Archive for the ‘Libertarian’ Category

Australian Libertarian Society

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The Australian Libertarian Society (ALS) is the central portal for information about the libertarian movement in Australia.

Active since 2000, the ALS supports free-markets, individual liberty and the promotion of peaceful, voluntary interaction between people. The aim of the ALS is to bring together the many different strands of libertarian thought spread through Australia, including objectivisists, Rothbardians, classical liberals, anarcho-capitalists, moderates, pragmatic libertarians, Austrian economists, free-marketeers, and anybody else who believes in freedom.

The main activities of the ALS is to arrange occasional events, maintain the ALS blog thoughts on freedom, to provide commentary and analysis from a libertarian perspective, and to support other organisations and projects which share a libertarian agenda. If you would like to be involved, the easiest way is to become an active contributor at the ALS blog. The most recent articles are shown on the right column >

The ALS was a co-sponsor of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC), hosted by the Heartland Institute. ALS representatives have spoken at the ICCC and also at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (Sydney). The ALS also hosts the original australian political quiz. Some articles from the ALS blog are also published at the online mens magazine get frank. If you want to re-print ALS material, have a libertarian project in Australia, or need a libertarian perspective on any issue, please get in touch.

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Young Australian libertarians may be interested in the liberty and society sessions, hosted by the Centre for Independent Studies, and the Kennard Freedom prize run by the Institute for Public Affairs.

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The ALS is an Associate Supporter of The International Coalition Against Prohibition (TICAP), which fights for individual self-ownership and believes that the State has no duty to forbid or mandate what substance goes into the body of a person by his own will, regardless of consequences for the user.

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Australian Libertarian Society

Anti-Libertarian Criticism | Keeping libertarians in check …

While I think it would be cool to produce an actual map image, heres a general breakdown of my understanding of the various sectors of the American libertarian movement. It is by no means completely comprehensive, but touches on some of the main groups. Sometimes these groups overlap and an individual can be seen as having multiple tendencies, and at other times theyve also been known to have fights betweeneach other.

Paleo-Libertarians This is the socially conservative wing of the libertarian movement. Theirbig distinctive issues are immigration control, racial politics, opposing the U.N., fundamentalist Christian-western identity, and opposing democracy. This group also has some overlap with the anarcho-capitalists associated with Lew Rockwell and Hans Hoppe. This is where the white nationalists and assorted conservative cranks can safely overlap with libertarianism, as a political ideology designed in such a way as to potentially enable their causes.

To a certain extent, this is what the left-libertarians are fighting against within libertarianism and where I think their best and most effective internal criticism is focused. I know that when I was a left-lib, these people were my most common target of criticism. I was greatly dissapointed to find that most libertarians are sideline sitters and denialists on this controversy, and that for the most part only some left-libs were the ones willing to speak up about it.

Bleeding Heart Libertarians While this is in reference to a particular blog, many of the most visible authors of that blog seem to represent a certain kind of libertarian thats broader than the blog. The defining feature of these libertarians is that they are academic elitists, often with a moderate liberal bent and usually minarchist in orientation. Some try to square libertarianism with Rawls and other aspects of modern liberal political philosophy. Compared to the left-libertarians, they tend to be fairly vanilla. But they also can be found weaving nuanced philosophical tales over the top of obvious moral conundrums bleeding heart fascists.

In a way theyrepresent the closest you can get to mainstream libertarianism within the university. IMO, most of their work comes off as technical philosophic hair-splitting that amounts to nothing of import, and overall the premise of the site comes off as a weak PR campaign with a leftward veering eye. They will never be the kind of libertarians that can particularly appeal to people outside academia. The most radical voices are the handful of left-libertarians who are occasionally featured as writers.

Molyneuvians These are those libertarians who are followers of Stefan Molyneux. Consider it a new spin on Randian cultism. This is about hanging ones hat on the words of Molyneux and goes much further than standard libertarian philosophy, in that it binds one to particular ideas about psychology, metaphysics, morality, religion, and human relationships. To be a true follower of Molyneux is to accept a very rigid, all-encompassingphilosophy of everything. The libertarianism of Molyneux naturally appeals most to people with childhood issues, and it overlaps with the ideas of anti-schooling and criticism of traditional parenting.

