Why is the libertarian ideology so popular among otherwise reasonable people?

[ctuser1]

42% and 96% are vastly different. It's not like comparing a 35% tax bracket to a 24% effective tax rate. If you knew the rich actually paid 42% and you used 96% in your example that's something you should probably disclose to avoid being misleading.

I did not precisely *know* what was the effective tax rate. Last time I tried to dig it up (via 30 minute google hunt) Different sources seem to vary significantly, with lowest estimates around the low 40s. I did not find any absolutely reliable non-partisan source like the IRS spreadsheet I gave for current taxes, and hence did not quote that.

When I say "top" tax rate, to me it seems obvious this applies only in some "top" situations, and not an "effective" rate.

The numbers I've seen from economists actually put the current inflection point for personal taxes around 60-70%

It differs between economic classes.
A minimum wage earner probably needs all of his money for food and rent. So the marginal utility of 60% of his money (if taken away in taxes) is a LOT. So he will likely stop working a lot before the 60-70% range.

A billionaire only loses a few zeros in a bank account. So 60-70% taken away from him (assuming it happens for all other billionnaires as well) is probably not that kind of a disaster for him. And he will not stop working there.

We *know* that they did not stop working in the 1950's and 1960's.
The fact that the effective tax rate was only 42% (compared to top marginal rate of 91%) is a little revealing. This means not too many CEOs and such actually earned well into the top rate bracket. Take a look at the article about George Romney from NYT - and that probably reveals why inequality was so low. It literally did not pay back then to have CEOs earn in an hour what the employees make in a year (https://247wallst.com/investing/2019/04/26/mcdonalds-ceo-makes-an-hour-what-the-average-worker-makes-a-year/).

The article I linked above in this thread - by Saez and Diamond - seems to arrive at the ballpark of 60-70% effective tax rate for billionaires as the "fair tax rate". This is above all estimates of what "effective" tax rates were in 50's and 60's. So I am a little scared of something like that. I like things that worked. So it probably only a good idea to bring back 50's and 60s tax rates (yes, with it's 91% top marginal rate after something crazy like $10MM/year or something) and monitor the effective rate closely so that it does not go too far above the 40-50% range.

[ctuser1]

Some of us workers have enough skills that we can command a large portion of the "Z" figure.

... not an economic argument, anecdotal ...

Somehow, tech companies seem to manage to do this well, at least so far.

In some ways, I had an extremely comfortable existence as I never worked during college, my college was paid for, and I landed a job in a tech company right after college.

In hindsight, I was clearly quite useless when I first joined, especially compared to some of the 10X engineers out there. I seemed to learn my trade well in about 6 months, and became a very good coder fit for large enterprises in a couple of years.

During all that time (when I was not exactly very productive and still learning things), my salary was between 40-60% of the average productivity of a worker in my company. My salary jumped above the average productivity very soon  (it took just one job hop) after I became a competent programmer.

Tech companies seem to be doing well by their employees AND doing well in the market. Why can't others act similarly?

[Bloop Bloop]

Some of us workers have enough skills that we can command a large portion of the "Z" figure.

... not an economic argument, anecdotal ...

Somehow, tech companies seem to manage to do this well, at least so far.

In some ways, I had an extremely comfortable existence as I never worked during college, my college was paid for, and I landed a job in a tech company right after college.

In hindsight, I was clearly quite useless when I first joined, especially compared to some of the 10X engineers out there. I seemed to learn my trade well in about 6 months, and became a very good coder fit for large enterprises in a couple of years.

During all that time (when I was not exactly very productive and still learning things), my salary was between 40-60% of the average productivity of a worker in my company. My salary jumped above the average productivity very soon  (it took just one job hop) after I became a competent programmer.

Tech companies seem to be doing well by their employees AND doing well in the market. Why can't others act similarly?

How is me saying that the Z range for workers ranges from 0.01 to 1.0 a "non-economic" argument? It's self-evidently true that the Z range is going to vary widely. By definition, contractors or principals earn a Z of 1.0 and partners probably earn a Z of greater than 1.0. I don't see where your disagreement lies.

You might say that the vast majority of workers earn a small Z figure. I would agree with that. That does not stop the talented ones from earning a high Z figure.

Tech companies and other companies treat their workforce well as an investment in their future potential. They are dealing with very high-skilled workers who have lots of alternatives, so they have no choice but to pay relatively high Z values.  It only applies to high skilled workers. Other companies which deal with low-skilled, easily replaceable workers don't need to invest or retain human capital in anything like the same manner. You might as well ask why successful baseball teams pay their players such high salaries.

"Why can't others act similarly" - why should they? They do what they like - that's the great thing about a free market.

[ctuser1]

Some of us workers have enough skills that we can command a large portion of the "Z" figure.

... not an economic argument, anecdotal ...

Somehow, tech companies seem to manage to do this well, at least so far.

In some ways, I had an extremely comfortable existence as I never worked during college, my college was paid for, and I landed a job in a tech company right after college.

In hindsight, I was clearly quite useless when I first joined, especially compared to some of the 10X engineers out there. I seemed to learn my trade well in about 6 months, and became a very good coder fit for large enterprises in a couple of years.

During all that time (when I was not exactly very productive and still learning things), my salary was between 40-60% of the average productivity of a worker in my company. My salary jumped above the average productivity very soon  (it took just one job hop) after I became a competent programmer.

Tech companies seem to be doing well by their employees AND doing well in the market. Why can't others act similarly?

How is me saying that the Z range for workers ranges from 0.01 to 1.0 a "non-economic" argument? It's self-evidently true that the Z range is going to vary widely. By definition, contractors or principals earn a Z of 1.0 and partners probably earn a Z of greater than 1.0. I don't see where your disagreement lies.

You might say that the vast majority of workers earn a small Z figure. I would agree with that. That does not stop the talented ones from earning a high Z figure.

Tech companies and other companies treat their workforce well as an investment in their future potential. They are dealing with very high-skilled workers who have lots of alternatives, so they have no choice but to pay relatively high Z values.  It only applies to high skilled workers. Other companies which deal with low-skilled, easily replaceable workers don't need to invest or retain human capital in anything like the same manner. You might as well ask why successful baseball teams pay their players such high salaries.

"Why can't others act similarly" - why should they? They do what they like - that's the great thing about a free market.

I did not say your argument was "non economic". At least that was not the intent.

I said my story was not an economic argument. It was basically a disclaimer before I typed my story. Something like "I know the below is not a valid economic argument, but still interesting in context".

Your argument is very much an economic argument. My story is anecdotal and we can't draw broader economic conclusions from that.

[ctuser1]

It's not a fair comparison. The 50s and 60s were an economic boom period

And you think the boom due to the digital age is smaller in magnitude??

Yes, the growth in the tech boom was significantly slower than the 1950s and 1960s. 
Average GDP growth:
1950-1959: 4.24%
1960-1969: 4.53%
1970-1979: 3.25%
1980-1989: 3.13%
1990-1999: 3.23%
2000-2009: 1.92%
2010-2018: 2.28%

1. I used the word "magnitude". "Rate" and "Magnitude" are different concepts.
2. The digital boom is not fully captured in GDP growth rate. Apple's overseas stash won't count in US GDP, as won't various transfer pricing schemes.
3. The non-multiple-expansion portion of the SP500 growth is likely a far better approximator of wealth generated by the US corporations. SP500  PE was around 7.39 in 1980, and 24 today, and index went from 110.90 to 3239. So we can approximate economic gain to be:
(3239/110)/(24/7.39) = 906.6746% -> over 40 years.
i.e.  =POWER(906.6746%,1/40)-1 = 19% CAGR.

If I redo the same calc for 1940-1980:
=POWER((110/12.3)/(7.39/13.23), 1/40)-1 = 20% CAGR.

Dividends used to be higher back then, so if I redid the calculations with a much more complicated time-value dividends included, or perhaps dividend reinvested - that would add another couple of percent extra to the 40-80 number. But then the inflation was much higher as well. So if we went into even more complicated calculation involving inflation - maybe the 80-2019 will win out.

Net net, the point I am making is that the digital boom was not too different even in rate as measured by the stock market profits. More relevant - magnitude was *much* higher as the basis was much larger.

The issue with today's economic structure, compared to 1960's, is that whatever economic gains were generated, went mostly to the top 1% (https://eml.berkeley.edu//~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf), with top 10% just about keeping up, and rest falling behind. THIS was different with 1960's tax structure.

When the top 1% is hoarding the benefits, magnitude of economic benefits is much more relevant than first derivative of growth rate, which is what you seem to consider despite me mentioning "magnitude" clearly in my sentence.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

That is an excellent question, but I'm sure we will disagree on my response to it, lol.

There is no single correct answer as to what is the correct statistical standard for using "correlation as proof". So as long as someone has the same standard for a single context, he/she deserves my respect as an honest individual.

This is where I have seen some of the biggest dishonesty coming from the crackpot right when questioning things - different standards used to discredit research and promote crackpot stuff.

I have put a lot of thought into your question, and I've developed some tiers that I feel are pretty reasonable with examples.

There's the first case of without a doubt provable through direct measuring. We've already covered that with the heliocentric example.

The next level would be a direct causal study - like a medical study with placebo. If introducing the drug statistically improves things beyond the placebo then that would be good enough and would merit some putting of feet down if someone says that it's not a real thing.

