[seneca]

I'm reading this as you saying anyone who doesn't support public education is a shill. If that's the case, you believe that libertarians are shills, then? This strikes me as you essentially saying "anyone who doesn't think the way I do on this topic shouldn't be trusted".

[Jedd]

I read it more as 'anyone who doesn't support public education isn't a person that should be setting policy for society'.

[antidesitter]

Really? How did you read it that way? Seems pretty clear the GP specifically used the term "shill".

[Retra]

You used the term "specifically" but nobody is nitpicking the meaning of that word to elevate a non-generous interpretation of what you mean. Sometimes people are just not that careful with the words they choose and don't expect others to jump on their word choice as indicative of some highly nuanced intent.

[antidesitter]

> You used the term "specifically" but nobody is nitpicking the meaning of that word to elevate a non-generous interpretation of what you mean.

What do you think the word “shill” means to most people? I’m baffled at your attempt to characterize this as “nitpicking”.

> Sometimes people are just not that careful with the words they choose and don't expect others to jump on their word choice as indicative of some highly nuanced intent.

It’s pretty clear the author intended to call politicians who don’t “support public education” shills. There’s nothing “nuanced” about that.

If you don’t think calling such people “shills” was the intent, I’m curious to hear your alternative interpretation.

[Retra]

A more generous interpretation would simply be that "shill" was used as a proxy for "selfish." But that doesn't even matter, you can ask that poster what they meant. Context should tell you they were doing nothing more than vaguely commenting on their feelings. You really don't have to dig into it.

[metamet]

> If that's the case, you believe that libertarians are shills, then?

The libertarian argument against public education (pushed by Cato, etc) is that public schooling is worse than private school systems, therefore we should be not spending public money on education, but rather shuffle those resources into vouchers and other ways to fund the private organizations offering private education.

They advocate for starving public education and giving those resources to private companies, which are able to selectively allow students through the guise of tuition. In addition to that, removing government standards allows for private education systems to teach "creationism vs evolutionism" as a "valid" scientific debate. Which is isn't. Same with climate change and all those other partisan talking points. Education shouldn't be wrapped up in a way that can be influenced by funders--do you think that the Kochs and DeVoses are not advocating for "education" that promotes their aspirations and biases? That's called indoctrination.

So yeah. Any libertarian who actively believes that we should get rid of public education in favor of private companies influenced by money needs to rethink their position. The free market isn't the panacea they claim it is.

There's very clearly work that needs to be done within the realm of public education. But giving the chalkboard over to people with deep pockets is a far cry from it.

[dragonwriter]

> therefore we should be not spending public money on education, but rather shuffle those resources into vouchers

That's still spending public money, just with less oversight.

[clarkmoody]

No, the proper libertarian argument is that we don't initiate violence against innocent people. In order to tax someone, you must ultimately threaten them with violence. Public schooling is paid for with taxes. Therefore, we oppose it on moral grounds as improper threats of aggression against the public.

[msla]

Here's a critique of Libertarianism (not the same one I posted above, in fact) with an answer to that:

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html

> If you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will show up at your house, initiate force and put you in jail.

> This is not initiation of force. It is enforcement of contract, in this case an explicit social contract. Many libertarians make a big deal of "men with guns" enforcing laws, yet try to overlook the fact that "men with guns" are the basis of enforcement of any complete social system. Even if libertarians reduced all law to "don't commit fraud or initiate force", they would still enforce with guns.

If you don't like this contract, you can vote to change it.

If you can't get enough people on board to change it and you still don't like it, you can leave.

[clarkmoody]

You cannot leave. The US has near-global extradition treaties.

To renounce your citizenship, you must ask permission (which can be denied), then you must pay a fee.

Also, the social contract is not voluntary.

[thanksDr]

I don't get it - How do you fund the police? Or are you 'free' to protect yourself?

[clarkmoody]

Huge topic within libertarianism.

You could start here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7717015-the-private-prod...

