The Libertarian Thread

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Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

jrodefeld posted:

The libertarian argues that the only just way to acquire property is through homesteading of previously unowned or unused natural resources, otherwise known as original appropriation. If you own your physical body, then if you mix your labor with natural land then that which you transformed becomes in essence an extension of yourself and becomes your property. If you are a frontiersman and you come across previously unowned and unused natural land and you build a house, build a fence, graze cattle and plant crops, then that which you altered through your labor becomes your property.

Generally speaking palaeoanthropologists think that modern Homo sapiens first migrated out of Africa around 60,000 years ago. Others think it might have begun even earlier, maybe as much as 130,000 years ago. Estimates are that human beings had reached the Americas roughly 13,000 years ago, though again it could have been earlier than that. Either way, practically every desirable or population dense area of the planet has been continuously inhabited for over 5,000 years.

So how exactly does this idea of original appropriation apply to anything that occurred within the span of recorded history? Every piece of land you'd care to live on has been conquered many times and then redistributed through violence. The wealth of the Americas was stolen from its previous inhabitants and cultivated using servile labour, largely in the form of slaves stolen from Africa or indentured servants unfairly coerced into working someone else's land.

Since all wealth and land is tainted at the source how can anyone today be entitled to their property? It seems clear that the only logical way to set up a libertarian society would be to abolish all existing property and redistribute it perfectly equally to everyone on the face of the planet. If you failed to do this then you're simply perpetuating the violent and unjust appropriation of someone else's property.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 17:06

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:54

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

witch doctors hate him!

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# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 18:29

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

By far the most entertaining thing about libertarians is their ideas on Dispute Resolution Organizations because in the interest of pacing the thread I feel like maybe we should hold off on bringing those up. Let's enjoy some appetizers before moving on to the main course!

Cnidaria posted:

How do libertarians explain why people wound't just form new governments the second the original was removed? Especially considering it would be in their best interest in a libertarian society to do so since numerous people would have more power than one.

The better question would be how a libertarian proposes dealing with other parts of the world that don't abolish government. What do The United American States of Libertopia do when a Chinese State Owned Enterprise starts systematically buying all the arable land and public infrastructure?

quote:

Also there is the fact that this is what has happened historically when a government collapsed, people began to group into small societies which began to consolidate over time for stability and protection. Although based on this thread and previous ones libertarians understand literally nothing about history.

It's just a coincidence that state's keep forming. Just because every previously stateless society eventually either developed a state or was conquered by a state should not detract from the fact that Libertopia will always prevail because the none aggression principle is just so clearly logically superior.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 19:33

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Here's a bit more context for Hoppe's comments on the different time preferences of whites and "negroids". No doubt this will clarify how totally not racist he is.

Hans-Hermanne Hoppe argues that a monarchy where the government is privately owned would be more economically efficient than a publicly owned government such as a democracy. In response someone pointed out that contemporary monarchies are actually poorer than democracies, which would seem to falsify Hoppe's argument.

First Hoppe gets huffy about the idea that historical data should have any bearing at all, since as a good libertarian he doesn't believe that economics can be established through anything other than a priori logical reasoning. Then he goes on to argue that its unfair to compare a democracy of white people to a monarchy of black people because hey, we all know that "negroids" are just inherently dumber:

Hans-Herman Hoppe posted:

