Recent Reason TV talk:

Philosopher Matt Zwolinski on "Bleeding-Heart Libertarians," The Poor, and Social Justice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgESZW3dPcM

Quote :

""Libertarians ... when they try to convince people of libertarianism, they do it by talking about the way in which free markets make life better for the poor," says Matt Zwolinski, a philosopher at the University of San Diego and a creator of the web site Bleeding Heart Libertarians. While the notion of "social justice" has long been anathema to some libertarians, Zwolinski says that a bleeding-heart libertarian realizes that an abiding concern for the most vulnerable in society is an essential part of any moral political system. "But, simply being committed to social justice does not mean that you have to be committed to the view that government must directly try to promote the well-being of the poor and vulnerable members of society," says Zwolinski. Instead, the bleeding-heart libertarian looks at the empirical evidence and accepts that small government and free markets are the best methods by which to provide for the poor. Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Shot by Paul Feine. Edited by Weissmueller. Approximately 10 minutes."

Here is the part that made me... philoslothical

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgESZW3dPcM&t=1m52s

The claim is made that ZERO government could be worse for the poor (I would say in general "the masses"). Well duh. If we lived in complete anarchy then things would be pretty shitty for most of us. But this is just one extreme. Consider the other extreme of welfare states:

Is a large social safety net actually worse for the beneficiaries of that safety net? The idea is supremely counter-intuitive, and also very central to libertarianism. It is saying that an initiative, over the long term, has the exact opposite effect of what is intended.

So if I understand correctly, libertarians would tend to admit these points:
- No government would be terrible for most
- Too much government would be terrible for most

How in the heck do you libertarians get Laissez-faire out of that?

That's really all I want to know.

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 3:12 PM. Reason : bold and italics for the attention challenged]

10/5/2011 3:09:28 PM

Quote :

"The claim is made that ZERO government could be worse for the poor (I would say in general "the masses"). Well duh. If we lived in complete anarchy then things would be pretty shitty for most of us. But this is just one extreme. Consider the other extreme of welfare states:"

This is an unsupported claim: that without a state, society would descend into chaos and it would be the end of civil society, which would mean things were shitty for "most of us." There's no way to know that this is necessarily the case, and in fact it's conceivable that we could progress to a stateless society where rights were protected better than they are now. When we give a government the power to make laws, enforce laws, and control the military, it's pretty much inevitable that the government will abuse that power. Governments have done terrible things, and if you look at the worst mass killings in history, they weren't done by "corporations gone wild," they were done by governments that often had the support of their people.

Quote :

"Is a large social safety net actually worse for the beneficiaries of that safety net? The idea is supremely counter-intuitive, and also very central to libertarianism. It is saying that an initiative, over the long term, has the exact opposite effect of what is intended."

Not always. It's arguable (and probably true) that many beneficiaries of "the social safety net" would not exist, at least in their current state, without it. The safety net influences behavior - it causes people to do (or not do) things that they would have not done if the safety net was not there. The social engineers in government falsely believe that we can remove the need for survival instinct without negative consequences. In reality, the human spirit and will to live/thrive is stifled by government "help".

Quote :

"No government would be terrible for most"

Nope.

Quote :

"Too much government would be terrible for most"

Slight correction - too much government is terrible for most. The government is not on your side. They are, at this very moment, making your life worse. You're a fool if you believe that the scraps thrown to you are a net positive, in light of all the opportunities the U.S. government destroys every single day.

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 3:44 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 3:43:30 PM

Basically top heavy government with lots of social and welfare programs is the only way to take care of lazy people.

10/5/2011 3:45:58 PM

Quote :

"This is an unsupported claim: that without a state, society would descend into chaos and it would be the end of civil society, which would mean things were shitty for "most of us." There's no way to know that this is necessarily the case, and in fact it's conceivable that we could progress to a stateless society where rights were protected better than they are now. When we give a government the power to make laws, enforce laws, and control the military, it's pretty much inevitable that the government will abuse that power. Governments have done terrible things, and if you look at the worst mass killings in history, they weren't done by "corporations gone wild," they were done by governments that often had the support of their people."

no no no no

If there were no government and things were just rosy, then certainly there are organizations / societal institutions of some type that maintains the function we expect from government today. Semantically, I could just call whatever institution that is "government".

This is the problem all libertarians, which is a failure to separate the modern form of national government from the concept of governance itself. Living with no functioning governing bodies is for one, nigh impossible, and two, would be hell on Earth.

10/5/2011 3:59:37 PM

Quote :

"If there were no government and things were just rosy, then certainly there are organizations / societal institutions of some type that maintains the function we expect from government today. Semantically, I could just call whatever institution that is "government"."

