|
Actually, the free market baby thing seemed to me like a crackpot theory that came about because he painted himself into a corner when he said that parents cannot be compelled to take care of their own children. Most people aren't that cool with child abandonment, so he came up with the free market of babies. It's a moot point anyway because as soon as a child says "I don't want to be here" they have self ownership and you don't have to feed the little poo poo anyway.
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 02:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 03:46 |
|
|
BreakAtmo posted:So the only thing I got wrong was that I assumed libertarians would have a shred of decency? Huh. Makes sense. They have as much decency as the Market requires. None.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 14:46
|
|
|
Have you all seen this yet. It's too long to quote but the whole thing is worth reading. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/16/koch-brothers-education_n_5587577.html It's on the YE Youth Entrepreneurs. It's an older program that they are beginning to ramp up the money going into. They're pushing stuff they had been doing at the college level down to the high school level. article posted:The emails show that Charles Koch had a hands-on role in the design of the high school curriculum, directly reviewing the work of those responsible for setting up the course. The goal, the group said flatly, was to turn young people into "liberty-advancing agents" before they went to college, where they might learn "harmful" liberal ideas. article posted:They aimed to "inoculate" students against liberal ideas by assigning them to read passages from socialist and Marxist writers, whom they called "bad guys." These readings would then be compared to works by the "good guys" -- free-market economists like Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. article posted:"That’s right, the more involved you are, the more money you'll earn to put toward your business or higher education!" and the kicker article posted:"Everybody that's interested in liberty-minded higher education and beyond is really excited about Youth Entrepreneurs," Jon Bachura told HuffPost, adding, "It's all playing in the sandbox to see what things, what activities answer that question: What creates the liberty mindset?"
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 02:05
|
|
|
I can't wait until those precious welfare youth get dumped out into the real world. Freedom Grad: "But I'm advancing freedom--where's my stipend?" Staples Manager: "It's in my nutsack waiting for you to tease it out." Alternately, the Kochs will subsidize all of them through adulthood.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 02:11
|
|
|
This is the kicker for me:quote:"Economic philosophy is [what] we care most about : where prosperity comes from, what 'rules of the game' are necessary for entrepreneurship, etc.," Woodlief wrote in an email. He was not interested in lessons about creating business plans or spotting opportunities to make money -- "all the schlock that gets taught under the guise of 'teaching' entrepreneurship," the things that "defile the word 'entrepreneur,'" he wrote. Yeah, knowing how to run a business doesn't make you an "entrepreneur," being a libertarian does!
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 02:32
|
|
|
I love the "we're not pushing an ideology"
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 02:41
|
|
|
I've been doing a little reading about the origin of social contract theory, and it reminded me that some random libertarian here (was it jrodefeld? I'm not sure) said something about the social contract being a lie, or false, or a myth. Which weirded me out at the time and seems ever stranger now, as the social contract is pretty much the basis of modern political theory. Seeing that statement disoriented me, made me realize there are few to no philosophical principles I probably have in common with ardent libertarians. We may agree on general policy statements like "Marijuana should be legal" and "America shouldn't be the world's policeman", but I realize now that the libertarian's journey to those statements is entirely alien to me in terms of its chain of arguments. Going back to that statement about the social contract, if you assume that generally libertarians don't accept the social contract as a real thing, they fundamentally don't feel like they've signed up for participation in our political society. I'm not sure whether libertarians believe in natural rights, but if they do, perhaps what's going on is that they are not willing to give up their claim on everything. As an animal, they have a natural right to take whatever they can get. But this social contract forces limits on their natural rights to pursue all the resources they might wish to obtain. It forces them to compromise with their fellow man/woman (the latter probably especially galling to libertarians), and admit that, even if they are weaker and less capable of obtaining resources, they are no less worthy. This runs contrary to their instinct, and therefore to them it is invalid. Libertarians seek desperate, silly plans like that weird Glen Beck thing and seasteading because they are desperate to escape from ceding their natural rights.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 06:56
|
|
|
I'm not sure of the spectrum of libertarian belief on natural rights, but my dad definitely believes in them. He's an atheist, so he doesn't believe they come from God, but rather from mankind's exercise of reason. This is all tied up with his belief that there are objective truths that human beings should be able to reach by overcoming their subjective senses and biases. (Honestly, I think that "rights from God" is more plausible than "rights from reason.")
