Questions for Libertarians

[gravesdav]

I'm a kid who just graduated high school and who just got into Libertarianism recently beause of Dr. Paul. It seems like a natural philosophy and liberty and free markets make sense.
I just was thinking practically and I have a few flaws/questions about it for you hardcore Libertarians to help me with.
Let's say I have a house and my neighbor has loud parties, has bad odors coming from his house to mine, and shines bright lights at my house. Is he exercising his right or violating mine. Is it the role of government to settle this?
And on free markets: I think It's beneficial to have jobs in America, so how is outsourcing good? How can the free market work globally when competing with these third world countries that don't care about the environment and the lives and liberty of their workers? Certain libertarians would answer this by saying their should be open borders but I can't see that(neither can RP). Should we put equal tariffs on countries that put tariffs on our goods because right now countries are taxing our goods while we don't tax theirs in so called free trade agreements?
Any suggested reading besides Ron Paul's books(amazon doesn't have them) would be beneficial. Thanks:)

[angrydragon]

There will always be local laws, contracts or neighborhood agreements for the first point.

The main reason for the outsourcing is that it's expensive to companies to have those jobs here. If the government cut back on its regulations and taxes, they'd be able to compete with the global market.

[SeanEdwards]

I'm a kid who just graduated high school and who just got into Libertarianism recently beause of Dr. Paul. It seems like a natural philosophy and liberty and free markets make sense.
I just was thinking practically and I have a few flaws/questions about it for you hardcore Libertarians to help me with.
Let's say I have a house and my neighbor has loud parties, has bad odors coming from his house to mine, and shines bright lights at my house. Is he exercising his right or violating mine. Is it the role of government to settle this?


He might be violating your rights. Sounds like a perfect matter for the courts to ajudicate.



And on free markets: I think It's beneficial to have jobs in America, so how is outsourcing good? How can the free market work globally when competing with these third world countries that don't care about the environment and the lives and liberty of their workers? Certain libertarians would answer this by saying their should be open borders but I can't see that(neither can RP). Should we put equal tariffs on countries that put tariffs on our goods because right now countries are taxing our goods while we don't tax theirs in so called free trade agreements?
Any suggested reading besides Ron Paul's books(amazon doesn't have them) would be beneficial. Thanks:)


That's a good question, and I would like to know the answer too. Free trade sounds good, but I don't much like the idea of free and unfettered trade with what amount to slave masters who hold their own workers in bondage.

I also don't think much of free trade principles that say it's acceptable for US companies to help Chinese thought police identify and jail Chinese dissidents. Truly free trade requires a fair and level playing field, and that does not exist internationally in many cases.

[legion]

I'm a kid who just graduated high school and who just got into Libertarianism recently beause of Dr. Paul. It seems like a natural philosophy and liberty and free markets make sense.
I just was thinking practically and I have a few flaws/questions about it for you hardcore Libertarians to help me with.
Let's say I have a house and my neighbor has loud parties, has bad odors coming from his house to mine, and shines bright lights at my house. Is he exercising his right or violating mine. Is it the role of government to settle this?
And on free markets: I think It's beneficial to have jobs in America, so how is outsourcing good? How can the free market work globally when competing with these third world countries that don't care about the environment and the lives and liberty of their workers? Certain libertarians would answer this by saying their should be open borders but I can't see that(neither can RP). Should we put equal tariffs on countries that put tariffs on our goods because right now countries are taxing our goods while we don't tax theirs in so called free trade agreements?
Any suggested reading besides Ron Paul's books(amazon doesn't have them) would be beneficial. Thanks:)

Just because you are a libertarian doesn't mean that you want your local government to be abolished.

Outsourcing is good because our companies need people to manage the oursourced employees. Besides, outsourcing isn't as much of a problem as people make it out to be. There are a finite number of things we can outsource, many things simply don't work as well when you outsource them, like call centers. The smart companies will realize that outsourcing in some areas only ends up costing them customers, rather than save them money.

Go to http://harrybrowne.org/ and read his old articles.

