A bunch of Libertarians on Youtube...

[SpaceMarine93]

There's recently a foundation of Libertarians posting on Youtube, from a channel called "LearnLiberty", trying to promote libertarianism with a bunch of videos where a Foundation member propose simple yet 'seemingly' logical and rational arguments for the existence of a pure free market free from the shackles of the State or control of any kind, using the libertarian rationale being that the market is capable of taking care of itself and that rules and regulations will make things worse.

Example:

Social Cooperation: Why Thieves Hate Free Markets



And in response to the recent video "The Story of Broke" (by director of "The Story of Stuff" fame) about the current US economic situation and why it happened (much blame go to government subsidies to Corporations and others):



For more, visit his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnLiberty

And the main website: http://www.learnliberty.org/

Verdict?

[D.Turtle]

Spacemarine##: Instead of asking us for our verdict, why don't you tell us what you think about it.

[Purple]

Am I the only one who thinks this guy is seriously delusional about the good nature of human kind? People cooperating freely and voluntarily with one another... Let people work together and all will turn out right... Yea. That's going to end well.

Seriously I am a communist and even I think this guy is delusional.

[DarkArk]

I swear with Libertarians it's like the 19th century never happened for those people. Social reform and communism both arose for a reason. Reasons that current Libertarians are blind to because they no longer exist because of reform by the government.

People cooperating freely and voluntarily with one another... Let people work together and all will turn out right... Yea. That's going to end well.

That kind of thinking works in small communities where everyone is the same and they all know each other. It certainly doesn't work in nation states of millions of faceless people.

[madd0ct0r]

Cooperation is often a long term solution for a repeated game. It can be the rational choice.
Hell, electing a agent with power to enforce cooperation can also be a rational choice


well, looking at the first video - he's completely ignored asymmetries in power or information.

He's talking about stealing from one shop will get you banned from there, but also banned from their competitor down the road, arguing that it's in the shops interest to share this information, and thus the need for government to do things like police and jail is not as crucial as you might expect.

well and good. Except most crimes are committed by individuals against individuals. We'd all have to share information, which would be a huge database that'd probably require specialists to maintain and run, presumably supported by all of us chipping in a few quid/ dollars.

oh. ooops.

The asymmetry problem is also obvious - where you have two huge chains sharing information, are they likely to let the little tailor shop down the road join? A single theft hurts the little shop far more then a chain, AND the information contributed by the little shop is of far less use to the chain then visa versa.
Being rational agents, the chain should demand high fees (up to equal the amount that'd be lost to theft) for access to the information. The little shop gets screwed.

[Sidewinder]

He's talking about stealing from one shop will get you banned from there, but also banned from their competitor down the road, arguing that it's in the shops interest to share this information, and thus the need for government to do things like police and jail is not as crucial as you might expect.

well and good. Except most crimes are committed by individuals against individuals.

I'm curious how the libertarian would enforce laws against rape and assault, e.g., Citizen A going nuts because Citizen B cut him off in traffic, and ramming Citizen B's car in a fit of road rage. Or Citizen A suffered from psychiatric problems, and attacked Citizen B because, in Citizen A's mind, Citizen B was "A Nazi space lizard, here to enslave us all!"

Vigilantism? Lynch mobs? Gunfights in the streets?

[Panzersharkcat]

TL;DR version: insurance companies or things similar. At least, that's one theoretical answer.

[Simon_Jester]

What satisfactory "insurance" can I have against being murdered by someone who thinks I'm secretly a spy from the lizardmen of Repton VII?

Fat lot of good the money does me when I'm dead.

[madd0ct0r]

well, life insurance is a popular option even now, with less space lizard related deaths...

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, but life insurance isn't satisfactory compensation for being dead. It just ensures that my dependents won't be crippled by my death and get stuck with big piles of debt or no income and wind up losing their home or whatever.

Insurance doesn't replace the judicial system in preventing crime. All it does is create a costly new industry devoted to running around and trying to fix all the things that got broken by mobs of undrestrained criminals.

