/liberty/ - Liberty

If a man doesn't like it, he's welcome to create his own business. The Libertarian would agree that he should have the option not to do so, and by modern standards that option exists.

Really, 90% of the issues lefties like to bring up tie back to modern statist society rather than Libertarian theory.

Now here's a return question- If hard work/innovation is punished/stolen from people, why should anyone produce more than the bare minimum to survive (and/or why would anyone not rely on the black market effectively circumventing the state)?

>>12883

You can't create your own business without the requisite capital though

As for your question about why should anyone produce more than the bare minimum to survive: People would still work if we had a more egalitarian society. It's just that the nature of that work might not be conductive to a high GDP per capita. I mean fucking McDonald's leads to GDP growth. Do people really need other people to make their hamburgers for them? Make your own fucking hamburgers. Just because something contributes to the GDP doesn't mean that it's virtuous.

The GDP per capita won't be as high in a more egalitarian society. Consumption will be less. But there's more to life than that. Why is it that people have to devote half their waking life+ to a job where they are absolutely fucking miserable? Why do we have to live like this? Is this "living"? This is the problem when society stamps out the humanities, art, liberal arts, creativity and focuses totally on ruthless efficiency. There's no fucking soul on this earth. The Autistic School of Economics and Ayn Rand wishes to bleed the life out of humanity in the pursuit of ruthless efficiency.

>>12897

>Can't get capital

Not with that attitude anyways.

Capital is not nearly as hard to acquire as people make it out to be.

>GDP

I never mentioned GDP.

People can make their own hamburgers. They eat McDicks because it's fast, cheap, and the service is nice. I could make a burger for myself at home, but I'd have to make a lot of burgers and eat them all before they turn bad to get the same pricing per burger that I'd get from eating McDicks. This has nothing to do with what I asked.

I never said people wouldn't work. I said they wouldn't work for more than subsistence if they knew that they'd have it redistributed (stolen) from them. Or they'd turn to black markets. Wealth is not just measured in cash/materialism, only statistical wealth is.

Who's focusing on efficiency? The Libertarians I speak with want all those things through individual rights and property rights.

>>12904

Perhaps I should have addressed the dact that the quality of life of your average "wage slave" is increasing dramatically every decade or so despite inflation.

>>12897

>Why is it that people have to devote half their waking life+ to a job where they are absolutely fucking miserable? Why do we have to live like this? Is this "living"?

They don't have to. It's completely optional.

And out of curiosity, how exactly would dem soc make it so that everyone who works at McBurgerJoint is suddenly happy? Cause it seems to me they'd still be working a shitty job, just with a higher mandatory pay (along with higher taxes and the fact that they were lucky not to get fired like their coworkers because McBurgerJoint decided to cut the now much higher cost of employment by firing many of it's staff).

Also, the quality of life of the average "wage slave" is much better now than many years ago.

>>12929

Anyone who actually wants to work at McDonald's (I don't know that feel bro) would be free to work at McDonald's as part of a worker cooperative or a state-owned non-for-profit McDonald's in a democratic socialist world.

My guess is that supply wouldn't be able to meet demand. Because who the hell actually wants to prepare fast food for a bunch of asshole Type A customers anyway? Customers would have to make their own burgers and fries to satisfy their demand.

Hell like I eat fast food like once a week (no more than that). Pizza is my guilty pleasure. But I don't give the guys at the pizzeria a hard time. They're just working-class guys who want to get by and I appreciate the fact that they are making that pizza for me so I don't have to make it myself. I'm tired of customers treating the staff like shit. Customers feel super entitled in our world. I would know. I've worked in the office for years. I've worked retail. Customers are scum of the earth. I always make it a point to be polite, respectful and appreciative to customer service staff whenever they serve me.

>>12953

Like shit I looked at the customer reviews of the nearby pizza place I go to and every other review is a customer bitching about something. "They don't put enough toppings on the pizza!" "Tastes like cardboard!" Like holy fuck man. Many of these reviews are from millennials too. They should fucking know better. Considering how many millennials work shit jobs.

What the fuck has our society become?

Why am I even bother asking you guys that though? You guys wish to uphold the status quo and even further along neo-liberal capitalism. You see nothing wrong with anomie, alienation, the disconnect between people in society. Because you guys don't care for the health of society. You're individualists. You guys don't value philosophy. You guys value the almighty dollar above all else.

