Where is the Libertarian explosion coming from?

Exile 1798

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

In your Libertarian theory, but in reality large corporations in the form of Wall Street investment banks lobbied for decreased regulation and restrictions on themselves with disastrous results.

The perfect example of theoretical belief conflicting with actual reality.

Laminations

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Of course it is, because we have government enforced decency laws.
Are you saying that under libertarianism you wouldn't be allowed say something that would make another feel uncomfortable?? Repeating unwanted comments (whether they be 'your God is gay', or 'your ass looks great today') constitutes harrassment, no action is needed. So how do you square the right to freedom of speech and the right to not be made feel uncomfortable wishy washy not take offence right

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I think it's reasonable to say that DF would like government mandates prohibiting harassement in the workplace but the problem remains that he cannot bring himself to say so, and does not have a Libertarian answer.

Laminations

BluePlanet wrote: »

I think it's reasonable to say that DF would like government mandates prohibiting harassement in the workplace but the problem remains that he cannot bring himself to say so, and does not have a Libertarian answer.

Nor does he have a reply to this - so I'll bump it to the fore again. And no, its not like I haven't given you enough time to reply, this point was originally made 3 pages ago, if not earlier

Laminations wrote: »

DF, maybe you are taking time to consider my point but I'll phrase it another way if that helps.

Are people rational and capable?
By your explanation of the crash (and all my experience of psychology and behavioural economics) it appears they are not

Does libertarianism require them to be for it to work?
This is the same fundamental flaw that existed in neo-classical economics.

Laminations

And just to show how 'statist' I am



My goodness, bring that government into my living room!!

I noticed the nice words the test used to describe me

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Centrists pride themselves on keeping an open mind,[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] tend to oppose "political extremes," and [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]emphasize what[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] they describe as "practical" solutions to problems[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif].[/FONT]

Oppose political extremes indeed.

EDIT: Actually when I did this test on my phone (but couldnt upload the picture) I scored one down and to the left and was liberal. I cant remember what I scored diferently, but I'm happy with a liberal centrist.

Anonymous1987

silverharp wrote: »

And power is not concentrated in the hands of a few now? To me it looks like all the taxpayers of the western world have been signed up to bail out a "cartel" of banks ( in our interests of course:rolleyes:)

We can bail out the banks or we can watch the entire system deteriorate which while a core principle of the capitalism would have greater political consequences than economic depression. I'll admit most of the western world in both the private and public sector is dangerously over leveraged and have been spending beyond their means for some time now but I disagree that the best option is to let it fall apart and start all over, the dramatic collapse would no doubt lead to ruin even though in the very long run it could be beneficial.

silverharp wrote: »

I would dispute that market power would concentrate in the hands of a few whatever that actually means? care to quantify? Its pretty much an axiom that companies have a life cycle. Innovative companies become large eg Microsoft, smaller companies setup to compete and chip away at whoever the local 200 lb gorilla happens to be. Its a statist framework that allows regulation capture, grants monopoly power to organisations and enforces what can be an onerous patent or IPR system. All the local grantee has to do is throw enough money at whoever is in power and bingo! we have the corporatism we are seeing now.
The only checks and balances required is the ability to vote with ones feet, I am being denied that right on a daily basis, and to be honest I am fed up of being forced to support farmers, hoteliers, RTE and the numerous quangos that all get a slice of the action because they have ear of the government.

I agree with much of what you say here and in general I believe the market should be allowed do its job wherever possible. I will concede you make a good point about corporations deriving power from government and I will retract that statement but that's not a compelling argument for no government role in the market. For example those who cannot afford adequate health care will likely have poorer health and have less of an opportunity to work for themselves. Arguably you could make the case that they are denied the freedom to work that good healthcare brings. Also libertarianism does not adequately deal with the issue of market distortion through inheritance. I know the story is wealth is property and property should be defended but then it goes against the principle of competition when some market participants have an advantage for no particular reason other than their parents were productive members of society which does not necessarily imply they too will be productive members of society.

