[vlan0]

>And yet, everyday, we give more and more power to governments...

I think we should be careful about blaming government itself. But instead focus on the _people_ that make up the government. It seems there is a serious lack of equal representation throughout our government. For the most part, it has become a matter of who has the larger bank roll.

It would be interesting to see a government with forced equal representation across the entire socioeconomic spectrum.

[codq]

Exactly.

It's astounding to hear the hateful Libertarian view of government, understanding that it's exactly those kinds of people who often seek that kind of power, and make the worst kinds of politicians that create the vindictive, hateful government that Libertarians on the ground rail about.

It's a self-perpetuating anti-government cycle that helps no one.

[Consultant32452]

I think libertarians simply understand incentives and human psychology. As long as a position confers wealth and power, over time it will tend to attract and get filled by the most cynical people who are willing to sacrifice the most ethics to achieve that wealth and power.

What helps no one is to perpetually increase the power of government, making the target ever more enviable to the absolute worst kinds of people. This is an inescapable truth of power.

[jandrese]

The fundamental problem with the Libertarian ideal is that it trades the tyranny of the government for tyranny of the rich. At least with a democratic government you get 1 vote. With oligarchy you have 0 votes.

[Consultant32452]

Private citizens and corporations can't accumulate much power without the government. Think of the most evil wealthy American citizens and corporations you can think of. How much money would they have without trademark, copyright, or patent protections?

[jandrese]

Like water barons, warlords, feudal guilds, etc?

By what mechanism would a libertarian put a check on the capital's natural tendency to accumulate wealth and power upwards?

[Consultant32452]

I already answered your question, by dismantling the government provided mechanisms by which wealth and power accumulate. I'm not an anarchist, not even a minarchist. I'm not even opposed to some manner of minimal intellectual property rights. The point of bringing up the concept of zero intellectual property rights is so that you can see the primary mechanism people accumulate wealth and power in the modern age is through government created mechanisms such as patents and copyright. Since I'm not an anarchist, hopefully you can see how it's trivial to protect from things like warlords.