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I got a lot less involved with the whole atheist/skeptic movement after noticing a lot of them were sexist as poo poo and quite a few racist and classist as well. I mean it doesn't make me believe in god, but as a "movement" I'm 100% good with people calling that poo poo out.
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Jan 24, 2015 03:54
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Baronjutter posted:I got a lot less involved with the whole atheist/skeptic movement after noticing a lot of them were sexist as poo poo and quite a few racist and classist as well. I mean it doesn't make me believe in god, but as a "movement" I'm 100% good with people calling that poo poo out. Don't forget Islamaphobic, but yea I whent through the same disillusionment myself as I slowly came to realize there are a lot bigger problems in the world then religion.
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Jan 24, 2015 04:11
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StandardVC10 posted:I have to think that while many posters in this thread are former libertarians, none of them can hope to have matched jrodefeld's sheer verbiage during their libertarian "phases." From my adventures through mises.org, I think that the "more words is better" mindset is a symptom rather than a uniquely jrodian trait. And if you take a gander at the lesswrong thread, you see the same thing there. I have a suspicion that pseudointellectual movements just tend toward overly long writing, but I have no substantial evidence for it. Maybe they try to dress up their works to make them seem more substantial, maybe the "I was right from the start" mentality makes them averse to editing, maybe I'm drawing a trend from two data points. I dunno. Baronjutter posted:I got a lot less involved with the whole atheist/skeptic movement after noticing a lot of them were sexist as poo poo and quite a few racist and classist as well. I mean it doesn't make me believe in god, but as a "movement" I'm 100% good with people calling that poo poo out. Yeah, I don't hitch myself to their wagon despite being an atheist, specifically because of that kind of thing. As for the people who do influence my beliefs, I'd welcome our libertarian friends to dredge up articles where John Rawls or somebody says "a more just society is one in which the worst off are better off (excluding the blacks)," but I think they'd come up pretty empty. Grognan posted:I'm beginning to think Jrod is a vaccine for Libertarianism. I wish we had more libertarians in here. I can't tell if jrod is just an exceptionally stupid example or if they're all like this. A sample size of him, the instant meltdown Finnish dude, and that former-libertarian white nationalist is not the best for drawing general conclusions.
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Jan 24, 2015 04:13
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Political Whores posted:
Grognan posted:I'm beginning to think Jrod is a vaccine for Libertarianism. This makes the thread worth it, every person who swears off this stuff forever is one step closer to a better world.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:04
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Baronjutter posted:He doesn't, or at least I don't think he cares. In a pure libertarian mindset it doesn't matter what the results are, only that the system is pure and moral. The results don't matter, only the morality of the system. If people are stupid enough to be duped then they deserve to be duped. If kids die because an company that some how profits off spreading medical misinformation is more successful in marketing than actual medical science then the market has spoken, those kids were meant to die. But what are some dead kids compared to the oppression of statism? No one is saying a libertarian world would be good, but it would be moral, and it would be simple and easy to understand. Good smart people succeed, bad dumb people fail. Everyone falls into the place they deserve. Yeah, for all the poo poo that libertarians argue about how their policies would lead to this wonderful utopia for everyone involved, they really don't give a poo poo about things actually improving for the non-wealthy. All the prosperity trickling down bullshit is to simply sell the idea, but the one and only goal is to not inconvenience our beloved job creators at all costs.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:10
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I'll be the one to say it; it is immoral to acquire wealth for the sole sake of acquiring wealth, moreso if the wealth acquired is far beyond the scope of what one person or group could possibly use that wealth for. Doing so only serves to deny resources to others, and does not materially improve the accumulators living standard, only degrades the standards of those whose productivity they have diverted. Libertarianism as expoused by Jrod and his idols is evil. If moral arguments are what this will boil down to, then categorically, libertarian philosophy is wicked and wrong.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:18
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Mr Interweb posted:Yeah, for all the poo poo that libertarians argue about how their policies would lead to this wonderful utopia for everyone involved, they really don't give a poo poo about things actually improving for the non-wealthy. All the prosperity trickling down bullshit is to simply sell the idea, but the one and only goal is to not inconvenience our beloved job creators at all costs. This is the thing: they DO care about improvement, it's just that it's a warped deontological view, not a utilitarian one. They don't care about the wealth or health of the lower classes because it's not about that: the system WILL be better and the world WILL be a utopia, because it works on moral grounds. A libertarian would say *exactly* the same thing about a socialist utopia, because the standards are incompatible. "Well, they spend all this time touting the health and happiness of the residents, but what about freedom of choice, and direct personal benefit?" Jrode may rarely know what he's talking about, but I get the impression that when he tries to make a utilitarian argument, it's not because that's what he finds important, it's because it's what he thinks we will find important. He knows we are utilitarians and so he is attempting to reason with us on utilitarian grounds, even though his beliefs are based on a wholly other philosophical perspective.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:22
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:I'll be the one to say it; it is immoral to acquire wealth for the sole sake of acquiring wealth, moreso if the wealth acquired is far beyond the scope of what one person or group could possibly use that wealth for. Doing so only serves to deny resources to others, and does not materially improve the accumulators living standard, only degrades the standards of those whose productivity they have diverted. This is why I am a Statist. We stand in an unprecedented age where we have the technology and resources to end most suffering and trouble in this world, we merely lack the political will, because people being rich is more important.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:23
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:I'll be the one to say it; it is immoral to acquire wealth for the sole sake of acquiring wealth, moreso if the wealth acquired is far beyond the scope of what one person or group could possibly use that wealth for. Doing so only serves to deny resources to others, and does not materially improve the accumulators living standard, only degrades the standards of those whose productivity they have diverted. "Could possibly use" inevitably defined as >>[what I make].
