Thoughts of a self-professed Libertarian

[Archaic`]

For a long time, I've considered myself to be a Libertarian. Reading a few threads here recently however, particularly Is anarcho-libertarianism the new communism?, are starting to make me think a few things over. Though it's hard to tell where thoughts of "they've got a valid point there" stop and thoughts of "what the hell, that's not what libertarians think, what gave them that idea?" begin, in some cases. To quote Patrick Degan's post from one of the other threads here, To boil American libertarianism down to it's essentials: "I've got mine, fuck everybody else, and no government has the right to say otherwise".. This is so radically different from the perspective we have on Libertarianism here in Australia, and from Libertarianism as taught in Europe, that I barely know where to begin.

What I've always thought of as Libertarianism is a system of wide ranging social and economic freedoms, though with a much larger emphasis on the first than on the second. I do not believe that there should be no government, or only a small government, or that the government should never get involved. In fact, I see those ideas as being a contradiction to the very philosophy of Libertarianism. The free market essentially works by providing a system whereby individuals rationally acting on their greed actually serve to bring about an efficient distribution of goods and services. The contradiction here is that someone who games the system, producing market interference in their own self-interest, distorts the market. A system of small government by necessity is one where you've removed layers of oversight, necessary to protect the individual from such self-interested distortions. By the same token, while I think there should be a re-working of the tax system to give a more equitable distribution of tax burden, it's sheer lunacy in my opinion to expect that there would be no or minimal taxation with a Libertarian government. If anything, the rich should probably expect to pay a lot more tax than they are currently. One of the founding principles of a Libertarian government should be equity for its citizens, and when many existing tax systems allow for a small group of the richest people to pay significantly less (both proportionately and in absolute value) than people much worse off then them, something is gravely wrong.

Instead of the unreasonable expectation that governments never interfere with anything whatsoever, what one should be aiming for is a level of reasonable government. A Libertarian should be expecting for their government to grant wide ranging civil and economic rights; for there to be as little as possible overlap between tiers of government; for the government stepping in to set the regulations necessary to provide a stable and fair level playing field and where rules and regulations are standardized nationwide instead of different from state to state; for the government to manage such sectors of the economy where there exists natural monopoly situations due to infrastructure requirements (such as with telecommunications, electricity distribution, water, sewerage, and so forth); for the government to provide high standards of government funded education and healthcare as a basic right, together with the social security safety nets to help prevent honest individuals from falling into a poverty trap (though regulated in such a way as to prevent "dole bludging"); and for the government to handle areas such as defense, policing, and so on and so forth.

I've only touched on it briefly thusfar, but civil rights in particular is one thing I seem to miss in discussions about Libertarianism from the American perspective. Is this coming perhaps from American Libertarianism being co-oped by right-wing religious groups? I mentioned before that equity should be a founding principle for a Libertarian government. That's not just an economic principle, but a social one as well. Gay marriage and abortion, just to name two controversial issues, would be basic rights. Taking the principle to its most extreme conclusion, multiple marriage and incest between consenting adults might very well be allowed as well, though you'd expect there to be some regulations on both (the first to prevent tax cheats, resolve issues with inheritance, and so forth; the second to cover health issues with any potential children) to make that workable.

So, here's a question to the Americans. What would you consider this kind of position to be? It's obviously not Libertarian by your standards, but what would it count as in your books?

[Junghalli]

Personally I sort of don't like the term libertarian, as I consider myself a social libertarian and don't want to be associated with the Invisible Hand wankers. Which is why I usually use "lolbertarians" or "economic libertarians" when talking about the unregulated capitalism tossers.

[Archaic`]

Given that I teach business subjects in University, I really can't totally separate myself from them completely. While I do think that capitalism and the metaphorical invisible hand essentially work in theory, I'm not blind enough to think that a totally unregulated system could actually work. Rather than less regulation, it's probably more accurate to say that I think there should be different regulation to what exists currently, and that regulation should be shaped guided by the principle of equity, and of "increasing the size of the pie" rather than "increasing the size of one's own slice of the pie".

[Rye]

Chomsky gives a good rant about the redefinition of the term in American politics here.

[starfury]

Actually Some people refer the Libertarians or the versions we so often seen advocated as "Propertians", as they valued the Private property rights above all else, even as they want to tear down the walls around the rest of society.

