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"Does this economic system produce a lot of Dollar Stores?"On Glenn Greenwald'sSystem Update Rumble show, former Fox News star Tucker Carlson issued a scathing indictment of what he calls "libertarian economics" over the weekend.

"Libertarian economics was a scam perpetrated by the beneficiaries of the economic system that they were defending," Carlson told Greenwald.

"So they created this whole intellectual framework to justify the private equity culture that's hollowed out the country," said Carlson. "A smarter way to assess an economic system is by its results."

"I think you need to ask: 'Does this economic system produce a lot of Dollar Stores?'" said Carlson. "And if it does, it's not a system that you want, because it degrades people and it makes their lives worse and it increases exponentially the amount of ugliness in your society. And anything that increases ugliness is evil.So if it's such a good system, why do we have all these Dollar Stores?"

Carlson is indicting not just cheaply, readily available consumer goods, but also something deeper, he claimed.

"And the Dollar Store itself is a sort of symbolfor your total lack of control over where you live, and over the imposition of aggressively in-your-face ugly structures that send one message to you, which is, 'You mean nothing. You are a consumer, not a human being or a citizen.'"

On so many counts, Carlson is wrong. Life in the U.S. has gotten better since 1969, when he was born, in clear and measurable wayslife expectancy, child mortality rates, average income per person, liberal democratic scores of countries around the world, and much more. The "lack of control over where you live" is a total fablethough housing supply crunch is real (and government-created). If he's describing a sense that something is wrong within the American spirit, he should come right out and say so, but I'd expect the causes of these maladiesdeaths of despair trending upward, for example, or American males falling behind their female counterparts on educational achievementare deeper than "cheaply available consumer goods have proliferated."

Accidental hostage killing: On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitted to accidentally killing three Israeli hostages who had been taken by Hamas.

Three menYotam Haim and Alon Shamriz, both of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Samer Talalka, of Kibbutz Nir Am"had emerged shirtless from a building and were carrying a makeshift white flag," in Shejaiye, an area of Gaza City where Israel and Hamas forces had been fighting, perThe New York Times.They had reportedly taken off their shirts to make clear that they were unarmed and not wearing any explosives and were approaching IDF soldiers, speaking in Hebrew.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its "soldiers were on high alert for attempts by Hamas to ambush Israeli forces, possibly in civilian clothes, as they patrolled the area," per aTimes account.

Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military's chief of staff, said that IDF policy is to arrest people who lay down their weapons, not shoot, and that so far more than a thousand people have been taken into military custody this way. "It is forbidden to shoot at those who raise a white flag and seek to surrender," said Halevi. Nonetheless, Israeli soldiers made a profound mistake, which is being criticized by both Israelis and the rest of the world.

Scenes from New York:New York City recently passed a law banning size and height discrimination when hiring dancers, which follows in the footsteps of similar legislation passed by San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

"The law includes an exemption for when height or weight may interfere with the essential requirements of a job," reported The New York Times. "But what are 'essential requirements' in the highly subjective world of dance?"

To put an even more cynical gloss on it: It seems highly unlikely that the government meddling in this way will make a difference, even sidestepping the question of whether this is an appropriate thing for policy makers to be spending time on.

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Tucker Carlson Issues Scathing Indictment of 'Libertarian Economics' - Reason

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by Juan David Rojas

Captain Anarchocapitalism, at your service. Credit: Getty

This week, Javier Milei was sworn in as president of Argentina. His election comes at a time of introspection for the international (if not the Latin American) Right. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni has disappointed conservatives and populists for failing to stem uncontrolled immigration as well as her staunch support for Ukraine. In Spain, conservatives suffered a brutal humiliation after Pedro Sanchez secured reelection with the backing of Catalan separatists. Will Milei follow suit by campaigning as a populist and governing as a centrist?

The answer depends on the criteria used to judge his presidency. Already, the president has backtracked on eliminating the central bank and cutting relations with Brazil and China. But these decisions are secondary to the central goal of Mileis presidency: reducing inflation. On that front, its difficult but certainly possible that Captain Anarchocapitalism will succeed in fulfilling the aims of his superhero alter-ego. Just days ago, the administration announced a devaluation of more than 50% of the Argentine Peso with subsequent devaluations of 2% to come on a monthly basis. The objective of these measures is to finally stabilise the overvalued peso by turning Argentinas current account deficit into a surplus.

