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How Car Dealership Lobbyists Successfully Banned Tesla Motors From Texas
Funksaw writes "In a political op-ed on his blog, long time Slashdot reader and contributor Brian Boyko (the guy who did that animated Windows 8 video) — now a candidate for state representative — explains how lobbyists from car dealerships successfully banned Tesla Motors from selling cars in Texas. From the article: 'Tesla Motors doesn't just present a case study of why a lack of campaign finance reform blocks meaningful reform on the issues that Democrats care about, like climate change and health care. A lack of campaign finance reform blocks reforms on both the Left and the Right. Here's the big elephant in the room I'd like to point out to all the "elephants" in the room: With a Republican-controlled legislature, a Republican executive, and many conservatives in our judiciary, why the hell don't we have free markets in Texas? Isn't it the very core of economic-conservative theory that the invisible hand of the free market determines who gets what resources? Doesn't the free market have the ability to direct resources to where they can most efficiently be used? I'm not saying the conservatives are right in these assumptions; but I am saying that our broken campaign finance system makes a mockery of them.'"
They don't want a Free Market, they want a Free For Them Market, screw everyone else.
Also, with how I saw Red McCombs screwing around San Antonio while I lived in Texas, it doesn't surprise me one bit.
Yep. Anyone can describe a utopian economic system ("Under communism, everyone will work together for the common good!" "Under capitalism, competition and individual choice will lead to the greatest possible efficiency!") but in the real world, they all tend toward cronyism and corruption. Every single time.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Ever see the shirt with the outline of an elephant humping the outline of a donkey? Republicans have NO desire for free market. They push corporatism. Demoncrats have NO desire for free market. They push socialism.
Simple, apt explanation. Are you stuck in primary school, Funksaw? This is sort of common-knowledge these days.
Republicans don't want free-market.
Democrats don't want free-market.
They both want different lobbys to pay them (in campaign donations) for the "privilege" of not being encumbered by regulations of the other party.
Libertarians (both big "L" and little "l") generally want free-markets.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The free market here is in politicians, not autos.
I think it's cute that the synopsis above thinks Texas has a lot of conservatives in its government. Republicans != conservatives, at least not universially.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Texas is trying to convince Space-X to build a launch facility near Brownsville, TX. Someone may have forgotten that Elon Musk runs both Space-X and Tesla.
Where is the allowed acceptance of corporate campaign contributions covered in there? I don't see it. Notice my wording, running for and holding office is a choice, it's completely voluntary. By choosing to run for and, potentially, hold office you must agree to the rules. If those rules say you cannot accept compensation from for-profit corporations (as opposed to non-profit political organizations), then you cannot. Constitution not violated.
Here's what the Tesla site says:
http://www.teslamotors.com/advocacy_texas
Here's the Dallas Observer's discussion:
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/09/tesla_crushed_by_car_dealer_lo.php
And Auto News:
http://www.autonews.com/article/20130909/RETAIL07/130909878/how-texas-dealers-slammed-the-door-on-tesla
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Republicans aren't free market libertarians, they are corporatists. Corporatists go complaining to the government when their long standing business model is challenged. Look throughout US history and you'll see examples going all the way back to the decline of the railroad empires.
It wasn't a new law that kept Tesla out of Texas. The law that car makers couldn't sell direct to consumers in the state has been there for years. Tesla can sell all the cars he wants in Texas. He just has to get someone to open dealerships just like GM, Ford, Toyota and all the others.
They're not saying that Tesla can't sell their cars in Texas. They're saying that Tesla can't deal them without using a third party dealership.
Its one of the old monopoly laws. Another one would be movie theaters. They used to be owned almost entirely by movie studios. That is, universal, etc would literally own the theater. They broke up most of those relationships and now you have to have separate corporations for many of these things.
Tesla could probably sell their cars just fine if they contracted with the local dealerships. Why they don't... I do not know.
Regardless, I agree that companies should be able to sell their products directly. After all, doesn't Apple have Apple stores that sell apple laptops directly? And then there are all the direct internet retailers. I can buy a computer direct from dell or a pair of socks direct from the gap. And the gap "makes" those socks. They're "gap" socks.
So I agree, the law is dumb. But it is actually very easy to get around it by just dealing with the dealerships instead of setting up your own.
