I started this thread on Debate.org and it either got threadjacked or everyone debating with me left
Here we go - I want a more productive reception here and no debate about political questions! This is strictly a framework/grounds thread!!
The full OP:
==Roleplaying==
Libertarians: We support the free market because of theory and some good historical successes
Lefties: Oh yeah? Well my professor said that coal miners in some obscure part of america had it pretty bad. I guess that means the market fails.
Libertarians: Well, I don’t have time to do revisionist history, so I don’t have an answer to this because afaik it actually happened.
Lefties: Now I will use this one example to argue against lolssaiz faire.
==Role Reversal==
Lefties: I support the government because it can do some good things.
Libertarians: Oh yeah? Well are lots of examples of failed governments murdering millions of people.
Lefties: Oh well I don’t advocate that particular kind of government. I only advocate government when its good.
So if government advocates don’t have to bite every failure of government because they only support good government, why do free market advocates have to bite the failures of free markets? Why can’t we say “lolmg we only support good free markets! Exploited coal miners are not what I had in mind!”?
HUH?
Its
a
double
standard
Obviously we don’t want to default to the lame statist position where we only advocate switzerland and ignore russia and china. We will continue to accept market failures as part of our package. Statists should do the same.
But no seriously keep advocating switzerland because you like its outcomes even though you have no idea how swiss government works.
[reply to this by going to switzerland’s wikipedia article, but instead of using the wikipedia page as a citation, use wikipedia’s links at the bottom so it looks like you did some research]
So the folks at DDO basically said “well democracies are fundamentally different from totalitarian regimes”, to which I replied that those are really only superficial differences. The same core set of rules is the same (monopoly on arbitration), and that set up totally dominates over any “checks and balances” or democratic nonsense they want to build in to their ideal government.
Even if you don’t buy that, it doesn’t seem fair to only advocate democracy. Its a subset of government, just like friendly societies, clubs, and greedy corporations are subsets of free markets. I would be disingenous to only advocate friendly societies, because allowing them means I have to have self ownership and private property, which means I have to have everything else. Similarly, advocating a democratic state means you have to defend monopoly arbitration, which means you have to defend everything that entails.
Anyway, these are some haphazard thoughts. I’m probably not pinpointing anything solid just yet, but there definitely IS something that bugs me about the way they argue.
When a national socialist complains about how the free-market has allowed cultural decay and we must look to the state for honor, virtue, loyality, and morality, I can only respond with “the same state is what’s allowing such a decay you speak of”. Why would you turn to something that is allowing all the things you have a problem with, and is apparently filled with people who are against your interest? They believe if they had control, everything would be great, and then they can create rules to keep themselves inline (apparently, even though they notice the decay of culture, even they will fall victim if the right rules are not in place).
In turn I can talk about how the state has industrialized small communal culture (Nazi Germany for example) and has completely destroyed what traditionalism is about. They don’t see it that way. The state = good, the free-market = bad.
Back up a sec. Why do you concede the point regarding coal miners? I’m sure working conditions were piss poor in some cases (at least). Does not follow that this is “market failure”.
Right they don’t have a theory of market failure. It just isn’t the kind of outcomes they wanted. The market won’t ever have all the outcomes everyone wants, so your opponent will always be able to find a weak point somewhere in history.
Me, I don’t like that people don’t save enough. If people had a lower time preference, we’d be way more advanced.
But you’re right, this is not “market failure” in the technical sense. Its just some little detail they’ll latch onto in order to argue against markets.
I don’t get your point. Are you trying to get statists to ignore the “bad outcomes” of the market (e.g. coal mining conditions), or are you trying to get statists to allow you to admit the Soviet Union into evidence in your case against statism?
It would be nice if we could get the latter wouldn’t it?
Specifically, there is a double standard between how we argue statism versus markets. If we focus on outcomes, all outcomes should count. Exploited coal miners and genocide. If we focus on theory, the statists should not be able to rely on switzerland as a narrow example to prove statism.
Basically they just cherry pick outcomes they like, then reverse engineer their politics from that. Its not a political philosophy or theory because you never get to fundamental principles. Example: Direct democracy in local issues combined with tricameral legislature and indirectly appointed federal judges is not a theory of government… its just a specific plan. All the things it implicitly assumes, like an aggressive monopoly on law, are still unproven.
