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tl;dr the West has two heads: A Christian one, and a rational one. The Christian one led to the Dark Ages, war, and poverty. The rational one led to its twin sisters, the scientific method and free markets. The Christian one has been pushed back but has held onto the moral code of the western world until the modern day. A bloody, naked man nailed to a cross for sins he did not commit, and the Las Vegas strip cannot both be ideals in the same mind at the same time. Holding both of these ideas makes us unpredictable, dangerous, and crazy. We have to pick: Capitalism, or Christianity.

Well Socialists follow Christianity in terms of ethics. Quote:

"These moral values, Marx observed, are “as old as the Judeo-Christian tradition. But their acceptance for social organization—their social realization—would be new….”

In other words, the difference in moral values between Christianity and Communism is that the Communists intend really to live by the principles that the Christians merely preach.

Marx was actually quoting the Apostles when he wrote his slogan "each according to his ability, each according to his need":

Acts 2:44-45, "All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism

Thomas Moore was a Saint in the Catholic Church who wrote the book "Utopia". In it he gave an outline for what a propertyless, classless society would look like. He was even lauded by Marx and Engels.

"Praised by Marx and Engels, the Soviet Union in the early twentieth century honored him for the purportedly communist attitude toward property rights expressed in Utopia.[7][8][9"

Hegel did not reject God so much as decide that humans, when undergoing a metamorphosis into the nation state, would become a kind of "world-soul", which as you said replaced God with the State without missing a beat.

I bring up Calvinism not because of anything specific to it but just because it does explicitly what most Monotheistic religions usually only imply (other than their ideologically pure versions seen in groups like the Wahhabists or the Pentacostals).

Christianity comes from a philosophy known as Platonism. In Platonism, our knowledge of entities, concepts, and especially ethics comes to us from a noumenal/alternate dimension, which our normal senses cannot access. That is to say the human learns about the world from a supernatural source.

This metaphysics (and epistemology) was kept in varying degrees of purity from Plato's time until the Enlightenment, at which time the Aristotelian (pagan) metaphysics was (re)discovered and promptly allowed the creation of science, music, art, political freedom etc (although Aquinas did help precipitate some of the debates). That's another story.

Under Platonism, the human mind is effectively impotent. Or put better the mind is passive. Concepts arrive at it not through an individual, volitional, act of abstraction. All knowledge is delivered from another dimension, in a degraded and often unintelligible, subjective form.

This is at the root of all "Revelation" religions or "Monotheistic" religions (Yahwism from now on): "The Divine" reveals information about the world to "The Chosen", who then either spread this knowledge to the "Unchosen" or "Profane" or infidel, or act out his will directly:

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

2 Timothy 3:16 "

This also has to do with the character of God himself, who is by definition, outside of time and space (the relitavistic modern physics dumpster fire is the most recent take on that concept). This is in direct contradiction with Pagan religions where the "Gods" were often seen as "natural"; They represented some aspect of nature. Most of the God's were superhuman, but not supernatural per-se. They all followed the laws of reality. This is one thing about the left that I like: They trust sense data... Just not the concepts concepts formed from it.

Because of this Platonic thought process, is it any wonder that Plato created the blueprint for all totalitarian political systems in history?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Plato)

Based on his own epistemology, he decided that people must be divided up into castes of gold, silver, bronze and clay. Led by a group of (likely) secret sect of philosopher kings. Yahwism divides the world between the elect and the profane.

IS it any surprise that a group of people called Neo-Conservatives used Plato's Noble Lie as a founding principle of their movement? And that they specifically mobilized the fundamentalist Christian power bloc specifically on Plato's recommendation?

>Wahhabism (Arabic: الوهابية‎, al-Wahhābiya(h)) is an Islamic doctrine and religious movement founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.[a] It has been variously described as "ultraconservative",[1] "austere",[2] "fundamentalist",[3] or "puritan(ical)";[4][5] as an Islamic "reform movement" to restore "pure monotheistic worship" (tawhid) by devotees;[6]

^ This is where the west is heading if we have a big war or economic crash. Reason or Faith. Capitalism or Christianity. You cannot serve two masters.

