And I’m sure you can cite a credible economist supporting this quite counterintuitive theory?
Ah, so it all comes back to gov’mint. But I thought it was more libertarian back then? How could this have happened in that case? Actually, I think I know… it’s exactly the outcome one could expect from a libertarian government over time (taking human nature into account).
One more time, with feeling. The “noncoercion principle” is the cornerstone of libertarianism, right? Now I trust you’ll agree that in pre 1900 America, over half the population lived in a much more coercive environment (and not just social coercion but codified in the laws of the land). How can you claim it was a more libertarian time? Please explain.
It’s not that I think libertarians want to return to the days of Jim Crow – I’m just curious if some types of coercion are more important to libertarians than others.
I work in social services and find these types of stories grossly exaggerated. Our agency serves older clients, most of whom aren’t in any condition to go back into the job market and fend for themselves. And when you look at social service spending in this country – the kind of stuff you libertarians would love to gut – you see that most of it goes to people like this. People who worked hard all their lives but caught some bad breaks toward the end. People who have serious disabilities and will never be able to function in society without a helping hand. We could cut out all the “welfare queens” and “undeserving poor” and we would still be left with a large Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs for these people. These are costs that private charity alone cannot meet (I assume you’re familiar with the “free rider” problem).
About “victimhood,” a lot of the victimhood I hear is from right-wing blowhards. “The govmint took my job away!,” “The govmint taxes me too much!,” “The govmint forced me to buy a fishing permit!” The govmint this, the govmint that.
I’ve lived and worked in Asian as well. In Japan, where I spent the most time, bureaucrats are held in much higher regard than in the US. Japan has a much more generous health care system. The “hard work ethic” part is true, but that’s more of a cultural value, having little to do with the “non-coercion principle” or any other libertarian ideas. Also, Japanese companies try very hard to keep their employees – having a “job for life” is still common, though becoming less so.
As for freer market places, you’re joking, right? South Korea has a long history of state intervention in the marketplace. The use of capital controls has been key to both Korean and Japanese development. During the boom years, government agencies in Japan (such as MITI) were so enmeshed in economic planning it was hard to tell were the government stopped and private industry began. Public works have been an important component (and Achilles heel) of Japanese domestic growth. If you drive out in to the countryside and cross a stream, there’s a good chance the streambed and sides will be concrete (for “flood prevention” – ha! studies have shown that many of these projects actually make floods worse).
I don’t think the Asian tigers prove the value of Libertarianism at all, quite the opposite – they prove that developing countries need strong, regulatory governments to resist internal excess and outside pressures. The opposite example would be Central America, where relatively weak governments serve the interests of the large plantation owners. The people of the region are also hard workers, but no one talks about the “Central American tigers.”
Well, on this I can agree. But I might point out several liberal democracies are moving in this direction. And at least one (The Netherlands) is already there…
A little shift: explain why this would help the Libertairian cause, by turning kids into potential targets by the police?
Especially since they’re saying, “it takes the responsibility away from parents!” And yet they’re handing these kids toys without parental permission (some parents don’t allow their kids to play with toy guns. Whether that’s right or wrong shouldn’t be the point).
And again, it amuses me that libertarians (not all, of course!) trust corporations, answerable only to shareholders, more than they trust government, which is answerable to the PEOPLE.
It just doesn’t make sense to me. Oh well.
Throughout history, which entity has been responsible for more human death: the corporation or government?
Total death count? Well, gov’t, but you have to take into account that it is part of the gov’ts job, and the corporation has only been around for the last 50 years or so.
Do you want to count how many people lived their lives in slavery, serfdom, or abject poverty? How many revolutions and civil wars have been fought? How much economic interest has provoked international conflict?
On to your question.
One could argue that the US gov’t’s CIA wars between 1950 and 1990, sponsored largely by corporate interests abroad, were responsible for killing around 6 million people, in total.
The Diamond Wars and other conflicts in Africa are fought largely between militias working as front companies for the diamond and precious metals industries. Millions of casualties and countless destruction of cities.
Oh, and there was that little beaver fur war up in Canada last century…
I agree. They should have given their idea more thought.
This is what prompted me to post. That’s not true in any sense. Corporations are accountable to laws and can be sued, prosecuted and held accountable.
So can governments. They can’t be penalised in the same way corporations can but their executives can be. They are also subject to a lot more oversight than corporations are. For example, FOI applies only to organs of the state. Albeit with lots of exceptions.
Well, I guess that defeats your own argument then, doesn’t it? Just one example would be this.
Exactamundo. I think a very good case could be made that human nature secretly desires to be ruled, and we all tend to tyrrany; certainly all governments do. To me freedom is more like an ideal we have to continually strive toward than a comprehensive program that you put in placeand once you do it’s done forever. The desire to rule over others is embedded in the human psyche, and acts like gravity on all our social structures (I’m a Christian, so I’d put this in terms like Original Sin).