Scofflaw

Deleted User wrote: »

So, were it not for "tax breaks, protectionism, government contracts, and the like" companies like Microsoft wouldn't be a problem. I see.

amused,
Scofflaw

Yeah, Monsanto, Haliburton and the like just await the removal of regulation so they can usher in a new era of philantropy and shelter the needy, taking drug addicts in off the streets, curing those without Health insurance..If only they didn't have to pay tax, then they could start using their profits for the good of humanity..Charitable donations for all..

I have to say, the market fetishism of libertarians is frankly bizarre - and there's as little point in arguing with them about it as there would be trying to persuade someone out of getting excited by rubber.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Valmont

Laminations wrote: »

DF, maybe you are taking time to consider my point but I'll phrase it another way if that helps.

Are people rational and capable?
By your explanation of the crash (and all my experience of psychology and behavioural economics) it appears they are not

Does libertarianism require them to be for it to work?
This is the same fundamental flaw that existed in neo-classical economics.

People have the capacity to be rational and capable. Often, as many years of research by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and his associate Amos Tversky have shown, people are irrational and make foolish choices; more than we would like to think. You are correct about that fact.

You seem to think that because people can be irrational and foolish, they have to be protected by the state when all that is happening is that this protection simply encourages people to become even more irrational and foolish.

Some banks were foolish and they rightly failed. Then the state rewards them with a bailout thus encouraging such foolish behaviour. It is very basic psychology that if you reward a certain behaviour, it will consequently occur with greater frequency. Talking all day about regulation and 'checks and balances' doesn't change that law of behaviour one bit.

In a free society, individuals, companies and banks would be allowed to fail if they make bad choices. Knowing the state will not look after them will encourage them to be more rational and judicious while trying to live their lives. There is one major problem with "Social Democracy"; that the productive class can't keep funding the unproductive one ad infinitum. The latter will consume the former eventually.

Valmont

Scofflaw wrote: »

I have to say, the market state fetishism of libertarians social democrats is frankly bizarre - and there's as little point in arguing with them about it as there would be trying to persuade someone out of getting excited by rubber.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Now it makes sense.

I'm sure if you contact your local TD he could throw together some legislation to deal with excessive rubber excitement. Perhaps a rubber tax, checks and balances of some kind, a rubber quango review board...

It is ironic that the term "market", like "state", has taken on some sort of mystical, singular, guiding-hand type of mentality by the detractors of libertarianism. Frankly, the word is a poor attempt to sum up the collective (!), unfettered productive capacities of humans left to their own devices.

Lockstep

Valmont wrote: »

Now it makes sense.

I'm sure if you contact your local TD he could throw together some legislation to deal with excessive rubber excitement. Perhaps a rubber tax, checks and balances of some kind, a rubber quango review board...

It is ironic that the term "market", like "state", has taken on some sort of mystical, singular, guiding-hand type of mentality by the detractors of libertarianism. Frankly, the word is a poor attempt to sum up the collective (!), unfettered productive capacities of humans left to their own devices.

I'm curious; how does advocating a market system with state regulation entail "state fetishism"?

Laminations

Valmont wrote: »

People have the capacity to be rational and capable. Often, as many years of research by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and his associate Amos Tversky have shown, people are irrational and make foolish choices; more than we would like to think. You are correct about that fact.

You seem to think that because people can be irrational and foolish, they have to be protected by the state when all that is happening is that this protection simply encourages people to become even more irrational and foolish.

Some banks were foolish and they rightly failed. Then the state rewards them with a bailout thus encouraging such foolish behaviour. It is very basic psychology that if you reward a certain behaviour, it will consequently occur with greater frequency. Talking all day about regulation and 'checks and balances' doesn't change that law of behaviour one bit.

In a free society, individuals, companies and banks would be allowed to fail if they make bad choices. Knowing the state will not look after them will encourage them to be more rational and judicious while trying to live their lives. There is one major problem with "Social Democracy"; that the productive class can't keep funding the unproductive one ad infinitum. The latter will consume the former eventually.