>According to Robert Lacey "the Wahhabis have always disliked the name customarily given to them" and preferred to be {called Muwahhidun (Unitarians).[53] Another preferred term was simply "Muslims" since their creed is "pure Islam".[54]


These two metaphysical positions represent the conflict at the heart of the western world: The Yahwist (Christian, Platonic, Mystical, Totalitarian) side and the Pagan (Atheist, Aristotelian, Rational, Libertarian) side. This rabbi sums it up:

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/64639/jewish/Couldnt-the-Jews-and-Greeks-Get-Along.htm

"Strangely, this may have worked to humanity's advantage in one regard: The Greek mind applied itself to figuring out the material world. When your belief system begins with Divine revelation you don't necessarily apply yourself to mundane matters of how things work (LOL COMMUNISM). So technological (economic, political, artistic, philosophical) progress became chiefly the domain of the Greek mind throughout history.

...Torah is an understanding that behind the world lies a Divine Will, unhampered by the limitations of nature or human logic — because it is the source of all this. Why are there laws of nature? Because G‑d generally chooses to work in consistent ways. Why did history unfold the way it did? Because that is all in G‑d's plan."

Amen.

He gives away the totalitarian nature of this system,

"We can have a thousand reasons for not mixing meat and milk, but when it comes down to it, we do it because that is our personal connection with the Divine Will, the Life of All Things. And that is the victory of Chanukah"

Any wonder how we ended up with 300,000 pages of bullshit laws?

All these people want is for you to surrender your mind. That's it. That's what O'Brien was after in 1984. He wanted Winston to say the direct opposite of what physical reality told him. THIS WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF 1984.

Anyways Yahwish, or National Socialism, or Marxism all follow the Platonic Metaphysics. In Marxism, the Divine Revelation is imparted via your economic class:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness

There's "Bourgeois Truth" and "Proletarian Truth". There's "Aryan Truth" and there's "Jewish Truth." Platonism is a form of radical subjectivism: The truth depends upon the person hearing it. There is no way that these systems can avoid being totalitarian: It's baked into their metaphysics.

This dynamic of Yahwism empowering a small elite is summarized well in this short book:

https://www.amazon.com/Yahweh-Two-Faced-God-Terrorism-Apocalypse/dp/0985021101

This Platonic worldview held by many people often leads to often hilarious exchanges between believers and non-believers:

https://youtu.be/OL8LREmbDi0?t=3456

The debate almost invariably grinds to a screeching halt when the Christian points out that all knowledge is subjective, and that the Atheist is simply relying on his fallible, human sense to approach the world when he is viewing reality through the Divine:

https://youtu.be/dc0AZd_WDtA?t=1250

The Christians ARE the ones being completely logical in this situation: These people debating are often leftists, and to a leftist, all concepts are arbitrary. The Christian says "great! So all sense data and knowledge of reality is subjective and arbitrary too! But guess what? God (or the party/Fuhrer) does know reality!"

Unironic "checkmate athesits".

Shane Killian did an entire series showing how Religion and Statism both make the same errors:

https://youtu.be/anP42zvPPRQ

Brink Lindsey has a new book called The Captured Economy that goes over this.

The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality

And an episode of EconTalk on his book.

>Kevin Carson and I'm hooked

(Me too! I've been listening to him while at work lately!)

Another great source would be to look up libertarian philosopher Roderick Long. He writes for the Center for A
Stateless Society (where Kevin is) and the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog (bleedingheartlibertarians.com); he also writes a good amount on the labor movement and has a paper (however I haven't read all of it) called Towards a Libertarian Theory of Class that might give an insight into his work (I'm not as well read on him as I would like, but you can also find some lectures of his on youtube, like this one How (and Why) to Be a Free-Market Radical Leftist).

I think in general you could read libertarian economists as this is a common theme, maybe some of Friedman's work, etc.

If I run across something today, I'll try to edit to let you know, but hopefully this will help get you started.

Edit: You might be interested in this talk given in the 90's at the Institute for Humane Studies (Race, Class, and Gender | Roderick T. Long, Jacob T. Levy, David E. Bernstein, & R. Richard Geddes)

Found an article Long wrote: Corporations versus the Market; or, Whip Conflation Now

>Do you have a source for this? These seem made-up to me.

Hunter, John E.; Hunter, Ronda F. "Validity and utility of alternative predictors of job performance (1984)

Neisser, Ulrich "Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns" (1996)

>IQ changes and is impacted significantly by your environment.

Okay, it's your claim, prove it. My claim is that IQ is largely genetic, and any environmental factors degrade IQ.

>I disagree, and I think science is on my side. Some snippets:

This is a misunderstanding of the Flynn Effect, which can go in reverse as well. The Flynn Effect looks at the generational differences with IQ and not individuals. Over time the human race gains, and loses, IQ to adjust for what is most optimal, when you look at individuals however, you can't raise IQ through environmental means.

