13 ms·

The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

80 points by zackhsi 6y ago

roenxi 6y ago
This raises an interesting follow up question. Do those surveyed consider themselves to be the wealthy? Or do they expect someone else to be making do with less to make the redistributive policies work?
- sandoooo 6y ago
  perhaps they are wealthy but they expect the much-more-taxable middle class to pick up the tab. Which is in fact the most likely outcome.
Lazare 6y ago
> So their overall approach is unique: Let the markets operate how they should and redistribute income after the fact. Some people have called this new type of political animal the “liberaltarian.” That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services, enviable ranking on most indexes of economic freedom (eg, https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking?version=638 https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking?version=638), and so forth, and so on. Letting the markets be relatively free to generate money, capturing it via efficient flat taxes (first and foremost, a consumption tax), and using it to fund an effective social safety net targeted at the poor is not a unique idea, it's what some parts of Northern Europe has been doing for the past 40 years. Maybe they meant "unique in the US political debate".
- TrueGeek 6y ago
  > Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services I’ve heard many US Libertarians say that they want the US Fire services completely privatized. We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for. The competition would drive down prices as there would be a free market of many such providers. This is not what Denmark is doing. Denmark has traditional fire departments paid by the government. It’s almost entirely a single company and that company is almost entirely owned by a non-profit organization.
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    > We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for I don't think this would work very well, because I do want my neighbors to pay for fire-fighting services in case their house is set on fire. Moreover, to a proportionally lesser extent, I want their neighbors to pay for the same thing, and so on. There are a whole lot of cross-externalities that can't be dealt with easily via private contracting, so we need the government to step in and provide a sensible "default" that's not simply "no one gets any fire-fighting protection unless they pay for a private service".
    - simonh 6y ago
      It does sound horribly risky. I suppose in theory you could mandate basic levels of insurance, a bit like mandatory car insurance, but you'd probably end up with a costly, patchy mess like the US health system.
      - burger_moon 6y ago
        How many people drive around without insurance right now though and even people who don't have driver's license. It just isn't practical to think people will do it, especially when times get tough. If I'm choosing which bill to pay, I'll take the water bill over the insurance bill
      - zozbot234 6y ago
        Mandatory car insurance is usually liability insurance, that is comparatively easy to regulate while leaving other things like pricing to the market. Liability for a car accident also sounds somewhat more manageable than liability for a fire on your house spreading to your neighbors' - I think you're right that requiring insurance for that would be overly messy.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Why? If you have fire service and you neighbors house starts on fire they go ask if your neighbor wants the fire out now at much greater cost. If not they watch it burn until it shows signs of spreading to your house at which point they put it out and sue for much more because they failed to contain their fire.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Denmark has no minimum wage because it has a very strong union sector. So collective bargaining ensures there's an effective minimum wage equivalent. Which is why Denmark is also much less free market than the US. Businesses operate under strong social constraints, and power structures aren't one-sidedly pro-business/pro-corporate.
  - lixtra 6y ago
    > very strong union sector Why is this not free market? Employees are part of the market as well. At some point you may argue that the unions form a cartel maybe. But that is another sign of a free (from state) market
    - Barrin92 6y ago
      for one because the government mandates every business over a certain size (IIRC 50 employees or so) to vote on unionization which is then binding. The Nordic countries aren't "free market" by any American definition of the term. They're corporatist/tripartite economies. This has just become a fashionable talking point among the mentioned 'liberaltarians', like the Niskanen Center, who invented the term to my knowledge. I think it's mostly a PR campaign because if you frame social democracy as being free-market it just sounds nicer to the center of the American political spectrum. A lot of of labour protection that you don't find in the US nonetheless exists, like 1 year+ of paid maternity leave, usually at least 5 weeks of paid vacation per year, ~35-40 hour work weeks and so on. When people talk about free market aspects they usually mention school vouchers and such and selectively pick a few things where the government is more hands off. As the article mentions Uber/ridesharing as a yardstick, take note that Uber withdrew from the Danish market in 2017 after facing regulation, in Norway only Uber Lux is still active after facing fines, and the same happened in Finland. In Sweden Uber still operates in three cities but all drivers require taxi licenses.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        > for one because the government mandates every business over a certain size (IIRC 50 employees or so) to vote on unionization which is then binding. To me, this sound like a guarantee of greater worker freedom than anything else. Somehow economic “freedom” in the US seems to equate to corporate structures where CEOs and other managers have immense power over the lives of hundreds or thousands of workers (including their ability to get healthcare), with almost no counterbalancing force. Implementing this kind of rule seems a pretty sane check on that level of authoritarianism, no? Beyond a certain level, the workers actually have to be given a say themselves?
- nabla9 6y ago
