11 ms·

My libertarian vacation nightmare: How Ayn Rand, Ron Paul were all debunked

28 points by kldavis4 12y ago

jottinger 12y ago
The problem is that it's Salon - the writing is really badly biased, doesn't actually understand Libertarianism at all, and is mostly trying to smear Ron Paul.
- kstenerud 12y ago
  The problem is that Libertarians have yet to explain their philosophy in such a way that non-libertarians would understand. "You don't understand" is the most common thing I hear when talking to a Libertarian. After awhile one just gets tired of it.
- anindyabd 12y ago
  This is the genetic fallacy[1] -- you're claiming that the argument is bad because of its source, not its content. If you think the article misappropriates Libertarianism, show how it does that. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
- bko 12y ago
  Author defines Libertarianism as "eliminate all taxes, privatize everything, load a country up with guns and oppose all public expenditures". Not biased at all
  - astrodust 12y ago
    Doesn't sound that far off the mark, actually. Maybe you have a different definition?
- dropit_sphere 12y ago
  https://twitter.com/salondotcom https://twitter.com/salondotcom
- wfo 12y ago
  I'm generally in favor of the flavor of the narrative: a takedown of libertarianism is very much something I enjoy watching, but this is a horribly written article. It's a cringe-fest even I had trouble forcing my way through. The quality of writing is very poor, the points seem disjointed and unrelated. Libertarianism isn't too hard to attack in its honest form, no need for a smear piece like this.
kls 12y ago
He could have easily wrote the same piece about Venezuela and their leftist policy, but that would tread too close to his ideological home. Fact is parts of South America have systemic problems that transcends political dogma, Honduras is not impoverished due to libertarianism no more than Venezuela is due to communism, both are in the state they are in due to corruption which seems to transcend the government duJour of many South American states.
- anindyabd 12y ago
  1. Honduras is in North America. 2. Venezuela has been having troubles recently (it has been very slow to recover from the 2008 crisis) but it is not impoverished by any sense of the word. It has a human development index (HDI) of 0.764, ranking 67 in the world. It has a per capita GDP of $17000. In comparison, Honduras is 129th in the world in terms of HDI, and has a per capita GDP of around $5000. I'm not saying Venezuela is doing well (and its troubles are mostly due to corruption) but it's doing much better than Honduras.
  - eliwjones 12y ago
    1. I see your pedantry and raise you a "Honduras is in Central America"
    - astrodust 12y ago
      Some would argue Central America is a subset of North America.
      - eliwjones 12y ago
        I don't engage devil's advocacy.. only pedantry.
jedharris 12y ago
The only actual refutation this needs is some country that is practicing "real libertarianism" or some approximation and doing well. There are lots of countries out there, isn't there a good example? If not, I'm strongly inclined to think that there's some reason libertarian ideas don't work in practice -- like most theories. The real question then is why an unproven theory gets so much respect.
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  These thing can't be tested in big enough experiments, so often which idea gets popular boil down to which ideas have the simplest logic. The problem with extreme libertarianism is that it assumes completely rational players, who knows exactly what makes them happy. With such players, it is probably great. In reality, humans have rational and non-rational tendencies. We generally don't know what makes us happy. Our long-term desires are often corrupted by our short term desires, resulting in regret (often we let our short term desires get to us, even if we know we will regret it later). We suffer from confirmation bias, presentation bias, weak intuitive understanding of compounding numbers. On top of all that we are also emotional.
- wfo 12y ago
  It gets respect because the wealthy elite benefit from its policies being put into place, and they control the narrative/policy. They whip up the populace into a frenzy about 'freedom', invent/purchase 'grassroots' organizations like the tea party, etc. The ideas don't stand on their own merits without a lot of self-interested wealth propping them up. Which is why libertarianism generally gets laughed out of academic circles; critical analysis without a profit motive generally exposes it for what it is, a method for siphoning wealth from the poor to the rich.
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  Like most discussions about politics, the words are too imprecise to enable meaningful conclusions. Consider the history of the United Kingdom in the second half of the 20th century. Between the 1950s and end of the 1970s the UK was implementing something quite close to communism. The government owned vast swathes of industry, everything from coal mines to steel mills to removal companies and hotels. Government policy was to target full employment at the cost of all else, including inflation. The country was in the grip of extremely powerful unions who had the ability to topple governments. By the end of this era, the UK was being called the sick man of Europe. In 1976 it had to go to the IMF for a bailout. Starting with the election of Margaret Thatcher this all started to change. She was someone who would in the UK have been described as a "liberal" except unfortunately political words get mangled the most in the trans atlantic crossing. Americans would have called her a libertarian except minus the gun fetish. She believed in a small state, in individual enterprise, etc. Amongst her many libertarian decisions after winning the election was to end the policy of targeting full employment in favour of inflation targeting, to engage in massive privatisation programs, and to take on the extremely powerful and outright communist coal mining unions (which had previously toppled any government that tried to engage in reform). By the time she left power the UK was in recovery and almost universally agreed to be in much better economic shape. Still, lots of people truly despise Thatcher and her libertarian policies, especially in the post-industrial north that was most heavily left leaning. And the UK is by no means some kind of Randian vision of anarcho-capitalism. Thatcher didn't touch the direct government provision of health care and there are virtually no private roads in the UK. Regardless, I present it as a case study in one countries journey from quasi-communism to more libertarian ideals with an associated economic recovery.
ohnomrbill 12y ago
This seems to touch on the biggest problem I have with libertarianism. Things which require constant maintenance are fixed in spurts. Some wealthy Hondurans may eventually decide that the situation with their roads is annoying and worth fixing, and may offer to fix the problem at a reduced price which reflects their personal interest in the matter. Until then, they will have crumbling roads. Infrastructure is best served by constant effort, and there is no will to act on the part of people with money. The solution to that problem seems to be a real blind spot for them. That said, I respect their stance on personal responsibility, which is something I think liberals neglect. I don't mean to pick on them too much.
bko 12y ago
Few issues with the article. 1. A quick Google search would help the author learn that Ayn Rand was an objectevist, not a libertarian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism 2. The author builds up straw men and uses unnecessary flourish. Example: > The government won’t fix the roads, so these desperate entrepreneurs fill in potholes with shovels of dirt or debris. They then stand next to the filled-in pothole soliciting tips from grateful motorists. That is the wet dream of libertarian private sector innovation. I imagine that most libertarians would prefer private roads that are privately maintained. Kind of like Starbucks doesn't rely on panhandlers to clean up after their stores, private roads would be maintained by the owner. 3. The author provides no concept of what it means to be a "libertarian" country and expects the reader just to accept that on face value. Is tax revenue low as percentage of GDP? What percentage of industries are private? Are there many business regulations? All good questions the author could have gone into instead of a childish rant on how poor this country is. 4. Ridiculous statements like: "Part of the reason this discredited, libertarian bullshit still carries any weight for Americans is because so few of us travel. Only 30 percent of Americans have passports, and if Americans do go places, it’s not often to Honduras." There are poor countries that come from all political philosophies.
eevilspock 12y ago
This article's case against libertarianism is rather flimsy. But I loved this bit: "In America, libertarian ideas are attractive to mostly young, white men with high ideals and no life experience that live off of the previous generation’s investments and sacrifice. I know this because as a young, white idiot, I subscribed to this system of discredited ideas: Selfishness is good, government is bad. Take what you want, when you want and however you can. Poor people deserve what they get, and the smartest, hardworking people always win."
- Rudyard 12y ago
  So I guess we're back to the "The White Man's Burden" then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

