in which brute says things about libertarianism

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BRUTE
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by BRUTE »

that set of rules seems to completely allow for 0% growth ever

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Capital preservation supersedes growth for Mister Imperceptible.

A 50% loss requires a 100% return afterward to achieve 0%. The last correction was 57%. ABCT suggests this correction should be worse, because intervention has been greater.

According to my extremely amateur analysis, current market valuations suggest typical investment strategies will suffer a 50% loss or worse in the upcoming downturn. Financial advisors are not required to be fiduciaries, so the strategies they peddle should be viewed with extreme skepticism. They have no “skin in the game.”

Holdouts should resist capitulation.

I’m studying the idea of investing 5-10% of my capital in call options to capture continued irrationality in the markets, per Taleb/Mandelbrot. @Gen-X has been an influence as well regarding options trading.

I don’t know what is going to happen but it seems that central banks hope to keep the market juiced long enough so everyone gets amnesia, believes “this time is different,” and capitulates. I want to open myself up to positive convexity only. Ownership of gold bullion is economic independence, provides dry powder and major nominal upside in the event of further currency devaluation. Call options can enable capture of upward stock market price movements while retaining independence from market meltdowns. Best return per unit of risk, per my amateur analysis.

See page 32 of 61: http://www.people.hbs.edu/rmerton/retur ... option.pdf

I don’t claim to have a crystal ball, rather I just refuse to be a puppet.

BRUTE
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by BRUTE »

Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:05 am
Capital preservation supersedes growth for Mister Imperceptible.
this presumes existence of capital to begin with.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Hey, I’m just trying to make the most of this computer simulation.

Jin+Guice
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by Jin+Guice »

Sorry for the lapse, I've been on vacation. Also, we can't have the argument I was hoping to have since you're not a neoclassicist and I'm not an Austrian. The language always gets in the way, hence the assumptions or axioms. Even the word assumption is tricky. The word assumption sounds bad, but we need shared assumptions to have a discussion. We also need shared language.

Anyway... before I start asking questions I want to lay out some more observations I've had from my debates with the communists* and also state my current beliefs so you know where I'm coming from. I'm making all of this up from observation so feel free to add to it or disagree with it. There are 3 ways to argue something, theory based, reality based and implementation based. The communists go on about how communism is great in theory all day. Marx Marx Marx... This is a theory based argument. They will then give examples of how the USA does shitty things so capitalism is terrible. This is a reality based argument. Conveniently they claim that Russia wasn't truly communist so nothing they did counts. A theoretical argument will almost always trump a reality based argument because reality is messy and theories are clean. I sometimes then point out that communism is impossible to implement if all these countries that claim to be communist aren't really communist. The communists then claim that, conveniently, some small groups, which the average person doesn't know much about, are totally pulling off communism and everything is great and everyone is 100% happy. The Zappatistas and Native Americans are popular here. This is the implementation argument. I don't think it generally advances the conversation when one person is arguing theory and the other person started using reality based arguments. I wouldn't say we should ban it completely, there is some intersection, but I would like to avoid arguments like the one above.

*The communists in this case are friends of mine who claim to be communists, which is almost all of my friends. Paradoxically, none of them act on this belief.

Implementation is what has mostly been argued in this thread. I might use some implementation arguments but I'm going to argue that even though libertarianism is better it's impossible to implement. This argument is not interesting to me currently.


I believe that a mixed system is best. What do I mean by this? I mean a system that mixes free market capitalism with some government control. I'm aware that this is the current system and that it's not necessarily going great. I don't think going full communist or full libertarian would make it better. I think it is best to default to a free market solution because they are often better but there are numerous instances where this fails and government intervention is necessary. I am very liberal on social matters. However, I don't think personal freedom should be absolute, mostly because I believe my personal freedom infringes on yours at some point.

I'm not used to arguing libertarians and I don't know much about libertarianism. This is why I wanted to argue neoclassical market theory, which I know a lot about. I had assumed this was also central to libertarianism but I assumed wrong.

Here is what I think I know about libertarians: They believe in a governmentless society and they believe in an unencumbered free market economic system.

One final note, I am asking these questions because I believe they highlight why we need some government. The burden of proof on libertarianism is not to show that libertarianism is perfect, it is to show why it is better than some government. I am not however defending the current system. I am defending a theoretical system that involves some government, just as I think you are defending a theoretically libertarian system.


