Libertarianism (was EEL is returning)

[EEL Mk2]

Share prices don't tell you what a business is worth in fundamental terms, but just how much other people would be ready to pay for a share.

That is precisely the problem. Share prices do not reflect the actual value of the underlying product, and as a consequence there is a tendency for wild mismatches which are by their very nature destabilising, at least in the long run.

Just as normal prices do.

It seems like you've just established a false dichotomy here. Of course normal prices reflect how much people are prepared to pay, but that is not mutually exclusive with a reflection of the fundamental value (i.e. how much net utility the consumption of that product will bring). In financial markets, the speculative motive predominates. (Look at commodity traders - they don't give a crap how much net utility consuming coffee will bring them because they're not looking to consume coffee; they just want to sell it on for a higher price.) And this does create instability.

But unless your point is that a system, in order to be good, or rational, must be so perfect that human error or irrationality can't occur, this is not really an indication whether the financial markets are a good system.

The problem with financial market is that they tend to exacerbate human error. Once enough 'stupid people', as you call them, make the same error in buying a bad product, it creates a feedback loop which drives the prices higher. Which makes the product more attractive, and more importantly, it now becomes rational to purchase that product if you expect the price to rise further. The same goes when the price is plunging and everyone is panicking.

This would not happen in a normal product market. If people get irrationally exuberant about apples, they will not buy more apples in the hope that the price will rise so they can sell it on. They want to eat it. They will only purchase as much as they want to eat. And if a few people make misjudgments, the price mechanism will iron them out. In that sense, the financial system is especially susceptible to the effects of human failure. It aggregates failure, instead of mitigating it.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that the financial system is flawed not because it is imperfect - every system is imperfect - but because it is relatively more imperfect than normal markets, which are, in most circumstances (externalities etc. notwithstanding, and they can be dealt with quite easily) close enough to rational.

I don't think that there's a difficulty because there is no way to stop shit happening - as long as the people who suffer from this had the option to inform themselves and of knowing that there was a risk to their investing, I don't think it could be said that the system is working the wrong way.

Of course some people will lose out in financial markets. That's absolutely normal. The reason that we should be especially concerned about the behaviour of financial markets is that they have systemic significance. If some random person loses his business, that's sad but at the end of the day few people outside his employees and family will feel the effects. If on the other hand a major bank - Lehman Brothers, for say - goes bust, then we have serious issues. It is absolutely necessary for creative destruction to take place to have a proper economy, but I think that financial markets, as always, are unique.

[EEL Mk2]

Oh, and before I forget, there's a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average at this link. As you can see we are well above the position we were at as of just before the GFC.

[Amazeroth]

Share prices don't tell you what a business is worth in fundamental terms, but just how much other people would be ready to pay for a share.

That is precisely the problem. Share prices do not reflect the actual value of the underlying product, and as a consequence there is a tendency for wild mismatches which are by their very nature destabilising, at least in the long run.

I'm pretty sure that there's no study evidencing that the existence of financial markets has destabilised the market itself in the long run. I'd argue that it would actually be the other way round - exacerbant mismaches between share prices and "actual worth" only occur in the short run - in the long run, bubbles burst and successful business models prevail (and are recognised as prevailing by the financial markets).

Just as normal prices do.

It seems like you've just established a false dichotomy here. Of course normal prices reflect how much people are prepared to pay, but that is not mutually exclusive with a reflection of the fundamental value (i.e. how much net utility the consumption of that product will bring). In financial markets, the speculative motive predominates. (Look at commodity traders - they don't give a crap how much net utility consuming coffee will bring them because they're not looking to consume coffee; they just want to sell it on for a higher price.) And this does create instability.

There is no fundamental value - I'm not talking about a dichotomy, because if there was something as a fundamental value, it certainly could reflect both. However, there is no means to establish a fundamental value, as well as there's no objective way to establish net utility.
But regardless of that rather philosophical take - nobody, when setting prices, cares about the net utility of the product's consumption. Certainly not the commodity trader - true - but also not the super market manager or plantation owner. They care about finding the balance between what consumers will want to buy for their product, and what they want to get for it.

Also, there is no short-term need for the price of the share to reflect the "true value", and in the long term, as said above, it usually comes close to that.

