Most libertarians are focusing on the recent developments on
North Korea and the seeming positive developments in regards to diplomatic
relations with the South and the US (maybe).
I fully support this but have nothing substantive to add.
Another topic I have been thinking about recently however is,
protestors are demanding the likes of Apple and Facebook make their products
and services less enjoyable/provide less value.
These protestors claim that Apple holds them captive or Facebook is too
addictive and hurting social cohesion. I
don’t disagree with this view but I don’t see this as a reason we need to
protest.
On the one hand, whatever the consumer wants, the consumer
gets. (For the record, I am 100% against
the government forcing in anyway any company to provide any type of service or
product.) If the consumer realizes he doesn’t have the self-control to cut off
Facebook or put down the phone, perhaps it is rational to demand products and
services from the private market that help them regain control of their
lives. On the other, this seems to be a
very dis-empowering and “I can’t control anything” attitude that hurts society
generally and more important the specific individuals involved.
It seems to me, that as libertarians, we promote the view
that you can take care of yourself. You don’t
need a nanny state to tell you what you can and can’t do or where you can and
can’t go. On the other hand, in a
totally free society plenty of self-regulation and private regulation agencies
and/or companies would exist.
So how should we view this?
I don’t claim to have the answer but my gut is telling me
this is something we should encourage people to regulate internally. People will need to be able to regulate
themselves in a totally voluntary society so I would think this should be a
view we should encourage and promote.
I see this argument overlapping with a similar idea in the
gun regulation debate. The idea being, you
can’t regulate a civilized society. True,
the private market would do a better job than the government but a truly civil
and voluntary society likely requires significant self-regulation.
I am not advocating any type of coercion or force but I do
think this is the type of discussion that might prove fruitful in developing
the values that might ultimately get us to a voluntary society. I would be grateful to hear more thoughts on
this topic.
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