Interestingly, at one point, B-L insinuates that it might be me rather than he himself who is guilty of not "appropriately noting the ceteris non paribus" in "comparing remote historic periods." If anything, however, this charge indicates even more confusion. First off, the historical proximity or remoteness of various phenomena has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of whether an economic theory can be applied or not. A theory can be applied, whenever the conditions as stated in the theory are fulfilled.3
The theory of prices or of price controls, for instance, can be equally applied to ancient Rome and to contemporary New York City, to Germans and to Zulus. As well, my theory of comparative government can be applied whenever the conditions for its application are met; that is, whenever a government is in fact privately owned - a hereditary monarchy - or publicly owned - a democratic republic. B-L, one is safe to assume, is not a historicist who would deny the existence of universal economic laws; hence, thus far he would probably agree. In this case, his warning can only mean the following: Obviously, no society can be a monarchy and a democratic republic at the same time, just as no society can be simultaneously characterized by the existence and non-existence of price controls. Thus, whenever one wants to illustrate the comparative effects of different - mutually exclusive - institutional arrangements, one must compare different societies or the same societies at different points in time. Thereby, in order to illustrate one's theoretical conclusions, every attempt should be made to compare societies which, apart from the theoretical distinction under consideration, are as similar as possible. It would be an error, for instance, to illustrate my theory of comparative government by contrasting European monarchies with African democracies or African monarchies with European democracies. Since Caucasians have, on the average, a significantly lower degree of time preference than Negroids,4 any such comparison would amount to a systematic distortion of the evidence. By contrasting European monarchies to African democracies, the theoretically predicted differences between monarchical and democratic rule would become systematically overstated, and by contrasting African monarchies with European democracies, the differences would become systematically understated.

This is certainly not the rambling special pleading of an insane racist but rather the brilliant ruminations of libertarianism's finest mind.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2014 20:42

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Lumpen posted:

It seems to me that you're inappropriately putting words in my mouth and making general statements about decision-making outcomes that aren't supported by what I said.

You know I think you're onto something here but you aren't taking this mistrust of collective action to its logical conclusion.

quote:

As to your wholly different argument about "collective decisions", the question then becomes whether the individual chooses to associate with others on the basis of voluntary agreement and trade, or to impose their individual preference on others against their will by force, (or accepts other individuals imposing their will by force).

What are these so called "individuals" you refer to? Individualism is really just an illusion fostered by language. If you split a person's corpus callosum then the seperate hemispheres of their brain will operate independently of each other, each displaying the apparent hallmarks of consciousness. On the outside the person will appear to be a single 'person' or 'individual' but when you isolate the sensory information going to each hemisphere you'll find there are seemingly multiple centres of consciousness each operating on information the other hemisphere lacks.

Clearly to avoid falling into the trap of collectivism we should avoid speaking of an 'individual'. Instead we must identify the specific region of the brain that motivates each action. Enough brain collectivism! The hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens and cerebral cortex should all be allowed to pursue their own self interest without interference from something as authoritarian and anti-free market as a "personality".

You might think that you want to stop smoking cigarettes to avoid cancer or stop eating fatty food so you can lose weight. But really that's just "you" ignoring the rational self interest of your nucleus accumbens trying to maximize its dopamine intake. Who are "you" to make decisions for the nucleus accumbens?

quote:

I consider it preferable to seek mutually beneficial ways to satisfy my wants, I respect and tolerate others' right to have peaceful goals and wants that differ from mine (or any arbitrarily defined "majority") and I reject the initiation of force as a means to any end. Ultimately only individuals are capable of acting, and the concept of "collective action" is an illusion often used to justify harmful non-consensual actions. That's why I asked the previous poster how "us" and "our" can be properly defined when talking about resources in general. I find the concept of limited liability corporations and "corporate personhood" very problematic, and I understand those things as legal fictions enforced by state power.

Ultimately only individual brain systems are capable of acting, and the concept of "individualism" is an illusion often used to justify harmful non-consensual actions. That's why I'm asking you how "I" can be properly defined when talking about a human being. I find the concept of individualism or "individual personality" very problematic, and I understand those things are just a conceptual fiction enforced by language and socialization.

Helsing fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Aug 11, 2014

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 18:00

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Cheekio posted:

To be fair, socialists have to go through the same cognitive dissonance when dealing with the philosophy's track record.

I'm pretty happy with the socialized medical system that my country implemented thanks to the track record of the only explicitly socialist government to ever win a state or provincial election in Canada and the USA. According to national polls most people in my country consider this to be our greatest accomplishment and at least one poll shows a majority of citizens calling Tommy Douglas (leader of the socialist CCF) our greatest citizen.

As far as I'm concerned the track record of socialism in a rich and politically stable country was a pretty great one. The track record of socialism in economically backward and politically divided countries is, unsurprisingly, more varied. The same can be said for capitalism.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 20:30

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

DeusExMachinima posted:

Hey nerds. Use some lube when you circlejerk so hard that an-cap=libertarian, it'll keep your parts from getting ripped off.

