Ted Cruz: Future of conservatism is populist and libertarian

[John Dule]

Ah yes, principled libertarian Ted Cruz.

[John Dule]

Populism and libertarianism are about as opposed to each other as it gets.

Very true. Most people want to leech off of your success while simultaneously telling you what you can and can't do with your personal life. That's why the mob must be resisted at all costs.

[John Dule]

Populism and libertarianism are about as opposed to each other as it gets.

Very true. Most people want to leech off of your success while simultaneously telling you what you can and can't do with your personal life. That's why the mob must be resisted at all costs.

Is this quote from an ad for free guillotines?

If the idea of letting others live their lives free from the imposition of your subjective opinions makes you want to go out and get a guillotine, then you don't need a revolution, you need anger management sessions.

[John Dule]

Well, you can certainly adopt populist rhetoric while promoting libertarianism. Whether this is disingenuous, as libertarian economic policies do not in general benefit most people, is another matter.

Libertarian economic policies are the sole reason why any of us has a higher standard of living than a Medieval peasant.

[John Dule]

Well, you can certainly adopt populist rhetoric while promoting libertarianism. Whether this is disingenuous, as libertarian economic policies do not in general benefit most people, is another matter.

Libertarian economic policies are the sole reason why any of us has a higher standard of living than a Medieval peasant.

Name a Western society which has used libertarian economic policies. The greatest period of economic growth and increase in living standards in recent history, the post-WWII boom, was founded on Keynesian, mixed economy economics: the New Deal in the US and the social market economy in Europe.

To even reach that point in the first place, every modern, developed nation has gone through a period of minimal regulation in industry and widespread privatization. You can't point fingers at unregulated capitalism for the harm it caused during the Industrial Revolution while simultaneously ignoring all the progress that came of that era as well. And the "post-WWII boom" is such a canard at this point; the US boomed at that period in time because half the world was either under the iron curtain or completely decimated by war. Investors flocked here because we were the only game in town; ever since the fall of communism, the advent of globalization, and capitalism in China, those genius "mixed economy economics" have been failing us because we now have to compete with cheaper laborers.

[John Dule]

You seem to think I am denying capitalism has been enormously beneficial to the West. I am not. It has been (although I think that we could have done with child labour laws in the 19th century). All I am saying is that there has never been a libertarian country. And since the US reversed course of New Deal economics, beginning in the 70s, and really taking off in the 80s, inequality has risen hugely. You neglect to mention postwar Western Europe in your reply. It was arguably saved from communist takeover by the social market economy. The German economic miracle was due to centre-right ordoliberal economic policies, certainly not libertarian or even classical liberal ones.

Okay, let's first be clear in our terms. I worry that when people on the internet say "libertarian," what they mean is "anarcho-capitalist." Obviously there has never been a society where the market runs literally everything, and more importantly, I don't believe there could be such a thing. The existence of the free market is entirely predicated on the state establishing an environment that is safe for investment, which punishes the theft and destruction of those investments. So if your argument is that no country has ever been anarcho-capitalistic, we are in agreement.

Libertarianism makes several allowances for state power. The state must establish a police force and a judicial system to enforce property rights and resolve disputes. This is going to require some form of taxation one way or another. Additionally, Adam Smith argued that government should engage in building public works to accelerate the flow of capital, and break up monopolies. Are these qualities inherent to a libertarian society? Are they endemic to it? No. But they are at the very least compatible with it. If you are saying that no country has ever been purely libertarian, we are once again in agreement. No country has ever been purely anything.

Now, we are talking about libertarian economic policies here. What are those policies? As I have said before, the state needs to establish an environment that is stable for investment. It also needs to create a legal system that rewards competition and efficiency. You must establish that competition is not a tort-- it sounds absurd today, but in England in the 1400s, a person who lost business to a competitor might sue the competitor for damages. A libertarian legal system is one that defends the economic right to compete. The legal system must also evolve to untether serfs from their landlords-- as opportunities arise in cities, labor will naturally flow to those cities unless the remnants of feudalism are still chaining people to the land. The right to sell your labor in the marketplace is also an inherent element of market economics.

The countries that adopted these economic and legal practices were not "libertarian." However, I did not say that "We wouldn't be here today if it weren't for libertarian countries." I said that we wouldn't be here today if it weren't for libertarian policies, which is what these are. The emergence of markets, the development of safe environments for investment, the freeing-up of labor, the codification of the legal right to compete, and the establishment of property rights are all libertarian policies. If you'd rather call them "liberal" or "classical liberal" or just "capitalist," that's fine. But the advent of largely unregulated capitalism is responsible for the technological progress, increased standard of living, and by extension the social reform that has made modern civilization possible. This process of development works, and it is being repeated today in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and India.

[John Dule]

It seems our difference is largely a terminological one. I agree with the majority of what you’ve said here (although I think largely unregulated capitalism is not desirable). When I think of libertarian economics, I think of the Austrian School, a fantasy driven by ideology and not mathematical models, which has thankfully never been tried out.

