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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27630 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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In my latest essay, I try to list the major points I'm aware of that puncture the progressive narrative on economics, without trying to directly touch on the Culture War's social fronts.

Reality Has a Poorly Recognized Classical Liberal Bias

I think most people here have enough exposure to libertarianism that they are at least aware of these issues (even if they don't agree with them). If you think I missed one or I'm somehow dead wrong please do indicate so.

Classical liberalism is unsustainable, probably inherently because espousing it means leaving yourself defenseless against parasites of liberalism, such as various forms of communism.

And no, you can't simply declare 'we won't have nice people and nice things in my liberalism' to avoid the progressive cancer.

So I'd say, reality has an anti-classical liberal bias. Classical liberalism is a strictly transitory phenomenon that will degenerate into something else. Same as e.g. the brief window of political sanity in farming civilization while people who survived thru civil wars were in power.

Classical liberalism is a strictly transitory phenomenon that will degenerate into something else.

In the long run we are all very much dead. But perhaps giving up on classical liberalism altogether is premature.

And the "something else" is hard here. If we have reached the End of History, but liberal democracy is insufficiently "liberal" to be economically feasible then where we go next seems bad. I'd argue going back to the old ways.

So I'd say, reality has an anti-classical liberal bias

I'd argue many people do, not economic reality. Public choice theory teaches us this. Then you can get into "liberal" vs. "democracy" but that's a whole thing.

but liberal democracy is insufficiently "liberal" to be economically feasible then where we go next seems bad. I'd argue going back to the old ways.

a) It's not about economics.

I'd argue going back to the old ways.

Politics is the art of the possible. Saying impossible things are desirable is mostly useless.

Classical liberalism has all the electoral appeal of I dunno, raw oysters. Sure the right people will like it but you're still basically SOL.

I'd argue many people do, not economic reality.

In a big enough country, ideology and cope can paper over cracks in economic reality for a very long time. Heck this even works in a small country -consider Argentina! People can stay deluded for generations on end if they can. (e.g. society is rich enough because you're exporting money etc). Witness US education system which is mostly regressing.

a) It's not about economics.

Any system that runs out of other people's money is going to struggle. Any system that cannot wage war effectively via the means of production is going to struggle. You may not be interested in economics; but economics is interested in you.

Politics is the art of the possible. Saying impossible things are desirable is mostly useless.

Classical liberalism is a lot less far-fetched than Marxism, and yet. It's very much not literally impossible. Certainly it's possible to make marginal improvements even if we never achieve my particular vision of utopia.

Electoral appeal can change. Sometimes rapidly. My hope is that the next crisis event is used to steer us in a good direction, not an even worse one.

I'm not exactly sure how much the OSHA/FLSA graphs are supposed to prove. It's not like occupational safety laws and measures or general labor laws and measures where things that were nonexistent before OSHA/FLSA, right? Aren't these furthermore the points where these things passed from improvements being workplace-based and affected by labor union advocacy to the state taking control, making the anti-union point less clear?

This is the classic counterargument to the straight line proving OSHA's ineffectiveness.

TL;DR: Lots of provably important thing don't make jumps in other lines, so it's probably that people (governments, companies, the public) set a goal of X%/year, and that was one thing they used to reach it.

Very reasonable and straightforward. Markets work well for many economic tasks.

But Classical Liberals don't have a monopoly on markets. China makes good use of markets in their authoritarian nationalist capitalist model. They're not liberal. The Romans had a pretty laissez-faire attitude to markets but supplemented them with aggressive imperialism.

Marketism and laissez-faire works best in economics. Classical liberalism and libertarianism are poor politics because of their openness and inability to develop a strong power base. Say you have a classical liberal state. Who gains? Everyone. But they can all see ways to make more gains by weakening the system. Big business wants to bring in cheap labour, privatize gains in labour price while socializing costs in welfare. They also want to protect domestic markets from foreign competition. Poor people want money from the rich. Middle class people want cozy sinecures. Trade unions want regulations on business and to prevent mechanization. Foreign lobbies want expensive adventurism. Nimbies want nothing to be built. Greens want industry dismantled.

So I don't disagree but if the proposal is more 'classical liberalism' then there has to be some way of developing a classical liberal power base. It doesn't seem to be very stable as an equilibrium, with so many forces with incentives to undermine it. Christianity also has many virtues but we observe it on the decline in the West, see Sunday trading, abortion rules, treatment of adultery, marriage, homosexuality... I can imagine a reasonable, justified argument that Christianity is good, shared faith makes many things easier. But without the 'here's why Christianity is declining and how this trend can be reversed' the call to action seems incomplete.

Of course this is a very big and hard problem. I can't see a way to make classical liberalism work reliably without getting captured by various interests. And a huge party-state to compel obedience like China brings with it new problems.

It seems like there are two not-quite-identical problems being identified here. The first is overtly named "developing a classical liberal power base", while the second is not explicitly named, I think it has significant overlap if not being identical to "crony capitalism".

Some natural questions arise. What is a "power base"? What is necessary for it; what is sufficient? It is the "power" to do what? A natural concern is that, depending on how one views that power/power base, and the necessary conditions for it, perhaps it inherently contains a sufficient "amount of power" with suitable orientation so as to be inherently suspect vis a vis crony capitalism.

This is essentially the starting point of 'state capacity libertarianism', but some might say that it's also the starting point for constitutionalism and limited government to begin with. The question of the adequacy of those tools devolves quickly into many offshoots, each which contains its own version of, "Yeah, but how do you get the power to do that?" As I've observed here before, often times, that's sneaking in some bullshit goalposts. For if one could outline a simple set of steps to be done, one other could always respond, "Then why haven't you done it yet?" Yet history marches on, and despite some claims that nothing ever happens, while nothing happens much of the time, some things do happen and change over time.

