Luigi Mangione

[Eltitoguay]

When you alter another person's speech or writing to "correct" their thinking, it's a form of censorship.
Only the government gets to redefine the meanings of words. Thought you knew that?

Your hypocrisy and cheap demagogy have no limits; you do with my speech the same thing you complain about and accuse the Old Armed Hippie of: first you ignore my 4 articles on anarchism (true anarchism, not your criminal ultra-neoliberalism disguised as freedom) advocating and fighting for Public Health.

And then you ignore again that you have been told that for not paying taxes you are fined, and you clearly insinuate even murder.

And you repeat that you are not here to propose a better model: only to defame the Social State. You demonstrate again, that you are not only the same, but much worse than what you criticize.

And since you are acting dignified and asking that your message not be manipulated, and that we consider it and pay attention to it, when you ignore everything that does not interest you or that you do not understand: do not insult my intelligence as if we were on the same level, and use your cheap and demagogic chatter from a private school rhetoric class, to twist and falsify my speech. You do behave dialectically like a Government, but like an autocratic or fascist or Stalinist dictatorship. It is not worth your childish attempt to make us waste time debating about possible models of health. It is better to waste more time with you.

I'm not interested in debating which master or forcible system would be best. The fact they ALL strip people of rights is my concern.
I'm interested in having no masters and maximizing peaceful choices. You aren't trying to do that or even considering that as a viable possibility.
If you are concerned about "Letting people die", why would you sanctify using force against disinterested and otherwise peaceful people to make them pay for your ideas?
Will you hurt or kill them if they disobey?

 

[Eltitoguay]

TV talk show host & fake doctor says we have no right to health care. sociopathic human that deserve a guillotine.

these idiots dont realize that anyone who pays private health care, are paying into the network they belong to and are paying for the other people when they themselves are not using those funds. the irony is, housing every homeless person in the US is significantly cheaper than moving them around and doing bullshit.

(...)I'm sure that if the working class and/or poor Trump voter could suddenly experience a Universal Health System like in other countries, he would think twice before voting for Trump again. ...And while this happens, I'll try to make they think a little: How is it possible that the world's leading economic and geostrategic power, speaking, has a life expectancy at birth, 6 lower than the (at most) twentieth?
1962 :
View attachment 19126858
2022 :
View attachment 19126851

Comparar economía países: Estados Unidos vs España Esperanza de vida al nacer 2025

Comparativa de países. Comparativa de los datos macroeconómicos y socio-demográficos de países. Aquí tienes la comparativa de Estados Unidos vs España, Esperanza de vida al nacer

datosmacro.expansion.com

2022 :

 

[Captain Red Eye]

so we are BOTH in prison, why are you shaming the other prisoners?

as a prisoner, i'm going "i don't see how we can feasibly escape" and you're going "quit gargling the warden's nuts, prison is imprisonment!"

We are both considered potential slaves. that is for sure.

The first step to gaining freedom is to acknowledge the Plantation exists.

 

[Captain Red Eye]

you are not here to propose a better model: only to defame the Social State.

The social state relies on using force against disinterested but otherwise peaceful people. You don't like to talk about that part.

What happens if you don't pay the overlords their fine? If you follow that out all the way out....they will definitely kill you and you will cheer them on.

A better model for ANY AND ALL human relationships has to begin and end using peaceful means. No models should sanctify ANY people being able to use offensive force. Get rid of that and many other things become possible.

It's not up to me to say which one you might choose, as long as you don't force your ideas on me, you should be free to choose what you like. Get with your friends and find cooperative solutions if everyone involved agrees. Leave those who don't alone or at least have the decency to admit you like thug tactics.

You are so used to looking outside yourself and using the force of government to provide all the answers, it seems you have lost any ability to think for yourself or consider more peaceful options.

 

[nepalnt21]

The first step to gaining freedom is to acknowledge the Plantation exists.

ok, been done that like 20 years ago.

what next?

 

[nepalnt21]

as long as you don't force your ideas on me

this reminds me of the ole

"taxes are theft!!!!" thing, where's the effort to show us another way is even possible?

 

[Eltitoguay]

in an ideal scenario, all that has to happen to stop policy is for one dude to say i do not consent, and then apparently the entire policy will get scrapped because every one has to consent.
in other words quite literally nothing will get done that will ever have positive benefits on the welfare of americans. all it'll take is a billionaire to pay someone to say they don't consent and that's it party's over.

all of these fake libertarian ideologies only exist to serve the interests of the elite.

..."libertarians of private property”...

Two Conceptions of Freedom and Marxist Criticism :​

(by Roberto Arista)

“Libertarians of private property”, and its relationship with the two main conceptions of freedom, the so-called “negative” and “positive” :

Freedom in the negative sense :

Let us begin by saying that the conception of freedom defended by people like Javier Milei and his followers is related to what Isaiah Berlin called freedom in the negative sense (in his lecture “Two Concepts of Freedom,” October 1958, Oxford University). It is the idea – of utilitarians, liberals, and also of Kant – that being free is doing what I want, or what my impulses tell me, as long as I do not disturb the freedom of others, and I have no legal impediments to doing so. Berlin called it “negative” because this freedom involves the absence of external barriers or interference. It is the idea that your freedom ends where your neighbor’s begins. So a kind of “palisades” (the image is Marx’s) separate the plots of individual freedoms. Plots that, in turn, should receive the minimum influence of the community. From which a key statement emerges, namely, that freedom is an individual act . That is, this freedom is established by establishing the same rules of the game for everyone and demarcating the borders - areas of private property - that no one can cross under penalty of breaking the social contract.

The idea runs through the leaders of liberalism. For example, Hobbes defines: “freedom as the absence of external impediments to my action” (quoted by Berlin). Friedrich Hayek maintains that an individual is free “if he is not subject to coercion derived from the arbitrary will of another or others” ( The Foundations of Liberty , pl. 26). Berlin also: “… I am free to the extent that no man or group of men interferes with my activity. … political freedom is, simply, the scope in which a man can act without being hindered by others.” It is the freedom that answers the question of what is the scope in which a person, or group of people, is or should be allowed to act. Freedom consists of there being no obstacles; or the least possible amount of obstacles to individual freedom.


Negative liberty; Marx's description :

Marx did not speak of negative liberty, but in fact he described it critically. According to Marx, it is liberty as “… the right to do and undertake everything that does not harm others. The limits within which every man may move without harm to another are determined by law, as a fence marks the limits or the dividing line between two properties. It is the liberty of man considered as a monad, isolated, turned in on himself” (“The Jewish Question”, p. 478 in Works of Youth, FCE). He adds that in capitalist society, “the practical explanation of the human right of liberty is the human right of private property” (p. 479). It is the right of each person “to enjoy his property freely and voluntarily, without worrying about other men, independently of society; it is the right of self-interest” ( ibid .). Therefore, a society formed according to this principle “makes each man find in others not the fulfillment but, on the contrary, the limitation of his freedom” (p. 479). Again, freedom is a purely individual matter.