Government is generally used to describe "the state". I don't think it'd be appropriate to call a private insurance company, a private road builder, or a private fire fighting service "government." They're not governing, they're voluntarily transacting with other individuals or groups.

Quote :

"This is the problem all libertarians, which is a failure to separate the modern form of national government from the concept of governance itself. Living with no functioning governing bodies is for one, nigh impossible, and two, would be hell on Earth."

I think I'm more than willing to separate the two, but this is, as you said, a semantic argument.

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 4:07 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 4:02:15 PM

then it falls over and squishes them.

and all the fat cats up top plummet to their deaths.

10/5/2011 4:05:43 PM

Quote :

"Living with no functioning governing bodies is for one, nigh impossible, and two, would be hell on Earth."

Just to quibble, two people standing on a deserted island most likely are living with no functioning governing bodies. Although I would accept two people standing on a deserted island would be hell on Earth, it is not for lack of governing bodies.

What I do accept is an assertion that a large group of people would never choose to live without any governing bodies, although such bodies could easily be advisory and avoid our definition of government. For example, a corporation fulfills the role of a governing body even though all participation is voluntary.

Quote :

"So if I understand correctly, libertarians would tend to admit these points: - No government would be terrible for most - Too much government would be terrible for most How in the heck do you libertarians get Laissez-faire out of that?"

Accepting the two statements as a given does not by themselves tell us how we should rule ourselves, only how we should not. However, that the current systems spends much of its time persecuting the poor lends strong credence that the poor might be better off with less of the current system.

10/5/2011 4:15:41 PM

Quote :

"Government is generally used to describe "the state". I don't think it'd be appropriate to call a private insurance company, a private road builder, or a private fire fighting service "government." They're not governing, they're voluntarily transacting with other individuals or groups."

And by the state I take it you mean the national government. Local governments involve a much greater degree of choice. Contracts involve even more choice.

If there's no government, not only do you need contracts, you need contracts to establish terms of enforcement of the contracts, whereas many of these functions are entirely implicit and taken for granted in society today.

Libertarians are huge on ownership, but ownership is inseparable from government. Without government you really don't have ownership. Ownership must be recognized by a state or else it has ambiguity. A Palestinian who owns a house today which is only recognized by the Palestinian Authority has some degree of ambiguity in their ownership in the eyes of most of the rest of the world due to the current difficulties in getting the Palestinian government recognized by the rest of the world. We, on the other hand, are relatively secure in owning property in a fashion recognized by our government which is in the fraternity of major nations on Earth that, for the most part, all recognize each other.

A voluntary contract with a road builder skirts the much larger and more difficult issue of who has assured authority to make decisions regarding that road in the future.

Every time I think about the libertarian position, I start coming to a different kind of vision which I believe is not represented by the advocates. I'm not anti-libertarian, and I see merit of making everything as voluntary as possible. The key point there is choice, not the absence of government, or the glory of private ownership. We absolutely need more choice in government and a results-based way of testing and proliferating better ideas for government.

I agree that would evolve out of the initiatives libertarians currently believe in, but the vision is lacking. I only hear:

1 Reduce government
2 ...
3 profit

10/5/2011 4:28:08 PM

You said it yourself:
1 Reduce government
2 have more choice
3 profit

10/5/2011 4:56:14 PM

What kind of choice are you referring to exactly?

With some things, like what kind of ice cream to buy, I want a lot of choice. Personal preference makes a big difference.

With other things, like health insurance, I'd be fine having one choice as long as it worked to allow me to go to the doctor without trying to make a profit by claiming I have a preexisting condition or refusing to cover me on some other ground. That choice is impossible without pretty heavy regulation.

We can debate whether having such a choice is possible even if operated by government, and whether that's a good thing, but I'm totally fine with one good theoretical choice over ten bad ones. There, as in any other industry, the companies you're doing business with don't have your best interest in mind unless it benefits their bottom line. Unless the population gets WAY more educated (and they won't), I'm pretty confident smaller government will always hurt the poor and consolidate the benefits.

10/5/2011 5:19:08 PM

Quote :

"That choice is impossible without pretty heavy regulation. "

correction. That choice is made impossible with pretty heavy regulation.

10/5/2011 5:35:29 PM

Quote :

"If there's no government, not only do you need contracts, you need contracts to establish terms of enforcement of the contracts, whereas many of these functions are entirely implicit and taken for granted in society today."

If there's no government, a contract is only valid for as long as both parties agree to abide by it. Either party can terminate the contract at any time.

