Talking Libertarianism

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
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Trying to address a couple of things @Lonnie123, and the rest of you all.

Look at large government spending in the form of subsidies for example. This often creates wealth redistribution going the other way. My daughter’s bus driver works 7 days per week at two jobs, and his taxes go to fund the 4.9 Billion in subsidies to Elon Musk’s companies, or to the guy who got subsidies to make double pane windows because he got his congressman to throw some pork his way. We have a Machine that is often based not on free markets, but on government money. Also a way for our politicians to get into graft, and favor granting to friends and allies.

It’s a dynamic system. Higher taxes sometimes results in lower revenue because people and corporations are capable of adapting to change. We can talk about different tax models. [quote=“Lonnie123, post:2, topic:223168”]
which is why you have to regulate stuff like a minimum wage.
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This seems like one of those intuitive things, but I keep reading about how raising the minimum wage will result in fewer entry level jobs. That part is concerning.

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Talking about voluntary charitable giving.

Does knowing if a candidate is personally charitable effect the way you vote at all?

Do you think it matters?

I’ve said this before. Progressives often view Conservatives as heartless and self-interested, but when you look at charitable giving to non-religious organizations like the American Cancer Society, we give at roughly equal rates. Conservatives volunteer slightly more, but not by a lot.

If you had more discretionary income, would you give more?

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This is one of those areas where politics can get more complicated than it seems to be on its face… I’ll use the Clinton Foundation as an example here. Lets assume, for the sake of argument, that the organization exists solely as a charitable entity, and is well run where as much money as possible gets passed on to the people its attempting to serve, with no corruption involved.

So that takes us to the next question… Does the Clinton foundation do all of its charitable work because the Clintons are charitable people, or because they want to look that way to the voting public? On the one hand, who cares, because the charitable work is getting done, but on the other hand…

If Bill Gates started running for office, his charitable work would mean more to me than the Clinton foundations, even if the Clinton foundation outpaced it heavily. This is because Gates’ work seems more “honest” and, unless he has been playing the LONG game, got into charity for its own sake, and not to appear a certain way.[quote=“anon71262119, post:22, topic:223168”]
Do you think it matters?
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It can and it cant, as illustrated above. I would probably take it into consideration, but it would be a very small one.[quote=“anon71262119, post:22, topic:223168”]
If you had more discretionary income, would you give more?
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I might, but likely not in proportion. Meaning if my income doubled my charitable givings likely would not. At least not at this point in my life. I am not financially secure to the point where if I lost my job it would not affect me greatly, so its very tough for me to consider giving money away until I am at that point. My giving has gone up since I’ve gotten older, but its not like I’m giving thousands now. It’s more like an extra $25 here or there come that time of the year.

But, once I reach that point I am very open to the idea of being more charitable, perhaps significantly so. Of course thats what I write anonymously online… the real world may play out differently, but I like to think I would start looking into that once I am in a position too.

Hopefully this discussion isnt too far off the topic you started the thread for, but it is your thread after all! Small digressions can be fun and interesting.

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This is what I think Penn is talking about when he talks about government money and power in a capitalist system. It’s not just about Podesta or Clinton, imagine that this is true of a lot of people in government.

The state department, the banks, Silicon Valley, the nonprofits, the “Global CEO Advisory Firm” that appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.

25

For sure. Voluntary charity and personal greed always comes up when we talk about this so it’s on topic. I know as Americans we are more charitable than some of the Scandinavian or European countries. We have lowering taxes so people have more discretionary income. Also, when you look at religious people giving to churches, we’ll see increased giving by those groups.

This is culturally interesting to me since I come from a religious culture that has it’s own welfare and humanitarian programs. It can’t support people in the long term, but if someone looses their job, the church will step in and help keep someone afloat. Local churches and charities are able to really know the needs of people, and often do things the government can’t. For example, we had a mentally disabled lady who needed someone to clip her toenails. A woman from church would go by and do that small act of service for her. It can be personal in a way that government usually can’t be.