AGAIN... I agree... it s dumb. But its manageable.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I read the laws tesla is lobbying for on their website, it's a rather specific exemption from the dealership law for basically them:
"a manufacturer of only all electric-powered or all battery-powered motor vehicles, or a distributor of only all electric-powered or all battery-powered motor vehicles, that (i) owned and operated a new motor vehicle dealership in the United States on or before March 1, 2013, and (ii) has never sold its line make in the United States through an independent franchised new motor vehicle dealership, may own or operate a dealer or dealership, or act in the capacity of a dealer, at any location within the state and may obtain a dealer general distinguishing number under Section 503.029 of the Transportation Code."
"let's write ourselves an exemption, but slam the door on anyone coming after us"
Tesla is not banned from Texas, they are banned from having dealerships. I just test drove (and will probably buy) the Tesla sedan last Friday here through the Tesla showroom at the Domain in Austin. I now have to simply go online and order one, and it will be delivered right here to Austin, Texas. In addition Tesla has an agreement with a local repair shop for any servicing, and they are building a charging infrastructure here in the state. So you can't say they've been banned, only that they have been prevented from having a tradition all in one place solution.
And I find it so amazingly ironic that all of the Republicans in this state who pontificate about the free market and demonize regulation would fight to keep the dealership system. It is exactly the kind of regulation they usually abhor, and prevents the capitalist system from working. The hypocrisy is unfortunately sadly predictable for those on the right in Texas. This is the same group that has passed a voter ID law to suppress the voting rights of the disadvantaged, even though in the last ten years there have only been 4 cases of voting fraud that could have been stopped with the ID law.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
This isn't a Republican vs Democrat thing, but it _is_ very political. Planet Money had an explanation of the economics of car dealerships and how dealerships and politicians prevent sales directly to consumers.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car-never-changes
Protesting by not doing business in the state sure sounds a lot like lobbying.
All of that regulation is for sale. The more power the govt has, the more it will be up on the auction block to the highest bidder. A more powerful govt is the last thing anyone should want.
I have come to believe that "the invisible hand of the free market" is an euphemism for "MY invisible hand ON the free market"
Slashdot. Unreadable news to annoy nerds. - wonkey_monkey
If it's "dishonest" to frame this as "Tesla can't sell cars in Texas" then it's equally "dishonest" to frame it as "Tesla can sell cars in Texas if the follow 'the rules'". Both of those statements are true. Neither tells the whole story. And there's no reason whatever to accept one version over the other.
In 1960 blacks it was true to say "blacks in MS can vote if they follow 'the rules'". Of course "the rules" were desperately unfair both in conception and enforcement so in practice kept blacks from voting. Hence it was also true to say "blacks in MS are not allowed to vote". Just like in the Tesla case neither simplistic statement tells the whole story, but neither is any more "dishonest" than the other, they're just framed from different points of view.
Laws go to the highest bidder. What could be more free market?
The invisible hand of the market determines who gets what resource by slipping fat checks into the right persons pockets.
Exactly the same thing can be said about Democrats. Don't play partisan politics. They are both the same.
I want to be a corrupt crony, you insensitive clod!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I understand the basis of the franchise laws as they exist to be: Car companies needed to expand in the old days, but lacked the capitol. Franchisees bought the rights to sell cars from a given company, put their name on the door, and started selling Ford, GM, whatever. Once the car companies themselves were in better shape (with cash kicking around) it would have been trivial for them to open their own dealership down the road, then either stop selling cars to the franchisee, or undercut their prices, etc. etc. Without those laws it would have been easy, and economically beneficial, for the car companies to kill their dealer network and replace it with corporate stores once they had the money to do so.
No franchisee has given money to Telsa to start selling their cars, so there's no one who needs those protections.
paul reinheimer
I call that the invisible hand job.
I don't see much there for corporations, only for the people.
The issue is that Republicans are liars and at the end of the day are all just homophobic Democrats. Bush was not a conservative, not by any real economic measure, but that is Rove and Ailes fault. Of course when you look at the war-agitprop and unapologetic positions of Democrat leadership then you sson realize that democrats are just hedonist war-mongers. Their common fault is that they all believe that their party can fix what the other party has broken. I always refer to politics with the same analogy: It is just like professional wrestling. When the cameras are on and the stage is set they are bitter enemies, smashing each with rhetorical chairs and over-the-top storylines. When the lights are turned down and the crowd goes home, they are all backstage drinking beers and swapping wives. In the end its because the biggest corporatist-whores are the media themselves, the media that has never known a war that it at first didnt love and cheer-lead for, the media that always implicilty calls for legislative action, the same media that can get caught red-handed in a lie but never apologize or be punished. #CNNMakesYouDumb
But Democrats don't sell themselves as wanting completely free and unregulated markets. That's not to say they are hypocrites about other things but in this case it is more about Republicans.