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Jan 24, 2015 06:02
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asdf32 posted:"Could possibly use" inevitably defined as >>[what I make].  Or you know, the literal trillions of dollars the rich are collecting interest on.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:08
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I think I could say "yeah, I'm pretty much done" once I have enough money to comfortably afford a McLaren F1.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:10
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Baronjutter posted:I got a lot less involved with the whole atheist/skeptic movement after noticing a lot of them were sexist as poo poo and quite a few racist and classist as well. I mean it doesn't make me believe in god, but as a "movement" I'm 100% good with people calling that poo poo out. Its the Hitchens/Dawkins guys that ruin it for the rest of us.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:15
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StandardVC10 posted:I think I could say "yeah, I'm pretty much done" once I have enough money to comfortably afford a McLaren F1. And some people would be done if they had well fed literate children. To each their own.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:18
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asdf32 posted:And some people would be done if they had well fed literate children. To each their own. Okay in that case lets abolish the state so it will no longer protect the banking class and we can appropriately be free of their tyra... hey wait a minute!
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Jan 24, 2015 06:23
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asdf32 posted:"Could possibly use" inevitably defined as >>[what I make]. like all moral arguments vagueness is a feature but if pressed I would say it relates to a ratio of person's income to the income of their average employee (or average wage for a region). I'd even allow for someone to make say 10 times the average and still be moral. That would still allow for a great deal of affluence over the lower class without monopolizing so much of the wealth as to choke out the other rungs of society. Right now we stand at many CEOs making over 200 times their employees. All of this through their own accord, no regulatory preassure being involved at all. the disparity between the lowest to the highest members of society is the best moral measure of a people, and we already are doing woefully. That's with the minimal redistribution and regulation that still stand today. A libertarian society would be hell come to earth, the rich a sitting cabal of ruling Devils on top. Though tbf any lib society would probably decend into revolution pretty soon
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Jan 24, 2015 06:47
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Though tbf any lib society would probably decend into revolution pretty soon I've noticed that the more problems you need voluntarist/lolbertarian organizations to solve, the more closely they resemble states, so after a period of intense turmoil Libertopia would probably be just like today except marginally worse in every way. That's no fun, though, when it comes to writing Ron Paul-themed speculative fiction or detailed accounts of seasteading.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:51
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I too would appreciate more libertarians on this site, if only so that a discussion like this could be more comprehensive and not a thirty to one sort of pile on. I maintain that this is really not a very good way to discuss these issues. There are a million different issues and every little diversion sidetracks discussions, complaints are levied that I didn't respond to specific posts and topics are switched before others are fully fleshed out. I have one more thing to say about Hoppe and the racism charge against him. I will offer a concession of sorts. I was not too familiar with the Property and Freedom Society that he runs. I've looked into exactly who people like Jared Taylor and Richard Lynn are and I don't agree with any of that "racial realism" crap. I reject it completely. I only judge what I read personally from Hoppe and, whatever his personal beliefs, his articulation of libertarian theory and Austrian economics are consistent with what every other notable libertarian intellectual has said for half a century or more, most of whom who have never uttered any un-PC statements. I've long known about Hoppe's social conservatism and his disdain for "left libertarians". With this new evidence, I can say that there is a high likelihood that Hoppe personally believes in some of this "racial realism" stuff, or that there are racial differences in intelligence or whatever the continuum is on this line of controversial thinking. And I can say that I profoundly disagree. I never actually meant to take time defending anyone else, but rather to defend myself and my own views. I'm not going to defend Hoppe against charges of racism or anyone else for that matter. I don't mind people who dabble into controversial subjects and even those who hold controversial positions on race and genetic differences. Race is a subject where a full and open discussion is not possible for fear of being labeled "racist" or being silenced by the PC police. With that said, I think that some libertarians open courting of certain controversial figures are making a big mistake. Here is some history. Murray Rothbard personally aligned himself with the New Left in the 1960s and his writings at the time reflected this alliance. He joined left coalitions in opposing the Vietnam War and he hated the Cold War militarism and propaganda of Bill Buckley and The Weekly Standard, who reciprocated that hatred. As we know in the 1970s he was instrumental in the founding of the Libertarian Party and libertarians became a third political choice, neither left nor right. This is where I feel Rothbard should have stayed, at least strategically. What happened next is well known. The Koch Brothers became more and more influential and wanted to mold the libertarian movement and control it. They wanted to "sanitize" it and remove its teeth, remaking it into an inside-the-beltway, "respectable" and in many ways dumbed down movement that would be welcomed or at least tolerated by the D.C. opinion molders. Murray Rothbard was infuriated by Ed Kochs 1980 run as the Libertarian Party nominee when he called libertarianism "low tax liberalism" and watered down the core tenets of the belief system. Soon he was fired from the Cato institute and his vocal criticisms of the Kochs made them lifelong enemies. Rothbard, along with Lew Rockwell, went on to found the Ludwig von MIses Institute as a competing, far more intellectually vigorous and principled libertarian think tank organization. The Koch funded enterprises continued to try to make inroads into the mainstream through Cato and Reason magazine and they made continual overtures to the left and the D.C. crowd. They basically purged Rothbard from their educational efforts, though students still read him his work wasn't provided or recommended. The same, to a lesser extent, is true of Mises. They preferred people read the more mainstream Hayek and Milton Friedman. What happened next was unfortunate and a case of bad strategy