26

Not going to weigh in on this thread just yet, but I like the idea of your ‘frictionless plane’ because I believe it serves as shorthand for the same kind of basis for thought experiments that the ‘real’ frictionless plane does in physics. Which is to say, very useful but highly idealized starting point.

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I will definitely disagree with you here however. I have no conceptual problem with CEOs making that much money for successful guidance of their corporations. I can agree in principle that ‘for profit’ healthcare–by which I take it that you mean hospital bills etc.–shouldn’t be part of the game. I’m sorry, but using a system that is in place–which is to say the insurance system–as the rubric by which you define your prices is not thievery in my opinion. It means the insurance system needs reform, but it would be a very poor and eventually bankrupt company that did not use the existing environment as the basis for it’s financial calculations…including price. It takes between 2 - 4 BILLION dollars and generally somewhere over 10 years to see a new drug from discovery to market. That’s the hard fact.

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28

I’ve read 1 billion over 10 years but the point remains the same.

I understand health care as a pursuit is very expensive, and I am generally in favor of CEOs making what the market will pay them (I think their pay is ludicrous, but im not against it)… I just think that in certain areas of the market you should accept that the results of the work are the major compensation, not massive wealth.

Of course that leads to the possibility of not attracting the best leaders who might seek massive wealth in the other sectors…

29

…now this gets to one of the interesting talking points about Libertarianism and the place of government, right?

One could argue that the reason it takes $4 billion to take a drug to market is because of the heavy-handed government and its silly regulations.

On the other hand, the government and its heavy-handed regulations are a form of consumer protection. The FDA and NIH are a safeguard that makes sure most of the drugs that do make their way to market are (reasonably) safe and effective.

So this seems to be one case where some form of government intervention is necessary for the public good, right? Remove the FDA from the equation, and yes, drugs get to market faster and cheaper, but there’s going to be a lot less knowledge of what’s safe and what actually works (it’s not like the common man walking the streets is going to read medical research papers to figure out what studies have been done on one drug vs. another; even if they tried, 99% of people do not have the scientific wherewithal to understand them anyway). Is that a desirable outcome?

I understand that this is complicated and I’m not trying to turn it into a “Gotcha!” point because I do believe in a lot of Libertarian-esque values (about personal freedoms, especially). But there are some areas where at least some level of government oversight is necessary for the common good, right?

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Ok, this clarifies your position somewhat. We’re different but not terribly so. Also the numbers for R/D are a bit hazy, but most of the actual studies on it are between 1.5 B - 4 B. It is really impossible to pin down an exact average because both company and kind of drug vary. I can tell you cost has risen about 50% in the last decade.

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Totally agree with you. As a guy who runs epidemiological studies you are very familiar with the lay of the land here. It’s my personal opinion that the FDA is necessary for consumer protection (look at pre FDA clusterfucks and tell me we should go back there…). On the other hand, it is also quite clear that the FDA is partly responsible for the current FUBAR nature of the industry. You have close ties between pharma heads and FDA, and some leaving one company to go to the FDA, etc…In addition you have some very significant inefficiencies and waste in FDA.

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32

I can think we can both agree on “a shit load”

The FDA is a good example, but has problems that have already been mentioned.

You see a somewhat regulation free market in the supplement industry. No one needs to prove efficacy, safety, purity, or even that what’s on the label is actually in the bottle, which often times it is not.

I prefer the FDA option myself.

Regarding wastes and costs, I will say one thing the libertarian free market does is eliminate waste which I love and generally drive down costs. The government is terrible about introducing waste, which is no secret.

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34

Thanks! That’s next after On Liberty. My husband really likes that book. I’ve read several essays and speeches by Milton Friedman. I like him so much.

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This is something I’ve been thinking about. It seems that as a society we’ve completely gotten away from the idea that at some point coercion is immoral. Where is that point?

