Public vs. Private
In a critique of Obama's inaugural address, John Cohen writes:
To suggest that anyone who'd like to see less heavy-handed government regulation thinks one person can do everything alone is a straw-man argument. It indicates a lack of understanding of how the private-sector economy works and how libertarians or conservatives actually think about economics. The private sector isn't just a bunch of people "acting alone." As Matt Welch pointed out in his critique of the speech, making and selling an object as basic as a pencil is such a complex endeavor that it takes lots of different specialists. No one person has the knowledge to accomplish that seemingly simple task; that's how decentralized knowledge is in society. And with a truly complex product, like a computer or movie, the need for people to work together is even greater still. The private sector isn't fundamentally about everyone being secluded and isolated from each other; it typically involves many people working together.
With markets and private enterprise, cooperation occurs voluntarily, for mutual gain. With government, "cooperation" occurs at the point of a gun, via coercion, generally solely to improve the interests of some third party who has clout with the political class.
many more than libertarian ones, right? I mean if the "collectivist economists" beat out the Libertarian ones they must be better, right?
Absolutely.
In the marketplace of personal interest, government always wins at giving the most stuff away at perceived minimal cost to people over personal effort and expenditure.
The immediate gratification and insulation of state insurance is far superior to personal risk.
People always respond to incentives, and the incentive to let others assume risk always wins. But it always fails, and contains within it the seeds of its own destruction.
This is why communism doesn't work.
Wrong.
All collectivist economies have failed, and all social democratic economies extant are failing.
does that go for 3rd world and developing countries also?
Yes.
so Libertarianism is a failed governance model?
Incorrect premise: libertarianism isn’t a “governance model” – it is a philosophy.
That is the root of your misunderstanding.
And it is the only philosophy which has succeeded.
Collectivism of all degrees has failed.
a philosophy that is incompatible with both elective and non-elective governance?
is Libertarianism basically incompatible with any form of modern government whether it be some form of democracy or totalitarian?
Again, wow, are you stupid.
The US, at its founding, was probably the most libertarian example you could find, and our system was based on precisely the elective process, due to the little mishap with the king-thingy.
Larry, I hope to God you aren’t in any position of power, though that would explain a lot right now.
well no. these are serious questions actually even if simple. I'm just pretty skeptical if Libertarianism is the best economic policy why there are no countries that have it - whether they have elective governance or some form of strongman non-elective governance.
And I would think the countries most like the US at it's founding are modern day 3rd world countries that have no real modern governance, no people voting themselves goodies, etc..and seemingly
the countries in the best position to not ADD more government, taxation, and people voting themselves goodies but as far as I can tell none of the 3rd world countries are particularly libertarian either.
so it appears to be like a dinosaur ... once existed but no more... incompatible with current existing forms of governance.
so it appears that there is a small group of people - fringe groups who insist that libertarianism that is now extinct needs to be brought back.
That's why I say it seems LUDDITE. It appears that Libertarianism has failed as a viable economic policy but a small number of people still cling to it.
Larry, economics is libertarian, only you have no understanding thereof.
Economics is the study of tradeoffs. You can do A, or you can do B, both have costs, both have benefits, and it is the evaluation of those tradeoffs which defines your outcome.
Regressives have no comprehension of economics. Zero.
Regressivism is reversion to failed collectivist economics, the seminal failure of the 20th century. Too bad you weren’t paying attention.
It is the “modern” economic Luddism, which always fails, and is currently failing again.
Enjoy your show.
Larry, what you are witnessing and unable to comprehend/articulate a defense against is the tyranny of the collective vs individual liberty.
We individuals have lost. You have lost too, but you just don’t realize it yet.
That’s the rub – Obamascare sounds great on paper, but was and is a terrible thing. It will destroy
healthcare. Those full catastrophic effects will not be known for some years, long after you will be presumed to be accountable.
I intend to hold you accountable now.
The “small number of people clinging” to economic (and other) liberty are the ones staying true to the foundations of this country.
You would do very well to remember this, and understand the violent consequences of straying from them.
I knew that was you Warren....lol
Larry, here is your proof that collectivist societies are going the opposite direction of your ignorant dreams
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1137019360/thevolocons0d-20/
Yes, that is Ronald Coase, of the Coase theorem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem
Authoring, still at age 102.
Czarist Russia was unevenly developed, but definitely not undeveloped. E.g., in WWI Russian airplane production was higher than Great Britain's - and Russia had to accomplish this without importing materials from all over the world. There was a vast land of backwards peasants around the modern industrial cities - but that description also fits the USA in 1915. We advanced fairly straightforwardly from there, aside from one lost decade when collectivists gained control[1], and by the 90's our "poor" were richer than most of the world's middle class. The Bolsheviks set Russia back by decades, and then bragged about how they were bringing the industry back with 5 year plans. They did manage to produce some pretty impressive tanks, but never developed any wealth to share with the proles or met the minimum needs for consumer goods.
[1] I am referring to both Hoover and FDR - one of the biggest progressive lies was that Hoover did nothing, when actually he meddled with the economy more than any American government before - and since it didn't work, FDR meddled even more.
Politicians everywhere pick their own interests - expanding government to increase their power and their ability to collect contributions - over the public interest any time they think they can confuse the voters enough to get away with it. It might be different if a clear majority of voters was consistently libertarian, even if only moderately so, but as it is, far too many people are against freedom in some restricted area even while claiming to be for freedom in general.
And so each party picks up one parcel of voters with the promise to reduce government - with a few specific exceptions. Republicans promise freedom and lower taxes for everyone but the immoral types such as hippies, criminals, and nonchristians. Democrats promise free sex and to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Then they meet and compromise, and by the time they are done, they've broken every promise that didn't involve bigger and more oppressive government. When they are up for re-election, they blame those broken promises on the other party. It's true that compromise is necessary, but notice which promises they always choose to compromise.
maybe - but EVEN AT THE LOCAL LEVEL people vote in favor of taxes for roads, schools, libraries, etc and at the local level they have real opportunities to toss out "collectivist" tax and spenders.
In most every local county, city in the US people willingly pay higher property taxes to get things that could be provided in a Libertarian free market.
I just think that people, in general, do not subscribe to pure libertarian principles. They say they do but when push comes to shove they want a soccer field for their kid to play on and a library for them to get books from and a fire and EMS dept to protect them and they want to pay for it with taxes not user fees. In community after community, every year, there are referenda about things like meals taxes and taxes spent of dog shelters, and green box dumpsters... people want these things and they want to pay taxes for them.
At the state and then Federal level things get a little more convoluted especially with the way that campaign finance laws work but 80%+ want Social Security and Medicare and they want not only a strong DOD, but Homeland Security, the FBI, CIA, BATF, border patrol, NASA, NOAA FAMA , etc.
Remember every penny appropriated for things like the Dept of Energy, Dept of Ed, Commerce Flood Insurance, Disaster aid, etc, have to be approved by a majority of 535 elected representatives. Very few of them get voted out of office for voting to fund these agencies.
I just think that Libertarianism has been given a fair chance over the decades and centuries - at all levels of govt - around the world - and a majority of people simply don't want it.
The most libertarian countries in the world these days are 3rd world countries run by strongmen with few taxes and few govt services. No schools. No healthcare. few to none of the things that modern industrialized representative govt provide and the vast majority of people would not willingly live in places like Somalia or Yemen even if they were independently wealthy and want to pay no taxes and just buy everything they needed. Virtually non one does that.
right?