Keep going back -- look up Whiskey Rebellion.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
I can imagine someone arguing this is the free market working. Lobbying and representation is a product, and those with the most money are purchasing it.
This past weekend I walked by the Tesla store in Houston. I guess one of their employees got a dealer's license or something. I know two people with dealer's licenses, one owns a small dealership and the other sells a few cars a month from his front yard, so I guess it's not THAT big of a deal.
the invisible hand of the free market determines who gets what resources? Doesn't the free market have the ability to direct resources to where they can most efficiently be used? I'm not saying the conservatives are right in these assumptions; but I am saying that our broken campaign finance system makes a mockery of them.
Good. They deserve to be mocked.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way around.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
OK, RTFA.
EXISTING laws proscribe direct sale to the consumers. Argue if you want about how those laws cam into existence, but they are in fact, the law and predate Tesla.
Tesla wanted the laws changed. So they were actually the ones lobbying for a special exemption.
Texas didn't ban Tesla cars, they didn't change the existing laws to accommodate Tesla's sales model. You can argue about that being smart or not, but Telas's cars are NOT banned.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
There are car dealerships around here (Seattle area) that do "bottom line" or "lowest everyday" prices, but they are still above invoice. Car dealerships will even sometimes sell new cars at below invoice prices, because it's in their interests to move product and they will make that money back on manufacturer discounts, service, etc...
In my opinion, the root of the problem is that dealerships are an additional cost which affects the price of a car, and a good argument can be made that in a hyper-regulated industry with lemon laws, the cost isn't a necessary one.
Disclaimer: I'm Canadian, but I have been to texas once.
Ok, 1) Read TFA, 2) don't know much about selling cars (hate BUYING them enough).
Is it possible for Tesla to franchise out a small Tesla dealership in these states? ie, play by the rules? Perhaps only to the barest letter of the "rules"?
Are they not allowed to set a "no haggle price" model with the dealership? I'm not sure why not, since The Saturn Car company did that. They either allow for a few points for the dealership in a "dealership price" in texas, or they take a few points hit when selling in this model in texas. or both. It would then give them access to those markets.
It really does seem like they're playing chicken, or "ok, if I can't play my way, I'm taking my marbles and going home".
Perhaps they hope to change the system. I would love to see that sort of thing happen.
My wife who knew Alex Fraser and went to his wedding heard all about this situation. Since then not much has changed except Milo Minderbinder saw the light of day around the time of expo 86 and let the transit board build advanced public transit but only in the lower mainland, from which his organization(s) are profiting nicely to say the least. So far he has not approved any real rapid transit for his empire on Vancouver Island though as it would cut into car sales there to say the least.
So Texas is definitely not the only place where the politics of the car dominate things. I was offered an opportunity to run for the organization up in Northern British Columbia against the incumbent socialist MLA. I turned them down. However the individual who did accept the free ride into automotive politics, Al Passarell an NDP turn coat didn't live to make a difference. Though he could have and most likely would have. It is almost as if someone up there is pulling the strings in BC. The ghost of WAC Bennett is up in the clouds working a remote control and this is how the Sky Train really works it is not run by computer at all
Funny but in the many years since the Milo Minderbinder political organization magically disappeared from the landscape, in the background the same organization is still pulling the strings just under a more liberal banner!
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
For an individual to benefit from that corporate income, at some point it has to become their income.
That's terribly inaccurate. Creative minds long ago figured out how to get personal benefit without making it personal income. Large companies have people whose sole job is to find ways to minimize tax liability. Eliminate corporate taxes and these folks won't be fired -- they'll be reassigned to spend all day every day to come up with even more elaborate ways to benefit management without having it be personal income.
Neither party wants a free market. The difference is one of those parties makes a lot of speeches about wanting a free market.
Did you know that, here, we can go to one of several websites and buy a new car from any manufacturer, usually with a significant discount over list, together with a mandatory manufacturer's warranty that has to be honoured by that manufacturer's service outlets?
The Health Service is creaking a bit though...
There are two kinds of Libertarians.
Idiots who are too naive to understand that libertarianism leads to monopolism and vulture capitalism, and
Monopolist Vulture Capitalists.
