What are /r/AskLibertarians' favorite Products & Services?

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Would you rather have your landlord be able to send you off to die in war and be both judge and jury if you got accused of a crime, or do you like a volunteer military and having 12 peers be your jury? To anyone who legitimately thinks things are no better than during the middle ages, try reading Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525427570/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_e-5WBbC8QTWX0

I guess the definition of centralization needs to be discussed as well. A lord would be your military leader, judge, legislature, essentially your whole government. Is that decentralized just because his geographic span of control is small?

Props for a good question.

I don't listen much because I can't stand the leftist bias. They're much more likely to ask "How did <social problem X> make you feel?" than "When and how did <social problem X> come to be?"

Look at Goodbye, For Now, To A Vital Source For Native American News, for example. Sneaking "vital" into the headline because it pertains to a group the left sympathizes with. Even though it's objectively false: "the business model is too expensive to be sustainable" means people didn't consider it vital enough to pay for it.

But where the leftist bias really comes through to me is the threads they choose not to pull on. Such as why the business failed. Did their cost structure rise? Did their audience disappear? Did the sponsors depart? Did some competitor eat their lunch? Is Halbritter a crappy CEO? Instead it starts the story in the middle: here's this bad thing that's happening, and it just fell from outer space.

Or here's a fascinating thread:

> We understand that in some cases, people really don't understand what the issue is and why it is an issue. Some of our own people.

In other words, Indian Country isn't speaking for all Native Americans, because they don't all agree. So what are the controversies? How does Indian Country fit in? Are they Native America's Breitbart, or HuffPo, or something else? NPR is unlikely to peer inside a protected class and ask any critical questions.

The Great Depression was not caused by free market failures. It was caused by a number of failed monetary policies.

1. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act - The resulting trade war ended up killing economies not just in the U.S., but Europe as well.
   
2. Fed manipulation of the market.
3. Many stockholders carried stocks on margin (purchases of stocks from loans granted based on future stock earnings), so when the market crashed, people literally lost everything.
   
4. Gold standard. I know many libertarians love the gold standard and having a currency backed by a fungible asset makes sense, but the Gold Standard did have a negative effect on the economy as the U.S. ran a trade surplus and foreign nations depleted their gold resulting in threats to devalue the foreign currency. This resulted in foreign nations increasing their interest rates.

Worse, FDR's "New Deal" policies exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression. I highly recommend reading "FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression."

> but the App Store is because it is the only place to publish and purchase apps on iOS

Except it's not.

It's also perfectly legal to jailbreak your iOS device and install software directly without the need of an app store at all.

I recommend reading The Revolution by Ron Paul. Gives some practical insight into why people might be so mad they would be willing to blow themselves up.

Less important, but noteworthy : if you want to understand why it is the most logical war tactic, read Sun Tsu's The Art of War. tl;dr given their relative millitary strength, a very weak army is best advised to try and bait a superpower into a war of attrition. The explanation is solid.

The Law - Frederic Bastiat

Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt

Meltdown - Tom Woods

Capitalism and Freedom - Milton Friedman

What Has Government Done to Our Money? - Murray Rothbard

No Treason - Lysander Spooner

The Road to Serfdom - FA Hayek

> Okay, we can start with elderly poverty rates. You and I can address this the way billions of people have for centuries: by saving during our working years and by letting Grandma live with us and help raise the kids.

Except that's not what happened. The poverty rate for old people was very high before social security was instituted. You say that people will just save for their retirement, but they didn't. Something doesn't add up in your explanation about how things should work.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/11/24/the-stunning-effect-social-security-has-had-on-us.aspx

http://www.eoionline.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/Social-Security-seniors-in-poverty.png

>2008 crisis happens

Government caused that though.

>>30 years lower taxes caused economic inequality.

First of all there's no way he could have real evidence of that.

Secondly, there is already literature out there that explains how economic inequality can be reduced and it's not pretty.

Third, dude, this is your philosophy. What do you think neo-liberalism is?

>>$15 Min Wage

First of all, he's absolutely wrong, the places where this was tried have had major issues.

Secondly, again, you can't prove this. This is speculation. The economy is not a lab, saying A caused B without an overwhelming amount of evidence is fallacious.

Thirdly, it just makes the dollar worth less, which is why people are al readying saying that $15 isn't enough.

>>Paying employees more grows it.

THEN PEOPLE WOULD BE DOING THAT. People aren't stupid, and people pay higher for better workers, it's not like the people at the top only employ the worst people and pay them the least, they negotiate.

>>People aren't paid what they are worth, their paid what they can negotiate.

YOU CAN'T NEGOTIATE IF YOU'RE NOT WORTH ANYTHING. I'm going to drop it from here. This guy is either lying to people or just stupid.