  > That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Not really. We still believe in market regulation like any sane approach to market does. Well functioning markets are made, they don't just emerge if you remove regulation (except when conditions are just right by accident). Liberaltarian approach is ideological approach to markets that ignores all research into markets.
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    Not to say yes or no, could you link that research? I'd love to deep dive into it.
    - gvd 6y ago
      Markets are reactionary and thus too slow.
      - bumby 6y ago
        I think many would argue regulations are also reactionary (I.e., there were no laws to prohibit an action because it wasn’t anticipated until after it happened). Example: there were no laws preventing diluting stock during a hostile takeover until after Vanderbilt tried buying out the Erie Railroad and diluting stock was a way to swindle him [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_War#Watered-down_stocks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_War#Watered-down_stocks
        dwaltrip 6y ago
        You get this, but it is worth stating explicitly. They react to different types things. Both types are important, which is why we need markets as well as some amount of regulation.
    - DebtDeflation 6y ago
      Just grab a freshman level microeconomics textbook. The conditions under which a market is efficient have been well known for decades - lack of externalities, no transaction costs, symmetrical information, enough buyers and sellers that everyone is a price taker, etc. My undergrad was in Econ and it drives me nuts how frequently this debate turns into a "free markets are always best vs die capitalism!" false dichotomy.
- DavidVoid 6y ago
  Here's another relevant comparison between Nordic countries and the U.S. Country | Labor union density Sweden | 66.1% Norway | 52.5% Denmark | 67.2% Finland | 66.4% Iceland | 90.4% U.S.A. | 10.3% Legally mandated minimum wages are needed in the U.S. due to the lack of strong unions.
- paganel 6y ago
  Scaling what Denmark is doing for its population of ~5 million to the 300+ million people of the US is way harder than it looks at a first sight. To say nothing of the way more diverse human capital of the US.
  - DavidVoid 6y ago
    I don't think it's really a problem of scale, it's more of a problem of a lack of worker's rights and strong labor unions.
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    ==To say nothing of the way more diverse human capital of the US.== It actually sounds like there is something you want to say about human capital diversity. Why not say it?
    - paganel 6y ago
      Say what? That the US still has to handle the slavery thing that it got herself into since its very inception while Denmark doesn’t have that problem? I thought that was common knowledge. We (Romania) have the same problem with our Roma population that we “de-slaved” in the 1860s (so pretty much at the same time as slavery was abolished in the States) and during all this time we have had problems similar to the US (even though color-blindness is more pronounced in here, there aren’t that many people calling my brother and mother “gipsy” because of their brownish skin-color, because we all live a “Romanian” life). After we entered the EU that Roma population mostly emigrated to wealthier countries out West, including Denmark, which wealthier countries were as bad as us at integrating them (including the beloved Denmark or Norway). All this to say that seeing many Americans in here daydreaming about life in countries like Denmark or Sweden is very ubermensch-y. Yes, when you have a small, privileged and mostly white population things are easy, only when it gets mixed up things start becoming complicated.
      - take_a_breath 6y ago
        ==That the US still has to handle the slavery thing that it got herself into since its very inception while Denmark doesn’t have that problem? I thought that was common knowledge.== The Danish West India Company? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_West_India_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_West_India_Company ==Yes, when you have a small, privileged and mostly white population things are easy, only when it gets mixed up things start becoming complicated.== Not sure where you are going, but you seem to equate “culture” to “laws”. People aren’t pining for the culture of Norway and Denmark, they want the economic policies and Norway and Denmark. We could pass distributionary legislation regardless of how many “white” people we have. It sounds like a cop-out.
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  Nordic model is interesting but one has to look at it through the perspective of the local culture and mentality. Something that has been working in Sweden for 20 years,may never work in the US and so on. Also, the education system played a huge role in shaping those countries. I remember going to the underground in Helsinki and to my surprise seeing no barriers: people were still paying and I saw very very few who weren't doing it(there were very few ticket inspectors). There are quite a few countries in Europe alone where such a system would collapse within a month.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    There are more ticket inspectors on the Helsinki metro than you'd think. Anyone trying to freeload is bound to get caught within a few days, the fine is large, and it goes on your credit report so it can really affect your life. Also note that the Helsinki metro model is very similar to that in Vienna, so not a distinctly Nordic high-trust thing.
    - cosmodisk 6y ago
      I lived in Helsinki for a year about 12 years ago. Taking a ride without paying was doable.Tried to do the same in Copenhagen- had to change the train like 5 times for the sake of going 3 stops further,as there were so many inspectors. Stockholm,on the other hand, had barriers but I used to see people jumping them all the time, especially in the evening,at night.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    That is considered best practices in the transport world. Most people pay, so assume everyone did, remove the slow checks that ensure everyone paid and randomly check to ensure people do. Gates focr people to pay, but they slow the whole system down and you want your transportation system to feel as good as or better than driving.
- thomasahle 6y ago
