dagblog - Comments for "A Proposal for Our Libertarian and Objectivist Friends"

Nice idea but nice try.This

Dreadrocksena — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 13:07:23 +0000

In reply to A Proposal for Our Libertarian and Objectivist Friends

Nice idea but nice try.

This would actually work IF:

1/ there existed a 'free' market to accurately and fairly calculate prices.

2/ the benefactors of the existing tax system (stolen money) did not already corrupt the players and the positioning of the winner-loser arrangement in the marketplace by forming deals with those wealthy citizens that benefit in kind.

Yeah. Government is a

some guy — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 05:04:02 +0000

In reply to Wow, for my next argument I'm

Yeah. Government is a necessary evil. Kinda like our bodies are necessary evils.

This is horrible satire.

Libertarian559 — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:48:16 +0000

In reply to Apparently

This is horrible satire. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" was far better. This is fucking garbage, shit talking on libertarians. Objectivists are on their own, that's a whole other world away from libertarianism.

The kicker is, not every

Doctor Cleveland — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:05:17 +0000

In reply to Congratulations, this is pure

The kicker is, not every libertarian gets the Swift thing. After all, "A Modest Proposal" is just a suggestion about getting out of the way of natural market forces. What's funny about that?

Apparently

tmccarthy0 — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 02:56:01 +0000

In reply to A Proposal for Our Libertarian and Objectivist Friends

Apparently Libertarian/Objectivists don't or cannot understand satire. Who knew?

Wow, for my next argument I'm

Libertarian559 — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:30:25 +0000

In reply to It would probably be more

Wow, for my next argument I'm actually going to cite a liberal, peer reviewed paper, with all the nice graphs, statistics, equations you liberals could ever want:

http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/dromer/papers/RomerandRomerAERJune2010.pdf

It comes from the bastion of liberalism, the publicly funded University of California, Berkley itself. This is the main conclusion:

"Our baseline specification implies that an exogenous tax increase of one percent of GDP lowers real GDP by almost three percent."

As an economic advisor for Obama, Christina Romer has resigned because of this. Despite her initial support for all that stimulus. She does try to do some damage control in the paper, but the truth was obvious. The paper brings up a Catch-22 for pro-govt people. Admit the paper is right, govt taxation is bad. Admit the paper is wrong, liberal statistical methods are then unreliable. So who cares what Krugman has to say at that point? Maybe his numbers are whack and have no more worth than anecdotes and thought experiments.

Well the conservatives messed up the economy with all that fiscal "restraint", right? Yes they did. Neo-Cons practice almost nothing libertarians preach. They pay lip-service to fiscal restraint. They have a vision for society, just like liberals, and they will use the govt, just like liberals, to achieve that vision. There is no difference. Human beings are sacrificed either way for another human being's gain.

Why don't I just move to Somalia? I've heard the argument before. Libertarians are not anarchists, we really just want a govt that protects property rights (intellectual, land, bodily properties, etc.). Somalia's lack of govt is not something libertarians support. There is a point of efficient govt, like back in the 1800's, where it was a a mere 3-10% (see here http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html#usgs302).

We see govt as a necessary evil, and we want as little evil as possible.

Libertarians typically act as

DF — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:07:34 +0000

In reply to One problem is that if the

Libertarians typically act as if all of the evil in the world comes from government, that the only abuses of power can possibly come from government. They almost universally ignore the rich history of abuses of private power. And they also ignore that citizens have an oversight role in government that they do not get with private entities.

Hah, let's have a "pay to

DF — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:43:40 +0000

In reply to Uh, paying for services

Hah, let's have a "pay to play" privatized court system instead of the bloated, inefficient public system we have. I'm sure there won't be any unintended consequences.

It would probably be more

DF — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:41:45 +0000

In reply to The 90% was just for the

It would probably be more correct to say something like, "Wealthy property owners believe that the government should be limited to protecting their interests strictly and do not want to pay a penny more for anything else. Also, they would very much like everyone else, including those who own no property and would see relatively limited benefit from such a system, to continue to pay for it anyway. When they profess such views, they are fond of calling themselves 'libertarians.'"