Here are my questions:

1) Externalities? OH FUCK, I know you've never heard that one before, because ignoring externalities is literally hitler. All kidding aside, I realize this has been discussed here already but I want to discuss it again. An externality is something inflicted on a third party not complicit in a market transactoin. Pollution is everyones favorite. Pollution obscures the fact that these can be minor and psychological though. I always play loud music in my house at night and you can't sleep in your house. How do we solve problem?

2) How do you break up monopolies?

3) How do you deal with information asymmetries?

4) Who enforces property rights?

I'll think of more after you answer those. Feel free to lob questions my way or answer with questions.

One final non-attack question. Are there any examples of libertarian or near libertarian governments (or whatever you would call them)?



Totally unrelated question that I feel like someone on this thread would know. Is there a name for when you make a vague statement about someone and then tie it to an issue and use that to completely discredit a person? Example: Candidate A said something that could be sexist. Candidate A is therefore a sexist. Therefore candidate As economic policies are invalid because you wouldn't support a sexist would you?

BRUTE
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by BRUTE »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
I'm not used to arguing libertarians and I don't know much about libertarianism. This is why I wanted to argue neoclassical market theory, which I know a lot about. I had assumed this was also central to libertarianism but I assumed wrong.
there certainly are libertarians that know and care about neoclassical market theory. many Chicago school (=neoclassical) economists seem to be libertarians. an example is David D. Friedman, son of Milton Friedman, who has done lots of writing about anarcho-capitalism.

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
Here is what I think I know about libertarians: They believe in a governmentless society and they believe in an unencumbered free market economic system.
that sounds specifically like anarcho-capitalism (=zero government). not all libertarians support that. there are tons of "minarchists" (=small government libertarians). it could be argued that libertarianism is a direction on the "how much government" scale, and anarcho-capitalism is the most extreme form.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
1) Externalities? OH FUCK, I know you've never heard that one before, because ignoring externalities is literally hitler. All kidding aside, I realize this has been discussed here already but I want to discuss it again. An externality is something inflicted on a third party not complicit in a market transactoin. Pollution is everyones favorite. Pollution obscures the fact that these can be minor and psychological though. I always play loud music in my house at night and you can't sleep in your house. How do we solve problem?
the music situation literally happened to brute last week. despite there existing a massive government, it was not resolved in a reasonable fashion.

externalities are an example of market failures. markets can definitely fail. but that doesn't mean that government would have fixed the same issue better. comparisons have to be made between the market solutions that actually exist, and the government solutions that actually exist. not between market solutions that actually exist and a perfect world in which the government would've done the right thing for once.

for example, pollution does exist despite governments in most countries. and, in fact, the more government-laden countries seem to have bigger pollution problems than the more liberal ones (e.g. china, USSR back in the day).

there do exist free-market solutions to externality problems. e.g. HOAs, contracts, private courts, agreements between clans, tradition & culture, shunning... can brute prove that every single pollution incident would be prevented by them? no.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
2) How do you break up monopolies?
Austrians are much less worried about monopolies than the average politician. they basically argue that almost all lasting monopolies are created by government itself, e.g. through special tariffs, subsidies, banning of the competition (first class mail still wtf), intellectual "property rights", and more.

Austrians are not worried about monopolies unless those actually present worse options to the consumers. so if Amazon were to really make all humans much happier than they would've otherwise been, there isn't a problem for Austrians. only when Amazon starts abusing its power is there a problem, and even then, they argue that it is much harder to abuse and maintain monopolies than commonly assumed, at least in absence of government granted privileges.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
3) How do you deal with information asymmetries?
Austrians do not suggest a specific way to deal with information asymmetry. they do acknowledge that it exists, but prefer to use market mechanisms to use them for advantage. for example, famous Austrians have argued for insider information being a great thing - now the insiders profit from letting all other humans know of the inside information, thereby spreading the knowledge.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
4) Who enforces property rights?
in minarchy, a minimal government. in anarcho-capitalism, there is the idea of a sort of "private law system" with "private law enforcement". brute could sign up with the Green Law Firm, and hire protection from Brown Law Enforcement. if Jin+Guice were to trespass onto brute's property under Green law, brute could have Brown remove Jin+Guice. if, under the Red law system that Jin+Guice subscribes to, the trespass would've been legal, Green and Red negotiate and maybe amend their systems to account for this new special case.

