(Disclaimer: I am not a libertarian, though I was once.)
These arguments have a fundamental flaw, arguing that a libertarian enjoying some government benefit is "hypocrisy." This is nonsense.
Libertarian tech bros pay into our system just like everyone else. Given the progressive income tax, those who are billionaires likely pay more in years where they make money than just about anyone else. So if the government is in the position to offer money, what good does it do for them to refuse? If they refuse, will the government be embarrassed and adopt libertarians' preferred policies? It's no more hypocritical than a socialist defending her private property.
Personally, I think if libertarians are serious, they should seek out every government benefit they're qualified for, and encourage everyone else to do the same. If libertarians are right, then the shaky foundations of the Progressive system can be toppled over by overuse.
I think the real thing being unmasked is that libertarianism is often ideology without grounding in reality. They can't account for the world of second bests, and the Progressive system has twisted and destroyed so much of what was once free that getting to a libertarian world would be like a society-wide kernel panic.
Thiel deserves credit for being one of the (quasi-)libertarians who seems to recognize this and has attempted alternatives like that seasteading thing, though they typically haven't gotten off the ground.
Funny. There are actually a whole bunch of libertarians of Thiel's ilk whose views have the same flaw but in reverse. They assume that if they can stop the government from "debasing" money and "devaluing" their savings, they can sit on money today safe in the knowledge that it will be worth more tomorrow. Of course, without technological innovation that won't happen either. Worse, if this were possible it'd be far more toxic to technological progress than any "welfare state" could ever be; taxes merely make it slightly less profitable, whereas this libertarian idea is pretty much guaranteed to drive returns on all but a handful of investments into the negative compared to just sitting on the money. With no financial incentive to innovate, why bother?
Even in theory, libertarians are hypocrites because they fundamentally advocate for failing to pay for the externalities of their coercive system, and all supposed benefits of libertarianism can be traced to temporary boosts caused by (inefficient) capitalization of that failure to pay for externalities. Libertarianism enriches a few by creating 0.9 units wealth for every 1.0 units of collective suffering it implements over the current system, but hides this fundamentally externality driven mechanism behind the spread of the suffering (not a lot to everyone) and calling it freedom for many to be allowed to suffer at the hands of others without the instrument of state to implement collective relief.
Libertarianism is nothing but a sham political and economic movement that is wholly and fundamentally dishonest about its benefits and costs, by design, deeply self-inconsistent in its models and policies, and is intended to trick people in to accepting serfdom in a return to feudalism by calling it "freedom".
Libertarians, as a rule, just seem to have not thought very hard about their position or be selling you something (usually that you should be a serf because they fancy that they won't be a serf too in the new system).
What exactly do you believe libertarians would disagree with in your post? I'm not a libertarian, but that the government privatizes gains and socializes losses, that they grant subsidies and monopolies to businesses, taking the risk out of them, seems perfectly aligned with what I read from libertarian sources.
Libertarians don't disagree that the government funds businesses, they disagree that it should do so.
You seem to have no idea what the libertarian position is. So I'll try to help:
Just because something is super good and super useful -- and uncontroversially worthwhile -- like groceries, cars, delivery of packages, the production of beds, health care, retirement savings, and so on ... absolutely does not imply that the Government should be paying for it with tax money.
Libertarians believe that Government is kind of like a really big bureaucratic company, except even less efficient and poorly managed in most respects, and instead of pitching investors (say) it sometimes just takes their money against their will. If something is important and we want it run well and efficiently, all the more reason to keep Government away from it.
The reason to involve Government in something is when Government's unique talents and position are helpful. Most good things can be provided without Government and therefore should be provided without Government.
Government has a more legitimate role to play when we need:
1) massive scale. our Government is big which is, in a few cases, an advantage
2) when we're dealing with law (courts) or force (police, military, CIA) because it's very tricky to let non-Government people do a lot in these areas
Libertarians aren't anarchists. They don't generally believe that there should be no government (although you can find people who believe just about anything). I don't think there's anything hypocritical about libertarians taking government contracts for defense. If they were taking government contracts or jobs around regulating markets or building public housing, then that would be closer to hypocritical, but I'm not sure that even qualifies. Hypocrisy isn't benefiting from something you disapprove of, it's engaging in it, so arguably, they'd have to be the ones issuing the laws they disapprove of for it to be hypocrisy.
A person with the level of general knowledge that the author exhibits is obviously going to be well aware of libertarianism's stance on taxation.
Most forms of taxation constitute "expropriation of private property by the state", which libertarianism strongly opposes.
And in that passage I quoted from his article, it is funds derived from taxation - since that is the source of all government funding - that the author is alleging libertarianism/free-market-capitalism not only accepts the wasting of, as long as the waste is under the umberage of the government provisioning security services, but also, in its governance philosophy, expressly forbids having any rules to reign in the wasting of. Even spelling out his logic leaves me dumbfounded by its shameless dishonesty and absurdity.
I can't believe I even have to explain this: his claim is completely baseless, with nothing in any mainstream definition of libertarianism to justify it, and moreover, it contradicts one of the core concerns of libertarians/libertarianism, which is the avoidance of inefficiency and waste when expending tax dollars.
