Where is the Libertarian explosion coming from?

ei.sdraob

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I made an example earlier in another thread that Libertarianism is like Atheism (lack of belief in state) while all the other "isms" are like various religions....

on further thinking and to get back on the subject of the thread
the above quote/example is probably why more people are claiming to be Libertarian

the state has shafted a lot of people...

just like the Church has equally "shafted" its parishoners resulting in some people turning away from religion

joehanley55

aDeener wrote: »

seeing as the ecb is made up of people with self interests in various different governments, then how the hell could the ecb be in bed with all the governments. ffs :rolleyes: that could not possibly work as there are too many conflicts between the euro area governments fiscal policies.


say for example, if france is employing a loose fiscal policy and ireland a tight one, explain this to me genius how exactly the ECB is going to be in bed with both of them? :rolleyes: and thats just 2 economies, trying employing that to the euro area as a whole

ya sure, but i guess what you have to understand is that in general, governments have the same interest, whether one countries fiscal policy is slightly looser than antohers, its still a highly controlling centralised fiscal policy and believe that if they didnt have that policy than society would collapse.

so the ECB has the obvious answer to support fiscal control at a centralised level, and as far as the little differences between different governments, they will probably just make self intersted decisions and support whoever will give them the most in return, cuase in the end, they are just a self interested group who will try and get as much power for themselves, however they can.

Amhran Nua

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I agree with you regarding Ireland having its share of issues
but your answer to the problem is "change" to a different parish pump called "Amhran Nua"

Okay, what you're saying here is that policies and concepts should grow out of the grassroots level, based on people with experience in those areas. This is in fact what we are doing. You can blame centralised authority all you like, but there are no guarantees that decentralised systems work any better, as evidenced by several Cantons in Switzerland, home of direct democracy, only being forced to give women the vote fairly recently.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

the libertarians have no intention of starting revolutions etc and by the vary nature its unlikely any coherent group would ever be formed

This is why anarcho-corporatism is the best title for it.

Laminations

ei.sdraob wrote: »

if they want to gamble with numbers on screens then that's their problem, there are trillions of derivatives out there few times larger than the world economy

the only reason that the banking fiasco became our problem, is because the government made it our problem

Again it appears your issue is with THE government (i.e. FF) same as me, not with government in general. This exemplifies where the rise in libertarianism is coming from, as I said before, an unhappiness with this governments performance

meditraitor

ei.sdraob wrote: »

on further thinking and to get back on the subject of the thread
the above quote/example is probably why more people are claiming to be Libertarian

and because this particular state shafted us then the best way forward is for us all to become our own little states? come on--- Libertarianism is a nonsense concept which should not be taken serious

ei.sdraob

meditraitor wrote: »

and because this particular state shafted us then the best way forward is for us all to become our own little states? come on

its just a theory trying to answer OPs question

I better quickly convert to your Church of Statism, nothing like having the high priests of Revenue Commissioners pounding you up the rear until you agree to pay for their shiny new Church of NAMA :eek:

meditraitor wrote: »

Libertarianism is a nonsense concept which should not be taken serious

Thats a very in-depth answer...

Laminations wrote: »

Again it appears your issue is with THE government (i.e. FF) same as me, not with government in general. This exemplifies where the rise in libertarianism is coming from, as I said before, an unhappiness with this governments performance

Would other governments acted differently with regards to NAMA, bailouts and public sector/welfare waste?

joehanley55

Laminations wrote: »

Again it appears your issue is with THE government (i.e. FF) same as me, not with government in general. This exemplifies where the rise in libertarianism is coming from, as I said before, an unhappiness with this governments performance

its sad that people have been tricked into believing that if you get the "right" people in to control peoples lives and tell people what to do that everything will be okay. history has shown this just isnt true. in the history of mankid, the right people have never gotten in. ever!

libertarians have realised this, and they see that the only logical answer is to return as much power as possible to people so that we can control our own lives.