>>12953

>Because who the hell actually wants to prepare fast food for a bunch of asshole Type A customers anyway?

Someone who wants to improve their lot in life and knows that serving fast food to people is an easy way to make money. People who want quick and cheap food will buy from them. A single hot dog stand owner who sells hot dogs at a street corner in a city (after expenses, before taxes) stands to make about $40,000-$80,000 per year depending on how much effort they put into it (it averages out to about $20/hour before taxes).

The people who want to work at McDicks are the people who like to buy nice things. They would still want to buy nice things even with a UBI and McDicks would continue to exist.

>I'm tired of customers treating the staff like shit. Customers feel super entitled in our world.

Blame anti-discrimination laws that make managers afraid to tell customers to fuck off like they used to when customers pulled this shit. Customers are what allow businesses to stay in business, so of course they're going to try and satisfy their needs (to an extent).

The pizza joint values $12 more than a pizza. The customer values a pizza more than $12 cash. Both have profited by making the trade, This is why customers say "thank you" and employees say "thank you for your patronage/business/etc."

>Customers are scum of the earth.

How do you plan to fund a Universal Basic Income when your model is designed around destroying the businesses who would pay for it?

>>12958

Sure there are people that would still work at McDonald's. There would just be less applicants.

If we had a basic income, I don't think anti-discrimination laws and quotas are necessary. Though I am sure #blacklivesmatter and a lot of Tumblr SJWs would fight me on that. Like hell, I get discriminated against all the time in the workplace for my cognitive disability (autism). I don't want to work for an employer who doesn't like me anyway. And democratic socialism in the most pure sense (worker cooperatives) wouldn't solve that issue either. Because the workers could have prejudices too and vote against hiring you. Prejudice and discrimination exists in life. You can't just legislate it away. But shh… don't reveal my power level to the mainstream leftists. A discussion with a modern liberal/socdem is like walking on egg shells. Everything triggers them.

My model is not designed around destroying businesses. Demand drives the economy. Keynesianism fell out of favour in the 1970s (stagflation) because oil became scarce and the price of oil sky-rocketed. But oil is a natural resource. That's the real economy. No amount of money printing, no gold standard, is gonna save you from peak oil. We have to find a viable alternative to fossil fuels. I would consider myself a Modern Monetary Theory proponent (Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton, to some extent Paul Krugman, etc.), which is like Neo-Keynesianism. But supply of actual resources (not fiat currency) does matter too. I am for stimulating demand. But sustainable economic growth. Not short-term unsustainable growth. "Let's create muh jobs, fuck the environment" is not something you'll ever hear from me. Now maybe the national debt is probably a good "indicator" of unsustainable consumption so to speak. But it's not like we actually are physically leaving that debt to our children. It's when we rape our environment where we are leaving an actual debt to our children. But of course Republicans don't like to talk about that. Muh Keystone XL.

>>12965

The worst part with oil is that we actually are fucked if we run out.

Plastics/Polymers (consumer and industrial) are made from oil.

>>13005

Check your neurotypical white cis male privilege

Also I think libertarians are missing the point. My siblings, who did not inherit autism, went on to have six-figure earning careers. But my sister is a manager who works off the clock a lot. And she spends a lot of time bitching about work on the phone. And she's complaining about how she can't find a man at her age (that's the price you pay when you focus too much on career and not enough on your life). And my brother works up to 60 hours/week and he is basically a certified cuckold. Most of what he earns goes towards feeding his wife's and daughter's materialism.

Being a wage slave is a loser's game no matter how much you make. The bourgeoisie holds us down by hoarding capital. They want to ensure that the working-class are not able to obtain the capital necessary to run their own businesses.

The private property (If you're not familiar with Marx, private property refers specifically to ownership of the means of production) held by the bourgeoisie is not legitimate. It's inherited privilege. And the game is stacked so that the capital is concentrated in the hands of the few and the working-class aren't given a chance to join the entrepreneurial class.

There's also the fact that capitalism by its very nature rewards bullshit like 50 Shades of Grey and Eat, Pray and Love rather than real works of art. Groundbreaking art, literature, video games, whatever tends to be more risky financially. So companies tend to always go for the lowest common denominator because it's a safe bet. Capitalism ruins art.

