3 ms·

> You present the "liberatarian outlook" in a bit of a caricatured way; "disruption is good" does not need to be paired with let people die in the streets and a

by vacri 10y ago

> You present the "liberatarian outlook" in a bit of a caricatured way; "disruption is good" does not need to be paired with let people die in the streets and assume they weren't valuable enough. I have never seen a libertarian argue for social safety nets. Instead they argue that private charity would somehow rise up out of nowhere and people would give more than they currently do in taxes, all to help the needy. Of course, this doesn't make sense to anyone that knows a) people and b) history. Libertarianism is a way to say "fuck off, what's mine is mine and you can't take it", dressed up in flowery language. There is no provision in there to help our hypothetical unfortunate who is dying in the street. In fact, libertarianism argues that anything other than some random citizen helping in a purely voluntary manner would result in a trip to the courts. In short, libertarianism is a caricature. It requires a lot of willful ignorance of how people behave, and a lot of magical thinking about what would result from a libertarian society and how humans behave. Something like Poe's law applies here.

zaphar 10y ago
Pretty much every political or economic theory or ideology is a caricature in its pure form. Libertarianism is not special in that respect.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Hayek is generally considered a Libertarian and he argued for social safety nets. If you get your libertarianism from cartoonists ( and they are extremely plentiful ) then you'd of course think it a caricature. Any libertarian that basically denies all public goods is simply not to be taken seriously. I think Rothbard is generally the source for most of that. We've had plenty of people helping your "unfortunate dying in the street" under various regimes. Some are government, some are not. The peak brightness for the sort-of New Deal approach was LBJ. You may or may not agree, but Charles Murray is at least thinking about this, takes social welfare seriously and has an idea or two. My argument to other libertarians is that SSI and SNAP are simply in the noise of the general economy, have massive velocity and seem to work fairly well. They're "low load" - they will not prevent you building that new plant because of them ( indeed, it might be just the opposite ). I'm skeptical of claims of mass technological unemployment. That's partly because machines made stoop labor uneconomic, and stoop labor sucks really hard. We don't know what our problem is right now. Now - where are they right? There is a lot of load. When people complain.... Trumpishly ... about regulation , they're not kidding. They're not wrong. Some of it is a rock in the shoe; some of it is better founded. That's not an argument against regulation. It's an argument for better engineering of regulation. That's very difficult and even proposing it confuses people. And it fits the anti-elite narrative that's popular these days. After all, a libertarian is just someone who values liberty above simple face value - they think that liberty has emergent properties that create additional value. What must happen is that there must be dialogue between conservatives, liberals and libertarians. But the shouting continues...
- vacri 10y ago
  > If you get your libertarianism from cartoonists I get my libertarianism from listening to people online who identify themselves as libertarians. They often use very flowery language, which many believe to be persuasive because of its floweriness rather than its content. It's from online self-identifying libertarians that I hear these stupid redefinitions of the word 'violence', for example - no cartoons required. > We've had plenty of people helping your "unfortunate dying in the street" under various regimes. No, we absolutely have not. Historically, you got help if your benefactors find you personally appealing in some way, but otherwise you're short on luck. An industry might have had a 'widows and orphans' fund, but even these were supplements to other income. And if you had a mental illness like schizophrenia, you were really short on luck. Even today, private charity really only works for one-off disasters (eg: katrina) or easily-marketable charities (eg: kids with cancer). Private charity does not work if it's not marketable (eg: pancreatic cancer) or if the person needs ongoing help throughout their life (eg: schizophrenia). > It's an argument for better engineering of regulation. That's very difficult and even proposing it confuses people. Yes, better regulation is good, but libertarianism is against proactive regulation - everything is okay unless someone can prove harm done by a specific party, who then has to be taken to court (because everyone has those kind of resources, right?). Libertarianism couldn't give you the Clean Air Act, for example. Hell, plenty of libertarians even believe that private courts paid for by the applicants would be fair, and rely on the honor system to weed out the bad ones... of course, I've never heard what happens if the parties refuse to agree on a court. Curly realities like that just don't happen in the libertarian worldview - everyone is a fair, fully-informed actor with equal resources. > After all, a libertarian is just someone who values liberty above simple face value No, that's an overbroad definition of the political movement, and pulls in a lot of people who do not fit the libertarian mold (myself, for example). > What must happen is that there must be dialogue between conservatives, liberals and libertarians. Believe it or not, but liberals are big on civil rights and personal freedoms. Equal wages, equal opportunities, and helping those who have been historically downtrodden to make the playing field a bit more level. They just don't believe in the cartoonish "courts will solve what the free market doesn't" ideology of libertarianism. Have you never found it odd that the vast bulk of libertarians are white males with skills that are in demand? Libertarianism is just a nice-sounding way for these people to preserve their network effects; to preserve the historical leg-up they have over others.