By devaluing the peso and cutting export taxes, Argentina should be able to make its agricultural exports more competitive and reduce its large trade deficit a key requirement for amassing funds to pay Argentinas debt with the IMF and other lenders. Of course, devaluing too much will lead to further inflation as the peso loses buying power, particularly of imported goods. That Milei has chosen a more gradual approach to devaluation is prudent but is still not enough to repair the countrys economy.

The president is betting that by drastically cutting spending and subsidies as well as privatising state industries, Argentina will finally be able to pay for its obligations without printing money nor piling on more external debt. The problem here for Milei who has stated he wants to cut spending by 5% in 2024 is twofold. On the one hand, drastically cutting spending will require the support of Congress, where Mileis coalition lacks a majority in the Senate. On the other hand, if he succeeds in drastically cutting spending, it will almost certainly lead to large increases in unemployment and reduced economic growth.

Similarly, while privatising state industries and cutting subsidies may alleviate fiscal pressures in the short-term, it will also lead to higher energy prices a key driver of inflation. In either case, the spectre of mass protest will loom large during most of Mileis term. Cognisant of this scenario, yesterday, the President announced a novel security protocol giving the army the right to break strikes and arrest protestors.

The reality is that Argentina has a long road to recovery. It should be noted that Chiles Pinochet took more than 10 years to stabilise inflation and caused mass unemployment in the process. Milei, however, will have to wrestle with the pesky trappings of democracy that otherwise would have led to Pinochet being thrown out of office.

Still, the cases of Brazil and Peru during the 1990sshow that its possible to control inflation on a shorter timeline. Perus authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori, for instance, coupled many orthodox neoliberal measures with unorthodox ones such as massively increasing the minimum wage. It remains to be seen if the doctrinaire Milei is capable of the same economic heresies.

Likewise, Milei will need to fight the temptation of unfunded tax cuts that so often hypnotises libertarian conservatives. Much of Argentinas current predicament is the result of the ruinous administration of Mauricio Macri (20152019) now a close ally of Milei. Like Liz Truss, Macri had the original idea of passing large, unfunded tax cuts that more than doubled Argentinas national debt and did not result in increased growth.

Many have noted that Macri and many of his allies have secured key posts in Mileis cabinet including control of the Central Bank. Its very possible that the president will not be able to resist calls from coalition allies (and by extension the Argentine elite) to massively cut taxes. This also assumes that the president might himself be against such a proposal.

Regardless, should Milei succeed in taming inflation, his political project favours agriculture over industry and oligarchs over workers. His broader goal of turning Argentina into the United States is the same pipe dream that Latin American conservatives have repeated ad-nauseum since Milton Friedman first visited Pinochets Chile in 1975.

At best, Milei might succeed in temporarily transforming Argentinainto a stabler resource colony (i.e. Chile). At worst, he will follow in the footsteps of Macri and deliver the opposition Peronists another resounding return to the Casa Rosada in 2027.

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Javier Milei's libertarian experiment begins - The Post - UnHerd

Two and a half centuries ago, on December 16, 1773, a group of ordinary people ignited a spark that would illuminate the path to liberty the Boston Tea Party. This historic event, born out of frustration with unfair taxation practices and government monopolies, continues to reverberate through the ages and finds resonance in the principles of the modern-day Libertarian Party.

In the early days of the American colonies, tensions brewed over taxation without representation. After American patriots nullified the Stamp Act, Britains first attempt to tax North American colonists directly, the British government created new schemes to extract money from the region. One way to they sought to do this was by granting a legal monopoly to the East India Tea Company through the Tea Act of 1773, making it illegal for any colonial competitors to sell tea. Outraged by this blatant violation of their rights, a group of colonists took matters into their own hands on that fateful night in Boston Harbor.

The Boston Tea Party was not just an act of defiance; it was a resounding declaration that ordinary people would not tolerate unjust taxation and government monopolies. The colonists, much like modern libertarians, believed that individuals have the right to decide how their hard-earned money should be spent, and that competition is the best driver of prosperity.

Fast forward to the present day, and the principles of the Boston Tea Party find a powerful echo in the Libertarian Partys unwavering stance Taxation is Theft and central economic planning is immoral. Libertarians argue that individuals should be free from the burden of coercive taxation and monopoly schemes, allowing them to retain the fruits of their labor and make decisions about their money that align with their values and priorities.