Even accepting it's up to other countries to "allow" Iran to produce nuclear weapons, the mechanisms used to attempt to stop them always end up hurting the innocent Iranian civilians who do not deserve the brutal economic hardships that are being thrust onto them.

On top of that, the idea that the Iranian Regime is itching to get a nuke so it can destroy Israel or something is flawed. Read Gareth Porter's excellent book Manufactured Crisis to get a full explanation.

Basically, declarations made by Ayatollah Khomeini forbade weapons of mass destruction from being used by the Islamic Republic. All "proof" that they were trying to build and use nukes comes from the MEK and Israel and isn't credible upon close examination.

Iran realized later that they could get sanction relief and just generally get a leg up in negotiations by playing up their nuclear program which is clearly for energy production as of now.

(P.S. I realize this sounds like I'm all pro-Iranian Regime but that's not the case. The Iranian Regime is one of the most evil, totalitarian governments in existence today and I hope for a future in which it no longer exists, but I also recognize that all attempts by western nations to dispose of it will make things worse)

Here’s an excerpt from Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom to give you a rough picture of the state’s role in practical libertarianism, which includes a military. Later in the chapter he says the government is responsible for hiring soldiers no different from a mercenary model, where the number of soldiers meets the need, and the more need, the more the government will pay for services of the voluntary fighters.

"A government which maintained law and order, defined property rights, served as a means whereby we could modify property rights and other rules of the economic game, adjudicated disputes about the interpretation of the rules, enforced contracts, promoted competition, provided a monetary framework, engaged in activities to counter technical monopolies and to overcome neighborhood effects widely regarded as sufficiently important to justify government intervention, and which supplemented private charity and the private family in protecting the irresponsible, whether madman or child -- such a government would clearly have important functions to perform. The consistent [libertarian] is not an anarchist."

If you are a believer in free markets then it is completely contradictory to believe that any service should be provided for others for free at someone else's expense.

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt is available online for free and it might help you become a bit more consistent.

You are more than welcome! We need all the allies we can get in this fight to fix our democracy.

Also, if you want to reference any of our articles or images, please feel free to do so; our copyright standard is Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike unless otherwise stated.

Admittedly they run a variety of content, and their headline news is not usually that skewed. I picked a particularly bad puff piece to critique. And I cited the web version just because we can all read it; those editorial patterns come through loud and clear on the radio as well.

I've never listened to the SCOTUS podcast, but I can't imagine it could escape the gravitational pull of NPR's leftist editorial culture. For example from the summaries:

> In this episode, we examine Kennedy's singular devotion to the First Amendment and look at how it may have influenced his decision in the [Citizens United] case.

The left found the First Amendment extremely inconvenient in the Citizens United case, so look what they're doing here. This sentence frames Kennedy as a weirdo with an emotional attachment to the First Amendment, rather than one of the mainstays of his job. "May have influenced" even hints at wrongdoing, as if looking into this ought to be next on Robert Mueller's list.

> But as America reached further and further out into the world, the court was forced to confront the contradictions in our country's ideology: sympathy vs. sovereignty.

This is totally how a leftist sees the world. On the one hand Iraqis have rights as a collective to run their own society. On the other they have rights as individuals not to be gassed by Saddam Hussein. How can we reconcile these?

Again it starts the story in the middle, with leftists handwringing over how to feel good. And look at what that leaves out. The western handwringers on both left and right who partitioned up the middle east and created Iraq to begin with. The US backing of Saddam and supplying him the gas. The military-industrial complex, the Israel lobby, the petrodollar, and the many other dimensions of politics that really drive US policy there.

So company towns existed because no one wanted to live in the areas where companies needed workers. Just because they existed didn't mean that workers could just leave the town, rather they were geographically isolated, and as a result stores and housing needed to be provided somehow. Let's be clear here, there was a reason that people went to these places. The work of Price Fishback shows that while not all company towns were good, in most cases they provided good services and wages for their workers. In essence, since wages were paid by the company, the company having a monopoly on the town store meant that they could save on wages by lower the price of goods, after all, they make their money from coal. An independent store with a monopoly has the incentive to raise its prices with less regard to how much the worker is currently being paid, essentially putting additional pressure on the company. Essentially, they were a product of their geographical isolation. Again, this didn't mean that workers were isolated from the national labor market completely, and not owning your home in a company town certainly helped that.

A good modern equivalent would be something like oil rig workers, who earn quite a bit of money despite having nearly zero options in where to eat, sleep, etc.

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References:

Fishback, Price V. “Did Coal Miners ‘Owe Their Souls to the Company Store’? Theory and Evidence from the Early 1900s.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 46, no. 4, 1986, pp. 1011–1029. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2121820.