Freedom in a positive sense :

In contrast to freedom in the negative sense, Berlin called positive the sense of freedom that answers the question of what or who is the cause of control or interference that can determine that someone does one thing or another. Marx did not use the term “freedom in the positive sense,” but he pointed to the same thing when he considered that real freedom is that which refers to the conditions of its realization and the possibilities of self-realization of the individual who exercises that freedom.

Naturally, the term “positive” refers to the idea that certain social, economic, and perhaps cultural conditions must be present for freedom to exist. This means that freedom must not be posed in merely individual terms . An idea that recognizes its roots in the progressive traditions of bourgeois democratic thought. Thus, Rousseau thought that individual freedom is obtained through participation in a community that exercises collective control over its affairs. Hegel also thought that “(t)he will of the individual has to be converted into a volition of general freedom if he is to be effectively made free” (Herbert Marcuse, p. 187 Reason and Revolution ). Later Marcuse specifies that for Hegel “man is only free if all men are free and exist as 'universal beings'” (p. 270).

As we have already mentioned, this idea is taken up by Marx: “Only within the community, with others, does every individual have the necessary means to develop his gifts in all senses; only within the community is personal freedom possible” (pp. 86-87, The German Ideology ). The capacities of the individual, and therefore his freedom, are deployed through participation with others. Therefore, when we speak of the freedom of man, we are not speaking of man in general but of the man of a certain time and society, social group and culture . In other words, the social is inherent to the realization of freedom . This can be seen through the simplest examples. For example, if it is a question of the freedom to think, to write, I have to do it through language. And language cannot not be social. An individual language makes no sense. More generally, and from an anthropological point of view, the key to human development was cooperative work, not selfishness.

is conception is the opposite of the isolated individual, the monad of liberalism . Marx writes: “… the egoistic man is the passive, simply found result of the dissolved society, the object of immediate certainty and therefore a natural object” (p. 483, ibid .). The expression about the “simply found” human being alludes to the fact that in this society individuals are a passive product of circumstances that surround them and do not dominate them, and therefore they do not self-determine . Therefore, when Marx writes that this human being is “the object of immediate certainty” he refers to the fact that immediate certainty (Hegel’s concept) corresponds to immediate knowledge, which is given by the senses; it is not knowledge mediated by reflection . It is the human being who accepts himself as he immediately sees himself through the senses.

We find a similar idea in The German Ideology . In the American state, for example, individuals experienced, within existing conditions, “the enjoyment of the contingent” (Marx considered America the most advanced country in terms of freedoms of his time). This enjoyment of what chance offered was called, says Marx, “personal freedom.” But it was not a control of the forces of production and the forms of exchange. Hence the lack of conscious control of the community over its own destiny; hence also the substantial limitation of this “personal freedom.” It is, overall, a critique of the conception of negative, formal freedom. A critique that does not deny that bourgeois-democratic freedoms (freedom of expression, movement, religion, organization) represent progress with respect to despotic and dictatorial regimes (see, for example, Marx’s position on bourgeois freedoms in the United States; or the abolition of slavery). But freedom in the formal, negative sense is not the freedom of the emancipated human being, which is realized in community.


Expansion on individualism and capitalism according to Marx :
Marx’s central idea that substantial liberation can only be realized in social terms connects with the idea that the individual is an individual only in society (see Marx, “Introduction” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy ). The hunter or fisherman alone, with whom Smith and Ricardo begin, or the naturally independent human beings participating in Rousseau’s social contract, are, in substance, the individuals of “civil society.” This is the society of free competition, where “forms of social connection [such as the market] appear to the individual as a mere means to his private ends, as an external necessity” ( ibid .). However, Marx continues, “this idea of the isolated Individual is precisely that in which social relations (general according to this point of view) have reached their highest stage of development hitherto attained.”

That is, contrary to what liberalism says, this individual is not only a historical product - the dissolution of feudalism and other pre-capitalist formations - but is also immersed in social relations that condition him outside or above what he thinks about these relations .


Freedom and critical self-awareness :

We now expand on the argument of why freedom in the negative sense does not constitute true (in content) freedom . In principle, and in a very elementary way, it is not because those desires or impulses can simply appear as given to the individual, determined by forces or social structures that he does not control. That is why Hegel said that when in those cases the will of the individual is governed “by the external”; the desires and impulses are expressed without reflection, arbitrarily (David Rose, Hegel's Philosophy of Right , London and New York, Continuum, 2007). Hence, always according to Hegel , true freedom is self-conscious and has refined those desires with criticism.

Marcuse also highlights this aspect of Hegel's notion of freedom. “Freedom is not simply a status that the individual possesses, but an action that he carries out as a self-conscious subject” (p. 187, Reason and Revolution ). “Man can be free only when he knows his potentialities” (p. 188). For his part, Charles Taylor: “We cannot say that someone is free… if he is totally unrealized, if, for example, he is totally unaware of his potential, if he has never even considered realizing it, or if he is paralyzed by the fear of breaking with some norm he has internalized but which does not authentically reflect him” (“What's Wrong with Negative Liberty?”, Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Philosophical Papers , Cambridge University Press, p. 216). Also: “You are not free if you are led, through fear, internalized inauthentic patterns, or false consciousness, to frustrate your self-actualization” (pp. 215-6).

Let us illustrate the argument with concrete cases :
A first case occurs when traditional norms, internalized as “natural,” impose on the woman an attitude of submission and obedience to her husband. This woman is not truly free even though she has the formal right to break off this relationship. A second case: religion can mean submission and self-repression for a person who has a sexual inclination different from that which his religion considers “normal.” This can represent an obstacle to the free development of personality; even though formally the individual is free. A third example is that of people mentally subjected to some self-proclaimed messiah. Another case, much more general, is the individual alienated by money, by production aimed at producing exchange value, and subjected to the dehumanized commodification of human relations.

In all these cases, one cannot speak of freedom in the real sense. Engels says: “Freedom of the will is nothing other than the ability to make informed, free decisions.” He adds that when choices are made in a climate of uncertainty arising from ignorance, when the choice is arbitrary, it is not free “and is dominated by the very object that should dominate. Freedom therefore consists in mastery over ourselves and over external nature, based on knowledge of natural needs; for this reason it is necessarily a product of historical evolution” (p. 178, Anti-Dühring , ed. Grijalbo).


