Buenos Aires, Argentina — Thousands took to the streets of Argentina in the past few days to protest a series of economic decrees proposed by President Javier Milei. On December 20, Milei announced sweeping deregulations to Argentina’s economy, sparking backlash from opposition members and groups representing unemployed people. Riot police were dispatched at major protest […]
To be fair USSR after communism was leagues better than USSR before communism ever could have been. But it’s not exactly proving much pointing out that an extremely unequal authoritarian regime is worse than a more equal but still authoritarian regime.
I don’t think the comparison works anyway because this is a true example of exactly what most libertarians have wet dreams of, while with communism people try to use e.g. the USSR and PRC to discredit leftism as a whole (especially socialism) even though any leftist worth their salt would realize authoritarianism is bad and creates a dangerous hierarchy, which is why Marx and Engels specified their ideologies to be democratic.
I don’t think China succeeded because of communism. They succeeded because Rich Industrialists in the west did not want to share their success with ordinary people and hence shifted all their work to China where the government ensured a steady supply of cheap labour. Of course, this only worked because the Chinese population was so poor that what were considered bad wages in the west was significantly more money than they would get back home.
Now this kind of outsourcing of labour is what lead to countries coming out of poverty: what made them poor in the first place? Rampant colonialism by EU nations. You can see this in Africa, South America, Asia.
Hong Kong which currently lives under an authoritarian regime, or South Korea which is a somewhat participatory executive democracy birthed from the corpse of an authoritarian regime?
Neither is a hot spot of libertarianism. South Korea is peak neo-liberalism.
The last century has been a total and unmitigated disaster for Argentina. The two options Argentinians had in this election were:
More of the same by the guy who oversaw inflation reaching 160% (100% chance of things getting worse)
A total wild card (99.9% chance of things getting worse)
Unsurprisingly, they went for the latter. I don’t think anti-libertarians get to gloat in this context, given it’s the Argentinian establishment which has overseen one of the most remarkable examples of total state-collapse and economic failure in modern history.
That’s bad math. Yes, if you put the same people in office. There’s nearly 100% chance that they will continue doing what they have been doing. Good or bad. But if you put a lunatic with a grudge against reality in office. Who is aligned, or would align himself with the people who caused the problem before. You have 150% chance that things will get worse.
Yes, it was a jab at the logic. Things can always get worse. Always. Change for the sake of change is a bad proposition. So now the people causing the problems before aren’t in direct control. They have a go between patsy. Poised to push awful social oppression openly that they’d likely only thought about in wet dreams. And a large chunk of misguided populous supporting it. Because “it’s different”.
It’s the key ideological problem with the book. Rand was right that people do not inherently owe anyone else the fruits of their labor, but wrong about who was holding the world on their shoulders. It wasn’t the handful of elite, but the masses without whom the elite would be living in caves and running from bears.
Who is John Galt? We the people are.
And yes, throughout history pretty much every authoritarian regime ultimately collapses or sends their country back decades in progress by not knowing that lesson.
Argentina is about to become the latest case study that libertarians refuse to acknowledge when you tell them their policies don’t work.
Nah it’s not that it’s libertarianism failing it’s just that idiots version of it failing
What they’ll say when it fails or next time someone else tries to implement their ideals
then immediately turn around and mock communists for saying something similar.
But what will Lemmy communists say when you point out USSR and China?
To be fair USSR after communism was leagues better than USSR before communism ever could have been. But it’s not exactly proving much pointing out that an extremely unequal authoritarian regime is worse than a more equal but still authoritarian regime.
I don’t think the comparison works anyway because this is a true example of exactly what most libertarians have wet dreams of, while with communism people try to use e.g. the USSR and PRC to discredit leftism as a whole (especially socialism) even though any leftist worth their salt would realize authoritarianism is bad and creates a dangerous hierarchy, which is why Marx and Engels specified their ideologies to be democratic.
Libertarian and communist aren’t the only political options if your education didn’t top out at ninth grade.
I don’t think China succeeded because of communism. They succeeded because Rich Industrialists in the west did not want to share their success with ordinary people and hence shifted all their work to China where the government ensured a steady supply of cheap labour. Of course, this only worked because the Chinese population was so poor that what were considered bad wages in the west was significantly more money than they would get back home.
Now this kind of outsourcing of labour is what lead to countries coming out of poverty: what made them poor in the first place? Rampant colonialism by EU nations. You can see this in Africa, South America, Asia.
He just didn’t libertarian hard enough.
“It’s not that libertarianism has failed; it’s just that the wrong people have tried it!…”
That’s what Communists always say, the only one they worship is Lenin cuz he didn’t have time to do anything anyway.
True libertarianism has never been tried bro
It’s been a while since I even bothered arguing with libertarians, but wouldn’t they just point to Hong Kong and South Korea?
Hong Kong which currently lives under an authoritarian regime, or South Korea which is a somewhat participatory executive democracy birthed from the corpse of an authoritarian regime?
Neither is a hot spot of libertarianism. South Korea is peak neo-liberalism.
Common neoliberal W
Massive eye roll.
Yes, clearly they would be referring to Hong Kong post-97 unification.
Really? Come on dude. Drop the snark, you need better quality contributions if you’re going to take that tone with other users here.
I’m not a libertarian, I’m a social democrat.
The last century has been a total and unmitigated disaster for Argentina. The two options Argentinians had in this election were:
Unsurprisingly, they went for the latter. I don’t think anti-libertarians get to gloat in this context, given it’s the Argentinian establishment which has overseen one of the most remarkable examples of total state-collapse and economic failure in modern history.
The calculation shouldn’t be “chance of things getting worse”, but “expected value of how much worse it’ll get”.
This makes a lot of sense if you pretend he didn’t say or promise anything during the campaign.
Anything to add beside a snide comment?
Not if you continue being wrong in easy to summarize ways
Not taking sides, but this was an amazing burn.
FTFY
That’s bad math. Yes, if you put the same people in office. There’s nearly 100% chance that they will continue doing what they have been doing. Good or bad. But if you put a lunatic with a grudge against reality in office. Who is aligned, or would align himself with the people who caused the problem before. You have 150% chance that things will get worse.
This isn’t exactly the best math either.
Yes, it was a jab at the logic. Things can always get worse. Always. Change for the sake of change is a bad proposition. So now the people causing the problems before aren’t in direct control. They have a go between patsy. Poised to push awful social oppression openly that they’d likely only thought about in wet dreams. And a large chunk of misguided populous supporting it. Because “it’s different”.
Oof, yeah that’s not a good choice.
Mate one dude was hearing voices and talks with his deceased dogs…how can you say “wild card” with a straight face?
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What’s the previous case study?
Look up Kansas Ave Oklahoma. It got so bad for them they had to cut school to 4 days per week and that was before the pandemic.
Who is John Galt? Looks like we’re about to find out.
It’s the key ideological problem with the book. Rand was right that people do not inherently owe anyone else the fruits of their labor, but wrong about who was holding the world on their shoulders. It wasn’t the handful of elite, but the masses without whom the elite would be living in caves and running from bears.
Who is John Galt? We the people are.
And yes, throughout history pretty much every authoritarian regime ultimately collapses or sends their country back decades in progress by not knowing that lesson.
Yet it never seems to actually be learned.
They’ll come out of the woods and start claiming he wasn’t a true libertarian.
After a century of Peronism, the current state of Argentina isn’t a case study about libertarianism. Quite the opposite.