Liberty and economics

[whymc]

I read Hayek's Road to Serfdom on the train ride home today.  It was... interesting.  I was initially a very hostile audience, having only ever encountered his ideas at second hand.  I came away from reading his work with a much more positive view of Hayek and his ideas.  The versions of Hayek's thought that I've encountered have been very one-

Comments

[nidea]

I haven't, but I sometimes read Reason Magazine (libertarian), and a lot of the writers there seem to be big fans.

[semerkhet]

Which seems odd, since most of the libertarians I've encountered don't seem to hold with the three points Greg mentioned in his post. Maybe the first one, but certainly not the second and third. Either a) Greg filtered Hayek's views in a way many libertarians would not agree with, b) the libertarians I've met aren't reading Hayek, or c) I'm not asking the right questions of the libertarians I encounter

[kelglitter]

Maybe it's the aspect of Hayek Greg emphasizes where he mentions "the potential for state structures to be suborned by private interests," with which Libertarians resonate.

[semerkhet]

And it's a point I totally agree with, and a problem I don't have an easy solution for. It's the part about providing a social safety net that I don't normally hear from the libertarians I encounter. I agree with certain parts of libertarian philosophy, I just find distasteful the intense selfishness and lack of community spirit in some of the adherents of the doctrine.

[kelglitter]

I used to lean very right, fiscally, and touted personal responsibility and welfare scammers and familial cycles. Then one day my friend Ellen, who came from a modest family and who was getting an education degree and planning to move to Mexico for missions after graduation said one thing that really struck me to the core. She said she'd rather throw money at the problem to make sure that every kid has enough to eat than worry about some people misusing the system.

I work at a great job making great money. I basically have everything I could possibly want, am blessed beyond compare, and was worried about a tiny portion of my tax money going to scammers instead of being generous about it in the hopes that every child in the country can go to school without being hungry? I immediately resolved to quit being so callous and started voting for Democrats.

[semerkhet]

Your story nearly brought tears to my eyes. I'm serious. I wish more people could get some perspective like that.

I think we can be in favor of personal responsibility and be against fraud among recipients of social programs and still be in favor of those programs. Part of the problem, I think, is that those who would end these programs have an interest in making the incidence of fraud seem much more pervasive than it really is. Every time I've seen actual numbers on fraud among aid recipients, it's been tiny compared to the overall program. Let's not even begin to compare the actual dollar amount of welfare fraud compared to, say, fraud in defense contracting.

[nidea]

Yeah, I should read the source material myself one of these days. I like reason mag. for the social-libertarian parts, and I'm rather indifferent to its economics articles.

But because we're on the list of names they occasionally sell, I've noticed that capitalists like to use only one side of the paper in their promotional materials. Quality paper too, great for my printer. Whereas Democrats (I consider myself one) are more conservative when it comes to paper mailings, preferring one folded sheet & tightly-spaced type, printed both sides.