Bryan Caplan on Encouraging Libertarianism; Matt Shapiro Questions Vaccine Efficacy; Infovores questions FIRE's ranking methodology; Niccolo Soldo and Ed West on TERFs
“People want to hear that they have been screwed over by the market, that politicians care about them, and that public officials know what to do.”
Something different is going on in where I come from (India). People acknowledge the politicians are scummy, that public officials are corrupt and interested only in self-enrichment.
Yet, if only we had better ‘leaders’, put more funding into an already failing X scheme, punished the corrupt more severely (and changing nothing about the things that enable corruption in the first place), we would get a benevolent and progressive State that will usher in Utopia. This is the belief a lot of people I think here are stuck in, there is still no trust in markets.
"This is going to sound self-serving, but I think that libertarians do not have mass appeal because we are reluctant to engage in demagoguery and in turn we are easily demagogued. People want to hear that they have been screwed over by the market, that politicians care about them, and that public officials know what to do. Our message is the opposite. Bryan also says that libertarian ideals are inherently psychologically unappealing to ordinary humans."
This is a self serving cope.
I would say the primary background ideology of your average middle class white American is something like the Small L libertarianism of Hank Hill. Mike Judge has championed this kind of ideology throughout his career quite successfully.
It's true that think tank libertarianism is unpopular. But if libertarianism wants to hang its hat around drag queen story hour and open borders it's going to have a hard time and deserve to have a hard time.
I would also point out that the libertarian movements failure to stand up to COVID insanity basically invalidated it. Whether the response was active collaboration (Tyler Cowen) to bitching on the internet but otherwise denigrating anyone actually protesting the moment of maximum tyranny came and the formal libertarian movement did nothing practical to stop it.
I don't think libertarians even make the pretense of offering solutions to the concerns of the average voter.
I think if you take a big picture view, Democrats are basically offering something like a Galbraith brand of anodyne corporatist capitalism. A critic might rightfully call it fascism or mercantilism in the way that big corporate elites (in both for and non profit sectors) and government interests merge, but it also comes along with a safety net and handouts. It's definitely a vision of society slouching toward Gomorra, but I think for the average person who's more worried about immediate realities than long-term trends, it presents as "safe". Stuff won't get too bad, and if it does, they'll course correct to keep shambling forward and keep the gravy train rolling.
Republicans basically offer the same but with a slightly different set of interests. You get less overt corruption and less free reign for academic weirdos, but also less safety net and handouts. There's a background threat of suddenly having to worry about things you shouldn't have to (oh shit, we just banned abortion?) that puts a lot of people ill at ease.
Libertarians offer the worst of both worlds. Academic weirdos eager to reduce the age of consent to 8, transgenderize your kids, replace you with an illegal immigrant, and then tell you that all those big companies with fancy people are your moral superiors (just look at how rich they are) and companies are perfectly within their rights to censor and not do business with whomever they please. And if you agreed to the TOS, then hand over your DNA and shut up about it.
America's biggest problem is mature Mancur-Olson syndrome: special-interest gridlock mediated by cronyism. Libertarians mostly do not acknowledge this, and specifically do not acknowledge that one can no longer draw any useful line between "government," which Libertarians loathe, and "corporate oligarchy," which Libertarians worship. Many Libertarians fantasize that "private actors" are morally pure and would never do anything coercive or dishonest. Such beliefs are transparently absurd and that is why Libertarians have little public credibility and amass no power.
The particular oligarchs who fund the formal expressions of "Libertarianism" such as the LP and Reason magazine use those only: (a) to recruit midwits still struggling mentally with the NAP to support one or another special-interest group in overclass faction fights; and (b) to divert potential rebels against the oligarchy into tail-chasing debates over sterile philosphical issues like the (long-exploded) NAP. The oligarchy loves to see young Libertarians squabbling over the proper interpretation of their favorite Ayn Rand passages rather than agitating against the oligarchy.
Most "small-L" libertarians correctly perceive that market-based approaches to most problems are best for society as a whole. However, such "open" orderings are not short-run-best for special interests. Open orderings are only really "open" when they host a relatively large number of relatively equal players, but then competition limits all players' profits. Investors prefer ever more concentrated orderings which yield larger profits to specific players even as a sector produces less output (and less "consumer surplus") overall. Various special interests collude to transfer parts of the "market" realm of the economy into the "managed" or "cronyized" (oligopoly) realm and thereby transfer wealth to themselves even if it diminishes overall wealth. Such collusion does not take place only through the "government" channel and is not driven only by "government" actors. Small-L "libertarians" who righteously deny this dynamic (reciting Reason-magazine propaganda in favor of market concentration bought and paid-for by greedy oligarchs) can never make more than small ephemeral political gains because they can only ever earn a few crumbs from the oligarchs for supporting one or another special-interest in a faction fight that does not challenge the system.
Since there is no useful distinction between "government" and "private" actors now, serious proposals for reform must address and utilize both. Small-L libertarians proud of their midwit philosophical purity actively oppose using any part of "government" against any part of "the private sector" even when the target part of the "private sector" is actively using the target part of "government" for its own purposes (consider the US FCC for example).
*America's third biggest problem is insanely aggressive imperialist foreign policy.
I consider myself very pro vax, but I would guess that even in your age group further boosters probably aren't much additional benefit as long as one is vigilant about doing a course of paxlovid once infected. Which (again, for your age group) should be a no brainer regardless.
