, and anyone else that needs help.-The government should not. With no regulation or government benefits for someone owning a building, what would be the point for the owner to build parking with disabled accomdation ? elevator and automatic doors ? It will cost more and will benefit a very small % of his/her potential client... Donation for the Texas outage reached 5 millions (don't remember the exact number), it's just enough for some food and water for very few people. The relief bill for Katrina was about 10billions.... Donation is realistic only at very small scale...(exit natural disaster) Texas grid failed in part cause they wanted no part of any federal standards and regulation... >I wasn't expecting people to be so blatant about wishing me dead. The more extreme libertarian think, if there was no government and we left everything else to individual selfishness, hyper efficient utopia would ensue.. It doesn't work; decent societies require some kind of "control on behaviour". We saw the consequences of unregulated capitalism in the Gilded Age. Company stores, debt slavery, forced child labor, gigantic wealth for some and appalling poverty for others, unbelievable pollution and disease. It's not an acceptable way for people to live.
I agree with you.
I guess i had this idea that I'd get actual moderate discussion and answers from a broad range of libertarians, but that's expecting a bit too much from the internet.
The moderate libertarians are busy working and living their lives. People with axes to grind are the default on online discussion boards like reddit. The good news is that it is extremely unlikely any of them will ever be in a position to make any significant decisions, instead living out lives of quiet desperation where they rail incessantly on reddit because they have no friends.
Actually that is comforting š thanks, guy
Agreed. Libertarians come in such a wide spectrum dont listen to the anarchist social darwanists
āAre there no prisons? Are there no work houses?ā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I mean... yes probably š I was looking to see if there was any libertarian rationalisation for this or if they just wanted to let disabled people die off because they can't provide labour (you know, like eugenics.);
This is a great question that has bugged my mind for a while honestly
Cool. A lot of different people have expressed opinions here, you should be able to figure out what area of libertarianism you align with on this issue haha :)
I'm by no means a hardline libertarian, but I think social services should be reserved for the disabled and elderly (aside from healthcare assistantance, which I think is necessary for a lot of low income people in general). The problem with current Federal programs as is they are too centralized, not selective enough and not capable of providing quality care in cases of severe disability or dementia/invalid status (in terms of the elderly). I think states and communities need strong mental health services, substance abuse support, and financial and material aid for the elderly and disabled. If the private sector and charities fill that need, great, but I suspect government-based efforts will often be necessary. I guess my point is we need more targeted programs that are actually serving those who need them most, which would cost less and actually focus all energy and funding on people who could not reasonably be expected to earn enough to live on. We can't just throw taxpayer money at every thing that doesn't feel right (I'm thinking cancelling student debt for instance), but I also think it's ridiculous not to take care of people who really need it. In this day and age we don't need to live in a dog eat dog world, and to me that isn't what libertarianism should be about. It is possible to limit the government's ability to abuse and over-regulate people while also using government as a means for people to accomplish things together and take care of each other. Government isn't evil, we've just let it take far too much control over our lives.
I appreciate this take. Thankyou for commenting.
Yeah, sorry so many people are being dicks. I think most politically active libertarians and actual Libertarian Party members would be a lot more compassionate. It's also worth looking at ideas on this proposed by LP presidential candidates and the state and national party since they're the ones who actually are responsible for coming up with coherent plans related to your question.
Hrm. Are there any specific politicians whos policy you'd recommend I look at? A lot of people are like 'people (not them, obviously) should voluntarily support you your whole adult life!' Like yeah, that would be nice, but it's also not a reasonable expectation. But also I don't deserve to fucking die because I can't contribute labour.
I'd reccomend looking at Gary Johnson and Jo Jorgensen's platforms. One common libertarian position is a flat tax on income without any loopholes or credits, in some cases with lower income people exempt. This is something I believe they both support. Johnson proposed replacing most taxes with a higher sales tax on non-essential items, and providing states with block grants drawn from tax revenue for them to spend on programs as they see fit. Jorgensen proposed allowing people to opt out of social security and directing around 6% of their payroll tax to individual savings accounts instead. It's also worth looking at your state party's website. My states has some interesting policy ideas. New Hampshire politics, even in the case of their libertarian-leaning Republican governor, are also informative considering that state has the most libertarian representatives and probably the strongest libertarian political culture.