I certainly agree with Penn in the video when he says taxes are the equivalent of doing something at the point of a gun. We should really look carefully at when we’re willing to point a gun at someone to tell them they must surrender their money (time and freedom) for something they do not agree with. I think the number of people who see that as a fundamental virtue is shrinking. I don’t think it’s even a consideration for a lot of people in governement.

Take something simple like infrastructure. Let’s say we’re pragmatic Libertarians who want to build and maintain bridges and roads. Our government then takes that and turns it into an excess of a multi-billion dollar bullet train to nowhere here in CA. A string of polls showed voters would block the train by a two-to-one margin if it were put up for a referendum, and that was several years ago. It’s a huge fail. People don’t want to build it. And yet we’re pouring tax money into it.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/bullet-train-to-nowhere/article/2004120#!

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Sure. For the point of this discussion, lets assume that we’re pragmatists. Like Penn mentioned, lets assume we want to have a some military defense, education, welfare, and infrastructure. Let’s at least assume those things.

I find this really interesting. Both you and @ActivitiesGuy express some Libertarian values, BUT… within the same sentence express that it won’t work because of the need for regulation and big government.

In talking to several of my Democrat friends, this has been a common theme. They tend to say something like, “I’m a Libertarian too, in theory, or in my heart…” And then they quickly go on to talk about how we need big government programs.

This has lead me to conclude that some people (not necessarily you guys) define Libertarianism like this. “People should be free to have sex with whoever they want, and be able to smoke weed.” If you think those things, then you’re a Libertarian at heart. It’s social freedom, but there’s zero concern about stepping on people in terms of economic freedom. They have much more trust in governments ability to do things well. Let’s face it, economics are not impersonal. The money we demand from people to run the government often represents tremendous sacrifice, and literally years of their lives. And it’s sometimes for things that they fundamentally disagree with (wars, abortion).

37

Within limited confines, so do I. However in other larger areas I do not. Freedom is a serious thing, and it can be abused. However someone will always abuse something somewhere, so I don’t view it as a solid foundation. Having freedom means taking some risk, and I would rather haveore rosk and more freedom than be “safe” and at the whim of people I don’t trust, don’t know, have proven themselves mistaken time and time again, corrupt, power hungry, and generally not as intelligent as I believe that I am. Even if I did not consider myself more intelligent than many of these people (that sounds pretty ridiculously arrogant as well), the rest of those factors would still weigh heavily against them.

If you don’t have the freedom to screw up your life, you really don’t have freedom at all. And in any case, who is it that is deciding when you “screw up” if not you? Do I trust that random person to know better than me?

Any way, rambling aside, I don’t prefer the FDA option with supplements or a great many other things. I could be persuaded to be in favor of “validating that what is on the label is in the botle”, within certain confines.

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Who is talking about giving rich people money?

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That’s because for most people that is the definition of freedom, social freedom. Self-expression. Self-expression is hard to do when pressured by Custom. Further, self-expression is hard to get around to when one is weighed down with the universal distractions of having enough food, shelter, clothing, education, medical, etc. Those are things all people must contend with, so they’re not the place to experience “individualism!” “Freedom” to watch your fatherless child to without a medical treatment…Or do without in your childless (or nearly so) old age…Doesn’t seem much like actual freedom to most. Just seems like the brute facts of nature. By providing social insurance, security, for these things the nanny state makes it a little more safer, and then a little more safer, to actually experience Freedom and individualism.

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40

I mean, if on is less Free because one had to pass on buying that 2nd Vacation home this year because one paid that money out in taxes…How free is one who is struggling just to keep one’s children covered by some form of health insurance, fed, and with a roof over their heads?

The one might still run off with the family (if they have one) on a European vacation, while the other is grateful for the aunt who stops by and watches the kids so momma can go to work. Which ‘feels’ more free?

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