28 points by kldavis4 12y ago

The problem is that it's Salon - the writing is really badly biased, doesn't actually understand Libertarianism at all, and is mostly trying to smear Ron Paul.

kstenerud 12y ago
The problem is that Libertarians have yet to explain their philosophy in such a way that non-libertarians would understand. "You don't understand" is the most common thing I hear when talking to a Libertarian. After awhile one just gets tired of it.
anindyabd 12y ago
This is the genetic fallacy[1] -- you're claiming that the argument is bad because of its source, not its content. If you think the article misappropriates Libertarianism, show how it does that. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
bko 12y ago
Author defines Libertarianism as "eliminate all taxes, privatize everything, load a country up with guns and oppose all public expenditures". Not biased at all
- astrodust 12y ago
  Doesn't sound that far off the mark, actually. Maybe you have a different definition?
dropit_sphere 12y ago
https://twitter.com/salondotcom https://twitter.com/salondotcom
wfo 12y ago
I'm generally in favor of the flavor of the narrative: a takedown of libertarianism is very much something I enjoy watching, but this is a horribly written article. It's a cringe-fest even I had trouble forcing my way through. The quality of writing is very poor, the points seem disjointed and unrelated. Libertarianism isn't too hard to attack in its honest form, no need for a smear piece like this.

kls 12y ago

He could have easily wrote the same piece about Venezuela and their leftist policy, but that would tread too close to his ideological home. Fact is parts of South America have systemic problems that transcends political dogma, Honduras is not impoverished due to libertarianism no more than Venezuela is due to communism, both are in the state they are in due to corruption which seems to transcend the government duJour of many South American states.

anindyabd 12y ago
1. Honduras is in North America. 2. Venezuela has been having troubles recently (it has been very slow to recover from the 2008 crisis) but it is not impoverished by any sense of the word. It has a human development index (HDI) of 0.764, ranking 67 in the world. It has a per capita GDP of $17000. In comparison, Honduras is 129th in the world in terms of HDI, and has a per capita GDP of around $5000. I'm not saying Venezuela is doing well (and its troubles are mostly due to corruption) but it's doing much better than Honduras.
- eliwjones 12y ago
  1. I see your pedantry and raise you a "Honduras is in Central America"
  - astrodust 12y ago
    Some would argue Central America is a subset of North America.
    - eliwjones 12y ago
      I don't engage devil's advocacy.. only pedantry.