[bobalot]

The Libertarians I have met or talked to on forums are generally the "Get rid of Central Banks and go back to the gold standard" or "We don't need environment regulation! Factories will regulate themselves!" variety. It's not a caricature, there are quite a few of these loons around.

[PeZook]

The Libertarians I have met or talked to on forums are generally the "Get rid of Central Banks and go back to the gold standard" or "We don't need environment regulation! Factories will regulate themselves!" variety. It's not a caricature, there are quite a few of these loons around.

It's usually like this with most ideas. The serious scholars have their definition, sometimes with plenty of good points supporting it, while the idiots who latch on inevitably degenerate into walking carricatures.

How many times have you heard nonsense like "Einstein doesn't need to be right: I mean, his theories made Newton's work obsolete, so it could happen again!"? It's the exact same idea.

[Surlethe]

So, here's a question to the Americans. What would you consider this kind of position to be? It's obviously not Libertarian by your standards, but what would it count as in your books?

Very similar, though not identical, to the US Democratic Party. For instance, your support of national healthcare, social liberties, more progressive taxation, emphasis on equity, public education, and a welfare safety net to support people from falling into poverty smack of "liberalism" here in the US.

In fact, I wouldn't call you a libertarian at all. You're economically way to the left of Friedman, let alone anarcho-capitalists.

[Teleros]

To quote Patrick Degan's post from one of the other threads here, To boil American libertarianism down to it's essentials: "I've got mine, fuck everybody else, and no government has the right to say otherwise".. This is so radically different from the perspective we have on Libertarianism here in Australia, and from Libertarianism as taught in Europe, that I barely know where to begin.

Sounds like the stuff I had to read by David Friedman. Anarcho-capitalism it was called, rather than Libertarianism. Friedman himself recommended the almost total abolition of government, except as a means to defend a country - unless a private means of doing so could be found of course. And even then it was theft in his book . Total nonsense, but it was good fun advocating it during a seminar presentation .

I've only touched on it briefly thusfar, but civil rights in particular is one thing I seem to miss in discussions about Libertarianism from the American perspective. Is this coming perhaps from American Libertarianism being co-oped by right-wing religious groups?

I don't know if US anarcho-capitalists are advocating Biblical morality or not (!), but David Friedman seems to think that you'll be able to pick and choose your own legal system and such.

[Illuminatus Primus]

In the U.S. the history of "libertarianism" has meant pretty much only right-libertarianism, minarchism, Objectivism and the like. In Europe libertarianism is a much broader philosophical concept through much of their history, including left-libertarians like libertarian socialists.

[Starglider]

Libertarianism is usually sensible when it forward-chains from 'we need an efficient way to allocate economic resources' to 'free markets are more efficient than central planning, most of the time, and most attempts to regulate do more harm than good.' Unfortunately there seem to be rather more Libertarians who start with 'GOVERNMENT BAD' and/or 'SELFISHNESS GOOD' as axioms and then attempt to rationalise all the implications of those axioms. As with creationists they can get quite elaborate and superficially intellectual in their attempts to justify everything, but ultimately it is a sham backed by unjustified faith.

[K. A. Pital]

In Europe there are even "libertarian communists" (basically left wing anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists). In the US, there's no such thing and it cannot even be imagined. US libertarianism has been totally dominated by the right - because the left, not just the communists but almost any brand of socialist - was utterly decimated by an age of various purges starting from the dawn of the XX century and intense right-wing propaganda.

[Darth Wong]

We already have a term for people who advocate social freedoms and equitable economic opportunity for all: they're called "liberals". "Libertarians" are people who don't like the term "liberal" for some reason or other (usually because they hold delusional Reagan-esque economic views).

[Archaic`]

So, here's a question to the Americans. What would you consider this kind of position to be? It's obviously not Libertarian by your standards, but what would it count as in your books?

Very similar, though not identical, to the US Democratic Party. For instance, your support of national healthcare, social liberties, more progressive taxation, emphasis on equity, public education, and a welfare safety net to support people from falling into poverty smack of "liberalism" here in the US.

