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The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

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Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#81

Post by misja111 »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #30
lixtra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very strong union sector Why is this not free market? Employees are part of the market as well. At some point you may argue that the unions form a cartel maybe. But that is another sign of a free (from state) market

I think we've been trained to fixate on labels, because it limits our tools to solve problems, and the people in power don't want us solving these kinds of problems. Depending on which labels you (general you) ascribe to yourself, most ideas are DOA, because they don't fit in your identity box. Who cares if it's free market or not? A strong union presence is significantly more effective than a minimum wage. One amoun…

"A strong union presence is significantly more effective than a minimum wage."

Why? To me it seems that governments have far stronger means to enforce a minimum wage than unions have.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#82

Post by DangitBobby »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #65
DangitBobby wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a law against using flammable building materials always be considered "regulation"?

I never said there should be no regulations at all, just that some regulations are not needed or excessive. For example, needing a training course, pass exams and have a professional license to sell flowers is stupid, while doing the same to drive a car is totally fine.

Apologies, the context did not make that clear.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#83

Post by unpolloloco »

luckylion wrote: post #20
zozbot234 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redistribution is about giving everyone a stake in upholding a free society for everyone else. That's what actually makes for "freedom, as much as possible". The point is that we're doing it in almost the worst possible way; putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit. UBI or NIT would be a vast improvement on what most developed co…

> putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit I suppose "all that much" is the key term. Is European style redistribution (aka a nice flat, utilities, TV and smartphone, clothing, health insurance, food and cash money to spend on whatever you please) not all that much? It's not like we're wasting 90% of taxes on administrative overh…

The thing is...we nearly have that dream already in many lcol areas. Take Cleveland, Detroit, or Pittsburgh for example. Wages at the low end are rising to the point where if you're making less than $13-14/hour, you're actively doing something wrong. $800/month for a 2 bed apartment in an ok location (or a 1 bed in a good location), cheap groceries, a not great but passable public transportation system. If you ignore healthcare(!), you can actually live on that pretty well and put some cash away for emergencies. The problems only come in when you have health problems or have a family (childcare).

To your point on wasting tax money, have you seen the defense budget lately? Can fix those two issues and them some with some moderate cuts. Capital gains taxed the same as earned income would help too, but won't make enough to solve the big issues.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#84

Post by Zarel »

helen___keller wrote: post #47

In most of the world, the political compass is described in 2 dimensions. So, "liberaltarian" would just be lib left

The political compass is split into two axes: social and economic. "Left libertarian" on that compass means "socially libertarian, economically left".

"Liberaltarians" as described in this article split the economic axis further, since they're anti-regulation (generally considered economically right) and pro-redistribution (generally considered economically left).

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#85

Post by _0ffh »

TrueGeek wrote: post #6
Lazare wrote: post #3

> So their overall approach is unique: Let the markets operate how they should and redistribute income after the fact. Some people have called this new type of political animal the “liberaltarian.” That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised f…

> Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services I’ve heard many US Libertarians say that they want the US Fire services completely privatized. We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for. The competition would drive down prices…

>Denmark has traditional fire departments paid by the government

I think that putting it like this is a bit misleading. So, in about two thirds of Danish municipalities fire fighting as well as rescue services are outsourced to a private company which is commissioned by the municipal governments. But that is certainly not the classical state-run structure that I suppose most people would be thinking of when they read "traditional fire departments".

(Yes, this is arguably traditional in Denmark by now, but I think it is actually more of an exception in the bigger picture of traditional fire fighting.)

Where I come from, for example, professional fire fighting services actually are honest-to-god state-run entities. Our overall fire-fighting structures are actually extremely good value for the money. But this really is only possible because a significant part of the actual work is done by voluntary fire fighters, as we have managed to preserve that part of our culture, so far at least. And that is really traditional fire fighting (even in Denmark, if you disregard the last 100 years or so).

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#86

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

awesome_dude wrote: post #26
TrueGeek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services I’ve heard many US Libertarians say that they want the US Fire services completely privatized. We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for. The competition would drive down prices…

This is a new concept to me (governments paying for fire departments). Fire departments have always been paid for by insurance companies, a long time ago there were competing departments, owned by competing insurers. Problem was if your house had the wrong insurance plaque attached, the competing fire service would just stand and watch your home burn down. In order to remedy this, the insurance companies formed a col…

> Fire departments have always been paid for by insurance companies,

Where? Is this the majority normal situation globally?