But enough about real things; let's be silly! Let's go full Great Man Theory and assume we could elect a variant of Donald Trump. Trump has already made some moves toward reducing things to what is required by statute and the Constitution. He's also made some moves, uh, opposite of that. But he has shown how you can sort of just boldly go in and do stuff, forcing the system to adapt around you. What are some of the most hilarious things our variant President could do to drive the system in the direction we want? I'll throw out a good starting one; it's even got the sort of 'hardball negotiating' sense that Trump tries to put off. Our variant President tells the American people that his hands are tied. He's read the Constitution. He saw what it says, and lots of people are talking about it. The Constitution just doesn't authorize an Air Force (or a Space Force, for that matter). Obviously, he doesn't want to abolish the Air Force. It is yugely important for the power and prestige of America. But the Constitution is the Constitution, so unless Congress and the States pass an amendment to the Constitution in the next 90days, he's regrettably going to have to shut the whole thing down.

You start here specifically because it is one of the most absurd places, where technically-proper formalism has not been followed, but everyone gives in and shrugs their shoulders because they prefer power instead. Nobody will have any real argument against formalizing the Constitutionality of the Air Force, either, so it'll probably get done. And that sends a message, giving you political cover. "Now that everyone has agreed that it's important to strictly follow the Constitution and formally authorize any deviations from its very limited grant of power, I'm going to start shutting everything down that isn't properly authorized unless you can get sufficient supermajorities to save it." You could probably take a nice slice out of much of the cronyism. Probably won't get all of it. Could you actually restore a norm of Constitutionalism and limited government? Maybe. Maybe for a while. But then I think we're probably nearing another goalpost that I think is probably also mostly bullshit. Not only "how do you get your policy preferences implemented", but "how do you keep your policy preferences in place forevermore"? That's essentially an unsolvable problem, and it's unsolvable for essentially every political position, not just classical liberalism. It would be an isolated demand for rigor to require it of that political position alone.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States

It's perfectly legal to have an air force. Surely it would be better to go after all those silly extensions of interstate commerce first.

The real problem is that there are structural reasons why states get bigger, I think it's mostly due to technology. Everything a small community can wield, a state can also command. They have small arms, molotov cocktails and mobile phones but also tanks, satellites, huge offices full of bureaucrats. As technology develops, there are more capital-intensive technologies that only states can manage efficiently. The earliest states formed where there was a need to manage irrigation and agriculture in Mesopotamia and other river delta areas. As tech advances, the power of the individual shrinks in the face of the collective and institution.

Not only "how do you get your policy preferences implemented", but "how do you keep your policy preferences in place forevermore"?

It may be an unsolvable problem but there is still stronger and weaker, just like how some men endure old age well while others are sickly. Liberalism has a weak immune system because it is naturally liberal and open to new ideas, including illiberal ideas (queue tired Popper paradox of intolerance meme).

Liberalism isn't rooted in anything tough and reliable like religion or race or patriotism. We see them in all times and places over the world.

When liberalism gets snuffed out (as in ancient Athens, Rome, early modern Poland) it never re-emerges naturally. It only rarely emerges in the first place. Liberalism today is really an Anglo thing, spread by the British who were the most successful country on the most successful continent. If it weren't for British money and troops, later American money and troops, the world would be ruled by profoundly illiberal forces.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States

It's perfectly legal to have an air force.

There are significant concerns with such a flippant reading. The Constitution goes on to explicitly grant particular ways that such a thing can be done. One must read those clauses out of the Constitution in order to take such a broad reading here. A couple examples just to give you a sense of some of the gymnastics that are required. It's pretty clearly motivated reasoning, saying, "I really think we should have an Air Force; how do I torture the Constitution (and my own interpretive system) in order to get the result I want?"

The real problem is that there are structural reasons why states get bigger, I think it's mostly due to technology.

I thought that was actually the crony capitalism business. Crony capitalists want growth of the administrative state and presidential power... so long as they feel they have a decent handle on their ability to steer it to their benefit.

As technology develops, there are more capital-intensive technologies that only states can manage efficiently.

This seems counter to the actual world in which non-states are efficiently managing extremely capital-intensive technologies.

Liberalism has a weak immune system because it is naturally liberal and open to new ideas

I think this is confusing what it means to be a Classical Liberal.

The average man on the street would surely think that it's fine for a state to have an air force, it's basically like a navy or an army (or a force of underground tunnelling vessels were such things invented). Nothing about the US constitution is opposed to air forces on a values level. Whether the air force is a branch of the army or not is really an organizational bureaucratic matter rather than constitutional interpretation. Legislators are allowed to make laws on it.

It's not like the right to bear arms or free speech vs hate speech. If you want to make constitutional arguments, make the strongest arguments that are most easily believable and inspire the most support. Who is going to get energized for the cause of making the air force subordinate to the army?

This seems counter to the actual world in which non-states are efficiently managing extremely capital-intensive technologies.

Corporations develop them but states manage them. States don't like human cloning, it's banned. States want to keep nuclear technology secret, it's secret. The EU decides that we need to click through pop-ups about cookies, millions of man-hours are wasted... The US allocates GPU access around the world, there are tiers of who can and who cannot have them.

I think this is confusing what it means to be a Classical Liberal.

If there are problems with implementing and sustaining an ideology (and there are problems with all ideologies), surely that's relevant in discussing its merits?

The average man on the street

...is wrong about Constitutional stuff all the time.

it's basically like a navy or an army

...uh, which one? The Constitution gives different rules for them, so which set of rules apply?

Corporations develop them but states manage them. States don't like human cloning, it's banned. States want to keep nuclear technology secret, it's secret. The EU decides that we need to click through pop-ups about cookies, millions of man-hours are wasted... The US allocates GPU access around the world, there are tiers of who can and who cannot have them.

This doesn't sound like "management". It sounds like States ban stuff.

I think this is confusing what it means to be a Classical Liberal.