by vacri 10y ago

zaphar 10y ago

Pretty much every political or economic theory or ideology is a caricature in its pure form. Libertarianism is not special in that respect.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

Hayek is generally considered a Libertarian and he argued for social safety nets. If you get your libertarianism from cartoonists ( and they are extremely plentiful ) then you'd of course think it a caricature. Any libertarian that basically denies all public goods is simply not to be taken seriously. I think Rothbard is generally the source for most of that. We've had plenty of people helping your "unfortunate dying in the street" under various regimes. Some are government, some are not. The peak brightness for the sort-of New Deal approach was LBJ. You may or may not agree, but Charles Murray is at least thinking about this, takes social welfare seriously and has an idea or two. My argument to other libertarians is that SSI and SNAP are simply in the noise of the general economy, have massive velocity and seem to work fairly well. They're "low load" - they will not prevent you building that new plant because of them ( indeed, it might be just the opposite ). I'm skeptical of claims of mass technological unemployment. That's partly because machines made stoop labor uneconomic, and stoop labor sucks really hard. We don't know what our problem is right now. Now - where are they right? There is a lot of load. When people complain.... Trumpishly ... about regulation , they're not kidding. They're not wrong. Some of it is a rock in the shoe; some of it is better founded. That's not an argument against regulation. It's an argument for better engineering of regulation. That's very difficult and even proposing it confuses people. And it fits the anti-elite narrative that's popular these days. After all, a libertarian is just someone who values liberty above simple face value - they think that liberty has emergent properties that create additional value. What must happen is that there must be dialogue between conservatives, liberals and libertarians. But the shouting continues...

vacri 10y ago
> If you get your libertarianism from cartoonists I get my libertarianism from listening to people online who identify themselves as libertarians. They often use very flowery language, which many believe to be persuasive because of its floweriness rather than its content. It's from online self-identifying libertarians that I hear these stupid redefinitions of the word 'violence', for example - no cartoons required. > We've had plenty of people helping your "unfortunate dying in the street" under various regimes. No, we absolutely have not. Historically, you got help if your benefactors find you personally appealing in some way, but otherwise you're short on luck. An industry might have had a 'widows and orphans' fund, but even these were supplements to other income. And if you had a mental illness like schizophrenia, you were really short on luck. Even today, private charity really only works for one-off disasters (eg: katrina) or easily-marketable charities (eg: kids with cancer). Private charity does not work if it's not marketable (eg: pancreatic cancer) or if the person needs ongoing help throughout their life (eg: schizophrenia). > It's an argument for better engineering of regulation. That's very difficult and even proposing it confuses people. Yes, better regulation is good, but libertarianism is against proactive regulation - everything is okay unless someone can prove harm done by a specific party, who then has to be taken to court (because everyone has those kind of resources, right?). Libertarianism couldn't give you the Clean Air Act, for example. Hell, plenty of libertarians even believe that private courts paid for by the applicants would be fair, and rely on the honor system to weed out the bad ones... of course, I've never heard what happens if the parties refuse to agree on a court. Curly realities like that just don't happen in the libertarian worldview - everyone is a fair, fully-informed actor with equal resources. > After all, a libertarian is just someone who values liberty above simple face value No, that's an overbroad definition of the political movement, and pulls in a lot of people who do not fit the libertarian mold (myself, for example). > What must happen is that there must be dialogue between conservatives, liberals and libertarians. Believe it or not, but liberals are big on civil rights and personal freedoms. Equal wages, equal opportunities, and helping those who have been historically downtrodden to make the playing field a bit more level. They just don't believe in the cartoonish "courts will solve what the free market doesn't" ideology of libertarianism. Have you never found it odd that the vast bulk of libertarians are white males with skills that are in demand? Libertarianism is just a nice-sounding way for these people to preserve their network effects; to preserve the historical leg-up they have over others.