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>First, "libertarianism" is a highly misleading, US-centric label for certain brands of liberalism. It's not a coherent political position and instead used by v

>First, "libertarianism" is a highly misleading, US-centric label for certain brands of liberalism. It's not a coherent political position and instead used by very different people ranging from the right-wing authoritarian to the right-wing liberal spectrum to endorse a diffuse and internally inconsistent mix of cherry-picked elements of classical liberalism, general anti-federal government sentiments and individual anarchism. I'll give you that "libertarian" is an Americanism. But I'd remind you that the term became necessary because the term "liberal" was co-opted by left leaning politicians, FDR chief among them, and is now used in American politics where "social democrat" would be used in Europe and much of the rest of the world. And, insofar as any big-tent political movement can be internally consistent at all, "libertarians" in the United States are leagues beyond the Republican shotgun wedding of traditional religious social mores with unfettered corporatism and the Democrat morass of supposedly aggrieved parties jockeying for better position in the pecking order of protected groups. Even to the extend that libertarians disagree with each other, we're able to work together because the state has grown to such an extent that our internal differences pale in comparison to that commonly identified problem. Separately, a more strict criterion for distinguishing the good nudges from the nefarious ones might be: do people who become aware of the nudging object to its happening after some contemplation? (i.e. is there an objection emerging from the "slow" system two?)

pdelbarba 10y ago
It's also worth noting that the while you can argue that libertarianism is a cherry picking of political ideas, the same can be said for the main American parties, though this is often due to the not-so-subtle inclusion of religion in one of them
MaysonL 10y ago
FT Alphachat had a great interview (March 30 [0]) with Robert Cialdini about his new book, politics, and influence. He told an anecdote on himself which illustrated the difficulty of distinguishing the "good" nudge from the "nefarious" ones. A salesman, seeing him contemplating AN on-sale TV, told him that it was the last one in the store, and that another customer had told him they were thinking of buying it. Cialdini left the store with the TV. Was this a good use of nudging? In an effort to find out, he went back the next day. Did he see another TV? Listen to the podcast to find out. [see what I did there?] [0]http://podcast.ft.com/2017/03/31/how-persuasion-works-in-business-life-and-politics/ http://podcast.ft.com/2017/03/31/how-persuasion-works-in-bus...
Xixi 10y ago
I think the American use of "liberal" comes from social liberalism [1], which is certainly to the left of classical liberalism. In Europe "liberal" is more traditionally use to mean classical liberalism, hence the discrepancy. But both usages seem proper to me. That said, we've been hearing about social liberalism quite a lot over the last few months in France. The left tends to brand itself as socialist, so "social democrat" and "social liberal" are rather foreign to our traditional political scene. But it is changing fast: the current president, Hollande, is now usually depicted as a social democrat by the media, and the soon to become president (according to the current polls [2]) Macron is usually depicted as a social liberal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism [2] At this point in time it seems hard to imagine that he would not win. But of course things can change very quickly: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_l%27%C3%A9lection_pr%C3%A9sidentielle_fran%C3%A7aise_de_2017#/media/File:Evolution_des_intentions_de_vote_%C3%A0_l%27%C3%A9lection_pr%C3%A9sidentielle_2017.png https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_l%27%C3%...

pdelbarba 10y ago

It's also worth noting that the while you can argue that libertarianism is a cherry picking of political ideas, the same can be said for the main American parties, though this is often due to the not-so-subtle inclusion of religion in one of them

MaysonL 10y ago

FT Alphachat had a great interview (March 30 [0]) with Robert Cialdini about his new book, politics, and influence. He told an anecdote on himself which illustrated the difficulty of distinguishing the "good" nudge from the "nefarious" ones. A salesman, seeing him contemplating AN on-sale TV, told him that it was the last one in the store, and that another customer had told him they were thinking of buying it. Cialdini left the store with the TV. Was this a good use of nudging? In an effort to find out, he went back the next day. Did he see another TV? Listen to the podcast to find out. [see what I did there?] [0]http://podcast.ft.com/2017/03/31/how-persuasion-works-in-business-life-and-politics/ http://podcast.ft.com/2017/03/31/how-persuasion-works-in-bus...

Xixi 10y ago

I think the American use of "liberal" comes from social liberalism [1], which is certainly to the left of classical liberalism. In Europe "liberal" is more traditionally use to mean classical liberalism, hence the discrepancy. But both usages seem proper to me. That said, we've been hearing about social liberalism quite a lot over the last few months in France. The left tends to brand itself as socialist, so "social democrat" and "social liberal" are rather foreign to our traditional political scene. But it is changing fast: the current president, Hollande, is now usually depicted as a social democrat by the media, and the soon to become president (according to the current polls [2]) Macron is usually depicted as a social liberal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism [2] At this point in time it seems hard to imagine that he would not win. But of course things can change very quickly: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_l%27%C3%A9lection_pr%C3%A9sidentielle_fran%C3%A7aise_de_2017#/media/File:Evolution_des_intentions_de_vote_%C3%A0_l%27%C3%A9lection_pr%C3%A9sidentielle_2017.png https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_l%27%C3%...