Quote :

"With some things, like what kind of ice cream to buy, I want a lot of choice. Personal preference makes a big difference. With other things, like health insurance, I'd be fine having one choice as long as it worked to allow me to go to the doctor without trying to make a profit by claiming I have a preexisting condition or refusing to cover me on some other ground. That choice is impossible without pretty heavy regulation. "

Trust me, you want choice. It's a pipe dream to believe that there can be only one health insurance provider and it not suck horribly. If you want quality stuff, you want competition, because it drives people to compete with lower prices or better service.

This idea that we don't want the profit motive touching certain sectors is pretty dangerous thinking. Any time you create a monopoly (national governments are a monopoly), you're removing competition from the market, which means you're going to get a shittier end product.

10/5/2011 5:39:45 PM

Welfare should be a SAFETY NET, not a LIFESTYLE. [/thread]

10/5/2011 5:43:40 PM

Insurance isn't really a product though.

I agree that competition in most fields is a good thing. But what's stopping monopolies from forming without a body like the FTC?

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 5:49 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 5:48:56 PM

Quote :

"With other things, like health insurance, I'd be fine having one choice as long as it worked to allow me to go to the doctor without trying to make a profit by claiming I have a preexisting condition or refusing to cover me on some other ground. That choice is impossible without pretty heavy regulation."

Even further - does it make sense to have the opt-out choice in the first place? Pre-existing conditions are a major challenge. You probably have something that could qualify you as you sit there. And even if they can't drop you after you become sick, what if they're allows to charge you more for the "insurance" after you get sick?

And what if health care in general gets more expensive? To a certain extent, it makes sense to have a tribe of people, who are all committed to look after each other. They'll all pay in and take from the collective as needed and there is a generally accepted guideline for how much the community is willing to spend on any given person or on health care in general.

Actually, humans have almost always operated like that.

Quote :

"If there's no government, a contract is only valid for as long as both parties agree to abide by it. Either party can terminate the contract at any time."

Basically, if the net-sum worth of any person's contracts dips below zero, then they'll start canceling them. Although, really this will happen long before that point.

A big part of the idea of debt is so that people can live with a negative net worth. That may sound ugly, but if the borrowing is used to invest in themselves (like with a trip across the Atlantic to be a part of the New World), then it might be better than never having had that option. Well, it's always better to have more options. But so far, your formulation limits options compared to current society since people can always opt out of their contracts, thereby limiting the types of contracts that can be drafted.

10/5/2011 5:52:34 PM

It's not a product, but it is a service. You pay insurance premiums to offset risk.

Quote :

"Even further - does it make sense to have the opt-out choice in the first place? Pre-existing conditions are a major challenge. You probably have something that could qualify you as you sit there. And even if they can't drop you after you become sick, what if they're allows to charge you more for the "insurance" after you get sick?"

Pre-existing conditions aren't a major challenge by themselves. In a free market, insurance would not cover ever medical expense under the sun - it would be specifically for catastrophic risk. Insurance should not cover things like colds or routine exams. The fact that it does is a result of our fucked up third party payer model.

If you waited til you were diagnosed with cancer to get insurance...that sucks. Making it so health care is free to everyone is not going to "save" people, though. It'll just mean prices skyrocket.

Quote :

"And what if health care in general gets more expensive? To a certain extent, it makes sense to have a tribe of people, who are all committed to look after each other. They'll all pay in and take from the collective as needed and there is a generally accepted guideline for how much the community is willing to spend on any given person or on health care in general."

Why does this make sense? This is the central problem of our model now. You don't want to pool risk with people that have no incentive to take care of themselves. I work hard to stay healthy. Many people don't. The idea that we should all pool our resources to take care of "each other" doesn't sound like a great idea to me.

Quote :

"Basically, if the net-sum worth of any person's contracts dips below zero, then they'll start canceling them. Although, really this will happen long before that point."

Yes, and people would know this was the case. The government enforces contracts that never would have been enforceable without government. A great example, which we've been discussing extensively in the lounge, are student loans. If the government were not backstopping the banks by saying, "you got a student loan? You have to pay, no matter what, and you have no options at your disposal for refinancing," the banks would just fail, and it would be a great thing for society.

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 6:00 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 5:53:12 PM

Quote :

"But what's stopping monopolies from forming without a body like the FTC?"

Depends on the particular industry you are referring to. Sometimes it is the laws of physics, sometimes it is consumer action, sometimes it is competitive action, and sometimes it is contractual agreement.

For example, power plants burning coal are often built with only a single rail-line which they do not own running to the plant. This is an actual monopoly. However, before building the plant, the future plant owners signed a long-term contract with the railroad to secure both their interests.

Quote :

"what if they're allows to charge you more for the "insurance" after you get sick?"

