Libertarian Mythology

Great Debates
41

Libertarianism is a hot-house flower, a pure abstraction of political theory, far, far from the madding crowd of grumble and struggle. It offers sanctuary and shelter for persons of an essentially conservative bent who cannot bear to be associated with the stark, staring madness that the Republican Party has become, but nonetheless cannot stand the left. It is a home to the non-partisans, the kind of person who disdains the stupidity of partisanship, and accords themselves as special kind of integrity for refusing to choose. If partisanship is stupid, and I am not partisan, I am therefore more intelligent. Perhaps. Or perhaps you simply cannot make up your mind.

Libertarianism is never having to say you’re sorry, because nothing that happens happens because of you. You have no power, you aren’t going to get any power, and if you did, you are bound not to use any of it. It is the piety of irrelevance, the sanctity of a studied refusal to participate on any terms but your own. They gaze upon the ugly muddy tug of war that is right-left politics from a picnic blanket off to the side, munching cucumber sandwiches and congratulating themselves on their irrelevance.

And whatever mistakes are made, they did not make them, they have no power to fuck up. Nor is there ever any likelihood that they shall. Like anarchists are to the left, theirs is the purity of utter abstraction, they are not soiled by trying to appeal to the great unwashed, they disdain to debase themselves so.

Me, I like 'em! They’re cuter than a whole barrel of kittens and as harmless as cottage cheese, though not as spicy. If they were to choose, they would most likely end up pulling on the other end of the rope, so, while they are no gain to my team, they are a loss to the other team, and so much the better.

You go, guys! Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

42

Whatever the take on ICs is, the rapid development of the electronic computer would not have been achieved without massive government intervention in the form of research money and labs in WWII.

It’s almost certain the same technologies would have been developed without the war, but it’s ludicrous to think development would have been as rapid without significant resources devoted to it. Not just money but also all the highly qualified personnel gathered together to work out wartime problems. You can claim that WWII is a special case, but so what? It’s an example where massive government intervention provided massive leaps in development. And not just the electronic computer but also the rapid development of RADAR and the atomic bomb (regardless of the ethical implications of the development).

Beyond that and as mentioned above, the Internet itself is mostly an outgrowth of ARPAnet and funded through government. The most advanced current Internet research is still performed on Internet2 at research universities and industry and government labs with government providing a significant source of funding. Heck, even the TCP/IP protocols we’re using right now were the end result of government funded research.

Again, these technologies probably would have developed eventually anyway, but government funding definitely accelerated their growth, especially since it was not entirely clear that many of the technologies would provide any short-term (or even long-term) profits.

43

Another advantage of the government research is that without the profit motive it encourages the free flow of information.
(Note the biology described below is made up, but not dissimilar from the way real research works.)

As it stands now, a researcher at NIH could discover that the gene BCL-6 is important in lymphoma progression and publishes a paper saying so. Meanwhile a researcher at University of Washington finds that the BLC -6 pathway is interrupted with activation of the P-16 gene and publishes a second paper. Further a researcher at Johns Hopkins develops a chemical that can selectively activate P-16, and probably patents this chemical with Johns Hopkins taking its cut. Finally Pfizer in conjunction with the third researcher takes all these results puts them together into a drug and with additional NIH funds proves its effectiveness. It files for a drug Patent and makes tons of money. End result lymphoma patients have a new drug which cures 20% of previously terminal cases.

Without government research: Bayer discovers BCL-6 is associated with lymphoma progression, and researches it further in hopes of getting a drug that affects BCL-6, but keeps it as a proprietary secret, since there is no practical application there is no point in filing a patent at this point, and no point in helping their competitors. Roche discovers a number of connections between different genes including P-16 and BCL-6 but doesn’t know of a use for it, and so keeps this finding to itself as a proprietary secret. Since there is no practical application there is no point in filing a patent. Pfizer finds a way to block a class of genes (P-16 among them) but since none of these are known targets of any cancers, this is kept a a proprietary secret in case they do end up being useful. End result, eventually Bayer manages to put the pieces together and find the drug by themselves but it takes several additional decades.

44

Quoth Roderick Femm:

That would work if the benefits to Monsanto specifically were large enough to justify the cost. But what if the research costs 15 million dollars, and saves 10 million each for three different agricultural companies? None of them has the incentive to fund the research, and yet it would have an overall excellent return on investment.

Quoth Sam Stone:

Because the market has demonstrated that it fails at this task. If government doesn’t do it, nobody will.

45

What is the proper amount of government spending on fundamental research, and how do we determine that?

46

Why, it is precisely that amount which will ensure that our great nation remains competitive, and promotes our economic growth for future generations, while ensuring opportunity and support for our nations job-creators and entreprenuers. And not one dime more!

Glad you asked.