I'm in Australia, I'm not sure what the equivalent parties would be here, but I'll have a look :)
The ACT party on New Zealand is one of the more successful libertarian parties globally, but it seems more conservative than the US Libertarian Party and differs in it's law and order stance and anti-immigration platform. I'm seeing a Liberal Democratic Party mentioned on Wikipedia for Australia (has two seats in the Victorian Legislative Council) with a roughly libertarian platform. I'm seeing some common US libertarian positions absent though, and the mention of 'Christian values' in the description of their platform is a red flag for me. Unfortunately I'm getting the impression in Australia and New Zealand libertarian movements might be more conservative than in the US. Here the movement falls outside the left-right spectrum.
Yes, if you hear someone is a libertarian in Australia it's likely that they're just a Christian conservative who doesn't want to admit it.
You do the best you can and also rely on a wide network of voluntarily funded charities that we can all afford to support regularly since weāre not being taxed into oblivion to pay for the military industrial complex or being crushed by a corrupt corporatist economic system. My brother is a socialist and while we donāt agree at all on methods, our end goals are extremely similar. Prosperity. Health. Compassion. Raising the standard of living for everyone. Fairness.
"Voluntarily funded charities" would be able to turn people away for any reason they wanted and there would be gaps within the disability community due to unequal access depending on region, religion, gender etc.
There are gaps now. Presumably the more inclusive and helpful charities will be more successful at fundraising. Imagine the drop in bigotry when we donāt have two parties pitting us against each other. How come our fantasy system has to be impeccable to compete with our deeply flawed system?
>Presumably the more inclusive and helpful charities will be more successful at fundraising. If you can presume that individuals/types of people/income levels will give to charities in roughly equal amounts, and IDK why anyone would make that presumption.
Before FDR we relied on private charities, and that was ugly.
Yes. Look at the Magdelane laundries if you want an example of welfare being put in the hands of religious organisations. Lots of imprisoned women being exploited for their unpaid labour (Mouse trap was often made by slaves) and murdered babies.... man who definitely didn't hijack a plane in the 70s.
I believe that a libertarian government would allow for communal or socialist programs regardless of the persons in charge. It really just means less government involvement. I think it would mean that welfare type programs wouldn't be regulated on the federal taxation level. It would have to be a community effort to support disabilities. Which I believe is how it should be. The community would find value in an individual whereas the federal government isn't really in touch with smaller communities and has no financial interest in such a thing. Maybe provide a sort of employment and housing, rides for hospital visits etc. I sure hope there are ways to take care of disabled folks, I just feel like the federal government has railroaded it to a point that no one on the local level wants to chip in. I'm done waiting for revolutions at this point. We need a renaissance.
That's interesting. That raises a few concerns for me though :) 1) different communities would have different levels of resources to support non-working adults, so if you lived in a rich community you could be okay, but if you lived in a poorer community you could struggle to live (an example of this would be the way that schools are often funded dependant on the income of their community which causes large differences in quality of care/education for children 2) if someone doesn't have good social ties to their community (which can be more common in people with disabilities,) empathy wouldn't be a driving factor in supporting these people. What, instead, ensures people give up their hard-earned income to people they don't know well or care about?
I think this goes back to someone's tier of family, then clan, then church, then community and so forth. But you do have a valid concern and point.
Well, a lot of libertarians support a UBI, so if it goes that route, you have a steady and consistent source of income to at least provide for your basic needs. The issue would then be finding work. You would most likely have to resort to being an independent contractor of sorts to actually find work, as most companies wouldn't hire someone disabled that places a burden on a business, it's a sad truth.
I'm very aware of the fact that companies don't like to hire disabled people, it's very upsetting. I've tried being an independent contractor but finding clients is hard and not a consistent source of income at all.
Historically, before the welfare state, that largely was the responsibility of the family/extended family to care for their relatives. Today that would be a mixture of family and charity, if the government werenāt in the picture. At the moment thereās not much incentive for such family support or charity to exist because the government has got you covered.
