American Libertarianism

[@keptrepublic]

I'm actually quite happy that you recognize Hayek as a somewhat serious person, rather than the caricature of the market ideologue many people have of him. It's rare to see that.

[@thecomrade302]

The Free State Project seems big on community, and family. Maybe meet more libertarians in their own communities.

[@sechernbiw3321]

17:50 I think you are making a big assumption that the history people had is that they had supportive parents who respected their autonomy and did not see their children as property or as an apprentice for a pre-determined role, but that is not a universal experience either in the United States or elsewhere. In many communities both in the United States and elsewhere this is not even a very common experience to have. Likewise, in the United States the concept of a "community" is often more of a fiction than something people really have access to and are raised by. The schools are typically gigantic and often full of bullies and overworked, understaffed teachers. The parents may have a circle of supportive extended family and family friends, but they may not. Civic community is often wholly absent. Employment may be a source of community but more often is a place that exerts control and surveillance, and which may try to use one-sided ideas like "the worker-client community" and the "friend-boss who is counting on you" to manipulate and guilt-trip employees into staying in an exploitative situation where they are underpaid and overworked compared with what they could find elsewhere, in order to cynically save money on labor costs, only to suddenly fire the community-minded employee or ferociously pressure them to quit at the first moment it becomes more profitable to do so. In this kind of alienating and ultra-individualistic environment many kids really are not raised by a community or by supportive parents, and instead growing up becomes just a process of raising yourself, learning to defend yourself by yourself, and finding ways to liberate yourself from the controlling and unsupportive people in your surroundings where you can, for better or worse. Part of the appeal of American libertarianism for many people, particularly women, is that it says very emphatically "you are your own property, not your parents' property or anyone else's property, you owe yourself a good life, and you can and should make it happen regardless of the barriers or cynical and hypocritical guilt-trips people place in your way."

[@ashtangaxashtangapranayama8526]

You cooked 🫚🫘🍄🔥

[@BH-qs7vo]

Great thoughtful response, thank you. Wonderful perspective.

[@marcustulliuscicero9512]

Absolutely correct, libertarianism isn't just a by-product of our philosophical history but also our personal relation to the dysfunctional society around us.

[@klosnj11]

32:02 as a husband and father, it ABSOLUTELY is an exchange relationship. Being able to quantify the value of a stay at home mother is not "base" or neausiating. Its empowering. Because if you dont see them for their value, then you will place them in a subserviant position below the "wage earner" which is absolutely a problem. Labor for the home holds value. That isnt a bad thing.

[@Kowjja]

This comment section is ANGRY lmao Americans are so funny

[@JFalcony]

Hello from this libertarians' tiny house in NC. I feel seen and attacked at the same time! Gotta give credit where credit's due, this thumbnail was a major Gotcha on me that made me laugh! Delighted to listen and learn.

[@LateBoomer-sl1dk]

Something else you could talk about is Golden Age science fiction. Those writers made me a Libertarian without me realizing it.

[@klosnj11]

20:29 holy smokes, is he really going with the cliche "but who will build the roads" argument? Does this guy only understand libertarianism through the lense of online message boards? We talk about personal obligations to others all the time. I suspect its more that Wes doesnt want to confront the answers more than that he doesnt know them.

[@SiamakNaficy]

Another interesting lecture. I think even more important than some of the answers, are the questions you ask. You will necessarily get the wrong answers if you ask the wrong questions. So fundamental to a journey of discover is asking better questions. Meanwhile, I am glad you mentioned Marie Kondo because she is quite the consumer chimera. So, for example, when she said we should have a (ballpark figure) total of 30 books--which is of course absurd, she clarified later that she was misunderstood. She later made clear that what she meant was that we're only allowed to keep 30 books in our possession at any one given time! So, throw them out and buy new ones! Rinse and repeat, right?

[@CarloFromaggio]

Thanks Wes!

[@roberth9814]

Why is the Libertarian party so unpopular despite libertarianism being so culturally pervasive?

[@jr8260]

Because it sounds fun and fair and all and then you find out they just want to own black people

[@Shadowman4710]

@@jr8260 Oh be fair. They want to own poor white people too...

[@BigChap117]

@@jr8260 bingo

[@superninjaraidingman]

​@@jr8260what? 😂😂😂

[@jr8260]

@@superninjaraidingman go meet a libertarian and you'll understand.

