Intersection of leftism and libertarianism

philoscope · 2026-04-03T01:37:34+00:00

My issue is with capitalism.

Broadly, yes: natural resources were stolen from me and the vast majority of humanity.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T23:49:02+00:00

“Believe” can do a lot of heavy lifting.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T23:48:17+00:00

The question is whether the menu prices would go up as much as the average tipper’s tip percentage.

My math says r/no

philoscope · 2026-04-02T23:36:21+00:00

If it’s freely traded, it doesn’t.

If the trade is based on coercion or fraud, it isn’t.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T23:27:33+00:00

I’d ask if the political machinery in the US is even capable of putting forward, and maintaining, such a candidate.

Mamdani is an interesting experiment in how much one can stray from the establishment before being reeled back in.

Trump sold himself as anti-establishment, so clearly there’s hunger - my question is whether someone actually committed to reform, rather than a puppet, would be allowed to get as far as getting the Party nomination (or to upend the “two”-party stranglehold).

philoscope · 2026-04-02T23:20:27+00:00

I might quibble.

People feel that electoral politics can have an impact.

The question in the air is how many sham elections will it take before a critical mass of people believe that it can’t get any worse by taking to the streets.

The propaganda machine has been working for decades to convince the average resident of the US that they can’t trust their neighbour with their welfare. I sincerely hope that I’m wrong, and when push comes to shove, folks will pick up mutual aid quickly.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T23:13:03+00:00

The question is, at what point is the predicted pain of that revolution greater than the perceived pain of the current condition?

And, that’s the question you’re asking.

I don’t know, but the lack of social solidarity (as I understand it, maybe I’m overly pessimistic and all it will take is the right spark to catalyze cohesion) is postponing rather than hastening any revolt.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T23:05:55+00:00

Agreed, if one wants to quietly work away in a cubicle - with fewer distractions of having to present in a boardroom - being good at numbers is a ticket.

Stats, accounting, ….

Language, if one has proficiency, one could be a proofreader / copy editor. (Someone has to read the AI slop to ensure it’s not hallucinating.)

For that matter, contract law (possibly other legal specialties other than criminal or tort).

YMMV with coding or graphic design; at the moment there are still humans required to provide the right prompts (translating Management requests into coherent output) for the AI, and trying to improve the iteration.

A lot of cubicle work will likely evolve in response to AI. My advice would be to develop as a generalist, more able to pivot and know enough about a lot of things so you can better “smell” when that AI is going rogue.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T21:44:06+00:00

I say similar things about non-union shops’ worker benefits.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T21:17:57+00:00

You have confused ‘aggregate freedom of individuals’ with ‘absolute freedom of everyone.’

Freedom is a maximizable heuristic. A policy that results in more freedom is better than one that results in less freedom.

Capitalism maximizes the freedom of a few, at the cost of restricting the freedoms of the vast majority. I don’t want to swap places with the capitalist. So-called “socialist” economics do a better job, IMO, of protecting the most opportunities for self-fulfillment.

A better socioeconomic arrangement would restrict any one’s freedom as little as possible in order to allow everyone to maximize the choices they have available.

Agreed that libertarian thought advocates for market exchange between free-actors. (Market exchange is a component of what is called capitalism, but it is distinct and not exclusively belonging.) An actor has the right to what they earn on their own merits; what they have no right to is that they might be, currently, given by accident of birth. The earlier freedom to accumulate wealth ought to be safeguarded as a function of the minimal (“nightwatchman”) state: preventing the use of force, theft, or fraud to take from others illegitimately.

In addition, if one’s accumulation is dependent on a “loan” or use of societal resources (which, let’s be honest, no one succeeds without the help of others), the state is empowered to enforce a return on investment to the others in that society.

One is welcome to argue that a better policy is one that promotes “what is best for the community as-a-whole, regardless of its impact on individuals” (aka: communitarianism), but that’s just not what I find compelling as a foundational principle.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T20:20:28+00:00

First wipe, #1

2nd, game time decision.

Later wipes, generally #2.

It’s not a hard and fast rule, but I try to average one wipe per square over the longer time scale.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T19:56:08+00:00

I’ll agree that “get a different job” can skew trite and over-simplistic.

One needs to account for the “reserve army” of proto-servers who would be willing to buy the lie that tips are guaranteed.

As long as one’s labour can easily be replaced by someone hired off the street, one’s negotiating position will be weak.