maybe libertarians are more confident in thier ability to take care of themselves and statists are scared at wat would happen to them if the state was not their to impose their will on others. maybe...:eek::(:rolleyes::(:rolleyes::mad::D:pac:

Laminations

Just while I have the attention of libertarians, how would your ideology deal with the prevention of a tragedy of the commons? Or how woul you deal with repeats of Fingers Fingleton? We are constantly reminded the man did not break any laws however with his mismanagement he has enriched himself and harmed others, why should he care that his institution is in the toilet when HD sits on €27million?

ei.sdraob

Laminations wrote: »

Just while I have the attention of libertarians, how would your ideology deal with the prevention of a tragedy of the commons? Or how woul you deal with repeats of Fingers Fingleton? We are constantly reminded the man did not break any laws however with his mismanagement he has enriched himself and harmed others, why should he care that his institution is in the toilet when HD sits on €27million?

you wouldn't get a tragedy of commons when there is no "commons" :cool:#

lets not forget that Fingers was helped along by a certain government

Laminations

joehanley55 wrote: »

maybe libertarians are more confident in thier ability to take care of themselves and statists are scared at wat would happen to them if the state was not their to impose their will on others. maybe...:eek::(:rolleyes::(:rolleyes::mad::D:pac:

and that's why you won't findany poor or disabled libertarians, people who don't need help and resent giving it.

Exile 1798

ei.sdraob wrote: »

if they want to gamble with numbers on screens then that's their problem, there are trillions of derivatives out there few times larger than the world economy

the only reason that the banking fiasco became our problem, is because the government made it our problem

Dogma.

It wasn't a "banking fiasco" but a major, catastrophic economic collapse caused by a lack of government regulation and oversight.

If your dogmatic beliefs win the day against needed reform then we'll be setting ourselves up for yet another disastrous crash down the line... which you will then offcourse also blame on the government.

Eliot Rosewater

Laminations wrote: »

Again it appears your issue is with THE government (i.e. FF) same as me, not with government in general.

I disagree, and I think the rise in liberatarianism can be partly attributed to a lack of faith in government in general, rather than specific practitioners (FF).

There's the major issue of moral hazard that has been addressed. Big governments create the impression (often true) that they will bail people out if things go wrong; hence the increase in risk taking. The latest group to demand a bailout is the travel operators, who feel they have a right to government money because of the volcanic ash debacle.


A major criticism of government as a system is this. Politicians are primarily interested in getting re-elected. When an interest group calls to Kildare Street the politicians will want to satisfy them, in order to win their votes. Take the aformentioned travel groups. They want, say, a €10 million bailout. If there are 1000 operators, that amounts to €10,000 each, a sweet deal. There are, say, 2 million taxpayers in this country. They each contribute €5 to the bailout, which they don't really feel because it is comparatively small. So by bailing out the travel agents the politicians have won 1000 votes, without losing any.

This is because, fundementally, the benefits of government spending are concentrated, whereas the costs are diluted. Hence, governments tend to increase spending, not for the social good, but just for a particular interest group.


This thing spreads beyond spending. The taxi drivers want less taxi licences issued. This policy will hurt consumers: as the supply of taxis drops, the price will go up. However the government will tend to side with the taxi drivers because the benefits of the policy are concentrated amongst taxi drivers, whereas the price increases are diluted across consumers in general.

joehanley55

Laminations wrote: »

Just while I have the attention of libertarians, how would your ideology deal with the prevention of a tragedy of the commons? Or how woul you deal with repeats of Fingers Fingleton? We are constantly reminded the man did not break any laws however with his mismanagement he has enriched himself and harmed others, why should he care that his institution is in the toilet when HD sits on €27million?

as for the tragedy of the commons, that is predicated on there being a shared land that is destroyed by being used by everyone. in a libertarian society, private property would reign (theoretically) and therefore people would have an interest in mantaining the natural resources. thats why when african governments ban hunting of animals they generally die out because no one cares about them. but when the animals have been made the property of the person who owns the land they take care of them and treat them as renewable resources and therefore they flourish.

as for fingers fingleton, he had that company and he f'd it up. anyone who got involved in that company in any shape or form without having all the info took a risk, and now they have to pay for that risk. it may seem harsh, but before they get involved in another company they will be sure as hell to check all the info first, and that will help society flourish and be smarter in the future. get it?:P:(:rolleyes::pac::cool::mad:

meditraitor

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Thats a very in-depth answer...