But unless your point is that a system, in order to be good, or rational, must be so perfect that human error or irrationality can't occur, this is not really an indication whether the financial markets are a good system.

The problem with financial market is that they tend to exacerbate human error. Once enough 'stupid people', as you call them, make the same error in buying a bad product, it creates a feedback loop which drives the prices higher. Which makes the product more attractive, and more importantly, it now becomes rational to purchase that product if you expect the price to rise further. The same goes when the price is plunging and everyone is panicking.

This would not happen in a normal product market. If people get irrationally exuberant about apples, they will not buy more apples in the hope that the price will rise so they can sell it on. They want to eat it. They will only purchase as much as they want to eat. And if a few people make misjudgments, the price mechanism will iron them out. In that sense, the financial system is especially susceptible to the effects of human failure. It aggregates failure, instead of mitigating it.

Of course this happens in normal product markets. Long before our financial markets, there would be people to buy apples and store them, knowing that when the time is far enough from harvest season, people will want apples enough to pay a higher price. The same goes, of course, for all seasonal produce. Of course this is more basic then the financial markets are now, but it's the same process - buying a resource when it's cheap, and not for your consumption but for selling it when there's more demand.
That's actually what commodity traders still do (and why there's so little to win in commodity trading - because it's so predictable), regardless of their motive - they see to it that products are available when they're in demand, regardless of time and place. It's a great example of the invisible hand, actually - people only working for their profit, but by doing so inadvertently doing a much needed work.

So much for human rationality and farsight. As for the opposite, human failure, you have that in normal markets as well, and just as bad. And you could use the same basic example - a run on apples (failed pear harvest) and no apples, because almost everyone had their plantations converted to pears, and the few who kept apples had a rich harvest, but not near enough apples to satisfy the demand (and hunger) of the consumers. This, of course, also raises apple prices.

It also shows, very beautifully, that the financial markets can help alleviate the failures of the normal market, as well as aggregating failure. You can either have them both working - lots of apples all year long, you can have the financial market fail, but the normal work - no apples haf a year before harvest, you can have them both fail - no apples at all, or you can have the normal markets fail, and the financial ones working - and then the financial markets pick up the slack of the normal ones - apple producers didn't forsee the great drought, but the financial markets have them in reserve.

So while it's certainly true that financial markets are able to aggregate failure, it's also able to alleviate - and there's no reason to think it does the first more than the latter.

I don't think that there's a difficulty because there is no way to stop shit happening - as long as the people who suffer from this had the option to inform themselves and of knowing that there was a risk to their investing, I don't think it could be said that the system is working the wrong way.

Of course some people will lose out in financial markets. That's absolutely normal. The reason that we should be especially concerned about the behaviour of financial markets is that they have systemic significance. If some random person loses his business, that's sad but at the end of the day few people outside his employees and family will feel the effects. If on the other hand a major bank - Lehman Brothers, for say - goes bust, then we have serious issues. It is absolutely necessary for creative destruction to take place to have a proper economy, but I think that financial markets, as always, are unique.

However, if any bank goes bust, it's a serious issue (if it's not very regional and small), for that we don't need financial markets.

Oh, and before I forget, there's a chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average at this link. As you can see we are well above the position we were at as of just before the GFC.

Looking at the wiki page for the DJIA, it says that

On May 3, 2013, the Dow surpassed the 15,000 mark for the first time, while later on November 18, it closed above the 16,000 level.[28] Following a strong jobs report on July 3, 2014, the Dow traded above the 17,000 mark for the first time.[29] On December 23, 2014, the DJIA traded above the 18,000 boundary for the first time, after data showed the U.S. economy posted its strongest growth in more than a decade.[30] The index closed 2014 at 17,823.07 for a gain of 71% for the five years.

Looking at that - strongest growth in the US economy in more than a decade - it doesn't seem to irrational. After all, financial markets can't say much about the current economy, but about hope (or the opposite) in its development. And I guess that a lot of people are still thinking that the US economy isn't doomed and able to deal with its problems - which isn't so grossly unrealistic that you could call them irrational for that.

[CanadianEh]

I just want to say that I haven't read this topic at all but I'm just going to put in my own two cents.

Libertarianism is a very responsible ideology, it ensures all freedom is achieved in the most sensible manner. I have to say Radical Libertarianism is a different story but the moderate variant has ultimately helped the world develop.

