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The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

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Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#131

Post by mjburgess »

_0ffh wrote: post #125
mjburgess wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which "entitlement"? The one expressed in the idea that you owe nothing to others, or the one where others should expect something of you? Why is one "entitlement" and not the other? In either case, there is no logical fallacy present. And the question is independent to the question of freedom which is secondary to the question of moral constraint. Ie., establishing what is moral in our interactions with others (murd…

That comes down to a question of negative vs positive rights. To quote Bastiat: >> M. de Lamartine wrote me one day: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first half." And, in fact, it is quite impossible for me to separate the word "fraternity" from the word "voluntary." It is quite impossi…

Does it?

Does "negative freedom" include "freedom from reprisals for murder" ?

Ie., in a society which maximises "negative freedom", is there no system of redress for murder?

I do not think a libertarian believe so. Rather they have a prior morality in which certain actions "deserve" a redress -- ie., you are owed punishment, or you owe a victim (of, say, theft) what you have stolen from them.

So everyone in this conversation both wishes to maximise negative and positive freedom. The only variable is the moral constraints we place on that maximum.

In the case of leftwing thought, one benefits from society in a way which creates obligations that are not fully "internalized" in market transactions. The positive externality of society is not accounted for: you owe something by being in society which, unpaid, would be theft.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#132

Post by _0ffh »

nickik wrote: post #127
_0ffh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>libertarians love F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman Well that's where you went wrong already. Surely most libertarians respect these guys, but that's about as far as you can take it. Some do love them, I suppose. To others they're thoroughly misguided in some of their conclusions, which are seen as much to statist-socialist in nature. See e.g. [1] for a libertarian critique of Hayek. [1] https://vimeo.com/53850513

Its actually Hans Herman Hesse and the people from the Mises Institute are on the outside. Hesse in particular philosophically speaking is pretty far is no longer even classically liberal in many way. They are decently not representative. They just have the best online media presence.

Uh, if we accept the premise that modern American right-libertarianism was practically single-handedly created by Murray Rothbard, and that Hans-Hermann Hoppe is actually still quite faithful to his old mentor, I guess we'll have to accept that his positions lie well inside the boundaries of right-libertarian thought.

I'm not claiming that all of Hoppe's positions are typical for, or representative of all libertarianism. I just used him as a handy example that the assertion that "libertarians love F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman" is not a given, which is exactly the topic of the lecture I referred to.

As an aside, I'm sure the guys at the Mises Institute will be ecstatic to hear that you think their media presence is the best, even though all that sweet Koch money is going to Cato. I think I kind of agree. :)

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#133

Post by zozbot234 »

_0ffh wrote: post #132
nickik wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually Hans Herman Hesse and the people from the Mises Institute are on the outside. Hesse in particular philosophically speaking is pretty far is no longer even classically liberal in many way. They are decently not representative. They just have the best online media presence.

Uh, if we accept the premise that modern American right-libertarianism was practically single-handedly created by Murray Rothbard, and that Hans-Hermann Hoppe is actually still quite faithful to his old mentor, I guess we'll have to accept that his positions lie well inside the boundaries of right-libertarian thought. I'm not claiming that all of Hoppe's positions are typical for, or representative of all libertarian…

> Uh, if we accept the premise that modern American right-libertarianism was practically single-handedly created by Murray Rothbard

Uh, no. The Friedman/Cato Institute folks are/were definitely libertarian and part of the right, and Murray Rothbard has a terrible reputation among them, as someone who was extremely ideological and had very little appreciation for sensible policy or even for good intellectual argument. I'm actually not too familiar with HH Hoppe, but it looks like he too has pretty fringe views. The LvMI does plenty of good work, especially in raising awareness and popularizing economic thinking broadly-construed, but Misesian libertarianism is fringe.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#134

Post by _0ffh »

mjburgess wrote: post #131
_0ffh wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comes down to a question of negative vs positive rights. To quote Bastiat: >> M. de Lamartine wrote me one day: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program; you have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first half." And, in fact, it is quite impossible for me to separate the word "fraternity" from the word "voluntary." It is quite impossi…

Does it? Does "negative freedom" include "freedom from reprisals for murder" ? Ie., in a society which maximises "negative freedom", is there no system of redress for murder? I do not think a libertarian believe so. Rather they have a prior morality in which certain actions "deserve" a redress -- ie., you are owed punishment, or you owe a victim (of, say, theft) what you have stolen from them. So everyone in this con…

A murderer is breaking the negative right of the victim not to be aggressed against. That would be a violation of the non-aggression principle.

Also, they are doing property damage to the victim's body. (Yes, I'm being a bit whimsical here, but this would technically be a valid charge in this case, as far as I can tell.)

