does slavery essentially prove the flaws of libertarian philosophy?

[akfortyseven]

libertarians are all about limited government , and the will of the people. so in a truly libertarian state, isn't (and wasn't) slavery up to the will of the people (at least according to libertarians?)

[Mark D]

No, because the way to understand a Libertarian is to understand the difference between them and "liberals" and "conservatives."

Conservatives believe in liberty in the sense of economic freedom, i.e., laissez-faire economics, which doesn't automatically mean that slavery is allowed. Liberals believe in liberty in non-economic terms, such as the liberty to have sex or the liberty to commit suicide. In general, Libertarians do not distinguish between economic and non-economic forms of liberty. That is why they are different from conservatives and liberals. But like the first answer said, Libertarians are not anarchists. Even Libertarians believe that there should be regulations to protect people from violating one another's rights.

[allen a]

you want to see" will of the people" check out the roman empire and its demise.

[doug4jets]

I'll disagree. Limited government doesn't mean anarchy.

[ivor]

" a truly Libertarian state" could not exist unless all the population were free.

[avail_skillz]

I believe most libertarians are far more realistic about things than that. I doubt many of them believe in all-out anarchy.

BUT slavery might fall under an extremist view of "free market", as the corporate elitists and their sympathizers think of "free market".

With that being said, libertarians and paleocons are about the only types of cons that make much sense. Afterall, they are pretty much denounced as liberal by the Religious Right, and Traditional conservatives, until voting time, then they want Libertarians to help elect their ultra-conservative candidates.

[Infernal Disaster]

Libertarianism borders on anarchy, it's an attempt to create civilized-anarchism. Which no nation could survive.