The next level would be the level you're relying on, an observational study. This, of course, requires even more rigor to determine to be true because nothing is actually being introduced and it can't be controlled as well because of that. Also, what we're talking about with government run healthcare is also not nearly as cut and dried as, say, the tobacco causes cancer correlation proofs. While scientists could control for certain variables, such as obesity, on something of this scale, I doubt they could control for all of the variables as well as, for example, the tobacco study, because, frankly, government controlled healthcare is much more nuanced than smoking or not smoking. So off the cuff, I'm much more suspicious of claims that studies have proven this or that for government healthcare. This is why I need to look at the study more to get a feel for what I feel it's really proving or not, not that I'm a statistics expert by any means, but I want to at least give it a shot.

It is perfectly fine and fair to delve into it in more detail, especially if you find the results surprising. I have nothing against that.

However, and this is crucial, even if there was correlation proof beyond any reasonable doubt, the extent of the proof would simply be that other nations with government run healthcare have citizens with better health. The nuance you appear to be missing as I see it is that the fact that it can be improved does not mean it will be, and this is really important when there is significant risk if it's actually not improved in the attempt to improve.

You've basically gone beyond arguing that your right into straight up shaming of people who view things differently than you on this. There's some applicability for shaming in certain situations. For example, for people who claim that there's a causal relationship between vaccines and autism, the burden of proof is on them to prove it, and since they can't and the stakes are so high, the fact that they don't have the evidence to back up their spurious claims is really bad. However, that is the exception rather than the rule on politics. There's frankly just so much nuance in politics that your stance is overly aggressive and deserves to be confronted. I'll compare this to another common contentious issue, not to derail, but to compare, and that's gun control. Gun control people on both sides use a lot of correlation to show what they feel is really causation. The difference is, with gun control, you can use some pretty solid information on both sides of it to the point where it pretty much boils down to whether or not you like guns as to what side you want things to fall on. In this issue, it's different because there are some significant statistics showing the US is pretty bad comparatively speaking. However, again, that doesn't prove that it will actually work for the US. I don't really see how you could do that to the point where you can legitimately eye roll and disparage people who don't think like you do.

So let's delve into when eye roll is deserved.

AMA and pharma lobby has caused any healthcare reform to fail - going back almost 60+ years. We *do* know other OECD countries - ALL 19 of them with ZERO exceptions that I am aware of - launched some form of "single payer" AND have better results AND have lower costs.

Is it reasonable to assume that US would have followed similar path if it had launched a similar experiment back then?

Are you sure of this? Just after my off the cuff perusal, I saw that even the study you quoted didn't make that level of a claim: "For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all of the peer countries."

Now view the two situations:
A. Hypothetical US where medical results are similar to other countries.
B. Current day US where it is significantly worse in all respects.

How many lives, and $$ have been lost in B that could have been prevented in A?

I consider the right-wing BS'ers from the past and present day to be responsible for this!!

You thought anti-vac thinking to be deserving of ridicule. Well, how many lives are lost due to that vs. the rightwing BS for 60+ years on healthcare? What is your threshold for where ridicule is appropriate? Some body count? $$ threshold? I have a feeling the rightwing bs on healthcare reform would have caused more harm than anti-vac nonsense.

-- Edited to add on the eye-roll issue
When I encounter libertarian ideologues, I compare them with the communist zombies that I have seen earlier in my life. I've never been to Russia, but there were many commies (the proper ones, not the centrists that american right likes to label as "commies") everywhere in the world.

Even those godless commies had the basic human decency to at least acknowledge and question the communist policy failures. Google "glassnost" and "perestroika".

The Ayn Rand gang of libertarians have caused much death and misery by torpedoing any Healthcare initiatives taken in the last 60+ years, and yet show complete lack of any introspection or accountability. It's basically the same freeloading tendency that plagues libertarians in every sphere - just with a massive consequence.

Does THAT deserve an eye-roll?

No offense, but you've explained how the stakes are high but still have not really combatted my comments about risk, evidence of US screw ups as examples, and the issue of a lack of certainty that is there. Anti-vaccination deserves the eye roll not because it meets some standard of number of deaths or people impacted. It deserves the eye roll because it leads to preventable deaths/maiming and has the high degree of certainty.

The fact of the matter is, and I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, but throughout this thread, it's clear you have a lot of biases and presuppositions about libertarians. As I myself have said, there's tons of libertarian issues unrelated to financial things, for a clear example, that don't fit into what seems to be your box on libertarians. Additionally, the things you seem to think of as certain don't appear to be as certain as you seem to think they are. You have ascribed deliberate hostile and pretty much murderous (or at least manslaughterish...?) levels of motivation to people you view politically different. You throw out phrases like crackpot right with a lot of vagueness as to who you are talking about - thus causing people to draw the logical conclusion that you feel that many/most people who are right of center fit into these terms, and when you get a calm, reasoned response, you either ignore it or describe them (for example me) as the exception. I might suggest that you try to open up your mindset and perspective a little to give people that disagree with you, in general, a little more credit.

In summary, I will defend gun rights because I like guns against people who are pro-gun control because they don't like guns where the statistics are pretty close between the two, but I won't pretend that all of the statistics show I'm right.
For government involvement in health care, the statistics have convinced me that it's worth a try, but I will argue vehemently against you who imply that people are just blind who don't see it that way because of the nuance of the issue and more importantly because of the risk in implementation going wrong with no guarantee of success which cannot be duplicated as if it was a drug trial where you simply take one pill a day and check in with the doctor at week 20.
For vaccines cause autism or people that for some reason would go against a legitimate study with placebo that says this drug helps with this problem, I will lean into the eye rolling/losing respect for them level.

Hope that clarifies.

I am holding back on the gun control topic. But just to clarify my stance - there is evidence beyond reasonable doubt that US loses more lives to preventable gun-deaths due to lax gun-control compared to almost any other country where there is strict gun control and regulations (e.g. Israel, Sweden).

However, guns really don't cause AS MANY deaths as poor healthcare does, so that is not really that critically important a topic in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I HATED to see my 6 year old daughter being taught how to hide and flee if/when there is active gunfire in the school. But beyond that emotional shock, the actual harm from rightwing-gun-lunacy is much less than the healthcare-lunacy.

Especially as you are the OP (and of course as it is truly off topic), I will avoid digging into the gun control situation. I will however say that for every statistic you bring up about how there are more gun deaths in America than in other countries where there are fewer guns (of course true), I can bring up just as many statistics that show that with increased number of guns in America, overall crime has gone down and that in Australia where guns were taken up in large numbers, gun crimes went down but the same overall crime groupings (violent crimes, homicides and so on) stayed virtually identical - they were just done without guns. The point I want to make is, gun control is definitely one you cannot prove or disprove with correlation statistics either way, thus this is why it filled the tier of you either think guns help society by being used to protect people or endanger society by being used to harm people and your perception of the issue is always going to be tied to that. I won't comment further on this unless you request it to respect the thread, but feel free to make any comments you might have to this, of course.

[John Galt incarnate!]

you either think guns help society by being used to protect people or endanger society by being used to harm people

Firearms do both depending on the intent of the shooter.

Yesterday, a gunman walked into a church in Texas and shot at the congregants killing two of them. An armed churchgoer, specifically there to provide security,  shot and killed the gunman.

All of my  libertarian friends and acquaintances are  stalwart supporters of the  "right of the people to keep and bear Arms," the guarantee of the Second Amendment.

The variety of  arms constitutionally permitted  allows each citizen the freedom to  choose which arm(s)suits them best thereby securing exercise of the natural right of self-preservation, the paramount natural right.

 Beyond its intrinsic primacy, the natural right of self-preservation allows for exercise of other constitutional guarantees which is surpassingly consequential   since the dead have no possibility of exercise of any right.

[ctuser1]

Are you sure of this? Just after my off the cuff perusal, I saw that even the study you quoted didn't make that level of a claim: "For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all of the peer countries."

Something flipped since Reagan.
We know costs were in line till then, and soared afterwards.

I don't have details from a credible source (not political think tanks) for all outcomes, but here is the life expectancy data from a government source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62373/table/ch1.t1/?report=objectonly

Longer report: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62373/

You will notice that in 1950's, for both men and women, US was higher middle of the pack.
By 1980, it was a laggerd. Men live longer everywhere else by now, only women in Denmark seem to have it worse than women in US.
In 2007, the trend persisted and the gap has widened. (Women in Denmark are the only exception again).

From 1980 to now, it is 40ish years.

Does this substantiate the claim that "For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all of the peer countries."?

---------------

You have further questioned if things *will* improve just because they *can*. I did not quite respond to it so far because I don't know how to respond logically to hypothetical situations.

Can you substantiate why you feel there is a unique fear of US somehow failing to not only mimic, but learn from other Single Payer systems and do something at least similar (but quite possible significantly better)?

We have many socialized constructs in the US that have sometimes operated for centuries:
1. US Military. Does it perform worse in your opinion compared to other countries that have socialized military? When you focus strictly on the military operations (and not stupid political decisions to wage war), they seem to be doing a reasonable job so far.
2. Does FDA perform worse compared to other countries? We seem to be one of the standard bearers in this AFAIK.
3. Does US Electricity transmission ISO's perform worse compared to other countries? From what I hear, it is quite the other way around, and my lights seem to stay on (when my stupid AFC switch does not randomly decide to trip, that is).
4. Does medicare, despite having one hand tied behind it's back (in terms of not being able to properly negotiate etc) fare worse compared to just the insurance/financing aspect of other countries healthcare?
5. Does social security not do it's job?
6. Does USPS uniquely underperform other countries postal systems? I seem to never have lost mail pieces, including critical ones - seemingly a regular complaint in some other countries. They certainly "over-deliver" in terms of junk mail - but seem to not lose critical ones, which is my bottom-line.
7. Did US Fed's response to 2008 fall short of other countries? To me it seems to be the other way around compared with the EU.

