# A Challenge to Modern Liberals Regarding their Fealty to the Principles they Espouse **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 11, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693 "2013-06-11T02:57:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/61 "2013-06-11T21:23:51Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > I don’t have to explain to you exactly where these voluntary interactions will take society. No one can know that. What I can say is that voluntary, peaceful interactions are ALWAYS and everywhere superior to the initiation of force. Just to satisfy my curiosity, what voluntary, peaceful interactions are you presently prevented from pursuing, which ostensibly this whole Statism-facade-smashing business will liberate you to pursue? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/62 "2013-06-11T21:24:25Z")
Gold is valuable because people want it. Dollars are also valuable because people want them. Now I’ll grant that gold has been around a lot longer. But dollars have been a valuable commodity for 150 years now so they seem pretty stable. There’s no basis to pretend there’s something inherently “right” about gold and inherently “wrong” about dollars. ---
**Author:** ![jayarod7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@jayarod7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayarod7)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/63 "2013-06-11T21:40:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m just going to address a small part of the OP’s point for now, because I just don’t have time for more. > > How do you know there would be public pressure? If a business makes tasty and cheap sandwiches for a hungry public but treats their employees like crap, how do you know there wouldn’t be a line out the door for their delicious sandwiches? If a business pollutes the lake but makes cheap and useful widgets, the local customers may protest and boycott, but how do you know that other customers from farther away wouldn’t take advantage of their cheaper and better widgets? > > And suppose a business dumps poison into my backyard and my kid gets cancer- how do I make them pay? What if they have good PR and convince my neighbors that my kid got cancer because I run the microwave too much? > > Knowing human nature, it sure seems like the powerful and wealthy wouldn’t have much of a problem staying powerful and wealthy in your system. You are making a huge assumption that the American consumer is stupid but that the government regulators are wise and farsighted and can influence business behavior in ways that consumers cannot. I think you hugely underestimate the ability of consumers to evaluate product values, and organize and hurt businesses that treat them badly. Workers can easily strike or quit and work at another company. Will it be perfect? Of course not. And you are correct about human nature and the wealthy and powerful will ALWAYS be trying to become richer and more powerful by the easiest method available to them. But if you look at history, it was clear in the late 19th century and early 20th century that large banks and corporations became exhausted trying to collude and form monopolies and cartels in the market to protect their profits only to have such efforts fall apart time and again due to the competitive forces of the market. So they were forced to turn to government to institutionalize their corporate dominance that was unachievable in the free market. No system is going to prevent all abuses. There is no Utopia. Yet I always find it odd that the proponents of the free market somehow need to meet a higher standard of proof that no possible bad things could happen under market conditions while the defenders of government intervention frequently get a pass. For example, you are trying to devise a scenario where a corporation manages to get away with some wrongdoing and the public is unaware or indifferent and the workers don’t strike and people don’t boycott and protest and the property owner whose land is affected by the pollution doesn’t sue and all these hypotheticals where free people are unable to stop a bad actor, at least not in a reasonable time frame. Even if I grant the validity of your hypothetical, how does this make the case that government regulation can or would do better? I think on balance, a government that is influenced by corporations and businessmen co opting the regulatory agencies and insulating themselves from liability for their actions will result in far more corporate crimes than if the people had recourse through the market mechanisms I outlined. We cannot achieve a perfect society. But we should certainly refrain from using a patently immoral means (initiation of force and coercion) to theoretically achieve a certain outcome. Individuals who are free to do as they please and engage with others in mutual transactions on the market will make mistakes. Humans are fallible. But putting a small number of these fallible individuals in charge of a grossly immoral institution of coercion and violence is no solution. The solutions we are to find for society must be arrived at through just means, voluntary cooperation rather than violence. