Тег: Libertarianism

Are classical liberalism and libertarianism the same thing?

The Liberal Boot

Liberalism and libertarianism are two terms with very similar, yet mirrored, fates. In the middle of the 20th century, statists snatched the term “liberalism” away from the proponents of economic freedom. And around the same time, the term “libertarianism” was snatched by proponents of economic freedom from the socialists. Mind you, I have not heard of libertarian socialists calling themselves classical libertarians after that.

Classical liberalism in the 20th century is primarily Mises and Hayek. Both are convinced supporters of the free market, both are convinced opponents of collectivism, but both consider the existence of the state entirely acceptable and see some benefit in it, namely the protection of private property. For this purpose, the state is granted a monopoly on violence, and to ensure it does not use it against citizens, citizens must have the right to bear arms and to self-organize, up to the point of armed resistance to the government.

Libertarianism is, in effect, classical liberalism in economics plus the application of those same principles to all other spheres of life, primarily in ethics and law. Rothbard argued that a monopoly on violence contradicts the principles of a free market and must therefore be rejected along with the state; subsequently, Nozick clarified that if a state were to emerge again on a free market as part of a voluntary process, then libertarians should, in theory, have no complaints about it.

As a result, in addition to classical liberals, who simply say that the state must be limited and that political activity should be pursued for this purpose, we also have anarcho-capitalists, who claim that all services, including the protection of private property, are perfectly provided on the free market, and “we are not buying the state, take it away”—and minarchists, who do not mind the state remaining, but only on the condition that it behaves itself, does not extort taxes, but politely asks for donations.

This is how the differences between classlib and libertarianism appear to me

Behavioral economics shatters the idea of libertarianism, no?

анонимный вопрос

The Austrian School of economics asserts that values are subjective; a person always makes choices based on their own personal preferences, which are unknown to anyone else, immeasurable, and unpredictable. Even within such strict frameworks of ignorance, a number of general statements can be made based on praxeology, that is, the logic of human action.

The Neoclassical school took a different path. It consistently and diligently approximated human behavior using mathematical models. Starting with the simplest model of homo economicus—the omniscient, dispassionate utility maximizer—it gradually released new patches to describe the behavior of real people in the language of models, so that it would correlate somehow with actual observed human activity.

Within this approach, various cognitive biases, the influence of different emotions, and so on, were described, extending even to the phases of the moon and blood glucose levels. Did this help in any way to learn how to predict the behavior of economic agents? Only for some special cases, and only at the level of probabilities, which, in general, remains within the bounds of common sense. I believe the achievements of behavioral economics can be helpful in creating realistic human emulators conducting some economic activity in the information space.

At the tenth Adam Smith readings, Rostislav Kapelyushnikov gave a very interesting lecture on how the achievements of behavioral economics in studying bounded rationality are used as a justification for paternalism. The idea is that since a person makes a certain choice anyway, and makes it irrationally, why not gently nudge them toward a choice that is more beneficial both for themselves and for society. In other words, there is still an attempt to decide for the person what is best for them, and behavioral economists give their approval for this, whereas classical economists, who proceeded from the presumption of the rationality of human choice, did not give the state such sanction. Thus, the state received a scientific indulgence for even greater intervention in the economy in terms of regulations.

Does behavioral economics shatter the idea of libertarianism? Rather, it provides new arguments to continue ignoring libertarianism, while practice still turns out to be on the side of freer societies where there is less regulation, no matter how scientific that regulation may be.

https://youtu.be/tA4xNn-xV8c

How does libertarianism view human cloning?

анонимный вопрос

Human cloning is a long-known natural phenomenon, the consequences of which most of us have encountered without experiencing any undue difficulties. Clones, due to their peculiarities, are loved in fiction—so much so that introducing a clone into a plot is becoming a sign of a certain cliché. Cloned people are actively used in psychological and other medical studies when it is necessary to exclude the influence of genetic differences and focus on environmental factors. In short, the fact that human clones exist is as commonplace as the existence of albinos. So what if they are monozygotic twins; have we never seen identical twins?

At the end of the last century, advanced biotechnologies made it possible to clone adult organisms. Theoretically, nothing prevents cloning humans in a similar way. How would clones obtained from adult humans differ from clones obtained at the zygote division stage? Only in the fact that they would be of different ages. In other words, the social consequences would be significantly fewer than with natural twins—at least those can be mistaken for one another, although, for example, their fingerprints already differ—whereas it is much harder to mistake twins of different ages.

What is the point of cloning an entire adult human? Practically zero. Making ordinary children is much easier and cheaper. What is actually capable of bringing benefit is tissue cloning. An organ grown from oneself will graft much better during transplantation.

