You guys are only showing how meaningless is the whole left/right dichotomy. It sheds more confusion than clarity and proves nothing at best than name-calling. The left is always used to refer to socialism/communism, but the right is used to refer to two completely different and opposed things - on the one hand totalitarian states intruding into every aspect of personal and economic liberty and on the other hand the advocates of maximum liberty and minimal states. As an intellectual tool, it is a blunt instrument indeed. The argument only arises because the left wing, seeing with horror the results of a party that identifies itself as national socialist, hurries to try to distance itself by calling it right wing. Even if it made sense - and a range with the same at either end doesn't make sense - it would only prove that socialism's death count is 100 million deaths rather than 120 million.

While people who identify themselves as Nazis are now few, owing to the shame that rightly attaches to that name, what amazes me is that people still exist who openly identify themselves as socialist, and are truculently proud about how morally superior they are with it! and who have the gall to accuse capitalism of being an inhumane system. One can only wonder at what part of the brain their utterances are coming from.

As we libertarians say, "It's not left versus right, it's the State versus YOU".

Peter Hume,

"As we libertarians say, "It's not left verses right. It's the state verses YOU."

Absolutely....I recall reading somewhere a definition of a libertarian as an anarchist who wants police protection from his slaves.

(I think I'm almost cured! :)

David f although I don't rule out that some pollies did quite well out of privatisation, that is most definitely not the main reason that our, Queensland's, electricity prices have skyrocketed,

You can put that down to that grinning clown Beattie. To help cover his crazy spending, he ripped hundreds of millions out of the state owned electricity, in"special bonuses". Nothing was left for maintenance.

While in state hands my power went off 20 to 30 times a year.

The main reason for selling out was the impending total collapse of the distribution system, & the desire not to be in charge when that happened. You could say the same for water, & health care is close to it.

I'm not going to suggest our privatised power system is perfect, or the companies involved are father christmas, but it does take more than half an inch of rain, in a mild thunderstorm, to have us in the dark these days.

To my mind, the most inefficient organisation is a union controlled government department or enterprise. May the gods protect us from them

Dear Hasbeen,

Thank you for your post. You may well be right. At least you are writing about Queensland rather than advising me to read some ideologue like von Mises. We are surrounded by many big institutions who are quite ready to rip us off. To say that one is the big menace as libertarians do with their worry about the state is wrong.

Corporations, unions, churches and any large and powerful institution can be something to watch out for. Sometimes the power of the state through law can protect us from being ripped off by a corporation. Sometimes it is the state itself that rips us off. Sometimes the corporation. Sometimes something else.

To set up the state as the big devil as libertarians do is theology not reason.

(Poirot is reduced to arguing that freedom is slavery, which just says it all, doesn’t it?)

David
The issue is as to the social benefit of coerced versus voluntary relations.

I ask you to distinguish the principle on which you support coerced relations from the Marxist socialism you disagree with; and you don’t do it.

I accuse you of ignoring the unnecessary deaths resulting from the socialism you favour, and you do what the Marxists did to you: you simply ignore it.

What you replied to Squeers applies exactly to you:
“You don't examine the arguments. You don't address what was written. You merely argue by adjective.”

Like Squeers, you throw “ideology” in my face:- the tactic is to rubbish the very possibility of rational discourse. And like Squeers and Poirot, you *assume* for the state a role of benevolence, moral superiority and omniscience that, when challenged, you are unable to rationally justify.

You pretend to be abhorred by excesses of state power. 1. Well if you abhor them, on what principle do you oppose them and support liberty? 2. I’m still waiting for you to provide a rational *principle* distinguishing where state ownership or control of means of production – including human beings - is fairer or more productive than individual freedom and private property?

3. But if the only principle of liberty you can provide, is that it’s whatever is left over after the state has done whatever it wants, how is that any better than the Marxists?

The difference between the state and the other institutions you mention is that the state claims and exercises a compulsory monopoly of the use of coercion. To confuse voluntary and compulsory transactions is the most basic moral and intellectual blunder.

You call Mises an “ideologue”. 4. What of his works have you read?

“I understand ideology as conformity to a belief system which overrides evidence contradicting the belief system.”

5. What evidence do you refer to?

To avoid the possibility of evasion on your part, would you please answer my 6 numbered questions.

6. What justifies violating freedom?

Dear Peter Hume,

When there is a monopoly such as a water company or an electric company where one doesn't have a choice it makes no difference to the consumer whether it is public or privatised.

You can accuse me of anything, but you can't apparently get that obvious fact into your head. There is neither market nor freedom of choice where there is a monopoly.

It is just as much coercion for a corporation to have a monopoly of water or power as it is for the government to have a similar monopoly.

You apparently see no difference between a country where there is rule of law, an independent judiciary and all the other trappings are part of a democratic state and a Marxist or other kind of dictatorship.

The rule of law limits what a state can do. A citizen cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.