8 ms·

Yeah, I struggle with this squaring this disruption with a generally libertarian economic stance. If we truly are at the edge of a disruption that will make the

Yeah, I struggle with this squaring this disruption with a generally libertarian economic stance. If we truly are at the edge of a disruption that will make the vast portion of workers under or unemployed, what does that mean in terms of social stability and survival for those people?

maxxxxx 9y ago
In the 1800s and early 1900s at least some people could emigrate to countries like the US where there was still a lot of open space. Even that's not an option this time.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  We are not running low on "open space" at all. The habitable area of the planet is vast. Many of the emigrants of the 1800s ended up settling "new" land in the US. But there's vast territories around the world that are extremely inexpensive. Since the 1800s we have grown more dependent on the services provided by the state in urban areas.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    The problem isn't the abundance or lack of open space, it's the fact that the primary income sources from open spaces now requires massive amounts of capital to be competitive.
    - vkou 9y ago
      This. There's a reason that communist revolutions were fueled by a desire for bread, peace, and land. In the start of the 20th century, you could make a decent living if you owned nothing but the land you lived on. Nowadays, you really can't.
      - maxxxxx 9y ago
        I wonder what happens if we get robots that can provide a complete living off some plot of land. Like agriculture, energy and whatever you need. So in theory you could live autonomously then. Somehow I think the owning class will come up with ways to make this illegal or impossible.
        PeterisP 9y ago
        Why would robots make a difference? Currently, you can't really live off of a plot of land alone, but you'll be living quite well if you also own a bunch of high tech machinery to farm it efficiently. For a well-off Ferrari-owning farmer, the Ferrari is likely not among the most expensive vehicles he owns, the tractors/combines/whatever cost the big bucks. That's what the poster above meant by "the primary income sources from open spaces now requires massive amounts of capital to be competitive", and owning these robots would be the massive amount of capital; you'd be able to sustain yourself because (and if) you'd have a lot of very expensive robots, not because you just had some land; and you'd also be able to sustain yourself by just investing the value of these robots.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    In the 1800s you could go somewhere, kick out the natives and declare yourself the owner of the land. I don't think that's possible anymore. At least not in most habitable zones. Where in particular do you recommend people should go?
    - rhaps0dy 9y ago
      To all the empty land in central Iceland; Sweden is also not very dense. Although those places are not very conductive to farming...
      - avar 9y ago
        You are legally prohibited from building anything above 500m in Iceland, which is most of the central interior.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      They left much of the areas they slaughtered the natives for, the midwest is still incredibly empty. Five states with eleven people per square mile or less, including Alaska. Plenty of space.
      - maxxxxx 9y ago
        Can you go the Midwest somewhere and live off the land? I doubt it.
        ktRolster 9y ago
        You can, but you'll be dirt poor. Back when "dirt poor" was normal, and luxuries like "bathing every day" or "carpet" were uncommon, being dirt poor seemed acceptable. Now most people won't accept that as a lifestyle.
      - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
        The "empty" midwest is all owned, though. $4000/acre, maybe? That's not much if you are trying to buy land to build a house. It's a lot if you're trying to acquire 1000 acres for a farm, though. Alaska is largely government owned. It's empty, but that doesn't mean that you can take a chunk of land there.
  - dv_dt 9y ago
    I think that it was not so much about open space, as an opportunity to establish an economic independence. The likes of which the equivalents only exist in different forms today - much akin to dreams of startups today.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  The idea that there was open space in the Americas before the Europeans came is a myth. It neglects the inconvenient fact that the native Americans were already here.
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    The indigenous population of the Americas was absolutely destroyed by Old World diseases. This happened mostly by accident (although sometimes done intentionally) but was probably near inevitable once first contact was made. (In many places it out-paced the actual extent of direct European contact as indigenous people traveled.) So there WAS vast expanses available by that time, even without intentional genocide (which also happened).
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      Disease killed a lot of the native population, maybe even decimated, but it did not leave the USA a vast open space. Otherwise the US Army would not have had almost continuous warfare from the conclusion of the Revolution War to the surrender of Geronimo (minus the Civil War) to displace the natives to make room for American settlers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt... A large percentage of the land battles of the War of 1812 were fought between the US and natives because the US wanted the land of the natives to become open space so the natives allied themselves with Britain. Lewis and Clark would not have survived or even made it to the coast if they had not had help from most of the tribes they met along the way. Of course we displaced all of the natives they met eventually. I just read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me so that may bias my opinion.
    - coliveira 9y ago
      So why settlers spent so many bullets to kill people who were already dying by nobody else's fault? And if there was so much open space in America, why Europeans happened to locate exactly in the "very few" places where natives lived? Strange, indeed.
evanlivingston 9y ago