[Darkylightytwo]

Let's start a new once again

How can we see the tragedy of communos in America, the consequences of extensive agriculture are the closest thing to it. What is bad with it, well, extensive agriculture may increase production, but it destroy the soil and set it up for hard drought, these can have impact on the population, I do not need to prove that a drought is bad for you, that is common logic.
Now I get the question, why does extensive agriculture cause drought, because you take too much from a soil, turning it into a poor quality soil and taking away its ability to absorb water, because the soil can't absorb water, you need to put more water to compensate for evaporations. meanwhile, a heavy soil, from a biological farm by exemple, will absorb water. So, you guys are over exploiting your soil, and you don't see it because you compensate to hide the problem away, but you can't hide it for ever.
Real-life consequence of intensive agriculture, drought in California. This is not caused by a decrease in precipitation, but because of the bad quality of the soil, And because you compensate with groundwater, the groundwater of California has decreased by much.
Link here : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015 ... r-science/
I also add another. Dead zone in the golf of Mexico, that is cause by Corn intensive agriculture, because the Corn demand the most resource to grow in such a way, and why you have farmer in this, to have ethanol. So now can you also my point, that ethanol is a dirty product.
Link here : http://science.time.com/2013/06/19/this ... on-record/

And if you wonder, the video show a clear example on the ability of the soil to absorb water, not sure if you can watch it, but here, you got ?
http://ici.radio-canada.ca/tele/la-sema ... AutoPlay=1, well not sure you can read or understand french, but I don't have a English version of this. I'm sorry about that.

Here you have my conclusion, Extensive agriculture cannot continue, the solution is to enforce biological agriculture in all farms, even if this mean a rise of prices. Something which libertarian will find hard to accept, because it mean the prices are not natural any more.

men, this discussion is going nowhere.

The reason for that is because you are incapable of using normative definitions. You are using non-normative definitions for "tragedy of the commons", "neoliberal", "classical liberal" and "free market". How is it possible for a discussion to go somewhere when we are faced with such incomprehensible newspeak? I hate to get snarky at you, but if we stuck to dictionary definitions things would be a lot smoother.

I've argue one factual basis at the start, but seem you forgotten, here, I brought my fact back on this post. And I did explain my theory, but I'll explain it again, what is neo-liberalism, it is a transformation of classical liberalism, they transform two aspects of it, definition of free market, justification of the state
Classic justify the state intervention in the market in many cases, such as education or great projects, the market is still free, even with some intervention of the state, because it is naturally free.
Neo-liberal : the Market is not naturally free, the state must intervene to impose the free-market, but by restricting its own power and removing restriction to the free-market, like minimum salary

Classic believe a state can justify itself by completing its homework.
Neo-liberal believe a state is justified by the existence of the free-market, not its homework.

Of course, this is theory, but this is what I learn at my politics courses. You can disagree with me how you like, but I did explain how neo-liberalism is different from classical liberalism.. And I just did answer for the tragedy of communos once again. but this time, there is no theory, only facts. I was explaining the theory to put my critics. Low-Prices does not mean freedom and they are far from always good.

and if you wonder, the course was : The Political Ideas in the 20th century, was pretty basis, but helped understand what was neo-liberalism.
P.S. I am not using this word in a pejorative sens, but I believe you got that, normally, this word is used by critics to define neo-liberals..

Edit : I love it when I am passed on silence because I am too biased on the left to hold a discussion... yet, I passed by the fundamentals of the philosophy to criticise it. Well, I'm off, not like this discussion can continue.

[EEL Mk2]

I'm pretty sure that there's no study evidencing that the existence of financial markets has destabilised the market itself in the long run. I'd argue that it would actually be the other way round - exacerbant mismaches between share prices and "actual worth" only occur in the short run - in the long run, bubbles burst and successful business models prevail (and are recognised as prevailing by the financial markets).

To your first assertion I'd say that that's only because things would be worse without any sort of financial market. That is not to say that financial market as they are are perfect or that they can't be improved if we implemented sound policy on the basis of an understanding of the behavioural science behind economic decision-making.