You started off well, accepting the Nobel prize winning research that supports my position. Kahneman and Tversky are only the tip of the iceberg with regards to how we make irrational decions - see McClure, Glimcher, wittman. And basing a societal structure on what humans have a capacity for is not wise, we have a capacity for doing bad things too. Milgrams experiments and Asch's stuff on conformity (which doesn't require authority, just other people) show decisions can be inluenced for the worse. And who is to say that we'd be more rational without the state? Research on the tragedy of the cmond or the prisoner dilemma would contradict you. So you started well but then moved to mere speculation. Where is the research backing up your position?

silverharp

Anonymous1987 wrote: »

We can bail out the banks or we can watch the entire system deteriorate which while a core principle of the capitalism would have greater political consequences than economic depression. I'll admit most of the western world in both the private and public sector is dangerously over leveraged and have been spending beyond their means for some time now but I disagree that the best option is to let it fall apart and start all over, the dramatic collapse would no doubt lead to ruin even though in the very long run it could be beneficial.

I guess it depends where you want to start the clock from, for instance if we could look at the period after the dot com bust , the market approach would have been for the US to take its licking then. The US would have had a necessary and hard recession but it would have been well out of it by now. Instead "the house" doubled down and pumped up another even larger bubble (even Krugman suggested that course of action) and put the financial system at risk. Now we are to believe that to save the financial system we have to double down again and this time bet the national treasuries on it. If the statist time scales are never longer then the next election then boom and busts of increasing amplitude are the result.
I'd argue that even taking a market approach now would be preferable to the current course which is just prolonging the inevitable. It doesnt make sense to consume resources you dont have.

Anonymous1987 wrote: »

For example those who cannot afford adequate health care will likely have poorer health and have less of an opportunity to work for themselves. Arguably you could make the case that they are denied the freedom to work that good healthcare brings.

I'd argue that the market would provide more varied health services at a lower cost then is currently available. The rest comes down to personal responsibity, If the vast majority of people can afford foreign holidays, cars, spend thousands a year on cigs and booze after first losing 40% of their income in taxes, then 95% of the population can afford some form of health insurance.

Anonymous1987 wrote: »

Also libertarianism does not adequately deal with the issue of market distortion through inheritance. I know the story is wealth is property and property should be defended but then it goes against the principle of competition when some market participants have an advantage for no particular reason other than their parents were productive members of society which does not necessarily imply they too will be productive members of society.

I'd note the current system doesnt do much here either (assuming this is even an issue) . Be careful what you assume, if inherited wealth is wrong and I dont think it can be a little wrong, then the obvious solution is to confiscate all wealth on death. The problem I see is, why save? why build up a business over a long term horizon. Everyone's goal would be to die with zero assets, this would destroy capital and would be an affront to individuals right to enjoy the product of their labour and to be ambitious for their kids if they happen to have any.

I would also say that you are trying to set the bar too high. There is no way with mathamatical certainty to allocate every resource to that person in the economy who can do the most "good" with it, even if possible would it not open the door to a hellish utliliarianism which would override property rights.
The flip side of course is how do centerists justify the massive upward transfer of income form lower working class and middle class groups to other middle class groups? the urban shop assistant has to support the rural landowner? the rural worker supports the D4 luvvies in RTE and any number of quangos?

thebaldsoprano

Scofflaw wrote: »

there's as little point in arguing with them about it as there would be trying to persuade someone out of getting excited by rubber.

Well, it does have the nice side effect of dragging things out into the open and showing up libertarianism for what it is. It's interesting reading for someone with a passing interest like myself and no doubt a few others following the thread.

Anonymous1987

silverharp wrote: »

I guess it depends where you want to start the clock from, for instance if we could look at the period after the dot com bust , the market approach would have been for the US to take its licking then. The US would have had a necessary and hard recession but it would have been well out of it by now. Instead "the house" doubled down and pumped up another even larger bubble (even Krugman suggested that course of action) and put the financial system at risk. Now we are to believe that to save the financial system we have to double down again and this time bet the national treasuries on it. If the statist time scales are never longer then the next election then boom and busts of increasing amplitude are the result.

