Libertarianism makes people sad

[a_unique_person]

According to this article.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/16/1063625030951.html

Not the best written article on this issue I have seen, but equating the economic glorification of the individual over the group can only go so far before the group suffers and the individual follows not long after.



But Tanner points out that our relationships have been affected also by the revolutionary movements of the 1960s: the me-generation, feminism, sexual and gay liberation and racial equality.

The point is not that these were retrograde steps - in any case, we couldn't reverse them if we wanted to. The subtler point is that benefits are almost always accompanied by costs.

What all those revolutions have in common is their promotion of libertarianism and individualism. And guess what? The political philosophy that lurks behind economic rationalism is libertarianism and individualism.

Freedom for the individual is fine - up to a point. That point is reached when the pursuit of individualism starts to erode the relationships that provide our emotional sustenance. It's reached when noble sentiments about individual freedom degenerate into the mindless pursuit of materialism.

Tanner argues that, by now, our crowded lives are gradually shredding our relationships with each other.

Much of the stuff we buy - microwaves, fast food, for instance - is intended to save time. But, Tanner says, we're on a treadmill that's always imperceptibly gaining speed.

"To buy all these things that save time we have to work more. We've created a vicious circle of time consumption, where the cost is borne by our relationships. We spend less time with our families and friends in order to earn the money, which will enable us to buy things like microwave ovens, which will eliminate the need to do certain things together."

How has this unsatisfactory state of our relationships come about? Through neglect. Tanner says that, since the industrial revolution, it's the material aspects of human relationships - economics, in other words - that have dominated politics in the developed countries. Governments and political parties have largely ignored relationship issues, perhaps assuming they're the responsibility of priests and psychologists.

And then we've had the attitude that we don't want governments engaging in "social engineering". What's apparent now, however, is that - whether they think about it or not - the policies governments implement affect relationships.

Would we prefer our politicians to continue stumbling around, unknowing and uncaring about the wider social consequences of their actions?



For 'economic rationalism' read 'economic conservatism' or Thatcherism in other countries.

[Cain]

Libertarianism in one lesson:

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/onelesson.html

[BillyTK]

Reminds me of comments by Great Leader Blair on his wish to create a flexible and competitive workforce, yet elsewhere he'd expressed his concern that people were working too many hours and neglecting their families, and as we know, there's no such thing as society, just individuals and their families. I think it was Thatcher who said that. Or it might've been Blair; just lately I've found it hard to differentiate between the two... :D

[Solitaire]

Why We Need Libertarians! (http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-reodd&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20030917%2F083704862.htm&sc=reodd&photoid=20030816CASY101) :mad:

[Franko]

Libertarianism, Personal liberty -- bah humbug!

It's much more beneficial to let your intellectual betters make those important decisions for you.

[American]

"To buy all these things that save time we have to work more. We've created a vicious circle of time consumption, where the cost is borne by our relationships. We spend less time with our families and friends in order to earn the money, which will enable us to buy things like microwave ovens, which will eliminate the need to do certain things together."

How has this unsatisfactory state of our relationships come about? Through neglect.


I am certain he is speaking mainly for himself, or should be. Even if he is right, people are not naive about it. He has not told us anything we don't already know. You think folks work ridiculous hours, have no time for fun and AREN'T AWARE of it? This is our choice. It has rewards- the work itself and eventual comfort once we decide to slow down and enjoy some of what we've secured for ourselves and our family.

Bah. He sounds like a sunday preacher, angry that folks are sleeping-in rather than coming to listen to his drivle every week.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Franko
Libertarianism, Personal liberty -- bah humbug!

It's much more beneficial to let your intellectual betters make those important decisions for you.

I don't need Libertarianism to tell me what to do... I've got TLOP!