The article is an ideological hit piece, and it's crafted in utterly bad faith. But hey, as long as it's supporting the right political tribe, that's evidently okay for some people. The ends justify the means, i.e. bad faith sophistry is justified by the righteousness of the larger cause.
"of course. the day a company, when faced with larger profits, decides "hey, let's give it all to our workers through an increase in pay" is when i'll believe the libertarians ;)"
This has nothing to do with Libertarianism, nor any of it's main tenets. It's called charity, and you'd do well to disassociate it with petty political ideology.
First, when it comes to stories like this, libertarianism is basically irrelevant in the real world. To a first approximation, even in Silicon Valley, there aren't any. The Valley is far better known for its progressivism than its libertarianism now.
Second, I am unaware of any tenant of libertarianism that says it is somehow bad for people to band together into charity organizations, potentially the very same ones mentioned in the article, and for other people to give money to those organizations. Nothing about libertarianism requires altruistically-minded individuals to literally go out into the streets and start handing out dollar bills to individuals or something. Libertarianism is about not being coerced to join organizations, not about organizations existing.
I like to think of myself as a "pragmatic libertarian". My problem with true Libertarianism can be summarized by the idea of fully private roads. There would be no public land - it's all privatized and therefore every road is a toll road. That's a hellscape I can't imagine ever working smoothly. Some collective society problems are best solved via government - as messy as that is. I think America's response to this current pandemic is not exactly a ringing endorsement of libertarianism. Now if you want to quibble and say, "well lots of folks aren't practicing the true responsibility that libertarianism requires" - I agree! And until our society can show that they can exhibit true personal responsibility than I don't want to see what true libertarianism would bring. I once read someone summarizing modern day libertarianism as "anarchy for the rich" - and that's how I've come to see it.
So I say that because while I somewhat understand and respect Thiel's idea's. His vision of America is not one I care to live in at this time. And I wonder if in 100 years will we look back and say, "Thiel was a net positive influence on the human condition and society?" At this rate I'd say no.
Libertarians are not on board with the idea- libertarians are absolutely be against mandated handouts without critical purpose. A disingenuous claim at best.
My personal interactions with a few self-labeled Libertarians tells me that they are fine paying for those services for themselves, but don't want to subsidize them for anyone else. Well, their vision of "Libertarianism" sure sounds good if they're rich. Nevermind the collective society that allowed them to profit in the first place.
I suspect the label "Libertarian" is too widely used for many ideologies.
That's cronyism, and has no relation to Libertarianism whatsoever. Libertarians will never support government bailouts, as the only way they are possible is by taking money from someone more productive to give to someone less productive, backed by the threat of force. Nothing Libertarian about that.
> If you're more likely to be preyed upon because you don't have the knowledge or connections to make more informed investment decisions and are more willing to increase the tax burden on your fellow person as a result of investment decisions gone sour, that's where the government steps in to protect the general population. As a reminder, this is one of the few responsibilities the government actually has in any society, even the most libertarian.
I don't know where you get your ideas of what libertarians are or aren't but, the general basis of libertarianism is that government gives your recourse for physical harm, defrauding via lies of commission (on principle and independent of the individual's ability to protect themselves), and typically property rights (though libertarians often disagree why). Generally the truth is considered to be an absolute defense against an accusation of fraud, and the justification of fraud is not a function of government having to 'bail people out', and in general, libertarianism does not consider it the role of government to "protect the general population". Typically, libertarians believe this under the premise that so often governments have done (and continue to do) shady things under the "guise of protecting the general population".
That's not actually libertarianism; it's crypto-fascism. There is no distinction between a totalitarian government and a perfectly "libertarian" company which owns all land and property, so true libertarians must be concerned with how power is actually distributed.
Tech giants have scale and effects on par with government, especially as these "independent" companies tend to make decisions in lock step. Thus libertarians should be primarily concerned with the rights of the distributed actors within these ecosystems.
These arguments have a fundamental flaw, arguing that a libertarian enjoying some government benefit is "hypocrisy." This is nonsense.
Libertarian tech bros pay into our system just like everyone else. Given the progressive income tax, those who are billionaires likely pay more in years where they make money than just about anyone else. So if the government is in the position to offer money, what good does it do for them to refuse? If they refuse, will the government be embarrassed and adopt libertarians' preferred policies? It's no more hypocritical than a socialist defending her private property.
Personally, I think if libertarians are serious, they should seek out every government benefit they're qualified for, and encourage everyone else to do the same. If libertarians are right, then the shaky foundations of the Progressive system can be toppled over by overuse.
I think the real thing being unmasked is that libertarianism is often ideology without grounding in reality. They can't account for the world of second bests, and the Progressive system has twisted and destroyed so much of what was once free that getting to a libertarian world would be like a society-wide kernel panic.
Thiel deserves credit for being one of the (quasi-)libertarians who seems to recognize this and has attempted alternatives like that seasteading thing, though they typically haven't gotten off the ground.
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