This is a similar example. I have signed a contract with an insurance provider. If I get expensively ill, no other insurance provider would dare insure me, whatever the price. What stops my provider from jacking up my rate now? The answer is quite obvious: the contract we signed determines how future rate increases will be handled.

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 5:58 PM. Reason : .,.]

10/5/2011 5:55:40 PM

Quote :

"Actually, humans have almost always operated like that."

true. but it's only a fairly recent phenomenon where some humans have effectively refused to help out at all. that's when the system breaks down. as long as everyone is acting in good faith and contributing to society, most reasonable people don't have a problem helping people out when times are tough or bad things happen.

Quote :

"Pre-existing conditions are a major challenge."

a challenge which is negated when we stop encouraging insurance to be tied to employment, for one. The point should be that people counter the pre-existing bullshit by having purchased the shit in the first place.



and who upholds the contract and settles disputes and enforces those settlements in the absence of a governing body?

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 5:59 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 5:58:50 PM

Quote :

"The government enforces contracts that never would have been enforceable without government."

EXACTLY!

Quote :

"A great example, which we've been discussing extensively in the lounge, are student loans"

I know, I was trying to be hip by referencing old-school indentured servitude

Quote :

"This is the central problem of our model now. You don't want to pool risk with people that have no incentive to take care of themselves. I work hard to stay healthy. Many people don't. The idea that we should all pool our resources to take care of "each other" doesn't sound like a great idea to me."

Many systems need policing.

I tend to agree with the recent popular idea that humans have an "ideal" group size, which is like 170 people (estimates vary). Keeping individual actors in check with that number is stupidly easy, but only when they're spending almost their entire life together. We're not good at policing our systems today, but I don't think it means that we have to go back to living in more sizable tribes. Humans today need civilization. There aren't enough natural resources for all of us to survive otherwise. The only catch is that we can't assume that any given system is going to work. Doesn't mean it can't work, it's just that we are in uncharted territory. We don't even entirely get what went wrong with the Roman Empire. All we have is a top 10 list of things that were eating away at the empire and a shrug like "meh, they had a lot of problems". With the level of connectivity we have today, we need some governing mechanisms that are a little better than what they came up in the 1700s after deciding that tyranny sucks.

I strongly agree with libertarianism in the sense that it's wrong of any of us to believe we know what's best. However, I sometimes disagree about what that implies in terms of course of action for the real world.

[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 6:16 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 6:15:01 PM

Quote :

"The only catch is that we can't assume that any given system is going to work"

Overstating your position. The current system clearly works. The current system with a smaller government would clearly work. Hell, the current system with a larger government would still friggin' work. It is all a matter of preference. Would a smaller government mean more productive activity? Wrong question. The question that needs answering is would we be happier with a more productive economy? Right now the answer is yes, but the answer is not always yes.

As for the rest of it, contracts only need outside enforcement if someone's door needs to be kicked down. Cash on delivery never needs outside enforcement. When courts are unavailable or refuse to act, people stop accepting credit. System functionality restored.

10/5/2011 11:04:10 PM

Quote :

"Overstating your position. The current system clearly works."

That's not true. Saying that what we have now is obviously working neglects the concept of sustainability. The world is not in an evolutionary stasis. I could claim that the post-WWII economic condition of the world is the only thing that sustained the American middle class, and we're now on the verge of depleting that. A system could "work" (provided you define your objectives) under one condition and not work under the next.

Regarding political systems, I think that history only gives us a small sample set in a very large space. The possible ways to govern a nation (or even possible and successful ways) are vast, and the majority of those would appear extremely foreign or bizarre to us. We do have lock-in of a sort.

Quote :

"As for the rest of it, contracts only need outside enforcement if someone's door needs to be kicked down."

Punitive actions upon non-compliance are one approach. Another is reputation bargaining.

By that I mean, people uphold their side of a contract because they know that if they don't, the other party can and will go tell potential future counter-parties and they won't get future contracts for this reason. Identity can be tied to a single person, or just a screen name.

I think markets actually really really like that reputation bargaining, and the cheaper information becomes the more effective it is. The incentives could be quantified extremely easily. If you're shopping on eBay for a product costing $10, and you buy it from a seller who has perfect feedback which has a market value of $1,000, and a negative review would drop that value to $300, then you still stand to loose the entire $10, but you can be pretty darned sure that you'll get your product and that they'll address grievances.

Not that it can't be gamed, of course



[Edited on October 5, 2011 at 11:40 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2011 11:35:04 PM

Quote :

"That's not true. Saying that what we have now is obviously working neglects the concept of sustainability."

