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This honestly sounds like something that reason.com should approve of. Libertarians are very often willing to defend terms that seem exploitative on the grounds

This honestly sounds like something that reason.com should approve of. Libertarians are very often willing to defend terms that seem exploitative on the grounds that people would be even worse off without them: - Fast-food workers' wages might seem unfair, but if we raised the minimum wage, they wouldn't have jobs at all. - Price gouging might seem unfair, but without it, people wouldn't be taking water and supplies to disaster areas at all. - Sweatshops conditions might seem unfair, but without them, companies wouldn't set up in those locations at all, and workers would be even poorer working on farms. So, given that prisoners aren't being forced to use these tablets, and they're still allowed to read paperback books that people send exactly as before, why isn't Reason arguing: - Charging per-minute to read free ebooks might seem unfair, but the alternative is no donated tablets at all.

bobowzki 7y ago
You make a lot of claims that would benefit from being backed up by a reference or two. Too me, most of your statements seems very much like false dilemmas.
- tssva 7y ago
  I suggest rereading the original comment. You seem to have misunderstood the statements made as ones the commenter believes and is presenting as fact.
  - bobowzki 7y ago
    Thanks! Yes you are right! Seems he/she is basically making the same point as I.
didgeoridoo 7y ago
If you don’t understand why Reason is against this, you have no idea how most mainstream libertarians think. The tablets aren’t “donated”. They are part of a scummy deal wherein the prison picks one company that they want to buy them from, makes all other tablets illegal, and takes a kickback from the fees. While it is arguably “better than nothing”, it would truly be better if the prisons were not allowed to exercise this level of cruel and arbitrary control over prisoners’ educational prospects. Reason (and most libertarians) have been very consistent about the need to break down the prison-industrial complex, and in calling for an end to crony capitalist self-dealing.
- pgcj_poster 7y ago
  > While it is arguably “better than nothing”, it would truly be better if the prisons were not allowed to exercise this level of cruel and arbitrary control over prisoners’ educational prospects. Sure, and this is basically the same reason that people get upset about sweatshop labor: if companies weren't so relentless in profit-seeking, they could afford to give workers a better choice than the one between subsistence farming and sweatshop labor. But libertarians tend shrug their shoulders and say "well that won't happen, so you should be happy that people at least don't have to work on farms anymore." Likewise, prisons are moving from giving prisoners a choice among zero tablet offerings to a choice of one tablet offering. So according to the above reasoning, libertarians should be happy to see a small improvement; this article should be saying "this is a good step, but we've got a ways to go." But that's definitely not the impression I'm getting from the article. From this I can only conclude that libertarians are willing to tell others to be happy for small incremental improvements over a bad situation in a system they like (Capitalism), but aren't willing to do the same when it comes to a system they dislike (Prisons).
  - Craighead 7y ago
    Find the answer to: "where did the books go?"
dantheman 7y ago
It's hard to tell if this is serious comment or not. Criminal justice reform and the defense of the civil liberties of prisoners are core tenants of the libertarian platform. As to your points above, those are about understanding the systemic effects of interventions, about understanding the second order effects.
perl4ever 7y ago
"Libertarians are very often willing to defend terms that seem exploitative" I think that's backwards. Many people want to defend exploitative things, and one quite popular way to do that is to frame them as being libertarian. Not unlike communism, democracy, patriotism, etc.

bobowzki 7y ago

You make a lot of claims that would benefit from being backed up by a reference or two. Too me, most of your statements seems very much like false dilemmas.

tssva 7y ago
I suggest rereading the original comment. You seem to have misunderstood the statements made as ones the commenter believes and is presenting as fact.
- bobowzki 7y ago
  Thanks! Yes you are right! Seems he/she is basically making the same point as I.

didgeoridoo 7y ago

If you don’t understand why Reason is against this, you have no idea how most mainstream libertarians think. The tablets aren’t “donated”. They are part of a scummy deal wherein the prison picks one company that they want to buy them from, makes all other tablets illegal, and takes a kickback from the fees. While it is arguably “better than nothing”, it would truly be better if the prisons were not allowed to exercise this level of cruel and arbitrary control over prisoners’ educational prospects. Reason (and most libertarians) have been very consistent about the need to break down the prison-industrial complex, and in calling for an end to crony capitalist self-dealing.

pgcj_poster 7y ago
> While it is arguably “better than nothing”, it would truly be better if the prisons were not allowed to exercise this level of cruel and arbitrary control over prisoners’ educational prospects. Sure, and this is basically the same reason that people get upset about sweatshop labor: if companies weren't so relentless in profit-seeking, they could afford to give workers a better choice than the one between subsistence farming and sweatshop labor. But libertarians tend shrug their shoulders and say "well that won't happen, so you should be happy that people at least don't have to work on farms anymore." Likewise, prisons are moving from giving prisoners a choice among zero tablet offerings to a choice of one tablet offering. So according to the above reasoning, libertarians should be happy to see a small improvement; this article should be saying "this is a good step, but we've got a ways to go." But that's definitely not the impression I'm getting from the article. From this I can only conclude that libertarians are willing to tell others to be happy for small incremental improvements over a bad situation in a system they like (Capitalism), but aren't willing to do the same when it comes to a system they dislike (Prisons).
- Craighead 7y ago
  Find the answer to: "where did the books go?"

dantheman 7y ago

It's hard to tell if this is serious comment or not. Criminal justice reform and the defense of the civil liberties of prisoners are core tenants of the libertarian platform. As to your points above, those are about understanding the systemic effects of interventions, about understanding the second order effects.

perl4ever 7y ago

"Libertarians are very often willing to defend terms that seem exploitative" I think that's backwards. Many people want to defend exploitative things, and one quite popular way to do that is to frame them as being libertarian. Not unlike communism, democracy, patriotism, etc.