How is this in any way different from the liberal position? I was under the impression that libertarians are against income redistribution.
My understanding is that libertarians are against state-mandated child support, preferring it to be privately determined by the couple and a private mediator. Without child support, custody for a lower- or non-earning spouse would be more difficult to obtain and/or maintain.
I think the government gets involved when there are groups of people that have power over another, and that power is used to create serious harm. The constant contention between different political groups is the severity of the harm before the government should step in. Employers paying employees less than minimum wage for example.
Missed the edit window: Frowning mothers and fashionista kids don’t cause a whole lot of harm. But mothers who withhold medicine or kids who cyber bully might, so there are laws against these.
I understand, but if we’re talking about literal starvation and grinding want, what incentive could possibly suffice? There’s nothing you can offer someone that’s more precious than their life.
You tell me, if you’re a liberal who advocates for a negative income tax, what reasoning led you to that conclusion? It may or may not be the same as what I outlined, different premises can still flow to the same conclusion, and there’s plenty of overlap between political philosophies.
Some are, some aren’t, depending on the exact proposal and how moderate or extreme the libertarian is. Any use of public funds on public goods is a form of income redistribution, so any libertarian that supports taxation supports redistribution on some level.
I have never encountered that proposal, but then again I don’t think I’ve ever sought or come across specifically libertarian proposals for child support or custody.
Right, and there can be reasonable disagreement as to what constitutes harm, and the point at which government intervention is desirable or justifiable. Withholding medicine sure sounds like physical harm to me, cyber bullying less so.
Several libertarians have stated in some form that a basic level of subsistence would be part of the ideal government. We are not about to let people die in the street. A negative income tax as a *replacement *of our current transfer payment system with a negative income tax would be a great way to do that. The problem today is that while the idea of a negative income tax is great - many see it as an add on to the current system. If that were the case, I would be against it completely. It only works if the other transfer payments - all of them - are eliminated. This goes to decreasing the size of government by reducing complexity as well.
Granted I haven’t given a tremendous amount of thought to how custody and support would or should work, but my first inclination is that children are not able to consent. As such they deserve protection. I don’t have any problem with the concept of child support and such. In some limited cases I think the current system behaves oddly but overall it seems generally okay.
Minimum wage is probably the worst example you could use. The only way an employer could pay less than minimum wage would be if the employee accepted it. If they accept it, why is it the government’s place to interfere? If you combine this with the negative income tax above, you do have a social safety net such that people would always have an alternative.
I’m also not convinced about the empirical backing of the conjecture that poverty and/or starvation will on average lead to widespread riots or loss of public order. There are billions of poor and starving people in the world. I’m not seeing the riots.
Yes, those studies all show a strong link between food insecurity, poverty, and violent conflict.
Remember, my point was “Preventing people from starving and becoming desperate preserves public order”, and not “…poverty and/or starvation will on average lead to widespread riots or loss of public order”, with ‘on average’ meaning ‘as likely as not’.
Machinery of Freedom (written by, uh… David Friedman) talks about Iceland.
I didn’t see any references to Iceland in the history books recommended at the end, but I imagine our new poster can provide the cite. Like you, I’d be interested in recommendations for the other societies as well.
More generally, I find your no-anarchist definition of “libertarian” interesting. I’m not a member of this club, so I don’t have strong opinions on the subject, but I would never have considered rejecting someone like, uh… David Friedman. Or Rothbard, for that matter. Which gives me an excuse to quote a hilarious piece by the latter:
I love this. Rothbard’s entire complaint here is that Friedman hasn’t prejudged his conclusion. Friedman built up a cold logical argument, and Rothbard considers that a bad thing.
This very passage was actually what initially spurred me to read Machinery of Freedom. I found the argument deeply unconvincing, and I’m also eagerly awaiting his next book about varying legal systems. There’s not many people I can say such a thing about. The main thing is that he follows The Rules: He works from premises he believes are relatively unobjectionable, in order to reach his conclusion that stateless freedom is possible. You don’t have to agree with the conclusion in order to respect the honesty of the attempt.
It’s your choice how you use your labels, but from an outsider’s perspective, the L-word seems perfectly appropriate here.
First of all I have never heard libertarians elsewhere to be in favor of such government subsidies. The Libertarian party platform, for example, includes ending welfare and using private charity instead (but then they propose making charity donations a dollar-for-dollar tax-credit).
Second I am not sure what you mean by “basic level of subsistence”. In my understanding, basic needs would include food (some fruits and vegetables in addition to starch, some dairy and occasional meat), shelter (let’s say 200/100 sq ft per adult/child) with indoor plumbing and simple furnitures, fridge and kitchen, transportation (public or older used car), heat and cooling (if outside temperatures go below 50 or above 85), electricity, health care (generic drugs, shared hospital rooms), hygiene products, clothing & shoes (Goodwill or Target), K-12 education for children. Is this similar or different from what you have in mind?
If indeed, basic needs (as outlined above) are guaranteed, then I agree a minimum wage would be much less relevant. Since they are not, and all major politicians who identify as libertarians are against the government providing such basic needs, the minimum wage remains a very relevant example. It curtails one group’s (employers) use of its power (economic) to exploit/harm another (employees), as is a function of government.
Thanks for the information. I’m highly curious as to what the social structures in place were, and whether there was a de facto state like a clan system.