I'm going to explain the anomie/alienation of wage slavery. So you understand why I have the anti-wage slave pro-meaningful work pro-leisure mentality that I do. It's basically a rejection of the values of my parents' generation (baby boomers) and my siblings' generation (Generation X), which stopped being pissed off sometime after Fight Club (1996). Which was Gen X's anthem.

I'm practically a representation of a rebellion against my parents and my older siblings. My parents were unionized workers. And they believed in the cult of labourism. But what did that cult of labourism get them? They worked hard for so long for the man and what do they have to show for it? When I look at my father, do I want his life? No. I don't understand how giving so much of yourself for decades in the prime of your life is worth having a comfortable retirement when you are past your prime?

It's like my dad was a cuckold pawn. And now my older brother is an even bigger cuckold. He made more than my dad. But he worked longer hours than my dad ever did. My sister also makes more than my dad but also worked longer and she's clearly not happy with her job. She's a cuck. This isn't living. The system is fucked up. And if you speak out against the system, people say that you're lazy, an entitled millennial, etc.

A year and a half ago is when I first became really class conscious. I saw that the word "cuck" around was thrown a lot in /r9k/ and certain MGTOW/MRA/PUA circles. And I thought to myself, "as a wage slave devoting half+ of my waking life to a job that I hate, I feel like a cuckold. And my workaholic parents and keener older siblings are also cuckolds. I'm not happy with my life. Why should I be like my parents and siblings just because they want me to be that way? If that's not what I want to be, then why should I continue going down this path?"

And the funny thing is when I became a NEET, I fucked some other man's wife within a month. And I started getting laid a lot more. Even though I was 29, unemployed and living with my dad. I became the good looking unemployed loser that I once envied. I became Chad (to some extent). Something changed in me and made me more attractive to women when I stopped having a wage slave mentality. Women are attracted to losers. They don't want to marry the loser. But they want to fuck the loser.

My girlfriend herself says that she's with me primarily because I'm cute, have a big cock and have a lot of sexual stamina. That's what I noticed too. After I became NEET, my libido was a lot stronger. It's no wonder /pol/ and Elliot Rodger hated "niggers". They envy the BBC because they see a society where hard work isn't rewarded. It's all about being good looking, having a big dick and being cool and BASED.

I'm autistic so social skills are not my strong suit. But after I embraced low-inhibition autism and being BASED, that is what completed the puzzle for me. Wage slavery by it's nature is emasculating. The Protestant Work Ethic needs to be rejected. The freeter lifestyle should be embraced more. Work weeks should be shorter. Or people should devote their energies to work that is meaningful to them. The problem is that society doesn't reward meaningful work. So this is why you have a generation of young men who go freeter, who go NEET and say fuck it.

Also his books are borderline unreadable and overrated.

>>13027

Do you think it'd be worth telling demsoc faggot why "the 1%" is a pretty terrible metric to go by?

>>13033

He's actually one of the more reasonable ones, quit calling him a faggot even though he is.

>>13027

I wish I had the list on hand, but Steve Horowitz made an excellent material items list by percentage of what people owned in the 80s versus now.

Between televisions, microwaves, cell phones, etc. there have been massive improvements in technology that were created by the property incentive of capitalism.>>13033

>>13017

I had depression at several points, may or may not have it now. I'm also obsessive-compulsive and probably paranoid. At least one member of my family has been diagnosed with asperger-autism, so I may lean towards that direction on the autism-sprectrum, too. In other words, fuck you.

>>13024

If you want to be a NEET, go ahead. Your reward, apparently, is that you get to fuck a lot of women and have tons of free time. In our present society, you have two choices:

>1. Be a NEET

Pros: Lots of sex, free time, you get to do things you like

Cons: People call you a lazy cunt, you have trouble funding your lifestyle

>2. Be hardworking

Pros: Money (and that's about it, according to you)

Cons: No free time, no sex, no happiness, everything is terrible

The option you chose, if we go with your premises, is superior. Yet it's not superior enough for you, apparently. You also want money and recognition from your hardworking peers, and you want to acquire the former through violent means. Basically, you want to have your cake and eat it, too. How exactly does that not make you entitled?

Why is OP such an idiot?