"The System" is more than the current arrangement of activity. While various parts of the system are clearly unsustainable, such as coal hauling trucking companies in China or Medicare and Social Security in the US, the system as a whole contains the ability to make changes to these parts. China will expand its rail capacity and drive these trucking companies out of business. Congress will act such that American retirees will receive lower benefits at a higher retirement age. This is what I think of when you say "sustainability", as I see nothing in the system that could not muddle on for centuries to come (barring world war, meteor, etc).

If I assume you mean environmental hogwash, such as running out of oil, as an engineer it is not the case that human civilization runs on oil; it runs on energy, and the universe is full of energy. While abundant carbon resources has clearly allowed civilization to indulge in lavish excess (such as paternal welfare states and NIMBYism), the price mechanism for resource allocation is a fundamental component of the current system and will continue to work whatever the future brings, even if per-capita buying power is lower than we today are accustomed to due to resource scarcity.

10/5/2011 11:47:31 PM

the poor should just get smarter.

10/6/2011 1:01:00 AM

Right, the conversation depends on how specific you get.

We are a representitive democracy or a republic depending on who you ask. For the U.S., it's also relatively important to note the power balance between local, state, and national as well as the executive, judicial, and congress. For a bigger picture, we are a Western style democracy. I'm not even entirely sure what that necessarily implies.

Economically we are a regulated free market, which is absurdly non-specific. We are also capitalist, but I think saying that we are capitalist is only an tack-on to the free market thing. Exchanges are regulated, although I'm not sure if they can be called semi-governmental. NYMEX, for one was created by businessmen in response to a demand (saying nothing about the current state of affairs). Banking is about as complicated and muddled as possible.

10/6/2011 1:05:04 AM

Quote :

"We are a representitive democracy or a republic depending on who you ask."

I think the word you're looking for is "oligarchy." The people are not represented; the people have been taught that the government is protecting them, despite every indication to the contrary. Meanwhile, a tiny, elite group of banking/corporate/military interests steer the country.

Great, we have elections, and on the big issues that will be talked about in history books (or however future generations come to learn about the past), we might as well have a one party system.

10/6/2011 10:08:25 AM

Well now. The economic freedom index has been updated and sure enough, the United States has slipped yet again. All the economic freedom gains of the past thirty years have been erased and we now rate quite a bit below Canada in terms of economic freedom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4fWQnguR1E

Oddly enough, we are also showing a similar reversal in immigration patterns, as far more Americans now are moving to Canada.

Quote :

"“It’s reverse brain drain,” says Toronto-based immigration lawyer Sergio Karas. “There are a lot of disgruntled people who say ‘America is letting me down.’” MP: And Canada is not just attracting out-of-work Americans, it's also attracting wealthy Americans concerned about high and rising taxes in the U.S.: "Windsor, Ont.-based immigration lawyer Drew Porter is also seeing history reverse itself. He is fielding more calls from high-net-worth Americans who are worried their taxes are set to rise. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, and always the calls were from people that did well in Canada and wanted to move to the U.S. to increase their standard of living and minimize their income taxes,” he says. “It’s quite noteworthy to me that now I’m getting calls from the U.S. interested in Canada for the same reasons.”""

[Edited on October 14, 2011 at 12:13 PM. Reason : ,m,]

10/14/2011 12:10:35 PM

I'm for more economic freedom, but regulation is obviously needed.

Economic externalities are a real thing. Government should have every ability to interfere, but only in cases where a good case can be made that an activity interferes with someone else's health or freedom.

10/14/2011 1:09:44 PM

Quote :

"I'm for more economic freedom, but regulation is obviously needed."

No platitudes. What regulation? What does the law need to say? Do we need a law outlawing unforeseen consequences? Perhaps perverse incentives? How about a law outlawing incompetent laws?

10/16/2011 9:31:36 AM

I had actually phrased that better, but the TWW crashed on me and I had to rewrite it. True story.

I like the EconFree youtube channel (your video). But it's one of those things I feel like everyone can agree on the problem, but still not get anywhere.

It doesn't help that politicians of who promised to reduce the size of government wound up increasing it. I'm just jaded, that's all. I suspect, rational or not, that it's just a guise to let companies pollute and take advantage of people.

----

I should add some more.

The video makes 2 lists of countries, one well off and one poor off. the well off nations have more economic freedom.

This is correlation. The fact that they are well off could have lead to economic freedom. In reality, economic freedom is one of hundreds of metrics that all, by themselves, would seem fairly central to the creation of prosperity.

The real question that matters is if those well off nations sat down and said "let's become more economically free", and THEN improved their situation. In other words, would this hold up to randomized trials?

[Edited on October 16, 2011 at 12:01 PM. Reason : ]

10/16/2011 11:58:19 AM

Quote :

"The real question that matters is if those well off nations sat down and said "let's become more economically free", and THEN improved their situation. In other words, would this hold up to randomized trials?"

