Libertarianism is the best ideology

[NineOneFour]

Look, it's trickle down economics!



Wow, that's working out really well for 80% of us!

But of course libertarians think they are going to be in the top 20%....

Well, guess what, sports fans, all 330 million of us cannot be entrepreneurs. All 300 million of us are not going to be millionaires. We're all going to need teachers, firefighters, soldiers, policemen, and all the other government employees from the government that you so despise.

We're also going to need shelfstockers, toilet cleaners, IT techs, and a host of menial laborers until Murray Rothbard invents the army of robotic slaves.

[NineOneFour]

Any questions?

I thought not.

[Squeak_the_Mouse]

The Heritage is a Libertarian think tank. So here we have a libertarian using a libertarian ranking system to prove libertarianism.

Not. buying. it. for. one. second.

Conservative actually. But is there something about the results which actually strikes you as odd or are you just dismissing them off-hand because they are inconvieniant?

It does if you buy into Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman (although he was sometimes disabled by bouts of sanity), Albert Jay Nock, and/or Murray Rothbard.

And one need not fully agree with any of them to be a libertarian. Heck, two of them are anarcho-capitalists which is about as extreme as you can get when it comes to libertarianism.

[Squeak_the_Mouse]

But of course libertarians think they are going to be in the top 20%....

Well, guess what, sports fans, all 330 million of us cannot be entrepreneurs. All 300 million of us are not going to be millionaires. We're all going to need teachers, firefighters, soldiers, policemen, and all the other government employees from the government that you so despise.

We're also going to need shelfstockers, toilet cleaners, IT techs, and a host of menial laborers until Murray Rothbard invents the army of robotic slaves.

I think you are confusing libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. Non-anarcho-capitalist libertarians accept the need for a state.

[Coito ergo sum]

The biggest problem with libertarianism is their incredibly narrow vision of what liberty is.

A number of them (and conservatives as well) only view civil rights as economic rights, that it doesn't matter if you're discriminated against because of your race or gender, just that you are "free" to make lots of money.

I think you are partly right about that. I don't think that they view it "only" as about economic rights. But, you are right about the discrimination issue. I think most libertarians would suggest that a person who decides to, say, open up a fruit stand and wants to hire an employee can discriminate in hiring on whatever basis he likes. For example, if the person wants to hire his son to work for him, and overlooks a more qualified person in doing so, then so be it. Or, if he wants to hire a white person because the fruit stand owner is a racist and doesn't want to work with black people, well, then that' would be within his rights to most libertarians.

The analysis would be that individuals all have the right to associate with who they want to associate with, and not associate with who they don't want to associate with, and they have a right to do with their own property what they will. So, if you come to me and want me to pay you to do something, then you have a right to do that, but I can't be compelled to associate with you and can't be compelled to pay you to do something.

That's one of the reasons why I am not Libertarian, because that kind of society is unworkable. If we had hoteliers, for example, wantonly discriminating against travelers, then that's a bad thing. The classic example is the longstanding common law English rule that a place of public accommodation or a common carrier has to take all comers if they want to engage in that business. That's clearly not a libertarian rule, but it does make sense.

[Coito ergo sum]

I am however prepared to pay for 1/60 millionth of one (UK) as long as I know 59.9999 million other people will pay the rest on the basis that if I need one in the future the rest of the country will do the same

The reality is that the other 59,999 do not pay an equal share, and a good many people pay nothing. Whether that's acceptable in a given circumstance depends on one's philosophy. In the US, for example, a huge number of people end up paying zero federal income taxes, and this is masked by things called "credits" where people wind up paying either no taxes or actually get money back.

This is one of the things that I think libertarians are right to point out. We hear so much about how "selfish" it is for people to not want a nationalized health care plan. However, a single taxpayer already subsidizes people who choose to have children in this country, in addition to lower income people. So, to call that person "selfish" because he or she questions the wisdom of another plan designed to further increase that person's subsidy of other people is wrongheaded, I think.

Nice dodge. "A huge number of people end up paying zero federal income taxes,"

Yes.

Oh, gee, are the only taxes federal?

No, and I never said they were. I was quite clear.

However, federal income taxes fund the bulk of federal expenditures, and other items like import/export charges, tariffs, etc., aren't paid by individuals, generally speaking.

Are the only taxes income?

No, never said they were. But, a person who doesn't make enough to pay federal income tax generally also doesn't pay much if anything in the way of a state income tax (which is generally from 0% to 4% max anyway).

Nope.

In fact, everyone pays nearly the same when ALL taxes are added up.

That's absolutely not true. Everyone does not pay "nearly the same when all taxes are added up." That's just utterly ridiculous. I suggest that you provide some data or source for that.

In fact, a lot of the rich that libertarians cry in their milk over pay LESS taxes than some that are less rich:

A lot of the rich pay less than the less rich? Wow. Care to provide some data?

[Coito ergo sum]

Under libertarianism the haves would have more and the have nots would have less.

I don't believe libertarians would agree with that.

Who cares what they believe? What matters is the results of their philosophy, not what they *think* will happen.