Not exactly accurate to say that I support progressive taxation. I'd be wanting everyone ultimately to be paying roughly the same proportion of tax, erring on the side of the richer paying more (simply because they have more capacity to), but not by much. The problem with a lot of current systems is that, even though the richer are taxed to a greater proportion of their incomes, after you take taxes on expenditures like sales taxes into account, those earning least in society are paying a significantly higher proportion of their income than those earning the most. That's not even taking into consideration how the richest people in society seem to be able to game their finances in such a way that they'd never pay taxes whatsoever.

In fact, I wouldn't call you a libertarian at all. You're economically way to the left of Friedman, let alone anarcho-capitalists.

I identify a lot closer to Friedrich Hayek than to Friedman. One particular quote of his probably stands out in the context of this discussion. "probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all of the principle of laissez-faire capitalism".

We already have a term for people who advocate social freedoms and equitable economic opportunity for all: they're called "liberals". "Libertarians" are people who don't like the term "liberal" for some reason or other (usually because they hold delusional Reagan-esque economic views).

Ironically enough, Liberal has the exact same opposite meaning here to most here in Australia, referring only to right wing economic political thought, and having nothing to do with social freedoms.

[Junghalli]

It's usually like this with most ideas. The serious scholars have their definition, sometimes with plenty of good points supporting it, while the idiots who latch on inevitably degenerate into walking carricatures.

How many times have you heard nonsense like "Einstein doesn't need to be right: I mean, his theories made Newton's work obsolete, so it could happen again!"? It's the exact same idea.

Another great example is environmentalism. The basic idea is so sensible only an idiot would deny it: "Earth is humanity's house, you don't trash your own house."

Then it gets glomed onto by a lot of idiots who read in and are drawn to a simplistic message that "consumption = bad" and think the trick is to live a "correct" austere lifestyle, do their best to convert everyone else to it, and look down in religious-like disdain at the "decadent" people around them.

[Darth Wong]

Then it gets glomed onto by a lot of idiots who read in and are drawn to a simplistic message that "consumption = bad" and think the trick is to live a "correct" austere lifestyle, do their best to convert everyone else to it, and look down in religious-like disdain at the "decadent" people around them.

Over-consumption is bad. That's not wacko fringe stuff; it's basic logic. If each person consumes more, then the Earth's load-carrying capacity (in terms of numbers of people) must decrease.

[Archaic`]

Over-consumption is bad. That's not wacko fringe stuff; it's basic logic. If each person consumes more, then the Earth's load-carrying capacity (in terms of numbers of people) must decrease.

No one's saying it isn't. But there's a world of difference between us saying "What the fuck do soccer mum's need 4WD's for?" and the wackos going "Electricity and cars and anything with the word nuclear in it are wrong!"

[Junghalli]

No one's saying it isn't. But there's a world of difference between us saying "What the fuck do soccer mum's need 4WD's for?" and the wackos going "Electricity and cars and anything with the word nuclear in it are wrong!"

Yeah, those are the types I was referring to. The sort of people who actively look forward to the day we'll no longer be able to travel long distances because the oil is gone, and will have to grow victory gardens to feed ourselves because the trucks are all dead.

[General Zod]

The free market essentially works by providing a system whereby individuals rationally acting on their greed actually serve to bring about an efficient distribution of goods and services. The contradiction here is that someone who games the system, producing market interference in their own self-interest, distorts the market. A system of small government by necessity is one where you've removed layers of oversight, necessary to protect the individual from such self-interested distortions.

That's really the biggest issue right here. People have a tendency to not act rationally whatsoever where the markets are concerned. Lolbertarianism depends upon people being informed, conscientious consumers and the reality of the situation flat out contradicts this.

Instead of the unreasonable expectation that governments never interfere with anything whatsoever, what one should be aiming for is a level of reasonable government. A Libertarian should be expecting for their government to grant wide ranging civil and economic rights; for there to be as little as possible overlap between tiers of government; for the government stepping in to set the regulations necessary to provide a stable and fair level playing field and where rules and regulations are standardized nationwide instead of different from state to state; for the government to manage such sectors of the economy where there exists natural monopoly situations due to infrastructure requirements (such as with telecommunications, electricity distribution, water, sewerage, and so forth); for the government to provide high standards of government funded education and healthcare as a basic right, together with the social security safety nets to help prevent honest individuals from falling into a poverty trap (though regulated in such a way as to prevent "dole bludging"); and for the government to handle areas such as defense, policing, and so on and so forth.