?

Its common knowledge that libertarian fundamentalists are notoriously difficult to debate with because they all differ from each other in some way, they narrow the field of debate so much that even if they are not right they are right.... as I said previously they are just Sophists with some strange concepts.
They misrepresent other economic, historic and justice matters to suit their arguments, I would without a shadow of a doubt put them in the same camp as scientologists...

Exile 1798

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I rather agree with you that aggressive government action would have been called for in that case. A strange argument for a Libertarian to make, but a welcome one.

One thing that didn't stop the great fires of London - moral hazard. Just like it didn't stop Wall Street inflating and collapsing the world economy. What's needed is strong and effective Fire Brigades, and strong and effective regulations.

ei.sdraob

meditraitor wrote: »

Its common knowledge that libertarian fundamentalists are notoriously difficult to debate with because they all differ from each other in some way, they narrow the field of debate so much that even if they are not right they are right.... as I said previously they are just Sophists with some strange concepts.
They misrepresent other economic, historic and justice matters to suit their arguments, I would without a shadow of a doubt put them in the same camp as scientologists...

You fancy getting involved in the thread and contributing something insightful

or do you wish to waffle away?

I clearly outlined that Libertarianism is like Atheism, instead of lack of faith in religion one has lack of "faith/trust" in state

and you turn around and call libertarians as "scientologists"

yes very insightful :rolleyes:

fontanalis

ei.sdraob wrote: »

you wouldn't get a tragedy of commons when there is no "commons" :cool:#

lets not forget that Fingers was helped along by a certain government

It was still greed and stupidity, it still exists no matter what influence government has or doesn't have and that's what I don't like about libretarianism (apart form the magical entity called "the market" knowing everything, which is almost like a religion) is that it seems like it assumes in general that people aren't greedy and stupid. People talk about the crisis being as much caused by the government (although Irelands unique brand of corruption didn't help), however "the market" didn't stop doing stupid things, "the market" in the US wasn't forced to securitise junk and and make up dodgy intruments. And they sure as f*** weren't handing back the bailout money.

ei.sdraob

fontanalis wrote: »

It was still greed and stupidity, it still exists no matter what influence government has or doesn't have and that's what I don't like about libretarianism (apart form the magical entity called "the market" knowing everything, which is almost like a religion) is that it seems like it assumes in general that people aren't greedy and stupid. People talk about the crisis being as much caused by the government (although Irelands unique brand of corruption didn't help), however "the market" didn't stop doing stupid things, "the market" in the US wasn't forced to securitise junk and and make up dodgy intruments. And they sure as f*** weren't handing back the bailout money.

If someone is stupid and/or greedy then eventually they get burned

Nationwide and Anglo are our problems now because they were made our problems

by socializing the risk, we allowed the people responsible get away with a "soft landing"

fontanalis

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If someone is stupid and/or greedy then eventually they get burned

Nationwide and Anglo are our problems now because they were made our problems

by socializing the risk, we allowed the people responsible get away with a "soft landing"

I don't agree with making Anglo and Nationwide the societies problems but large organisations like this will still act in their own self interests and effect alot more than themselves.

Oh yeah, and if pets were libertarians.

Amhran Nua

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I disagree, and I think the rise in liberatarianism can be partly attributed to a lack of faith in government in general, rather than specific practitioners (FF).

