I am a Far-Left Libertarian new to the forum.

I want to say hello, I am new to the forum and I wanted to introduce myself.

I am a very far-left leaning libertarian. As of right now, in the 2016 Presidential Primaries, I have all my chips and support going to Bernie Sanders.

Really a good candidate for the American people, I think he will bring us out of the storm that we are in now, and progress this country where it needs to be.

 

Welcome to PF. Enjoy the discussions.

 

Some would say there is no real individual liberty without economic rights. I mean, how much liberty can a person actually exercise without any money??
Especially in modern society where one person's property rights effectively infringe upon the liberties of others, because there is limited availability of good land.

I just hope more left-leaners can embrace the Libertarian position on many individual issues. There must be a way for the government to help people without taking away their choice.

 

Welcome, nice to meet you!

If you don't mind me asking, why "Far left Libertarian"? Why not a Socialist Anarchist?

 

What is your view of efforts by government at all levels, to regulate commercial activity, including consumer protection, environmental safety and labor and civil rights? Many libertartians see those efforts as interfering with the rights of citizens to do what they choose with their business, property, products, employee contracts and resources. Mr. Sanders sees a social responsibility reflected in those laws and regs, to protect communities, employees and consumers from inherent pressures to gain profit at the expense of the former. Sanders is willing to tell a grocery store that it must list ingredients, nutrition information and expiration dates on its property,whether it wants to or not before selling it.

 

Welcome, nice to see another leftist, even if you are libertarian

Bernie Sanders is a good man and is espousing logical and desirable policies. Unfortunately , if he keeps on like he's doing he will lose the Democrats this election even if he doesn't run as a third party candidate. Sander's policies might have some chance under Hillary but will not even be discussed under Republicans.

Our decision in 2016 will, IMO, determine whether we go on being a Democracy at least to some extent, or whether we will become a full-blown Plutocracy locked in as such. This in no time for "statements" in the electoral process. It is a time for winning, which we have a good chance of doing, or losing, which will have horrific consequences for this country for a very long time

 

And in which election was that not the ever-present threat behind each campaign for whatever subpar candidate either major party threw in voters' faces? It is ever thus. Hillary Clinton has to earn my vote and my respect, and she is not getting the former without acquiring the latter.

 

I'm not opposed to Social Anarchy, in fact, in the end, I think that model would be ideal, on a global level.

I got a confession to make, 5 years ago, I was a hardline, right-wing Libertarian.

I'm talking Alex Jones and Ron Paul type Libertarian.

Libertarianism is what I base my entire ideology around first.....I believe that individuals should be able to do whatever they want to do, as long as they aren't hurting anybody else.

I have changes a lot in 5 years, and recognize that there are two forms of tyranny.

Government Tyranny and Corporate Tyranny.

We need to stop both forms of tyranny.

 

Let me be clear, in an ideal society, it would be the people, not government making any decisions. But we don't live in an ideal world, so we have to work with what we have right now.

I personally feel that corporations and businesses do not have the same rights as individuals, and they certainly shouldn't trump individual rights and freedoms.

I feel that we need safety measures in place, otherwise, the alternative would be widespread deregulation, resulting in dangerous goods and products, meaning that the right of the individuals would be infringed.

I also want to note, that I am against businesses owning private property.

This is what I say......

We have an abundance of land and natural resources here on Earth, why should anybody be in control of that.

The food, water and resources are for everybody to eat and utilize, not just the people who can afford it.

And what is money anyway?

Money is what keeps everyone as a slave, chasing after the almighty dollar.

Money has no real value, unless you are controlling the distribution of money.

Food, liquids, shelter medicines.

That has real value.

 

Individuals can own property. Can collectives own property? Can groups of people contract to mutually own 20 acres to live on, and farm? Can they set up a store to sell the products to the broader public and use those profits to better the collective?

 

Yes, but we need to make sure that everybody, and every collective has the ability to also do the same thing....So, yes, they can buy up land, No, they cant buy up all the land.

