A pretty funny exposé of the economic ideas of the liberals and the libertarians:
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To be a Libertarian is to be a lazy bastard full of excuses to not help anyone nor actually do any hard work at all.
MODERATOR: Please refrain from posting inflammatory comments that add nothing to the discussion.
Great video
@#1
Seriously?
Central planning depends on the people running the show knowing the right thing to do and doing it. I don’t think either is true in our nation.
Decentralized planning allows those with ability to rise to the top and as they prosper all boats rise while poorly run organizations perish.
You would of course need to curb some of the more rapacious behavior but the more your curb it the less competitive they are so you had better bloody well allow them enough room to prosper or all boats sink except perhaps for the elites whose success is built into the system at least until the system itself sinks.
GE is an example of such an elite. It makes a lot of money depending on government handouts and pays no taxes. Government union members make more than the going wage in the private sector but when the economy goes bad when the private sector is tapped for too many resources then things go sour for them and the promises made to them are broken.
Energy like food is a special case. You will buy it if at all possible even if it is heavily taxed and the business will simply pass the extra taxes along to the consumer in order to continue to be profitable. This is going to be true even if the energy and food business is take over by the state.The problem with state take overs is the supply can often no longer meet the demand.
Even the Ancient Chinese found that problem to be to much to deal with when they took over farm tool manufacture in order to help the peasants, the peasants ran out of tools, there was a famine, and the Emperor got out of the tool business before the starving masses decapitated him.
There is no obvious reason why a government could not provide cheap quality farm tools in abundance to those who need them but it didn’t work out that way. Government never seems to be cheapest and most effective way to do anything.
#3 Meshyf.
Yep. Think of Libertarianism as Anarchy for baby boomers.
Wouldn’t the smart way to test social theories be to try it one way for a while, then try it the other way for a while, back and forth until a clear winner had emerged?
#6, Yep.. and the Romans are now testing the other way after the first one failed.
Rich pay taxes? What are they thinking?
Why Buzz (#6), we’ve done that! – almost.
The first 150 years America was run by Capitalist and free enterprise, during which we went from basically nothing to the greatest nation on earth.
Liberals have had America for the last 50 years where we went from the greatest country on earth to basically nothing.
Now that America is thoroughly devastated with an unsustainable level of entitlements, there is no way back.
#1
“To be a Libertarian is to be a lazy bastard full of excuses to not help anyone nor actually do any hard work at all.”
Real positive contribution to the debate there. The write a comment like that and have such a simple-minded way of viewing the world is a good example the description you just provided.
Libertarians are generally the onces who don’t want to be forced at gunpoint to help the type of person you just described because they actually do believe in working hard. I think you already knew that, though.
great vid, very well produced. Now all we have to do is get rid of the idea of “the economy” and monetary system and we’d be off to a good (re)start…
-s
Angel is not blind, but you libras can’t see the light.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704330404576291772245610028.html
What?
That’s a great link. Excellent quotes and common sense solutions.
But since it would require Liberals to admit their policies are wrong…
#8 Just out of interest, did the deficit rise or fall under Reagan and Bush/Bush and did it fall under Clinton?
If the idea of the super-rich paying ever less in tax to support the infrastructure that the country obviously needs badly is appealing to you, then maybe it’s worth having a look at other countries who have a higher tax rate on the wealthy and also have functioning societies with lower unemployment and therefore less of the dependency that you deplore.
#8
All those tariffs we imposed on imports
All the land the government opened up with paid deals and through war
The gold strike, then a silver one, a lucky break
The industrial revolution where people worked worse than serfs
The influx of immigrants
That is what built the nation.
You really think the monopolies and robber barons were free enterprise?
You live in a fantasy world.
#11
Not against you, but the article…
Oh boo hoo the Smithfield people sound like the RIAA and MPAA.
They based their market on corn and now corn is too expensive. So switch your model asswipe!
Barley is a known and proven protein builder. That equals meaty goodness. And barley is cheaper and cannot be used for biofuel.
CHANGE THE MODEL! DON’T GET SET IN YOUR WAYS!
Cursor_
#15 Barley may be cheaper but the US production is 4.6 million tonnes. The world total is 136 million tonnes.
The US corn production is 333 million tonnes. 817 million tonnes world-wide.
If barley were to be used to replace a significant portion of the feeder market its cheapnest would disappear.
The price of beer would also skyrocket.
All macroeconomic models require a generous amount of hand waving, which is why there are so many models, with none of them really being adequate on their own.
Round one is called Fear the Boom and Bust.
#1, Are you projecting? I’ve always said that people expect what they do. I donate about 15 hours a week to charity (donate means I don’t get paid in a monetary sense and charity means it is for someone other than myself).
How many do you donate?
Oh, I’m a Libertarian, too.
#15, The “Robber Barons” got their power through corrupting the government. They didn’t do it in a vacuum.
#18, Bingo. That’s why central planning always fails.
Even though the video is entertaining, I always cringe when people make an association of Hayak with laissez faire, he was not an advocate of a free-for-all laissez faire system, but instead of the strong rule of law with meaningful constitutional restraints on the arbitrary exercise of government power.