Fishback, Price V."Soft Coal, Hard Choices: The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners, 1890-1930" (idk just didn't want an amazon link in this)

I feel that there is one thing that anybody who is questioning their beliefs can do: research. I used to lean fairly Authoritarian, and hardcore Right-Wing. However, I decided that it would best to purge all of my previously held opinions, and base them strictly on facts. After about two months of research, I found that Libertarianism is the most logical ideology in modern politics. I would recommend that you read or watch Free To Choose (book) (miniseries) by Milton Friedman, and it change your view of the world.

The Fed is held in high regard in most institutions of higher education. If you're writing this for a "normal" high school or college course, you might well get penalized for sharing the normal libertarian assessment of the Fed.

That said, since your question explicitly lists "pros and cons of the Fed", you might be writing for a receptive audience.

If that's the case, a quick read through End the Fed (or the Amazon summaries) will give you all the material you need.

Just know it's written by Ron Paul. That fact alone will color everything else the reader perceives about your paper.

I think your question can be separated under a few categories:

• How can creators make money without intellectual property (IP)?

• What options are there for censorship in a society without IP, or generally speaking?

• What options are there to deal with discrimination, in a free market, generally speaking?

For the first question, see the sidebar of /r/noip/ under 'On creativity without IP'.

For the second question: society-wide censorship is not something that you'd want, it is far too dangerous. Private censorship can deal with problems that are generally associated with it. For example, a family can install an internet-filter themselves, and so can a business do that too. There will always be some people somewhere saying 'evil' stuff, but there are ways to deal with that that don't require a top-down legal filter on society. FYI, here are some ways to deal with actual criminals in a non-topdown way: link.

For the third question, see my article: How does libertarianism deal with discrimination?

>I've lived in nyc my entire life, so basically everyone I know is politically on the left. However I've recently been questioning a lot of things I've been raised to believe are true.

Ditto

I'd say start with this: https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Manifesto-Ron-Paul/dp/B004IEA4D2

Its a quick read. Then, based on what you think, either continue reading or come back here for more recommendations.

Alternatively, you're welcome to msg me and I can give you specific ideas as I was in a similar spot to you many moons ago.

• Anarchy, State, and Utopia - Robert Nozick
• The Road to Serfdom - F.A. Hayek
• The Constitution of Liberty - F.A. Hayek
• Free to Choose - Milton Friedman
• Capitalism and Freedom - Milton Friedman
• The Second Treatise of Civil Government - John Locke
• The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
• On Liberty - John Stuart Mill
• Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
• Common Sense - Thomas Paine
• Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville

The whole 2008 real estate bubble is obviously a good thing to cite as an example of "affordable housing" gone horribly awry.

Also, perhaps look up Chapter 17 (Government Price-Fixing) of Economics in One Lesson which, while it doesn't actually address affordable housing specifically, might provide some good quotes relevant to rent control or price-fixing in general.

This article outlines another major reason why rent control causes problems; inevitably what happens can only be described by the dreaded "hoarding" word that leftists abhor--except in this case it actually is hoarding.

Henry Hazlitt, in Economics in One Lesson, did point out that while an innovation benefits the vast majority of people over time, in the short term those businesses that can’t compete will fail, and their employees will suffer to one degree or another. In such cases, he said, > It is altogether proper — it is, in fact, essential to a full understanding of the problem — that the plight of these groups be recognized, that they be dealt with sympathetically, and that we try to see whether some of the gains from this specialized progress cannot be used to help the victims find a productive role elsewhere. I’m sure Hazlitt meant not government redistribution, but real compassion: voluntary efforts via individual donations, large-scale charities, business clubs, and community organizations that peacefully draw on the vast wealth generated by innovation.

Historically, the government has caused far more monopolies than it prevented. Therefore we should expect less exploitation due to privatization rather than more.

Also, making something public tends to cause it to stagnate. You won't see the same improvements to a public good that you see to a private good. So by privatizing things fundamental to survival, we are likely to see improvements in quality and cost to these goods, therefore making exploitation harder to achieve.

The free market has massively reduced the amount of time you have to dedicate to survival. This is the very opposite of exploitation. There's a new book by Caito senior fellow Marian Tupy and Professor Gale Pooley called superabundance that goes through the data on this.

No problem. If you want something a bit more in depth, Eric Mack's introduction to libertarian political theory is the best book of its type. He's the author of the 'natural rights' chapter found in the above link.