[harimau777]

I don't think libertarians are shills in that I believe they are genuine in wanting to improve society. However, in my experience their policies tend to be built on the assumption that the government is entirely restructured in line with libertarian principles. Since that is unlikely to ever happen, those policies that do get implemented tend to assist those who already hold power.

As an example, my understanding is that the libertarian argument for why deregulation will not result in people being hurt by defective products would be something like:

People would not be harmed because corporations would be held accountable for their actions.

Corporations would be held accountable because people can take them to court.

People can take corporations to court because they can hire lawyers.

People can afford to hire lawyers because restrictions on licensing and education that constrain supply would be removed.

So preventing harm from deregulation would also require significant changes to the licensing and education of lawyers.

[GatorD42]

Some libertarians (such as myself) generally believe corporations already have strong incentives to make non-defective products. Some products that compromise safety for cost provide consumers low cost options they would otherwise not have. Efforts to regulate such products to make them safer can cause more harm than good (by making such products more expensive and therefore unavailable so consumers will use something older or less safe).

Currently it costs zero dollars to "hire" a lawyer in a class action against a company for a defective product. If a company has made a defective product there will probably be a class action and you will receive a small settlement. If you have been seriously injured eg by asbestos it also costs zero dollars to hire a lawyer, they work on contingency. I am totally in favor of reforming licensing laws, but if you have been seriously injured and you have a strong legal case, money is not a barrier to getting a lawyer.

Generally I think there is too much regulation and too much litigation, I don't think private litigation is a solution for regulation, I think market incentives are the solution. When there are obviously unsafe products on the market is worth looking deeper to see if consumers are willingly sacrificing safety for cost.

[mcguire]

I don't think history beat bears that out.

I was just listening to an interview with Deborah Blum on her new book, The Poison Squad, concerning the history of food safety regulations. It seems like most corporations have strong incentives to make defective products; bad products drive out good.

As for litigation, without regulations, you could only sue on the grounds that the corporation knowingly violated some "reasonable" standard of behavior.

One example that comes to mind is vinyl chloride in hairspray:

"The companies did not, however, immediately move to take the chemical out of hairspray. Their major fear seemed to be the possibility of lawsuits. In a January 1973 meeting, industry lawyers warned of the enormous potential legal liability:

""If vinyl chloride proves hazardous to health, a producing company's liability to its employees is limited by various Workmen’s Compensation laws. A company selling vinyl chloride as an aerosol propellant, however, has essentially unlimited liability to the entire U.S. population.""

https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-crusa...

https://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/evidence/secrecy_pop02.html

[stanleydrew]

Setting aside the barriers to getting a lawyer when you have no money which I think you dismiss too readily, I am more interested in how you would propose to determine whether consumers are willingly sacrificing safety for cost?

[GatorD42]

People make cost-safety trade offs all the time, the probabilities are so low that they may not explicitly think of them as such.

Have you ever driven a long distance instead of flying? If so you sacrificed safety for price / convenience - over the same distance flying is much safer. Are you driven by a professional chauffeur in an armored S-Class? If not you are sacrificing safety for cost.

You could imagine pushing pro-regulation arguments to absurd circumstances, like making it illegal to drive more than 125 miles (requiring people fly instead) or banning all cars aside from the armored S-Class etc. The side effects of such rules would obviously be very bad, but smaller regulations could have smaller, still deleterious consequences. See the case of unsafe cars in India: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/05/sa...

[stanleydrew]

Yes but I am really interested in my actual question, which is how we can tell whether any given behavior that exhibits desire for lower price is done willingly, knowing that there is a safety tradeoff.

I am absolutely not saying it doesn't happen. I am asking how can we tell?

[msla]

> If that's the case, you believe that libertarians are shills, then?

I'm sure some are.

I'm also sure some are honest people who believe things at odds with what we know about market failures.

Here's a market-oriented (that is, based on the idea of market economies) critique of Libertarianism:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-libertar...

It's founded in, ultimately, game theory, with a lot about coordination problems and defection.