The three main goals of libertarianism

[P@triot]

Sure, right after we take the profit motive out of feeding, clothing and sheltering people.

So multimillion dollar packages for health care ceo's are ok but taking care of people isn't? There's less of a profit motive if the government runs the health care system and there's less overhead, although taxes would be higher because there would be more people being taken care of.

Are you under the impression that the government can deliver a better product at a lower price and more effeciently? Really? Do you have other examples of where the government has a better success rate than private industry?

As John Stossel once noted: "the only thing the government can do better than the private sector is waste money and resources - and that is only because the private sector is not trying to do that..."

 

[dblack]

We grant government the power to tax us in order to fund its legitimate operations. Not as means of manipulating us. This is one of the most insidious abuses of government power in the modern world. It needs to stop.

Would that you were correct brother. The 14th amendment provides the government with the right to deprive us of life, liberty, and property as long as they claim it was done with due process.

Well, it's a matter of opinion. I certainly think I'm correct.

But I'm aware my views aren't reflected in the status quo. Corporatism takes the day.

 

[RKMBrown]

We grant government the power to tax us in order to fund its legitimate operations. Not as means of manipulating us. This is one of the most insidious abuses of government power in the modern world. It needs to stop.

Would that you were correct brother. The 14th amendment provides the government with the right to deprive us of life, liberty, and property as long as they claim it was done with due process.

Well, it's a matter of opinion. I certainly think I'm correct.

But I'm aware my views aren't reflected in the status quo. Corporatism takes the day.

You mean anti-corporatism?

 

[Jarlaxle]

What state do you live in? I'll try to remember not to go there.

It doesn't matter all cops are the same and the speeding ticket business is a 6 billion dollar a year industry. That's why you see more cops sitting in their cars with radar guns than you do walking a beat.

Have you ever been to New York? Not a radar gun to be seen. I think our cab hit about 85 going up 5th avenue.

Driven the NYS Thruway lately?!?!

 

[dblack]

Would that you were correct brother. The 14th amendment provides the government with the right to deprive us of life, liberty, and property as long as they claim it was done with due process.

Well, it's a matter of opinion. I certainly think I'm correct.

But I'm aware my views aren't reflected in the status quo. Corporatism takes the day.

You mean anti-corporatism?

No. I mean corporatism. It doesn't mean what you're probably thinking. Here's an intro: Progressive Corporatism

 

[RKMBrown]

Well, it's a matter of opinion. I certainly think I'm correct.

But I'm aware my views aren't reflected in the status quo. Corporatism takes the day.

You mean anti-corporatism?

No. I mean corporatism. It doesn't mean what you're probably thinking. Here's an intro: Progressive Corporatism

Well slap my knee. I learned something new today. Thanks.

 

[P@triot]

So multimillion dollar packages for health care ceo's are ok but taking care of people isn't?

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it."
-Henry Louis Mencken

 

[P@triot]

So multimillion dollar packages for health care ceo's are ok but taking care of people isn't?

CEO's earn their compensation packages. You denounce that while calling for people to (and I quote) "be taken care of"?!?

 

[JoeNormal]

... if you're going to level criticism, do it against what I really believe rather than some simplistic straw man.

OK

I don't see anything wrong with profits as long as:

1) They weren't derived by polluting.

Agreed.


Agreed. Hasn't this been outlawed in most countries?



By whose accounting? Yours? The government? Or by the voluntary agreement of those contributing?


Yep.


That sounds vague and loaded. What does stabilizing resource rich areas mean??

Are you suggesting this is the job of government?


Agreed.

e) Creating the basic technologies that many profitable industries have capitalized upon.

Government shouldn't be "creating technologies" for private companies to capitalize on.

Given an incomplete accounting of all of these things, I think that a profit based tax is a way to:
1) Fund the government provided components of this.

Agreed

2) Keep income disparity from reaching gilded age levels.

Vehemently disagree. We grant government the power to tax us in order to fund its legitimate operations. Not as means of manipulating us. This is one of the most insidious abuses of government power in the modern world. It needs to stop.[/QUOTE]

First of all, thanks for the civil discussion. I'm not going to break this down into paragraphs but I'll address a few things.

4b and c: Yeah, I made it vague but you probably had a pretty good idea of what I was getting at. It's the US playing the role of world policeman in return for getting the spoils from countries involved. Oil from the Middle East, lithium from Afghanistan, cheap goods from Asian hell holes... I was being pragmatic in that we've been doing it for decades and it's a big part of our lifestyle. I actually don't think we SHOULD be doing it and we'd take a big hit if we stopped and especially if we paid reparations as we should.

4e: I should have also mentioned the mega projects like the Hoover Dam and the Apollo Program. Companies - especially these days - don't look very far ahead. Part of my job is R&D and we look maybe 5 years ahead. I think that's typical but it's not enough for the big earth shaking technologies that have come about from government involvement.

On wealth disparity, there's plenty of evidence that it has some very negative influences on our society.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw]Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies - YouTube[/ame]

I'd personally prefer to see a maximum wage like they have in Japan which caps income at 20 times the average but that would never fly here. At least progressive taxation is something.

