It's a very anti competitive practice.

Also why would movie producers agree to writers' demand? they can just outsource writers to Asia or other cheaper countries. Writing is one of those jobs that can be remotely done.

I've heard that there is an exception on anti Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914

​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike

The only thing positive I can think of with union is negotiating contracts. It doesn't make sense to have 1000 writers each negotiating deals. It make sense to negotiate once.

But when it's done to push prices around or to benefit less productive workers then shits hit the fans.

I imagine there are people of whole libertarian spectrum here on this sub, from left-libertarians to ancaps. Maybe all of you here would most likely claim that the current state of things isn't what you imagine to be the desired way of how society should exist.

So the question is, precisely how would everyday actions look like in practice in your desired regime?

Imagine one needs to put food on the table, precisely how would one do that?

And what about housing? Healthcare? Work? Or hobbies?

How would average day of Joe Average look like if the goals of libertarianism were achieved?

What would be the main difference between today and the desired outcome?

Most people think of Karl Marx and think of a communist godfather but apparently he was more of a famous capitalism critic than anything else. His greatest work was Capital, which was 1600 pages or so in total diving into it.

Could be understandably difficult to read any of his works from a unbiased frame of mind considering how stigmatized Socialism and Communism became after his death.

I'd like to hear a libertarian alternative to the issues presented within it, which many right wingers agree are valid criticisms.

Some guy has to pay $53k a month to a woman that leave him

https://voiceformenindia.com/lisa-climans-micheal-latner-alimony-canada/

Is there any way this is justified under libertarianism?

One common justification is common law argument. But that means living in a city means consenting to it's rules.

Another justification is consent. Nope. The guy never explicitly consent to pay $53k a month.

Even if he explicitly consent to pay $53k a month sometimes in the past, some feminists argue that consent can always be withdrawn.

So when or when not consent can be withdrawn? Do we have rules on that?

Another is choice. If you don't want to pay alimony just don't get married. I agree on this. Which is why I tend to tell people not to get married at all.

Still, shouldn't things that's MATERIAL AND CONTROVERSIAL BE EXPLICITLY AGREED?

What's libertarian view on this?

Note: This is an argument for REVERSE GENDER WAGE GAP. I believe women earn $3-$5 for every $1 men earn if we don't care what they do.

https://time.com/3222543/wage-pay-gap-myth-feminism/

there is a myth that women earns .77 cents for every dollar men earn.

The thing is it doesn't take into account that men and women do different jobs. If we take into accounts those then the number goes to .96 cents I think.

Yet

Fact 1: Women usually work less hour than men.

Fact 2: Women have higher standard of living than men. Most homeless people are men.

Fact 3: Even Melinda Gates may have earned more than Bill Gates. Bill Gates work 60 hours a week as CEO to build Microsoft. Melinda produce children for Bill and got $32 billion.

Fact 4: Women get more tax money and men pay more tax

Fact 5: Women in only fans earn more than men in only fans

Say we go full feminists. We really don't care what they do. We just care how much time they spent on doing something other people are willing to pay for and what do they get in return.

It seems that under some reasonable measure women earn more than men for hours worked.

That being said, I wonder if women are really worse off under "patriarchy" or whatever.

Imagine a woman with choices.

She can be a programmer and earn $80k a year.

However, she is indifferent from being a wife or earning $100k a year. So being your wife is in the same indifference curve of having a job that pays $100k a year.

So she choose to be a wife instead because she prefer the benefits that offer her $80k job offer.

Then clearly she is not worse off.

Imagine a species other than humans with similar economic structures. So the women are as smart and as good as coding as men but they also have additional offers to sell sex.

Out of 100 men with similar circumstances 99 would choose a job. Out of 100 women with similar circumstances, 90 would choose to be a wife or consort or sugar babies or whatever.

So of course, assuming the women have equal IQ and equal programming talent, more men choose to work and more women choose to be wives. Here, quite obviously the women are better off despite less of them becoming programmers or super programmers because they have more choices. Those with extra choices can't be worse off.

Because she is in an indifferent curve with a job earning $100k, then it's as if she is earning $100k.

