Political Theory

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

David B — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:39:31 GMT

@Wheylous, I want to encourage you, more needs to be done in this vein. There's more work to be done IMO on the theoretical side, mainly because too many libertarians are stuck trying to turn the ought structure of socio-political norms and laws into is. Meaning trying to turn subjective should, into objective IS. My argument would be the healthier approach is to embrace the subjective nature of the arguments, and then use objective logical analysis to examine the by-products of specific normative rules on a society.

Though, I personally seek to do more work on the theoretical side, I believe the biggest gap is in the rhetoric. The socialist/collectivist political pundits in (pick a country and party), have done a very effective job of using and establishing narratives through rhetoric and anecdotal stories which tug at the heartstrings, and while we argue about theory, trying to win the minds, we lose because they've already eloped with their hearts.

Our job is to win back the hearts by retelling the stories, and putting faces on the unseen victims of socialist and interventionist political systems.

For example, we all understand from basic economic theory that price-gouging is presented as a story of a poor old woman, Martha, on social security who is dying of thirst being outbid for the only bottle of water around by a rich man who's a little thirsty. But what's forgotten is that there are another x number of people who are also in need of water, and there are variations in how immediate that need is and in how much money they can bring to bear. So while Martha may in fact die, between now and when additional water shows up. The more extreme that price, the faster you'll see entreprenuers with money show up to bid down that price. Putting a face on Martha's 3 sisters who instead of dying today, will die tomorrow is important too. Then it becomes more obvious that there's a greater likelihood that Martha and her 3 sisters will survive if the rich man can pay $100,000 for that bottle of water. But though Martha may make it one or two extra days, she and her sisters are almost certainly doomed to death, unless elsewhere someone uses force and theft to get water to the area at a fixed price. In fact, the higher the price for a unit of water, the larger a signal it provides to the market. That large signal is an extremely powerful signal to move water to this location because it's in extremely high demand.

So, finding some bit of Rhetoric, like They say, "Fix the price. Save Martha.", but we should respond with, "Fix the price, Kill Martha and her sisters tomorrow!"

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Clayton — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:57:09 GMT

LOL - you stirred up the hornet's nest, Wheylous...

On the "oratio" or "delivery" component of your article, I would commend Ben Powell's video I linked above as an example of striking the right "tone". The human brain is well adapted to stories, so if you can relate a "story" (thought-experiment in terms of people), it helps draw people in and keep their imagination firing and their attention at full capacity. In fact, I think this is exactly the thing that makes the difference between what people call "dry" or "dull" writing versus writing that is alive and captures the attention.

Graham Wright's and bitbutter's videos are both great examples of this kind of communication accompanied by illustration. I'm not suggesting you need to make the article a "story about George" but that you should think about how to introduce a human element into the article that will draw the reader in and then keep his attention to the end.

This is part of the reason I objected to "academic air" - I think LvMI (and FEE, FFF, Econlib, etc.) has arleady cornered the market on that.

Clayton -

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

gotlucky — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:46:36 GMT

I highly suggest that if you do write about the three issues Dylan suggests, that you do not go into great detail about them in your introductory article. If you mention them, they should be hooks leading to other, more in depth articles about those issues. The focus of an introductory article should be on hooking people into the topic, and introducing the main points of the topic. In this case, it is the NAP and anti-statism. Dylan's suggestions are great, but if you use them they should be hooks to get people to read more articles. Don't explain and justify those topics too much, or you will lose your focus.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Wheylous — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:34:07 GMT

Also Sweden and Finland aren't in NATO.

Herd immunity?

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Marko — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:53:33 GMT

Dylan - Good points and on the second one it must be emphasised that the Scandinavian countries have a lower standard of living than the more free market countries, even the USA (not to mention that they essentially free ride on NATO for defence).

That's something Buchananites and CATOites insist on, but actually even what they spend now is excessive and could be brought down. NATO membership fees, costs of taking part in the occupation of Afghanistan and buying American military hardware, including over cheaper alternatives, to suck up to Washington is all European NATO members could do without. Also Sweden and Finland aren't in NATO.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Aristippus — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:04:19 GMT

Dylan - Good points and on the second one it must be emphasised that the Scandinavian countries have a lower standard of living than the more free market countries, even the USA (not to mention that they essentially free ride on NATO for defence). When this is shown, the social democrats don't really have a leg to stand on.