Hayek's “spontaneous order” :

Possibly the most radical denial of freedom understood as society’s capacity to be able to decide freely with full knowledge of the facts is contained in Friedrich Hayek’s thesis of spontaneous order. According to Hayek ( Law, Legislation and Liberty , Vol. I), any form of foresight or attempt at social organization adhering to ends and means decided by free and reasoned deliberation leads to an order of command and obedience, in which a supreme authority determines what must be done (Hayek calls it a “taxis” order). It would be an order imposed “from outside,” as opposed to the one that would arise spontaneously from the participation of individuals in the market (“kosmos” order). His argument is that, since the spontaneous order is very complex, it is impossible to understand it, or verbalize it, rationally.

Which is equivalent to saying that human beings must resign themselves to accepting a logic – that of the market and the production of exchange value above all other considerations – that necessarily and relentlessly imposes itself.

Consequently, there would be no way to advance towards a freely decided social construction (in the sense of freedom defended by Engels, cited). To see what is being proposed: society – not as an abstraction, not as a State, but as a society of free people – should not have “collectivist” measures such as guaranteeing basic education; establishing rules for environmental protection; preventing companies from launching products that harm the health of consumers without their knowledge (see below the case of tobacco companies and others). Any of these measures, decided through free and reasoned discussion, would only lead to “servitude.”

It is individualism at its finest. It is the denial of any kind of solidarity-based thought and action.
And it is fertile ground for obscurantist discourses to flourish (such as the one that says, above the global scientific consensus, that global warming is an invention of the communists); mystical ones (such as the one that says that “the leader” communicates with dead spirits through his dogs); and bestially authoritarian ones (such as the one that extols the “freedom” of selling organs or creating armed gangs to defend private property). It is not strange that Hayek is the main intellectual reference for Milei and the extreme right in general.

At this point it is necessary to situate ourselves in the theoretical and political tradition of reason as the axis of critique and social transformation. In this respect, Marcuse says that “reason is capable of going beyond the brute fact of what is to realize what should be, only by virtue of the universality and necessity of its concepts…” (p. 24). This is what Hume, the founding reference of liberalism, had denied. That is why Marcuse adds: If Hume were accepted, the demand of reason to organize reality would have to be rejected. (…) [Hume’s empiricism] “confined man within the limits of the “given,” within the existing order of things and events” (p. 25). That we accept “the limits of the given,” that is what the issue is about. This explains the admiration that conservatives profess for Hayek’s thesis of “spontaneous order.”


Formal and real freedom in the capital-labor relationship :

Perhaps the clearest example in Marx’s work of the difference between freedom in the negative or formal sense and freedom in the positive or content sense is that which exists at the level of the market, and freedom at the level of production. In the market, the owners of commodities are placed as equals who freely exchange equivalents. “No one seizes another’s property by force. Each one alienates it voluntarily,” and with this “the total freedom of the individual is given” (p. 182, vol. 1, Grundrisse ). In Capital he returns to the idea: the sphere of commodity exchange is the realm of “innate human rights.” Among them, that of freedom “because the buyer and seller of a commodity, for example of labor power, are determined only by their free will. They enter into their contract as free persons, legally equal” (p. 214, vol. 1). Only the pursuit of personal advantage, “their private interests” put them in relation ( ibid .). This is the freedom that liberals extol: we are all “free” and legally equal, as owners. But in terms of content, there is a crucial difference: some, the capitalists, are owners of the objective conditions of production (tools, machines, factories, land, etc.) and others, the workers, only have their labor power. Hence, capitalists have the power to demand that workers hand over surplus labor for free. The alternative for the worker is to starve to death. However, the “libertarian of private property” says that the worker is free to choose to starve to death (see here ).

But the alternative “starving to death” is, in the light of any rational examination, brutally coercive. Behind the scenes of what appears to be “exchange of equivalents” lurks the exchange of non-equivalents. “The constant buying and selling of labour power is the form” (p. 721, vol. 1, Capital ). The content is that the capitalist appropriates unpaid labour. That is why ownership of the means of production appears, on the part of the capitalist, “as the right to appropriate unpaid labour of others or its product; on the part of the worker, as the impossibility of appropriating his own product” ( ibid .).

See then the abysmal difference in conceptions :
According to liberals, or right-wing libertarians, all market participants, on average, “possess rationality, free will, moral agency, and have the ability to form their life plans.”
Marxism asks, what “free will” does a person have who is deprived of all means of production, who lives working 9 or 10 hours a day, who spends an average of 3 hours a day commuting to and from work, receives a salary of barely 200 dollars a month, and has a family with small children to support? What ability to “form their life plans”? And that is the situation for millions.


Freedom for the hungry :

It is interesting that Berlin admits that, even if we adopt the negative sense of freedom, it has little or no meaning if there are no minimum conditions for exercising it. “It is true that offering political rights and safeguards against state intervention to men who are half naked, poorly fed, sick and illiterate is to laugh at their condition; they need medical help and education before they can understand what an increase in their freedom means or can make use of it. What is freedom for those who cannot use it? Without the proper conditions for the use of freedom, what is its value?” A question that Milei never asks himself. But the question is pertinent: if indigence and poverty are increasing in Argentina, how can it be said that freedom is advancing? What content does that freedom have?


Friedman on freedom and market :

The crux of liberal discourse is the exaltation of the freedom to participate in transactions.

This can be read in Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom : in his ideal market there are no class constraints . The owner of the means of production enjoys the same conditions of transaction as those who are desperate to sell their labour power. The emptying of social relations operates in the same way: Friedman maintains that companies are intermediaries (sic) between individuals who provide services and buy goods. The centrality of wage labour for the system disappears. The capital-labour relationship, the foundation of capitalism, is also erased. There is no word on what private ownership of capital means. Freedom is always understood by Friedman as a sphere limited only by the freedom of the other. He writes: “Exchange is truly voluntary only when there are equivalent nearby alternatives. Monopoly implies the absence of alternatives and therefore inhibits the effective freedom of exchange.” But as we have seen, for the worker “the close alternative” to not allowing himself to be exploited is poverty and, eventually, death by hunger.


Freedom, businesses and consumers :

However, it is not just about the market relationship between capital and labour.

Essential inequality also underlies the relationship between companies, driven by the logic of profit and exchange value, and consumers. To see this, let us think for a moment about the tobacco companies that invested millions of dollars to hide the pernicious effects of nicotine; the laboratories that promoted the use of addictive substances, such as opiates, causing the degradation and death of hundreds of thousands of people; the food companies that promote junk food, much of it as addictive as it is harmful to health; the mining and oil companies that ravage the environment. How can it be said that we all enjoy the same freedom of transaction in the market? What sovereignty and freedom of the consumer are they talking about?

