by alexmerced

I’m the Libertarian Switzerland

I like to consider myself the Switzerland of Libertarians, in the sense I stay out of entangling alliances and wars within the Libertarian community and associate with everyone in it. (I socialize like I like my foreign policy).

Why? When I first started my libertarian awakening in 2007 it was Ron Paul/Tom Woods/Robert Murphy who were really foundational to me learning and embracing these ideas. In that I did end up reading and learning a lot of Austrian thought ala Mises/Rothbard/Hayek.

Although, I didn’t stop there I read on the literature and ideas of Milton & David Friedman, Robert Nozick, Ayn Rand, Steve Horwitz, George Selgin, Lawrence White, Deidre McCloskey, Arnold Kling, Jeffrey Tucker, Robert Heinlein and so many more great names in the Libertarian and/or economic traditions.

I can’t see myself denigrating any of it cause all of it illuminated me to so many beautiful ideas and helped me form my own current perspective on issues across the board.

In the desire for peace and diplomacy around the world and within the Libertarian community, I really enjoyed this discussion.

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by alexmerced

Be Proud to be Libertarian

People often times vote R and D out of pure inertia. They don’t agree with the ideas, they don’t know or care who the candidate is, they vote duopoly because they assume that’s how things work. Voting Libertarian is a proactive effort towards something whether an expression of ideas or support for a quality candidate.

Every vote for the LP is a tremendous success because it represents someone is now less apathetic, who connected with a message possibly because of the messenger. A bad habit is being broken, and new habits are closer to being formed.

Every candidate should be tremendously proud of every vote, every donation, and every volunteer. That pride should extend to every voter, every donor and every volunteer because you invested your time and money into something that is building the fundamental change of reshuffling the complacency and defaults that plague society.

by alexmerced

I’m Pro-Immigration because I’m libertarian

As a Libertarian, I’m personally pro-immigration not solely because of the benefits of idea exchange in innovation, more consumers, and the benefits in global enterprise to have a population that is more used to interacting with other cultures.

Beyond cooperation, there are also benefits to the conflict within diverse populations. Recent studies show that more culturally homogenous populations are more tolerant and less skeptical of government welfare and this lack of skepticism often leads to government growth and overreach. (refer to recent episode of EconTalk with Alberto Alessina)

I prefer society be skeptical of everything government does because you’ll have more accountability and less overreach. So in that regard diversity is key.

We see this in the LP, as the tent gets bigger we see the different factions become more skeptical than ever of everything national says and does. This is good, it holds us accountable and teaches us how to do our job with a growing and expanding libertarian coalition. Growth requires learning, diversity amplifies learning which is why I love free markets.

by alexmerced

How to Privatize Parks, Schools and Other Public Goods

Was just thinking out loud on a question that I get often, “how do you make something I like government does like a park and remove it from government control.”

One idea I had on how you could transition government assets into community entities that are self-funded and have better voluntary governance is the following. This example would be for a public park.

Step 1 – Create a corporation which within its charter obligates it to operate a park for let’s say the next 10 years at which time a renewal of that commitment is voted on by shareholders.

Step 2 – Do an IPO of Common shares that have a built in negative dividend. (Fixed rate meaning the holder of the share must pay each year to continue holding the share, not being paid up will result in loss of shareholder voting power) The IPO would be restricted to individual purchasers with a maximum allotment to prevent an initial concentration of ownership.

Step 3 – The proceeds from the offering become the initial capital to operate the park with additional revenue coming from the negative dividend and other revenue the park may generate.

Because of the negative dividend only those vested in the success of the park will want to own the shares and will be able to directly vote on the governance of the park so it’s governance would not be subject to presidential elections that have little to do with parks leading to better less volatile governance and voluntary funding.

This method may be more palatable to voters as it doesn’t run the risk of an auction which likely is going to be won by the largest financial interest which many would feel skeptical of yet still spins the property into voluntary ownership, governance and funding by individuals.

by alexmerced

Free to Disagree

When it comes to personal opinions there are endless things that I disagree with fellow libertarians on. What makes us Libertarian isn’t that we agree on everything but that we don’t want to force our ideal world on each other, but build the world we believe in on consent and voluntarism and let the better more compelling ideas win in a market that arises from our every single choice and action.

Now when you at least agree on the value of one’s life and ability to make choices in their own domain there is some clear implications. Ending destabilizing wars, ending the destructive drug war, reducing regulations that price out newer and smaller market participants, and reducing the taxation and incarceration that supports these systems of control.

We are fighting for a world where we can be free to live, disagree and resist and not be taxed, hurt or jailed for doing so.

by alexmerced

The Libertarian Party is a Free Market for Libertarian Change

Anyone who knows me knows I’m personally quite enamored with the functioning and benefits of markets. When you have open groups of people cooperating with each other while competing against other groups to achieve the same goal (provide milk, education, healthcare) there are several things that occur:

– The competition drives each group to find better ways to cooperate, coordinate and work together in their group.

– The competition drives each group to optimize resources.

– The competition forces people to think more deliberately about what their value proposition is, too broad a proposition can lead “One Size Fits None” products and this necessary reflection results in better products.

– Marketing requires not only that each group work together better, optimize resources, and develop their value proposition but also learn how to communicate it better than the competition resulting in better, clearer communication which improves growth and adoption of all competitors growing their market.

To me the Libertarian Party is a market for libertarian political change and activism, and the dynamics above are exactly what I see among the different factions trying different strategies and approaches to providing movement towards a more libertarian world.

Markets are a learning process, and they can take time but the result is more robust and sustainable and just another reason to be optimistic about the future of the Libertarian Party.