Surely it depends on what the regulations are? The regulatory codes for banking, telecom, and energy companies are all written by industry insiders, and are then approved by politicians who plan to go work in one of those sectors upon their retirement from the public sector. The idea of a company being "too big to fail" is the product of government intervention in the natural evolution of the markets. Using taxpayer dollars to prop up a failing company is illibertarian. Giving massive subsidies to companies like Comcast, which then screw over their customers and provide terrible service, is illibertarian. Creating thousands of pages of regulation that cost millions of dollars to abide by, which ensures that only three or four large companies will be able to compete in an industry, is illibertarian. Bailing out a bank that misled investors and destroyed the savings of millions of Americans is illibertarian. Adopting the exact policies that multinational companies want you to adopt, in the process squeezing out competition, is illibertarian.

I think most people of my political persuasion agree that some amount of government, taxation, and regulation are all necessary to one degree or another. But libertarians do not think that government and big business should "get along"-- quite the contrary, we want them to be at odds with one another. The neoliberal attitude that business and government should work together is what has given us these industries controlled by enormous, bloated multinationals. Hell, the villains in Ayn Rand novels are all big business owners who took corporate subsidies and cooperated with government regulation because they knew it benefitted them. So when libertarians say that we need less regulation, it's not necessarily because they're on the side of corporate interests. Quite the contrary.

I mean, "leech of your success" and "the mob" is the sort of thing a nineteenth century aristocrat would say.

Perhaps your point would come across better if you addressed what your issue is with what I said, rather than playing coy and telling me who I "sound like."

[John Dule]

While you and other libertarians may well be not enamoured with the idea of corporate influence on the economy,  the most influential self-described libertarians of recent years, the Koch brothers, have used such ideas to increase corporate power. In the absence of antitrust regulations, though, monopolies will inevitably form, to name just one example of where regulation is necessary to curb corporate excess and abuses.

Ehhhh, most examples of corporate monopolies typically involve government intervention either in the form of favorable regulatory policy or plain subsidies. The remaining cases can often be attributed to a company developing some sort of innovation that grants it a temporary monopoly on that technology. In any case, I won't bore you with a "B-but that's not real libertarianism!" argument; I'll just say that it's worth acknowledging that plenty of self-described libertarians out there hate the Koch goblins and everything they stand for. Libertarianism isn't a monolith, and a good chunk of the people who call themselves libertarians are just horrible people who want ideological cover for their racist, authoritarian, or religious views.

[John Dule]

Quite a few working class neighborhoods here in Atlanta that gave Trump 2% of the vote and will likely give him even less in November. But sure Ted, the GOP is the the party of the working class now.

Atlanta is 50 percent black.......and not rural america...

Racist.

Is this like a joke or something?

[John Dule]

Populism and libertarianism are about as opposed to each other as it gets.

Very true. Most people want to leech off of your success while simultaneously telling you what you can and can't do with your personal life. That's why the mob must be resisted at all costs.

Most people want to tell others what to do because they got lucky and chalk it off success, simultaneously telling you how to become like them as the only way, while also telling you that you'll never have the chance that way. And they'll dig into your personal life while getting pis&y when the shoe drops the other way.

But there are those that know this sh&^ is just wrong. They are usually dismissed as a mob.

You gotta resist the mob hating elite at all costs for exactly these reasons.

Luck is a fiction invented by socialists to explain their failures.

[John Dule]

Populism and libertarianism are about as opposed to each other as it gets.

Very true. Most people want to leech off of your success while simultaneously telling you what you can and can't do with your personal life. That's why the mob must be resisted at all costs.

Most people want to tell others what to do because they got lucky and chalk it off success, simultaneously telling you how to become like them as the only way, while also telling you that you'll never have the chance that way. And they'll dig into your personal life while getting pis&y when the shoe drops the other way.

But there are those that know this sh&^ is just wrong. They are usually dismissed as a mob.

You gotta resist the mob hating elite at all costs for exactly these reasons.

Luck is a fiction invented by socialists to explain their failures.

Yes, because you absolutely have control over whether you’re born rich or poor.

I'm a determinist. I don't believe in luck because I don't believe that there is any alternative for any event that has ever happened.

[John Dule]

Populism and libertarianism are about as opposed to each other as it gets.

Very true. Most people want to leech off of your success while simultaneously telling you what you can and can't do with your personal life. That's why the mob must be resisted at all costs.

Most people want to tell others what to do because they got lucky and chalk it off success, simultaneously telling you how to become like them as the only way, while also telling you that you'll never have the chance that way. And they'll dig into your personal life while getting pis&y when the shoe drops the other way.

But there are those that know this sh&^ is just wrong. They are usually dismissed as a mob.

You gotta resist the mob hating elite at all costs for exactly these reasons.

Luck is a fiction invented by socialists to explain their failures.

Yes, because you absolutely have control over whether you’re born rich or poor.

I'm a determinist. I don't believe in luck because I don't believe that there is any alternative for any event that has ever happened.

Not a typically libertarian position to essentially deny free will.

I try to confront uncomfortable truths even when they don't comport with my desired worldview.