Why people do not believe in libertarianism

[ALawPoker]

Self-righteousness.

The beauty of classical liberalism is its simplicity. Belief in it does not require creative and self glorifying solution.

People who believe in the free market will point to lack of understanding as the reason many oppose it. I agree, but I think it's more that people *don't want to* believe it even if they're capable of it. For self-righteous reasons. They want to be the guy with the solution. People want to feel like their ideas matter. And when you hold the "position" that the market takes care of itself, you effectively eliminate your opportunity to be the hero who figured everything out.

And I'm not really talking about the politicians and the hack journalists. They'll mislead you but they don't necessarily believe what they're saying. Joe Shmoe believes what he says.

People care about government. People talk about government. Joe Shmoe wants to feel like his ideas about something as important as government are superior. He graduated with a fancy political science degree, HE HAS SOLUTIONS. HE'S AN IMPORTANT MEMBER OF SOCIETY WITH IMPORTANT IDEAS. He didn't pay $130K to come to realize that he should accept the fact that he can't manipulate the market. So he'll never accept it until it's smacking him in the face.

If there's any way to believe it isn't true, he will find ways to believe it isn't true.

The market to me is like gravity. You can't touch it. Socialists talk about "capitalism" like some dude invented it in a lab. Capitalism is just a natural force of efficiency. You can choose to restrict it if you're a pussy or an [censored], but don't lie to me about blatant truths and expect me to have a reasonable discussion with you.

Fortunately, gravity is hard to reject. The ones who did all fell over the cliff. But if people could plausibly reject it in lieu of their own ideas, they would. And they'd spend their time, effort, and money finding new and creative ways to apply force on air born objects at roughly -9.8 meters per second. The fact that they could just do nothing and get an equal or slightly better result would not fly well with people who think they are more important than the natural order of our existence.


I mean, I'm not "for capitalism" in the sense that I care much about money or associate much with people in suits. But how can you deny the blatantly obvious? Is your desire to personally solve the world's problems *that* important to you?

Trust gravity. If you jump, you will come down. Get over yourself. You're not that important. You can't fly.

I think the desire to affect our world is probably a natural human yearning though. I wish people would redirect this desire to a personal level, and trust that the impact will be made. Just work hard if you want to affect the world. Open a pizza shop and sell people delicious pizza.

Oh wait. That takes effort. But whining about which laws are good and bad and who is right and wrong is easy, and makes us sound smart. And it proves to everyone how good our ideas are, which is more noble than cooking a tasty pizza. I forgot.


Thoughts?

[lehighguy]

yeah, that's about it

[Copernicus]

It doesn't help that too many in the "free market" camp are unwilling to admit that there are some areas where a totally free market is not optimal.

[GoodCallYouWin]

"It doesn't help that too many in the "free market" camp are unwilling to admit that there are some areas where a totally free market is not optimal. "

Easy to assert, impossible to prove?

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
"It doesn't help that too many in the "free market" camp are unwilling to admit that there are some areas where a totally free market is not optimal. "

Easy to assert, impossible to prove?

[/ QUOTE ]

On a theoretical basis, impossible to prove or disprove. On an empirical basis, unless societies consistently act irrationally, examples are numerous and counter-examples rare or non-existent.

[govman6767]

[ QUOTE ]
"It doesn't help that too many in the "free market" camp are unwilling to admit that there are some areas where a totally free market is not optimal. "

Easy to assert, impossible to prove?

[/ QUOTE ]

You do know how the quote function works right ?????????????

[NickMPK]

So this is basically your post:
1.) Let's assume libertarianism is right.
2.) Therefore, everyone who doesn't believe in libertarianism is wrong.
3.) Let's discuss why so many people are wrong.

I could just as easily start a thread like this: "Let's assume that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. I've noticed that a lot of people don't believe in Flying Speghetti Monster. Let's discuss why these people are so delusional. Now, I won't accept arguments like 'Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist'. Let's just assume it, and thus assume that everyone who doesn't believe is crazy, and discuss why people are so crazy."

The reason most people do not believe in libertarianism is that they disagree with you premise.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
So this is basically your post:
1.) Let's assume libertarianism is right.
2.) Therefore, everyone who doesn't believe in libertarianism is wrong.
3.) Let's discuss why so many people are wrong.

I could just as easily start a thread like this: "Let's assume that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. I've noticed that a lot of people don't believe in Flying Speghetti Monster. Let's discuss why these people are so delusional. Now, I won't accept arguments like 'Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist'. Let's just assume it, and thus assume that everyone who doesn't believe is crazy, and discuss why people are so crazy."

The reason most people do not believe in libertarianism is that they disagree with you premise.

[/ QUOTE ]

What is it with you people?

Yes, you could make a post like that. But no one believes in the flying spaghetti monster so it's doubtful it requires a bias to reject. I maintain that many people could benefit from libertarianism who don't see that.

I hear people talk all the time about "freedom" and "capitalism" and this and that... but then they conclude that a 27% income tax is what they stand for instead of 0%. It's like... huh? Have you spent the last decade conducting rigorous economic analysis to arrive at this conclusion? Or do you just like hearing yourself talk? They'll defend cigarettes or even marijuana on strictly libertarian grounds, but then they'll forget that and think when it comes to something like acid their hands on solution is better. They'll seem to hold libertarian ideals but will find ways to shun them.

Those are the people I have in mind here. I'm not talking about people that will never embrace libertarianism anyways.

Yes, you could make the same claim for socialism. There are probably biases that people have for whatever reasons that make it hard for them to appreciate the concept. Feel free to make a thread exploring that issue. If I choose to respond, I'll lend you the courtesy of staying on topic and not making it personal because I fail to take 3 seconds to understand the point of your thread.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't help that too many in the "free market" camp are unwilling to admit that there are some areas where a totally free market is not optimal.

[/ QUOTE ]

According to whose subjective, personal preferences? And if you hammer it into alignment in one area to make it "better" you just make it worse somewhere else.

It's closer to optimal for any reasonable, complete set of criteria than any forcibly-manipulated system, so it's "optimally sub-optimal."

[bobman0330]

This is one of the longest and (ironically) most self-righteous ad hominem arguments I've seen posted here.