So can you please give me some reasonable realistic scenario why you are worried that any new healthcare construct in US will underperform, say, Canada, and why? So far, this "fear" seems to be purely ideology driven.

And supposing you had a reasonable fear in this regard, is that a good enough reason to:
1. (not you specifically, but other right wing people) Question observations at every step citing the 2X cost and worse outcome?
2. Deciding we are okay with the situation as is and doing nothing?

Because that is what the rightwing response boils down to.

At least I have not heard anything from the right that makes a reasonable case of how we can re-align ourselves with other OECD peers. Have you?

[GuitarStv]

you either think guns help society by being used to protect people or endanger society by being used to harm people

Firearms do both depending on the intent of the shooter.

Yesterday, a gunman walked into a church in Texas and shot at the congregants killing one of them. An armed churchgoer shot and killed the gunman.

All of my  libertarian friends and acquaintances are  stalwart supporters of the  "right of the people to keep and bear Arms," the guarantee of the Second Amendment.

The variety of  arms constitutionally permitted  allows each citizen the freedom to  choose which arm(s)suits them best thereby securing exercise of the natural right of self-preservation, the paramount natural right.

 Beyond its intrinsic primacy, the natural right of self-preservation allows for exercise of other constitutional guarantees which is surpassingly consequential   since the dead have no possibility of exercise of any right.

Self-preservation is not a natural right.  In nature, things die all the time . . . the weak, slow, and stupid typically more often.  By giving the weaker, slower, and more stupid a way to survive, you are spitting in the face of nature.

This is all well and good (we do the same by giving people with poor eyesight glasses, providing antibiotics to the sick, and having a government run police force to prevent the strong from simply taking what they want) . . . but it's important to acknowledge that there exists no such thing as a 'natural right'.  All rights (and indeed the very concept of rights) are man made and have nothing whatsoever to do with nature.  Nature tortures, rapes and murders on a regular basis.

[Wrenchturner]

you either think guns help society by being used to protect people or endanger society by being used to harm people

Firearms do both depending on the intent of the shooter.

Yesterday, a gunman walked into a church in Texas and shot at the congregants killing one of them. An armed churchgoer shot and killed the gunman.

All of my  libertarian friends and acquaintances are  stalwart supporters of the  "right of the people to keep and bear Arms," the guarantee of the Second Amendment.

The variety of  arms constitutionally permitted  allows each citizen the freedom to  choose which arm(s)suits them best thereby securing exercise of the natural right of self-preservation, the paramount natural right.

 Beyond its intrinsic primacy, the natural right of self-preservation allows for exercise of other constitutional guarantees which is surpassingly consequential   since the dead have no possibility of exercise of any right.

The footage of this is crazy.  The security guard took down the shooter from 50ft with a pistol(he owns a firing range).  Headshot while moving.  At least four people in the congregation had their pistols drawn.

[DarkandStormy]

https://twitter.com/WAForeskins/status/1103511805597491200

[John Galt incarnate!]

you either think guns help society by being used to protect people or endanger society by being used to harm people

Firearms do both depending on the intent of the shooter.

Yesterday, a gunman walked into a church in Texas and shot at the congregants killing one of them. An armed churchgoer shot and killed the gunman.

All of my  libertarian friends and acquaintances are  stalwart supporters of the  "right of the people to keep and bear Arms," the guarantee of the Second Amendment.

The variety of  arms constitutionally permitted  allows each citizen the freedom to  choose which arm(s)suits them best thereby securing exercise of the natural right of self-preservation, the paramount natural right.

 Beyond its intrinsic primacy, the natural right of self-preservation allows for exercise of other constitutional guarantees which is surpassingly consequential   since the dead have no possibility of exercise of any right.

Self-preservation is not a natural right.  In nature, things die all the time . . . the weak, slow, and stupid typically more often.  By giving the weaker, slower, and more stupid a way to survive, you are spitting in the face of nature.

This is all well and good (we do the same by giving people with poor eyesight glasses, providing antibiotics to the sick, and having a government run police force to prevent the strong from simply taking what they want) . . . but it's important to acknowledge that there exists no such thing as a 'natural right'.  All rights (and indeed the very concept of rights) are man made and have nothing whatsoever to do with nature.  Nature tortures, rapes and murders on a regular basis.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Section 7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.



WIKIPEDIA


The right has been extended to include the power to make important personal choices. The court described it as "[touching] the core of what it means to be an autonomous human being blessed with dignity and independence in matters that can be characterized as fundamentally or inherently personal". (R v Clay, 2003) That is, the concept extends beyond physical restraint by the government as it goes to the core of the human experience.


In R v. Clay  I think  the court's  use of "autonomous human being" and "inherently personal"  is a signal of its embrace of  the principle of "unalienable rights."


WIKIPEDIA

The sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing 27 colonial grievances against King George III and by asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution. Its original purpose was to announce independence, and references to the text of the Declaration were few in the following years. Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his policies and his rhetoric, as in the Gettysburg Address of 1863. Since then, it has become a well-known statement on human rights, particularly its second sentence:


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language",[7] containing "the most potent and consequential words in American history".[8] The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy and argued that it is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted.[



"Unalienable rights" and "natural rights" are synonymous terms.

You are free to choose  to reject the existence of natural rights.

However, if that is your position its corollary is that America's founding principle of "unalienable rights" does not exist and arguably, that there is no basis for Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.


HAPPPY NEW YEAR!

[GuitarStv]

If rights were somehow 'natural' and self evident, there would be no need to enumerate them in section 7 of Canada's charter.  But they're not . . . hence the inclusion.

I equally don't believe in the myth of 'unalienable rights'.  All rights are alienable especially as they pertain to America . . . as evidenced by the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay.  A place where innocent people were kidnapped from around the world and deprived of their 'right' to liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and in several cases their lives.  Or as evidenced by the continued deaths caused by US drone strikes.  Or by the persecution of whistleblower Edward Snowden.  The execution of Trayvon Martin.  The list just goes on and on.  The denial of 'natural' and 'unalienable' rights is commonplace, and apparently completely natural.  When denied, there is rarely any punishment meted out to the denier.  A right not enforced does not exist.

You can go through history and see how 'natural' rights have changed and been interpreted in completely different ways depending on the man made society doing the interpretation.  I'm certain that a few hundreds of years from now, people will look back at our barbaric practices with a sniff while touting the 'natural' rights that they have come up with.  And they'll be just as wrong to assume that their culturally specific contextual rules are somehow universal rules of nature.

[Bloop Bloop]

Besides possibly the right to life (in the sense of not being arbitrarily killed or imprisoned), there are no natural rights other than whatever we assign to people to ensure society works at some fundamental level.

You don't have the right to the pursuit of happiness. You have to create that yourself. The rest of it is just some flowery phrase that Tom Jefferson wrote on a piece of paper.

[GuitarStv]

You don't have the right to not be arbitrarily killed.  This should be pretty evident.  We were just talking about arming citizens with guns as a way to attempt to avoid being arbitrarily killed.  Obviously if you need to arm yourself out of fear of death, you do not have the right to life.

You don't have the right to avoid arbitrary imprisonment . . . again, I point to all of Guantanamo Bay as an example of the US doing this, or China's arbitrary detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

You don't have the right to property.  Or if you do, it certainly isn't much of a right . . . as all the land we live on was forcefully taken from other people before us.

'Natural' or 'unalienable' rights are a fun idea, but ultimately a concept completely unfounded in reality.

[LennStar]

When you focus strictly on the military operations (and not stupid political decisions to wage war), they seem to be doing a reasonable job so far.

You are not very strict, are you? Was there a single war that the US military won after WWII (and I would argue that this does not count, as it was a huge team effort)?
They certainly lost several and the other half has never ended, the US just stopped fighting - or is bombing more today than in the times of official war, like in Afghanistan.

With all the money put into the US military you could win the "idology wars" by instead doing a Marshall Plan for the whole world. That thing worked in the past. Bombing for peace did not.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Are you sure of this? Just after my off the cuff perusal, I saw that even the study you quoted didn't make that level of a claim: "For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all of the peer countries."

Something flipped since Reagan.
We know costs were in line till then, and soared afterwards.

I don't have details from a credible source (not political think tanks) for all outcomes, but here is the life expectancy data from a government source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62373/table/ch1.t1/?report=objectonly

Longer report: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62373/

You will notice that in 1950's, for both men and women, US was higher middle of the pack.
By 1980, it was a laggerd. Men live longer everywhere else by now, only women in Denmark seem to have it worse than women in US.
In 2007, the trend persisted and the gap has widened. (Women in Denmark are the only exception again).

From 1980 to now, it is 40ish years.

Does this substantiate the claim that "For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all of the peer countries."?

---------------

You have further questioned if things *will* improve just because they *can*. I did not quite respond to it so far because I don't know how to respond logically to hypothetical situations.

Can you substantiate why you feel there is a unique fear of US somehow failing to not only mimic, but learn from other Single Payer systems and do something at least similar (but quite possible significantly better)?