This is what history books are for. As history records, Europe in the 14th century was just as poor as the rest of the world on a per-capita basis. This was due to the iron law of wages which teaches us that population growth always exceeds productivity growth. Then came the enlightenment and the rise of individual liberty. The rest is history.

Society and its leaders have always wanted to be wealthier. It was only when the gave up on wealth and liberty came to be perceived as a goal in itself did wealth arrive.

10/16/2011 12:56:42 PM

Quote :

"This is what history books are for. As history records, Europe in the 14th century was just as poor as the rest of the world on a per-capita basis. This was due to the iron law of wages which teaches us that population growth always exceeds productivity growth."

History actually does give us some good relatively randomized trials. For instance, compare these two countries in those 2 lists mentioned:

Chile
Venezuela

Both countries are regionally fairly similar (although a South American expert can offer more detailed commentary), but yet one is well-off and one is not so. I think a better example is actually North Korea and South Korea. The division between those nations is 100% arbitrary. Before the war, there wasn't even a reason to draw a line in it! Before the 1980s it's actually relatively startling how similar the nations were, and after that time they went through a great divergence in most any metric you want to look at.

Yes, we have great examples from history where two nations similar in culture and history undergo different economic and political experiments, leading to a world of difference. All for no reason other than the choices the leaders made for the nation. We have a huge amount to learn from these experiences.

I am worried, however, that these experiences will be hijacked by people who are overconfident about what caused what. Our knowledge, and the crux of my own political views is that we need to allow more experiments in governance to both allow people greater freedom over their own destiny and to improve the welfare of all humans through better governing systems that we discover as a result.

Isn't "economic freedom" slightly misleading on some issues anyway? After all, a part of it entails a responsive government, not just Laissez-faire policies, which is exactly how I think the message will be interpreted. The legal system, for instance, has to be... well a good legal system. impartial and efficient. Grievances have to be addressed at all levels of government effectively. It's not just about economic freedom, it's about having an effective democracy too, as well as a multitude of factors that I don't claim to be wise enough to know.

10/16/2011 2:16:21 PM

I agree completely. My only disagreement would be that a "good legal system" doesn't require democracy, as they have occasionally been imposed from outside.

10/16/2011 7:46:45 PM

I think a lot of the idea of charter cities (which is actually kind of similar in nature to the economic freedom arguments) is to ask for foreign involvement from legal systems that have a history of working well.

Obviously, that has to be consent based in nature, as should everything. But yes, legal codes and many other things can be very effectively brought in from outside. In fact, I think the historical novelty of a lot of what we're talking about is the ability iterate on a global scale.

The main point of "democracy" is that at some point there is a closed-loop control of the government. The system needs to be obligated to the people beyond everything else (otherwise our own system admits to be fairly agnostic to the fine detail of the law given the way we pass that responsibility off to representatives). Democracy and the free market do make interesting dance partners.

10/16/2011 9:40:00 PM

10/20/2011 8:57:19 PM

Yes, at gunpoint. a 1040ez is the same thing as a fucking gun. trying to democratically mobilize people to enact legislation that helps the less fortunate and the whole of society is immoral. uh huh, yep.

And apparently, there's compassion in knowing that statistically people are economically fucked and not doing a goddamn thing about it in the name of liberty


we get it, you know people are screwed, you just don't want to do anything about it.



not that i want to get in to this argument, as it'll be just as beneficial as me whistling dixie out of my asshole.

[Edited on October 20, 2011 at 10:43 PM. Reason : ]

10/20/2011 10:38:03 PM

holy shit that video was retarded and that graph about "economic freedom" had no axis labels or explanation for the number or how the debt effects "economic freedom", i fucking hate that shit, might as well graph the unicorn population in each country.

10/20/2011 11:05:52 PM

Quote :

"we get it, you know people are screwed, you just don't want to do anything about it. "

Neither do you. You want to spend your time passing a law to have the government do something or another which won't help those that really need it, rather than spend your time actually helping those that really need it.

10/20/2011 11:23:43 PM

Quote :

"Yes, at gunpoint. a 1040ez is the same thing as a fucking gun. trying to democratically mobilize people to enact legislation that helps the less fortunate and the whole of society is immoral. uh huh, yep."

Look, we don't have conflicting values at the core here. The video is the same. It argues for economic freedom on the basis that it help people. Could it have ulterior motives? Sure. But I know I don't.

Passing legislation that helps the poor can hurt the poor. Do you understand the proposal? You want to move something in a certain direction. You push it. It goes the opposite direction. THEN STOP PUSHING!

I will say this as many times as I need to. Social programs can hurt the people they are designed to help.

Government action can have the exact opposite effect of what they are intended for.

