Scott Betts probably hasn't been there.
On the contrary. I was a pretty staunch Atlas Shrugged-thumper back in high school who attended Badnarik fundraising dinners and whose first ballot cast was for George W. Bush. I had my days of ignorant arrogance, and I know exactly how it felt to be torn between a philosophy that made sense to me and the nagging realization that some of the people arguing against me were starting to sound sensible. I was hit with sound arguments over and over and over again until, one day, that nagging sensation overwhelmed the sense of comfort my beliefs provided me.
A lot of people go through the above, and ideally they come out the other side with the understanding that reconfiguring one's beliefs to better match reality is a good thing, and that the discomfort is temporary (and that a lack of comfort isn't always a bad thing).
Others, however, float from philosophy to philosophy, without developing the critical thought necessary to settle on one, while others still never open their beliefs up to criticism from others (or retreat when they find themselves in that situation), and are never given cause to question what they've chosen to believe.
If you don't like what someone is saying, you need to understand that they hold those views because they see the world differently from you.
Sometimes. Other times (more often, I find), they hold those views because they are missing important pieces of information, and many times have willfully denied themselves that understanding because they experience discomfort when exposed to that information. Arrogant confidence is a passable substitute for knowledge, at least when it comes to reassuring oneself.
People of different ideologies are generally NOT disagreeing on the goal: Letting most people live a reasonably good life. We're disagreeing on the road there. There are many different views of how society should work, and many alternatives that work more or less well. But... bashing their views has two results: They write you off as a moron or a monster, and they keep more firmly to their cherished beliefs than ever. After all, the moron/monster just attacked them about it.
That is a typical reaction, but it's not a permanent one. It happens, and happens, and happens, until, one day, it doesn't.
This is, however, not really a situation where any of this applies. I've had the good fortune of being exposed to countless political ideologies and their supporters, often in an academic setting (where things already tend to fall a little outside the mainstream), and I have yet to meet anyone with a robust body of political knowledge who seriously thinks that anarcho-capitalism is a sustainable philosophy, or is preferable to the political systems we wrestle with now.
Exactly. Telling them that they suck for holding such views isn't it.
And gobbo, I must confess I find the concept of Scott Betts changing his opinion on anything fascinating and... a bit frightening.
Au contraire, Madame Sissyl. I have come to the conclusion that Citizen Betts is the nastiest of the Obamabots because he is overcompensating (my speculation) for a misspent youth (my characterization) as a teenaged Objectivist and Bush II voter (his own words).
I've worried long and hard about this possibility (especially because I've seen it in so many other people my age), but at this point I feel confident in my saying that my understanding of various political beliefs is complete, at least at an essential level, and while I understand that each has its strengths and weaknesses, I've chosen the one that, on balance, had the most going for it. I've said many a time that my personal beliefs don't necessarily line up with the Democratic platform, but that I'm okay with that because parties are fundamentally about letting go of a tiny (tiny) chance of getting everything you want in favor of a much greater chance of getting 80% of what you want.
Wow... so you now understand politics fully? That's so cool!!!
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Wow... so you now understand politics fully? That's so cool!!!Kill Him! He's a member of the Oppressive Regime...
No need. The politicians will kill him as soon as they realize there's a voter out there that actually understands what they're up to ;)
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Tangentially, I'm fascinated by the idea of America finally attaining the Jeffersonian ideal of farmer-philosophers --sans slavery!-- due to micro-manufacturing technology, a robust satellite-borne information network, and plentiful, clean energy.
Discuss!
Viability: NON-VIABLE as people are not reliable and self sufficient.
I could offer a billion people an Acre each where they could grow their own food in intensive market gardening. Unfortunately it would end there. People need things that most are incapable of doing or producing themselves.
But but but... if I don't want a container to live in?
Tangentially, I'm fascinated by the idea of America finally attaining the Jeffersonian ideal of farmer-philosophers --sans slavery!-- due to micro-manufacturing technology, a robust satellite-borne information network, and plentiful, clean energy.
Discuss!
Viability: NON-VIABLE as people are not reliable and self sufficient.
I could offer a billion people an Acre each where they could grow their own food in intensive market gardening. Unfortunately it would end there. People need things that most are incapable of doing or producing themselves.