And as long as they are actually using the proceeds to make the collective a better place, with more access to basic necessities, then I am all for it.

 

What did you mean when you said "if he keeps doing like he's doing he will lose the Dems the election"?

You know he is running to win, and personally, I think he as a pretty good shot at it.

If he doesn't get the nomination, I am going to cast my vote for Hillary, because putting a Republican in office right now, would be scary.

Say goodbye to the affordable care act, say goodbye to gay marriage, so goodbye to iran deal.....So goodbye to any progress that we have made in the last 8 years.

Republican president is a scary concept right now.

I also would love to see Mandatory Voting, even if you cast your vote as a "No Vote". You should still be required to show up to the ballots to vote.

And election day should be a national holiday where people are off work, just like easter, christmas, and july 4th.

 

Hello. Don't forget to report posts that are mean and nasty.

 

If one of them chooses to move off the land, can he retain his investment in the collective farm? Can He continue to get some 'residuals' for keeping his capital in the pool if the collective thinks in the best interest of the collective and they can ill afford to buy out his interest?

yes we are getting closer to the notion of incorporation for mutual benefit.

 

If he chooses with his own free will to move off the collective, would he be entitled to residual proceeds, No.

Would it be nice if the collective allowed him to still eat with them, yes, of course.

The society I am thinking of is a self-less society.

A society that brings is back to our roots as human beings....Like I stated earlier.....We all have a right to the resources on Earth.

It does not matter who you are. We need to get rid of the borders, stop imperialism, all live united under a common goal....That goal is humanity, which in turn, brings the ultimate freedom.

That does not mean we can't have different cultures, it just means that we all have an interest in each others well being, whether you are an American, Mexican, Canadian, Middle Eastern.

Doesn't matter, we are all human beings living on Earth.

 

First I am not trying to be difficult, I am a liberal intrigued by Sanders myself. I just don't understand how in practical terms, you can deal with this scenario.

The man who now dreams of being a fisherman, has invested most of his life's blood, his work, his money into this collective farm/ store where he lives. He can't afford to walk off with nothing on which to build his new life. He needs to either get money back (sell his interest) or gain some monetary benefit for all the investment value his money is doing. He is not living there, so he gets zero benefit from what his resources continue to provide the collective unless it comes with a 'pay to the order of ' format.

Meanwhile the collective may have a use for that capital, or may be unable to 'buy him out' outright. Both sides may have an interest in that little 250$ check going into his pocket, while he lives in Florida and saves for a fishing boat for his new life and they get to keep using that 124,000 dollars to pay for new roof for the Farmer's Market, and some better sewer pipes that don' leak into the creek. What is wrong with incorporation if it is to the mutual benefit of the parties?

 

Like I said, I am not against him receiving residual benefits, however, I feel that he is not entitled benefits, and here is why.

When he joined the collective, when anybody joins a collective commune, they are doing so on their own free will, they are doing so knowing that anything contribution that they make is going to the greater good of the community.

So, now he decides that he is tired of the commune life and wants to start out and set himself up individually, however, he is doing so on his own accord, nobody is forcing him to leave the commune, he wants to leave. So, why would he be entitled to "residual benefits" from the commune.

Now, again, like I said, in a perfect society, which I can envision, every man, women and child will have their basic needs met.....In this society, there will be no money, as you speak of dollars and cents.

The real money, the real wealth will be accumulated through food, clothing, things that you can actually use.....Money is worth virtually nothing in my society.

However, everyone would be provided with a vehicle (for their needs), food, water, shelter, gas, clothing, any basic necessity you can think of.

This society would eliminate the need to go out and work, and instead the person may focus on himself, his family, and innovation.

Believe it or not, capitalism stifles innovation in a few ways.

Patents are one way to stifle innovation. Corporations use patents to suppress new technology from coming out.