I like this point. Sorry, I’m not following as to what problem you’re having. Are you trying to find a clever formulation in order to “bait” your debate foe(s) into accepting all (or at least 1/2 of) your point? If not, why don’t you just have a debate about method first? Sorry if I’m oversimplifying the issue.
Aye it might devolve into a debate about method. But it would force them to accept the BOP as to why they shouldn’t have to account for the holocaust. They’ll think they can win the point, because in their minds, democracy is fundamentally different from totalitarianism.
I don’t even think you have to do very much theory to address them though…
“Democracy is fundamentally different from totalitarianism”
Re: “Voluntary democracies are fundamentally different from authoritarian hierarchies. Owait no they’re not because they share the same core set of rules, just like your two states”
“Democracy leads to different outcomes than totalitarianism”
Re: “Voluntary democracies lead to different outcomes than authoritarian hierarchies… so?”
Sieben, I like what you’re saying here. I became an anarchist when I realized that I was applying a double standard to anarchism. I demanded evidence from anarchists that I was not demanding from myself and indeed would have been unable to supply for the statist position. Once I had that epiphany, the switch to anarchism from minarchism was a simple matter.
I definitely like your point about democracy and totalitarianism being fundamentally the same–I never thought of it that way. It’s a powerful and simple argument, but your timing and the way you present it need to be perfect or else you’ll be refuted by laughter.
Of course, they’ll argue that they’re not arguing for government in general; they’re arguing for good government, as defined by them, naturally, so their double standard in this case isn’t. You, on the other hand, actually are advocating free markets, both the good and the bad, so you put yourself in a tricky situation. You would need to show that they don’t have nearly as much influence over the actions and direction of the government as they think. In other words, you need to discredit democracy as a decision-making tool before you can even make this argument.
The statis bias is extremely strong. I retained it long after I became a minarchist, yet I never had a good reason to not be an anarchist once I grasped spontaneous order. It was after that simply a matter of peeling back layer after layer, yet anarchism was the hardest level to reach. Reflecting on what I thought then versus what I know now, I realized my arguments in favor of statism both before and during my education in economics were always seriously wanting at best and unsound at worst. As such, even getting to an argument like the one you want to make, let alone making it effectively, is extremely difficult.
I suppose at times like these it’s best to take things slowly. You’re not trying to convince the guy debating you or even the audience; you’re trying to open up their minds just a little to alternative possibilities. An argument that goes step-by-step and never makes any claims that are huge departures from the previous will likely be more successful–if you have the time (I think one mistake libertarians make is the tendency to go for the throat and immediately proclaim the economic and moral superiority of free markets in all facets. It’s simply too much for ignorant statists to handle. They need things to be built up little by little).
I strongly disagree that democracy is equal to dictatorship. But that still doesn’t detract from the point you’re trying to make. If anyone tries to make the argument that those kind of things don’t happen in democracies have them (as George Carlin said) google; japanese-americans 1942.
Right, when you change who’s in charge, you can get some big variance in outcome. I don’t think the USA will ever have a (domestic) holocaust, but 1 million nonviolent drug offenders is a step in that direction. I suppose I’d argue that the “big differences” are in principle the same thing… both systems have monopoly justice, and use that power to imprison whoever it determines is guilty. Differences between all states are in degrees.
I’ve taken to arguing that switzerland is a better example of a private corporation than a state, because it is smaller and has a more mobile workforce. Actually the best example is luxembourg, with over half of its employees commuting from other countries. I also can argue that private corporations are “socialist” because they have healthcare. They just choose not to let everyone in, just like countries have restricted immigration
Socialism vs capitalism is made of lol. Its self ownership versus aggression. We always have to focus on that.
I am not confident enough in my history to make these sorts of claims
I think if I just force them to defend an aggressive monopoly on arbitration, that is enough. Economic theory of profit maximizing monopolies applies whether the monopoly has one owner (monarchy) or many owners (democracy). ← ooh makes the similarities much more apparent!
I think I should still go for the throat. On another thread, I explain that debating in policy is laregly a waste of time. So I don’t think its a good idea to go incrementally and explain the economics of universal health care or the minimum wage. Its /yawn and runs counter to their central planning mindset. You must attack the office of monopoly decision making, not the decisions themselves, which will probably be bad, but not obviously so.