Yeah, I'd much rather do the things I'm good at, and have the people that are good at growing food do the growing food thing, and then have everyone just do everything for each other... oh, hey, in fact there'd be no need for money to even change hands, just have all the production shared by the community.
Community.. community... we could call it a Comm.. UNE!
Now, what would we call ourselves?
Another example of someone opposed to the ACA because they're absolutely terrified that it will be good for the country.
Or because it's another step towards an authoritarian government.
I would counterargue, however, that a lot of what you are proposing here sounds less like libertarianism and more like anarchy. I have no problem with choice, but you're pushing a paradigm that could turn into utter chaos in one bad moment.
Freehold DM, perhaps you can provide a scenario you think could lead down that road.
Anarchy quickly leads to the guy with the biggest stick (or controlling the most sticks) being in charge, which is why you don't see anarchist government systems stick around. Libertarian systems allow government to stop that from happening since government's role is to protect the rights of its people.
Government still has a role to play, and because we citizens grant government the exclusive right to force, that role should be hotly debated when an expansion is suggested.
Yes, many services will be relegated to the private sector, or to the individual states, but this is not a bug, but a feature. A state can respond to its population far better than a centralized government. Private citizens and businesses respond to demand by creating products that people voluntarily purchase far more efficiently than government can provide. There's no corporation in existence that has the power to compel me to purchase its products, unless it is granted such power by government.
So what crisis do you imagine that such a system would devolve into anarchy? A Hurricane Katrina/Rita scenario was already shown to have created anarchy all on its own, but WalMart was able to get in and start handing out supplies before FEMA.
Alexis DeTocqueville already saw that despite his fears of the American Experiment turning into another version of the French Revolution, he found individuals working together for their mutual and communal benefit without a centralized government directing such efforts. Given the advances in technology since the 1840s, the necessity for a central planning committee seems even more distant.
Yeah, I'd much rather do the things I'm good at, and have the people that are good at growing food do the growing food thing, and then have everyone just do everything for each other... oh, hey, in fact there'd be no need for money to even change hands, just have all the production shared by the community.
Matt, the pilgrims who emigrated to America tried just that. They almost starved.
As for not having money . . . money is simply a medium of exchange. It allows me to trade a certain amount of labor for products I can use, when my labor doesn't directly benefit the recipient. A system without a neutral medium of exchange means that someone needs to sit at the top to determine what's "fair," as well as the means to force exchanges that one party or another deem "unfair." Perhaps a Central Planning Committee? And with a secret police to make sure citizens don't trade their wares without the Committee's knowledge?
So it's your choice: money, or authoritarian bludgeons.
Matt, the pilgrims who emigrated to America tried just that.
Yeah, I'd much rather do the things I'm good at, and have the people that are good at growing food do the growing food thing, and then have everyone just do everything for each other... oh, hey, in fact there'd be no need for money to even change hands, just have all the production shared by the community.
Sorry. I wasn't expecting someone to actually take my post seriously :)
The more serious version: I know it wouldn't work. It's almost a perfect idea, really, except that it relies on everyone doing their part. Human nature opposes that. It's probably the main (possibly the only) reason communism isn't the best alternative - the fact that you'll have human beings in the system, corrupting it and screwing it up in every way imaginable.
Although isn't that the main problem with any system when it comes down to it?
Communism's great problem is not, as some think, that people are taken from according to their ability (work merely for others, really), it's that they are given to according to their need. Even if this distribution WERE fair, it absolutely kills any sort of motivation to work. Sure, you can wish that everyone saw that their piece of the pie was necessary to make everything work - but they wouldn't.
You saw this very clearly in Old Soviet Union. Everyone was guaranteed a job, so every sort of workplace was overpopulated. Still, their jobs paid so little that nobody could survive off it, and there were massive, block-long queues to get any sort of product, even though you WERE entitled to have said products. Given that you had to wait for hours in such a queue, and you needed other things too, this eventually became a completely infeasible situation. So, what did people do? Well, they HAD to be at work, otherwise bad things happened, so they couldn't leave. But they could sleep at work, since there were huge numbers of people there, and besides, everyone did it anyway. This allowed them to work for real money during nights, supplemented by income from selling stuff they stole from their job. This got them dollars, which meant they could get the stuff they needed for survival without standing in parsecs of queues. There was a polish board game published relatively recently that described life during this phase of their history, IIRC.