They do all the time. The problem here is Texas politics, not "republicans". Get a list of Texas law makers, regardless of affliation, and put a check mark next to the ones with interests in car dealerships. That will illustrate the problem very nicely. And you'll see plenty of democrats in the list, my friend.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
The first amendment doesn't specify HOW one may petition the government for redress of grievances or guarantee equal access to that right
The 14th Amendment specifies that all persons are to receive equal treatment under the law, and since the 14th applies universally, then there very much is a guarantee of equal access, which current campaign finance laws illegally prevent.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Here's what the Tesla site says: http://www.teslamotors.com/advocacy_texas
Here's the Dallas Observer's discussion: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/09/tesla_crushed_by_car_dealer_lo.php
And Auto News: http://www.autonews.com/article/20130909/RETAIL07/130909878/how-texas-dealers-slammed-the-door-on-tesla
Could you put that into a car analogy for us?
...
( ducks and runs for cover )
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
If Exxon is going to have the privileges of a person I'd be perfectly willing to let Exxon vote. One vote. The other side of the deal would be that they would also have to accept the responsibilities of a person. Including the death penalty for their many acts of premeditated murder.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Its a computer with a really nice set of wheels :-)
Greed is the root of all evil.
Your not talking about Libertarians, you are talking about the hypocritical ultra-conservatives that call themselves the Libertarian Party of America. They have nothing to do Classical Libertarianism.
So far, nobody's mentioned in the discussion the following angle on the story:
OK. So dealerships don't like being cut out. And they don't like it. Of course not. They're small businesses. They're owned by families, not giant corporations, and those families are terrified that all the rest of the giant corporations will cut them out the way that Tesla does. Is it really so much better when Tesla Corp (or Elon Musk, for that matter) keeps all the profit instead of sharing a small percent with a local family?
I'm not a car dealer. Just thought maybe this was a point worth considering.
Most Slashdotters can understand that being a Liberal does not necessarily make one a Socialist or Communist. Why then do we accept the pigeonholing of all Libertarians as Anarchists/Anarcho-Capitalists? Those among the political right who cast the diverse group we know as Liberals into Socialist/Communist box are mocked for their ignorance -- and rightfully so. Yet, those among the political left who cast the diverse group we know as Libertarians into the Anarchist/Anarcho-Capitalist box are applauded, rewarded as is the case here through moderation.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
leads to monopolism and vulture capitalism
What's the case for your claim that libertarianism leads to "monopolism"? The ideology deliberately weaken government which is the both the most powerful sort of monopoly out there and the principal creator of monopolies historically.
And what's supposed to be wrong with vulture capitalism? Capitalism has always been fairly good at disposing of dying businesses and obsolete capital. I think part of the problem here is arbitrary moral rules that don't actually help anyone.
Well, some would say that a political entity being "more tactful/less blatant about achieving its end goal" is "more insidious"
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2712605&cid=39277125
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
But they are corporatists. They are just supporting Gulf States Toyota corporation, not Tesla Motors corporation. As GSTC has been around longer, is more cornyism than corporatism, but when two corporations are at odds, the decision won't necessarily be pro or anti corporatist, as you point out. So you have to look at the bigger picture, Tesla is a lone corporation, and there are multiple corporations (usually evil distribution corporations/middlemen trying to extract rent enforced by law, rather than provide any service or product for their income), so I'd say that the anti-Tesla Motors Corporation finding is pro-corporatist.
Learn to love Alaska
Because the basic assumptions of Libertarianism are flawed. Libertarianism as expressed by Rand, and economic theories based on or expounded by Libertarianism are flawed from the beginning because it assumes people will always act rationally and without fraud. Hence the ACposter was right, there are 2 kinds of Libertarians.
That is not to say that elements of Libertarian philosophy aren't useful in tempering over-reach by government regulators. For example, I think regulations strictly designed to limit competition such as limits on taxi vehicles should be reduced or eliminated. I think regulations that create undo barriers to entry for trades are unnecessary. For example, the state where I reside wants people who do hair weaving to be licensed as barbers which requires extensive training and apprenticeships. I think beyond the reasonable expectation that persons doing tasks that require "intimate" contact with people should be competent and not be a health hazard, the other requirements are designed as a barrier to entry and result in protected markets that do not function well.
But Libertarians these days spend their time demonizing government on all levels, and not recognizing the role that government does and should play in our society. They do not recognize economic terms like "public good" "excludability" "Rivalrous" to distinguish between markets that can only be public and non-exploitable. Everything to them should be privatized. That is a flawed understanding of economics.