You get paid for your work, period. If you are not paid enough, then leave the job, or ask for a raise.

Blaming capitalism or the free market for this is like putting the cart before the horse.

All OP wants is free shit.

>i don't have capital!

Then get a job.

If you don't like the job, and quit, and can't get any other job, then its your fault.

>>13036

Yeah we have smartphones now, which is nice. We didn't even have cell phones in the 80s (well the rich had the ridiculously huge cell phones). But while smartphones are useful, they don't make people happy.

Ultimately I ended up buying a $150 smartphone (off-contract) instead of a high-end Android. Because I just needed something with Android that offered good value for money. I didn't feel like I needed the latest and greatest device. Because when you adopt that kind of mentality, the things you own, own you. You become a slave to the system working jobs that you hate to buy shit you don't need. It's bad enough that you have to work jobs that you hate to buy the shit that you do need.

Chuck the author from Fight Club talked about all this shit back in 1996. How quickly Generation X forgot about the Grunge ethic when the economy recovered again in the mid-late 90s. The millennials however have never recovered from the 2008 hit. And we never will.

>>13064

You are classcucked dude. If you're working-class you will never be able to acquire the capital necessary to run your own business.

>>13064

Hell I already used the example of my brother and sister who both earn six figures per year. Far more than I have earned. And I consider them working-class as well. If you're working for the man, especially if it's a job that you hate (most jobs suck dick), you're working-class. If you're a small business owner, you're middle-class. You're petit-bourgeoisie.

And my six figure siblings don't have the capital to run a business either. They're going to remain working-class until the day they retire at 65+. They're not gonna be "free" until they are old and broken down.

>>13065

>If you're working-class you will never be able to acquire the capital necessary to run your own business.

I disagree heavily. Even with all the price controls in government (that I'm sure Lefties and Libertarians can agree are bad), it's still possible to start a business (especially a food-related business, but really any business) if you have an idea/product. Hell, you can probably turn a profit after the first year too. There's entire shows based on people who have done just that (such as Shark Tank).

>We didn't even have cell phones in the 80s

Most people didn't have microwaves either. Actually, only about 1/2 to 2/3rds of Americans actually had televisions. Hell, even the internet was fucked in comparison to today: https://archive.is/imNEo

>I didn't feel like I needed the latest and greatest device.

If it's any consolation, my phone is about three generations behind.

>You become a slave to the system working jobs that you hate to buy shit you don't need.

Sounds more like a cultural issue than an economic one. Get the kids away from the smartphones/TVs and outside.

>>13064

You are never paid enough, otherwise your boss couldn't make a profit.

>>13027

leftists finally got their welfare state and dismantlement of the bretton woods system in the 1970s, and are somehow surprised that their wages stagnate

>>13087

Wages stagnated in the 80s+ because of neo-liberal global Capitalism. I even watched the 1989 Michael Moore documentary Roger & Me. About the GM plant closures in Flint, Michigan. In University we learned about American textile and paper mill factories closing around that time too. Good paying union jobs with benefits were being replaced with low-paid service sector jobs.

Thing is socdems like Bernie Sanders still look to the 50s-70s as the glory days. My generation rejects the labourism of our parents. My dad used to have 10 hour work days paid at 1x before Pierre Trudeau signed into law overtime above 44 hours. Then my dad's hours for cut to 8 hours/day. And the 40 hour work week was born. So its natural for my dad to think our generation is spoiled for thinking work weeks are too long. But compare productivity gains now to the 70s. And look how shit our wages are. We are having our surplus value stolen from us. We have a right to be upset. My employer when I last worked expexted me to put in more hours than my union dad and not report overtime. Like a cuckold. We are regressing. We are losing what the unions fought for. When we should be moving forward.

Like I read an article from an economist the other day who said that realistically we could move to a 20-21 hour work week with all the unemployment we have and with climate change and peak oil on the horizon. There's no reason why the status quo has to remain the way it is.

Also companies are resisting telecommuting. I would spend an hour a day commuting in my car because public transit sucks. More if traffic is bad. Sitting in rush hour traffic is cuckoldry and its bad for the environment. And it depletes our fossil fuels. Telecommuting should have a greater push. But no doubt the private sector will use telecommuting as an excuse to extract more surplus value from the cuckolds. Make them work longer hours.

