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Brute Squad posted:Posting from the DSA thread. Libertarian Socialism is a legitimate ideology tho?
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Mar 11, 2017 00:34
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The term "libertarian" has been so thoroughly co-opted by anarcho capitalists for so long that other meanings have been forgotten.
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Mar 11, 2017 00:40
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Yeah, I honestly thought libertarianism only existed in the form of dumb Ayn Rand. Can anyone recommend good sources to learn/read more about it? Glossing over the wiki real quick, how is it legitimate if it looks dangerously close to anarchism and communism, like how can it be an effective ideology in today's society? I guess I'm just completely ignorant on this.
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Mar 11, 2017 03:36
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AlphaKeny1 posted:Yeah, I honestly thought libertarianism only existed in the form of dumb Ayn Rand. Can anyone recommend good sources to learn/read more about it? Glossing over the wiki real quick, how is it legitimate if it looks dangerously close to anarchism and communism, like how can it be an effective ideology in today's society? I guess I'm just completely ignorant on this. Yah "libertarian socialism" is just an older name for anarcho-communism. And yeah, like all forms of anarchism it's not actually practical to operate the infrastructure of the modern world without a state, so it wouldn't really work.
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Mar 11, 2017 04:08
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If you have Star Trek-style replicators, the means of production would be sufficiently democratized such that anyone could get a replicator replicated and take it home. Libertarian socialism obviously can work on a small scale in the form of communes but I don't think it's going to be common in the near future. Something like 12,000 U.S. businesses are employee-owned out of a total of about 28 million. For comparison about 20,000 or so firms have 500+ employees, so yeah. It's not just technical hold-ups. Ironically the old pre-NLRB unions were a pretty powerful libertarian socialist presence, whether or not they were actually libertarian in overall political ideology. Most of them going along with FDR's labor act banning wildcat strikes and ultimately giving states the power to pass right-to-work legislation pretty much defanged their presence over a few decades. I'd be surprised if we don't see federal RTW in our lifetimes. DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Mar 11, 2017 |
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Mar 11, 2017 04:15
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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AlphaKeny1 posted:Yeah, I honestly thought libertarianism only existed in the form of dumb Ayn Rand. Can anyone recommend good sources to learn/read more about it? Glossing over the wiki real quick, how is it legitimate if it looks dangerously close to anarchism and communism, like how can it be an effective ideology in today's society? I guess I'm just completely ignorant on this. Okay, so. "Libertarian socialism" was originally a name for anarchism, until the term "libertarian" was co-opted by the "small government" set in the mid 20th century. If the ideology behind that initial definition is what you're curious about, you'd have better luck looking up anarchist theories. I think Murray Bookchin is still the recent big name in those circles, but I'm not really in the loop there. If you're looking for the libertarians that talk about the free market, there are a few sub-groups and ideologies crawling around that all get lumped in due to having similar outcomes.
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Mar 11, 2017 04:22
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AlphaKeny1 posted:Yeah, I honestly thought libertarianism only existed in the form of dumb Ayn Rand. Can anyone recommend good sources to learn/read more about it? Glossing over the wiki real quick, how is it legitimate if it looks dangerously close to anarchism and communism, like how can it be an effective ideology in today's society? I guess I'm just completely ignorant on this. https://youtu.be/R7qT-C-0ajI
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Mar 11, 2017 05:49
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Hayek is kind of his own thing and I wouldn't include him under the same umbrella as von Mises - modern followers of von Mises don't, usually, as he's considered too soft. Hayek is scarcely a libertarian in the modern sense - he is claimed by them, much like they claim Adam Smith, but his association with von Mises was relatively brief, though certainly formative for young Hayek. The Road to Serfdom is at heart a treatise against Soviet-style central planning, deeply rooted in the context of the times as well as the technological limitations which effectively did make central planning worse than markets and prone to totalitarianism. First and foremost, Hayek saw capitalism as the shield of democracy, which was his real priority. Other shields of democracy for Hayek were things like social safety nets, environmental regulations, and workplace safety regulations. Now, none of this really makes Hayek admirable - he's too steeped in the arrogant neo-Darwinism of pre-modern-synthesis, pre-game-theory evolutionary biology, translated into a context of society-as-ecosystem. Unable to detach himself from this (which is interesting, since he also wrote philosophy of science stuff about how the positivist methodology and moral detachment of the hard sciences is not always appropriate for the social sciences), he conceptualized markets as evolutionary processes - which they are, of course - but took from this that, just like in biological evolution, the outcome of a market is morally neutral, with no outcome better than any other except in terms of efficiency. It does, however, put him in an entirely separate intellectual universe from the other Austrian School folks, no matter that they saw him as one of their own for a long time.