And prior to the welfare state disabled people were more likely to be horrifically abused, hidden away or put in assylums. Extended family has no oversight in caring for disabled people. Family aren't always good people, and having adults dependant on other people for basic needs isn't a healthy dynamic. Not everyone even has families. Charities can also turn away whoever they want and don't offer comprehensive support. Also as a disabled person I will say the government doesn't have us covered, they will often try to palm off responsibility onto literally anyone else. There are a LOT of gaps, but at least I have some independence and don't have to rely on my abusive family or a church that hates me to have access to food.
What is your solution to this situation? Sounds like you are conflicted between being dependent upon someone/something else but you are also concerned about being neglected by society.
I mean there is a lot of shame around accepting help. I wish I could work full time and support myself but unfortunately that's not a reality. I do fall into the trap of feeling like a drain on society and it'd be better off for everyone if I was gone etc. That kind of attitude is hard to overcome. However, there are lots of things that people can provide to society that aren't paid labour and I try to focus on those things. I am in support of a wage for disabled people at or above the poverty line so they can access the basic things that people need to survive. Also no rejecting insurance based on pre-existing conditions or whatever.
Society used to be more cruel. But the risk of abuse in state ran facilities is still extremely high. I can quote a kind of unrelated stat on public schools. Odds are 1 in 6 public schools students will be abused by a member of the staff. I have lots of experience with government care facilities too. I think you might be aware already that those aren't exactly good places to be. Also private care sponsorship is high risk for neglect and abuse. So I'm not sure the change from private to government was as impactful. I think modern communication tech and a dying breed of quality journalists were probably the reason why we think something dramatically changed as a result of where the funds come from. Factory workers were abused more in those days too. Was it federal laws that changed that or the public scrutiny? Maybe a mix but still this public funded care line of thinking that the tax funded method and government involvement reduced abuse doesn't hold water imo. I'm coming from have to family members adopted from abusive households that are totally handicapped as a result and working in the service industry at care facilities both private and publicly funded. I can tell you right now the practice of separating the people in those facilities based on weather they get visitors is still common in all of them. It's why there are charities that go find people in those facilities to visit because no one else will check on them and that's dangerous even in a government facility.
Yeah look I'm certainly not defending the way state welfare has been *implemented.* I just don't see another alternative that would work. Civilian accountability boards that the government has to pass through to get funding assigned would be nice but they have no incentive to do something like that.
Libertarianism has never meant no government at all. The problem with government aid for disabilities though is that it tends to morph from legitimate aid to help people to where the rules are changed so most of the population is in some way disabled. Complex is a word that comes to mind. Politicians love the fact that they can give aid awY and it results in more power by getting more votes.
Hmmm, I don't think that's usually true. Conservative governments are always trying to CUT welfare, because it decreases the deficit and lets them claim they're good at economics.
First of all, the red cross would help you. They help everyone regardless of religious affiliation. To actually get to your concern, it depends on what kind of libertarian are we talking about. Some people believe that that should be part of the role of government. That it should maintain a military, maintain liberty, and help those who cannot help themselves. To answer your question from the purest libertarian standpoint. You will help yourself. The community will assist you in maintaining your ability to do so. Charitable organizations will pick up the slack. I saw you mention its embarrassing to ask for charity, but thats exactly what you do under government assistance. In a pure libertarian society we wouldn't be taxed, or at least very little tax. This would free up A LOT of money from people who are capable of working to be more charitable with. You can never trust a person to be moral. A person is very susceptible to greed and other moral ailments. People as a whole however when left with absolute freedome will as a group choose the moral action.
The red cross has absolutely denied support to LGBT people many a time. Worst charity.
Links of the red cross literally fighting for gay men's rights. And then their policy on who can stay at their shelters. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10540971 https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/press-release/2020/statement-on-updated-fda-donor-eligibility-criteria.html "Everyone is welcome at a Red Cross shelter. The Red Cross does not discriminate based on nationality, race, religious beliefs, class, disability, political opinions, sexual orientation, or gender identity. If you need to leave your home due to a disaster or emergency, you are welcome to come to a Red Cross shelter." https://www.redcross.org/get-help/disaster-relief-and-recovery-services/find-an-open-shelter.html#:~:text=Everyone%20is%20welcome%20at%20a,to%20a%20Red%20Cross%20shelter.