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 08:35
|
|
|
Spatula City posted:I've been doing a little reading about the origin of social contract theory, and it reminded me that some random libertarian here (was it jrodefeld? I'm not sure) said something about the social contract being a lie, or false, or a myth. Which weirded me out at the time and seems ever stranger now, as the social contract is pretty much the basis of modern political theory. Seeing that statement disoriented me, made me realize there are few to no philosophical principles I probably have in common with ardent libertarians. We may agree on general policy statements like "Marijuana should be legal" and "America shouldn't be the world's policeman", but I realize now that the libertarian's journey to those statements is entirely alien to me in terms of its chain of arguments. I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself here. Generally, anti-social contract libertarians view the concept as sort of false contract, one in which it is not practical to reject the "contract" of state supremacy. In practice the social contract ideal is far from how it's practically implemented. It's assumed that the State's monopoly is just, and that the State actually can legitimately claim to represent society at large. In practice pretty much every state in existence has a history of violent formation and entrenched power structures. When you throw in skepticism of democracy, or at least unlimited democracy, then the libertarian sees the democratic process not as an expression of an individual's power, but more as a useful illusion for the State to claim social legitimacy. The option given is either to become an outlaw, or go live in Antarctica or something. Oft cited is Lysander Spooner's No Treason. Spooner was an abolitionist, and later socialist/anarchist. I always have a soft spot for Spooner because he started up a competitor to the US Postal Serice. The service was successful and cheaper, but the government shut him down because it claimed a monopoly. 
LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Jul 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 11:28
|
|
|
Spatula City posted:the social contract is pretty much the basis of modern political theory. I think you overestimate its acceptance. The social contract doesn't figure in Marxism, for example, and one might argue that libertarianism is itself the bastard offspring of an excessive reverence for contracts.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 11:31
|
|
|
Oh dear me posted:I think you overestimate its acceptance. The social contract doesn't figure in Marxism, for example, and one might argue that libertarianism is itself the bastard offspring of an excessive reverence for contracts. Property rights underpin all other rights! For example, you own yourself, which is why you have the right to free association, speech, etc. - you have the right to do what you want with your property (as long as it doesn't violate the rights of others), and you are your property, so you should be able to do what you want with yourself. This means that you have (or should have) the right to sell yourself into slavery, among other things. It shouldn't matter if you get a good deal or not - as long as your potential master isn't using force or fraud to get you to sell yourself, and as long as he's not going to use you to violate the rights of others, the government shouldn't try to save you from your own bad decisions.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 13:08
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:This means that you have (or should have) the right to sell yourself into slavery, among other things. That's not a universal position, even among far right libertarians. Rothbard didn't find slave contracts to be just, for example. He held the position that the participants of any contract must be able to leave it voluntarily, with the caveat that the "wronged" party would have a claim against whatever payment had already been issued to the party that broke the contract. Of course, you also have winners like Walter Block who take the opposite position and are all about the "right to slavery". The important distinction to make is that a self-ownership theory of rights doesn't automatically lead to slave contracts.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 13:55
|
|
|
LogisticEarth posted:That's not a universal position, even among far right libertarians. Rothbard didn't find slave contracts to be just, for example. He held the position that the participants of any contract must be able to leave it voluntarily, with the caveat that the "wronged" party would have a claim against whatever payment had already been issued to the party that broke the contract. My point is that the claim that property rights underpin all other rights is incompatible with the claim that slave contracts as unacceptable. I'm arguing that you can pick only one of those two positions and still be ideologically consistent - if you try to hold both positions, you're a hypocrite. Edit: I do consider this claim open to debate and if you can come up with a convincing argument against it, I'll change my position. Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Jul 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 16:27
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:(Honestly, I think that "rights from God" is more plausible than "rights from reason.") They aren't different statements.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 16:27
|
|
|
BrandorKP posted:They aren't different statements. I don't see how: one relies on the existence of a supernatural being and the other does not. How can you argue that x comes from y if you don't believe in the existence of y?
