Really disappointed more authors don't take on that topic.
I don't like the author's definition of "classic libertarianism" though. Classic libertarianism is anarcho-socialism. Liberty in all spheres of life: the personal, the political, the economic. Opposition to all forms of tyranny and concentration of power.
What the author is describing in the article is American "Libertarianism" which came about in the mid-20th century. It adopted the term from libertarian socialism but cleansed it of its critique of authoritarianism in the economic sphere (corporations are dictatorships).
It's as though a royal servant came up with a philosophy of "liberty to do whatever you want with your kingdom" and the royals embraced it, along with anyone else who aspired to it. It's a corruption of the term.
But the idea that anyone in Silicon Valley is an honest Libertarian (in the American sense) is ridiculous, given the massive amount of state spending that supports it.
In the US the word libertarian would be better replaced with neo-liberal.
Libertarians have to call themselves something - I figure they can keep the word 'libertarian' and old-school libertarians can keep calling themselves anarchists or, if they believe in some sort of government, 'libertarian socialists' (which is also a fun phrase to drop in front of the more ill-educated right-libertarians). The nearest alternative to libertarian in current use is 'anarcho-capitalist' which is problematic for right-libertarians in that most of them believe in some sort of government ('Anarchists who want the police to protect them from their slaves') and problematic for anarchists who think that the capitalist employer/worker relationship is entirely incompatible with any conception of anarchism.
Neo-liberal is already in use for more conventional political outlooks, as other posters have pointed out.
The term "Libertarianism" was appropriated in the mid 20th century by radical capitalists and completely eviscerated of its meaning. They turned a blind eye to the authoritarianism and centralized power of corporations. Even Adam Smith (another classical libertarian, pre-capitalist thinker) warned about this.
My opinion of Twitter has gone down after I learned they were given $22 million in tax breaks. This was in exchange for charitable work in San Francisco. Although the company has done some charitable work, the amount is a fraction of the cost of the tax breaks awarded them.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/justinesharrock/the-twitter-document...
The most ridiculous quote from the above article:
"The company also disclosed it spent over $750,000 on food items, all bought within 50 miles of the office in order to support local businesses, which it said constituted a sort of charity."
Tax breaks can certainly be seen as a form of public investment. But the $22M figure for the Twitter tax break is a bit of a fantasy.
That was supposed to be a break on local payroll tax to the city of SF. Think about that.. I doubt any company in the history of SF has paid $22M in local payroll tax. That would be absurd. So where did the $22M figure come from?
Turns out there was a change passed a few years ago in between the dotcom booms that added stock option gains to the definition of "payroll". Since there were no startups happening at that time, nobody paid attention to this obscure change in local SF law. And it was never enforced and to my knowledge has no corollary in any startup-rich city. (Because it would be insane and drive out all startups.) So that's where someone came up with a "$22M" calculation.. by taxing the gains on early stage employee stock options. Even though the city bears no risk like early stage employees do.
If you were to just look at paycheck amounts as "payroll", Twitter's tax break would be valued at far less than that.
To be clear I don't think Twitter should have gotten a total tax holiday and anyone who thinks they would've moved to Brisbane is a fool. I think the city should have just un-done that dumb stock option tax.
Hmm... ah yes, here it is:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2014/01/24/why-silico...
This header:
"Google, Apple and other tech firms likely colluded to keep their workers' wages down." then concludes: "So much for that libertarian worldview"
That assumes incorrectly that willful collusion is somehow anti-free market, or anti-libertarian. The free market has absolutely no position on collusion, except that force may not enter into economic transactions. If two parties choose to collude to set prices, the free market has no opinion on the matter as such; if they set prices incorrectly in the process of judging the market, they will lose. That is basic free market ideology.
A free market doesn't outlaw or in any way forbid collusion. Nor is it considered immoral in laissez-faire doctrine to agree to freeze or suppress wages across an industry. The use of force (eg to prevent workers from leaving their job for a better paying one) to control workers would be considered immoral and illegal. Otherwise, it's the responsibility of the worker to pursue a job that properly compensates their talent, not the responsibility of the business owner to overpay the worker (and if the owner isn't properly compensating the worker, and that worker leaves, the owner loses).
As a response to wage collusion by business owners, in a free market workers also have the right to collude to attempt to inflate wages; owners also have a right to fire every single one of them in response. Whichever group judges correctly about their value proposition, wins.