I'm going to keep saying this until you stop using the surface intention of government programs as an argument. Doing so ignores the core of this discussion.

Effects (not equal) Intentions

10/20/2011 11:55:07 PM

Quote :

"It argues for economic freedom on the basis that it help people."

except when "economic freedom" means "freedom of the owners to do whatever they want, without any accountability to democratic institutions" then no, it doesn't help people. I know this is why many libertarians argue for it (on the basis that, not only is it the only moral solution but HEYY!!! it happens to help people too!). You really only need to look as far as "who benefits", and the answer to this is who bankrolls libertarian philosophy (rich people)

10/21/2011 12:06:39 AM

^lol

10/21/2011 12:51:22 AM

And a different set of rich people benefit from anti-libertarian policies and are the same people that bankroll such movements (democrats, republicans, etc).

And as the libertarian tradition of America has been abandoned over the past decade, the rich of Washington DC are rich enough to skew the statistics, as Washington is now the highest income metro-area in the nation, surpassing silicon valley.

Politics is a battle between the rich and the rich. To portray it as anything else is naive.

10/21/2011 1:02:44 AM

Quote :

"except when "economic freedom" means "freedom of the owners to do whatever they want, without any accountability to democratic institutions" then no, it doesn't help people."

WTG man, you sure laid the smack down on "generic libertarian" according to your definition of the position.

10/21/2011 8:50:42 AM

This is my logic, if a libertarian could point out where I'm wrong please do:

1. Participation as a consumer in a market requires some prerequisite education in order to make informed purchases, much like participation in a democracy requires some baseline knowledge of, say, civics. That is, in order to be a rational actor you must be educated properly (Your rationality is a function of the priorities informed by your knowledge)

2. Participation as a producer in a market requires some kind of education and skillset, with your competitiveness being a function of the quality of that education.

3. In a free market, quality of education would correlate with its cost. Any decent education requires teachers (the more per student the better), textbooks, materials, facilities, computers, all of which cost money. You might not be able to say "More money = better education" infinitely onward, but there is at the basic level a correlation between money invested in educational institutions and the quality of education that comes out.

4. Given (3), a person's ability regarding (2) would essentially be a function of their familial wealth. That is, a rich person will receive a better education than a poor person, thus be better capable of making themselves richer.

5. So, by (4) in a society free of a state, or particularly a publically maintained education infrastructure, progeny of richer folks will always have a multitude of competitive advantages over poorer folks. How does this *not* lead to an aristocratic society wherein the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, barring a few exceptional edge cases. In short: your own competitiveness in the market will on average be heavily correlated with the socioeconomic position of your parents. Put another way: The primary means (education) of becoming rich are more readily available to the already-rich, putting them at a competitive advantage with each generation.


edit: That being said, there are some libertarians (such as those with a Rawlsian bent) who might take up positions like taxing inheritance at 100% to mitigate as much as possible generational transfers of wealth (wealth that is not earned) or maintain certain public institutions like public education to guarantee roughly competitive outcomes for all children, regardless of parentage.


[Edited on October 21, 2011 at 11:46 AM. Reason : .]

10/21/2011 11:36:49 AM

Also lmao will you clowns get out of here with the Economic Freedom Index. Seriously, the Heritage Foundation is a fucking joke and if you don't know this you're beyond help. I mean really, the very "Economic Freedom Index" itself is possibly the most unscientific metric ever devised and that alone should convince you the Heritage foundation is garbage.

edit: If I wanted to know more of what the Heritage Foundation said, I'd listen to Hannity and Limbaugh and Beck for more than just the hour or two I hear on my commute.

[Edited on October 21, 2011 at 11:44 AM. Reason : .]

10/21/2011 11:42:36 AM

Is there a competing economic freedom index you would prefer we use? I accept such an index is fairly subjective, but upon reading how the index was generated they tried to be as objective as possible, sticking with government statistics for the vast majority of their calculations.

Quote :

"Participation as a consumer in a market requires some prerequisite education in order to make informed purchases, much like participation in a democracy requires some baseline knowledge of, say, civics"

Absolutely untrue. Formal education does not currently cover the vast majority of market activities people engage in. Applying for a job, performing in an interview, showing up for work, opening a bank account, picking a store to shop in, all are learned by doing through trial and error. Hopefully advise is provided by friends and family, but that is about it.

Quote :

"2. Participation as a producer in a market requires some kind of education and skillset, with your competitiveness being a function of the quality of that education."

True enough. Most positions nowadays require formal education (be it just college, or law/medical school). This education is for sale today in a perversely government regulated way. The poor among us will be limited to what schools they can afford to attend and how they attend (attending smaller colleges, taking loans, working through school, etc).