[zMtLlC]

Concerning tariffs, the reasoning truly makes little sense. If someone else was shooting himself in the foot, does that mean you need to also? Tariffs only hurt the nation that implements them, since the citizenry pays more for a good which could cost them less, thus wasting more of their money. Think about it on a more micro level. If you lived a town which, for one reason or another, had some sort of natural advantage in manufacturing nails, and a city across the river could produce hammers at a low cost. Wouldn't it make sense for your town to make as many nails as possible while importing hammers from the other town? If instead you put a tariff on those hammers, which cost let's say $2 each to import, and bumped up the price to $4, wouldn't you be wasting $2 of labor on hammers instead of producing more nails to export? People should be entitled to buy things at the lowest cost, without government interference forcing them to pay superficially high prices.

[gravesdav]

I agree ideally there should be no tariffs. But when one country will not lower their tariffs I think we can't lower ours. I would think domestic industry and jobs are more important than low prices.
Thanks for all the opinions and answers.

[Mesogen]

But, zMtLIC, there can be more to tariffs than getting the cheapest goods. It is a means to foreign policy, like Sean Edwards alluded to and they are a means for federal revenue.

[beermotor]

Concerning tariffs, the reasoning truly makes little sense. If someone else was shooting himself in the foot, does that mean you need to also? Tariffs only hurt the nation that implements them, since the citizenry pays more for a good which could cost them less, thus wasting more of their money. Think about it on a more micro level. If you lived a town which, for one reason or another, had some sort of natural advantage in manufacturing nails, and a city across the river could produce hammers at a low cost. Wouldn't it make sense for your town to make as many nails as possible while importing hammers from the other town? If instead you put a tariff on those hammers, which cost let's say $2 each to import, and bumped up the price to $4, wouldn't you be wasting $2 of labor on hammers instead of producing more nails to export? People should be entitled to buy things at the lowest cost, without government interference forcing them to pay superficially high prices.


I disagree with this, for this reason. RP has stated that we could fund the military and the small federal government intended by the Constitution with a tarriff. This sounds like a fantastic idea to me. This country used to be a huge manufacturing center; that's all gone. We used to be a huge food exporter; we still are, to some degree. This country has always had problems with importing fuel; we need to find local solutions.

I look at this from a planning perspective. On a local level, you need to have shelter, water, and food in order to have civilization, period. If a natural disaster occurs and isolates a local community from immediate help, there needs to be local access to all these things to provide for the SUSTAINABILTY of the community.

Too often, sustainability is a euphemism for carbon taxes and global warming hooey. The proper emphasis should be looking at Katrina and the Tornado in Nebraska and how local responses can alleviate hardships. A city like Atlanta must import lots and lots of things; what would happen to Atlanta if for some reason those imports stopped showing up? I shudder to think. The libertarian response is of course that we must distribute, and decentralize, these tasks. It is a survivability question. When this was a country of farmers and foresters, and some miners, it was no big deal. We've become a digital economy that deals in finance, and that's about it. That is a huge problem for the long term, I think.

Eliminate taxes, tarriff (mildly) imports, and you will incentivize both decentralization AND localization!

[LibertyEagle]

Here are a couple of places you might visit on-line. All kinds of free things to read and listen to. Just hunt around....

http://www.mises.org/

http://www.fee.org/

[SeanEdwards]

If you lived a town which, for one reason or another, had some sort of natural advantage in manufacturing nails,


What if your natural advantage in making cheap nails arises because in your town it's perfectly legal to enslave people and force them to produce nails under threat of death?

Should everyone else turn a blind eye to your unjust business practices and treat you just like a respectable manufacturer of nails? "Hey, these nails are cheap. Fuck those dumbass slave workers. LOL!!" ;)

[angrydragon]

Or watch this video, a good intro. into liberty and economics. Ron Paul is in the video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5658307639261829691

[LibertyEagle]

thanks. I hadn't seen that one.

