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Excursions, Ep. 34: Thomas Hodgskin, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Part 4 – Video

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Excursions, Ep. 34: Thomas Hodgskin, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Part 4
George H. Smith continues his discussion of Thomas Hodgskin by exploring some of the key arguments in his neglected book on economics, Popular Political Economy. Read this essay: ...

By: Libertarianism.org

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Excursions, Ep. 34: Thomas Hodgskin, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Part 4 - Video

Welcome to Libertarian Island: How these One Percenters are creating a dystopian nightmare

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In the clever science fiction video gameBioshock, an Objectivist business magnate named Andrew Ryan (recognize those initials?) creates an underwater city, where the worlds elite members can flourish free from the controls of government. It is a utopian village that Ayn Rand and her hero John Galt would surely approve of, but unfortunately it ends up becoming a dystopian nightmare after class distinctions form (what a shocker) and technological innovation gets out of hand. It was a hell of a video game, for those of you into that kind of thing.

But I dont bring up Bioshock to talk about video games. I bring it up because there is currently a similar movement happening in real life, and it is being funded by another rather eccentric businessman, the Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel. As some may already know, Thiel has teamed up with the grandson of libertarian icon Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman, to try and develop a seastead, or a permanent and autonomous dwelling at sea. Friedman formed the Seasteading Institute in 2008, and Thiel has donated more than a million dollars to fund its creation.

It is all very utopian, to say the least. But on the website, they claim a floating city could be just years away. The real trick is finding a proper location to build this twenty-first century atlantis. Currently, they are attempting to find a host nation that will allow the floating city somewhat close to land, for the calm waters and ability to easily travel to and from the seastead.

The project has been coined libertarian island, and it reveals a building movement within Silicon Valley; a sort of free market techno-capitalist faction that seems to come right out of Ayn Rands imagination. And as with all utopian ideologies, it is very appealing, especially when you live in a land where everything seems possible, with the proper technological advancements.

Tech billionaires like Thiel, Travis Kalanick and Marc Andressen, are leading the libertarian revolution in the land of computers, and it is not a surprising place for this laissez faire ideology to flourish. Silicon Valley is generally considered to have a laid back Californian culture, but behind all of the polite cordialities, there rests a necessary cutthroat attitude. A perfect example of this was Steve Jobs, who was so revered by the community, and much of the world, yet almost psychopathically merciless. The recent anti-trust case against the big tech companies like Google, Apple, and Intel, who colluded not to recruit each others employees, has even lead to speculation as towhether Jobs should be in jail today, if he were still alive.

So while Silicon Valley is no doubt a socially progressive place (i.e. gay marriage), if one looks past social beliefs, there is as muchruthlessness as youd expect in any capitalist industry. Look at theoffshore tax avoidance, the despicableoverseas working conditions, the outrightviolations of privacy and illegal behavior. There is a very real arrogance within Silicon Valley that seems to care little about rules and regulations.

Libertarianism preaches a night-watchmen government that stays out of businesses way, and allows private industries to regulate themselves. It is a utopian ideology, as was communism, that has an almost religious-like faith in the free market, and an absolute distrust of any government. It is a perfect philosophy for a large corporation, like Apple, Google or Facebook. If we lived in an ideal libertarian society, these companies would not have to avoid taxes, because they would be non-existent, and they wouldnt have to worry about annoying restrictions on privacy. In a libertarian society, these companies could regulate their own actions, and surely Google, with their famous Dont be evil slogan, believes in corporate altruism.

In the Valley, innovation and entrepreneurship is everything, so a blind faith in the market is hardly shocking. And last year one of the leading libertarians, Rand Paul, flew out to San Francisco to speak at theLincoln Labs Reboot Conference, held to create and support a community of like-minded individuals who desire to advance liberty in the public square with the use of technology. Paul said at the conference, use your ingenuity, use your big head to think of solutions the marketplace can figure out, that the idiots and trolls in Washington will never come up with, surely earning laughs and pats on the back.

