The author starts with a false premise about what libertarianism is. How can I follow any logic that starts off wrong?
Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
131–140 of 148 posts
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
I meant the usual thing. Right wing economic policies. Left wing social policies. So relatively low taxes, less bureaucracy, balance the budget, etc. But also gay marriage, equal rights for a variety of groups, and science based environmental policies.
Totally agree that such a party would be great. Does left wing social policy include e.g. universal welfare, health care and access to education though? Or are you thinking mainly of "liberal" rather than "left wing"? Part of the problem is that left wing social policies cost money and have to be administered, conflicting with low taxes and less bureaucracy.... :(
I don't think that tbilly said that it would be great, just that it would cruise to an easy victory amongst startup types.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
By economic liberal do you mean left wing? Economic liberalism usually refers to right wing economic policies.
I meant the usual thing. Right wing economic policies. Left wing social policies. So relatively low taxes, less bureaucracy, balance the budget, etc. But also gay marriage, equal rights for a variety of groups, and science based environmental policies.
That's what used to be called liberal, before that label got re-used.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I meant the usual thing. Right wing economic policies. Left wing social policies. So relatively low taxes, less bureaucracy, balance the budget, etc. But also gay marriage, equal rights for a variety of groups, and science based environmental policies.
Totally agree that such a party would be great. Does left wing social policy include e.g. universal welfare, health care and access to education though? Or are you thinking mainly of "liberal" rather than "left wing"? Part of the problem is that left wing social policies cost money and have to be administered, conflicting with low taxes and less bureaucracy.... :(
You hit the nail on the head. Reality wouldn't let you do all of that without compromises, and we didn't agree where the compromises should be. But that wouldn't stop a politician from promising all of the above. :-)
That said, we did find broad agreement on many things that are completely off the political map in the USA. For example we could reduce the size of our military, liberalize drugs, get rid of the DEA, and reduce prison populations. All of that saves money. We also agreed that none of us actually expect Social Security to still exist when we need it, and so we'd prefer it replaced in the long run by something out of the hands of the politicians. Something along the lines of Australia's Superannuation would make sense. (But it wouldn't be fair to do it like Bush suggested - where it is privatized but with cutoffs that massively reduce what people can expect to get.)
Absolutely none of that is in the public discourse. But it would have been more popular in that office than anything being offered by the political parties.
In other conversations we also agreed that in general it is better to make rules simple and clear with the right incentives, rather than trying to add rules and counter rules that are guaranteed to give perverse incentives and a field day for lobbyists. For example we have laws mandating fuel efficiency standards, with complex exceptions saying that different types of vehicles get different treatment. I can't say anything about the net result other than that I'm sure that it lets politicians say that they solved the problem, while giving established Detroit companies some benefit. (The most obvious candidate for a benefit is that the regulatory mess is a barrier to entry for competitors.) But if you simply tax carbon fuels steeply enough, then incentives will be right. And then if you redistribute those taxes back to people in direct payments, then people can afford the taxes, and are left pushed to choose efficient vehicles for economic reasons.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fundamental error of this piece is that it assumes that if you vote Democratic, you're by definition not an engineer. (not really, but to me it makes as much sense as your statement) How does being a part of the evil "one percent" make you any less qualified to have or hold a variety of political views? If anything, I've found that having more money makes me more aware of issues like unemployment, health care, et…
Well feel better - there is no right/left divide in America. By the standards of anywhere else there is only very right / slightly less right. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled off was convincing Americans that anyone to the left of Attila the Hun was a Communist... What I find odd is that the article equates libertarianism with Rand and the Koch brothers, as if no other type exists. There's also a hint of con…
> By the standards of anywhere else there is only very right / slightly less right.
Depends. Germansy is rather social democratic, but to a German government subsidised housing (via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and universal minumum wage sound vaguely socialist.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well feel better - there is no right/left divide in America. By the standards of anywhere else there is only very right / slightly less right. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled off was convincing Americans that anyone to the left of Attila the Hun was a Communist... What I find odd is that the article equates libertarianism with Rand and the Koch brothers, as if no other type exists. There's also a hint of con…
Libertarianism is basically a fundamentalist version of liberalism. It's essentially "liberalism has gotten too complicated and the complexity is producing errors; here are the most important bits and they're what Really Matter", which is what fundamentalism is.
It's a fundamentalist version of economic liberalism certainly, but not of political liberalism in the sense of vaguely leftist centrism.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#137The fundamental error of this piece is that it assumes that if you vote Democratic, you're by definition not a one-percenter. But this is just wrong. There are lots of one-percenters who vote Democratic. They just mostly feel more strongly about cultural-liberalism issues than they do about economic ones. But when it comes to economic issues, these folks still tend to lean rightward; they overestimate the degree of s…
I've never heard the term "Limousine liberal," but I'm fond of the french expression: La Gauche Caviar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauche_caviar
Or the British term: "Champagne Socialist".
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#138One foundation of the entire argument seems to be that support for the Democratic party makes SV progressive. However, in a global context only the minority left wing of the Democratic party could be called progressive. Also, a simpler explanation for the large support for the Democrats would be that SV consists of intelligent, highly educated and well-informed people that wouldn't dream of supporting the extremist,…
Reasonable, honest, thoughtful people vote Republican for good reason. For example, they are more likely to support good governance. Blue states and massive public debts go hand in hand[1]. In my experience, the number one most common quality that distinguishes the rare Bay Area young Republican is a love for sustainable budgets and a belief in the immorality of a government knowingly running an unsustainable deficit…
It's very worth noting that most of those "unsustainable deficits" in blue states are caused by making net contributions to the Federal budget, while most of those "good governance" surpluses in red states are caused by receiving net transfers from the Federal budget.
It's hypocritical but easy for a child to complain about the financial irresponsibility of the very parents who subsidize him.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#139The defining difference between Silicon Valley companies and almost every other industry in the U.S. is the virtually universal practice among tech companies of distributing meaningful equity (usually in the form of stock options) to ordinary employees. That's disingenuous. 0.02% of something that a CEO thinks (based on nothing but his own ego) is worth $10 billion is not meaningful equity. The proper way to model th…
And this is why I'd rather just get large cash bonuses than equity options or grants, if I'm going to work for someone in industry. Give me cash, and I can dump it into my Vanguard index funds for a pretty good expected value.
Re: Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "someone who is economically conservative but socially liberal." I don't feel like that defines a libertarian at all. When I hear the word, I think of someone who believes they (and everyone) should have the right to do whatever they like - so long as it does not infringe on anyone else's freedoms or rights.
> When I hear the word, I think of someone who believes they (and everyone) should have the right to do whatever they like - so long as it does not infringe on anyone else's freedoms or rights. I've always hated this definition, because it's so empty. The whole debate of politics is what happens when the freedoms and rights of different people come into conflict. Different groups define these freedoms and rights diff…
I've always hated this definition, because it's so empty. The whole debate of politics is what happens when the freedoms and rights of different people come into conflict.
Well yes. Libertarianism is davka the project of destroying politics by rendering all available decisions a matter of either private fiat by a property-owner or property-ownership disputes through the court system. The whole idea is that the elected government should have nearly zero power to actually gather or direct collective, social effort.