We have many socialized constructs in the US that have sometimes operated for centuries:
1. US Military. Does it perform worse in your opinion compared to other countries that have socialized military? When you focus strictly on the military operations (and not stupid political decisions to wage war), they seem to be doing a reasonable job so far.
2. Does FDA perform worse compared to other countries? We seem to be one of the standard bearers in this AFAIK.
3. Does US Electricity transmission ISO's perform worse compared to other countries? From what I hear, it is quite the other way around, and my lights seem to stay on (when my stupid AFC switch does not randomly decide to trip, that is).
4. Does medicare, despite having one hand tied behind it's back (in terms of not being able to properly negotiate etc) fare worse compared to just the insurance/financing aspect of other countries healthcare?
5. Does social security not do it's job?
6. Does USPS uniquely underperform other countries postal systems? I seem to never have lost mail pieces, including critical ones - seemingly a regular complaint in some other countries. They certainly "over-deliver" in terms of junk mail - but seem to not lose critical ones, which is my bottom-line.
7. Did US Fed's response to 2008 fall short of other countries? To me it seems to be the other way around compared with the EU.

So can you please give me some reasonable realistic scenario why you are worried that any new healthcare construct in US will underperform, say, Canada, and why? So far, this "fear" seems to be purely ideology driven.

And supposing you had a reasonable fear in this regard, is that a good enough reason to:
1. (not you specifically, but other right wing people) Question observations at every step citing the 2X cost and worse outcome?
2. Deciding we are okay with the situation as is and doing nothing?

Because that is what the rightwing response boils down to.

At least I have not heard anything from the right that makes a reasonable case of how we can re-align ourselves with other OECD peers. Have you?

No, I'm not aware of any particular methods of reducing costs or improving results from right wing people with the exception of the previously cliched but now not really mentioned much caps/regulation on physician malpractice suits.

I don't think I'm going to be the best at arguing the point becuase I've already been convinced to try something. However, I'll throw out a couple of things:

I don't believe you ever specifically responded to indexer's comment about how much the government already spends per citizen on medical stuff we do provide that doesn't include everyone and how much more that is than other countries. I get that they don't have the ability to mandate things that they might in a different situation, but it's still a data point that shows problems.

Some things in the US government work decently that are akin to socialized things, but again, there are other issues such as the VA where the government has really screwed up.

There's also the point of America's lack of collectivism and general push back against things being regulated in personal lives, i.e. regulation on soft drinks universally disliked and mocked. Shoot, I'm right there with it deriding it. I haven't drank sodas in a couple of years now, but I wanted it to be my decision. The point being, I do think there's a general lack of wanting to be told what to do that may not be completely unique to America but is very very prevalent that would make implementation and some of the things that would need to go with it challenging.

Overall, I don't think we're really going to come to a consensus. I guess having previously thought that way I can just see better the perspective maybe, or maybe I have a higher threshold or different view in general for saying, hey, this is a situation where statistically it appears that it would be good to try something different, but I think there is not enough proof that it's a slam dunk that I'm not going to harass others for not seeing it that way.

[ctuser1]

Are you sure of this? Just after my off the cuff perusal, I saw that even the study you quoted didn't make that level of a claim: "For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all of the peer countries."

Something flipped since Reagan.
We know costs were in line till then, and soared afterwards.

I don't have details from a credible source (not political think tanks) for all outcomes, but here is the life expectancy data from a government source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62373/table/ch1.t1/?report=objectonly

Longer report: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK62373/

You will notice that in 1950's, for both men and women, US was higher middle of the pack.
By 1980, it was a laggerd. Men live longer everywhere else by now, only women in Denmark seem to have it worse than women in US.
In 2007, the trend persisted and the gap has widened. (Women in Denmark are the only exception again).

From 1980 to now, it is 40ish years.

Does this substantiate the claim that "For many years, Americans have had a shorter life expectancy than people in almost all of the peer countries."?

---------------

You have further questioned if things *will* improve just because they *can*. I did not quite respond to it so far because I don't know how to respond logically to hypothetical situations.

Can you substantiate why you feel there is a unique fear of US somehow failing to not only mimic, but learn from other Single Payer systems and do something at least similar (but quite possible significantly better)?

We have many socialized constructs in the US that have sometimes operated for centuries:
1. US Military. Does it perform worse in your opinion compared to other countries that have socialized military? When you focus strictly on the military operations (and not stupid political decisions to wage war), they seem to be doing a reasonable job so far.
2. Does FDA perform worse compared to other countries? We seem to be one of the standard bearers in this AFAIK.
3. Does US Electricity transmission ISO's perform worse compared to other countries? From what I hear, it is quite the other way around, and my lights seem to stay on (when my stupid AFC switch does not randomly decide to trip, that is).
4. Does medicare, despite having one hand tied behind it's back (in terms of not being able to properly negotiate etc) fare worse compared to just the insurance/financing aspect of other countries healthcare?
5. Does social security not do it's job?
6. Does USPS uniquely underperform other countries postal systems? I seem to never have lost mail pieces, including critical ones - seemingly a regular complaint in some other countries. They certainly "over-deliver" in terms of junk mail - but seem to not lose critical ones, which is my bottom-line.
7. Did US Fed's response to 2008 fall short of other countries? To me it seems to be the other way around compared with the EU.

So can you please give me some reasonable realistic scenario why you are worried that any new healthcare construct in US will underperform, say, Canada, and why? So far, this "fear" seems to be purely ideology driven.

And supposing you had a reasonable fear in this regard, is that a good enough reason to:
1. (not you specifically, but other right wing people) Question observations at every step citing the 2X cost and worse outcome?
2. Deciding we are okay with the situation as is and doing nothing?

Because that is what the rightwing response boils down to.

At least I have not heard anything from the right that makes a reasonable case of how we can re-align ourselves with other OECD peers. Have you?

No, I'm not aware of any particular methods of reducing costs or improving results from right wing people with the exception of the previously cliched but now not really mentioned much caps/regulation on physician malpractice suits.


I don't think I'm going to be the best at arguing the point becuase I've already been convinced to try something. However, I'll throw out a couple of things:

I don't believe you ever specifically responded to indexer's comment about how much the government already spends per citizen on medical stuff we do provide that doesn't include everyone and how much more that is than other countries. I get that they don't have the ability to mandate things that they might in a different situation, but it's still a data point that shows problems.

Some things in the US government work decently that are akin to socialized things, but again, there are other issues such as the VA where the government has really screwed up.

There's also the point of America's lack of collectivism and general push back against things being regulated in personal lives, i.e. regulation on soft drinks universally disliked and mocked. Shoot, I'm right there with it deriding it. I haven't drank sodas in a couple of years now, but I wanted it to be my decision. The point being, I do think there's a general lack of wanting to be told what to do that may not be completely unique to America but is very very prevalent that would make implementation and some of the things that would need to go with it challenging.

Overall, I don't think we're really going to come to a consensus. I guess having previously thought that way I can just see better the perspective maybe, or maybe I have a higher threshold or different view in general for saying, hey, this is a situation where statistically it appears that it would be good to try something different, but I think there is not enough proof that it's a slam dunk that I'm not going to harass others for not seeing it that way.

... not really mentioned much caps/regulation on physician malpractice suits ...

There is a simple way to resolve the malpractice insurance issue.

<Assumptions based on similar things I have seen in other lines of work>
Think Mayo Clinic. Individual doctors don't have to worry about malpractice. At an aggregate level, Mayo clinic have to worry. But, because of the law of averages, their aggregate malpractice insurance, I bet, would be very low.
</Assumption End>

Think of this as something similar to a McKinsey consultant issuing a report based on which massive restructuring is initiated, or a PwC auditor who signs off on a $200B balance sheet. They need to *only* worry if there is criminal liability - and any other type of "malpratice" is covered by the corporate coverage and indemnity for the officer.

Go through the long study I posted earlier. You will see that there is strong physician resistance to transform from "solo small business" to "employee" - because the income goes down. Well, shouldn't they then shoulder the additional insurance risk and any costs associated with that? That's free market - right? To me, "tort reform" strongly smells like an astroturfing attempt by someone with vested interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing), and is very very unlikely to help with any costs anywhere.

Overall, I don't think we're really going to come to a consensus.

I think Math will force a consensus soon, once there is a general breakdown in the large group insurance market.

I also think you overestimate the number of people who will forego healthcare for ideological conviction. Right now all the right people has group insurance, so nothing changes. Change that, and everything changes.

I am not looking forward to that sh*tstorm. I myself rely on group insurances for our health coverage.

I don't believe you ever specifically responded to indexer's comment about how much the government already spends per citizen on medical stuff

I honestly did not realize what response is warranted.

Yes, we spend double what other countries do, including in places where the government does the spending. To me the reason, beyond any reasonable doubt, is because we don't have single payer. Apparently because single payers don't meet the aesthetic standards of the Ayn Rand libertarians (except when she needs to use it, of course).

This chain of logic seems obvious to me, and I don't see what other response is required here.

I think I lost my shit a bit with Indexer as soon as he started using the typical right-wing canards (e.g. obesity) to question observations with no regard for whether they make any sense or not. Since then, it was pointed out to me that the obesity question is a little more complicated than I used to think - so perhaps a little more patience is warranted when someone raises that topic.

[Telecaster]

I don't believe you ever specifically responded to indexer's comment about how much the government already spends per citizen on medical stuff we do provide that doesn't include everyone and how much more that is than other countries. I get that they don't have the ability to mandate things that they might in a different situation, but it's still a data point that shows problems.

I agree it shows problems, but a different set than you are thinking off.  The majority of Americans are covered by private insurance, either through their employer or individual policies.   Both of those types of insurance are subsidized for most people.  Employers of course can write off insurance as an expense, but employees don't have to claim it as a benefit.   Most individual policies are subsidized through the ACA.   So, the government is paying for a lot of that, but it is still in the private sector, with for-profit insurance companies and medical providers.  I saw a study a few years ago by the Kaiser Family Foundation (IIRC) that concluded Medicaid costs the government significantly less ($3,000 less is the number that sticks in my mind) than an ACA bronze plan, user satisfaction was the same, and Medicaid patients had access to a much larger medical provider network.   My Google-Fu has failed me at the moment and I can't find it, but I'll see if I can't dig it up later. 

