Now suppose several others see my pleasant, infantile, unthinking financial existence and are drawn to its “freedom from” weary responsibility. These observers also voluntarily opt for a life of allowances.

How many people abdicating their financial independence should it take for me to be able to put you on an allowance whether you want/need one or not? 50% of all the people in our community plus one?

When does your right to live your life become subordinate to my desire for universal happy dependence?

Democracy is an inherently bad system, as sir Winston famously said.

However, he also said “it’s better than the other ones”, and there he was wrong.

The limited republic of enumerated powers is the best form of government humans have yet derived for a large state.

It’s also an awful form of government… but it’s less awful than all the rest.

There are clearly a lot of people that place something else (safety, security, neighborhood aesthetics, whatever) as more important than freedom – theirs or yours. Given that you are stuck living in a society with such people, it seems that the likelihood of finding any type of absolute freedom is close to nil.

One thing that I have had a bit of a hard time grasping about libertarianism is that the line between private institutions and the government is very gray and only a matter of scale – in most particular when it comes to freedom. Compare an HOA to the government. Both have the potential to restrict individual freedom over your property greatly. Both collect fees/taxes. An HOA may seem initially a matter of choice, but the terms of the HOA can change over time, and you could inherit property under control of an HOA – just as you can be born into a country. The bottom line is that private institutions can restrict freedom against those who have not voluntarily chosen those restrictions, just as government can. Of course you can argue that you can always leave an HOA or a community, but likewise you can leave this country. The fact that there are no countries that live up to your ideals is no different than the fact that there are no HOAs that live up to your ideals.

I can see an argument here for keeping all institutions (private and public) smaller in size so that they can impose less power and open the opportunity for more choice. However that still brings up the problem that if people are very likely to voluntarily choose limited freedom, then even in a world of small governments you would likely be very hard pressed to find a libertarian one.

Empirically, most people don’t actually want absolute freedom, which is why democracies don’t elect libertarian governments. Irony of ironies, people don’t choose absolute freedom. But this refutes libertarianism by its own premise, as libertarianism defines the good as the freely chosen, yet people do not choose it. Paradoxically, people exercise their freedom not to be libertarians.

You’re missing one critical point here:

I don’t care whether you want freedom. If you want to live under a hand-to-mouth government system, you’re more than welcome to do so. Libertarians aren’t against the idea of people freely forming communes, or freely forming voluntary associations where you give up certain rights in exchange for certain protections.

You know what I do care about? Your vote taking MY freedoms away.

If you democratically elect a government that will meet your needs but leaves me the ability to opt-out, I have no problem with it. The problem is that you’re democratically electing a government that DOESN’T allow me to keep my own freedom. I don’t want to make your choices for you, but most people want to be able to elect a government that makes my choices for me.

Empirically, most people don’t actually want absolute freedom, which is why democracies don’t elect libertarian governments. Irony of ironies, people don’t choose absolute freedom. But this refutes libertarianism by its own premise, as libertarianism defines the good as the freely chosen, yet people do not choose it. Paradoxically, people exercise their freedom not to be libertarians.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/13/five-reasons-why-libertarians/

“I’m simply wondering if there’s a way to encourage people to act both in their own self interest and in the interest of others – to weigh their selfish needs against the benefits and harm done to others, and to take the action that balances both their own needs and the needs of others.”

This is exactly what the free market does. You need to broaden your definition of the free market. It doesn’t always have to involve a financial transaction. The free market encourages people to look out for others interests because it ultimately benefits their interests. The free market punishes people who are only looking out for themselves and disregarding the harm done to others. Because in a true free market the person doing the harm in time would no longer have any business or associates. You don’t do business or associate with people that only harm you or don’t benefit you unless you have no other choice or are forced to. In most societies the gov’t is used to force you to associate or do business with people that may harm you or benefit you less then otherwise would be the case. In the free market that is not the case. Still, there may be occasions, even absence forced association, that people do business with people that harm them or give them less benefit then otherwise they would like. The free market is the best system that will likely overcome this, as there are always people looking for opportunities to benefit themselves by helping others.