I agree with you there, this thing should have been nipped in the bud a long time ago but its now reached the stage that double or quits seems like a logical gamble regarding the banks and European bail-out fund at least to this generation. I'm not so sure a very hard financial crash is inevitable though although I do share your concerns that the system seems to be building up for a big one if it can't begin winding down the levels of debt soon.

silverharp wrote: »

I'd argue that even taking a market approach now would be preferable to the current course which is just prolonging the inevitable. It doesnt make sense to consume resources you dont have.

No it doesn't but it does make sense to spread the pain over time rather having shock therapy to the financial and risk losing a generation or worse.

silverharp wrote: »

I'd argue that the market would provide more varied health services at a lower cost then is currently available. The rest comes down to personal responsibity, If the vast majority of people can afford foreign holidays, cars, spend thousands a year on cigs and booze after first losing 40% of their income in taxes, then 95% of the population can afford some form of health insurance.

Try getting affordable healthcare with an existing condition besides I would argue that universal access to healthcare and education are prerequisites to productivity.

silverharp wrote: »

I'd note the current system doesnt do much here either (assuming this is even an issue) . Be careful what you assume, if inherited wealth is wrong and I dont think it can be a little wrong, then the obvious solution is to confiscate all wealth on death. The problem I see is, why save? why build up a business over a long term horizon. Everyone's goal would be to die with zero assets, this would destroy capital and would be an affront to individuals right to enjoy the product of their labour and to be ambitious for their kids if they happen to have any.

I see your point and that thought occurred to me also but these are extremes and a good solution is probably somewhere in the middle with a reasonable capital gains tax.

silverharp wrote: »

I would also say that you are trying to set the bar too high. There is no way with mathamatical certainty to allocate every resource to that person in the economy who can do the most "good" with it, even if possible would it not open the door to a hellish utliliarianism which would override property rights.

No there isn't but no harm weigh the costs and benefits and see how well or how bad they work in practice.

silverharp wrote: »

The flip side of course is how do centerists justify the massive upward transfer of income form lower working class and middle class groups to other middle class groups? the urban shop assistant has to support the rural landowner? the rural worker supports the D4 luvvies in RTE and any number of quangos?

I'm in favour of simplifying and rationalising the tax system as much as possible so personally I don't feel the need to justify many of these transfer flows. I will say though that they seem to be a symptom of democracy and are not unique to government, business deals are not made completely on merit rather they sometimes have an element of who you know.

BluePlanet

I'm not done with Sexual Harassment in the workplace.
Issues like this are the achilles heel of Libertarian thinking.

If sexual harassment in the workplace is to be illegal, then it's an encroachment of Statism into the haloed ground of private property.
Since Donegalfella won't provide us a Libertarian response to this i've had to revert to Google.

I found this blog (i don't normally go for blogs).
http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/more-on-walter-blocks-lunatic-ravings/

He talks about this Libertarian/Anarcho Capitalist: Walter Block (i'll bet Donegalfella has heard of him) and what he said in a paper called the Libertarian Forum published back in 1975!
http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=francoistremblay.wordpress.com&url
(ok this link isn't working, but it works at that blog)

In the paper linked our renowned Libertarian/Anarcho Capitalist uses an example of a woman getting sexually harassed via "pinching" (he doesn't say where on her body); in both a public space and a private workplace.

Another type of pinching or sexual harassment is that between a secretary and her boss. Although to many people, and especially to many people in the women’s liberation movement, there is no real difference between this pinching and the pinching that occurs on the street, the fact is that the pinching that takes place between a secretary and her boss, while objectionable to many women, is not a coercive action. It is not a coercive action like the pinching that takes place in the public sphere because it is part of a package deal: the secretary agrees to all aspects of the job when she agrees to accept the job and especially when she agrees to keep the job. A woman walking along a public sidewalk, on the other hand. can by no means be considered to have given her permission, or tacitly agreed to begin pinched. The street is not the complete private property of the pincher, as is the office. On the contrary, if the myths of democracy are to be given any credence at all, the streets belong to the people. All the people. Even including women.