all around. Rothbard and some elements and the Mises Institute sought new alliances to advance their more radical anti-State views. As a counter reaction to the supposed "left-libertarianism" of Cato, Reason and other Koch funded entities, they created new alliances most notably with the paleo conservatives. This, just as was Rothbard's alliance with the New Left in the 1960s, was one of convenience and strategy. People like Pat Buchanan, who was a genuine paleo-conservative, were not libertarians but hated the State enough and were similarly disaffected from the Republican Party as Murray was to the Koch enterprises. What this alliance brought on was a bunch of baggage. These paleo-conservatives tented to hold a substantial degree of racial resentment that was not shared by libertarians. It was even proposed at the low point in libertarian popularity (right after the presidency of Ronald Reagan) that a deliberate strategy of "outreach to the rednecks" (and that exact phrase was used) should be pursued. This paleo-conservative alliance in addition to this strategy of seeking the support of anyone who held anger towards the State is the primary reason for the infamous "Ron Paul Newsletters" that have caused so much trouble for him over his political career. Libertarians didn't believe any of that stuff that was printed in those newsletters, it was a cynical and stupid attempt to generate anti-State sentiment in angry white trash. Thankfully this tactic was abandoned by the mid 1990s as the institute came into its own. This counter reaction to the Koch enterprises pushed the MIses Institute crowd to align more with paleo-conservatives over the years. Let me explain something about many libertarians. We are primarily concerned with the principles of individual liberty, private property and non aggression, sound money and decentralism. As a small movement we tend to align ourselves in political coalitions with people we disagree with frequently, provided there is agreement on the central tenets that we believe in. Some libertarians don't care whether someone personally holds an irrational racial prejudice in their heads so long as they believe in the non-aggression principle and private property rights, meaning that they would never initiate violence against someone no matter what they might think about them. Jared Taylor and Richard Lynn are NOT libertarians. I would wager not even 1% of libertarians agree with them on their racial views. Hans Hermann Hoppe is the one intellectual who never backed down from that early paleo-conservative strategy but doubled down on it. He has routinely harshly criticized left libertarians for a whole number of reasons, a few legitimate and many that are not legitimate. He seems to think that libertarians need to align heavily with radical conservatism. Even many at the MIses Institute have criticized him for these views. Yet and still, as an economist and political theorist, I find him very good and I will continue to read him on issues that I agree and continue to strongly reject his social ideas and proposed strategy. I continue to find his writings on Argumentation Ethics and many of his criticisms of Democracy to be very interesting and compelling. He authored one of the most influential (to me) articles/speeches I have heard. He critiqued and contrasted Marxist and Libertarian Class Analysis and I think made a compelling cases for what Marx gets right and what he gets wrong. It is indeed a libertarian class analysis and a different distinction between the exploited masses and the exploiters that needs to be expressed. As a comparison between radical leftist Marxism and radical libertarianism, I don't think it has any equal. Here it is if anyone is interested: http://mises.org/library/marxist-and-austrian-class-analysis-1 Arguments either are correct or incorrect based on the logic and persuasiveness of the ideas presented or they are incorrect based on these same criteria. If someone holds private racial prejudices in their heads, it doesn't matter in relation to what value they have provided. If I interact with someone or their scholarly work, the interaction is based on some mutual agreement or similarity. I get something out of the relationship and they do the same. If they have other ideas in their head that I strongly disagree with or even find morally repugnant I will strongly reject them and argue with that person should those contentious ideas ever come up in conversation. But I won't throw away and discard the worthwhile ideas and contributions they have or the common ground we share because these people are peaceful "racial realists" (or whatever other term is in vogue to refer to the sort of ideas peddled by Lynn and his ilk). Private property rights being sacrosanct even to the extent of discrimination for any reason on your own property is a conventional libertarian view an is not at all radical or the domain only of "racists". I'll defend my own views on this issue. I abhor racism and I want the African American community to progress at as fast a speed as is possible towards equality under the law and freedom from all forms of coercion. Hence the dedication and focus on prison reform, ending the drug war and reforming the welfare state such that perverse incentives don't create dependency and despair. I think much more highly of the black community than to reduce them to just "a loyal Democrat voting bloc" as too many supposed "progressives" seem to. I endorse the views of Walter Williams on how to fix this lack of progress and unleash the human potential of the black population to achieve and succeed. This is all I'm going to say on the subject of race for now. I'd rather discuss substantive issues once more.
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Jan 24, 2015 09:03
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That you think the "racial PC police" are even a thing is pretty great evidence that you are a racist yourself. Now answer the in-elasticity in medical care question you grotesque coward.
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Jan 24, 2015 09:07
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Not being a racist is real easy, you quaffer of horse semen. Here's three easy tricks: Don't say racist poo poo all the time. Do not invite racists to talk about racist garbage at your meetings. Do not support racist policies. You are a white supremacist supporting piece of garbage.
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Jan 24, 2015 09:10
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jrodefeld posted:I too would appreciate more libertarians on this site, if only so that a discussion like this could be more comprehensive and not a thirty to one sort of pile on. You want a more substantive issue? Fine. Here's one. Libertarianism, as I understand it, generally classifies itself as individualist and contra collectivism. But let us consider this- individualism cannot exist without collectivism. A society of individuals would be distinguishable solely through childbearers and non, as all would be required to perform all the work necessary. Specialization of labor means dependence on others, and the necessity of collective action to achieve things, but it in turn allows people to define themselves as meaningfully distinct from one another. Thus, the individual and the collective are interdependent and ideologies which propose their inherent incompatibility are thus in error.
