Chou Toshio
Over9000
I believe the answer is: not always, but it is requisite to freedom, and in western liberal countries-- is often a force for it.
So I touched on this in the Marxism/Socialism/Leftism thread when discussing liberalism (as opposed to leftism). Probably the key value difference there is that Liberals value liberty more highly relative to leftists, which put more emphasis on the collective good/welfare. Liberals value welfare, and many leftists also value liberty, but liberals definitively putting liberty over welfare and valuing the individual over the collective.
The two goods are not unrelated in my mind—with the key difference between liberals and right libertarians is that liberty defined as individual freedom is often served better by common regulations and provision of welfare for groups and individuals even at the cost of what the theoretical limitations of their behavior should be on paper.
A really simple example—telling people they are allowed to drive on both sides of the road logically expands the liberties of allowed action on paper, but we would all lose ability to move freely compared to a society where we regulate which side.
In other words the left-liberal position would be that there are many things that we can do as a collective—often through the vehicle of government—that ends up giving the individual more liberty. Rules that make things more efficient by common standards. Transparency laws that inform better decisions in the market, and thus result in more wealth creation and better allocation of capital. Legal protections that free up the limited resource of human time to spend less of it worrying about being harmed or cheated. Safety nets and welfare systems that give individuals more autonomy in their lives and agency to direct their futures. Perhaps most importantly, a firewall between power and money is something we desperately need so that success does not buy more success, and that the marketplace is actually structured for liberty and the pursuit of happiness-- a more even playing field for opportunity.
There are trade-offs between more and less government, but the resulting liberty and welfare from a given policy are likely to be far more empirical, and far less directional.
While the left and right authoritarian quadrants of the political compass have nothing to agree on and no reason to collaborate, I agree with an idea from the embattled former Evergreen professor Bret Weinstein that there is reason that left and right libertarians do.
We share the same value of liberty, and if we're nuanced adults we can observe that neither Karl Marx nor Ayn Rand deliver us working economic systems.
Central Questions of the thread:
-If you disagree that the government has an important role to play in Capitalism, why? Can you justify the extreme position of zero regulation, zero wealth redistribution, or are you ready to admit that what libertarians face in policy, are trade offs.
-Do you see potential for a coming together of left and right libertarians in the US, and an admission that the divides are far less ideological, and far more about specific policy? Can there be unity from groups seemingly as disparate as those who stand close to Bernie Sanders, and those who stand close to Ted Cruz?
-Among specific policy areas where left and right libertarians disagree, what do you see as being the most important (in the US or other western countries)? Where do you see potential for people to come together? How will the current economic realities, globalism, technology, play into the evolution of thought for liberals and libertarians?
So I touched on this in the Marxism/Socialism/Leftism thread when discussing liberalism (as opposed to leftism). Probably the key value difference there is that Liberals value liberty more highly relative to leftists, which put more emphasis on the collective good/welfare. Liberals value welfare, and many leftists also value liberty, but liberals definitively putting liberty over welfare and valuing the individual over the collective.
The two goods are not unrelated in my mind—with the key difference between liberals and right libertarians is that liberty defined as individual freedom is often served better by common regulations and provision of welfare for groups and individuals even at the cost of what the theoretical limitations of their behavior should be on paper.
A really simple example—telling people they are allowed to drive on both sides of the road logically expands the liberties of allowed action on paper, but we would all lose ability to move freely compared to a society where we regulate which side.
In other words the left-liberal position would be that there are many things that we can do as a collective—often through the vehicle of government—that ends up giving the individual more liberty. Rules that make things more efficient by common standards. Transparency laws that inform better decisions in the market, and thus result in more wealth creation and better allocation of capital. Legal protections that free up the limited resource of human time to spend less of it worrying about being harmed or cheated. Safety nets and welfare systems that give individuals more autonomy in their lives and agency to direct their futures. Perhaps most importantly, a firewall between power and money is something we desperately need so that success does not buy more success, and that the marketplace is actually structured for liberty and the pursuit of happiness-- a more even playing field for opportunity.
There are trade-offs between more and less government, but the resulting liberty and welfare from a given policy are likely to be far more empirical, and far less directional.
While the left and right authoritarian quadrants of the political compass have nothing to agree on and no reason to collaborate, I agree with an idea from the embattled former Evergreen professor Bret Weinstein that there is reason that left and right libertarians do.
We share the same value of liberty, and if we're nuanced adults we can observe that neither Karl Marx nor Ayn Rand deliver us working economic systems.
Central Questions of the thread:
-If you disagree that the government has an important role to play in Capitalism, why? Can you justify the extreme position of zero regulation, zero wealth redistribution, or are you ready to admit that what libertarians face in policy, are trade offs.
-Do you see potential for a coming together of left and right libertarians in the US, and an admission that the divides are far less ideological, and far more about specific policy? Can there be unity from groups seemingly as disparate as those who stand close to Bernie Sanders, and those who stand close to Ted Cruz?
-Among specific policy areas where left and right libertarians disagree, what do you see as being the most important (in the US or other western countries)? Where do you see potential for people to come together? How will the current economic realities, globalism, technology, play into the evolution of thought for liberals and libertarians?
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