  > Letting the markets be relatively free to generate money, capturing it via efficient flat taxes (first and foremost, a consumption tax) Danish income tax is certainly progressive rather than flat [1]. That's important for keeping inequality low, which again promotes social mobility and trust--crucial for an efficient free market. [1]: https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2244281 https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2244281
xondono 6y ago
Maybe it’s that I have very weird friends, but pretty much no libertarian I’ve met has defended zero redistribution. They all hate the way it’s done now, and favor other arrangements like a negative income tax or UBI (as a substitute for government-run services). I haven’t seen all the questionnaire, but the questions shown in the article could be read both ways.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends. Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    Redistribution is about giving everyone a stake in upholding a free society for everyone else. That's what actually makes for "freedom, as much as possible". The point is that we're doing it in almost the worst possible way; putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit. UBI or NIT would be a vast improvement on what most developed countries (including the U.S.) are doing now.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit I suppose "all that much" is the key term. Is European style redistribution (aka a nice flat, utilities, TV and smartphone, clothing, health insurance, food and cash money to spend on whatever you please) not all that much? It's not like we're wasting 90% of taxes on administrative overhead, so I'm not sure what could be improved there, without adding more "undue and costly burden" on those who work, unless you're suggesting taxing e.g. capital gains rather than income.
      - 6y ago
incompatible 6y ago
The low-regulation approach seem great until you find out how far businesses will go to cut their costs and increase profits: you end up with situations like flammable cladding installed on high-rise towers, horse meat sold as beef, or bleach sold as a cure for Covid-19 (one of these may be fictional). The line between legitimate business and scam becomes impossible to define.
- AdrianB1 6y ago
  This is not a problem of regulation, but a problem of law enforcement; there is no need or regulation "don't sell horse meat as beef", but to remove the US legal system plague of settlements where companies pay money to get rid of investigations and claim "they have no fault". I know a real case of horse meat sold as beef in UK and they have lots of regulations (including the EU on top of local). You can put all the rules and laws in the book, but don't just relax and hope all will be obeyed. As some SCOTUS decision stated a while ago, some laws and regulations are made so dense and confusing it is almost impossible to comply to the letter - they were talking about something as simple as driving a car on a public road.
  - bovermyer 6y ago
    Um, you can't have law enforcement without laws to enforce...
    - itsumoiru 6y ago
      The law that applies/ought to apply is the one against fraud in the beef example.
      - take_a_breath 6y ago
        One must first outline what “beef” is before you can assign fraud. Outlining what makes something “beef” is textbook regulation.
        6y ago
zozbot234 6y ago
This is by no means a new political stance: liberaltarians used to be known as "left-wing libertarians" or, somewhat jocularly, "bleeding-heart libertarians" but the gist was pretty much the same.
- kijin 6y ago
  Yep, there is indeed such a thing as left-libertarianism. Last time I checked, its proponents were trying pretty hard to argue that it's not an outright contradiction.
  - Kbelicius 6y ago
    > Yep, there is indeed such a thing as left-libertarianism. Last time I checked, its proponents were trying pretty hard to argue that it's not an outright contradiction. How is it a contradiction?
    - alexmingoia 6y ago
      Libertarianism is essentially built on a single ethic, the non-aggression principle, which is simply that interfering with someone’s property by force is wrong. And that property is what one mixes their labor with. In other words people own the fruits of their labor, and consequently voluntary exchange or gift is the only ethical way to acquire property. In simpler words, libertarians believe stealing is wrong and seek to apply that ethic consistently. Thus the popular libertarian maxim “tax is theft”. According to libertarians government as it’s currently practiced steals (takes by force) the fruits of individual’s labor called taxation, along with compelling the use of property through force, called regulation. The argument is more complicated than this but that’s the essence. So “left libertarians” supporting taxation for the purposes of welfare programs contradicts the ethical foundation of libertarianism. It’s a contradiction to advocate for the lack of government regulation on the basis of violating libertarian ethics while simultaneously advocating for welfare programs which violate that same ethic.
      - Kbelicius 6y ago
omosubi 6y ago
It's been odd to see my own reaction and that of my friends to the move of the left towards solely social justice issues in the last few weeks. I've been talking to friends and we all dislike the inane focus on "white fragility", wokeness and performative activism in the form of posting your reading on Instagram. The democratic party's lack of interest in doing anything meaningful is pushing people away - Hopefully liberaltarians form a new party of some sort and break the logjam of the two party system. It's what we sorely need right now.
- 0xy 6y ago
  If I was voting on social justice lines, I don't think I'd be voting for the party behind the 1994 Crime Bill, massive surveillance expansions and the sale of military weapons and vehicles to police forces [1] [2] [3] [4]. [1] https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-1033-military-equipment-weapons/ https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-10... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act#Legacy_and_impacts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_... [4] https://www.insidesources.com/joe-bidens-record-on-privacy-may-give-democrats-pause/ https://www.insidesources.com/joe-bidens-record-on-privacy-m...
- DebtDeflation 6y ago