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 16:33
|
|
|
It's really loving weird for someone to argue that the social contract doesn't exist, but natural rights do.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 16:42
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:I don't see how: one relies on the existence of a supernatural being and the other does not. How can you argue that x comes from y if you don't believe in the existence of y? They might be the same, they might not be. If you look at reason as a free-floating entity that humanity can tap into or pick up on in the same way that a radio might pick up on a signal, then rights coming from reason (or the good will, or whatever) is really close to rights coming from god. If you're take on reason is just something that peoples' brains can do, saying they're the same is way more spurious. Of course I think the claim that we can reliably get at objective truths is even more spurious than that, but whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 19:14
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:I don't see how: one relies on the existence of a supernatural being and the other does not. How can you argue that x comes from y if you don't believe in the existence of y? They both rely on abstract, non-physical ideas for justification
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 19:17
|
|
|
Magres posted:They both rely on abstract, non-physical ideas for justification Reason isn't entirely abstract, though. It's also a codified thought process.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 20:15
|
|
|
I was actually being redundant, now that I think about it, in saying abstract, non-physical idea because for something to be abstract it has to be a non-physical idea. Like anything that doesn't have a concrete physical existence is an abstract idea, so reason is abstract (unless we want to say that reason has a physical existence in our neurochemistry, but I don't really buy that as an argument because it's kind of teleological)
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 20:41
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:I don't see how: one relies on the existence of a supernatural being and the other does not. How can you argue that x comes from y if you don't believe in the existence of y? No, One side relies on a specific human being reason itself, who we are all brothers and sisters with. i.e. The Word was flesh. The other side has the idea that some (sometimes pessimistic here sometimes optimistic) of us by our intelligence can know or approach the essential truths (or say natural laws) of how the universe works. It's not a conversation where one side talks about God and the other doesn't. It's a conversation where both sides have a large difference of opinion regarding the nature of humanities relationship to the essential nature of the universe. One side just likes to pretend it's not being religious when it appeals to Reason. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jul 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 21:53
|
|
|
Magres posted:They both rely on abstract, non-physical ideas for justification I find it amusing that this gets framed as 'objective' rights, which seems to use objective as a synonym for 'true.' It is in a sense, but only if there is an object to observe truths about, which there is not in this case. It makes as much sense (or more) to call natural rights a grammatical or mathematical truth. That would require understanding what one is talking about, though. E: also, deriving rights from reason is fine, if you demonstrate your argument from and using reason, which is rarely done; otherwise it amounts to 'rights come from very truthy fairies.' The classic versions of the argument use some variant of the social contract. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jul 18, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2014 23:23
|
|
|
I've asked this before, but if libertarianism leads to unbridled economic growth and shared prosperity, shouldn't there be at least one libertarian country out there that would be among the first world countries? We have dozens of industrialized countries that are superpowers despite them being infected with the evil SOCIALISM, so shouldn't we have at least one that proves libertarianism is a success? Normally they'll point to Singapore or Hong Kong, but I doubt those are places worth bragging about (I could be wrong, but isn't Hong Kong especially kind of a shithole?).
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 00:45
|
|
|
Singapore?  Great if you're giving up any pretext of caring about rights and admitting you only give a poo poo about rich people making more money I guess.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 00:53
|
|
|
spoon0042 posted:Singapore? Isn't that the libertarian mindset? Not even trying to be snarky. Sure, libertarians may say they oppose things like the drug war and support civil liberties, but from my experience those rank pretty drat low on their list of priorities. Definitely behind letting the John Galts among us be allowed to do whatever they want. So in that sense, Singapore's otherwise authoritarian government is just fine with these folks.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 01:35
|
|
|
Mr Interweb posted:Isn't that the libertarian mindset? I really wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of them really do have these naive ideals about the beauty of true freedom and haven't actually thought about this poo poo before, usually because they're sheltered and dumb. Not to mention business owners who whine about regulations without realising that those regulations are a leash on their most sociopathic competitors who would be willing to do awful things for success if allowed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 01:51
|
|
|
BreakAtmo posted:I really wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of them really do have these naive ideals about the beauty of true freedom and haven't actually thought about this poo poo before, usually because they're sheltered and dumb. Not to mention business owners who whine about regulations without realising that those regulations are a leash on their most sociopathic competitors who would be willing to do awful things for success if allowed. The biggest enemy of small business isn't the government, it's big business.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 02:35
|
|
|
I Am The Scum posted:It's really loving weird for someone to argue that the social contract doesn't exist, but natural rights do. Doesn't the idea of natural rights predate social contract theory, though?