About the horror stories

I will immediately dismiss the religious ones, since groundless fantasies can be absolutely arbitrary, and it is impossible to analyze them all. 

People will be cloned, grown, and then sliced for organs. Well, guys, that’s like claiming that cars will be assembled and then dismantled for spare parts. Growing a less differentiated cell culture is much easier and cheaper.

Rich people will copy their consciousness into their clones. We are currently further from consciousness copying technologies than we are from a manned flight to the edges of the Solar System. We can at least plan the flight with existing technologies, but there are not even any approaches to consciousness transfer. When such technologies appear, it may turn out that clones are completely unnecessary there, and that people have mastered rejuvenation procedures in general.

I have been asked repeatedly how fundamental science will develop without the state. Well, cloning is precisely an example of how the state directly prohibits science, so without the state, it will at least be able to develop, whereas now, in a number of areas marked with red flags, it is forced to move forward along strange detour paths.

Clones are among us!

Which movies should you recommend to friends after an improvised lecture on the benefits of libertarianism?

…And Justice For All

The purpose of an improvised lecture on the benefits of libertarianism is to change a person’s perspective. After that, they can rewatch any films—whether from the beginning or from scratch—that touch upon the relationship between power and the individual in any way, and see everything in a new light.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any films that provide a sufficiently accurate representation of a society under ancap. One would have to search thoughtfully to see if there is anything interesting about the stateless period of the Wild West, or the gold rush in Alaska, or if the mischievous Japanese have created some anime about ancap that is more plausible than Cowboy Bebop, and so on.

Sometimes libertarians tend to recommend something moralizing about how vile the state is, and how it particularly unpleasanty stepped on someone’s toes in a specific case. I don’t know, I’m not a big fan of direct propaganda; I find it more interesting to root for the Trade Federation in its entirely justified pursuit of secession from the Galactic Republic than to listen to pompous monologues from the adaptation of “The Fountainhead” (though Gary Cooper is a handsome man, of course!). And in general, it’s more pleasant to notice small details in passing than to be attacked directly; the latter is more likely to cause rejection.

Is abortion justifiable from a libertarian perspective?

анонимный вопрос

The topic of abortion is the subject of heated debates that flare up from time to time within the libertarian community, and I get the feeling that the cause is not the acuity of the problem, but rather that it is a convenient scholastic exercise allowing one to examine the phenomenon from various positions while continuing to be considered a libertarian.

Arguments for abortion

  1. According to the principle of self-ownership, a woman has property rights over her own body, including the embryo that appeared there, regardless of whether this happened by her will or against it. The embryo is thus viewed as a part of the woman’s body, possessing no legal personality. At the same time, however, the interests of the father or other parties may be taken into account: if they provided the woman with resources from the moment of conception under the promise to carry the child to term, and she has an abortion, they are then entitled to require her to pay the agreed-upon liquidated damages.
  2. Even if the embryo is considered a person and its legal personality is recognized, its presence inside the womb is lawful only with the mother’s permission; otherwise, it must leave the organism upon first request, or else the woman has the right to remove it from the organism by force. As is easy to see, the discussion here is raised to a more abstract level, where the relationship between the woman and the fetus in her womb is interpreted as a relationship between two independent subjects, which may be considered a certain kind of casuistry.

Arguments against abortion

  1. If abortion is prohibited in a community with a free exit, the rules of which the woman accepts by virtue of her presence in it at the moment of conception, then the act of abortion will be a breach of contract on her part, and therefore the agreed-upon sanctions should be applied to her. The legal personality of the embryo is entirely irrelevant in this case. This position, however, is vulnerable to the woman’s claim of her right to freely leave the community and only then have an abortion, and therefore it is mentioned infrequently in disputes.
  2. By the fact of conception, parents commit violence against the child, because, firstly, they change its state from non-existence to existence without its consent, and secondly, they forcibly cast it into a state of helplessness. This entails an obligation for them to compensate the child for the harm caused, that is, to ensure an unobstructed birth, and then to provide resources until the child acquires the ability to exist independently. This position is vulnerable to the thesis that if changing the state from non-existence to existence is violence, then the reverse change of state back to non-existence would be quite adequate compensation; also, if conception is violence, then it is the duty of every responsible citizen to prevent such violence, meaning the very fact of unprotected sex should already be considered an attempt at conception and punished with the full severity of the law for violators of the non-aggression principle. It is not hard to guess that a community consistently practicing this approach would survive for exactly one generation.