If there are problems with implementing and sustaining an ideology (and there are problems with all ideologies), surely that's relevant in discussing its merits?

Sure... but I think you've just mistaken what it is in starting this analysis.

Whether the air force is a branch of the army or not is really an organizational bureaucratic matter rather than constitutional interpretation.

Yes, this. The Army Air Force was originally part of the Army, and everything was clearly fine with the Constitution. Then the National Defense Act of 1947 changed some names for the Army Air Force and the rest-of-the-Army and hybridized the organizational structure of the Army and Navy, but how does that cause Constitutional problems?

A couple examples just to give you a sense of some of the gymnastics that are required.

I don't consider this gymnastics. It's like saying that freedom of the press applies to television. The founders didn't have television and the Constitution doesn't say anything about television. But you can guess that if someone had magically told them about television, they, or at least a substantial portion of them, would have said that television counts. So you read "press" as including television. Likewise, you should read "army" or "navy" as including the Air Force.

It's true that the Air Force can do things that the army and navy don't, but it's also true that television can do things that printed newspapers can't. That's not really a reason to say that television doesn't have freedom of the press. Also, the exact terminology is irrelevant; if we had by happenstance of language called the Air Force the Flying Navy, that wouldn't change anything.

(Notice that "if they had heard of it, would they count it?" is not the same as "they hadn't heard of it".)

There is significant interpretive difference between individual rights recognized in the Bill of Rights, due to the background of natural/retained rights tradition, as compared to enumerated, limited powers of government. In fact, much jurisprudence actually roots rights WRT television in the free speech clause. Whether or not that is accurate, and whether there should be more of a revival of the free press clause, is above my pay grade (though I have thoughts). But the entire interpretive framework is significantly different from the first step.

The founders did seem to think that there was a meaningful difference between Armies and Navies, naming them separately rather than some unified term and including entirely separate clauses addressing particulars of each. I also agree that if we called the Navy the Floating Army, it probably wouldn't turn the Navy into an Army for purposes of the Constitution. So, I guess my first question is... is the Air Force a Flying Army or a Flying Navy? Because I'm not sure which Constitutional clauses apply to it.

The founders did seem to think that there was a meaningful difference between Armies and Navies, naming them separately rather than some unified term and including entirely separate clauses addressing particulars of each.

Sure, but that seems to substantially agrere with the person who was using "gymnastics".

Michael responds to this post here. His reply is difficult to summarize, but if I understand it correctly, the key claim is that an independent Air Force is permissible under the text of Article I so long as the "powers" it exercises can legitimately be considered either "Army" or "Navy" powers.

If you aren't sure which one it comes under, that's different from not thinking it counts at all. It seems unlikely that the founders would think the Constitution doesn't allow for an air force at all just because you're not sure exactly which thing it's most similar to.

I like how you fail to quote the remainder of that paragraph. The criticism of such a position. But I would go further. The clauses which distinguish between Armies and Navies aren't really providing separate "powers"; that bit was mostly done already. There's some notion of "powers" here, but it's more that they're outlining substantially different modes of operation within the government, speaking even of constraints.

If you aren't sure which one it comes under, that's different from not thinking it counts at all.

I mean, you're the one saying that it counts under one of them. Which one? Why? Do you think it's both somehow? How?

It seems unlikely that the founders would think the Constitution doesn't allow for an air force at all just because you're not sure exactly which thing it's most similar to.

Not "just because". Primarily, it doesn't allow for it, because it's just not in there! It's nowhere to be found! Instead, you're trying to say, "Well... I think it's kinda like these other things... but I can figure out which one or how, what rules will apply, etc., because, well, it's not in there anywhere." The straining gets more obvious every time you try to patch the hole without actually amending the Constitution and patching the hole. Wouldn't it be vastly mentally easier to just amend the Constitution and patch the hole rather than try to continue juggling such epicycles in your head? A proposed amendment could even use more generic language that actually enables future military forces of

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The crazy thing about markets is that they work so well, even under adverse conditions. The Chinese made some necessary compromises and it worked out pretty well for them.

You do point out a very real challenge I am painfully aware of and what is the underlying motivation of why I would write such an essay. The erosion of (classic) liberalism by progressivism has happened; can we stop it? Or are we in the U.S. doomed to the same eventual fate as the UK?

I have made exactly the same argument you do against Christians saying we need to return to Christianity--if that led us here what good would it do to redo things, even if that were possible? (I'd argue the key difference between classic liberalism, at least the free market economics of it, and Christianity is that the latter is not based on a factual understanding of reality.)

In the U.S., classic liberalism got hammered pretty hard starting during the Great Depression for about 50 years on economics, then we had a few decades of half-decent neoliberalism in both parties, and now both parties are largely past neoliberalism for the indefinite future. MAGAfication on the right may actually negatively polarize the left into becoming more neoliberal again, if we're lucky. #silverlinings

And, though my essay is aimed at progressive failures, I figure my best shot of convincing MAGA types that perhaps they should care about market economics, as the GOP once did, is by trashing progressive failures, not Trump and present antimarket policies.

MAGA is not particularly anti-market, though? It’s anti fiscal conservative which brings its own set of issues but MAGA slashes regulations when it can.

Tariffs are very anti-market.

Trump is also fucking with the Fed, labor statistics, and is demanding drug prices be lowered.

These are all very bad things that will likely do great damage, more in the long run than in the short run.

Trump is also fucking with the Fed, labor statistics, and is demanding drug prices be lowered.

Trump's drug price demands seem to be in response to anti-market demands from other countries. He's not wrong about other countries essentially demanding by law that their market freeloads on the American one.

When they do price fixing, it's bad. When Trump does price fixing, it's bad.

Trump's actions will make things worse, not better. He's not proposing something like I don't know we ban pharmaceutical exports to countries that refuse to pay market rates in order to make others pay their fair share. Imagine if he did that little bit of conflict theory! People would freak the fuck out and call him a mass murderer or something, but he'd be justified in threatening a trade war on that front such that America isn't paying for the bulk of innovation.