47

Difficult to say right now, but the way to determine it is to increase the amount until you start seeing return on investment fall off, and then dial it back to just before that point. One should, of course, do this slowly, to have time to see the effects of the research (which often take a while to become apparent).

48

And this is all done without any political pressure from Congresscritters wanting goodies for their districts, right?

49

I spokesmen for Libertarians said “he was happy that no Libertarian Congresscritters were involved”.

50

LOL … literally. This is supposed to be the research that has no market application. How do you calculate the ROI? And then precisely calculate said ROI, over multiple applications and years of of implementation? All by bureaucrats with no profit incentive for getting said calculation right?

LOL

51

That seems a little naive to me too. We can’t get Congress to quit building things for the military they explicitly don’t want because it would mean less money flowing into the district, and you think they will rationally decide how much research to do? They would and do always vote for more money, up to and surpassing the ability to pay for it.

52

And people on this board think septimus is a liberal! :smack:

Among many other problems with this suggestion, how do you argue with those who say private investment in technology that, for example, yields better tasting junk food is “worth” more than, e.g., research to improve schools or to help save endangered species?

53

This question is purely hypothetical, so a hypothetical answer as elucidator gave:

is probably as good an answer as any. But there are ways to arrive at a more practical answer as well.

Fundamental research is not a zero-sum game, so an absolutely precise figure is impossible to arrive at. But you said “proper amount”, which I would take to mean “approximately optimal”. One way to achieve this, and the method I personally prefer although there are others) is to evaluate past efforts and extrapolate them into the present.

I’ll assume you were referring to the amount of U.S. federal government spending, independent of funds from states, from individual or industry grants, or from cooperative foreign programs. I’ll further assume that at some point in time The U.S. was widely thought to be at the top of the research game and that this is a good place for the country to be; i.e., that we should attempt to return to that status. To the best of my recollection, the first warnings from both scientific and business communities that the U.S. was falling behind, was no longer leading in research began to occur about 15 years ago, or about 1996*. Since the downward trend undoubtedly took some time to be recognized and publicized, the last period of optimal research funding probably occurred in the period 1990-1994.

Using this information, one could then take the composite total of federal research support during those years, adjust for inflation and establish a baseline for research funding, thereby arriving at an annual dollar amount that is approximately optimal. Obviously any actual dispersals would necessarily be adjusted to reflect elimination of waste & fraud, should reflect changing needs, availability of funds, and political reality. Just as obviously, there are other ways to approach the question, and each would arrive at a different answer. None of them however, would arrive at the standard libertarian answer of “federal funding for fundamental research should be zero”, as you and others here have posited.
SS

*This is a somewhat vague and arbitrary distinction, and can definitely be argued. However I believe further research would show it to be accurate within a year or two.

54

Why does the US have to lead the world in government sponsored research? How do we know that if that money had stayed in the private sector that we wouldn’t be better off? All you did was make non-Libertarian assumptions to come up with a result that no Libertarian would agree, for no obvious reasons. In short, I reject your assumptions.

Also, since this is a thread about Libertarian philosophy, you have to understand that, per that philosophy, the only legitimate role of government is to protect freedom. Forcing someone to fund research that he is not wiling to fund voluntarily is contrary to the most fundamental tenets of Libertarian philosophy. A Libertarian will tell you that he would rather have control over his own money than to reap any “benefits” the government might give him by taking his money and making some scientific discovery.

n.b., I’m a “small l” libertarian (leaning) guy, and not necessarily the hypothetical “large L” guy in that paragraph.

55

Ooooh! Look who can tell the difference between the big letters and the little ones now.

56

Cut it out.

57

It doesn’t have to…but speaking as an American I think it’s desirable that it does. Somebody has to be the best, and since individual industries have no real incentive to engage in fundamental research and could not diseminate it as effectively if they did, then it is properly the province of government to lead the effort. If my own government is in the top spot then I stand a better chance of benefitting.

Another hypothetical. We don’t know whether we’d be better off, but I can’t think of any scenario where we would be. And it should be pointed out that many industries voluntarily support government-sponsered research over and above their taxes…by way of grants-in-aid and research partnerships. Apparently these industries see value in the research work governmnent is doing.

Of course I did and of course you do. I’m no libertarian (big or little “L”), I think it’s a silly, selfish, utopian philosophy overall. Which is not to say some of the individual ideas might not have some merit.

58

But the question wasn’t about America. It was about government, in general. Starting with the assumption that each government should strive to be the top spender on research isn’t much use as a philosophy of government.

Depends on your definition of “better off”.

Well, they’re hoping to get a dollar’s worth of research for 50 cents. That’s a pretty good business plan.

59

Actually the military and the government have a need and develop a product to suit it. The space program was far beyond private enterprise.

60

Libertarians don’t care about sharks. Let people swim where they may!