You don't seem to know what the invisible hand is. It a market correction. The US revolution was an action by the "invidible hand." The market was skewed (everyone was forced to pay taxes for services not received). So the market issued a correction. The invisible hand has been misused to justify all sorts of bad acts. Worse, the law has been used as a buffer/diversion of the invisible hand.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm a libertarian and I believe none of those things you attribute to "Libertarians". You're stereotyping and confusing classic libertarianism with the writings of people like Rand.
Only naive ideologs argue for "no government regulation" or "no taxation" or "privatize everything". It's a sophomoric position, easy to spew but it doesn't make any kind of sense.
Classic libertarianism asks "how can we do that with a little government as possible". How can we have the set of communal services we want with as little government oversight, as little taxation, as little public ownership as possible and still make it work. How can we ensure free and fair markets with little fraud, but do it with the minimum government presence? Of the many ways we could provide public safety nets and ensure access to health care, which requires the least government participation?
Solving real world problems requires trade-offs, and the extremes are always (ha!) the wrong answer. But view any government power as a negative in the assessment. We want some service or oversight, great, what the least cost way to get what we want, viewing centralized power as a significant cost?
You're confusing that I think with people who don't want the services in the first place, and use "no government" as an excuse. There are very few such people, but they are noisy.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Only naive ideologs argue for "no government regulation" or "no taxation" or "privatize everything". It's a sophomoric position, easy to spew but it doesn't make any kind of sense.
That's nice to know. However, most of the people who I know who describe themselves as libertarian promote some combination of those ideas to me. Should I be telling them that they are not really libertarian?
I want to be a corrupt crony, you insensitive clod!
This is the internet, you're going to have to settle for being a corrupt brony.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I'm also a 'moderate libertarian' here, and oh heck is "There are very few such people, but they are noisy." true.
Classic libertarianism asks "how can we do that with a little government as possible". How can we have the set of communal services we want with as little government oversight, as little taxation, as little public ownership as possible and still make it work. How can we ensure free and fair markets with little fraud, but do it with the minimum government presence? Of the many ways we could provide public safety nets and ensure access to health care, which requires the least government participation?
Very much so.
Let's look at schools and prisons. Both are something that you can, in theory, privatize. However it's been my experience that while private schools(especially religious ones such as Catholic schools, and I'm an atheist) can often educate a child better for less money, private prisons tend to be a mess. Ergo - private schools are okay, I support vouchers, though you constantly have to monitor said private schools to make sure they start and remain effective. Prisons, on the other hand, need to be public - but there's a lot of space because an overly powerful prison guard union can drag down a public prison as effectively as corporate greed can drag down a private one. It's all about balance, because once you get into colleges 'for profit' schools suck majorly - delivering low value education(worse rates at jobs/lower salaries) at high expense. They spend proportionally more on advertising and such...
I think it's because parents concerned enough to send their child to a private school, even profit ones, is a step removed, but they're there more or less constantly to do quality assessment. But I still prefer non-profits(not necessarily religious).
I don't think it's too much to ask that we regularly review various programs for effectiveness. If it's not effective, it should be dropped. If it's not the most cost effective way to do something, why aren't we using them? Not everything is about profit, but look at our prisons - other countries and even some states within the USA have shown that an emphasis on reform, alternative punishments like house arrest & ankle bracelets work and can cut the time you need to toss somebody into prison for by 2/3rds while producing a released prisoner that's 2/3rds less likely to offend again. That's HUGE, and I have to ask: How can we afford to keep paying for our current system?
I don't read AC A human right
Also, a system corrupted by cronyism should not be confused with free market capitalism and should not be considered the natural end of free market capitalism -- it's simply a system corrupted by cronyism.
Thank you for illustrating my point so neatly. Just as die-hard communists insist that real communism looks nothing like was practiced in the USSR, so do free-market fundamentalists insist that real capitalism looks nothing like what we have in the US ... both groups neatly ignoring the fact that in the real world, this is how their preferred system behaves. You can talk all you want about how it should work, or how you think it would work if certain conditions were met, but it doesn't make a damned bit of difference to how it actually works.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"Invoice price" is entirely a marketing gimmick to make people think they got a great price these days. It works surprisingly well. It shows the skill of the salesmen when people genuinely believe they bought a car for less than it cost the dealership.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Corporatists support corporations in general, without picking favorites. You got close by saying this is more cronyism than corporatism. To hit the nail on the head: this is ALL cronyism.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
"""Classic libertarianism asks "how can we do that with a little government as possible"."""
Some issues here.