Libertarianism doesn't provide a good methodology for prioritizing the well-being of disinenfranchized person's, so If your ethics tell you that preserving property relations are less important than elevating the condition of all humans, then perhaps it is time to evaluate alternative economic stances that prioritize property less than people.
- etplayer 9y ago
  One such alternative would seem to be Proudhon's anarchism (mutualism) or even Marx's (or his predecessor's) Communism, though I know this is generally an unpopular response, I see no reason why it has no merit.
yourapostasy 9y ago
I'm not seeing good responses from libertarians regarding the inbalance in how law is practiced; would appreciate pointers to write ups of more effective libertarian-style remedies. That is, corporations with concentrations of power are treated by libertarians as possessing equal standing with individuals in a court of law. In practice, that is absolutely not how it works out. Yet, many a libertarian response to various problem spaces is "the courts will work it out!", in a deus ex machina style conclusion. Spend any appreciable time (>= 10 years) running a business, and you'll probably observe the same: I've yet to meet a business owner who subscribes to the "equal under law" libertarian ideal, everyone I've spoken with agrees that larger concentrations of wealth and power commensurately enjoy greater access and privileges in the court systems around the world that are unobtanium for smaller entities. I've heard the libertarian response of "we're just not capitalist enough" applied to this problem domain; look to US-style private arbitration to see how that's turning out. I've never been a fan of the "no true Scotsman" approach, anyways. Any libertarian-oriented remedies that realistically acknowledge how humans practice acquiring and deploying power of various forms would be appreciated.
- Clubber 9y ago
  From what I gather, there are really two facets of libertarianism. The social libertarianism, meaning let people do what they want, stop banning everything, drug war is futile, etc. Then there is the economic libertarianism, which means keep the government out of most, if not all business dealings. Deregulate, etc. I highly suspect people are much more interested in the first, but not really the second. Interests who stand to benefit from the second are selling them as a package deal and we will end up only getting the second. In other words, the arrest machine will keep running, but businesses will be free to fleece customers, government and employees with impunity. Surprising though, regulation is intended to save capitalism, not hurt it, at least in the long term. If capitalism runs down a path where it no longer benefits the vast majority of citizens in any given country, there will be hell to pay resulting in the end of capitalism. That would be a shame too, properly regulated capitalism is a really great system.
- tudorconstantin 9y ago
  Maybe if the laws were closer to what libertarians would like, this equality in front of it would be achievable. The basic libertarian philosophy regarding law says the only enforcing laws should concern the non aggression principle.
coliveira 9y ago
Economic libertarianism is the XXI century version of Leibnitz optimism of the XVIII century, which was so eloquently critiqued by Voltaire in Candide -- with Capitalism replacing God. They just believe that capitalism is the best of all possible systems and if we just blindly follow its rules everything will be fine and well, it doesn't matter how many people suffer in the meantime.
- asdffdsa321 9y ago
  Would it kill you to join everyone else in the 21st century and use numbers instead of romance numerals
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago
    FYI, many countries/languages write centuries this way (e.g la langue de Voltaire)
    - freehunter 9y ago
      English-speaking countries? Because as a native English speaker, I have no problem reading their words but I have no idea what kind of numbers they're trying to express.
      - cicero 9y ago
        Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals
        freehunter 9y ago
        Yeah I know they're roman numerals but I can't read roman numerals without significant effort. It's bad form to include large roman numerals in English text. The majority of English speakers aren't going to know roman numerals beyond 10.
narrator 9y ago
The libertarian would say that if the general public gets access to advanced robotics then there will be enormous prosperity. For example, imagine if you could buy a robot that would survey your backyard, order equipment from amazon, start planting food, set up irrigation, harvest and deliver it to a neighbors automatically? Free locally grown food for everyone. Now, isn't that awesome? You could also rent a robot that would find water, dig wells, trench, put in pipes, etc. The possibilities are endless to take PRODUCTION of goods out of the hands of specialized highly capitalized organizations and into the hands of anybody who can rent a robot. The problem is is that a robot this advanced could also be used for very sophisticated bad purposes, so you're going to have lots of regulation and big corporations will only be able to use these robots and you'll have to buy things they produce with whatever meager wages they let you have.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  How do you pay for the robot if you're not working?
  - narrator 9y ago
    Just take out a loan. The food cost savings and excess production will pay for the loan and they can repo the robot if you don't pay. The robot will even be able to tell you if it's likely to be cash flow positive.
    - gloverkcn 9y ago
      Only people working would qualify for a loan. Those people would have more prosperity until the robots cratered all wages and prices, being free labor and flooding the market with excess. When the prices crash a large number of people with robots will be unable to pay back the loan. Their robots will be repossessed. They will now be out of a job and with no robot. The poor would get left over food from the kindness of people with robots? They'll certainly never work again.
      - narrator 9y ago

maxxxxx 9y ago

In the 1800s and early 1900s at least some people could emigrate to countries like the US where there was still a lot of open space. Even that's not an option this time.