Those who are truly dedicated to Molyneux are essentially online cult members who have substituted Molyneux for their parents. While Molyneux has gotten into controversy and has former cult members who are detractors, he has remained a staple in the libertarian movement and is perhaps the prime example of a libertarian individual achieving a high amount of media traffic and status through the internet.

Neo-Objectivists You cant talk about the Molyneuvians without talking about the Neo-Objectivists. This is a group of libertarians and ancaps who either are former Objectivists (followers of Ayn Rand) or otherwise people who integrate Objectivism into their libertarianism. Since theres a lot thats wrong with Objectivism, this introduces its own interesting problems. In some cases, it leads some libertarians to take stances very much like thatof neo-conservatives when it comes to foreign policy and domestic police power.

For others, its more about the philosophic grounding of libertarianism in certain ethical and cultural terms its centered around supporting property rights and markets in Aristotilean terms of flourishing and a culture of enlightened self-interested individualism, leading us into a special twist on bizarro-land. Rands philosophy has been prodded mercilessly and found wanting by a lot of people for good reason.

Left-Libertarians The left libertarians are an odd bunch. The left libertarians are somewhat multi-tendency, but I think it would be accurate to say that the general two tendencies are (1) the fusing of libertarianism with the cultural left and (2) the attempt to either reclaim or reformulate libertarianism as to be anti-capitalist or non-capitalist. In my opinion, as has been spread about through various posts on this blog, the left-libertarians have mainly succeeded at the former (while also bringing along some of the negative baggage of the existing cultural left) but failed at the latter.Its also true that the majority define themselves as anarchists and dominantly use individualist anarchism as their linchpin (which, while perhaps useful, is a limited cut-off point).

The problem is that contemporary American libertarian ideology *is* capitalistic, the bulk of the anarchist movement in the world is anarchist-but-not-libertarian (an important distinction), and that to really start to belong to the economic left the left-libertarians would have to basically cease to be libertarians in their viewson markets.

Beltway Libertarians These are those libertarians who are heavily involved in conventional politics or represent the official Libertarian Party themselves (as a side note: there are times I wonder ifBHL should really stand for Beltway Heart Libertarians). The layperson of this group is the person who wants an alternative to the two parties so they vote libertarian and get involved in it at the level of conventional politics, and most likely they are light on the philosophy side of it, or at least stick to a pretty vanilla minarchism.

The big players of this group are the libertarian politicians, lawyers, lobbyists, journalists, and vanilla libertarian organizations that basically amount to Republican light. This is also where the most money is for libertarian youth outreach (read: grooming people ideologically as the next generation of libertarian talking heads and academics). Think of it as the libertarian attempt to take on the lambasted role of the Marxists in the university.

Tin Foil Hat Libertarians This is the libertarian whose main draw is through conspiracy theory and sensationalism. They freely mix their libertarianism with conspiracies and tabloid style journalism. The reptilian Illuminati Jewish Rothschild bankers from outer space are coming! Think of it as the paleo-libertarian view on a large dose of acid, and after perhaps taking a Robert Anton Wilson book a little too seriously. It has never ceased to amaze me how many people like this actually exist out there. They always visibly existed mixed in as mutual friends of libertarians on social networking, in my experience. I didnt realize how many nutters I had non-thinkingly accepted friend requests from until I decided to clean house.

Geolibertarians These libertarians typically take after Henry George and their pet peeve issue is land. They are libertarians who rightly perceive that there is a distinct issue about land property, though theyre also ideologically tied to a particular solution. Aside from this one issue of land, it says very little about the given libertarian. I also always found interaction with geolibertarians to often feel odd in that they struck me as obsessed with this one issue, seemingly bringing it into discussion of everything as the one solution to politics. There are a number of geolibertarians Ive interacted with who seemed like fairly vanilla libertarians otherwise, and sometimes even surprisingly on the more conservative side of things overall. Its a single-issue position.

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Anti-Libertarian Criticism | Keeping libertarians in check ...

Libertarian Party – Ballotpedia

The Libertarian Party is the third-largest political party in the United States after the Republican and Democratic parties. The party aims to emphasize a commitment to free-market principles, civil rights, personal freedom, non-interventionism, peace and free trade.[1]

According to the party, "Our vision is for a world in which all individuals can freely exercise the natural right of sole dominion over their own lives, liberty and property by building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office, and moving public policy in a libertarian direction."[1]

The Libertarian Party was formed in 1971 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, by David Nolan. The group held its first national convention in 1972. Since its inception, the Libertarian Party has supported and fielded Libertarian candidates in races across the United States. In 2010, 800 Libertarian candidates ran for public office. A total of 38 candidates were elected or re-elected and 154 offices were held by Libertarians by the end of 2010.