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Jan 24, 2015 09:11
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I have heard it claimed over and over that a true libertarian society, which to my mind means either the radical minarchism of Mises or the anarchism of Rothbard, would lead to disastrous consequences for most people. Because of that you are utilitarians whose primary concern is the "most happiness for the most people", rather than sticking to a moral principle that you derive based on logic and reason. How can you make a claim of certainty about the consequences of a libertarian society that does not currently exist and has not existed? There have certainly been plenty of "libertarian-like" societies where libertarian policies have been implemented successfully with improving social conditions. Or I could easily cite market liberalization which has allowed tremendous rising living standards such as parts of China where workers are entering the middle class at an unimaginable rate. Similar things have happened in Hong Kong, in Singapore and many other nations that moved towards free markets and private property with the resultant increase in wages and living standards that the libertarian would expect. Libertarians often cite the success of the foreign policy of Switzerland. They don't have a standing army yet all military age males are armed and ready to defend their country if it is ever attacked. They have a non-interventionist foreign policy and they haven't been in any wars for two hundred years. Libertarians often cite the success of drug legalization in the Netherlands and the resultant lower crime statistics and freed up police resources and lower prison populations. Earlier I cited the comparative success of small and independent European nations in comparison to those that use the Euro and are part of the European Union. The results, predictably for libertarians, are very favorable to the small, independent nations that use their own currency and aren't tied into that bureaucracy. Small nations like Monaco, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Singapore, and Bermuda enjoy very high living standards for their people, relatively low public debt in comparison to large nation-states. These all, to my eyes, lend credibility to the notion that humans can and do flourish in response to real life libertarian reforms. Crime statistics (especially violent crime) fall when drugs are legalized, neutrality in international relations leads to peace and free commerce, and smaller political units can have populations that are as happy and prosperous if not more so than larger political units. Yet none of these are close to a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist society. Such a society does not yet exist but of course every human innovation and leap in progress was once never practically tried and only existed as the theories of a tireless minority who sought to explain to the masses that the social institutions of the day were immoral and should be discarded. The first argument is always deontological. Utilitarians must be willing to first try a new idea in order to ascertain its utilitarian effects on the living standards of the people. Good theory can predict utilitarian outcomes with some accuracy if they extrapolate from small scale moves in the direction of the proposed reforms, but most utilitarians are not concerns with theoretical or ethical arguments and will only be persuaded with empirical proof that they, or the people they know, will be better off (however one defines that) in a new social order. How can you say for certain that a libertarian society would lead to such bad utilitarian outcomes if it hasn't been tried in full? How do you explain the relative success of the modest libertarian reforms that I cited above?
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Jan 24, 2015 09:29
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Lemming posted:Your underlying assumption is that that distribution is a result of a minority of people being more productive than a majority of people, when in fact it is the result of a small amount of people stealing from a large amount of people. I agree that the wealth attained by the top 1% CAN be attained through stealing from others. That is precisely the point made by libertarians. It is the theft or coercion that is considered to be objectionable, not the "income inequality". In a voluntary market economy, there is no "distribution" of wealth as there is no central planning to distribute anything. There are only exchanges, people seeking to improve their lives by trading less desirable goods for more desirable goods. We cannot predict how "unequal" society will be in terms of wealth attained, but we can say that if wealth is attained through voluntary trade, that wealth is justly the property of those who have attained it. The point of my citing Pareto's law is to explain that this focus on egalitarianism or "wealth inequality" by the left is missing the point and it is ahistorical. There is plenty of cronyism and corporate welfare in the United States and thus the money attained by these firms is at least partially illegitimate and stolen. No question. But the overall "inequality" actual differs not too much from the Pareto distribution, or the 80-20 rule that has existed throughout history. The focus should be on coercion vs voluntary trade as I have said.
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Jan 24, 2015 09:41
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Nolanar posted:I wish we had more libertarians in here. I can't tell if jrod is just an exceptionally stupid example or if they're all like this. A sample size of him, the instant meltdown Finnish dude, and that former-libertarian white nationalist is not the best for drawing general conclusions. Most of them are actually way more stupid. Seriously, reading the bitcoin threads has shown me just how deep the stupidity well goes
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Jan 24, 2015 09:59
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jrodefeld posted:These all, to my eyes, lend credibility to the notion that humans can and do flourish in response to real life libertarian reforms. Crime statistics (especially violent crime) fall when drugs are legalized, neutrality in international relations leads to peace and free commerce, and smaller political units can have populations that are as happy and prosperous if not more so than larger political units. Drug legalization and international cooperation aren't libertarian reforms you loving moron. Those are ideas supported by both the libertarian platform, but they are also supported by countless progressive and liberal platforms. Libertarianism is not the only political ideology that supports peaceful relations and drug legalization quote:Utilitarians must be willing to first try a new idea in order to ascertain its utilitarian effects on the living standards of the people. Good theory can predict utilitarian outcomes with some accuracy if they extrapolate from small scale moves in the direction of the proposed reforms, but most utilitarians are not concerns with theoretical or ethical arguments and will only be persuaded with empirical proof that they, or the people they know, will be better off (however one defines that) in a new social order. Wrong; utilitarianism is a basis of ethics, so to claim that they are not concerned with ethical arguments makes no sense at all. Requiring proof is also not an aspect of utilitarianism specifically, it's a requirement for every rational form of philosophy except praxeology, a cornerstone for many libertarian ideas. Why do you suppose that is? Why would libertarian thinkers in particular need to reject evidence and historical precedent? Hmm... quote:How can you say for certain that a libertarian society would lead to such bad utilitarian outcomes if it hasn't been tried in full? How do you explain the relative success of the modest libertarian reforms that I cited above? Because A) those aren't libertarian reforms, B) those reforms have nothing to do with libertarian policies on things like deregulation, which has been shown time and time again to be disastrous, and C) whenever we've come close to a libertarian society, the results have been disastrous for the lower class (ie the gilded age). You yourself described an Orwellian hellscape surveillance society when you were attempting to describe an ideal ancap libertopia. And every time that you describe a libertarian solution to some perceived problem, it's always resting upon a foundation made of sand. For a better understanding of what I mean, refer to this post: QuarkJets posted:
Libertarianism won't work because it's based on a combination of misconception, misinterpretation, and deception. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 10:15
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CommieGIR posted:Seriously, Jrod: Who says I fail to notice it? Isn't it enough that I say explicitly, over and over, that I am fundamentally opposed to any situation where one person or group of people use coercion and initiatory violence against anyone else? Of course I am opposed to the physical aggression that workers suffered throughout history. In fact, I am strongly in favor of much of what the labor movement stood for in those days. What it morphed into later on, with the political power of unions and the like is another story. But workers standing up for their rights as individuals, going on strike and protesting poor working conditions and things like that are perfectly appropriate. Seriously, you are projecting your conception of what you think a libertarian must believe onto me rather than responding to what I've actually said. Somehow you think I am more concerned about poor people using aggression against the rich than I am about the rich using aggression against the poor. Nothing I have said would support this assertion. I consider all acts of aggression to be wrong no matter which source they come from.