A "reasonable level of government" sounds nice until you realize that people tend to have wildly varying definitions on what those are. What's wrong with "a government that's big enough to effectively do its job?"

[Surlethe]

So, here's a question to the Americans. What would you consider this kind of position to be? It's obviously not Libertarian by your standards, but what would it count as in your books?

Very similar, though not identical, to the US Democratic Party. For instance, your support of national healthcare, social liberties, more progressive taxation, emphasis on equity, public education, and a welfare safety net to support people from falling into poverty smack of "liberalism" here in the US.

Not exactly accurate to say that I support progressive taxation. I'd be wanting everyone ultimately to be paying roughly the same proportion of tax, erring on the side of the richer paying more (simply because they have more capacity to), but not by much. The problem with a lot of current systems is that, even though the richer are taxed to a greater proportion of their incomes, after you take taxes on expenditures like sales taxes into account, those earning least in society are paying a significantly higher proportion of their income than those earning the most. That's not even taking into consideration how the richest people in society seem to be able to game their finances in such a way that they'd never pay taxes whatsoever.

Ah, I misread you as saying you wanted the rich to pay more in absolute terms rather than relative terms. Out of curiosity, what's your justification for equitable taxes given that the marginal utility of each dollar earned decreases, so if a rich person and poor person pay the same percentage of their income, the rich person is better off?

In fact, I wouldn't call you a libertarian at all. You're economically way to the left of Friedman, let alone anarcho-capitalists.

I identify a lot closer to Friedrich Hayek than to Friedman. One particular quote of his probably stands out in the context of this discussion. "probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all of the principle of laissez-faire capitalism".

Nonetheless, even if your starting points are similar, your proposed policies are relatively leftist in the United States. Simply supporting universal health care and a decent social safety net puts you to the left of the American political center. That doesn't even take into account your social libertarianism, which puts you well to the left of even the Democratic party (you don't notice even Barack Obama pushing for gay marriage).

[Archaic`]

That's really the biggest issue right here. People have a tendency to not act rationally whatsoever where the markets are concerned. Lolbertarianism depends upon people being informed, conscientious consumers and the reality of the situation flat out contradicts this.

Agreed. We're getting to the point where it's easier for a consumer to be informed and conscientious, thanks to increases in communications technology, but we're still not there yet. Having said that, the free market doesn't necessarily depend on consumers actually making the correct choice, only that they try and make what they believe are individually the correct choices for them.

A "reasonable level of government" sounds nice until you realize that people tend to have wildly varying definitions on what those are. What's wrong with "a government that's big enough to effectively do its job?"

I've got no problems with phrasing it like that. Of course, as with the first definition, what one person's opinion of "big enough" is isn't going to be another persons.
"A government that is sufficiently sized to carry out its responsibilities effectively and efficiently" would be another way of putting it.

Ah, I misread you as saying you wanted the rich to pay more in absolute terms rather than relative terms. Out of curiosity, what's your justification for equitable taxes given that the marginal utility of each dollar earned decreases, so if a rich person and poor person pay the same percentage of their income, the rich person is better off?

A rich person is always going to be better off in absolute terms than a poor person unless either you're putting an unreasonable taxation burden on them, or they're avoiding paying taxes because of flaws in the system. Start ramping up the taxes for the rich, and you remove the profit incentive from them to a degree, which in the long run can play havoc with the market, gives them more incentive to avoid paying taxes, gives them less incentive to actually go out there and earn an income instead of just sitting on their wealth, and ultimately results in the rich paying less taxes than they would have otherwise by just having a standardized tax rate.
Theoretically, the rich are also subjecting themselves to "voluntary taxation" (ie. charitable giving) for a proportion of their income on top of what tax they pay, though in real life we probably see a lot less of that than the theory might expect (where charitable giving by top executives and so forth is seen as a good marketing and public relations tool).

Nonetheless, even if your starting points are similar, your proposed policies are relatively leftist in the United States. Simply supporting universal health care and a decent social safety net puts you to the left of the American political center. That doesn't even take into account your social libertarianism, which puts you well to the left of even the Democratic party (you don't notice even Barack Obama pushing for gay marriage).