According to the organization, the Libertarian Party is the third largest political party in the United States based on the number of Libertarian candidates, Libertarian elected officials, and state affiliates with ballot access. The party has state affiliates in all 50 states and, according to Ballot Access News, approximately 500,000 registered voters across the country, as of November 2016.[1][2][3]

As of November 2017, 154 Libertarians held elected offices in 33 states.[4]

The Libertarian Party platform is a written document that outlines the party's policy priorities and positions on domestic and foreign affairs. The platform also describes the party's core concepts and beliefs.

Click here to view the full text of the 2016 Libertarian Party Platform.

The following tables display the national and regional leadership of the Libertarian Party:[5]

As of June 2017, the following individuals held national leadership positions with the Libertarian Party:[6]

Regional representatives are members of the Libertarian National Committee and are elected according to the rules of their respective regions. As of July 2016, the following individuals hold regional representative positions with the Libertarian Party:[7]

The Libertarian Party is supporting candidates for federal, state, and local-level offices across the country in the 2018 election cycle.

The following is an abbreviated list of the party's 2018 U.S. Senate candidates:

The Libertarian Party supported 89 candidates for federal, state, and local-level offices across the country in the 2017 election cycle. [8] Of these candidates 19 were elected or re-elected to public office.[9]

In 2016, the Libertarian party nominated Gary Johnson as the party's presidential nominee and William Weld as the vice presidential nominee. The party also supported a number of federal, state, and local candidates across the country. The following is an abbreviated list of the party's 2016 U.S. Senate candidates:[10]

The Libertarian Party supported 103 state and local-level candidates in elections across the country in 2015. Of these candidates, 24 Libertarians were elected or re-elected to public office.[11]

The Libertarian Party supported 756 congressional, state, and local-level candidates across the country during the 2014 election cycle. An additional 20 Libertarians ran as fusion candidates and appeared on the ballot under a different or multiple party labels. Of these candidates, 23 Libertarians were elected or re-elected to public office, including seven fusion candidates.[12][13]

The Libertarian Party supported 98 congressional, state, and local-level candidates in elections across the country in 2013. An additional six Libertarians ran as fusion candidates and appeared on the ballot under different or multiple party labels. Of these candidates, 16 Libertarians were elected or re-elected to public office, including two fusion candidates.[14]

In 2012, the Libertarian party nominated Gary Johnson as the party's presidential nominee and Jim Gray as the vice presidential nominee. Johnson and Gray captured 1,275,804 votes in the general election, or nearly 1% of total votes cast. Johnson's 2012 vote total ranked as the highest number of votes for a Libertarian presidential candidate in history and fell just short of 1960 Libertarian presidential candidate Ed Clark's record of 1.1 percent of total votes.[15][16]

Other candidates that appeared on the ballot received less than 0.1% of the vote. Those candidates included: Roseanne Barr, Rocky Anderson, Thomas Hoefling, Jerry Litzel, Jeff Boss, Merlin Miller, Randall Terry, Jill Reed, Richard Duncan, Andre Barnett, Chuck Baldwin, Barbara Washer, Tom Stevens, Virgil Goode, Will Christensen, Stewart Alexander, James Harris, Jim Carlson, Sheila Tittle, Peta Lindsay, Gloria La Riva, Jerry White, Dean Morstad and Jack Fellure.[17]

The Libertarian Party also supported 567 congressional, state, and local-level candidates across the country. Of these candidates, 30 Libertarians were elected or re-elected to public office.[18][19]

The Libertarian National Committee (LNC) provides national leadership for the Libertarian Party of the United States. It is responsible for promoting the party's Statement of Principles, building support for Libertarian candidates and aiding in the establishment and development of affiliate parties across the nation. It is also responsible for organizing and running the Libertarian National Convention every two years. The current chairman of the LNC is Nicholas Sarwark.[5][7]

The 2018 Liberatarian National Convention will take place from June 30 to July 3, 2018, in New Orleans, Louisiana. At the convention, delegates will vote on amendments to the party's platform and rules and will elect the party's national leaders.[20]

The Libertarian Party's 2016 National Convention took place in Orlando, Florida, from May 27 to May 30, 2016. The party chose former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson and former Governor of Massachusetts William Weld as its presidential and vice presidential nominees, respectively.[21][10]

Day one of the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando, Florida, featured spirited debates on both party platform planks and between four candidates vying for the vice presidential nomination. There were just under 800 credentialed delegates in attendance with Libertarian National Chair Nick Sarwark presiding over the meetings.

