Maybe a few self-described libertarians cling to the idea that property is essentially about exclusion, but they are fated to hit a wall: liberalism is a spirit as well as a set of ideas, and it cannot be turned against itself. It fosters human solidarity, not separation. Libertarianism, like its precursor, is an answer to the question: under what conditions do reasoning social animals best flourish? In answering that question the way it has, liberalism offers no home to sowers of division.
Tag: ignorance
The State Thrives on Ignorance
The state needs the general public to be ignorant, but it doesn’t simply stand aside hoping that people left to their own devices will end up that way.
Tribalism and Economic Nationalism – Cut from the Same Cloth
Why would anyone underestimate the benefits of interacting with foreigners? It might be because they are, well, foreign. Combine this bias with an ignorance of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” (spontaneous order) and a suspicion that exchange is zero-sum rather than positive-sum, and you have the making of an economic nationalist.
How an Airborne Ranger Became a Voluntaryist
Government directives to do evil (whether by commission or omission) do not override our conscience and our understanding of right and wrong. I favor agoristic obviation of government institutions. I support voluntary alternatives to government services as much as I can and continue to encourage government institutions to reduce and eliminate their restrictions on our freedoms.
Not Everyone is Worth Minimum Wage
Advocacy of any minimum wage is predicated on the economic ignorance that every employee’s value is worth at least that minimum. I was thinking on the drive home that a $15 minimum wage would apply to the two imbeciles who wasted my time this morning.
A Kind Word on Behalf of the Mexicans
They are in the great majority of cases good and decent people seeking what most people seek—an opportunity to work toward building a better life for themselves and their children. For those of us who know them more intimately than most, it is painful to hear the ignorant and malicious statements that circulate about them, especially perhaps on social media, where people are frequently unrestrained in letting loose the most vitriolic and baseless accusations.
Public Choice Analysis a Scheme for Imposing Racist Oligarchy on the USA? Preposterous!
The claim that public choice analysis is intended to, or actually does, assist the rich in dominating the poor, or the capitalists in dominating the workers, or the whites in dominating the blacks cannot be made in good faith by anyone who has the slightest familiarity with public choice analysis.
Meaningful Learning Is Just-in-Time, Not Just-in-Case
Average people learn what they need to avoid pain. Elite people learn what they need to get the grade, ace the test, win the award, gain certification, impress people, and obtain honors. Ascendant people don’t care about accolades or awards or tests or stickers or stars. They learn exactly what’s needed to solve a problem that matters to them, exactly when it’s needed. No more, no less. No sooner, no later.
Fawning Over a Corporation to Protect Us from Corporations
It’s always struck me as extremely odd that leftists fawn over using government to protect us from corporations. What do they think the government is? The fawning is quite indicative of their ignorance in at least ten ways.
Statists Have it Upside Down
Those who use the political means are the cheaters. The cancer. Sure, civilization can survive a certain number of them, but not too many. When the percentage of archators gets too high, that’s the death of civilization.