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Jan 24, 2015 10:31
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Answer the question you perfidious malcontent.
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Jan 24, 2015 10:34
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jrodefeld posted:*snip*! Hello again, dear. I note that, as you're working your way through the responses in this thread, you seem to have somehow neglected to give an answer to this post: Muscle Tracer posted:You do not understand "inelasticity." Let me give you a two-part example: Now, sweetie, I know that your time is limited, there's lots of stuff to reply to, and like I said earlier it is a bit of a poser. However, since it's been three months since the question was originally asked and some 60+ pages, I frankly have to point out - and I take no pleasure in it - that some of us here are beginning to suspect you of, well, dragging your feet a little, if not outright ignoring the question. So, once again, if you could just take a look and take a stab at answering the question in the above quoted post, that would be marvellous.
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Jan 24, 2015 10:52
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Muscle Tracer posted:Glad to see the good fight is still being fought almost three months after I made this post. My first response about healthcare is to note that healthcare inelasticity is not a new phenomenon. If you needed heart surgery in the 1950s or you would die you would pay whatever the cost was as long as you could gather the money, borrow the money or steal the money to pay. Yet healthcare costs were much lower throughout the history of the United States. This chart is very relevant: http://mises.org/sites/default/files/holly1.jpg Normal inflation levels don't account for the exponential rise in healthcare costs that we have seen in recent decades. As the above chart makes clear, healthcare costs stayed at about the level of the Consumer Price Index from 1910 all the way until the late 1960s, when healthcare costs began to rise exponentially and outpace the general inflation rate of other consumer goods as tracked by the CPI. The supply of medical care services is much lower than it otherwise would be do to medical lobbying and special privilege. We talk frequently about crony capitalism and unfortunately the medical care sector of the economy is riddled with the phenomenon. For a century entrenched medical care interests have lobbied for legislation that reduces potential competition through licensing requirements, monopoly privilege grants and subsidies. The AMA went after lodge doctors and others who provided low cost medical services to the lower classes because they were being undercut on price. This has persisted. The supply has gone down while the demand has gone up, which naturally leads to higher costs. If the supply was increased and demand stayed the same, prices would be pushed downward. Even if demand is inelastic, and remember that it is only inelastic for some medical care services (there are plenty of optional medical treatments, tests and doctors visits whose demand would surely change based on the price level), a greater supply of the service by competing suppliers would still push the price downward. What advantage would it be for ALL medical care providers to collude and raise prices for, say, heart surgery at the same time? You are still only going to choose one doctor or hospital to get the procedure done. And if all hospitals have colluded and are charging the same high price, you will make your decision on other factors than price. You will likely choose only that hospital that has the very best doctor. But what of the hospitals with less experienced doctors? Or less state-of-the-art facilities and amenities? How are they going to attract customers? Naturally the only way they could differentiate themselves in the marketplace is to compete on price. The doctors may be less experienced but the price is also significantly lower. It only takes one to break a cartel by undercutting the price fixing scheme. It doesn't matter how "inelastic" the demand for heart surgery may be, an individual hospital or healthcare provider on the market will still want you to choose THEM to perform the procedure not one of their competitors. So there will be an incentive to compete on prices. Providers will want to serve every market. Some clinics may choose very basic and simple offices and buildings to perform their procedures. This reduces overhead and allows them to offer procedures at a much lower price to, say, Stanford or the Mayo Clinic. The fact remains that it wasn't inelasticity of demand that caused medical care costs to begin to drastically outpace the consumer price index over the last forty years. It was State involvement in medical care through a series of legislative actions and increasing Federal funding of medical care costs that artificially inflated costs, led to increased demand and increased regulations that artificially restricted supply.
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Jan 24, 2015 11:04
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OR you could STILL keep responding to ad-hominem arguments about racism that have nothing to do with the validity of your ideas, and reposting mises articles with minor alterations, instead of actually trying to generate a thought of your own
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Oh, well done! I'm proud of you, darling. Now, I have to tell you that I still think that three months is just a tad overdue when it comes to a response, but I appreciate that it takes time to find the mises.org links to construct a counter-argument. Especially one that is that wrong. It's quite impressive, really.