One can then move on to debating the merits of laissez-faire Capitalism versus other systems; or libertarian ideology; or 19th century free market economics. The author however is far off base in understanding even where the conversation would begin.
So it's ok to exploit one's personal situation (family and financial commitments stopping one from moving to a location where the cartel is not in force, for example), but hey, no physical violence please, psychological one will do!
There is a main difference between the two actors: employers own original capital, employees don't. The penalty for employers (losing some profit if all workers quit or get fired) is virtually nonexistent: limited-liability companies are set up with the explicit aim of exonerating capital owners from responsibility beyond the invested capital. You lose the company, you lose a bit of capital; but in most cases, there is more where that came from. Workers don't own original capital (which is why they are workers, after all). The penalty for them is much higher, they could lose their house and/or livelihood.
Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best. It's sad that we're still debating this same stuff in 2014.
>>> The penalty for employers (losing some profit if all workers quit or get fired) is virtually nonexistent:
Because in your world running a business carries no risk as businesses never go bust. I see. Must be nice.
>>> limited-liability companies are set up with the explicit aim of exonerating capital owners from responsibility beyond the invested capital.
And losing invested capital (for small business/startup - likely all one has and also a lot of borrowed money) is nothing. Again, must be nice to be a man for whom losing all investment is nothing.
>>> The penalty for them is much higher
You mean, they have to go to work to another place now? If they possess marketable skills of decent quality, it won't be long before they'd be paid for them. If not, now we know why the business went bust - they shouldn't have hired workers which are incompetent.
>>> Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best.
Here we considered it and found you fundamentally misunderstand both nature of business and nature of employment, suggesting business carries no risk and employment only possible with single employer and if that goes bust the worker can not work anymore. Yes, it does sound a bit sad.
> Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best
What makes it disingenuous? Isn't grandparent just disagreeing with some of your assumptions?
Sorry. Would you like a cool compress? ;-)
> So it's ok to exploit one's personal situation (family and financial commitments stopping one from moving to a location where the cartel is not in force, for example), but hey, no physical violence please, psychological one will do!
I don't know how to describe the ludicrousness of describing not cold calling someone as "psychological violence".
In general though, I'm no libertarian, but I'm pretty sure they'd be the first to admit that the libertarian model is without exploitation, immorality, or evil. They'd just argue that the use of force to exert controls would invariably be a greater exploitation/immorality/evil.
> employers own original capital
At least with startups in the valley, they most certainly don't.
To clarify: investors by definition are risking original capital, so they always own original capital... of course with a typical investment model, once they invest that capital, they no longer own said capital and in fact may no longer own any original capital.
Employers are generally the businesses themselves, and so don't necessarily have original capital and statistically at least are disproportionately likely to either be in debt or at least have negative cash flow, particularly with startups.
Employees on the other hand, have almost no capital at risk tied to their involvement in a venture beyond equity/warrants in the company. It is entirely possible (and particularly in the case of the tech industry, and particularly in the case of senior employees like those targeted by these practices) that they'd have original capital, and in fact in I think every case of the named companies they have opportunities to contribute original capital into their employer at better than market rates, as well as having sweat equity translated in to options or straight out equity/grants in their employer. So they are more than encouraged to have either original capital or at least the equivalent thereof.
In short, the power dynamic you are implying as universal to the employer-employee relationship isn't universal and most importantly is a particular ill fit to the context in question.
> employees don't
At last with startups in the valley, that is far from necessarily true.
> The penalty for employers (losing some profit if all workers quit or get fired) is virtually nonexistent: limited-liability companies are set up with the explicit aim of exonerating capital owners from responsibility beyond the invested capital.
Yeah... but that limited liability is very hard to escape and often significantly outweighs the relative penalty for employees of quitting or getting fired. Again, at startups... most employees don't recoil in horror about the economic (psychological is a different matter) consequences of quitting or getting fired.
> Workers don't own original capital (which is why they are workers, after all).
Again, at a startup up, it'd be a huge assumption to think they are working there because they don't own original capital.
> The penalty for them is much higher, they could lose their house and/or livelihood.
Assuming there is demand from other employers, the penalty is almost 0. Particularly as a logical consequence of the hiring practices alluded to in the article, an engineer who is laid off is going to get snatched off the market almost immediately. In fact, they are likely to not even miss a single paycheck and could very well end up with a raise out of the whole thing.
> Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best.
Refusing to consider the full impact of distortions on labor relationships is disingenuous at best. Engaging in a debate about this same stuff in 2014 without considering the market & economic realities that motivate these practices in the first place is beyond sad.
Yes, because physical violence is provable, psychological violence is easier to fabricate. If the state cannot satisfy a certain level of probity, then it should stay out for the risk of making the accused a victim of physical violence.
That doesn't make psychological damage is morally acceptable, it just means as a society we should find another means of punishing it that doesn't involve the state.
This is a nice example why free markets are not optimal, zero regulation is not the best amount of regulation.
The question to ask here is why do you think your preferred outcome is better than mine and what gives you right to force it on me.
I was under the impression that, to be allocatively efficient, market participants have to be 'price takers' (along with a bunch of other assumptions) - anything other than this creates an inefficient market.
I also think it is incorrect to assume (even in theory) that this kind of market failure will always resolve itself by the price makers, i.e. those engaging in collusion, being priced out of the market. The alternative, which seems to me to be more likely (otherwise why would people collude?), is that the price makers capture an inefficiently large proportion of the market's productive output.
In short, market theory absolutely does have a position on collusion - it leads to market failure.
You should update your economic belives. Look at the 2002 Nobel Price by V. Smith for this one.
> In short, market theory absolutely does have a position on collusion - it leads to market failure.
The existence of market failure is no position. Just for the fact that there is market failure does not have any implication on what to do about it.
No (almsot no) free market economys belvies that there is no market failure (however you want to define it). That is simply something that is often assert because it makes for good propaganda (makes it possible to laught at the idiot free market people without really listening to them).
The question is not if the market is perfect, it is clearly not. The question is (a) can we do something about it, do we know enougth (b) given the power to do something about it, will the goverment actually do it, or will it use that power to do the oppiste.
Now I would assert (hince my free market views) that both (a) and (b) have to be answer with 'most likly no'. We often do things because we think we can and it turns out that it also has tons of other effects that we did not wish for (law of unintended consequenses). Next even assuming that understand everything about some action, given the power is it not more likly that something else will be done. A quick glance at history clearly shows this, how often is a given regulation used to help buissnesses instead of people workers.
Why do you think you coke is made out of mais sirup instead of cain sugar.
Also the should be allowed to strik, but the employer should also be allowed to fire people who dont show up to work.
The reasoning of the article laid out explicitly: Peter Thiel is guilty of hypocrisy because (democrats) Larry Page and Steve Jobs failed to live up to Peter Thiel's libertarian principles.
[edit: CEO of Adobe, also involved in this mess, is a Democrat and selected by Obama to be on his PMAB.]
"If humans are such a great species, how come I don't like rabbits?"
"Mother Theresa talks a good game. If that's true, why was Hitler such a bad person?"
This is a terrible essay.
These people are about as libertarian as my cat and we certainly didn't need this article or this court case to know that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
What the article sort of draws attention to indirectly is the fact that these CEOs are unfairly put up on a pedestal (especially Jobs) by so many people who adore them despite their less than stellar actions and criminal activity. Perhaps if they spent half their fortunes on charity, a la Gates, I'd be willing to be rethink my opinion of these scumbags.
Even for those of whom it is true, I would bet that they appear 'Democrat' only to help them sell stuff, as part of their brand.
Most people who use software are in the cities. And, city-dwellers are generally liberal-leaning. So, it makes sense for these leaders would try to seem liberal as part of their marketing campaigns.
[1] I'm only weakly libertarian, so I don't want to speak for them. My values are almost entirely left wing liberal, but I haven't drank the koolaid on economic theories designed to justify the status quo and protect party cronies.
"1.6 percent of the adult population owns 82 percent of all stock, and thus actually owns American business and industry. In a very real sense, that tiny 1 percent of the population faces the other 99 percent across a barrier of very real self-interest. That tiny 1 percent has been accumulating more as the years go on, not less. The key to that accumulation is assuring that the people who make up the other 99 percent are sharply restricted in what power and privilege they accumulate."
Again, that was written by an American libertarian.
Libertarianism is a family of philosophical viewpoints, that runs the gamut from the "Libertarian socialism" of Noam Chomsky to the "Geolibertarianism" of Henry George to the craziness of the "Tea Party."