Bottom line, it seems clear the problem is the way we pay for medical care, not who pays for it.  If we take a step back, every industrialized country has near-universal coverage, better medical outcomes for most conditions, and it costs a lot less than what we pay.  The variety of health care systems is quite large from say, Switzerland that uses a private insurance model, to the UK where doctors work directly for the government, and everything in between.  But none of them rely on the free market.   That's because the free market cannot provide and has never provided affordable, effective, and near-universal health care. 

This is one reason why I don't have much time for political philosophies.  Do we want affordable, effective, and near universal health care?  Or do we want to be philosophically consistent?   

[Bloop Bloop]

It really depends who's paying for that healthcare. In my country the impost is moderate so we tolerate it. In the U.S. healthcare costs and profits are exorbitant so if you wanted that to be publicly funded you'd firstly have to get rid of some of the vested interests who are making a killing off it.

[freya]

The health care cost drivers in the US are related to how the entire system is set up - unfortunately there isn't any one thing you can point to as the culprit.  It's the death of a thousand cuts.

For sure a big part of the cost is the overhead of dealing with umpteen different insurers, each with their own set of forms, required documentation, and rules of engagement.  The latter are designed to be a barrier to getting expensive tests and treatments.  It's a net benefit to the insurance companies (or they wouldn't do it in the first place), but it is a HUGE expense to medical practices.  This is the cost that would be greatly reduced by going to a single payer system - but not eliminated, since state Medicaid systems have adopted some of those barrier practices like requiring preauthorizations.

Other costs would probably not be reduced.  The need for outsourced billing will likely remain because no one is about to jettison ICD10 or the CPT code system (and that's about 1/3 of the ENTIRE cost of outpatient office visits, to take just one example.)  New regulations added during the Obama administration and the EHR mandate presumably wouldn't go away, and those add another cost that is hard to quantify (including driving doctors out of the profession in large numbers, creating shortages).  It's likely that we would keep the fee for service model, meaning that physicians will still be incentivized to order unnecessary or barely-necessary tests.  And also presumably malpractice laws/practices won't change, so defensive medicine will still be a thing.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  It would be extremely difficult for one health care law to get everything right so that costs go down meaningfully.  In fact, I think you could pretty much count on any new plan to screw things up even more - that's effectively what happened with Obamacare & especially the EHR mandate.  It's why I originally (several posts back) proposed to go single payer for catastrophic/expensive conditions only, and to let the free market do its highly efficient thing for low-cost, common things like routine doctor visits.  Applying this massive machinery to what would normally be (and used to be, before insurance came on the scene) a low cost, low margin business makes absolutely zero sense.  The core of libertarian belief is that the free market is much wiser than any group of congresspeople (and lobbyists), and I think that is right on target for this situation especially.

[ctuser1]

It would be extremely difficult for one health care law to get everything right

Very true!
New Deal was being legislated for a decade+. I don't see why this would/should/can be any different.

.. - that's effectively what happened with Obamacare & especially the EHR mandate....

Do you have any cite about the EHR issues? I don't know about it and curious.

At a very very macro level, Obamacare seems to have slowed down the cost increase.

Look at a balance article: https://www.thebalance.com/causes-of-rising-healthcare-costs-4064878 (can't find any report from any govt agency or anything in 5 minutes of google, so relying on thist):
Go to the table that says "Health Care Costs by Year".

Notice how the cost increases were frequently 8/9% per year before Obamacare (e.g. 9.6% on 2002, 8.5% on 2001 and 2003), but never seem to get above 6% post Obamacare.

All this happened while covering more people and giving insurance options to people with pre-existing conditions!! So at a macro level, it seems to have done a lot of good for the whole system.

Obviously there will be issues that will show up in some parts. Hence it is important to make sure everyone understands that tweaks need to happen years after the initial legislation in any new healthcare reform.

[GuitarStv]

Obviously there will be issues that will show up in some parts. Hence it is important to make sure everyone understands that tweaks need to happen years after the initial legislation in any new healthcare reform.

That's why the Republicans kept trying to tweak the health care plan . . . by voting 63 times to repeal the it in it's entirety with no alternative plan.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

I don't believe you ever specifically responded to indexer's comment about how much the government already spends per citizen on medical stuff we do provide that doesn't include everyone and how much more that is than other countries. I get that they don't have the ability to mandate things that they might in a different situation, but it's still a data point that shows problems.

I agree it shows problems, but a different set than you are thinking off.  The majority of Americans are covered by private insurance, either through their employer or individual policies.   Both of those types of insurance are subsidized for most people.  Employers of course can write off insurance as an expense, but employees don't have to claim it as a benefit.   Most individual policies are subsidized through the ACA.   So, the government is paying for a lot of that, but it is still in the private sector, with for-profit insurance companies and medical providers.  I saw a study a few years ago by the Kaiser Family Foundation (IIRC) that concluded Medicaid costs the government significantly less ($3,000 less is the number that sticks in my mind) than an ACA bronze plan, user satisfaction was the same, and Medicaid patients had access to a much larger medical provider network.   My Google-Fu has failed me at the moment and I can't find it, but I'll see if I can't dig it up later. 

Bottom line, it seems clear the problem is the way we pay for medical care, not who pays for it.  If we take a step back, every industrialized country has near-universal coverage, better medical outcomes for most conditions, and it costs a lot less than what we pay.  The variety of health care systems is quite large from say, Switzerland that uses a private insurance model, to the UK where doctors work directly for the government, and everything in between.  But none of them rely on the free market.   That's because the free market cannot provide and has never provided affordable, effective, and near-universal health care. 

This is one reason why I don't have much time for political philosophies.  Do we want affordable, effective, and near universal health care?  Or do we want to be philosophically consistent?

That's fine, and those are fair reasons why it's a problem. The point I've been trying to make this whole time is that comments like do we want better healthcare or do we want to be philosophically consistent are not really accurate for at least some and I would hypothesize many people with the mindset I used to have. Most people who are at least somewhat libertarian in nature aren't Ayn Rand scholars/devotees. Many probably have never read from her at all. I haven't except some small exerts. The drive isn't being philosophically consistent or based on some high minded principle. They genuinely believe government taking over more things is bad and will cause negative outcomes, and they don't do it from a state completely devoid of facts. They may not have the experiences others have - like of being uninsured, but that doesn't mean they're completely ignorant. It doesn't mean that it's just high minded philosophical consistency like many people arguing against them tend to think. And I'm not just being pedantic by point it out. Understanding why people think they way the do is really important for dialogue and especially for change.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

There is a simple way to resolve the malpractice insurance issue.

<Assumptions based on similar things I have seen in other lines of work>
Think Mayo Clinic. Individual doctors don't have to worry about malpractice. At an aggregate level, Mayo clinic have to worry. But, because of the law of averages, their aggregate malpractice insurance, I bet, would be very low.
</Assumption End>

Think of this as something similar to a McKinsey consultant issuing a report based on which massive restructuring is initiated, or a PwC auditor who signs off on a $200B balance sheet. They need to *only* worry if there is criminal liability - and any other type of "malpratice" is covered by the corporate coverage and indemnity for the officer.

Go through the long study I posted earlier. You will see that there is strong physician resistance to transform from "solo small business" to "employee" - because the income goes down. Well, shouldn't they then shoulder the additional insurance risk and any costs associated with that? That's free market - right? To me, "tort reform" strongly smells like an astroturfing attempt by someone with vested interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing), and is very very unlikely to help with any costs anywhere.

I guess I should have added that I don't think that's a cure all. Curbing the money spent on malpractice suits that are frivolous would, by definition, reduce costs if they reduced a single suit down to a smaller amount, but for how much it would help, I have no idea. Your idea on what to do sounds like a decent suggestion as best as I could understand it. I was just trying to answer your question of have you heard of anything, and that's literally the only thing I've heard of from the other side.

Overall, I don't think we're really going to come to a consensus.

I think Math will force a consensus soon, once there is a general breakdown in the large group insurance market.

I also think you overestimate the number of people who will forego healthcare for ideological conviction. Right now all the right people has group insurance, so nothing changes. Change that, and everything changes.

I am not looking forward to that sh*tstorm. I myself rely on group insurances for our health coverage.

Again, I wasn't specific enough. I meant that you and I probably won't come to a consensus. If things implode, you are certainly right that people will demand something different and not care how it gets done.

I don't believe you ever specifically responded to indexer's comment about how much the government already spends per citizen on medical stuff

I honestly did not realize what response is warranted.

Yes, we spend double what other countries do, including in places where the government does the spending. To me the reason, beyond any reasonable doubt, is because we don't have single payer. Apparently because single payers don't meet the aesthetic standards of the Ayn Rand libertarians (except when she needs to use it, of course).

This chain of logic seems obvious to me, and I don't see what other response is required here.

I think I lost my shit a bit with Indexer as soon as he started using the typical right-wing canards (e.g. obesity) to question observations with no regard for whether they make any sense or not. Since then, it was pointed out to me that the obesity question is a little more complicated than I used to think - so perhaps a little more patience is warranted when someone raises that topic.

That's fine, and I think your explanation is very plausible although saying it's beyond any reasonable doubt is a bit of a stretch. To me, it is what it is. It's another data point for people against government involvement to say without making stuff up or being completely disingenuous that this is what happens when the government gets involved in healthcare.