Let us not forget that the word capitalism was created by socialists in the middle 1800s to describe the big government, leftist, economic framework known as Mercantilism which was practiced by nations in the West at that time to include Russia

Today, no nation practices Mercantilism, capitalism, today as defined by socialists. The vast majority practice Democratic Socialism with a few outliers still practicing communism. Democratic Socialism has much in common with Mercantilism especially in terms of the GOVERNMENT SACTIONED institutions known as corporations and the State getting a cut of the profits and controlling said institution though regulations instead of charters back in the day of Mercantilism

The problems we have today are problems created by the ideology of Democratic Socialism and not free markets, an economy, which is composed of the currency, labor, trade, and industry, which is free from government meddling

https://www.amazon.com/Wheels-Commerce-Civilization-Capitalism-15Th-18th/dp/0520081153

The articles attempt to MISLABEL Democratic Socialism as Mercantilism ( Capitalism ), which no nation practices today is noted

It prevents the economy from achieving monetary equilibrium, instead targeting inflation which causes both business cycles and lower real wealth.

It has overseen three of the worst crises in American history (Great Depression, stagflation of the 70s, and the 2008 Financial Crisis), so while it might assist investors, it hurts average Americans.

A real free banking system would be superior because it would largely prevent price inflation and harmful demand-deflation (not growth deflation, which is benign and beneficial).

Hmmm.

I'd start with podcasts from notable historians. Tom Woods and Brion McClanahan both have casts on the topic. They're both libertarians, so beware of that bias, but they are also credible historians and thus provide lots of good sources to consider.

My Favorite Book (tm) on that era is Genius Of The People . It talks about the slavery issue in context of the Constitutional Convention, but it's a good pace to start.

I'd also look at Bios of Jefferson, Madison, Smith (and so forth), all of whom produced influential intellectual product on the issue.

Amazon practices predatory pricing right now.

They use their dominance of the online shopping space to make brands believe that they have no real option but to be on their platform. They collect sales data on these brands and then take the winners and make their own private label version undercutting it by a few dollars.

Here is an example: Real brand: https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-W86506-Electrician-Multi-Tool/dp/B07GVTVW96

Amazon knockoff: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Electricians-Stripping-Multi-Tool-Sheath/dp/B07TLYK7BB/

> We can also look at the issues we have had in a capitalist society.

There are no nations with a capitalist society

Let us not forget that the word capitalism was created by socialists in the middle 1800s to describe the big government, leftist, economic framework known as Mercantilism which was practiced by nations in the West at that time to include Russia

Today, no nation practices Mercantilism, capitalism, today as defined by socialists. The vast majority practice Democratic Socialism with a few outliers still practicing communism. Democratic Socialism has much in common with Mercantilism especially in terms of the GOVERNMENT SACTIONED institutions known as corporations and the State getting a cut of the profits and controlling said institution though regulations instead of charters back in the day of Mercantilism

The problems we have today are problems created by the ideology of Democratic Socialism and not free markets, an economy, which is composed of the currency, labor, trade, and industry, which is free from government meddling

https://www.amazon.com/Wheels-Commerce-Civilization-Capitalism-15Th-18th/dp/0520081153

Your attempt to MISLABEL Democratic Socialism as Mercantilism ( Capitalism ) is noted

Let us not forget that the word capitalism was created by socialists in the middle 1800s to describe the big government, leftist, economic framework known as Mercantilism which was practiced by nations in the West at that time to include Russia

Today, no nation practices Mercantilism, capitalism, today as defined by socialists. The vast majority practice Democratic Socialism with a few outliers still practicing communism. Democratic Socialism has much in common with Mercantilism especially in terms of the GOVERNMENT SACTIONED institutions known as corporations and the State getting a cut of the profits and controlling said institution though regulations instead of charters back in the day of Mercantilism

The problems we have today are problems created by the ideology of Democratic Socialism and not free markets, an economy, which is composed of the currency, labor, trade, and industry, which is free from government meddling

https://www.amazon.com/Wheels-Commerce-Civilization-Capitalism-15Th-18th/dp/0520081153

Your attempt to MISLABEL Democratic Socialism as Mercantilism ( Capitalism ) is noted

Read Righteous Mind by Jonathon Haidt. It talks about the moral priorities that different individuals have greatly affecting their political views. The book also goes into what you reference where studies show that while conservatives are fairly accurate at articulating the views of progressive/liberals, the opposite is not true. Progressive/liberals have a massively worse ability to accurately articulate the views of conservatives.

Libertarians, of course, are better than both ;)

> That being said, your article seems to show that increased competition benefited consumers and forced Comcast to lower prices, offer more, etc. In short, its still not an example of predatory pricing, merely market forces at work.

Temporarily lowered their prices. Because they could shuffle profits from other localities to cover their deficit so that their regional competitor couldn't compete, even "at cost". Once the competitor folded, Comcast jacked the prices right back up.

> There is nothing "natural" about their monopoly; its created and enforced at the political level, not the market level.