It's noteworthy that Ayn Rand denounced libertarianism. I was excommunicated from the Objectivist club in college for espousing libertarian anarchist views.
It's also noteworthy that Tea Party founder Karl Denninger renounced the Tea Party, saying it was co-opted by the Republican Party, which shifted its focus to "Guns, gays, God." He sums up his feelings toward the Tea Party, saying:
"Tea Party my ass. This was nothing other than The Republican Party stealing the anger of a population that was fed up with The Republican Party's own theft of their tax money at gunpoint to bail out the robbers of Wall Street and fraudulently redirecting it back toward electing the very people who stole all the f---ing money!" Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/20/karl-denninger-tea-...
Someone who's really interested in the variety of libertarianism ought to start with the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
There is no such thing as a 'true' libertarian, because many groups with only tangentially related credos have adopted the name as their own, and many groups have distanced themselves from the 'libertarian' label even though they espouse beliefs closely related to what is often understood as being libertarianism. It follows that, when you criticise people for being
We don't seriously expect Hacker News to mostly carry news about the newest exploits and defaced sites, do we? Same deal, talking about libertarians doesn't necessarily correctly identify the population you're targeting.
Anyway, do you know of any good Internet communities for left libertarians? IRC, message boards, blogs, etc?
no insults and no idea where to find people.
I don't believe for a minute that he cared about how much people made and was far more concerned with either employees leaving with secrets, or more likely annoyed that a revolving door of employees between his company and others took time away from getting his projects completed.
Apple has no problem paying people, but if they're trying to complete something for particular market opportunity, they probably don't want to waste time bringing new hires up to speed.
According to this version, Jobs was a leading figure in those payment-limitation-talks. Indeed, free markets exist in our minds only - until someone uncovers talks and transactions... Shouldn't accept that and a lawsuit is the right move. THIS is also a tool of the free market.
I have seen many people take her books from the point of view of the creator or individualist struggling against the collective. Some take inspiration from that, while disgorging the rest of her ideas. I know many people that blend up a sort of free market economics + social libertarian + limited socialism (eg healthcare) world view.
If your "social progress" is accomplished at the end of a gun barrel, it should be rolled back to the Victorian age, or even the Stone age. What good is social progress without freedom? If we institutionalize the use of coercive force to accomplish social ends, then we're a fucked society anyway.
Sounds extremely right-wing libertarian to me! /s
[1] http://publicsphere.org/2014/02/02/the-asymmetric-zero-sum-g...
This confuses more than it clarifies. Economic injustice is a question of moral values; phrasing it as a scientific truth lends it a false air of credibility.
In the Preface to Game Theory Evolving, economist Herbert Gintis suggested that the mathematical methods of non-cooperative (and cooperative) game theory developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern, Nash and their successors–Gintis among them–have the potential to elevate social and political discourse above ideological debate.
Gintis does not take the step of applying game theory to the topics under discussion--but neither have most of the comments here, with the expected result.
So you think morality has no credibility?
Yet they are completely ignoring the main point of this article - big companies pushing down wages.
lol
Having said that, we don't live in a free market, the economy is ruled by central banks who do central planning, thanks to free money for them, taken from the rest of us.
In the technology sector, we live in a world with business and software patents, and with lawsuits costing millions, which makes competing against the big guys harder and harder for little guys.
These labels are entirely useless. Word games are stupid. To have a useful conversation, just agree on words, then argue ideas.
As long as there is a third party that can be made to help you, you will. The only reason there exists a relativly free market in the first place is that there is a balance between diffrent 'powers'.
Everybody individually would benefit from some policys in there faver but there are few policys that help everybody.
As soon as one groupe gets to much power (meaning political influance) the get a handout (Sugar Farmers, US Steel ...).
ANYONE in their position would do this. It's not a matter of belief or politics or even ethics. It's a matter of oversight. The people responsible for providing for the free market have failed to protect relatively less powerful market players.
Let's stop pretending that the "free market" isn't a dirty nasty place.
- kids believe in extra cookies at snack time
- dogs believe in steak and not dry kibble in the dog bowl
People (and animals) like things that they perceive to benefit them. How is this even news?
This case is striking on many levels, the most obvious being the effective theft of large amounts of money by some of the richest people on the planet from their employees.
UN must be libertarian! Damn!