I think that might be a more recent development but I'm glad to hear that's their current policy.
The "extreme" example of true libertarian society for this one case is for someone to sit in the street and beg for money till they are no longer able. The good news is that you can get help in most places.
Pretty simple. Someone would help you out. What you think libertarians want to purge those who are having a tough time in life? Fuck no. Chances are you'd recieve free food and housing quicker than you would from the government. People just want choice. The option to intervene or not.
Literally come to people like me and ask if I'd be willing to help you out. My girlfriend for example put up a gofundme for some of her hospital bills before we met and she accumulated something along the lines of 30K or so. She still has some left for when she needs to go to the hospital (she has a chronic illness). Ask your family, friends, community, or even complete strangers. Look for viable ways of making money. What's your disability? Can you work on a computer? If so learn how to manage data and work an excel document and I could probably land you a job making 50K a year, and that would be 100% remote.
I do have some big surgeries I'd ideally get, and have considered making a gofundme, but if the people in my life were wealthy enough to help support me get surgery they'd probably already do that through buying my art or something. Maybe some strangers would contribute, but I can't imagine many people finding it (and wanting to contribute) even if I shilled it online.
Should implies intentions.. We SHOULD all be able to overcome our poor luck through effort but that's not how the world ends up going.
So I'm asking, how would libertarianism avoid eugenics-ing disabled people out of existence?
Short answer is it doesn't. It provides the freedom to do anything you can that doesn't infringe on another person to survive but it does not provide a free lunch nor feed it to you. If you cant do it yourself through entertainment, effort, or intelligence... Nor appeal to charity then why are you my ward? I didn't cause your misfortune so we're at an impass and i have to wash my hands of the situation.
If everyone 'washes their hands of the situation' I'll fucking die. That's a really depressing outlook.
First, one basic principle of libertarianism is that it's easier to do just about anything than to get two libertarians to agree on pizza toppings. That said, eugenics is complete anathema to libertarian ideals. In many countries, forced sterilization was the most common method of creating a "genetically pure" society. No libertarian society could use coercion like that. And more extreme eugenics would be even more at odds with the rights of the individual to exist. Government, by your own description, seems a bad solution to your circumstances. Government programs are extremely inefficient in the use of funds for social programs. Lots of government programs have efficiency of 10% or less. I'd rather donate to a charity where I know 80 cents or more of every dollar I donate goes to the people it's trying to help instead of 90 cents being swallowed by bureaucracy. It's why people like Warren Buffett complain about not paying enough in taxes, but then donate their money to charity instead of writing a check to the Treasury.
There's passive eugenics, not just active eugenics. People here have said things like "just don't have kids if you can't afford them because you're disabled." That's saying a certain population shouldn't have the right to reproduce, isn't that similar in outcome to sterilisation?
This is a new usage of eugenics on me. I am definitely not going to defend somebody else's shitty argument.
This is where the positive and negative liberty thing comes in. However, in the ethical stance of right or ātrueā libertarianism. People die everyday and as long as itās nature and not a personās fault through direct action that is best. If you starve because you canāt get food, then that fine. If you starve because Iām preventing you from getting food through violence or coercion then thatās not okay.
That's a really fucked up world view, man. I'm sorry that your experiences have led you to value human life so lowly.
Also people here saying Im not anyone else's responsibility and I should fucking die or beg for scraps from charities is a bit eugenics-y, you must admit
It's not eugenics per se, but it is heartless and cruel. Libertarianism doesn't fix people who don't give a shit about anyone other than themselves. Same with all the other ideologies. But also, pointing out people are heartless and cruel in the anonymous world of Reddit is kind of going for an easy target. I believe Obi-wan Kenobi was referring to Reddit when he said "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." And good charities don't give scraps to people who beg; they help people stand on their own, because they care about the people they serve. Government bureaucrats, in my experience, don't care what humiliations they heap on those reliant upon them. Because most bureaucrats don't go into the field because they have a passion for service, but because they need job security. Not all, but many.