[Sidewinder]

Let's see... in a libertarian world, with privatized police... the mentally ill will NOT get the help they need, because there's no profit in doing so. Which means, if Citizen A accuses you of being a Nazi space lizard, your only defense will be to kill him first- and then get a lawyer, when Citizen A's family inevitably sues you for "wrongful death."

Holy... I think we're better off with a police force funded by the taxpayers, and thus, obligated to protect EVERYONE, including Citizen A. After all, who knows if or when we might find OURSELVES as Citizen A, one day?

[D.Turtle]

After some further thought, I split the first two replies to the Bottom of the Barrel thread. If you can't be bothered to address the post, then don't post.

Before this thread descends further into a libertarianism-bashing contest, heres a challenge: The first video is a very short video that makes a very clear argument. So far maddoctor is the only one who has addressed that argument. How about somebody play devil's advocate and defend the argument being made by that first video.

[Aasharu]

Alright, I'll try.

In the first video, the man makes an accurate point, and furthermore, has evidence to back it up. Companies do share information on known thieves, and are willing to cooperate to prevent theft or exploitation. No law is needed to try and force this cooperation, and so they manage a bottom-up form of consumer protection without need for the government. He makes no claims that government is evil or completely unnecessary, but merely states that the free market is more efficient at regulating these things then the government can be, and therefore, less government is needed at the bottom level.

[bobalot]

Alright, I'll try.

In the first video, the man makes an accurate point, and furthermore, has evidence to back it up. Companies do share information on known thieves, and are willing to cooperate to prevent theft or exploitation. No law is needed to try and force this cooperation, and so they manage a bottom-up form of consumer protection without need for the government. He makes no claims that government is evil or completely unnecessary, but merely states that the free market is more efficient at regulating these things then the government can be, and therefore, less government is needed at the bottom level.

The only problem is that this has never actually happened on a society wide scale in the entire history of humanity. When there was minimal government interference, there was non-existent consumer protection. Anybody who has visited a third world country (where consumer protection laws are rarely enforced and in practice non-existent) will vouch for this.

He doesn't provide any evidence that the free-market will always be more efficient.

[Zixinus]

My first thought at the liberterian title of "why thieves hate the free market" my first thought was: "and that is why big corporations hate it, because it destroys their monopolies".

My impression is that the guy never explains why both companies find it that the interest of sharing information about thieves outweights the benefit they get if their partner is damaged. Is this real? What is it called? Where did this happen?

He also ignores scale of cooperation. Communites can and do ostricize people if they percieve that the person done wrong (ie, the person is a thief or a murderer or whatever). That is the mechanism that ancient "merchents" (who are different from today's traders) created works only so far: for example, that person is now forced to be forever a criminal. He cannot get a job, cannot get ever shop for anything else, etc. If he wants another suit, even if he is willing to buy it, he can now only steal it or take it by force. The punishment is out-of-scale, unpredictable and unfair.

Furthermore, this mechanism, as long as it stays away from anything resembling police, has several problems: what about other communities that are outside the information net? What if false information is sent into the information net (because, say, one shopkeeper has a grudge against the accused)? Who pays for the upkeep of the information net? What if someone gets in by accident (say, a mistake or because they resemble a genuine thief)?

All of this requires at least a fair, impartial jury that can decide. For that to work in any way at all, you'll need common laws and means to enforce them. Woop, we just got another government!

[madd0ct0r]

within the third world country word of mouth becomes incredibly important.

I'll g o to a certain shop because my father in law recommended it. I'll use a certain software because a friend says it seems legit. It's not foolproof, and liable to distortion through corruption and marketing, but there is type of consumer wariness.

all of these people would happily swap for decent consumer protection laws and enforcement of course.

[bobalot]

within the third world country word of mouth becomes incredibly important.

I'll g o to a certain shop because my father in law recommended it. I'll use a certain software because a friend says it seems legit. It's not foolproof, and liable to distortion through corruption and marketing, but there is type of consumer wariness.

all of these people would happily swap for decent consumer protection laws and enforcement of course.

Which is why you rarely see significant libertarian movements in third world countries. Libertarianism is prevalent in first world nations with reasonable legal systems, basic government services and safety nets. People get so used these services that they take them for granted and assume they will just pop out of thin air because the "free market" demands it.