the basic idea here is that, contrary to popular belief, a monopoly of violence does not resolve conflicts, it merely hides them. how conflicts get resolved without a monopoly of violence (or law) is by decentralized competition.

now anarcho-capitalism technically does not prescribe any specific solution to enforcing property rights, these are just some ideas a few ancaps had. an interesting book to read on this is The Machinery of Freedom by the aforementioned David D. Friedman. it is available for free on his website. he lays out how different issues like pollution, property rights, and even military defense could be hypothetically solved in absence of a government.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
One final non-attack question. Are there any examples of libertarian or near libertarian governments (or whatever you would call them)?
there are a few small government countries that have worked well - HK (before China annex), Singapore (more economically free than socially, brute will admit), the US before WWI.

for anarcho-capitalism, there isn't any modern day shining city on a hill. David D. Friedman lists a few examples in his book, if brute recalls correctly. he is especially fond of medieval iceland, which apparently had implemented a decentralized law and law enforcement system for approximately 1,000 years, which apparently did not seem to lead to any more chaos than usual in those times.

another example is Somalia - now no ancap is arguing that Somalia rocks and all humans should live there, merely that anarchist Somalia has fared better in various outcomes than neighboring regions that did have governments at the time. measures like education, child mortality, income growth, and so on. so the argument isn't that anarcho-capitalism will solve everything, merely that it seems to have fared slightly better than neighboring government-led countries.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
Totally unrelated question that I feel like someone on this thread would know. Is there a name for when you make a vague statement about someone and then tie it to an issue and use that to completely discredit a person? Example: Candidate A said something that could be sexist. Candidate A is therefore a sexist. Therefore candidate As economic policies are invalid because you wouldn't support a sexist would you?
sounds similar to poisoning the well? there must be a list of logical fallacies somewhere. brute has heard this argument recently, when a human tried to disqualify libertarianism by mentioning that most libertarians seemed to be white human males.

Optimal_Solution
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by Optimal_Solution »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
Is there a name for when you make a vague statement about someone and then tie it to an issue and use that to completely discredit a person?
That sounds like "ad hominem" and "poisoning the well".

BRUTE
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by BRUTE »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Oct 07, 2018 10:36 pm
Chicago vs Austrian
https://mises.org/wire/market-isnt-scho ... us-chicago

BRUTE
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by BRUTE »

another good one on what's wrong with the neoclassical school:
https://mises.org/wire/problem-prescrip ... -economics

Jin+Guice
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by Jin+Guice »

BRUTE wrote:
Mon Oct 08, 2018 12:12 am
the music situation literally happened to brute last week. despite there existing a massive government, it was not resolved in a reasonable fashion.
This is exactly the same as the communist argument but replace massive government with functioning market. Probably the communists aren't complaining about music, but most of the arguments I encounter are "we live in a market economy and X problem still exists, so let's talk about which form of anarcho-communism you support since you're obviously not one of those filthy fucking capitalist pigs." I assume you were making a joke, but this is a popular argument that gets used a lot in a serious context.
BRUTE wrote:
Mon Oct 08, 2018 12:12 am
in minarchy, a minimal government. in anarcho-capitalism, there is the idea of a sort of "private law system" with "private law enforcement". brute could sign up with the Green Law Firm, and hire protection from Brown Law Enforcement. if Jin+Guice were to trespass onto brute's property under Green law, brute could have Brown remove Jin+Guice. if, under the Red law system that Jin+Guice subscribes to, the trespass would've been legal, Green and Red negotiate and maybe amend their systems to account for this new special case.

the basic idea here is that, contrary to popular belief, a monopoly of violence does not resolve conflicts, it merely hides them. how conflicts get resolved without a monopoly of violence (or law) is by decentralized competition.

