Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Liberty: a debating point

We've been arguing liberty vs addiction recently, and my own latest comment is:

Libertarian laissez-faire needs to mean more than simply standing aside and watching the rich and powerful cock it up for everyone. Paradoxically, libertarianism implies some kind of rule-setting and limitation of power.

Does that seem reasonable?

2 comments:

  1. dearieme12 August 2009 at 22:29

    It's tricky. I wonder whether "libertarianism" was coined mainly because "liberalism" was hijacked to describe American quasi-socialists.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Paddington14 August 2009 at 17:41

    Of course you need rules. Society was different in small groups, since behaviour was controlled by peer pressure.

    ReplyDelete

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