You're still just not getting the fundamental assumptions of libertarian ideology because you have such an irreconcilably different view of the rightful limits and function of government.
I believe that the ‘most good for the most people’ will ultimately result in greater productivity yes, but this is far from the ‘deep end’ of socialism. Domestic history has been shaped, by showing us that some ‘social and moral whims of the majority’ are not fleeting in nature at all. The US started out libertarian after all. Perhaps the absence of free market economies and presence of market and mixed economies shows that a 3rd party ‘balancing of rights’ is required to avoid anarchy (outside of idealism).
A 3rd party "balancing of rights" ultimately ends up in an arbitrary and convoluted mish-mash of conflicting rights meted out by government in order to achieve some larger, esoteric-sounding "greater good". That may very well be a perfectly functional form of government, it's just not the kind of government I'd prefer to live under (even though I absolutely do). Corporate fascism was probably the most efficient form of government in history, from a utilitarian perspective, but I wouldn't want to live under that sort of government either. The US did indeed start out *relatively* libertarian. We currently have a larger federal government and more centralization than we have ever had in our history. When were we better off as a country?
You fall back to this a lot and you can dilute the point by using examples where there is little fallout, but the fact remains that a person has freedom of choice when deciding what to eat or buy; they might be disadvantaged in your scenario yes, but not chronically.
Ahhh, and here we come to yet another stipulation, yet another condition; we introduce subjectivity. Here is where we run into inconsistency and self-contradiction. At first the action was wrong because it was harmful. Now it is only wrong if it is "chronically" harmful, or harmful in a way that you perceive to be more significant than other types of harmful actions. The problem with such a system is that the same all-knowing entity is not always at the helm. Unlike a theocracy where "good" and "bad" are handed down from a divine being, "good" and "bad" and the degrees of each under various circumstances are arbitrary depending on who is interpreting the standard.
In contrast, I would argue that an employment decision is completely different.
Yes, but your reasoning for WHY it is different is inconsistent at best and illogical at worst. See below.
I know it’s a purchasing decision, but it’s one that has much wider, chronic implications on a social and economic level.
And here we're back to another conditional, subjective standard. Even though purchasing labor is functionally, philosophically, and practically the exact same as purchasing any other productive resource, we should treat it differently because it affects some social condition that we presently deem is important.
If someone cannot afford to buy something that will benefit them, they might be worse off, but if they cannot find employment or their entire social or even racial group struggle to find employment, due to institutionalised barriers, the derivatives are much greater and far reaching. Indeed, some might never be able to afford to buy your useful commodity and this is the key difference.
This type of complete shut-out from employment would only be possible under conditions of a single-entity absolute monopoly (a practical, if not theoretical, impossibility in a free market), or if enforced by government authority. But the more important question is: so what? Clearly you are so flabbergasted by this question that you can hardly comprehend it even being asked. But if you think outside of the social justice utilitarianism that underlies your worldview, and pretend that the only thing that matters is individuals and their individual rights, and that the consequences to society or the "greater good" are irrelevant, there's no reasonable answer to that question.
Quasi-Marxist socialism maybe, but does it not say more about the failings of individualism and free market ideology?
It depends on what you perceive as a "failing". Anything that does not conform to your conception of social justice and "equality" (meant to mean in this context, equality of social and economic outcome) is perceived by you as a failing. You clearly have a very difficult time imagining what it would be like if one were operating outside of those assumptions. But what you would perceive as the "failings" of individualism and free market ideology (hilariously, you seem to think of America circa 1 year ago as emblematic of such ideology) would be seen much differently by someone whose highest ideal is not social justice and socio/economic egalitarianism.
We have seen recently how the actions of massive corporations in the finance sector, if left unchecked/poorly checked, have driven entire markets to near collapse.
Quite the contrary, the marriage of government and the financial industry is more responsible than most anything for such market catastrophes (at least here in the states). Like I said, I know Britain views American business under the ostensibly uber-capitalist George W. Bush as the wild, wild west of laissez-faire free markets, but nothing could be further from the truth. Government mandates and regulations in lending and government absorption of risk, particularly in the mortgage lending industry, created false incentives and false indicators that snowballed into the problems we are experiencing here. And in typical fashion, we plan to remedy the failure of those mandates and regulations with... more mandates and regulations.
