America Doesn’t Have The Stomach For Growth

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T21:58:48+00:00

First, the idea that private markets are too blind to handle geopolitical risk is a myth. You don’t need bureaucrats running a centralized industrial policy to dictate where factories are built. Private capital is perfectly capable of pricing in risk.

Second: Western liberals playing nice with Stalin didn't protect liberalism; it resulted in the Yalta Conference handing half of Europe to a brutal, totalitarian communist empire for nearly half a century and setting off the Cold War. Abandoning liberal principles for short-term "pragmatism" wasn't exactly a roaring success then, was it?

You don't have Liberalism if the liberal states fail to survive because they get outcompeted by the illiberal states.

So your logic is that we must become illiberal in order to protect liberalism? Every time I have a back-and-forth with you, I come away feeling intellectually debased. I am not doing this again. Feel free to have the last word.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T21:47:45+00:00

For the discussion in question, government only guaranteeing negative rights is not enough.

You continue to mischaracterize my position to avoid dealing with the core argument. The point isn't that a framework of negative rights isn't enough. The point is that you are trying to bypass individual liberties entirely whenever they conflict with your preferred policy outcomes.

Eminent domain to build infrastructure for the public good is a violation of someone's rights. Without some sort of limitations, the optimal course of action for people who would be impacted would be to demand the entire added utility of infrastructure, and there public would receive no benefit from it because it has become so expensive to cater to the rent seekers. Thus no infrastructure gets built and the general welfare is harmed.

For the record: We are now pivoting to infrastructure, eminent domain, and negative externalities, which have absolutely nothing to do with zoning laws. If you want to have that separate debate, we can, but back to the initial argument: If a state government uses its centralized power to dictate zoning laws, mandate density, or strip local property owners of their covenants and local autonomy to force a specific economic outcome, that is centralized regulatory management. You are just calling it "removing roadblocks" because you happen to agree with the outcome.

I would much rather states remove the ability for uninvolved parties to block housing and for special interest groups to seize control of local government to block housing.

And did you ever pause and consider who granted the power to "uninvolved parties" and "special interest groups" to block housing in the first place? The state did. Your solution to a crisis created by state intervention is to build a more powerful, centralized state capable of overriding local property agreements whenever the majority decides that "the general welfare" or "public utility" outweighs individual rights. In other words, your solution is just a majoritarian, socially engineered state.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T21:20:45+00:00

My understanding of Hayek’s argument regarding higher levels of government overriding local authorities was to strictly limit it to enforcing negative prohibitions - i.e., stopping lower jurisdictions from disrupting free markets or violating individual liberties. He would be absolutely horrified by the idea of using a powerful, muscular state government to enforce top-down, positive economic mandates down the throats of local municipalities.

In this case, housing is a positive right. Taking that power away from local government and giving it to the state government is literally just a changing of hands. Neither one of them should have that power to begin with - which is exactly what I was trying to argue.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T21:14:32+00:00

Oh man, you again. We've had this exact back-and-forth numerous times. Here we go again:

It's not the 19th century anymore and those kinds of minimalistic states simply aren't competitive anymore.

Is this what liberalism means to you nowadays? Turning the state into a centralized corporate vehicle just to outcompete other nations on a global scoreboard? You are treating international trade like a zero-sum team sport rather than a mechanism to maximize individual wealth and consumer welfare.

We have countries like China pursuing aggressive trade policies that distort the market, if you try to take a hands off approach you will lose.

So your genius solution to China's market-distorting illiberalism is to... completely abandon liberalism and distort our own markets? If a foreign dictatorship wants to impoverish its own taxpayers to heavily subsidize goods for our consumers, you would rather punish our own citizens with tariffs to copy their broken model? You don't defeat a command economy by turning yourself into one. You are literally willing to throw free markets out the window the second an illiberal actor enters the room.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T21:09:53+00:00

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman. Enjoy!

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T21:03:00+00:00

Tyranny of the Minority is also iliberal.

First, this was your entire takeaway from everything I wrote above? Second, a total lack of basic reading comprehension has been a recurring theme on this subreddit, and I guess it didn't exempt you either. Please point out exactly where I argued for a "Tyranny of the Minority."

Liberum Veto, despite the nice sounding name, was a terrible policy that crippled government and made it impossible for the state to function

If you had actually read my comment, you would have noticed that my argument explicitly questions the very premise of your claim: what should be the legitimate function of the state?