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Jan 24, 2015 11:26
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He got there in the end  Shame it boils down to 'healthcare is only bad insofar as the state is involved'. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 11:28
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Mornacale posted:jrod: I'll answer this post even though I am trying to move away from the race question. I did answer the question on healthcare after all, so I'm not exclusively focusing on this issue. Here are my answers: 1. I think you are implicitly acknowledging the huge divide between whether something is morally good and whether it is right to use force to compel people to behave as you would have them behave on their private property. I think there are potential situations where discriminating based on race is perfectly innocuous. What about casting for a movie role where the lead character is clearly a specific race as written in the screenplay? Or applications for a modeling job where a certain race is desired for the product being marketed? Obviously discriminating based on race in these instances is perfectly fine. And I'm sure that is not what you are referring to. What I think you are referring to is explicitly racist policies such as a store owner putting up signs saying "We don't serve blacks" or something like that. No, such discrimination is obviously NOT morally good. While respecting the right of private property owners over property they legitimately acquired, I would urge everyone to do everything in their power to boycott, protest and oppose such bigoted behavior. Protesters should never be allowed to use violence against the store owner or his property however. Again the answer is no, racial bigotry and discrimination based on this bigotry and hatred are NOT moral. Freedom permits people to act in ways that are rather abhorrent and the fact that libertarians don't believe it is right to use aggression against these people for using their property or speech in a morally obscene albeit peaceful manner never should imply endorsement of said action. There are many peaceful remedies for bad behavior that compel social change but don't violate libertarian principles. 2. First, I reject this premise completely. Libertarians don't envision a society with increased racial discrimination. We don't know how free people would choose to use their property. I would be overjoyed if there was no increase in bigoted discrimination. But remember that the word "discrimination" itself has no moral content. We all discriminate every day all day. The right to discriminate is a right we all have and we all take it for granted. We all choose to associate with some people and to not associate with others. Usually this determination is made for all sorts of reasons, some which are rational and others which are irrational or even subconscious. What the libertarian defends is the right for people to have freedom of association, which is merely another word for "discrimination". Libertarians don't single out racial discrimination and focus on it as if increased racial discrimination is some feature of a libertarian society. Maybe there would be more racial discrimination or maybe less. I don't know the answer to that. 3. You need to recognize the obvious fact that State enforced anti discrimination laws don't eliminate racism at all and they sometimes exacerbate it. Why do I feel like blacks would be better off under a libertarian society? In the first place, as we have discussed, the drug war would be promptly eliminated and hundreds of thousands of locked up black people would be let out, families would be reunited and the epidemic of gang warfare and increased crime in the inner cities will be eliminated due to the lack of profits from the illegal drug trade. State monopolized police will be replaced by competing private security firms who will serve black communities as a business serves consumers rather than as like an occupying military force that the people fear and are distrustful of. Police brutality will be far less likely due to competition. Under libertarian law, private security employees are held to the same legal standard as everyone else and if they use force against the innocent, the punishment for them will be the same as if a non-private security employee used aggression. The goal will be about defense and restitution not on enforcing edicts from politicians on a hapless society. There are a million other reasons why I feel like libertarian reforms would benefit black Americans. I think that a huge amount of economic opportunities will open up for enterprising and ambitious black entrepreneurs whose choices are currently artificially constrained by State regulations and laws. I think the VAST majority of people in this country are committed anti-racists. I don't think hardly any businesses will post "whites only" signs and expose themselves to the ire of the public who, in 2015, won't stand for such open bigotry. Yes we believe that the right to discriminate is a right that is inherent in the concept of private property rights but I don't expect businesses especially to discriminate based on race, sex or religion. Businesses are trying to earn a profit and it would be foolish to artificially limit your potential pool of customers. 4. I reject your premise. Nearly all libertarians that I know ARE anti-racists. And most white supremacists certainly are NOT libertarians. Most white supremacists and open racists want to use force or violence either to force a society to be racially segregated or to commit open violence against blacks. I think your premise is fatally flawed on this question.
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Jan 24, 2015 11:57
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QuarkJets posted:Most of them are actually way more stupid. Seriously, reading the bitcoin threads has shown me just how deep the stupidity well goes Stupid as in they're illogical or stupid as in you don't agree with them? QuarkJets posted:Drug legalization and international cooperation aren't libertarian reforms you loving moron. Those are ideas supported by both the libertarian platform, but they are also supported by countless progressive and liberal platforms. Libertarianism is not the only political ideology that supports peaceful relations and drug legalization Are you implying that political groups and ideologies can claim ownership of ideas?
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Jan 24, 2015 12:14
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TLM3101 posted:Oh, well done! I'm proud of you, darling. Trust me, I wasn't ignoring this issue on purpose. But now its your turn to form a substantive response to what I wrote if you want this discussion of healthcare to continue.
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Jan 24, 2015 12:18
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jrodefeld posted:Because of that you are utilitarians whose primary concern is the "most happiness for the most people", rather than sticking to a moral principle that you derive based on logic and reason. It's more subtle than that, actually - for utilitarians, "most happiness for the most people" is the core moral principle, and we stick to that. Granted, it's not derived from logic and reason, but that's because moral principles can't be derived from logic and reason, unless you have an idiosyncratic understanding of the word "moral". quote:How can you make a claim of certainty about the consequences of a libertarian society that does not currently exist and has not existed? Remember that the burden of proof rests on you to demonstrate that the consequences of a libertarian society would be at all acceptable, as you are the one presenting that viewpoint. You seem pretty certain yourself about the consequences of a society that does not currently exist and has not existed! quote:There have certainly been plenty of "libertarian-like" societies where libertarian policies have been implemented successfully with improving social conditions. You're welcome to present them (rather than assert they exist), but given your propensity to discard evidence-based discussion when it turns against you, I doubt people will have much interest in engaging you. If you're serious about an evidence-based discussion, set out your goalposts and avoid moving them. Then present factual data (not opinions from other libertarians) that demonstrate your claims. Then, when people present counter-evidence, address or refute it without special pleading. quote:Or I could easily cite market liberalization which has allowed tremendous rising living standards such as parts of China where workers are entering the middle class at an unimaginable rate. I don't think people will deny that market liberalisation can improve living standards under certain conditions. However, that's not the same as saying that more market liberalisation always increases living standards, is it? quote:Libertarians often cite the success of the foreign policy of Switzerland. They don't have a standing army yet all military age males are armed and ready to defend their country if it is ever attacked. They