> Unfortunately, reality is messy and complicated and not a computer program.
> Nah, probably easier to keep pretending that it's super-simple to manage humans at scale just because it's easier to reason about.
This canard about libertarians [1] not understanding the complexity of the real world is oft-repeated, but it is misguided, and comes off as condescending to boot.[2]
The likes of Hayek and Friedman did not contend that reality is simple; they contended that it was complex -- too complex for economic systems based on expansive government intervention (socialism, mercantilism, etc) to grapple with and produce satisfactory outcomes.
They advocated a free market system on the premise that it was the best way to handle this complexity, not on the basis that it doesn't exist.
Now, you are free to question whether empirical evidence bears out either point. But it is ignorant to suggest libertarianism is based on eschewing complexity.
1. Here I am referring mostly to libertarians of a consequentialist lean. Libertarians of a mostly deontological lean are orthogonal to this discussion because whether or not they understand the world's complexity is mostly immaterial to their policy prescriptions, as they are concerned mostly with morality, not outcomes.
2. Usually unintentionally, I would hope, though it seems that at least with mpyne it is not.
>to grapple with and produce satisfactory outcomes.
What qualifies as "satisfactory" is where things get complicated. For Friedman, satisfactory is maximizing shareholder value. That goal is much too narrow for a well-functioning society. Markets serve society, society does not serve markets.
Optimizing for Friedman's definition of satisfactory puts many important things on the backburner: environment, quality of life, social justice, good communities, social programs, health, worker rights, etc.
> For Friedman, satisfactory is maximizing shareholder value.
Not so. Friedman's "goal" is not maximizing shareholder value, but rather maximizing economic efficiency, and economic efficiency includes things like social programs, health, the environment, etc.
Balancing long- and short-term benefits is part of what markets can do as well. The problem is that the further into the future you look, the wider the possibilities, but the lower the confidence you can have both that your present plan will persist and that your present plan will yield the results you intend.
The interest rate (if it was determined by a market) is essentially the price of renting money, or in other words, the market's description of the value of using capital now versus using that capital in the future. The interest rate is one major way that markets can balance long- and short-term benefits. It is a fundamental and vital part of an economy, and it (along with issuing money itself) is arguably the part of the economy most interfered with by governments.
>Balancing long- and short-term benefits is part of what markets can do as well.
Markets can selectively ignore variables. For instance, the energy industry is not worried about externalities. If it did, we'd be nearly fully using renewables by now.
If markets cared about health instead of what's cheap, addictive, and easy to ship and store, grain and sugar wouldn't be so heavily pushed.
Healthcare is cheaper all around the world because it's intensely regulated by the government. "Market forces" are great when you can have failure. You can't have failure with something that's keeping you from dying.
The petroleum industry lobbies for subsidies and receives them, since it's an incredibly good return on their investment.
Healthcare is "cheaper" in many places than the US because other countries regulate healthcare more effectively than the US does. The US government spends more per capita on health care than most nations, including the UK and Canada.
> "Market forces" are great when you can have failure. You can't have failure with something that's keeping you from dying.
Surely you recognize that governments can fail in their regulation of health care. For example, there is no shortage of cases where the FDA certainly caused many deaths and a lot of suffering by banning or slowing down the introduction of numerous drugs.
>For example, there is no shortage of cases where the FDA certainly caused many deaths and a lot of suffering by banning or slowing down the introduction of numerous drugs.
You can't safely introduce drugs without doing controlled studies.
The idea that free market advocates seek to maximize private shareholder value is a fallacy. Friedman developed the Negative Income Tax, precursor to EITC which is a successful anti-poverty program.
> That is, people are selfish rational actors. The problem is that they arent. Libertarian models of humans are incredibly simplistic.
I can't speak to Friedman, but Hayek's views were more subtle than that (and so are mine, for what little it matters). He recognized many limitations on the rationality of economic actors; he advocated what today would probably be referred to as bounded rationality.
Even bounded rationality is totally wrong. Human behaviour isnt (economically) rational "except for limitations".
The very source of the value we place upon institutions, people, goals, etc. is entirely a product of the interaction between culture and basic psychological drives.
People do not have "preferences" in the strong propositional sense required for modelling. They have drives, ideals, etc. These can be systematized by asking them to rank states of affairs but even here things are delicate (which is why polling on issues is generally useless).
Any kind of "rationality" talk is extremely prescriptive in practice: failing to actually look at the world and describe it, libertarians et al. go around theorizing in an ahistorical vacuum with pseudo-computer human stand-ins. And criticise actions in the real world that dont conform.
Friedman's model does not assume that people are selfish rational actors. It assumes that people have goals and that they tend to take actions they believe will accomplish those goals.
"take actions they believe will accomplish those goals". Well there you go: quite wrong!
People aren't at all clear on what they want, nor how to accomplish it. People respond to impulses and psychological drives not propositionalized goals.
Can we try to keep (the deeply discretited) Hayek and the Chicago school, not to mention over-complicated philosophical jargon out of the argument? I would content that you should liberate yourself from the received wisdom of your philosophy course, and think for yourself.
The issue is simple: is protection of local industry justified in the face of globalization. Obliquely (not orthogonally), are local businesses adding social value, or is lowest cost the absolute and only barometer of utility. Only once we have answered these questions can we decide if Amazon is correct or not, and it is not going to help to cite a bunch of dead people, who, in my opinion, are very clearly responsible for the ills of our current society.
Far better, citing The Economist Style Guide, "think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible".
In addition, I "cite[d] a bunch of dead people" because I was responding to a criticism of libertarianism in general, not of my specific beliefs.
In that light, it is most appropriate to discuss the views of exemplars and intellectual fathers of a particular strain of libertarianism. My personal views are of little consequence to the discussion, considering that I have had no influence on libertarian ideology, and that my opinions depart from most of my fellow libertarian-minded folk in a number of ways.
Possibly the most pretentious post I've ever read.
The issue may be simple, but it doesn't have a thing to do with what you're talking about. Amazon operates in France. It's a local business. Next question?
Clearly the point is that Amazon is also a global business, and therefore, through economies of scale, is able to dominate businesses that are small or purely local. Moreover arguably it has monopoly power, exacerbating the issue futher. It is clear that you have not thought this through.
> The issue is simple: is protection of local industry justified in the face of globalization.
I don't think that issue is simple, but my answer is no, and my reasoning is similar to why I don't think that protection of the horse and carriage industry should be protected in the face of the nascent automobile industry.
Discredited by your priors, for your priors, maybe. All kinds of people here are busily engaged in the act of thinking for themselves. Just because their received wisdom doesn't align with your received wisdom doesn't mean you need to "liberate" anyone with your One True Faith.
I don't think that the proposals of most libertarians are any more or less complex than the proposals of American liberals, or American conservatives, or democratic socialists, or fascists, etc. Certain aspects of plans obvious vary in complexity, but that's hardly the distinguishing factor.
