Michael Lind vs. the Libertarians

[IdahoMauleMan]

@IClaudius

It has nothing to do with lack of “faith” in human goodness or anything like that. I simply reject the extreme conception of emergent individualism at the heart of the libertarian story. I believe individual agency requires a sustained and supportive social environment which social institutions and the state provide.

And please spare me the hyperbole about a maniacal all-seeing central power, I was simply suggesting that social expectations might very well be expected to corrode over time, when public expectations reorientate to the new context. So, using the same example as above, we might very well expect health and safety norms to change to a much more reactive-kind of awareness relying strongly on caveat emptor and trust through repeat business. So, yes, a big chain store is still going to have strong incentives to maintain safe product lines, to the extent that they even worry about legal exposure in this universe, but that still leaves lots of room for nefarious vendor behaviour that would be precluded by the dreaded statist regulations of yesteryear.

So obviously consumer expectations would corrode over time when operating in that environment over a multi-generational period as people get used to it. The interesting thing is whether there is a floor in that corrosion that we find to be an acceptable standard of consumer protection. If not, then that begs the question of whether we might even need subsequent interventions to help lift social expectations to higher standards and re-establish stronger norms. If that’s so, then your political philosophy requires both a statist intermediary step and it isn’t actually sustainable, so why experiment with it in the first place?

Experiments with it happen every day. You just don’t realize it, and make the false assumption that an outside power is required to "lift social expectations’ (your words) to avoid testing whether there is a “floor in that corrosion” (your words).

How did Ebay come about, then? 10s of billions of dollars are transacted on Ebay and it exploded on the scene without a shred of oversight and regulation at all. You can’t even touch or see the products. The buyers and sellers are faceless, nameless avatars.

How is such a thing possible?

[BobLibDem]

As an engineer, I reject the notion that engineers tend toward libertarianism. Many of us work directly for governmental agencies or under contracts with them. We realize the value of regulations and of public spending on infrastructure. Libertarians reject both. I think anyone who spends more time thinking about libertarianism other than maybe dorm room bull sessions is wasting his time which could be spent contemplating something more useful and/or more moral.

[kaylasdad99]

@Sam_Stone

Good point. Legalized abortion had also never been tried - until it was. In fact, the entire argument is pretty much a conservative argument - that change is bad and that there must be a good reason if something hasn’t been tried before.

I thought the whole worldview of Progressivism is that change is good if it brings about more social justice, and that traditonalist arguments are merely window-dressing for the entrenched power structure.

This argument relies on the fact that the word “conservative” can have two opposites: radical and progressive. To conflate “conservative-as-not radical” with “conservativ we-as-not-progressive” strikes me as self-serving and disingenuous.

[BrainGlutton]

@kaylasdad99

This argument relies on the fact that the word “conservative” can have two opposites: radical and progressive. To conflate “conservative-as-not radical” with “conservativ we-as-not-progressive” strikes me as self-serving and disingenuous.

And there’s also RW, which is radical. No conservative would ever shout “End the Fed!” or “Drown it in a bathtub!” or “Molon labe!”

[IClaudius]

@IdahoMauleMan

Experiments with it happen every day. You just don’t realize it, and make the false assumption that an outside power is required to "lift social expectations’ (your words) to avoid testing whether there is a “floor in that corrosion” (your words).

I’m not even sure what you’re trying to argue here. I said nothing against experimenting in a mixed economy, shifting the balance in favour of more unencumbered choices wherever possible. That position is completely within the big tent of liberalism and it’s part of the manifesto of Nudge and other such books.

The whole point I was making was about what happens over the long term to health and safety norms when you shift to a totalising, purist libertarian system. The “experiment” I’m talking about is grand social engineering shifting the whole system, not piecemeal reforms experimenting in certain areas, testing them and revisting the issues. I think you’ll find few people have any problems with that if it’s accountable to a democratic model.

How did Ebay come about, then? 10s of billions of dollars are transacted on Ebay and it exploded on the scene without a shred of oversight and regulation at all. You can’t even touch or see the products. The buyers and sellers are faceless, nameless avatars.

How is such a thing possible?