Even if this distribution WERE fair, it absolutely kills any sort of motivation to work. Sure, you can wish that everyone saw that their piece of the pie was necessary to make everything work - but they wouldn't.
Given that you had to wait for hours in such a queue, and you needed other things too, this eventually became a completely infeasible situation. So, what did people do? Well, they HAD to be at work, otherwise bad things happened, so they couldn't leave. But they could sleep at work, since there were huge numbers of people there, and besides, everyone did it anyway. This allowed them to work for real money during nights, supplemented by income from selling stuff they stole from their job. This got them dollars, which meant they could get the stuff they needed for survival without standing in parsecs of queues. There was a polish board game published relatively recently that described life during this phase of their history, IIRC.
Yup. That's the real problem - finding a system that is fair, takes care of those who are unable to contribute, motivates people to be productive enough to ensure there's enough of everything for everyone, and encourages development. Every pull towards one or more of those poles ends up dragging something away from one or more of the others, and pretty much everyone is only concerned with the corner(s) of that equation that matter the most to them, with the rest being someone else's problem.
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So... what can you do?
You can either accept that government oversight of production generally works abysmally, or you can keep the social units so small that everyone in them has a vested interest in the well-being of the others. The fact that some people manage self-sufficiency in small groups means only that it may be feasible for some, on a small enough scale, not that it can be scaled up and everything will work fine. Bigger social units bring CORRUPTION. Power-hungry people will seek administrative roles, specifically to use them as far as the system will allow, for personal benefits. Fighting corruption is never an absolute, all you can do is invest in limiting it. And the less financially permissive a system is, the bigger the draw to corruption, because there is no other route to affluence. And as soon as you create a network of cooperation, such as militarily, between all these tiny social units, you immediately get all the full-scale corruption you tried to avoid. Higher-level administrative jobs bring higher-level corruption. See the scandal a while ago about how various members of the EU Parliament sold their votes for cash.
I would counterargue, however, that a lot of what you are proposing here sounds less like libertarianism and more like anarchy. I have no problem with choice, but you're pushing a paradigm that could turn into utter chaos in one bad moment.Freehold DM, perhaps you can provide a scenario you think could lead down that road.
Anarchy quickly leads to the guy with the biggest stick (or controlling the most sticks) being in charge, which is why you don't see anarchist government systems stick around. Libertarian systems allow government to stop that from happening since government's role is to protect the rights of its people.
** spoiler omitted **...
at the risk of sounding like I'm trying to dodge your question, it literally could be anything- every one trying to start their own business in the same field, a host of schools in direct competiton with each other....like I said I realize it sounds a bit ephemeral or even like I'm trying to dodge the question, but markets are fragile- choice is nice but when competition gets cutthroat, it turns into the type of anarchy you described quickly.
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Bigger social units bring CORRUPTION. Power-hungry people will seek administrative roles, specifically to use them as far as the system will allow, for personal benefits.
This happens equally in small groups, which often don't have the bureaucratic red tape to bog down the corrupt official and keep his/her mischief to a minimum. I suspect that a lot of the decline in violence over human history is due to moving towards larger groups -- seeing more people as "us" and fewer as "them" -- and that moving back to tribalism and clan warfare is not the way to go.
So... what can you do?
I think you have to work out whatever the fairest balance is. The "perfect" system is the one that isn't perfect about anything at all. It's just the one that puts up with a little bit of everything being wrong, in order to be the best possible system for everyone involved.
You end up with some social unfairness, some corruption, some wastage, some lack of incentive, some developmental slowdown... and really, you just have to put up with it. When you try and "fix" one, you end up damaging the others, so you just have to get them all in balance. People with the best of intentions end up doing the most damage.
I've seen some systems involved in preventing corruption or wastage that actually cost more than what was being lost in the first place. At that point you have to ask yourself whether it would have been better just to accept it.