 

[RKMBrown]

We don't need a Government mandated maximum wage. What we need is the owners, such as stockholders, to have a say in the pay for their employees. Allowing Executives to steal $ from the owners is nutz.

 

[dblack]

2) Keep income disparity from reaching gilded age levels.

Vehemently disagree. We grant government the power to tax us in order to fund its legitimate operations. Not as means of manipulating us. This is one of the most insidious abuses of government power in the modern world. It needs to stop.

On wealth disparity, there's plenty of evidence that it has some very negative influences on our society.
I'd personally prefer to see a maximum wage like they have in Japan which caps income at 20 times the average but that would never fly here. At least progressive taxation is something.

I'm not really disputing the relative harm of wealth disparity (not here at least). I'm saying that the taxation power shouldn't be used as backdoor legislation to manipulate people, regardless of the excuse. The problem, in my view, is that the taxation power has been used to do an end run around Constitutional limitations. It allows the state to dictate behavior in ways that wouldn't pass Constitutional muster - and would likely be very unpopular - if they were framed as legitimate laws. But because it utilized the superficial trappings of a 'tax incentive', it flies under the radar of both the Court and voters.

Look at the individual mandate of the PPACA for a glaring example. If the mandate were passed as a real law making it illegal for people to go without health insurance and punishing them with fines if they refused, I suspect it would have been declared unconstitutional, and would have been even more unpopular with voters.

Our government uses discriminatory taxation to radically expand its power to reward its friends and punish its enemies - all the while hiding it in something most people don't even recognize as an exercise of state power.

 

[RKMBrown]

Ayup.. break up the Executive oligopoly over executive pay and you'll find the Executive pay gets set to much more reasonable rates vs. the current rates that the owners have no say over.

 

[JoeNormal]

Vehemently disagree. We grant government the power to tax us in order to fund its legitimate operations. Not as means of manipulating us. This is one of the most insidious abuses of government power in the modern world. It needs to stop.

On wealth disparity, there's plenty of evidence that it has some very negative influences on our society.
I'd personally prefer to see a maximum wage like they have in Japan which caps income at 20 times the average but that would never fly here. At least progressive taxation is something.

I'm not really disputing the relative harm of wealth disparity (not here at least). I'm saying that the taxation power shouldn't be used as backdoor legislation to manipulate people, regardless of the excuse. The problem, in my view, is that the taxation power has been used to do an end run around Constitutional limitations. It allows the state to dictate behavior in ways that wouldn't pass Constitutional muster - and would likely be very unpopular - if they were framed as legitimate laws. But because it utilized the superficial trappings of a 'tax incentive', it flies under the radar of both the Court and voters.

Look at the individual mandate of the PPACA for a glaring example. If the mandate were passed as a real law making it illegal for people to go without health insurance and punishing them with fines if they refused, I suspect it would have been declared unconstitutional, and would have been even more unpopular with voters.

Our government uses discriminatory taxation to radically expand its power to reward its friends and punish its enemies - all the while hiding it in something most people don't even recognize as an exercise of state power.

I can't really dispute much of what you're saying.

On a slightly different topic since you seem to be a pretty good spokesman for libertarianism, does collective bargaining fit into the libertarian ideology?

 

[JoeNormal]

Ayup.. break up the Executive oligopoly over executive pay and you'll find the Executive pay gets set to much more reasonable rates vs. the current rates that the owners have no say over.

Any ideas on how this could be done?

 

[RKMBrown]

Ayup.. break up the Executive oligopoly over executive pay and you'll find the Executive pay gets set to much more reasonable rates vs. the current rates that the owners have no say over.

Any ideas on how this could be done?

We'd need a bill or amendment to the current laws around stock market, share holder regulations. The law would give the owner's of the company, possibly all of the owners, the right to vote on executive compensation plans.

Additionally, we could investigate and prosecute executives that collude with other executives to give themselves massive bonuses at the expense of the owner's profits. Any evidence that this is being done cross company should be seen as a monopoly on executive pay rates. Typically the way it works is the executives decide how much to pay themselves, presumably based in part on how much the other executives are paying themselves. Nutz. Board room of execs sitting around deciding they should all get 50% of what the CEO gets... hey let's give the CEO massive bonus. CEO scratches their back giving them a massive bonus. Nutz.

 

[dblack]

On wealth disparity, there's plenty of evidence that it has some very negative influences on our society.
I'd personally prefer to see a maximum wage like they have in Japan which caps income at 20 times the average but that would never fly here. At least progressive taxation is something.

I'm not really disputing the relative harm of wealth disparity (not here at least). I'm saying that the taxation power shouldn't be used as backdoor legislation to manipulate people, regardless of the excuse. The problem, in my view, is that the taxation power has been used to do an end run around Constitutional limitations. It allows the state to dictate behavior in ways that wouldn't pass Constitutional muster - and would likely be very unpopular - if they were framed as legitimate laws. But because it utilized the superficial trappings of a 'tax incentive', it flies under the radar of both the Court and voters.

