Zuckerberg going Libertarian?

[Paine]

I would guess most people who are politically aware read Atlas Shrugged sometime between age 16-21, flirted with the notion of libertarianism but then grew up.

I would have sympathy for someone between the ages of 12-16 who was a libertarian. Beyond that, only contempt.

 

[ColdBlueSteel]

Yeah, it’s “generally pretty basic” because it’s a bunk ideology that was invented by right-wing economists to convince rubes like you that you’re supporting freedom by letting billionaires and corporations run our country.

Who the F do you think is running the uniparty?

 

[Paine]

Who the F do you think is running the uniparty?

There’s no such thing as “the uniparty.” That’s an unserious way to think about politics. To the extent that there is a kernel of truth to the idea that both parties are dominated by the interests of capital, apparently Zuck isn’t dictating to the Democrats in the way that he once was. Why else would he be kowtowing to the Republicans? He knows where his bread is buttered.

Lina Khan was appointed by Joe Biden last time I checked.

The Democrats are beginning to take the interests of unions, workers, and competition much more seriously than than were even 10 years ago.

 

[Ddseddse]

I would guess most people who are politically aware read Atlas Shrugged sometime between age 16-21, flirted with the notion of libertarianism but then grew up.

I have a vivid memory of 16yo me reading it and thinking "This is such bullshit!" page after page.

But them again that may have been a stylistic objection as much as it was a moral or theoretical objection.

I've always had a visceral dislike for writings that used main characters as mouthpieces to spew ideology and other weaker charters to (intentionally) weakly rebuff the point the main point they were trying to sell. Like Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance... what bullshit. Yeah, I'm talking to you too, Heinlein, you and your Stranger In A Strange Land. And of course the original sin of that particular genera... Plato... GTFOOH with that bullshit!

 

[an0maly]

How does libertarianism allow billionaires to run the country in a way that liberalism and conservatism doesn't?

Not much time for this, but the problems with the modern formulation of libertarian ideas, is they are separated, corrupted and debased from far better and more reality-oriented libertarian ideas of Adam Smith. In his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith argued that humans’ innate sense of empathy and sympathy forms the basis for civilized life. “The man whom we naturally love the most is he who joins to...his own original and selfish feelings, the most exquisite sensibility...and sympathetic feels of others.” The idea of market forces here is producing goods for others as a good for yourself without hurting others. This is as far from the modern right wing libertarianisms, iconic in the idiocy of Ayn Rand, as it could be.

The problem since especially after World War II is that while inflation and costs of living (everything, but monumentally healthcare and higher education) skyrocketed, the ultra wealthy did ever better and better, and as they colluded with some very bad politicians, enforced ever greater benefits for themselves and ever more painful reductions in income and the ability to succeed in society for the middle class and the poor, and in fact developing a system for creating the latter out of the former. Even worse, in the mind-bending, upside down world irony, politicians gain and keep office by giving massive welfare and tax breaks to corporate power--this is the name of "libertarian" notions but totally opposite to them, and the ideas of Smith.

This is why libertarianism is now dead, in its ability to appeal to voters, because it has been corrupted so thoroughly by the hyper-rich, big corporations, and some politicians who for about sixty years have been so obedient to collude with them. This is no longer about free market forces creating better stuff for the public, and certainly not in line with the government getting out of the way of business, but rather picking winners to permanently keep winning, allowing them to hurt the public as doing so improves profits, in collusion with campaign funding sources from them.

The actual ideas of the long gone Smith libertarian philosophy I am talking about are totally at odds with mindlessly cutting taxes for the hyper rich, using that to reduce service democracy would produce, against rejecting protections of the environment, against attacks on regulations that in fact, actually would allow for personal freedom and for better competition in market forces, against allowing collusion between corporate power and politicians (to actually crush competition), against insane rates of CEO pay of 1500 times that of their lowest paid workers, against rulings like Citizens United, against the phony meritocratic delusions of the powerful enforcing such increase in wealth and income disparity, and against any dogmatic and unsupported insanity like "trickle down, supply side economics."

 

[ZenMode]

Liberalism acknowledges that government must be used to protect the people’s rights from being infringed by institutions/interests with more power than them. Without government, the people have no means to protect themselves from the petty tyranny of those who simply were born into more money and privilege than them.

I agree that some government regulation is needed and I'm not advocating moving the country to fundamental libertarianism any more than I'm advocating moving the country to fundamental liberalism or fundamental conservatism. I do think that federal government is too big and wasteful and neither of the two major parties is willing to do anything to address spending and is very happy to continue to grow government.

 

[Paine]

I agree that some government regulation is needed and I'm not advocating moving the country to fundamental libertarianism any more than I'm advocating moving the country to fundamental liberalism or fundamental conservatism. I do think that federal government is too big and wasteful and neither of the two major parties is willing to do anything to address spending and is very happy to continue to grow government.

