Globally, libertarianism is understood to be a socialist ideology. It's only in America we have to specify a different term "anarchist " for them. Also, Sam has a lot of misconceptions on native American culture, sadly
Wow who would think a bunch of socially maladroit spectrumcases would be so bad at organizing around a deeply antisocial, hyperindividualistic ideology
thanks for these libertarian caller videos sam they are great, they're single handedly responsible for ending my interest in the viability of the libertarian ideology.
indeed, and while some of high ideals of libertarianism sound nice, they are ridiculously inept with dealing with the current world - they would only work if the whole slate of humanity was wiped and people just started from scratch - though then they would likely once again hit some point of their liberatarian feudalism unknowingly and overshoot because it is is not a logical stopping point for humans who want to share a world peacefully with one another. like sam says the only way to a 'utopia' would be through dystopia and a horrific one really with regard to everyone without the money and means to defend themselves and get the resources which a libertarian view would announce a free for all on. The only people to benefit from such ideology would be teh corporations who could use their power to just get it all for themselves and then do with it as they please - if these were humanitarian corporations that would be nice, but again that is a utopia and the word utopia means IIRC, 'no place' any utopia is a non-existent ideal - it is good to have some ideals, but if they never come into contact with reality then they decompose and the rot will be just another fascism - a regime of extreme violence
@@LanceDango there were, but they died off between 10,000-15,000 years ago during the quaternary extinction event (the cause of which is still undetermined but the two primary theories are early human hunting and climate change). But yes, horses were brought back to America by Europeans in the late 15th century.
@@LanceDango I mean, regardless of the context of the quote it is factually correct and historically accurate to say that there *were* once horses in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans; only, they went extinct which would later necessitate colonialists bringing them overseas.
he means a commune??? he's so close to anarcho communism i'm rooting for this guy. and he's not entirely wrong reaching back a bit in history, eventhough it's not accurate. kropotkin explains a lot doing that
@@LucianCorrvinus Do you… do you think there’s no trade under socialism? Socialism the economic system? Economics, which primarily concerns itself with the mechanism of trade and how that shapes policy? Sigh.
I love when some person says "Native societies", like as though they were all the same and all behaved similarly and never fought over these differences. Maybe some involved womens participation, maybe some didn't. There is never nuance in this kind of statement, which should make anyone suspicious.
Native American society was basically socialist for the same reason your family is socialist amongst itself. “There’s this much to be done and this much resources to go around, let’s get it done” is the basic structure of ancient independent civilizations and that is socialist in my understanding.
Well, because early groups were basically extended families and there’s a selective pressure to protect those in your family to allow a greater chance of your genes to propagate.
+Likely Lad The caller was probably basing his comparisons of Native Americans and Libertarian philosophy on the bases of Libertarians wanting to put the value of money into the gold standard (resource based economy) and Natives used a barter system (value in resources and man made products) which is true. But Natives never had a capitalist system involving banking, like the Libertarians promote. Most Natives do have both a libertarian and socialist ideology in their cultures.
Thomas Oklahoma not really. rbe is based on free access and use, no property - theres nothing artificial which backs it up. you interpretate your own values into that.
Likely Lad I didn't say the caller was right, he was comparing Libertarian gold standard to Native Americans who put value in resources and man made products. Both is a form of basing value on a resource, not money. Most Natives practiced free-trade and Libertarians philosophy advocate free-trade. But the differences is that Natives used a barter system that puts value in resources while the Libertarian philosophy advocates for a free-market monetary system based on the gold standard.
Thomas Oklahoma the point was they didnt had the philosophy of free trade they didi it because they didnt know how to gain trust and because of scarcity in some resources and knowledge. whithin the tribe often, there was free access no trade.
Likely Lad Native individuals gathered resources from the common lands and created products from those resources or used natural resources to barter with others. This is free-trade using a barter system that placed value on a resource.
Both of those should read some Chomsky. The libertarian label is not appropriate at all here. Btw Seder is wrong when he says what the caller is talking about can't work in industrial societies with millions of people; it did in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Orwell notably wrote about it.
abyssinia4ever That's a pretty absurd statement. Catalonia, thanks to Barcelona, was Spain's industrial center and the textile capital of Europe outside the UK. I'm not suggesting their levels of industrialization matched anything we can see today in terms of a modern economy or that everything was all going perfectly for that matter, but it is still a very interesting experiment that actually does prove Seder wrong here.