Checks and balances are pointless if they end up costing you more than they're giving you - and that applies across the whole system, all the way to rights, laws, taxes, the lot. However, it's also important to remember that cost isn't simply measured in currency.
Unfortunately the majority of political systems in place today seem to rely on making promises without any real analysis of the ability (or intention) to keep them on the part of the electorate. I said people are the problem in any system, and that applies to the people deciding who will govern them, too.
tl;dr human beings suck, we suck at deciding who to put in charge, we deserve what we get? And I'm not too sure that I'm joking there.
Bigger social units bring CORRUPTION. Power-hungry people will seek administrative roles, specifically to use them as far as the system will allow, for personal benefits.This happens equally in small groups, which often don't have the bureaucratic red tape to bog down the corrupt official and keep his/her mischief to a minimum.
This.
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So... what can you do?I think you have to work out whatever the fairest balance is. The "perfect" system is the one that isn't perfect about anything at all. It's just the one that puts up with a little bit of everything being wrong, in order to be the best possible system for everyone involved.
You end up with some social unfairness, some corruption, some wastage, some lack of incentive, some developmental slowdown... and really, you just have to put up with it. When you try and "fix" one, you end up damaging the others, so you just have to get them all in balance. People with the best of intentions end up doing the most damage.
I've seen some systems involved in preventing corruption or wastage that actually cost more than what was being lost in the first place. At that point you have to ask yourself whether it would have been better just to accept it.
Checks and balances are pointless if they end up costing you more than they're giving you - and that applies across the whole system, all the way to rights, laws, taxes, the lot. However, it's also important to remember that cost isn't simply measured in currency.
Unfortunately the majority of political systems in place today seem to rely on making promises without any real analysis of the ability (or intention) to keep them on the part of the electorate. I said people are the problem in any system, and that applies to the people deciding who will govern them, too.
tl;dr human beings suck, we suck at deciding who to put in charge, we deserve what we get? And I'm not too sure that I'm joking there.
as usual, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Improvements should be made, but they should be balanced against feasibility, morality, and ethics.
Indeed. I did not say it's a good prospect. The point about smaller units vs corruption is that in small enough units, it is feasible that the group CAN work together without significant corruption, not that it absolutely will. With higher-level bureaucracy, you will certainly get more corruption, and what's more dangerous, every corrupt official has a chance to take more from the system.
The main point of small social units is that while you do get conflict and warfare, it won't ever become such a nightmare as massive nations or federations clashing - as given enough time, they will. Perhaps it would be a better thing to have warfare on a smaller scale every so often?
No, my point is that if you truly want government to handle everything, you are lost as soon as you start talking about larger social units.
Certainly you realize that your model cannot apply to everyone.today?
No. We still need nurses, counselors, etc.
But, that doesn't mean that our economy hasn't gone through substantial changes. The number of nurses, counselors, etc. that we need is decreasing.
I disagree with this on personal and professional reasons, quite strongly.
(which is old news at this point- it was hotly debated around here back in 06, the article is a bit out of touch on that bit).Although, nowhere near as old as news about Dash's career with the Pinkertons or the Ludlow Massacre.
of course!
Perhaps it would be a better thing to have warfare on a smaller scale every so often?
History illustrates that, with smaller social units, warfare is constant, not every-so-often. Yes, world wars are apocalyptic -- but they're also fairly rare, and in most of the land area of large, developed countries, you can now move around freely without too much fear of local bandit lords, feuding clans, etc. This phenomenon is associated with larger social units.
That is all well and good... But I fail to see the advantage if the next one extinguishes humanity, just the same. Still, moot point, because there is no feasible way to return to smaller social units today. The bureaucrats want their corruption, y'know?
But I fail to see the advantage if the next one extinguishes humanity, just the same. Still, moot point, because there is no feasible way to return to smaller social units today. The bureaucrats want their corruption, y'know?
The corrupt bureaucrats are generally the ones who control the ability to extinguish humanity, and are also the ones with most reason not to do so... I'm not saying corruption is good, I'm only saying that larger social groups offer a lot of advantages that are easy to overlook.
