Comments on: Liberty versus Social Engineering

By: » Liberty versus Social Engineering

» Liberty versus Social Engineering — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:04:00 +0000

[...] Liberty versus Social Engineering [...]

By: Karl Wulf

Karl Wulf — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:14:10 +0000

Steve,

You’re right on. Libertarians and free market creators seek power by innovating and working hard mentally and physically to compete and achieve as much as possible. For most of us in this category, the rewards are nice, but the work is also a reward in itself most of the day…we enjoy our work and associating with like-minded ambitious people. We believe, that the spontaneous order the emerges from this ethic is peaceful and prosperous for all that participate in it.

I think statists seek power in direct and indirect ways. The direct case is easy, a rent-seeking statist uses sentimentality as a cover to extort transfers to their personal interests by way of taxes, spending, regulation, legislation, and litigation.

The indirect power-seeking is less obvious, it is not monetary, but seeks value in more ideological and psychological ways. I think most statists have a scarcity mentality, a zero sum economic belief that brings out strong emotions of envy and disappointment in what they see as an unfair society. So they vote for statists, and give to statist causes, in order to weaken creators and entrepreneurs, and level the playing field, achieving some progress towards “social justice”.

This is a sad, depressing, low-self-esteem way to live…a true zero-sum world would be a miserable one, always believing that you need to bring someone else down to get ahead, or just survive. But his is how they think. I can only hope such poor reasoning eventually gets de-selected from the homo sapiens gene pool.

By: Steve Hankin

Steve Hankin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:55:49 +0000

If you can bear with me, I would like to put my own spin on this “debate” between government
intervention (with its pretense of rationale design) and spontaneous, un-designed social and economic order. My view is that those who want to employ social engineering and
economic design are actually attempting to gain power (self-empowerment)over
others but under the guise of altruism, albeit I admit, usually, not consciously.
That is to say, where the greater society, be it one’s city ,one’s state or one’s
country or even the world, adopts a person’s desired picture of society, than
that person will likely feel empowered. unfortunately, we, libertarians, often
tend to ignore the strong possibility that a drive (i.e., a need) for power over
others may actually be a trait, built into the
human species. Certainly, mankind has been seeking power over others since beginning
of historical time. Of course, juxtaposed against that human need is, at least,
the equally strong drive (i.e., need), which is clearly built into the human
species: to be free to do one’s own thing; thus to be left alone by others to
do one’s own thing–which we all call individual freedom. Hence, I believe
that without adequately acknowledging such view of human nature, any debate
of the comparative effectiveness and efficiency of social and economic
engineering compared to a spontaneous, un-designed order will, to a large extent,
fall upon mostly deaf ears.

To put it a little more succinctly, by having liberals (i.e., progressives) and
social conservatives confront, what I believe is basic, human nature, we,
libertarians, may better enable both liberals and social conservatives to confront
and better understand where their political views really coming from. All we,
libertarians really ask of progressives and social conservatives is for them to
leave others alone—not to force others to financially support or to follow
their individual moral or religious beliefs). And, of course, we, libertarians,
do not ask them to change their own personal, moral beliefs, whether they be
derived from humanism, from religion or from nationalism. I would appreciate any,
and all, comments on my thesis with regard to human nature and the above controversy.
Steve Hankin

By: The Real David Hume: A Curmudgeonly Reaction « ThinkMarkets

The Real David Hume: A Curmudgeonly Reaction « ThinkMarkets — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:01:26 +0000

[...] UPDATE: See Sheldon Richman’s excellent response to David [...]

By: Richman on Brooks on Hume

Richman on Brooks on Hume — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:00:31 +0000

[...] The always-enlightening Sheldon Richman weighs in eloquently on David Brooks’s recent atrociou…. [...]

By: Jacob Steelman

Jacob Steelman — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:53:44 +0000

David Brooks is just another talking head for the ruling elite. I have never heard him express any real deep philosphical viewpoint. He may agree or disagree with the particular means being employed by government to implement various legislation, regulation or proposed government policy. However, he has no fundamental philosphical laissez faire viewpoint but rather favors government intervention such as do the neocons.

By: TGIF: Liberty versus Social Engineering | Anything Peaceful

TGIF: Liberty versus Social Engineering | Anything Peaceful — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:48:21 +0000

[...] The rest of TGIF is here. [...]