Again, this doesn’t pose any interesting challenge to what I’ve said. Ebay is an online business model existing within the current regulatory environment.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Lumpy

Historian Barbara Tuchman, in her book The Proud Tower in the chapter on the Anarchist movement, put it this way when commenting on events leading up to the Haymarket riot:

In every clash the employers fought with the forces of law- police, militia and courts- as their allies. The workers’ demands were met with live ammunition and lockouts and with strike-breakers protected by Pinkertons who were armed and sworn in as deputy sheriffs. In the war between the classes, the State was not neutral.

So what ended up happening was that eventually the people gained at least some counter-balancing influence with the government. But some suggest that stripping the power of government to favor big business would have been an equally valid solution.

I would suggest you are wrong and Tuchman is still correct. The degree to which it once happened has mellowed a little but not a lot.

Jump from the 1920’s to the 1970’s and the Kent State shootings.

Jump from the 1960/70’s to a year ago with the Occupy Wall Street movement. No one got shot with a bullet in the OWS stuff but some got shot with rubber bullets to serious effect (and that is just one instance). Other OWS protesters (manifestly peaceful ones) were maced in the face. The examples of excessive police force against obviously peaceful protesters are abundant.

So, tell me again who the police are working for because they certainly are not showing themselves to be on the side of Joe citizen.

[BrainGlutton]

@IClaudius

I’m not even sure what you’re trying to argue here. I said nothing against experimenting in a mixed economy, shifting the balance in favour of more unencumbered choices wherever possible. That position is completely within the big tent of liberalism . . .

Or even that of social democracy/progressivism, for that matter.

[Whack-a-Mole]

I cannot respond to all points tit-for-tat because the thread would be ridiculous so I will try to answer some points directly and others may be rolled in. If I miss something you really want an answer to just say so. Not trying to dodge here.

@Sam_Stone

I see. So the fact that an agency exists is all the proof you need that it was absolutely necessary? How about the Department of Homeland Security? How about the Interstate Commerce Commission?

Each example could be a thread unto itself. I see NO reason why Homeland Security was necessary and it is a horrid expansion of government and a reduction of our rights and a waste of money all around. I really am not up on the ICC except to say once a really nice lady at the Illinois ICC once helped me get my stolen stuff back (long story).

That said you are engaged in misdirection. We had obvious and provable problems with employment (child labor, pathetic wages, horrid working conditions). You would like to wave that away with personal responsibility…if you do not want that shitty job do not take it.

Life does not work that way though. The world, not just in early 20th century America but today in many other countries, puts the lie to that. LOTS of people work in pathetic conditions. How many people died recently in the Bangladesh garment factory that burned down because, supposedly, the managerslocked the doors so no one could leave?

In your world these people can simply walk away and businesses will come around.

In the real world that doesn’t happen. I am surprised you are unaware of employers calling out the National Guard to suppress workers trying to demand better conditions. The Ludlow Massacre is one. The Textile Workers Strike of 1934 is another. The Haymarket Affair. How many do you want? Those are some of the more violent ones but general violence was not uncommon from police and such.

You seem to think that workers will walk away and employers will bow to market forces and improve everyone’s lot till some equilibrium is achieved.

Yet over and over throughout history and right up until today we see plentiful and repeated examples that this is not the case.

I really wish it worked the way you want it to Sam. Nothing would please me more but it is not the way of the world. The only time your way even begins to start to work is when there is a scarcity of laborers. When employers really need to compete over labor then things are, relatively, good for the common worker and they see their lot improve.

Unfortunately those times usually only come at the end of plagues or war when a lot of people have been wiped out. Silver lining I suppose but a helluva price to pay.

Whereas I think the naivete is on the part of those who think that 535 people in Washington are capable of being our wise rulers and protectors, and that they never have interests inimical to that of the public. I would describe as naive those people who think that regulatory systems are never captured by the people they are supposed to be regulating and turned to their benefit.

Well, I agree it is hard for 535 people to well represent 350 million people (was different when they set that all up). Kind of like saying the 12 zodiac signs can define 7 billion people in 12 categories. Ok, not as bad but hope you get my drift.