And she works far less than her husband. I mean her children are raised by nannies, her house are mopped by roomba, and so on.

So her hourly wage is like 5 times. So women that choose to be a wife of a rich man earns $5 for every dollar men earn.

Another way to see it is to see which one earns more money hourly. Bill Gates or Melinda?

Well, how many hours Bill Gates put to make $100 billion? Melinda probably only have $25 billion dollar now. But most benefits Bill Gates got are also enjoyed by Melinda. I mean their kids go to the same school and so on. Those are the same kids.

So Melinda wage per hour is actually 5 times of even Bill Gates himself.

Can this be measured?

So basically, like feminists, we DON'T CARE what jobs women actually do compared to men. We just compare hourly earning.

Then we compute who have bigger wage. We count anything that provide value, like providing sex and having children as a job and we count all benefits, like higher standard of living and having children taken care off as salary.

Then what's the ratio?

Given where we are today - mega corporations demonstrating numerous times they are too-big-to-fail (without economic and stock market chaos) and enough political will for the bailouts (right and left) - should the bill be passed that CEOs of corporations are on the hook for individually paying back government bailout in effect making them loans?

For a job or service to be done well, people are often rewarded with X amount of money. But this sort of quantification of your effort makes it susceptible to corruption or shitty work in general.

As Schopenhauer once noted, "It seems as though the money lay under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins to put a pen to paper in any way for the sake of gain. The best works of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or for very little."

Indeed, as the economist, Goddard later put it, in his now-famous Goodhart's law, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". In other words, when we set one specific goal, people will tend to optimize for that objective regardless of the consequences. This leads to problems when we neglect other equally important aspects of a situation.

When you tie the value of your work to numbers, in this case, the amount of money you make, you inadvertently start looking for hacks, and shortcuts, maybe even do some corruption here and there, and so on.

A glaring example of this in present times would be various tech giants, that look for all kinds of loopholes to extract the most bang for their buck. I'm talking about privacy issues, the right to repair, data selling, and so on. But I digress.

I do not have any gripes with the tech industry. The above drawbacks are present in almost all industries, where people try to cut corners for quick profit.

So, clearly, we need an alternative model for getting rewarded for any piece of work. Do you have any better ideas or models? Or perhaps any tweaks to this existing model, that can improve things just a little?

We invite you to Liberty Lounge, a laid back server for Libertarians! What does this mean for you? It means you can come and chat about anything you like, to be you again after a long day of debating politics on other servers. Chat, VC, game, and even win rewards for being on our server. We hope to see you soon!

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Lets say a food company use a chemical substance X on their products that is recently know to cause cancer in high levels but their products are cheap and taste good so mostly poor people buy it anyway.

Should the government step in and make regulations to stop that company and others from using that chemical X?

I consider myself a Libertarian, and I believe that the state should have no hand in businesses. I still can't get around child labor though. It's a stain in American history and it doesnt really seem you can blame to government for any of it or the conditions of factories.

It would be pretty good to have some simple, yet enough revealing definitions of these rather popular terms for random discussions of various topics.

Since we live in scarce resource world, these have to be allocated in one way and another, and it seems all these do it in their particular way.

I personally would define Capitalism as:

"Economic system where private property exists (and is respected), which then can be used to create good and services and later voluntarily exchanged in free market with others, usually motivated by profit. Profit can be used to increase capital to improve productivity, lower prices (and/or increase quality) and so in the end improving standard of living for everyone (business owner receiving profits, workers, and consumers). This is price-driven (supply/demand) allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses via free market mechanisms and incentives."

A bit long..?

Not sure how I could define others though.

Thanks!

I have been interested in archeology for years and have studied how looting can destroy sites, take away what we can learn about cultures, take away from existing cultures,etc. I know Libertarians generally love the free market and hate laws, but what about the wholesale theft of antiquities and the stolen items in museums and private collections? Should the individual cultures or nations have to pay for what was stolen from them or should people be forced to give it back?