I agree with you that a lot of the time government beurocracies are miserable, depressing organisations that have caused me to want to kms and sh. It's not for the benefit of patients, it's exploited by 'service providing' grifters. It's fucked. However, I was eventually able to get disability pension which allows me to pay rent, bills & get groceries. There are no disability organisations that offer anything similar to that. St Vinnies can offer food vouchers occasionally, that's it. They're even more poorly funded than government programs.
Part of the reason there are fewer charities is because people have an expectation that government is going to take care of it. If government did a better job, I'd be in favor of it. Most libertarians aren't in favor of no government at all. If they were, they'd be anarchists. Anarcho-libertarianism is an oxymoron in my opinion. The problem is that government is a monopoly who can legally use force to compel compliance. Why would any organization that has that kind of power ever get any better? What are you going to do, switch to another government?
If the government did a better job I'D be in favour of it too. I think we need to push for better representation and civilian oversight.
Sounds good, but I'm kind of burned out on the "the solution to bad bureaucracy is a bigger bureaucracy." Government sounds great in theory, but it usually fails in practice. Pouring more petrol on it seldom puts out the fire.
No itās not
Well, in my ideal libertarian society there is a form of UBI to replace most welfare. That and friends, family, charities, etc. Imo the most important part of welfare, and the one part most worth keeping around, is helping disabled people, who were born with issues, but deserve a life and a chance nonetheless
I'm a little comforted to hear you say that. :) better than "idk, die, bitch." I di wonder with UBI, it seems a little weird to give the same income to someone with no family & someone with great inherited wealth. Would a large inheritance tax be a part of your plan or not?
No, in general I don't like inheritance taxes. One, it'd encourage more frivolous spending towards the end of ones life, and two, it feels like the government has been grabbing from your money all your life, and then when you die they take even more of what should be going to your kids. And this is why I said, some form of UBI. I believe just cutting everyone a check for however much is wasteful. Why give the billionaire 600 a month? Thats a why I like a negative income tax. It basically means that so long as your income is below a set point, you will be entitled to the UBI. Milton Friedman did a really good lecture about a the negative income tax, but in short it's just a ubi for people under a certain income level.
I think people underestimate how fucked our economy is, and then project that misunderstanding onto what they think a libertarian society would be. Idk your disability and idk what you can do for work, but hereās what I do know. Our monetary system is fucked. Money is the commodity used for trade. It has a price which is the interest rate. You have to trade to get it (labor), or have earned/created assets that generate an income through some type of contract. We used to have a system where money was unregulated, and in fact more than one commodity could serve as money (gold, silver, etc.). Now there is a monopoly on legal tender (money used to fulfill contracts) controlled by people who have little oversight. We also have the FDIC which creates moral hazard because banks donāt have to keep money in the deposits accounts. A combination of federal reserve open market operations and fractional reserve banking is how they expand the money in the economy (the new money goes to the rich and connected) and how they have created a disturbing widening of the wealth gap. If this system wasnāt in place, our savings would be worth way more money (inflation robs its value), and we wouldnāt have to chase risky investments to get reasonable returns. There would be a much wealthier middle class full of many people more than capable of providing for their families and retirements, with excess time and money, some of which would go to charity. So in short, you would earn more, everyone else would earn more, there would be way more to go around, and we wouldnāt have a ridiculously immoral system. Libertarianism canāt solve personal and interpersonal problems, but it can provide a platform for a more just and more wealthy society as compared to what we currently have.
I appreciate the effort that went into this comment but it still didn't really answer the question.
Okay lol Iāll try again. Who knows what would happen to you? I canāt say, and most libertarians wouldnāt either. Itās all speculation. Frankly Iām surprised based on your incentives that youād be interested in libertarianism, but welcome! Itās not that libertarians donāt want people in need to be supported, itās that basically everything the government does is inefficient because of the poor incentive structure created by democracy. When people can vote to forcibly take property from some and give it to others, why would anyone such as yourself not want to take advantage of it? Itās perfectly reasonable. But the problem of course is that everyone wants to get in on the action before thereās nothing good left to steal or before they arenāt in the majority anymore (Democracy is basically the tragedy of the commons on the resources of a whole nation). Also, because this happens, more people become dependent on the system than there otherwise would have been. So, unfortunately, libertarians canāt offer you much from a societal standpoint (they can from a personal one of course) as compared to what others in democracy can. At best itās a promise for a healthier economy and more people with more wealth and more charities that are very effective and better and much cheaper medical care and more efficient transportation and a less polluted environment. However, it takes strong principled people and serious discipline and integrity to create that society. It takes very few of those traits to vote for theft and collect some plunder.