The notion that taxation is a form of theft underscores the libertarian belief in individual autonomy and limited government. For libertarians, the Boston Tea Party serves as a symbol of resistance against overreaching authorities and a call to uphold the principles of self-determination.

As we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, the Libertarian Party stands as a modern torchbearer of the spirit of resistance that fueled that historic event. Libertarians advocate for a society where individuals are free to live without the shackles of excessive taxation, where personal and economic freedoms are paramount.

In the spirit of the Boston Tea Party, the Libertarian Party champions the idea that individuals should be trusted to make decisions about their own lives, including how their money is spent. The legacy of those colonists who dumped tea into Boston Harbor lives on, inspiring libertarians to challenge the status quo and forge a path toward a more liberated and equitable future.

As we raise our tea cups today in a metaphorical toast to the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, let us also celebrate the enduring legacy of liberty it has bestowed upon us. The Libertarian Party, rooted in the principles of individual freedom, carries forth the spirit of those defiant colonists, reminding us that the fight against unjust taxation and for personal autonomy is a cause worth championing. May the echoes of the Boston Tea Party resonate for generations to come, inspiring a world where liberty triumphs over tyranny.

If you believe that #TaxationIsTheft, donate today to support our efforts against the unjust process:

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A Legacy of Resistance to Unjust Taxation - Libertarian Party

Dan Mollers Governing Least: A New England Libertarianism is one of my favorite books on libertarian philosophy. In it, he discusses one idea that I think is underrated, and deserves to be highlighted. The idea is what he calls residual obligations.

First, Mollers approach to libertarianism is not based on a hardline approach like many associate with Rand or Rothbard. Moller does not think in terms of exceptionless rules, or rights that are inviolable in all circumstances. He acknowledges that sometimes, rights violations can be justified. Suppose I find myself in the following scenario:

I am hiking on a mountain pass and have become trapped in a massive snowstorm. My life is in peril if I cannot find shelter and food. Luckily, I stumble across an unoccupied hunting cabin. The cabin is clearly marked with Keep Out and Private Property signs. However, I can easily break into the cabin and take shelter against the storm until it has passed, saving my life at the cost of causing some property damage to someone else.

People with an absolutist view of rights might argue that Im morally obligated to stay outside and freeze to death. Common sense morality, however, says this is a case where its permissible to violate someones property rights. However, Moller points out whats often overlooked is that a rights violation being justified isnt the end of the moral analysis. Too many people speak as if overriding a right necessarily means the same things as erasing the right altogether. But this is a mistake. As Moller puts it, an overridden right is not a deactivated right. A justified rights violation is still a rights violation. The reasons that exist to avoid harming someone, though overridden, have not ceased to exist, and harm was still caused to someone who did not deserve it.

As a result, Moller says, the overridden reason to avoid harming you still being in effect produces residual obligations for me. If you see that Ive broken your cabin window and taken some of the supplies you kept stored in there, would be wrong of me to merely shrug and say well, the emergency situation I was in overruled your property rights, so unfortunately for you, this is all your problem. Instead, I now have some residual obligations to you. Moller suggests these obligations include restitution if I caused $300 worth of damage to your cabin in order to break in, I should repay you for the damage. There is a further obligation of compensation to the extent that you are otherwise harmed by my actions, and I should take efforts to compensate you for those harms. I should express sympathy even though my action may have been justified, it was still regrettable, and it still caused harm to you, and for me to treat that as a matter of indifference would be wrong. And there is an obligation of responsibility which is not just backward looking, but forward-looking.

The forward-looking nature of responsibility is of particular interest. For example, if the mountain pass in the above thought experiment was widely known to be a hazardous place to hike, and I also knew that there was a major snowstorm coming in, and could have easily anticipated that taking a hike that day could place me in a situation where I might need to break into someone elses cabin in order to survive, that gives me a strong obligation to avoid putting myself in that scenario in the first place. As Moller puts it, If I can reasonably foresee that some action of mine will put me in the position of facing an emergency that will then render it permissible to harm you, I must take responsibility to avoid such actions of possible. I should not think that I have less reason to take responsibility because I can avoid harms by transferring them to you instead. And failing to take responsibility weakens my claim to impose costs on others when the time comes.