Six candidates garnered enough tokens, another name for secret ballots, to be eligible for nomination by the delegation. Of those, five reached the vote threshold for participating in the debate, moderated by Larry Elder and televised on CSPAN. Gary Johnson, Daryl W. Perry, Austin Petersen, John McAfee, and Marc Allan Feldman took the stage to try to earn supporters for Sunday morning's election. Introduced and brought on stage one at a time, Johnson and Petersen received the most applause, though each had a significant amount of support.

Although it took nearly eight hours from the time the first ballots for president were distributed to state delegation chairs, the Libertarian Party ended up with the odds-on favorites Gary Johnson and William Weld winning the ticket as expected. A total of 997 credentialed delegates and alternates were on hand to cast their vote. The meeting was chaired by Nicholas Sarwark, who won re-election as National Chair later in the afternoon.

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for "Libertarian + Party"

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Libertarian Party - Ballotpedia

Bryan Zemina Florida House District 58 Libertarian Candidate

Rebuttle to the Tampa Bay Times Article regarding McClure PAC Money

Published on Nov 19, 2017

Tampa Bay Times reported today, 11/19/2017, that..."The flood of mailbox dirt that helped defeat McClures opponent, Yvonne Fry, appears to have been paid for through a network of committees affiliated with McClures campaign manager Anthony Pedicini and political consultant William Stafford Jones of Gainesville."Mr. Zemina has previously spoken in length about his top priority, if elected, is to close the Affiliated Political Committee dark money funding of campaigns. The existing political establishment has devised this scheme to launder the names from the funds, and deliver these funds in the names of PACs to the candidates committees.Tonight, Bryan Zemina calls out Lawrence McClure as lying to the voters, and Lawrence McClure has responded to Turn2Libery's questions on this topic saying,.."Inconclusive, not close to being conclusive", regarding the collusion with the PACs and his campaign.Amazingly, the Florida Chamber of Commerce hosted a candidates interview in September, and Lawrence McClure had Campaign Consultant/Manager Anthony Pedicini at his side. Bryan Zemina met Lawrence for the first time there, and Mr. Pedicini himself.Plausible deniability, just does not cut-it in this case. We suspect more will be revealed.

Bryan Zemina on DARK MONEY: https://bryanzemina.com/media/

Tampa Bay Times article: READ IT HERE

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Bryan Zemina Florida House District 58 Libertarian Candidate

Peter Thiel’s Libertarian Logic | WIRED

In 2004, Peter Thiel created a company, Palantir, that built on his PayPal cofounder Max Levchins algorithms for analyzing and making judgments based on an individuals highly personal digital records. Named after magical stones in The Lord of the Rings, Palantir helps governments and private companies make judgments from online and offline records based on patterns recognized by algorithms. For example, the company produces software that in seconds can scan through hundreds of millions of pictures of license plates collected by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, pieces of information that can be interpreted with the help of other large data sets. Palantirs chief executive, Alex Karp, a law school friend recruited by Thiel, defends his companys role in sifting through this material, which was collected by the government, after all. If we as a democratic society believe that license plates in public trigger Fourth Amendment protections, our product can make sure you cant cross that line, Karp said, adding: In the real world where we workwhich is never perfectyou have to have trade-offs.

For someone identified as a libertarian, Thiel has been comfortable operating businesses that relied on analyzing the personal information of its customers or the general public. Just as profiling by PayPal kept it afloat by excluding potential fraudsters, well-conceived government investigations, Thiel contends, keep America safe. After revelations by Edward Snowden about the governments surveillance capabilities, Thiel was asked if he thought the National Security Agency collected too much information about United States citizens. Thiel didnt object to those practices from a libertarian perspective but, rather, said he was offended by the agencys stupidity. The NSA has been hoovering up all the data in the world, because it has no clue what it is doing. Big data really means dumb data, he told readers of Reddit who asked him questions. BTW, I dont agree with the libertarian description of the NSA as big brother. I think Snowden revealed something that looks more like the Keystone Kops and very little like James Bond.