It's things like this which make me prefer to compare political perspectives on a 4 point compass rather than a 2D line. ^^;

[bobalot]

Nonetheless, even if your starting points are similar, your proposed policies are relatively leftist in the United States. Simply supporting universal health care and a decent social safety net puts you to the left of the American political center. That doesn't even take into account your social libertarianism, which puts you well to the left of even the Democratic party (you don't notice even Barack Obama pushing for gay marriage).

It's things like this which make me prefer to compare political perspectives on a 4 point compass rather than a 2D line. ^^;

To be honest, even on a 4 point compass, I would still describe you as a lefty (Judging by your description of your political stance).

[Melchior]

A rich person is always going to be better off in absolute terms than a poor person unless either you're putting an unreasonable taxation burden on them, or they're avoiding paying taxes because of flaws in the system. Start ramping up the taxes for the rich, and you remove the profit incentive from them to a degree, which in the long run can play havoc with the market, gives them more incentive to avoid paying taxes, gives them less incentive to actually go out there and earn an income instead of just sitting on their wealth, and ultimately results in the rich paying less taxes than they would have otherwise by just having a standardized tax rate.
Theoretically, the rich are also subjecting themselves to "voluntary taxation" (ie. charitable giving) for a proportion of their income on top of what tax they pay, though in real life we probably see a lot less of that than the theory might expect (where charitable giving by top executives and so forth is seen as a good marketing and public relations tool).

How do you reconcile this with the fact that a very high tax rate on the top income bracket didn't seem to cause that at all, in the past? It's more an article of faith than a theory.

[Archaic`]

A rich person is always going to be better off in absolute terms than a poor person unless either you're putting an unreasonable taxation burden on them, or they're avoiding paying taxes because of flaws in the system. Start ramping up the taxes for the rich, and you remove the profit incentive from them to a degree, which in the long run can play havoc with the market, gives them more incentive to avoid paying taxes, gives them less incentive to actually go out there and earn an income instead of just sitting on their wealth, and ultimately results in the rich paying less taxes than they would have otherwise by just having a standardized tax rate.
Theoretically, the rich are also subjecting themselves to "voluntary taxation" (ie. charitable giving) for a proportion of their income on top of what tax they pay, though in real life we probably see a lot less of that than the theory might expect (where charitable giving by top executives and so forth is seen as a good marketing and public relations tool).

How do you reconcile this with the fact that a very high tax rate on the top income bracket didn't seem to cause that at all, in the past? It's more an article of faith than a theory.

Didn't cause what exactly? All the things I mentioned? You'll need to be a bit more specific. I assume you're referring to the "gives them more incentive to avoid paying taxes, gives them less incentive to actually go out there and earn an income instead of just sitting on their wealth, and ultimately results in the rich paying less taxes than they would have otherwise by just having a standardized tax rate." part? I'll admit that I don't have the references to hand, and would have to do a decent amount of research on them to check (my specialty being in marketing, not economics or finance), and If I'm incorrect here, I'll gladly retract that and alter my position, but I don't see anything I've said being in conflict with generally accepted economic theory and models. Of course, they're fairly broad abstractions, but testing economic theory as rigorously as we'd like to is difficult, given the lack of a controled environment in which to do so, not to mention the ethical issues with experimenting like that.

In any case, what you have to consider here is that there's a difference between the "top income bracket" as defined by income taxes and "the rich". Depending on the specific country, that can be a very broad group. There's a wealth of difference (quite literally in this case) between, say, a local GP (who would tend to fall into that bracket), and some top executive. The ones avoiding tax now aren't generally amongst your typical hardworking professionals, who while being in that top bracket couldn't simply stop working overnight and expect to continue to live in a live of luxury, but rather amongst your investment banker types, high level corporate executives, and so forth.

[General Zod]

Agreed. We're getting to the point where it's easier for a consumer to be informed and conscientious, thanks to increases in communications technology, but we're still not there yet. Having said that, the free market doesn't necessarily depend on consumers actually making the correct choice, only that they try and make what they believe are individually the correct choices for them.

We'll never be there, because libertarianism fails to take into account things like human apathy, general willful ignorance, laziness and predatory practices of the markets without any kind of strict regulation behind them. It relies far too much on people being willing to do the "right thing" on their own.