now anarcho-capitalism technically does not prescribe any specific solution to enforcing property rights, these are just some ideas a few ancaps had. an interesting book to read on this is The Machinery of Freedom by the aforementioned David D. Friedman. it is available for free on his website. he lays out how different issues like pollution, property rights, and even military defense could be hypothetically solved in absence of a government.
The private law enforcement system strikes me as rather governmental. It sounds like I live in country Red and you live in country Green. It is interesting that our countries borders are ill defined; however, this seems like it would lead to more conflict and make me likely to demand a Red army to enforce my Red rights. I will concede that the current giant governmental system is not doing a superb job and that the problem of enforcing safety without infringing upon rights is very difficult. I also don't think the giant governmental system is doing a terrible job, as in, the majority of people are safe most of the time (I'm speaking domestically for rich countries). I hadn't really considered that the government had a monopoly on violence, which they obviously do. I remain unconvinced of whether it is better to have a violence monopoly answerable to a representative government or violence competition answerable to money, though I lack experience with the latter version. I do think having uniform law, a monopoly of law if you will, for everyone in a given area, is useful.

I disagree strongly about the problem of monopolies. I'm going to use this disagreement to make a long winded argument about why I currently am in favor of a government + markets, that is not libertarianism or communism but somewhere in between. I do think that the default should be a market system. I think of this as analogous to innocent until proven guilty.

I'm going to posit that what we actually seek to be free from, assuming we have basic human rights/ needs met (obviously there can be disagreement on what these are), is bureaucracy and breech of contract. Bureaucracy keeps us from getting things done for no good reason, because of a useless rule or law. Breech of contract keeps us from working together and getting things done because we have no guarantee that someone will do what they say. Governments have a real hard-on for bureaucracy. So why keep them? Corporations. I'm talking about large corporations. I view these as essentially the same as countries. Think about when you feel a small business has breeched its contract. You are often going to talk to the owner or someone close to them. They are likely to care because margins are slim. Now think about dealing with a large corporation with some monopoly power. It's like dealing with the government. Now they've breeched the contract and you are stuck in bureaucracy.

Having a monopoly means making consumers worse off. The monopoly will now extract economic rent. It is important to note that a business does not have to be a monopoly for this to happen, they just need to have some degree of market power, i.e. non-perfect competition (again using a neo-classical model). In non-neo-classicl econ speak, a company with some form of monopolistic advantage now holds more power. They hold the power to charge higher prices and collect higher profits. Overtime, particularly if the main mechanism we have for governing is the market, making money and capital that much more tools which dictate who has power, this can become very problematic. Those with the greatest monopolistic advantage, gaining the greatest profits, will seize power. This will likely give them the ability to make the rules (after all, no government to stop them).

So one reason I think we should have government is to challenge large corporations from consolidating power. The government is also a consolidated power, but they derive their power from a different source. The fact that these two sources are not totally independent is a flaw, but they remain somewhat independent (in my opinion). This is an imperfect solution. I'm arguing that we want multiple overlords so that they compete and challenge each other. I realize government often creates monopoly. I do not think all monopolies are created by the government.

An argument I dropped in my last post, but that I also think is important is the distribution of wealth*. For similar reasons to the monopoly argument above it is problematic if one person controls too much wealth. In so much as wealth is less a medium of exchange and more a medium of power at a certain level, relative wealth matters. I don't think we should all have equal wealth. The world is an inherently unequal place and trying to equalize it, thus far, has gone very badly. I do think there should be a limit to wealth and I am therefore in favor of high taxes on extreme wealth. I am also tentatively in favor of a 100% inheritance tax or at very least a tax aimed at diminishing intergenerational wealth transfer. Again, referring to a neo-classical model, ending position (overall income and wealth) is highly determined by starting position (starting income and wealth). Starting position is not the only factor, it is possible to squander or gain advantage and we tend to focus on exceptional instances of this, but the great majority of people will not change social class. I think equality of starting position is important. Again, attempting to total equalize this will go badly, we are simply not masters of this domain and never will be, but we should try to limit this discrepancy. I'm guessing you don't agree with this idea, but if you do, is there a market solution you'd propose?

*When I say wealth I mean wealth + income.


A brief alternate justification for limiting extreme wealth. No one creates extreme wealth in a vaccum. All of us create the environment in which an extremely successful business person/ athlete/ artist/ whoever succeed in. Of course some of us contribute more than others. But rather than try to figure out how much Bill Gates's third grade teacher contributed vs. someone 3x removed from him, why not simply redistribute the gains of extreme winners to everyone? I'm imagining a kind of Warren Buffet scenario here, where personal wealth is limited but you are allowed to keep the money in your company in order to grow it, which I imagine is what most will do. However, I would argue this is another form of redistribution, albeit less equal.

