A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Politics and other such topical creams.
Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35800
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by Flex »

I'm reading the linked-to Rod article from the piece of crap you linked to, eumaas, and a thought occurs:

I probably read Rand around the same time most do - high school, age 15/16/whatever - but unlike others, I was so totally disgusted with her positions that it probably turned me off from the whole route of libertarianism/anarchism for years. Now, as I've become friendlier to those positions (and, I would say, moved my personal philosophies into those realms), I can re-examine Rand with the benefit of some common ground and shared opinions.

And I hate her positions even more.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35800
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by Flex »

eumaas wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
eumaas wrote:
Flex wrote:
eumaas wrote:More "libertarian" elitism:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... power.html
Terrible. The masturbatory comments make me wanna puke, too.
And then they wonder why socialists say that free market economics is an ideological construct used to support those in power.
The basic economics: If managers don't add value, why do CEOs hire them? It's not enough to say, "Because of government regulation."
How about group-think business philosophy that dictates all businesses have to do X, Y, & Z even if it makes no practical sense? How about that upper levels engage in senseless activity just to be active, and creating new levels of "management" is a means of putting your stamp on things without genuinely doing anything except perhaps create loyalists in the middle levels (and, well, help make the company sluggish and obese)?
Add to that a distorted market where business failure is met with bailouts as well as numerous other distortions of market processes and incentives, and what do you get?
Candy?
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

Flex wrote:
eumaas wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
eumaas wrote:
Flex wrote: Terrible. The masturbatory comments make me wanna puke, too.
And then they wonder why socialists say that free market economics is an ideological construct used to support those in power.
The basic economics: If managers don't add value, why do CEOs hire them? It's not enough to say, "Because of government regulation."
How about group-think business philosophy that dictates all businesses have to do X, Y, & Z even if it makes no practical sense? How about that upper levels engage in senseless activity just to be active, and creating new levels of "management" is a means of putting your stamp on things without genuinely doing anything except perhaps create loyalists in the middle levels (and, well, help make the company sluggish and obese)?
Add to that a distorted market where business failure is met with bailouts as well as numerous other distortions of market processes and incentives, and what do you get?
Candy?
Correct. Delicious elitist candy with strawberry filling.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

Flex wrote:I'm reading the linked-to Rod article from the piece of crap you linked to, eumaas, and a thought occurs:

I probably read Rand around the same time most do - high school, age 15/16/whatever - but unlike others, I was so totally disgusted with her positions that it probably turned me off from the whole route of libertarianism/anarchism for years. Now, as I've become friendlier to those positions (and, I would say, moved my personal philosophies into those realms), I can re-examine Rand with the benefit of some common ground and shared opinions.

And I hate her positions even more.
Yeah. Rod's a good guy, but I swear, there is very little to be salvaged in Rand. I feel that it's people with an adolescent attachment looking back and reading their own much better ideas into Rand. The common view of Rand really isn't inaccurate.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

To make my argument clearer...
Dr. Medulla wrote:How about group-think business philosophy that dictates all businesses have to do X, Y, & Z even if it makes no practical sense? How about that upper levels engage in senseless activity just to be active, and creating new levels of "management" is a means of putting your stamp on things without genuinely doing anything except perhaps create loyalists in the middle levels (and, well, help make the company sluggish and obese)?
They make the assumption that this shit can't possibly exist since market processes would wipe out inefficiencies. And that assumes that market processes are not impeded. It also assumes like you said that group think isn't in place. If people think hierarchy is the only way, they will keep making hierarchical organizations. This is in no way contradicted by economics. Consider that some people tithe 10% of their income to the Church. They may not receive any "objective" benefit from this, but it satisfies them, which praxeologically speaking means they're engaging... in action! So why not have inefficiencies when you value something more than efficiency or are ignorant of better means?
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115979
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

eumaas wrote:
Flex wrote:I'm reading the linked-to Rod article from the piece of crap you linked to, eumaas, and a thought occurs:

I probably read Rand around the same time most do - high school, age 15/16/whatever - but unlike others, I was so totally disgusted with her positions that it probably turned me off from the whole route of libertarianism/anarchism for years. Now, as I've become friendlier to those positions (and, I would say, moved my personal philosophies into those realms), I can re-examine Rand with the benefit of some common ground and shared opinions.