These are one time costs. I don't disagree that government played a role in creating the monopolies (though they also in many cases bought those rights by buying/merging with other companies). But capital investments would likely have had the same result sooner or later. They would still have the relatively insane monopolistic profit margins whether the government subsidized them or not.

> What about customer service? If a customer says they value "being treated politely and respectfully" more than the speed of the bandwidth, do you tell them they're wrong to think that?

Literally the next sentence in my post addresses this: "And since the monopolies have the worst customer service in the country, they are winning only on price." The monopolies in this case are among the worst companies in the country for customer service.

> My point is that this isn't an example of "natural monopoly" unless you count the govt giving them mercantilist, protectionist treatment as "natural".

And I'm saying that that protection is definitely helping this sure, but it is not the only cause.

This article from Roger Garrison is great. Friedman was great on some aspects, but in the fields he specialized (education and monetary theory) he wasn't the best. He is probably the only Austrian that doesn't completely throws away everything stated by keynesians even though he concedes too much to them, that is something good because there are some critiques from keynesians that hasn't been answered by the austrians, but again the problem is that he gave too much credit to keynesians. Chapters 7 and 8 from his book A Monetary History of the United States are some of the best criticisms of the new deal. Friedman was one of the most famous economists so he probably didn't exposed his radical opinions that much.

So, this already happens even with IP laws.

Nevertheless, the typical answer given is some sort of certification given to a copy you make (or some distributor makes on your behalf) would act as proof of authenticity and there would be demand for such a proof because otherwise you might not get movies. So, movie theaters would lose out, retail outlets would lose out, etc.

A more modern solution would be something like LBRY (which I personally believe might completely resolve this problem for the digital age.)

I think the radically different approach that LBRY takes to resolving this issue compared to a more classic approach described in libertarian writings just shows how useless it is to speculate about this and base one's support for libertarianism on answering such hypotheticals.

I'm not going to pretend to have answers for how the future looks. Anyone who says they know - whether good or bad - is just full of hot air.

Are you referring to The Anarchist Cookbook? Malice's is The Anarchist's Handbook

Reason Mag uploaded their video on a homemade Glock to pornhub and uploaded a YouTube video explaining why they did so, while defending YouTube's right to censor videos on their own platform against Praeger. It was libertarian level 1000.

Personally, I'd like to see d.tube get more play.

People can quibble about just how much the role of the govt directly caused the crisis vs how much was the result of aggressive private bank lending (we'd argue driven by govt policies). However, one thing that's simply nonsense is to claim it was deregulation. Not only were there something like 114 different agencies or departments in charge of regulating financial/housing markets, but the only real regulation people can point to as being removed to justify blaming 'deregulation' is Glass-Steagall. This regulation only prohibited banks from being both Investment banks and Commercial banks. Now, on the face of it, it could make sense that repealing that would allow banks to merge and grow 'too big to fail'. And most of the criticism of the repeal essentially makes this claim: Something along the lines of "While it may not have been the sole cause, it was a multiplier that made the crisis much worse."

The problem with this is that major banks involved in the crisis like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, AIG, New Century Financial, etc were all strictly investment banks. Glass-Steagall didn't apply. But, don't let the facts get in the way of a good narrative of how "deregulation" is bad.

Here's a quick article speaking to that.

Also, read Meldown by Tom Woods which makes the very good case that the govt both directly and indirectly drove this issue - and by bailing out the banks, planted the seeds of the next one.

> Nobody would do the job without the immunity from civil litigation.

Economic reasoning would suggest otherwise. Immunity is merely a part of the total compensation package, and people do all sorts of jobs with sorts of risks for all sorts of wages/salaries. I guarantee you people would still do the job of peacekeeping without qualified immunity, especially when it's less of a need thanks to the abolition of victimless crimes.

> There are no win/lose transaction. Force like police, defense, or courts are risk/lose transactions.

Do they have to be? Why do you people commit crimes to begin with? I like what Kibbe looks at here: https://freethepeople.org/how-to-love-your-enemy-a-restorative-justice-story/ This is just one example of outside the box thinking. Who knows what else would happen, especially if people understand that their security is in their own hands.

> Let everybody be alert to n'er do wells.

Exactly.

> There is a long history of humans going to war to loot and pillage and spread their seed.

It's way we have states at all. I think we need a technological solution to this problem, but we also need to stop traumatizing our children, the root of the issue of human aggression. See Grille: https://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Peaceful-World-Robin-Grille/dp/0992360404

> The military cannot be a profitable independent venture. That is dangerous and will result in ginned up justifications for action like we have now.

This is an empirical prediction. Perhaps, perhaps not. My anarchism doesn't hinge on this, or any of these problems. Aggression and coercion are wrong, and I won't be party to it by supporting the state.