Nope, its just FF, and has been for a long time, which is why its hard to get younger people to vote - they recognise the lack of real choices and are disillusioned with the whole process.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

A major criticism of government as a system is this. Politicians are primarily interested in getting re-elected. When an interest group calls to Kildare Street the politicians will want to satisfy them, in order to win their votes. Take the aformentioned travel groups. They want, say, a €10 million bailout. If there are 1000 operators, that amounts to €10,000 each, a sweet deal. There are, say, 2 million taxpayers in this country. They each contribute €5 to the bailout, which they don't really feel because it is comparatively small. So by bailing out the travel agents the politicians have won 1000 votes, without losing any.

Thats not how it works in Ireland, its a better description of the system in the US. Here the votes and campaigns are regional, a thousand votes spread across the entire country isn't worth much. Lobbying by interest groups is viewed as more of a distraction from the actual process of getting re-elected, which is why the government bowed to anyone who made enough noise over the last ten years, and don't have a workable long term plan for the nation as a whole. They have no incentive to care.

Anyway what you are talking about is more properly called corruption, which happens in all walks of life. If you don't like it, run for office and change the rules, its as simple as that.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

This thing spreads beyond spending. The taxi drivers want less taxi licences issued. This policy will hurt consumers: as the supply of taxis drops, the price will go up. However the government will tend to side with the taxi drivers because the benefits of the policy are concentrated amongst taxi drivers, whereas the price increases are diluted across consumers in general.

Taxi licences are a bizarre situation in Ireland. On the one hand, taxi drivers have no reason to cut their fares because they are receiving much fewer of them with the number of licences issued, and are forbidden to advertise lower prices, thus distorting the market, so the consumer loses out along with taxi drivers. On the other hand, the taxi industry has been used as a dumping ground for people who have difficulty finding work elsewhere, so there is a wider social purpose being served in a very roundabout fashion there.

Exile 1798

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If someone is stupid and/or greedy then eventually they get burned

Nationwide and Anglo are our problems now because they were made our problems

by socializing the risk, we allowed the people responsible get away with a "soft landing"

That's true. Ireland likely could have afforded to let those banks go bankrupt, though we shouldn't pretend that that wouldn't have involved a very real pain of a different sort.

But we're an extremely small fish, we don't have the size or strength to swim against the current. So let's get back to the major cause of the GFC, the epic collapse of unregulated markets on Wall Street. Surely you recognise this failure, and surely you think tough regulations are required to prevent it happening again?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Laminations

ei.sdraob wrote: »

you wouldn't get a tragedy of commons when there is no "commons" :cool:#

Two can play at that game - you wouldnt get a financial crisis when there is correctly enforced regulation

ei.sdraob wrote: »

lets not forget that Fingers was helped along by a certain government

That avoided my question completely. Under a libertarian system you all presume that people would behave in the best interets of the company to ensure its continuation. With Fingers we have a man that has behaved wrecklessly and profitted from it. Why should he care about the company when he can go home to his mansion (protected by property rights) and enjoy his €27mil (protected by contractual agreement). Property rights and contractual agreement are two things libertarians think are involved in a self regulating market. So I'll ask again, how would a self regulating market stop men like Fingleton?

joehanley55 wrote: »

as for the tragedy of the commons, that is predicated on there being a shared land that is destroyed by being used by everyone. in a libertarian society, private property would reign (theoretically) and therefore people would have an interest in mantaining the natural resources. thats why when african governments ban hunting of animals they generally die out because no one cares about them. but when the animals have been made the property of the person who owns the land they take care of them and treat them as renewable resources and therefore they flourish.

Tragedy of commons does not simply concern animals or land, but in the animals example you give, what stops a company buying up all shark from the locals who 'own' them and selling them to a market that demands shark meat??

joehanley55 wrote: »

as for fingers fingleton, he had that company and he f'd it up. anyone who got involved in that company in any shape or form without having all the info took a risk, and now they have to pay for that risk. it may seem harsh, but before they get involved in another company they will be sure as hell to check all the info first, and that will help society flourish and be smarter in the future. get it?:P:(:rolleyes::pac::cool::mad:

Yes because we are all adept at economic investigation and auditing. I think you are advocating a very conservative market where lending would stagnate to avoid risk

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I disagree, and I think the rise in liberatarianism can be partly attributed to a lack of faith in government in general, rather than specific practitioners (FF) etc....