  >the inane focus on "white fragility" The author of this book is a white lady who uses the book as a marketing tool to sell her diversity training and consulting services to corporations. I'm not making a value judgement on that, but I think it's important information to have. There's a reason why big companies across the country latched onto that particular book, it was tailor made for them.
  - omosubi 6y ago
    Yeah exactly, the whole thing is a charade. Want to see white fragility? Ask CEOs to release compensation numbers for all their employees or provide health/dental/vision insurance for retail workers or any number of things that actually improve people's lives.
loraa 6y ago
I dunno. Kinda seems like common sense.
tantalor 6y ago
Aka "bleeding-heart libertarianism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_liberalism
egberts 6y ago
Thorniest issue of the Libertarian Party, Libertarians, and libertarians is the issue of “BLM”. They’ve yet to reconcile their ideology with the use of the acronym, “BLM”. There is black lives matter. This is an unwavering fact and we hold these truth to be self-evident. Then there is “BLM” as in the organization which stands for Black Lives Matter. The real issue is that BLM is an avowed Marxist organization as evidenced by several cofounders touting Marxism on social media. The libertarian ideology and Marxism ideology are not compatible. Steps must be made to ensure that black lives matter is stressed while denouncing the cofounders’ ideology. A classic disingenuous use of acronym.
nickpp 6y ago
Isn’t it kind of ridiculous when you have to make up such words ‘cause you insist describing people’s complex preference and belief system on a single damn dimension?! I am both left and right, depending what issue we are talking about. And sometime I am center as well. Yet when it’s time to vote... I have exactly 2 real choices.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  Yeah, I can't stand it. I'm conservative on some issues and progressive on others. I think some industries benefit from free markets while others are better run by the state. I think the current "left" is leaning towards totalitarianism which was just a few years ago called "right". It's ridiculous.
- lettergram 6y ago
  I wrote about that here: https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/ https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/ I think in part that’s why we have polarization. We have two extremes pulling each party apart, social media (as this article suggests) is pushing the left. The right is largely getting disenfranchised so they are getting more fanatical. It’s a recipe for an eventual civil war or at the very least the road to dictatorship. To be honest, both sides are leaning towards some sort of fascism. I explain in my post above, I don’t see a way out of it unless some republicans and democrats decide to team up and get this country back together.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    I think that's mostly accurate, but I think it's the social media companies who are pushing the left. There are, or until recently were, plenty of moderate and right-wing people on social media, but the companies have so many ways of tilting the scale in favor of their preferred political views, they've intentionally created echo chambers where only far-left political opinions are acceptable. And that leaves people feeling disenfranchised because a few companies now own the means of communication, and there are no good alternatives for people who are silenced by these companies.
amINeolib 6y ago
My relationship with politics and economics is complicated like it should be. I "stay in the center of the circle" as Tao Te Ching advises, but I also cannot deny the superiority of the Free Market. (Not to be confused with whatever the United States does for healthcare). We have countless examples of competitive markets performing best, and a handful of government controlled markets that are horrible (healthcare, education, real estate, banking) Some people call this inevitable in capitalism, that government will be used to create inequality. But at least this is not intended, whereas other economic policies make this a feature. Anyway, can't vote for Republicans, they like big government which seems like an obvious bad idea.
- webmaven 6y ago
  Free markets are one of the most powerful tools we have available, but that very same power makes them very dangerous to wield. I don't want competive markets in human organs for transplants no matter HOW much better they would perform.
helen___keller 6y ago
In most of the world, the political compass is described in 2 dimensions. So, "liberaltarian" would just be lib left
- UncleSlacky 6y ago
  Libertarianism itself originated in the left (with French anarchists and early socialists) - it's the right-wing or ancap version that's effectively stolen the name, at least in the US.
  - _0ffh 6y ago
    Yes, but only after they got the term "liberal" stolen away from them. Herbert Spencer complained about that as early as 1884.
- Zarel 6y ago
  The political compass is split into two axes: social and economic. "Left libertarian" on that compass means "socially libertarian, economically left". "Liberaltarians" as described in this article split the economic axis further, since they're anti-regulation (generally considered economically right) and pro-redistribution (generally considered economically left).
ourmandave 6y ago
As founders and CEOs, couldn’t their antipathy to government regulation simply be explained by self-interest? Broockman: I’m sure that at least some of their political views have to do with self-interest. I'm pro-Left everything, except when it effects my huge revenue stream. Go figure.
Proven 6y ago
I would not say they are liberal (in the classic sense). They may be not socially conservative but they have strong statist and even fascist tendencies - just look how they censor speech (where and when they can) and how they use their influence to establish a government of their choice. While that may seem how democracy is supposed to work, if they were libertarian they would want a smaller government, not just a government they like. So the other claim from the effing article is also false, that they are against regulation. They are only against regulation of their affairs. but they are very much for increased regulation of others and we can be sure if they had more power they would expand taxation or debt issuance, as well as increase censorship of content they see undesirable. Not libertarian at all.