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Mar 11, 2017 06:56
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I'm at least familiar with Rand and Nozick and remember studying them, but never bothered with the more nuanced stuff. I guess they're not very good examples to entertain the idea that libertarianism is a legitimate political philosophy. I get that people are still drawn to these ideologies, and I'm willing to understand them, but I constantly fail to understand how they are generally a good thing. I get that it benefits the individual and empowers them, or conveniently justifies their privilege, but it comes at the cost of literally everyone else. Am I just a dumb city-dweller incapable of seeing contemporary society function properly with libertarian ideology? Or am I right in assessing that libertarianism isn't worth the time, no matter what its current flavor of the month it is. I know I should probably still know these things considering we've got some pretty influential people that identify as libertarian. lol
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Mar 11, 2017 07:48
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Jazerus posted:Hayek is kind of his own thing and I wouldn't include him under the same umbrella as von Mises Thanks for this! I really don't know that much about Hayek beyond that he was involved with the Austrians at some point. AlphaKeny1 posted:I'm at least familiar with Rand and Nozick and remember studying them, but never bothered with the more nuanced stuff. I guess they're not very good examples to entertain the idea that libertarianism is a legitimate political philosophy. Honestly, if you're trying to see libertarianism at its most philosophically coherent, Nozick is probably your best bet. That their best formulation came from a bored epistemologist and not from one of the people who devoted their lives to it should tell you something. AlphaKeny1 posted:I get that people are still drawn to these ideologies, and I'm willing to understand them, but I constantly fail to understand how they are generally a good thing. I get that it benefits the individual and empowers them, or conveniently justifies their privilege, but it comes at the cost of literally everyone else. Am I just a dumb city-dweller incapable of seeing contemporary society function properly with libertarian ideology? Or am I right in assessing that libertarianism isn't worth the time, no matter what its current flavor of the month it is. I know I should probably still know these things considering we've got some pretty influential people that identify as libertarian. I doubt the regulars in this thread will try to convince you libertarianism is a good ideology. We are generally not fans! If you're looking for reasons why people buy into it, there are a few. One is the feeling of empowerment you talked about : it's an ideology that reflects a just world, one of capitalist meritocracy, where you will rise to the top because you deserve to; that world isn't our world, but it's comforting to think it is! Another is far more unpleasant, and it's something I decided not to include in my mini-rundown out of a weak attempt at fairness: libertarianism is cover. There's a whole bunch of people who would be "single issue voters," but they can't advocate for their issue without being ostracized, so they argue for a generalized anti-regulations stance instead. I'm talking about people who really hate the Civil Rights Act, or age of consent laws, or waste-dumping regulations. The anti-Civil-Rights people were the main impetus behind libertarianism as a movement here in the US, to the point where the Libertarian Party recently had a giant floor fight over whether to remove the anti-CRA plank from their official party platform.
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Mar 11, 2017 12:58
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Goon Danton, your answers are really on point, thank you!
