Libertarianism

I will offer my rebuttal below. My task, however, is to offer proof that libertarianism can be beneficial to society. One example will be sufficient to disprove my opponent. So, following the example of my opponent, I will offer an example that shows how libertarianism can be beneficial to a society. My example will be a famous one: the society of George Orwell's 1984 - as a placeholder for any authoritarian society. It is obvious that a society that bans creativity and independent thought is in many respects inferior to a society that supports creativity. For reference, I refer to a number o studies on that topic:"When you’re building an innovation team, it’s a given that you need creative people. ". http://hbr.org... "conformity pressures tend to elicit kinds of motivation in the individual that are incompatible with the creative process. The second general point, for which empirical evidence will presently be provided, is that high susceptibility by the individual to conformity pressures tends to be associated with certain personality traits that are detrimental to creative thinking. ". http://psycnet.apa.org... "of course politicians are fighting over the middle ground, of course most TV programmes are the same and of course all our high streets are identical. People are social animals who work in groups and, especially with the advance of globalization, the number of groups that govern or control our world has shrunk. These groups naturally kill creativity, or at least redefine it as conformity. ". http://www.spring.org.uk...The society of Orwell's 1984 is doomed. The arrogant government assumes to have all strings in their hands. But without creativity, there will be no innovation. Without innovation, society will not adapt to outward threats. Without that, they will be overrun. Now let us add Libertarianism: all the people content with serving the government will still be allowed to do so, keeping the state stable and running. Because the book clearly shows us that there are many people who just love the new Ingsoc system. They willingly speak "newspeak" and love the "Big Brother". Others, like protagonist Winston Smith, could develop their individual talents and create new ideas and concepts, furthering society. This is corroborated by studies. If people wish to be conformists and serve, they would be allowed to. And such people exist:"We studied 41 radical-innovation teams in R&D and manufacturing units of a large defense contractor. The groups had varying proportions of three types of people—extremely creative, detail oriented, and highly conformist—along with more-general thinkers, typically the largest component. Our most surprising finding: Conformists, though they may be useless at generating breakthrough ideas, dramatically increase a team’s radical innovations. ". http://hbr.org...As we can see, creativity and innovation - hence progress - are "dramatically" increased by the cooperation of three types of people that exist naturally. Libertarianism allows all of theses three types of people to put their talents to their best use. An authoritarian society - like Socialism - requires a centrally planned economy. Which cannot take into account each individual person's strengths and talents, nor their type as classified above: creative, detail-oriented or conformist. Centrally planned economies are regulated by a small group of people who believe thy have a brilliant plan, but must ultimately fail, as they cannot possibly comprehend the interactions of the countless variables that make up an economic circle. So far, Communism and Socialism have mostly failed. China, as the largest communist society on our planet, is right now literally suffocating and dying of thirst in its own pollution. So, Libertarianism CAN definitely help societies. In fact, conformist societies, especially socialist ones, have a tendency to SPARK Liberalism:"There are many examples of the way regulation and control by the State contributed to unanticipated and often very creative outcomes in the performing arts. These include:the dissident play-writer Václav Havel, the future president of post-communistCzechoslovakia, who satirized communist bureaucracy and worked with one of the keyunderground bands ‘The Plastic People of the Universe’; Karel Kryl a protest songwriter who became an icon of the anti-communist movement and had to escape prosecution by living in West Germany; the comic duo Lasica & Satinský who usedwell known plays such as ‘Waiting for Godot’, which became ‘Not Waiting for Godot’,to comment on the day-to-day struggles of ordinary people – struggles which in theofficial communist propaganda only existed in capitalist countries. ". http://www.academia.edu... "Unanticipated" - "dissident" - "anti-communist": it is clear that these are UNWANTED in a socialist system. It is thus established that a Libertarian system allows for creativity and innovation, while an authoritarian system would inhibit those, trusting the judgement of their government above that of the sum of the people. Rebuttal:My opponent fails to argue why a libertarian system would cause the fishermen to wait. This is totally improbable. No man knows the future. Hence the fishermen will not know - in a libertarian system - the fish will be worth 2 dollars next year. Some may hope for an increase, but others will fear the price will drop, catching fish right away, to sustain their families. As a result, fish will become rarer, and the price will THEN increase. Other fishermen will have read the famous prophecy of the Cree and catch as few fish as possible to sustain their families for the longest possible time. Libertarian systems allow for everybody to act as they wish, hence conformity would be very improbable to happen. My opponent's example is thus wrong, as it does not pertain to Libertarianism. The second example I don't understand. If each fisherman has four fish of his own and there are four fish in the lake, why does that change anything? The place where the fish dwell in the first example did not make any difference. Does having the fish nearby magically change the time when the fishermen catch the fish? Why do they catch the fish in the public lake? In extension of the first example, they would surely still wait for the second year, when the fish will be more valuable. How did the fish get into the ponds? They must have come from the lake. Transferring them requires catching them. which is what fishermen do. So, the fishermen caught the fish a year before, and decided to keep them for a year, then they do or do not catch the fish in the lake to sustain their families, selling the previously caught fish two years after catching them in the first place. This is the exact same scenario as example one, then. The fishermen have access to fish and wait a year before they sell them. The only difference is this: in this example, the fishermen hungered for an additional year - after catching the fish they now keep in their ponds. None of this makes sense. In Libertarianism, people with fewer resources become resourceful by innovation and cleverness. If the fisherman with the most advanced equipment waits for a year to catch the fish - his fault if the others are there first. I assure you the little fishermen will catch the fish, unless the government forbids them to. Which is a problem with the USA. The government intervenes with taxation, license fees etc. , which is what keeps little businesses down. That's not Libertarianism. In case you haven't noticed: the Libertarian Party is only the third largest party in the USA, while the Republican Party holds the majority in Congress. What you are describing is "free market", maybe "Liberalism", but not Libertarianism.