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The problem is that the Libertarianism/free-market policies simply don't work. They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financia

The problem is that the Libertarianism/free-market policies simply don't work. They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security and a reasonable quality of life. At some point, continuing to advocate those policies in the face of their outcomes becomes negligence at best.

CryptoPunk 6y ago
The statistical evidence shows that the US has become dramatically more social democratic since the 1960s, so any problems that have emerged can be attributed to social democracy, not libertarianism. See the effect of public sector unions and collective bargaining on public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839935 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... (copy-pasting) Every Western nation has massively increased social welfare spending over the last 50 years. Some more than others. Look at the US for example: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-in-government-spending/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-... Annual spending growth (inflation adjusted) on various components of social welfare spending (1972 - 2011): >Pensions and retirement: 4.4% >Healthcare: 5.7% >Welfare: 4.1% Annual economic growth over the time frame: >2.7% I have to reiterate that this is annual growth. Many people have turned around and said "4% over 40 years is nothing", missing the fact that it's not 4% over 40 years. It's 4.8% every year, over a span of 40 years. This represents a massive shift to social democracy. And the shift has been associated with plummeting labour productivity growth, plummeting wage growth, a slowdown in life expectancy gains, and an explosion in single parenthood: http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewatch.org/500-rise-in-single-parenthood-fueling-family-poverty-in-maine/ http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewa... More generally, there's a negative correlation between government spending levels as a percentage of GDP, and economic growth rates. Your implication, that society is better off with high levels of taxation, is not supported by the science on the matter. The evidence strongly suggests economic development is most rapidly achieved through adoption of pro-market policies. The last 30 years has seen the largest most rapid reduction in the global poverty rate in human history, and almost all the decline in poverty was due to economic development, which economists have concluded was massively facilitated by the spread of market institutions like property rights: 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol... 2. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-gl... 3. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end... There is no reason to assume that this relationship between pro-market policies and high rates of economic growth stops existing for advanced economies. We see indications of it manifesting across the developed world, like the superior performance of Hong Kong and Singapore relative to other developed economies, or Iceland relative to other Nordic countries, or in cross-European studies correlating low tax rates with high economic growth rates. Economic growth is the primary source of all improvements in quality of life, so we should have policies that maximize it. It is how an advanced economy comes to be that way.
- jahewson 6y ago
  Apples and oranges here, the US is not a developing nation. The single largest contributor to the decrease in global poverty you cite is a communist country.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > The single largest contributor to the decrease in global poverty you cite is a communist country. This is debatable, as all CCP statistics are. The Chinese peasant class (hundresds of millions of people) in 2020 is not paid enough to plant their crops. That's absurd, since even on a good day China is major food importer - you don't disincentivize your own farmers from growing in a situation like that. The statistic you're talking about is a top-down demand by the CCP that local officials claim a per capita income is met to get their own bonuses. Guess what - the officials all say they're 100% in compliance, as always.
  - in3d 6y ago
    A communist nation that realized that the communist way of state ownership and central planning doesn't work and implemented private ownership and a market-based, capitalistic approach to their economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform
    - 8note 6y ago
      Cuba would be an example otherwise? Despite having the nearby superpower trying their hardest to destroy Cuba, their communist system continues to work fine
      - CryptoPunk 6y ago
        Cuba is an abysmal failure. People have their occupations set by the government, depend on meager monthly state rations, and have almost no disposal income for consumer purchases. That's why people flee Cuba for the US and not the other way around.
mindslight 6y ago
I agree about the negligence, but additionally it's dishonest to talk about libertarian free market policies (for or against) without acknowledging the central bank and its current mission of grossly inflating the currency supply to force most everybody to work continuously. If the middle and lower classes could benefit from increasing productivity with reduced consumer prices, and were allowed to build wealth by saving currency instead of having it eroded away and existing hand to mouth, then they'd have a fighting chance to wield some market power. As it is, they're stuck on the rent treadmill that extracts wealth upwards.
- WaxProlix 6y ago
  Can you say a little more or link some resources giving a solid link between central banking, inflation, and forcing people to work continuously? It's an interesting premise and I, like others, dislike the notion that I'll have to work on a treadmill for most of my life. But I don't see the 1-3% inflation rate as more than a sort of incentive to invest in equities (which I also resent), rather than a means of keeping the lower classes away from the fruits of increased productivity.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    It's wrong, of course; deflation is not a paradise and even countries which have been pushed into negative interest rates (Switzerland) you still have to work.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    Figuring out how the inflation rate is even calculated involves reading through a ~100 page manual. And while the formula are pretty simple, the consequences are actually pretty confusing (eg, if the basket is re-weighted to what people are buying, how feasible is it for inflation to increase faster than wages even if price levels on most goods increase faster than inflation? Are those items naturally removed from the index?). On the other hand, the M2 monetary aggregate is actually simple - and can be used to find a rough estimate of what % of "the money" an asset entitles somebody to. If you bought a block of gold in, say, 1990, and use the BLS inflation rate it claims you've made substantial real returns over the last 30 years which seems extremely fishy for owning a pet rock. If you calculate what % of the M2 money supply it entitles you to on the other hand its value is about the same. Slightly less, if my figures are right. Seems much more reasonable, the economy should be gaining value faster than a block of metal. Basically the sort of people who say complain about central banks and inflation are usually the sort of people who can't understand why everyone is so excited about the inflation rate. The issue is availability of assets which are what is needed to retire or live with a sense of financial security (it is 2020, productivity is off the charts - by the numbers people shouldn't need to work full time to live comfortably). M2 deflator instead of inflation also explains circumstantial stuff like why there was a large unhappy population who voted in Trump, or why the population seems to be a bit tense about money despite apparent real growth.
AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
What is your means for gauging what "works"? To where do you point as your evidence? I ask, mainly because the notion that "libertarian" policies (of both left and right varieties) have been tried in the modern era is a pretty big stretch, to me. Not even the shallowest stuff people typically refer to, like marijuana decriminalization/legalization laws, qualify as "libertarian" policies. All the states that have legal weed also tax & regulate it heavily with specialized state controls, so we can't call it 'libertarian' in the least. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding about what libertarianism is - not to worry, though, because that's pretty common and says nothing about you otherwise. Libertarianism is a radical political position to take; it does not fit neatly into today's political infrastructure. By suggesting it fails to address X, Y, or Z, you are simply projecting your own values onto a system which does not share them with you. > They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security Libertarians have absolutely no interest in solving this problem. They are not trying to run peoples' lives, they are trying to relieve the people of the power that currently is wielded against them by the state and its cronies. The intent is to liberate people, so that they may be uninhibited in their pursuit of voluntary, peaceful interactions with others. What one chooses to do with this liberation is entirely up to them, and that's what being human is all about. You are of course free to disagree all you want with these perspectives, but attacking libertarianism in the way you do isn't exactly fair.
danans 6y ago
> They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security and a reasonable quality of life. But that's not a goal of Libertarianism. If anything, it if that problem were addressed, it would be an indication of Libertarianism's failure to meet its Social Darwinist objectives.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