have a non-interventionist foreign policy and they haven't been in any wars for two hundred years. Living in a geographical fortress certainly makes that sort of thing a bit easier! Belgium didn't have a radically different outlook, but they got stomped by the Germans on the way into France. Not because of their foreign policy, but because they were between Germany and its goal, and they didn't have the means to prevent it. quote:Libertarians often cite the success of drug legalization in the Netherlands and the resultant lower crime statistics and freed up police resources and lower prison populations. I think there's a general agreement on this point (at least in this thread), but it doesn't strengthen any of your other arguments or refute other people's points. What's really at stake here is the methodology of libertarians, not the policies themselves. Libertarians may be right to support beneficial policy X, but that doesn't make their reasoning correct or compelling (that would be Affirming the Consequent). quote:These all, to my eyes, lend credibility to the notion that humans can and do flourish in response to real life libertarian reforms. Crime statistics (especially violent crime) fall when drugs are legalized, neutrality in international relations leads to peace and free commerce, and smaller political units can have populations that are as happy and prosperous if not more so than larger political units. Seriously, no-one is fighting you about drug legalisation. Bringing it up serves no purpose. quote:Yet none of these are close to a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist society. Such a society does not yet exist but of course every human innovation and leap in progress was once never practically tried and only existed as the theories of a tireless minority who sought to explain to the masses that the social institutions of the day were immoral and should be discarded. The first argument is always deontological. This is really not the case. Most progress is evolutionary in nature, because as a society we have a lot to lose. Trial and error is much more reliable than deontology, because at least trial and error acknowledges the possibility of error (something that libertarians don't seem capable of due to their "pure reason" mindset). You seem to imply here that deontological moral correctness will guarantee a positive consequence, but I see no reason to believe this (or even that the idea of deontological moral correctness is meaningful). quote:Utilitarians must be willing to first try a new idea in order to ascertain its utilitarian effects on the living standards of the people. Good theory can predict utilitarian outcomes with some accuracy if they extrapolate from small scale moves in the direction of the proposed reforms, but most utilitarians are not concerns with theoretical or ethical arguments and will only be persuaded with empirical proof that they, or the people they know, will be better off (however one defines that) in a new social order. Sounds good to me. I would fully support you taking a group of 500 like-minded people to form a perfect Rothbardian society somewhere out of the way. In fact, I can't really think of any other way to do it, because coercion of non-libertarians into such a scheme would be deeply immoral under libertarian principles. I have no desire to be part of your experiment because I suspect it will go hideously wrong. quote:How can you say for certain that a libertarian society would lead to such bad utilitarian outcomes if it hasn't been tried in full? How do you explain the relative success of the modest libertarian reforms that I cited above? Remember, the success of modest libertarian reforms does not necessary imply that extreme libertarian reform would be successful. The behaviour of complex systems is not linear with regard to libertarian-ness. There's always these possible explanations: (a) they weren't successful and you're wrong, given your general inability with history and facts, (b) they were successful for reasons other than those cited by libertarians, (c) random chance, (d) the conditions were exactly right but the same reforms could fail under other conditions. If you present more specific data for one of these cases we can tell you which of these apply. However, I really can't imagine a case where we could reasonably extrapolate full-on ancap from the success of regulated markets in a mixed economy.
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Jan 24, 2015 12:37
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jrodefeld posted:Normal inflation levels don't account for the exponential rise in healthcare costs that we have seen in recent decades. No, the advancement of healthcare technology probably accounts for most of it, because it opened up markets where none existed before. Comparing like-with-like in terms of actual quality, I suspect healthcare is probably cheaper now. quote:The supply of medical care services is much lower than it otherwise would be do to medical lobbying and special privilege. We talk frequently about crony capitalism and unfortunately the medical care sector of the economy is riddled with the phenomenon. You frequently talk about crony capitalism; I'm not convinced I understand what you're accusing them of. Is it the same as rent-seeking behaviour? quote:What advantage would it be for ALL medical care providers to collude and raise prices for, say, heart surgery at the same time? You are still only going to choose one doctor or hospital to get the procedure done. And if all hospitals have colluded and are charging the same high price, you will make your decision on other factors than price. You will likely choose only that hospital that has the very best doctor. Uh..... this makes no sense. What advantage would it be for ALL gas station to collude and raise prices for gas? You're still only going to go to the gas station that has the best quality gas. quote:But what of the hospitals with less experienced doctors? Or less state-of-the-art facilities and amenities? How are they going to attract customers? Naturally the only way they could differentiate themselves in the marketplace is to compete on price. The doctors may be less experienced but the price is also significantly lower. It only takes one to break a cartel by undercutting the price fixing scheme. What you're missing is that the worse hospitals may still make more money from having astronomical prices (and few customers) than from having fair prices (and lots of customers). If demand is high and supply cannot meet it, then hospitals will get patients as long as they meet a certain quality threshold. Then you have to take into account that consumers are not perfectly discriminating. quote:It doesn't matter how "inelastic" the demand for heart surgery may be, an individual hospital or healthcare provider on the market will still want you to choose THEM to perform the procedure not one of their competitors. So there will be an incentive to compete on prices. ...but there may also be incentives not to compete. For example, the Justice department took a number of high profile tech companies to court for making an agreement to not to recruit each other's top employees. When a smaller company stepped out of line to try and compete, it was threatened with "punitive poaching" by the bigger companies, thereby enforcing the cartel's non-competitive nature. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-01/tech-hubris-the-silicon-valley-antitrust-hiring-conspiracy http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/ quote:The fact remains that it wasn't inelasticity of demand that caused medical care costs to begin to drastically outpace the consumer price index over the last forty years. It was State involvement in medical care through a series of legislative actions and increasing Federal funding of medical care costs that artificially inflated costs, led to increased demand and increased regulations that artificially restricted supply. No-one's saying that inelasticity of demand caused the surge in costs. It was largely due to opening new markets. Inelasticity is the explanation for why free market solutions are not as effective when it comes to healthcare distribution. bokkibear fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 12:56
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jrodefeld posted:This chart is very relevant: One example of a quick comparison that readers can run is to fact-check your assertion that rising medical costs are being driven by a scarcity of medical service providers. Physicians... civilian labor force... and... voila. Note: FRED is an economic database with limited access to census data. It shows a tripling of proportional workforce employment at physicians's offices, yet the proportion of actual physicians in the population roughly doubled during the period depicted (it gets a bit messy depending on how IMGs are tallied). The "surplus" employment reflects the training and hiring of additional nurses and administrative support staff, whom physicians have presumably hired in order to improve efficiency, customer-service, or quality of patient care. What conclusions can we draw from this data?