Really though, this is a big faux pas on your part, you should have realized that looking at individuals and averages over the course of decades is going to produce different results.

>Additionally, he goes on to describe how IQ varies across tests because they test different things,

Literally not related to the argument we're having. I'm not about to argue whether or not IQ is real, not unless you want to fight a 100 year old paper that is still being cited today and is the basis for all of psychology (we still use his methods today). We can argue about the tests, but IQ is a thing.

>I'm not going to go through all of the research, but the consensus seems to be that "IQ" is largely dependent on your environment.

None of what you have provided has shown me that and any psychologist would laugh you out of the room if you said that. It's not, otherwise anyone could be Stephen Hawking. IQ is the processing speed of your brain, you're basically saying that humans have the miraculous ability to make their brain process information faster just by trying really hard and practicing, that's not increasing IQ, that's getting better at the test, which funny enough you mentioned before.

>I completely disagree with people like Stephan Molyneux

Guilt by association. We're talking science. I studied psych, I know what I'm talking about.

>No, I'm looking for a system that removes as much inequality as possible.

That makes you a progressive. I'm in favor of rights, you will eventually have to pick a system that maximizes freedom or equality, you seem to pick equality, in that case you are not a libertarian.

>There's a big leap between "capitalism might not be the best system" and "let's give a regime complete control over everything like the USSR, maybe it'll be better this time".

That's because there is no other system. The presuppositions you lay down will lead to that.

>My point here is that capitalism has its flaws in providing for the ideals you and I both hold.

And my point is that these are unsolvable problems.

>Yes, you've been trying to change my opinion to match yours, and frankly, I don't think your opinions are more valuable than my own.

Okay, you won't change your mind. I can't sit here and try to convince you of what is right and wrong when you don't believe there is a right or wrong. Have a good day.

It's a pretty big tent. It's hard to point to one place.

There's a good community here in r/DarkEnlightenment. The learning curve for DE (AKA "neoreaction") is pretty steep, so perhaps a good place for the libertarian to start is From Mises to Carlyle.

There's also Hoppe. Many libertarians get skeptical about democracy and venture beyond libertarianism via him. Even Rothbard, in his later writings, started going in a somewhat Hoppean direction. Maybe try Democracy: The God That Failed. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn is another along these lines.

Bertrand de Jouvenel is another gateway drug. He's a classical liberal whose description of how power works utterly undermines classical liberal ideas of sociology and anthropology. Try his On Power, and then follow it up with The Patron Theory of Politics for a tour through the illiberal consequences of his ideas.

Jonathan Bowden was a great English intellectual who gave a series of lectures on various illiberal thinkers such as Heidegger, Evola, Carlyle, Spengler, Pound, Nietzsche, and even Marx and other socialist thinkers. He functions as a sort of TL;DR for the illiberal right, and so makes for a very good introduction. His lectures are engaging and can be found on Youtube, but probably the best of them is a Q&A he gave about his own views.

Thank you, that actually makes sense as a form of government (though most Libertarians seem to be against some form of UBI or any environmental restrictions).

As for the "how do we get there?" yea I haven't heard a thought out idea. And over time power tends to coalesce together, not break apart. It would take an active move by a majority of the population to do that, which most likely will never happen without a major change in human nature or technology.

As a side note, I find it interesting you mentioned Star Trek in your examples, because I had just read an article about a new book before seeing your post. Its called Trekonomics and in the article they has some comments by the author, who said that it was a society without money (as is stated in many of the episodes) and thus no market between people. This is why you don't see corporation names anywhere, and even by the end of Deep Space Nine the "super-capitalist" Ferengi have become "Keynesian social democrats" with an NHS style healthcare system and a general IRL modern government due to its interaction with the Federation. Kinda interesting.

I think nudge is pretty great.

Yes but who decides: A central authority trying to process all the information or numerous individual actors processing the information they have? The idea here is that one central decision maker cannot act with as much precision as millions or billions of small ones (Some market failures occur, it isn't perfect). I like to think of it like one of these. Imagine the people make up a lot of small needles. A government has bigger needles in radius. The bigger the government the fewer needles that fit in that space, and the less clear the impression becomes.

I'll just link this and this. Those should answer the question with real examples. EDIT: I'll link this too, many of the legal systems discussed in the book (the link is for a very early draft, you can find the published book here) are non-State legal systems that generally protect private property rights to a lesser or greater extent.

You’re welcome. I also want to share this book with you: Kindly Inquisitors.

