"Freedom" thread or something

manofmystery wrote: JJLehto wrote: manofmystery wrote: How'd you fall back into a school of economic thought that's collapsing the western world around us? Because: Keynes-lite is what we have, (and have had) and it is indeed wrong. (Part of their belief has been de regulating finance btw). If you want specifics, it's the Post-Keynesian school I'm into. They say things like: Too much private sector debt is bad, the Fed should not tinker with the economy and doing so can be dangerous, (and it should also be more transparent and limited in nature), our current attempts to "prime the pump" are ineffective and would be inflationary, that QE would be ineffective, we keep making bubbles and bubbles never last forever (and in fact predicted our recession as fr back as the early 2000s) crazy sh*t right?? Those b*****ds I'm quite sure you (MoM) won't bother, maybe llama or others will, but here is a quick and dirty summation, and I'd like to see it proven wrong. The blue is private sector, red gov, green our trade balance. Gov deficits balance private sector surplus. The few times we've gotten gov surpluses it's been mirrored by the private sector running a deficit. Coincidence? Of course when this happens, it's bad...we can't run deficits and go bankrupt and all kinds of bad stuff. So do we really want the gov to try and have a balanced budget, or surpluses?? Is it even possible? We look at just the gov deficits, but don't take the whole economy into the picture! I gotta go for now, but basically: the 3 sectors of the economy balance, so trying to "balance" one impacts it all. Imagine if we tried to impose austerity during this time when we're heavily in debt and saving a lot. Raising taxes or cutting spending that benefits us? Europe should be proof of what imposing austerity does in a recessed economy. BTW the post-keynesians also support generally low taxes, and have said a "true" stimulus would've been a full payroll tax holiday. Not that 2% for 2 years sh*t Obama tried, but a complete end of payroll taxes, for as long as needed. They also talk a lot about money, and how things simply work differently under a fiat money system, we all think with a gold standard mentality still but fiat just works differently. We can discuss that one later. Thing is, about that: I don't want the government having surpluses either. It's not that I just don't want them spending, I don't want them collecting. You seem to have fallen into the school of thought that the economy can be managed centrally somehow (unless I've lazily misread something). When I see "tax holiday" and the addition of the qualifier "for as long as needed" attached to the end of a tax I really see pixie dust glimmering in a Krugman's eye. Bastiat it up man, come on, you're better than the pseudointellectual cult of academia. JJLehto wrote: And if anyone is seriously interested, (I always took the time to read what you posted MoM) here is a great paper: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue58/Koo58.pdf [/DIV That's not fair. I never asked you to read anything that long.

thellama73 wrote: JJLehto wrote: I'm quite sure you (MoM) won't bother, maybe llama or others will, but here is a quick and dirty summation, and I'd like to see it proven wrong. The blue is private sector, red gov, green our trade balance.  Gov deficits balance private sector surplus. The few times we've gotten gov surpluses it's been mirrored by the private sector running a deficit. Coincidence? Of course when this happens, it's bad...we can't run deficits and go bankrupt and all kinds of bad stuff. So do we really want the gov to try and have a balanced budget, or surpluses?? Is it even possible? We look at just the gov deficits, but don't take the whole economy into the picture!  I gotta go for now, but basically: the 3 sectors of the economy balance, so trying to "balance" one impacts it all. Imagine if we tried to impose austerity during this time when we're heavily in debt and saving a lot. Raising taxes or cutting spending that benefits us? Europe should be proof of what imposing austerity does in a recessed economy. BTW the post-keynesians also support generally low taxes, and have said a "true" stimulus would've been a full payroll tax holiday. Not that 2% for 2 years sh*t Obama tried, but a complete end of payroll taxes, for as long as needed.  Europe has never imposed austerity, so I think that's a straw man. Even at its most austere, European governments were massive compared to their GDP. I quite agree that raising taxes doesn't benefit us, but disagree on the spending. I question your chatr, because it says that in 1952, Private Sector balances were about 2.5% of GDP and government deficits were about 2.5% of GDP. Where was the other 95%? It seems like a major piece of the puzzle is missing.

Edited by JJLehto - March 20 2014 at 11:33

That is a point I've made before! People usually just shrug it off as me being purposely unrealistic, but since it's been brought back up again:

JJLehto wrote: That is a point I've made before! People usually just shrug it off as me being purposely unrealistic, but since it's been brought back up again: Since a few people here talk libertarian logic very far down the road...I ask again: Don't laws violate freedom?  Seriously. Wouldn't total freedom be one without law? I (and nearly all people) did not agree to these laws, we have to obey them, or else face risk of force against us. Yes, things like theft are needed for society to run, we can't have a literal Hobbesian world, but then you MUST accept some type of force/coercion.  Even if one wanted a totally private system of law enforcement (which I'd still like explained, not sure how such a thing is possible (or if so wouldn't be pretty dystopian)) why is that use of force/coercion OK? It is not through state?

I'm not interested in this discussion really because by the nature of the medium any arguments must be facile and thus inevitably devolve into arguments which are purely semantic so that no one does anything except marvel about how the other side is ignoring self-evident truths. I will try to answer somewhat for you though.

If you define freedom as the theoretical ability to perform an action without third party repercussions, then yes they are. If you define it as the ability to live ones life as one chooses free from third party repercussions as long as one does not violate the rights of another, then some laws would violate freedom and some laws would not. You seem to be operating in closer approximation to the first statement than the second, while libertarians will typically grab do the reverse. 

Your ideas of force/coercion are inexorably tied to how you attack the above. Does putting someone in jail for murder constitute force? You could argue yes or no depending on what you took freedom to mean above.

