Category Archives: Libertarian Thought

Demonizing those who disagree

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Arnold Kling

C Thi Nguyen writes, An ‘echo chamber’ is a social structure from which other relevant voices have been actively discredited. Where an epistemic bubble merely omits contrary views, an echo chamber brings its members to actively distrust outsiders. In their … Continue reading →

Posted in Three-Axes Model | 17 Comments

Jordan Greenhall on media and society

Posted on April 12, 2018 by Arnold Kling

He writes, This is the formal core of the Blue Church: it solves the problem of 20th Century social complexity through the use of mass media to generate manageable social coherence. He argues that mass media facilitated a form of … Continue reading →

Posted in Libertarian Thought | 14 Comments

Try competing with Facebook

Posted on April 11, 2018 by Arnold Kling

Tyler Cowen writes, I would instead start with the sentence “Most Americans don’t value their privacy or the security of their personal data very much,” and then discuss all the ways that limits regulation, or lowers the value of regulation, … Continue reading →

Posted in business economics, Libertarian Thought, Tyler Cowen is my Favorite Blogger | 15 Comments

A pro-civilization faction?

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Arnold Kling

Jacob Lyles writes, ProCiv probably favors a daring approach to institutional reform. Institutions like governments, universities, and the health care system represent society’s collective intelligence. When they are operating well, society is effective, productive, and nimble in addressing crises. When … Continue reading →

Posted in Three-Axes Model | Tagged | 12 Comments

Immigration laws and others not enforced

Posted on April 7, 2018 by Arnold Kling

Look at what I wrote more than 15 years ago. many laws are the legal equivalent of oxymorons – legamorons, if you will. A legamoron is any law that could not stand up under widespread enforcement. Laws against marijuana use … Continue reading →

Posted in Libertarian Thought, links to my essays, trade and immigration | 10 Comments

The Anti-tribal tribe

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Arnold Kling

David Fuller writes, Recently a new meme started doing the rounds on the Internet — the “Intellectual Dark Web”. The phrase was coined by the mathematician Eric Weinstein. It seems to have caught on — showing that whatever it is, quite a few people … Continue reading →

Posted in Three-Axes Model | Tagged , , | 17 Comments

Russ Roberts on worker exploitation

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Arnold Kling

He writes, When free-market types like myself hear about a worker who is made uncomfortable by inappropriate language or inappropriate physical contact on the job, our usual response is: quit. You don’t have to work for a crude, or worse — abusive … Continue reading →

Posted in labor market, Libertarian Thought | 20 Comments

TLP makes a cameo appearance

Posted on March 18, 2018 by Arnold Kling

in a new book by Eunice and Sabrina Moyle, called Be the Change. In the section of the book that discusses political activism, they write, Arnold Kling says that people tend to act according to a dominant axis–a trade-off between … Continue reading →

Posted in Three-Axes Model | Tagged | 3 Comments

Trump and TLP

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Arnold Kling

Handle points out that the emergence of Donald Trump has scrambled the model of the Three Languages of Politics. For example, Even since Trump started his campaign, it seems to me that the progressives have been using “civilization vs. barbarism” … Continue reading →

Posted in Three-Axes Model | 12 Comments

A metaphor for orthodoxy

Posted on March 9, 2018 by Arnold Kling

From a commenter. this strikes me as the key value of conservatism: it gives people lots of index funds into which to sensibly invest their time, effort, and money. A well-civilized society has many, a barbarous one few. Traditional norms … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, Three-Axes Model | 2 Comments