Thats just broadening it out to an issue of parish pump politics and still not the idea of government in general.

Akrasia

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

There is a significant aspect of moral hazard. With the government around people take more risk, because the government will bail them out if something goes wrong.

This is the standard speil of the libertarian when blaming the government for total market failure.
It's not the markets fault for getting out of control because there was little or no regulation, it's the governments fault for existing, and allowing the bankers to believe that they would be bailed out if their gambles didn't work out. (despite the governments never explicitly saying they would bail bankers out, or if asked, flatly denying that such a bailout would ever take effect, the mere existence of governments is enough to absolve the markets of any blame)

Of course, there were other types of moral hazard other than governments, It is after all, an insurance term.

Most of the hedge funds and speculators had at least one type of insurance that they believed would have protected them. Even insurance risk was insured through re-insurance companies like AIG. There were CDOs and CDS and CFDs and all these different kinds of instruments that were unregulated and designed to hedge against risks.
All it takes for a Moral hazard to be ineffect is the belief that one is covered against taking a risk. If Libertarians are convinced moral hazard ruined the free market, then they should be in favour of regulating insurance markets.. but then they wouldn't be libertarians.....

I have asked libertarians probably a few dozen times how their ideology would have prevented the derrivatives market from ballooning in the way that it did under the light touch regulation of the past 15 years. They never answer that question, rather they go on about enforcing the gold standard and how the fed is evil. (btw, having a gold standard would do nothing to curb speculation in non cash bonds and derivatives.)

The government seems to be viewed as a place where those who feel wronged get cash: the latest group are travel agents who want taxpayer money for the ash-cloud crisis.

Governments find themselves in this position because they are the only entity that is trying to promote long term stability (well, at least until the next election) while markets thrive on chaos and uncertainty.

The reason governments end up compensating people when they suffer losses due to an extreme event, is because to exist as a long term stable economy/society, you can't have entire sectors of the economy wiped out just because of a short term shock.


Libertarians love instability and think the collapse of an industry is a good thing as it weeds out the weak companies and makes things stronger. They call this 'creative destruction'.

Of course, what 'creative destruction' really does is see the small vulnerable companies wiped out while the bigger more powerful conglomerates simply consolidate more and more of the industry and leads to more and more wealth consolidation.
Libertarians, have zero mechanisms to protect against excessive consolidation of wealth or domination of industry by monopolists (that would require effective anti trust regulations, which libertarians are opposed to)

Laminations

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If someone is stupid and/or greedy then eventually they get burned

So says libertarianism - so how would you deal with men like Fingleton? There would be dozens of men who could play the market, swindle the less informed, make a bad decision after years of good management (ala Sean Quinn), and others will always pay

Laminations

Akrasia wrote: »

This is the standard speil of the libertarian when blaming the government for total market failure.
It's not the markets fault for getting out of control because there was little or no regulation, it's the governments fault for existing, and allowing the bankers to believe that they would be bailed out if their gambles didn't work out. (despite the governments never explicitly saying they would bail bankers out, or if asked, flatly denying that such a bailout would ever take effect, the mere existence of governments is enough to absolve the markets of any blame)

Of course, there were other types of moral hazard other than governments, It is after all, an insurance term.

Most of the hedge funds and speculators had at least one type of insurance that they believed would have protected them. Even insurance risk was insured through re-insurance companies like AIG. There were CDOs and CDS and CFDs and all these different kinds of instruments that were unregulated and designed to hedge against risks.
All it takes for a Moral hazard to be ineffect is the belief that one is covered against taking a risk. If Libertarians are convinced moral hazard ruined the free market, then they should be in favour of regulating insurance markets.. but then they wouldn't be libertarians.....