So if you're taking force to mean to exercise of some amount of unwilling control over another, then yes anyone will of course concede that all but the most idealized or small societies will contain this to some degree to function. When libertarians talk about a coercion free society, they probably mean that they have decided upon some set of natural rights and will take a society to be coercion free if the only time that these natural rights are violated is in the performance of retribution/punishment for a previous rights infraction.

For a lot of people then what makes the government an issue, even a government which only enforces laws conforming absolutely with these predetermined natural rights and does so perfectly, is that the implicit laws which would legitimize / punish other self-organized groups of people from enforcing these same natural rights based laws would themselves be a form a coercion i.e. punishing people who are not infringing upon the rights of others.

How private laws/enforcement would work in one sense asks too much and in another lacks in specificity. You can find some outdated views of mine on the issue in this thread.

The T wrote: ]Come on Logan, we are talking reality here. So accepting welfare is undignified but accepting charity isn't? So you really, really think charity is available for everybody who might needed in the magnitudes necessary to cover not just one random homeless person but sometimes families in trouble?  Self-employment? Yes, great. How do you do it? You have to have a skill or talent which need at least that you had that little bit of luck in your childhood not even to have been born in wealth or at least not in the gutter but with the education or the love or whatever surrounding you to gain that skill. So you are going to tell the worker who has been employed in a factory for 10 years "go, become self-employed." Really?  And the street performing thing... please....  Anyway, it will be said that government and its actions are responsible for this. Ok, maybe so. Eliminating government altogether in today's real world would cause more havoc and misery and put more people in complete slavery situation against corporations. Oh, it might be said, the market will correct this. Ok. Let's just wait 10-20 years for the market to correct this. What's a couple decades really? Except all some people have? Except enough time to create a permanent class of misers?  And guess what, then some new and maybe worse form of communism might crawl back from the grave when enough people have been made miserable by this experiment.

So you think people are owed a living merely by virtue of existing? Existence gives you a claim on other people's money?

In order to get other people's money, I think you have to earn it, by supplying something other people value. You dismiss entrepreneurship and street performing because you view it as hard or undignified. I find that attitude ridiculous. I was unemployed last summer, and I found a way to earn money using my skills, by offering something other people value. If you don't think that is necessary or legitimate, you are arguing that mere existence justifies stealing.

The T wrote: Admin please close #2. Also, Slarti (not a Libertarian) opened a poll in the poll lounge which is obviously not a real libertarian thread (it's quite the opposite). And let's open this one with this: I'm not sure what to think of this. Sure, regulation is bad but taking protections away from workers in this state-corporate kingdom seems even worse. Opinions?.

Ok I am not American thus will go by the meaning of what Liberty means to me. Regulation indeed can be bad if driven by socialist terms, normal health and safety plus equal rights are great benefits of those regulations however pro-labor unions too can be a downfall for the economy especially if their party is large thus dictating what might not necessary be in the long term in best interest of the whole population. .

Actually I brought up that point about whether decisions imposed by a private legal machinery would not amount to coercion because when we discussed tax earlier, the argument made as to why it was coercion was because everybody hadn't consented to part with their money for tax but would still have to pay it.  I find it difficult to believe that in practice, even in a voluntarily organised govt, there would not be situations where the majority would have to override the dissenting minority.  Say for instance there is an apartment association and the members decide that long overdue repair works have to be undertaken.  If you allow individual members to desist from paying just because they think it is not necessary or is too much of a pain for them to bear, either the other members who are dumb enough to pay would have to take up the tab or the works won't be undertaken and the building would fall into disrepair.  The association must take a decision based on a majority vote and pursue with the dissenting members to pay up, painful as this process may be for both sides.  It is essentially extracting money from someone against his wishes but it is necessary if ALL members are to continue finding it worthwhile to occupy said apartments, in other words for the arrangement to remain sustainable in perpetuity. 

Edited by rogerthat - March 20 2014 at 23:13

I honestly don't quite understand what Libertarian means (obviously I understand that the meaning free/liberated has something to do with that) I am pro-free trade, however the lack of government control can equally be if not more devastating to the individual i.e. large corporations vs small holdings aka mom and pop shops, without Government intervention for fair trade the smaller businesses would not exist.

rogerthat wrote: So is libertarianism more of an advocacy of limited govt and relatively free markets or  is it strictly a set of moral principles?  This is basically the question I have.

I think from what I've gathered that it's a moral set of principles that basically involves the non-aggression one and whose ultimate manifestation and obvious consequence of is the defense of free markets and limited-to-no government. Sometimes sadly it plays like a rigid set of logical syllogisms where every answer to every question derives from a logical analysis.  

The T wrote: rogerthat wrote: So is libertarianism more of an advocacy of limited govt and relatively free markets or  is it strictly a set of moral principles?  This is basically the question I have. I think from what I've gathered that it's a moral set of principles that basically involves the non-aggression one and whose ultimate manifestation and obvious consequence of is the defense of free markets and limited-to-no government. Sometimes sadly it plays like a rigid set of logical syllogisms where every answer to every question derives from a logical analysis.

No. The NAP gives a rule for societal behavior. It says nothing about morals.

Extreme example to illustrate point: Like I'm in home with a sh*tload of oranges that my grandma sent me. The thing is I don't even like oranges so I decide I'm just going to throw them out. I walk out to my trash can and find someone a bit down on his luck looking for food who begs me for anything I can spare. I throw the oranges in my hand to the ground and smash them to an indigestible pulp. Then I have the man arrested for trespassing.

Everything I did was perfectly in my rights and Libertarianism has nothing to say about my behavior. Now how would a Libertarian judge what I did? Most would consider me wrong at the point that I decide to throw out the excess yet perfectly fine oranges and becoming despicable by the end. Ayn Rand wouldn't take issue. These are moral differences.

More realistic idea. Libertarians have different stances on gay marriage. Libertarianism has no stance on it as it does nothing to violate the NAP.