The Fed is held in high regard in most institutions of higher education. If you're writing this for a "normal" high school or college course, you might well get penalized for sharing the normal libertarian assessment of the Fed.

That said, since your question explicitly lists "pros and cons of the Fed", you might be writing for a receptive audience.

If that's the case, a quick read through End the Fed (or the Amazon summaries) will give you all the material you need.

Just know it's written by Ron Paul. That fact alone will color everything else the reader perceives about your paper.

Depends how you define the class TBH. If by "civics class" you mean you are covering the main political parties, I would just go with "Libertarians are Republicans that don't want pay income taxes so they can use that tax savings to buy dope and get high while on their yacht surrounded by blushing virgins and Nubian servants". Before the hate comes I would defined the other parties just as casually, i.e. "Democrats are a bootleggers and baptist coalition of white secular Progressives and a conservative christian minorities who work in conjunction to ensure the most disadvantaged people in American remain beholden to them so they remain in power and further their Progressive goals of eliminating minorities and other undesirables while rent seeking". Republicans would go with "Nationalist Progressives who pay lip service to a vision of 1950's America which never really existed and whom secretly envy Hitler"

But if you are doing more a political science class then I would start with your section about the concept of the state and utilitarianism and from there move into socialism and movements it spawned (communism, progressivism, environmentalism, fascism, etc) and after and convincing everybody the superiority of the dialectic start class with something like "and today for something different we are going to read a short kids book" and then pass out a Very Silly Mayor by Tom Tomorrow (https://www.amazon.com/Very-Silly-Mayor-Tom-Tomorrow/dp/1935439014) and after that segway into the concept of individualism and a have them brainstorm as a learning exercise the pro's/cons with Tom Tomorrow in mind and see if they can independently invent libertarian (or anarchism) out of whole cloth. After that all dies down (full day or two; maybe have them write a short CASUAL position paper defending or condemning the state executing people for jay walking) move into libertarianism. I would then move on to libertarianism which I would summarize as "Libertarianism is the political ideology that claims all men are equal and that a man may not morally deprive another man of their dignity sans that man unjustly depriving yet another man of theirs where unjust is injury or aggression". I would then wrap the previous two days of conversation up around that.

Others on this thread had some OK ideas as well BUT I think they are aiming too high (college or grown-ups), too abstract, or too mixing up concepts that have nothing to do with libertarianism such as free markets (which is imply an emergent property; not a defining property). Also that isn't to say "all" or "most", there are some damn good responses here that phrase it better than I ever could but I also don't think a 15 year old gives a fuck at that level, you need to explain it in the same sort of mysticism that makes them believe still decades later Mumia Abu-Jamal and Che are hero's.

Henando de Soto wrote a book about the real life issues around property rights of Latin American countries titled "The Mystery of Capital" (https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere-ebook/dp/B00CW0MA1S). Having read that book I have a hard time accepting the premise that a country would be both 3rd world but with low taxation and support of property rights.

Do you have a country you think is similar to what you've outlined?

If you'd like to read more, there's a book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0127HLXLS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Probably not. But you also have a positive obligation to do most things that liberal democratic states tell you to do.

https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Questions-Libertarians-Answered-Objections/dp/1507727569

Might be a place to start.

Read this:

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Robber-Barons-Business-America/dp/0963020315

For a scary look at how close we've come to accidental nuclear detonations, check out the book [Command and Control] (https://smile.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/0143125788/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1524942940&sr=8-2&keywords=nuclear+accidents) by Eric Schlosser or the [documentary] (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598206/?ref_=nv_sr_1) based on it. These systems or similar ones still exist and the chance of an accident is non-zero. The fact that nothing serious has happened yet is due to the incredible safety system built into these machines or dumb luck, depending on how you look at it.

Some of Mises' work on this topic would perhaps be more informative, but for something shorter/simpler, consider the following: [Tom DiLorenzo's The Problem With Socialism]
(https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Socialism-Thomas-DiLorenzo/dp/1621575896/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475195162&sr=1-1&keywords=the+problem+with+socialism)

Would you rather have your landlord be able to send you off to die in war and be both judge and jury if you got accused of a crime, or do you like a volunteer military and having 12 peers be your jury? To anyone who legitimately thinks things are no better than during the middle ages, try reading Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525427570/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_e-5WBbC8QTWX0


I guess the definition of centralization needs to be discussed as well. A lord would be your military leader, judge, legislature, essentially your whole government. Is that decentralized just because his geographic span of control is small?