wyldfire 9y ago
We are not running low on "open space" at all. The habitable area of the planet is vast. Many of the emigrants of the 1800s ended up settling "new" land in the US. But there's vast territories around the world that are extremely inexpensive. Since the 1800s we have grown more dependent on the services provided by the state in urban areas.
- malandrew 9y ago
  The problem isn't the abundance or lack of open space, it's the fact that the primary income sources from open spaces now requires massive amounts of capital to be competitive.
  - vkou 9y ago
    This. There's a reason that communist revolutions were fueled by a desire for bread, peace, and land. In the start of the 20th century, you could make a decent living if you owned nothing but the land you lived on. Nowadays, you really can't.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      I wonder what happens if we get robots that can provide a complete living off some plot of land. Like agriculture, energy and whatever you need. So in theory you could live autonomously then. Somehow I think the owning class will come up with ways to make this illegal or impossible.
      - PeterisP 9y ago
        Why would robots make a difference? Currently, you can't really live off of a plot of land alone, but you'll be living quite well if you also own a bunch of high tech machinery to farm it efficiently. For a well-off Ferrari-owning farmer, the Ferrari is likely not among the most expensive vehicles he owns, the tractors/combines/whatever cost the big bucks. That's what the poster above meant by "the primary income sources from open spaces now requires massive amounts of capital to be competitive", and owning these robots would be the massive amount of capital; you'd be able to sustain yourself because (and if) you'd have a lot of very expensive robots, not because you just had some land; and you'd also be able to sustain yourself by just investing the value of these robots.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  In the 1800s you could go somewhere, kick out the natives and declare yourself the owner of the land. I don't think that's possible anymore. At least not in most habitable zones. Where in particular do you recommend people should go?
  - rhaps0dy 9y ago
    To all the empty land in central Iceland; Sweden is also not very dense. Although those places are not very conductive to farming...
    - avar 9y ago
      You are legally prohibited from building anything above 500m in Iceland, which is most of the central interior.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    They left much of the areas they slaughtered the natives for, the midwest is still incredibly empty. Five states with eleven people per square mile or less, including Alaska. Plenty of space.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      Can you go the Midwest somewhere and live off the land? I doubt it.
      - ktRolster 9y ago
        You can, but you'll be dirt poor. Back when "dirt poor" was normal, and luxuries like "bathing every day" or "carpet" were uncommon, being dirt poor seemed acceptable. Now most people won't accept that as a lifestyle.
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      The "empty" midwest is all owned, though. $4000/acre, maybe? That's not much if you are trying to buy land to build a house. It's a lot if you're trying to acquire 1000 acres for a farm, though. Alaska is largely government owned. It's empty, but that doesn't mean that you can take a chunk of land there.
- dv_dt 9y ago
  I think that it was not so much about open space, as an opportunity to establish an economic independence. The likes of which the equivalents only exist in different forms today - much akin to dreams of startups today.
stevenwoo 9y ago
The idea that there was open space in the Americas before the Europeans came is a myth. It neglects the inconvenient fact that the native Americans were already here.
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  The indigenous population of the Americas was absolutely destroyed by Old World diseases. This happened mostly by accident (although sometimes done intentionally) but was probably near inevitable once first contact was made. (In many places it out-paced the actual extent of direct European contact as indigenous people traveled.) So there WAS vast expanses available by that time, even without intentional genocide (which also happened).
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    Disease killed a lot of the native population, maybe even decimated, but it did not leave the USA a vast open space. Otherwise the US Army would not have had almost continuous warfare from the conclusion of the Revolution War to the surrender of Geronimo (minus the Civil War) to displace the natives to make room for American settlers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt... A large percentage of the land battles of the War of 1812 were fought between the US and natives because the US wanted the land of the natives to become open space so the natives allied themselves with Britain. Lewis and Clark would not have survived or even made it to the coast if they had not had help from most of the tribes they met along the way. Of course we displaced all of the natives they met eventually. I just read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me so that may bias my opinion.
  - coliveira 9y ago
    So why settlers spent so many bullets to kill people who were already dying by nobody else's fault? And if there was so much open space in America, why Europeans happened to locate exactly in the "very few" places where natives lived? Strange, indeed.

evanlivingston 9y ago

Libertarianism doesn't provide a good methodology for prioritizing the well-being of disinenfranchized person's, so If your ethics tell you that preserving property relations are less important than elevating the condition of all humans, then perhaps it is time to evaluate alternative economic stances that prioritize property less than people.