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 03:04
|
|
|
Mr Interweb posted:Isn't that the libertarian mindset? This doesn't explain the fact that (say) the foremost expositor of libertarian ideas in the twentieth century, Nozick, was primarily concerned with rights and spends a considerable amount of time adjusting his theory of entitlements to account for such problems (unsatisfactorily, in my opinion). If I recall correctly, however, he thinks that under general conditions of liberty the kinds of social problems that redistribution is usually intended to alleviate wouldn't be significant. In any case, "gently caress rights, make money" isn't the view I associate with the modern philosophical tradition of libertarianism. quickly fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jul 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 06:45
|
|
|
Well, Nozick is a real philosopher, which is why he was able to wring out libertarianism, see what it was, and abandon it. There's no consistency in the toy philosophers who advance libertarianism.spoon0042 posted:Singapore? I feel as though you haven't yet come to grips with this whole "libertarian" thing. Dubai used to be their Shangri-La before it fell apart.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 06:52
|
|
|
SedanChair posted:Well, Nozick is a real philosopher, which is why he was able to wring out libertarianism, see what it was, and abandon it. There's no consistency in the toy philosophers who advance libertarianism. Well, Nozick never abandoned libertarianism wholesale. My point was that actual libertarians (minimal state, natural rights including property, justice as entitlement, and so forth) appear to have entirely different motivations than anarcho-capitalists and all the rest. I don't think that evaluating libertarians and libertarianism by the standards of its best expositors is unreasonable. It just reveals most so-called libertarians as inconsistent or disingenuous. quickly fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jul 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 08:11
|
|
|
quickly posted:This doesn't explain the fact that (say) the foremost expositor of libertarian ideas in the twentieth century, Nozick, was primarily concerned with rights and spends a considerable amount of time adjusting his theory of entitlements to account for such problems (unsatisfactorily, in my opinion). If I recall correctly, however, he thinks that under general conditions of liberty the kinds of social problems that redistribution is usually intended to alleviate wouldn't be significant. In any case, "gently caress rights, make money" isn't the view I associate with the modern philosophical tradition of libertarianism. So libertarianism would presumably create an economic landscape where people wouldn't need entitlement programs? I don't see how this rebuts the original claim.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 09:11
|
|
|
Mr Interweb posted:So libertarianism would presumably create an economic landscape where people wouldn't need entitlement programs? I don't see how this rebuts the original claim. I didn't claim that libertarianism wouldn't create such an economic landscape. My point was that for a consistent libertarian, supporting civil liberties and free markets are inseparable. As an example of a consistent libertarian, I picked out Nozick. A cursory reading of Part I of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, I think, paints a different picture of such a libertarian's motivations. This picture is more consistent with the tradition of libertarianism in Western politics and philosophy. It's my understanding that Nozick disapproved of the gay rights movement, but supported gay rights on libertarian principles. If I'm wrong, then it would be easy to demonstrate that he was inconsistent. I can't speak for him on the matter of the drug war, because I don't know what his position was and his discussions of risk and fear complicate the issue. The bolded sentence refers to a qualification on the theory of justice in acquisition. Roughly, Nozick argues that any process normally giving rise to a permanent and transferable property right is unjust if the positions of those excluded from the thing are worsened. In order to correct the injustice, those parties must be compensated so that their situations are not thereby worsened. So someone who purchases the entire water supply violates the proviso, but someone who invents a miracle drug doesn't. In any case, my point was merely that Nozick thinks that the proviso will rarely be relevant because of normal market forces. quickly fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Jul 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 10:21
|
|
|