Why asked why this would occur, they just repeat the mantra that the free market would do it better.

[madd0ct0r]

yes and no, A suprisingly large percentage of my friends have read and are into Ann Rynd.

In the daily context of life here (vietnam), dividing people into 'creatives' and 'parasites' and advocating removal of parasites is pretty close to the truth.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Trying to get back to addressing the videos themselves...

The second video especially seems to reinforce the idea that modern libertarianism has only evolved because people today can afford to question the need for a strong centralized government.

The cherry picking that goes on in the video is more then a bit gulling as it seems to imply that the only thing a Govt does is either spend resources on "WAR" (( again, arne't we ending our engagments) and of course 'wasteful subsidies"

While subsidies are a problem, going after the green industries the way it does is a bit one sided. There are a greater amount of succes stories out there for federal programs in terms of getting small companies going or fostering green energy.

I think it is a good example of throwing 'the baby out with the bath water"
Subsidies are something that I do agree should virtually be done away with. But like so much of libertarianism, they take a "RAR KILL DESTROY" method to it by advocatign an end to ALL Subsidies NOW instead of seeing which ones actually do good.

[D.Turtle]

The argument in the first video is this: Cooperation between competitors on the marketplace is a direct result from self-interest. It is not something dependent on top-down government rule.

He uses the example of buying a suit at Macy's and then not paying the bill, to illustrate this point. It is in the interest of Macy's to share this information - as that facilitates cooperation from its competitors to share their information on thieves. He further illustrates this point by going farther back into history and describing how cooperation and information-sharing among communities was and is essential to achieving optimal outcomes.

You see this type of information-sharing in tons of areas nowadays - mostly where government intervention is ineffective or non-existent. There are numerous sites about hotels, vacation homes, etc that share information on the situation at those places, the level of service they give, etc. There are numerous sites that give people the possibility to rate or review shops, bars, restaurants, barbers, doctors, and a multitude of other small businesses in a city. This information not only enables people to make better choices as to whose business to use, but also pressures those businesses to improve their service.

In addition, since there are numerous competing sites that share this information, there is market-pressure on those sites to filter out fraudulent reviews and ensure that the information being shared is accurate. Consumers will notice and quickly abandon a site if its information turns out to be incorrect. The Internet enables mechanisms that worked only on a personal or small community scale to now work on a national and international scale - without government intervention.

[K. A. Pital]

Will corporations also report on their own abuses? And just how much impact would such reports hold anyway? Reports about Coca-Cola butchering India's freshwater reserves are spreading around the internet, but so what? Seriously, that whole "report and the abuser goes out of business" bullshit is simply bullshit and that's all.

[PainRack]

Shouldn't the rebuttal to the first video focus more on the limitations of such networks?

The message to me seems to be that one doesn't require top down solutions, or government imposed solutions all the time, as bottom up solutions or market participants can create their own networks. So, I guess I'm going to play devil advocate and support the vid here.

It is true. Bottom up solutions and market participants can and do create their own networks.


The issue should be assymetry and access. For example, while corporations may share their information, what about consumers? How difficult is it now to create a database review about bad merchants? E-bay is an example of this and while internal policing methods are good, well, the efficiencies fall short. The comprehensiveness of such database may be inefficient. Still, shouldn't this be benchmarked against government or top down initatives? The crackdown on internet crime/fraud is absymal, with fraud rates from certain countries(like Singapore) ranging up to 30%.

A good historical example would be the history of blood collection in the states. Such initatives were either private led for profits or charitable organisations, like the AAAB and the Red Cross.

And I guess its is a point that highlights both the effectiveness of bottom up, market participants as well as the problems with such a network. They worked. The initial blood centres were all small scale set up by local physicians or hospitals. While the American Red Cross was requested to coordinate the blood drive during WW2, it was not government controlled but rather, government facillated. The American Red Cross held the drives, coordinated the storage and transport of blood, before the American military took over and despatched said plasma to US servicemen overseas.
Similarly, the AAB was a form of cooperation between various blood centres combining together to become a player on the American blood market.


