The Libertarian Socialist Club

About me:

The Libertarian Socialist Club is a group on meetup.com who will join together to think and take action towards promoting Libertarian Socialist values. We will discuss details and philosophies of this system, then decide what we can do to make the world a better place.

WHAT is libertarian socialism, and WHY libertarian socialism?

Libertarianism and socialism may seem like polar opposites, but really they are not. Libertarians typically believe that there should be no laws, and socialists typically believe that there should be no inequality of wealth so that everyone can survive. Both sound great, but how can these two principles exist at the same time? If there are no laws, how can we stop people from taking all the wealth and resources for themselves and exploiting others? And if we force everyone to have an equal amount of resources as everyone else, how can we ensure that everyone also has the freedom to live and do as they choose?

When you think about it, there are two kinds of freedoms: procedural freedoms (what you are allowed to do), and economic/material freedoms (what you are allowed to have). In our society, we are allowed a relatively high amount of procedural freedoms, but nearly no economic/material freedoms. It all just depends on what you consider an inalienable human right. Now, in the United States, the general belief is that the procedural freedom of ATTAINING money/goods is very important, but the economic/material freedom of HAVING money/goods is not. In other words, if you want the material freedom of having what you need to survive, you must earn it somehow through your procedural freedoms.

So, in the United States, we have high procedural but low economic/material freedoms. A society where there is low procedural but high economic/material freedoms would be the type of communism that has been tried in the past, or similar to modern-day China. We don't want that. How do you define an inalienable human right? The right to do as we please (procedural) is important, yes. However, even in the U.S. we don't have the right do many things that we feel we should have the right to, such as certain drugs, driving as fast as we'd like, even tinting our car windows or talking on the phone while driving. While most laws are made with the intention of protecting society as a whole, we must understand that morality cannot be defined by the state, or even by the majority, and even when enforced these laws don't necessarily prevent people from committing crimes. Everyone agrees that no one should murder, but murderers murder, nonetheless. So rather than criminalization being the basis for morality, it would be better to leave these decisions to personal or cultural values. "Punishment" seems a petty and ineffective way to deter bad behavior. It is also interesting to note that while murder and theft are illegal because they are deemed immoral in the U.S., it is considered perfectly acceptable to practice your procedural rights of exploiting others for your own economic/material gain, even if leaving them with little or nothing to live off of. Is this really different from theft or murder? Because of our belief that no one has the right to the materials needed to simply survive, our sense of morality is skewed and our laws rendered useless.

As you have probably realized, the right to simply survive seems obviously inalienable yet absurdly overlooked. But how can we guarantee everyone the economic/material means to survive while simultaneously allowing complete procedural freedom? Can't people then just exploit others even more if they have the freedom to do whatever they want? Well, yes and no. People already get away with things like theft, even murder. However, the main thing that allows others to truly exploit and deny others the materials necessary for survival is MONEY.

This is key.

As long as there is money, anyone can "own" an unlimited amount of any material goods in the world. And when everything costs money, anyone can prevent you from having what you need because they own it or you don't have enough money to buy it. We are so used to this, but it is a serious problem. The existence of money is the only thing preventing true freedom, both procedural and material, from existing. Because so long as there is money, we must have some constraints on our procedural rights in order to prevent exploitation of people's money, which would leave some with no material rights needed to survive. So with high procedural rights, low material rights tend to result. And with high material rights (in the form of money), low procedural rights tend to result.

The only way to have both is to have a system without money. Now, I am not suggesting a barter system. A barter system is not much different from a money system when you think about it. They both place a value on things, and really it is just another object that is being used as "money".

But what kind of system could exist then? Well, the only way to a truly procedurally and materially free society would be for people to...get ready for this...do their job for the purpose of doing their job, and produce goods and services for the purpose of providing and being provided with goods and services. I know, what an odd way of life!

Without money (or barter), there can be no exploitation (at least in the economic sense), so this problem would be solved. Since everyone would have what they needed to survive, there would surely be less theft, but if there was, the whole community would pay a price, so they would probably find a way to stop the person responsible.

This is not a utopia where everything and everyone is perfect. People are imperfect, and it's up for debate whether this kind of society could work, or if people are simply too competitive or selfish by nature to cooperate in this kind of system. However, libertarian socialism is the closest thing imaginable to a truly reasonable, moral, and free society...