When you have to get out and go to work 8-12 hours a day, that does not leave any time for thinking and problem solving, so let's say somebody has a good idea and wants to implement it and experiment...He is restricted by his time, since most of his time is spent working and sleeping, he has no time to focus on innovating a new idea.

 

That's oxymoronic.

You can't be a libertarian and then want government intervention.

 

Nice to meet you, and it's nice to have another Libertarian left though I am more of a Libertarian socialist.... with an hint of a little bit of anarchy according to my mother.

 

Libertarian Socialism is a real thing actually so you can be both its a fourm of anarchy....http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionI1


One of the most famous people in this movement is the well know author and poltical philosopher Noam Chomsky and in this vedio he is explaining his view on this subject in the video below. [video=youtube_share;yxbeyn2xMQE]http://youtu.be/yxbeyn2xMQE[/video]

 

I guess that depends on who you talk to and what you define a "Liberty".

I have to disagree with you, to me, being a libertarian means ending tyranny from both government and corporations.

The right-wing definition of Libertarian only cares about abolishing government, with no solutions on how to end corporate tyranny.

If you are a Libertarian-Socialist or Anarcho-Communist, then you wish to end all forms of corruption through ending capitalism and when you end capitalism, you end any incentive to keep the majority of the population poor, because there is no money, there is no greed, no corruption.

 

Welcome to the forum. It looks like your description of your own views, as a far left libertarian, have stirred some controversy. a very unique view is always welcome on the forum.

I'm a libertarian myself and if you use "regular" libertarianism as the core of all your beliefs, then I wonder - what really is "corporate tyranny"? I'm curious what you have in mind because most examples I've heard people give either a) can be broken down to nothing more than consensual exchange w/o coercion, or b) it's really just government tyranny that people try to pin on corporations instead. So when you say "corporate tyranny", I'm curious just what it is that you mean.

 

I will try to explain this the best I can.

Let me start out by saying that, since money is a necessity in our current form of society, then I consider money a "Natural Resource".

So, with money being a natural resource, when you have large, multi-national corporation that have more money than some developed countries, then I say, there is a problem there.

The problem being that, when corporations have a majority of the money, the result is oppression of the rest of the population from rising up and earning a wage that can support any standard of living.

When the majority of people in this world earn less than $10/day, with some countries even being much lower than that, and when you have billionaires who earn $1,000,000,000/hour, than I think we can both understand that there is corporate tyranny and that without some form of government regulation, it would be even worse.

How do I know it would be worse, you ask?

Because during the industrial revolution, there was very little regulation or production and manufacturing. So, the owners controlled everything.

They would work their workers 18 hours a day at starvation wages, sometimes not even paying them in cash, in some cases they would get store credit for "the company store".

These workers, when trying to rebel and strike, were met with violence from local, state and federal law enforcement. National Guard would assault and kill protesters and strikers simply because they were in the pockets of the CEO's.

So, to assume the fact that working for a company is consensual and mutual is just not a fair assumption.....People work because they are forced to either work or starve to death. Is there really a choice?

When you take away money and capital, you end corruption, greed and corporate tyranny.

I hope that answers your question on corporate tyranny....Again, this is my viewpoint, I am sure other people would have other views as well.

But this viewpoint make sense to me, and I'm sure a lot of people would agree with me.

 

Yep before limited govt, the industrial revolution and classic liberals people were living the high life in prosperity. Seriously the industrial revolution and min govt gave us the most wealth and freedom we've ever seen. The other thing, corporations cant get so big to dominate everything (monopoies) without government thats whys so many support leftist big centralized oppressive nanny governments. The monetary system itself is a perfect example, a fascist (leftist) system designed for their elite to screw everyone bar the elites - like all socialism.

 

Do some research before you make your claims on here.

People might read your post and actually believe it.

The fact is that during the industrial revolution, there were multiple strikes and riots because working conditions were so poor and the pay was so little.

Not sure where you are getting your facts.

A People's History of The United States is where you can find a lot of that information....More people should read that book, it's a terrific book.