>Aren't there some forms of speech so repugnant that it causes phycological harm to whomever it is directed at?

As someone who studied psych in college, this is wrong.

Emotional abuse isn't based around insults, it's based around intent and then people doing it. Someone calls you a bitch at a store and you don;t know them, you're not going to blink an eye. You parents saying they're disappointed in you on the other hand will have a lot more impact. Even then some people are more vulnerable, and we cannot make laws based on 5% of the population.

You're trying to wiggle in an idea that doesn't work in reality. Sorry you didn't get to assert control over people's speech and therefore their minds, not much I can do about it.

>is there evidence on it either way?

Read this.

The short answer is no.

The long answer is that the only way to correct income inequality is through a horsemen: Natural Disaster, Famine, War, Pestilence. Anything that causes mass death fixes it because people invest into different talents that are worth more to a society, and thus they become richer than others. It's a naturally occurring problem because we are not all the same, and we do not all do the same work, and so bringing everyone down is the only way. This has been true throughout human history, if you could make something that no one else could, or if you were a connection point for wealth (such as a bank or trader) you were rich because that connection point is valuable.

There are many problems in this world that are consequence to the fact that we live and work. The only way to change it would be to force people not to work, we did that and it didn't end very well.

If we are assuming there will be "public schools" they should live up to their name:

"Public"

1. Should be open to any student of any age to sign up. No preferences given for any characteristic. Additionally, people should only be removed for the same reasons one is removed from any public space: violence or absolute disruption.
2. Funding should be based on universal, and if not that broadly local, consensus to fund them indifferently of wealth of students. Parents should still have absolute discretion to contribute more if so desired.
3. They should be based around the principle of non-discrimination on any protected OR unprotected (such as politics) classes ideally.

"School"

1. They should be about teaching whatever skills people want to learn, not just academically inclined subjects.
2. Ideally, they should be about absolute education, not relative education. Meaning, they should be about self improvement, not competition.

Other notes

1. They should not be in place of "job training" or apprenticeships.
2. They should be optional, if not fully, then at a much earlier point than today.

This is a book where I draw a lot of these conclusions.

>A lot of the time, the response to complaints about inequality is that even though the rich get rich faster, the poor also get richer.

The poor will be with us always.

>which it really seems to have not done under Reagan.

This is univariable thinking and it's not an accurate representation of the situation. There are other factors to include, like the price of goods, technology making things cheaper. These things matter,

>a lot of it was concentrated in the upper classes.

Go read that book I linked. The trend is reliable. Any time there is growth, it tends to concentrate at the top. This is true throughout history going back to early agrarians. Looking at your example, notice how when you look at it in total, no matter what, the grow rate never really changes distance with regards to the top and bottom. When one goes up, the other does as well.

You can't fix this, this is how humanity works because some strategies work, some don't. You are trying to fix a problem that is not fixable.

>I am going to pretend that I want this.

Just say you're playing devils advocate.

>So what I am going to ask you to assume is that the transition takes place fairly wel.

It won't because no one wants to take risks, but okay.

>the only real effect that the workers would have the right to participate in democracy at their jobs, have larger paycheques, and better working conditions.

At the cost of their own time and money starting the business. This argument is basically only for businesses that are already up and running and people want to take the wealth they didn't risk to get.

>They say that the wealth and income gaps would be much lower

Historically that's not true.

>and the cooperatives would still be very productive.

Not really, democratic systems are slower than command ones, and businesses basically require a command structure to flow with the market. Even in the businesses we have now that are co-op, the only benefit you get is voting rights on specific issues, but there is still someone in charge.

This is non tenable because at the end of the day it is a risk and a lot of work to start a business. I have done it, it's not something that people want to do, people want to just get paid. The "market socialists" as you call them are living in a fantasy land.

https://smile.amazon.de/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465060730/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&amp;dchild=1&amp;keywords=basic+economics&amp;qid=1617839864&amp;sr=8-1

> A.) Gulags can exist in any economic system B.) I have yet found a source that says 65 million people died in the gulags.

It's a book dumbass. I read the unabridged so they might had taken out quite a bit in this one.

>it will the change how the government functions.

Changing the function of a system will change how it operates. Systems with certain functions must do certain things in order to achieve their goal. If a function of government changes over to something like wealth equality, then eventually the fact that violence must be used must be reconciled. You could try to say "well just ignore it," but that's not what happens, what happens is that the system realizes it cannot fulfill its purpose and either needs to change (which would mean a restructure and thus the power be changed because systems being run by people who don't agree with the mission statement are an obvious problem) or it needs to move to effective measures

Thinking this discussion is limited to "whether an idea is better or worse" as though the only measurable aspect of a policy is the theoretical effect on the populous is the reason why things like the CIA and other government organizations go out of control.

