Do you prefer libertarian policy ideas, but you aren’t too sold on the deontological or rights-based reasoning which many libertarians use to justify their policy preferences?
Perhaps this new political identifier could work for you: introducing…. Consequentarian! You’re pretty much a consequentialist through and through, you value good outcomes more than liberty or rights based claims to things however it just empirically turns out that all the best policy ideas which lead to the best outcomes are libertarian. You recognize open borders, drug legalization, limited (or no) government, very low regulation, and competitive enterprise produce more human flourishing than all the alternatives. But you don’t find strict rights arguments compelling (like if a car is driving at you, you can jump on your neighbors lawn even if it violates his property rights).
empirically turns out that all the best policy ideas which lead to the best outcomes are libertarian
What makes you think this is the case? I agree with your principle that you can make a welfare maximizing case for libertarianism, but surely a Conservative or Socialdemocrat could also argue for their preferred policy from a welfare maximizing perspective.
Calling the set of policies you happen to think are welfare maximizing Consequentarian, strikes me as very uncharitable to those with different views from your own.
There’s a growing literature pointing to the myriad of government failures but the highlights are: government failures are in almost every scenario significantly worse than market failures, so let the market decide. Increasing liberty produces great outcomes (drug use goes down with liberal drug policy same with overdoses, increasing immigration increases everyone’s income, housing prices and homelessness go down when we reduce nimby policies and have a free market in housing, FDA and other bureaucratic agencies overspend (Mercatus Center estimates it costs 93 million to save a life through regulation and with the case of the FDA they actually actively kill 20,000+ people a year), education and healthcare costs would drop significantly if we had a free market in them (the strongest argument that shows why prices rise in these sectors is because of artificial inflation caused by government intervention), wars cost enormous sums of money to produce and their consequences are almost always worse than non-intervention (since 9/11 200K Iraqi civilians have died, while terrorism has increased 2,000%), there’s some historical evidence that free banking systems are less prone to the disastrous effects of the business cycle, there’s lots of more evidence.
These empirical facts are related to the idea that market based interventions outperform government interventions because the market does not have to act through a centralized hierarchy to make decisions. It’s difficult to make centralized decisions that are attentive to the concerns at the margins of the economy.
True yea. I have seen the neoliberalism movement. They are more market friendly than the median voter and they are motivated by consequentialist reasoning, but I think they advocate government intervention over what is required in some areas. But overall that’s a great movement.
Do you prefer libertarian policy ideas, but you aren’t too sold on the deontological or rights-based reasoning which many libertarians use to justify their policy preferences?
Perhaps this new political identifier could work for you: introducing…. Consequentarian! You’re pretty much a consequentialist through and through, you value good outcomes more than liberty or rights based claims to things however it just empirically turns out that all the best policy ideas which lead to the best outcomes are libertarian. You recognize open borders, drug legalization, limited (or no) government, very low regulation, and competitive enterprise produce more human flourishing than all the alternatives. But you don’t find strict rights arguments compelling (like if a car is driving at you, you can jump on your neighbors lawn even if it violates his property rights).
Pronounced: Consequen-tarian
Associated schools of thought:
Chicago school economics
University of Arizona Tucson School of liberalism
neoclassical liberalism
Michael Huemer and Bryan Caplan’s anarchism
What makes you think this is the case? I agree with your principle that you can make a welfare maximizing case for libertarianism, but surely a Conservative or Socialdemocrat could also argue for their preferred policy from a welfare maximizing perspective.
Calling the set of policies you happen to think are welfare maximizing Consequentarian, strikes me as very uncharitable to those with different views from your own.
There’s a growing literature pointing to the myriad of government failures but the highlights are: government failures are in almost every scenario significantly worse than market failures, so let the market decide. Increasing liberty produces great outcomes (drug use goes down with liberal drug policy same with overdoses, increasing immigration increases everyone’s income, housing prices and homelessness go down when we reduce nimby policies and have a free market in housing, FDA and other bureaucratic agencies overspend (Mercatus Center estimates it costs 93 million to save a life through regulation and with the case of the FDA they actually actively kill 20,000+ people a year), education and healthcare costs would drop significantly if we had a free market in them (the strongest argument that shows why prices rise in these sectors is because of artificial inflation caused by government intervention), wars cost enormous sums of money to produce and their consequences are almost always worse than non-intervention (since 9/11 200K Iraqi civilians have died, while terrorism has increased 2,000%), there’s some historical evidence that free banking systems are less prone to the disastrous effects of the business cycle, there’s lots of more evidence.
These empirical facts are related to the idea that market based interventions outperform government interventions because the market does not have to act through a centralized hierarchy to make decisions. It’s difficult to make centralized decisions that are attentive to the concerns at the margins of the economy.
You might be interested in the Neoliberal Project: What Neoliberals Believe 🥑
Co-director Jeremiah Johnson did an AMA here the other day.
True yea. I have seen the neoliberalism movement. They are more market friendly than the median voter and they are motivated by consequentialist reasoning, but I think they advocate government intervention over what is required in some areas. But overall that’s a great movement.