Secondly, while of course financial markets eventually correct for bubbles, the very fact that bubbles are formed in the first place is indicative of the major weakness of financial markets - the tendency to exaggerate trends due to inbuilt feedback loops. From a purely theoretical perspective it is easy to argue that since things eventually sort themselves out, financial markets are fine, but we should probably bear in mind that the process of financial markets sorting themselves out often involves people losing their jobs and homes etc. (Refer to: GFC.)

However, there is no means to establish a fundamental value, as well as there's no objective way to establish net utility.

The fact that we cannot exactly or even approximately pin down fundamental value does not preclude us from concluding in some circumstances that certain assets are overpriced so long as the price is well outside what one would consider a reasonable price, even given the inevitable margin of error in assessing something that doesn't concretely exist.

Furthermore, regardless of the fact that utility isn't quantifiable (that's a shame, isn't it? life would be so much easier otherwise), we know that prices approximately reflect utility in product markets because that is how product markets work. Why else would something change hands for a certain price? In financial markets we know that the speculative motive means that prices are not necessarily aligned with utility. It is, at the very least, a theoretical possibility, and you probably agree that on more than one occasion it has been an actuality.

As for the opposite, human failure, you have that in normal markets as well, and just as bad.

I agree with the first part of that statement, but not the second. Suppose your hypothetical took place. In a product market, the price would rise until supply more or less equaled demand. And then it would stop. If the price overshoots, demand would start to contract until a noticeable surplus emerged, and then the price would start falling back towards equilibrium.

If, on the other hand, apples were financial instruments, what would happen? People would see the price rising, and they would come to the conclusion that they could make a few bucks on investing in apples. Acting on that belief - which in the circumstances is quite reasonable - they would buy apples, not because they wanted to eat them but because they are hoping for another sucker to come along and buy them for even more than they themselves bought them for. The price of apples would then overshoot well above the equilibrium position that it would reach in a product market. However, any contraction in demand along the curve would be counter-acted by a shift outwards in the curve itself as apples become more sought-after for investment purposes. So the price would continue to rise. And then you'd get a bubble.

However, if any bank goes bust, it's a serious issue (if it's not very regional and small), for that we don't need financial markets.

Well, the nature of banks is such that any major systemic shock in the financial markets seriously predisposes them to going bust.

After all, financial markets can't say much about the current economy, but about hope (or the opposite) in its development. And I guess that a lot of people are still thinking that the US economy isn't doomed and able to deal with its problems - which isn't so grossly unrealistic that you could call them irrational for that.

I don't dispute that some people might reasonably think it realistic that the US economy will grow at a fairly satisfactory pace. My concern is whether or not it makes sense to believe that the US economy now has the best prospects ever in terms of grow - 50% better, in fact, than in the heady days of optimism before the GFC rained on everyone's parade. Nobody would fault the Dow for recovering since 2008. It's the extent of the recovery that is problematic. (Of course, there is the issue of quantitative easing which has inflated asset prices, but I would be hard pressed to believe that that is the sole factor.)

[Amazeroth]

I'm pretty sure that there's no study evidencing that the existence of financial markets has destabilised the market itself in the long run. I'd argue that it would actually be the other way round - exacerbant mismaches between share prices and "actual worth" only occur in the short run - in the long run, bubbles burst and successful business models prevail (and are recognised as prevailing by the financial markets).

To your first assertion I'd say that that's only because things would be worse without any sort of financial market. That is not to say that financial market as they are are perfect or that they can't be improved if we implemented sound policy on the basis of an understanding of the behavioural science behind economic decision-making.

Again - I won't argue that it would be good if behavioural science would become more of a priority in analysing and improving financial markets, but I think we've passed that point somewhere. I'm not arguing that the financial markets are perfect as they are (although given my libertarian way of thinking, I suspect failed regulation as the cause of this more than the nature of financial markets), or that they can't be improved.

Secondly, while of course financial markets eventually correct for bubbles, the very fact that bubbles are formed in the first place is indicative of the major weakness of financial markets - the tendency to exaggerate trends due to inbuilt feedback loops. From a purely theoretical perspective it is easy to argue that since things eventually sort themselves out, financial markets are fine, but we should probably bear in mind that the process of financial markets sorting themselves out often involves people losing their jobs and homes etc. (Refer to: GFC.)