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/64 "2013-06-11T21:47:21Z")
**Jayrod7** , let’s say we agree with you. What exactly would you like us to do about it? Personally, I’m pretty fat and happy the way things are. But, if I don’t have to put too much effort into, I’d be willing to rally around your cause. ---
**Author:** ![jayarod7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@jayarod7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayarod7)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/65 "2013-06-11T21:56:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Yes, that’s pretty much it. A lot of support for libertarianism comes from big corporations. A good metaphor is some wolves telling a flock of sheep they should get rid of the sheepdogs. > > Jayarod, you’ve obviously read a lot of libertarian literature. What you should do now is read something else. Start reading material that isn’t trying to sell one point of view and gain some perspective. I have read other literature on politics and economics. If you have any suggestions of books I should read to broaden my views, I will seriously look into them. I am not rigid in my thinking and I arrived at my conclusions after studying various perspectives and comparing and contrasting different answers to economic questions and ethical questions. But I still have to reject the notion that big corporations are largely supporting libertarian causes. This is just objectively not the case. I will grant that you could name a few CEOs of large companies who are libertarians. The two I can think of are Peter Thiel, CEO of Paypal, and the owner of Whole Foods (I don’t remember his name off the top of my head). Those are about it as far as I can tell. If you name three or four CEOs that are libertarian and I can name a hundred who are donors exclusively to Democrats and Republicans. That is where the money goes. It goes to people who push government regulations (that they write), corporate subsidies, no bid contracts and the rest. How can it be anything but blatantly obvious that the largest banks and corporations would be greatly hurt by a move to a free market? That would mean no bailouts, no more subsidies, no more influence in government, no more Federal Reserve extending them free money. Don’t you recall that it was almost exclusively the libertarians who were saying that we should NOT bail out the banks in 2008 and let them go bankrupt and suffer the consequences of their actions? It was the Austrian economists, not the Keynesian pseudo fascists who warned of total collapse if corrupt zombie banks and their illiquid assets were not bought up by government post haste. Look at what happened in Iceland. Contrary to what nearly every other major industrialized nation did following the crisis, they let their banks failed and they prosecuted the banks who were proven to have committed fraud to the fullest extent of the law. And their economic recovery is far outpacing the United States or the European nations. This was the libertarian prescription. Let the banks fail who are insolvent, stop protecting the bad actors from liability and prosecute those that committed fraud or acted in a criminal manner (and believe me, there were quite a few that fit that description). Now tell me again why those corrupt corporations and large financial institutions would want to support libertarian causes? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/66 "2013-06-11T22:01:46Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > No. I want liberals to understand that central banking and **fiat** money… The gold standard does not work for anyone except gold miners. And maybe not even them. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/67 "2013-06-11T22:04:10Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > You are making a huge assumption that the American consumer is stupid but that the government regulators are wise and farsighted and can influence business behavior in ways that consumers cannot. They can. They have more power, more organization and much better information. > [@jayarod7](#): > > Workers can easily strike or quit and work at another company. Only to the extent that the government protects their ability to do so, as little as it does in America. In a Libertopia, there’s nothing stopping corporations from getting together and compiling blacklists of people who won’t be allowed to work anywhere, for example. Nor without government protection is there anything stopping a corporation from simply outright enslaving them. > [@jayarod7](#): > > Will it be perfect? Of course not. And you are correct about human nature and the wealthy and powerful will ALWAYS be trying to become richer and more powerful by the easiest method available to them. But if you look at history, it was clear in the late 19th century and early 20th century that large banks and corporations became exhausted trying to collude and form monopolies and cartels in the market to protect their profits only to have such efforts fall apart time and again due to the competitive forces of the market. So they were forced to turn to government to institutionalize their corporate dominance that was unachievable in the free market. Nonsense. The monopolies were repeatedly broken up by the government. Monopoly is the natural state of being in capitalism; one person or corporation attains an unassailable dominance and uses