80 points by zackhsi 6y ago

This raises an interesting follow up question. Do those surveyed consider themselves to be the wealthy? Or do they expect someone else to be making do with less to make the redistributive policies work?

sandoooo 6y ago
perhaps they are wealthy but they expect the much-more-taxable middle class to pick up the tab. Which is in fact the most likely outcome.

Lazare 6y ago

> So their overall approach is unique: Let the markets operate how they should and redistribute income after the fact. Some people have called this new type of political animal the “liberaltarian.” That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services, enviable ranking on most indexes of economic freedom (eg, https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking?version=638 https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking?version=638), and so forth, and so on. Letting the markets be relatively free to generate money, capturing it via efficient flat taxes (first and foremost, a consumption tax), and using it to fund an effective social safety net targeted at the poor is not a unique idea, it's what some parts of Northern Europe has been doing for the past 40 years. Maybe they meant "unique in the US political debate".

TrueGeek 6y ago
> Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services I’ve heard many US Libertarians say that they want the US Fire services completely privatized. We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for. The competition would drive down prices as there would be a free market of many such providers. This is not what Denmark is doing. Denmark has traditional fire departments paid by the government. It’s almost entirely a single company and that company is almost entirely owned by a non-profit organization.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for I don't think this would work very well, because I do want my neighbors to pay for fire-fighting services in case their house is set on fire. Moreover, to a proportionally lesser extent, I want their neighbors to pay for the same thing, and so on. There are a whole lot of cross-externalities that can't be dealt with easily via private contracting, so we need the government to step in and provide a sensible "default" that's not simply "no one gets any fire-fighting protection unless they pay for a private service".
  - simonh 6y ago
    It does sound horribly risky. I suppose in theory you could mandate basic levels of insurance, a bit like mandatory car insurance, but you'd probably end up with a costly, patchy mess like the US health system.
    - burger_moon 6y ago
      How many people drive around without insurance right now though and even people who don't have driver's license. It just isn't practical to think people will do it, especially when times get tough. If I'm choosing which bill to pay, I'll take the water bill over the insurance bill
    - zozbot234 6y ago
      Mandatory car insurance is usually liability insurance, that is comparatively easy to regulate while leaving other things like pricing to the market. Liability for a car accident also sounds somewhat more manageable than liability for a fire on your house spreading to your neighbors' - I think you're right that requiring insurance for that would be overly messy.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Why? If you have fire service and you neighbors house starts on fire they go ask if your neighbor wants the fire out now at much greater cost. If not they watch it burn until it shows signs of spreading to your house at which point they put it out and sue for much more because they failed to contain their fire.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Denmark has no minimum wage because it has a very strong union sector. So collective bargaining ensures there's an effective minimum wage equivalent. Which is why Denmark is also much less free market than the US. Businesses operate under strong social constraints, and power structures aren't one-sidedly pro-business/pro-corporate.
- lixtra 6y ago
  > very strong union sector Why is this not free market? Employees are part of the market as well. At some point you may argue that the unions form a cartel maybe. But that is another sign of a free (from state) market
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    for one because the government mandates every business over a certain size (IIRC 50 employees or so) to vote on unionization which is then binding. The Nordic countries aren't "free market" by any American definition of the term. They're corporatist/tripartite economies. This has just become a fashionable talking point among the mentioned 'liberaltarians', like the Niskanen Center, who invented the term to my knowledge. I think it's mostly a PR campaign because if you frame social democracy as being free-market it just sounds nicer to the center of the American political spectrum. A lot of of labour protection that you don't find in the US nonetheless exists, like 1 year+ of paid maternity leave, usually at least 5 weeks of paid vacation per year, ~35-40 hour work weeks and so on. When people talk about free market aspects they usually mention school vouchers and such and selectively pick a few things where the government is more hands off. As the article mentions Uber/ridesharing as a yardstick, take note that Uber withdrew from the Danish market in 2017 after facing regulation, in Norway only Uber Lux is still active after facing fines, and the same happened in Finland. In Sweden Uber still operates in three cities but all drivers require taxi licenses.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      > for one because the government mandates every business over a certain size (IIRC 50 employees or so) to vote on unionization which is then binding. To me, this sound like a guarantee of greater worker freedom than anything else. Somehow economic “freedom” in the US seems to equate to corporate structures where CEOs and other managers have immense power over the lives of hundreds or thousands of workers (including their ability to get healthcare), with almost no counterbalancing force. Implementing this kind of rule seems a pretty sane check on that level of authoritarianism, no? Beyond a certain level, the workers actually have to be given a say themselves?
nabla9 6y ago
> That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Not really. We still believe in market regulation like any sane approach to market does. Well functioning markets are made, they don't just emerge if you remove regulation (except when conditions are just right by accident). Liberaltarian approach is ideological approach to markets that ignores all research into markets.
- TomMarius 6y ago