[zMtLlC]

But, zMtLIC, there can be more to tariffs than getting the cheapest goods. It is a means to foreign policy, like Sean Edwards alluded to and they are a means for federal revenue.

Yes, but you're trampling all over a person's right to spend their money on what they want to pursue those ends.



I disagree with this, for this reason. RP has stated that we could fund the military and the small federal government intended by the Constitution with a tarriff. This sounds like a fantastic idea to me. This country used to be a huge manufacturing center; that's all gone. We used to be a huge food exporter; we still are, to some degree. This country has always had problems with importing fuel; we need to find local solutions.

I look at this from a planning perspective. On a local level, you need to have shelter, water, and food in order to have civilization, period. If a natural disaster occurs and isolates a local community from immediate help, there needs to be local access to all these things to provide for the SUSTAINABILTY of the community.

Too often, sustainability is a euphemism for carbon taxes and global warming hooey. The proper emphasis should be looking at Katrina and the Tornado in Nebraska and how local responses can alleviate hardships. A city like Atlanta must import lots and lots of things; what would happen to Atlanta if for some reason those imports stopped showing up? I shudder to think. The libertarian response is of course that we must distribute, and decentralize, these tasks. It is a survivability question. When this was a country of farmers and foresters, and some miners, it was no big deal. We've become a digital economy that deals in finance, and that's about it. That is a huge problem for the long term, I think.

Eliminate taxes, tarriff (mildly) imports, and you will incentivize both decentralization AND localization!

In today's age, a natural disaster hardly cuts off a city from the rest of the world. Think about how fast the Feds could have been there in New Orleans. You may have had a small point back in the 18th century, but in the days of air travel, the point is all but irrelevant.

On the planning, localization, and decentralization issue, first, why would the import dry up in Atlanta? If the Atlantans have things to trade for the imports, why would they dry up?

Again, considering the natural tariff of travel expenses contributes enough to this incentive you speak of, what would be the point of every community producing everything it needs? If a company can overcome that natural tariff and still produce it cheaper, what's the need? I don't see any point in the government forcing people to pay more for their goods simply because they want them to be produced locally. Don't people have the right to spend their money on things they wish without government interference charging more for it?

The advantages of import and export are tremendous due to the division of labor. If a community can focus on one thing to produce, much like a person, they could produce them faster and with less cost. The first chapter of Wealth of Nations deals with division of labor. He explains it much better than I ever could. If you have some time, read it.



What if your natural advantage in making cheap nails arises because in your town it's perfectly legal to enslave people and force them to produce nails under threat of death?

Should everyone else turn a blind eye to your unjust business practices and treat you just like a respectable manufacturer of nails? "Hey, these nails are cheap. Fuck those dumbass slave workers. LOL!!"

Then the people could decide whether they want to buy things from that town or not. They don't need some kind of overreaching government to tell them who they can or cannot buy from. Tyranny in the name of benevolence is tyranny nonetheless.

[ChooseLiberty]

For outsourcing it might help to read this wiki article on comparative advantage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

[Silverback]

On the question of trade I believe this thread is in danger of doing precisely what Pauls detractors so love to do, namely look at an issue in a vacuum.

Free trade doesn't result in persistent trade deficits. If you and I are trading partners and you continually show up with way more stuff than I do, and I say I'll make it up the next time but never do, eventually if not immediately you'll stop giving me more stuff than I give you.

It's the Fed producing essentially unlimited quantities of debt instruments at managed rates that facilitates the trade imbalances that make outsourcing destructive. Under the gold standard and later Bretton woods if there was a trade imbalance it would only persist until the nation in deficit ran out of gold, so in fact there were no trade deficits of any significance because a hard commodity was changing hands and trade was essentially balanced. With only the free market credit supply and rating of the principles and so on to deal with, the problem of trade imbalances was essentially self correcting and would do so before they could lead to structural problems in the domestic economy.

This is a complex subject, It's actually far worse than just the damage outsourcing does because our creditors will eventually expect us to honor those debt instruments.

[angelatc]

What happens in the event of say.....Japan steel-dumping?