Further, calculating homicides via historical sagas seems profoundly unreliable; why would every death of every peasant be recorded? By contrast, much of the research that Steven Pinker relies upon in The Better Angels of Our Nature is based on excavation of burial sites, which seems like it’s more valuable, though I’m no expert in this field.
Lastly, a homicide rate of 10 per 100,000 is no success story, the violent-by-Western-standards United States’ rate is 4.8 per 100,000. Canada’s is 1.6, the Czech Republic’s 0.8, France’s is 1.1, Australia’s is 1.0. So, even if medieval Iceland was less violent than other medievel societies, it pales in comparison to what modern, centralized states have achieved.
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More generally, I find your no-anarchist definition of “libertarian” interesting. I’m not a member of this club, so I don’t have strong opinions on the subject, but I would never have considered rejecting someone like, uh… David Friedman. Or Rothbard, for that matter. Which gives me an excuse to quote a hilarious piece by the latter:I love this. Rothbard’s entire complaint here is that Friedman hasn’t prejudged his conclusion. Friedman built up a cold logical argument, and Rothbard considers that a bad thing.
This very passage was actually what initially spurred me to read Machinery of Freedom. I found the argument deeply unconvincing, and I’m also eagerly awaiting his next book about varying legal systems. There’s not many people I can say such a thing about. The main thing is that he follows The Rules: He works from premises he believes are relatively unobjectionable, in order to reach his conclusion that stateless freedom is possible. You don’t have to agree with the conclusion in order to respect the honesty of the attempt.
It’s your choice how you use your labels, but from an outsider’s perspective, the L-word seems perfectly appropriate here.
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But the A-word (anarchist, or anarcho-capitalist) is more appropriate, because it’s more accurate. Calling anarchists libertarians just dilutes what libertarian means, and it’s already diffuse enough.
The Libertarian Party doesn’t represent all libertarian thought, any more than the Democratic Party represents all leftist thought.
You’re assuming that the two sides are bargaining from equal positions. They most assuredly are not. It’s a buyer’s market for labor, and if the minimum wage was abolished millions would be forced to accept wages even farther below the poverty level than they are now.
I think we’re discussing different flavors of the libertarian ideal. The official party as Human Action mentions, is not canon. In any event, Friedman was a big proponent of the negative income tax as well. I’m not saying that he’s a model libertarian but I do find him quite influential in certain matters. Many of the outspoken libertarians on this board advocate for and recognize the need for a social safety net of some sort. The mechanism for that is debatable but the idea is not out of the ordinary, though far from universal.
As for the tax credit scheme - I don’t think any self proclaimed libertarians in this thread have endorsed using the tax code to encourage or discourage behavior. I certainly don’t.
The EITC was designed to be a sort of negative income tax, but instead of replacing existing transfer payments, it was added on. It has been quite successful in its own right.
That’s nothing at all like I had in mind. While I would support the social safety net, it should be done in the least intrusive way possible. Mandating specific nutrition and housing is not congruent with that. I would support some type of negative income tax, where there is an actual subsidy in the form of cash. What the person chooses to do with it is up to them. If they still squander that, then they very well may die. The amount should be so low that it is painful to rely on, but they will live.
The main reason why it’s a bad example is because it conflates the idea of a social safety net and minimum wage, as if the employer is the one responsible to provide this net. Just like tying health care to employers is a bad idea, tying the social safety net to employers is also a bad idea. All government action should be done in the least intrusive way possible. Minimum wage as a means to establish a social safety net is not only not effective, it’s poorly conceived when there are better ways to do so.
Not all, of course. But for us to have a discussion, we need to identify the positions of a (small or large) majority of libertarians. I am unable to find a poll that specifically asks libertarian about the government providing for a basic level of subsistence, but all indications are that the majority would not support such a provision. For example:
This poll finds that 83% of libertarians agree that “individuals should take responsibility to pay for their own health insurance,” while only 10% agree that “the federal government should guarantee health insurance for all citizens, even if it means raising taxes on individuals and businesses.” I don’t know if you consider health care part of that basis subsistence you were referring to, but I think most people would consider it a necessity rather than luxury. A large majority of libertarians are not willing to use tax dollars to guarantee that everyone has it.
The Pew political typography report indicates that among libertarians, 85% favor smaller governments, 73% oppose tax increase, and 80% favor domestic spending cuts (presumably non defense related since that’s a different question). 80% also agree with “most can get ahead if work hard”. All of these indicate that libertarians are by and large not agreeable to government spending to help the poor.
I don’t mean providing those specific items, but sufficient money for the person to acquire these items. I guess my question is if the money is sufficient to buy only the items in my list and nothing else, is that considered painful enough for you?
Question: Don’t we have to tie wage-based safety nets to employers? This is why I have a hard time thinking over a negative income tax. Let’s assume that the NIC is $25,000 and there is no minimum wage. (NIC threshold chosen for no particular reason and immaterial to my question. )
Wouldn’t WalMart, a known abuser of the social safety nets already in place, simply pay it’s staff $1/day and let them get the other $24,635 from the government? Wouldn’t you have to enforce a minimum rate of pay for full time employees and some sort of fractional basis for part-time employees (e.g. worked 1000 hours of a standard 2000 hour year = 50% of NIC)? Because of this, wouldn’t any NIC drive the low-level employees directly to the handout via businesses paying them so little and thus not giving employees an incentive or even easy way to crawl out from destitution?
They’d be forced to take say $5/hour because that might be their best offer and management would know there are other takers who would work for that wage. If the choice is work for peanuts or starve, you take the peanuts.
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