That's no different than when we say that it's fine if failing businesses go bankrupt in the "real" market, and there are usually even more people losing their jobs and homes because of that. Also, the GFC, while happening mainly on the financial market, was not really caused by the nature of the financial market system, but by inadept regulation amounting to sheer irresponsibility in some cases, especially in the (failing or simply missing) regulation of banks, and of course the rather embarassing failure of the rating agencies themselves. And every one of these failures were failures of the very basic sort of financial market. It also had been pretty precisely predicted by neo-liberal economists. So all in all, it's pretty obvious how the GFC came to happen, and I doubt that that's one of the cases where any behavioural science might have helped prevent anything. It was evident that the banks were giving credits with little chance of repayment, it was evident that the banks were selling these bad credits on the financial market. It was evident that once this would burst, banks would be more afraid to give credit, which was when the crisis became noticeable for all, since almost every business had to notice that.

However, there is no means to establish a fundamental value, as well as there's no objective way to establish net utility.

The fact that we cannot exactly or even approximately pin down fundamental value does not preclude us from concluding in some circumstances that certain assets are overpriced so long as the price is well outside what one would consider a reasonable price, even given the inevitable margin of error in assessing something that doesn't concretely exist.

Yes, but the only real way to asses if a something is overpriced is to see if people are still paying for it (and enough people so that the producer can stay in business - although that's a rather simplified qualifier already). Especially when we're talking about the financial market, where, apart from commodity trading (where the prices are usually very near to the normal market price), things are dealt that have no real equivalent on the normal market. There is no surefire way to really assess the worth of a company apart from the point of sale, and much less the worth of future trades.

Furthermore, regardless of the fact that utility isn't quantifiable (that's a shame, isn't it? life would be so much easier otherwise), we know that prices approximately reflect utility in product markets because that is how product markets work. Why else would something change hands for a certain price? In financial markets we know that the speculative motive means that prices are not necessarily aligned with utility. It is, at the very least, a theoretical possibility, and you probably agree that on more than one occasion it has been an actuality.

We have that speculative motive in product markets too, though. And, depending on how many trades are done with a product until it reaches the consumer, it doesn't necessarily have a smaller impact than in financial markets. The only way to counteract that, by the way, would be to make financial markets less speculative, and I have to say that I don't see how that can be done. Other than employing computers, which is already done where possible, but that only works in areas without significant speculation.

As for the opposite, human failure, you have that in normal markets as well, and just as bad.

I agree with the first part of that statement, but not the second. Suppose your hypothetical took place. In a product market, the price would rise until supply more or less equaled demand. And then it would stop. If the price overshoots, demand would start to contract until a noticeable surplus emerged, and then the price would start falling back towards equilibrium.

If, on the other hand, apples were financial instruments, what would happen? People would see the price rising, and they would come to the conclusion that they could make a few bucks on investing in apples. Acting on that belief - which in the circumstances is quite reasonable - they would buy apples, not because they wanted to eat them but because they are hoping for another sucker to come along and buy them for even more than they themselves bought them for. The price of apples would then overshoot well above the equilibrium position that it would reach in a product market. However, any contraction in demand along the curve would be counter-acted by a shift outwards in the curve itself as apples become more sought-after for investment purposes. So the price would continue to rise. And then you'd get a bubble.

Yes, but that's no different from when a trader buys too much apples, or a farmer planting too many apple trees. Or a consumer mistakenly buying more than he can eat.

Also, shares of an apple farm, and apples, aren't the same thing. There is no compelling reason why they should be in any relation to each other. There are a hundred reasons why the share price could be higher than the respecitve apple price, and all of them lie with the company and the market in general, and not really with the product - unless apples themselves aren't bought anymore. But when that happens, you can be pretty sure that nobody wants shares as well.

However, if any bank goes bust, it's a serious issue (if it's not very regional and small), for that we don't need financial markets.

Well, the nature of banks is such that any major systemic shock in the financial markets seriously predisposes them to going bust.

Then the nature of banks should be examined, since there will be shocks in any kind of market from time to time.

After all, financial markets can't say much about the current economy, but about hope (or the opposite) in its development. And I guess that a lot of people are still thinking that the US economy isn't doomed and able to deal with its problems - which isn't so grossly unrealistic that you could call them irrational for that.