[@Syzygy_Bliss]

Neoliberalism is basically the political ideology that all problems can be solved through trickle down economic policies. Its fatal flaw is that wealth doesn’t trickle down significantly. Critics of government fail to realize that government is just the biggest company, and all other companies are simply its subsidiaries. Capitalism is the economic ideology that financial might make right. The goal of capitalism is monarchy. But that’s not as efficient for innovation as free market capitalism, because at a certain scale, it’s easier to block competitors than to innovate when attempting to achieve a competitive advantage. The optimal free market utilizes all economic tools, including social policies, to ensure that as many people can compete and are competitive as possible in the market.

[@concretedonkey4726]

your stuff is usually way above my head but this video was extremely useful, as an average eastern european I'm often confused by liberatarian ideas , especially when I find them so often in us literature, honestly I think 90% of US scifi authors must be libertarians :)).

[@urbanwinterhound8863]

Libertarianism in my opinion shows how hollow my American culture is

[@asurrealistworld4412]

@@urbanwinterhound8863 As opposed to what? What makes a culture more "hollow" differently from anywhere else in the world? American culture and all the cultures of the Americas are their own distinct cultures which have been shaped by both European and non-European cultural influences and similar libertarian ideas and philosophies have emerged all throughout history in all various other places around the world (such as even all the way back to Zhuangzi in ancient China).

[@klosnj11]

22:33 Free riderism? Is that what it is called when I have to continue paying for other peoples kids to have an education while I get no compensation for homeschooling? What if I didn't in fact use the roads? Would I then no longer be obligated to pay? Why not a payment system based on actual road usage instead of something as unassociated as income?

[@lisadioguardi5742]

At least you didn't mention Ayn Rand. She really didn't like them and didn't like that they claimed her philosophy. She thought they were a bunch of mindless anarchists.

[@Shadowman4710]

Well, she was deeply stupid, as many historians have said...

[@christopherellis2663]

The English word for that is churlishness, as opposed to serfdom The nobility had other ideas.

[@klosnj11]

27:43 yes, the difference between libertarianism and anarcho capitalism.

[@ASH-cn7qs]

wow it is so horrible... OWN an ugly word.. you OWN yourself.. well who else? snickering and giggling is not serious thinking Mr Cecil. you either own yourself, or someone else does it. it is as simple as it.

[@cheapshot2842]

You'd have to prove that claim. I'm completely unowned.

[@arthursage9358]

Listening to libertarians and feeling offended is natural. A conservative called libertarians soft communists. If you heard of all their projects of making a commune or start up country.

[@assortmentofpillsbutneverb3756]

It's funny hearing any argument along the lines of "mother should be paid x" cause there is actual market equivalents and they are extremely diverse on responsibilities vs pay. Like it's absurd when you look at the market for any kind of free labor vs the paid labor in detail

[@klosnj11]

26:15 you can voluntarily decide not to do business with any company. You are not allowed to decide to ignore the government. Your comparison is thus falacious. What hope does an individual have against another private entity? CONSENT. Which we do not get with the government.

[@Ceronocero]

Love to hear you mentioning Adam Something's channel. Everything is coming together.

[@sechernbiw3321]

31:00 The sentimental statements about motherhood are all well and good, but many people enjoy their jobs too. Does that mean their work has no monetary value and employment should just be an unmonetizable yet precious "beautiful opportunity full of joy" sustained by joyful dancing, instinct, and rations of unseasoned cornmeal, rice, sweet potatoes and okra the way we are told by some that it used to happen back in the day? If mothers and fathers typically did similar amounts of work raising a child then it would be fair to say, okay this is just something both parents have implicitly signed up for and we can ignore the implications of the enormous amount of labor involved. The reality though is that one parent typically does much more labor than the other, pregnancy and childbirth have medical risks and medical costs associated with them, people with the capacity to do so are the ones who go through pregnancy and give birth, and the parent who does the larger amount of work raising a child is usually (not always) a woman. Sometimes it is a single father or a married father who is doing all of that extra work compared with the mom. Regardless, there is something called child support payment, and it is necessary to give dignity to a parent who is putting in a massively disproportionate amount of labor raising a kid, in comparison with the other parent. Likewise, if you give birth and have medical consequences such as hypothyroidism, why should you be the only one who pays the bills for that? It's not as if you would have that medical complication if the father had not been involved, so why should the father not pay for part of the medical costs which would not have existed if he had not been involved? This kind of conversation may not be very sentimental and might be more enjoyable to avoid when it is possible to do so, but it is a realistic conversation to have and is a particularly necessary conversation to have if there is a divorce after one parent has given up significant career opportunities due to pregnancy or in order to spend more time raising the kid, while the other parent has focused on building their career. Divorce is not great, but unfortunately it is common and sometimes is very necessary if there is abuse, irreconcilable differences or certain other problems, so it has to be talked about. These problems are not always provable beyond a shadow of a doubt to a court of law, since they usually happen in private. Sometimes neither parent is doing much work raising the kid, and if there is negligence it may be that the money should be paid to an account set up for the benefit of the kid rather than to one of the parents directly. I would love to only talk about parenting the way you do as a purely sentimental situation, motherhood and parenthood in general are beautiful and should be joyous and lovely for all involved. When that fails to be completely the case in ways which cause significant challenges for some or all of the parties involved, that is when it becomes most necessary to talk about why and about what to do about it to make sure that there is fair and equal treatment for all parties involved, according to the labor they have contributed or the nature of what has gone wrong. In general too, there is the question of the dignity of being a mother and the dignity of being a parent in general. If it is just a question of "a beautiful opportunity full of joy" this may be a way for a husband to condescend to his wife by suggesting that her enormous and (in a particular case) extremely disproportionate contribution of unpaid labor is actually totally effortless, and therefore he shouldn't respect the contribution she is making and should not step in to do any of the childcare himself either (since if he did it then it would not be "instinctual" and would therefore take "real" effort to do). It is common for women to even be pressured to present their childcare as seemingly effortless, because to not do so might seem "unfeminine" or "unmotherly", just because they acknowledge that there is real effort involved in doing all of this work and that it doesn't just "happen instinctually" in a magically effortless way, as if the joy of motherhood suspended the laws of thermodynamics.

