Most libertarian arguments all boil down to the same core questions, so here's a thread where we zero in on them and give libertarians the chance to address them directly. In general, if you argue with a libertarian and run into one of these issues, feel free to point them here.
1. Which moral framework are you takes precedence: Desert, voluntarism, or utilitarianism?
In Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot," the author introduces three laws for robots to follow: 1) They must not harm humans through action or inaction, 2) They must follow orders unless it breaks the first rule, 3) They must engage protect themselves unless it breaks the first two rules. These rules aren't perfect, but at least there's a clear hierachy for when the rules are in conflict.
Matt Bruenig has a brilliant article on "capitalist whack-a-mole," which argues that libertarianism is based on three incompatible moral frameworks: "desert (each person should get what they produce with their labor), voluntarism (each person should get whatever they come about through voluntary, non-coercive means), and utility (the economic system should be created to maximize well-being)." Every time you poke holes in one framework, they immediately claim the next framework takes precedence. But it's a circle, not a hierachy, which means the goalpost always moves and never ends. Desert beats utility, voluntarism beats desert, and utility beats voluntarism. Even if you try to corner them by calling the circle out and demanding they prioritize one above the rest to set a stationary goalpost, they will immediately contradict themselves in the following post with special pleading.
2. Should the government ever be allowed to pass reasonable restrictions on the right to contract?
Most people understand that there are reasonable restrictions and unreasonable restrictions, and we can determine which is which by debating the merits (Utility). But libertarian voluntarism and the NAP means they can avoid having to defend their dumb positions, on merits, by arguing that the right to contract is an absolute natural right inalienable from the time of birth, rather than an debatable legal right bestowed by the legal system. Instead of trying on the reasonable BAC limit for drivers, libertarians argue that the government should have no say at all.
In practice, this means libertarians advocate for legalizing sex work and child labor, but then they realize how gross it sounds when you combine the two. They'll backtrack and insist that age of consent laws will still exist on utilitarian grounds to protect the vulnerable, which implies contracting as a legal right and not something you are born with. But this is special pleading, because they refuse to apply the exact same logic to justify protections for vulnerable workers and consumers, defaulting back to the idea of absolute natural rights and voluntarism.
Libertarian philosophers view the right to contract similar to the right to speech: No one "gives" a baby the right to talk, babies are simply born with it, even if aren't able to use it right away. Likewise, babies have the "rights" of adulthood even if they temporarily defer those rights to the parents, but the baby can reclaim those rights at any time simply by asserting them. The official Libertarian Party Platform writes: "Children should always have the right to establish their maturity by assuming the administration and protection of their own rights, ending dependency upon their parents or other guardians and assuming all the responsibilities of adulthood." This is consistent with the writings of Rothbard, arguing that children can assert their independence by running away, which would legalize most child trafficking.
You cannot reconcile voluntarism/NAP with age of consent laws. Either the right to contract is an absolute natural right, or it isn't. This is a binary choice, with no middle ground. You cannot say you're a minarchist or a moderate on the matter without undermining the entire point of libertarianism.
3. What happens if disputing parties are unable to agree and unable to walk away?
One of the flaws with voluntarism is that it assumes that all transactions give both parties the option to walk away unchanged if they disagree. But what if we can't walk away? I can refuse to sell you a hot dog if you refuse to pay me in cash, but what happens if you cause me to lose my arm by accident? The change already happened, I can't walk away from it.
Free market alternatives to public courts and governemnt currency are already legal, the problem is that most defendants will opt-out if you give them the option. A state court that compels defendants to show up against their will violates the NAP. How do you justify search warrants for non-consenting suspects? Libertarians argue that the suspect forfeits their rights by committing crime, but this is circular, because it presumes we're base evidence collection on the assumption of guilt, rather than the other way around.