There is a serious problem with considering pinching or sexual molestation in a privately owned office or store to be coercive. If an action is really and truly coercive, it ought to be outlawed. But if pinching and sexual molestation are outlawed in private places, this violates the rights of those who voluntarily wish to engage in such practices. And there is certainly nothing coercive about any voluntary sex practices between consenting adults. The proof of the voluntary nature of an act in a private place is that the person endangered (the woman, in the cases we have been considering) has no claim whatsoever to the private place in question, the office or the store. If she continues to patronize or work at a place where she is molested, it can only be voluntary. But in a public place, no such presumption exists. As we have seen, according to accepted theory at least, the public domain is owned by all, women included. It would be just as illegitimate to assume that a woman gave tacit agreement to being molested on the public street because she was walking there as it would be to assume that she gave tacit agreement to an assault in her own house, because she happened to be there.

There are many other cases of actions taken against women that are not strictly speaking, coercive. Or more exactly, there are many other instances where many women feel put upon, but where there is no coercion at all involved such as referring to women with sex organ-linked expletives. the sexual double standard mores; many rules of etiquette such as the ones concern who proceeds whom out of the elevator. the encouragement of the mental capacity of boys and discouragement of girls, the societal opprobrium of women participating in “men’s” athletic activities; the pedestals that women are placed upon. There are two important points to be made with regard to these insults and other exacerbations which do not constitute coercion. 1) Although considered reprehensible by many, none of these actions actually constitute coercion, therefore it would be illegitimate to outlaw them. Any attempt to outlaw them would involve the mass violation of rights of other individuals in the society. After all, it is the right of free speech that gives us the right not to utter things that everyone agrees with – which do not need free speech protection in any case, but the right to utter reprehensible things, things in poor taste, boorish things. 2) To a much greater degree than realized by many, certainly to a much greater degree than realized by many who consider themselves advocates of women’s liberation, these reprehensible but non-coercive actions are engendered by reprehensible coercive activities. Were these coercive activites to cease, the free market would tend to rid us of many of these reprehensible but non-coercive acts.

Let us consider the case of bosses pinching secretaries and see how the market would tend to eliminate such unwanted activity, were the coercive and reprehensible activity of taxation to support government bureaucracy eliminated. In order to see this, we must first understand what the labor economist calls “compensating differentials”. A compensating differential is an amount of money just necessary to compensate an employee for the psychic losses that go with a job. For instance, consider two job opportunities. One is in an air-conditioned office, with a good view, with pleasant surroundings and pleasant companions: The other is in a damp, dank basement, surrounded by evil smelling fellow workers. Now there is some wage differential large enough to attract most people into accepting the less pleasant job. This will vary for different people, depending upon their relative tastes for the working conditions in the two places. There might even be a negative compensating differential for those who prefer the basement job. They would be willing to take a salary cut rather than move to the office job.

The same analysis can be applied to the case of the office pincher. On the assumption that all women would prefer not to be pinched, and that bosses vary in their desires to so indulge, there will be a whole range of wage rates paid to otherwise equally productive secretaries, depending on the proclivity of their bosses to engage in sexual harassment. There will be a positive relationship between the amount of sexual harassment and the wage rate that the bosses find thay must pay. But now contrast the boss of a private business with the boss in a government bureaucracy. Even on the assumption that both bosses on the average have the same proclivity to engage in sexual harassment, it is clear that the private boss will have to pay for his little gambols, while the public one will not. The secretaries of both private and public pinchers will have to earn more than the secretaries of the non-pinchers. The compensating differential. The main difference between the private and the public pincher is that the extra money comes out of tax monies for the latter and out of his own money for the former. Even in the case of a private boss-pincher who is not the ultimate owner of the business, the same applies, only now slightly more indirectly. The ultimate owner of the business, in addition to losing money if he himself is a pincher, also loses money if any of his executives are pinchers. So in addition to having a monetary incentive to cut down on his own pinching, he also has a monetary incentive to try to stop all the bosses in his company from so doing.