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But I fail to see the advantage if the next one extinguishes humanity, just the same. Still, moot point, because there is no feasible way to return to smaller social units today. The bureaucrats want their corruption, y'know?The corrupt bureaucrats are generally the ones who control the ability to extinguish humanity, and are also the ones with most reason not to do so... I'm not saying corruption is good, I'm only saying that larger social groups offer a lot of advantages that are easy to overlook.
the gehstals outnunber the kefkas, and there will always be oppositions to kefkas beyond a ragtag band of misfits from different socio(magical)economic groups.
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I have no idea what you just said.
Understand, though, that without the Celestes and Edgars, the world is always going to be doomed.
Understand, though, that without the Celestes and Edgars, the world is always going to be doomed.
I'm more concerned abour the Relms actually causing monsters they drew to appear in reality and wreak havoc
Yeah. Pesky critters, imaginative people.
I take that back. For example, when I was 16, I thought Rancid were a better band than The Grateful Dead.
As for politics, though, international proletarian socialist revolution is still the only road forward, just as it was when I was a boy.
Vive le Galt!
Or because it's another step towards an authoritarian government.Another example of someone opposed to the ACA because they're absolutely terrified that it will be good for the country.
Yeah, requiring people to have basic healthcare and providing subsidies to those who can't afford it is, like, practically the next-door neighbor of socialist dictatorship.
There were some good questions awhile back about what I meant when I said that we need fewer nurses now than in the past. I was thinking of "nurses per unit of work". I've included some lnks to papers which support what I'm talking about.
http://www.sparling.com/SparAdmin/arts/DAR%20Nursing%202012%20New%20Tech%20 05-12.pdf
http://www.chcf.org/publications/2008/12/equipped-for-efficiency-improving- nursing-care-through-technology
There was also some resistance to my reference to an entrepreneur-government factor in production. I assert that society is damaged when the entrepreneur and government combine. I gave an example of "banks too big to fail" and pointed out that entrepreneur-government can use forcce against labor-capital. The entrepreneur changes because it can pass the cost of risk onto labor-capital (as it did with "banks too big to fail"). Government changes because it becomes an oligarchy (or becomes more of an oligarchy) representing the interests of the entrepreneur instead of the interests of everyone.
now thid is something I can chew on...hm....
Freehold, I appreciate your honesty and your willingness to engage.
Markets aren't as fragile as you think. Those markets that have the heavy involvement of government become much more fragile. The housing crash of 2008 was a price bubble fueled by artificially low interest rates which led to rampant speculation. The Community Reinvestment Act pressured lenders to give loans to people who wouldn't otherwise qualify for them. Banks, acting on the fact that most mortgages were backed by the government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac institutions, gambled that if mortgage-backed securities they sold collapsed in value, the government would step in to reimburse the loss. Which it did.
The stock market crash of 1929 was caused by speculation which was in turn fueled by artificially low interest rates (sound familiar?). The Great Depression was caused by isolationist policies such as the Smoot-Hawley tariff (read Charles Kindleberger's Manias, Panics, and Crashes.
The market for food products should be very unstable due to the occurrence of drought or floods, but since there's a free flow of supplies from around the world to meet demand, we see modest price fluctuations despite losses. You know where you see the most price increases in food these days? When the product involves corn. Corn is used to produce ethanol, which the government has it's sticky fingers in, messing around with the market.
Naturally, if you point to an example, I can provide a more specific response.
Yeah, requiring people to have basic healthcare and providing subsidies to those who can't afford it is, like, practically the next-door neighbor of socialist dictatorship.
Congratulations on not even attempting to comprehend what I wrote.
Actually I see far more issues with dairy prices, which I would think would be a better example. Farm subsidies are a sticky business and have been for a long time.
Communism's great problem is not, as some think, that people are taken from according to their ability (work merely for others, really), it's that they are given to according to their need. Even if this distribution WERE fair, it absolutely kills any sort of motivation to work. Sure, you can wish that everyone saw that their piece of the pie was necessary to make everything work - but they wouldn't.