In addition, the free market has been shown to increase the standard of living to the point where many people are able to help others with no benefit to themselves. Generally speaking, most people will help others if they have the ability to do so, and the free market gives people the best ability, at least financially, to do so. That is a big reason why Americans are the most charitable in the world. Free market capitalism has afforded them the opportunity to do so with no financial benefit to themselves.

I give money and time to charities, not for my benefit, but because I have the ability to do so financially and I want to help others that aren’t as fortunate as myself. Without free market capitalism, I would be unlikely, financially, to be able to do so.

I’ve had a bit of an interesting history. I won’t get into the details but suffice it to say that I’ve worked with people radically on both ends of the political spectrum (and pretty much everywhere in between). I tend to like to listen to what people have to say to see what is behind their thinking. I’ve noticed a few things that they all have in common: First, everyone seems to think that they are right and everyone who disagrees is a moron. Second, even though they radically disagree on the solutions to the problems, beneath all of that there are a set of concerns that are valid, and that’s where we can find a lot of agreement.

The first is completely non-constructive, and has resulted in the extreme partisanship that we see today. Most of the people that I’ve encountered are very well educated and appear to have given their positions some considerable thought. However we tend to keep to like minded groups to avoid cognitive dissonance (whether in real life or on the internet), and the result is group think. Personally I like cognitive dissonance – anything which challenges my beliefs is healthy and needs to be fully examined. Not everyone sees things this way (in fact most don’t), so that leaves us looking down the second path – appealing to the core values that lead people to take the positions that they do.

Take health care as an example. It is perfectly valid to believe that everyone should have access to affordable health care. However only a month or two ago there was only one way that I could imagine that this would be possible – by some sort of major government involvement. I think that this mode of thinking has been so ingrained in us that we can’t find our way to come up with independent solutions that don’t involve the government. This is just as true on the right as well.

Free market libertarianism also faces an image problem when convincing others. Many think of the problems of our current system and associate them with the free market. This could be best summed up by Chomsky’s statement that “crony” is superfluous when describing capitalism. Of course as you’ve pointed out, “crony” capitalism depends on a large state in order to even exist. With many people the free market is going to bring up many negative connotations. It may not deserve them, but it has inherited them nonetheless, and they’ll need to be countered.

Perhaps the best way to counter these arguments is to come up with free market solutions to the problems that everyone seems to think that only the government can solve – and then implement them.

So does anyone want to donate to the “health care for all” charity, or invest in my alternative energy company? :P (I’m partially serious. Some day…)

Please don’t take anything I say as an attack on you personally. When I get into these types of discussions, I am definitely combative, but I’ve played this game long enough that I am arguing for/against ideas, not arguing for/against people.

That said, I think you’re feeling like I’m attacking your posts because it seems that you’re kind of “talking things out” in your comments, while I’m picking at bits and pieces of what you say. As you point out, the more we talk things out the more we’re finding we agree. If I’m right on this, please consider my picking as a service, not an attack :-)

Regarding the “true socialism” comment, it goes back to one of my pet peeves. I’m a stickler for arguing against what people actually believe rather than strawmen of what they believe, and most of the mythology built around Marx is improper. Marx would probably be described most accurately as an anarcho-socialist. Marxism is not the communism of Stalin or Chairman Mao, or the national socialism of Hitler. He’s wrong, mind you, but he’s his own breed of wrong. Sadly, most Marxists don’t even know the difference. (I’d be remiss not to point out that most who follow any particular political or religious “faith” don’t really drive things down to their core principals, so Marxists are not alone in this blindness).

I agree that poverty is the problem – not inequality. The anti-capitalist mindset seems to be that inequality leads to poverty. I don’t think things are that simple. In any system poverty is a problem, and a difficult one to solve. With some of the rhetoric it would seem that if you are not in favor of bigger government you are in favor of more poverty. I would recommend that you continue to point out the ways that a free market system can address problems such as poverty.

If the only solution is some form of redistribution, then that can be done just (if not more) effectively voluntarily by private institutions. As I said before, if everyone on the left redirected their efforts aimed at increasing the size of the government towards private charities aimed at solving these problems, we might be much better off.

I stand corrected in regards to the comment about central-planning. I would think that both factors are involved, but the impossibility of managing such a complex system is likely a greater factor.