Of course, the problems came in when BOTh networks began to clash with each other over who should and who is better at coordinating the blood supply, especially as safety issues over hepatitis crept in post 50s. And I guess that showed the limitations of a bottom up service, what with Skidd Row and paid blood donors. Then again, the French blood tranfusion service had its own horror stories with HIV and hepatitis, which was compounded by the national pride they had in their tranfusion service....

[Channel72]

The argument in the first video is this: Cooperation between competitors on the marketplace is a direct result from self-interest. It is not something dependent on top-down government rule.

He uses the example of buying a suit at Macy's and then not paying the bill, to illustrate this point. It is in the interest of Macy's to share this information - as that facilitates cooperation from its competitors to share their information on thieves. He further illustrates this point by going farther back into history and describing how cooperation and information-sharing among communities was and is essential to achieving optimal outcomes.

He's correct. There are many motivations for competitors to cooperate with each other; customer blacklists are one such reason. Price fixing is another.

But how does he get from "it's in the interest of competitors to cooperate with each other" to "government is totally unnecessary"?

Inevitably, any argument about libertarianism will eventually lead to the question "how will profit-driven corporations be policed and regulated?" This is where libertarians fall back on dogma: libertarians believe that, through free market forces, corporations will be held accountable to the people. In other words, if Walmart starts mistreating employees or ravaging the environment, either nobody will work there anymore or customers will choose to do business somewhere else.

The fundamental problem here is that this is a wild guess based on wishful thinking. Nobody knows if this would actually happen in practice, and it only takes a few seconds of analysis to raise serious doubts that this libertarian dogma would bear out in reality. (At least communism sort of sounds good on paper.) Historically, corporate abuse has been mitigated mostly through government actions, including labor laws, regulatory agencies and legislation favoring labor unions. Additionally, the idea that customers wouldn't patronize abusive companies is highly suspect. For one thing, this assumes customers will even have a choice (what prevents large conglomerates from obtaining monopolies through control of significant infrastructure/manufacturing/distribution capability?), and for another thing, even with government regulation, corporations are highly capable of covering up or whitewashing abusive behavior through highly-paid PR firms. Libertarians assume that the public will be informed and outraged enough to even make this choice, or that private watch-dog agencies will be influential enough to sway public opinion.

[Simon_Jester]

The argument in the first video is this: Cooperation between competitors on the marketplace is a direct result from self-interest. It is not something dependent on top-down government rule.

He uses the example of buying a suit at Macy's and then not paying the bill, to illustrate this point. It is in the interest of Macy's to share this information - as that facilitates cooperation from its competitors to share their information on thieves. He further illustrates this point by going farther back into history and describing how cooperation and information-sharing among communities was and is essential to achieving optimal outcomes.

But you also see seagoing merchants not only not sharing information on pirates, but actively bribing pirates to attack other people's shipping, and providing fencing/shipping/homeport services to the pirates... because piracy was lucrative, and securing a monopoly by encouraging people to harass your enemies is cheap.

It cuts both ways. Market forces are like evolution: a blind idiot god. They do what they do because of their own innate imperatives, not to what we think their imperatives ought to be.

We might think that the sensible solution to overpopulation is to breed slower and have fewer children per parent. But in animal species that have routine bursts of overpopulation, the evolved response is at least as likely to be "kill other animals' children" as "have fewer children of my own." Think about it for a minute and it will be obvious why.

We think that's horrible, and I think we're right to think so- which means that we can't depend on evolution to produce a morally desirable outcome.

Other cases I won't waste your time with prove another point: the evolved outcome isn't always a practical one. No human being would design a car to have one part that made it repair itself, and one part that made it break, and have both parts running all the time regardless of whether the car needed to be running or not running. But there are plenty of biological systems that work like that.

And I don't see why we would expect a better result from market forces than from evolution, or why we should have any more sympathy for the market when it causes suffering than we do for the ichneumon wasp.

[D.Turtle]

Will corporations also report on their own abuses? And just how much impact would such reports hold anyway? Reports about Coca-Cola butchering India's freshwater reserves are spreading around the internet, but so what? Seriously, that whole "report and the abuser goes out of business" bullshit is simply bullshit and that's all.