Spending increases might have a more immediate effect since the government is basically holding the money and putting it back out would give people spending power.

However it's not a sustainable solution given that redistribution of wealth is not effective and is a waste of resources long term since it costs resources to do this.

Yes, read Marx. Major reason why I hate the man is because of his writing. Seriously the worst raving slog I have ever gone through. While going through it thought that The Underground Man was like his brother or something.

Here’s my book I wrote on economics that’s getting great reviews from libertarians. You’ll learn something from it. :)

You’re nobody LOL

The libertarians and I will be busy laughing at you elsewhere. The last word is yours since you so desperately crave it. LOL

Wages and prices are always going to be “sticky” to a decent extent even without government intervention. I explain why in chapter 1 here.

Note: Keynes only came up with the name “sticky”, but the concept goes back over a century before him.

> This is all speculation.

Do your own research. There is a mountain of info out there.

Recommend this excellent and well researched book:

From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, by David T. Beito is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of History at the University of Alabama.

TJ was an extraordinarily interesting person. I wouldn't use the phrase "turn me on", but I get your point.

If you haven't already read it, I recommend Christopher Hitchens' Biography ,

I am not convinced total freedom is what everyone wants. I am convinced it is what I want, and that no one has yet made an argument that convinces me they know better than I what I want. If people want to live in authoritarian communes, let them. I would rather not, but so long as they don't try and make me I am not going to do anything to interfere with them.

Regarding the plight of the suddenly free person: It is a burden added and its value (like all other value) is subjective. I think it is worth the cost. You might not. Again that is fine until you try and make me live as you want rather than as I want.

If you want non-fiction: I would read this. If you want fiction: I would read this.

https://www.amazon.com/Stoic-Classics-Collection-Meditations-Enchiridion/dp/B08BRSQKJC/ref=mp_s_a_1_2_sspa?dchild=1&amp;keywords=stoicism+marcus+aurelius&amp;qid=1600002090&amp;sprefix=stoicism+marcus&amp;sr=8-2-spons&amp;psc=1&amp;spLa=ZW5jcnlwdG...

Personally, I extend non-aggression to animals but not because of the NAP. I avoid causing suffering to any other sentient being as a buddhist precept.

We have consistently underestimated the intelligence, sociability, and ethical capacity of non-human beings. If anyone would like to learn more about it I highly recommend Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Other Animals Are?

You are probably committing several felonies each day and do not even realize.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1279295536&amp;sr=8-1

It's available on Amazon, so what's stopping you from gifting it to people? You could even just stick it on your shelf as a conversation starter.

It's important to note that the book is intentionally quite shallow and economists since then have made valuable contributions. It does provide a decent base for someone new to the subject though.

The poor will be with us always, it will not help, the only thing that helps historically speaking is to increase the overall income in the nation.

The left has a firm grasp on the education system...especially higher education. And they don't allow for critical-thinking....and that's been going on for some time (back when I was in college in the 80s).

In one of my history classes, I was given a D on a term paper that asked us to come up with a well-defended opinion on whatever event we covered in the class (US History from Reconstruction to VietNam).

Basically, I excoriated FDR for his New Deal policies and backed it up with plenty of research and data (and this has also been backed up in later papers such as this one here and a good book here.

I appealed to the department head basically stated that I met the requirements of the term paper. I defended my thesis (which at its core was an opinion piece), I argued against my thesis and refuted those arguments, and concluded by restating my thesis properly. Whether my professor agreed or disagreed with my position was irrelevant. I met the requirements as stated in the assignment.

While the department head didn't agree with my political position (and I wasn't about to argue with him), he also said my paper met the requirements as it was well-written, researched and defended and he personally graded my paper and gave me an A-. I thanked him for his integrity.

How many other students don't fight back and just submit...parroting back the same drivel that the teachers want? That's the world we live in now. Just another brick in the wall.

This is talking about higher education, I'm talking about primary and secondary education. Primary and secondary education should be about finding interests and aptitudes, and higher education should be about developing those aptitudes.

And yes, I would tend to agree with Caplan on most points, and that book is actually on my reading list. However, to attack one of his points from the video about dance, I'll refer you to You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education, which essentially states that a dance class tends to improve child performance in other classes. Note, this is much different than dance in college, which is a giant waste of time for most people.

So yeah, I think he's spot on that our current view of education is wrong. I think education should be about finding your aptitudes and learning the fundamentals to be productive in whichever of your aptitudes are marketable.

By the way the break-even number you are giving sounds about right for cotton bags.

I just read https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/09/to-tote-or-note-to-tote/498557/ and they say that for recycled polypropylene reusable bags, the break-even number is 26! I luckily happen to use these polypropylene bags from Trader Joe's so it looks like I went beyond the break-even number.