In regards to technology vs the socioeconomic system, I did have an implied question in mind when I wrote the original: which economic system is better at improving technology? You answered the question – as I expected you to. My point was simply that technology has made a dramatic difference in our standard of living – in spite of the fact of our more socialized government. Simply compare life in America before and after the industrial revolution – a dramatic difference even though both involved a somewhat capitalist system. In a society with limited resources ANY socioeconomic system will result in poverty – that is inevitable.

Perhaps I don’t understand “true socialism” well enough. The word socialism is so overused that it almost becomes meaningless. However my point was simply that if people will not individually be altruistic enough to help out people in need, then why should we believe that it can be accomplished collectively.

TerryP,

I see your point that the free market can make such sacrifices unnecessary. However I don’t think that all problems will be solved in this way. Some problems will always involve people taking the moral initiative to do what is right, even if it is not entirely in their self interest. I may be a little idealistic in this, but I’m simply wondering if there’s a way to encourage people to act both in their own self interest and in the interest of others – to weigh their selfish needs against the benefits and harm done to others, and to take the action that balances both their own needs and the needs of others. If this were possible it wouldn’t work if it came in the form of some power forcing individuals to take into account the interests of others. The free market system ultimately promotes that which is profitable, but profitable and moral are not always the same.

Anyway I have to go for a meeting, I’ll leave you to think about that.

“Ultimately if there will ever be a solution to problems of injustice and poverty, then it will need to involve individuals FREELY choosing to make sacrifices for the benefit of others.”

I will agree with most of this but I don’t know if people have to necessarily make sacrifices to benefit others.

Let’s take Lasik eye surgery for example. Initially when it began it was very expensive and only a few could afford to do it. But then a strange thing happened, prices dropped significantly and quality improved. Many more people were able to take advantage of this. Why?

The answer is the free market, of course. Many people saw this as an opportunity to make some money (benefit themselves) but to do so they would have to make it more available to others (ie lower cost) and improve the quality (benefit others). They found ways to do this not necessarily for the benefit of others, but for the benefit to themselves.

In a free market, most things happen by looking for benefits for yourself by doing things that benefit others. In otherwords, by benefiting others, they in turn pay you or do other things that benefit yourself.

While in some cases you may still sacrifice to help others, in a free market environment, this is certainly not always the case. In nearly every other environment such as socialism, facism, etc., however, that would almost always be the case if you were to help someone else.

The free market also gives the benefit of people increasing their standard of living to be able to afford to make sacrifices to help others. In most other societies that is just not the case or it happens in a far lesser degree. Americans are by far the most charitable people in the world, due in no small part to the free market making it possible to be charitable.

I’ll take some of this a piece at a time:

The problem with the free market system is that it will naturally lead to inequalities, sometimes gross inequalities.

That’s a problem? I would consider a world to be a success if it gives every individual the opportunity to meet all of their basic needs, and gives most the opportunity to well exceed those needs. Additionally, I much prefer a world that offers assistance to those who cannot make use of such opportunities — although I prefer that assistance to be private, voluntary, not from a coercive government.

Inequality isn’t a problem — poverty is.

The problem with the central-planning system is that it all depends on the competence and ethics of the planners. At times we find that the system is governed by competent, well intentioned people, and we will see positive results.

There is a lot of rather well-developed economic thought springing largely from Friedrich Hayek that would disagree with you. Some systems are simply too complex to be planned. Eventually the amount of information needed to make decisions is too unwieldy for any human or government to make them. It doesn’t matter if those humans are the best and smartest among us, they simply cannot comprehend things on that level.

However I think that has little to do with our socioeconomic system, and much more to do with advances in technology that have made many resources more accessible.

Find me a system that can generate new technology faster than capitalism and the free market, and then we can debate whether technology is a result of our socioeconomic system. You mentioned earlier that you work in the technology industry (as I do). Do you really think technology would move as quickly as it does if there were no competition and no incentives (profits) to be made? In Washington DC and in the nation’s universities they can do a lot to talk about technology and R&D. But it’s the desire to sell it for a profit that actually puts products on the streets.