Similar to Andreessen, Peter Thiel lately has combined the roles of investor and public intellectual. Of Thiels many successful investmentsLinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook come to mindperhaps his most far-sighted has been the decision to publicly back Donald Trump for president, which required Thiel to break ranks with his Silicon Valley peers. In return for his prime-time endorsement on the final night of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, as well as $1.25 million in contributions to Trumps campaign through affiliated super PACs and direct contributions, Thiel was rewarded with a place of privilege when president-elect Trump met with tech leaders during the transition, and an important advisory role in the next administration. Who knows what dividends are yet to be collected?

The Trump endorsement reestablished Thiels reputation as a uniquely polarizing Silicon Valley figure, a Trumpian character, you might say. Indeed, Thiel has become an almost toxic spokesman for the tech world, so much so that his close friends and business partners, like Zuckerberg and Hoffman, have felt obligated to defend their relationships publicly. During the presidential election, Zuckerberg was confronted by Facebook employees who objected to Thiels continued role on the companys board of directors because of his support for Trump. In a fine example of rhetorical jujitsu, Zuckerberg referred to Facebooks commitment to diversity to answer those who were appalled by Trumps disparagement of Mexicans, Muslims, and women, among others, and the idea that a board member could be supporting his candidacy. We care deeply about diversity, Zuckerberg wrote in defense of Thiel. Thats easy to say when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. Its a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about. Thats even more important.

No doubt Thiel is an odd bird with a penchant for fringe ideas. In his pursuit of limited government, he has given substantial financial support to seasteading, which encourages political experimentation through the development of floating communities in international waters, presumably outside the reach of governments. He is unusually obsessed with his own death and sickness, a condition he traces back to the disturbing day when he was three and learned from his father that all things die, starting with the cow who gave his life for the familys leather rug. Thiel supports a range of potential life-extending innovations, including cryogenics, which involves keeping a body alive by cooling it; genetic research to fight diseases; and, most resonantly, a treatment based on cycling through blood transfusions from young people in the belief that the vigor therein can be transferred to the older recipient. Thiel says he is surprised that his obsession with death is considered weirdfor what its worth, he considers those complacent about death to be psychologically troubled. We accept that were all going to die, and so we dont do anything, and we think were not going to die anytime soon, so we dont really need to worry about it, he told an interviewer. We have this sort of schizophrenic combination of acceptance and denial...it converges to doing nothing.

Yet, cut through Thiels eccentricities and harsh language and you discover that Thiel is simply articulating the Know-It-All worldview as best he knows how. In Thiels ideas one finds Frederick Termans insistence that the smartest should lead, as well as his belief in using entrepreneurism and the market to introduce new technologies to the people. There is the hackers confidence that technology will improve society, as well as their suspicion of ignorant authorities who would try to rein in or regulate the best and brightest. There is the successful entrepreneurs belief that the disruption that has made him fabulously wealthy must be good for everyone. The main difference between Thiel and his peers is that he acts forcefully and openly in support of his ideas, while they are inclined to be more cautious and circumspect.

As we noted above, Stanford may embrace the idea that its students should become entrepreneurs, but only Thiel pays students to drop out and start a business. Larry Page of Google may propose the creation of some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out whats the effect on society, whats the effect on people, without having to deploy it into the normal world, but only Thiel backs floating sea-based states. Those peers may privately worry that democracy isnt the ideal way to choose our leaders, but Thiel will write straightforwardly in a 2009 essay for the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute that the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to womentwo constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarianshave rendered the notion of capitalist democracy into an oxymoron. For these reasons, Thiel names the 1920s as the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics, though presumably 2016 restored his faith in the electoral process.

PayPal only managed to become a valuable company under Thiels watch because eBay never could squash its tiny rival, thanks in part to the protection of the U.S. government. The decision of PayPal to complain that eBay was anti-competitive can appear hypocritical in light of Thiels anti-government views or even in light of the companys decision to turn around and be acquired by eBay only months later. Yet when you get to brass tacks, Thiels complaint against eBay wasnt so much about its monopoly powers, but that it was becoming a monopoly in online payments instead of PayPal. According to Thiel, a truly free market, with perfect knowledge and perfect competition, leads to failure for everyone. Under perfect competition, in the long run no company makes an economic profit, he writes, adding the emphasis. The opposite of perfect competition is monopoly. Thus, the goal of any sane startup should be to create a monopoly.