The only problem with central planning are the people.
Not just the people making the plans, but the millions of others who they expect to follow the plan.
50% of the population is below average intelligence. 20% of that group are complete idiots.
A significant portion of the population will oppose the plan and do whatever they can to make it fail.
One more thought: the US spends (at least) $600 billion a year on the military. Every year. Add it up and it’s more than was ever spent on WW2.
People in the military are not paid very well, so where does the money go?
It goes to pay hundreds of thousands of people who are paid well to make bullets, guns, tanks and jets.
If that kind of continuous Keynes-style top-down “stimulus” can’t keep the US economy moving, then nothing will work.
Thank you Cursor, and Sea Lawyer. Great comments that preclude most of my own.
But it is worth pointing out the obvious bias of the producer of the video. I mean, Hayak getting strip searched while Keynes gets a “yessir”.
And of course, the so called music is rap, which is generally annoying at best.
Still a fun exercise that just might get some of those less inclined to pay attention to such things to pay attention.
The biggest misconception that many people make about Libertarianism is that they think there would be no rules in a Libertarian society. Actually, there could well be more rules than we have now. But they would be agreed to by contract with others rather than enforced at gunpoint by the state.
Unfortunately, people have been living in a world where cheating, bending, ignoring and subverting the rules is so commonplace, so invasive, indeed, so necessary in order to survive AND where the rules themselves are so often arbitrary and pointless that they can’t conceive a world where it isn’t so. The war on some drugs is just the tip of the iceberg here, but it serves as a very good example of what I’m referring to.
#25 spsffan
That “ideal” situation only works when everyone is on equal footing. Its great when it works but what happens when it doesn’t?
What encourages the large and powerful to play by the rules? The market is supposed to level the playing field, but the market is neither free or perfect.
You say Libertarians do not advocate anarchy. Ive seen some that do just that: No rules and everything will just work out.
Ive also heard the absurd claim that a desire for regulation is total control of everything. Also not true. Effective and enforceable regulation is the watch word here.
Who enforces a contract between the powerful and the powerless, if not “at gunpoint by the state?”
“But they would be agreed to by contract with others rather than enforced at gunpoint by the state.”
////
I don’t know who is more deranged. Alfie with his unique involvement with all things deplorable, or your devoted LIEbertarian who thinks that people acting in their own self interest will provide the most good for the most people.
Sheer idiots all.
Oddly, I’m imaging that Middle down would be a better ideal. With incentives made from the top for investment in small to medium sized entrepreneurial operations; with protection from predatory practices from larger organisations via rigid and enforceable regulation.
For example, Rich guy A invests $x in small Company B to develop excellent ??? services. Big corporation C comes along and tries to predatorily price company B out of the market and out of business. This is judged to be when corporation runs such an operation at a loss in order to gain monopoly*. This would be ILLEGAL and carry a fine greater than the losses incurred by Company B and the fine would be paid directly to Company B.
This has the effect of pushing Corporations into more friendly cooperation or mergers to entrepreneurs and provide protection from smaller organisations from illegal/immoral practices; whilst avoiding lack of competition in the market.
* This law exist in the UK, in the 1980’s Freddy Laker sued British Airways for phenomenal amount of money for such a practice and they settled out of court, estimated around £60million (which was a LOT in 1982).
#26 Who enforces a contract between the powerful and the powerless, if not “at gunpoint by the state?”
Exactly!!! That’s one of the things that government IS for. To enforce contracts that people enter into voluntarily. Not to write the contract and force everyone to adhere to it.
Oh, sure, there are certainly folks who call themselves Libertarians and advocate anarchy. And there are folks who call themselves Christians who engage in murder, child rape and so forth. President Kennedy called himself a jelly doughnut. Heck, Milton Friedman called “everyone” a Keynesian. Doesn’t make it so.
#29–spiffy–you’ve just been tagged speaking out of both sides of your mouth. Trying to cover it up by saying Exactly doesn’t fool anyone.
Once you “admit” that government is necessary to enforce contracts, to prevent fraud, to keep the peace, you have given up 99% of your objection to pretty much the way things are.
Silly boy.
#17
There are four different kinds of barley to market.
Three food grade and one for beer.
No beer would be harmed in the feeding of pigs.
Cursor_
As far as anarchy goes, lack of a formal government doesn’t mean there is a lack of governance. People will still always govern their behavior based on social norms and traditions.
But, most of the economists I know of who make serious anarcho-libertarian arguments do it more as a thought exercise than as an advocacy of real policy.
#4
“Central planning” is really the wrong term to use when describing Keynes. I think ‘selective demand substitution’ is better. This is undoubtedly successful in creating and preserving abilities that would not otherwise exist. It is usually the goals of the spending that is the real target for conservatives.
The stimulative nature of government spending is okay if you are building weapons, but bad if you are extending unemployment benefits. The rap video Keynes says something like “it doesn’t matter where you spend the money” which isn’t right at all.
All government spending is going to stimulate the economy, how well it does that as well as serve other goals is going to depend on the specific program.