I guess the overall point I'm trying to make goes back to the original post. "Why is the libertarian ideology so popular among otherwise reasonable people?" I hope and think I've made a good case for a variety of reasons why the appropriate response to that question is it is, in its very nature, condescending and not really fair. Many of these issues in regards to libertarianism have reasonable perspectives on both sides, even if you firmly believe you're right (shoot, even if you have more evidence than they do). As I mentioned above to telecaster, the view that anyone who has libertarian views is completely or almost completely wrong (not saying you believe this but maybe you do) is first of all, innacurate and second of all a poor way to look at the world. The more people we put in the group of "others", the more we say we're not just right by they're morons for thinking they are right, the worse discourse gets as a country and the more polarized and divided we will become.

[ctuser1]

... in its very nature, condescending and not really fair...The more people we put in the group of "others", the more we say we're not just right by they're morons for thinking they are right, the worse discourse gets as a country and the more polarized and divided we will become.

I guess I have a different take on this too.

You have probably guessed that I am not a big fan of political correctness!! In my opinion, political correctness is the biggest weakness that the political middle and left faces in this country.

It's like they are always apologetic for something.

Why??

The "divided" reality is a reality. It is there, because opinions are different, not because one side is not polite enough!!

What you are suggesting is to treat right-wingers as the delicate snowflakes, and take measured care of their feelings, etc. Frankly, I'd feel that to be far more patronizing if someone did that to me. I prefer NYC style directness.

If it seems to me that the right wing really cares about their ideology than human lives, it is probably better if I write that out in the open than keep it festering in my brain - right? I may be wrong. I am often wrong. If contrary data/logic is pointed out - I will correct my position. There is nothing really more to it!!

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

... in its very nature, condescending and not really fair...The more people we put in the group of "others", the more we say we're not just right by they're morons for thinking they are right, the worse discourse gets as a country and the more polarized and divided we will become.

I guess I have a different take on this too.

You have probably guessed that I am not a big fan of political correctness!! In my opinion, political correctness is the biggest weakness that the political middle and left faces in this country.

It's like they are always apologetic for something.

Why??

The "divided" reality is a reality. It is there, because opinions are different, not because one side is not polite enough!!

What you are suggesting is to treat right-wingers as the delicate snowflakes, and take measured care of their feelings, etc. Frankly, I'd feel that to be far more patronizing if someone did that to me. I prefer NYC style directness.

If it seems to me that the right wing really cares about their ideology than human lives, it is probably better if I write that out in the open than keep it festering in my brain - right? I may be wrong. I am often wrong. If contrary data/logic is pointed out - I will correct my position. There is nothing really more to it!!

Lol, treat them like delicate snowflakes? That's what you got out of what I said? Avoiding being condescending to people is not treating them like snowflakes. Avoiding assuming you know people's motivations (i.e. they're all selfish SOBs and are totally fine with people dying) which you stopped actively doing but never admitted that you actually did is not treating them like a snowflake. Actually understanding that there are two sides to a very many issues is not treating people like snowflakes. You have listened to others opinions, so I'll give you that. Beyond that, though, you are super quick to judge others, to act like you know what they're thinking, what information they have, what their actual motivations are, etc. You have admitted that you *might* be wrong on one thing that I remember on this thread, obesitiy, but beyond that, I have mainly seen supreme confidence in your opinions and desire to do more than simply say, hey guys, I think you're wrong and here's why but moving on the next level of in varying degrees either you're not arguing in good faith or you can only think this way because you must not care. I mean, you can take whatever tact you want to on things, but I've found real change comes when you try to understand what others are thinking and give them the benefit of the doubt as to maybe being decent people who have actually thought on it and might just have come to a different conclusion without them either being a total idiot or not caring about other people.

[Wrenchturner]

There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_EtIWmja-4

[ctuser1]

You have admitted that you *might* be wrong on one thing that I remember on this thread, obesitiy, but beyond that, I have mainly seen supreme confidence in your opinions and desire to do more than simply say, hey guys, I think you're wrong...

Yes, I am very confident in data, logic and the scientific method.

As you have seen, I am open to changing direction wherever data and logic dictates, but I am yet to see any right-winger to do the same:
e.g.1: I did not see Indexer to admit it was a incorrect to argue obesity as a potential cause for 2X cost differential.
e.g.2: I did not see you admit to it that you were wrong to take an ideologically driven stance "it can be fixed doesn't mean it will be fixed", and use that as a hypothetical counter-argument.

Look up this short video where Richard Feynman explains the scientific method: https://fs.blog/2009/12/mental-model-scientific-method/.

Let's call our protagonist's Hawaiians (to avoid political bias).

Just like Feynman explains in this video, Hawaiians made a guess ("Free market" healthcare is better). An experiment was launched (and 19 others in other countries, with slightly different assumptions). And - drumroll - 40+ years of results are available, at terrible human cost.

They are plainly visible to any Hawaiian who wants to look for them.

Now I see some Hawaiian's don't agree that the results mean anything. Some say scientific method is bull... Some say "Oh, But Obesity". Some say something else, to deny that their original guess was wrong!!

I see only two Occam's Razor compatible possibilities:
1. The Hawaiians in denial are too incompetent to understand the scientific method.
2. The Hawaiians in denial have malicious intent.

Incompetence vs. malice - take your pick.

[Chris Pascale]

Libertarian ideas can be very reasonable. For example, UBI is an idea where tax money goes back into people's hands, and is spent how they deem best.

Gary Johnson was a big fan of the EPA, citing that it helps protect private property, which is not how all libertarians feel, but the 2012 and 2016 presidential candidate for their party did.

[Bloop Bloop]

I don't think a UBI is very libertarian. It would have been better for that money to not have been redistributed in the first place, except insofar as it was needed to provide the most basic essentials of civilisation (most UBI proposals aim higher than that).

[bacchi]

I don't think a UBI is very libertarian. It would have been better for that money to not have been redistributed in the first place, except insofar as it was needed to provide the most basic essentials of civilisation (most UBI proposals aim higher than that).

Milton Friedman concluded otherwise. A UBI means less government and less bureaucracy.

Charles Murray also supports a UBI because it works against crony capitalism. And because he doesn't like any social welfare program.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-guaranteed-income-for-every-american-1464969586

[John Galt incarnate!]

My libertarian friends oppose California Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5). As a reactionary and  a Lochnerian I oppose it too. AB 5 is a meddlesome, legislative excess that intrudes far too deeply into the labor market by impeding one's freedom to choose to be an independent contractor. Californians would have been better served by the less restrictive  legislation like that of the other states at this post's end.

On these grounds I think libertarians' opposition to AB 5 is reasonable.

Do you concur?

Why or why not?






Wikipedia

California Assembly Bill 5 or AB 5 is a state statute that codifies into law a landmark Supreme Court of California case, Dynamex Operations West, Inc. vs. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, and which holds that most workers are employees, ought to be classified as such, and the burden of proof for classifying individuals as independent contractors belongs to the hiring entity. AB5 entitles workers classified as employees to greater labor protections, such as minimum wage laws, sick leave, and unemployment and workers' compensation benefits, which do not apply to independent contractors.[1] Concerns over employee misclassification, especially in the gig economy, drove support for the bill.

Exceptions[edit]

Some professions are exempt from AB 5, including doctors, dentists, psychologists, insurance agents, stockbrokers, lawyers, accountants, engineers, and real estate agents, as they are seen to generally directly work with and set their prices to customers. Newspaper delivery workers will be given an extra year before compliance.[20][28]

Legal challenges[edit]

In November 2019, the California Trucking Association, representing about 70,000 truck drivers in the state, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, challenging both the California Supreme Court Dynamex ruling and AB5. The Association argues that many of the represented drivers had opted to be independent contractors after having been employeed drivers, as this allows them to set their own schedules and otherwise profit from owning their own vehicle. Enforcement of AB5 would force them to be treated as employees and lose these benefits, the Association argued.[29]


On December 17, 2019, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association filed suit in United States District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division claiming the law unconstitutionally singled out freelance journalists by limiting the amount of work they can produce for any single publisher, unlike any other job category listed as "professional services."[30]

Uber and Postmates filed a similar suit at the end of December 2019, challenging that the law denies equal protection due to the what types of jobs were exempted or not.[31]


Arguments in Support[edit]

Vox described the passing of the law as "a victory for workers everywhere".[32] Organizers expected it to lead to the growth of labor unions.[33]

Impact[edit]

In December 2019, Vox Media ended contracts "with hundreds of freelance writers and editors in California who covered sports for the blog network SB Nation as the company came into compliance with the law."[34]

The Recording Academy expressed concerns that AB 5 would negatively impact gigging musicians, and stated that it is lobbying California lawmakers to inform them about "the impact of such legislation".[35]

Comparison with other jurisdictions[edit]

In 2016, Arizona passed HB 2652, which would classify many gig economy workers, including drivers in ridesharing services, as independent contractors.[36][37]

In 2018, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa, and Tennessee passed laws defining specific on-demand economy workers as a "marketplace contractor" and classify them as independent contractors.[38][39]

In 2019, Arkansas passed HB 1850[40], which codified a different 20-part test, used by the IRS, to classify workers as independent contractors.

[Bloop Bloop]

Although a UBI does have the positives of being (theoretically) simple to implement and administer, and therefore is compatible with moderate libertarianism, the problem is that most UBI proposals put all the financial savings (from reduced administration costs etc) towards the UBI itself. That is, if our current welfare spend per adult is $8000 and our delivery costs are $7000 then the UBI would be $15,000 and we would be in a tax neutral position. Problem is that the extra income being distributed at the low end pushes up inflation and adds to an increase in price of goods and services, which causes de facto redistribution, and in my view any redistribution that is not required for the very essentials of life runs counter to a libertarian ethos, or at least mine. So that's why I disagree.