Corporations might not report on their own abuses, but the people being affected by those abuses will. This type of information-sharing is still in its infant-stage, but already showing effect. Those corporations being reported on might not go directly out of business, but they will start changing their business practice. Look at Apple - it is through public campaigns pointing out abuse that they have started changing those practices. It doesn't mean that those abuses will stop immediately, but more and more people are gaining access to such information and gaining the capability to share information. This increase in information flow also increases the possibility that the people being abused realize that they are being abused and can start demanding better treatment.

He's correct. There are many motivations for competitors to cooperate with each other; customer blacklists are one such reason. Price fixing is another.

But how does he get from "it's in the interest of competitors to cooperate with each other" to "government is totally unnecessary"?

This is a strawman. In the first video, the argument is not that government is totally unnecessary. The relevant part is at 2:45 in the video. The video is meant to counter the argument that society needs top-down government intervention in order solve its problems.

Inevitably, any argument about libertarianism will eventually lead to the question "how will profit-driven corporations be policed and regulated?" This is where libertarians fall back on dogma: libertarians believe that, through free market forces, corporations will be held accountable to the people. In other words, if Walmart starts mistreating employees or ravaging the environment, either nobody will work there anymore or customers will choose to do business somewhere else.

The fundamental problem here is that this is a wild guess based on wishful thinking. Nobody knows if this would actually happen in practice, and it only takes a few seconds of analysis to raise serious doubts that this libertarian dogma would bear out in reality. (At least communism sort of sounds good on paper.) Historically, corporate abuse has been mitigated mostly through government actions, including labor laws, regulatory agencies and legislation favoring labor unions.

I agree that total elimination of government and government intervention will not work. However, that is not the claim being made in that first video. Address the claim - not the strawman.

Additionally, the idea that customers wouldn't patronize abusive companies is highly suspect. For one thing, this assumes customers will even have a choice (what prevents large conglomerates from obtaining monopolies through control of significant infrastructure/manufacturing/distribution capability?), and for another thing, even with government regulation, corporations are highly capable of covering up or whitewashing abusive behavior through highly-paid PR firms. Libertarians assume that the public will be informed and outraged enough to even make this choice, or that private watch-dog agencies will be influential enough to sway public opinion.

The abuses of Apple have been made public and have lead to changes being made not through government intervention but through public information campaigns.

But you also see seagoing merchants not only not sharing information on pirates, but actively bribing pirates to attack other people's shipping, and providing fencing/shipping/homeport services to the pirates... because piracy was lucrative, and securing a monopoly by encouraging people to harass your enemies is cheap.

I would like to some proof for this claim.

It cuts both ways. Market forces are like evolution: a blind idiot god. They do what they do because of their own innate imperatives, not to what we think their imperatives ought to be.

Yes, and in almost all cases, cooperation is better than total competition at all costs. In evolution, nice guys finish first.

We might think that the sensible solution to overpopulation is to breed slower and have fewer children per parent. But in animal species that have routine bursts of overpopulation, the evolved response is at least as likely to be "kill other animals' children" as "have fewer children of my own." Think about it for a minute and it will be obvious why.

We think that's horrible, and I think we're right to think so- which means that we can't depend on evolution to produce a morally desirable outcome.

This depends greatly on the circumstances. The more effort is required in order to have a child, the more likely the situation is going to be "have fewer children and care for them better". We see this all over the world with humans: as the standard of living increases, the birth rate drops. Similarly with information about individuals, businesses, corporations: The more effort is required to compensate for a bad reputation, the more likely the situation is going to be "act well." As information flow increases, abuse drops.

Other cases I won't waste your time with prove another point: the evolved outcome isn't always a practical one. No human being would design a car to have one part that made it repair itself, and one part that made it break, and have both parts running all the time regardless of whether the car needed to be running or not running. But there are plenty of biological systems that work like that.

And I don't see why we would expect a better result from market forces than from evolution, or why we should have any more sympathy for the market when it causes suffering than we do for the ichneumon wasp.

However, evolution is capable of producing great beauty, complexity, efficiency, etc. Similarly market forces are capable of acting as deterrent for abuse.