An attempt to reconcile the parties

If you consider abortions to be aggressive violence against prenatal children, then you presumably would want children not just to be born, but also to grow up in love and affection. But it is easy to guess that if a woman wanted to have an abortion, and she was stopped only by the fear of your harsh sanctions, it is not a given that she will feel warm emotions toward the child, not to mention the temptation to use various ways to starve the fetus or kill the infant in such a way that the causes of death seem natural. Therefore, it would be very ethical on your part to offer a desperate woman, ready to get rid of an unborn child, financial assistance and your guarantee to take the child into guardianship immediately after birth in exchange for a firm promise to carry the child to term and give birth to it. In this way, you will not only prevent what you consider a crime, but also ensure the child a truly loving and responsible family.

If, however, you prefer to remain in the position that your business is to demand punishment for crimes rather than prevent them, then be prepared for the fact that quite a few will consider this bad faith behavior; for if you know that a helpless prenatal child died, although a shred of your effort could have saved it, then according to the principle of estoppel, you cannot demand punishment for another person who also allowed this death, although a shred of their effort could have saved the child.

You didn’t take the child into guardianship, how could you!

How ethical is it for a libertarian to use welfare?

On one hand, it returns looted funds to the market, weakening the aggressor and provoking a crisis/default of social programs. On the other, isn’t this simply an ethical, beautiful justification to latch onto the budget teat?

Mesh Enok

Actually, in your question itself, you have already pointed out the main arguments “for” and “against” 😉 All that’s left for me is to expand on the reasoning a bit.

The goal of libertarians in politics (to the extent that it makes sense for libertarians to set political goals at all) is to bring about the collapse of the state redistribution system, and the use of any state benefits and subsidies contributes to achieving this goal, of course.

In what cases is such behavior not justified for a libertarian? In those where receiving some benefit from the state causes direct harm to specific people, and this harm would not have been caused if the libertarian had not claimed the benefit. For example, a libertarian applies to the social security department for a replacement for a dilapidated apartment; the city has no vacant apartments, but the mayor, for populist reasons, pressures a developer, and the developer allocates an apartment.

Well, in other words, the general ethical principle is as follows: taking what the state has already decided to give, and for which it has already taken resources from people, is halal; asking the state to take from another private individual and give to you is haram.

Can a libertarian, without violating their principles, campaign for an increase in social budget expenditures? Surprisingly, they can. If the issue at hand is not the overall volume of seizures from people, but the distribution of what has already been seized, then it is quite appropriate to lobby for an increase in social spending at the expense of reducing spending on the army, police, intelligence services, the maintenance of the state apparatus, and the “national economy.”

But, of course, it is very important that the libertarian be ready, at the first opportunity, to push away that very budget teat with relief and abolish it entirely. If, when the moment comes, they start hesitating and making excuses, it means they weren’t much of a libertarian all this time. Ultimately, convictions are tested by deeds, not rhetoric.

Why not sell libertarianism through the idea of the absence of state regulation, especially when there is the example of the flourishing of entrepreneurship in 1998-1999, when they left business alone and let it develop?

анонимный вопрос

This question was clearly inspired by my post “to whom and how to sell libertarianism?“, and is an invitation to develop the topic.

But the example you chose was not very successful. In 1998-1999, there was no conscious deregulation; the state simply defaulted on its credit obligations, which led to it stopping borrowing for quite some time. Investors, no longer having such a tempting option as investing in government securities, began to invest more actively in the real sector. Moreover, the financial crisis sharply lowered the cost of assets, and the fall of the ruble lowered the cost of labor. In general, in full accordance with the Austrian theory of the economic cycle, recovery after a crash happens quickly if one does not interfere with the process, which is what happened—not because the government was so wise, but because it was bewildered and did not know where to start.

So the example you proposed is more about the fact that state non-interference in the economy during a crisis has a very beneficial effect on the economy. Even to illustrate that state non-interference in the economy has a beneficial effect on it in general at any moment, additional examples are needed, and better yet—logical arguments. Although, of course, people love history precisely because it is a set of instructive tales for any life situation, so do not hesitate to provide historical examples if you see that they are in demand with the audience. You won’t prove anything with them, but you certainly can sell an ideology.

After all, for people, 1998 is more associated with something like this, rather than with the liberation of business…

Libertarian Handbook

Today in the chat, I was asked to pin a post with a list of various useful links, and, naturally, this led to a discussion about possible implementations of some kind of libertarian directory, where someone just starting to familiarize themselves with the topic could dive in and immediately get a general idea of the subject, and then delve deeper in any direction that seems interesting.

So I became curious about what form such a directory would seem most convenient to you.