Yes, yes. Everyone looks out for their own interests. It doesn't surprise me whatsoever that people make the above argument. What surprises me is that they expect everyone to buy it, when it benefits them not at all. If you understand the politics of self-interest as well as you seem to claim, this shouldn't be at all shocking.

So before government spending as a share of GDP was 40-50%, but now "many hold" that it would only make up 3%-10% of GDP? Wow, that's amazing. I'm sure you can tell me exactly how those numbers were arrived at, yes?

Many also hold that there is an afterlife, though none have witnessed it.

Thomas Jefferson is a weird name to bring up after school vouchers. He did help fund schools - with tax money. He was a big supporter of universal public education, but you don't seem to agree with him.

"If the govt was so good at doing stuff, it wouldn't be in constant budget crises." Yeah and if private entities were so good at it, they would never go bankrupt. Or need to be bailed out by the government. Let's remember, too, that's it the supposed party of "fiscal responsibility" that cranks up debt and deficits, something that Milton Friedman observed on a number of occasions. Top marginal tax rates were higher under Reagan than under Clinton. Given the history, you should be thrilled to see a Democrat in the Oval Office since that has coincided with lower taxes, reduced government spending and balanced budgets.

Governments haven't done anything to alleviate poverty? Are you serious? Point to a society that was or is bereft, simultaneously, of both government and poverty.

You point to healthcare as a government created problem? We have the most privatized healthcare system in the world, but you are right about the inferior outcomes. That's hardly a supporting argument for you. Government effectively handed over all of health management to the private sector back during the Nixon administration. You can see how it has turned out. Economist Uwe Reinhardt is an excellent source of analysis on this particular subject.

Seriously, the stuff you're writing is barely coherent at this point. Governments are necessary. If you prefer no government, I expect you'll be heading off to the promised land of Somalia shortly, where they haven't had a stable government in 20 years and, naturally, all the ills of society have completely vanished, giving way to a prosperous nation of John Galts.

Of course you don't really want to do that. Even the hardest of hardcore minarchists still wants to see their interests protected and understands that government is necessary at least for that, as I outlined above. All libertarians are saying is "I want the government that provides the maximum benefit to me." So do others, but they have different interests.

Your false equivalence

DF — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:14:57 +0000

In reply to I've read introductory texts

Your false equivalence between Krugman, a peer-reviewed academic, and the Cato Institute, a partisan think tank, is amusing. Here's a challenge for you: if Krugman is such a bullshitter, find me an example of it. People who are manifestly capable of providing analysis superior to yours attempt to do so on a regular basis and he regularly reminds them of why they need to go back to school. Seriously, come with something concrete.

Your weird story notwithstanding, Orlando is right about he marginal tax rates. And again you link an article that doesn't really seem to be saying what you think it does. The article is about lay-offs in the pharmaceutical industry due the economic downturn. Nowhere does it even argue that this is because of marginal tax rates or even taxes in general.

All what government spending on R&D? Which spending? For what? Can you say anything concrete about this are you just going to keep blowing hot air? I want to see data, sources and methodology that I can actually examine, not the completely superficial games you're playing.

"Only so much wealth" is also a funny thing for a libertarian to say. I thought it was libertarians (PJ O'rourke frequently makes this argument) that it's not a limited pie. See, if it is, that means that one person getting rich necessarily happens at the expense of others. That's not usually an argument that libertarians want to make. They typically like to ignore concerns about distribution entirely.

Money being in private hands doesn't mean that it will be used to "greatest advantage" either. Who's advantage anyhow? Look an Bernie Madoff. All of those people with all of that private money and what did they do? Employ a bunch of out of work chemists? Nope, they gave it to a huckster because he made his portfolio look shinier. Now all of that money is gone. Is that the "greatest advantage"? It was for Madoff, for a while at least.

You haven't really made an argument here and you certainly aren't providing any evidence for it. Again, single anecdotes do not data make.

Also, Joan Robinson probably had the best answer to Keynes' famous line, which was that we're all dead in the long run, just not at the same time.