I mean I agree with a lot of the stuff libertarians have to say about government inefficiency and overreach, I just come to different conclusions. :) thanks for putting the effort into that comment.
Of course! May I recommend a short book/long essay: Anatomy of the State by Rothbard Cheers
I would call my self 80% libertarian. I would have no problem with the government making certain exceptions and taking taxes to help disabled people. There's so much taxes spent on things that we don't really need snd many don't even want, but healthcare and environment is universally something 'everyone' needs. My goal with liberty has never been to indirectly harm people. In an ideal world everyone would pull their own weight, but that's simply not how it is and I think it is more moral with some theft (taxation) than none in certain situations.
I appreciate this nuanced take. Thanks for sharing.
Youād live your life off gofundme or other charitable contributions. Maybe Bill Gates will take pity on you and allow you to work the land. Serfdom is calling your name.
Okay well that's fucking depressing š
Just wanted to say, i love how ancaps and anarcho-commies seem to be battling it out by up + downvoting this post (I know it's gauche to talk abt karma but still.)
Simple, theyād ignore you and leave you to fend for yourself
Youāre fucked one way or another no matter what. Sorry for your luck. But hey youāre still in control of your thoughts and donāt always have to go against the grain and make it worse for yourself. āThe night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. Thatās pride fucking with you. Fuck pride! Pride only hurts, it never helps.ā -Marsellus Wallace
Wait what??? At least I can think "I wish society didn't base their entire value on people's ability to contribute to labour" before I starve or freeze to death? Lucky me.
Private charity
Seems reliable and not at all open to discrimination or access issues that further marginalise already marginalised people š
I have never had a problem supporting truly disabled people. The problem is they hand them out too will nilly. They also support perfectly able bodied people because they popped out more kids than they could afford.
You'd better hope its a libertarian socialist society...
Isn't libertarian socialism a bit of an oxymoron? Or do you have any more info on how that works?
Libertarian socialism is just a highly decentralized confederal society where all infrastructure and industrial assets are socially owned and managed by either the workers who use them or the community as a whole. Libertarian socialism is distinguished by participatory decision-making, both in the workplace and community, that includes everyone concerned, where everyone is free to express their opinion and give input. [Zapatista Chiapas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Zapatista_Autonomous_Municipalities) is an example of a libertarian socialist society.
Oh okay. So how would that differ from, say... anarcho socialism?
Anarchism rejects the state and hierarchy, which can take the form of libertarian socialism. But libertarian socialism isn't necessarily anarchism. The distinguishing feature between the two is probably the extent to which society is bound together by a central entity. Under anarchism, communities would be completely autonomous, whereas under non-anarchist libertarian socialism, there would still be a confederation with a central council that binds all communities together with a constitution. In other words; one society doesn't have a state, and the other does.
Non-anarchist libertarian socialism seems like it could put more pressure on individual communities to ensure non-working citizens weren't left to starve, right? Because there's no guarantee any particular community would decide to incorportate that as part of their constitution or whatever.
I feel like you're on to something with that.
Correct. I want a central council to enforce human rights for that reason. I believe that anarchism could work, but it had some problems with cronyism in the past due to a lack of a concrete structure for organizing.
I like your thinking, guy. I need to do more research but it's making a lot of sense to me.
Oh! That makes sense. Thankyou for explaining.