So this is a case where I think there is a Trumpian approach to perhaps make things actually better, but he's not doing that.

Trump is proposing the drug companies sell in the US for no more than they sell in other developed nations. As far as I can tell, the drug companies could refuse to sell to other price-controlled nations and retain their US pricing that way.

One weird trick diabetics hate.

But that would actually raise prices in the U.S., right, losing foreign sales, since it's typically not marginal cost of production that's the issue; it's the sunk cost of R&D.

So I'd prefer Trump take this issue on directly, and not make it harder for big pharma.

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It's anti-international trade.

MAGA is pro-positive balance of trade. Not anti-trade.

The options are to throw sand in the gears or to not do so. MAGA is in favor of the former. You cannot achieve a positive balance of trade with the methods Trump uses, especially not the particular ways Trump uses (Mercantilism doesn't work, but Trump isn't even doing mercantilism right)

In particular, a positive balance of trade requires negative net foreign investment in the United States by accounting identity. Trump continues to encourage foreign investment in the United States, and to discourage foreign investment by American companies.

From a progressive standpoint, you're not looking at successful systems in hopes of further maximizing efficiency. You are looking for solutions to problems. Expensive projects with dubious results might look economically silly, but the need for them arises from a want. For example, after hearing that a local homeless person froze to death or something. 'We need to do something' always sounds better than 'welp'.

What sounds good vs. what is effective is a common problem, yes.

As a matter of basic logic and follow through, I get a little peeved that if one agrees with the stance that "we, via the coercive power of the state, need to do something" then by god one should make sure it actually is effective. Frequently, this evaluation step is skipped. Homelessness, for example, remains a big problem, and it's typically worse in areas controlled by progressives doing so many things. Just this evening my wife did not want to use our nearby park to put the baby in a swing due to the homeless being all over the playground area (normally they're more broadly dispersed). The city wants to spend millions of dollars on renovating this park but they won't keep the drug-using vagrants away. A homeless man just tried kidnapping a baby out of a stroller at a public transportation station this week, too.

What's funny is that someone like Noah Smith will unironically write that public parks are (in the strict economic sense) public goods. I'd like to show him how easily taxpayer-funded spaces are excludable and rivalrous. Don't even get me started on libraries.

In short, fuck progressivism for being both expensive and ineffective.

Homelessness, for example, remains a big problem, and it's typically worse in areas controlled by progressives doing so many things. Just this evening my wife did not want to use our nearby park to put the baby in a swing due to the homeless being all over the playground area (normally they're more broadly dispersed)

I can't help but notice that it sounds like your problem is "the homeless", more than "homelessness". Progressives, on the other hand, are trying to solve or alleviate "homelessness" - ie the problem experienced by the homeless where they, er, don't have homes. Keeping vagrants out of parks would solve the problem of "the homeless" from the perspective of more fortunate people who are inconvenienced by the presence of the homeless, but it wouldn't do shit to solve the problem of "homelessness" from the perspective of its actual victims, the homeless themselves. Indeed, it would make their lives fractionally worse than they already are, by further restricting their freedom of movement. Certainly if I was homeless it would make a big difference to my already-degraded quality-of-life and dignity whether I was allowed to hang out in pleasant green spaces or not.

Granted, seeing homeless people is by definition evidence that the problem of "homelessness" has not been successfully solved, so your anecdote isn't without value. But "the city (…) won't keep the drug-using vagrants away" is a non sequitur. Setting aside the continued existence of the vagrants, the city's willingness or lack thereof to keep them away from parks says nothing about how effective they are or aren't at solving the problem they're actually tackling, which is "there are human beings wasting away outdoors", not "well-fed well-housed people might sometimes have to set eyes upon the starving wretches, who are gross and scary", or even "sometimes well-fed well-housed people might be in legitimate physical danger if they get too close to concentrations of starving wretches". Improving the actual homeless people's lives is the outspoken priority of progressive authorities, and even if you disagree with that priority, you don't get to call them ineffective because they aren't very good at solving a completely different, if related problem that you think should be higher-priority.

(Another notable element is that the "drug-using" bit is the crux of the problem. For most of human history, it didn't use to go without saying that a bum is by definition a bug-eyed junkie who could at any time freak out and bite your nose off. The problem of "the homeless" is really an extreme case of the general societal problem of "drugs".)

I can't help but notice that it sounds like your problem is "the homeless", more than "homelessness". Progressives, on the other hand, are trying to solve or alleviate "homelessness" - ie the problem experienced by the homeless where they, er, don't have homes.

You are correct that the two problems are distinct.

Where you're wrong is that progressives tend to deny the distinction, and they suck very badly at resolving either due to ideological precommitments that do not align with reality.

Keep in mind that if the vagrants are outside city limits they are no longer of any practical or legal concern of cities.

Improving the actual homeless people's lives is the outspoken priority of progressive authorities, and even if you disagree with that priority, you don't get to call them ineffective because they aren't very good at solving a completely different, if related problem that you think should be higher-priority.

The are pretty fucking bad at it, is my point. Ends, means. Inputs, outputs. Intent, outcome.

Law and fucking order is also supposed to THE primary concern of cities, and all of government actually. So when you foster an open-air drug market next to a playground you're using my tax dollars to fuck over my other tax dollars.

No, not what sounds good vs what is effective. Most of these problems have no proven actionable solutions. From race to homelessness. And often times the problems are linked. The problems are also woven into the moral fabric of progressive ontology that came out of the older 'classical liberal' world.

That goes double for when we are operating within the parameters of what progressive voters will allow to fly or what can actually pass a human inspection. It's all well and good for us here talking about graphs and whatnot, but these debates have been had in the spheres where they matter. Turns out you can't be taken seriously as a classical liberal in civilized society if your answer to the moral impetus that drives progressives forward is bold faced racism or a confident 'welp'.