[@assortmentofpillsbutneverb3756]

Not responding to the whole comment, but if we are talking historically there were 2 markets. Unpaid labor and paid labor. Much of the sentimental work could fit into unpaid labor. Mothers did work and they largely did it for free, but anyone in that time would consider it so good that it's the natural order. Men worked for free for themselves for much of the year too. They only worked for pay to earn their private less economic space. Industrial work changed the game because private non paid work on your house and land have been outsourced so you can focus on more paid specialized work. To circle back, it's not a stretch to argue for either side. Sentimental work has always been important to people and civilizations. Paid work and specialization supports scale and exponential output of goods. There is huge trade offs going too hard either direction

[@klosnj11]

34:16 ah, you are one of the "you will own nothing and be happy" folks. Makes perfect sense.

[@thecomrade302]

The biggest aspect of american libertarianism for me is the ethical framework that tries to eliminate conflict, if you see the ideas through this lens you can see why self ownership is useful and has its place. The roads issue is tiresome.

[@thecomrade302]

Libertarian ethics is not meant to address fear, or to give you freedom to read. This can be done on top or in parallel to libertarian ethics, wanting a hammer to be a wrench is not the fault of the hammer.

[@dejected247]

Real

[@mikewolfe4465]

MORE

[@lowrydan111]

Mises. Rothbard. Read up.

[@stevenhines5550]

Sure, go ahead, use the infrastructure - just don't use it for commerce.

[@dejected247]

Read the machinery of freedom it directly addresses the shitty road talking point

[@funkbungus137]

oh my, I once didnt know american libertarianism isnt european libertarianism and so I joined a bookclub... In my naivete I thought we'd perhaps discuss Malatesta, or Emma Goldman, or if i was lucky, we'd dig into Bookchin's social-ecology works. Maybe juuuust maybe if the one true god king of anarchy was smiling that day, we'd just read 3 or 4 David Graber books back to back while we drank our drip coffee. no talking allowed, the perfect bookclub for me. but no... they where mostly concerned with complaining about divorce court actually, which, looking back on that wow... 18 years ago this experience, I wonder how on twitter those guys all are now. Angry Divorced dads without custody rights really turned into their own species since then. edit: ah! hahaha Adam Something! love that guy, a great podcast with similar vibes is Trash Future, its more comedy focused, but it has been at the forefront of exposing that AI is almost always just some guy for years now lol. oh yeah. I originally just wanted to make a silly comment : my biggest beef with libertarianism is that they stole the word on purpose from left anarchism, bragged about it in writing, and then they got it all stunk up with their stinky ideas, so now its so stinky I dont want it back, they can keep it. as Wittgenstein said, “When we can't think for ourselves, we can always quote”. and if Ralph Waldo I forget his last name was there for some fuckin reason he'd say something like: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” lord, Im in a rambly mood today, this is a collection of wholly superfluous .. i hesitate to call it information... stuff... superfluous stuff.

[@w1cked001]

@@funkbungus137 you are very smart, we get it Edit: keep up the word salad flowing, makes you look smarter. Be sure to Google some other people to quote and throw in as croutons, maybe use the word quantum in there somewhere too..

