What are some successful libertarian societies in history? (I.e. small government, free markets, free trade...

What are some successful libertarian societies in history? (I.e. small government, free markets, free trade, and maximum individualism)

libertarianism is equally retarded to communism.

Somalia

Neanderthals. They were quite successful, till we out fucked them and the sun came out.

No meme.

The most interesting experiment in Libertarian society building is, IMO, nullsec in EVE Online.

There is land, resources that need extracting, money to be made, and people that want to live there, yet there are no laws other than what players wish to enforce, and no police other than the corporations that live there.

The end result is effectively feudalism.

People form into corporations, some very large, some very small, and everything in between. Once a corporation gains control over an area of land, by purchase or conquest, they can't directly control all of it, yet they have the resources to take over, through money or force, loads of territory from smaller corps. However, then you need to control a very large, spread out area of land. Why not just rent that shit out for cash and manpower whenever a war happens. So the less valuable areas get divided up into smaller corps, renters and alliance members, who either pay cash or military service (or both) to the alliance leaders, and in return get to do what they want with the land. They might sublet this, furthering the chain of fealty, or just use it themselves if they're big enough to make use of it all. In the end, you get a hierarchy of land ownership, monetary dues and military service, all because one corporation got rich enough to own and control more land than they could use effectively.

Any truly Libertarian society will very quickly devolve into feudalism, as over time, land gets consolidated, and there is a limit on the amount of land/people that any one CEO or board of directors (or king) can effectively make use of. So then comes the choice of either letting it go barren, dog in the manger style, or renting it out in exchange for cash and services to other corporations or individuals.

Also the idea of a NAP being realistically enforced is wishful thinking of the highest degree. All human existence is built on competition, which necessitates aggression, financial, military or otherwise.

>Also the idea of a NAP being realistically enforced is wishful thinking of the highest degree. All human existence is built on competition, which necessitates aggression, financial, military or otherwise.
This.

It's utterly ridiculous to think that people would agree to non-violent competition. If I happen to be good at solving things violently and if I have the manpower to take over, why would I willingly submit myself to some spooky ideology that has no real world implications?

Tbqh, probably HK and Singapore.

>Singaporean
>Get caned for dropping my napkin
How is that libertarian

We are currently living in one. Compared to a typical corrupt authoritarian state we have a small government, freer markets, freer trade and ridiculous levels of individualism.

In these authoritarian states there may have been ostensibly fewer regulations and lower taxes, but the nobility or whatever elite existed in that country had more legal privileges and whatever small surplus the commoners would accumulate was often taken from them by fraud or force. For example being denied access to markets and having to sell their produce at set prices to a corrupt official.

The welfare system we see today is a hanger on, not the standard, it wouldn't exist if it wasn't for classical liberal values allowing a large middle class to develop.

>It's utterly ridiculous to think that people would agree to non-violent competition.
Well, maybe if there was a big organization with a near monopoly on military force, coupled with a police force, to force your compliance to the rule of non-violent competition... Oh... Wait...

Well, it might have a lot of laws concerning social behavior, but it's still one of the freest economies in the world.

I think you are missing the point of libertarianism.

I think you are tbqh, because libertarianism isn't anarchy.

>you can have a small state with draconian and pervasive social behavior laws
No.

And please explain to me how banning chewing gums, punishing drug users or unlicensed firearm owners with the death penalty and fining people for spitting makes a free-market libertarian paradise.

Not to mention 90% of the population lives in public housing and goes to school with government grants.

>And please explain to me how banning chewing gums, punishing drug users or unlicensed firearm owners with the death penalty and fining people for spitting makes a free-market libertarian paradise.

Because there isn't, and has never been a "free-market libertarian paradise"; but the closest humanity has ever come is Hong Kong and Singapore.

And the closest humanity has ever come to communism was Soviet Russia (or more charitably, Yugoslavia or Cuba.)
Which is not very close at all, in any case.
If the closest thing to a libertarian utopia can't even ensure your political rights and doesn't think twice about crushing individual freedom, what does that say about your ideology?

Why are you assuming i'm a libertarian?

I'm merely offering what I see as the closest approximation to the commonly used political ideology "libertarianism".

Whether or not you consider my examples a "pure" enough expression of that ideology, is not relevant to me at all, because I don't really care either way.

If you understand that Hong Kong's or Singapore's political ideology has nothing in common with libertarianism besides "economic freedom" (here meaning a laissez-faire strategy of encouraging foreign trade and lightly skimming off financial transactions and the transit of goods through low taxation) that's fine.

Yeah, but that, as far as I know, is the defining characteristic of libertarianism. If you don't have economic freedom(in the laissez-faire capitalist sense), it *cannot* be defined as libertarianism, as opposed to other restrictions on human interaction.

I understand. I give more weight to the libertarian rejection of Big Guberment and statist excess, that's probably why I'm more reluctant to view East Asian dictatorships as libertarian no matter how capitalism-friendly they are.

>I give more weight to the libertarian rejection of Big Guberment and statist excess

Hmm. I guess you're right about that. Oh well.

Early united states.