I did it! I subscribed. Under my own brazen name. Soon I will join the ranks of eagerly awaiting subscribers anticipating the mailman's delivery near the end of every month
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"Playboy libertarians" are people that think you can have bourgeois income without bourgeois(conservative) culture. I love looking at sexy women, so I'm not perfect in this regard and people can do what they want, but I don't think it should be celebrated as something good. The culture it promotes is not compatible with a libertarian society which requires a culture of of low time preferences. Meaning restraining one's immediate desires for greater gains in the future.
Color me "playboy libertarian" then. I'm not interested in some bourgeois culture that will stifle me. On second thought, don't put me in any box with any label. Well, I guess if you need to categorize people, you'll do what you need to to simplify the world into something more easily digestible. I only plan on living once and I'm going to have fun. I found studying Shakespeare at Oxford University fun, but I also found the very proletarian party at the Playboy Mansion fun. See, now don't you wish you had boundaries like mine?
I thought maybe you might tell me where my reasoning on the compatibility between bougeois culture and libertarianism was wrong. Instead you just told me how much you're offended by it and chewed me out for even raising the idea. That's all right. Good day.
I found your comment amusing, but not offensive. To be honest I've never thought about what sort of culture Libertarianism dictates. I thought the whole point of a free society was not to dictate anything at all. What amused me (and kind of saddens me as well, in a way) is that this attitude and the endless labels is all too familiar to me. Do you dunk or sprinkle? Do you drink and/or dance? Do you say trespassers or debtors? Does the bread actually transubstantiate or is it just symbolic? How many angels can fit on the head of a pin? It's all pointless, it splinters the body to the point that its ineffective and alienates outsiders. It has alienated me, both from the church and from the party.
The point I was making is that a libertarian society where the exlusive right to one's own private property is recognized would tend to be one of a culturally conservative culture. Not because of any dictates but because that would be how things would naturally develop. Without the welfare state, families and churches would reassume their natural roles as the primary institutions of social support. The welfare-social security state as well as public schools promote shortsightedness, parasitism, egalitarianism, and moral relativism while systematically undermining the authority and roles of institutions that promote farsightedness, individual responsibility, heirarchy, and immutable and eternal absolute laws such as families, churches, and private enterprise. While such bourgeois institutions, without interference from the state, would be the dominating influences in a libertarian society, the right to discriminate against those of undesirable and countercultural behavior on one's own property would also once again be recognized as
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He's wealthy because there's a big demand for what he puts out. I think there's a large stock of wealth in this country due to relatively laize fair policies through much of the country's early history. The welfare state needs that built up wealth to feed off of in order to exist at all. As the culture degenerates in part because of the welfare state, the demands of the culture change as well. Much of that wealth can then be diverted to people who supply the things the degenerated culture now wants in a larger supply than before. He is wealthy in at least some part because of bourgoeis culture that made the wealthy economy he tapped into possible to begin with. Primitive tribes that spend all their time dancing around naked tend to not be very prosperous. When I talk about bourgoeis culture, I'm talking about civilization itself. Now humankind being what it is will always demand the stuff he puts out. I'm not sure the market would be as big and open in a libertarian society though.
Bourgeois culture is not incompatible with sex.bashowApril 30 2006, 21:11:31 UTC
While it is quite true that a libertarian, i.e. capitalist, society would lead to a culture of ever lowering time preference, and hence ever lower frequencies of high time preference behaviors like alcoholism, drug addiction, and hedonism, it is *not* true that a libertarian, "Bourgeois" as you put it, culture is incompatible with drinking, drugs, and sex
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Re: Bourgeois culture is not incompatible with sex.bashowApril 30 2006, 21:42:00 UTC
I agree with most of what you say. I think human nature can cause us to do lots of destructive things. It is only when people are able to restrain their immediate natural urges for greater future gains that civilization can progress. I don't think things like sex is not part of human nature. I never said that. I do think that in a libertarian society sex would be a more private thing . Certainly sex and alcohol is compatible with bourgeois culture but only within boundaries. My point is that such a culture would not be as permissive and tolerant.
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"According to MRI, the median age of male Playboy readers is 33, with a median annual household income of approximately $58,000..."
Not exactly trailer trash...
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