DISQUS

Joe Strummer · 1 year ago

Preach it, brother!

pedro · 1 year ago

I thought you were dead? How about a come-back tour?

john v · 1 year ago

Ha. Funny. I just that test the other day to show my visiting French friends the murkiness of Left/Right stereotypes. I got the same score as you. I agree with basic safety net. The devil of course in the details. Proper incentive structure matters.

Dangerous Idea · 1 year ago

To ask the obvious question, don't people need to be free to be racist or sexist too? If not, who gets to decide how far that goes?

Will Wilkinson · 1 year ago

I think you're worried that if I think that racism or sexism is liberty-limiting, then I think the state ought to deploy coercion to do something about it. That's not what I think.

I think racism reduces liberty. I also think that anti-racist norms reduce the liberty of racists to act on their racism. I think that's good. Who decides that that's good? We all do, through exactly the kind of open conversation and debate we're having right now.

William B · 1 year ago

Sorry, I'm still trying to understand your position.

So you are against government action in this area on practical, not moral, grounds? If you thought it would actually work, you wouldn't object to coercion in having people abandon sexist practices, since that would be a good kind of coercion (just as protecting private property is good coercion)? But you don't think it would work, so social norms are a better tool than government action. Yes?

Will Wilkinson · 1 year ago

That sounds about right.

Dangerous Idea · 1 year ago

I think we're still struggling with definitions. To me, "liberty" is all the things the state can't tell you that you can't do, plus the things it can't force you to do. So if the state either cannot or should not stop you from being racist or sexist, then those things are part of liberty, rather than liberty-limiting, by definition.

I see your point about external limitations on what you can do, but I see a very bold line between state and non-state limitations. Perhaps that's just where we disagree.

webgrrl · 1 year ago

"'liberty' is all the things the state can't tell you that you can't do, plus the things it can't force you to do.."

I think you're reaching towards the idea of negative liberty, but wording it poorly. So poorly you're rather leaving yourself open here. . .

Word to the philosophically wise: if you don't ensure that your liberty originates in, derives from, or is defined as some other relationship than that with, toward or dependent on the state - then you're screwed. Seriously.

At best you're going to have an ugly date with Georg Lukacs, where he will kindly explain how only praxis of the Marxist method can end your reification and deliver you into freedom - the liberty that will appear with the development of true class consciousness after the end of ideology.

Remember only praxis in a Marxist structure can produce true human existence, and thus, true human liberty in the "realm of freedom." At worst, you'll end up as mere property of the state. So Dangerous, just don't go there.

I swear, don't people read these things anymore?

Dangerous Idea · 1 year ago

No, I haven't read whatever nonsense you're referring to, as my fields are Economics and Computer Science. As a layperson to this field I don't particularly appreciate being talked down to by self-appointed internet philosophy experts, particularly when they make only assertions and not arguments. We're searching for truth here, not trying to zing each other with gotchas.

And yes, Liberty is only negative. I may think the "right" to a jury trial and a free lawyer is a damn good idea but it is not a "right", it is a privilege granted to me by the state.

pedro · 1 year ago

Perhaps it is better understood as a right constraining the ability of the State to arbitrarily lock you up. I suppose you have to ask which comes first, the person or the state. If the state is a creation of people for a purpose then the right to a jury trial is part of the definition of the state's realm.
If on the other hand you say that the state is the embodiment of the people then individuals perhaps have no rights, just prvileges.

pedro · 1 year ago

It is an interesting question. Perhaps it is better to ask whether people should be free to be tribal, because sexism and (particularly) racism tend to come with tribalism.
Tribal is how we started.

greenish · 1 year ago

Not much point in defining "Libertarian" to mean "me and my closest friends", even if you're right.

I've noticed there is a pretty noticeable difference between certain people that can serve as the cut-off for libertarianism: when someone feels that liberty is so important that any constraint requires rigorous and careful justification.

Jack · 1 year ago

I had an insightful critique of the quiz before realizing that all my thoughts basically boiled down to: "It really IS the shortest political quiz in the world!"

WilsonF · 1 year ago

That's it, I'm not a libertarian anymore. I'm a Wilkinsonian.

Tom Jackson · 1 year ago

Perhaps it ought to be pointed out that the guy who created the world's smallest political quiz is a noted Libertarian who just died. Marshall Fritz died on Nov. 4; can't figure out how to create a link on this posting system, but you can Google him.

Where can I go to find out a bit more about Milton Friedman's or F.A. Hayek's views on redistributive safety nets? Are there particular books or articles to recommend to people who are not economists?

John V · 1 year ago

do a google with their names (either) and "negative income tax"

Number 6 · 1 year ago

Tom Jackson- IIRC, Friedman addresses the negative income tax in Free to Chose. I don't recall if Hayek covers the idea of a safety net in Road to Serfdom, but wouldn't be surprised if he did. Both of those books are accessible to non-economists. Hayek is, however, a little more difficult to digest. It's not that his ideas are especially complex-he just wasn't a very good writer.

Number 6 · 1 year ago

Tom Jackson- IIRC, Friedman addresses the negative income tax in Free to Chose. I don't recall if Hayek covers the idea of a safety net in Road to Serfdom, but wouldn't be surprised if he did. Both of those books are accessible to non-economists. Hayek is, however, a little more difficult to digest. It's not that his ideas are especially complex-he just wasn't a very good writer.

Number 6 · 1 year ago

Also, I apologize for the double post.
Wil: I tend to agree with the ideas you've expressed in the past two posts, but I'm troubled by what seems like an embrace of positive liberty. (Am misreading you here?) While positive liberty is certainly a valid and valuable concept, it's also a slippery one. At what point do we put on the brakes and say that coercion is unjustified, even if it achieves just ends? This is, of course, the classic challenge to utilitarianism, and I believe that your thinking is much more subtle than that of traditional utilitarians.
So, here's my question: what underpins your conception of what coercion is and is not just? Do you draw your ideas in this area from any particular thinker(s)? If so, I'd appreciate any reading recommendations you may have.

tgb1000 · 1 year ago

That little quiz seems to leave out a lot of important ideas. I don't know what a libertarian foreign policy is, but it seems like it ought to matter. After the last 8 years, I have no idea what constitutes conservative foreign policy, either.

winton_bates · 1 year ago

There was nothing surprising about the test results for myself.
So I did the test on behalf of Australia's Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. According to my understanding of their views, the P.M. is very definitely a Statist and slightly left of centre, as I would have predicted. The surprise result is for the Oppostion leader (the leader of the Liberal Party, which is usually thought of as being on the conservative side of politics) who shows up as a Centrist (actually further left of centre than the PM).
I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps the political centre in Australia is more statist than in the U.S., but no further to the left.

Mike · 1 year ago

Link for this test?

winton_bates · 1 year ago

Mike
The link is:
http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html