I think this is basically right. If I had been the hypothetical hiker above and was later trying to take moral inventory of my life, I wouldnt find myself thinking If only I had been a better, more moral person, Id actually be dead already. Id have had the decency to do the morally correct thing, and Id have frozen to death outside that cabin years ago. But if I failed to live up to my residual obligations, and never attempted to make things up to the cabin owner, I would feel like I had done something wrong to that extent. As Ive written before, I dont want to be the kind of person who feels comfortable with making others bear the costs of my choices, or of my misfortunes. As Moller phrased it, the core impulse isnt outrage about being asked to give, it is in the first instance a bewilderment at the suggestion that we are entitled to demand. And Moller goes on to argue, persuasively in my view, that if we recognize even modest strictures on making others worse off to improve our lot then we quickly run into a form of libertarianism.

A simple question we should all ask ourselves about any belief we hold is If I was wrong about this, how would I know it? What would it actually take to convince me that Im mistaken? If you cant answer that question, that should be a big red flag. This is hardly an original observation on my part, of course. Eliezer Yudkowsky, for example has written that a belief is only reallyworthwhileif you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise. If your retina ended up in the same state regardless of what light entered it, you would be blind. Similarly, if your mind ends up in the same state regardless of the evidence or arguments you encounter, then intellectually you have been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs. To illustrate the point, Yudkowsky goes on to say this holds true even for things as basic as 2+2 = 4, and that he finds it quite easy to imagine a situation which wouldconvinceme that 2 + 2 = 3.

So, what would it take to convince me I was wrong about the moral argument for libertarianism? Well, as mentioned, I dont think its right of me to demand and compel other people to carry the costs of my actions or my misfortunes. If someone could provide me with a convincing argument that I would become a better, more moral person if I did adopt such a belief and began to act in accordance with it, that would in turn convince me I was wrong about the moral argument for libertarianism.

What about you, EconLog readers? Whats a core belief you hold, and what would it take to convince you that you were mistaken about it?

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Residual Obligations And The Morality of Libertarianism - Econlib

Reason magazine has an article that argues for the existence of free will. I dont plan to debate that issue, but I am a bit disturbed by the implicit claim that the argument for libertarianism is stronger in a world with free will than in a world of determinism. If thats their argument, its clearly wrong. The argument for libertarianism has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of free will. Heres Reason:

What is free will? Can a being whose brain is made up of physical stuff actually make undetermined choices?

InFree Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will, the Trinity College Dublin neuroscientist Kevin J. Mitchell argues that evolution has shaped living creatures such that we can push back when the physical world impinges upon us. The motions of nonliving thingsair, rocks, planets, starsare entirely governed by physical forces; they move where they are pushed. Our ability to push back, Mitchell argues, allows increasingly complex creatures to function as agents that can make real choices, not choices that are predetermined by the flux of atoms.

Sorry, but choices made by the flux of atoms in peoples brains are real choices, regardless of whether people have free will or not. Determinists dont argue that people dont make real choices, they argue that the outcome of those choices is determined by a mix of brain chemistry and external stimuli. Libertarian determinists favor a free society because they believe that better choices will be made if governments dont impose regulations that prevent people from making choices that their mix of brain chemistry and external stimuli view as being in their interest. The term freedom in a free will sense is vastly different from freedom in a political sense.

Reason continues:

How can that be? After all, just like air and rocks, bacteria and sharks and aardvarks and people are made of physical stuff.Determinismholds that, per the causal laws of nature, the unfolding of the universe is inexorable and unbranching, such that it can have only one past and one future. Human beings do not escape the laws of nature, so any and all of our choices have been predetermined from the beginning of the universe.

This view poses a moral problem: How can people be held accountable for their actions if they had no choice but to behave the way they did?

This is a non-sequitur. We hold people accountable because doing so provides an external stimuli that nudges their decisions in a more socially optimal direction. Thus we threaten potential bank robbers with long prison terms in order to deter people from robbing banks. Those deterrents make people less likely to rob banks, regardless of whether the free will or the determinist position is true. Even if determinism were shown to be true, we would not legalize murder on the mistaken assumption that killers should not be held accountable.

Its dangerous to tie your ideology to scientific models that might be discredited. Some progressives deny that there are innate differences in IQ. Wiser progressives argue that their ideology makes sense even if innate IQ differences exist. In the old days, some Christians denied that the Earth went around the sun. When this view was discredited, it pushed some scientists toward atheism. I would hate to see libertarians tie their ideology to the hypothesis of free will. If determinism were later shown to be true, this would (unfairly) tend to discredit libertarianism.

In my view, a free society is best regardless of whether decisions are made by individuals with free will, or brains in flux responding to external stimuli.

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Libertarianism and free will - Econlib