  Not to say yes or no, could you link that research? I'd love to deep dive into it.
  - gvd 6y ago
    Markets are reactionary and thus too slow.
    - bumby 6y ago
      I think many would argue regulations are also reactionary (I.e., there were no laws to prohibit an action because it wasn’t anticipated until after it happened). Example: there were no laws preventing diluting stock during a hostile takeover until after Vanderbilt tried buying out the Erie Railroad and diluting stock was a way to swindle him [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_War#Watered-down_stocks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_War#Watered-down_stocks
      - dwaltrip 6y ago
        You get this, but it is worth stating explicitly. They react to different types things. Both types are important, which is why we need markets as well as some amount of regulation.
  - DebtDeflation 6y ago
    Just grab a freshman level microeconomics textbook. The conditions under which a market is efficient have been well known for decades - lack of externalities, no transaction costs, symmetrical information, enough buyers and sellers that everyone is a price taker, etc. My undergrad was in Econ and it drives me nuts how frequently this debate turns into a "free markets are always best vs die capitalism!" false dichotomy.
DavidVoid 6y ago
Here's another relevant comparison between Nordic countries and the U.S. Country | Labor union density Sweden | 66.1% Norway | 52.5% Denmark | 67.2% Finland | 66.4% Iceland | 90.4% U.S.A. | 10.3% Legally mandated minimum wages are needed in the U.S. due to the lack of strong unions.
paganel 6y ago
Scaling what Denmark is doing for its population of ~5 million to the 300+ million people of the US is way harder than it looks at a first sight. To say nothing of the way more diverse human capital of the US.
- DavidVoid 6y ago
  I don't think it's really a problem of scale, it's more of a problem of a lack of worker's rights and strong labor unions.
- take_a_breath 6y ago
  ==To say nothing of the way more diverse human capital of the US.== It actually sounds like there is something you want to say about human capital diversity. Why not say it?
  - paganel 6y ago
    Say what? That the US still has to handle the slavery thing that it got herself into since its very inception while Denmark doesn’t have that problem? I thought that was common knowledge. We (Romania) have the same problem with our Roma population that we “de-slaved” in the 1860s (so pretty much at the same time as slavery was abolished in the States) and during all this time we have had problems similar to the US (even though color-blindness is more pronounced in here, there aren’t that many people calling my brother and mother “gipsy” because of their brownish skin-color, because we all live a “Romanian” life). After we entered the EU that Roma population mostly emigrated to wealthier countries out West, including Denmark, which wealthier countries were as bad as us at integrating them (including the beloved Denmark or Norway). All this to say that seeing many Americans in here daydreaming about life in countries like Denmark or Sweden is very ubermensch-y. Yes, when you have a small, privileged and mostly white population things are easy, only when it gets mixed up things start becoming complicated.
    - take_a_breath 6y ago
      ==That the US still has to handle the slavery thing that it got herself into since its very inception while Denmark doesn’t have that problem? I thought that was common knowledge.== The Danish West India Company? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_West_India_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_West_India_Company ==Yes, when you have a small, privileged and mostly white population things are easy, only when it gets mixed up things start becoming complicated.== Not sure where you are going, but you seem to equate “culture” to “laws”. People aren’t pining for the culture of Norway and Denmark, they want the economic policies and Norway and Denmark. We could pass distributionary legislation regardless of how many “white” people we have. It sounds like a cop-out.
cosmodisk 6y ago
Nordic model is interesting but one has to look at it through the perspective of the local culture and mentality. Something that has been working in Sweden for 20 years,may never work in the US and so on. Also, the education system played a huge role in shaping those countries. I remember going to the underground in Helsinki and to my surprise seeing no barriers: people were still paying and I saw very very few who weren't doing it(there were very few ticket inspectors). There are quite a few countries in Europe alone where such a system would collapse within a month.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  There are more ticket inspectors on the Helsinki metro than you'd think. Anyone trying to freeload is bound to get caught within a few days, the fine is large, and it goes on your credit report so it can really affect your life. Also note that the Helsinki metro model is very similar to that in Vienna, so not a distinctly Nordic high-trust thing.
  - cosmodisk 6y ago
    I lived in Helsinki for a year about 12 years ago. Taking a ride without paying was doable.Tried to do the same in Copenhagen- had to change the train like 5 times for the sake of going 3 stops further,as there were so many inspectors. Stockholm,on the other hand, had barriers but I used to see people jumping them all the time, especially in the evening,at night.
- bluGill 6y ago
  That is considered best practices in the transport world. Most people pay, so assume everyone did, remove the slow checks that ensure everyone paid and randomly check to ensure people do. Gates focr people to pay, but they slow the whole system down and you want your transportation system to feel as good as or better than driving.
thomasahle 6y ago
> Letting the markets be relatively free to generate money, capturing it via efficient flat taxes (first and foremost, a consumption tax) Danish income tax is certainly progressive rather than flat [1]. That's important for keeping inequality low, which again promotes social mobility and trust--crucial for an efficient free market. [1]: https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2244281 https://skat.dk/skat.aspx?oid=2244281

xondono 6y ago

Maybe it’s that I have very weird friends, but pretty much no libertarian I’ve met has defended zero redistribution. They all hate the way it’s done now, and favor other arrangements like a negative income tax or UBI (as a substitute for government-run services). I haven’t seen all the questionnaire, but the questions shown in the article could be read both ways.