In a previous note ( here ), criticizing the thesis that says that consumers freely decide what suits them, and that the market solves problems, we wrote: “The reality is that the “people who investigated” the big [tobacco] companies did so in conditions of clear inferiority with respect to the power of capital and facing all kinds of intimidation, smear campaigns and sabotage. But in addition, their action finally had to be carried out through the State, by means of laws and sanitary measures that restricted, at least in part, the actions of the companies. At this point I point out that even in 19th century England, of free trade, the State placed limits on the exploitation of capital (for example, on child labor, on the work day). And the working class often demanded and mobilized for laws in the same direction.

These were actions not of atoms moving in arbitrary freedom, but of a class.
Everything indicates then that consumer sovereignty plays a rather secondary role in the issue at hand. Or is it that billions of consumers of hundreds of millions of products are supposed to have the power to investigate damage to health that may manifest itself decades later, and in various ways? Furthermore, how can we counteract the gigantic propaganda and marketing systems of companies? And the purchase of scientists and researchers to endorse the products they launch on the market? With the aggravating factor that when we consider damage to the environment, the investigations tend to be even more complex.

Negative freedom and dictatorships, according to Berlin :

For Berlin and the supporters of freedom in the negative sense, the decisive factor is that human beings enjoy individual freedoms. This is much more important than, for example, directing the life of the community through political participation. Therefore, and always according to liberal and utilitarian approaches, a situation is acceptable in which the depoliticized individual, oblivious to the public, only cares about his personal benefit, and is indifferent to the existence of a dictatorship, as long as it does not disturb his well-being or personal enrichment. Berlin says: “Freedom in this (negative) sense is not incompatible with some kind of autocracy and with the absence of self-government . This freedom is primarily concerned with the area of control and not with the way this can guarantee negative freedom” (our emphasis). Support for dictatorships such as Pinochet or Salazar by liberal leaders should not be surprising (see here ).


A critique of Berlin on positive liberty and bureaucratic regimes :

One of the most repeated criticisms of freedom understood in a positive sense, or in terms of content, is that it justifies the imposition of authoritarian regimes, with the argument “I know what your true interests are.” According to Berlin, a tribe, a State, a race, a church, etc., “is then identified as the ‘true’ self, which, by imposing its sole collective or organic will on its recalcitrant ‘members,’ achieves its own will and, therefore, a ‘superior’ freedom for these members.” In this way, the coercion of some men against others would be justified. Thus, the one who coerces claims to know what the coerced “really” need; and these would not oppose this coercion if they were as wise and rational as the one who coerces.

There is no doubt that this argument has justified arbitrary and cruel acts in bureaucratic and Stalinist regimes (and also in fascist regimes). From forced collectivizations and industrializations at the cost of unprecedented sacrifices of millions of people (as occurred in the USSR) to the suppression of all cultural or artistic manifestations that did not fit the sensibilities or interests of the bureaucrats in power. Passing through reprisals against critics and political opponents, from the right or the left, and from all social strata. But that has nothing to do with the project of liberation of labor that revolutionary socialism supports. Moreover, in these non-capitalist bureaucratic regimes the nationalization of the means of production was at the service of the exploitation of labor by the bureaucracy.

Something similar occurs with state capitalisms.
The argument “I annul your freedom and repress you because I know what historically suits you” fits into that framework. The result was that this bureaucratic dominance strengthened the propaganda of the right (“socialism is only a form of oppression) and reinforced the idea that the only freedom that can be claimed is that conceived in a negative sense.

However, as Marcuse rightly points out, Marx did not consider the abolition of private property as an end in itself but as a means to the abolition of alienated and exploited labor. As we have argued in previous entries referring to the nature of the USSR, the statization (or nationalization) of the means of production is not synonymous with socialism. Socialization implies the administration of the means of production by the producers themselves – or in agreement with consumers – and their use “for the development and satisfaction of the free individual.” That is why Marx warned against a new reification of society: “one must avoid above all the reestablishment of 'society' as an abstraction opposed to individuals” (quoted by Marcuse, p. 277).


Individualism, crisis and unsupportive programs :

The long process of individualization through the market and competition that leads to an alienated life, gives a clue as to why ideologies and movements that, while championing individual freedom, deny it in its deepest sense, can prosper. A phenomenon that is exacerbated during economic crises, when they are unleashed in the absence of programs and perspectives for improvement based on solidarity, community projects, socialization of production conditions and elimination of exploitation.

The situation is somewhat paradoxical. Millions of people are poor or even destitute; many more millions are forced into monotonous and exhausting work; masses of unemployed young people with no prospects accept or applaud the discourse of “look for your own profit”; “freedom is your business and yours alone”; “it is accessible to all equally”; “the market makes us free”. It is the renunciation of any form of solidarity between the exploited and oppressed in order to take refuge in “the only thing that matters is saving myself”. Far from being an advance of freedom, it is the acceptance of the existing, of alienated work, the blackmail of unemployment and exploitation.


State, individualism and the right-wing agenda :

In capitalist society, the State claims to represent the overcoming of individualistic isolation and submission to the market, capital and competition. But this is an imaginary overcoming. The help of the “welfare state” – whether it be education, health, old-age pensions – is a palliative, but it does not eliminate the subjection of social groups and classes to the relations of production and exchange that are imposed on individuals .

Worse still, when the State, or important sectors of it, are transformed into a means for the plundering of public funds, for the patronage and enrichment of bureaucrats, careerists, associated capitalists and the like, the conditions are created for the wave of reactionary individualism to assume the form of extreme anti-statism . Thus there will be renewed reasons for deepening the division among workers: between state and private workers; between employed and unemployed; between natives and foreigners (with regard to the latter, how is it that they use “our” hospitals, schools and universities?).


Claiming the program of socialism :

A free, non-alienated society is one that acts on the basis of self-conscious norms that arise from free and public reflection and examination of what exists; not from the imposition of an authority external to society itself. A perspective that links with the conception of freedom, already cited, that Engels expounded in Anti-Dühring , a mature work. That is why in The German Ideology , Marx and Engels stated: “with the community of revolutionary proletarians who take control of their own conditions of existence and those of all the members of society, the exact opposite occurs [of what occurs in commodity and capitalist society]; individuals take part in it as such individuals.

This community is nothing else than the association of individuals… which hands over to its control the conditions of the free development and movement of individuals, conditions which until now had been at the mercy of chance and had taken on their own independent existence from the different individuals precisely because of their separation as individuals and then, through their necessary association and through the division of labor, had become a bond alien to them” (p. 87).

