Libertarian Discussion Thread

[Great Minarchistan]

Finally finished my spreadsheet regarding US wages. Here are the results:



Long story short, despite the wages' stagnation since late 1970s, they're still overvalued. And proportionally, the situation has not only been the same since 2001 as well as the US worker is being as well-paid as under most of US history.

[The Parkus Empire]

Finally finished my spreadsheet regarding US wages. Here are the results:
(Image)
(Image)

Long story short, despite the wages' stagnation since late 1970s, they're still overvalued. And proportionally, the situation has not only been the same since 2001 as well as the US worker is being as well-treated as under most of US history.

I'm waiting for economists to discover that liberty is significantly overvalued, and the following libertarian reaction. Will the liberty bubble pop?

[Northern Davincia]

Finally finished my spreadsheet regarding US wages. Here are the results:
(Image)
(Image)

Long story short, despite the wages' stagnation since late 1970s, they're still overvalued. And proportionally, the situation has not only been the same since 2001 as well as the US worker is being as well-treated as under most of US history.

I'm waiting for economists to discover that liberty is significantly overvalued, and the following libertarian reaction. Will the liberty bubble pop?

Seeing as that most economists are not Austrian, they are also not pro-liberty.

[The Parkus Empire]

I'm waiting for economists to discover that liberty is significantly overvalued, and the following libertarian reaction. Will the liberty bubble pop?

Seeing as that most economists are not Austrian, they are also not pro-liberty.

Whoa, and here I was thinking economics was a science. But I see it is merely ideological orientation.

[Great Minarchistan]

Seeing as that most economists are not Austrian, they are also not pro-liberty.

Whoa, and here I was thinking economics was a science. But I see it is merely ideological orientation.

It's a social """"science"""", kek. You aren't wrong tho, since most economic viewpoints are largely based off ideology.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Whoa, and here I was thinking economics was a science. But I see it is merely ideological orientation.

It's a social """"science"""", kek. You aren't wrong tho, since most economic viewpoints are largely based off ideology.

On the internet, maybe. Actual economic consensus (consensi?) doesn't map nicely onto party platform--for example most every economist, regardless of how they punch the ballot, are for free trade. Austrian economics isn't just "free markets LoLoL," it takes radical views on the nature of empiricism and the value of modeling that many (quite liberal!) economists find hard to swallow.

[Great Minarchistan]

On the internet, maybe. Actual economic consensus (consensi?) doesn't map nicely onto party platform--for example most every economist, regardless of how they punch the ballot, are for free trade. Austrian economics isn't just "free markets LoLoL," it takes radical views on the nature of empiricism and the value of modeling that many (quite liberal!) economists find hard to swallow.

I say based off ideology because economics have several schools of thought. They usually agree on some universal points, yea, but most of the topics have a different viewpoint according to every school.

[Taihei Tengoku]

They are differences of degree not of kind. Empirically speaking protectionism makes the things poor people buy more expensive.

But it also brings in a lot of demand for labor needing minimal qualifications, which is exactly the sort of labor poor people need.

We've been here before. If you reduce the overall productivity of the economy you reduce the overall productivity of labor, and given any size of labor pool you reduce the average wage. We can increase the demand for labor needing minimal qualifications by banning bulldozers and backhoes and hiring poor people to dig with shovels but that is dumb as hell because that reduces the amount of things which are built, leaving everyone worse off.

e: or we can increase the demand for the noble West Virginia coal miner by cutting every power line at the state border. The demand for coal miners would surely rise, but it comes at the expense of other things people can do with their time besides mining coal, or the things that they can buy with the money that is going to paying coal miners and exorbitant power bills.

Labor and capital are complementary, the labor theory of value has been disproven by the first Austrian school

Yes, labor and capital are complementary, but ownership of capital, in and of itself, doesn't do anything. Management of resources does (which is arguably labor), but owning the resources does nothing; if a human owns them or a rock owns them technically makes zero difference, it's just a question of who is reaping the harvest.

Toryism meets Kimilsungism

Capital has to be used in order to produce (and industrial goods require capital in and of itself), and in order to be used it has to be provided. That "capital" has to belong to a provider in the first place, therefore being a provider (i.e. "owner") has non-zero value. If labor theory of value was true then the value of capital owners would drop to zero by the capitalist race to the bottom itself.

[Agritum]

On the internet, maybe. Actual economic consensus (consensi?) doesn't map nicely onto party platform--for example most every economist, regardless of how they punch the ballot, are for free trade. Austrian economics isn't just "free markets LoLoL," it takes radical views on the nature of empiricism and the value of modeling that many (quite liberal!) economists find hard to swallow.

I say based off ideology because economics have several schools of thought. They usually agree on some universal points, yea, but most of the topics have a different viewpoint according to every school.

The schools used to mean more back when we still had to really figure out how mass production worked on production and wages, or what trade on a worldwide scale implied.