This might not seem like much of an incentive to stop pinching. But it is an improvement over the public case where these disincentives are completely lacking. This way of looking at the problem, however, has more merit than might be readily apparent. One reason pinching does not come to an abrupt end even in the private market is because many women are by no means unalterably opposed to being pinched, as we have been assuming. But the analysis can be applied to the more realistic cases where women are being harassed and mistreated and do object.

So you see? Sexual Harassment is not a problem because the victim is actually consenting. And if they aren't consenting then obviously they wouldn't work there, i'm sure they don't have bills to pay and mouths to feed. Never you mind the history of such harassment throughout the centuries "the market" will take care of the problem. As to why the concept of "self regulation" doesn't seem to have kicked-in in private workplaces hereto, well, the only rationalisation the author provides is victim blaming.
Nice stuff.

Valmont

Laminations wrote: »

And who is to say that we'd be more rational without the state?...

Having a giant state safety net is doing anything but encouraging rationality. Just look at the bank bailouts. Some of them messed up big time but were given huge amounts of taxpayers money to get things right. In Ireland, it is difficult for a self-employed individual to get jobseeker's benefit but if you come from a long line of welfare dependency, no problem, we'll throw in some rent allowance while you're at it. The state is punishing success and rewarding failure at risky levels.

Valmont

What is the market good for from a social democratic perspective? How big should the state be? Is Ireland's state too big or just the right size?

Eliot Rosewater

It seems a number of people are forwarding this notion that libertarians have a "fetish" for the market and that they consider it to be some kind of holy grail. I don't think this notion has any founding on this thread. Libertarians simply believe that, in most cases, the market is a better alternative to the state.

But what would I know? Perhaps I should run upstairs to see if the aforementioned Ron Hubbard shrine does in fact has a little shelf dedicated to my fetish for the beautiful market. I mean, ye folks seem to know better than I do.

Laminations

Valmont wrote: »

Having a giant state safety net is doing anything but encouraging rationality. Just look at the bank bailouts. Some of them messed up big time but were given huge amounts of taxpayers money to get things right. In Ireland, it is difficult for a self-employed individual to get jobseeker's benefit but if you come from a long line of welfare dependency, no problem, we'll throw in some rent allowance while you're at it. The state is punishing success and rewarding failure at risky levels.

Thats still not evidence, its supposition.
Are you saying people made bad financial decisions because they knew the state would rescue them in the future? If they knew that they should of told me and I would;ve taken out a mortgage. And so far the state hasn't intervened much in personal debt issues. Lab experiments looking at things like intertemporal preference and discounting show that people are not deciding these issues rationally, there is no 'state' variable in these experiments. I'm going to a behavioural economics/economic psychology conference later this month, amongst the issues being discussed is

[FONT='PrimaSans BT,Verdana,sans-serif']- Why should policymakers care about behavioural economics? What is the relevance of behavioural economics to such questions as how we should design taxation and regulation? Is there any role for government to protect citizens from themselves in areas such as financial services?

[/FONT]Humans are not rational, rationality is key to the libertarian ideology. Wishful thinking about what we may have a 'caspacity' for is not good enough

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-science-of-irrational

ARIELY: At this stage not much surprises me anymore. But perhaps the most surprising is the fact that many people, particularly economists, believe that we are perfectly rational.

Anonymous1987

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

It seems a number of people are forwarding this notion that libertarians have a "fetish" for the market and that they consider it to be some kind of holy grail. I don't think this notion has any founding on this thread. Libertarians simply believe that, in most cases, the market is a better alternative to the state.

