What is left-libertarianism?
CV PEOPLE: REALTOR DIANE BUSCH ELECTED PRESIDENT WOMEN’S COUNCIL OF REALTORS
The Public Record January 8, 2008 | Anonymous Diane Busch, a realtor with Windermere Real Estate, will be installed on January 11 as the 2008 president of the Palm Springs/Desert Cities Women’s Council of Realtors.
Busch and a new board of directors will be sworn in at an installation luncheon with other newly elected board of directors: Wendy Formica, a realtor with Windermere Real Estate in Indian Wells, president elect; Jean Zimbro of Pro Valley Realty in Palm Springs, vice president of membership; Ann Papanek, branch manager of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in La Quinta; treasurer; and MaryAnn Selle, sales representative for LandAmerica, secretary. this web site windermere real estate
“I’m quite honored to be selected president of very dynamic organization like Women’s Council of Realtors, which is dedicated to the advancement and education of realtors and industry professionals,” Busch said.
Busch has over 12 years of real estate experience which is in residential, as well as retail/corporate real estate. She negotiated and managed the real estate portfolio for retailer GUESS, Inc. for over 8 years, and continues to do consulting for the company. Busch is a realtor with Windermere Real Estate, Indian Wells office, specializing in residential real estate. She and her husband Jim have resided in Indian Wells since 2003. this web site windermere real estate
In addition to being a sports enthusiast and avid tennis player, Busch is an active member of the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens, a California Desert Association of Realtors Board Committee member, 2006/2007 WCR Education Chair, and recipient of the WCR 2006 Business Person of the Year award.
Chartered in 2001, the local chapter of the Women’s Council of Realtors has about 130 members, women and men realtors, industry affiliates and other professionals who receive value from membership.
“WCR members refer business to other members with the assurance that all bring a high-caliber of professionalism for effective business relations,” Busch said.
Nationwide, the Women’s Council of Realtors has 301 chapters and 17,900 members – ranking 12th among 700 plus U.S. women’s organizations. In California, there are 2,297 members in 41 chapters.
Anonymous
5:34 pm
… and I *still* don’t have a clear picture of what “left-libertarianism” after all that
… except for possibly that it less tolerates hierarchically-structured private enterprises whereas those that would tolerate such enterprises (provided they don’t try to curry favor through government) would be called “right-libertarian”.
Other than that, I can see any purpose for dividing the libertarian philosophy with tired statist divisions like “left” and “right”. All libertarians want to reduce the size and scope of the state to the level that best promotes and protects individual liberty, but how is that liberty promoted if the only “accepted” way to open a business is to make it non-hierarchical? In this way “left-libertarianism” *does* seem oxymoronic as how do you force every sort of economic venture to be non-hierarchical without some other hierarchy to enforce it … even if that hierarchy is only two levels, the people that go around enforcing this “requirement” and everyone else?
9:05 am
Stopping the droves of people from trampling each other in the rush to the nearest capitalist to prostitute themselves as wage slaves has always been a great challenge.
9:51 pm
Meh, it’s just “easier” (i.e. less perceived risk) for those people to fit into some sort of hierarchical structure (e.g. a chain of command) rather than have to either put forth some entrepreneurial effort or deal with more co-op based environments where more than just a few parties decide on the overall direction and operation of a business and the more potentially complex nature thereof.
I figure whatever floats their boat. Let them have the option to trade their labor (and fruits thereof) for wages (as long as it doesn’t unjustly infringe on others liberties of course).
4:40 pm
The historical ignorance in your post is most astounding.
Don’t you know, “less risk” is a code word for “nothing to risk”? I.e., if you don’t own any property, you cannot risk any property.
The problem comes when I decide to take the option not to trade my labor, and instead decide to become an independent farmer. First thing is to acquire some land…
11:19 pm
Historical ignorance? No, you’re simply being myopic in your view of the issue. Most people have at least *some* property (not just talking land) that can be leveraged towards an entrepreneurial venture to enable them to be free of wage labor. Naturally there is no guarantee of success any more than any other area of life, but there is no doubt there is more risked in pursuing an independent course (which includes more ventures than just being a farmer, any trade could be a potential avenue for venture) than if one chooses to trade their labor for wages to another party that’s taking the risks (as well as calling the shots). With the former, one risks losing all they invested into their independent venture. With the latter, the risk is only as great as the level of surplus wage laborers (i.e. the unemployment rate).