:D

[shanek]

This article is crap. Were it not for the advancements in technology that freedom leads to, we'd still have people dying of the most basic diseases. We'd be working all week just to try and feed ourselves, as opposed to also having central air, DVD players, and other things that bring us comfort and enjoyment. Let's look at some of Tanner's claims:

"My mobile phone might help me stay in touch, but it also interrupts face-to-face conversation and personal interaction... Mobile phones can seriously detract from the quality - and quantity - of time we spend with our children,"

Total crap. How does having a mobile phone affect your relationship with people you live with? It doesn't. And if your children are already grown and moved out, the phone helps you stay in touch with them when you wouldn't have any interaction with them at all. This is just neo-luddism.

He also claims:

To buy all these things that save time we have to work more.[/b]

No, we don't. This is an ignorant statement made by someone who doesn't understand the relation of economics to technology.

We could work about two hours a day and live the way we did 100 years ago. But do we really want to? No; we want our air conditioners and our DVD players and our personal computers because these things help us raise the quality of our lives. And without this technology, we'd be back to working full time and have comparatively little to show for it.

So someone invents a device that lets us do an 8-hour job in two hours. What does Tanner propose we do with the other six hours? Just twiddle our thumbs? We're either going to work the extra hours to have more wealth, or we're going to use it for personal time, which, whether it's a hobby, or doing things with our kids, or whatever, is still going to cost us extra money to enjoy. In any event, this six hours is a bonus, and the fact that we fill up the six hours with work for the extra things that we want does not mean that we're working more.

And finally, it shows Tanner's profound ignorance as to what Libertarianism means—which is as much about the freedom to forge our own peaceful relationships with each other as it is getting the government out of our personal business. In fact, a Libertarian would likely say they were one and the same.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Cain
Libertarianism in one lesson:

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/onelesson.html

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/response_to_huben.html
http://www.juliansanchez.com/rebut.html
http://www.helsinki.fi/~ssyreeni/l-diaries/l-diaries-c-09-01

I could go on...Huben has been rebutted extensively.

[Skeptic]

My mobile phone might help me stay in touch, but it also interrupts face-to-face conversation and personal interaction . . . Mobile phones can seriously detract from the quality - and quantity - of time we spend with our children,

Then TURN THE DAMN THING OFF. Sheesh.

[Rouser2]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by a_unique_person
[B]According to this article.

>>the economic glorification of the individual over the group can only go so far before the group suffers and the individual follows not long after.>>

If you begin with a false premise, you can conclude anything you want. Fact is, most Americans, besides Mr. Tanner, And Unique Person, are in fact happy.

THE WASHINGTON POST 9/17/03
"Despite increased tensions on the world stage and a faltering U.S. economy, nine of 10 Americans are happy with their lives and say their religious faith has a lot to do with it, according to a Barna Research poll...
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/051003/rel_051003039.shtml

-- Rouser

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by American



I am certain he is speaking mainly for himself, or should be. Even if he is right, people are not naive about it. He has not told us anything we don't already know. You think folks work ridiculous hours, have no time for fun and AREN'T AWARE of it? This is our choice. It has rewards- the work itself and eventual comfort once we decide to slow down and enjoy some of what we've secured for ourselves and our family.

Bah. He sounds like a sunday preacher, angry that folks are sleeping-in rather than coming to listen to his drivle every week.

What family? You have none, and it doesn't look like you ever will with your attitude.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Rouser2
[QUOTE]Originally posted by a_unique_person
[B]According to this article.

>>the economic glorification of the individual over the group can only go so far before the group suffers and the individual follows not long after.>>

If you begin with a false premise, you can conclude anything you want. Fact is, most Americans, besides Mr. Tanner, And Unique Person, are in fact happy.

THE WASHINGTON POST 9/17/03
"Despite increased tensions on the world stage and a faltering U.S. economy, nine of 10 Americans are happy with their lives and say their religious faith has a lot to do with it, according to a Barna Research poll...
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/051003/rel_051003039.shtml

-- Rouser

That's because they are on anti-depressants.

[shanek]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
That's because they are on anti-depressants.