it to crush any possible competitors before they grow large enough to stand up to the monopolist. > [@jayarod7](#): > > Yet I always find it odd that the proponents of the free market somehow need to meet a higher standard of proof that no possible bad things could happen under market conditions while the defenders of government intervention frequently get a pass. There is no such “higher standard”. We know from history just how horrific unrestrained capitalism is. > [@jayarod7](#): > > We cannot achieve a perfect society. But we should certainly refrain from using a patently immoral means (initiation of force and coercion) to theoretically achieve a certain outcome. As is usual among libertarians, you are ignoring that corporations and other groups are just as capable of force and coercion as the government. Freedom requires either government protection, or that you live as an unreachable hermit. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/68 "2013-06-11T22:07:41Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The gold standard does not work for anyone except gold miners. And maybe not even them. I recall a comment from an earlier thread on the gold standard. That if you want to know how crazy an idea it is, consider that not a single nation on Earth, not even the craziest, most incompetent dictatorship uses the gold standard. It’s that bad an idea. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/69 "2013-06-11T22:18:01Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Nonsense. The monopolies were repeatedly broken up by the government. Monopoly is the natural state of being in capitalism; one person or corporation attains an unassailable dominance and uses it to crush any possible competitors before they grow large enough to stand up to the monopolist. I’m not a libertarian and hardly an opponent of reasonable regulations on businesses by government, but saying that “monopoly is the natural state of being in capitalism” is simply ahistorical. Historically, monopolies usually depend on government intervention to crush the competition usually through tariffs, which stifles foreign competition or regulations which are far more onerous on emerging businesses than on well-established businesses which can influence what regulations get pushed through and how they’re enforced. I suppose if you want to argue that monopoly is the natural state of being under “crony capitalism” you’re right, but libertarians aren’t advocating that. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/70 "2013-06-11T22:20:27Z")
Incidentally, and this isn’t mean as an insult directed at anyone, but I’m always amused by such threads which seem to imply that outside of internet message boards that libertarianism is remotely influential, has never had any power and is completely unknown to most people who don’t spend time on internet message boards. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/71 "2013-06-11T22:24:42Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > What are your reactions to my analysis? The first paragraph contained a major error (as I see it) and I glossed over the rest. Why is it necessary, or even desirable, to completely overthrow the existing system based on past injustices? Isn’t a sensible “modern” liberal’s efforts best spent modifying and moderating the existing system, calling for incremental change and/or for established principles to applied equally? To use the United States as an example (I’m not myself a citizen of that nation), its constitution can be amended - it is not necessary (though the founders left open the possibility) to completely trash and completely rewrite the document every few decades. And then I saw the references to “fiat money” and “fractional reserve banking” and my desire for further analysis of your analysis waned significantly. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/72 "2013-06-11T22:25:14Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > I am a liberal in the classical sense and a progressive as defined by a desire to unshackle human kind from the chains of tradition and fealty to outmoded conservative ideas. “Libertarian” would be an adequate label for that. No, you can’t have “liberal,” this is not the 19th Century, and you can’t have “progressive” either, that belongs to the social democrats now. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/73 "2013-06-11T22:27:26Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Wait, he’s trying to get _liberals_ to smash the state?! That’s like recruiting Campfire Girls for a bayonet charge. That’s what I thought . . . _urk_ . . . Beware . . . _rattle_ . . . Beware the Campfire . . . ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/74 "2013-06-11T22:28:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Well if I understand him correctly, all governments are fascist tools of corporations. Ah, so he’s not any kind of liberal, he’s a Marxist. Glad that’s cleared up. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/75 "2013-06-11T22:30:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Why is it necessary, or even desirable, to completely overthrow the existing system based on past injustices? Oh, just for the lulz. I’m game! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/76 "2013-06-11T22:32:07Z")
