this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 260 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Argentina is about to become the latest case study that libertarians refuse to acknowledge when you tell them their policies don't work.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Nah it's not that it's libertarianism failing it's just that idiots version of it failing

What they'll say when it fails or next time someone else tries to implement their ideals

[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago (6 children)

then immediately turn around and mock communists for saying something similar.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (4 children)

But what will Lemmy communists say when you point out USSR and China?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

To be fair USSR after communism was leagues better than USSR before communism ever could have been. But it's not exactly proving much pointing out that an extremely unequal authoritarian regime is worse than a more equal but still authoritarian regime.

I don't think the comparison works anyway because this is a true example of exactly what most libertarians have wet dreams of, while with communism people try to use e.g. the USSR and PRC to discredit leftism as a whole (especially socialism) even though any leftist worth their salt would realize authoritarianism is bad and creates a dangerous hierarchy, which is why Marx and Engels specified their ideologies to be democratic.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Libertarian and communist aren't the only political options if your education didn't top out at ninth grade.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I don't think China succeeded because of communism. They succeeded because Rich Industrialists in the west did not want to share their success with ordinary people and hence shifted all their work to China where the government ensured a steady supply of cheap labour. Of course, this only worked because the Chinese population was so poor that what were considered bad wages in the west was significantly more money than they would get back home.

Now this kind of outsourcing of labour is what lead to countries coming out of poverty: what made them poor in the first place? Rampant colonialism by EU nations. You can see this in Africa, South America, Asia.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I measure a country's success by the quantity of weapons they produce

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

He just didn't libertarian hard enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

"It's not that libertarianism has failed; it's just that the wrong people have tried it!...."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nah it’s not that it’s libertarianism failing it’s just that idiots version of it failing

That's what Communists always say, the only one they worship is Lenin cuz he didn't have time to do anything anyway.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

He had time to build the gulags

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

True libertarianism has never been tried bro

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's been a while since I even bothered arguing with libertarians, but wouldn't they just point to Hong Kong and South Korea?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Hong Kong which currently lives under an authoritarian regime, or South Korea which is a somewhat participatory executive democracy birthed from the corpse of an authoritarian regime?

Neither is a hot spot of libertarianism. South Korea is peak neo-liberalism.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago

South Korea is peak neo-liberalism.

Common neoliberal W

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Lol is this a joke? South Korea that's essentially a US military colony at this point? Yeah, totally libertarian.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

I'm not a libertarian, I'm a social democrat.

The last century has been a total and unmitigated disaster for Argentina. The two options Argentinians had in this election were:

  1. More of the same by the guy who oversaw inflation reaching 160% (100% chance of things getting worse)
  2. A total wild card (99.9% chance of things getting worse)

Unsurprisingly, they went for the latter. I don't think anti-libertarians get to gloat in this context, given it's the Argentinian establishment which has overseen one of the most remarkable examples of total state-collapse and economic failure in modern history.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

The calculation shouldn't be "chance of things getting worse", but "expected value of how much worse it'll get".

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This makes a lot of sense if you pretend he didn't say or promise anything during the campaign.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't actually know anything. But casually to me it looked like a choice between 160% chance of it getting worse and a 300% chance of getting worse. And it's not very surprising at all in these circumstances many go for the latter for all sorts of reasons (and delusions). But I don't actually know anything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

You should probably read at least a little about Argentina's recent history before commenting then...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago
  1. More of the same by the guy who oversaw inflation reaching 160% (100% chance of things getting worse)
  2. A total wild card (99.9% chance of things getting much worse)

FTFY

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's bad math. Yes, if you put the same people in office. There's nearly 100% chance that they will continue doing what they have been doing. Good or bad. But if you put a lunatic with a grudge against reality in office. Who is aligned, or would align himself with the people who caused the problem before. You have 150% chance that things will get worse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

You have 150% chance

This isn’t exactly the best math either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yes, it was a jab at the logic. Things can always get worse. Always. Change for the sake of change is a bad proposition. So now the people causing the problems before aren't in direct control. They have a go between patsy. Poised to push awful social oppression openly that they'd likely only thought about in wet dreams. And a large chunk of misguided populous supporting it. Because "it's different".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Mate one dude was hearing voices and talks with his deceased dogs...how can you say "wild card" with a straight face?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Oof, yeah that's not a good choice.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Argentina could've just gone for a new currency again

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Wouldn’t solve anything.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What's the previous case study?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago

Look up Kansas Ave Oklahoma. It got so bad for them they had to cut school to 4 days per week and that was before the pandemic.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Lol what policies? Everyone for themselves?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Who is John Galt? Looks like we're about to find out.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's the key ideological problem with the book. Rand was right that people do not inherently owe anyone else the fruits of their labor, but wrong about who was holding the world on their shoulders. It wasn't the handful of elite, but the masses without whom the elite would be living in caves and running from bears.

Who is John Galt? We the people are.

And yes, throughout history pretty much every authoritarian regime ultimately collapses or sends their country back decades in progress by not knowing that lesson.

Yet it never seems to actually be learned.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

They'll come out of the woods and start claiming he wasn't a true libertarian.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 8 months ago

New York cut their libraries so who's the real loser?