I'm an American, I'm happy, and I'm not on antidepressants...I'm not even on caffeine!

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by shanek


I'm an American, I'm happy, and I'm not on antidepressants...I'm not even on caffeine!

It was a trite comment, but I was referring to the massively increasing use of anti-depressants in western society. Something strange is going on.

Also, just because technology has given us many undeniable benefits, it does not mean that we should expect that ever increasing use of technology will keep on doing so. There is not necessarily a linear relationship between accumulated electrical goods and happiness. Just as we need Vitamin A, too much and it is toxic.

[shanek]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
It was a trite comment, but I was referring to the massively increasing use of anti-depressants in western society. Something strange is going on.

Nothing strange at all. People are looking for easy solutions. It's just like those people trying "diet pills" because it's easier than actually exercising more and reducing your caloric intake. Nothing at all strange or new about it.

[Cain]

Originally posted by shanek


http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/response_to_huben.html
http://www.juliansanchez.com/rebut.html
http://www.helsinki.fi/~ssyreeni/l-diaries/l-diaries-c-09-01

I could go on...Huben has been rebutted extensively.

Shanek- all of those rebuttals are linked on Mike's site, so I'm well aware of them.

Also, this is not a link to the non-libertarian faq; it's libertarianism in one lesson (a play off William Hazlitt's silly book _Economics in One Lesson_).

Um... so yeah.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by shanek


Nothing strange at all. People are looking for easy solutions. It's just like those people trying "diet pills" because it's easier than actually exercising more and reducing your caloric intake. Nothing at all strange or new about it.

Anti-depressants are prescribed by medical practitioners, not bought at a health food shop.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by shanek
we want our air conditioners and our DVD players and our personal computers because these things help us raise the quality of our lives.
How exactly? And is this technology the only way to raise the quality of our lives?

So someone invents a device that lets us do an 8-hour job in two hours. What does Tanner propose we do with the other six hours? Just twiddle our thumbs? We're either going to work the extra hours to have more wealth, or we're going to use it for personal time, which, whether it's a hobby, or doing things with our kids, or whatever, is still going to cost us extra money to enjoy.
Is this really the case? Must all leisure activities revolve around consumerism?

[Skeptic]

How exactly?

Try sitting around in 90 degree heat WITHOUT an air conditioner, and you'll get a rather good idea of why it raises the quality of our lives.

And is this technology the only way to raise the quality of our lives?

The answer is, absolutely, completely, a resounding YES.

For literally millions of years, until the scientific revolution, mankind lived without high technology. The result? a 30-year life expectancy, 70% infant mortality, 98% of the population being dirt-poor, illiterate peasants, etc.

Not all the philosophy, poetry, theology, great classical works, and (eastern-style) "enlightment" in the world did ANYTHING to change this lot. All the millions of preachers in the world, talking about the evils of money and the glory of heaven, never saved one child from dying of measles, or reduced the workload of the peasant by one minute.

It was ONLY technology--the clever child of science and skepticism--which solved this problem. It is ONLY because of technology that you can go on your computer and philosophize about how technology "didn't bring you happiness": without it, you would have been a slave or peasant who lost most of their children to disease and starvation.

Obviously, you are NOT getting rid of YOUR technology; why? Because you damn well prefer living with it to living without it, because technology makes you a lot happier than 99.99% of humanity in the past ever were.

[a_unique_person]

That is not the point. The article is about the current experience of the law of diminishing returns we are getting from technology.

[Skeptic]

That is not the point. The article is about the current experience of the law of diminishing returns we are getting from technology.

Two points.

First, Billy TK asked specifically "how exactly" computers, air conditioning, and DVD players raised the quality of our lives. Since he used a computer to ask this question in what is probably an air-conditioned room, I'd say he knows the answer, and is being hypocritical in asking the question.

Second, the "diminishing returns" argument is, in my opinion, simply wrong. Nobody really NEEDS a cell phone now--I don't have one--but nobody really NEEDED the internet ten years ago, or a computer twenty years ago, or color television forty years ago, or an airplane 100 years ago. Yet today, they are standard--and many people cannot imagine life without them.