There is no solution but to take back the means of production. But a social democracy with a basic income will be a good transition phase. That way we can be more selective of the work we do and it wouldn't feel like slavery to the degree that it does now. Suck porky's cock and suck your customer's cock too while you're at it or starve is not freedom.

>>13095

>gubmint dindu nuffin

>implying the stock market crashing is the fault of capitalism and not government meddling

>implying people should get something in return for nothing

>implying it isnt theft

>muh commute is so bad , so long

>everyone should share cars - and the gubmint regulates that, too.

>human beans are unreliable

>so let other human beans control them

>this will somehow solve everything

>muh biased research is everything

>muh environment is gonna degrade rapidly in few years

>humans are just cattle

how much do you get paid to shill?

>>13073

By this logic, the truck driver who delivers materials on contract is being exploited because he didn't get a share of your profjts- same as the people who built the factor.

>>13065

>Yeah we have smartphones now, which is nice. We didn't even have cell phones in the 80s (well the rich had the ridiculously huge cell phones). But while smartphones are useful, they don't make people happy.

My last relationship (long distance) went entirely over the smartphone, and it may just have been the happiest time in my life. Technology opens opportunities, and taking the right opportunities is what makes you happy.

>>13098

>Like I read an article from an economist the other day who said that realistically we could move to a 20-21 hour work week with all the unemployment we have and with climate change and peak oil on the horizon. There's no reason why the status quo has to remain the way it is.

Sauce? I'd like to see for myself.

>>13094

> But compare productivity gains now to the 70s. And look how shit our wages are.

>We are having our surplus value stolen from us.

Totally agree. Go tell the government to stop taxing.

Or doing anything at all.

>>13115

I think you're confused about greentexting m9

>>13121

Yeah, I accidentally the wrong post. Was meant for this one:

>>13095

>>13094

>Wages stagnated in the 80s+ because of neo-liberal global Capitalism

No, its started in the 70s. Look more closely at the chart.

>>13109

Technology does in fact open meaningful opportunities. I met my girlfriend on the internet. My point is that consumer culture is a fucking cancer. We look too much at GDP and "productivity" and not enough at reproductive work, pro-social work, creativity, externalities, sustainable development, etc. Monetary value is taken to be the highest virtue. Libertarian/ancap cult leader Ayn Rand once said money is the barometer of a society's virtue. That is sick. That is the mentality that is making our society sick.

One of Canada's greatest icons Tommy Douglas was a pastor before he became a social democrat premier (I believe he was a legit democratic socialist but socialist was a dirty word in the 30s and he was pro-reform and so advocated social democracy). He dedicated his life to virtue. Not avarice. These are the real heroes of society. Not Steve Jobs. Not the bitch who wrote 50 Shades of Grey. And certainly not Ayn Rand.

>>13117

Nice try. Top marginal income tax rates in the US used to be 70-90% during the golden years of wage growth. Yet wages (almost) kept pace with productivity. It was in the neo-liberal capitalist 70s/80s where you started to see wages stagnate. The surplus value stolen by the private sector is therefore making a noticeably larger impact than the surplus value "stolen" by the public sector.

>>13177

>Libertarian/ancap cult leader Ayn Rand once said money is the barometer of a society's virtue.

You're an idiot. Ayn Rand is a peripheral figure for most libertarians and ancaps. She officially declared ancapism wrong, and she never endorsed praxeology.

What we do like about Rand is her general rhetoric. While we're generally not as extreme as Rand was, we appreciate her unwavering support of individualism and egoism. I'm not sure how many of us would agree with the statement you mentioned, but I wouldn't, because I'm not that materialistic. Other people can be, for all I care, but that doesn't mean I'll tell them how virtuous I find it that they made a lot of money. Money is already their reward for doing good work. Rewarding them for having money is just redundant.

>He dedicated his life to virtue. Not avarice. These are the real heroes of society.

I don't know the guy. What I can say is that I approve of people who really want to help others. I find it virtuous to put your love for humanity or justice into action. If they asked me to give them all of my money, I'd still decline, and if someone else asked me to give them all of my money, I still would. Altruism, as a doctrine, is terrible. It promotes entitlement and mutual self-sacrifice. There are other, much better motivations for helping others than being altrustic.