Libertarians

[Quartz]

For the 'libertarian', everything is reduced to the calculus of profit and loss.

Ask two libertarians what their definition of their philosophy is and you'll get three different answers.

 

[butchersapron]

Ask two libertarians what their definition of their philosophy is and you'll get three different answers.

No you won't.

 

[seventh bullet]

Liberarians have some point privately run bars restaurants etc etc are better than a government run pub chain.
Not sure private security police fire service roads etc etc a good idea at all.
The new liberals were able to rush in because the society with out the threat of ever present informers and foreign military didn't work.
You want to replace capitalism fine you have to come up with something better not something that's shitter but claims to be better.
The west managed to produce guns and butter and shiny stuff to distract the proles and allow protest and communists party's and a massive amount of soviet espionage.
The sovet system was threatened by jazz musicans
it could t even cope with people voting with their feet that's how shit and rotten the whole system was it only survived because it put up a fence to keep people in.

Were the European satellites after WWII the same as the USSR?

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Yes, true. State-owned ice cream places in Cuba are cheap and good. Being state-owned doesn't have to equal shit.

Yep. There are just as many failures (actually probably more when you take into account the waste of resources associated with the 90% of businesses that fail within the first 2 years of opening shop) of service provision in the private sector as there are in the public. There are also just as many successes (actually probably more when you take into account rights of access and democratic control) in the public sector as there are in the private.

The issue isn't really public vs private, it's about accountability to the people that need that service and availability of it to everyone in a fair and open way. Personally I'm not really bothered about who gives me my ice cream and beer. I am absolutely bothered about who gives me my healthcare though, and I want it to be the government. Not that I'm doing anything other than preaching to the converted here, of course.

 

[8ball]

Paying taxes that are collectively used to fund public goods gives you are a far greater freedom than libertarians ever give it credit for: freedom from the tyranny of permanent economic calculation.

Now, you may say that, but I saw that cultist fucknut arguing against this point by saying that may be true, but it's not about increasing freedom, it's about morality. So now we have so-called libertarians trying to argue against what they pretend is the whole thrust of their argument by resorting to incoherent moral authoritarianism.

Hence a big part of my problem with this thread - these people aren't libertarians at all!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Now, you may say that, but I saw that cultist fucknut arguing against this point by saying that may be true, but it's not about increasing freedom, it's about morality.

How does that argument go, then? Is it immoral to expect me to pay when you get sick? Is that the thrust of the thing? Perhaps it is unchristian?

 

[8ball]

How does that argument go, then? Is it immoral to expect me to pay when you get sick? Is that the thrust of the thing? Perhaps it is unchristian?

No, it comes down to the morality of taxation without consent, which really boils down to the social contract. I agree with them that legitimacy comes with a social contract and not with the threat of violence, but the silliness of contracting everything out to private providers combined with the dubious morality of the alienation this will entail for the people providing the services and the rendering of profits to an owning class makes things worse rather than better.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No, it comes down to the morality of taxation without consent.

Oh, ok, that idiocy.

They really haven't progressed beyond the teenager's 'I didn't ask to be born', have they?

 

[nino_savatte]

Yes, true. State-owned ice cream places in Cuba are cheap and good. Being state-owned doesn't have to equal shit.

Quite but likesfish seemed to be suggesting that it did.

 

[nino_savatte]

The state used to own pubs and breweries in northern england scotland and london - right up until the heath govt.

You mean this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Management_Scheme

"No treating" (buying rounds)

 

[nino_savatte]

Ask two libertarians what their definition of their philosophy is and you'll get three different answers.

Oh?

 

[likesfish]

Quite but likesfish seemed to be suggesting that it did.

Sometimes it does though see British leyland

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Sometimes it does though see British leyland

Ah no, you're not allowed them. Read up on why BL was nationalised. It was a failing industry in private hands - taking it into public hands was an attempt to save it.

