[jammies]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

In all your examples, you are specifying a single option, not a range of choices. In the case of the labourer, if that person desires to be the owner of a software company they can make choices that, over time, can yield that result. He/she can learn, develop ideas, crowd source funds and ultimately reach his/her goal.

I'm specifying a single option to illustrate how ingenious it is to say we all have, or would have "choices" economically that are entirely free. That one option could be a thousand, all equally implausible, if you like, but that doesn't change the central point of the example. That labourer is unlikely to become a doctor, theologian, nuclear physicist, or human resources manager either. If you want, google "white collar highly paid positions" and just substitute anything you find there for what he is very unlikely to ever work at.

In the specific example I used, how likely is it that he reaches his goal of starting a software company compared to, say, another person of the same age and intelligence whose parents paid for his doctorate in computing science, and who are willing to exert their influence in the various corporate boards of which they are members to smooth his way?

In any system, even the least efficient and most repressive, it is *possible* for people of drive and ambition to succeed. However, equality of possible outcome is not nearly as important as equality of opportunity, which a pure capitalist society is not at all well-suited to provide.

Originally Posted by Shawnski

In our current society, there is no choice in taxes. In one form or another, they touch everything. From labour to goods and services, monies are taken and used for causes of which you have little to no say.

So what? To turn the libertarian argument back on itself, nothing is stopping you, Shawnski, from becoming PM and misusing taxes just as you see fit. Oh, not everyone can become Prime Minister? Well, not everyone can become independent CEO of their own company, either.

Originally Posted by Shawnski

And if you are meaning that "comparable outcomes" relates to "similar outcomes", that isn't true at all. Your choice can have radically different outcomes. Not sure what you are getting at with this whole point.

The point is that a forced choice is no choice at all, and that "do not participate" is no less impossible to choose under libertarianism than it is under any other system. The central premise of libertarianism is that free and independent economic units will interact to create the greatest good for all - I tell you there is no such thing as complete economic freedom and there is even more emphatically no such thing as economic independence.

Originally Posted by Shawnski

Almost universally unsuccessful? Are you mad?

it is around that time that life expectancy started to climb dramatically. Inventions created in that era have us living like kings now. The health and wealth of society has risen BECAUSE of that era, not in spite of it.

Explain to me which volunteer institutions were instrumental in this general improvement of living conditions. I always thought it was science, corporations and strong political institutions that drove the vast majority of material progress, but I'm sure you'll show it was the Boy Scouts instead.

I don't even know where you are going with the rest of your argument. Nobody is claiming corporations and individuals don't innovate far more than bureaucracies and governments. Innovation, however, is not the end-all and be-all of civilization, nor is the production of wealth its ultimate expression.