Well, they disagree with the assertion that the results of their philosophy would be that the rich get richer. It has not been established that the result of libertarianism is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

And, under any system the haves have more and the have nots have less.

That isn't what Martok said. He rightly said, that under libertarianism the haves would have more and the have nots would have less.

He thinks that. However, he has no evidence for that. Or, if he does, he did not present it.

In the Roman Empire the emperors would often give out free loafs of bread to the poor.

Libertarians would call this socialism.

No, I think they would call that "monarchy" and "tyranny." Maybe "despotism."

No, they actually would call it socialism,

I've never heard any libertarian call an Emperor's gifts to his subjects to be "socialism."

because libertarians despise any government largesse, at least largesse that doesn't benefit them directly.

But that doesn't mean they would call it socialism. They might despise government largesse, but not all largesse is socialism. A tyrant giving out gifts to buy his subjects loyalty is not socialism.

Many socialists, however, do seem to side with the despots these days, like Chavez among others. I've wondered about that. I see a lot of socialists or Left leaning folks applauding Chavez while he seizes private companies, "nationalizes" the media to eliminate free press and dissent, consolidates power, eliminates his term limits, oppresses the people....but, he does give them some bread....

Yeah, cry me a river.

Who is crying? It's a statement of fact. The Sean Penn crowd seem to love that guy, and so does a lot of people that used to post on the RDF forum.

After people who shared libertarian philosophy trashed Latin America,

Who?

especially Chile,

Chile was trashed by Kissinger, Haig, Nixon, et al. They did not "share libertarian philosophy."

damn near took America over a cliff in '08,

Libertarians controlled the US in '08? You must be joking. The US has never had a libertarian economic policy, nothing even close. Since the 1930s and the New Deal, the level of economic regulation in the US has trended up. The first 8 years of the 21st century did not see a reduction in economic regulation and an influx of libertarian policies.

and are quite happy with 44,000 Americans dying every year from lack of health care, I can't much care about the crimes of Chavez.

That's cool.

[Martok]

Under libertarianism the haves would have more and the have nots would have less.

In the Roman Empire the emperors would often give out free loafs of bread to the poor.

Libertarians would call this socialism.

Greetings from another libertarian. Let us take a look at the real world to see the effect economic liberalism has on income inequality:

First, here are the countries of the world ranked by economic freedom by the "Heritage Foundation". I will admit that this source may potentially be bias but I can find no other ranking of countries by economic freedom and in general the results are roughly what one might expect.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... m_2009.png

According to that map Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand are the most economically free.

Guess what else they also have in common? PUBLIC GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE

That should automatically disqualify them as free since most libertarians consider government run health care a form of tyranny.

[Coito ergo sum]

Well, actually, the tax burden in the US is very high right now, and corporate taxes are not really higher than in other 1st world countries. As of 2007, the top 1% of income earners pay 40% of all income taxes and that was up from 37% of all income taxes two years prior to that. The top 5% of income earners pay something like 60% of all income taxes. The top 10% pay something like 71% of all income taxes, and the top 25% of income earners pay 86% of all income taxes.

That means that the other 75% of income earners pay 14% of all income taxes. The bottom 50% of income earners pay 2.89% of all income taxes!

I mean - I'm not sure how much fairer it can get. I suppose we could get the top 1% to pay half of all the taxes, and the top 10% to pay 85% of all the taxes and the top 25% to pay 99% of all the taxes, leaving the other 75% to divvy up the remaining 1%.

In the US not only do we have federal tax rates, but most states have state income taxes (usually around 4 or 5%) and some cities, like NYC, Detroit and other big cities also have income taxes of about 1% or so.

This should be placed in the context of the distribution of income, which is heavily skewed toward the top and has been trending that way since GWB's tax cuts in 2001. The top two per cent of earners now hold 40 per cent of the wealth.

And the top 1% pay 40% of the income taxes. So, we could make them pay 50% of all the taxes, leaving the remaining 99% of income earners to pay the other half. One might wonder what amount is, in fact, fair.

Plus, there is a distinction between wealth and income. Wealth is not taxed, except perhaps property taxes.

Wonder why that is?

*ponders*

I wonder which group of earners makes the tax laws in the United States....?

Well, why isn't wealth taxed? Because income is taxed, so taxing wealth is like taxing everyone's bank accounts. It's just seizing property.

Tax laws are made by elected representatives. If the majority of Americans really wanted their property just taken away because they had too much of it then that could very well happen.

A few posts upthread you were going on about how little income tax the lower percentiles pay, which came off like a complaint, yet here you say the taxation burden is "fair." A bit puzzling that.

I never said it was fair. I said what the amounts were and asked how much would be fair if the present amounts were not.

Oh yes, you did.

No I did not.

The middle class is being squeazed out of existence,

I've heard that for 40 years.

And since it didn't happen to you, it didn't happen?

No, since the data doesn't show it, it does not appear to have happened.

How do you know what happened to me?

with incomes stagnant for the past 30 years

That's plainly not true. Incomes are far higher now than they were 30 years ago.

Oh, yeah, we're kicking ass.

That's not a phrase that I can do anything with. Whether we're "kicking ass" is purely a matter of subjective opinion.