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Jan 24, 2015 13:17
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He finally answered sort of So jrod, I'm curious. If you had to name one society that was closest to your ideal out of all the others, which would you name?
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Jan 24, 2015 13:18
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GulMadred posted:Dude, you're on the loving internet. You don't need to (and shouldn't!) accept evidence in the form of "unlabeled graph without accompanying datasets." Here's the same information, but from a reputable source and delivered in an interactive form which allows readers to transform it and cross-reference additional datasets (e.g. "that looks convincing... but what happens if I adjust for inflation and sunspot cycles?" or "can I please see that exact same chart, but denominated in Zimbabwean dollars?"). I'm sure jrod will totally get around to answering this substantive response to his posting six months from now.
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Jan 24, 2015 13:20
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Unseen posted:Stupid as in they're illogical or stupid as in you don't agree with them? Illogical and/or sociopathic are the trends.
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Jan 24, 2015 14:54
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jrodefeld posted:I have heard it claimed over and over that a true libertarian society, which to my mind means either the radical minarchism of Mises or the anarchism of Rothbard, would lead to disastrous consequences for most people. Correct. Your policies would be utterly disastrous for a huge number of people and utterly fail at protecting the liberty you claim to want to enshrine. jrodefeld posted:Because of that you are utilitarians whose primary concern is the "most happiness for the most people", Wrong. It would make us consequentialists, of which utilitarians are but one type. I've repeatedly stated my own philosophical bent as being toward Rawls's "justice as fairness" ideas, but that isn't as easy to attack, so you won't be able to look it up on mises.org to get your opinion on it. I believe that others on this forum ascribe to the beliefs of one Karl Marx, rather than JS Mill. You may have heard of him. jrodefeld posted:rather than sticking to a moral principle that you derive based on logic and reason. Even if we set aside the fact that you don't seem to understand the ethical frameworks we're operating from, in what goddamned universe is "the most happiness for the most people" not a moral principle? As for logic and reason, I would really like to discuss the logic and reason underlying your philosophy, but you won't answer me for some reason. I suspect that you're just very busy reluctantly making post after post after post about racism while wanting to move on, rather than you being a spineless coward who can't think for himself or anything. jrodefeld posted:How can you make a claim of certainty about the consequences of a libertarian society that does not currently exist and has not existed? From ~*pure reason*~, dear boy! jrodefeld posted:There have certainly been plenty of "libertarian-like" societies where libertarian policies have been implemented successfully with improving social conditions. Or I could easily cite market liberalization which has allowed tremendous rising living standards such as parts of China where workers are entering the middle class at an unimaginable rate. Similar things have happened in Hong Kong, in Singapore and many other nations that moved towards free markets and private property with the resultant increase in wages and living standards that the libertarian would expect. Libertarians often cite the success of the foreign policy of Switzerland. They don't have a standing army yet all military age males are armed and ready to defend their country if it is ever attacked. They have a non-interventionist foreign policy and they haven't been in any wars for two hundred years. Wait, so are you now putting those societies up as libertarian exemplars? Do we finally have a place we can point to for the failures of libertarianism? Or will they instantaneously become bad examples because a state still exists once we start pointing out stuff you're uncomfortable with? jrodefeld posted:Libertarians often cite the success of drug legalization in the Netherlands and the resultant lower crime statistics and freed up police resources and lower prison populations. These aren't policies unique to libertarianism. Ending the war on drugs is a pretty obvious platform for Utilitarians and Rawlsians as well! And even that hated dolt Paul Krugman has pointed out that monetary union without budgetary union is a terrible goddamned idea. Also Bermuda and Hong Kong aren't independent nations, they're owned by the UK and PRC respectively. And just for the record, are you describing loving Singapore as a place of individual liberty? jrodefeld posted:These all, to my eyes, lend credibility to the notion that humans can and do flourish in response to real life libertarian reforms. Crime statistics (especially violent crime) fall when drugs are legalized, neutrality in international relations leads to peace and free commerce, and smaller political units can have populations that are as happy and prosperous if not more so than larger political units. Again, you'd be hard pressed to find any of us opposed to a "peace and weed" platform, but it won't be because of our adherence to the NAP or whatever. jrodefeld posted:Yet none of these are close to a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist society. Such a society does not yet exist but of course every human innovation and leap in progress was once never practically tried and only existed as the theories of a tireless minority who sought to explain to the masses that the social institutions of the day were immoral and should be discarded. The first argument is always deontological. Ahhh, there it is. These examples simultaneously count and don't count as libertarian, depending on if the evidence is good or bad. jrodefeld posted:Utilitarians must be willing to first try a new idea in order to ascertain its utilitarian effects on the living standards of the people. Good theory can predict utilitarian outcomes with some accuracy if they extrapolate from small scale moves in the direction of the proposed reforms, but most utilitarians are not concerns with theoretical or ethical arguments and will only be persuaded with empirical proof that they, or the people they know, will be better off (however one defines that) in a new social order. Haha, yes, sure, utilitarians are all about self-interest, unlike the paragons of egalitarianism in an-capism. jrodefeld posted:How can you say for certain that a libertarian society would lead to such bad utilitarian outcomes if it hasn't been tried in full? How do you explain the relative success of the modest libertarian reforms that I cited above? Find/replace: "libertarian" "socialist" QuarkJets posted:Most of them are actually way more stupid. Seriously, reading the bitcoin threads has shown me just how deep the stupidity well goes I'm not sure I can believe this. I need to check out this "bitcoin thread" you speak of. Does that involve going to GBS? 
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Jan 24, 2015 14:57
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