That said I would complain that the system is mainly flawed by a first-past-the-post voting system which guarantees two parties to represent that 350 million. Implement proportional voting or alternative vote or one of many other methods (all have their good/bad points) and I think you will see an improvement. You would be able to vote for the Libertarian candidate and things like Gerrymandering become a thing of the past.

When you count the ‘scandals’ of capitalism, the ripoffs and the scams and all that, do you keep some room on your balance sheet for the absolute failure of government to the people of Detroit? Do you keep room to count the billions of dollars the government has helped cronies extract from the public purse? Do you count the human misery in the government-planned inner city ‘projects’ or the massive failures of the inner city public school systems?

I hate those failures as much as you. No system is perfect and no system is devoid of corruption. Some places are worse than others. I think the answer to these problems are a real system of checks and balances and an insistence from voters on accountability. Not sure how we get there but I think this is not a “feature” of Libertarianism. I think Libertarianism is just as rife with opportunity for corruption as any other system.

I know you answered lots more but I will stop here to keep the most manageable.

If there are other parts of your answer you want me to respond to let me know.

[Trinopus]

@Whack-a-Mole

. . . So, tell me again who the police are working for because they certainly are not showing themselves to be on the side of Joe citizen.

Well, yes, actually they are. The police are on the side of the average citizen. Joe Citizen.

They also happen to be human, and screw up now and then. Show me anyone who does his job without any errors. The problem with the police – and surgeons, and airline pilots, and a few other professions – is that their errors have very severe consequences.

Build us a working Robo-Cop, and we’ll talk.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Trinopus

Well, yes, actually they are. The police are on the side of the average citizen. Joe Citizen.

They also happen to be human, and screw up now and then. Show me anyone who does his job without any errors. The problem with the police – and surgeons, and airline pilots, and a few other professions – is that their errors have very severe consequences.

Build us a working Robo-Cop, and we’ll talk.

If we had one or two cops during OWS mess up and apologize I’d agree with you.

That was far from the case though. The police were outright hostile to protestors. Did you watch the part where the police officer maced a bunch of students that were sitting peacefully (see link in post #106)? How was that a mistake?

If you want more examples there are lots. Try Google.

[BrainGlutton]

From RationalWiki:

Libertarians secretly worried that ultimately someone will figure out the whole of their political philosophy boils down to ‘get off my property.’ News flash: This is not really a big secret to the rest of us.

—John Scalzi[1]

Libertarianism is the antonym of “authoritarianism.”[2] In modern usage, it mainly refers to a political and social philosophy that advocates laissez-faire capitalism as a panacea for virtually everything. More left-leaning people consider this to be synonymous with oligarchic corporate rule after the fashion of the American Gilded Age, while the reality-based community tends to realize that one cannot just yank economic theories out of the air and magically expect them to work.

This anti-government phenomenon is found primarily in the United States, likely due to Americans’ extensive experience with dysfunctional government coupled with their unawareness of the existence of other countries. The US political party most aligned with libertarianism is the Libertarian Party, “America’s Third Largest Party,”[3] whose candidate obtained 0.32% of the popular vote in the 2004 Presidential election.[4] The party received almost 1% of the vote in 2012. This was considered by many libertarians as “an improvement.” There is also an “Objectivist Party,” formed as a spin-off from the Libertarian Party by those who thought that the party’s 2008 presidential candidate, Bob Barr, was too left-wing,[5] and a Boston Tea Party (no connection other than ideological to that other tea party) formed as a spin-off by those who thought the Libertarian Party had become too right-wing on foreign policy and civil liberties after the LP deleted much of its platform in 2006.[6]

<snip>

Arguments against strict libertarianism

While a preference for maximal personal freedom is pretty much universal throughout most of the political spectrum (though less so on the fringes), libertarianism presents several difficulties:

