(no subject)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Picking up Demos’s Gauntlet

If you are going to argue against libertarian philosophy, you should know what it is before you end up making straw man arguments. Demos (a left-wing think tank) has apparently decided to focus some energy on libertarians, so this reply to them is a helpful start to all people who want to make arguments against libertarian thought. There are especially certain people in this forum who don't seem to understand some of these points.

These two points in particular are consistently gotten wrong on here:

We care deeply about the poor, the helpless, and the marginalized. In fact, the forebears of libertarianism practically invented it. Many attacks on libertarians fall short because they imply that libertarians are libertarians because it hurts the poor and the marginalized while helping the rich and the establishment. These charges are laughable.

This one tends to happen because people want to demonize their opponent when they don't have a good argument themselves.

We are not “market fundamentalists,” a term many have used to describe us. We are “strong market presumptionists,” some stronger than others. We presume that markets will supply goods and services more efficiently than governments, create more innovation, engender more harmony, and be more congruent with what people actually want...Governments are very good at providing things that only a select few actually want, whether it is statues of dictators or roads to nowhere, and then making everyone else pay for them.

This may seem like a mere terminology distinction, but it is a difference that matters. The first inaccurate term is vague and allows for all kinds of knee-jerk reactions. Most libertarians are not extremists, just like other philosophies.

There are other points in the article, feel free to respond to any of them, not just the two I highlighted. If you want more personal opinion, read the article; everything it says I could have said myself.

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

they imply that libertarians are libertarians because it hurts the poor and the marginalized while helping the rich and the establishment.

Libertarians are libertarians despite the fact that it hurts the poor and the marginalized and helps the rich and powerful?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

If it did in fact hurt the poor and help the rich, then yes. But the actual opposite statement would be that libertarians are libertarian because it helps everyone regardless of whether you're rich or poor.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Again you dump a link, throw a couple of copy-pasted paragraphs, and say "discuss". No I won't read an article to get to your point. You'll have to make that point.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that you missed the blatantly obvious point in the post then.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

As a former libertarian involved in local Libertarian politics, I do not consider myself ignorant of their general 'points'.

The problem is not that straw man arguments are constructed against positions which Libertarians do not overtly hold... I'm sure it happens, but it is a mistake to dismiss all arguments that "imply that libertarians are libertarians because it hurts the poor and the marginalized " as such straw men. Obviously "Hurt the poor" is not a plank in the Libertarian Platform, any more than "warmongering" is a part of the mainstream parties's platform.

But, if mainstream party positions were to lead inexorably and repeatedly to warmongering, it would be fair for a suspicious third party to presume that either warmongering is an unstated, but desired part of their agenda, or at the least they have a callous disregard for its effects.

Any suspicious third party could say the same about the policies of the libertarian impulse in the current US political environment, and the effects on the poor and marginalized.

When a leftey criticises Libertarian policy as anti-poor, it is not because they have a mistaken conception about what philosophical arguments Libertarians adhere to. It is because they have made a judgement about the secondary and tertiary effects of the policies that flow from those arguments.

When I look at, say, Koch brother support of Libertarian Think tanks like the Cato institute and the Federalist society, I am not thinking "The Libertarian point of view is inherently anti-poor". I am thinking "The Libertarian point of view is a convenient intellectual facade that the powerful can use to protect their interests, to the detriment of the poor and marginalized."

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

When a leftey criticises Libertarian policy as anti-poor, it is not because they have a mistaken conception about what philosophical arguments Libertarians adhere to.

Yes, it's because they have a mistaken understanding of the results of the libertarian policy. But then they attribute that supposed outcome to a desire for that outcome. It is a common occurrence.

I am thinking "The Libertarian point of view is a convenient intellectual facade that the powerful can use to protect their interests, to the detriment of the poor and marginalized."

That doesn't invalidate the libertarian argument.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I would be reticent to say that even communism inexorably leads to "fill in the blank". There is great variation among the socialist countries regarding outcomes, and yet libertarian societies 'inexorably' lead to being detrimental to the poor and marginalized?. Do shades of grey exist only for every other philosophical governing basis?

Heck, I'm hard pressed to think of enough examples of libertarian societies to even gain a practical sampling the way you can with the others already mentioned. I can name more communist countries than I can libertarian ones, and there aren't a whole lot of those either.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I am thinking "The Libertarian point of view is a convenient intellectual facade that the powerful can use to protect their interests, to the detriment of the poor and marginalized."

Exactly!

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

If you want more personal opinion, read the article; everything it says I could have said myself.

A lazy bullshit of a cop-out. Or maybe you resort to it every single time just because you don't have an opinion; instead you just regurgitate what you've read somewhere.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That is having an opinion, regardless of whether you like it or not. Your opinions are also regurgitations of things you've read or learned, so you can get off your moral mini horse.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Somebody should explain how libertarian philosophy can help the poor, the helpless and the marginalized.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

It helps them by attempting to raise the standard of living for society whole rather than playing silly little balancing games.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The key things keeping people poor are government-enabled: creating artificial wage floors that reduce their ability to negotiate, creating work rules that keep them from having more available hours, creating social programs that encourage dependency as opposed to autonomy.

The key things keeping the marginalized in their place are government-enabled or encouraged: quota and affirmative action programs diminish real achievements of marginalized racial groups, "fair wage" laws that address a problem that hasn't existed in a generation, the lowering of standards for some groups to enter various professions, and so on.