I also agree that the Californian laws are not something to be desired because all they do is seek to meddle in a market. I would prefer that people's wages be set by the market and that as little meddling as possible occur. There are already indicia set by the Courts which cover employees vs contractors and if there is a genuine dispute about that the Courts or employment tribunals can sort it out.

[Roland of Gilead]

Problem is that the extra income being distributed at the low end pushes up inflation and adds to an increase in price of goods and services, which causes de facto redistribution, and in my view any redistribution that is not required for the very essentials of life runs counter to a libertarian ethos, or at least mine. So that's why I disagree.

This is what I don't get about raising the minimum wage quite as much as it has been in some areas.   Just like the UBI would increase the price of goods and services, so does increasing the minimum wage.  It also effects lower income people more, as they will now spend more percent of their income on these goods and services.

It also removes jobs from teenagers and people who just wanted a supplemental part time job.

I was just commenting on this in our town to my wife as we were driving past a Taco Time.  The minimum wage here has gone up to $13.50 while the living wage in our county is only $10.73 (it is quite cheap here!).  We saw that Taco Time had raised their 4 for $5.55 to 4 for $7.77.  We also watched a logging truck park across the street and the guy walk over to the Taco Time.   I speculated that he probably doesn't make far above the $13.50 and he is likely eating fast food a lot because of his tight schedule.   Just kind of sucks for him that part of the reason he will have less disposable income is because of the minimum wage hike.

[LennStar]

Just like the UBI would increase the price of goods and services, so does increasing the minimum wage.  It also effects lower income people more, as they will now spend more percent of their income on these goods and services.

I was just commenting on this in our town to my wife as we were driving past a Taco Time.  The minimum wage here has gone up to $13.50 while the living wage in our county is only $10.73 (it is quite cheap here!).  We saw that Taco Time had raised their 4 for $5.55 to 4 for $7.77.  We also watched a logging truck park across the street and the guy walk over to the Taco Time.   I speculated that he probably doesn't make far above the $13.50 and he is likely eating fast food a lot because of his tight schedule.   Just kind of sucks for him that part of the reason he will have less disposable income is because of the minimum wage hike.

You give the answer yourself here, if you would just do the math.
I don't know what a Taco Time 4 is, but let's assume it is a complete meal. You need 3 meals a day. (And the minimum wage worker is stupid enough to eat it 3 times a day)

The price increase for daily eating is $6.66
The earnings increase is $3.32 per hour.
So roughly 2 hours of working at the higher rates are needed to set the price increase off. But the worker works 8 hours. He still has the increase for 6 hours left, or about 20 dollar. Times 20 more work days a month.

That is how it works, of course the reality is a bit more complicated ;) But since the main expense for poor people is housing, which tends to rise slower in prices than the wages (at least outside some desirable cities) and food (even slower), the after-necessity money left is really bigger than without the raise.

It also removes jobs from teenagers and people who just wanted a supplemental part time job.

Umm... no?
It is still cheaper for the company to pay 2 half time people than 1 full time.

[Bloop Bloop]

The question is not whether a min wage rise helps the min wage worker (obviously it does), but whether that is sufficient to balance out the slight to moderate detriment that it wreaks on everyone else via higher inflation plus higher cost for basic services and labour.

[ctuser1]

The question is not whether a min wage rise helps the min wage worker (obviously it does), but whether that is sufficient to balance out the slight to moderate detriment that it wreaks on everyone else via higher inflation plus higher cost for basic services and labour.

If all the markets are free and efficient, then you are absolutely right and there is no other considerations to worry about.

That is usually not the case however!!

As is often the case, if the labor market is not free and efficient, then it is possible that the minimum wage < living wage. It is the case where I live - https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/09001, living wage for 1 adult/0children is $14.32, minimum wage is $10.10. Living wage for single earner family of 4 = $29.88. This seems to be the norm in the vast majority of the US economic activity (most economic activity happens in high cost locations).

So, for the family of 4 with single earner that is paid $10.10, the "cost to produce the labor" is $29.88. If the marginal extra profit < $29.88, in an efficient market that job should not exist. Also, in an efficient market, the worker should be able to capture something close to half of the "extra profit" on average (=marginal profit-administrative cost-$29.99), with the corporation getting the other half.

If/when that does not happen and the worker is often paid less that the "cost to produce the labor" (i.e. the living wage), the taxpayer foots the bill in the form of welfare for the rest of the living wage and subsidizes the corporation using the labor at subsidized cost.

Yes, there is a consideration what to do with surplus labor. You can't really just store them in a storage facility. But then, that is a market distorting factor that the labor and the government should deal with - there is no good reason for the corporation to be allowed to exploit it - is there? The government should just ensure that the market is operating as freely as efficiently, smooth out the effects of any market distorting factors, and step aside. Isn't it?

Or do you advocate the taxpayer subsidy to the users of labor in the form of minimum wage < living cost as seems to be the case for the vast majority of the economic transactions where I live?

[Bloop Bloop]

A free market just means that workers get paid whatever corporations, customers, or other workers (as the case may be) are willing to pay them. It doesn't mean that workers get paid a living wage, or any wage at all. In all employment markets some people just can't find any employment because they have no worthwhile skills.

Mandating the min wage be set at a living wage actually means the market is not free. Particularly if you measure a living wage as a wage on which one earner can support a family of four. That's a completely arbitrary measure.

In an efficient market, each worker is paid at the replacement level, not at the level which would enable the worker to sustain a living wage.

Capturing half or nearly half the extra profit would only work if the worker had substantial skill. In this age of outsourcing and robotising, many workers just aren't worth very much.

Taxpayers only need to pay welfare to bump up workers to an amount that prevents them from starving or freezing - that's not the same as a living wage. And while you can visualise this as subsidising corporations, the alternative would be subsidising all workers. The former would cost a lot less in welfare. (Paying welfare only to the few unemployed or underemployed, to subsistence level, would cost less than a UBI to living wage level.)

As for corporations being able to exploit differentials in labour value, I don't see why they shouldn't. All of us invest in corporations. Many of us are self-employed. We are corporations ourselves. We all share in the market, for better or worse. I'm not sure why you believe that low skill workers being paid at replacement value is a market "distortion". That is the market at work. You're only worth as much as it costs to replace your labour.

[ctuser1]

A free market just means that workers get paid whatever corporations, customers, or other workers (as the case may be) are willing to pay them. It doesn't mean that workers get paid a living wage, or any wage at all. In all employment markets some people just can't find any employment because they have no worthwhile skills.

Was slavery a "free market" in your opinion?

I'm assuming you will probably say "no" - because one party to that transaction had no "agency". Today's workers who face lopsided negotiating power difference with the corporations also has structural disadvantages that reduce their "agency".

Isn't that the same thing in principle?

(Note - I am not comparing actual slavery with current day "wage slavery". I am just drawing the parallel of how the economic models have similarities if you consider the market dynamics and the lack of efficiencies in them).

Mandating the min wage be set at a living wage actually means the market is not free. Particularly if you measure a living wage as a wage on which one earner can support a family of four. That's a completely arbitrary measure.

So, what is a valid measure of the cost it takes to produce the labor? You have not given any model other than "whatever corporations can exploit". There has to be some "intrinsic value" of the labor - right, independent of the market value? How much is it, in your opinion?

I am arguing it should be considered to be the "living wage". You could reasonably argue it is only the "poverty wage". Both are reasonable positions to take.

Minimum wage in the US (in most high cost regions - i.e. where most economic activity happens) typically splits this right in the middle.

In an efficient market, each worker is paid at the replacement level, not at the level which would enable the worker to sustain a living wage.

If the "replacement level" < "living wage" - does that indicate a "free market" from the workers point of view? Don't think just from the capital owner's point of view - but labour's point of view!

Capturing half or nearly half the extra profit would only work if the worker had substantial skill. In this age of outsourcing and robotising, many workers just aren't worth very much.

Higher skills = higher profit.
(hypothetical numbers)
1 extra Doctor will likely produce half a million in extra profit.
1 extra programmer will likely produce quarter of a million in extra profit.
1 extra McD worker will likely produce only 100k in extra profit.

Change in $$ based on skill level is perfectly justified, because the produce higher.
In a free market you should get to eat what you kill - right? Are you arguing that the McD worker is not entitled to an equal share to his "little kill" as the doctor is to his "massive kill"?
Why? Should laws of economics change based on skill level?
Do you see why this is unfair and indicative of a "not free" market if/when it does happen?

Taxpayers only need to pay welfare to bump up workers to an amount that prevents them from starving or freezing - that's not the same as a living wage. And while you can visualise this as subsidising corporations, the alternative would be subsidising all workers. The former would cost a lot less in welfare. (Paying welfare only to the few unemployed or underemployed, to subsistence level, would cost less than a UBI to living wage level.)

As for corporations being able to exploit differentials in labour value, I don't see why they shouldn't. All of us invest in corporations. Many of us are self-employed. We are corporations ourselves. We all share in the market, for better or worse. I'm not sure why you believe that low skill workers being paid at replacement value is a market "distortion". That is the market at work. You're only worth as much as it costs to replace your labour.

I think the bolded section is the root cause of the gap in my assumptions and yours!!