+fattony638 then you seem to have missed the part in Homage to Catalonia where the soviets started purging people, Orwell included. Spain during the civil war was indeed more skin to a refugee camp than a land in modernity, and it would have never worked out, anyway. Regardless of regional or historical governments, humans always seem to form defacto government, regardless of whatever they like to call it.
"Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
Your 'Guess' about 'Indian' people is totally wrong. The Constitution was founded on the principles of the Iroquois Confederacy, written on Hemp. There wasn't a division between men and women. This is a Euro-centric notion that came from colonization. Women held positions that were equal, with different responsibilities. Representative Democracy was what was taken from Indigenous North American Tribes. Kinda like Thanksgiving, there's real information out here. We didn't have slaves the way you associate it to, in this culture. 'Slaves' were associated with War, not the basis of a society, and it was more of a punishment than an 'Economic' strategy, like t was to the Founding Fathers. We didn't have the death penalty, we had expulsion. All 'Native Americans', which is a derogatory term to me and alot of my Culture as that implies that 'America' is where we set our standards, had trade and respect for different tribes as intermarriage, even from opposing Nations (cuz that's what they were, different languages and traditions yet a similar Spirituality, also only way you can sign a 'Treaty'), were an integral part of our societal structure, which ,in turn, was 'used' for the basis of the United States. Our Society, which was so vastly different than anything being debated here, really can't be cited by someone outside of it. Not because we don't want them to, Howard Zinn makes an excellent point in this regard, but because no one wants to. The European notion of 'success' is this system we're living in. It isn't 'successful' to us, by the way, so that term being used to describe this country is truly relative. And to say that you couldn't run a country that has 300 million people having a say is contradictory to the founding of this system of government, regardless of how that was manipulated under the 'Capitalist' system. 'America' isn't a Country with 300 million people in one area. The population is distributed, unevenly, in class-driven localities. If everyone started to realize that self-sufficiency is what every Nation strives for, they may understand that Human Beings can ONLY live in Localized Government structures. Minimally weak centralized governments with more emphasis on municipalities and their self-sufficiency, providing the driver for perpetuation of the society lies in the realm of Human endeavor and well-being, is the only successful way Humans can live. Relying on importing and exporting in a world where knowledge is the only real power, is total suicide. We're seeing this now. More a symptom of 'Capitalism' really. The Indian Men when young are Hunters and Warriors; when old, Counsellors; for all their Government is by Counsel of the Sages; there is no Force there are no Prisons, no Officers to compel Obedience, or inflict Punishment.-Hence they generally study Oratory; the best Speaker having the most Influence. The Indian Women till the Ground, dress the Food, nurse and bring up the Children, & preserve & hand down to Posterity the Memory of public Transactions. These Employments of Men and Women are accounted natural & honorable, Having few artificial Wants, they have abundance of Leisure for Improvement by Conversation. Our laborious Manner of Life compar’d with theirs, they esteem slavish & base; and the Learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous & useless. - Benjamin Franklin Papers 1782-1783
So which of the Iroquois Confederacy members do you belong to then? You speak like you're a member of a tribe, although you failed to mention which one. I should point out that I live near several Lakota reservations. Their social structure wasn't like the Iroquois. And the same is true when you look at pretty much every tribe that wasn't part of the Iroquois Confederacy - they were very different. My own ancestors were Creek - they owned slaves and they adapted white men's ways and religion because they saw economic and strategic advantages to doing so (and then ended up in Oklahoma anyway). In fact, many of the Seminole tribes in Florida are descended from escaped slaves that had been owned by the Creek tribes. My ancestors weren't exactly nice ppl - and that's without looking at the white side of the family. And yeah, ppl have a tendency to over-generalize about Native tribes prior to European arrival. They seem to either see them as viscous savages with no redeeming qualities or peace-loving hippies. The reality is they were just humans living in human societies - they had their pros and their cons, just like every other civilization that's ever existed on this planet.
except that utopia didnt happen with the native american either the two biggest civilizations the aztecs and the incas had god kings, human sacrifice and went to war constantly to get slaves
Sam should not really baldly assert that women did not have voting rights within the native american societies that practiced direct demoracy. In the Iroquois confederacy the chiefdoms which formed the representative councils were all bestowed by the clan mothers, and passed on matrilinearlly. They could recall these representatives at any time. I'm not saying it's utopian, and there would have been many other systems in many other nations, but the best examples of direct consensus democracy among the native Americans definitely had female representation. We have this weird view of history from a western perspective that every non modern civilization must necessarily have been entirely patriarchal.