In the same sense that I once said (after riding my older brother’s ten-speed) “Other than the front tire being totally ruined, the bike’s fine.” On the one hand, the one flaw does sort of make everything else moot, and I do see your point, and certainly an African-American can be excused for concluding that there was nothing good in America before 1865, and very little for the next hundred-plus yeras. But I do think it’s worth pointing out other things that were, IMO, better than what we have now: greater ethic of personal responsibility, no prohibiton, much lower taxes, greater respect for individual property rights, education left to parents and/or church, looser immigration laws (Yes, there were restrictions then; there are more now), greater respect for privacy and a less interventionist foreign policy (I am hawkish on Iraq because I think we’ve long had one foot in the middle east and our dependance on oil makes a complete pullout of the region impossible; I think we desperately need a goal of energy self-sufficiency). Again, I can see where you’d say that the oppression of slaves, Indians, and to a lesser extent women were fatal flaws to the American project; I might put it that way myself. But don’t think flawed = useless.
Well, I worked mostly with teens and people who were; perhaps we’ve just had different formative experiences. But I guess what I’d say is that the idea that a 70-year old should be self-sufficient is a very new one: throughout human history the answer was that of course seniors were dependant on others. Without doing tons of research, I’d argue It’s only been with the rise of the paternalistic state in the last hundred years or so that we’ve developed this idea that you shouldn’t depend on your kids or that an one’s elderly years are supposed to be free of burden or care regardless of what you’ve one for the previous decades.
I’m not saying things like the Social Security and welfare cause poverty; but they make it worse than it needs to be. They start with good intentions: during the worst financial crisis of the last century there were a lot of old people hurting, and America’s culture of individualism leads we had a lot of 69 year olds eating dog food, which no one wants to see. But then we come up with these grand schemes to combat them, and I think in the end they weaken people’s incentive to save their own money, and makes many of them think think life is supposed to give you a free ride for the last dozen years of your life. In reality, I think are likely to be physically and psychologically healthier to be working as long as they are able.
But worst of all, IMO, programs like SS lessen people’s sense of their obligation to their parents and grandparents and their peers. I am not a libertarian because I want to be free of all duty and obligation to other people (I’ll acknowledge that others may be); I’m a libertarian beacause I think that government involvement weakens the spirit of charity that should govern human relationships. It creates the illusion that “those people” are “not my problem” because there’s a program somewhere with a bureaucrat who will take care of that.
If I am needy and you help me out of the goodness of your heart, it is a healthy transaction all around: if I could have avoided becoming needy, I am appropriately ashamed and resolved to do better in the future; I am encouraged by your concern; and
you have the satisfaction of having done good. When you are coerced into giving me money, we’re both cheated of all those things: I have less incentive to become self-sufficient, I don’t feel as if I owe anyone anything, and you not only have less money but are also poorer in human terms.
Sorry they bother you. I’m neither a victim nor a right-winger. I’ll cop to blowhard.
I’ve lived and worked in Asian as well. In Japan, where I spent the most time, bureaucrats are held in much higher regard than in the US. Japan has a much more generous health care system. The “hard work ethic” part is true, but that’s more of a cultural value, having little to do with the “non-coercion principle” or any other libertarian ideas. Also, Japanese companies try very hard to keep their employees – having a “job for life” is still common, though becoming less so.
Nope. I lived in Taiwan and was thinking of Hong Kong. More specifically, I was thinking the way most of Asia is easier for small businesses.
Sure, and it worked for a few decades; but now it is exactly those incestuous involvements that are now choking reform in both.
Ummm… thanks for making my point for me?
I don’t know how many times we need to say this: being a libertarian does not amount to supporting robber barons or oligarchies of the rich. It does not necessarily equate to weak governments; if the corporate interests are very powerful, a libertarian government must be strong enough to resist them. Any kind of governmental support, aid, or accomodation of a corporation is 100% anathema to ideal libertarianism. Corporate welfare is fiscally bad and morally wrong, for corporations, for government, and for consumers.
I’m not a purist, so I’d acknowlege that sometimes on a small and temporary scale intervention can be a good thing; the problem is that it grows so easily, and soon corporate interests are basically running the government (as they nearly do now whichever party is in office), and you end up with stuff like this (not that he’s alone).
I’m not libertarian because I hate the little guy. I’m a libertarian because I am one.
furt, I’m from Pittsburgh. Let me tell you what it was like in the early 1900s.
(No, I wasn’t alive, then, d’uh, but it’s very well known local history).
The skys were black with smoke from the steel and coke plants. (Up until the 1960s, the street lamps came on at NOON). You couldn’t walk down the street without being covered in soot. Imagine BREATHING that air.
We had really kind and generous souls like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, H. J. Heinz. Looking out for the workers? Hardly. More like looking out for their ledgers.
Ever heard of the Johnstown Flood? Experts later determined that the members of the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club were responsible for the shitty conditions of the dam that broke. They were WARNED that not opening the nets (which kept the fishing supply up) would cause excess pressure and make a flood more likely. They ignored this. They were NEVER held responsible.
You had children working under dangerous conditions in factories. There were no laws on safety, etc. People lost limbs on the job, and while they were home recovering, they were fired and scabbers were brought in.
You had incidents like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Ever hear of that? Those girls either burned to death or jumped to their deaths because they were locked in, with no adequate fire exits, and it was perfectly LEGAL.