And I hate her positions even more.
Yeah. Rod's a good guy, but I swear, there is very little to be salvaged in Rand. I feel that it's people with an adolescent attachment looking back and reading their own much better ideas into Rand. The common view of Rand really isn't inaccurate.
I'm only a couple hours (audiobook time) to the end of Heller's Rand bio, and while I'm impressed by the force of her character and all, it still feels like a philosophy of arrested development. Take the child/adolescent view of thinking you're the centre of the universe and apply it to adult life, where the playground bully deserves to rule and all else can go fuck themselves. That her followers are consummate personality cult zombies, and that she encouraged it, just turns the whole thing into farce.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115979
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

eumaas wrote:To make my argument clearer...
Dr. Medulla wrote:How about group-think business philosophy that dictates all businesses have to do X, Y, & Z even if it makes no practical sense? How about that upper levels engage in senseless activity just to be active, and creating new levels of "management" is a means of putting your stamp on things without genuinely doing anything except perhaps create loyalists in the middle levels (and, well, help make the company sluggish and obese)?
They make the assumption that this shit can't possibly exist since market processes would wipe out inefficiencies. And that assumes that market processes are not impeded. It also assumes like you said that group think isn't in place. If people think hierarchy is the only way, they will keep making hierarchical organizations. This is in no way contradicted by economics. Consider that some people tithe 10% of their income to the Church. They may not receive any "objective" benefit from this, but it satisfies them, which praxeologically speaking means they're engaging... in action! So why not have inefficiencies when you value something more than efficiency or are ignorant of better means?
Impeded by humans who value something more than efficiency—having their ego stroked, fear of losing face amongst their peers, limited by deficiencies in skill or analytical ability, or the dumb ass glitches in personality that we all have.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
eumaas wrote:
Flex wrote:I'm reading the linked-to Rod article from the piece of crap you linked to, eumaas, and a thought occurs:

I probably read Rand around the same time most do - high school, age 15/16/whatever - but unlike others, I was so totally disgusted with her positions that it probably turned me off from the whole route of libertarianism/anarchism for years. Now, as I've become friendlier to those positions (and, I would say, moved my personal philosophies into those realms), I can re-examine Rand with the benefit of some common ground and shared opinions.

And I hate her positions even more.
Yeah. Rod's a good guy, but I swear, there is very little to be salvaged in Rand. I feel that it's people with an adolescent attachment looking back and reading their own much better ideas into Rand. The common view of Rand really isn't inaccurate.
I'm only a couple hours (audiobook time) to the end of Heller's Rand bio, and while I'm impressed by the force of her character and all, it still feels like a philosophy of arrested development. Take the child/adolescent view of thinking you're the centre of the universe and apply it to adult life, where the playground bully deserves to rule and all else can go fuck themselves. That her followers are consummate personality cult zombies, and that she encouraged it, just turns the whole thing into farce.
Check out this blog entry and comments:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/20/ayn-r ... -something
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

Flex wrote:
eumaas wrote:http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot. ... ality.html

Kinsella is kind of a prick.
Wow, what an asshole.
I'm butting heads with Kinsella on facebook now.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

Kevin Carson wrote:But you wouldn't expect the intelligence distribution to be that way in, say, a hospital, which is where I work now. And I constantly live under the effects of decisions made by MBA types who are so much a product of their culture that they literally *cannot see* what Crosby called "the costs of low quality." They see how little staffing it's humanly possible to just barely scrape by on, and high-five each other (literally) about how much they've saved on labor costs--while completely ignoring the fact that the resulting costs from MRSA, med errors, complications, employee disgruntlement and turnover, and HORRIBLE customer word of mouth about what a squalid understaffed shithole it's become, exceed the apparent savings several times over. They've made a way of life out of what Robert Jackall called "starving" and "milking": gutting human capital, stripping assets, and hollowing out long-term productive capability in order to massage the quarterly numbers and game their own bonuses.
Isn't that what Republicans do to socdem programs too?