For a serious answer to your post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

jrodefeld posted:

I hope, as a paying member, you will permit me one thread where we can discuss the merits of libertarianism and compare and contrast it with various leftist ideologies.

jrodefeld posted:

I am a libertarian

I'm sorry if your dumb philosophy got co-opted by somebody dumber. Really it seems like fair play given that libertarianism was a term that American right wingers appropriated from the anarchist left a few decades ago. Complaining about it makes you sound like one of those Trotskyists who claims that literally anyone outside their five person group isn't a "real socialist".

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 01:43

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Somfin posted:

You mean the solutions that rely on a strong, government-controlled, theoretically-publicly-accountable police force, and a strong, government-controlled, theoretically-publicly-accountable court system?

The mob lends people money all the time, and if you can't pay up then they resort to private arbitration to recoup their losses. Of course that wouldn't happen in Libertopia because if Vinny the Loan Shark breaks your legs then you might give him a bad rating on yelp.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 02:51

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

DeusExMachinima posted:

Meh, negative income isn't required to be a libertarian (obviously) but since it really is the least expensive/micromanaging thing I think it's a hypocrisy in American libertarianism. Maybe it's an idea that'll have a chance in the future.

People across the political spectrum support a minimum income or negative income tax of some kind. I don't think its in any way a distinguishing feature of libertarianism, especially given that many libertarians would be completely against it.

quote:

Of course in the meantime we got to replace redlining with ~~affordable~~segregated housing because your glorious revolution from FDR's era went into a tailspin like they always do. Now those centralized welfare agencies are actually catering to Bloomberg voters desperate to keep "those people" out of their nice neighborhoods. So we'll always have affordable and segregated housing instead of negative income no matter how little sense it makes.

This is so unspecific and vague that I'm not sure how to respond. I mean, I get that what you're trying to say here is that special interests inevitably capture the state and use it for their own ends, but you're talking in incredibly broad terms.

I am curious to know just how high you think this minimum income would be set if you imagine it will replace everything from healthcare to affordable housing. I actually support the idea of a minimum income, but I do so because I think it would give people greater economic independence, not because I think it would allow us to dispense with all other government programs.

Anyway, if we want to talk about a specifically American context (I'm not American, by the way) then it's far from clear that a minimum income would be an efficient replacement for the constellation of government programs designed to alleviate poverty or redistribute wealth.

quote:

The Pragmatic Libertarian Case for a Basic Income Doesn't Add Up

AUG 8, 2014Mike Konczal
Cato Unbound has a symposium on the �pragmatic libertarian case� for a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG), as argued by Matt Zwolinski. What makes it pragmatic? Because it would be a better alternative to the welfare state we now have. It would be a smaller, easier, cheaper (or at least no more expensive) version of what we already do, but have much better results.

Fair enough. But for the pragmatic case to work, it has to be founded on an accurate understanding of the current welfare state. And here I think Zwolinski is wrong in his description in three major ways.

He describes a welfare state where there are over a hundred programs, each with their own bureaucracy that overwhelms and suffocates the individual. This bureaucracy is so large and wasteful that simply removing it and replacing it with a basic income can save a ton of money. And we can get a BIG by simply shuffling around the already existing welfare state. Each of these assertions are misleading if not outright wrong.

Obviously, in an essay like this, it is normal to exaggerate various aspects of the reality in order to convince skeptics and make readers think in a new light. But these inaccuracies turn out to invalidate his argument. The case for a BIG will need to be built on a steadier footing.

Too Many Programs?

Zwolinski puts significant weight on the idea that there are, following a Cato report, 126 welfare programs spending nearly $660 billion dollars. That�s a lot of programs! Is that accurate?

Well, no. The programs Zwolinski describes can be broken down into three groups. First you have Medicaid, where the feds pay around $228 billion. Then you have the six big programs that act as �outdoor relief� welfare, providing cash, or cash-like compensation. These are the Earned Income Tax Credit, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), housing vouchers and the Child Tax Credit. Ballpark figure, that�s around $212 billion dollars.