The native American tribes had societies akin to anarcho-socialism at least within one's own tribe..the caller is confusing that with libertarian capitalism, direct democracies don't exists in capitalism because the market is what governs all social relations.
"Whole for free" means that there be a collection of basic sustenance & shelter; Healthcare & even entertainment provided to EVERYONE who lives in the borders of said state. That MEANS, Mr "Libertarian" that people be allowed a certain level of basic creature comforts-whether they have the ability to contribute to it or not YET-so that a person doesn't have anxieties over how they will survive.Because whether you believe it or not, almost EVERYONE wants everyone else to be Healthy, SAFE & Sound!
Oh, sure. "Imagine how great anarchy would be, now that we already have all the modern comforts that government has made possible." Way to stand on the shoulders of giants.
I don't think the caller was a libertarian despite him believing himself so. You are right Native Americans were not capitalistic and were collectivist neither which fit libertarianism.
So native americans didn't fight? What is this guy reading? He said is someone was so poor that they didn't have a horse or blanket they would be Given one. There were no horses here before Europeans arrived.
I'd agree that Singapore's living conditions aren't the worst in the world, especially compared to Somalia or some other small-government paradise. As for your opinion of unions: I'd say the German auto industry blows that preconceived notion out of the water. In Germany, unions and corporations are not enemies. Collective bargaining is not evil.
A free market society that failed ? I can name several of those in both American and European history . The Puritans ? They were a " free market " society , look how well they turned out . The Spanish Inquisition were also " free market " and they didn`t do much better . Pre-colonization Native Americans also had a " free market " system of a more tribal and proto-socialistic nature which worked pretty well before the Pilgrims came with their diseases and imperialist schemes .
I actually have held a vision of what this country could have been had Native Americans been invaded and wiped out, so it’s a nice dream to envision that we live in nature, respect the Earth, have various tribes with their laws,and chiefs, etc. Maybe we could even still be riding horses! It’s not naive to just want a better world for our kids and grandkids, and think outside the box. Another party May spice things up, too. I give the guy credit for wanting a better society. I read about a tribe whose one law was to do nothing that harms a child, if you think about it that covers all the bases(stealing, abuse, murder , etc all harm) and making children a priority makes for a great society. Everyone should read “Bury my heart at wounded knee, to grasp what America is built on, slavery wasn’t the original atrocity. Way to burst his bubble Sam.
I don't get it. That Native American quote sounds more like communism/anarchism than libertarianism, especially if Ayn Rand's objectivism and its vehement rejection of altruism is considered. This caller seriously needs to reconsider his political ideology.
I'm Kanienkeha, which is known as Mohawk in English, a nation in the Six Nations Confederacy also known as the Iroquoian Confederacy which is a nontraditional name given by the French. The Six Nations Confederacy is the world's oldest democracy that has been continuously active until today. Of course Athenian democracy predates it, but also hasn't existed for Millenia. The Six Nations Confederacy has been active for over 600 years, and the United States through Ben Franklin modeled many parts of American Democracy on our confederacy. Sam raised the point about whether Women were able to participate and the answer is yes. However men and women had different roles. Each clan (extended family) had it's own representative, call it a chief if you want, and that representative was chosen by the women of the family with the final decision coming from the eldest female called the clan mother. Anyone in the clan could voice their concerns to the "chief" who would attend the councils of "chiefs" from each clan of all the nations in the confederacy. These chiefs were only men, however if the chief did not represent the family well the clan mother could depose the chief at anytime and choose someone new. Women played a significant role in the government and were able to voice their concerns, just not at councils but through their family representative.
If I'm understanding this guy properly, he wants a system of what are effectively localized clans with a loose treaty among all of said clans for trade based on a commodity backed currency?
Libertarians: “Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of.”