US probably has the highest rate of stock ownership driven by 401Ks, and yet it only hovers around only half of the population. Your assumption about "all" is incorrect here, it's not even the majority that has ownership stake.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w24085

From 2001 to 2007, stock prices were up 6 percent. However, the stock ownership rate fell to 49 percent. Then came the Great Recession. Stock prices crashed from 2007 to 2009 and then partially recovered in 2010 for a net decline of 26 percent. The stock ownership rate also once again declined, to 47 percent. The stock market continued to rise after 2010 and by 2013 was up 39 percent over 2010 and above its previous high in 2007. However, the stock ownership rate continued to drop, to 46 percent. Once again, the stock market continued to boom from 2013 to 2016, up by 27.9 percent in real terms, but in this
case the stock ownership rate rebounded to 49.3 percent

Note: My economics rant has nothing to do with the California law that prompted this specific thread of discussion. I don't know enough about the law itself, and have suspicions about the motives of a few politicians involved in promoting it because I have seen them engage in political rent seeking by promoting short term stop-gaps that keeps the political issue alive and not trying to fix things for the long term (e.g. inflation indexing minimum wage).

[bacchi]

Only a few OECD countries don't have minimum wage laws. They do have very strong collective bargaining laws, however. There are no made-up reasons to get rid of union organizers.

Each of these countries, mostly Scandinavian, also has legally mandated vacation and family leave.

[Scandium]

This is what I don't get about raising the minimum wage quite as much as it has been in some areas.   Just like the UBI would increase the price of goods and services [citation needed], so does increasing the minimum wage[citation needed].  It also effects lower income people more, as they will now spend more percent of their income on these goods and services[citation needed].

It also removes jobs from teenagers and people who just wanted a supplemental part time job[citation needed].

There's tons of studies on this, at least you could bother trying to find some (usually from Cato) to support your position? Unfortunate there are many that show your assumptions are not true either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/business/economy/seattle-minimum-wage-study.html
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/07/08/economists-argue-about-minimum-wages

[LennStar]

This is what I don't get about raising the minimum wage quite as much as it has been in some areas.   Just like the UBI would increase the price of goods and services [citation needed], so does increasing the minimum wage[citation needed].  It also effects lower income people more, as they will now spend more percent of their income on these goods and services[citation needed].

It also removes jobs from teenagers and people who just wanted a supplemental part time job[citation needed].

There's tons of studies on this, at least you could bother trying to find some (usually from Cato) to support your position? Unfortunate there are many that show your assumptions are not true either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/business/economy/seattle-minimum-wage-study.html
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/07/08/economists-argue-about-minimum-wages

That reminds me a few years ago when Germany finally came around to implement a minimum wage.
The horrors that were prdicted from the usual subjects! A breakdown of the economy, rising prices, at least 2 million more unemployed!!

Well, there were about 40K unemployed, the economy boomed (well, for what goes as a boom now) and prices rose far less compared to rising incomes than before.

[Scandium]

This is what I don't get about raising the minimum wage quite as much as it has been in some areas.   Just like the UBI would increase the price of goods and services [citation needed], so does increasing the minimum wage[citation needed].  It also effects lower income people more, as they will now spend more percent of their income on these goods and services[citation needed].

It also removes jobs from teenagers and people who just wanted a supplemental part time job[citation needed].

There's tons of studies on this, at least you could bother trying to find some (usually from Cato) to support your position? Unfortunate there are many that show your assumptions are not true either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/business/economy/seattle-minimum-wage-study.html
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/07/08/economists-argue-about-minimum-wages

That reminds me a few years ago when Germany finally came around to implement a minimum wage.
The horrors that were prdicted from the usual subjects! A breakdown of the economy, rising prices, at least 2 million more unemployed!!

Well, there were about 40K unemployed, the economy boomed (well, for what goes as a boom now) and prices rose far less compared to rising incomes than before.

How many times do we have to go through this same nonsense before we all realize that conservatism, as it's defined; keep doing what we're doing and change nothing, is a brainless, vapid ideology as intellectually sophisticated as a toddler tantrum?

Every time there's a change they predict horrid consequences, usually for everyone, but especially for those in power (and/or white men..). And practically every time they are wrong, and everyone is better of. Whether it's women voting, social security, income tax, NHS, interracial/gay marriage, minimum wage, child labor laws. They are always wrong! Why does anyone listen to these people??

[LennStar]

Because one group is the one that is really negativly affected - the one in power, and they coincidentally have the power to prevent change - the other are all the people with the stone age brains that have been wired to see change as a threat, because if you don't see change as a a threat and it is, it meant you would likely end up dead.

I admit it does not fully explain the "why do nothing" thing, even if you count in helplessness feelings etc.

[Bloop Bloop]

Hi ctuser1, to address some of your points:

- The difference between slavery and the current paradigm with lopsided workers is that slaves had no choice not to do whatever work they were assigned. Today's workers can choose to not do certain work and instead choose another job. If they are one of the minority who can't find any job at all, they can still rely on a modest level of welfare as long as they jump through the welfare hoops.

- You are right that there is still a lopsided negotiating power differential which reduces a worker's practical agency (in some situations). This is a consequence of the free market. Many people disagree with this (including you). Some people are not fazed by it (including me). I don't believe it's the same thing in principle, though I would acknowledge that both systems incorporate an element of duress.

"So, what is a valid measure of the cost it takes to produce the labor?"

Well, whatever the cost is on the free market. You phrase it as "whatever corporations can exploit", which is the same thing, albeit phrased a bit more assertively. I don't believe there is an intrinsic value to any work. The only value is what someone else will pay for it.

That said, I would agree that people should have welfare (separate from the quid-pro-quo of the free market) up to the poverty wage, subject to jumping through the usual documentation hoops, but that is due not to work having intrinsic value, but due to life having intrinsic value.


"If the "replacement level" < "living wage" - does that indicate a "free market" from the workers point of view? Don't think just from the capital owner's point of view - but labour's point of view!"

From the point of view of the worker, it is still a 'free' market in the sense of involving actors who rationally try to maximise their position. But no, it is not a 'free' market in the sense that most workers would not freely agree to that situation. Mind you, I don't think we're at that situation yet for most people. If we get there, they can democratically vote to change the laws.

"In a free market you should get to eat what you kill - right? Are you arguing that the McD worker is not entitled to an equal share to his "little kill" as the doctor is to his "massive kill"?"

You only get to eat what you kill if you also put your capital on the line. A McD worker can't expect to keep all of the marginal profits he makes because he doesn't invest in the business or its assets. He also bears no risk (besides his own wage) if he does his job poorly - he's not exposed to any marginal losses that come from lawsuits, breakdowns or other problems at work.

[Telecaster]

- You are right that there is still a lopsided negotiating power differential which reduces a worker's practical agency (in some situations). This is a consequence of the free market. Many people disagree with this (including you). Some people are not fazed by it (including me). I don't believe it's the same thing in principle, though I would acknowledge that both systems incorporate an element of duress.

I think it is instructive to look at why labor laws exist, and how they came about.   The short answer is blood in the streets.  Perhaps giving up the pure free labor market to avoid firebombings and shootouts with dozens of deaths (acts committed by both sides) is an entirely reasonable trade off. 

[GuitarStv]

L.P.D.: Libertarian Police Department

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”

He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

 - https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department

[Scandium]

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

[ctuser1]

You only get to eat what you kill if you also put your capital on the line. A McD worker can't expect to keep all of the marginal profits he makes because he doesn't invest in the business or its assets. He also bears no risk (besides his own wage) if he does his job poorly - he's not exposed to any marginal losses that come from lawsuits, breakdowns or other problems at work.

>> You only get to eat what you kill if you also put your capital on the line.

Why? What is so very absolutely special about capital that it completely displaces labor in importance?

Why isn't "putting labor on the line" the same thing? If I work somewhere for 10 years - shouldn't I have some vested interest?

Communism argues workers own all (and that everyone should be a worker). They 100% discount the role of capital and the risk associated with it. The current form of "libertarian" capitalism ("crony capitalism" in my view) you subscribe to takes the diametrically opposite stance. Zombies on both sides decry theirs to be the *only* possible solution.
But why?

>> A McD worker can't expect to keep all of the marginal profits he makes because he doesn't invest in the business or its assets.

He/she absolutely invests in the business.

After 10 years of working at a McD - do you think he/she has built up relationships, skills etc appropriate for that specific business and brand? Do you think he/she has designed his life around the corporate processes and policies?

Heck, it is formally recognized for my line of work. I expect to get a nice little severance package that increases with every year of service I put in if I get laid off or fired "for no cause". I even qualify for 5 extra days of  paid vacation days in another 4 months. In some places, your "company contribution" to retirement plans also "vest" with a certain schedule. Layoffs everywhere typically recognize it to varying degree as well.

Why do you assert otherwise with 100% absolute certainty (as is the wont of all libertarian crony capitalists)?

>> He also bears no risk (besides his own wage) if he does his job poorly

You mean it is risk-free for him if McD goes under due to mismanagement?

I have neighbors who used to work at GE. Some of their lives are upended coming from the mismanagement by Jack Welch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric). Leave aside the consideration they they are white collar workers and probably own GE stock in their 401k. Do you mean to say they took no risk, and wasn't impacted by the risk of Jack Welch taking tens and hundreds of millions and hollowing out the company? If you take the average/typical GE investor who invests via some index fund in 401k (like your's truly), then they probably lost a lot more. Losing a job in your 50s is a *huge* amount of risk.

Just to clarify, I never said workers should "expect to keep all of the marginal profits he makes". I doubt anyone (but a communist) will argue the "all" part of it with 100% certainty.
All I say is that labor should not be completely displaced by capital like it seems to have been now! Perhaps a fair - 50/50 arrangement is in order?