edit: more of that
Also, a lot of it's structural, as Roderick said. William Waddell, a noted lean consultant who's worked with hundreds of businesses, points to the way the GAAP accounting principles developed by Norman Brown at DuPont and GM dovetail with this management culture, so that the management accounting system reinforces the incentives to starving and milking. GAAP rules treat labor hours as virtually the only direct cost, while treating management salaries as fixed or semi-fixed costs that are just part of general overhead, and thus absorbed into the unit costs of product "sold to inventory."

Trying to act intelligently in that structural environment is almost as much of an uphill swiim as being a good manager in the Soviet economy, regardless of individual intelligence.
edit2: this is all coming from the comments section on
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... power.html
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

Soviet Onion wrote:
Pshaww.

I have a much better plan to reform the Libertarian Party. I’m gonna need eight anarchists. We’re gonna be doing one thing, and one thing only: killin’ Nazis.

This is all I’ve got so far.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

Flex
User avatar
Mechano-Man of the Future
Posts: 35800
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:50pm
Location: The Information Superhighway!

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by Flex »

eumaas wrote:
Soviet Onion wrote:
Pshaww.

I have a much better plan to reform the Libertarian Party. I’m gonna need eight anarchists. We’re gonna be doing one thing, and one thing only: killin’ Nazis.

This is all I’ve got so far.
Awesome.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

Pex Lives!

Dr. Medulla
User avatar
Atheistic Epileptic
Posts: 115979
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 2:00pm
Location: Straight Banana, Idaho

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

eumaas wrote:
Kevin Carson wrote:But you wouldn't expect the intelligence distribution to be that way in, say, a hospital, which is where I work now. And I constantly live under the effects of decisions made by MBA types who are so much a product of their culture that they literally *cannot see* what Crosby called "the costs of low quality." They see how little staffing it's humanly possible to just barely scrape by on, and high-five each other (literally) about how much they've saved on labor costs--while completely ignoring the fact that the resulting costs from MRSA, med errors, complications, employee disgruntlement and turnover, and HORRIBLE customer word of mouth about what a squalid understaffed shithole it's become, exceed the apparent savings several times over. They've made a way of life out of what Robert Jackall called "starving" and "milking": gutting human capital, stripping assets, and hollowing out long-term productive capability in order to massage the quarterly numbers and game their own bonuses.
Isn't that what Republicans do to socdem programs too?
Which reflects a more general belief by executives that labour is nothing but cost, that employees don't generate value (the management system creates the value; the employees fuck it up). Everything follows from that single contemptuous misperception.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Wolter
User avatar
Half Foghorn Leghorn, Half Albert Brooks
Posts: 55432
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 7:59pm
Location: ¡HOLIDAY RO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-OAD!

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by Wolter »

Flex wrote:
eumaas wrote:
Soviet Onion wrote:
Pshaww.

I have a much better plan to reform the Libertarian Party. I’m gonna need eight anarchists. We’re gonna be doing one thing, and one thing only: killin’ Nazis.

This is all I’ve got so far.
Awesome.
I'm in.
”INDER LOCK THE THE KISS THREAD IVE REALISED IM A PRZE IDOOT” - Thomas Jefferson

"But the gorilla thinks otherwise!"

eumaas
User avatar
Klezmer Shogun
Posts: 23579
Joined: 15 Jun 2008, 8:10pm
Location: deep in your Id

Re: A left-libertarian on Glenn Beck?

Post by eumaas »

Some idiot libertarian who clearly hasn't read Wittgenstein is bashing him on Facebook. I guarantee you this guy is a Randian.
I feel that there is a fascistic element, for example, in the Rolling Stones . . .
— Morton Feldman

I've studied the phenomenon of neo-provincialism in self-isolating online communities but this place takes the fucking cake.
— Clashy

Post Reply