I have asked libertarians probably a few dozen times how their ideology would have prevented the derrivatives market from ballooning in the way that it did under the light touch regulation of the past 15 years. They never answer that question, rather they go on about enforcing the gold standard and how the fed is evil. (btw, having a gold standard would do nothing to curb speculation in non cash bonds and derivatives.)


Governments find themselves in this position because they are the only entity that is trying to promote long term stability (well, at least until the next election) while markets thrive on chaos and uncertainty.

The reason governments end up compensating people when they suffer losses due to an extreme event, is because to exist as a long term stable economy/society, you can't have entire sectors of the economy wiped out just because of a short term shock.


Libertarians love instability and think the collapse of an industry is a good thing as it weeds out the weak companies and makes things stronger. They call this 'creative destruction'.

Of course, what 'creative destruction' really does is see the small vulnerable companies wiped out while the bigger more powerful conglomerates simply consilidate more and more of the industry and leads to more and more wealth consolidation.
Libertarians, have zero mechanism to protect against excessive consolidation of wealth or domination of industry by monopolists (that would require effective anti trust regulations, which libertarians are opposed to)

Excellent post. Bravo

meditraitor

ei.sdraob wrote: »

You fancy getting involved in the thread and contributing something insightful

or do you wish to waffle away?

I clearly outlined that Libertarianism is like Atheism, instead of lack of faith in religion one has lack of "faith/trust" in state

and you turn around and call libertarians as "scientologists"

yes very insightful :rolleyes:

Criticism of libertarianism is destructive. Criticism of society by libertarians is constructive

http://wikiality.wikia.com/Libertarian

Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Given that libertarian socialism, ie Anarchism, has existed as a political philosophy long before your version of extremo capitalism climbed out from the swamps, it is insulting that you are now claiming that libertarian socialists have a fundamental misunderstanding of what those terms mean.

Anarchism is a thoughtful, considered and coherent political philosophy. Right Libertarianism is a new refuge for the hard of thinking and their ranks are over populated with paranoid conspiracy theorists who are only suspicious of authority because they think some shadowey one world government is trying to tax them to death.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Laminations

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

How would you deal with men like Fingleton who are contractually entitled to their wealth after mismanaging (not illegally) their company?

How would you prevent a tragedy of the commons? The sale of a resource to satisfy market demand and maximise an individuals profits?

How would you address the factual and studied propensity of individuals to pursue short term gains over long term stability?

What would a libertarian system mean to a drug addict? A disable person? A person born in a bad area to uncaring parents?

a deaf persons views after visiting the HQ of the Libertarian Party wrote:

The Libertarian Party believes that the government should NOT “force” everybody to give access to the disabilities. It’s simply up to them whether or not if they want to do that. It’s all about the freedom of choice. If a restaurant does not wish to have a wheelchair ramp, it will lose business compared with a restaurant that does have a wheelchair ramp. And it’s up to people to privately fund the interpreters for deaf people. Discriminating against people with disabilities would not be against the law in Libertarians’ eyes.

The entire Gallaudet University group and another group of hearing students in the program voiced strong disagreement with the Libertarian representative on this specific issue, arguing that if Libertarians are for strict reading of the Constitution – then “All men are created equal” should be taken literally and disability access is not only constitutional, it should be a major priority.

The debate went on for hours and it was a lively discussion full of differing perspectives. I’m glad that we were given the opportunity to meet with the Libertarian Party because I realized that – frankly – the Libertarian Party is naïve. They genuinely believe in the goodwill of humans and honestly do believe that people will give access to disabilities out of pure choice. They do not realize at all nor do they acknowledge the long history of oppression that people with disabilities have encountered and their struggle for basic civil rights.

When you leave helping the poor to volunteerism, where the act of volunteering disenfranchises the volunteer, then you get a lot of poor people getting no help.

You complain at the moment that you have to pay (taxes) more than others. Under your 'charity' system if you were to give money you'd lose out over someone not giving, so you'd be motivated to not give also - unless of course you are motivated by more than money, but thats not the case because you complain so much about paying tax.