Good memes, bad memes, unite towards a united front.
You surprised? You know, I once heard this U.S libertarian ex-governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, once protest against the U.S embargo on Cuba in 2022
And another thing, Penn and Teller, a science-vibes skeptical U.S duo of libertarian leaning, once had Michael Parenti on their show to debunk the peaceful myth of Tibet.
So if I had a nickel for every time a libertarian become a broken clock, it'd be 3 times, which is something to say the least.
Penn recently came out as regretful of his time as a libertarian, didn't he?
Yes, hahaha 🤣
If you can get a libertarian to think about anyone but themselves for five minutes they do sometimes get the bigger picture.
However they do mostly fall back to the 'every man for himself' mindset more often than not.
Funny how that works.
If all broken clocks were right 3 times a day, think about how much better the world might be.
A US libertarian who is genuinely anti-war has a more noble cause than most of what passes for "Left" in US politics. Really says a lot.
Most libertarians I know are juuuuust smart enough to get that massive corporate greed and oligarchies are the major problems with the US and that the government is tied to that but not smart enough to understand what capitalism truly is and how it truly works. Because they have that "well if everyone was a capitalist and no one group was ever able to get too powerful" bullshit. They still think capitalism is still just "I buy and sell things." And it's combined with the infantile anarkiddies ideals of "all guberment bad." So they will have these occasionally good takes where the realize the horrors and evil of capitalism but not the cause of any actual real solution against it.
I happen to be friends with a Libertarian from the US, rural fellow, but heir to a lot of money from his family, and is genuinely a party member who's voted for them multiple times. The way it goes with him is the two of us argue over capitalism constantly, and theres no way I can convince him of many Marxist ideas, but the difference between him and any normal libs, which I've noticed, is that unlike a lib, who would only become skeptical of US crimes overseas if it's the "wrong team", he immediately is opposed regardless of who says it, and his opinions on US involvement in foreign countries lines up 100% with mine, despite arriving at those conclusions from very different ideological backgrounds.
I have more hope for this type of person than I do with any liberal, who will only ever have the right opinion on war, genocide, and apartheid decades after it's long over and too late.
I imagine there are things y'all agree on re: the economy; where do you start to diverge?
Like I imagine you both agree that problems exist in the current system, since many people are suffering.
I imagine y'all agree that every corporation wants to maximize profits, which means that (all else equal) they want to 1) pay their employees less, 2) have employees work longer hours, and 3) charge the maximum possible price for all their products (I like to say "the perfect price for the company is when you wouldn't buy it if it were one penny more").
I think they'll likely agree that there's no "enough" profit - the line must go up forever. You can point to the pursuit of infinitely increasing profits as a driver of services getting worse. Netflix is my go-to, where a company launches a good product, takes over the market, then slowly starts turning the screws to increase profits (price increases, carrying fewer shows, cracking down on password sharing).
If you can get them to agree that capitalism puts profit over people (which you can get to by connecting the dots on things they already believe), then it's an easy stay step to "I think that's bad, and that society should prioritize people over profits."
It's likely that they believe that too, and their pushback will be about the details of how to run society that prioritize people. And you agree with that - it's hard! That's why there's so much disagreement on the left! The thing that unites us all is that we want to replace capitalism with something better, but we also agree that how to do that is THE question. Lots of smart people have thought a lot about it, and lots of people have tried different things, but there's not a consensus on how to run things. Hell, tell them that they might come up with the "correct" approach, but probably not without considering what other folks have thought and tried.
At this point, you can start deworming around AES states, from the perspective of "they tried replacing capitalism with something better, what can we learn from them?" It's useful to reach agreement that capitalists will want to capitalism to continue, and have a vested interest in portraying alternatives to capitalism as bad.
China is a good example to use: "they're straight up kicking USA's ass in the trade war, high speed rail, green energy, patents, etc etc. Why?" You'll hear the same tired script - don't directly oppose it. Reference that the US wants to portray China as bad, and agree that China wants to portray itself as good. I like to lead into deworming explanations with "reality is somewhere in the middle of these two" - it engages their critical thinking and is an emotionally safe way for them listen to an alternative perspective.
Accept that they will not end the conversation with "wow, you were right and I was wrong!" Brains don't work like that. Your goal is to give them an alternative explanation, then let them come to their own conclusions. Your goal should be to relentlessly focus the conversation on where the two of you agree, to be genuinely interested in their thought process, and to neutrally present contradictions for them to chew on after the conversation is over.
I wrote some more details on my general approach here.
I should emphasize that I am not really trying to convince them of anything, I have no intent to de-program them as their class interest is really about as divorced from socialism as can be. White, landowning capitalists in the US, so I only really have these discussions with him to understand his perspective, and for him to understand mine. Although I appreciate the talking points, I'll be sure to incorporate them when I do debate libs.
I don't think we should give up on individuals because we've reduced them to their class interests. Class interests are an influence, but not a determining factor in ones beliefs. My class interests are opposed to socialism, but I am fighting for it because making the world a better place is more important to me than getting more commas in my bank account.
As a group, capitalists can be counted on to behave in their collective interests, but individuals have complex motivators and internal contradictions that they haven't questioned. Most people want what's best for most people, and most people would be willing to give up something in order to help others. At very least, there are selfish reasons for making the world a better place (note: kurzgesagt).
Very few humans will look within themselves and say "I would rather a hundred people starve than I suffer the slightest inconvenience" (if so - yikes). On the other hand, I think they won't say "I would rather starve than be a slight inconvenience to a hundred people."
Capital would rather a hundred people starve than grow profits slightly slower, but almost all individual capitalists would choose humanity when directly presented with that trolly problem. The evils of capitalism are emergent properties of individuals operating in a system that influences them to put profits over people. Each individual makes morally compromised but understandable "business decisions" to maximize profits, and don't see themselves as THE problem.
Even for those people, pitching a world where they didn't need to compromise their morals is worthwhile. "Wouldn't it be nice if you could focus on making a good widget, instead of pushing to hit next quarter's earnings target?"
I think this is an interesting post on capital itself having material interests, and individual capitalists merely being vessels to carry out those interests.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Same with my libertarian friends. Its why theyre still my friends heh
Y'know what, if everyone was a capitalist it would resolve the class contradiction. /s
To make everyone a capitalist, the libertarian government should make everyone own a share of the company they work at. We can call these companies 'worker co-ops'. Once all US companies are co-ops, then everyone will control the corporations collectively.
This is peak libertarianism, it just happens to look a lot like communism.
Yep, US Libertarians are more anti-war than US socdems now.
Libetarians' approach of complete isolationism for U.S. foreign policy is pretty good, actually. Critical support.
I feel like I'm trading American children for Palestinian children when I give a libertarian the benefit of the doubt, but at least they aren't rabidly supporting genocide like the kind-hearted liberals.
Broken clock moment.
Personally I kind of feel for the word "libertarian" because it's kind of been coopted to be just anti-government-regulation and not what "anarchist" generally means now which is removing all imbalances in power.
Because "anarchist" has its language root in "anarchy" which has its own connotation and also denotation.
to be fair, libertarian is a politically-vague word; no attachment nor guarantee on foreign, economic, or cultural policy, beyond what a group may consider the most free-est positions