etplayer 9y ago
One such alternative would seem to be Proudhon's anarchism (mutualism) or even Marx's (or his predecessor's) Communism, though I know this is generally an unpopular response, I see no reason why it has no merit.

yourapostasy 9y ago

I'm not seeing good responses from libertarians regarding the inbalance in how law is practiced; would appreciate pointers to write ups of more effective libertarian-style remedies. That is, corporations with concentrations of power are treated by libertarians as possessing equal standing with individuals in a court of law. In practice, that is absolutely not how it works out. Yet, many a libertarian response to various problem spaces is "the courts will work it out!", in a deus ex machina style conclusion. Spend any appreciable time (>= 10 years) running a business, and you'll probably observe the same: I've yet to meet a business owner who subscribes to the "equal under law" libertarian ideal, everyone I've spoken with agrees that larger concentrations of wealth and power commensurately enjoy greater access and privileges in the court systems around the world that are unobtanium for smaller entities. I've heard the libertarian response of "we're just not capitalist enough" applied to this problem domain; look to US-style private arbitration to see how that's turning out. I've never been a fan of the "no true Scotsman" approach, anyways. Any libertarian-oriented remedies that realistically acknowledge how humans practice acquiring and deploying power of various forms would be appreciated.

Clubber 9y ago
From what I gather, there are really two facets of libertarianism. The social libertarianism, meaning let people do what they want, stop banning everything, drug war is futile, etc. Then there is the economic libertarianism, which means keep the government out of most, if not all business dealings. Deregulate, etc. I highly suspect people are much more interested in the first, but not really the second. Interests who stand to benefit from the second are selling them as a package deal and we will end up only getting the second. In other words, the arrest machine will keep running, but businesses will be free to fleece customers, government and employees with impunity. Surprising though, regulation is intended to save capitalism, not hurt it, at least in the long term. If capitalism runs down a path where it no longer benefits the vast majority of citizens in any given country, there will be hell to pay resulting in the end of capitalism. That would be a shame too, properly regulated capitalism is a really great system.
tudorconstantin 9y ago
Maybe if the laws were closer to what libertarians would like, this equality in front of it would be achievable. The basic libertarian philosophy regarding law says the only enforcing laws should concern the non aggression principle.

coliveira 9y ago

Economic libertarianism is the XXI century version of Leibnitz optimism of the XVIII century, which was so eloquently critiqued by Voltaire in Candide -- with Capitalism replacing God. They just believe that capitalism is the best of all possible systems and if we just blindly follow its rules everything will be fine and well, it doesn't matter how many people suffer in the meantime.

asdffdsa321 9y ago
Would it kill you to join everyone else in the 21st century and use numbers instead of romance numerals
- rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago
  FYI, many countries/languages write centuries this way (e.g la langue de Voltaire)
  - freehunter 9y ago
    English-speaking countries? Because as a native English speaker, I have no problem reading their words but I have no idea what kind of numbers they're trying to express.
    - cicero 9y ago
      Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals
      - freehunter 9y ago
        Yeah I know they're roman numerals but I can't read roman numerals without significant effort. It's bad form to include large roman numerals in English text. The majority of English speakers aren't going to know roman numerals beyond 10.

narrator 9y ago

The libertarian would say that if the general public gets access to advanced robotics then there will be enormous prosperity. For example, imagine if you could buy a robot that would survey your backyard, order equipment from amazon, start planting food, set up irrigation, harvest and deliver it to a neighbors automatically? Free locally grown food for everyone. Now, isn't that awesome? You could also rent a robot that would find water, dig wells, trench, put in pipes, etc. The possibilities are endless to take PRODUCTION of goods out of the hands of specialized highly capitalized organizations and into the hands of anybody who can rent a robot. The problem is is that a robot this advanced could also be used for very sophisticated bad purposes, so you're going to have lots of regulation and big corporations will only be able to use these robots and you'll have to buy things they produce with whatever meager wages they let you have.

JBlue42 9y ago
How do you pay for the robot if you're not working?
- narrator 9y ago
  Just take out a loan. The food cost savings and excess production will pay for the loan and they can repo the robot if you don't pay. The robot will even be able to tell you if it's likely to be cash flow positive.
  - gloverkcn 9y ago
    Only people working would qualify for a loan. Those people would have more prosperity until the robots cratered all wages and prices, being free labor and flooding the market with excess. When the prices crash a large number of people with robots will be unable to pay back the loan. Their robots will be repossessed. They will now be out of a job and with no robot. The poor would get left over food from the kindness of people with robots? They'll certainly never work again.
    - narrator 9y ago