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The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

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Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#71

Post by bluGill »

cosmodisk wrote: post #57
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…

Nordic model is interesting but one has to look at it through the perspective of the local culture and mentality. Something that has been working in Sweden for 20 years,may never work in the US and so on. Also, the education system played a huge role in shaping those countries. I remember going to the underground in Helsinki and to my surprise seeing no barriers: people were still paying and I saw very very few who w…

That is considered best practices in the transport world. Most people pay, so assume everyone did, remove the slow checks that ensure everyone paid and randomly check to ensure people do.

Gates focr people to pay, but they slow the whole system down and you want your transportation system to feel as good as or better than driving.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#72

Post by zozbot234 »

nickik wrote: post #58
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?

Funny then that libertarians love F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman who both argued some redistribution was whole compatible with liberalism. But I'm sure you know better what they believe.

They have argued this but they have also cautioned that redistribution is quite economically costly, so it is important that it be limited and not incur too much undue burden. That's why both of them have endorsed something quite NIT- or UBI-like. Often, many of a more socialist or leftist bent don't quite understand these points, even though they clearly think of redistribution as core to their political stance.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#73

Post by gvd »

TomMarius wrote: post #28
nabla9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Not really. We still believe in market regulation like any sane approach to market does. Well functioning markets are made, they don't just emerge if you remove regulation (except when conditions are just right by accident). Liberaltarian approach is ideological approach to markets that ignores all research into markets.

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

Markets are reactionary and thus too slow.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#74

Post by bluGill »

zozbot234 wrote: post #13
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…

> 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…

Why? If you have fire service and you neighbors house starts on fire they go ask if your neighbor wants the fire out now at much greater cost. If not they watch it burn until it shows signs of spreading to your house at which point they put it out and sue for much more because they failed to contain their fire.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#75

Post by peterwoerner »

incompatible wrote: post #41
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…

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…

A free market would converge to something similar to what we have now. You neglect that people value things other than the amount of short term money to be made. People value wage stability more than getting paid their "market rate" and having to constantly apply for new jobs. Employers value the certainty of knowing that they will have competent employees when the get more work. You neglect that a market would be driven by supply (number of people who can reasonably do the job) which is why unpleasant, but quick to learn jobs often pay terrible wages--lots of 3rd world immigrant labor who can learn that work.

You also neglect that it generally takes about a year to get adjusted to a new business before you can do much more than follow process that someone gives you (you just don't understand the system level implications yet). If you want employees who can drive innovation and process improvement, they have to have some longevity with the company. You do see many companies moving towards what you suggest where they have core technical teams of employees who oversee/work alongside contractors who do the grunt work.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#76

Post by DebtDeflation »

TomMarius wrote: post #28
nabla9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Not really. We still believe in market regulation like any sane approach to market does. Well functioning markets are made, they don't just emerge if you remove regulation (except when conditions are just right by accident). Liberaltarian approach is ideological approach to markets that ignores all research into markets.

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 dichotomy.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#77

Post by mjburgess »

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?

To have something taken which you owe is not an infringement on freedom.

"What we owe to others" is not settled by the question of freedom, and therefore it is perfectly logically consistent to be a libertarian proponent of redistribution.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#78

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

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.

You're asking someone to provide a reference for an opinion.

That's not going to fly here.

Try searching for something like "why unions are better than minimum wage" and report back with your own opinion.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#79

Post by AdrianB1 »

mjburgess wrote: post #77
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?

To have something taken which you owe is not an infringement on freedom. "What we owe to others" is not settled by the question of freedom, and therefore it is perfectly logically consistent to be a libertarian proponent of redistribution.

You don't "owe to others". This kind of entitlement is a fallacy.

Re: The Rise of the “Liberaltarian”

#80

Post by DebtDeflation »

omosubi wrote: post #14

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 l…

>the inane focus on "white fragility"

The author of this book is a white lady who uses the book as a marketing tool to sell her diversity training and consulting services to corporations. I'm not making a value judgement on that, but I think it's important information to have. There's a reason why big companies across the country latched onto that particular book, it was tailor made for them.

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