This also applies to contract disputes. You can't walk away from a contract that has already been signed. If both parties are disputing the contract itself, then what happens if they can't agree to a common mediator to interpret itr? Even if the contract specifies an arbitrator in advance, what happens if one party claims that was signed under duress? Now you need a voluntary mediator to settle the claim of duress, and good luck agreeing to that.
4. Why aren't tax contract just as voluntary as any other contract?
When you hire someone off of Uber, there are contracts agreeing pay Uber fees, credit card fees, and tax fees in exchange for participating within their service. For instance, the entire existence of US dollars depends on US taxes, so you wouldn't be able to pay the driver in the first place if taxes didn't exist. Not only are these fees comparable, but it's literally the exact same transactions for all of them, with the exact same option to walk away.
But libertarians defend the first two based on voluntarism ("It's consensual despite my unhappiness because I signed a contract), while the rejecting the last based on utliarianism ("It's theft/coercion despite signing a contract because I'm unhappy.") If you try to defend taxes within the utilitarian standard (the fact we wouldn't have roads, telecommunication, a way to wire money, or money itself without them), they'll shift back to desert and then voluntarism and then back to utility.
At some point, the libertarian will claim that the tax contract is void because it was signed under duress. Except why wouldn't that also apply to the Uber fees and the credit card fees? Remember, they're all part of the exact same agreement, with the exact same consequence for refusing.
5. How are tax laws actually enforced, and why not work as an undocumented employee?
A law cannot be coercive if it cannot be enforced, because there's literally no "force" behind it. For instance, the state of Ohio can make it illegal for Galactus to eat the planet, but they have no way to coerce Galactus if Galactus tells them to fuck off. Just like I can tell Lays to fuck off when they demand I can't eat just one potato chip.
Despite their constant whining that taxes are coercive in nature, you never see libertarians citing real world cases of tax evasion being enforced to determine whether or not coercion was involved. Instead, they rely on hyperbolic strawman scenarios, "It would be extortion if the mafia threatened to murder you if you don't give them your wallet, therefore, taxes are theft." But of course, no one goes to jail simply for refusing to file taxes, because that would include roughly half the country. The only time they go to jail is when they submit fraudulent documents for the sake of theft. This is also how evaders get caught.
For instance, if you hire a contractor who claims to be licensed, this implies that they met the licensings qualification, and that they agreed to follow laws on paying taxes. This also means you can write off the payment as a business expense. If you lose $10,000 in damages because they lied about being qualified, that's fraud. If you lose $10,000 in tax deductions because they never reported the income to the IRS, that's also fraud. If you had known up front, you would have either hired someone else instead, or you wouldn't have reported the deduction to the IRS. In the latter case, this also means negotiating a discount with the contractor to cover your loss.
Of course libertarians will never admit to how the laws actually work, because "We want to legalize fraud" sounds a lot less persuasive than "Mafia bad!" Unemployed people obviously don't get jailed for refusing to file a W-4, but the same applies to millions of undocumented workers, since there's no fraudulent paper trail for the IRS to convict them with. Libertarians will move the goalpost from "I will be coerced at gun point if I do this thing" to "I can get away with doing this thing perfectly fine but it's technically illegal." Again, a law cannot violate the NAP if it cannot be enforced.
The real reason libertarians refuse undocumented work is because the work isn't as good. Libertarians choose to sign the W-4 form because it gives you better options thanks to government services, but they don't want to pay the cost of making those government services possible.
6. How do you reconcile voluntarism with exclusive land ownership?
The NAP has a lot to say about protecting private property, but it never actually explains how private property comes into exist. It assumes that everyone voluntarily agrees on who owns what, and has no remedy for when they don't. For instance, in the state of nature, Ann and Bob both have the right to use the same beach. What gives Bob the right to claim it as his own exclusive property and threaten Ann with property if she doesn't stay away?