what the hell is this ridiculousness about philosophy? Libertarianism is an elitist far-right movement which was invented by lobbyists for the anti-new dealer wing of american capitalism (composed of heavy manufacturers, industralists, and all the bankers giving them credit) trying to make their lassiez-faire ideals survive in a postwar world of government intervention:Mark Ames posted:Every couple of years, mainstream media hacks pretend to have just discovered libertarianism as some sort of radical, new and dynamic force in American politics. It’s a rehash that goes back decades, and hacks love it because it’s easy to write, and because it’s such a non-threatening “radical” politics (unlike radical left politics, which threatens the rich). The latest version involves a summer-long pundit debate in the pages of the New York Times, Reason magazine and elsewhere over so-called “libertarian populism.” It doesn’t really matter whose arguments prevail, so long as no one questions where libertarianism came from or why we’re defining libertarianism as anything but a big business public relations campaign, the winner in this debate is Libertarianism. Mark Ames posted:In libertarianism’s own airbrushed history about itself, the Foundation for Economic Education was a brave, quixotic bastion of libertarian “true believers” doomed to defeat at the all-powerful hands of the liberal Keynsian Leviathan and the collectivist mob. Here is how libertarian historian Brian Doherty describes the FEE and its chief lobbyist Leonard Read:
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2014 20:20
|
|
|
So I was reading the April Seasteading proposal from a few pages back, and I have to say that for people who love the free market so much, they are terrible at market analysis. Because they claim that they had a viable market. So, let's talk about living spaces. For the cost of a living space: The most popular response was "500-600 dollars per square foot." In second place was "I can't afford these prices." Right away, we're in for a good time. So, the most popular living space would be an efficiency apartment, which is 300 square feet. So, the price of your living arrangement would be 150-180 thousand dollars. Once again, for an efficiency apartment, which is essentially a room that you live in, with a bathroom. Yup. You could buy a house in Government Slave Coercion land, or you could get a room on the freedom ship. For the ages of your respondents, about 60% are under the age of 30. And then 20 percent are between 30 and 40. This isn't surprising to me, since I'd imagine that most of the people who would want to live on a ship are people who are basically capable of being transient. Like, me. I'm a single male in my late 20s. I have a good job in a good city. But honestly, if I wanted to move somewhere else, I don't have anything tying me down. I can easily pick up and go. So for the liberty boat, I'm the prime candidate. Now, they say that because 30% of their respondents are college age students, that it means that the ideas of Seasteading are resonating with the youth. However, that's ultimately meaningless because I imagine that this isn't a random survey. There's not really a lot of information on HOW they got it, but I'm presuming that if you filled out this survey, you'd already be interested in this type of thing. Finding 200 people online who like something is not hard. I'm sure you can find 200 people who enjoy reading JD/Janitor Scrubs fan-fiction in an hour. I don't recommend taking me up on that bet. More demographics! 83% don't have children! 72% are single! Over 50% make less than 50,000 a year. A substantial number of people don't own or rent real estate. Yup. This is a viable market. Because when I look at a market, I want a market of mostly single people who live at home with their parents who can't afford the basic living costs that we assume to be reasonable.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 05:33
|
|
|
Those that can't afford it will just alternate between their work station and a Japanese style sleeping tube. You know, freedom.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 08:03
|
|
|
Filippo Corridoni posted:what the hell is this ridiculousness about philosophy? Libertarianism is an elitist far-right movement which was invented by lobbyists for the anti-new dealer wing of american capitalism (composed of heavy manufacturers, industralists, and all the bankers giving them credit) trying to make their lassiez-faire ideals survive in a postwar world of government intervention: That article is conflating libertarianism with neoliberalism. The two trends are certainly related and the author makes plenty of good points about how pro-market ideology was directly and substantially funded by wealthy individuals and large corporations. However by portraying someone like Milton Friedman as a libertarian he is needlessly weakening his argument. I think its probably fair to say that part of the reason that libertarianism has such widespread appeal today is because Milton Friedman and men like him dramatically shifted the so called "Overton window" and helped to popularize the idea that the market is an ultra-democratic and efficient method for allocating goods. Still, if you read Friedman's famous academic work on the Great Depression you'll note that he doesn't claim that government caused the Great Depression. Actually his argument is that the government failed to take the correct actions to avert the crisis. This may seem like a subtle point but when we're discussing political theory I think its important to be as accurate and precise as possible when describing the other sides' beliefs. Friedman, and neoliberals in general, are interesting because they wanted to recreate classical liberal ideology while still recognizing that the government had a role to play. They operated in a world that had been racked by two global wars, a massive depression, socialist revolution and fascist coups. As a result they made a crucial recognition that was often ignored or under emphasized by classical liberals: the market does not come into being spontaneously. Instead, the government is required to play a role in creating and policing markets. Obviously they wanted to keep this government