From that point on out they are guilty of a crime for which they may be tried and punished. I don't see where the problem is, frankly.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#135

Post by _0ffh »

zozbot234 wrote: post #133
_0ffh wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, if we accept the premise that modern American right-libertarianism was practically single-handedly created by Murray Rothbard, and that Hans-Hermann Hoppe is actually still quite faithful to his old mentor, I guess we'll have to accept that his positions lie well inside the boundaries of right-libertarian thought. I'm not claiming that all of Hoppe's positions are typical for, or representative of all libertarian…

> Uh, if we accept the premise that modern American right-libertarianism was practically single-handedly created by Murray Rothbard Uh, no. The Friedman/Cato Institute folks are/were definitely libertarian and part of the right, and Murray Rothbard has a terrible reputation among them, as someone who was extremely ideological and had very little appreciation for sensible policy or even for good intellectual argument.…

Well, Rothbard was one of the three founders of Cato. He's actually the one who suggested the name. After the not-so-amicable parting of ways between Rothbard and Cato I wouldn't have expected them to sing his praises.

Why do I seem to keep getting objections to the simple statement that not all libertarians "love Hayek and Friedman"? I mean, really, it's not that great of a claim.

And lastly, call Rothbardianism fringe, but it's surely still libertarianism, right? Rothbard's been hugely influential on modern right-libertarianism as a whole, so why the insistence of erasing him from the picture?

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#136

Post by AdrianB1 »

luckylion wrote: post #107
unpolloloco wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

No, if you don't work you don't have healthcare, only emergency care that I think it's similar to the one in US. Also the quality and availability of healthcare in Europe is degrading fast, mostly because there is no free lunch and it is impossible to cover unlimited medical care for everyone, it would cost more than the entire GBP of each country.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#137

Post by take_a_breath »

nickik wrote: post #129
take_a_breath wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sc…

Making public policy based on a popular novel that didn't even claim to be totally accurate. Food quality was improving before FDA was established and continued rising after as well. Most quality improvement is driven by consumer demand that was the case before and after FDA.

Nobody said the policy was based on a book not is anyone advocating for it, that’s an obvious straw man.

Your mention of “quality improvement” is another slight of hand as that’s not really the FDA’s purpose nor do you support it with sources. Show some data for food (and drug) safety preceding and following the FDA and we can discuss.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#138

Post by kubanczyk »

zaroth wrote: post #66
kubanczyk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In preschool calling something "very bad" is a good point that can even win the whole discussion. It's the same thing you are doing with curse words like "corporatist" and "social". Or using "free market" as an ultimate blessing. By itself, it just doesn't look convincing on this site. Maybe dig a level deeper?

You’ve done nothing here but what you accuse OP of doing, except bullying OP by comparing their post to a preschool argument.

Apologies for that p-bomb, I agree it was unwarranted.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#139

Post by incompatible »

danaris wrote: post #94
incompatible wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've ever seen anything resembling a free market in labour, and I doubt that it would be tolerated. It would be a market where wage rates could go up or down depending on economic conditions. In reality, people get very unhappy if wages go down and companies are more likely to cut costs by sacking staff. It would be a market where if you were unemployed, but qualified, you could approach a company and o…

The only way we can have anything resembling a free market for labour is if those seeking to sell their labour can be assured that failing to do so for a given period of time will not result in homelessness, starvation, and death. In other words, until and unless we provide everyone with a basic income sufficient to support a modest living. As it stands, and as you observed, pay for work is based primarily on some ve…

I've been reading a bit of the anarchist literature on the topic.

The traditional answer to unfair power structures is revolution and replacement of the power structures by something else. However, revolutionaries always seem to end up building similar power structures in one form or another. The abuses of Marxism against the general population were obvious, although it can be claimed that the Marxists did little more than establish a form of state capitalism, with a single "company" running a country (and preferably the world). Only the anarchist tradition is in favour of abandoning power structures completely, using direct democracy in each community to make decisions. Each person is supposed to have equal power but be subservient to the community (although anarchists vary in the details).

Basic income, like social democracy, is basically a way to alleviate some of the worst aspects of capitalism (for the poor) so that the system can continue with less chance of revolution. Social democracy lost influence as the Soviet threat diminished, so that capitalists felt less threatened by revolution and were able to impose a harsher form of capitalism. Capitalism has had the advantage that basically everybody with a decent income ends up supporting this idea of personal wealth and lower taxes. However, the harsher (purer) forms of capitalism are more likely to concentrate wealth (power) in the hands of a few over time, bringing back to the threat of revolution.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#140

Post by incompatible »

itsumoiru wrote: post #22
bovermyer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, you can't have law enforcement without laws to enforce...

The law that applies/ought to apply is the one against fraud in the beef example.

By the time the fraud has been discovered and the company has been successfully sued, the owners will have long moved on, leaving behind nothing but a shell with ownership registered in the Cayman Islands. (Lax regulation of companies is also part of deregulation).

In any case there are other areas of regulation, such as environmental protection. What will happen when those are relaxed?

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