Redlining was a government program, and it was appropriately stopped. Then, of course, government swung the other way with the Community Reinvestment Act, pressuring mortgage lenders to write more policies for blacks. Which, as the foreclosures of 2008 demonstrated, did not necessarily do them any favors.

As for institutionalizing the victimhood message, seems pretty testable to me. Are lots of institutions putting out that message? Are they institution special "diversity" programs to compensate for the historical injustices blacks are unable to overcome on their own?

> We should also be clear that it was largely true at the time when white men ran literally everything; we were an apartheid state for most of our history.

White men ran quite a bit, yes. But to suggest that oppressed blacks presupposes white men are racist and care more about keeping the black man down than making a buck. And that blacks are victims with no way past the racism to success. Another test of institutionalization: is the victim narrative so ingrained that people presume it's true, without even realizing they're doing so?

The historical record doesn't sustain the charge of apartheid, at least outside the South. Sowell's Black Rednecks and White Liberals describes two very different black cultures that evolved in the US. Blacks in the North embraced a work and responsibility ethic, integrated quite well into white culture and in turn found acceptance. The culture in the South was more dysfunctional, both white and black. And while whites largely shook that off, blacks are still living it.

For a scary look at how close we've come to accidental nuclear detonations, check out the book Command and Control by Eric Schlosser or the documentary based on it. These systems or similar ones still exist and the chance of an accident is non-zero. The fact that nothing serious has happened yet is due to the incredible safety system built into these machines or dumb luck, depending on how you look at it.

I suggest you read "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt. If you read through it a few times to make sure you understand it, I believe it will clarify a lot of the falsehoods and misconceptions you have about the free market. Many of your arguments contain logical fallacies that he addresses in this book, and how the paradigm of thought you are using as your argumentative basis has actually been ingrained in you by the state.

And while I will admit that Austrian Economics is only a single school of thought, I personally believe the free market philosophy of Capitalism is currently the most powerful, free, and least coercive system thus far created by people. Reading this book will not only give you perspective, but it will answer all your questions about how this system is inherently libertarian and why it is embraced as such.

>What taxes are acceptable, and how are they acceptable at all?

None and They aren't. Taxes are a violation of your right to property, in this case currency/money, something you've earned by your labor and/or time.

Your bonus question is a series of unsupported statements.

>most the healthy societies on earth have a great deal more progressivism than the United States.

Define healthy.

>I feel that libertarian economics mostly benefits the rich in the end,

Feeling is not understanding. Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson will help you understand. After that you can feel anyway you want.

>Reaganomics contributed to America's turn for the worse.

Conjecture.

>I mostly hear goal post shifting "that wasn't real libertarianism because government acted to someone, somewhere, at sometime, in some capacity".

It seems the way too I know but let's compare markets for a second. Most people in our country now have a super computer in their pockets. A cell phone (not top of the line mind you) is incredibly cheap, Most computers and electronics are. The product is becoming better and cheaper over time. This is indicative of a functioning free market. Now compare this to our judicial system, law enforcement system, education, healthcare, even the roads. Something (the government) keeps messing up the market. "It's not real..." might but what you hear but what we say is actually "the government keeps, inhibits, hinders, or blocks the market from functioning properly."

There is absolutely no need for the government to provide a safety net. This reasoning is two-fold: one is rooted in the immorality of government (should you accept the non-aggression principal) and/or the complete ineffectiveness of government within economics. I'll assume you follow at least one of these.

Now where does that leave us? Healthcare is not some magical right you have, it's a service. Yet it is a service we would like all of our fellow man to have easy access to, that we can agree on. So how do we achieve that? Look no further than the free market. Not only will it facilitate lowered costs and/or greater quality it will also provide the foundation for charitable foundations to do what they do best.

Contrary to that you have a government which uses force to redistribute wealth (not create it) and which distorts the market or doesn't answer to it, this is our immorality. Government also doesnt properly respond to Market incentives, this is our economic failure.

Your goal is healthcare for all and Capitalism is the best current means we have of achieving it. None of this matters if you don't comprehend the natural mechanisms that make Capitalism work, For that I suggest Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. A quick Google search will reveal free PDFs/e-books.

Yes but who decides: A central authority trying to process all the information or numerous individual actors processing the information they have? The idea here is that one central decision maker cannot act with as much precision as millions or billions of small ones (Some market failures occur, it isn't perfect). I like to think of it like one of these. Imagine the people make up a lot of small needles. A government has bigger needles in radius. The bigger the government the fewer needles that fit in that space, and the less clear the impression becomes.

Some of Mises' work on this topic would perhaps be more informative, but for something shorter/simpler, consider the following: Tom DiLorenzo's The Problem With Socialism