• Libertarian business structures greatly resemble government hierarchies, even military hierarchies in the case of Taylorism. It seems contradictory to opine that citizens do not need rulers while maintaining that workers need managers; libertarians claim this is fine because joining a business is voluntary, although some critics of libertarianism would point out that changing jobs is not always possible, and that this argument would only be applicable if there actually were an abundance of businesses without such hierarchies who are hiring,[11] and that resigning is not an option because (especially when there is no welfare state) it may result in them being unable to afford food, water, housing, etc. In other words, this type of “freedom” means “the freedom to choose one’s own masters or to starve under a bridge.”
• Strict libertarianism relies on the distinction between positive and negative liberties, a distinction which is not universally accepted by philosophers.[12]
• Strict interpretations of freedom to associate offer little incentive to remedy problems created by social stratification; in particular, the principle of “personal ownership” often leads to a blame-the-victim mentality (e.g. Rand’s use of the term “parasite” to describe those dependent on public services).
• No matter how many whine about it, governmental regulation often corrects problems that an unregulated free market could not. The best examples are in health care regulations, such as enforcing credentialing for physicians so they are not some nut in a lab coat pretending, making sure pharmaceuticals have the ingredients they say they do, and work, and are relatively safe, and ERs being required to treat people regardless of their ability to pay. Many Libertarians don’t have a coherent answer for what to do to correct these problems in a free market.
• To many libertarians, environmental damage is just a cost of doing business.[13][14] Regulations to stop or correct for negative externalities caused by private companies are seen as “anti-business.” Apparently, not even disastrous economic catastrophes that affect the lives of millions are reason enough to hold the corporations that caused them accountable. For example, Rand Paul (a professed ardent libertarian) criticized government regulation and enforcement to clean up the millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico as an un-American boot heel on the throat of British Petroleum.[15]
• Libertarians generally split into those who hold their views on utilitarian grounds and those who base their philosophy on natural rights. Those rights usually include John Locke’s “life, liberty, and property.” This group might be just as accurately called propertarians. While these rights are in principle also affirmed by many non-libertarians, raising “property” to the same inviolable status as “life” causes some problems: a sweeping interpretation would denounce all taxation as illegitimate expropriation, making it impossible to finance even the most essential public services.
• Libertarians like to ignore certain periods of history such as the Gilded Age, where libertarian ideas were widespread and in effect, (“No, it was crony capitalism!”) or recast them as a golden age. This can lead to lots of lulz; like thinking Abraham Lincoln was the spawn of Satan.
• Like many other political positions, libertarianism is also subject to fundamentalist thinking. In libertarianism this can lead to both figurative and literal arms races, as well as an attraction to fringe groups such as the tax protester movement, and calling for a resumption of the gold standard.
• You are reading this page using something originally created by the big, bad gummint. And not only was ARPANET (the predecessor for the Internet) developed by and for the US military, but the first non-DOD internet services were in two colleges, including the public UCLA. The HTTP and WWW protocols that make the internet work? Yeah, that was developed by workers at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), which is almost entirely funded by various governments. HTML, the language that most websites are scripted in (including this one) was also developed by CERN researchers.

[BrainGlutton]

Also of interest, from the same page:

Branches and disputes within libertarianism

While libertarians all generally agree on the premise of the Non-Aggression Axiom, there are internal rifts and disagreement over what extent the Non-Aggression Axiom applies to. On the one hand, there are the Libertarian Party types (colloquially called “minarchists”) who take a position of advocating minimal government, and on the other there are the market anarchists who believe that all the services the government provides are unjust monopolies, which the free market can handle better if let go of by the state. Market anarchists can be split into two groups, “anarcho-mutualists” who believe in a free market but not in capitalism or class, and anarcho-capitalists who believe in completely unregulated capitalism.

There is usually little room in between these two, but even then, there are still different branches within these umbrella terms. On the Minarchist side of the libertarian ideology, there are paleolibertarians, who advocate a strong return to the Constitution and are somewhat conservative in their arguments to preserve moral law, much like the Old Right paleoconservatives. Ron Paul, who is often viewed as a libertarian, would more fit the paleoconservative/libertarian framework. Additionally, there exist the geo-libertarians (who advocate simply a tax on all land),[18] neo-libertarians (often regarded not in any sense as libertarians, as their political views conflict with the very principles of the Non-Aggression Axiom), and other branches with their own nuances. On the anarchist side of the spectrum, things tend to be more homogeneous, with the major disagreements usually only amounting to how to achieve a libertarian society and solutions to ethical dilemmas.