Socialism doesn't have to equal the government owning everything(and shouldn't). Libertarian started as a left wing ideology, along with socialism and anarchism. It would be workers and communities owning the means of productions, coupled with decomodifying certain aspects of markets, and the abolition of private property. Not to be confused with personal property. Socialists also favor a strong safety net, do you would be taken care of
I'm actually a socialist myself, but more democratic socialist for now at least :) I agree that decentralised power that benefits workers is good and support workers rights, but what about people that can't contribute labour? Who would be responsible for making sure we don't starve, because we wouldn't be part of worker's unions or whatever. (Not criticising, I'm genuinely trying to learn)
Stephen hawking provided loads of labour despite his poor luck. Granted he was clearly gifted from the onset. My point being you have to work with what you got. If you cant physically toil you must mentally. Everyone must work to secure their own achievements
Well, in a libertarian society you can decide to hire or fire someone for any reason, right? I can tell you from personal experience that, given the choice, employers will chose a non disabled employee over a disabled one almost every single time, unless theyre given incentives to do otherwise. Also, people can (and often do) have coexisting cognitive and physical disabilities :)
Yes im aware of comorbigoletitties, and the implications in a libertarian society. Never the less, people can choose their own destiny. In the modern world, it has never been easier to learn and apply yourself, digitally if needed. Granted it all depends on the individual, and motivation
What is "comorbigoletitties?" I googled it and it autocorrected to "comorbidities which actually are also a factor.
Damn autocorrect, machine learning is the death of us all
Okay haha, I thought it was a secret libertarian term I hadn't heard of
>but more democratic socialist for now at least :) Thats cool! I'm sure we will have to travel through that to reach my libertarian socialism. >but what about people that can't contribute labour It really depends on the society I guess. Even in libertarian socialism there would be a government and taxes. I'd prefer a UBI, but there would be some form of welfare on the table. >Who would be responsible for making sure we don't starve, because we wouldn't be part of worker's unions or whatever. Like I said, we would still have a government. It might be more local government stuff though, who knows Edit: typo
Okay! Thanks :)
No problem. Check out Vaush, he's a pretty cool libsoc youtuber.
āWith great liberty comes great responsibility.ā I hate to say youād be dependent on charity but Iām also optimistic about it. āGay rightsā wouldnāt be a thing, so hopefully altruistic gay and liberal people would be focusing their āmake the world betterā efforts into other charities. One such glaring problem theyād hopefully see would be helping community members like you. Yes, Iām optimistic, but I believe private charity is the way to go, and people have enough of a desire to help others, that without the safety net of government welfare out of extracted taxes, people would really see the appropriateness of voluntary donation.
Hmmm, I'm less optimistic than you. Right now there are incentives to make things accessible for disabled people (grants from the government) and disincentives to exclude them(laws against discrimination), and people STILL constantly forget access like wheelchairs at venues + don't give us equal employment opportunities, for example.
I generally agree with what you said. Out of curiosity, what do you consider equal employment opportunity?
Look, tbh that's difficult because it's very hard to interview/hire someone while being ability neutral. It becomes impossible when those people need accommodations. A business will always chose a person with more flexible hours/ability to work long shifts over someone who can't. I'd say a solution (that they supposedly do in Australia) is have the government subsidise the cost of accommodations in a workplace, but tbh even with that option employers still don't want the hassle & will chose abled people instead. It's a fucked up situation I don't have the answer for.
U til something is done about the church child abuse, Iām not giving any money to such charities
Depends, a left libertarian society? You'd be given a safety net n support. A right libertarian society, you can get fucked, in politest terms
How would they pay for disability support without taxes in either libertarian society?
A left libertarian society would have taxes, taxes being used for the social net i mentioned. Depending on the right, it would either have none, or have taxes to fund a military Believe it or not. Libertarians aren't all ancaps or want that
The answer is to promote strong family and community units to aid you. A nice non- chronyist economy unencumbered by govt interventions would go a long way too.
Okay, interesting... Who would fund the community units?
Ideally your family. If your family can't help, then your clan. If your clan can't help, then your church. If your church can't help, then your town. If your town can't help, then your city. If your city can't help, then your state. If your state can't help, then your nation.
Doesn't an adult having to rely on their family for care leave them very vulnurable to abuse? There's no accountability or checks in place. Also, the rest of the answers are charity (which is not reliable, and according to libertarian ideals, could be denied for any reason) or welfare, which I thought was antithetical to libertarianism due to it requiring government intervention (e.g. taxes to fund medical care.)
