Curt Doolittle

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  • In The Us, Is It Realistic To Try To Achieve Labor/progressive Goals In Businesses Through More Active Shareholder Participation Rather Than Government Regulation?

    Being a shareholder is like being a voter. It’s more symbolic than meaningful. Companies of any size are affected either by a) threats to the brand perception by customers or b) threats at regulation.  These two are more effectives strategies than minority share ownership.

    IMHO there is a trending body of thought that suggests shareholders are not owners but speculative lenders. The recent Apple dividend distribution was caused by economists blogging and publicly decrying the company’s hoard.  This caused the company to issue dividends defensively.  And the powerlessness (and frankly, lack of utility) of shareholders was part of that discussion.  Lynn Stout has written a book “The Shareholder Value Myth” and I think it accurately represents the mythology around shareholder ownership.

    https://www.quora.com/In-the-US-is-it-realistic-to-try-to-achieve-labor-progressive-goals-in-businesses-through-more-active-shareholder-participation-rather-than-government-regulation

  • What Is The Libertarian Position On Laws About Filming Up Women’s Skirts Without Their Consent?

    Anon is correct.

    The reason that someone can violate another’s privacy is because there are insufficient property rights due to the ‘tragedy of the commons’ in ‘public’ areas.

    However, we don’t need to get that complicated.  If all citizens of a village are shareholders, and shareholders vote to create a contractual obligation that we don’t look up women’s skirts, then there is nothing that violates ‘libertarian’ principles.  It’s a private corporation.  The shareholders determined the rules.  The people can voluntarily go to that village or not.

    The problems for libertarians are a) that we don’t have the right of exclusion (we can’t randomly forbid people from shopping malls or city streets), and b) we don’t have the right of secession, which means we can’t set up our own rules for our own neighborhoods.  This amounts to the government causing and subsidizing bad behavior.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-libertarian-position-on-laws-about-filming-up-womens-skirts-without-their-consent

  • What Are The Best Examples Of “magical Libertarian Thinking About Markets”?

    I am not sure that there is anything magical.  I think that libertarians prefer to pay one set of consequences, and statists to pay different consequences.  A libertarian is perfectly OK with it taking ten years to solve a problem. A statist isn’t. A libertarian would rather have to battle an irresponsible corporation using the market than an irresponsible government that is outside the market. And in the end, that’s really the only difference.  

    I have been debating these topics for a long time and I am pretty sure that it all boils down to that distinction.  The libertarians are right that the state creates monopolies, and that most of the problems we face are the product of government, and that the government exacerbates those problems. The left is right in that the market works slowly and that there are consequences to relying upon it exclusively.  Some people seek to define the best balance of market and state. Others seek the extremes.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-examples-of-magical-libertarian-thinking-about-markets

  • What Is The Difference Between Neoliberalism And Libertarianism?

    An interesting question.

    Neo-liberalism (Neo-classical liberalism) relies upon our classical liberal institutions to create and maintain a minimal state.  “Libertarianism” because of the efforts of the Rothbardians to appropriate the term, has become synonymous with anarcho capitalism.  So, if we are using the word libertarian, we must separate the Libertarian party, from the libertarian sentiment, from the anarcho capitalist philosophy.  They are three different things.  The term “neo-liberalism” is in part an attempt by those people with libertarian sentiments and support for classical liberal institutions to differentiate themselves from ideological anarchists. The term ‘liberal’ has also been appropriated by socialists and democratic socialists.  Classical liberal has an antique meaning. So neo-liberalism is an attempt to create a definition of contemporary economic and political knowledge (all five or six economic strategies) while maintaining a minimal state.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-neoliberalism-and-libertarianism

  • What Is Post-austrian Economics?

    1. I think these people are describing a sentiment that they sense in the libertarian movement, not an explicit set of works. (I consider myself one of the people working on post-austrian solutions.)  There are a number of factors that are driving that sentiment.
    2. We are no longer battling socialism but redistributive democracy.  The Austrian canon is not as suited to the current battle as it was to the previous battle.
    3. “Austrian” has been appropriated by the anarchists, as a means of claiming legitimacy, and this has been advocated by the Mises Institute in particular. And there is an attempt by the intellectual community to abandon the term ‘Austrian’ in order to distance itself from Rothbardian anarchism. I suspect that this is the reason you’re seeing the term float around.

    That’s my suspicion. If you pointed me to a few examples I’m pretty sure I could directly address it. It’s not like there are all that many influential people in the  movement.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-post-Austrian-economics

  • Where Did The Idea That Libertarianism Includes Social Liberties Come From?

