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True libertarians are disgusted by authoritarians. A reduction in the size of the US federal government (and its budget) is long overdue. Both of these things

by sneak 1y ago

True libertarians are disgusted by authoritarians. A reduction in the size of the US federal government (and its budget) is long overdue. Both of these things can be true. It isn’t anti-intellectual to say that most of what the US federal government does would be better performed by private industry. If understanding is your goal, it may be a useful intellectual exercise to internally steelman the counterargument to your own position.

ab5tract 1y ago
> It isn’t anti-intellectual to say that most of what the US federal government does would be better performed by private industry. Considering this is simply a religious statement posing as an assertion of fact, I would argue it is anti-intellectual to an extreme. Please share some libertarian paradises where this has proven true. How’s Kentucky doing again?
kevinventullo 1y ago
It isn’t anti-intellectual to say that most of what the US federal government does would be better performed by private industry. The problem is that industry is inherently narrowly focused in short-to-medium term profitability, and cannot be relied on to carry out work which benefits society as a whole, including many conventionally “intellectual” pursuits such as: educating the populace, or fundamental research with no clear path to monetization. Yes, private schools do both of these things, but in both cases they are only doing so by means of public funding.
- sneak 1y ago
  Some industries are. Many industries do not. Pharmaceutical companies and aerospace companies are frequently investing in long term projects.
  - kevinventullo 1y ago
    Long-term projects with a fairly well-paved path to monetization. If industry was willing to invest in things like pure mathematics, or deep space astronomy, or just generally subsidizing smart people to investigate things they think are interesting, we wouldn’t need the NSF. The point is that the efficiency of the private sector is a Faustian bargain: it comes at the cost of expecting an ROI for the investigators.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    A small minority of the private sector is burning money on long-term investments. Another small minority are burning money on ventures which cannot be monetized. At their intersection, there exists zero companies. Yes, zero. Not close to zero, just zero. And it will always be zero. How will you survive if what you're doing takes both a lot of time and makes no money? Think about something like the FDA. It's a cost sink. The private sector will never do something like that because it's explicitly anti-profit.
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    Aren't both heavily propped up with government funding?
    - sneak 1y ago
      I don’t believe so, no, but even if they were - isn’t funding private businesses to do research (that have a stake in success) better than the state doing it directly and not caring if it works or is effective or not?
      - AdamN 1y ago
        You'd have to make that case. Even the naive answer would be 'no' but I can't think of a reason why a narrowly focused business is better than a government-backed enterprise when it comes to doing research. It's not worse necessarily, but it's not better either.

by sneak 1y ago

ab5tract 1y ago

> It isn’t anti-intellectual to say that most of what the US federal government does would be better performed by private industry. Considering this is simply a religious statement posing as an assertion of fact, I would argue it is anti-intellectual to an extreme. Please share some libertarian paradises where this has proven true. How’s Kentucky doing again?

kevinventullo 1y ago

It isn’t anti-intellectual to say that most of what the US federal government does would be better performed by private industry. The problem is that industry is inherently narrowly focused in short-to-medium term profitability, and cannot be relied on to carry out work which benefits society as a whole, including many conventionally “intellectual” pursuits such as: educating the populace, or fundamental research with no clear path to monetization. Yes, private schools do both of these things, but in both cases they are only doing so by means of public funding.

sneak 1y ago
Some industries are. Many industries do not. Pharmaceutical companies and aerospace companies are frequently investing in long term projects.
- kevinventullo 1y ago
  Long-term projects with a fairly well-paved path to monetization. If industry was willing to invest in things like pure mathematics, or deep space astronomy, or just generally subsidizing smart people to investigate things they think are interesting, we wouldn’t need the NSF. The point is that the efficiency of the private sector is a Faustian bargain: it comes at the cost of expecting an ROI for the investigators.
- const_cast 1y ago
  A small minority of the private sector is burning money on long-term investments. Another small minority are burning money on ventures which cannot be monetized. At their intersection, there exists zero companies. Yes, zero. Not close to zero, just zero. And it will always be zero. How will you survive if what you're doing takes both a lot of time and makes no money? Think about something like the FDA. It's a cost sink. The private sector will never do something like that because it's explicitly anti-profit.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  Aren't both heavily propped up with government funding?
  - sneak 1y ago
    I don’t believe so, no, but even if they were - isn’t funding private businesses to do research (that have a stake in success) better than the state doing it directly and not caring if it works or is effective or not?
    - AdamN 1y ago
      You'd have to make that case. Even the naive answer would be 'no' but I can't think of a reason why a narrowly focused business is better than a government-backed enterprise when it comes to doing research. It's not worse necessarily, but it's not better either.