As a matter of basic logic and follow through, I get a little peeved that if one agrees with the stance that "we, via the coercive power of the state, need to do something" then by god one should make sure it actually is effective. Frequently, this evaluation step is skipped.

Or the evaluation is done and it says the thing was effective. Regardless of whether it was. Because the institutions that do the evaulation are captured by the proponents of the proposal.

In other words, economic feasibility had to be achieved to consider such things at all; formalizing the changes in law is a lagging indicator.

it is trickier, it is similar to slavery: economical progress enables to get rid of it (or makes it much easier), but activism/law also has its place and is necessary to eliminate some abuse that would be present otherwise

Slavery was legal and then made illegal in the West. As a matter of classic liberalism in terms of morality, it was never great to treat some humans as property since that's pretty darn coercive. Economically, coercion usually is not very efficient.

At no point do I or would I say a policy intervention is never called for. I am not an anarcho-capitalist. Some externalities demand government intervention. We should tax carbon and price congestion, for example.

Economically, coercion usually is not very efficient.

Slavery can make sense for the slave owner economically if they have an efficient system for preventing rebellion/runaways/etc or can outsource enforcement to the government or someone else, but yeah the idea of being slavery being efficient overall is something I've never understood. You can beat someone into working a good deal, but getting the best out of them is tough through coercion. Some of the smarter slave owners even realized this and would pay cash incentives (or other similar rewards) to productive slaves. Sometimes they would even rent out their slaves to others and allow the slaves to keep a portion of the earnings!

Slavery starts with a disadvantage to begin with, any system with six people working for their own incentives has a numbers and morale advantage over a system with five workers who gain nothing and one lazy layabout who captures most of the gains for themselves.

Then add on that the market distortions of "free" labor adds less individual incentive for owners to invest in new technology that could clear up the workforce to do other economically productive things for someone else who still needs labor. Why spend hundreds of thousands investing in automation when you have a free work force subsidized by the police state? And yet this automation is what we need, so workers can go do jobs that can't be automated yet.

It's also less efficient at distributing labor, a large slave owning operation is functionally a mini planned economy. The owner says who does what, and while the smaller nature of it compared to a country doesn't make it as inefficient, it still suffers.

That doesn't mean slavery can't and doesn't work, even the worst systems still tend to be a little productive because people are doing labor in them but overall as a society having a bunch of rent seeking middlemen tends to be a drain on growth. We see a similar thing now where some labor markets have an opposite issue, workers/unions have too much power and demand a bunch of busy work like elevator workers literally taking things apart and putting them back together that could be better spent elsewhere growing the economy through labor that is actually needed.

Architects have dreamed of modular construction for decades, where entire rooms are built in factories and then shipped on flatbed trucks to sites, for lower costs and greater precision. But we can’t even put elevators together in factories in America, because the elevator union’s contract forbids even basic forms of preassembly and prefabrication that have become standard in elevators in the rest of the world. The union and manufacturers bicker over which holes can be drilled in a factory and which must be drilled (or redrilled) on site. Manufacturers even let elevator and escalator mechanics take some components apart and put them back together on site to preserve work for union members, since it’s easier than making separate, less-assembled versions just for the U.S.

If slavery is the balance leaning too much towards the employers where they get lazy and inefficient, stuff like this is the balance shifting too much towards workers.

but yeah the idea of being slavery being efficient overall is something I've never understood. You can beat someone into working a good deal, but getting the best out of them is tough through coercion.

nitpick: if job is so horrible that noone sane would agree to do it, then your choices include

  • improving job situation
  • relying on few insane people
  • leaving it not done
  • slavery

For example ancient world mines tended to be absolutely horrific, and at least partially it was unsolvable without technological progress. Aztecs were fans of human sacrifice and it is quite hard to get volunteers for that, especially at scale that Aztecs believed to be necessary. Also, bunch of deviant sexual practices.

But all of that is not really applicable in modern world or widely considered to be evil. I guess if you look hard enough you will find people going "actually sex slavery is fine and laudable" and meaning it, but...

Put the factory workers in the same union to demand the right to preassemble and hole drill. Make two wrongs make a right.

Slavery was universal in the ancient world, and in some form (state slavery, chattel slavery, serfdom/peonage) right up until shortly after the Industrial Revolution. If non-slaveowning societies really were so much better than slaveowning ones, you'd think some great emancipator would have come along and started wrecking all those slave societies, but they didn't. So slavery's economic inferiority is not inherent in the human condition but a product of modernity. Probably before you have machines, treating people as machines pays off.

Slavery was universal in the ancient world, and in some form (state slavery, chattel slavery, serfdom/peonage) right up until shortly after the Industrial Revolution.

Chattel slavery was illegal in Christian Europe by the High Middle Ages. (This ban never extended to overseas possessions). Serfdom was abolished in the vast majority of France by 1318, and de facto in England by 1500. Serfdom also appears to be the exception rather than the rule in Northern Italy.

Western Europe produces a distinctive civilisation long before that civilisation industrialises.

Slavery was universal in the ancient world, and in some form (state slavery, chattel slavery, serfdom/peonage) right up until shortly after the Industrial Revolution. If non-slaveowning societies really were so much better than slaveowning ones, you'd think some great emancipator would have come along and started wrecking all those slave societies, but they didn't.

Those economies were a pittance compared to the world of today and the free nations are far more wealthier than the less free ones in modern times so it seems like this exact thing happened. Slavery and other similar rent seeking behavior is less of a detriment in a weak economy with weak competition than a global one with more competition.

So slavery's economic inferiority is not inherent in the human condition but a product of modernity. Probably before you have machines, treating people as machines pays off.

And vice versa, the economies that became more free and more capitalist and more willing to use positive incentives to encourage work instead of allowing as many rent seekers to profit off of things they didn't do brought us into the modern world.