The statistical evidence shows that the US has become dramatically more social democratic since the 1960s, so any problems that have emerged can be attributed to social democracy, not libertarianism. See the effect of public sector unions and collective bargaining on public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839935 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/111/3/671/1839... (copy-pasting) Every Western nation has massively increased social welfare spending over the last 50 years. Some more than others. Look at the US for example: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-in-government-spending/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-... Annual spending growth (inflation adjusted) on various components of social welfare spending (1972 - 2011): >Pensions and retirement: 4.4% >Healthcare: 5.7% >Welfare: 4.1% Annual economic growth over the time frame: >2.7% I have to reiterate that this is annual growth. Many people have turned around and said "4% over 40 years is nothing", missing the fact that it's not 4% over 40 years. It's 4.8% every year, over a span of 40 years. This represents a massive shift to social democracy. And the shift has been associated with plummeting labour productivity growth, plummeting wage growth, a slowdown in life expectancy gains, and an explosion in single parenthood: http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewatch.org/500-rise-in-single-parenthood-fueling-family-poverty-in-maine/ http://web.archive.org/web/20170529115412/https://pinetreewa... More generally, there's a negative correlation between government spending levels as a percentage of GDP, and economic growth rates. Your implication, that society is better off with high levels of taxation, is not supported by the science on the matter. The evidence strongly suggests economic development is most rapidly achieved through adoption of pro-market policies. The last 30 years has seen the largest most rapid reduction in the global poverty rate in human history, and almost all the decline in poverty was due to economic development, which economists have concluded was massively facilitated by the spread of market institutions like property rights: 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol... 2. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-gl... 3. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end... There is no reason to assume that this relationship between pro-market policies and high rates of economic growth stops existing for advanced economies. We see indications of it manifesting across the developed world, like the superior performance of Hong Kong and Singapore relative to other developed economies, or Iceland relative to other Nordic countries, or in cross-European studies correlating low tax rates with high economic growth rates. Economic growth is the primary source of all improvements in quality of life, so we should have policies that maximize it. It is how an advanced economy comes to be that way.

jahewson 6y ago
Apples and oranges here, the US is not a developing nation. The single largest contributor to the decrease in global poverty you cite is a communist country.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > The single largest contributor to the decrease in global poverty you cite is a communist country. This is debatable, as all CCP statistics are. The Chinese peasant class (hundresds of millions of people) in 2020 is not paid enough to plant their crops. That's absurd, since even on a good day China is major food importer - you don't disincentivize your own farmers from growing in a situation like that. The statistic you're talking about is a top-down demand by the CCP that local officials claim a per capita income is met to get their own bonuses. Guess what - the officials all say they're 100% in compliance, as always.
- in3d 6y ago
  A communist nation that realized that the communist way of state ownership and central planning doesn't work and implemented private ownership and a market-based, capitalistic approach to their economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform
  - 8note 6y ago
    Cuba would be an example otherwise? Despite having the nearby superpower trying their hardest to destroy Cuba, their communist system continues to work fine
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Cuba is an abysmal failure. People have their occupations set by the government, depend on meager monthly state rations, and have almost no disposal income for consumer purchases. That's why people flee Cuba for the US and not the other way around.

mindslight 6y ago

I agree about the negligence, but additionally it's dishonest to talk about libertarian free market policies (for or against) without acknowledging the central bank and its current mission of grossly inflating the currency supply to force most everybody to work continuously. If the middle and lower classes could benefit from increasing productivity with reduced consumer prices, and were allowed to build wealth by saving currency instead of having it eroded away and existing hand to mouth, then they'd have a fighting chance to wield some market power. As it is, they're stuck on the rent treadmill that extracts wealth upwards.

WaxProlix 6y ago
Can you say a little more or link some resources giving a solid link between central banking, inflation, and forcing people to work continuously? It's an interesting premise and I, like others, dislike the notion that I'll have to work on a treadmill for most of my life. But I don't see the 1-3% inflation rate as more than a sort of incentive to invest in equities (which I also resent), rather than a means of keeping the lower classes away from the fruits of increased productivity.
- pjc50 6y ago
  It's wrong, of course; deflation is not a paradise and even countries which have been pushed into negative interest rates (Switzerland) you still have to work.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Figuring out how the inflation rate is even calculated involves reading through a ~100 page manual. And while the formula are pretty simple, the consequences are actually pretty confusing (eg, if the basket is re-weighted to what people are buying, how feasible is it for inflation to increase faster than wages even if price levels on most goods increase faster than inflation? Are those items naturally removed from the index?). On the other hand, the M2 monetary aggregate is actually simple - and can be used to find a rough estimate of what % of "the money" an asset entitles somebody to. If you bought a block of gold in, say, 1990, and use the BLS inflation rate it claims you've made substantial real returns over the last 30 years which seems extremely fishy for owning a pet rock. If you calculate what % of the M2 money supply it entitles you to on the other hand its value is about the same. Slightly less, if my figures are right. Seems much more reasonable, the economy should be gaining value faster than a block of metal. Basically the sort of people who say complain about central banks and inflation are usually the sort of people who can't understand why everyone is so excited about the inflation rate. The issue is availability of assets which are what is needed to retire or live with a sense of financial security (it is 2020, productivity is off the charts - by the numbers people shouldn't need to work full time to live comfortably). M2 deflator instead of inflation also explains circumstantial stuff like why there was a large unhappy population who voted in Trump, or why the population seems to be a bit tense about money despite apparent real growth.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago

What is your means for gauging what "works"? To where do you point as your evidence? I ask, mainly because the notion that "libertarian" policies (of both left and right varieties) have been tried in the modern era is a pretty big stretch, to me. Not even the shallowest stuff people typically refer to, like marijuana decriminalization/legalization laws, qualify as "libertarian" policies. All the states that have legal weed also tax & regulate it heavily with specialized state controls, so we can't call it 'libertarian' in the least. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding about what libertarianism is - not to worry, though, because that's pretty common and says nothing about you otherwise. Libertarianism is a radical political position to take; it does not fit neatly into today's political infrastructure. By suggesting it fails to address X, Y, or Z, you are simply projecting your own values onto a system which does not share them with you. > They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security Libertarians have absolutely no interest in solving this problem. They are not trying to run peoples' lives, they are trying to relieve the people of the power that currently is wielded against them by the state and its cronies. The intent is to liberate people, so that they may be uninhibited in their pursuit of voluntary, peaceful interactions with others. What one chooses to do with this liberation is entirely up to them, and that's what being human is all about. You are of course free to disagree all you want with these perspectives, but attacking libertarianism in the way you do isn't exactly fair.

danans 6y ago

> They've failed to address the growing inability to normal people to have financial security and a reasonable quality of life. But that's not a goal of Libertarianism. If anything, it if that problem were addressed, it would be an indication of Libertarianism's failure to meet its Social Darwinist objectives.