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Mar 11, 2017 16:37
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Goon Danton posted:I doubt the regulars in this thread will try to convince you libertarianism is a good ideology. We are generally not fans! If you're looking for reasons why people buy into it, there are a few. One is the feeling of empowerment you talked about : it's an ideology that reflects a just world, one of capitalist meritocracy, where you will rise to the top because you deserve to; that world isn't our world, but it's comforting to think it is! I'd add "libertarianism as excuse" as a subset of that latter group in terms of justification. There are plenty of people who seems convinced that the only reason they're not rich and powerful (which they of course should be) right now is that government and/or the existence of states is/are holding them down, and if only those things were neutered or, in the extreme, abolished entirely, they (and everyone else, in the more generous minded imaginings) would prosper in a mutually beneficial voluntarist society. Bitcoiners in particular display this line of thinking, and like those you mention, it's largely cover for "we want to do things that are currently illegal."
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Mar 11, 2017 18:07
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AlphaKeny1 posted:I'm at least familiar with Rand and Nozick and remember studying them, but never bothered with the more nuanced stuff. I guess they're not very good examples to entertain the idea that libertarianism is a legitimate political philosophy. Hayek's Road to Serfdom is a good place to start. Milton Friedman covers more of the economic side pretty well too. Rand probably falls into the "I'd be rich if only X" category.
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Mar 11, 2017 20:15
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Goon Danton posted:Nozickian libertarianism: the result of philosopher Robert Nozick having lengthy conversations with Rothbard and deciding to make his philosophy semi-coherent. Essentially amounts to some careful arguments in favor of a "night watchman" state that provides courts and a defensive military. Prominent Nozickians include loving nobody, probably not even Nozick himself (who basically played with it as a thought experiment). Any time people cite his ideas, they're almost guaranteed to be a member of the previous groups who found that particular line convenient. Is this a subset of minarchism?
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Mar 11, 2017 20:36
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Captain_Maclaine posted:I'd add "libertarianism as excuse" as a subset of that latter group in terms of justification. There are plenty of people who seems convinced that the only reason they're not rich and powerful (which they of course should be) right now is that government and/or the existence of states is/are holding them down, and if only those things were neutered or, in the extreme, abolished entirely, they (and everyone else, in the more generous minded imaginings) would prosper in a mutually beneficial voluntarist society. Bitcoiners in particular display this line of thinking, and like those you mention, it's largely cover for "we want to do things that are currently illegal." I think there are two distinct groups here. The first are the "we want to do things that are currently illegal" set, where the ideology is a veil wrapped around something unacceptable to say outright. The best case scenario here are the "just in it for the weed" people, but they're a dying breed now that legalization is becoming more acceptable in the mainstream. Bitcoin gives us the ponzicoin and silk road types here too. The other group are the ones who go through the "I would be living the good life in a just world / I am not currently living the good life / therefore the world is unjust" line of thinking that's almost reasonable, but then tack on "and that's the government's fault" to the end, because they took the previous group's rhetoric at face value. I thought of it as the "government bureaucrat as evil spirit" mentality, but China Mieville is a better writer than me and called it "a philosophy of capitalist inadequacy," so let's go with that. Lightning Lord posted:Is this a subset of minarchism? Yeah, exactly. Discendo Vox posted:Goon Danton, your answers are really on point, thank you! 
Goon Danton fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Mar 11, 2017 |
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Mar 11, 2017 21:18
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Thanks for answering my dumb questions, that was really helpful. I'll try and read up a little more on Hayek and Milton Friedman when I get the chance later on.
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Mar 12, 2017 01:56
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Goon Danton posted:Thanks for this! I really don't know that much about Hayek beyond that he was involved with the Austrians at some point. He definitely was immersed in that group, particularly in his 30s before he left for America after the Anschluss. However, he was decidedly a fish swimming upstream in that crowd because of his background - the son and grandson of economists from older schools of thought, and grandson of a biologist, Hayek was much more intellectually cosmopolitan than his fellows. In general, Hayek proceeded from premises that are similar to von Mises (contractual sanctity, etc.) but argued towards the viability of a modern Keynesian economy from those premises, though with the usual capitalist vitriol against unionism and the minimum wage. Didn't stop him from being celebrated by his fellows, but probably only because he saw far more mainstream success than any of the rest of them as a sort of morale booster for capitalism against fascism/communism during the 40s and 50s.