This ideological division occurs not only externally in political theory, but philosophically as well. On the one side, there are the deontological natural rights theorists (Murray Rothbard being the most prominent advocate), and on the other are the utilitarian libertarians (David D. Friedman is often the most associated with this view). A few minority nihilists and radical subjectivists exist within these circles, but these views are often seen to be in conflict with the general premises laid out by the Non-Aggression Axiom.

Left-libertarianism

Hilariously, the word ‘libertarianism’ was used before the current usage came about to refer to anarchists, who are against hierarchies brought about by stratified classes and a state controlled by the wealthy elites, and thus oppose capitalism. Many call themselves ‘libertarian socialists,’ a philosophy championed by Noam Chomsky. The use of “libertarianism” to describe anarchy dates back to the late 1850s, with Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social being the name of a journal published by anarchist Joseph Dejacque. The term ‘libertarian communism’ originated in the 1880s, when the French anarchist congress adopted it. As late as 1954, a largely anarcho-syndicalist movement named The Libertarian League was set up in the US.

The current Libertarian Party in the US only came into being in early 1970s, well over a 100 years after anarchists had begun using the term to describe themselves. In the US, to quote Murray Bookchin, the “term ‘libertarian’ itself, to be sure, raises a problem, notably, the specious identification of an anti-authoritarian ideology with a straggling movement for ‘pure capitalism’ and ‘free trade.’ This movement never created the word: it appropriated it from the anarchist movement of the [nineteenth] century. And it should be recovered by those anti-authoritarians…who try to speak for dominated people as a whole, not for personal egotists who identify freedom with entrepreneurship and profit.” Many left-libertarians of this school favor equality as much as liberty and argue for fraternal health societies, civil disobedience through the black market, non-capitalist free trade and competitive worker co-ops.

A brief attempt at (right-)libertarian taxonomy in the US

There is a good deal of overlap between these groups, but the hardliners tend to lavish hate on each other:

• Anarcho-capitalists/Rothbardians: Deontological anarchists in the vein of Rothbard. Walter Block of the LvMI is one. (Most anarcho-capitalists fall into the Rothbardian camp, though a few like David D. Friedman take the more utilitarian approach, and a few follow the pure pacifism of Robert LeFevre.) A modern example is activist Adam Kokesh, who claims the only real anarchists are anarcho-capitalsts.
• “Beltway libertarians”: The more utilitarian of the bunch and usually associated more with the Chicago school than the Austrian school. The term “Beltway” is used as a pejorative by the hardline anarchists and deontological types to paint them as sell-outs because they’ve gotten some traction in DC. Prominent Beltway types include the late Milton Friedman and Nick Gillespie.
• Crank magnets: Usually conspiracy nuts, survivalists, Sovereign citizen types, or gold bugs who think the gummint is out to get them. There are racists, white supremacists and dominionists who want to bring back “states’ rights” to resurrect segregation or official state religions, or both. Also includes fans of the seasteading, micronation, and vonu movements, “life extension,” Galambosianism, Liberty Dollars, and pretty much anything from the Loompanics book catalog. Finally, there are those who take up the mantle of libertarianism because it opposes some federal law they don’t like. This usually includes prostitutes, potheads, polygamists, woo-meisters, and peddlers of some form of illegal quackery. May suffer from an excess of colloidal silver in the bloodstream. Alex Jones is the epitome of the crank magnet libertarian.
• Paleolibertarians: A term coined by Lew Rockwell. Their policies are mostly the same as the “Taft Republicans” of the Old Right. They are advocates of the Austrian school, originalism, states’ rights, and generally socially conservative despite opposing the drug war and “bedroom laws.” Ron Paul falls into this camp. Many conspiracy nuts are also paleolibertarians, such as the almighty Alex Jones mentioned above, Texe Marrs and Mark Dice.
• Deontological minarchists: Largely the venerable predecessors of the modern libertarian movement, who were an influence on Rothbard but rejected anarchism, influenced Rand but rejected orthodox Objectivism, etc. The Foundation for Economic Education and Ludwig von Mises go here.
• Randroids: Usually generic deontological minarchist libertarians, the only difference being that they strictly follow the tenets of Objectivism. Rand herself hated the Libertarian Party and denounced them as poseurs.[19] Alan Greenspan is probably the most famous Randroid, and we all know what happened there.
• “Techno-libertarians”: Generally Silicon Valley inhabitants who attempt to apply hacker culture to politics. Lots of overlap with techno-utopian movements like transhumanism and Singularitarianism. Also overlaps with the seasteading, life extension, and digital-currency crank magnets. The most likely of any of these groups to oppose intellectual property rights, traditionally supported by other types of libertarians. See also Eric S. Raymond and Bitcoin.
• Vulgar libertarians: Their true ideological motivations are unknown, but they use the language of the “free market” to shill for corporations that don’t want to deal with regulations or taxes. They can usually be found at some DC think tank cranking out bogus research while being bankrolled by Koch Industries or Exxon. Steve Milloy is a prime example.
• South Park Republicans: People who say they are libertarians, but dutifully pull the lever for most anyone with an “R” after their name (not, however, for Ron Paul) every election. In between elections they shill for military interventionism, and attack liberals, but never conservatives, for being enemies of liberty. And lot of Al Gore bashing. Their idea of a “libertarian Republican” is Rudy Giuliani. Their only real claim to being libertarians is their irreverent attitude, but this really just boils down to being a jerk for the sake of being a jerk. Glenn Reynolds and Matt Drudge have made a lucrative career pushing their buttons.
• Civil libertarians: Those whose main attraction to libertarianism is civil liberties of the ACLU sort, anti-war issues, gay rights, marijuana, privacy, police abuses, womens lib, conscription, and so forth. They may view liberals as unreliable on these issues, or they may hold conservative economic views, but in either case they are wary of progressives and liberals, and prefer to align with libertarians. The Cato Institute used to emphasize outreach to them in its early years via Inquiry magazine and The Libertarian Review. Today, Radley Balko might be a prominent example. Arguably the most reasonable out of the bunch.
• Partyarchs: Those for whom the Libertarian Party and the libertarian movement are one and the same thing. Ideologically suspect to the more hard-core, they differ from Beltway libertarians primarily in that they prefer to throw all their effort into building the Libertarian Party. They typically want to trim and gut the party platform to attract more people, and/or disseminate an oversimplified version of the libertarian message in the name of “effective communication.” Fond of using the World’s Smallest Political Quiz and other materials from the Advocates for Self-Government. See Michael Cloud or Wayne Allyn Root.

[BrainGlutton]

And:

**Quotes on libertarianism

Opposing**
“A Libertarian is just a Republican who takes drugs.” - essayist Bob Black.[21]
“He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means “I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve.” It’s easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.” - Isaac Asimov on Robert A. Heinlein and libertarian ethics[22]
“That’s libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” - Kim Stanley Robinson
“I’d rather vote for Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers, or Jerry Lewis. I don’t think they’re as funny as Professor Hospers and the Libertarian Party.” - Ayn Rand[19]
“One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is “Libertarian.” People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it’s just one more bullshit political philosophy.” - George Carlin[23]

Supporting
“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” - Frederic Bastiat[24]
“Legalize Freedom: Vote Libertarian!” - Slogan of the US Libertarian Party[25]
“This country is a one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called Democrat. It doesn’t make any difference. All the really good ideas belong to the Libertarians.” - Hugh Downs, on 20/20 in 1997
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” - Grover Norquist[26]
“You speak as if you were fighting for some sort of principle, Mr. Rearden, but what you’re actually fighting for is only your property, isn’t it?” — “Yes, of course. I am fighting for my property. Do you know the kind of principle that represents?” - Ayn Rand[27]
“However, it is important to remember that the true purpose of regulation is to limit competition, not protect the public.” - “Health freedom” supporter DayOwl[28]

[Sam_Stone]

Well, there you have it. A large cut-and-pasted collection of mostly snarky comments about supposed variations in Libertarian thought from a site dedicated to debunking ‘crank’ ideas. That really tells you everything you need to know about Libertarianism. No need to listen to what actual libertarians have to say.

Next up, a very accurate and thoughtful genealogy of left-wing thought cut and pasted from “The Objectivist News”.

Just to give you a quick example of where the above list is wrong, “PaleoLibertarians” are said to be from the Austrian school, While Ludwig Von Mises is part of the “Deontological minarchists” Von Mises is one of the fathers of the Austrian school.

In addition, the Austrian school doesn’t really fit into libertarianism at all, as it has nothing to do with the non-coercion principle, and prominent Austrians actually favor quite a bit of government. Friedrich Hayek, the most well-known and influential Austrian economist, favored universal health care, a minimum income through welfare, government-provided or mandated unemployment insurance, and in general a fairly comprehensive social safety net.

The list also delights in creating categories defined mainly in terms of ‘craziness’ or ‘vulgar behavior’, regardless of whether it has anything to do with libertarianism at all. Hence we have ‘Vulgar Libertarians’, who apparently support big government programs so long as they help evil big businesses and the Koch brothers. Or “Crank Magnets”, which consists of white supremacists and other unsavory types. That would be the equivalent of me creating a category of “Progressive” called “race baiters”, defined as Black Panthers who beat on white people and people who want Mumia Abu-Jamal freed from prison.

Now, it’s true that there are people like this, and they generally fall on the left side of the spectrum, but I don’t think you would consider them descriptive of any particular ‘progressive’ philosophy or a valid subset of ‘progressive’ thought. There are plenty of cranks and assholes who attach themselves to political movements - that doesn’t mean those movements are defined by them.

See, this is the problem with trying to pigeonhole complex philosophies. I consider myself a ‘libertarian’, but mainly in the sense that I’m skeptical of big government, I think current governments are generally too large and too intrusive, and when presented two options I am generally initially biased towards the one that represents the least amount of government intrusion into private decision-making. That separates me from conservatives, who don’t mind big government so long as it serves their interest, and leaves me no other home but libertarianism.

But that doesn’t mean I’m a dogmatic defender of every libertarian idea. When it comes down to specific issues, I’ll use my libertarian-leaning philosophy as part of the input to my decision-making, but ultimately I’ll decide each issue on its merits. For example, I supported TARP, a huge intrusion of government into the market place. I did so despite my biases because I didn’t see a reasonable alternative given the information we were told at the time. In hindsight, I may have been wrong about that, but I did support it. And it wasn’t remotely libertarian in concept or execution.

Milton Friedman was the same way - he considered himself libertarian, but he supported a negative income tax as a better alternative to standard welfare, created the program of income tax withholding, supported minimal social safety nets, and believed in a strong central bank that controlled the money supply. He was a monetarist and would be happy with Ben Bernanke’s decisions today, I suspect.

If you want to find a common thread amongst all these people who consider themselves libertarian it would be that they all oppose the kind of micro-managing of the economy that progressives today seem to love. They would disapprove of tweaking regulations to improve ‘social justice’. They would be against mucking with the tax code to reward favored industries. They would all think the government is lousy at ‘stimulating’ technology through directed tax incentives and subsidies. They generally would oppose trade tariffs, increases in the minimum wage, the notion of a guaranteed ‘living’ wage, and other favored ideas of progressives.

While many modern libertarians would approve of a minimal social safety net for the very poor, they would be against the kinds of middle-class coddling modern governments are engaged in. It’s one thing to put food on the table or a roof over the head of a family out of work, it’s quite another to provide a house subsidy to a family earning $80,000, a $7500 subsidy to mainly well-off people for buying the right kind of car, or a student loan to a kid from a middle-class family.

It’s all about context. I’m a libertarian given the conditions as they exist today. If governments started down the road towards fewer programs and smaller sizes, there may in fact be a point at which I’d say “enough” and start becoming more progressive. I don’t know because we haven’t been there.

Likewise, I’m pretty sure there are people today who call themselves ‘progressive’ who would jump ship if the government went too far in that direction - probably a number of them already have after seeing some of the excesses of this administration in terms of civil liberties and the giant mess that is Obamacare.

The thing is, we all tend to line up on whatever ideological side that represents the direction we want government to go in given its current state. That’s why the number of libertarians grows when the state overreaches.

There are plenty of issues on which you could find nearly 100% agreement from libertarians. How about we focus on those instead?

[BrainGlutton]

@Sam_Stone

There are plenty of issues on which you could find nearly 100% agreement from libertarians. How about we focus on those instead?

Like what? The only ones I can think of are about legalizing pot, prostitution, etc. Otherwise, it seems, they don’t all agree even about the Fed or the gold standard or the flat tax.

[Werekoala]

@BrainGlutton

Like what? The only ones I can think of are about legalizing pot, prostitution, etc. Otherwise, it seems, they don’t all agree even about the Fed or the gold standard or the flat tax.

hmmm…

Libertarian “We want leagalized pot and prostitution and all that stuff and we want to pay for it ourselves!”

Liberal “We want leagalized pot and prostitution and all that stuff and we want the government to pay for it!”

Conservative “Jail for both of you.”

[YogSothoth]

@Werekoala

Libertarian “We want leagalized pot and prostitution and all that stuff and we want to pay for it ourselves!”

Liberal “We want leagalized pot and prostitution and all that stuff and we want the government to pay for it!”

Not pay. Regulation. Libertarians don’t want regulation and liberals do. How would government pay for pot or prostitution anyway? Go to your local library and check out a book and a hooker?

[BrainGlutton]

@Werekoala

hmmm…

Libertarian “We want leagalized pot and prostitution and all that stuff and we want to pay for it ourselves!”

Liberal “We want leagalized pot and prostitution and all that stuff and we want the government to pay for it!”

Conservative “Jail for both of you.”

Put that way, Liberal does appear the most attractive option.

Problem is, when you go to a government brothel, you have to fill out a stack of forms and your orgasm arrives by mail in three to six weeks.

[Steve_MB]

@Sam_Stone

Utter nonsense. I’d say it’s more like 10% inspiration, 80% perspiration, and 10% luck.

Even the most cursory comparison of the set of people who perspire and the set of people who reach the top of the heap shows that you have made a punctuation error: the period should be replaced by a colon.

[Sam_Stone]

@Steve_MB

Even the most cursory comparison of the set of people who perspire and the set of people who reach the top of the heap shows that you have made a punctuation error: the period should be replaced by a colon.

Perspiration does not mean ‘hard work’ in the literal sense of perspiring. Instead, it’s meant to stand for “making decisions and undertaking activities that improve your economic standing”. Working your ass off all day and then blowing your wages in the bar that night does not count as wealth building or life improving.

We’re talking about things like deferring pleasure in exchange for saving or going to school, working hard at a job to seek advancement, spending some of your free time improving your skills, working to take care of your property so that it retains its value, avoiding debt for frivolous purposes, and so on.

These are the traditional habits of the middle class - they are often not the habits of the poor. For example, with unemployment so high, why do we not see poor neighborhoods being improved by homeowners? Why is it that so many poor people seem to take such little care of their property?

There are obviously people who do not fit these patterns, but it’s undeniably true that behavior is a big part of income mobility. It also partially answers the question of why there is less income mobility between the poor and the middle class - it’s not just advantage of birth or the parent’s money, it’s that middle class people tend to teach their kids middle class values, and it’s those values that help them build and retain wealth.

If you don’t believe me, look at income mobility stats - there is significant mobility between the various middle classes, but much less between the middle class and the very poor. It’s quite common to be born in the lower middle class and work your way to the top of the middle class - all you have to do is save your money, go to school, study a good profession, and then behave responsibly with respect to marriage and children. And if you’re in the lower middle class, you’re not going to get a lot of help from your parents. You have to do it yourself. Granted, it’s gotten tougher in the last few years, but it was a always a time-tested way of climbing up in the world.

This method is available to the poor as well. Between grants, scholarships, public schools, and a healthy employment market (until recently), it was always possible for someone to climb out of poverty through hard work and smart choices. Unfortunately for many of them, they simply never learn how to do that.

In communities were most of the people are on government assistance and where 70% of children are born out of wedlock, they have no role models to model good behavior. And they are told repeatedly by people on your side that their lot in life is not their fault and that they have no chance of improving it without help from the government or until those bad rich people who have been keeping them down get what’s coming to them and their wealth can be redistributed.