intervention to a minimum. Friedman's famous work on monetary policy, for instance, basically amounted to him saying "if the government will just intervene in this one tiny area in this one specific way then the rest of the economy will work". Nevertheless, Friedman always recognized a role for government. This is also relevant today when you look at the expansion of markets through initiatives like charter schools or the privatization of government services. Contemporary neoliberal's are constantly using the government to expand the marketplace (a libertarian, by contrast, would say that if we just demolish all government institutions then the market will immediately fill the void left behind). Often the way they expand the market is by getting their preferred candidate elected to office. That candidate then takes something that was previously not subject to market whims, like public education or social security, and replaces it with a market based system. There's also a "left neoliberalism" that dominates the traditional liberal parties of the West. So you have Obama responding to the failures of the healthcare system by creating a new private marketplace for insurance or you have various people calling for us to respond to climate change with a cap and trade system where pollution permits are exchanged by corporations. Neoliberalism is the dominant ideology of our time and its important to understand how it developed. While there are deep connections between neoliberalism and libertarianism, they are not the same thing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
Also I thought this article would be a useful addition to the thread since it gives a first hand account of somebody's political development as a Republican / libertarian.quote:
Something I couldn't help but notice while reading this: as the author became more financially independent and achieved 'professional' and 'middle class' status his politics shifted leftward. He was most conservative at the point in his life when conservative policies were probably hurting him the most, and actually became more "liberal" as his financial situation improved. In general I'm attracted to materialist explanations for political motives, but this particular person's story does suggest a pretty heavily psychological reason for why poor whites might be drawn to right wing economic policies. (The materialist explanation I can think of would be that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were really offering him much help, which meant it was easy to support the party that he felt symbolically attached to. I'd need to think this thesis through before saying anything more however).
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 18:51
|
|
|
Speaking of Milton Friedman, is there a reason people like Ron and Rand Paul love this guy? Sure, he was a really conservative economist, but isn't his biggest claim to fame that he advocated for a really active Federal Reserve, something that Ron/Rand want to completely abolish? Is this just another one of those Reagan/Jesus instances where conservatives admire someone but they have no idea what they've actually done?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 23:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 03:46 |
|
|
I don't think I'd say that Friedman wanted a really active federal reserve. My understanding is that Friedman accepted the basic Keynesian economic framework which said it was possible for there to be gluts within the economy. However, he broke with the Keynesian orthodoxy by saying that we should use monetary rather than fiscal policy to address this. Furthermore, his preferred monetary policy would have been based on incredibly strict criteria such that it could have been executed by a computer. It wouldn't have left any real discretion to either policy makers or central bankers:wikipedia posted:Friedman's k-percent rule is the monetarist proposal that the money supply should be increased by the central bank by a constant percentage rate every year, irrespective of business cycles. Milton Friedman coauthored a book with Anna Schwartz to summarise a historical analysis of monetary policy, called "Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960". The book attributed inflation to excess money supply generated by a central bank. It attributed deflationary spirals to the reverse effect of a failure of a central bank to support the money supply during a liquidity crunch. Friedman proposed a fixed monetary rule, called Friedman's k-percent rule, where the money supply would be calculated by known macroeconomic and financial factors, targeting a specific level or range of inflation. As for why Ron or Rand Paul might like Friedman, I imagine it would be due to his work as a commentator rather than his academic work as an economist. Friedman was a very prolific advocate for his cause. He wrote numerous columns as well as books and monographs and was featured in a widely broadcast television series. He used his cultural soap box to advocate very strongly for the idea that markets are synonymous with both efficiency and freedom. While he would be far outside the libertarian orthodoxy today, its probably fair to say that Friedman`s extensive efforts to popularize faith in free markets played a big role in shifting the cultural zeitgeist. In that way he probably laid a lot of the groundwork for the expansion of libertarian ideology to a wider audience.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2014 23:58
|
|