It is an approach that is opposed to the image of an individual who would be emancipated through the mediation of a State, government, or some miraculous and all-powerful leader. It is also opposed to the idea of liberation as an individual process, subject to the market and accepting “what is given.” In the Marxist sense, freedom is based on the individual who questions and acts. Hence, the objective of criticism is to move one to think, to act, to organize society “as a disillusioned man who has come to his senses, so that he knows how to turn around himself and his real self” (Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right ). An approach that also has nothing to do with the bureaucratic-exploitative regimes that have become customary to identify with revolutionary socialism. Questions that seem decisive to ideologically and politically confront the current reactionary and anti-solidarity bourgeois wave on the rise.

Related :​

Liberalism, Isaiah Berlin and dictatorships01/02/2023In general"
Milei and the “Austrians”, fascism and dictatorships11/12/2022In general"
Drugs: progressive relativism, from K to M02/06/2016In general"
Written by rolandoastarita
08/29/2023 at 14:56
Posted in General
« The electoral victory of the extreme right and Marxist criticism
Interview at Café Kyoto »

16 answers :​

1. 
   State interventions, in many cases, represent effective improvements for their beneficiaries... in the long run they do not change the social structure, but neither do we see that solidarity initiatives, from below, have that strength. I think that the only reasonable thing is to promote changes, from politics, towards state interventions that are increasingly clean and significant. In this dominant capitalism, the tension between the individual and the collective tends to be resolved in favor of the former, that is the reality. I think that it is practically impossible to get so many people to get out of their heads that their well-being and that of their descendants is their permanent priority, to be satisfied mainly from their own private initiative. Reality itself tells us all the time that, in order not to lose or fail, we must act like this.
   I like
   
   
   
   mario
   08/29/2023 at 22:20
   
   Reply
2. 
   Positive freedom is also an idea of Spinoza, whom Marx knew well, who said that my freedom is composed of the freedom of others in order to increase their power to act - or joy according to the language of his ethics.
   2 people like it
   
   
   
   Victor
   08/30/2023 at 17:20
   
   Reply
3. 
   Negative liberty and positive liberty are individualistic concepts. There is no society before there are individuals. First there are individuals exercising their positive liberty, then they are aware that they have reached something that interrelates them, the so-called civil society, and they agree so that this interrelation does not degenerate into disorder in the face of the exercise of positive liberty without limits; thus the state appears to impose these limits: negative liberty. With the state, civil society becomes political society. For the contractualists, it is a clear leap forward. Whether it is a monarchy or a republic, political society opens the door for a renewed exercise of positive liberty by individuals. These, through their individual effort and initiative, will build "society": shared values, culture, economy: the economic structure is the result of this atomized individual push in a broad sense. For the ultra-liberals, the process occurs from the economic push of individuals generated by the market. Thus, on the basis of the formation and expansion of the market, political society will be structured. Marx's point of view is something else, it has nothing to do with all this.
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   mario
   08/31/2023 at 11:47
   
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   • 
     A tremendous novel with zero relation to human history. In accordance with liberal theory.
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     German
     02/09/2023 at 09:46
     
4. 
   Excellent article, Rolando. I would like to ask you a question related to a topic that is not touched on here but that is also related to the content of the article. I am referring to the free carrying of firearms that Milei defends (I think that in some way you mention it in passing when you talk about the “freedom” of (…) creating armed bands to defend private property). The point is that from the “progressivism” I observe that free carrying is often rejected by praising the “monopoly of force”, that is, the monopoly of force in the hands of the bourgeoisie as a class. In fact, this character’s vice presidential candidate contradicted him (and Milei himself also contradicts himself habitually), in some way, a few days ago in Crónica, when he said that if they come to power they will use the monopoly of force to repress. But, evidently, where there is a monopoly of force there is no free carrying and vice versa. The point is that being in favor of the monopoly of force inhibits the possibility of the working people taking up arms against capital and its state if the situation demands it. In other words, the defense of the monopoly of force is in contradiction with any revolutionary solution. How do you think we should position ourselves on this issue? PS: Just in case, I clarify, because there are always some who are confused, that I am talking about questions of principle. I am NOT saying anywhere that the situation demands, either in the short or medium term, taking up arms against capital, fascist paramilitary bands, etc.
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   luisgac
   08/31/2023 at 20:02
   
   Reply
5. 
   Is the free consciousness of private and independent producers nothing but the concrete form of their consciousness alienated in the social powers of the commodity itself?
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   Mariana
   08/31/2023 at 22:55
   
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   • 
     I don't understand what you mean. What does "free consciousness" mean? Free from what? On the other hand, what are the "social powers" of the commodity? I also don't understand what it means that "free consciousness" is "the form" of a "consciousness alienated" into "social powers."
     2 people like it
     
     
     
     rolandoastarita
     01/09/2023 at 12:14
     
6. 
   Professor, if you have time, of course, I would like to know your opinion on this PO video: since in you, as in other colleagues, I have read a lot about the lack of characterization or clear position taken by some members of the FITU as socialists and, better yet, as Marxists. However, the only one I have heard on more than one occasion make such statements, in favor, is Solano in several interviews.
   I hope I am not being reckless and that you have the patience for this.
   Greetings.
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   juancsc13
   02/09/2023 at 10:05
   
   Reply
   • 
     I listened to about half of Solano's talk. I agree that there is no evidence to suggest that Milei's actions are an expression of a rising fascist movement. It may be, but for now we are far from anything like the open civil war that fascism launched against the workers' movement in Italy (blackshirts killing socialists, attacking unions and workers' associations, etc.).
     That said, I interpret Solano as underestimating the weight that the ideological message of neoliberals and libertarians is having in increasing degree among the population (exaltation of individualism, rejection of all forms of solidarity, community perspective and other issues that I dealt with in this note and the previous one). Linked to this underestimation is the idea (which is put forward by many groups on the left, including the PO) that Milei is being fought “in the streets”. I see this as an error in political orientation. What does this mean? Shock groups to confront the supporters of LLA? (as if these were the times of the rise of classical fascism). Another variant: “the way to defeat Milei is to confront Massa’s adjustment”. But, a) the working class for the moment is not facing (at least, in any serious way) the adjustment of the Massa-CFK government; b) if it did, that would not necessarily imply the defeat of LLA. It must be understood that today very important sectors of the workers and the popular masses reject the government, but support LLA.
     More generally, there is a widespread belief on the left that the central activity always involves agitating heartfelt slogans in order to mobilize, and that this is the way to generate socialist consciousness. I have criticized this idea in various places. For example, in the Critique of the Transitional Program.
     Finally, Solano says that the left confused bourgeois statism with socialism, and calls for not defending bourgeois statism. I would not say that the left confused bourgeois statism with socialism, but it did consider that bourgeois statism would configure a kind of advance in the socialist direction. And this approach was taken by practically the entire left. Here in Argentina, not only the communists, the PC, the Maoists, the Guevarists, but also the Trotskyists (including the old Política Obrera and the also old PST). This approach was also used to respond to Menem's privatizations. With a central addition: the idea that the nationalization of the means of production was enough to define the USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, East Germany, etc. as proletarian regimes. To which is added the fact that progressive nationalizations such as those carried out by Chavismo were considered. This question also weighs in the ideological battle with the right. And Solano should not act dumb with respect to this past.
     1 person likes this
     