But what would I know? Perhaps I should run upstairs to see if the aforementioned Ron Hubbard shrine does in fact has a little shelf dedicated to my fetish for the beautiful market. I mean, ye folks seem to know better than I do.

Libertarianism seems to be a broad philosophy with varying degrees of free market support although the popular form seems exclusively free market but aside from the protection of property rights where do you and the other posters see a necessary role for the state? It would seem that Libertarians somehow think the market is capable of delivering almost everything aside from these when historically it failed to offer even minimum safety standards during the industrial revolution.

Laminations

Valmont wrote: »

What is the market good for from a social democratic perspective? How big should the state be? Is Ireland's state too big or just the right size?

Ah the Goldielocks question. The answer I assume is that the state is too large, cumbersome and intrusive in certain areas but too small and ineffective in others. This is the question we should be asking rather than simply doing away with the state, and hoping what emerges will be better.

Scofflaw

Valmont wrote: »

What is the market good for from a social democratic perspective? How big should the state be? Is Ireland's state too big or just the right size?

Market mechanisms serve the same role in social democracy as in any other politico-economic system - that of matching supply and demand. As far as we know, although the market system has some well-known imperfections,there is no better mechanism for doing that particular job.

A mechanism, though, is just that - a mechanism, not an end in itself. That latter - the idea that a free market is some kind of justification for its own existence, and that good will automatically and naturally flow out of it as long as it is left to its own devices - is what I call market fetishism, which is an irrational position rarely espoused by those who study the deficiencies of markets.

As to the Irish state - as Laminations says, too big in parts, too small in others, pointing the wrong way in some places. How big should the state be? The answer depends on what you want from it, which is largely a matter of individual preference - the idea that there is a right answer is itself wrong.

cordially,
Scofflaw

guinnessdrinker

Scofflaw wrote: »

As to the Irish state - as Laminations says, too big in parts, too small in others, pointing the wrong way in some places. How big should the state be? The answer depends on what you want from it, which is largely a matter of individual preference - the idea that there is a right answer is itself wrong.

I like this, great way of putting it. Especially the idea that there is a right answer is itself wrong.

silverharp

As to the Irish state - as Laminations says, too big in parts, too small in others, pointing the wrong way in some places. How big should the state be? The answer depends on what you want from it, which is largely a matter of individual preference - the idea that there is a right answer is itself wrong.

I think this displays how relativism is ingrained in political thought. All that matters is that you get behind a strong lobby and squeeze as much out of the system as you can?

Scofflaw

silverharp wrote: »

I think this displays how relativism is ingrained in political thought. All that matters is that you get behind a strong lobby and squeeze as much out of the system as you can?

To be honest, I'd say that response demonstrates something ingrained in the libertarian debating style - taking something from other people's posts that isn't in them.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Scofflaw

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

The beggar and the rich man, both free to starve or prosper...

amused,
Scofflaw

BluePlanet

Which one is immoral again?

1)The manager that sexually harasses his employees
2)The employee that puts up with it because she has bills to pay and no other job.
3)The State that creates leglislation against sexual harassment in the workplace and mechanisms to give effect - basically intruding into the "private property" of the workplace.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Scofflaw

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Luckily, the very forum rules I enforce prevent me from fully expressing my contempt for that utterly vacuous response. However, if one had to choose a point where the intellectual vapidity and emotional aridity of the libertarian position was made particularly manifest on this thread, it would probably be that post.

Scofflaw

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Ok that's better.
It takes a lot of proding.

McElroy is contradicting "Mr.Libertarian" (Walter Block), in that she believes physical agression (does that include the odd hand on thigh or bum? It's not clear) should be punished (by the State i presume), but not the Verbal harassment. I suppose the same goes for workplace Bullying.

At least we can see that Libertarians would rather perform backflips of mental rationalisations than have the state put manners on these cretins.

Still though, she's allowing for State interference in the workplace, but then again it doesnt say what "phyisical aggression" is.
Should i presume Libertarians are OK with my saying: "listen if you want a raise you'll have to blow me" to some young one at my workplace?