 

[nino_savatte]

Sometimes it does though see British leyland

I was about to deal with this but littlebabyjesus beat me to it.

Nationalised industries suffered from a lack of investment and poor management. Yet, the Tory line is that they failed because of union militancy.

 

[Lo Siento.]

You mean this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Management_Scheme

"No treating" (buying rounds)

Quite like the idea of pubs that aren't motivated to sell you stuff. Just a public space that happens to have a licence to sell booze

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Quite like the idea of pubs that aren't motivated to sell you stuff. Just a public space that happens to have a licence to sell booze

Yeah, me too, although if the booze is half-decent, they'll sell plenty.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Ah no, you're not allowed them. Read up on why BL was nationalised. It was a failing industry in private hands - taking it into public hands was an attempt to save it.

I was about to deal with this but littlebabyjesus beat me to it.

Nationalised industries suffered from a lack of investment and poor management. Yet, the Tory line is that they failed because of union militancy.

And of course BL was never run in the way that Tory privatisers like to imagine it was either. It was basically a private company run for profit by conventional capitalist managers (a lot of them recruited from the very successful Ford UK) that just happened to have the National Enterprise Board holding the shares and offering (relatively modest) investment. The only real difference between pre and post-1975 BL was where the capital was coming from, it's not like Tony Benn was designing the cars, ffs.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

it's not like Tony Benn was designing the cars, ffs.

More's the pity.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Dunno if anyone saw this

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4328271.ece

Everyone's favourite Libertarian has been sacked by UKIP

 

[brogdale]

Dunno if anyone saw this

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4328271.ece

Everyone's favourite Libertarian has been sacked by UKIP

I don't really like to say this but...tbf...he really did have the impossible job, especially for an arch libertarian. How to square the circle of a party with minarchism as it's ideological 'DNA' writing 'big state' policies to appeal to the old,white, working class demographic they are attempting to attract.

 

[8ball]

Quite like the idea of pubs that aren't motivated to sell you stuff. Just a public space that happens to have a licence to sell booze

I've been to plenty of pubs like that. It gets on your tits after several minutes stood at tan empty bar waiting for them to get round to serving you, though.

 

[brogdale]

12 in Anderston (Glasgow). Or at least 12 that could be bothered to vote.

 

[DaveCinzano]

12 in Anderston (Glasgow). Or at least 12 that could be bothered to vote.

Think we've located them

 

[J Ed]

Think we've located them

Not white enough, gender ratio is spot on though

 

[DaveCinzano]

Not white enough, gender ratio is spot on though

Donald Sutherland makes an excellent Bungay.

 

[likesfish]

BT provided a shit service weeks for a phone and a small vastly over priced selection of phones with dire threats if you dared to use an unauthorized phone

 

[stethoscope]

BT provided a shit service weeks for a phone and a small vastly over priced selection of phones with dire threats if you dared to use an unauthorized phone

Just like TalkTalk then.

 

[likesfish]

Except you have a choice to tell talk talk to shove it.
Monopoly's backed by the state can and do treat the customer like shit.
While starved of fiance if they can't make money they are kept on life support if they can every cent goes to the Treasury zero for investment .

 

[stethoscope]

Local Loop Unbundling and breaking up of Telecoms was just another Tory privatised con trick dressed up as 'but choice for the customer'. Even then its not that simple that you can always go with different providers due to the internal bidding/contracts involved at local exchanges and not being able to get infrastructure laid down in different areas whilst a million and one sub contracted companies battle for what profit is to be made and barely talk to each other. Its all bullshit.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

BT provided a shit service weeks for a phone and a small vastly over priced selection of phones with dire threats if you dared to use an unauthorized phone

I've heard this story about having to wait weeks for a phone a number of times anecdotally. Some questions spring to mind though, such as when was this? What was the comparable wait time for a phone in countries that had a private system? Couldn't this just be down to the technology of the era?

Genuine questions, by the way. I'm completely ignorant on the issue of British Telecom pre-privatisation.