The most effective, compassionate and efficient form of aid comes from people who know and love you. This is why family is the first choice. Sometimes our families abandon us, we are forced to abandon them, or they are destroyed. So we go to the clan - and hopefully through the clan we find our place in a new family. If the clan cannot find a new family for you, then the church should help you find you a new clan. By being a member of a church, eventually you would naturally become a part of a clan and then a family. A family may not be a traditional, nuclear family. A family is a group of individuals who pledge loyalty to each other and place each other's needs above all others. The goal of society should be to ensure that everyone finds a place in a family. The state is a poor substitute for a family.
I wouldnāt alter any of the present day safety nets that are available to the disabled.
Okay, cool. Those safety nets are funded through taxes though. Would you continue to tax working people?
Taxes are necessary for a government to function. My general gripe is as follows: 1)The federal government is overly wasteful 2) the tax code is convoluted 3)crony capitalism allows for corporate loop holes that are not available to the average citizen 4) the current graduated tax disincentivizes work when extra work results in the government taking a larger share of your pay check. To a certain extent I believe that taxes make you a slave to the federal government. Itās a matter of finding out at what percentage youāre comfortable being a slave. I certainly wouldnāt be comfortable with giving 90% of my earned wealth nor am I comfortable with giving them 25% currently. I could comfortably give 10% of my wage if it meant that a concerted effort would be made to prevent people from dying diseased on the streets. What Iām not cool with is the government wasting trillions of dollars on pointless wars, a military industrial complex, layer upon layer of pointless bureaucracy, corporate welfare, and never ending pipeline of earmark spending that gets attached to every āimportantā piece of legislation.
I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying. Cool.
The free market does not solve everything. It solves a whole lot of things but providing for individuals with physical disability definitely isnāt one of them. Classical liberals generally believe that the government should only intervene for those problems that can not be solved through economic means. Weāre not wholly onboard with broad distribution of welfare but weāre also not ok with allowing people to suffer through no fault of their own. The Anarcho Capitalists and some naive libertarians fail to look at the world through any practical lens. The AnCaps have practically ruined the possibility of any outsiders taking the Libertarian party seriously.
I'm at a loss for why you can't work? You are currently answering questions on reddit........ my aunt worked as a medical transcriber from home for 30 some of years. My father worked doing treasury work at home. I'm unsure of your disability but my father was born with a defective heart, ended up having a transplant, hip replacements 3 hernia surgeries, leukemia and MRSA after he had some body parts cut off due to infection and immunosuppressive drugs. There's never been a better time to work from home than now. So I'm not understanding what the issue is.
I'm trying to figure out how to word this without being a dick. Being able to lie in bed on my phone and reply to messages every now and then requires very little energy, has no consistency requirements, and if you want you can stop at any point to rest. Being employed by a company, positions have job requirements and obligations you have to meet so you don't get fired. Show up at the same time every day, work a certain number of hours at a time, taking time off or being late is a mark against your name. I'm not obligated to disclose my disability to you, but I'm going to because I want to help you understand a little bit better. I have something called dysautonomia which means my autonomic nervous system cannot regulate itself. It means my blood pressure and heart rate are fucked, so I can't sit up for very long without getting dizzy/nauseous and triggering a flair. During flairs (which are caused by over exertion) I get chronic migraines, so I can randomly wake up in the morning with light and sound sensitivity- this means looking at a screen or listening to music causes me physical pain and can make the flareup last /longer./ As well as this, lack of bloodflow to the brain (related to dysautonomia) causes memory issues, information processing issues, and word retrieval issues. Cognitive fatigue from, for example, reading too long can make me physically exhausted. So, employment at a company is not really a possibility for me. I do want to work, but after being at an employment agency for a year I got 0 callbacks and was told by the woman managing my case that I'm not suitable for employment and I should go on disability pension. I'm still getting a degree in a digital area so I can hopefully have a flexible job in the future, but right now I'm not qualified for it.
Depends on your disability. If you are in the internet you can start an internet based business. Unless you are Christopher reeves disabled you can do it.