First, it is Classic Liberalism. For the lack of a better description Classic Liberalism waned as a political force as implementation of its policies led to the Victorian workhouses. This led to Liberalism gaining a more social approach, leading to Social Liberalism which became the leading faction of Liberalism in the 20th century.
It is Libertarianism (ie. Neo-Classical Liberalism) that is concerned with minimalising government intervention. Libertarianism is basically Classical Liberalism in new clothing.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
leads to monopolism and vulture capitalism
What's the case for your claim that libertarianism leads to "monopolism"? The ideology deliberately weaken government which is the both the most powerful sort of monopoly out there and the principal creator of monopolies historically.
And what's supposed to be wrong with vulture capitalism? Capitalism has always been fairly good at disposing of dying businesses and obsolete capital. I think part of the problem here is arbitrary moral rules that don't actually help anyone.
There is an old business adage: "Nothing Succeeds like Success". It breeds corollaries such as "Nobody got fired for buying IBM". (Microsoft, for the younger generation).
A successful business breeds a positive feedback process just as failing businesses tend to nosedive. As a business becomes more and more successful, it attracts more and more customers. It also can afford to negotiate for favorable supply contracts, buy up smaller competitors, and do other things that accelerate the growth curve even more by diving it an edge on the competition. Eventually, it gets so big that it can buy government on its own terms.
It doesn't need government to get there. Government - with the sometimes exception of local government - actually prefers to avoid dealing with smaller businesses, so you have to be well on your way towards monopoly before you can even start getting governmental favors.
And "moral rules" generally do help people. Otherwise they wouldn't exist. Even (or perhaps, especially) the ones that seem anti-common-sense. One of the most dangerous business fallacies is the pseudo-Darwinistic conceit that only the strong and the nasty survive. In the natural world which Darwin formulated his theories on, we have cute fluffy bunnies, delicate pretty butterflies and ape tribes which prosper because some members take care of others progeny instead of breeding themselves.
Protecting dealerships is not consumer protection. In MA we had to fight for a Right to Repair law which the dealerships fought tooth and claw.. Protection of dealerships by Franchise Laws is not pro-consumer.
Should I be telling them that they are not really libertarian?
yes
They are no different than rich kids wearing Che shirts who think they are communists while they enjoy their life of starbucks, designer clothes, affluence, and consumerism.
I find it works best to use "classic liberalism" when talking to those on the left, and "classic libertarianism" when talking to those on the right; otherwise people often dismiss you before even understanding your position. I mostly talk politics with people on the right, so that's the first term that leapt to mind.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I would like to point out the false dichotomy of the outcomes of any social/political/economic syetem as "perfect utopia" vs. "complete failure".
Even with it's flaws, the United States has been been a success story for capitalism. Yes there is corruption, etc, but compared to what came before (e.g. totalitarianism, fuedalism, etc), the US is like a utopia.
I don't know where this idea that the free market requires no maintenance (i.e. that it "regulates itself") came from. It's true that the free market regulates it's own prices for goods and services, but that doesn't mean that it is the solution to every problem a society faces. I've heard people claim that everyone would become murderers and thieves in a free market. I don't think any sensible persons definition of a free market includes removal of a justice system.
We can have a free market even if the government is in charge of preventing and punishing criminals and fraudsters. In fact it actually works better when people are able to make more informed choices due to removal of fraud and coercion.
If you are a corporatist it does not mean you want *every* corporation to control the government. It just means you want to be part of the group of corporations that does. In fact it is important that most corporations are losers to concentrate wealth at the top.
A warlord doesn't want democracy. A warlord wants the world to be ruled by warlords. This doesn't mean he wants every warlord to succeed. He wants most to fail, so he can be as near to the top of the food chain as possible.
Sadly, and although Texas has some of the nicest people I have ever dealt with, the legal and political system in Texas is a notoriously backward and dim problem that other states simply can not even take seriously. It is as if someone left the asylum doors open and they joined the government of Texas, became judges or lawyers in Texas and then were bashed in the head hard. Nothing short of an escaped lunatic who has suffered a major brain injury could be part of making or even tolerating the governmental and legal system in Texas. A serious rebellion in that state is a reasonable notion.
He's talking about the only two kinds that ever existed though.
Agreed to some extent, it seems a lot of us libertarians cannot grasp that if an entity gains the power to run people's lives, it's a governmental entity regardless of whether or not it is officially recognized as one. So, instead they prop up some other megalomaniacal entity so long as it does not have the bad word written on the big club they beat you with.
