The Mises Institute has better economic theory and less faith in Reformism than Cato. But Cato is quite a bit less ideologically crazy. Cato Unbound is, in terms of philosophy, better than what you’re find at Mises.
^Wikipedia says Penn is an anarcho-capitalist, though there is no source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism#Anarcho-capitalism_today
There is a source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Jillette#cite_note-pittsburghlive-8
"I guess libertarian is a little too much government for me. I tend to be a little more anarcho-capitalist. But I will take libertarianism to get that in place, then work to get that out of place. I see libertarianism as a stepping stone.
I believe that people are really, really, really good, and that the number of people who do actual bad things is so insignificantly small, that we don’t need to treat everybody as criminals just to stop them.
Yet people are so scared - a lot by the media and a lot of incorrect knowledge. They think they are some sort of one good person surrounded by all these bad people, and they’re actually one good person surrounded by a lot of good people."
Maybe I am being nit-picky, but he didn’t go all the way, If one wanted, you could interpret it as an extreme minarchist with short term aims. Then again it seemed like a casual interview so its hard to tell what exactly ‘tend to be a little more anarcho-capitalist’ means in comparison to why he didn’t just say ‘I am an anarcho-capitalist’
Joe,
When he says ‘libertarianism’, he means minarchism. His position is layed out perfectly clear: minarchism is too much government for him, and it’s a stepping stone between now and the ultimate goal of anarcho-capitalism.
There is no such thing as a ‘little’ anarcho-capitalism. The reason he uses this language is to be nice and friendly.
His elaboration about people being generally good makes this even more clear.
There are brilliant people at the Cato institute who are doing good work, but I think I have more in common with radical leftist (chomsky, kucinich etc.) than with those moderate libertarian/free market guys. How can you possibly be a ‘moderate’ in the world we live in? (wouldn’t that make you the actual ‘radical’) It’s weird to see those guys discuss political decisions that involve murdering hundreds of thousands of people in a calm and civil manner. I just can’t take them very serious, it seems like they don’t really believe in their position. It’s like the jews in the warsaw ghetto would have organised a grand debate and maybe even a little demonstration instead of actually defending themselves.
It’s just strikes me as very strange, does that make sense?
+that whole converting the elite to libertarianism thing is futile. The elite is the elite not because they’re super awesome but exactly because they have those terrible views on everything. If they change their views they loose corporate support and therefore their position within the system.
The rothbardian populist approach seems much more sensible.
Watching Stossel, he has a lot of Cato scholars on the program. They always seem to take a libertarian approach to issues. Though, I find Stossel to be a constitutional conservative more than a libertarian. He is libertarian in the sense that he despised government involvement, but concedes that some government is necessary.
Getting back to Cato, I like their views on what issues I heard their opinion on. Like for example, the obsurdity of tax subsidized nuclear power.
I think that the freedom movement has room for different strategy.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the LVMI is much more sound on theory, principle, and truth.
The way I see the Cato Institute is an organization that sacrifice a lot of intellectual honesty in order to be respectable to statists with the hope to be able to convince them of being a bit less authoritarian.
The LVMI doesn’t officially have a specific position on what is the best strategy to follow to try to promote liberty, although most of its members would see trying to reform the state as a generally futile exercise, and instead support secession and smaller political groups as a possible solution.
I see the Cato Institute as a political institution, that doesn’t intellectually promote liberty, but is useful only as far as they would actually succeed to practically having an influence of reducing the power of the government.
Their lack of support for Ron Paul during the presidential campaign (the most libertarian candidate by far) and instead their support for Guiliani showed how much they prefer to be “respectable” to the political establishment rather than supporting libertarian efforts.
Personally, I wouldn’t support the Cato Institute (I do support the LVMI), even do they make interesting videos on you tube, and have some good articles from time to time.
I would say there is even a difference between the minarchists here and the ones of Cato.
Ours are more mini than theirs!
Lol.
I’m impressed by this nuanced piece of judgement.
What Mises called ‘playing market’ is a specific proposal, which he demolished in HA.
That’s not the same as what, in general, Cato is doing.
The main difference, I think, is a difference in analysis and ‘what should we do?’ What Cato tries to do is to try to influence day to day politics. I’m not sure why this is so bad that they deserved to be called ‘socialists’ or ‘fascists’. Sure; there are people associated with it, witch are basically people who support mass killing of innocent people (the wars), but it doesn’t follow that a lot of what Cato does is influenced by ‘the right ideas’ as such and based on a philosophy of pragmatism. I’m not a pragmatist myself, but I don’t see any reason to crusade against the pragmatists either.
On a related note: I don’t think there is a ‘better’ libertarian position on the question if we should try to make government programs work ‘better’ or that we should oppose it no matter what - because we shouldn’t forgot that they do damage right now to people and arguing against it could marginally improve some peoples live, even if you have to do it from a more pragmatic perspective (and thus sort of endorcing something else).
To clear some confusion, Cato is not an Austrian think tank. Cato is a “libertarian” think tank, that right now reaches out to conservatives who might be interested in small-government literature. However, within Cato there is everything. There are conservatives, there are minarchists, and there are anarchists. For example, Tom Palmer (even if he doesn’t admit it in his literature) and David Boaz are anarchists. The scope of Cato is just much wider than the Ludwig von Mises Institute. I think both preform two separate and valuable objectives. Cato does much of the outreach, and the Mises Institute sticks to their intellectual guns. I think that for most libertarians that really get into it, the LvMI is the ending up whereas Cato may be the starting point. I attended Cato University in 2009 (but, by that time I was already a reader of the LvMI’s publications).
False dilemma?
There is a better libertarian position if one can define what a libertarian is.
I’m certainly open to someone informing me, but I am still waiting for evidence that the Cato Institute has achieved anything of signficance, other than swaying a few votes on this or that regulation. Have they been successful at spreading libertarianism? If so, how does that compare with the LvMI, Lew Rockwell, Ron Paul, etc?
I really don’t see that they’ve made any significant headway. To the extent that people are talking about libertarianism these days, I think most of the credit goes to this organizational approach which targets young people and the Ron Paul movement. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the idea of a Ron Paul, it seems fairly evident he has - through his rhetoric - opened the door of libertarianism to far more people than the Cato Institute.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the idea of a Ron Paul, it seems fairly evident he has - through his rhetoric - opened the door of libertarianism to far more people than the Cato Institute.
Lewis,
I think you are right, but I think that Cato is more popular than the Ludwig von Mises Institute, if only for the fact that their literature is more approachable. I think, though, that Liberty Student’s point (whether he intended this interpretation or not) should be considered. Cato presents, perhaps, a less logically consistent message of libertarian, that appeals to a much broader population. Those that pursue the subject further will find greater consistency elsewhere. It seems as if it all embodies a process of learning. Ron Paul may pique interest, and that person may then go to Cato and/or the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He may, at first, find Cato’s message much more appealing, but the point is to slowly educate a person so that that person himself can make the choice on what particular ideology is the most convincing. That’s why I think there is, and should be, room for both think tanks, because they both pursue very different objectives.
“Name one policy proposal of Cato’s which came to be.”
HSA’s.
Mises has the greatest wealth of resource, I have never learned so much off one website, thanks LvMI!
They might have been partly (a very small part?) responsible for ending the draft in the U.S.