Heaps of resources on this:

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Sweden

http://theuklibertarian.com/2010/06/22/the-myth-of-scandinavian-socialism/

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Dylan of Rivia — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 08:50:37 GMT

Whyleous, if you are trying to make a good libertarian introduction I think it would be really important to address the three following issues:

Why deregulation hasn’t been the cause of the current global economic crisis. Here in Spain the ‘official version’ is that too much deregulation in financial markets caused the current crisis.
The myth that the Scandinavian social democracy is the best possible model. I think here it would be important to stress both why the Scandinavian states aren’t as socialistic as they seem to be and how other countries are better off with freer markets (like Switzerland in the case of Europe).
Most people believe that, without “free” state healthcare, the poor would die in the streets when ill. It would important to argue why private healthcare could be better for everyone.

Judging from my expiernce, these three are the most common statist myths/misconceptions I tend to find when talking with Spanish statists.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Aristippus — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:57:52 GMT

While this is obvious to you and me, the average person doesn't see this at all. They're stuck in the "but without government how do we have morals?" mentality.

What on earth are you talking about? Firstly, I would dispute that people generally think that morals come from government. It's rather that they think that the state is necessary as a means to the end of morality - e.g. in order to 'help the poor' we need government. Secondly - and more importantly - the fact that people do not necessarily see it this way is the very reason why you would want to include such a belief in your description. If your outline of libertarianism is based on popularity then you can't really include anything about the free market, or non-monopolised education or healthcare, or decriminalised drugs etc. Your objection to pointing out that the state is not society seems completely fallacious and counterproductive to your own goal.

Aaaand this is wayyy complex. I'd save this for like the 3rd such list of articles to read :P Monopolization of law is so far off of anyone's radar at this point that I think people would just stare at their screens blankly.

Again, you are way off and have the issue entirely backwards. Justice by the 'will of the people' is perhaps the most powerful idea of the day, usually under the name 'democracy'. My point was that the law by the will of the people has been stripped away and has been replaced by the state's own arbitrary rule. This is the cornerstone of libertarianism. What is called 'democracy' today is not what most people see it as, and the disappearance of the former system of common law is key in this corruption. See Clayton's further elaboration on my points for someone firmly hitting the nail on the head.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Clayton — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:11:14 GMT

Aaaand this is wayyy complex. I'd save this for like the 3rd such list of articles to read :P Monopolization of law is so far off of anyone's radar at this point that I think people would just stare at their screens blankly.

This goes back to the Golden Rule thing... it's all about how you phrase it. You can slip in an innocuous note about how the government is judge in its own disputes. This is a consequence of the government's monopoly on law and it is the ineradicable problem that a monopoly on law gives rise to but the reader doesn't have to even think about law or monopoly, merely that there could be something askew in the government judging its own disputes.

Clayton -

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Marko — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:18:22 GMT

Having multiple sites that are tailored to more specific groups of people would be a better idea. Example: Have a site meant to persuade teens, having a site meant to persaude the 20-30 year olds who aren't very academic, having a site meant to persuade the 20-30 year olds which are academic etc. etc. Each one of them would require a different approach.

In theory, in practice you must have content or they will not come. Fragmenting your content among 3-4 sites isn't going to help here, on the contrary...
Ideally you would start a group blog to increase your writing skillz and because with multiple writers there would be new content every day ergo the possibility of an actual readership. In the meantime you would also write articles more ambitious than a regular blog post and try to pimp them to sites that would have them. Then, after a few years of this maybe you could start thinking about gathering and organizing everyone's best stuff into an ambitious, central site like that. - My 2 cents.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Wheylous — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:04:39 GMT

criticize the warfare state (the liberals will like that) and the welfare state (the conservatives will like that).

I try to do that in my article.

Can you identify an article on CATO, FEE, mises.org, online Library of Liberty, etc. that does something like what you're thinking but not quite?

I was thinking of the same question. I'll have to look around.

The state is not society nor does it necessarily represent society in all or most of its actions

While this is obvious to you and me, the average person doesn't see this at all. They're stuck in the "but without government how do we have morals?" mentality.