So only 7 programs are what we properly think of as welfare, or cash payments for the poor. Perhaps we should condense those programs, but there aren't as many as we originally thought. What about the remaining 119 programs?

These are largely small grants to local institutions of civil society to provide for the common good. Quick examples involve $2.5 billion to facilitate adoption assistance, $500 million to help with homeless shelters, $250 million to help provide food for food shelters (and whose recent cuts were felt by those trying to fight food insecurity), or $10 million for low income taxpayer clinics.

These grants go largely to nonprofits who carry out a public purpose. State funding and delegation of public purpose has always characterized this �third sector� of civil institutions in the United States. Our rich civil society has always been built alongside the state. Perhaps these are good programs or perhaps they are bad, but the sheer number of programs have nothing to do with the state degrading the individual through deadening bureaucracy. If you are just going after the number of programs, you are as likely to bulldoze our nonprofit infrastructure that undergirds civil society as you are some sort of imagined totalitarian bureaucracy.

Inefficient, out-of-control bureaucracy?

But even if there aren�t that many programs, certainly there are efficiencies to reducing the seven programs that do exist. Zwolinski writes that �[e]liminating a large chunk of the federal bureaucracy would obviously...reduce the size and scope of government� and that �the relatively low cost of a BIG comes from the reduction of bureaucracy.�

So are these programs characterized by out of control spending? No. Here they are calculated by Robert Greenstein and CBPP Staff.

The major programs have administrative costs ranging between 1 percent (EITC) and 8.7 percent (housing vouchers), each proportionate to how much observation of recipients there is. Weighted, the average administrative cost is about 5 percent. To put this in perspective, compare it with private charity. According to estimates by Givewell, their most favored charities spend 11 percent on administrative costs, significantly more than is spent on these programs.

More to the point, there isn�t a lot of fat here. If all the administrative costs were reduced to 1 percent, you�d save around $25 billion dollars. That�s not going to add enough cash to create a floor under poverty, much less a BIG, by any means.

Pays for Itself?

So there are relatively few programs and they are run at a decent administrative cost. In order to get a BIG, you�ll need some serious cash on the table. So how does Zwolinski argues that �a BIG could be considerably cheaper than the current welfare state, [or at least it] would not cost more than what we currently spend�?

Here we hit a wall with what we mean by the welfare state. Zwolinski quotes two example plans. The first is from Charles Murray. However, in addition to the seven welfare programs mentioned above, he also collapses Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and social insurance more broadly into his basic income. If I recall correctly, it actually does cost more to get to the basic income he wants when he wrote the book in 2006, but said that it was justified because Medicare spending was projected to skyrocket a decade out, much faster than the basic income.

His other example is a plan by Ed Dolan. Dolan doesn�t touch health care spending, and for our purposes doesn�t really touch Social Security. How does he get to his basic income? By wiping out tax expenditures without lowering tax rates. He zeros out tax expenditures like the mortgage interest deduction, charitable giving, and the personal exemption, and turns the increased revenue into a basic income.

We have three distinct things here. We have the seven programs above that are traditionally understood as welfare programs of outdoor relief, or cash assistance to the poor. We have social insurance, programs designed to combat the Four Horsemen of �accident, illness, old age, loss of a job� through society-wide insurance. And we have tax expenditures, the system that creates an individualized welfare state through the tax code.

Zwolinski is able to make it seem like we can get a BIG conflict-free by blurring each of these three things together. But social insurance isn�t outdoor relief. People getting Social Security don�t think that they are on welfare or a public form of charity. Voters definitely don�t like the idea of scratching Medicare and replacing it with (a lot less) cash, understanding them as two different things. And social insurance, like all insurance, is able to get a lot of bang for the buck by having everyone contribute but only take out when necessary, for example they are too old to work. Public social insurance, through its massive scale, has an efficiency that beats out private options. If Zwolinski wants to go this route, he needs to make the full case against the innovation of social insurance itself.