I don't dispute that some people might reasonably think it realistic that the US economy will grow at a fairly satisfactory pace. My concern is whether or not it makes sense to believe that the US economy now has the best prospects ever in terms of grow - 50% better, in fact, than in the heady days of optimism before the GFC rained on everyone's parade. Nobody would fault the Dow for recovering since 2008. It's the extent of the recovery that is problematic. (Of course, there is the issue of quantitative easing which has inflated asset prices, but I would be hard pressed to believe that that is the sole factor.)

Ultimately, it will rests with the companies represented by the Dow, and in order to sufficiently examine them, I'd have to make a full market study. However, glancing over the list of companies in there, I don't see anything I'd have heard of as failing or stagnating since 2008, and a lot of either very successful companies (Apple and Microsoft come to mind) and a lot of companies that seem rather sturdy (like most of the resources handling ones) and unlikely to fail thanks to global demand. It's also weighted, so any success of any of these companies would drive it higher, regardless how important the company is.

[EEL Mk2]

That's no different than when we say that it's fine if failing businesses go bankrupt in the "real" market, and there are usually even more people losing their jobs and homes because of that.

Actually that is not true. If a business in the 'real' market goes bust, how many people will lose their jobs? Ten? Fifty? Even if it's a very large business, a few thousand, perhaps? Whereas when a significant bank goes down, this has a systemic impact on the entire financial system due to the potential for contagion in financial markets (another weakness which is largely unique to financial markets), and the whole system freezes up. This obviously has a catastrophic impact across the entire economy.

Also, the GFC, while happening mainly on the financial market, was not really caused by the nature of the financial market system, but by inadept regulation amounting to sheer irresponsibility in some cases, especially in the (failing or simply missing) regulation of banks, and of course the rather embarassing failure of the rating agencies themselves.

If you acknowledge that financial markets require some sort of regulation, then surely you cannot, at the same time, maintain that financial markets are not inherently flawed in some way that goes beyond the ordinary potential for market failure in some circumstances.

There is no surefire way to really assess the worth of a company apart from the point of sale, and much less the worth of future trades.

I would not have the audacity to go through the stock market and tell your which assets were overpriced, but given that there is a theoretical potential for mispricing which is largely unique to financial markets, and given the size and depth of financial markets, it is inevitable that a significant number of assets are problematic.

We have that speculative motive in product markets too, though. And, depending on how many trades are done with a product until it reaches the consumer, it doesn't necessarily have a smaller impact than in financial markets.

Firstly, I don't accept that that motive occurs to the same extent given that the end goal of product markets is to produce something for consumption, not, primarily for investment. Secondly, I think that we have earlier established the systemic significance of financial markets which is entirely absent in the market for apples or whatever - almost any product market, in fact. So it is simply not true to say that there is an equivalence between the impacts.

Yes, but that's no different from when a trader buys too much apples, or a farmer planting too many apple trees. Or a consumer mistakenly buying more than he can eat.

Under those circumstances, those people would be punished by the market. They would lose money. In financial markets, because you have shifting demand curves in response to higher prices, that would not happen. I am not saying that stupid behaviour does not happen in product markets, merely that product markets are not as susceptible to failing to correct for that.

Then the nature of banks should be examined, since there will be shocks in any kind of market from time to time.

That is very true.

However, glancing over the list of companies in there, I don't see anything I'd have heard of as failing or stagnating since 2008

Well, there are a few hundred companies, and I suspect you're not familiar with all of them. But I strong suspect that some of them are probably going down the toilet.

[Arizal1]

I have read almost all the posts, except the two last, yet I fear I will not be able to answer to everything that has been said. Still, let's try.

I have a fondness for libertarianism since it seems to me (at core) a so simple and idealistic way to think about reality in term of exchanges. Socially, I am all for people to be able to harm themselves by whichever way they want. It is their choice, and if their internal rationality says to them that they can do this, who am I to obligate them to not do so?

There has been much talk about "rationality", but lot less talk about how this word is indeterminate. At the risk of not using a dictionary definition, to me, rationality is some kind of inner coherency. If someone thinks about what he wants to do and, at this point, all the dots combine telling him to do one thing instead of another, it is "rational" even though another person could find it crazy. It goes down to information, and economic is flawed because its free actors do not have all the information. Of course, it doesn't prevent it to give some explanations and to explain things which are happening in a mostly satisfactory way.