Well, so far, the OP remains a one-thread poster. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/77 "2013-06-11T22:33:49Z")
> [@jayarod7](#): > > We cannot achieve a perfect society. But we should certainly refrain from using a patently immoral means (initiation of force and coercion) to theoretically achieve a certain outcome. Well, we’re never gonna get rid of all the things you find objectionable about the status quo, without using a whole **lot** of force and coercion. As in the “R” word. Unless you really think voting would do it? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/78 "2013-06-11T22:36:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, we’re never gonna get rid of all the things you find objectionable about the status quo, without using a whole **lot** of force and coercion. > > Unless you really think voting would do it? I suspect it’s a lot like Communism. There’ll need to be a dictatorship of the [del]proletariat[/del]free marketeer, until government withers away. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/79 "2013-06-11T22:56:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I recall a comment from an earlier thread on the gold standard. That if you want to know how crazy an idea it is, consider that not a single nation on Earth, not even the craziest, most incompetent dictatorship uses the gold standard. It’s that bad an idea. I’ve never quite understood why “fiat” money (ostensibly representing confidence in the economic strength of a nation - the value of the goods and services it produces, and the desirability of those goods and services to other nations) is considered a less desirable concept than money tied to the arbitrary value of shiny rocks. I can picture more _useful_ industrial commodities to which a currency might be tied, like sulfuric acid or hydroelectric kilowatt-hours. I just figured “fiat” was a composite representation of a nation’s ability to produce commodities in general, enhanced by its efficiency (or reduced by lack thereof), add its ability to export commodities, subtract its requirements to import them, take into account inflation within the country… I would think a stable nation with a growing population that has free markets and many natural resources and the skillsets to exploit said resources, with a stable banking system and a stable political system guided by rule of law would have the most valuable currency. Looking at various lists, I see the top ten is heavy on small oil-rich states. Good for them, I guess, as long as oil remains a desirable commodity and I expect it will for quite some time. Heck, why not oil instead of gold, as a currency basis? Its pricing is stable and predictable, right? Just like gold, right? No market shocks or international price adjustments that could totally torpedo a nation’s economy, right? I wonder why Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Azerbaijan haven’t officially replaced their currencies with the petrodollar. Basically… gold, schmold… ---
**Author:** ![jayarod7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dc4da7/32.png) [@jayarod7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayarod7)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693/80 "2013-06-11T22:57:31Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Nonsense. Gold isn’t going to be used for “financial transactions around the world”, it’ll be sitting in vaults unused like now. And people aren’t “forced” to use Federal Reserve Notes; they _prefer_ them. You could print your own “Jayarod Dollars” if you wanted or offer to pay people in gold and the government wouldn’t stop you. You don’t because almost no one _wants_ private currency, and gold is clunky & limited. > > Only in goldbug-land. In the real world it’s just another commodity that can go up and down in price like any other. > > :rolleyes: _They do._ The only thing preventing people from using alternative currencies and gold is sheer lack of interest, and the fact that gold is both horribly awkward and much too limited to do the job. That is not the case at all. See this link: > **[Let's Give the Fed Some Competition](https://reason.com/2012/04/05/lets-give-the-fed-some-competition/)** > > The Federal Reserve prints so much money that since it opened its doors in 1914, the dollar has lost more than 90 percent of its value. Here is a link to Hayek’s “Choice in Currency”: > **[Choice in Currency | Mises Institute](https://mises.org/library/book/choice-currency?d7_alias_migrate=1)** > > A path-breaking essay by Hayek, newly in print in cooperation with the Institute of Economic Affairs, this piece first appeared in 1976, during an inflationary Do you know what happened to the Liberty Dollar? [http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/nov/15/liberty-dollar-office-raided/](http://www.courierpress.com/news/2007/nov/15/liberty-dollar-office-raided/) Even IF it was technically legal to have private currencies, the fact is that gold and silver are TAXED therefore they cannot be used as currency. If a competing currencies is taxed and you MUST pay the taxes in another currency, Federal Reserve Notes, then how is that a real currency? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-challenge-to-modern-liberals-regarding-their-fealty-to-the-principles-they-espouse/660693.md?page=5)