     
     
     rolandoastarita
     02/09/2023 at 11:44
     
     
     
   • 
     Thank you for taking the time and your response, professor.
     1 person likes this
     
     
     
     juancsc13
     02/09/2023 at 12:22
     
7. 
   I leave you this article in case you are interested Rolando, hugs!
   https://www.communismreset.com/l/el-comunismo-humanista-como-unico-true-y-radical-ideal-libertario- desde-una-materialidad-concreta/
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   Mariano
   09/09/2023 at 15:27
   
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8. 
   Thank you for summarizing your knowledge. Your contribution of ideas is a very valuable weapon for me, in this historic crossroads that we have entered. Greetings.
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   Marcelo
   09/09/2023 at 21:10
   
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9. 
   What liberal rejects solidarity? We only say that it is easy to be in solidarity with other people's money.
   How do I know that you are "in solidarity" and a liberal "rejects solidarity"? You can be in solidarity and cooperate with your neighbor and still be a liberal.
   I am against the state stealing from me to do "solidarity with other people's money."
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   Matysil
   12/09/2023 at 10:29
   
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   • 
     It's interesting that thing about "other people's money." "Other people's money" runs through ALL social relations. It is the basis on which bourgeois civilization is based. It is what Marx calls surplus value. It is the surplus labor carried out by the worker and given free of charge to the capitalist class, including its State. The alternative for the worker who does not accept being exploited: starving to death. You call that "exercising freedom" (Milei dixit). What "solidarity" are you talking about?
     In the same way, they talk about the “freedom” to appropriate natural resources and do whatever their egoism dictates. Again, what “solidarity” are they talking about? Another example: “Global warming is an invention of the communists.” Translated into practice: “I don’t give a damn about the consequences of what I do in my private preserve.” Once again, what “solidarity” are they talking about?
     They say that all market participants “possess rationality, free will, moral agency, and the ability to make their own life plans.” Marxism asks, what “free will” does a person have who is deprived of all means of production, who works 9 or 10 hours a day, who spends an average of 3 hours a day commuting to and from work, who is paid only $200 a month and has a family with small children to support? What ability to “make their own life plans”? Again, what “solidarity” are they talking about?
     Naturally, you are not "solidary" with the millions of oppressed and exploited (it's my money!!), but you were with dictatorships and brutal regimes (fascism, Pinochet, Videla).
     Last remark: “A socialist is a piece of garbage, a piece of human excrement” (Milei dixit). To call a certain political group “human excrement” is, in fact, to call for its extermination. This blog, which publishes your comment, is from a socialist. Aren’t you ashamed to send comments in defense of these brutalities? Are there no limits?
     1 person likes this
     
     
     
     rolandoastarita
     12/09/2023 at 11:31
     
     
     
   • 
     Liberalism bases its entire theory on individualism at its finest. “Every man for himself” or “you are free to die of hunger.” If you are going to support this “doctrine” you should find out what it is all about.
     1 person likes this
     
     
     
     Deborah
     09/16/2023 at 01:32
     
10. 
    […] A critical article on libertarians on his blog, Rolando Astarita, [known as Argentine economics professor, Marxist scholar] makes the difference between negative and positive freedom, not the meaning proposed by Isaiah Berlin. A negative freedom is the possibility of the individual acting without interference or coercion, and is limited by the freedom of two others and by the law. Positive freedom is the real capacity to exercise autonomy and self-realization, which depends not only on each person, but also on social conditions. This is why Astarita understands that the Marxist tradition emphasizes positive freedom. […]
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    Free culture as positive freedom – BaixaCultura
    08/29/2024 at 19:58
    
    
    

    Dos concepciones de la libertad y la crítica marxista

    En entradas anteriores, en que examinamos planteos de Javier Milei y de La Libertad Avanza, sugerimos que una de las principales diferencias con los “libertarios de la propiedad privada” gira en to…

    rolandoastarita.blog

 

[Captain Red Eye]

 

[Captain Red Eye]

ok, been done that like 20 years ago.

what next?

Stop supporting coercion.

 

[nepalnt21]

how?

 

[Hiddenjems]

There will always be the weak and stupid who can't function unless they are lead around by the nose.
No master - no function.

This was very clear during Covid. At least half of all people are latent authoritarian. As soon as authority flexed its power, their instincts are to obey power. This gives them the direction they normally lack in their lives.

 

[Eltitoguay]

GUIDE FOR USE OF OUR ULTRANEOLIBERAL AND ULTRA-RIGHT PROPAGANDA:

When others make it obvious that you don't know what you're talking about, and that the only intention of your demagogic talk is so that the rich can steal more, use memes: (Example: memes of the little poverty that has reduced B Sanders in his decades as US President..., or of how his government financed itself by flooding the poorest neighborhoods with crack...)

...And if you only are one of those poor people who we have convinced with our lies...don't even look at real, tangible, and true things like this (again)...:

Comparison between the evolution of average life expectancy between the 1st economic and geostrategic world power (with the highest global health spending per citizen and without Universal Public Health), and the 20th (if it reaches that position; with Universal Public Health, and three times less per capita spending on health):
1962 :

2022 :

Comparar economía países: Estados Unidos vs España Esperanza de vida al nacer 2025

Comparativa de países. Comparativa de los datos macroeconómicos y socio-demográficos de países. Aquí tienes la comparativa de Estados Unidos vs España, Esperanza de vida al nacer

datosmacro.expansion.com

Health expenditure per capita in selected countries in 2022(in dollars) :​

USA : 12.555
Spain: 4.461

Gasto sanitario per cápita por país en 2022 | Statista

Esta gráfica muestra el gasto sanitario per cápita en países seleccionados en 2022.

es.statista.com

 

[Captain Red Eye]

This was very clear during Covid. At least half of all people are latent authoritarian. As soon as authority flexed its power, their instincts are to obey power. This gives them the direction they normally lack in their lives.

Excellent point.

Are you familiar with the Milgram Experiment? It's a study on authority worship and shows the results of unthinking obedience to authority.