The "helpless" is, in all honesty, a tougher answer because the word is so broad and applies to so many things. The ADA does a lot more harm than good in many cases as it creates a significant incentive to not hire disabled people. For the truly helpless, this is where more localization helps rather than hurts (speaking both from anecdotal experience and from a more birds-eye viewpoint), but there does need to be more robust thinking on the matter. It's something I think about a lot in my personal life, and have yet to come up with good conclusions. I can give plenty of stories about how the "we're from the government and we're here to help" mindset has made it more difficult to get the help my mother needs, for example, but it doesn't necessarily lead to the alternative being significantly easier for people less able to put in the work for their loved ones, either.

[existentme.livejournal.com]

I get what you're saying and understand the idea that these libertarian ~principles~ would do what you'd like to believe they would. However, to me, that's essentially where it stops. It's like it all works out perfectly beautifully...on paper. But, in the real world of execution, it simply never will, as (IMO) any capitalist system, regardless of intentions or ~principles~ is ultimately going to end up operating to the detriment of the disadvantaged and the unbalanced benefit of the advantaged, which effect will tend to multiply over and over again until all resemblance to any principle is entirely lost.

It's why I gave up all but my theoretical belief in free market principles: because they will never happen in the execution phase, because people are greedy and stupid and selfish and always will be.

Don't get me wrong, since I also believe the present system (oligarchy, plutocracy, corporatocracy) is equally broken and failed for the same reasons.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

people are greedy and stupid and selfish and always will be.

Yep. That's why all the other systems are equally broken.

Don't get me wrong, since I also believe the present system (oligarchy, plutocracy, corporatocracy) is equally broken and failed for the same reasons.

Exactly. That's all I can reasonably offer is that libertarianism is the best check on tyranny that we can get simply because it doesn't allow for people to get lazy like other systems do. That doesn't mean it can stop it or prevent it completely. It means that we look to individuals to use their power to keep themselves free rather than give up their power to a ruling mob and hope for freedom being given to them.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Many attacks on libertarians fall short because they imply that libertarians are libertarians because it hurts the poor and the marginalized while helping the rich and the establishment.

I'm pretty sure I've encountered "libertarians" (by which I mean, not anarchists) who oppose welfare payments to the impoverished and especially not from taxation of the wealthy.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Sure, because that doesn't help them except in the very short term, and it's unsustainable, thus not a good solution.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Over the years, I cannot help but to have noticed that when Libertarianism has been confronted with the problems of unregulated capitalism that led to various forms of social democracy, or the failures of libertarian ideas or influence on policy or the existence of societies that have implemented social democracy without encountering a debt crisis, the response is always a) it was the government's fault back then b) those ideas were either not libertarian or not libertarian enough c) those examples don't count or will collapse eventually.

All of which makes me stand by my conclusion that Libertarians in 2013 are indistinguishable from Communists in 1913. I sincerely hope they are not given an opportunity to cut a bloody swath of misery through history before they are rejected as well.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with libertarians like I have no problem with Dungeons and Dragons. It's a nice little world on the back of a napkin and everything works in theory and it's great to think about. Beyond all the philosophy and sophistry though, it doesn't go anywhere, because libertarian philosophy tends to miss the fact that other people do things, and the world is not a diagram on a napkin, and libertarians just can't cope with other people who do other things and think other ways. They sort of just elide all the basic and fundamental problems and issues of human interaction and society and pretend that everyone is essentially similar and will act accordingly.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

If you are going to argue against libertarian philosophy, you should know what it is before you end up making straw man arguments

I wouldn't dream of it. Unfortunately you and I *have* an argument (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1733614.html?thread=140432622#t140432622) about your libertarian philosophy going on that you haven't bothered to reply to in about a week...

It's kind of hard to have a meaningful debate that way.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I don't always have time to get back to that, as that's more involved than most things I'm dealing with. It is marked in my email until I respond, so I haven't forgotten about it.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I find you to be an insufficient interlocutor. Unless you provide evidence that you are going to step-up your game, it's not worth discussing the topic with you.

Which is a pity, cause I want to have a decent debate about libertarianism. But it's like a religious debate, I just keep finding wacka-doodles who come up with crazypants crap and clearly don't speak for the movement as a whole.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I just keep finding wacka-doodles who come up with crazypants crap and clearly don't speak for the movement as a whole.

That's a feature of encouraging independent thought and ideas, not a bug. Yes, you have to sort through some bad ideas, but there will be good ones in there too.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

If libertarians spent more time on the practical instead of the ideal, on the pragmatic instead of the philosophical, maybe people would take them more seriously.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I have done this before. I argue that my criticism with current paradigms in dealing with complex social issues that solutions need to involve a more humble, less 'glamorous' approach, that spread decision making over the maximum number of institutions, and preferably the institution of the individual as much as is possible so as to discover what works best to achieve goals. For example, figuring out what price sugar 'should' be has proven to be able to be handled by spreading decision making over billions of individuals worldwide. When the question that needs answering is along the lines of how do we minimize poverty and joblessness, we have numerous institutions at the state and local levels that can innovate, share information, and adapt. I think if left to decide themselves how to handle those issues, and providing an easy way for those institutions to see how the others are dealing with the same issues, what the results are, and how well the circumstances of other institutions match their own, long term and adaptable solutions have a better chance to be sustainable long term, and I've read about the kinds of research that would support this.

None of this seems to get me very far in conversation. Judging by the length of the comment strings, it seems people prefer taking on the more obvious ideological targets, and as there's always at least one person making them in a post like this, well, the results I suppose can't be too surprising.

And to a degree, I can understand that. If one considers debate to be a contest of wills, a common tactic is to pick the softest target first and follow that wherever it goes.