I will be curious how you would respond to Scott Sumner. For me, thinking about the question of, "can you provide examples of large-scale failures of libertarian ideology" after having just finished _Slouching_ I answer that differently than I would have.
1) While libertarian ideology is, ostensibly, anti-fascist, the book would prompt the question, "does libertarianism actually provide a defense against fascism or does that defense collapse against the force of people saying (a la Polanyi) that they want the state to recognize them as more than just participants in the market."
2) If you believe that the 20th C was more good than terrible, you need to consider that the good parts of the century required government to play its role properly (not just to get out of the way). For example, the project of coordinating the activity of 8bn people requires more than just a market, it requires international regulator regimes. I remember a conversation with a political scientist who said that part of what drives both extra-national bodies (like the EU), and the push towards national (rather than federal) politics in the US is that business benefits from having regulatory questions that can be answered at a broad level, rather than in a patchwork.
It's hard to imagine a government that contributed to regulatory regimes internationally while being libertarian at home (or, to turn that around, one failure of libertarianism would be to not attempt to improve the functioning of international bodies).
Somewhat related, I would read the history of WWI in _Slouching_ as an example of the failure of states with a weak sense of the role of government, but I'd have to think hard about how to defend that.
3) Before reading _Slouching_ my top-of-the-head answer to the problems of libertarian governance would be examples of the tragedy of the commons -- Global Warming; Acid Rain, overfishing, loss of biodiversity, etc . . .
Those don't appear to have caused mass death in the long 20th Century, but that's in significant part because we did not address them in a libertarian way.
Sumner’s take was odd in reading you as equating Libertarianism as an ideology similar to Fascism and Communism. Not even homoiousion. Could he be thinking that you are equating dogs breakfast “neoliberalism” with Libertinism?
I heard a statement of the Vollrath point n your presentation last night with Matt. I don’t know if it so clearly stated in the text.
Luciani: “unapologetic leftist bias. :) That what you get for using inflammatory language like "patriarchy."
Why Conservatives unhinged rage? I guess a combination of a) not really understanding that NPVs of public investment really does depend on macroeconomic variables like the borrowing rate and the presence unemployed resources, b) the consequent belief that NVP guided increases in public expenditures were just the nose of the Socialist camel in the tent ("Road to Serfdom" and all that) and c) the probably correct guess that such a regime would imply a redistribution of real and psychic income from them to the less deserving.
Can we place the Viner critique in the category of finding the optimal target for inflation for an AIFT or NGDP targeting regime? True that does assume there IS an equilibrium rate for a (assumed as given) level of expected shocks and price rigidities.
It seems to me that Keynes's moderate socialization of investment is pretty close to a technocratic fiscal policy of investing according to NPV, given that NPV of many possible government activities (including subsidies to private investment) will go up as the borrowing rate falls and the gap between marginal cost and price for many resources increases in recession.
There was an attritive stone and timber fence around my elementary school that I (later) understood to have been built by WPA ~ 20 years earlier at, I guess, almost zero marginal cost. An excellent high ROI project.
I will be curious how you would respond to Scott Sumner. For me, thinking about the question of, "can you provide examples of large-scale failures of libertarian ideology" after having just finished _Slouching_ I answer that differently than I would have.
1) While libertarian ideology is, ostensibly, anti-fascist, the book would prompt the question, "does libertarianism actually provide a defense against fascism or does that defense collapse against the force of people saying (a la Polanyi) that they want the state to recognize them as more than just participants in the market."
2) If you believe that the 20th C was more good than terrible, you need to consider that the good parts of the century required government to play its role properly (not just to get out of the way). For example, the project of coordinating the activity of 8bn people requires more than just a market, it requires international regulator regimes. I remember a conversation with a political scientist who said that part of what drives both extra-national bodies (like the EU), and the push towards national (rather than federal) politics in the US is that business benefits from having regulatory questions that can be answered at a broad level, rather than in a patchwork.
It's hard to imagine a government that contributed to regulatory regimes internationally while being libertarian at home (or, to turn that around, one failure of libertarianism would be to not attempt to improve the functioning of international bodies).
Somewhat related, I would read the history of WWI in _Slouching_ as an example of the failure of states with a weak sense of the role of government, but I'd have to think hard about how to defend that.
3) Before reading _Slouching_ my top-of-the-head answer to the problems of libertarian governance would be examples of the tragedy of the commons -- Global Warming; Acid Rain, overfishing, loss of biodiversity, etc . . .
Those don't appear to have caused mass death in the long 20th Century, but that's in significant part because we did not address them in a libertarian way.
Sumner’s take was odd in reading you as equating Libertarianism as an ideology similar to Fascism and Communism. Not even homoiousion. Could he be thinking that you are equating dogs breakfast “neoliberalism” with Libertinism?
I heard a statement of the Vollrath point n your presentation last night with Matt. I don’t know if it so clearly stated in the text.
Luciani: “unapologetic leftist bias. :) That what you get for using inflammatory language like "patriarchy."
Why Conservatives unhinged rage? I guess a combination of a) not really understanding that NPVs of public investment really does depend on macroeconomic variables like the borrowing rate and the presence unemployed resources, b) the consequent belief that NVP guided increases in public expenditures were just the nose of the Socialist camel in the tent ("Road to Serfdom" and all that) and c) the probably correct guess that such a regime would imply a redistribution of real and psychic income from them to the less deserving.
Can we place the Viner critique in the category of finding the optimal target for inflation for an AIFT or NGDP targeting regime? True that does assume there IS an equilibrium rate for a (assumed as given) level of expected shocks and price rigidities.
It seems to me that Keynes's moderate socialization of investment is pretty close to a technocratic fiscal policy of investing according to NPV, given that NPV of many possible government activities (including subsidies to private investment) will go up as the borrowing rate falls and the gap between marginal cost and price for many resources increases in recession.
There was an attritive stone and timber fence around my elementary school that I (later) understood to have been built by WPA ~ 20 years earlier at, I guess, almost zero marginal cost. An excellent high ROI project.