The Political Education of Silicon Valley(wired.com) |
The Political Education of Silicon Valley(wired.com) |
Fringes aside, I think that sums up everybody. The difference is that most regulation doesn’t directly impact the average Joe.
Nobody disputes that government should be enforcing peace, contracts, providing defense, etc. That sort of thing is necessary and prudent. But the enforcement needs to happen fairly and according to clear rules. The enforcers need to be accountable. And often the citizen needs more than just a ballot box to push back on corrupt government.
To bring it back to tech, rules are not evenly written, let alone enforced. Why is electronic mail treated differently than mail? Why are hosts pressured to drop horrible people from their customer lists, but not phone companies? Why is it OK for tech companies to keep records for government consumption, but not car dealers, libraries, supermarkets, etc.?
If I support banning alcohol, I probably don't drink alcohol myself. Hell, it'd be pretty hypocritical if I did.
(There are exceptions, of course - if I supported changing the side of the road we drive on, I'd wait for a change of law before acting on my beliefs!)
I think that sums up everybody that doesn't understand how effective governments work. Regulations are an intrinsic part of them and the libertarians know that. That's why they're against them. It's a lot easier to create tax loopholes when you don't have thousands of regulations to worry about.
Only very few Germans would call themselves "libertarian", so for an international discussion it would probably also be good to hear your distinction between liberal and libertarian.
"Classical liberals were committed to individualism, liberty and equal rights". There beliefs in no way had a problem with public healthcare, but would have issues with curtailing free speech, or a curtailing of free enterprise. Today I think a classic liberal would be in the centre of the political spectrum.
I always thought libertarians were a mix between conservative and liberal, because they opposed progressivism sometimes (when it involved spending money and regulating anybody) and supported it whenever it involved abolishing regulations.
I didn't completely grasp this for a very long time despite understanding 'American Liberals' were not the same as 'Classical Liberals' - it's not intuitive.
To prevent confusion the etymology is the same as the word "Christian". Both Catholics and Protestants are Christians. Sometimes one will claim to be more 'Christian' than the other but that is beside the point: to a non-Westerner they're the same group. The same is true of the word "Liberal". Democrat Liberals, Progressives, Conservatives, Republicans, Libertarians - these are all species of Liberal.
What this means may be found controversial by some people.
This would mean in the West, or at least in the Anglosphere political authority is typically wielded by two competing variants of the same political philosophy.
I find this interesting because that is not at all what is advertised.
For years I thought the differences between China's One Party State and the West were plain to see but now I think the distinction is less obvious. Going back to my Christianity analogy, it may be an argument over The Holy Trinity - both completely different and also the same simultaneously.
Is the West a Two Party System with one faction? Is China a One Party System with multiple factions? If so what's the real difference or is there a real difference?
There's a strange perspective distortion where the differences are either enormous or minor but it's hard to tell which - I speculate that metapolitics has a Lovecraftian quality to it where it might not be possible to understand without going insane. :)
You should be careful with such sentences. Maybe it's ok to say "some" but saying "most" is nonsense and dangerous.
Still, since Liberalism tries to find a balance in its inherent values, Libertarianism seems to be dogmatic without any further depth. Dreamy technocrats or wishful anarchists, who would get angry if labeled as such.
The US is indeed different here, but I would stand to my opinion, that Liberals generally have far more thought-provoking arguments.
depends strongly on the POV I'd argue. I think I know what you mean: If you don't enforce equality by taking away freedoms naturally an inequality will emerge.
One could also argue that this desired freedom doesn't exist, because the moment you have that imbalance you automatically have a large group of people who suffer less freedom due to less wealth/power.
One might even argue that limitations can create freedoms. Because murder is usually a crime that is punishable by law, it is much easier to create non-violent business in modern, western countries. Few people would say that they are less free because murder is taken out of most people's equation.
I don't think that freedom and equality of opportunity exclude each other any more than freedom excludes itself. Frankly I would go one further and say that equality of opportunity is freedom, and that rules impinging on equality of opportunity is impinging on freedoms as well.
It is not a contradiction that freedom can exclude freedom. My freedom to own land excludes your freedom to do what you want with it, etc.
> equality of opportunity is freedom
Until you get restricted, because you posses an opportunity others are lacking and in consequence, it gets taken from you.
> My freedom to own land excludes your freedom [...]
This is an example of freedom colliding with itself, but arguing this case is much easier, since both get exactly the same rights and therefore an equal amount of freedom that cannot be maximized any further. It is a lot harder to to balance freedom and equality.
Granted, there are a lot of cases where increased equality increases freedom. This is why I think that liberals are generally smarter.
I see the other 'popular' equality, equality of outcome, as, in it's most extreme form, a complete totalitarian nightmare, that doesn't hold freedom back, but completely annihilates it.
"Until you get restricted, because you posses an opportunity others are lacking and in consequence, it gets taken from you."
Why would this inevitably lead to you having an opportunity taken from you, rather than working to extend this to others. This is much more realistic as to how the world works. I don't have my opportunity to work taken from me because someone is unemployed, instead they are helped to get opportunities to work (help with education or transport etc).
I think the important step is to say, that we can't have unlimited freedom (or opportunities) for everyone in society, but that trying to reach as much as possible is a worthwhile cause. And that, of course, the devil is in the details.