It's not the only factor, there's a ton of different important details. But personally unproductive leeches are a drain on society whether they be a slave owner or a union worker demanding busy work.

Those economies were a pittance compared to the world of today

Irrelevant even if true (and I'm not sure a meaningful measurement is possible).

Slavery and other similar rent seeking behavior is less of a detriment in a weak economy with weak competition than a global one with more competition.

There was plenty of competition in Europe and around the Mediterranean Sea... but slavery still persisted.

But personally unproductive leeches are a drain on society whether they be a slave owner or a union worker demanding busy work.

Being a slave owner doesn't make you a personally unproductive leech, any more than being a factory owner does.

Irrelevant even if true (and I'm not sure a meaningful measurement is possible).

Yeah it does, any individual inefficiency and weakness is a lot less meaningful when the whole thing is made up of inefficiencies and weaknesses. Like let's use top athletes and gamers as an example, they're having to optimize the most niche and unimportant elements of their field in order to gain an advantage while beginners just have to do simple things like practice a few more times or learn the rules more to get significant improvement. One of the things I noticed watching bronze OW players in vod reviews years back is that quite a few of them just needed to learn what each characters ultimate did.

When there's much bigger issues in a less competitive environment, smaller optimizations don't really give that much of an advantage. A player who knows what the characters do and how to hold high ground and hits 54% of shots will almost always do better than the player who doesn't know but hits 58%.

Being a slave owner doesn't make you a personally unproductive leech, any more than being a factory owner does.

The slave owner doesn't provide zero value, they do serve similar to a factory owner in that they're the peak of management. But unlike modern capitalism where people tend to get in that management position because of talent and skill at management, slavery tends to happen because of skill at other things. Especially back when generational wealth and power was even more meaningful, fail child kings and queens would stay in place until a revolution whereas the big rich names of 50-100 years ago are practically meaningless today. No one is talking about the Rothschilds and the Carnegies, we're talking about Bezos and Musk.

The slave owner doesn't provide zero value, they do serve similar to a factory owner in that they're the peak of management.

Which is a great deal larger than zero.

But unlike modern capitalism where people tend to get in that management position because of talent and skill at management, slavery tends to happen because of skill at other things.

Getting to the top of a hierarchy requires the same basic skills regardless of what the hierarchy is. A cynic would say "backstabbing and douchebaggery", though admittedly it's not ONLY that.

No one is talking about the Rothschilds and the Carnegies, we're talking about Bezos and Musk.

Don't the Rothschilds still run The Economist? If nobody's talking about them (aside from the DR, occasionally), it's because they don't want to be talked about.

But all of this is besides the point, which is that until very recently there weren't any successful non-slaveowning societies. Which very strongly suggests that slavery was an advantage.

It's also less efficient at distributing labor, a large slave owning operation is functionally a mini planned economy.

And now you know why all planned economies are indistinguishable from slave-owning operations.

It doesn't matter if you're less efficient at distributing labor when labor is not the limiting factor in your economy's growth. When labor is so worthless that laborers are actively competing to give it away, you (as a seller of labor) will find you must abide by more and more restrictions to sell that labor. This can include working longer hours, suffering quotas and beatings, not offending the master, actively making your job harder, and so on and so forth.

Note that, as you've identified, this labor isn't actually free to a buyer- you need to provide food and shelter (or the option to acquire those things). You don't even have to post guards if labor is sufficiently worthless (you do need them to ensure you're extracting the maximum potential from your slaves' labor)- there's nowhere for them to go, no better deal to be had, and they know that. It's more economically efficient if you provide these necessities yourself at the lowest resource cost possible, but they must be provided.

A minimum wage under slavery can be (especially when slaves are captured through conquest) zero, but zero is the lowest it can go. When the minimum wage for labor goes negative in an environment like this your slaves have no choice but to come after you for what's stored in your pantry- once enough people die of starvation, the supply of labor contracts, the wage goes back up to zero and equilibrium is restored.

Now, you might think that if something happened that grew agricultural productivity by an order of magnitude that the minimum wage would fall out, but it turns out that's not the case- instead, it freed up so many people to do so many different things that the supply of labor, then educated labor, started to become a limiting factor.

You may know that period as the Renaissance- typified by abolitions of slavery in European nations, AKA the first society-wide minimum wage law. Slavery wasn't abolished in the colonies for obvious economic reasons: the cost of labor was still basically zero there (and subsidized by colonial governments' conquest of those places).

Then add on that the market distortions of "free" labor adds less individual incentive for owners to invest in new technology that could clear up the workforce to do other economically productive things for someone else who still needs labor. Why spend hundreds of thousands investing in automation when you have a free work force subsidized by the police state? And yet this automation is what we need, so workers can go do jobs that can't be automated yet.

No, slave societies invest in automation as much as they're physically able. The reason a slave society becomes a slave society is to get enough food that the most powerful are able to fund this, because if it is unable or unwilling it quickly finds itself enslaved by a rival society. That is why

and one lazy layabout who captures most of the gains for themselves

is ultimately bullshit. While it is a meme for a reason, and market distortions such as 'no rival powers' can result in this- eventually a stronger society comes along and destroys them. The Confederate States lost to the Union because the Union outproduced them, and they outproduced them because their society was more industrious.

Finally, note that the inverse of that statement, "a system with five lazy layabouts who still get paid and one person who does the actual work", is an accurate characterization of unionized workplaces.

stuff like this is the balance shifting too much towards workers.

Note that the market forces that workers' ability to completely capture the regulatory apparatus also leads to depopulation- because said capture will always eventually make it too expensive for workers to produce more workers. This is the real reason TFR was an order of magnitude higher 200 years ago.

Finally, note that the inverse of that statement, "a system with five lazy layabouts who still get paid and one person who does the actual work", is an accurate characterization of unionized workplaces.