I consider my political views to be libertarian, and would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Seder for his many debates delving into philosophies broader than just "left vs. right"
wasn't the whole problem about the European invasion the fact that Native Americans were split into so many disparate tribes that they couldn't unify and repel the aggressors?
Currency by definition comes out of spontaneous interactions in the marketplace, not central planning. If gold coins were useless in the market, it would either be because of gov't policy or better currencies offered by the market.
The libertarian contradicted myself with the quote. The quote said that there is no private property. And is the person needs something that society will give it to them. Give. Not sell. Not that he has to work for it or suffer. But give to him if he needs it. So the libertarian caller wants true socialism were everybody is equal and get paid the same. So no matter your job you get all the necessities of life that the society has demeaned a utility.
A question for anyone to answer: with the availability of the internet why should a representative democracy not be obsolete in the future? Casting votes across all layers of government could be a total trivial matter for each citizen willing to participate.
No it's not. Also, you can't apply mechanical physics without considering fluid friction (and rolling friction given the mechanism). Again, I doubt you passed math.
I've heard that argument too. I've heard some people say that regulations are the cause of costs too. You gotta love libertarians. They've no grasp on reality. They think John Galt is a hero.
I know I do. I once considered myself a "Democratic Libertarian," though I FINALLY evolved to understand that what people like you "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps & hang all others that couldn't with their bootstraps (then take their bootstraps for ourselves)" --I finally evolved to see what you're saying for what it really is: Survival of the fittest. Even if "the fittest" were born into a life of privilege they had absolutely NOTHING to do with creating.
I'm seeing some crossover between libertarian and anarchist ideology. There are some clear differences, but it makes me feel like libertarians are worth talking with. They correctly identify a lot of problems and often do present arguments in good faith. I don't see much point in debating with hyper religious, authoritarian Right wingers, but I see libertarians, as a group, as one who are worth sharing ideas with.
Actually, that doesn't make it automatically inefficient at all. In fact, because you can eliminate the need for extra profits from the single-payer (e.g. the government) that can easily save 15-25% right there. It also allows the system to concentrate on helping patients and providing services rather than the current system that spends huge amounts of time trying to justify NOT providing services. In the end you are just repeating prejudices, not offering us actual facts or arguments.
"Humans will never reach any type of Utopia unless they become more than human, hopefully through genetic engineering." You do understand how dangerous that way of thinking can be. If you'd start manipulating human thought, where would you begin and where would you end? Would you eliminate desire to eliminate greed? Would you eliminate independence to eliminate rebellion? Bliss comes through satisfaction or ignorance. Usually both. Satisfy some needs and make people oblivious to the rest.
I've noticed that too. Their ideology is a house of cards, and they get really pissed off if you cause a breeze. FYI I knew a lot of Native Americans growing up. There were two neighboring tribes, the Menominee and Winnebago. I witnessed an awkward exchange between a Menominee and a Winnebago. After the Winnebago walked off, the Menominee explained that in the old days Menominee would capture Winn. and keep them basically as livestock, killing and eating them eventually. Libertopia!
suppliers of a good have a natural incentive to regulate the parameters of their goods. and through competition the market as a whole will be more flexible with the rules, which is more likely to find the optimum parameter given the conditions. government regulation reacts after the fact, implements slowly, and by the time they do anything the market already adjusts causing an overcorrection which is just as bad if not worse than the original problem.
I wish Jamie was around for this; Sam has some pretty bad takes here. He didn't actually listen to the guy, he just boxed him in with all the other Libertarians who call in. Also direct democracy is more possible than ever with the internet, but there are plenty of models of this that encorperate representatives in a more responsible and accountable way than we do now in the US. Disappointed in this one.
“A Native American Chief” Therein lies the problem. What nation? Too often people think of Native Americans as a monolithic group. The Iroquois Confederacy, for example, had a tiered representation system.
Medicare puts caps on what Dr.'s can charge medicare patients, and since medicare patients are already paid in and old, they tend to use the system more than they paid in, forcing Dr.'s/hospitals/insurance companies to cover the difference by raising the price on the rest of us. When Medicare was passed, we were told healthcare would be cheaper, but it got even more expensive.