AdrianB1 6y ago
Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends. Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?
- zozbot234 6y ago
  Redistribution is about giving everyone a stake in upholding a free society for everyone else. That's what actually makes for "freedom, as much as possible". The point is that we're doing it in almost the worst possible way; putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit. UBI or NIT would be a vast improvement on what most developed countries (including the U.S.) are doing now.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit I suppose "all that much" is the key term. Is European style redistribution (aka a nice flat, utilities, TV and smartphone, clothing, health insurance, food and cash money to spend on whatever you please) not all that much? It's not like we're wasting 90% of taxes on administrative overhead, so I'm not sure what could be improved there, without adding more "undue and costly burden" on those who work, unless you're suggesting taxing e.g. capital gains rather than income.
    - 6y ago

incompatible 6y ago

The low-regulation approach seem great until you find out how far businesses will go to cut their costs and increase profits: you end up with situations like flammable cladding installed on high-rise towers, horse meat sold as beef, or bleach sold as a cure for Covid-19 (one of these may be fictional). The line between legitimate business and scam becomes impossible to define.

AdrianB1 6y ago
This is not a problem of regulation, but a problem of law enforcement; there is no need or regulation "don't sell horse meat as beef", but to remove the US legal system plague of settlements where companies pay money to get rid of investigations and claim "they have no fault". I know a real case of horse meat sold as beef in UK and they have lots of regulations (including the EU on top of local). You can put all the rules and laws in the book, but don't just relax and hope all will be obeyed. As some SCOTUS decision stated a while ago, some laws and regulations are made so dense and confusing it is almost impossible to comply to the letter - they were talking about something as simple as driving a car on a public road.
- bovermyer 6y ago
  Um, you can't have law enforcement without laws to enforce...
  - itsumoiru 6y ago
    The law that applies/ought to apply is the one against fraud in the beef example.
    - take_a_breath 6y ago
      One must first outline what “beef” is before you can assign fraud. Outlining what makes something “beef” is textbook regulation.
      - 6y ago

zozbot234 6y ago

This is by no means a new political stance: liberaltarians used to be known as "left-wing libertarians" or, somewhat jocularly, "bleeding-heart libertarians" but the gist was pretty much the same.

kijin 6y ago
Yep, there is indeed such a thing as left-libertarianism. Last time I checked, its proponents were trying pretty hard to argue that it's not an outright contradiction.
- Kbelicius 6y ago
  > Yep, there is indeed such a thing as left-libertarianism. Last time I checked, its proponents were trying pretty hard to argue that it's not an outright contradiction. How is it a contradiction?
  - alexmingoia 6y ago
    Libertarianism is essentially built on a single ethic, the non-aggression principle, which is simply that interfering with someone’s property by force is wrong. And that property is what one mixes their labor with. In other words people own the fruits of their labor, and consequently voluntary exchange or gift is the only ethical way to acquire property. In simpler words, libertarians believe stealing is wrong and seek to apply that ethic consistently. Thus the popular libertarian maxim “tax is theft”. According to libertarians government as it’s currently practiced steals (takes by force) the fruits of individual’s labor called taxation, along with compelling the use of property through force, called regulation. The argument is more complicated than this but that’s the essence. So “left libertarians” supporting taxation for the purposes of welfare programs contradicts the ethical foundation of libertarianism. It’s a contradiction to advocate for the lack of government regulation on the basis of violating libertarian ethics while simultaneously advocating for welfare programs which violate that same ethic.
    - Kbelicius 6y ago

omosubi 6y ago

It's been odd to see my own reaction and that of my friends to the move of the left towards solely social justice issues in the last few weeks. I've been talking to friends and we all dislike the inane focus on "white fragility", wokeness and performative activism in the form of posting your reading on Instagram. The democratic party's lack of interest in doing anything meaningful is pushing people away - Hopefully liberaltarians form a new party of some sort and break the logjam of the two party system. It's what we sorely need right now.