Removing tax expenditures, which tend to go to those at the top of the income distribution, certainly seems like a good way to fund a BIG. However we�ll be raising taxes if we go this route. Now, of course, the idea that there is no distribution of income independent of the state is common sense, so the word �redistribution� is just a question-begging exercise. However the top 20 percent of income earners will certainly believe their tax bill is going up and react accordingly.

So?

Zwolinski is trying to make it seem like we can largely accomplish a BIG by shuffling around the things that state does, because the state does them poorly. But the numbers simply won�t add up. Or his plan will hit a wall when social insurance is on the chopping block, or when the rich revolt when their taxes go up.

The case for the BIG needs to be made from firmer ground. Perhaps it is because the effects of poverty are like a poison. Or maybe it will provide real freedom for all by ensuring people can pursue their individual goals. Maybe it is because the economy won�t produce jobs in the capital-intensive robot age of the future, and a basic income will help ensure legitimacy for this creatively destructive economy. Heck, maybe it just compensates for the private appropriation of common, natural resources.

But what won�t make the case is the idea that the government already does this, just badly. When push comes to shove, the numbers won�t be there.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 05:39

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

DeusExMachinima posted:

By no means am I saying it's an idea only libertarians have. In the sense of libertarianism as an adjective, it is an idea that is comparatively more libertarian than what we currently have in America. For a general sum, I'm not an expert. $20,000 a year x 44.8M poors is $896B/year. A less than a trillion a year budget sounds pretty cost efficient, especially when mostly poverty and desperation motivated crime cost us over that amount every year. We could scale it so that you would make no less than $35,000 a year if you had a full-time job paying min wage, $15k + $20k. Make more than that and the taxpayer contributes less, but you're still at the minimum floor of $35k through job wages + tax rebate. People will still be proud (and/or petty) of having a higher wage than someone else so I don't buy the idea that it'll destroy incentive to work. Employees will be freer to pursue their own business ideas or trash an abusive boss and walk away, something that civil rights legislation has never accomplished.

You seemed to be implying in your last post that you thought a minimum income would let lower income people live in New York (which, presumably, was a stand in for expensive cities all over the place). At $35,000 a year that would still be a struggle, especially if the minimum income triggers price increases.

I think its a fine idea to give people a guaranteed income but I don't see how it would alleviate the need for better community planning or building more affordable housing. I don't think the plan you're outlining would actually make it any easier for low income people or racialized communities to move into neighbourhoods that are currently too expensive for them.

quote:

Explain why social security was so successful at vastly reducing senior poverty in the 30's. You get a check, and that's the end of Uncle Sam's involvement. He doesn't need to micromanage you after that point. And it worked. I'm not going to go into the idea that you're denying someone agency in their life with how rules-heavy these programs are today, because it seems like you may not share that concern in the way I do. But understand that does greatly inform my disapproval of these programs versus no-strings cash.

Actually I agree that when possible we should let people decide how to take care of themselves without a lot of obtrusive oversight. Many welfare programs are seemingly designed to stigmatize people or make them feel like criminals and I think that's awful.

I think our disagreement would be how a minimum income fits in with a larger economic program.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2014 18:40

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

It's kind of incredible how different internet libertarians are from their sacred texts. Most internet libertarians seem to basically be dumb hippies who want a world where there's no police brutality and you can smoke dope and unleash your awesome entrepreneurial powers. Many of them seem to genuinely think poverty and crime and everything bad in the world would be solved if you removed the state.

Meanwhile, their icons are praising David Duke, calling for the police to beat the poor, advocating monarchical communities where none libertarians will be "physically removed" from society, or advocating a DRO based law enforcement system so cruel and bureaucratic it makes Stalinist Russia look like a free country.

Plenty of philosophies have some hypocrisy built into them but its hard to think of another one where the seeming disconnect between the follows and the actual content of the text is so great. Watching Socrates blame the state for police violence when his avatar literally called for the police to go beat up the poor is pretty much the perfect summation of libertarian philosophy.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2014 16:44

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:54

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Obviously he became a libertarian because of its raw logical appeal. Implying it has anything to do with his particular background or life experiences is insulting.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 18:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Libertarian Thread