Which brand of libertarianism is more intellectually honest: left libertarianism or right libertarianism?

@SW-User "Oh my gawd, stop oppressing me with your voluntary economic activity." --You

@Sicarium "Oh My Gawd, stop oppressing muh freedom with your worker owned businesses" You

@SW-User Wait, how is it freedom if I start a business and you take it away from me to give it to the workers? Lol, you didn't think that one through.

@Sicarium Wait, what if you start a business and steal the profits that your workers earned while they live in poverty? Lol, you didnt think that one through

@Sicarium To be fair, I do not oppose voluntary transactions. However, I feel that in big businesses, i.e. corporations, market forces become confounded since there is essentially a monopsony or, more accurately (if you will) an oligopsony, in which there are a small number of people doing the paying compared to the large number of people getting paid. Therefore, the person buying labor gets to set the price and has more power than the person getting paid. So, basically, it's a major power imbalance compared to very small-business transactions.

@SW-User Now you're just getting more asinine. And yeah, I actually have thought that through. In the range from anarcho-capitalism to right libertarianism, all economic activity is voluntary. Which includes employment, for both the employee and employer. So if I'm stealing their wages, they're free to leave which would leave me without workers and force my business to collapse.

Now, how about you answer my question before going on to your next idiotic attempt at snark?

@33person There's still no power imbalance. The workers can leave at any time. Meaning they can go somewhere else. That creates competition for pay, which drives up wages. The system will still balance itself out. Which is how societies advance from a rural, agricultural system to an urban, industrial system, to an urban technological system. You can track every example on Earth, they all follow the same pattern. People begin by making less than $2 a day in current monetary values while working farms and ranches. As people congregate in cities, you get more industry and business, which means more jobs, which means more workers, which means pay competition.

@Sicarium I think that's true in an economy when there is an extremely, extremely low real (not the official one) unemployment rate, but not when there are more people who need jobs than there are jobs that exist.

@Sicarium Leave where to exactly? Every business is owned either by one person or by a handful of rich people. You say its voluntary, but every business out in America steals the profits which the worker earned. So where will they go? They will either be exploited by your greed or someone else's greed. It is forced exploitation.

@33person No, you're right. Which is why you want as much economic activity as possible, whether it's industrial, service, or technological. Right libertarians and anarcho-capitalists would argue that government hinders that with taxes, regulation, etc. Which I generally agree with. The question is whether some regulation and tax outweighs the negative consequences, which I also tend to agree with.

@SW-User Then start a new business. People aren't helpless children that you have to control and guide.

Now, again, I'm waiting for you to answer my question. If you don't, I'll just assume you can't since I've given you multiple chances.

@Sicarium To me, it seems like taxing of small businesses should be minimal. I don't personally see the harm in hindering the economic activity of large corporations, especially those that have monopolies, since I feel that merely encourages small-business activity. Regulation, of course, should be as needed. Tell me how I am wrong.

@33person First, that means you'd be creating a situation where the government is trying to influence winners and losers (small vs big business). Second, you're now placing small and big business in competition, not for customers, but for government favor; which creates lobbying all over again. Do that for a hundred years and you'll end up with a tax code that looks just like ours now, a mess. Third, you're impeding the freedom of the individual to choose whether they want to do business with a small or big company. Fourth, it's subjective. You're OK with it. Fine, what about the next guy in charge? What if he favors large business over small business? If that happens, your original intent gets flipped completely.

Regulation, at least some, is easier for me to get onboard with because it would apply to ALL businesses, not just the ones someone didn't like. If it was subjective, I'd oppose that specific regulation.

@Sicarium One question I always have: why is picking winners and losers bad?

Another question I'll ask to see if I can sum up your stance: you are okay with policies that apply universally to all businesses, but not ones that apply to some businesses but not others.

@33person Simple answer is because that's not the role of government. Government should be protecting rights, not deciding who's more worthy of success. Those two are contradictory, or at least can be. Deciding who's worthy of success is the market's job.

Generally, yes. There's more to it than that. But if whatever policy or regulation falls into what I believe is the proper role of government and it's a universal policy or regulation, I'm generally fine with it.

@Sicarium Alright, one two questions: what about monopolies? How do you avoid free markets leading to less competitions in some parts of the economy? Should the government step in?

Also, what's your stance on the minimum wage?

@33person First, monopolies aren't inherently bad or evil. In a truly free market, a monopoly can only be created when one company genuinely does whatever far better than anyone else. They literally crush the competition. It's hard to argue they don't deserve the success in that situation.

But, and here's why I'm generally not as concerned with big business as you are even though I prefer small business personally, big is inherently inefficient. If you have 1,000,000 customers, you are naturally going to be less efficient in dealing with them all than you would be dealing with 1,000 customers. That inefficiency will always leave open the possibility of a new competitor to arise. Even given every advantage, in a truly free market, monopolies won't last long. And if there's even a possibility of making money, people will always try. Someone will do it just to get paid.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a truly free market. Every monopoly we've had hasn't been created by market forces, it's been created with government protection, which then requires government intervention to solve. Internet service providers are a good example. In any given urban area, you're likely only going to have three or four real options. You'll have one or two cable companies, a telephone company offering DSL and/or fiber, and maybe a broad-range WiFi company. Every other option will likely just be leasing their own service from one of the big guys and reselling it to you. With all the regulations involved, it's nearly impossible to start up another alternative. To even try takes serious financial backing, I'm talking billions of dollars up front. Now, ISPs aren't a true monopoly because they do have competition, just not much. But it's a perpetual system that isn't going to change anytime soon. No new competition. And that means we've seen way less innovation and have not seen a major decline in pricing. In effect, it's a monopoly. And it's enforced by government.

All things being equal, I think monopolies would be far less of a worry in a truly free market than they are now.

EDIT: And that was way longer than I intended.

@33person On minimum wage, I'm opposed to any minimum wage set by the federal government, in the US at least. On a state level, I'm OK with people trying to create one because of the 10th Amendment, although I'd argue against it.

From everything I've seen, minimum wages cause more problems than they solve, and it's another government erosion of freedom and individuals' right to choose in the market place.

@33person Yeah, sorry, saw the minimum wage part late, but answered it above.

I'll just add that I don't believe government should be setting or defining purchasing power in any sense. It can't even do that now when we do have a minimum wage and the government is controlling, or trying to control, inflation.