Unionized companies spend more on salaries and the like, but do you have evidence for a productivity difference between unionized and non union blue collar workplaces? While there’s surely a profitability difference actual productivity doesn’t seem to differ that much.

but yeah the idea of being slavery being efficient overall is something I've never understood

Indentured servitude fixes this. I'm half kidding, but I think at least two of my ancestors were indentured at Jamestown.

Unions are bad, in my view. Should not be legally empowered by the government as they have been.

Well, yes. That was true of much of the northern U.S. until more recent times.

The problem is that the Europeans can't quite seem to get AC now that they probably ought to have it. It's kind of banned in many places.

Who is spreading this insane nonsense, most of the EU has ACs and Thermal pumps and what have you

It's a meme on twitter because, iirc, Britain and especially London restricts AC in new buildings etc.

That is a citation needed moment. Source - I am from Europe. AC is quite popular and widespread. And treated as necessity during summer. We just don't try to achieve polar temperatures and usually put it to 20-22 C (don't ask me why AC units became such pussies lately)

My recommendation would be to read the article and view the source cited therein as a good starting point.

Honestly I'm surprised this is something someone wants to contest. Do you have a lot of iced beverages in your part of Europe too?

I read it and it doesn't match reality. I look at the façade of my building and out of 40 apartments there are 30+ air conditioners. People use them both to cool in the summer and to heat in the winter. AC are extremely versatile devices when temperatures swing from -20C in the winter to 40C in the summer.

And yes we have ice drinks - we just don't enjoy as much the starbucks travesties - so ice is usually in water, soft drinks or soda water and cocktails. Or you just open an ice cold can of beer and drink it on the go.

We haven't tuned AC to 11 like US because relatively more people in EU live in regions with bearable humidity. And up to 32-33C heat is no problem if humidity is low. You just drink more beer.

Counter anecdote: many parts of Switzerland have serious restrictions on residential AC. Some cities have outright banned them (Basel, Geneva), others require the AC to be powered by solar panels, others just don't allow the heat exchanger of a mini split to be attached to the facade of a building. Those two are de-facto bans on AC in apartments.

When you're talking about Europe, regulations like that will vary wildly between locations, and you'll always find anecdotes supporting whatever side you picked.

Have you ever heard the phrase "the plural of anecdote is not data"?

I'm not trying to convince you that your particular eyes are lying to you. But Europe is a pretty big place. In most of it, AC is not very common even as heat waves increase.

There is objective data on this fact. In my essay, I linked to such information. This is not, to my knowledge, a contested set of facts. You could, with the language skills and internet access you have go forth and rapidly find out that either I am right in my characterization, or show data that would force me to reconsider my statements.

But you standing outside of a building and telling me I'm wrong will not cut it because 1) I've been to a bit of Europe and 2) I can read sources describing the overall situation in the U.S. vs. Europe.

In even backwater shithole countries like Romania/Serbia/Bulgaria the use of ACs is overwhelming. You'd be hard pressed to find a building without them, even wearhouses and factories are chock full of ACs. New developments are even required to either have central heating/air or ACs, complete with solar panels on the roof.

Citation, please.

More comments

It's the old established areas of Europe that have an allergy (or ideological objection) to A/C, not the ex-communist countries.

(don't ask me why AC units became such pussies lately)

I have been assured by top conspiracist minds that the refrigerant chemical companies ensure their regulatorily captured lawmakers’ outlaw refrigerants as soon as they go out of patent, purely for environmental reasons of course.

Am HVAC tech. Modern refrigerants are generally ok mechanically. Your theory is widely believed in the field but R410 is a fine refrigerant- it’s high pressure so there’s more leaks but it works just fine when it isn’t leaking. Propane would be even better but neurotic safety regulations the manufacturers oppose means it’s a good while before it’s going to be legal to fill a whole unit with it.

The reason new A/C units suck is because of energy efficiency stuff thats sometimes government environmental regulations and sometimes the factories trying to make it more expensive. Lots of the time it’s bypassed in practice.

From a purely physical/technical perspective, modern refrigerants are fine.

Even refrigerants that completely satisfy our modem sensibilities (low global warming potential, zero ozone depletion potential) work as well as they always did. There's no magic sauce in those old fluorocarbons. Hell, even propane and CO2 are basically ideal refrigerants (but require a complete redesign of the cooling circuit, with much beefier parts to allow for much higher pressures).

If legacy AC systems seem to have more power, I'd assume they come with a more powerful compressor, and without pesky electronics that limit that power in any way.

Propane runs at normal Freon pressures. The government limits the amount that goes in a system for neurotic safety reasons(it’s flammable), which restricts its use to refrigerators and smaller air conditioners. But it works very well in those things.

Even refrigerants that completely satisfy our modem sensibilities (low global warming potential, zero ozone depletion potential) work as well as they always did. There's no magic sauce in those old fluorocarbons.

Part of the magic sauce is that they work at lower pressures. Other magic things include that they don't form HF if there's any water in the system, they're compatible with less expensive non-hygroscopic (remember that HF?) oils, they're single component so there's no need to replace all the refrigerant if there's a leak, and the very fact that the environmentalists hate them most makes them cool better. OK, maybe the last one is a myth.

Hell, even propane and CO2 are basically ideal refrigerants (but require a complete redesign of the cooling circuit, with much beefier parts to allow for much higher pressures).

Propane runs fine in a system designed for R-12. The issue with it is flammability.

Propane runs fine in a system designed for R-12. The issue with it is flammability.

While propane's flammability makes repairing systems using it more dangerous, it doesn't make much difference in running the system. It's a significantly better refrigerant than r-134a(the main thing it's replacing now) or r-410a(which, along with 404, it's likely to displace a lot of in the coming years) but a slightly worse one with similar drawbacks to r22(which has been banned/in phaseout for a while).