Bob can claim he aquired the beach by homesteading, but Ann never asked him to do that and never agreed to those terms. He can claim he bought it from the previous owner, but she never consented to the previous owner threatening her with violence either, so we're back to where we started. Bob can claim he's the owner because all the witnesses in town recognize him as such, but this implies that property ownership is subject is based on "majority rule," and can be taken away if the majority agrees to it. Every defense violates voluntarism.
Libertarians will insist there's no contradiction, because Ann is actually the aggressor by violating Bob's property. But this is circular reasoning. "Bob has the right to threaten Ann with violence because she undermined his right to threaten her with violence."
At that point, libertarians will resort to defending property on utilitarian grounds, i.e., "Oh, so you're saying you're okay if I broke into your house and stole all your things?" But again, the argument isn't that property rights shouldn't exist, the argument is that property rights violate voluntarism, and their counter argument proves it. If property rights can be justified under utilitarian, then so can taxes. Libertarians will then reject the utilitarian defense taxes based on desert theory and then reject the desert critique of landlords based on voluntarism, which brings you right back to whack-a-mole.
7; What happens if the market doesn't provide a better option?
The common libertarian argument for why markets are consensual unlike taxes and regulations is because "I can always go somewhere better if I don't like the terms!" But what if you can't? What if the cheapest apartment you can find is still more than you can afford? What if the highest paying job is still less than what you need?
8. What makes you so special?
This is a continuation of the previous point. Libertarians resort to circular reasoning, "The market will have to provide me with better options to compete with other people providing better options, otherwise I'll take my business somewhere else." Of course, this implies that "somewhere else" actually exists, even though we already established that this is the already cheapest apartment you can find.
The underlying problem is that libertarians confuse "maximizing profit" with "maximizing market share," and then they assume that businesses will forfeit the first to increase the second. But htis makes zero sense. First, if your competitors are forced to match you to compete, then any market share boost is only temporary. Second, increased market share can carry risk from problem workers, problem customers, and problem tenants. Landlords may decide that low income tenants are simply less trustworthy.
Libertarians have a core delusion that business would have no choice other than to cater to their every want and need if only the government stepped out of the way, but of course, that's not how the world actually works.
9. So why not Somalia?
Libertarians will whine that this is an unfair argument, because they shouldn't have to leave if they don't want to, but that's evading. No one is forcing them to leave against their will, they're simply asking for the reason.
The reason they refuse to answer is because most of their complaints on Somalia boils down to the lack of services that taxes pay for (Utiliarianism). For instance, if you want police and court systems to protect your right to property, then you're going to need to pay for that. In the absense of taxes, you can either buy your own weapons or hire mercenaries, both of which are available in Somalia. Some libertarians will try to argue that Somalia doesn't count because warlords act as a psuedo-government, but that implies that libertarianism has no answer for warlords, which makes the entire ideology pointless.
Alternatively, libertarians could claim that moving to Somalia is prohbitively expensive, which is another utility argument. Of course, this doesn't really apply to wealthier Americans and corproations who would have the highest tax burden in a progressive tax system. The wealthy people with the most to complain about in regards to taxes also the fewest excuses in regards to leaving. This is very different from the poor people with the most to complain about in regards to private markets.
If libertarians can't fix Somalia, then the ideology doesn't actually work. If libertarians fix Somalia but simply choose not to, then that means they choose to live in a country supported by taxes, which means they don't get to whine about not having a choice.
10. But seriously... who will build the roads?
The old classic. Libertarians usually avoid this question and replace it with a strawman, "Is there anyone outside of government who possess the knowledge and tools for road building?" Just because people are able to do the job doesn't mean they are willing, especially if there's no clear funding mechanism. Libertarians may believe that the business owners will pay for the roads, but this presumes that roads are built around existing businesses, and not the other way around.
The single biggest challenge is logistics. If you want to build a road from point A to point be, how do you handle all the land rights without eminiment domain and easements? The longer it the road is, the easier it is for any single dissenter to refuse. How do you deal with underground unfrastructure and utilities? How do you deal with the concept of intersections between competing roadways? etc.