The argument for it is that if you buy a house, you aren’t just buying the house and the land it sits on, you’re also considering the characteristics of the neighbourhood it is in when you’re making the purchase (e.g. the type of housing surrounding the property). Therefore you’re also purchasing those intangible characteristics as well. Therefore you are entitled to zoning laws that prohibit other kinds of development.

Does this jive with libertarian thought?

I was seeing some Javier Milei videos and basically he said we should be allowed to sell our own organs, is that freedom of choice. There are many pros and cons but the question would be:

Do most libertarians agree with that statement?

https://reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/s/m1cHHcKBLO

I talked to a white guy in south Africa. He told me that many unemployed black people just loitering near their houses. When they go to office they rob.

It's hard to defend against that. You got to watch your house every day.

I asked why not build border fences.

He said the Muslims and Indian build fences. Does it reduce crime? Yes. Obviously. But the government tear them apart.

Now imagine a completely open border libertarian.

Nothing stop thousands of people with 67 average iq to not loiter in front of your house.

Makes more sense to have borders and to keep useless people out.

In fact gated communities have higher land value for that very reason. It's saver.

Also open border libertarian is inconsistent. What? We can't have gated communities? That's not freedom.

If even a small community can have gated community then why can't a country?

Notice I am not against legal productive immigration. I am just pointing out the absurdity of totally open border libertarians.

Sorry if this has been asked a ton of times

Curious what the Libertarian perspective on incest is. Do they want it to be decriminalized like hookers and drugs? Or illegal still to prevent babies having deformities and stop potential grooming?

Hypothetical:

I have no money. I own no land.

First things I need are to secure food, water, and shelter.

All land is privately owned? Can we agree here?

I am guessing I would need to find some sort of charity. If I can not find charity, my only option left is crime. Trespassing and theft.

If I get caught, do I go to jail or relocated?

Assuming I do not get caught, I would have opportunity to look for employment? Theoretically, I can save money from employment to secure my necessities. What if I can not find employment though?

Maybe a flawed hypothetical and we all get universal basic income?

I have heard that that many libertarians are “nerds”, and that many of them are on the autism spectrum. There was evidence that Libertarians have less social connections compared to other political affiliations. There was a website where Ayn Rand was speculated to have Asperger syndrome. One of the reasons the website speculated she had aspergers was how she collected objects in drawers. What have you noticed about people that are Libertarians?

Given that you can’t alter history before that point, effectively preventing it from happening in the first place.

Before you said I have rape fantasy or anything

Look at this

https://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/16f0wfv/how_do_you_protect_yourself_against_being_accused/

I am not the only one concerned.

The pattern is

1. Even if women say yes, it means no. For example, some women suck Weinstein cocks for help in career. If she doesn't want to she can just leave. Weinstein go to jail. I think Weinstein makes bad deals in general but rape?
2. Women consent can always be withdrawn. Men, however, are treated as if they have committed huge absurd commitment. Men consent for child support, for example, can't be just withdrawn. Basically not only women hardly can consent, she can't commit.
3. Transactional sex is illegal. Another yes still mean no.
4. Women can change her mind after the sex and file for rape. One guy got 30 years for some rape happening 20 years ago.
5. Amount of punishment for the supposed rapist is grossly disproportionate to actual physical damage caused. For example, bullies that beat up other kids just get away. Thieves and robbers are often not punished. But Trump is punished with millions of dollars for supposedly inserting his finger on a 55 years old woman some decades ago.
6. The state, instead of the woman, often decide amount of money men need to pay women. It's always proportional to men's income as if to punish rich men that fuck women. Alimony, palimony, child support follow this simple patterns.
7. If men and women consensually avoid the pattern, say men agree to pay fix amount, then it's illegal or legally impossible.

I know he's taking quite abit in the past but was thinking of how the way Rothbard describes capitalism, is very similar to ancoms describing state socialism. They both take an idea and present a solution better than the statist one. It's interesting.

Pro: Ron Paul: Hands Off the Electoral College

The intense media focus on the divide between “red” and “blue” states in the wake of the presidential election has raised new questions regarding our federal voting system. One U.S. Senator has promised to introduce legislation to abolish the Electoral College, claiming it is an anachronism that serves no good purpose in modern politics. Her stated goal is “simply to allow the popular will of the American people to be expressed every four years when we elect our president.” Many Americans agree, arguing that the man receiving the most votes should win; anything else would be unfair. In other words, they believe the American political system should operate as a direct democracy.

