Of course, for a libertarian, the desired social order is, as you described, simply one in which a man is free to do anything that does not infringe the freedom of another. My personal twist on it is that the primary, and almost the only, function of the state is to protect liberty, since anything else it does tends to infringe that liberty. That's my personal philosophy, but even I recognize that the definition is broad enough to allow quite a bit of interpretation, as you noted.
Regarding capitalism and monopolies, my belief is that large companies tend to enlist the aid of government in their efforts at becoming monopolies...likely they'd be much less successful at it otherwise. Marxbites posted a couple interesting articles on the subject recently. Otherwise, I'm willing to accept the need for antitrust laws, though they give the state a large a opportunity for abuse.
"Once again, with this concession, the pure libertarian is lumped together in the same competition with all other advocates of differing forms of government."
There may be some truth in that, but it's like saying that the USA is lumped together with differing forms of govenment. We are becoming that as we abandon our tradtions of liberty, but weren't always.
"However, if a “society” does not encourage its members to be “productive” by penalizing, or, at least, discouraging, non-productive behavior, it risks collapse from starvation."
No, I don't think so, people, with some exceptions, will be productive, to varying degrees. The need to accomplish is innate; the need to survive cannot be denied. It's only when the state becomes involved, an example being our welfare state, that entire segments of the population become unproductive and inactive. The same goes for procreation, I've noticed a pretty strong drive for that exists in most of us.
I lean pretty strongly to libertarian views, but prefer to call myself a classical liberal, since I'm generally a believer that the codification of some tradtional rules of conduct are justified. Many of them, like the idea that marriage is between man and woman are there for good reason.
Good on you Sam. Very nice rebuttal. Liberty IS the issue, the bigger the State & it's influence on the economy, the less freedom we have.
The Founders understood this as well as that men are fallible, and ergo, should be given only limited power, and that like you said, the Govt's sole purpose is in protecting our pre-existing liberties only.
We now have a sick unconstitutional blend of socialism & fascism mixed into what were once free markets with no entitlements or corp subsidy. Now the crap eats 2/3rds of non-discretionary spending, and is steadily on the rise into perpetuity. This arrangement fattens elites at taxpayer expense, always has and always will.
The State is always a negative to be limited as the Founders well knew and had experienced themselves and read of in history.
What destruction is the fear of a further than anticipated Fed contraction doing to todays markets? With the Fed rate at 1% for almost a year, they expanded the money supply too much too long, which always results in a contraction to attempt to dampen the inflation the ill conceived centrally planned expansion created. The Fed serves elites, NOT the people whose dollar is now worth 3% of it's 1932 value.
A Fed that chases it's tail benefits elites, while little inexperienced investors get to hold their empty bag.
I unloaded some tech stock several months back and bought some Goldcorp. Thank goodness, it's gains are leveling the losses on everything else today.
Have a friend who loaded up on ms63-64 certified graded US gold coins, mostly $20's, all during the 90's at $250-300/oz. Wished I followed his advice even more!