jedharris 12y ago

The only actual refutation this needs is some country that is practicing "real libertarianism" or some approximation and doing well. There are lots of countries out there, isn't there a good example? If not, I'm strongly inclined to think that there's some reason libertarian ideas don't work in practice -- like most theories. The real question then is why an unproven theory gets so much respect.

wodenokoto 12y ago
These thing can't be tested in big enough experiments, so often which idea gets popular boil down to which ideas have the simplest logic. The problem with extreme libertarianism is that it assumes completely rational players, who knows exactly what makes them happy. With such players, it is probably great. In reality, humans have rational and non-rational tendencies. We generally don't know what makes us happy. Our long-term desires are often corrupted by our short term desires, resulting in regret (often we let our short term desires get to us, even if we know we will regret it later). We suffer from confirmation bias, presentation bias, weak intuitive understanding of compounding numbers. On top of all that we are also emotional.
wfo 12y ago
It gets respect because the wealthy elite benefit from its policies being put into place, and they control the narrative/policy. They whip up the populace into a frenzy about 'freedom', invent/purchase 'grassroots' organizations like the tea party, etc. The ideas don't stand on their own merits without a lot of self-interested wealth propping them up. Which is why libertarianism generally gets laughed out of academic circles; critical analysis without a profit motive generally exposes it for what it is, a method for siphoning wealth from the poor to the rich.
mike_hearn 12y ago
Like most discussions about politics, the words are too imprecise to enable meaningful conclusions. Consider the history of the United Kingdom in the second half of the 20th century. Between the 1950s and end of the 1970s the UK was implementing something quite close to communism. The government owned vast swathes of industry, everything from coal mines to steel mills to removal companies and hotels. Government policy was to target full employment at the cost of all else, including inflation. The country was in the grip of extremely powerful unions who had the ability to topple governments. By the end of this era, the UK was being called the sick man of Europe. In 1976 it had to go to the IMF for a bailout. Starting with the election of Margaret Thatcher this all started to change. She was someone who would in the UK have been described as a "liberal" except unfortunately political words get mangled the most in the trans atlantic crossing. Americans would have called her a libertarian except minus the gun fetish. She believed in a small state, in individual enterprise, etc. Amongst her many libertarian decisions after winning the election was to end the policy of targeting full employment in favour of inflation targeting, to engage in massive privatisation programs, and to take on the extremely powerful and outright communist coal mining unions (which had previously toppled any government that tried to engage in reform). By the time she left power the UK was in recovery and almost universally agreed to be in much better economic shape. Still, lots of people truly despise Thatcher and her libertarian policies, especially in the post-industrial north that was most heavily left leaning. And the UK is by no means some kind of Randian vision of anarcho-capitalism. Thatcher didn't touch the direct government provision of health care and there are virtually no private roads in the UK. Regardless, I present it as a case study in one countries journey from quasi-communism to more libertarian ideals with an associated economic recovery.

ohnomrbill 12y ago

This seems to touch on the biggest problem I have with libertarianism. Things which require constant maintenance are fixed in spurts. Some wealthy Hondurans may eventually decide that the situation with their roads is annoying and worth fixing, and may offer to fix the problem at a reduced price which reflects their personal interest in the matter. Until then, they will have crumbling roads. Infrastructure is best served by constant effort, and there is no will to act on the part of people with money. The solution to that problem seems to be a real blind spot for them. That said, I respect their stance on personal responsibility, which is something I think liberals neglect. I don't mean to pick on them too much.

bko 12y ago

Few issues with the article. 1. A quick Google search would help the author learn that Ayn Rand was an objectevist, not a libertarian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism 2. The author builds up straw men and uses unnecessary flourish. Example: > The government won’t fix the roads, so these desperate entrepreneurs fill in potholes with shovels of dirt or debris. They then stand next to the filled-in pothole soliciting tips from grateful motorists. That is the wet dream of libertarian private sector innovation. I imagine that most libertarians would prefer private roads that are privately maintained. Kind of like Starbucks doesn't rely on panhandlers to clean up after their stores, private roads would be maintained by the owner. 3. The author provides no concept of what it means to be a "libertarian" country and expects the reader just to accept that on face value. Is tax revenue low as percentage of GDP? What percentage of industries are private? Are there many business regulations? All good questions the author could have gone into instead of a childish rant on how poor this country is. 4. Ridiculous statements like: "Part of the reason this discredited, libertarian bullshit still carries any weight for Americans is because so few of us travel. Only 30 percent of Americans have passports, and if Americans do go places, it’s not often to Honduras." There are poor countries that come from all political philosophies.

eevilspock 12y ago

This article's case against libertarianism is rather flimsy. But I loved this bit: "In America, libertarian ideas are attractive to mostly young, white men with high ideals and no life experience that live off of the previous generation’s investments and sacrifice. I know this because as a young, white idiot, I subscribed to this system of discredited ideas: Selfishness is good, government is bad. Take what you want, when you want and however you can. Poor people deserve what they get, and the smartest, hardworking people always win."

Rudyard 12y ago
So I guess we're back to the "The White Man's Burden" then? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden