tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post625690867840184173..comments2024-03-28T21:56:51.675-04:00Comments on Face to Face: The moral appeal of populism vs. libertarianismagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-22370055603193446812017-01-19T15:10:15.222-05:002017-01-19T15:10:15.222-05:00NH, You're a clueless 19 year-old spaz, agree?...NH, You're a clueless 19 year-old spaz, agree?agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-71842972195994241572017-01-19T13:35:30.127-05:002017-01-19T13:35:30.127-05:00"If you think the bulk of the population is j..."If you think the bulk of the population is just going to sit by while obscenely rich people [...] get to use their outsized wealth to socially engineer the entire society however they please... you've got another thing coming."<br /><br />Perfect example of how little you know about the system you're advocating. There are already obscenely rich people in America, agree? And they don't want their profit margins to be hindered by harmful legislation, agree? And they have the means to pay lobbyists and representatives directly for favorable votes, agree? If you agree to all of those points, you accept that the rich are already socially engineering. You fear rent hikes if one person had a monopoly on housing in an area, but turn a blind eye to pharmaceutical companies charging an arm and leg for life saving medicines, which cost a fraction of the office to develop and produce. How are they able to do this? Probably because Big Pharma is padding Congress's pockets so they don't allow for cheaper drugs to be available.<br /><br />You can't tell me that we need one monopoly to protect us from the others. Government is a monopoly. As long as there are legislators, they will be bought and sold by the super rich. I'd rather take my chances on whatever nefarious schemes the billionaires attempt in the absence of government. At least then the rich's will won't be enforced by blue collar Americans with badges who have the "right" to throw you in a cage or kill you.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03400137050835197557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-52717340305300847642015-12-21T13:32:29.145-05:002015-12-21T13:32:29.145-05:00"This is the fundamental weak point in libert..."This is the fundamental weak point in libertarianism -- it claims to emphasize the ubiquity of trade-offs, but then waves them all away by isolating and analyzing a narrow set of economic concerns, without the interconnected dimensions of polity, community, culture, psychology, etc., entering into the trade-offs, into the calculations of externalities, and so on and so forth."<br /><br />Well put.Dainhttp://dryhyphenolympics.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-62115988461689417002015-12-21T12:56:01.961-05:002015-12-21T12:56:01.961-05:00Libertarians are largely ignorant of history, soci...Libertarians are largely ignorant of history, sociology, and psychology -- so good luck with coming up with a decent understanding of the world, let alone suggestions for how it ought to be run (or not-run).<br /><br />I'm not going to catalog every single thing wrong with libertarianism, but just consider a few remarks made by madmax above.<br /><br />"But that doesn't mean that price controls or protectionist tariffs actually generate wealth. They don't."<br /><br />https://aneconomicsense.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/long-run-us-gdp-per-capita-growth-1870-2011-levels.png<br /><br />Big picture: exponential curve with no evident change in the growth rate. It only accelerates because wealth compounds wealth -- not because the growth rate was dialed up or down by some policy, event, etc.<br /><br />To hear the libertarian tell it, though, we should have seen halting or even declining wealth per capita during the Great Compression. For that matter, we never should have industrialized and become so developed and rich in the first place, what with our long history of protectionism (like every other fully industrialized nation).<br /><br />You could add "in fairness" the data don't show a *benefit* of price controls on economic growth, but nobody says that on the other side. So there's no "on the other hand" to balance out. It really is only the libertarians who are fixated on the effects of price controls and protectionism.<br /><br />And that's missing the point anyway, which is that proponents of price controls and protectionism aren't single-mindedly obsessed with economic growth, in the way autistic libertarians are. The economy was made for man, not man for the economy.<br /><br />What *did* change was income inequality during the Great Compression. The policies of the Progressive, New Deal, and Postwar eras may not have made us any richer -- or poorer -- than we would have been otherwise, but they did keep the rich from shooting off into another galaxy.<br /><br />That defused the political dynamite of wide disparities in income. If you think the bulk of the population is just going to sit by while obscenely rich people -- who benefited from economies of scale, mergers & acquisitions / monopoly, corruption, rent-seeking, etc. -- get to use their outsized wealth to socially engineer the entire society however they please... you've got another thing coming.<br /><br />Libertarians supposedly don't like war, civil conflict, aggression, mob rule, etc. But that's precisely what extremes of wealth inequality lead to -- like it or not. We probably were not going to go full-on Socialist or Communist in America, but circa 1920 there were waves of internal collective violence the likes of which hadn't been seen since the Civil War.<br /><br />That was only turned around by Progressive / New Deal / Postwar policies, both economic and political (like closing the open borders).<br /><br />This is the fundamental weak point in libertarianism -- it claims to emphasize the ubiquity of trade-offs, but then waves them all away by isolating and analyzing a narrow set of economic concerns, without the interconnected dimensions of polity, community, culture, psychology, etc., entering into the trade-offs, into the calculations of externalities, and so on and so forth.<br /><br />Maybe in some context-free sense, price controls lead to worse outcomes -- even assuming we have the full set of outcomes that matter, and not merely wealth or wealth per capita.<br /><br />But back on Planet Earth, price controls don't exist in a vacuum. They're part of a larger interrelated holistic... er, whole. If other components of that whole outweigh the downsides of price controls, then that whole wins over the really-existing alternative whole where there are minimal/no price controls but all the other states of affairs that are linked to that.<br /><br />Libertarians are overly analytical, and don't appreciate that we can't debate and choose among a fine-grained set of alternatives. Sort of, but really what's going on is choosing among entire sweeping worldviews, attitudes, codes of conduct, and so on.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-67520715289448529002015-12-21T10:06:40.148-05:002015-12-21T10:06:40.148-05:00The alt right has largely given up thinking much a...The alt right has largely given up thinking much about economics as any kind of independent study of the process of resource allocation. They're much more into history and sociology, seeing economic theory as a weapon used by self-interested collectives of one type or another. Instead of debating libertarians on the claims of their economics, especially the fine details, they're content to analyze the negative role they play in geopolitics and deduce that libertarians are tools for the cosmopolitam SWPLS. <br /><br />It's similar to the way progressive journalists view economics, not as a disinterested body of knowledge but as something made up by greedy neoliberals. Of ourse the alt right take on history and sociology - culture war fodder - <br />helps distinguish them from progressives. To say the least.<br />Dainhttp://dryhyphenolympics.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-13958863652477530472015-12-18T15:15:53.530-05:002015-12-18T15:15:53.530-05:00"Cluelessness masquerading as self-righteousn..."Cluelessness masquerading as self-righteousness."<br /><br />but enough about your rantagnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-70645503756047704272015-12-18T14:35:05.902-05:002015-12-18T14:35:05.902-05:00Calling today's Republicans "libertarian&...Calling today's Republicans "libertarian" or "free market" or "free trade" is ignorant. Today's Republicans and the Right for the last 50 years has stood for laissez faire, for economic liberty? Really? You have no fundamental grasp of what "free market" means. You just hate "libertarianism" because you associate it with open borders and racial demographic change. Race trumps everything for you. Fine, but that doesn't mean you get to label today's system as "free market" just because you hate non-white immigration. <br /><br />I am not going to tell you that libertarianism as it currently exists is perfect. It isn't. That's because it is not a fully developed political system; its historically young. And it has its own divisions between its anarchist and minarchist wings. But the economics of libertarianism is really an application of system homeostasis. Interventions cause distortions always and everywhere. That's just built into human nature and social dynamics. Anti "free trade" arguments like the crap you get from Buchanan or Fletcher have been shredded by many libertarian economists including the Austrians. <br /><br />Yes, Trump has tapped into a populist vein and that is probably a good thing given that the Left is treacherous and the Conservatives are cowards. But that doesn't mean that price controls or protectionist tariffs actually generate wealth. They don't. Right now white people are under attack so immigration control is primary. And Islam is a perpetual threat always and forever. But recognizing these things don't give you the moral superiority over libertarianism that you think they do. <br /><br />The alt-right has a few things to contribute, especially at this point in time. But its view of economics is garbage. Ironically, its the same garbage that you get from most Conservatives. I have been cursing Conservatives for protectionist ideas for years. NAFTA and GAAT are really massive regulation schemes. And alt-righters think they are "libertarian". <br /><br />Cluelessness masquerading as self-righteousness. Leftist in many ways.madmaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14375140131881725965noreply@blogger.com