I also think we should have a social saftey net to guarantee basic humans needs. Obviously this can only exist in a rich society with so much excess that the suffering of others due to lack of resources/ squandered opportunity is enough of a burden that we do not need/ want to keep the resources for ourselves. I believe we currently live in such a society, though perhaps not on a global scale. What constitutes a basic human need/ right will depend somewhat on the level of wealth of the society. Food, water, clean air, some form of shelter from the elements. These are needs. The next level up is safety, education, medical care and care for the elderly and disabled. Here we face a problem because we may not want to guarantee everyone access to unlimited education and medical care. Determining the level of entitlement will cause problems. On the next rung we may consider internet access and psychological well being. After that ????. This is in some ways equivalent to my belief that the gap between the richest and poorest person should not become too wide.

Essentially the richer the society the broader the safety net. I am willing to concede that this will likely decrease efficiency, increase bureaucracy and disincentivise some individuals from being productive members of society. The last would obviously be problematic if too many people were disincentivised because someone has to be creating so much excessive wealth that a safety net can exist. I'm willing to gamble that this wouldn't happen, though I can't prove it and it is a concern. I also think the safety net should be limited in scope so as to limit this problem. I also think that being freed from worry about fulfilling basic human needs that some individuals may pursue productive projects that benefit the society that has freed them. This is not guaranteed, but again, I'd be willing to gamble.

Another issue is racism/ sexism/ discrimination. It's fashionable to blame capitalism/ markets for these but I think this is a misstep. Most commonly this is done with the American chattel slavery system, which is both recent and well known and also involved markets. I will say that markets probably made this process more efficient, as they tend to do, but using a market is just using a tool for commerce. Government allowed this to happen. Government also dismantled it. I don't think we can design a government, where if a strong majority of people agree to discriminate against a less powerful minority, the government will somehow stop it. The government will ultimate be beholden to the collective whims of the people. We can perhaps try to mitigate this, but we can't stop it.

In theory discrimination is an economic disaster. Capitalism thrives on dynamic individuals competing with each other. Discrimination eliminates and reduces the population which individuals can be drawn from as well as decreasing individuals to compete with. To be clear, I am using a rising tide raises all ships argument here. However, an individual in the power group will obviously benefit and instantaneously benefit from decreasing his competition, even if they exist in a society which is hurt. To me, the negative economic impact is so obvious and amazing that I wouldn't bother bringing this up if we hadn't so effectively enforced racism and sexism throughout capitalism (and governments) history.

So why government for this problem? This is another hard problem to fix; however, I don't see how markets are going to fix it. Governments are obviously doing an imperfect job. I don't have a government solution. I can't say, if only the government would do X, then discrimination would end. I do feel that the government has been trying to deal with this problem, and while it has not been perfect, there has been progress. I can't prove this and you don't have to agree. Again, I'm not sure you feel strongly that this is a problem, but if you do, can you suggest a market solution?

One note, when I ask for a market or libertarian solution, I'm not asking you to provide a perfect solution. Using discrimination as an example, I'm asking how a libertarian "government" (which I'm defining as using markets instead of governments/ rules, whenever even remotely possible) improves the situation.

I haven't read any of the material you suggested. That's one of the reasons I took so long to reply. I had hoped to read at least the articles before replying, but I want to read them when I'm in a mental state where I can think and they are currently losing out to books about dumpster diving, investing, and a few choice novels. Sorry if I'm asking questions that are answered in the reading material, I do appreciate the educational material.