    There are two libertarian traditions; The christian aristocratic classical liberal (epitomized by Hayek) and the jewish merchant anarchic (epitomized by Rothbard)  Christians were a land holding majority and so needed formal institutions.  Jews were a diasporic religiously governed minority  and favor anarchism.  With the heavy jewish immigration into the USA, jewish authors advocated their means of avoiding the oppression of the state just like christian classical liberals advocated their means of avoiding oppression by the state.  These two traditions became allies.  Then Rothbard and Friedman became the primary intellectual advocates for libertarian policies.  There has not been an evolution in christian classical liberalism.  This is partly because institutional programs are nearly impossible to put into place, and ideological programs that require only ‘belief’ or ‘support’ are much easier to put into place. It is also a failure in part, because classical liberalism is an institutional model that can resolve conflicts in priority among people with similar interests, but it cannot provide (majority rule cannot) a means of resolving conflicts among people with dissimilar interests. (As they warned us in Federalist Papers 10.)  The recent dominance of Rothbardianism on the internet, can be largely attributed to Lew Rockwell’s insight that it was possible to adopt the ideological tactics of the communist movement, and the organizing tactics of Alinsky to promote libertarianism as an ideology through education and community building. His impact through the mises institute cannot be overstated.  So, in essence, we have not created the next evolutionary step in classical liberalism in order to solve  the problem of running an empire in a modern economy where the institution of marriage has become unbound and where women and men have different reproductive strategies and therefore different political sentiments.   THe libertarians (Hans Hoppe in particular) have devised some solutions for small states. But no one has yet determined a solution for large scale states that desire to federate.  As such, because of this failure, the debate for freedom takes place largely in the context of anarchism.  Because the jewish anarchists have supplied the only ideological program that can compete with social parliamentary democracy (ie: it’s communism by other means.)

    You could look at the problem this way: jews have always been a minority and christian classical liberals are becoming a minority — and beginning to act like one.  Only majorities look to provide institutional solutions.  Small groups stick with informal institutions: religions and norms.  Because they lack the power to create formal institutions.

    That’s a lot to cover in one note.  But it’s the answer you’re looking for.

    https://www.quora.com/Where-did-the-idea-that-libertarianism-includes-social-liberties-come-from

  • Why Do People Who Never Read James Madison Or Edmund Burke, But Listen To Hannity Or Limbaugh Think Of Themselves As Conservative?

    Conservatism is a sentiment. It has biological, environmental, pedagogical and rational components that reinforce it. Classical liberalism is a political philosophy.  Conservatives in the USA are conservative TOWARD classical liberalism. Christian Aristocratic Manorialism is a social model.  Conservatives are conservative TOWARD Christian Aristocratic Manorialism.  One does not need to read anything.  In fact, having to ‘read’ something is a decidedly negative property of any social model. It must be capable of propagation by experience, and in particular, the experience of a child.

    All rational models seek to advocate in favor of the sentiment.  Not the other way around.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-who-never-read-James-Madison-or-Edmund-Burke-but-listen-to-Hannity-or-Limbaugh-think-of-themselves-as-conservative

  • Have Any Corporations Embraced Equitable Or Just Compensation Models?

    Um.. This is one of those problems that’s really nonsense. 

    All employees should be compensated at market rates. Otherwise if you are lower, they won’t stay, if they are over, your competition will eat you.

    Compensation is not equitable WITHIN A COMPANY. It is equitable across ALL COMPANIES.

    Do not fall into the trap of confusing the ‘fiarness’ of a family, with the alliance of people that work together in a company.

    https://www.quora.com/Have-any-corporations-embraced-equitable-or-just-compensation-models

  • 2012 U.s. Elections: Who Is Currently The Front Runner Of The United States Presidential Race?

    Go visit Intrade.com.  Monitor it there. It’s quite accurate. 

    The electorate is polarized with only about 12-15% of people uncommitted to one party or the other.  Elections are determined by these uncommitted people.  These uncommitted people tend to vote based upon what their friends tell them.  Many people do not vote policy they vote likability. Because it is easier to understand than policy is. Obama is still personally likable even if he is an unsuccessful president.  If the economy improves he will likely be reelected, and if it declines again, then not.  Key factors will be the price of oil and the conflict between Iran and Israel, and how well his opponent connects with voters after the convention. 

    If I had to bet money I would say that at present he will win by a very thin margin, if the issue with Iran does not peak, and if there are no surprises.

    https://www.quora.com/2012-U-S-Elections-Who-is-currently-the-front-runner-of-the-United-States-presidential-race

  • How Is An Economic Stimulus Package Supposed To Work?

    There are a series of possible stimuli available from the short term to the long term.
    1) Spending – Fiscal Policy: the government borrows money, then spends it on any number of projects.  This puts money in the hands of consumers, consumers spend on things not related to the projects, and businesses respond in order to serve demand. Their employees spend too, and the cycle expands.  Problem? It takes a long time for money to move into the economy.
    2) Monetary Policy: the government borrows money and then auctions it off at low rates.  Bankers buy this ‘cheap’ money and sell it as lower cost loans to business and the public.  Problem? Sometimes (now) no matter how low you make the cost of credit (effectively zero) people will not borrow it.
    3) Trade Policy. Sometimes you can tax or reduce taxes on goods and services to make them cheaper or more expensive. So, for example, if you want to create jobs in say, clothing manufacture, you highly tax clothing imports.  Problem: this just makes goods and services more expensive for consumers, so it has to be paired with monetary policy.
    4) Industrial policy: what we did with the auto companies. You find a way to create or expand industries that create jobs or create demand.
    5) Education policy: train or retrain your population to produce goods and services that are desired, when the goods and services they produce are no longer as desirable.

    Most of the time, governments quickly adjust monetary policy then they try spending policy.  The argument today is that we should spend more. The problem is that people don’t trust their government to spend it wisely, and they therefore prefer to suffer a slower economy than fund bad behavior in government.

    https://www.quora.com/How-is-an-economic-stimulus-package-supposed-to-work