I think you should also have something on the monopolisation of law by the state which takes away its basis on the people's notions of justice and replaces it with the state's dictates.

Aaaand this is wayyy complex. I'd save this for like the 3rd such list of articles to read :P Monopolization of law is so far off of anyone's radar at this point that I think people would just stare at their screens blankly.

The HQ site thing looks ambitious.

Yes, it does. And it doesn't help that I'm getting new ideas every day :P

That's why I'm thinking of focusing on only some of the features first (like getting that article base down). After that I will look into creating the architecture behind the events done. Then I will work on personal user features (saving articles and having personal lists), and finally I want to add sections on both entrepreneurism and on how to become a leader in the movement (will include things like rhetoric, giving speeches, etc).

Most young people won't go for the "academic air", remember you'll already be on uneven ground, you will have very little time to make a good impression before the average person gets bored and leaves the site.

Good point. And that's why maybe the website will only be the second tool in the libertarian arsenal. I guess that in the end, the website will act more of a knowledge base for libertarians to hone their understanding rather than a hook to get people interested. What will be the real hook is the events and activism (which would be much more successful, because speakers can tailor their speeches to their audiences, something a general website like this would have trouble doing). After they're hooked by the event, they get linked to the site, which whittles away at the statism and teaches them libertarian thinking.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Serpentis-Lucis — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:07:17 GMT

A few things that are worth pointing out.

Libertarianism has a bad rep. You'll be "fighting" on uneven ground, will have to de-frame people's already held misconceptions, then with masterful rhetoric paint Libertarianism in the best light possible. This task is extraordinarily difficult.

14-35 is a good age group to focus on, you want the site to have a "academic air" to it, this makes things even more difficult. Most young people won't go for the "academic air", remember you'll already be on uneven ground, you will have very little time to make a good impression before the average person gets bored and leaves the site.

Having multiple sites that are tailored to more specific groups of people would be a better idea. Example: Have a site meant to persuade teens, having a site meant to persaude the 20-30 year olds who aren't very academic, having a site meant to persuade the 20-30 year olds which are academic etc. etc. Each one of them would require a different approach.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Marko — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 21:42:37 GMT

The HQ site thing looks ambitious. It kinda reminds me of when the first real thing I was going to write was going to be a four part, 20 page long super-grounbreaking essay. In the end, after months of effort, it was scrapped and the first product ended up being a 2 page satire.

I'm not saying you're not going to make it with the large scale project, I'm just saying don't feel bad if you see along the road that you may have overreached slightly and that it would be good to put it on hold and settle for smaller, more easily chewed pieces for the start — most everyone before you did.

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Dylan of Rivia — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 20:23:29 GMT

Good news then Whyleous, glad to know I can help. :D

Re: Article "Introduction to libertarianism" - please critique

Clayton — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 02:02:04 GMT

@Aristippus: +++++1

Another point you can make is to explain the public choice problem - as a utilitarian argument, it comes across as very neutral and unbiased (which it is, but so are almost all the other points, the difference is that public choice has not yet come under the intellectual assault that our many other points have).

Majority vote is just one among many decision-making procedures and the "democracy narrative" has glorified what is just a particular social technology into its own religion. Unfortunately, majority vote doesn't scale. Once you get a group larger than a few hundred or maybe a couple thousand, voting becomes essentially meaningless and it is the vote-buying, lobbying, mass media propaganda and ideological "herding" where the influence resides, not in the individual. The obvious answer is to reduce the scale of political systems. Democracy is a lot of nice talk about individual empowerment but the fact is that any real empowerment of individuals requires that the power actually be moved closer to, not further from, individuals!

A point that I find gets rhetorical traction is to point out that I live on the West Coast, 3,000 miles from Washington, DC, yet I pay 5 times in Federal taxes what I pay in State taxes - shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't 5 times the taxes be staying here where it can help the friends, neighbors and family in my community and help the local economy? How is "democracy in action" supposed to work when I - like the majority of people in my area - can't even afford to fly to Washington, DC to protest or exercise that "democracy in action"?? The State Capitol is at least within driving distance. Of course, I shouldn't even have to go protest to keep my rights from being violated but the point is that even on their own definitions of what constitutes "freedom", their proposals for political progress (world democratic government with global taxing authority) are obviously anti-freedom!

Clayton -