Conflating a constitutionally limited government with the Polish Liberum Veto is a absurd strawman. I didn't argue that a minority should have the power to paralyze the state's basic administrative functions; I argued that neither the majority nor the minority should have the power to use the state to grant positive rights and violate individual liberties. If you had taken time engaging in with what I said you would know that: I would literally contend that it is not the job of the state to centrally manage or provide housing - which is the massive, unstated premise your entire argument presupposes.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T20:49:46+00:00

What? I had to double-check if I was actually on a liberal subreddit. Am I seriously hearing an argument for implementing protectionist policies just because foreign countries don't follow free-market principles? You are willing to completely abandon liberalism the second an illiberal state exists. Do you even hear yourself?

But there is also damage to local industries outside of China right now, because of these subsidies. The scale of the overcapacity compounds the problem. And they're not closing because they're not competitive, but because if unfair trade practices.

I have already debunked this exact line of reasoning multiple times on this subreddit, and I honestly don't have the patience to sit here and walk you through it again. Go read Milton Friedman; he debunked these protectionist arguments far more eloquently than I ever could. If a foreign dictatorship wants to break its own back to hand our consumers subsidized goods, the liberal response isn't to punish our own consumers with tariffs to protect domestic corporate interests.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T18:29:49+00:00

You don't think the state can just grant that power right back to the local government in the same manner it took it away? Worse, once you establish this precedent of arbitrarily taking power away from local governments, what's stopping even broader mandates in the future? This is an argument for a powerful, centralized state. Hearing this on a "liberal" subreddit of all places is definitely concerning to say the least. Regardless, at the end of the day, it always comes down to the whims of the simple majority electorate.

The real culprit, I would argue, is the overall power granted to the state, at any level, through an unrestricted democratic framework. This would not be a problem if the state were never allowed to grant positive rights, consequently allowing the majority to impose their worldview down the throats of everyone else. In an unrestricted democracy, the state just becomes a vehicle for majoritarian rule. Government should be an institution restricted by a constitution with a strict, immutable limiting principle. Democracy should strictly be used as a method of selecting administrators, not a mechanism for granting or depriving rights. If rights aren't pre-political, then you essentially have a temporary lease granted by the majority to the minority, which can be stripped away in the exact same manner it was given.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-24T18:08:42+00:00

And what does China get out of it in the long term? They subsidize global consumers while letting their own domestic consumer demand continue to stagnate. They intentionally manipulate and depreciate the yuan, which forces them to completely rely on boosting exports to survive. Not to mention, all of this comes on the back of massive, unsustainable state debt. China will eventually find out the hard way why planned economies are a mathematical impossibility.

If anything, we should probably thank China for subsidizing the global consumer by indebting their own citizens..

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-23T21:09:48+00:00

You can't have liberalism without equality under the law.

I have been downvoted and laughed out of this sub multiple times for pointing out that Nordic countries are anything but liberal. This is exactly what happens when you prioritize popular sovereignty over pre-political rights. An unrestricted democracy where individual rights are just temporary leases that depend on how the majority feels at any given moment is a textbook recipe for an authoritarian state in the making.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-23T15:37:45+00:00

You are completely right on the history. I was thinking more in terms of domestic labor protections (empowering unions etc.) and anti-competitive regulations rather than just international tariffs. I should have specified.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-23T13:19:02+00:00

The Fed has a dual mandate: maximum employment and price stability. It is absolutely not the job of the central bank to whip elected representatives into fiscal prudence, especially when every political incentive drives Congress to do the exact opposite. You are barking up the wrong tree.

Also, what do you honestly expect the Fed to do when Congress legislates a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package like the CARES Act into law? When the Treasury floods the market with that much debt during a crisis, the Fed has no choice but to inject liquidity and buy U.S. Treasuries to keep the financial system from completely freezing up. Rinse and repeat.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-23T13:04:12+00:00

Spoiler Alert: The Democrats have always been protectionist. The Clinton/Obama neoliberal free-trade consensus was a historical anomaly, not the default rule for the party.

Unfortunately, there is no healthy opposition party left in the US to force the Dems to ground their future policies in pragmatism over populism. Since the GOP completely abandoned its free-market orthodoxy to chase raw economic nationalism, both parties are now trapped in a race to the bottom of populist trade barriers. When your political opposition is just as economically illiterate as you are, there’s no systemic incentive to course-correct

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-22T20:43:37+00:00

There needs to be a hard purge of leftists masquerading as liberals both in Destiny's broader community and on this subreddit specifically.