Rand Paul has had one on one meetings with Mark Zuckerberg, and the floating island billionaire himself, Peter Thiel. The founder and CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick is another noted libertarian, who used to have the cover of Ayn Rands The Fountainhead as his twitter icon. Kalanick runs Uber just as a devoted follower of Ayn Rand would, continuously fighting regulators and living by whatwriter Paul Carr has called the cult of disruption. Carr nicely summarizes the philosophy of this cult: In a digitally connected age, theres absolutely no need for public carriage laws (or hotel laws, or food safety laws, or or) because the market will quickly move to drive out bad actors. If an Uber driver behaves badly, his low star rating will soon push him out of business.

So basically, with the internet, regulation has become nothing more than a outdated relic of the past, and today consumers truly have the power to make corporations behave by speaking out on social media, or providing negative ratings on Yelp, or filing a petition on Change.com, etc. It is the same old libertarian argument wrapped up in a new millennial cloak, that corporations will act ethically because if they dont, consumers will go elsewhere.

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Welcome to Libertarian Island: How these One Percenters are creating a dystopian nightmare

Greece's Syriza Could Launch A Libertarian Revolution

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If I were to start throwing around solutions for the situation in Greece, they would include:

1) A debt restructuring. Greeces government cant pay the present debt load of over 175% of GDP, so it wont, and shouldnt.

2) A major tax reform. Greeces 45% payroll tax rate, plus its 23% VAT rate, plus a personal income tax system with a top rate of 46% (and the 32% rate hitting at only 26,000 euros of income), makes business activity basically impossible unless you evade the taxes. So, thats what people do, if they want to somehow obtain food and shelter. Others rely on government handouts welfare recipients, government employees, and crony businesses concluding (correctly) that regular economic activity is pointless in this environment.

If all this wasnt disastrous enough, capital gains are taxed as regular income. The new government is also planning a Large Property Tax, or basically a wealth tax. Plus, Im sure there are hundreds of junk taxes on all sorts of nonsense, which always happens in these situations.

3) A major overhaul of government services, aiming to provide the same level of service with much lower cost to the government. This would likely include a major reduction of government employee headcount, probably a restructuring of employment agreements, and eliminating myriad crony deals with government suppliers.

4) Either keeping the euro, or introducing other stable money alternatives such as an open currency policy where people can use any currency they wish.

While I am sure some will accuse me of airy-fairy libertarian fantasizing, I actually think the present Syriza government yes, the communists are pretty close to this strategy already. Lets see what I mean.

1) The Syriza partys main policy platform was basically to break out of the austerity framework imposed by outsiders, and proceed with a debt restructuring.

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Greece's Syriza Could Launch A Libertarian Revolution

Dark Leviathan: The Failure of Silk Roads Libertarian Utopia (w/ Henry Farrell) – Video

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Dark Leviathan: The Failure of Silk Roads Libertarian Utopia (w/ Henry Farrell)
George Washington University Professor, Henry Farrell, explains the role of Tor browser by human rights activists, civil libertarians and criminal organizations. Criminal subcultures and trust....

By: Sam Seder

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Dark Leviathan: The Failure of Silk Roads Libertarian Utopia (w/ Henry Farrell) - Video

My libertarian vacation nightmare: How Ayn Rand, Ron Paul & their groupies were all debunked

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Last month, I spent my final vacation night in Honduras in San Pedro Sula, considered the most dangerous city outside of the war-torn Middle East. I would not have been scared, except that I traveled with my wife and our four children, aged 5, 7, 14 and 18. On our last taxi ride, we could not find a van to fit us all, so we rode in two taxis. Mine carried me and my two daughters, aged 5 and 14, while the driver blasted Willie Nelson singing City of New Orleans (a city that is also considered very dangerous).

It was a surreal moment, traveling in one of the most dangerous cities in the world with my babies in tow. I gave a nod to the radio. Willie, I said, and he gave me a grin and vigorous s. Theres a lot of American cowboy culture in Honduras, but along with silly hats, Honduras has also taken one of our other worst ideaslibertarian politics. By the time Id made it to San Pedro Sula, Id seen much of the countryside and culture. Its a wonderful place, filled with music, great coffee, fabulous cigars and generous people, but its also a libertarian experiment coming apart.