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Mar 12, 2017 02:43
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Where do Republicans who call themselves Libertarians but always vote the party line fit into this?
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Mar 12, 2017 21:10
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White Coke posted:Where do Republicans who call themselves Libertarians but always vote the party line fit into this? I'd definitely put them in the "libertarian smokescreen" camp. Oh, I'm not a Republican just because I hate Obama and everything he does, I just don't like big government on principle!
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Mar 12, 2017 22:31
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Republicans do seem to have a "government bad" streak in them.
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Mar 12, 2017 22:56
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White Coke posted:Where do Republicans who call themselves Libertarians but always vote the party line fit into this? They fall into the same camp as the Republicans who call themselves Independent
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Mar 13, 2017 00:16
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I've been reading A Spontaneous Order to see what anarcho-capitalism is all about. It starts off with some grains of good ideas and then takes them to absurd extremes, but most of the ideas are just absurd at every level. Problem: The FDA takes too long to certify new drugs Solution: Let the drug companies do the certifications themselves. If they end up releasing bad drugs, the free market will work correct it because people will not buy them and the company will suffer financially. Also companies can release beta versions of drugs so that people can try them early if they want. Problem: Trespassers Solution: You can kill people who trespass on your property. You will be discouraged from doing so not because it's murder, but because your home insurance premiums will go up and you will be socially ostracized. Problem: Some judges are bad Solution: Free market justice system. You get to hire your own judge when someone wrongs you. They will enforce the social norms for you because there are practically no laws. For example, if someone steals something, you get to take something of theirs of equivalent value plus something extra because of the effort you had to put in. You can also choose to send them to labor camps until they pay off what they stole. The labor camps are of course private enterprises, and if a judge sends people to bad labor camps, the free market will fix it and he won't get any more business. Also legal precedents won't be set because judge's decisions only apply to you. Problem: Monopolies are bad Solution: The state is a monopoly. You can't have it both ways libtards 
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Mar 13, 2017 01:57
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Raere posted:Problem: The FDA takes too long to certify new drugs This isn't even true. The FDA is faster than the EMA or Health Canada or anything else that has remotely similar standards.
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Mar 13, 2017 02:13
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:This isn't even true. The FDA is faster than the EMA or Health Canada or anything else that has remotely similar standards. The book claims that any wait is too long because people are literally dying while waiting for drugs to be approved. Drug companies should release beta versions ASAP because dying patients will think it's worth the risk.
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Mar 13, 2017 02:16
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Early access cancer drugs. Christ on a crutch.
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Mar 13, 2017 02:18
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Soon: season pass for cancer drugs.
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Mar 13, 2017 02:23
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Imagine if your early access medications included unmentioned quantities of lead, cadmium, and arsenic, etc, just like Soylent pioneered Only then would we truly be free
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Mar 13, 2017 02:26
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Grace Baiting posted:Imagine if your early access medications included unmentioned quantities of lead, cadmium, and arsenic, etc, just like Soylent pioneered But when it was discovered that Soylent was basically just a bunch heavy metals in a difficult-to-digest slurry, the free market caused Soylent to go bankrupt Or... erm, hmm...
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Mar 13, 2017 02:54
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QuarkJets posted:But when it was discovered that Soylent was basically just a bunch heavy metals in a difficult-to-digest slurry, the free market caused Soylent to go bankrupt Government's fault. Somehow.
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Mar 13, 2017 03:05
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Goon Danton posted:Early access cancer drugs. Christ on a crutch. A version of this already exists: the "patient-funded study" scam. Evil quacks like Burzynski live off this one. It's how the "study" where Peter Thiel was attempting to sustain himself literally on the blood of the young worked. Also, the absolutely key thing about the libertarian boycott is that it only applies to non-libertarians; boycotting Firefox because Brendan Eich is a massive homophobe was completely outrageous and unacceptable bullying.