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#87

Post by grasshopperpurp »

killjoywashere wrote: post #53
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we've been trained to fixate on labels, because it limits our tools to solve problems, and the people in power don't want us solving these kinds of problems. Depending on which labels you (general you) ascribe to yourself, most ideas are DOA, because they don't fit in your identity box. Who cares if it's free market or not? A strong union presence is significantly more effective than a minimum wage. One amoun…

> A strong union presence is significantly more effective than a minimum wage. Citation, please? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm begging you, with tears in my eyes, for a citation.

I have a link from a 2018 study that shows the benefits of unions, but I wasn't able to find any studies that pit unionization vs min wage. I'm sorry I couldn't do better, but I'll share where I'm coming from.

Denmark, where fast-food workers make something like $20 per hour, doesn't have a minimum wage (as other posters have noted). I'll see if I can circle back to this later, but I'd guess that countries with strong union presences have higher rates of people who make more than whatever the minimum wage is for that country. Rather than a race to the bottom, and a constant need to redefine the bottom as it gets too low, you (collectively) have a seat at the table, where you can voice your wants, demands, and concerns.

Setting a minimum wage, especially in a country as large and diverse as the United States, is a pretty convoluted process. I know HN has some pretty large threads discussing the $15 min wage proposal from a few years back. A living wage is different in Seattle than it is in Boise, etc., etc..

It's convoluted, and it relies on legislation. A union says, "We're not doing shit unless we get X, Y, and Z." People hoping for a minimum wage increase beg people to consider the poor. So, setting aside the fact that one is arguing for middle-class (or upper-class) accommodations while the other is arguing for lower-class accommodations, one is arguing from a position of power while the other is asking for pity. One is saying, Your operation will grind to a halt if the compensation isn't adequate, and the other is saying, Please do the right thing, and give me enough money to live.

https://academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/97/2/495/502559...

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#88

Post by zozbot234 »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #76
TomMarius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to say yes or no, could you link that research? I'd love to deep dive into it.

Just grab a freshman level microeconomics textbook. The conditions under which a market is efficient have been well known for decades - lack of externalities, no transaction costs, symmetrical information, enough buyers and sellers that everyone is a price taker, etc. My undergrad was in Econ and it drives me nuts how frequently this debate turns into a "free markets are always best vs die capitalism!" false dichotom…

There's a few caveats to that - namely, that many of these conditions act as a constraint on government regulation as much as they do on private contracting. And the kinds of government regulations which can help are also somewhat known - generally they boil down to "create an enforceable property right in X where none existed before" or "provide a different 'default' contract arrangement for Y, because asymmetric info/externalities/transaction costs/etc. mean that what you get absent that default is not socially beneficial".

Stuff like truly extensive regulation or outright central planning is nowadays relegated to narrow settings where market entry is considered infeasible and a "natural monopoly" cannot be avoided, so there is a real need to "carve out" the portions where competition is not feasible and apply strict regulations to those. That mostly applies to public utilities and a few large businesses like airlines, etc. Internet-provided social platforms may be in the same boat.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#89

Post by leereeves »

lettergram wrote: post #68
nickpp wrote: post #37

Isn’t it kind of ridiculous when you have to make up such words ‘cause you insist describing people’s complex preference and belief system on a single damn dimension?! I am both left and right, depending what issue we are talking about. And sometime I am center as well. Yet when it’s time to vote... I have exactly 2 real choices.

I wrote about that here: https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/ I think in part that’s why we have polarization. We have two extremes pulling each party apart, social media (as this article suggests) is pushing the left. The right is largely getting disenfranchised so they are getting more fanatical. It’s a recipe for an eventual civil war or at the very least the road to dictatorship. To be honest, both s…

I think that's mostly accurate, but I think it's the social media companies who are pushing the left.

There are, or until recently were, plenty of moderate and right-wing people on social media, but the companies have so many ways of tilting the scale in favor of their preferred political views, they've intentionally created echo chambers where only far-left political opinions are acceptable.

And that leaves people feeling disenfranchised because a few companies now own the means of communication, and there are no good alternatives for people who are silenced by these companies.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#90

Post by unishark »

Kbelicius wrote: post #32
unishark wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Redistribution is about giving everyone a stake in upholding a free society for everyone else. That's what actually makes for "freedom, as much as possible". I think it's arguments like these (going back to conflict with socialists over such definitions) which lead to libertarians claiming they do not base their philosophy on "freedom" but rather "liberty". Which they more narrowly define as something like the free…

Then what do libertarians think that freedom means in this context? Because in this context it certainly doesn't mean "do whatever the hell you want no matter who it hurts" as you put it.

That sentence was put there to make the point which you missed anyway. The principle is pretty much the same in any context. Freedom is the absence of restriction, for example the restrictions against violating others rights by taking their property. To restate the point in a less triggering way.
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