Bruno Latour writes about this sort of thing as a paradox of modernism, in which nature is purified from society (Boyle) and society is purified from nature (Hobbes), the net result being that political philosophies and matters of nature don't fit together very well.

How is this hard to understand: If the coal plants are proven to be harming the populace, they are aggressors. However, I don't think coal-fired plants necessarily kill the planet (or people).

It certainly harms people (http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html)

But you didn't really answer the question. How would a libertarian society deal with them? Would such a society ban all coal fired plants, and if so how would it be enforced? Would someone weigh the pros and cons, if so who and how? Would such a society every establish a regulatory body to actively monitor plants and limit their pollution?

I'm not a politician or a philosopher. My guess, however, is that pollution of air and flowing waters can be controlled through Libertarians' concept of property rights, since the pollution thereof has an effect on other peoples' private properties.

Therefore, regulation seems likely and moral, though it isn't necessarily the only option.

Isn't regulation the government using forces to collect taxes which it then uses to use force to have inspections?

My problem with libertarianism is that it always turns into a lot of hand waving from the libertarian. They start off saying that government force is a great evil, then I bring up something like pollution and suddenly the argument is much more nuanced, "well of course we'd have to use force". Exactly, of course you have to use force.

Once we admit this, what does libertarianism mean? How is it different from what we have today?

Well, libertarians I speak to tend to acknowledge the need for some government. You're setting up a false dichotomy.

No I'm not, the problem is that libertarians talk in circles. "It's never acceptable to use force!!!". What about xyz. "Well of course you use some force". Ok, so what does libertarianism mean? "taxation is violence!!!". Um, but don't you need taxes to pay for that government you said we needed a minute ago. "Well of course :confused look:". So what does libertarianism mean again?

Many people think that voluntary arrangements can be made to provide police actions. That way the police defend the people and treat them well, since that's who pays their salary. It would quickly lead to end of all victimless crimes, as no one would pay for that type of enforcement & those being targeted would be able to hire their own protection forces. Am advocating something like this for the entire united states - of course, not. But I'd be very interested in seeing these ideas tried voluntarily by willing participants.

I'm highly skeptical. Weren't lynchings in the south a voluntary "police action". Who would be held accountable for such actions, and how?

Let's also be clear that you are advocating the use of force. No one has yet explained how the NAP could possibly work in real life.

I made a thread on yakkstr, I'd love to discuss in detail.

http://yakkstr.com/posts/6923-Libertarianism

I'd prefer to talk here, merely because I remember to check this, but I posted over there too.

The key to this experiment is not that it will be perfect, but that it will be more stable and more reliable overall -- there will still be problems, nothing is perfect -- all we want is better.

As for lynchings and other mob behavior, that can happen with police too. For example, see the rise of the Black Panthers in response to oakland california police abuse. And the subsequent introduction of gun legislation to strip the citizens of their defense against abusive police. Or, to godwin myself, look at the nazis. When it comes to mob violence the governments of the world surely outnumber private instances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party#Origins

As for the philosophical underpinnings, there are quite a few good books: Nozick's Anarchy State and Utopia lays out a framework, he makes some deductions that result in a monarchist state -- but that is in no way guaranteed from his premises.

David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom addresses this: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freed...

More on private defense agencies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_defense_agency

Here's Rothbard on self-defense http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twelve.asp

Rothbard on private defense agencies - http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp

and finally Hoppe on the same issue: http://mises.org/journals/jls/14_1/14_1_2.pdf

I'll do my best to address any questions/objections/etc you may have :) None of these works are perfect, and these ideas are relatively recent and haven't been tried so who knows what would really happen :)

This is a fair amount of reading, but it's way more thorough than anything I can quickly type up :)

You've got to admit that HN isn't meant for long running conversations. But if you prefer it, so be it :) Here's what I posted over on yakkstr:

You gave me a lot of reading material which will take me a little while to go through, in the meantime I'll give you my point of view.

Given some policy proposal we should attempt to measure it's effectiveness and determine if it leads to a better outcome than we currently have. If it does, we should adopt it. We have to figure out what it means to be "better", but I think we can agree easily in many cases.

My problem with philosophies like libertarianism is that they start with some accepted truth (i.e. NAP) before any attempt is made to measure or predict an outcome. It's effectively a faith based belief. Let me give one example, I think it's clear that our country benefited enormously from public education. That is the government using force to take money from some people to pay for schools for other people. I'm pretty sure this is diametrically opposed to libertarian philosophy, but we are better off for it. Why would we not do something good based on a philosophical ideal like libertarianism, communism, etc? Why start from an ideology rather than measuring what does and doesn't work? If you identify yourself as a libertarian then you're psychologically less likely to accept evidence for a policy that goes against the ideology.

You are correct this isn't great - lets move to email. danny ---- dannygagne ----- com

As for your objections. A pragmatic approach, where we only look at outcomes is flawed in a few interesting ways.

1. We cannot know for sure the effectiveness of any given action so it's still a guess. 2. It's an ends justifies the means world philosophy 3. It has no moral basis, anything is good as long as the end result is what you want.

I prefer to take a process based philosophy, if each step along a path is moral then the end result is moral even if it's negative or suboptimal.

For instance, the argument about creating a better society one could easily be used for a totalitarian eugenics program.

Libertarians aren't against public schooling, just the manner in which it is funded. If you look at how much government schools cost and how poorly the perform, I think it's clear that private solutions are superior. Since the market allows experimentation and gives people a choice on what type of school they want instead of a bureaucrat deciding for them. This can be replicated through school vouchers/school choice and relaxation of standards.

I kind of meandered off topic, but I think it boils down to a faith in people to create what they need. If people value school, which they do, then they will find a way to provide it.

Except all the countries with good education outcomes have the state heavily involved in schooling. There are tons of countries that don't have he state heavily involved, and they have far worse outcomes.

Like I said, it's faith based adherence to ideology versus measuring outcomes and trying to do what works.

Also, the problem with basing anything on morality is that we all have different moralities. Whose do we choose and why? Perhaps we measure outcomes and base it on that with a few, generally accepted, moral constraints?