You seem to assume that government can be separated from the market and this is simply a utopia. Namely because to separate them, would likely lead the most successful firms to grow until they have a governmental-like stranglehold (or at the very least large amount of power) over others anyway. When that happens there will be severe losers and individualism starts to look a lot less peachy to a big chunk of the community.
It's extremely unlikely that would happen in an actual free market because absolute barriers to entry are nearly impossible to maintain. And even if it did, one of the few legitimate functions of a libertarian minarchist government would be to prevent monopolies from behaving abusively. But even if monstrous monopolies did run amok in the absence of our beneficent rulers, is it any better or worse to allow a scary, unregulated market to decide who the winners and losers are than bestow that authority to an overarching government? Here again we come to that fundamental difference in philosophy: I would tend to trust the market, despite the risk of it becoming a totalitarian entity; you would tend to trust the government, despite the foreknowledge that it IS a totalitarian entity.
It really does form an institutional endorsement if it happens en masse – something destined to happen, in reality, given how people form social groups.
No, it still doesn't. Permissibility and endorsement are two wildly different and wholly unrelated concepts. As an individual, you are legally allowed to engage in autoerotic asphyxia, or practice Christianity, or eat paint chips. It doesn't mean that any of these activities enjoys institutional endorsement from the government, regardless of how many people partake in them.
I also said that "In different circumstances, different physical attributes can be genuine occupational qualifications. It is reasonable to only employ a female toilet attendant for a women's toilet". This is not conjecture, but how UK law reconciles such a situation where a business owner may have a genuine need to use physical attributes as qualifications.
And here again we have more stipulations, upon previous stipulations, all dependent on circumstances. Unless you have some objective definition of the word "reasonable" in that statement and some universal set of circumstances that qualify for exemption, this standard is wildly ambiguous and subjective. The only system of rules that will not have the potential for such subjective interpretation is one that is based on compossible individual rights. And that is the chief virtue of libertarianism. You may not like the practical implications of such consistency, but you would be insane to deny that it exists.
If anything, it would protect and balance those beloved "individual property rights" against the rights of individuals to have a fair shot at employment - where the purchaser has *genuine* concerns as opposed to non-genuine ones born out of their own twisted perceptions of others - be it racism or any other illogical prejudices that have no baring on the job.
Define "genuine", "non-genuine", "fair", "illogical" (and by extension, "logical"). Here again you have established yet another noble sounding but no less subjective, circumstantial standard.
In contrast, you would allow the purchaser to make no distinction between genuine and non-genuine reasons for non-employment. Therefore, this might as well allow the purchaser to put up a sign saying "Female toilet attended wanted - no blacks".
Again, let's have some definitions so that we have some objective way of interpreting this statement. Even if you could come up with some, you still haven't answered in any meaningful, objective, universally-applicable way the question of who besides the purchaser himself should have the authority to decide what is a "genuine" or "non-genuine" use of the purchaser's money? In your estimation the government has the right, in fact the obligation, to decide for the purchaser what is a "genuine" or "non-genuine" use of his money, but only in particular, undefined circumstances in which the purchaser makes the "wrong" decision or has some "irrational" "non-genuine" opinion or judgment that renders his decision making flawed.
Now, you say that "government should exist to preserve the rights of individuals" but in the case above, you would find it impossible to reconcile the rights of all concerned.
This is only a dilemma if employment is taken to be a "right". Since it's not, there's nothing to reconcile. One person desires a job, the provider of the job does not want to use his resources to hire the job-seeker, the job seeker has not had a right violated and neither has the job provider.
It seems that your quote should actually read “government should exist to preserve the rights of individuals in positions of power”. After all, it seems the purchaser is the only person with any rights, not the ‘individual’ as you profess.
This statement is clearly the result of a lack of information on your part - had you read the link I provided earlier you would have a much better grasp of libertarian conceptions of rights and you wouldn't be waist-deep in the kinds of false dilemmas that you have built up and knocked down throughout this post.
With all of that having been said, I think my point has been made as I'm now just repeating myself, so I'll try and leave it at that for now and let you take one last poke at me
Thanks for a stimulating and spirited discussion.