You saw this very clearly in Old Soviet Union. Everyone was guaranteed a job, so every sort of workplace was overpopulated. Still, their jobs paid so little that nobody could survive off it, and there were massive, block-long queues to get any sort of product, even though you WERE entitled to have said products. Given that you had to wait for hours in such a queue, and you needed other things too, this eventually became a completely infeasible situation. So, what did people do? Well, they HAD to be at work, otherwise bad things happened, so they couldn't leave. But they could sleep at work, since there were huge numbers of people there, and besides, everyone did it anyway. This allowed them to work for real money during nights, supplemented by income from selling stuff they stole from their job. This got them dollars, which meant they could get the stuff they needed for survival without standing in parsecs of queues. There was a polish board game published relatively recently that described life during this phase of their history, IIRC.
Madame Sissyl, your post confuses me. In the first paragraph you posit that even if communist distribution according to need were fair, it would kill the incentive to work. You then use as an example the Soviet Union where people were incentivized to go to work (or else go to a gulag), where they didn't receive a sustainable wage, and then go out and work some more in order to get the goods. Which may all be true, but doesn't seem like much of an example of what you describe in your first paragraph.
(EDITED)
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I know I'm coming to this late, but wouldn't arachnocapitalism be a system where the rich systematically feed the poor to hordes of ravenous spiders for their personal entertainment?
I can't see any rightist going for that. They'd be too jealous of the spiders.
Yeah, requiring people to have basic healthcare and providing subsidies to those who can't afford it is, like, practically the next-door neighbor of socialist dictatorship.Congratulations on not even attempting to comprehend what I wrote.
You wrote one sentence, and it wasn't a particularly insightful one - just the same every-move-the-government-makes-is-a-slippery-slope trash that libertarians everywhere dust off daily.
Seriously, you could take literally anything the federal government does and reply with, "Another step closer to an authoritarian government," pat yourself on the back for being such a valiant defender of individual liberties, and have roughly the same result.
Did you think that we'd never heard that before, or something?
Markets aren't as fragile as you think.
Someone better tell this guy.
Smart-assery aside, there are some pretty good arguments out there that markets aren't the panacea they're often made out to be. Assuming you're willing to look.
Communism's great problem is not, as some think, that people are taken from according to their ability (work merely for others, really), it's that they are given to according to their need. Even if this distribution WERE fair, it absolutely kills any sort of motivation to work. Sure, you can wish that everyone saw that their piece of the pie was necessary to make everything work - but they wouldn't.
You saw this very clearly in Old Soviet Union. Everyone was guaranteed a job, so every sort of workplace was overpopulated. Still, their jobs paid so little that nobody could survive off it, and there were massive, block-long queues to get any sort of product, even though you WERE entitled to have said products. Given that you had to wait for hours in such a queue, and you needed other things too, this eventually became a completely infeasible situation. So, what did people do? Well, they HAD to be at work, otherwise bad things happened, so they couldn't leave. But they could sleep at work, since there were huge numbers of people there, and besides, everyone did it anyway. This allowed them to work for real money during nights, supplemented by income from selling stuff they stole from their job. This got them dollars, which meant they could get the stuff they needed for survival without standing in parsecs of queues. There was a polish board game published relatively recently that described life during this phase of their history, IIRC.
Madame Sissyl, your post confuses me. In the first paragraph you posit that even if communist distribution according to need were fair, it would kill the incentive to work. You then use as an example the Soviet Union where people were incentivized to go to work (or else go to a gulag), where they didn't receive a sustainable wage, and then go out and work some more in order to get the goods. Which may all be true, but doesn't seem like much of an example of what you describe in your first paragraph.
(EDITED)
You are right. Even if it works, it doesn't. My second paragraph shows how it did NOT work, in practice. Because I assume you don't think getting people to do this was the idea?
I have no idea what you mean, but that's not unusual.
I was (am) confused by the way your second paragraph started "You saw this" (? presumably the thesis of the first paragraph--which I take to be "to each according to need doesn't work because it decentivizes labor--but maybe not) "in Old Soviet Union."
Haven't you understood that about me yet? I have a lot of deep insight and brilliant thought, but I usually don't manage to communicate it. Anyway, several blocks of queuing for toilet paper is bad, mmmkay?
Well, that I agree with, dear. And not only are you deeply insightful and brilliant, but may I say that you look absolutely ravishing in that dress, my sweet.