But if you don't get much in the way of acute side effects from boosters, there's also no downside risk in your age group, so no need to feel like a chump.
“People want to hear that they have been screwed over by the market, that politicians care about them, and that public officials know what to do.”
Something different is going on in where I come from (India). People acknowledge the politicians are scummy, that public officials are corrupt and interested only in self-enrichment.
Yet, if only we had better ‘leaders’, put more funding into an already failing X scheme, punished the corrupt more severely (and changing nothing about the things that enable corruption in the first place), we would get a benevolent and progressive State that will usher in Utopia. This is the belief a lot of people I think here are stuck in, there is still no trust in markets.
"This is going to sound self-serving, but I think that libertarians do not have mass appeal because we are reluctant to engage in demagoguery and in turn we are easily demagogued. People want to hear that they have been screwed over by the market, that politicians care about them, and that public officials know what to do. Our message is the opposite. Bryan also says that libertarian ideals are inherently psychologically unappealing to ordinary humans."
This is a self serving cope.
I would say the primary background ideology of your average middle class white American is something like the Small L libertarianism of Hank Hill. Mike Judge has championed this kind of ideology throughout his career quite successfully.
It's true that think tank libertarianism is unpopular. But if libertarianism wants to hang its hat around drag queen story hour and open borders it's going to have a hard time and deserve to have a hard time.
I would also point out that the libertarian movements failure to stand up to COVID insanity basically invalidated it. Whether the response was active collaboration (Tyler Cowen) to bitching on the internet but otherwise denigrating anyone actually protesting the moment of maximum tyranny came and the formal libertarian movement did nothing practical to stop it.
I don't think libertarians even make the pretense of offering solutions to the concerns of the average voter.
I think if you take a big picture view, Democrats are basically offering something like a Galbraith brand of anodyne corporatist capitalism. A critic might rightfully call it fascism or mercantilism in the way that big corporate elites (in both for and non profit sectors) and government interests merge, but it also comes along with a safety net and handouts. It's definitely a vision of society slouching toward Gomorra, but I think for the average person who's more worried about immediate realities than long-term trends, it presents as "safe". Stuff won't get too bad, and if it does, they'll course correct to keep shambling forward and keep the gravy train rolling.
Republicans basically offer the same but with a slightly different set of interests. You get less overt corruption and less free reign for academic weirdos, but also less safety net and handouts. There's a background threat of suddenly having to worry about things you shouldn't have to (oh shit, we just banned abortion?) that puts a lot of people ill at ease.
Libertarians offer the worst of both worlds. Academic weirdos eager to reduce the age of consent to 8, transgenderize your kids, replace you with an illegal immigrant, and then tell you that all those big companies with fancy people are your moral superiors (just look at how rich they are) and companies are perfectly within their rights to censor and not do business with whomever they please. And if you agreed to the TOS, then hand over your DNA and shut up about it.
America's biggest problem is mature Mancur-Olson syndrome: special-interest gridlock mediated by cronyism. Libertarians mostly do not acknowledge this, and specifically do not acknowledge that one can no longer draw any useful line between "government," which Libertarians loathe, and "corporate oligarchy," which Libertarians worship. Many Libertarians fantasize that "private actors" are morally pure and would never do anything coercive or dishonest. Such beliefs are transparently absurd and that is why Libertarians have little public credibility and amass no power.
The particular oligarchs who fund the formal expressions of "Libertarianism" such as the LP and Reason magazine use those only: (a) to recruit midwits still struggling mentally with the NAP to support one or another special-interest group in overclass faction fights; and (b) to divert potential rebels against the oligarchy into tail-chasing debates over sterile philosphical issues like the (long-exploded) NAP. The oligarchy loves to see young Libertarians squabbling over the proper interpretation of their favorite Ayn Rand passages rather than agitating against the oligarchy.
Most "small-L" libertarians correctly perceive that market-based approaches to most problems are best for society as a whole. However, such "open" orderings are not short-run-best for special interests. Open orderings are only really "open" when they host a relatively large number of relatively equal players, but then competition limits all players' profits. Investors prefer ever more concentrated orderings which yield larger profits to specific players even as a sector produces less output (and less "consumer surplus") overall. Various special interests collude to transfer parts of the "market" realm of the economy into the "managed" or "cronyized" (oligopoly) realm and thereby transfer wealth to themselves even if it diminishes overall wealth. Such collusion does not take place only through the "government" channel and is not driven only by "government" actors. Small-L "libertarians" who righteously deny this dynamic (reciting Reason-magazine propaganda in favor of market concentration bought and paid-for by greedy oligarchs) can never make more than small ephemeral political gains because they can only ever earn a few crumbs from the oligarchs for supporting one or another special-interest in a faction fight that does not challenge the system.
Since there is no useful distinction between "government" and "private" actors now, serious proposals for reform must address and utilize both. Small-L libertarians proud of their midwit philosophical purity actively oppose using any part of "government" against any part of "the private sector" even when the target part of the "private sector" is actively using the target part of "government" for its own purposes (consider the US FCC for example).
*America's third biggest problem is insanely aggressive imperialist foreign policy.
I consider myself very pro vax, but I would guess that even in your age group further boosters probably aren't much additional benefit as long as one is vigilant about doing a course of paxlovid once infected. Which (again, for your age group) should be a no brainer regardless.
But if you don't get much in the way of acute side effects from boosters, there's also no downside risk in your age group, so no need to feel like a chump.