Reply #8: I don't think so. Property rights sound great at first, but...

[Starfury]

...then you realize that libertarians pretty much believe that's all that matters. Libertarianism's biggest selling points are that it's simple, logical, and self-consistent. Unfortunately, those are also it's biggest flaws, IMO - it's simplicity and it's inflexible logic inevitably lead to conclusions that are moral deadends.

An individual's rights, liberties, privileges, etc. are soley derived from ownership of property. So, the more you own, the more rights you enjoy. If you're fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy family, you automatically have more rights than if you are born into a poor family. So, we're basically talking about a form of social Darwinism.

And since corporations are considered to be people, and since they are far richer than mortal human beings (except for a few families like the Bushes), corporations will basically have all the rights in a libertarian society. And since libertarians feel that government is the source of all evil in the world, there's no one to be the advocate of the citizens.

In other words, if libertarian principles were truly put in place, I don't see how it could lead to anything other than corporatism, with 99.999% of the citizens effectively living as wage-slaves.

Even worse, if you take the concept of ownership to it's logical conclusion as many good libertarians do, your body is your ultimate possession. So, if you can't pay your bills, and you don't have anything else to sell, you can sell yourself. In other words, slavery of the poor is perfectly compatible with libertarianism.

So, while it may seem ok on the surface, I feel that libertarism (similar to conservatism) is a morally bankrupt philosophy. (Conservatives use the phrase "ownership society" to push the same agenda.) Fortunately, I don't believe that it's possible to actually create a libertarian society in real life - it's too simplistic and naive. However, conservatives appear to be successfully incorporating the worst aspects of it into our society, which is a major reason why America is getting so screwed up today (IMO).

The website given in post #4 (http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html) is an excellent resource for understanding the flaws and fallacies of libertarianism.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I say all this as a former member of the Libertarian Party. But I've seen the light... :) )