I don't know. But my first AC that I bought in 2004 went down to 16C, was stupid and made the room a walk in freezer. My current - lowest setting is 18C and has all kind of smart bullshit to prevent it going full blast. Up to the point that I think of tinkering with the thermistor to convince the bastard to play fairly.

That has nothing to do with the Freon, that’s energy saving stuff.

  1. Poverty: capitalism works, redistribution doesn’t (or worse)
  2. Cost of living/services: Due to government subsidizing demand and restricting supply
  3. Welfare: Unfair redistribution
  4. Labor rights: Due to economic growth and competition, not unions
  5. The New Deal: Prolonged the Great Depression
  6. Rust Belt decline: Automation and unions, not free trade
  7. Europe: Low growth and health and pension crises
  8. Progressive governance: High spending and bad results

Did I miss anything? Which ones do you disagree with? I am not sure about 6: it could still be that a dollar that is too strong (expensive) harms exports. The problem there is still not the free market, rather underprovision of dollars in global markets.

Good work I'd say. Thank you.

For 6, I don't believe the dollar's relative value is a major issue for decades of trends.

Re #6 - Indeed.

However, only one major trading partner artificially keeps their currency undervalued - in order to stimulate inward investment at the expense of its own purchasing power on the open market (China).

I think it was Trace who mentioned recently that, for all the growth China has experienced, it still greatly lags behind what it could have been if it followed the example of any of the other Tiger economies.

I won't argue against this rampant line-go-up apologia because, well, I think Mises is right in the final analysis; but this is bad argumentation for your stated goal because progressives do not share the basic priors that make these numbers convincing to you.

Moreover, they have their own numbers that you don't find convincing.

If you want to convince anyone of something, you have to start from within their worldview and chart a path to wherever it is you want to take them, and you better be very nice doing it too, people are easily scared (and rightfully so, actually).

Without that, you are in danger of merely engaging in congratulating your own side for having a worldview that correctly fits their perception of the world. This is a very popular game, and quite a lucrative one too, but as you might have surmised by observing your enemies engaging in it, it's not very effective political propaganda.

I think Mises is right in the final analysis

I'm more of a Hayek and Friedman guy myself. Utilitarianism libertarianism > deontological libertarianism.

but this is bad argumentation for your stated goal because progressives do not share the basic priors that make these numbers convincing to you

The para re: policy effectiveness sets that up a basic shared prior of caring about means and ends.

If someone fundamentally does not care about measuring ROI of policy interventions, then what can one do. One can lead a horse to facts...

Moreover, they have their own numbers that you don't find convincing.

Not remotely good ones they don't. I actually read Capital in the 21st Century and I've taken econ courses from Marxists, so I'm pretty familiar with the other side of the aisle here.

That's kinda my whole thesis here: I used to accept those numbers as part as that narrative. Then I learned better.

Without that, you are in danger of merely engaging in congratulating your own side for having a worldview that correctly fits their perception of the world.

My "side" here is currently out of power or even major influence in either of the two major U.S. political parties right now.

Being right is clearly insufficient!

If someone fundamentally does not care about measuring ROI of policy interventions, then what can one do.

There's an entire world of rhetoric that's not just logical arguments. Use that.

And if your mind goes "oh but it's all dirty underhanded manipulation" then get comfortable coping that you lost in a gracious fashion, because that's all that's gonna happen.

My "side" here is currently out of power or even major influence in either of the two major U.S. political parties right now.

You got pretty close, but then Trump laughed your guy out of the room after using him.

Might get a little bit of deregulation, SEC isn't out to ruin anyone doing anything, that's gotta be a win. Plus SCOTUS is surprisingly willing to tear into the administrative state. Take that, build on it. Goad either side into destroying it on the grounds that their rivals will use it, anything. Just because you don't have Milei running the show doesn't mean you have to be benign.

Being right is clearly insufficient!

Then act like it, dammit.

There's an entire world of rhetoric that's not just logical arguments. Use that.

There's the saying that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I don't 100% buy that because I myself have disproved it on major beliefs at least three times, but it is often true in practice.

The point of the essay was to, as much as possible, list clear facts that I don't think reasonable people can disagree with on an object level. Using much rhetoric would defeat the style of trying to list clear facts. (To my knowledge, there isn't such a list of these facts all in one place [or a current one, at least]. If there were, I'd have written something different.)

There's no one single way to convince a particular person of any given thing at any given time. I acknowledge my approach has the tradeoffs it does. (Part of my worldview is acknowledging tradeoffs.) Plus, rhetoric is typically more words and my list was already pretty dang long, practically speaking.

Also, if we're debating the metalevel relative merits of persuasive strategies using the written word, rhetoric is a symmetric weapon. For example, Marxists can wax poetic about solving inequality just us much as I can lovingly describe personal liberty. I think you could call both Adam Smith and Karl Marx talented writers in terms of style. But as soon as we start talking about facts I get to beat Marxists to death with empirical results and basic math.

You got pretty close, but then Trump laughed your guy out of the room after using him.

One thing I will say for Trump is that he does seem to be restrained by "numba go down." That doesn't help avoid the subtler long term damage to growth, but if certain other presidents had cared about market reactions we'd be a richer country. Shame about DOGE being mostly a clown show.

It would be excellent if SCOTUS is able to overturn certain very bad no good decisions that led to significant government intervention.

Come on son, at least put the primary parts of the essay here, if not the whole thing.

Is there an easy way to port over a substack article with images and links?

I don't see one, so I tried to provide enough context to tell someone whether they might want to click or not.

It was ages ago, it got reinstated, I know I should get over it.... but man, every time something like this happens, I can't stop thinking about an article from a 50 year old magazine, that I had to have shipped from half way across the world, and manually re-type, that got deleted by the mods for being a "bare link"...

Well that's annoying.

Yeah, you're advertising your substack. That's not my idea of quality motte content but I guess nobody else gives a shit so whatever.

I'll probably check it out later but it would be nice to have some examples in bullet-point format.

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