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Mar 13, 2017 10:10
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I love how they continuously spout about how the Free Market will correct any error, yet that has never been the case.
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Mar 13, 2017 12:19
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CommieGIR posted:I love how they continuously spout about how the Free Market will correct any error, yet that has never been the case. There's a reason that the rebuttal to libertarians on this forum was "on the other hand, recorded history"
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Mar 13, 2017 12:28
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Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and general without reference to the material content and the particular features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts.
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Mar 13, 2017 12:45
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CommieGIR posted:I love how they continuously spout about how the Free Market will correct any error, yet that has never been the case. Pretty much have literally heard them say, "I dunno how, but you have to have faith in the market, it always finds a way!" So it's actually just straight-up a cult.
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Mar 13, 2017 12:47
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Goon Danton posted:Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and general without reference to the material content and the particular features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts. Praxeology is one of my favorite rebuttals to anything Libertarian. GunnerJ posted:Pretty much have literally heard them say, "I dunno how, but you have to have faith in the market, it always finds a way!" Libertarianism is Market Religion. That's all. Its all about Faith and Belief. May the Lord of the Market have mercy upon our souls.
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Mar 13, 2017 12:49
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Goon Danton posted:Praxeology is a theoretical and systematic, not a historical, science. Its scope is human action as such, irrespective of all environmental, accidental, and individual circumstances of the concrete acts. Its cognition is purely formal and general without reference to the material content and the particular features of the actual case. It aims at knowledge valid for all instances in which the conditions exactly correspond to those implied in its assumptions and inferences. Its statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts. They are both logically and temporally antecedent to any comprehension of historical facts. Oh poo poo, this reminds me of Triple-H and theoretical history: http://www.demos.org/blog/12/31/14/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-theoretical-historian quote:As the title suggests, Hoppe intends to take the reader through a history of social forms. You might think this would entail going through a good chunk of historical sources to document the actual historical shifts between these identified epochs. But no.
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Mar 13, 2017 12:50
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I like how the definition of praxeology as a science explains that it is definitely not a science.
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Mar 13, 2017 14:01
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GunnerJ posted:Oh poo poo, this reminds me of Triple-H and theoretical history: http://www.demos.org/blog/12/31/14/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-theoretical-historian Oh Hoppe. I remember running into his Argumentation Ethics for the first time, which is still stunning in its disingenuousness. The fact that JRod was trumpeting it for everyone to read, and insistently describing the line of reasoning as "persuasive" rather than "good," told me all I needed to know about him as a person. To recap: people who follow the non-aggression principle try to deal with conflict through peaceful argument. We are having a peaceful argument right now. Therefore, you follow the non-aggression principle. And therefore, any argument against the non-aggression principle is not only wrong, but incoherent, because the person arguing against it is secretly obeying it. So disregard anything a non-libertarian says about libertarianism, because they're Halloween Jack posted:I like how the definition of praxeology as a science explains that it is definitely not a science. There's only room in my heart for one early 20th Century Austrian philosopher named Ludwig, and I'm going to go with the one brandishing a fire poker and shouting about beetles. He makes much more sense.
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Mar 13, 2017 14:18
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Goon Danton posted:Oh Hoppe. I remember running into his Argumentation Ethics for the first time, which is still stunning in its disingenuousness. The fact that JRod was trumpeting it for everyone to read, and insistently describing the line of reasoning as "persuasive" rather than "good," told me all I needed to know about him as a person. It's kinda like the ontological argument for the existence of God, so imma call that one more for the "libertarianism is a religion and the market is its god" pile.
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Mar 13, 2017 14:22
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GunnerJ posted:Pretty much have literally heard them say, "I dunno how, but you have to have faith in the market, it always finds a way!" The idea is that companies with bad practices will fail because people won't patron those establishments and this is incredibly loving dumb for so many reasons not including how companies get away with poo poo for years before people find out, people have very short term memories and will put cost over their values, and how many people would have to die before people noticed it was amiss.
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Mar 13, 2017 15:09
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