One of the mindsets behind socialist thought seems to be that if individuals are unwilling to aid others, then we should have something else (typically the government) step in and do it for them. However if as individuals we cannot be motivated towards altruism, then why should we think that our societies and institutions could possibly be motivated in this way?

Actually most socialists believe that capitalism is immoral and only a “transition” stage in human social development, following Marx who viewed capitalism as much better than feudalism but only a short stop on the road to a proper society.

The true socialists aren’t trying to redistribute simply to help the poor, they’re trying to fundamentally remake human culture in the image described by Marx.

Modern American politics, of course, isn’t truly socialist. Most Democrats aren’t true socialists, they’re welfare statists. They like capitalism because it generates the profits that they can seize to give to the poor. They understand, though, that one must be careful not to kill the goose laying the golden eggs. They’re building walls to keep the goose from escaping, but they know that without the goose, they’re cooked.

An economic system is simply a system for dividing up resources. However on a planet with 6 billion people any economic system will take on a complex and unpredictable nature. Although there are many variants, we only seem to have discovered two basic ways to manage such a complex system.

On the one hand you can allow the system to “manage itself”. Individual activities are controlled by some metric (such as the pricing system) and the “system” is then simply the result of these individual activities (i.e. free market). Alternatively, you can have central-planning of some kind. Most systems that we have today appear to be a mix of these two models.

The problem with the free market system is that it will naturally lead to inequalities, sometimes gross inequalities. Perhaps this could be improved by choosing a different metric (something other than the pricing system), but I’m at a loss for alternatives.

The problem with the central-planning system is that it all depends on the competence and ethics of the planners. At times we find that the system is governed by competent, well intentioned people, and we will see positive results. However this is typically rare, and even when it does happen they are often replaced by incompetent or corrupt individuals.

Both of these systems has lead to great injustices. Neither has been able to guarantee that all citizens have access to the resources needed to live and prosper. In some sense, both are failures.

Ideally I might imagine a system in which all individuals are motivated to do what is best both for themselves and for all others. Such a system might look very much like the free market, but with different metrics, such that each person has a self-serving interest in helping others. However the devil of such a system would be in the details.

However even if this were possible, any system will need to content with the fact that resources are finite. Whenever that is the case, some people will always be left out. Brad pointed out that the poor today have standards that far exceed those of the rich of a century ago. However I think that has little to do with our socioeconomic system, and much more to do with advances in technology that have made many resources more accessible. Perhaps the real problem (and its solution) are not economic in nature at all.

I also don’t think that making charities obsolete is necessarily the right way to think about this problem. One of the mindsets behind socialist thought seems to be that if individuals are unwilling to aid others, then we should have something else (typically the government) step in and do it for them. However if as individuals we cannot be motivated towards altruism, then why should we think that our societies and institutions could possibly be motivated in this way?

Ultimately if there will ever be a solution to problems of injustice and poverty, then it will need to involve individuals FREELY choosing to make sacrifices for the benefit of others.

If as you say there are a tiny “elite” who basically own, rule, or control the rest of us, then they also control our gov’t.

If we had freedom instead, they would at least have far less ability to control the rest of us, as most of their control comes through the gov’t and it’s policies.

I will have to agree with you that our current system is failing. I would like to head towards freedom and a free market. You seem to be going in an entirely different direction.

I agree with all that Brad has said.

Also as Brad has said, the poor in our country would be considered rich not that many years ago and would be considered ultra rich by many in other countries even today. I believe that while the poor in the US have made great strides, the rich have benefited the most from us moving away from freedom and the free market to a more corporatist, big gov’t society. The rich have used the gov’t to squash competition and otherwise make things so complex that many of them can find numerous ways to avoid taxation at the expense of the poor and middle class. In many respects, however, I am glad that they do so. They can do far more for the poor then the gov’t can, such as building a business that provides jobs, or buying products or services that also creates jobs. The gov’t pretty much just gives a handout by first taking money from someone else and keeping a little themselves and even in that it is extraordinarily inefficient. Charities do a far superior job. Charities fit very well in a free-market based system, but don’t have much of a place in a corporatist, socialist society as the gov’t takes over more and more of what they do. We still have charities in our society mainly because the gov’t does such an inept job in helping the poor/needy.