The Rise of the “Liberaltarian” • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#111

Post by take_a_breath » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

nickik wrote: post #55

take_a_breath wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One must first outline what “beef” is before you can assign fraud. Outlining what makes something “beef” is textbook regulation.

In the common law system it would be up to a judge to make an estimation if such a question should happen. This is how common law operated for a long time. This allows judgment on a case by case bases where the judge can react to changing circumstances. It has many advantages compared to a system where the government to literally pre-define every single thing in the economy and create specific regulation and test pro…

We tried that system and it evolved into what we have today because there were obvious holes. The FDA didn’t create itself. Muckraking journalists (like Upton Sinclair) shines a light on the conditions which led Theodore Roosevelt to create the FDA.

Acting like the world of judicial regulation (which takes years and lots of money to see through) was somehow better seems like rose-colored glasses. Whether the FDA’s scope should be adjusted is a different discussion.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#112

Post by DavidVoid » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #33

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…

Scaling what Denmark is doing for its population of ~5 million to the 300+ million people of the US is way harder than it looks at a first sight. To say nothing of the way more diverse human capital of the US.

I don't think it's really a problem of scale, it's more of a problem of a lack of worker's rights and strong labor unions.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#113

Post by DavidVoid » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #81

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

But unions have far stronger incentives to push for higher wages than governments do.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#114

Post by _0ffh » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #103

leereeves wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't explain events like Apple, Google, Visa, and Mastercard all banning Gab. Reportedly, Visa and Mastercard even refuse to do business with Gab's founder's family. Things like that aren't being driven by grassroots activism. These are decisions made by billionaires.

Gab literally went out of their way to market their service and platform towards the most disreputable. I'm not saying that what happened to them was acceptable, but there's a reason why it's hard to make people care about this stuff. And if nobody cares, it doesn't take much of a "movement" for activists to get their way.

>Gab literally went out of their way to market their service and platform towards the most disreputable

That may have been incidental. It makes financial sense to market to those whom you expect to be most inclined to employ your services. In this case those who feel that they cannot freely express themselves on the competing products. That group is necessarily centered on those who's honest expressions receive the most attention from deplatforming activists.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#115

Post by _0ffh » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

UncleSlacky wrote: post #69

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

Libertarianism itself originated in the left (with French anarchists and early socialists) - it's the right-wing or ancap version that's effectively stolen the name, at least in the US.

Yes, but only after they got the term "liberal" stolen away from them. Herbert Spencer complained about that as early as 1884.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#116

Post by burger_moon » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #24

zozbot234 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for I don't think this would work very well, because I do want my neighbors to pay for fire-fighting services in case their house is set on fire. Moreover, to a proportionally lesser extent, I want their neighbors to pay for the same thing, and so on. There are a whole lot of cross-externalit…

It does sound horribly risky. I suppose in theory you could mandate basic levels of insurance, a bit like mandatory car insurance, but you'd probably end up with a costly, patchy mess like the US health system.

How many people drive around without insurance right now though and even people who don't have driver's license. It just isn't practical to think people will do it, especially when times get tough. If I'm choosing which bill to pay, I'll take the water bill over the insurance bill

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#117

Post by luckylion » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #110

luckylion wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ignore healthcare(!), you can actually live on that pretty well and put some cash away for emergencies. For sure. I didn't understand the comment I replied to to mean those who work though. That (including healthcare) is what you have in Europe if you don't work at all. I wasn't saying that tax money is wasted, quite the opposite, I was saying that most of the money is not in overhead, that is, it's reaching…

> That (including healthcare) is what you have in Europe if you don't work at all. I assume that this refers to unemployment insurance, which is often provided for a limited time, and/or requires you to be actively looking for work. One of the issues with the European model of social insurance is precisely that those who are working at the low-end of the labor market are not included in this kind of redistribution. E…

> I assume that this refers to unemployment insurance, which is often provided for a limited time, and/or requires you to be actively looking for work.

I'm in Germany, unemployment insurance has a time limit, and does require you to look for work, but the benefits are based on your previous salaries, what I was referring to is general welfare. It does have a provision that requires you to look for work as well, but it's rather theoretical, and unless you're basically taking a dump on their desk and tell them to go shove it, you're not going to have your benefits cut. The largest constraint is that you need permission to go extended holidays.

I'm not suggesting it's a great long-term idea to incentivize not contributing to society, or that it's not costly for those paying for the party, I was originally just pointing out that we do a lot to redistribute "the fruits of labor", and that it does reach the intended recipients, as I wasn't sure how to understand your statement.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#118

Post by _0ffh » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #110

luckylion wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ignore healthcare(!), you can actually live on that pretty well and put some cash away for emergencies. For sure. I didn't understand the comment I replied to to mean those who work though. That (including healthcare) is what you have in Europe if you don't work at all. I wasn't saying that tax money is wasted, quite the opposite, I was saying that most of the money is not in overhead, that is, it's reaching…

> That (including healthcare) is what you have in Europe if you don't work at all. I assume that this refers to unemployment insurance, which is often provided for a limited time, and/or requires you to be actively looking for work. One of the issues with the European model of social insurance is precisely that those who are working at the low-end of the labor market are not included in this kind of redistribution. E…

>You could cut a lot of the defense budget in the US if the US's allies started paying their fair share

Yeah. Either that, or you could maybe, like, not have an empire and cut back on the military adventurism? But I see that may be a hard sell in a society in which all the mainstream media just frickin LOVE war. Really, there's nothing just like a nice little war! Or at least bombing a few poor people now and then. It just makes for the best reporting. Also, the military-industrial complex needs to feed. And they seem to be quite cozy with the media-industrial complex. So it's a win-win scenario really. Except for the poor people of course, both at home and abroad.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#119

Post by bumby » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

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.

Effective in the sense of paying better than minimum wage?

Look up the Davis-Bacon wages. These essentially act as union bargaining for non-skilled trades (as well as skilled trades). The evidence would be the rates for general labor are much higher than minimum wage. These same workers often get minimum wage in jobs that do not adhere to this.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#120

Post by oriolid » Sat, Jul 11, 2020, 3:34 PM UTC

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…

> 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)

As an European, I have to ask what exactly does this refer to?