Либертарианский справочник. В какой форме вы бы предпочли им пользоваться?
  • Add your answer
Results

Предполагается, что справочник содержит ответы на популярные вопросы, сгруппированные по темам, ссылки на литературу, сгруппированные по темам и степени сложности, ссылки на либертарианские ресурсы, где публикуются новые материалы или ведётся обсуждение.

Why are Russian “libertarians” for the most part blinkered youngsters who live in their imagination, without projecting their views onto modern realities?

dad

In many ways, we live in a space of realized utopias.
First, people dream of something, while others find it incredible, ridiculous, and unrealizable, and then before they know it, it is already in full bloom.

And this applies not only to science and technology, but also to the sphere of human relations. So, confidently and argumentatively asserting certain behavioral patterns as something that should be is a quite viable method of changing existence.

But as people grow up, they adopt and develop more and more heuristics for living in the real world, which quite logically conflict with the previously formed image of a dream. At any moment, a person can break and declare that they have become a realist, and now all these dreams no longer interest them at all. So, narrow-mindedness helps to preserve a dream longer, or at least to have fewer costs for its preservation.

I know only one working way to preserve faith in ideals in older people. You need to show them how much has already been traveled on the road toward it, show them that they are not walking alone, show the immediate prospects that are quite realistic to implement, and show that the distant prospects are, in general, quite attainable. A dream alone will not achieve results; one will still have to move in small steps.

And as for old libertarians, there simply aren’t enough of them yet in our Russian society.

Sorry, that turned out pretentious. But it’s okay, sometimes one can afford it.

Narrow-minded youth is an ancient phenomenon

How and to whom to sell libertarianism?

анонимный вопрос

Libertarianism can be sold to everyone, but, of course, in different ways.

The simplest and most obvious approach is to sell it to those who are already ready to buy, they just don’t know it yet. That is, simply explaining to spontaneous libertarians that they are indeed libertarians, and why their worldview is not something terrible or selfish, and that they shouldn’t be ashamed of it; in short, buddy, you’re not a faggot, you’re gay, and that sounds proud. In principle, this is what I do. I wait for a question, I answer it. Then others, having heard such a question, refer to my ready-made answers, or may even simply say, “look at Ancap-chan, there was probably something on this topic.” Although, if we develop the market metaphor, I have less of a sale as such, and more like after-sales support.

The most important thing to convey to such buyers is the benefit of identifying themselves as an open libertarian. For some, it will be relevant to gain coherent notions of the theory, and thereby systematize their understanding of the world, which they can then apply to any life situation themselves. For some, it is more important to feel among like-minded people. For some, feelings are not enough, and they are set on joint activity. Talking about the merits of a product to an attentive, interested client is easy and pleasant; it is enough to have confident knowledge of the product.

It is harder to sell libertarianism to those who generally have an active life position, a sense of justice and self-worth, but whose theoretical background conflicts with libertarianism. For these people, materials like conditional “secular lectures” and five-minute briefs, as well as other educational videos, work well as a start. Then come specific questions, which can lead to explanations of any level of detail. It’s not a fact that you’ll manage to sell your product, but you will leave the client with the impression that the product is generally not bad, and that libertarians themselves are decent people and it is perfectly fine to deal with them. Thus, social democrats, social liberals, ancoms, all sorts of gender activists, ecologists, and whoever else are gradually drawn into our orbit.

It is impossible to fully sell libertarianism to those who are beneficiaries of the current regime, realize it, openly admit it, and approve of this order of things. “I served on a submarine, now at 35 I’m retired, and you want to deprive me of both money and the realization of my moral superiority—fuck off.” To such people, one can only subtly drop individual theses in areas that do not conflict with their platform. For example, the aforementioned submariner can perfectly well absorb the libertarian approach to weapons.

And it is completely useless now to sell libertarianism to those who, under any regime, will approve of the status quo out of considerations like “just in case something happens,” “we’ve never lived rich, no point in starting now,” and so on. As long as Kiselev is on the first channel, they are deaf to our arguments, and when we end up there, they will take our side simply because the bosses know best. The most that can be done regarding them now is to stay in their sight, to loom somewhere on the edge of their consciousness. So that when reforms begin, Praskovya Ilyinishna remembers that she heard something about us, and explains it to Pelageya Kuzminishna herself: “don’t be scared, they aren’t Bolsheviks, they’re libertarians, they’re peaceful, they’re for being able to trade sunflower seeds without patents.” And she would reply: “ah, libertarians! Being old, I thought I heard ‘proletarians.’ Well, if they’re libertarians, then alright.”

these are not pensioners, these are proud entrepreneurs