"There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' in honour of the state where it originated. By naturalising and giving a technological proof to a libertarian political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian Ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless.
The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself. As usual, Europeans have not been slow to copy the latest fashion from America. While a recent EU report recommended adopting the Californian free enterprise model to build the 'infobahn', cutting-edge artists and academics have been championing the 'post-human' philosophy developed by the West Coast's Extropian cult. With no obvious opponents, the global dominance of the Californian ideology appears to be complete."
That's libertarianism, not specific to California. In principle everybody has a lot of freedom but in practice the powerful accumulate more and more power and freedom for themselves at the expense of others.
Using the state to enforce intellectual property is not really libertarian. By the way any libertarians defending the use of the state to maintain artificial monopolies and enforce regulations that advantages big organizations is a corporatist à la Federalist Society.
“Using the state to enforce intellectual property is not really libertarian.”
As far as I understand, in a libertarian world the state would not enforce property rights but you would have to go a court and sue. I think the result would be the same as we have now. The party who can afford more lawyers or lobbyists will most likely win.
On one hand, freedom is sacred, especially freedom of speech, information, etc.
On the other hand, private property is sacred, whether it is physical or intellectual.
Yet intellectual property laws directly impede the free flow of speech/information. So what'll it be, private property or freedom?