When Thiel uses the term monopoly, he hastens to add, he does not mean one based on illegal bullying or government favoritism. By monopoly, we mean the kind of company thats so good at what it does that no other firm can offer a close substitute, he writes in Zero to One, his business-advice book. Yet for a company involved in online payments or for a social network like Facebook, being good at what one does is directly tied to the network effectthat is, becoming and remaining the service that is so dominant you must belong. Ensuring that your business has no viable competitors is at the heart of monopolistic success in social networks, a lesson that Thiel has drilled into his protg, Mark Zuckerberg. Under Zuckerbergs leadership, Facebook has managed to keep growing and growing, spending billions to buy out any rival social networks, like Instagram and WhatsApp, before they could grow to challenge Facebook, with one notable exceptionSnapchat. Founded by a pair of Stanford fraternity brothers in 2011, Snapchat rejected a reported multi-billion-dollar offer from Facebook in 2013 and has watched as Facebook aggressively copied its most popular features for sharing photographs.

For Thiel, monopoly businesses like Google, Facebook, and Amazon serve as a welcome replacement for government. Freed from the unrelenting competition of the market, these businesses can afford to have enlightened values, like investing in the future or treating their employees well. They can actually think about society as a whole. Google, he writes, represents a kind of business thats successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence. In business, money is either an important thing or it is everything. Dominant tech businesses like Google are creative monopolies as well, which means that they wont sit on their profits in the manner of so-called rent collectors but will push new ideas. Creative monopolists give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world, he writes. Creative monopolies arent just good for the rest of society; theyre powerful engines for making it better.

Under this theory of benevolent monopolies, government regulations and laws are unnecessary. Taxes are in effect replaced by monopoly profitseveryone pays their share to Google, Facebook, Amazon, PayPal. And in contrast to the government, these profits are allocated intelligently into research and services by brilliant, incorruptible tech leaders instead of being squandered by foolish, charismatic politicians. Levchin, during an appearance on The Charlie Rose Show, was asked about the libertarian cast to Silicon Valley leaders. He said he personally was OK with taxes being used to build and maintain roads, for well-functioning law enforcement and national security. For helping those less fortunate, too. But, he added, I have relatively low trust in some of my local politicians...to spend my taxes on things that really do matter. And so this lack of inherent trust of the local or broader political establishment is probably the most defining, most common feature of Silicon Valley libertarians.

In Thiels version of this anti-democratic fantasy, where tech businesses set policy priorities rather than elected officials, the public need never learn the truth, that they are in essence paying taxes to companies while government can be belittled and whittled away. Monopolists lie to protect themselves, Thiel writes. They know that bragging about their great monopoly invites being audited, scrutinized, and attacked. Since they very much want their monopoly profits to continue unmolested, they tend to do whatever they can to conceal their monopoly usually by exaggerating the power of their (nonexistent) competition. And the transfer is complete, from democracy to technocracy, through monopolistic tech companies that are so indispensable they impose a tax on the economy and no one complains.

This surely represents a scary political future, but it bears repeating that Thiel is no marginal character in Silicon Valley. Not only are his views surprisingly mainstream, but he operates at the very heart of the tech world as an investor and a trusted advisor to a new generation of leaders, who first spread his influence in the Valley through a network of former PayPal employees. They provided each other with cash, counsel, and contacts and called themselves, a bit facetiously, the PayPal mafia. Their offspring include YouTube, Yelp, LinkedIn, Tesla, and, by extension, Facebook, whose first outside investment opportunity was passed from one PayPal veteran, Reid Hoffman, to another, Thiel, once Hoffman concluded that his new company, LinkedIn, could pose a conflict of interest.

In 2007, a crew of a dozen or so of these made men went so far as to pose for a group photo at Tosca, a San Francisco caf, garbed in clich Italian mafia outfits. That photograph, for an article in Fortune magazine, quickly joined the annals of over-the-top Silicon Valley images, right up there with the Time cover a decade earlier that featured a barefoot twenty-four-year-old Marc Andreessen sitting on a throne next to the headline, The Golden Geeks. Levchin is in the front, wearing a black leather jacket; Hoffman sports an open-collared silk shirt revealing a gold chain; others donned tracksuits. Front and center is Thiel in a dark, pinstriped suit, purple shirt and tie, and pinky ring.

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Peter Thiel's Libertarian Logic | WIRED