I agree that our government spending is wasteful, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the government being “big.” How much money is wasted in kickbacks to military contractors, the insurance industry, etc.?

Not to mention the fact that one party acknowledges the need to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations in order to reduce the deficit, while the other party claims the mantle of fiscal conservatism while wanting to slash taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

Where are the cuts going to come from? The only answer is to cut universally popular government services like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Because the Republicans damn sure won’t reduce the military budget either.

 

[superrific]

I do think that federal government is too big and wasteful and neither of the two major parties is willing to do anything to address spending and is very happy to continue to grow government.

1. Define too big. What should the proper "size" of the federal government be?
2. Is the federal government more or less wasteful than, say, Exxon? You know this how?
3. Since the two major parties don't agree on anything, except growing government, maybe their lack of interest in addressing spending (note: we'll assume for sake of discussion that this lack exists) is telling you something? Maybe there's not actually much demand for "shrinking" the government. And if that's the case, maybe you're not really seeing the full picture here.

 

[superrific]

Who the F do you think is running the uniparty?

What does Anthony Davis have to do with anything?

 

[aGDevil2k]

If it weren't for Elon, Zuck would be by far the worst person in social media.

As it is he's a distant second. And he still sucks.

 

[superrific]

I would have sympathy for someone between the ages of 12-16 who was a libertarian. Beyond that, only contempt.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Paul Krugman attributes that to someone else but I've only seen it from him.

 

[Ddseddse]

1. Define too big. What should the proper "size" of the federal government be?
2. Is the federal government more or less wasteful than, say, Exxon? You know this how?
3. Since the two major parties don't agree on anything, except growing government, maybe their lack of interest in addressing spending (note: we'll assume for sake of discussion that this lack exists) is telling you something? Maybe there's not actually much demand for "shrinking" the government. And if that's the case, maybe you're not really seeing the full picture here.

Additionally, government outlay is only really meaningful in the context of government intake. If you're not willing to have the full in/out budget discussion then you're not acting in good faith.

By that I specifically mean your objection to government spending is not budget based, because "budget", by definition, is the precise interplay between what get's taken in and what flows out. Talking about "budget" when only addressing one side of the ledger is patent nonsense.

You may have objections to government spending, but they sure as hell aren't "budget" based objections.

 

[ZenMode]

1. Define too big. What should the proper "size" of the federal government be? - Too big meaning that there are departments/programs/headcount that can be downsized or eliminated.
2. Is the federal government more or less wasteful than, say, Exxon? You know this how? - If Exxon, or any private company, was 30+ trillion in the red, I suspect they'd be closed by now.
3. Since the two major parties don't agree on anything, except growing government, maybe their lack of interest in addressing spending (note: we'll assume for sake of discussion that this lack exists) is telling you something? Maybe there's not actually much demand for "shrinking" the government. And if that's the case, maybe you're not really seeing the full picture here. - Or, maybe their lack of interest in addressing spending is due to the fact that proposing the needed changes would put their jobs at risk. The national debt is an issue. The fact that the people in power are too chickenshit to do anything, or are willing to kick the can down the road to avoid ruffling feathers, isn't going to make the debt/spending less of an issue. The opinion of any individual congressmen's constituents is irrelevant. We have a spending/debt issue that needs to be addressed and neither of the two major parties is willing to address it.

 

[superrific]

It's all about "my rights" with libertarians. When have you ever heard a Libertarian acknowledge that someone other than them had rights? When was the last time you heard a Libertarian acknowledge that one person's or group's rights had to be balanced against another person's or group's rights? I mean FFS, what the F have we been doing for the last 250 years if not doing our level best (imperfectly, admittedly) to balance the rights of respective people and groups?

I am no fan of libertarians, but this is unfair. Cato, for instance, spends a fair amount of time and even a bit of political capital fighting against police militarization, civil forfeiture, and police misconduct. They also dislike qualified immunity, mandatory drug sentencing laws, the War on Drugs generally, and so on.

The problem is that you don't have to be a libertarian to fight those battles, and the vast majority of people who are fighting them aren't libertarians. Meanwhile, you do have to be a libertarian to carry water for the rich, especially on issues that even the country club Pubs wouldn't want to touch. So when people see libertarians, that's often the context. And over the past 20-30 years especially, libertarians have found it hard to find $$ support. The people who back them expect a certain degree of service on issues important to them. And thus do libertarians spend most of their time on the economic shit.

Libertarians aren't bad people. Mostly, they are just assholes, which isn't necessarily the same. Almost without fail (in my significant experience, at least), the loudest and most obnoxious members of any law school class are 1) a libertarian know-it-all who thinks Ayn Rand and Econ 101 teach all there is to know; and 2) a "progressive" poseur who wants to fight with everyone. But I've never known a libertarian who is attracted to "the cruelty is the point" politics of the GOP.