People better than I have analyzed the specific political moves that have created this modern day libertarian dystopia. Mike LaSusa recently wrote a detailed analysis of such,laying out how the bad ideas of libertarian politics have been pursued as government policy.

In America, libertarian ideas are attractive to mostly young, white men with high ideals and no life experience that live off of the previous generations investments and sacrifice. I know this because as a young, white idiot, I subscribed to this system of discredited ideas: Selfishness is good, government is bad. Take what you want, when you want and however you can. Poor people deserve what they get, and the smartest, hardworking people always win. So get yours before someone else does. I read the books by Charles Murray and have an autographed copy of Ron Pauls The Revolution. The thread that links all the disparate books and ideas is that they fail in practice. Eliminate all taxes, privatize everything, load a country up with guns and oppose all public expenditures, you end up with Honduras.

In Honduras, the police ride around in pickup trucks with machine guns, but they arent there to protect most people. They are scary to locals and travelers alike. For individual protection theres an army of private, armed security guards who are found in front of not only banks, but also restaurants, ATM machines, grocery stores and at any building that holds anything of value whatsoever. Some guards have uniforms and long guns but just as many are dressed in street clothes with cheap pistols thrust into waistbands. The country has a handful of really rich people, a small group of middle-class, some security guards who seem to be getting by and a massive group of people who are starving to death and living in slums. You can see the evidence of previous decades of infrastructure investment in roads and bridges, but its all in slow-motion decay.

I took a van trip across the country, starting in Copan (where there are must-see Mayan ruins), across to the Caribbean Sea to a ferry that took my family to Roatan Island. The trip from Copan to the coast took a full six hours, and we had two flat tires. The word treacherous is inadequatea better description is post-apocalyptic. We did not see one speed limit sign in hundreds of kilometers. Not one. People drive around each other on the right and left and in every manner possible. The road was clogged with horses, scooters and bicycles. People traveled in every conceivable manner along the crumbling arterial. Few cars have license plates, and one taxi driver told me that the private company responsible for making them went bankrupt. Instead of traffic stops, there are military check points every so often. The roads seemed more dangerous to me than the gang violence.

The greatest examples of libertarianism in action are the hundreds of men, women and children standing alongside the roads all over Honduras. The government wont fix the roads, so these desperate entrepreneurs fill in potholes with shovels of dirt or debris. They then stand next to the filled-in pothole soliciting tips from grateful motorists. That is the wet dream of libertarian private sector innovation.

On the mainland there are two kinds of neighborhoods, slums that seem to go on forever and middle-class neighborhoods where every house is its own citadel. In San Pedro Sula, most houses are surrounded by high stone walls topped with either concertina wire or electric fence at the top. As I strolled past these castle-like fortifications, all I could think about was how great this city would be during a zombie apocalypse.

On a previous vacation abroad, Id met a resident of San Pedro Sula by the name of Alberto. Through Facebook, we connected up to have drinks and share a short tour of his home city. A member of the small, dwindling middle class, Alberto objects to his city being labeled the most dangerous in the Western Hemisphere. He showed me a few places in the city that could have been almost anywhere, a hipster bar, a great seafood place (all guarded by armed men, of course). Alberto took me on a small hike to a spot overlooking the city and pointed out new construction and nice buildings. There are new buildings and construction but it is funded exclusively by private industry. He pointed out a place for a new airport that could be the biggest in Central America, he said, if only it could get built, but there is no private sector upside. Alberto made me see the potential, the hope and even the hidden beauty of the place.

For our last meal in San Pedro Sula, my family walked a couple blocks from our fortress-like bed and breakfast to a pizza restaurant. It was the middle of the day and we were the only customers. We walked through the gated walls and past a man in casual slacks with a pistol belt slung haphazardly around his waist. Welcome to an Ayn Rands libertarian paradise, where your extra-large pepperoni pizza must also have an armed guard.

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My libertarian vacation nightmare: How Ayn Rand, Ron Paul & their groupies were all debunked


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