0xy 6y ago
If I was voting on social justice lines, I don't think I'd be voting for the party behind the 1994 Crime Bill, massive surveillance expansions and the sale of military weapons and vehicles to police forces [1] [2] [3] [4]. [1] https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-1033-military-equipment-weapons/ https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/12/police-departments-10... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_mass_surveilla... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act#Legacy_and_impacts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_... [4] https://www.insidesources.com/joe-bidens-record-on-privacy-may-give-democrats-pause/ https://www.insidesources.com/joe-bidens-record-on-privacy-m...
DebtDeflation 6y ago
>the inane focus on "white fragility" The author of this book is a white lady who uses the book as a marketing tool to sell her diversity training and consulting services to corporations. I'm not making a value judgement on that, but I think it's important information to have. There's a reason why big companies across the country latched onto that particular book, it was tailor made for them.
- omosubi 6y ago
  Yeah exactly, the whole thing is a charade. Want to see white fragility? Ask CEOs to release compensation numbers for all their employees or provide health/dental/vision insurance for retail workers or any number of things that actually improve people's lives.

loraa 6y ago

I dunno. Kinda seems like common sense.

tantalor 6y ago

Aka "bleeding-heart libertarianism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_liberalism

egberts 6y ago

Thorniest issue of the Libertarian Party, Libertarians, and libertarians is the issue of “BLM”. They’ve yet to reconcile their ideology with the use of the acronym, “BLM”. There is black lives matter. This is an unwavering fact and we hold these truth to be self-evident. Then there is “BLM” as in the organization which stands for Black Lives Matter. The real issue is that BLM is an avowed Marxist organization as evidenced by several cofounders touting Marxism on social media. The libertarian ideology and Marxism ideology are not compatible. Steps must be made to ensure that black lives matter is stressed while denouncing the cofounders’ ideology. A classic disingenuous use of acronym.

nickpp 6y ago

Isn’t it kind of ridiculous when you have to make up such words ‘cause you insist describing people’s complex preference and belief system on a single damn dimension?! I am both left and right, depending what issue we are talking about. And sometime I am center as well. Yet when it’s time to vote... I have exactly 2 real choices.

globular-toast 6y ago
Yeah, I can't stand it. I'm conservative on some issues and progressive on others. I think some industries benefit from free markets while others are better run by the state. I think the current "left" is leaning towards totalitarianism which was just a few years ago called "right". It's ridiculous.
lettergram 6y ago
I wrote about that here: https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/ https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/ I think in part that’s why we have polarization. We have two extremes pulling each party apart, social media (as this article suggests) is pushing the left. The right is largely getting disenfranchised so they are getting more fanatical. It’s a recipe for an eventual civil war or at the very least the road to dictatorship. To be honest, both sides are leaning towards some sort of fascism. I explain in my post above, I don’t see a way out of it unless some republicans and democrats decide to team up and get this country back together.
- leereeves 6y ago
  I think that's mostly accurate, but I think it's the social media companies who are pushing the left. There are, or until recently were, plenty of moderate and right-wing people on social media, but the companies have so many ways of tilting the scale in favor of their preferred political views, they've intentionally created echo chambers where only far-left political opinions are acceptable. And that leaves people feeling disenfranchised because a few companies now own the means of communication, and there are no good alternatives for people who are silenced by these companies.

amINeolib 6y ago

My relationship with politics and economics is complicated like it should be. I "stay in the center of the circle" as Tao Te Ching advises, but I also cannot deny the superiority of the Free Market. (Not to be confused with whatever the United States does for healthcare). We have countless examples of competitive markets performing best, and a handful of government controlled markets that are horrible (healthcare, education, real estate, banking) Some people call this inevitable in capitalism, that government will be used to create inequality. But at least this is not intended, whereas other economic policies make this a feature. Anyway, can't vote for Republicans, they like big government which seems like an obvious bad idea.

webmaven 6y ago
Free markets are one of the most powerful tools we have available, but that very same power makes them very dangerous to wield. I don't want competive markets in human organs for transplants no matter HOW much better they would perform.

helen___keller 6y ago

In most of the world, the political compass is described in 2 dimensions. So, "liberaltarian" would just be lib left

UncleSlacky 6y ago
Libertarianism itself originated in the left (with French anarchists and early socialists) - it's the right-wing or ancap version that's effectively stolen the name, at least in the US.
- _0ffh 6y ago
  Yes, but only after they got the term "liberal" stolen away from them. Herbert Spencer complained about that as early as 1884.
Zarel 6y ago
The political compass is split into two axes: social and economic. "Left libertarian" on that compass means "socially libertarian, economically left". "Liberaltarians" as described in this article split the economic axis further, since they're anti-regulation (generally considered economically right) and pro-redistribution (generally considered economically left).

ourmandave 6y ago

As founders and CEOs, couldn’t their antipathy to government regulation simply be explained by self-interest? Broockman: I’m sure that at least some of their political views have to do with self-interest. I'm pro-Left everything, except when it effects my huge revenue stream. Go figure.

Proven 6y ago

I would not say they are liberal (in the classic sense). They may be not socially conservative but they have strong statist and even fascist tendencies - just look how they censor speech (where and when they can) and how they use their influence to establish a government of their choice. While that may seem how democracy is supposed to work, if they were libertarian they would want a smaller government, not just a government they like. So the other claim from the effing article is also false, that they are against regulation. They are only against regulation of their affairs. but they are very much for increased regulation of others and we can be sure if they had more power they would expand taxation or debt issuance, as well as increase censorship of content they see undesirable. Not libertarian at all.