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The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

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Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#11

Post by bovermyer »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #9
incompatible wrote: post #5

The low-regulation approach seem great until you find out how far businesses will go to cut their costs and increase profits: you end up with situations like flammable cladding installed on high-rise towers, horse meat sold as beef, or bleach sold as a cure for Covid-19 (one of these may be fictional). The line between legitimate business and scam becomes impossible to define.

This is not a problem of regulation, but a problem of law enforcement; there is no need or regulation "don't sell horse meat as beef", but to remove the US legal system plague of settlements where companies pay money to get rid of investigations and claim "they have no fault". I know a real case of horse meat sold as beef in UK and they have lots of regulations (including the EU on top of local). You can put all the…

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

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#12

Post by AdrianB1 »

xondono wrote: post #4

Maybe it’s that I have very weird friends, but pretty much no libertarian I’ve met has defended zero redistribution. They all hate the way it’s done now, and favor other arrangements like a negative income tax or UBI (as a substitute for government-run services). I haven’t seen all the questionnaire, but the questions shown in the article could be read both ways.

Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends.

Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#13

Post by zozbot234 »

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…

> 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-externalities that can't be dealt with easily via private contracting, so we need the government to step in and provide a sensible "default" that's not simply "no one gets any fire-fighting protection unless they pay for a private service".

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#14

Post by omosubi »

It's been odd to see my own reaction and that of my friends to the move of the left towards solely social justice issues in the last few weeks. I've been talking to friends and we all dislike the inane focus on "white fragility", wokeness and performative activism in the form of posting your reading on Instagram. The democratic party's lack of interest in doing anything meaningful is pushing people away - Hopefully liberaltarians form a new party of some sort and break the logjam of the two party system. It's what we sorely need right now.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#15

Post by lixtra »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #8
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 has no minimum wage because it has a very strong union sector. So collective bargaining ensures there's an effective minimum wage equivalent. Which is why Denmark is also much less free market than the US. Businesses operate under strong social constraints, and power structures aren't one-sidedly pro-business/pro-corporate.

> 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

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#16

Post by Barrin92 »

lixtra wrote: post #15
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Denmark has no minimum wage because it has a very strong union sector. So collective bargaining ensures there's an effective minimum wage equivalent. Which is why Denmark is also much less free market than the US. Businesses operate under strong social constraints, and power structures aren't one-sidedly pro-business/pro-corporate.

> 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

for one because the government mandates every business over a certain size (IIRC 50 employees or so) to vote on unionization which is then binding.

The Nordic countries aren't "free market" by any American definition of the term. They're corporatist/tripartite economies. This has just become a fashionable talking point among the mentioned 'liberaltarians', like the Niskanen Center, who invented the term to my knowledge.

I think it's mostly a PR campaign because if you frame social democracy as being free-market it just sounds nicer to the center of the American political spectrum.

A lot of of labour protection that you don't find in the US nonetheless exists, like 1 year+ of paid maternity leave, usually at least 5 weeks of paid vacation per year, ~35-40 hour work weeks and so on. When people talk about free market aspects they usually mention school vouchers and such and selectively pick a few things where the government is more hands off.

As the article mentions Uber/ridesharing as a yardstick, take note that Uber withdrew from the Danish market in 2017 after facing regulation, in Norway only Uber Lux is still active after facing fines, and the same happened in Finland. In Sweden Uber still operates in three cities but all drivers require taxi licenses.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#18

Post by zozbot234 »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #12
xondono wrote: post #4

Maybe it’s that I have very weird friends, but pretty much no libertarian I’ve met has defended zero redistribution. They all hate the way it’s done now, and favor other arrangements like a negative income tax or UBI (as a substitute for government-run services). I haven’t seen all the questionnaire, but the questions shown in the article could be read both ways.

Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends. Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?

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 countries (including the U.S.) are doing now.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#19

Post by sandoooo »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #12
xondono wrote: post #4

Maybe it’s that I have very weird friends, but pretty much no libertarian I’ve met has defended zero redistribution. They all hate the way it’s done now, and favor other arrangements like a negative income tax or UBI (as a substitute for government-run services). I haven’t seen all the questionnaire, but the questions shown in the article could be read both ways.

Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends. Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?

[flagged]

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#20

Post by luckylion »

zozbot234 wrote: post #18
AdrianB1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends. Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?

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 overhead, so I'm not sure what could be improved there, without adding more "undue and costly burden" on those who work, unless you're suggesting taxing e.g. capital gains rather than income.

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