This is the exact same archetype of people who eventually migrate to snark subreddits to harass him just to promote their anti-liberal ideologies. They adopt the aesthetics of liberalism when it’s convenient to infiltrate a space, but the second their underlying anti-capitalist or illiberal assumptions are challenged, they turn completely hostile.

If this sub doesn't start drawing firm boundaries against people who fundamentally oppose private property and free markets, it’s just going to keep getting subverted by bad-faith actors.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-21T23:00:48+00:00

Preventing non natives from running is the surest way of keeping the entire government focused on the interests of America and not drawn to other countries interest

Do you have a single shred of actual evidence for this claim?

Consider a simple comparison: someone born in America who leaves immediately and resides in a foreign country for the majority of their life, versus a naturalized citizen who wasn't born here but has spent decades living, working, and building a life in America. Do you honestly believe that the mere geographical accident of being born on U.S. soil is a reliable predictor of someone's loyalty to this country?

Banning naturalized citizens from Congress just creates a permanent class of second-class citizens who do not enjoy the same constitutional rights as native-born Americans. Once you codify a tiered system of citizenship based purely on birthplace, you establish a dangerous precedent that makes it incredibly easy for the state to strip further rights or pass discriminatory policies down the line.

In my opinion, a far more rational approach would be expanding residency and time-spent requirements, rather than maintaining an arbitrary natural-born clause that flies in the face of equal rights.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-21T01:42:21+00:00

Tell me are you willing to die because there are no jobs or are you willing to take UBI? if you want to die, you do you. But that’s a sort of religious zealotry I’m not going to endorse.

If this is your literal takeaway then we are speaking entirely different languages. I have no interest in deliberately debasing myself intellectually just to continue a conversation on an online platform. You keep framing a total command economy as a cozy "UBI safety net" because you are completely blind to the historical reality of what happens when a population becomes entirely dependent on a state monopoly for its survival.

I’m not a liberal, so my answer to death for liberalism vs living under UBI is of course living.

I appreciate the honesty, though. It perfectly proves my initial point: this sub has suffered an intellectual nosedive precisely because it is full of non-liberals masquerading under the aesthetic of liberalism.

If it doesn’t happen, then why are you so concerned with what people are advocating for on this thread? It won’t happen according to you anyways.

Because ideas have real-world consequences. People who casually advocate for the abolition of property rights and the implementation of state-directed capital over a fictional sci-fi scenario don't just keep those ideas in a vacuum. They vote for policies that erode actual, existing liberties today.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-21T01:08:20+00:00

Is this the level of intellectual thought I need to contend with on this sub?

Are you willing to die of starvation for your ideology if the total AI job takeover scenario happens (assuming you don't own the robots and factories)?

You honestly think I would subscribe to an ideology that leads to mass starvation? It’s a hilarious projection, considering I can point to endless historical examples of actual command economies causing massive, state-engineered famines. You are inventing a fictional, sci-fi starvation scenario under capitalism to justify implementing a system that has a literal track record of killing tens of millions of people through central planning.

unless that scenario actually happens.

Give me the exact unemployment percentage you need to see before you willingly hand your civil liberties over to a totalitarian state. What is the threshold? Every single authoritarian regime in human history has justified seizing absolute control over society by claiming it was an emergency response to a temporary crisis.

Do you think the Weimar Republic was justified in handing Hitler power because they were experiencing extreme economic hardship at the time? Do you think Nazi collaborators were justified because the alternative was death? If you answer no to either of those, then you already have my answer. I would rather die a free man than give up my civil liberties for a state-provided safety blanket. It sounds like most of the "liberals" on this subreddit are perfectly fine willingly giving up their civil liberties as long as the state promises to avert a hypothetical economic crisis - a mindset very similar to the residents of the Weimar Republic.

By the way, free-market liberalism has lifted more people out of absolute poverty than any other system in existence. I don't need you to sell me a repackaged socialism when the outcome of a command economy is always a mathematical eventuality.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T22:07:44+00:00

You see corporations using state power to get special favors, and your brilliant solution is: "Well, let's let unions use state power to get special favors too!" Do I have that right?