Virtually every technological improvement (revolutionary drugs and the like excepted) started out as something that "nobody needs", since their potential and possibilities were not grasped, and perhaps even unimaginable, at the time. The Wright brother's flyer was an extremely dangerous, amateur contraption of little practical use; but without it, there would have been no 747.

It always seemed to many that all past inventions were OK, but THIS new thing is too much, an extravagance nobody could possibly need--when "this new thing" is everything from the wheel and fire to a cell phone that takes digital photographs with internet capacity. They were wrong then--and probably wrong now.

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by shanek
I'm an American, I'm happy, and I'm not on antidepressants...
I'm not even on caffeine!

According To This Article You Should Be (http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/curmudgeon/index_BigAndBlue.html) :wink:

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Skeptic
That is not the point. The article is about the current experience of the law of diminishing returns we are getting from technology.

Two points.

First, Billy TK asked specifically "how exactly" computers, air conditioning, and DVD players raised the quality of our lives. Since he used a computer to ask this question in what is probably an air-conditioned room, I'd say he knows the answer, and is being hypocritical in asking the question.

Second, the "diminishing returns" argument is, in my opinion, simply wrong. Nobody really NEEDS a cell phone now--I don't have one--but nobody really NEEDED the internet ten years ago, or a computer twenty years ago, or color television forty years ago, or an airplane 100 years ago. Yet today, they are standard--and many people cannot imagine life without them.

Virtually every technological improvement (revolutionary drugs and the like excepted) started out as something that "nobody needs", since their potential and possibilities were not grasped, and perhaps even unimaginable, at the time. The Wright brother's flyer was an extremely dangerous, amateur contraption of little practical use; but without it, there would have been no 747.

It always seemed to many that all past inventions were OK, but THIS new thing is too much, an extravagance nobody could possibly need--when "this new thing" is everything from the wheel and fire to a cell phone that takes digital photographs with internet capacity. They were wrong then--and probably wrong now.

The internet is one thing I think is good, I didn't say all modern appliances are bad. But the fact is, many people are slaves to consumerism. There comes a point where buying things isn't going to make you any happier. Are big screen TVs really going to add anything to the experience of watching "Batchelor III"?

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


The internet is one thing I think is good, I didn't say all modern appliances are bad. But the fact is, many people are slaves to consumerism. There comes a point where buying things isn't going to make you any happier. Are big screen TVs really going to add anything to the experience of watching "Batchelor III"?

There are better things to watch than that. I take it you have never seen Discover HDTV channel.

[shanek]

Originally posted by BillyTK

How exactly?

By providing us with a comfortable living environment, entertainment, and a vehicle for enabling us to enjoy our hobbies like never before.

And is this technology the only way to raise the quality of our lives?

Technology is about the only way to raise the quality of life that I can think of (short of removing any amount of repression from people's lives). Technology lets us do more work in the time we spend working, therefore creating more wealth in the economy, which benefits everybody. Technology allows us to be comfortable, be entertained, communicate and interact more easily with family and friends, especially if separated by a long distance, it makes us less susceptible to health problems...I could go on and on and on. If you stifle technology, you stifle the ability to make our lives better than they were before.

Is this really the case? Must all leisure activities revolve around consumerism?

When did I say anything about consumerism? All I said is that we're going to use the time we saved to either make more wealth for ourselves or to spend it doing things that make us happy.

[American]

Originally posted by a_unique_person

What family? You have none, and it doesn't look like you ever will with your attitude.


What does that have to do with anything? Do I want a family? Maybe I just don't talk about them. Maybe I make stuff up about my life.

All I said, basically, is I want my instant life because the alternative is to live on a farm and spend 4 hours cooking each day. I don't want riches to buy a faster microwave so I can go make more riches. I like the work itself, and the money means less.