Rampant pollution-the streets were covered in raw sewage.
It could be argued that laissez faire ideas contributed to the death toll in the Irish Famine of the 1840s. They said, “Oh, let the PRIVATE sector take care of it.” Even as the private sector was transporting grain OUT of Ireland. Even as landlords were free to kick their starving, dying tenants out of their homes, to die in the streets.
I think we’ve seen enough evidence that companies aren’t going to be benevolent on their own. Hell, even in these days of more labor laws, we STILL see abuse.
There’s a REASON people fought for laws to restrict corporations and such.
If these people could have sued, then why the hell didn’t they?
And whoever said that the argument about how, “Well, no true LIBERTARIAN state has ever existed,” is the same as “Well, no true COMMUNIST state has ever existed” is dead on.
More like a No True Scotsman, if you ask me.
Um, under what kind of libertarianism? The whole point of libertarianism is to reduce the government and legal oversight over corporations. Sure, one could sue a corporation, but seriously, how often does that work?
That’s what gets me. Everyone always says, “well, corporations can be sued!” as if that is a magical cureall. I mean, come on. How frequently can citizens successfully sue corporations? Most of the time, the government has to step in and use its resources on behalf of the citizens.
One guy in Cleveland pulling in $40k a year vs. Microsoft, spending m/billions on legal defense teams. Yea, right.
Or worse-my father was once sued by a corporation for taking a new job. He had signed an agreement in order to get a well-earned bonus that said you can’t work for a company within 25 miles, etc etc, whatever. (Which agreements aren’t legal in PA).
He had to give up the new job and stay with his old company, even though they were in the wrong. (Although he later quit and is now working at that new job a few years later. YAY!!!)
And look at what happens to whistleblowers or those who go against the big corporations-look at how they’re treated. Sometimes even threatened, their reps ruined, etc.
:rolleyes:
I pledge allegiance to the corporate logos of the Down Jones Industrial, and the plutocracy for which they stand, one planet, under dollar signs, for sale, with liberty and justice for some.
Well, since my search engine won’t give up any links to any possible cite by an economist, credible or not, stating their feelings on the issue one way or another, no.
But I don’t see how my theory is counterintuitive. The fact that most companies don’t care if their secretaries (or just about any other worker) are any good at their jobs is a directly observable fact. Just walk into an office sometime. Watch the big-boobed girls in low-cut blouses sit and do their nails and make personal phone calls while the male bosses stand over them and drool.
And as for the wage scale dropping… OK if completlely unskilled labor is getting paid less, well, you’ve removed the floor of the building. Everything else just goes tumbling to the basement. If an unskilled worker is only worth twenty-five cents an hour, than a more skilled worker who receives on-the-job training would naturally be considered by an employer to be worth forty cents.
Of course, in a libertarian society in which “everyone was responsible for their own/children’s education”, a secretary’s pay might just skyrocket. Right now, all the skills necessary to become a good secretary can be acquired by taking the appropriate classes in a public high school. In a libertarian society, public high schools would not exist, so only the wealthier classes would be able to afford even the most basic education for their kids, which would mean that there would be fewer people with access to the curriculum required to learn secretarial skills, the pool of available secretaries would begin to evaporate, and employers would have to compete for someone who knew how to type, file, answer the phone professionally.
Assuming, of course, the employer actually gave a damn if the secretary could actually do her job.
I’m actually starting to re-think my position on the skilled trades, though. Any job requiring a vo-tech school or college level (AA/AS) degree would probably be out of reach for anyone but the wealthy in a libertarian state, since the working classes couldn’t afford the education. So, the pool of workers would then start to dry up, making the demand lower than the supply.
I really didn’t have the time tonight to read all the posts ahead of mine, so if I’m repeating something, my apologies.
I became a convert to libertarianism after seeing Milton Friedman on TV and then reading his book, Free to Choose . I honestly couldn’t find anything to disagree with in the entire book. I read recently that the Governor of CA, (can’t spell his name) has said it’s his favorite book and has been giving out free copies of it for years. If you are sincere about learning about libertarianism I’d advise you to read it. It’s extremely down to earth and well presented and keeps coming back to the point that government programs wind up ripping off poor people much more than they rip off rich people.
One other point to remember is that you can have extreme libertarians and moderate libertarians and even one issue libertarians, e.g. vouchers. I believe that I argued on this board for a reduction in SS benefits in order to keep the system working. That was a moderate position. If I were feeling extreme at the moment I might have said something like “SS is an immoral theft of my hard earned money…”
And while I’m at it, I’ll be glad to match what’shisname. If you want a free copy of Free to Chose post an email address on this thread by Wednesday night and I’ll contact you and send you one.
And BTW, if anyone can point out a factual or logical error in that book please let me know.
So you’re looking at either massive deflation or massive income/class disparity.
The thing that scares me most about Libertaria (aside from the slavery and plutocracy) is the attitude towards education. Education is the great leveller…
I’m tempted to take you up on that one, though I’d hate to be a financial burden. How’s this for irony? Anyway, I guess if too many people don’t accept, I’m alyosha@zagadka.net