Look at the individual mandate of the PPACA for a glaring example. If the mandate were passed as a real law making it illegal for people to go without health insurance and punishing them with fines if they refused, I suspect it would have been declared unconstitutional, and would have been even more unpopular with voters.

Our government uses discriminatory taxation to radically expand its power to reward its friends and punish its enemies - all the while hiding it in something most people don't even recognize as an exercise of state power.

I can't really dispute much of what you're saying.

On a slightly different topic since you seem to be a pretty good spokesman for libertarianism, does collective bargaining fit into the libertarian ideology?

Libertarians would of course defend the freedom of workers to stage walkouts, call strikes, protest unsafe or unfair working conditions, etc... The problems begin when labor law becomes a corporatist device to grant special privileges to politically powerful groups. And sadly, that's mostly how it's been used. Labor law that grants specific groups rights the rest of us don't enjoy is antithetical to equal rights and individual liberty.

In my view, the problems with labor law are prompted by fundamental imbalances created by corporate law. In our Hamiltonian zeal to maximize our economic prowess, we've granted corporations far too much power. Rather than curtail that power, and risk our global economic hegemony, we instead parse out complimentary power to competing interest groups (unions) in hopes of 'balancing' the disparity. That makes sense to those who want to see government 'run' society like a business - maximizing GDP and our nation's ability to compete in a global market. But it's a direct threat to just government and a free society. It leads, pretty consistently, toward totalitarian governments - which is why fascism is so hard to eradicate, why it keeps creeping back around, albeit in different forms we often don't recognize.

 

[dblack]

Ayup.. break up the Executive oligopoly over executive pay and you'll find the Executive pay gets set to much more reasonable rates vs. the current rates that the owners have no say over.

Any ideas on how this could be done?

We'd need a bill or amendment to the current laws around stock market, share holder regulations. The law would give the owner's of the company, possibly all of the owners, the right to vote on executive compensation plans.

Additionally, we could investigate and prosecute executives that collude with other executives to give themselves massive bonuses at the expense of the owner's profits. Any evidence that this is being done cross company should be seen as a monopoly on executive pay rates. Typically the way it works is the executives decide how much to pay themselves, presumably based in part on how much the other executives are paying themselves. Nutz. Board room of execs sitting around deciding they should all get 50% of what the CEO gets... hey let's give the CEO massive bonus. CEO scratches their back giving them a massive bonus. Nutz.

In my view, the biggest problem with corporate law is limited liability. It's the root cause of most corporate excesses, including outrageous executive compensation.

 

[RKMBrown]

Any ideas on how this could be done?

We'd need a bill or amendment to the current laws around stock market, share holder regulations. The law would give the owner's of the company, possibly all of the owners, the right to vote on executive compensation plans.

Additionally, we could investigate and prosecute executives that collude with other executives to give themselves massive bonuses at the expense of the owner's profits. Any evidence that this is being done cross company should be seen as a monopoly on executive pay rates. Typically the way it works is the executives decide how much to pay themselves, presumably based in part on how much the other executives are paying themselves. Nutz. Board room of execs sitting around deciding they should all get 50% of what the CEO gets... hey let's give the CEO massive bonus. CEO scratches their back giving them a massive bonus. Nutz.

In my view, the biggest problem with corporate law is limited liability. It's the root cause of most corporate excesses, including outrageous executive compensation.

Interesting point.

 

[Friends]

The three main goals of libertarianism

1) Decrease wages salaries and benefits for the poor and middle class as much as possible. Lower wages salaries and benefits for those who labor means those who own can profit more.

2) Decrease taxes on the wealthy as much as possible. No explanation needed.

3) Remove all regulations that make it harder for the wealthy to herd the poor like cattle - and remove all regulations that make it possible for a healthy middle class to exist. Regulation is the enemy of profit and profit is the only thing that matters.

That about sums it up!

That may be the result of libertarianism, but I doubt that is what most libertarians desire. Most genuinely believe that if we would cut taxes and the size of government the economy would take off and most Americans would prosper.

Most contemporary libertarians do not seem to be aware that we actually had a libertarian economy during the nineteenth century. Food was often contaminated by bacteria and dangerous chemicals. Patent medicines did not cure illnesses, but they too were often full of dangerous chemicals. Millions of Americans worked twelve hours a day in dangerous factories and mines for subsistence wages.

Libertarianism was rejected by the voters. They have continued to reject efforts to restore it.

 

[dblack]

That may be the result of libertarianism, but I doubt that is what most libertarians desire. Most genuinely believe that if we would cut taxes and the size of government the economy would take off and most Americans would prosper.

That's not what attracts me to libertarianism. More freedom might, or might not, make us more prosperous. I suspect it would be mixed. Some would prosper, some wouldn't.

I lean libertarian because I don't like bullying. I don't want to be bullied and I don't want to see others bullied on my behalf. I believe that a genuine respect for the freedom of others is the best way for people to get along peacefully, while still enjoying the benefits of civil society.