Edit: i guess it does include "unwanted touching".
So i retract the above example of hand on thigh

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yep, the Libertarians are accepting of those behaviors while the State isn't.

When asked for a Libertarian answer to workplace sexual harassment all we've seen are rationalisations, victim blaming and the ever wishful thinking that "competition" would magically punish those workplaces where sexual harassment takes place.

People whom actually work in those places are not so fooled. The State offers actual mechanisms for protection in contrast to that wishful thinking.

It's a very weak argument for Libertarianism.

ChocolateSauce

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

There's a difference between legislating for taste and morality and legislating to protect people from the unwanted, potentially dangerous sexual advances of a stronger person. Such areas are ones in which state intervention is not only acceptable, but necessary and desirable.

If societal re-engineering means making sexual harassment illegal, then count me in.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Nodin

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

And behold, the biased sample.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No, your wrong.
As i posted "Mr. Libertarian" (Walter Block) explained that: "the secretary agrees to all aspects of the job when she agrees to accept the job and especially when she agrees to keep the job. If she continues to patronize or work at a place where she is molested, it can only be voluntary."

Libertarians simply rationalise the abuse.

In your own example the "Libertarian Feminist" says it's only unwanted phyiscal touching that should be outlawed (by the State), but verbal abuse is accepted.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Laminations

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No, not necessarily. Do I think it can be changed by means other than abolishing the state? Absolutely

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I didn't say condone, nor approve. I said Libertarians accept it.
Walter Block goes on in this paper to explain how such lewd behavior is normal human interaction.

When pressed for the Libertarian answer for this issue the only one they provide is that hopefully competition in the market will make such issues go away. They don't explain why that hasn't happened hereto.

Laminations

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

And then

The state's concern for safety is, of course, selective. Within the same half-century in which the state was attempting to regulate working conditions in factories, it was ordering millions of young men to climb out of trenches and run into a hail of bullets, to almost certain death.

you do understand that those men died to protect individual freedoms? And anyway you still see a role for the state in defense

BluePlanet

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

His wikipedia entry says this:

Lew Rockwell of the Mises Institute said this about Walter Block's active role in modern libertarianism:
Murray Rothbard, in his life, was known as Mr. Libertarian. We can make a solid case that the title now belongs to Walter Block, a student of Rothbard's whose own vita is as thick as a big-city phonebook, and as diverse as Wikipedia. Whether he is writing on economic theory, ethics, political secession, drugs, roads, education, monetary policy, social theory, unions, political language, or anything else, his prose burns with a passion for this single idea: if human problems are to be solved, the solution is to be found by permitting greater liberty.

Insofar as your other question, i explained in Post 566

Since Donegalfella won't provide us a Libertarian response to this i've had to revert to Google

My searching for the Libertarian answer led me to Walter Block whom appears quite a longstanding hero of Libertarianism and Anarcho Capitalism.

donegalfella wrote: »

Do you believe the state should regulate people's words, looks, and demeanor?

Yes, No, No

Lockstep

To ask the question directly DF; if a company owner of, let's say a sports shop, tells an employee "sleep with me or you're fired", would you view it as his right to fire her then? Assuming she'd done nothing wrong aside from not wanting to sleep with him, would you see this as an area where the state has no role to play?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Anonymous1987

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Maybe not soley, but mostly, just because it benefited factory owners to keep their workers sufficiently alive is not enough. Not every capitalist was a Henry Ford and even then Ford intruded on peoples personal lives but then again the libertarian would probably he say the worker entered a contract knowing that, conveniently ignoring the necessity of putting bread on the table. Safety standards must be set otherwise you end up with a spectrum of employers who range from those who offer great working conditions to workers to those who offer borderline sufficient working conditions which again can have as much to do with desperation and necessity as much as laziness.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

What has that got to do with anything? I thought Libertarians do not oppose the governments role in state defence or are you just throwing dirt where you can and hoping some it will stick only to declare you were right all along?