I tend to see the relationship between a State and its people as far from benevolent. Thus, I think libertarianism has a good basic feeling in saying that the State should control as little as is possible. Liberty is for me negative liberty : the citizens must be able to resist to the control its State kind of naturally tends to impose. And with this liberty, it should be able to grant itself more security. This is where I depart with libertarianism : for me, it must be possible to give insurances to the citizens that whatever stupid thing they do, the State has got their back, so that minimally they should retain their habitats, be able to eat, etc. This makes for a rather strong State in regard to minimal services, one that can resemble what Hayek advocates in Law, Legislation and Liberty (from what I remember of this book). However, such a State wouldn't try to control directly much domain, for when it does that, its interests become entangled with the absorbed company interests. It happens in Quebec, for example, with Loto-Quebec, which is one of the government cows, which gives it a lot of money, but is supposed to discourage lottery.

The State should be, as much as possible, a neutral mediator. But because of politics, this seems difficult to achieve. Neutrality itself doesn't seem to exist and I don't know from which criterium a decision could be taken. But this is an ideal, so it cannot be perfect in reality.

[Darkylightytwo]

I have read almost all the posts, except the two last, yet I fear I will not be able to answer to everything that has been said. Still, let's try.

I have a fondness for libertarianism since it seems to me (at core) a so simple and idealistic way to think about reality in term of exchanges. Socially, I am all for people to be able to harm themselves by whichever way they want. It is their choice, and if their internal rationality says to them that they can do this, who am I to obligate them to not do so?

Well, I think we all agree on that basis, if your actions do no cause harm to someone else, well they should not be illegal, that is why we have no problem with flag burning, yeah he insulted the nation, but he did not attack anyone. and why we allow people to drink, but not to drive while being drunk. People don't harm others when they drink, but if they are drunk on the road, they became a danger for others as well as themselves.

I tend to see the relationship between a State and its people as far from benevolent. Thus, I think libertarianism has a good basic feeling in saying that the State should control as little as is possible. Liberty is for me negative liberty : the citizens must be able to resist to the control its State kind of naturally tends to impose. And with this liberty, it should be able to grant itself more security. This is where I depart with libertarianism : for me, it must be possible to give insurances to the citizens that whatever stupid thing they do, the State has got their back, so that minimally they should retain their habitats, be able to eat, etc. This makes for a rather strong State in regard to minimal services, one that can resemble what Hayek advocates in Law, Legislation and Liberty (from what I remember of this book). However, such a State wouldn't try to control directly much domain, for when it does that, its interests become entangled with the absorbed company interests. It happens in Quebec, for example, with Loto-Quebec, which is one of the government cows, which gives it a lot of money, but is supposed to discourage lottery.

The State should be, as much as possible, a neutral mediator. But because of politics, this seems difficult to achieve. Neutrality itself doesn't seem to exist and I don't know from which criterium a decision could be taken. But this is an ideal, so it cannot be perfect in reality.

And yet, Loto-Quebec is an independent company, they are not the state, it is a state-run company and independent and the reason we control the Lotory in Quebec is not because of money, that is just one plus, we don't want the free-market or the Mafia to run games. And the campaign to raise awareness on games is actually raised by others groups. So I fail to see how the state is directly controlling Loto-Québec, the same with Hydro-Québec, which act as independent company and the only problem with hydro-Quebec is not state-control, it is political interference. Politics and public service should not mixed, they are two different things.

The PLQ (Liberal party of Quebec) forcing Hydro-Quebec to by wind-energy from private farm, while the state-company is against it, they also wanted to keep the nuclear central Gentilly 2, even if a rapport from the same company concluded that it would cost way more to keep it then to drop it.

and yet, you talk about direct control, but you don't think that state company can actually be independent ? CBC, if anything, is a very good media and a proof that state-run company can be very independent from the government. because if a state company can be act independently, then its not state control of the economy and the point you made about state-companies being worse just fail. Beside, there is only being that run all companies in this world, humans, be they state-run or private run.

(no sure with harper, since he nomminated his friend at the head to force his compression and many journalists dislike this)...

but that aside, I think we agree that the service should always got the back of people when they find very though times, or poverty, and maybe you just forgot education and healthcare...