4:56 pm
Once again you give an ahistorical account.
[Historically-derived concept of resource competition vs. ideologically-derived, ahistorical concept of resource competition]
What your account leaves out is how the bargaining power of the parties to these “voluntary” exchanges has been determined through historical political struggle (and, in a global perspective, military struggle).
In your historical ignorance, you think that if the workers gained economic independence, that nobody would want to come in and make them dependent again (“by hook or by crook”). You think they wouldn’t be missed. You are mistaken.
No, I am giving you too much credit. You aren’t mistaken. You just don’t care about the vast majority of people, and your vision of the future does not include an escape from this system for them. You make a poor argument that their situation is voluntary, deliberately to exclude them from concern.
== To tell a story ==
The workers are playing a game that has been set up for them by the owners. The owners are playing a different game among themselves. The owners are playing a game called “war over the world’s resources.” The workers are playing a game called “be chosen by the owners.” Most of the workers are _also_ playing _another_ game, called “start a business.”
There are people who are not workers. Some of these are also playing the game called “start a business.” The non-workers call their game “war over the world’s resources.” They only have to play one game at a time. They are playing against the workers, but they get an additional 50 hours per week to play.
The point of the game the owners are playing is to make the workers who are playing “be chosen by the owners” play the game for them.
When the workers stop playing “start a business” and start playing “war over the world’s resources,” the game determines how many hours the workers get to play “war over the world’s resources” and how many hours they have to play “be chosen by the owners.”
====
That is, the amount of work expected of the working class is a product of an historical (and ongoing) political struggle.
Working hours are merely one example of a vital factor to the competition being determined politically. The conflict plays out constantly in the political arena. In all areas, the owners want a weak working class, who will accept short pay and disagreeable hours (or on-call conditions) because they are desperate and lacking options. The workers want more options, so that they can demand higher pay for worse conditions.
TL;DR: The government regulates the desperation level (and thus the bargaining power) of the workers. The story about market competition is stupifying because the _real_ competition is over who controls the rules of the market competition.
[Historically-derived concept of resource competition vs. ideologically-derived, ahistorical concept of resource competition]
8:43 pm
You’re still being myopic. Furthermore you seem to assume that any costs associated with “risks” to which I refer to only include tangible or quantifiable factors (e.g. wages or hours of labor). There are certainly more cost factors than that. If one is facing possible starvation (in either a literal or financial sense), then the “cost” of giving up rights to the fruits of ones labor for food will certainly seem more palatable than for someone not in a similar circumstance.
You also somewhat seem to assume that I condone the “mixed” economy we have in the US. I don’t and would rather have us have a true free-market economy where government only would step in to address criminal misconduct of a business (e.g. force and fraud) as opposed to trying to be little economic demi-gods that have to fix all the problems and help out us “mere mortals”.
Following your “story” theme, let’s say you if you hated the taste of tomatoes and were starving, would you pass up eating a fresh tomato that was available for your personal consumption to simply in the hope that you would find some food that was more palatable? If so, would there be any point at which you’d forego the preference of your palette and eat a tomato.
The same idea is underlying my post … except that sense of “staving” is replaced with various people’s desire to see more immediate and/or “guaranteed” returns on their labor.
Another story: say an aspiring farmer hires a farm-hand for assistance on their farm. The farmer works hard along side the farm-hand all season and through a catastrophic stroke of bad-luck loses all their crops through a natural disaster. At this point the farmer is out quite a lot (assuming no insurance) and may even have to sell off some land to keep the farm from going under while the seasonal farm laborer they paid to help them out has already been compensated.