Stanford Prison experiment is another good one, except it shows how when put in positions of power over people that many people respond tyrannically.

 

[Captain Red Eye]

how?

Getting in the right line, would be a good start for you.

 

[Captain Red Eye]

@Eltitoguay

One simple question.

If you believe people all have equal rights, where does anyone get the right to force another person to pay for their ideas if another "equal" person is disinterested but remains otherwise peaceful?

 

[Eltitoguay]

LATEST NEWS FROM THE PARADISE OF TOTAL SUPERMEGAULTRA INDIVIDUALIST-CAPITALIST FREEDOM:

Becose many free individuals in our Paradise of Ultrafreedom refuse to install in their vehicles and shoes the MANDATORY geolocatable meters-counters for the use of sidewalks, streets and highways, so as not to pay to us, the private capitalist owners, for their use, We are FORCED, in the name of TOTAL FREEDOM, to create the Usage Counter Police, with authority over all consumers.

Note: the cost of this Police will be reflected in the price per use.

¡ Y que Viva la Libertad (de poder robar lo público), carajo !

 

[Captain Red Eye]

LATEST NEWS FROM THE PARADISE OF TOTAL SUPERMEGAULTRA INDIVIDUALIST-CAPITALISTF REEDOM:

Becose many free individuals in our Paradise of Ultrafreedom refuse to install in their vehicles and shoes the MANDATORY geolocatable meters-counters for the use of sidewalks, streets and highways, so as not to pay their private capitalist owners for their use, We are FORCED, in the name of TOTAL FREEDOM, to create the Usage Counter Police, with authority over all consumers.

Note: the cost of this Police will be reflected in the price per use.

¡ Y que Viva la Libertad (de poder robar lo público), carajo !

I didn't think you would give a direct answer. Or maybe you did, and I don't understand?

Now, I'm wondering what you think property is and what the parameters of it are ?

Who can own it? How is it justly acquired or not?

 

[Captain Red Eye]

Ha, ha, ha... "There are many models that free people could choose from".... ...I can already see people grouping together in currents of opinion according to their preferred "model", having to choose (elections? the majority wins; or if there is always a "true free spirit" out there, who "does not consent" to the choices of others...) between "models", and then having to ensure that this "model" is developed and respected....

"It none of my business to dictate a master plan, nor should it be."
Ha, that's the best part... It sounds like: "I have no fucking idea how to achieve that world of "totally free individuals in a free capitalism to infinity and beyond"; but I don't care either, because what I do know is that I want to destroy the Welfare State."
So, in the end it is only about the same thing:

Is it your business to dictate a master plan for every other person? It's not mine. Not having the right to do something isn't the same thing as not having some ideas how others might do it, is it?

Where does YOUR right to force a master plan on others come from, if you also believe in equality of rights?

Do you imagine nonexistent rights no individual possesses can be aggregated to create a right for a group of individuals to do?

Can you explain using your own on point detail how that could even be possible?

I can explain how it's impossible, but I'd like you to correct me if I'm wrong.

Go ahead and show me how a cluster of nonexistent individual rights can spawn existent rights when they are added up. Can you ?

 

[Captain Red Eye]

LATEST NEWS FROM THE PARADISE OF TOTAL SUPERMEGAULTRA INDIVIDUALIST-CAPITALISTF REEDOM:

Becose many free individuals in our Paradise of Ultrafreedom refuse to install in their vehicles and shoes the MANDATORY geolocatable meters-counters for the use of sidewalks, streets and highways, so as not to pay to us, the private capitalist owners, for their use, We are FORCED, in the name of TOTAL FREEDOM, to create the Usage Counter Police, with authority over all consumers.

Note: the cost of this Police will be reflected in the price per use.

¡ Y que Viva la Libertad (de poder robar lo público), carajo !
View attachment 19127389

The term free market, doesn't mean you get free stuff by taking it from others.

It means you are free to engage others using mutual, voluntary and peaceful terms people establish amongst themselves, without a coercive third party intervening etc.

Also, worth mentioning again, I am more of a Voluntaryist Panarchist than Anarcho Capitalist.
I am NOT a fan of crony capitalism or systems that allow crony capitalism. We may have agreement there.


I have used some info. from an Anarcho Capitalist to illustrate some ideas we concur on, but that doesn't mean I need to defend other ideas an Anarcho Capitalist has, which I may not agree with in part or in whole.

How would you self describe yourself politically and/ or philosophically?

 

[Eltitoguay]

Heh heh... When reality copies the literature of the stories-fables of Augusto Monterroso, and persists in dismantling the lies of ultra-neoliberal capitalism aka "pseudo Anarcho"-Capitalism...

Grafton:​

The "libertarian" experiment in a small town in the United States that ended in a great fiasco :​

Image source,Getty Images
Photo caption,Libertarians' attempts to test their ideas in a small town ended in a run-in with bears.
 Article information :

• Author,Juan Francisco Alonso
• Author's title,BBC News World
• August 29, 2023

“Everything in excess is bad.” :

This oft-quoted maxim seems to apply not only to issues related to medicine, but also to freedom.
And proof of this is Grafton, a small town in the northeastern United States, which at the beginning of the century was the scene of an unprecedented political experiment :
A group of libertarians settled there and put their ideas into practice, cutting regulations and taxes in order to prove that government intervention is oppressive and produces poverty, while if society is left to its own devices it flourishes and is capable of self-regulation.

However, within a few years, the town in the state of New Hampshire, bordering Canada, became known for the drastic deterioration of its public services, the increase in criminal violence; and above all for a series of unusual attacks by black bears against some of its residents.

Image source,Courtesy of Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
Photo caption,The Grafton case eventually caught the attention of journalist Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, who wrote a book about it.

A unique experiment :​

“In 2004, hundreds of people moved to Grafton to found what they called the Free Town Project and demonstrate the feasibility of libertarianism by creating a utopian community,” American journalist Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling explained to BBC Mundo. In 2020, he wrote the book A Libertarian Walks into a Bear , in which he recounted what happened in the small town.
Libertarianism is a political-philosophical movement that places “individual freedom as the supreme political value” and considers that every person has the right to live his or her life and do with his or her body and property whatever he or she considers appropriate, as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others to do the same, explained Venezuelan political scientist Luis Salamanca.
“For classical liberalism, the State must be minimal; that is, it accepts that the State exists, but only as a watchdog of productive activity and a minimal regulator. However, for anarcho-capitalists, who are the purest and most radical libertarians, this is oppression. For anarcho- capitalists, the State is the enemy and must be liquidated ,” added the former director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV).
Libertarianism has had a strong hold in the United States since its founding. "The best government is that which governs least ," said Thomas Jefferson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and third president of that country, recalled the professor of Political Theory and American History Eric-Clifford Graf.
The expert also highlighted that there have been - and are - sectors and individuals within the Republican Party who defend these ideas.