The problem, of course, is that our country is not a democracy. Our nation was founded as a constitutionally limited republic, as any grammar school child knew just a few decades ago. Remember the Pledge of Allegiance: “and to the Republic for which it stands”? The Founding Fathers were concerned with liberty, not democracy. In fact, the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. On the contrary, Article IV, section 4 of the Constitution is quite clear: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican Form of Government” (emphasis added).

The emphasis on democracy in our modern political discourse has no historical or constitutional basis. Yet we have become obsessed with democracy, as though any government action would be permissible if a majority of voters simply approved of it. Democracy has become a sacred cow, a deity which no one dares question. Democracy, we are told, is always good. But the founders created a constitutionally limited republic precisely to protect fundamental liberties from the whims of the masses, to guard against the excesses of democracy. The Electoral College likewise was created in the Constitution to guard against majority tyranny in federal elections. The President was to be elected by the states rather than the citizenry as a whole, with votes apportioned to states according to their representation in Congress. The will of the people was to be tempered by the wisdom of the Electoral College.

By contrast, election of the President by pure popular vote totals would damage statehood. Populated areas on both coasts would have increasing influence on national elections, to the detriment of less populated southern and western states. A candidate receiving a large percentage of the popular vote in California and New York could win a national election with very little support in dozens of other states! A popular vote system simply would intensify the populist pandering which already dominates national campaigns.

Not surprisingly, calls to abolish the Electoral College system are heard most loudly among left elites concentrated largely on the two coasts. Liberals favor a very strong centralized federal government, and have contempt for the concept of states’ rights (a contempt now shared, unfortunately, by the Republican Party). They believe in federalizing virtually every area of law, leaving states powerless to challenge directives sent down from Washington. The Electoral College system threatens liberals because it allows states to elect the president, and in many states the majority of voters still believe in limited government and the Constitution. Citizens in southern and western states in particular tend to value individual liberty, property rights, gun rights, and religious freedom, values which are abhorrent to the collectivist elites. The collectivists care about centralized power, not democracy. Their efforts to discredit the Electoral College system are an attempt to limit the voting power of pro-liberty states.

Con: Ivan Eland: Electoral College Is a Modern-Day Travesty for the World’s Greatest Democracy

Proponents of retaining the electoral college talk about preserving the republic (representative government) enshrined in the Constitution, as opposed to popular democracy, or giving the states a role in the presidential election. Yet the 18th century electoral college concept no longer works as the framers had envisioned it—as a back-up for the House of Representatives electing the president, with electors chosen by state legislatures—and now merely distorts the national popular vote. Forty-eight out of the fifty states plus the District of Columbia allow the winner of the popular vote in their jurisdiction to take all the state’s electoral votes. Also, smaller, rural states are excessively represented in the electoral college at the expense of more populous states with big urban areas. For example, much like the electoral college expanded the political power of smaller rural slave states before the Civil War, in the 2016 election, each voter in Wyoming (the least populous state) had more than double the voting power in the electoral college as a voter in California (the most populous state). This violates the principle of “one person, one vote.”

Proponents of retaining the electoral college want the states to have a role in the presidential election, but nowadays states—instead of letting their “experts” pick the president— automatically take their popular vote and feed it through the distorting electoral college filter, which merely perverts the national popular vote.

Even Republicans, who won the election fair and square under the current system but nevertheless benefited from such distortions in this election cycle, had appropriately trashed the electoral college in prior times. In 2012, President-elect Donald Trump had said that the “phoney [sic] electoral college” was “a disaster for a democracy.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Ben Carson, both Trump supporters, have also questioned the need for an electoral college.

Thoughts?

Are rights really inalienable? Can one sell themselves into slavery for instance? Why or why not?

And to those who say rights are inalienable, can an individual not participate in an employee contract because they withdraw their right to the product of their labor?