• Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    Except it isn’t logically solid, because the premise is that Governing bodies cannot be expected to provide for the general welfare because humans are naturally greedy and selfish, and the solution is that we abolish all social safety nets and instead rely on voluntary charity to solve the problem of poverty…

    But what voluntary charity exists if by Libertarian’s own logic: Humans are too greedy and selfish to give to the poor even when they’re literally mandated to do so?

    • jessca@lemmy.ca
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      18 hours ago

      It also seems to assume perfect knowledge and that all harms can be compensated for.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      Milton Friedman, my favourite libertarian, advocated for a negative income tax as the best form of social safety net. It means that the minimum amount of money any person gets is not zero!

      He also liked to point out that a lot of other government programs were in fact regressive: paid for in taxes by working class people and providing the benefit to middle class and up. A classic example of that is funding for higher education. It’s pretty darn regressive to pay for higher education with taxes collected from working class people whose children don’t even attend higher education!

      He has a lot of other arguments that make a ton of sense. He is against any and all forms of subsidies for large businesses and he is against laws which create and protect monopolies and oligopolies.

      The one thing I’m not clear on is how to organize society to protect against future government interference and especially corruption by special interests.

      • Narauko@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        You need solid anticorruption laws the same way you need solid antitrust laws and they need to be liberally enforced. The problem is that neither have been since the 70’s. Regulatory capture by big business is a massive problem, and I am not sure if it is possible to 100% defend against.

        I self identify libertarian but lean left. I’d argue that while things like funding higher education may currently be regressive, if free education extended from the current cap of 12th grade to encompass at least an associates level degree you would have a lot more lower and working class taking advantage of it and making it less regressive. With the country having jettisoned it’s manufacturing and blue collar industry, I would further argue this is necessary for the country to compete on the international stage.

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          He’s one of the most famous economists of the 20th century. There’s a ton of YouTube videos of him debating all kinds of people and giving lectures on many different topics from his perspective.