Maybe the delusion persists because it is self-serving to ignore the consequences of acting on such beliefs: Prop up a a favored dictator while pretending to improve the condition of society. And, instead, they are just hoping that this bully will beat the shit out of someone else for a change and maybe look the other way if they want to join in. I have seen some indications of this in many political/economic/religious movements.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Rent seeking is among the most dangerous threats to a free society. These greedy bastards don't want the right to make money, they want the right to make money forever without that position being challenged.
The invisible hand of the free market better be holding a roll of visible cash.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Why not just be more accurate and say it's a bunch of people with little in common other than they like the name and like to pretend to wrap up in the flag? It may be annoying if the utter batshit insane anarchist wrapped up in flag next to you says something to annoy people and they point back at both of you, but that's the consequence of association. Since it's about self-labelling Libertarianism is about all those things people complain about and more, and all those virtues you mention and more. There's no point in complaining if people are attacking a different part of the amorphous blob to the one you are in if you insist on using the label instead of going for one issue at a time. "I'm a libertatian" can be accurately seen as saying that someone advocates a return to Medieval Feudalism with the current rich as the lords and knights and zero social mobility on merit, or it can be just as accurately be seen as the exact opposite if you ask a different libertarian. The major problem I see is that the former have the resources to use the latter as useful idiots to push towards exactly the thing George Washington fought against - absolute power in the hands of a few landlords.
In a libertarian system they end up being the defacto government and effectively use their intervention to stifle competition. It's feudalism once a generation has passed and social mobility based on merit would cease to happen. Have you got your patron lined up?
When the rich have nothing to stop them creating barriers to entry for those that threaten to take away their riches it's only human nature for them to protect the livelihood of themselves and their families. Unchecked and you end up with feudalism.
I really don't understand why so many Americans want to throw away what George Washington and others fought to give them. I suppose it's a good old American style confidence trick to hide such a thing under a name with "liberty" in it.
"Free markets as a tool for economic efficiency"
And you're one of the naive idiots who can't see how this necessarily leads to the "economic efficiencies" of monopolism and vulture capitalism.
To be truly "competitive", a market has to be properly regulated. A "free market", in the sense the libertarians call for (laissez-faire capitalism) leads to the Gilded Age all over again. And those of us who have studied history understand how truly bad in all senses the Gilded Age was and never want to repeat the mistakes that naive, ideologically childish idiots like you would have us repeat.
I think these principles are quite open to interpretation, which is why many self described libertarians disagree on the specifics.
I would say that at a minimum equality of opportunity means that there should be no laws mandated or protecting any kind of discrimination, and at most this might mean actively ensuring some basic level of access to things like education and healthcare.
I don't think full blown equality of outcome could be considered a libertarian position (i.e. equally distributing wealth between everyone, or mandating that every school be public and equally funded, etc), although I do personally happen to believe in single payer universal healthcare.
Where libertarianism starts to diverge from liberalism is when we get into this idea that in order to have equality of opportunity, you need to take money form the rich and give it to the poor. To the degree that this should happen is the primary disagreement. Regardless, this is why most views shared by libertarians are actually in common with those shared by liberals. They are very close on the evolutionary tree of political ideologies.
There are lots of people nowadays, usually former republicans now calling themselves tea party libertarians that don;t really believe in things like marriage equality, ownership of your body, decriminalization of victimless crimes, etc. They just don't want to pay taxes. These people are not true libertarians. Not in some abstract sense, but because libertarians by definition believe in liberty. And these people don't believe in liberty (at least not in liberty for anyone but themselves). These are just greedy fuckers. I really don't like the idea of these people co-opting a term that incorrectly implies that they stand for liberty.
Market economic theory is based on the fundamental assumption that participants are rational actors interested in maximizing the personal utility of any exchanges. Since things like happiness obtained through altruism are not easily quantifiable and highly variable across the population, in practice they are generally ignored in most economic analyses. So the result is that most economic theories and models are predicated on selfish actors.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
This is a personal anecdote so I can't accurately generalize against all Libertarians, but all those that I have encountered and discussed their position with really break it down to "what is the least amount of government that benefits ME".
Maybe there are those with an altruistic bent, but under questioning I've yet to meet one.
Only naive ideologs argue for "no government regulation" or "no taxation" or "privatize everything". It's a sophomoric position, easy to spew but it doesn't make any kind of sense.
That's nice to know. However, most of the people who I know who describe themselves as libertarian promote some combination of those ideas to me. Should I be telling them that they are not really libertarian?