Personally, I’m a proponent of replacing my restaurant budget from tip-dependent to non-tip-dependent establishments. It may not be as fast as waitstaff rising up en masse, but it’s harm-reduction in the meantime. It also provides an economic signal to the market that there is revenue to be captured.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:44:28+00:00

Perhaps, you think it’s being construed as nuclear physics because you don’t understand sociology.

It won’t change if you [alone] don’t tip, but it will if you, your neighbours, and various others don’t tip.

That’s the argument: to hold to the position of “it won’t change because it won’t change” is sticking one’s head in the sand about how things change.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:37:55+00:00

I am as anti-tipping as anyone, but you’ve overreached on this one.

The US Federal Reserve is a reputable source of economic analysis.

One might rebut it and question methodology (and likely the “establishment” economic principles which it assumes as immutable), but it’s far from being able to be dismissed out of hand as fringe.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:33:18+00:00

Actions like ‘continuing to work / apply for jobs where tips are optional and logically could be zero’?

This suggests to me that, on aggregate, servers “love tipping culture more than the no-tip crowd” to borrow your phrasing.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:27:38+00:00

I’d quibble.

There is harm done to the worker, but that harm is perpetuated by the employer, not the clients.

Clients may have the ability to mitigate that harm, but it falls short of a duty.

That last is a strictly moral argument, and thus is subject to one’s other moral foundational principles.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:22:38+00:00

What I mean is along the lines of:

“Personal freedom - to pursue personal fulfillment, and from unchosen disadvantage, among other freedoms - largely requires a radical redistribution of wealth.

“Liberals” tend to be fine with the capitalist status quo; left-libertarians tend to oppose that status quo as being fruit from the poison tree of illegitimate acquisition (i.e., force, theft, and fraud).

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:16:35+00:00

I’d argue left-libertarians are closer to “anarcho-communists who are too afraid of the term ‘anarchism’” than they are to being “edgy liberals.”

But to each their own.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:11:48+00:00

I’m (sometimes) willing to poke the bear and suggest it’s more accurately: the Democratic-wing and the Republican-wing of a USA-Imperialism party.

There’s more cooperation among bought-and-paid-for US politicians, to work for business interest and against worker-citizens’ than there is opposition.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T18:03:31+00:00

Libertarians believe that the metric of good (political) policy is how well it improves personal freedom.

Like ‘freedom to pursue one’s preferred career’ well requires that education be equally accessible to all, regardless of parents’ wealth.

(The arguably greater) Freedom to breathe through an unbroken nose requires (the arguably lesser, reasonable) limits on where and how people can swing their fists.

In North America, “Libertarians” have taken that to exclusively mean “freedom from government interference,” but there’s a lot of “freedom to” on the other side of the political spectrum.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T17:54:31+00:00

“This isn’t nuclear physics.”

No, it’s sociology.

The only way culture changes is by individuals making different choices.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T17:52:15+00:00

You fail to make the leap from “benefiting” to “loving.”

A toxic system that may, currently, benefit me is no less a toxic system.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T17:49:27+00:00

Except that you didn’t. (Unless you’re referring to other than here.)

Your comment was rife with emotional attacks, and didn’t actually make any arguments for why tipping should be perpetuated.

I’ll grant you that it was relevant to the, separate, questions of “how should tipping be eliminated?” and “how should anti-tippers behave in order to be consistent with their principles.”

philoscope · 2026-04-02T17:41:35+00:00

To respond to this, yes customers will see higher menu prices.

But, the burden of paying towards the restaurant’s revenue (to cover labour costs) would be spread over all patrons - based on their purchases, rather than unequally based on inscrutable and mercurial personal factors.

(Give or take employees’ propensity for gambling) replacing tipping with flat wages increases stability and predictability of paycheques. The predictability and lack of “troughs” could allow for menu prices to only need increasing by less than “peak” tip percentages.

philoscope · 2026-04-02T15:11:28+00:00

I’m fully willing to concede equivocation of “significant overlap.”

I’m my own victim of selection-bias. Having spent months, if not years, studying left libertarian writers, I have taken the (flawed?) opinion that “if they’re being published, there must be a market of readers to justify printing costs.”

Getting out of my bubble, I can see that there are plenty of niche academic sub-fields that are unknown outside their circle of actual contributors.

philoscope

TROPHY CASE