But if you are referring to the government run education system today, you are quite right that "More money = better education" because today's government run system has a nasty habit of arresting poor parents trying to send their children to the better schools reserved for rich people. In a free market, the only barrier to attendance is tuition. And in a free market there is no law restricting what percentage of people's income can go to education. Some poor people today live in smaller housing, drive older cars, and live without cable so their children can escape failing government schools and attend private school. They do this after they have already paid a huge chunk of their salary to support the very government run schools they are trying to escape. Private schools are similarly taxed to pay for the government schools. This is a travesty, I don't know how you can support it. I am a libertarian with quite a few pro-government leanings, so we can still subsidize the education of the poor. But government owned and operated schools is NOT a solution. It doesn't subsidize education, it suppresses it by sustaining bad schools and trapping people in them.

I have a friend that quit their job to go work at a private school because buying a house in a neighborhood with good government schools was not possible.

10/21/2011 4:54:40 PM

the ability of libertarians to contort every issue as a failure of government is....fuckin'.....amazing...


I don't see how you can promote economic freedom (whatever the fuck that means) and not at least acknowledge the ability of the haves to protect their wealth from the have nots. And to not be able to see what kind of generational inequality this inherently promotes is pretty sad.

10/21/2011 5:19:14 PM

Quote :

" Passing legislation that helps the poor can hurt the poor. Do you understand the proposal? You want to move something in a certain direction. You push it. It goes the opposite direction. THEN STOP PUSHING! I will say this as many times as I need to. Social programs can hurt the people they are designed to help. Government action can have the exact opposite effect of what they are intended for."

I just saw this, so I'll reply.

I don't understand why people think that government is set in stone. It's not, it very much shifts over the course of time (as long as it's democratic).

Democracy can be scientific if you allow it to be. If you notice social programs are having the opposite effect of the original intent, that doesn't mean you have to scrap it completely, it just means you have to revise your hypothesis.

[Edited on October 21, 2011 at 5:26 PM. Reason : democracy. fuck yeah]

10/21/2011 5:25:34 PM

Quote :

"I don't see how you can promote economic freedom (whatever the fuck that means) and not at least acknowledge the ability of the haves to protect their wealth from the have nots. And to not be able to see what kind of generational inequality this inherently promotes is pretty sad."

I emphatically agree with the observation of the problem.

Try this on:

A large fraction of our federal and state expenditures are entitlements. In fact, they're a dominating cost.

There is what I call the "obvious" tax rate. By all common definitions, we have a progressive taxation system, where those in poverty are paying a very small rate compared to the wealthy. As Buffet has recently been pointing out, of course, the super-rich have a slight downtick in their effective tax rate, meaning the really rich pay 45% and the super-rich pay 40%. However, this isn't sufficient, in and of itself, to explain the wealth transfer that's been going on.

The elephant-in-the-room that no one sees is debt. Our national debt enjoys the status of being the "most safe" investment. This debt adds a weight on the demand for capital that is particularly toxic. The rich would be troubled if we did not maintain this debt, as would all holders of wealth, but you should understand that a really small fraction of the population holds an exorbitant fraction of the wealth.

The national debt, along with a few other forms of debt that are a part of the debt-culture we've indulged in, shift the balance of the labor versus capital negotiation in the economy. I know this is long winded so let me put my point on another line.

Debt creates a subvert transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

Here is the unfortunate reality: entitlements (in the current state of affairs) fuel the debt, and the debt fuels inequality.

Does this mean that social welfare will always have this effect? Oh absolutely not, and I agree, like the vast majority of voters, that the government has a very important role to play in the transfer of wealth through a straight-forward progressive tax system. But don't you see? They corrupted the system. It does the opposite of what the agreed intent was (to at minimum some extent).

This is a result of "big government"

More debt is big government. Anytime more money is spent you are committing to a larger government. Probably the easiest and most toxic way to increase the size of government is to do what politicians always do - offer more and ask for no sacrifice from anyone. I don't even consider myself libertarian. But by god they're got an important message.

[Edited on October 21, 2011 at 10:22 PM. Reason : ]

10/21/2011 10:20:10 PM

ask this guy and his former people about how big government worked out

10/21/2011 10:57:23 PM

Quote :

"Here is the unfortunate reality: entitlements (in the current state of affairs) fuel the debt, and the debt fuels inequality. "

You seem to be thinking about public and private sector debt the same way. There are ways the public sector can take on debt, and this would be egalitarian. You have to realize that aggregate or abstract values don't interact in that way; you need to think about the particulars. Debt in general doesn't mean anything; who holds the debt and how much debt, who lent the money, etc.

10/22/2011 3:09:49 AM