 

[superrific]

"Too big meaning that there are departments/programs/headcount that can be downsized or eliminated."

Anything can be downsized or eliminated. We could privatize the armed forces if we wanted. Sure, we'd end up like Somalia but it's something that could be done.

If you want to talk about waste, then point us to the downsizing or elimination of departments or programs which accomplish nothing.

 

[superrific]

"If Exxon, or any private company, was 30+ trillion in the red, I suspect they'd be closed by now."

Exxon is 35B in the red, so about 1/1000 of the federal government. Its income is less than 1/1000 of the federal government's income. Its debt is about 15-20 times its profits, meaning that if it stopped investing or paying dividends, it would take that long to wipe out its debt. If the government stopped paying social security and medicare, it would pay off the federal debt in a similar amount of time.

But anyway, when you start comparing the finances of the federal government to private companies, you've gone badly astray. I asked you about waste, not the balance sheet. It turns out that large organizations are frequently wasteful. Because it's actually quite difficult to manage a huge organization.

 

[Ddseddse]

I am no fan of libertarians, but this is unfair. Cato, for instance, spends a fair amount of time and even a bit of political capital fighting against police militarization, civil forfeiture, and police misconduct. They also dislike qualified immunity, mandatory drug sentencing laws, the War on Drugs generally, and so on.

The problem is that you don't have to be a libertarian to fight those battles, and the vast majority of people who are fighting them aren't libertarians. Meanwhile, you do have to be a libertarian to carry water for the rich, especially on issues that even the country club Pubs wouldn't want to touch. So when people see libertarians, that's often the context. And over the past 20-30 years especially, libertarians have found it hard to find $$ support. The people who back them expect a certain degree of service on issues important to them. And thus do libertarians spend most of their time on the economic shit.

Libertarians aren't bad people. Mostly, they are just assholes, which isn't necessarily the same. Almost without fail (in my significant experience, at least), the loudest and most obnoxious members of any law school class are 1) a libertarian know-it-all who thinks Ayn Rand and Econ 101 teach all there is to know; and 2) a "progressive" poseur who wants to fight with everyone. But I've never known a libertarian who is attracted to "the cruelty is the point" politics of the GOP.

Fair point with Cato, but Cato doesn't represent the rank and file of Libertarians in 2024 any more than Dick Cheney represents rank and file Republicans in 2024.

And while I 100% agree that there isn't a cruel streak in the harmless kooks who showed up at the libertarian conventions over the decades (for example), I disagree that the cruel streak doesn't exist in spades in the Tech Bro wing of the Libertarianism which is where the center of gravity is migrating to (is and not uncoincidentally, the topic of this thread).

 

[superrific]

Or, maybe their lack of interest in addressing spending is due to the fact that proposing the needed changes would put their jobs at risk. The national debt is an issue. The fact that the people in power are too chickenshit to do anything, or are willing to kick the can down the road to avoid ruffling feathers, isn't going to make the debt/spending less of an issue.

Well, we've seen that the GOP is infinitely malleable when their jobs are on the line. The vast majority of them, faced with the Kinzinger/Cheney choice of selling out to Trump and sticking to principles, choose political expedience, because they will lose their jobs if they don't. So if there was popular demand for deficit reduction, the GOP would be on it. There is not. Trump hasn't captured the hearts and minds of the GOP base by being a deficit hawk. Quite the opposite -- his policies are ridiculously profligate. That's what the GOP base wants. It's not the politicians' fault.

The one positive of Trumpism is that it highlighted how much of the old GOP orthodoxy was and is a lie. When a conservative says, "we can't afford that," almost always that person means "that's spending I don't like." And usually the reason they frame it as a question of affordability is that they can't speak their true objection without alienating people.

 

[superrific]

Fair point with Cato, but Cato doesn't represent the rank and file of Libertarians in 2024 any more than Dick Cheney represents rank and file Republicans in 2024.

And while I 100% agree that there isn't a cruel streak in the harmless kooks who showed up at the libertarian conventions over the decades (for example), I disagree that the cruel streak doesn't exist in spades in the Tech Bro wing of the Libertarianism which is where the center of gravity is migrating to.

I didn't take you to be talking only about libertarianism in 2024. I don't think most Tech Bros are in it for the cruelty. They are just the new Koch Brothers. They don't want pesky government regulations eating into their wealth. For Koch it was environmental and labor. For Tech, it's antitrust and crypto.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

Fair point with Cato, but Cato doesn't represent the rank and file of Libertarians in 2024 any more than Dick Cheney represents rank and file Republicans in 2024.

And while I 100% agree that there isn't a cruel streak in the harmless kooks who showed up at the libertarian conventions over the decades (for example), I disagree that the cruel streak doesn't exist in spades in the Tech Bro wing of the Libertarianism which is where the center of gravity is migrating to (is and not uncoincidentally, the topic of this thread).

Libertarians don’t want government to be the instrument of cruelty.