We've kinda gone beyond that, and reached the consensus or synthesis Taihei speaks about. Does this mean discourse is dead in mainstream economics? Nope. But you'll find much more shared assumptions between neoclassicals and new Keynesian than between them and Modern Austrians, or Marxists, or MMTers, or Distributists

[Aillyria]

As a pro-market socialist (yes, it's not an oxymoron), I'm curious as to the thoughts amongst economic liberals on things like minimum wages. What is the general consensus on that?

I myself, having a background in business, am not totally committed to the idea that mandatory minimum wages are healthy for any given market. I generally oppose any sort of artificial price controls, and minimum wages do artificially set the price of labor.

[Agritum]

As a pro-market socialist (yes, it's not an oxymoron), I'm curious as to the thoughts amongst economic liberals on things like minimum wages. What is the general consensus on that?

I myself, having a background in business, am not totally committed to the idea that mandatory minimum wages are healthy for any given market. I generally oppose any sort of artificial price controls, and minimum wages do artificially set the price of labor.

Minimum wages drive down employment, better to work with tax credits for low income earners.

[Aillyria]

As a pro-market socialist (yes, it's not an oxymoron), I'm curious as to the thoughts amongst economic liberals on things like minimum wages. What is the general consensus on that?

I myself, having a background in business, am not totally committed to the idea that mandatory minimum wages are healthy for any given market. I generally oppose any sort of artificial price controls, and minimum wages do artificially set the price of labor.

Minimum wages drive down employment, better to work with tax credits for low income earners.

Tax credits is a very good idea. I think abolishing the minimum wage, and allowing the natural market price of labor do its thing, would make the lives of everyone better. Minimum wage reeks havoc on ordinary people the most and I believe it'd make for a much more fair situation if we kicked that to the curb.

[Great Minarchistan]

As a pro-market socialist (yes, it's not an oxymoron), I'm curious as to the thoughts amongst economic liberals on things like minimum wages. What is the general consensus on that?

I myself, having a background in business, am not totally committed to the idea that mandatory minimum wages are healthy for any given market. I generally oppose any sort of artificial price controls, and minimum wages do artificially set the price of labor.

Minimum wage is often a drag on employment, and may boil down to chronic high inflation if its indexed to the inflation itself (see Brazil). Ending with the minimum wage would not only bring US to almost 0% unemployment as well as there would be less pressure to jack up the prices.

[Nordengrund]

WHAt are your thoughts on Universal Basic Income?

[The Liberated Territories]

WHAt are your thoughts on Universal Basic Income?

Another bad wealth redistribution scheme. Would do nothing but like the minimum wage raise the prices of goods to account. Also good luck repealing anything to be able to implement it.

[Great Minarchistan]

WHAt are your thoughts on Universal Basic Income?

It's terrible because:
1. Costly. A minimum wage UBI would cost 25% of the American GDP. Push that to living wage and it's almost the double.
2. An UBI ignores that many people don't even need it (come on, what's the need of rich, upper middle and even middle to receive this big of a government funding?). P.S.: Not advocating for welfare here, but even then that's plainly stupid.
3. An UBI also ignores the wildly varying costs of living on several regions of a country, especially big countries like the US.
4. It's a deterrent to work, mainly when we're talking about a generous UBI. Come on, why would you, a minimum wage worker, work when the government is handing you $1500 every month?

[Agritum]

I support a negative income tax for low earners if we still have to keep an income tax at all.

[The Liberated Territories]

New poll

[Agritum]

I loathed Trump's stance on foreign policy back during campaign but I am glad he kept up interventionism. I should also note, this is also one of my pet issues where I personally sharply differ from most liberals.

On things like security, immigration, trade and deficit management he's been absolutely loathsome. The useful idiots at Being Libertarian are cheering on his new attempt to end Obamacare with a very confused Rand Paul as the dawn of innovative healthcare reform, I just see a recipe for wrecking. And I am not even a single payer fan.

Absolutely illiberal.

[Telconi]

New poll

Was a tough one for me. Some of his policies I like. Others I don't. I ended up voting yes, simply because he was my preferred candidate between the big 2. I despise him, and think he sucks. But I think he sucks slightly less than Clinton would have.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Trump is not a bag of policies, he is a tribal chieftain. Any "good" policy that comes out of the administration is orthogonal to his political aims.

[Telconi]

Trump is not a bag of policies, he is a tribal chieftain. Any "good" policy that comes out of the administration is orthogonal to his political aims.

So, a policy he implements by sheer chance still gets implemented.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Trump is not a bag of policies, he is a tribal chieftain. Any "good" policy that comes out of the administration is orthogonal to his political aims.

So, a policy he implements by sheer chance still gets implemented.

A bag of dice renders the whole "support/oppose" question moot--I like the dice when it gives me two sixes and dislike it when it gives snake eyes.

[Telconi]

So, a policy he implements by sheer chance still gets implemented.

A bag of dice renders the whole "support/oppose" question moot--I like the dice when it gives me two sixes and dislike it when it gives snake eyes.

Well given that Clinton was a guaranteed negative, I absolutely support President Bag-O'-Dice.

[Anarcho capitalist utopia]

Wow. You would think more libertarians would support Donald Trump, but apparently no.