| > … even if you approach this from a very strict Libertarian perspective, this regulation is pretty definitively an outcome that resulted from the free decisions of the majority of people who chose to live inside the state. Are you serious? If you approach this from a "very strict Libertarian perspective" then the rights of the 25% (at least) who did not vote in favor of this rule are being infringed. It doesn't matter that a majority were in favor, because Libertarian ideology is not collectivist. Individual people have rights which are independent of what the majority choose. > My point is, I don't really see a huge fundamental difference between a free market deciding that a product isn't worth producing and a free democracy deciding that a product isn't worth producing. In the former case, if someone does decide to produce the good for others to use they are free to do so, even if the majority disagree. And if you really can't find anyone willing to produce the good you want to buy (unlikely), you can at least make it yourself without penalty. The difference between "no one is obligated to produce what you want" and "other people can use force to stop you and others from producing what you want for yourselves" is perfectly obvious. > If the voters don't want automobile manufacturers to violate their privacy, and they want to pass a law about it, that's their choice as a community. More collectivist nonsense. The rights of the voters favoring this measure, as a group, do not exceed the sum of the rights of the individual voters, and no individual voter has the right to use force to prevent other people from making or buying products the voter doesn't approve of. Ergo, the group also lacks any right to enforce their will in this matter on the minority who disagreed. They are not a party to the transaction and have no standing to interfere. |
No, from a Libertarian perspective, those 25% chose to live in that state and enter into a free agreement with their neighbors to participate in representative democracy. It's no different from them choosing to participate in a necessary market like buying Internet or a car, and the same forces that would make it too expensive/time-consuming to run for office or move to a different state also prevent them from forming their own automobile company or paying exorbitant prices for privacy-respecting products (if those products even exist in the first place).
Of course, they are "free" to start their own automobile company, just like they are "free" to make their own political party.
> Individual people have rights which are independent of what the majority choose.
Look, I agree with this statement, I think this is an important statement to make. But it's a perspective that's totally inconsistent with Ancap philosophy; by this logic the market itself can infringe on my freedom by refusing to cater to niche consumer wishes (which it often refuses to do). I'm looking at this issue through an Ancap Libertarian lens because that's what OP originally suggested in their criticism of the ballot measure -- regardless of whether or not I agree with Ancap philosophy, I'm examining the situation through their worldview.
From an Ancap perspective, people choose to participate in markets, and it's just as easy to move out of a state to avoid a regulation as it is to move out of a state to avoid a market.
> The difference between "no one is obligated to produce what you want" and "other people can use force to stop you and others from producing what you want for yourselves" is perfectly obvious.
No, otherwise agreements wouldn't exist. Do you think your freedom is being abridged when you sign a terms of service agreement? People voluntarily chose to take part in representative democracy. Even if you don't buy that citizens can move out the state, the companies choosing to sell in those states certainly have the freedom to move out. They have the power to even move to different countries. They voluntarily chose to enter into an agreement where people would have the democratic freedom to vote for regulations. They aren't forced to be here.
From an Ancap Libertarian perspective, this is the exact same scenario as you signing an agreement with Apple when you purchase an iPhone. That agreement may restrict what you can and can't do within Apple's ecosystem, but you chose to sign it. They chose to incorporate and sell in Massachusetts.
You mention this point as well:
> In the former case, if someone does decide to produce the good for others to use they are free to do so, even if the majority disagree.
But the analogy here is more like you going into Apple's ecosystem and saying that you should have the freedom to put any app in their store. You still have the freedom to build automobiles without oversight. You just don't have the freedom to infringe on other people's spaces and violate their collective agreements. The people of Massachusetts are not obligated to give you a platform to sell your goods in their community, you don't have the right to force them to do that.
> They are not a party to the transaction and have no standing to interfere.
If I violate Apple's TOS and sell pornography on their app store, can I say that Apple isn't party to the transaction between me and the buyer, and that they have no standing to interfere? Communities have the same rights to set up rules about how they will operate as companies and platform providers do.
Now, separately, we can get into an argument about how free transactions can actually result in less free outcomes, but that's approaching this issue from a different lens than the Ancap lens that OP was using. And part of the problem of using that lens is that as soon as we do venture into questioning whether free transactions universally result in more freedom, we're left evaluating the market through the lens of market outcomes, and regulations like this tend to look really good when you're approaching the market through the lens of encouraging free outcomes rather than purely guaranteeing free processes.
But my point is not to convince you that Ancap Libertarianism is good or bad, it's to take Ancap Libertarianism at face value and apply it to the situation, and I don't see how voluntarily built communities, interacting with companies that have voluntarily entered into those communities and signed agreements with them, is any different at all from you signing a contract to publish your apps on the Apple store, or buying a tool under a license. When you argue that communities have no right to set rules or regulations, what you are effectively arguing is that the people who make up that community don't have the right to form a voluntary contract with each other. Which is obviously an anti-Libertarian sentiment.
The forces of expense/resource-availability that keep you inside of a state with rules that you disagree with are literally the exact same forces of expense/resource-availability that keep you locked into market-wide abuses and that keep you from going away and forming your own markets that better serve your needs. It is impossible to criticize one without criticizing the other.