Actually, real incomes have been stagnant for 30 years using actual dollars and adjusting for inflation.

The claim that the standard of living of middle Americans has stagnated over the past generation is common. An accompanying assertion is that virtually all income growth over the past three decades bypassed middle America and accrued almost entirely to the rich. The findings reported here—and summarized in Chart 8—refute those claims. Careful analysis shows that the incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades. These results are consistent with recent research showing that the largest income increases occurred at the top end of the income distribution. But the outsized gains of the rich do not mean that middle America stagnated.

Why does the debate about Middle America matter? Because an accurate assessment of the economic progress of middle America is a crucial input in formulating good public policy. Claims of long-term Middle America stagnation—such as those quoted at the beginning of this article—are often part of a broader argument about the adverse impact of globalization, outsourcing and free trade.

And middle class stagnation is used as motivation for a specific set of policies. But if Middle America has not stagnated—as this analysis has shown—then this motivation for those policies is without merit. Furthermore, if it is understood that Middle America has indeed experienced substantial gains, policy priorities may change. For example, more emphasis might be placed on policies that promote continued economic growth or that target deeply rooted poverty rather than middle class stagnation. But regardless of the specific policy, policymakers and the public should base their decisions on an accurate assessment of how the economy has impacted and continues to impact people’s lives.

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publicati ... fm?id=4049

and declining in recent years as most of the wealth is being sucked up to the top and unemployment remains high.

The Internal Revenue Service's data does not reflect what you are saying. income tax data seem to show the exact opposite: People in the bottom fifth of income-tax filers in 1996 had their incomes increase by 91 percent by 2005. The top one percent -- "the rich" who are supposed to be monopolizing the money, according to the left -- saw their incomes decline by a whopping 26 percent. The average taxpayers' real income increased by 24 percent between 1996 and 2005. Note - those are the years of the "Contract With America." There's a University of Michigan study out there that finds about the same.

I'll find links, but in any case, most of the data that people point to for the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer are Census data, and there are many reasons why the IRS data is better, but I don't have time to go into it now as I have to get going.

Uh, huh....

Yes.

In 1980 there were two legitimate billionaires in America, today there are more than 400. And no fewer than ten million new millionares have been added to the rolls since 1980.

Sounds good. But, that doesn't tell us very much.

If these trends continue, and nobody thinks they'll do anything but continue,

Your stated trend is not in conformity with IRS data. Some people do not think your assertion is correct.

income distribution in the US will soon be exactly like it is in third world countries,

Doubtful. Do you have data to back that up?

Yes, is Mali your idea of a third world country? Because we've already surpassed it. Libertarians should be very proud.

Your data is wrong. See, that's the kind of nonsense that the Left likes to throw out there as "proof." You want people to get a vision that "Mali" - a desperately poor country (one of the 25 poorest countries in the world) is somehow better off than the US. It's that kind of nonsense that makes people not take liberals in the US seriously on economic issues. You're good at emotional arguments, but not so much on workable data.

[Martok]

If libertarianism is the best ideology where on earth is it being practiced?

The only country that comes close is Somalia.

Where else?

[Godless Libertarian]

[Squeak_the_Mouse]

Under libertarianism the haves would have more and the have nots would have less.

In the Roman Empire the emperors would often give out free loafs of bread to the poor.

Libertarians would call this socialism.

Greetings from another libertarian. Let us take a look at the real world to see the effect economic liberalism has on income inequality:

First, here are the countries of the world ranked by economic freedom by the "Heritage Foundation". I will admit that this source may potentially be bias but I can find no other ranking of countries by economic freedom and in general the results are roughly what one might expect.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... m_2009.png

According to that map Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand are the most economically free.

Guess what else they also have in common? PUBLIC GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE

That should automatically disqualify them as free since most libertarians consider government run health care a form of tyranny.

Most nations have public healthcare. To pay of it requires higher tax rates which does hurt economic freedom in that map. However it takes a number of other factors into account as well (ease of starting a business for instance). Hence nations with high tax rates can still be economically free (just not as free as they would be with lower taxes)

[Squeak_the_Mouse]

If libertarianism is the best ideology where on earth is it being practiced?

The only country that comes close is Somalia.

Where else?

That was anarchy and they did about as well as any other African nation while they had no central government.

[Martok]

Most nations have public healthcare. To pay of it requires higher tax rates which does hurt economic freedom in that map. However it takes a number of other factors into account as well (ease of starting a business for instance). Hence nations with high tax rates can still be economically free (just not as free as they would be with lower taxes)

You're most definitely wrong there. Thanks to the tax cuts the republicans rammed through under Bush the US is much less free than those nations who pay more taxes.

Besides, haven't republicans and libertarians vilified Canada because of its government run health care? Republicans and libertarians have tried to paint Canada as a backwards country and yet Canada is considered an economical freer country than the US.

[Martok]

If libertarianism is the best ideology where on earth is it being practiced?

The only country that comes close is Somalia.

Where else?

That was anarchy and they did about as well as any other African nation while they had no central government.

So what country is a libertarian Shangri-La?