BRUTE
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Re: in which brute says things about libertarianism

Post by BRUTE »

brute meant the noise thing quite literally. the presence of a government does not suddenly solve all problems, just as the presence of a market doesn't.

wow, what a post!

brute agrees with most things.

a small detail about the Green vs. Red law systems: the whole point is that they do not have territorial monopolies on law & violence, which is basically the definition of "country". the "weird borders" (i.e. drawing borders around every single individual) is what creates competition between them, feeding into the "multiple competing overlords" thing.

here's a list of things brute agrees with:
- the current system could be way worse (and has been net worse pretty much all of history)
- uniform law is useful
- markets are innocent until proven guilty, and even then it should be checked periodically if government intervention is still the best way to handle the problem
- humans actually seek freedom from bureaucracy (==waste) and breech of contract (and, brute would add, coercion/violence, which adds another point against government in principle besides bureaucracy)
- large corporations in many ways display negative dynamics just like countries
- monopolies are bad
- there is always a degree of rent seeking because competition is imperfect
- government and corporate power sources are not as independent as would be desirable
- multiple competing overlords challenging each other => freedom - this is the entire ancap argument :D
- it can be problematic if some humans control vastly more wealth than others
- the world is inherently unequal
- forcing equality typically ends badly
- starting position helps ending position (and most intermediate positions)
- a social safety net is nice
- basic human needs are difficult to define - to expand on this, what about the guarantee of food and shelter combined with regulations. does the food in the basic human safety net have to be grown according to "regular" regulations, e.g. animal farming or pesticide standards? if so, the regulations will make it more expensive and therefore raise the cost of the "basic human safety net". what about the shelter? do the buildings for the poorest have to be built to code? do they need to be equipped with smoke detectors and running water? does a doctor for the poor still have to go to med school for 8 years? because these all add cost.
- a rich society can afford to spend a certain % of their productivity to care for the poorest. what is that percentage - 1%, 5%, 10%? brute suspects somewhere in that range. regulations increase the price of that, making the cheaper options outright illegal. if average price of minimum allowed products/services > percentage society can afford, then those products/services will be lacking. this is why there is never "enough" to redistribute to poor humans despite society getting much richer - regulations make everything more expensive as well.
- being free from worry about basic needs will enable many humans to pursue productive benefits
- markets are efficient. markets applied to a bad (slave trading) will be more efficient than government. thus markets should not be used for bads. (similar to prisons).
- if a strong majority has dumb ideas, the government will reflect those dumb ideas - brute would say that the less power the government has, the better in this case. at least the majority will have to use non-legitimized force instead of legitimized government force. similar to the large corporations - they use the government to make the rules.


here's a list of ideas brute disagrees with, in more detail because these are more interesting:
- while uniform law is useful, monopoly law will be bad just as any private monopolies are bad - bad feedback loops, not enough change, rent seeking
- over time in a free market, monopolies and rent seeking increases uncontrollably and is problematic (Jin+Guice doesn't explicitly say this, but it sounds like it)
- large corporations will have power to make the rules without a government. brute believes the opposite - government is the means by which large corporations make the rules.
- not all monopolies created by the government - depends on definition of monopoly. neo-classicists seem to define monopoly as "large enough market share". Austrians tend to argue it's not a monopoly until it's abusing its power and prevents competition. thus, Austrians mostly see government monopolies, because the other ones don't tend to last without government intervention. ex. railroads, telecoms, energy companies.. all started by government/with government help, highly regulated, still enjoy tremendous regulatory benefits.
- high tax on the extremely wealthy - while there would be a benefit to more equality, brute believes the cost outweighs the benefit. costs include extremely dictatorial measures necessary to enforce, moral outrage, encouraging rich humans to game the system (already happening at the current rates) and thereby wasting money, and more. the medicine is worse than the disease. sometimes, doing nothing is the best solution.
- most high net worth individuals likely already keep most of their money in companies, and therefore productive and "a form of redistribution". Bill Gates owned most of his wealth in the form of MS shares. Buffett probably has his in Berkshire shares. Jeff Bezos is only the richest man because Amazon stock skyrocketed - his money is largely in his company.
- while government may have "dismantled" slavery, it also upheld it in the first place. Jim Crowe was a government law, not a market law.
- the Austrian position on discrimination is interesting vs. the neoclassical one. neoclassicists think discrimination is economic waste. according to Austrian theory, it is perfectly possible for a human to value discriminatory behavior. if a human really dislikes the sight of humans of another skin color, makes all decisions based on this, and therefore never trades with most other humans, that is not "inefficient" - this human is acting rationally and efficiently according to his personal preferences.
- that said, Austrians argue that most humans do not indeed care more about skin color than they do about money, and that therefore greed will lead most humans away from discrimination based on factors other than money.

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