Yes, you should insist that people who are anarchists admit that they are anarchists and not libertarians. It is also you that is ignoring the philosophy of a smaller government is something that captures a wide swath of people with a variety of other political philosophies in terms of how that is accomplished and how far to go with that scaling back of government.
Mixed in with this are people (who I think are naive) that wish to simply eliminate government organizations completely. Since they are still pretty much fighting for the same thing... to cut back government... they often campaign and support efforts similar to other libertarians who simply don't like large government organizations running thing. There are even differences in opinions on what kinds of government services ought to be cut.
Treating this as a monolithic philosophy with specific dogma is something that simply doesn't exist.
Are you one of the naive idiots that believes calling someone a "naive idiot" helps bring them around to your point of view?
Most Slashdotters can understand that being a Liberal does not necessarily make one a Socialist or Communist. Why then do we accept the pigeonholing of all Libertarians as Anarchists/Anarcho-Capitalists?
The answer is their lizard brains are taking a binary me vs you, or us vs them, or fight vs flight absolute stance, because it is more ancient and thus more heavily activated in association with competition and aggression. These I would not call human. A human is conscious of such cognitive bias in their decision making. A human knows that feelings and emotions are the result of triggers placed by evolution, and thus are great for deciding issues of mate selection and tipping us off to movement in the shadows; However, instead of ignoring the instincts a human will harnesses them and examines these impulses with their more recent ape minds and forebrains, learning to wield them as tools. A human realizes that in order to advance the species they must not let the slowly evolving ancient mental hardware hamper their faster changing cultural firmware and neither of these hamper their very quickly adapting cognitive software.
You see, a human would assay the political landscape and more heavily weight current issues than past alliances, and weight far less the ideals pandering to primal drives (like the need for competition, stability, safety, and compassion -- or conservative, free market, regulative, environmental and health concerns). You see, the politician is exaggerating everything while pandering to your base desire to protect and provide for mates and children, regardless of if they are truly in danger or if the risk is acceptable. The politician also panders to your primitive instincts by exaggerating risks to financial ambition and market competition. They even peddle exaggerations to the compassionate nurturing instincts when exaggerating the very real strife of the lowest classes. Do not dismiss this political skill, it is a highly effective and dangerous tool; Do not think the politician foolish for using it as an undercurrent to further their actual goals. However, a human is above all of this nonsense; Humans will see the larger picture and prioritize those goals which appear to be currently suffering over those which are currently dominantly achieved in order to constantly seek equilibrium.
A human would at times be aligned with Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, or other parties. Humans can use all the parties as tools to further the human's own political goals. A human is a tool using creature. A smart human uses the right tool for the right job. Those with a tendency for acting lizard-brained could be cured of their false dichotomies and foolish absolutisms; However, it is not politically advantageous to educate the populous in thinking with their whole minds. The education system is ruled by those who would be threatened by decreased primal instinct influence. So, what should be 1st grader elementary school ethics, is ridiculously missing; The "humanities" should include a course on being human and harnessing of feelings, weighing them against logic, and presenting to youngest children the situations and teaching them first how to identify bias (and thus how to be human) long before teaching them other trivialities such as algebra or geography. None teach the young thirsty minds how to harness their brains and think for themselves, and so you all suffer.
Once in college the young and idyllic are encouraged to ignore all feelings when doing "rational" thought -- and thus become more easy the victim to the ancient ancestral cognitive biases; Instead they should acknowledge the "He's attacking me!" feelings when one attacks their paper or point of view... In other terms: They rarely SYN-ACK, only SYN or ACK. The people have learned not to go screaming hysterically when they get spooked by the wind while walking down a dark road, but have failed to harness such impulses with cognitive powers: "Wait, did my subconscious detect so
I see the temptation to abandon a label once it has become tainted, but I feel like this would leave me constantly needing to change labels.
Look at the way the republicans successfully made "liberal" into a dirty word, forcing democrats to call themselves "progressives" instead. I think the battle to prevent a label you care about from being subverted is a battle worth fighting.
Speaking of which, "liberal" was the first label for the libertarian ideology, that was then assumed by neo-liberals, before they allowed neo-conservatives to turn it into a pejorative, and abandoned it for "progressive". I'd be happy to reclaim the "liberal" label for libertarianism. I would proudly call myself a liberal. I don;t think neo-liberals are bad people or anything, but I think the term liberal suits libertarians better, considering it's root is from the latin word form freedom.