[@funkbungus137]

@@w1cked001 oh my no, Im not smart, I just like 5 dollar words, and nobody stopped me from sounding like a pretentious knob as a child. and now its too late. Was the time you invested in reading my incoherent youtube comment better spent doing something productive like reading the back of a shampoo bottle while pooping? I can't say, I won't say... You can't make me. So dont even try to make me say. On the other hand, for a small price I would be willing to give my perspective on whether or not reading a bunch of very pointless, very uninteresting, and I really have to stress this last point, very very dumb, poorly formatted gobbledegook, with , too many, commas cuz I don't actually know , when to use them so I just throw them in whenever I breath while I am typing and also run on sentences and oh god, I do hope you are still reading this.... The point being, I think its cute that you not only read what I said, but you also said to yourself "This motherfucker thinks he's king shit of fuck mountain, I better point out he's being a dingus" and then you went ahead and spent the time to reply to me. its a very 50 year old divorced dad who owns all of Mike Savages books thing to do if you ask me. I hope you commented from a PC.. you read the comment, Grimmaced, gritted your dentures, scooched your faux leather office chair in real close, pulled out the keyboard tray thingy and began furiously pecking at the keyboard with either index finger while vocallizing everything to your poor brown lab pupper, who is a good boy and loves you very much, and hopes he can go for a walk after you're done on youtube. oh there I go rambling again. oh is it because I made a joke by using 2 quotes at the end? is that the big brain shit you're talking about? oh that'd be super funny. having said that, let me end with my favorite quote of all time, its from me, "Meaning is a comfy sweater, but its one you gotta knit yourself" I hope you find a reason to be happy today, you deserve it girl.

[@buglepong]

ive often thought american libertarians are essentially confederates

[@w1cked001]

So the people who want the maximum freedom are essentially the same as slave owners?

[@gfy2979]

It is, they don't want "no government or less govt" just one THEY want

[@jr8260]

They're just Republicans who don't mind gay people

[@billhartig4805]

@@gfy2979citation please.

[@Shadowman4710]

Pretty much.

[@jamomeara1894]

Try and get through one day and not find the governments eyes, ears, or hands in your pocket and life. It’s too much

[@prajnaseek]

See my essays and playlists on libertarianism. The subject is vastly wider, richer, more complex and deeper than you present. You present American libertarianism of the right as the only kind. It is not. It is a single anomaly.

[@klosnj11]

No, the maintaining of personal rights does not require a large complex government. Merely an effective one. One more strawman in your field.

[@prajnaseek]

Cultural history is your forte, not political economy or political philosophy.

[@Actaeon-l6d]

22:50 I think you're mischaracterizing their POV here a little bit. It's not that they want to use the roads without paying for them. It's that they aren't given the option to pay for the use of them or not. They would undoubtedly support privately owned toll roads because this would open up the road system to the free market as opposed to government coercion. And to your second point about the disparity between the individual and the corporation I believe their answer to this problem would be if a corporation is taking advantage of their customers this would open up an avenue for a competing corporation to provide a better service. This is kind of what Madison was saying about competing Factions in the Federalist papers. That the only way to check power is to set the interests of Factions against one another.

[@assortmentofpillsbutneverb3756]

That is the same question though. You can't have a community chest paying for a community product without someone choosing where the money goes. You can rig that amounts so rich people pay for community goods or have the community service paid through private means, but both of those options are not a community chest paying for a community service. Take roads like your example. Taxes paying for roads can not have an opt in. Either the rich pays for it and controls access or private payers pay for it and control access. Either party could open it up or the need for service could make it so everyone buys in regardless, but that is in no way a community service or expected right. Not saying it couldn't work. I don't think it would lead to anything good, but that's from different arguments. It's just not the same thing and needs deeper thought than "private payers will make it work" to argue for

[@truecatholic1]

Absolute (private) property rights is an error. This - i.e. error - is something that is believed to be true, but is actually false. God owns all property - including humans. Human's are limited by morality with regards to what they can/must lawfully do.

[@dejected247]

L take + ratio + cringe

[@klosnj11]

23:11 holy crap, strawman city. I was hoping for a valid critique of libertarianism, but this is just ignorant normie talk by someone who doesnt understand the philosophy.b

[@HeathcliffeMcHarris]

What makes the family one of the most oppressive institutions is the same for government, no choice in what systems you are born into and must live under... life is inherently oppressive. It's the smell.

[@Syzygy_Bliss]

Don’t worry Wes, libertarianism is simply about finding any excuse not to pay taxes to the institutions that make libertarianism possible in small pockets. It’s barely a real ideology.

[@jamomeara1894]

Yeah that’s where our taxes go 🙄. Trillions of dollars wasted on bs that doesn’t help American citizens. Govt could run just fine on 1/10 of what it is