On the flip side, the farmer also stands to benefit most in proportion to the labor put forth by getting 100% of the profits (naturally assuming the cost of the farmhand’s wages don’t count as profit) for less than 100% of the work. If you play this out a few years (or even several generations) and the farm is able to thrive and grow (in order to hedge any losses in any one given field) and requires the help of even more farmhands to do the necessary labor, are you going to now label the farmer running the farm as one of the “owners” … or still just a worker? If the farm becomes FarmerFamily Inc. with the same persons running and employed by the farm as before, is the farmer still a “worker” or have they become an “owner”?
Certainly no one should be made or even coerced (e.g. blackmailed) into any form of slavery of any stripe (economic or otherwise) but I fail to see that being an issue under true market forces (i.e. free of state interference, be that interference stemming from within the state or an third party collaborating w/ the state for personal gain). The problems you describe stem from governments the world over that have mucked and continue to muck around in economic forces beyond any centralized control (or comprehension even) … whether the motivation of doing so is from their own desire for power or some third party using that desire for power to further their own ends fed by desire for wealth/power is a moot point. In both cases it is the actual act (e.g. unwarranted, generally harmful, intervention into some aspect of the economy) that allows for their to be any real consequences. People can lust for power and money all they want but if they don’t have the “legitimate power” of the state to use as a tool through which to achieve their means, then those lusts are (relatively speaking) harmless on a larger scale.
7:40 pm
I do not use “myopic” as an insult but only to note a specific shortsightedness is your arguments. If someone said they we’re looking at the “big picture” but ignored smaller but critical details then maybe I’d all them hyper-opic, but I so rarely run across those sort of arguments that it’s never been at issue.
In any case, your shortsightedness is not in “referencing 500 years of history” (supposedly) but your selective (and also arguably ideological) application of that span of history you reference? Also, why not 1000 years of history, or 1500 years? Did some aspect of human nature change roughly 500 years ago that tosses all microeconomics and macroeconomic theory out the window?
Furthermore free market principles are to foster *economic* freedom. They (as well as most other economic schools of though) make few (if any) claims towards addressing social hierarchies or any issues involving assertion of dominance inherent therein. If that were the case then implementing a free market system in India would eliminate still-present effects of it’s caste system there rather quickly. Of course, doing such a thing wouldn’t likely have any such effect as that system runs deep in their societal norms and would likely take several generations to be worked out on a purely social level.
If someone want’s to be the proverbial ass-hat and use their * social* influence to make life miserable for some subset of people, that is not an *economic* issue and you cannot solve the root of the problem by simply removing their wealth (and doing so is likely only going to contribute to their “ass-hat” tenancies)
Furthermore if I assume that I am wrong (following your suggestion) and that more and more of the “property” (not sure if you’re referring solely to goods or land, or both) started to consolidate into the hands of a few then those amassing such a level of property would really be screwing themselves over the long run (even making them easy targets of unruly mobs should they get too greedy). Let’s even assume, in a sort of 1984-esqe style, that 3 families lay claim to a most of property (land and means of production) on the Earth. Firstly your question seems to assume that this somehow gives them rights to *every* work done by people that are not them simply because they may own the land beneath their feet and because of this no one could ever challenge their status (i.e knock them down several pegs). However, it does not as those 3 families are not in a position to craft such a law/edict. Certainly none of the 3 families could not claim rights to a product developed solely though an individuals of own property and efforts. Furthermore, they must have *someone* helping them to maintain these resources. Surely each family could not do what was necessary to maintain nearly 1/3 of the property on the planet then *someone* (several someones in fact) will benefit from this basic need and in tern they will necessarily have to give up some aspect of that personal property in some manner (most likely in a monetary form) to maintain these claims (as well as meet some basic necessities such as eating themselves … since I don’t really see them harvesting their own food). By giving up this property I will flow out of their hands and into others such that maintaining this level long-term seems highly unfeasible.Finally it’s interesting/amusing that you assume I’m an anarco-capitalist. I can see how you’d make that assumption since I’m posting on a site dedicated to posting articles on the various forms of anarchy and that I favor more free market principles, but there are several political philosophies that promote free market principles that are not under the “anarcho-capitalist” banner