Charlie Stross, interviewed in H+ magazine, mentions in passing
. . . the more socially dysfunctional libertarians (who are convinced that if the brakes on capitalism were off, they’d somehow be teleported to the apex of the food chain in place of the current top predators).
I’m curious to see his favorite examples; I hope I, at least, have never (since age ~25) said anything to justify such a crack, beyond indulging in “if I were dictator” daydreams as I assume everyone does.
I can’t imagine a plausible world that would have someone like me at the top of the heap. I’m a libertarian because I’m convinced that the poor and the dysfunctional would live easier in a more open world.
But I can say that until I turn blue, and there will always be someone to call me a liar.
Charlie goes on:
. . . they mostly don’t understand how the current system came about, or that the reason we don’t live in a minarchist night-watchman state is because it was tried in the 18th and 19th centuries, and it didn’t work very well.
For whom? Presumably it disappointed those with the power to change it, before the masses got the vote.
H+ is an interesting magazine. How did you learn of it?
Charlie’s blog may have mentioned it; or else word reached me through the old Extropy crowd.
Charlie has some interesting ideas/viewpoints. But I wish he’d focus and flesh out some of his assertions. As you mention, cites would be nice. At times Stross falls into a repetitive, rambling incoherence reminiscent of Spinrad.
Where I said “I’m a libertarian because …,” that’s not really true. I was drawn to libertarianism because the conventionally asserted necessity of coercing others to do (or pay for) things morally repugnant to them made me uneasy, and it was a great relief to be persuaded that it’s not necessary.