Image source,Getty Images
Photo caption,Grafton, unlike other neighboring towns, began to have problems with garbage collection, street repairs and street lighting.

But why Grafton? “ Libertarians looked at dozens of towns in New Hampshire before settling on Grafton , but it was appealing for several reasons: It was home to a libertarian named John Babiarz, who was running for governor. It also had a small population, about 1,000 people, which meant that a relatively small number of libertarian voters could wield an outsize influence when it came to passing municipal ordinances and taxes,” the journalist listed.
“And finally, Grafton had a deep history of rebellion against authority . In the late 18th century, it voted to secede from the newly formed United States over tax issues, and many of its residents were fiscally disobedient (not paying taxes),” he concluded.
Hongoltz-Hetling, in her book, claimed that within months some 200 libertarians, most of whom had met online, had moved to the town to launch their experiment.
The new residents were mostly white, single men who supported gun ownership .
However, from an economic point of view, the profile of the newcomers was more varied: some had a lot of money and others were poor and had nothing to tie them to their places of origin.
The latter explains why the number of people living in mobile homes or tents in the forests surrounding the town has increased significantly.

Image source,Getty Images
Photo caption,Libertarians' refusal to use trash bins against bears and some of their decision to feed them attracted the animals to residential areas.

A not so silent invasion :​

The new “Graftonians” soon began to make themselves felt. “They were very active and involved in the local political process, which allowed them to impose many of their ideas on the community,” Hongoltz-Hetling said.
And though they failed in their attempts to remove the town from the School District, the authority in charge of overseeing schools, or to declare the town a “United Nations-free zone,” they did convince residents to cut the already small municipal budget , which was just US$1.3 million, by 30% .
However, the promise that the cuts would result in lower taxes and more money in the pockets of the population did not come to pass.
For example, in Canaan, a neighboring town, residents paid only 70 cents more in taxes on average than those in Grafton and had paved and lighted streets and roads.
By 2011, Grafton's roads were riddled with potholes, street lighting and garbage collection services had all but disappeared, the public library had to reduce its hours to just three hours a day, and police surveillance was reduced because the police only had the resources to pay one full-time officer (the chief commissioner).
Reduced patrols, coupled with the arrival of more armed residents convinced they had the right to do whatever they wanted, explain why the town recorded its first two murders in recent times in the past decade and a 12% rise in the number of violent crimes, according to regional statistics.

Image source,Getty Images
Photo caption,Libertarianism is deeply rooted in the US and was advocated by some of its founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson.

Like something out of a bad comedy :​

But as if worse roads and more crime weren't enough, Grafton residents had to deal with a problem not seen in a century: a wave of bear attacks .
It was precisely the attacks by these animals that made Hongoltz-Hetling focus her attention on the town, where she found that the mix of deregulation, tax cuts and libertarian ideas resulted in a dangerous cocktail.
“Many of the libertarians living in the woods did not follow recommendations about waste disposal, which created an easy food source for the bears. Secondly, some of the libertarians began feeding the bears, just as others feed birds or squirrels in their backyards , which attracted the animals to residential areas,” he said.
“And third, the city refused to call on regional authorities to consider killing or relocating the troublesome beasts; instead, individuals tried to deter them, in ways that were ineffective (using fireworks). Over time, the bears became bolder and more interested in humans as a food source and even stopped hibernating,” he said.

Image source,Getty Images
Photo caption,Bears began roaming the streets of Grafton and attacked two residents in 2012, an occurrence not seen in a century.

By 2016 the experiment had foundered and many of the libertarians who had settled in Grafton had left.
However, little has been done to repair the damage , Hongoltz-Hetling said.
“The town budget has not grown to make up for the lost years and municipal services remain poor compared to those in other neighbouring towns. However, the atmosphere is calmer than before, and there have been no more bear attacks, so perhaps that is a victory,” the journalist said.
But how could a group of newcomers virtually control a town and dismantle it without anyone taking action? “ The libertarians acted within the rule of law , so there was no reason for state or federal authorities to intervene,” he replied.
" The Grafton fiasco was partly the result of a fair democratic process , in which community-minded residents did not organize as effectively as libertarians.
"For me, libertarians have moral, but not legal, responsibility for what happened to the people who were attacked by the bears," the journalist and author added.

Image source,Getty Images
Photo caption,The victory of economist Javier Milei, who presents himself as a libertarian, in the Argentine primaries has put this ideology at the forefront of the debate.

A theory in vogue :​

The victory of economist Javier Milei in Argentina's mandatory primary elections on August 13 has put libertarianism in the spotlight.
" I consider the state to be an enemy ; taxes are a burden on slavery," said the controversial candidate, who, according to polls, has the best chance of winning the presidential elections next October.
Milei has declared himself a “libertarian” and an “anarcho-capitalist” and has promised that, if he wins the elections, he will “blow up” the Central Bank, reduce the number of ministries and legalize the carrying of firearms.
However, what happened in Grafton raises more than reasonable doubts as to whether libertarianism can be successfully implemented .
"The experiment allowed us to see the benefits, but above all the problems that come with doing without the State," said political scientist Salamanca.
“ Garbage is the most pathetic example and shows that you cannot leave everything to the market . The market can regulate prices, but there are other aspects of human life that it does not cover and that is where the anarcho-capitalist model fails,” he said.

Image source,Getty Images
Photo caption,Despite Grafton's failure, libertarianism has support among a portion of the electorate and the Libertarian Party will once again participate in the 2024 US presidential election.

“In Grafton, freedom was prioritized over order, but total freedom leads to the loss of order, and where there is no order, force and the law of the strongest prevail,” said the expert.
Salamanca recalled that the history of humanity before the modern State was incredibly chaotic and violent.
"Anyone could invade your home, take your wife or kill you (…) The conclusion that this case draws is that freedom alone, without order, ends up being negative for itself and that the weakest end up being harmed," he said.
Professor Graf, for his part, admitted that libertarian ideals are inspiring and can be very attractive to electorates disenchanted with traditional politicians.
However, the expert warned that handing power over to the followers of this political movement "is to risk chaos and anarchy, which can return us to tyranny . "

Libertarios | Grafton: el experimento "anarco-capitalista" en un pueblo de Estados Unidos que terminó en un gran fiasco - BBC News Mundo

La reducción del presupuesto municipal y la derogación de un conjunto de normas provocó una notable desmejora en los servicios públicos, un aumento de la violencia y la llegada de unos agresivos osos.

www.bbc.com