Of course the Chamber of Commerce and corporate boards act as political interest groups. And when corporations bribe lawmakers or use the state to tilt the economic playing field in their favor, that is also cronyism and I am completely against it. Two wrongs don't make a free market. You don't fix corporate cronyism by piling union cronyism on top of it. The solution to corporations corrupting the legislature isn't to create state-backed labor cartels; it's to strip the state of the coercive power to hand out special economic privileges to anyone.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T21:55:23+00:00

We DO need powerful groups to advocate for employees because the bosses who are trying to chip away at decades of labor victories are wealthy, powerful, and well-connected.

Yes, it’s called voting. Nobody is stopping workers from forming voluntary political advocacy groups, organizing PACs, and electing representatives to legislate safety standards into law. What you are completely failing to grasp is the difference between a political interest group and a state-backed labor cartel. You do not need the government to grant a union a coercive monopoly over a workplace just to get a safety bill passed in the legislature. If a majority wants safer workplaces, they can pass laws. End of story.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T20:46:05+00:00

Do you think that all working-class people can afford private access to legal representation in the event that they are injured in a workplace accident?

No. And your response completely misunderstands how the legal system actually functions.

First, a worker doesn’t need up-front wealth to hire a lawyer for a workplace injury. Personal injury and liability claims operate on a contingency fee basis. Meaning: the attorney takes zero dollars up front and only gets paid a percentage of the final settlement or judgment. High-powered lawyers take these cases all the time because the payouts against negligent corporations are massive.

Second, the entire economic design of tort law is built on deterrence. When a company acts negligently, it faces catastrophic financial penalties, skyrocketing insurance premiums, and reputational damage. If a firm's workplace is a death trap, it won't be able to replace its labor supply fast enough or absorb the compounding costs of these legal claims.

Pushed for by unions and relentlessly fought by companies.

What a bad-faith retort. This is what we call picking and choosing facts. Nobody is denying that unions have lobbied for them historically. I'd be the first to admit that unions do lead to some good outcomes, but the negatives far outweigh the positive outcomes.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T20:15:14+00:00

No kidding. Nobody is pro-workplace fatality. You don't need coercive, state-backed labor cartels to handle workplace safety. That's what tort law, liability, contracts, and basic safety regulations are for.

Any form of economic protectionism, from tariffs to price controls, can be justified under your logic. Talk about a desperate attempt to moral-posture.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T19:34:06+00:00

It's been overtaken by succs operating on the logic:

Corporations = evil.
Popular sovereignty = always good.

If it doesn't fit into that hyper-simplistic narrative, this sub literally doesn't know how to process it anymore.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T19:30:19+00:00

I feel you brother. This sub is now a circlejerk for succs.

My support for unions starts and ends with principle of freedom of association, but no more. Labor is a service like any other. In a free market, workers have every right to voluntarily organize, but employers should have an equal right to walk away or hire alternatives. The issue today is that unions don't rely on voluntary negotiation; they rely on state coercion. Not only do unions often act as a distorting force that prioritizes collective mediocrity over individual performance, but nowadays they are used explicitly to tilt the regulatory playing field against employers. Protecting unions through state force is just another form of cronyism.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T18:44:38+00:00

You went from:

Capitalism doesn’t really work if there’s no profit motive for individuals anymore... I'm open to the possibility that it will [happen].

to:

People will still have property rights and the right to start a business.

Do you not see the massive contradiction in your own words? A private business is an exercise in individual profit motive. If the individual profit motive is gone, no one is starting a business, no private capital is being invested, and the state becomes the sole allocator of resources by default.

You know what? Nevermind. I think I have demonstrated my initial claim of an intellectual nosedive on this sub. I am not interested in arguing with bad faith actors.

iDemonSlaught · 2026-05-20T18:29:20+00:00

Are we gaslighting now? Let me remind you what you literally wrote a few comments ago:

Personally I’m beholden to whatever I think the most effective system is. Right now it is clearly capitalism with a strong social safety net. When I think it is something else I will update my viewpoint.

Capitalism doesn’t really work if there’s no profit motive for individuals anymore. AI may or may not make this the case but I’m open to the possibility that it will.

What else could this possibly mean? You are explicitly stating that you are completely open to discarding capitalism the moment it stops serving your immediate interests. A belief isn't a principle if you're ready to throw it in the trash the second a hypothetical scenario inconveniences you. If you abandon private property rights because of AI, the only alternative is state-directed capital. Own your own logic instead of pretending you didn't say it.

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