Warfare among Native Americans was often brutal and terrifying. There were cannabalistic death squads that raided other tribes and... ate them. These people are so naive and uninformed.
lemme do my best imitation of this dude. "hey i heard that argument, therefore it isnt valid. nevermind i cant remember the refutation that seder gave on a youtube video. dammit where did i put my crackpipe?"
in my town i expect everyone would vote to change the traffic signals. red light means go. green means stop. just to cause a ruckus and because they could.
Actually, the Laffer Curve can easily be a good argument for HIGHER (compared to what the US has now) taxes, not less. It is certainly not the simplistic "lower taxes is always better, higher taxes always worse" definition you imply here.
So a return to a system of city-states would be a better system? And large cities like NYC wouldn't simply try to absorb nearby smaller towns and become empires? That is what happened historically, and that's what would happen again.
It would certainly be less expensive. It's impossible to know how cheap, but if you also got rid of all the regulations/taxes associated with healthcare, it would be even cheaper.
Friedman's theories have not been tried in most countries. Yes, phD's can say something about a persons ability to comprehend complex system. Milton Friednman, Adam smith, Murray rothbard, thomas sowell and others have shown time and time again that they understand various human social systems as demonstrated in their writings(which you apparently have not read)
I'm not one to over glorify native Americans because of some of the things Sam mentioned there at the end, they had their own issues as well. But his tone was a little too self righteous and condescending when he was talking about it. I love you Sam, but it's that kind of attitude that kind of turns me off when listening to this show. By the way, plenty of native Americans made it into old age.
Noam Chomsky can tell everybody everything they want to know about Libertarianism... he identifies as a social libertarian, but the first thing he would say is that what we call libertarianism in the US is just the opposite of libertarianism.... And that there is nothing really "Libertarian" or Anarchistic about anarchocapitalism or what is essentially coded Neoliberalism calling itself Libertarianism. For it to be Libertarian it really is supposed to be anti worker boss relationship, no bosses, and democratic and fair markets...
Funny, I've always heard sociologists refer to Native American societies as "paleo-socialism" and "paleo-anarchism"... (primitive socialism/anarchism in the old books.) So.... yeah. I bet this guy would just love that.
I hate when someone pushes for deflation under the argument that it empowers the consumer. Whatever gains they get from falling prices, they lose from a fall in wages. And then some.
my question to you is, is slavery profitable in an information age without government subsidies? what makes you think that even if i take your claim, that slavery is sustainable?
Obviously a little late to the party, and not to take away from Sam's points, but Sam makes a few broad sweeping remarks about North American Indigenous peoples at the end of the vid and many of them are kinda wrong and I feel obligated to post this as noone else said it. Not every group had slaves, some did, some didnt with the number that had them skewing to the minority. Life expectancy was similar to today if you lived to be past the age of 16 (the same as europe roughly) and didnt get a European communicable disease. There was warfare, but the number of wars dramatically increased following the escalation of the fur trade and the pushing of indigenous groups into the interior as europeans flooded the coasts, and there is lots of evidence that the preferred method of dealing with disputes was to make a treaty, marry some of the kids off to create alliances etc.. and finally most groups if not all viewed others as human beings who had different stories and different ways of living and being. Whether those different groups had rights in certain territories is a different matter, but it's kinda ridiculous and bigoted to say that all native American groups viewed each other not as members of the same species. Am North American Indigenous and have a degree in this stuff.
On direct democracy: now IS the day and age when it could work. Either now or in the coming decades. A direct democracy can be handled as an eDemocracy. Get the population connected enough to electronic means of mass communication (let's say a $20 smart phone of some sort), and run a govt. run app on it. A vague idea, but I believe it has merit.
How does the surgeon get such a bloated salary in the first? Partly market demand, but also bloated revenue coming into the hospitals because of medicare and other gov't contracts. 1/2 of every dollar spent on healthcare in the U.S., is spent by the gov't. Part of the reason Healthcare providers bill the insurance so much, is because they have a lot of costs, which gov't contributes to.
Why would a private company build a shitty road and have no rules? Why would they risk pouring a bunch of capital into a project that gets a bad reputation and loses customers?
Ask your lib callers what they do for a living, own a car, own a home..??? They all stand in judgement 90% inspiration 10 % perspiration. I've been told, have an argument, support your side with facts , listen to the other side, balance thinking.
also, theory points out the mechanism why government control fails. government has the same information problem that any other economic actor has. but it is a slow moving, slow adjusting leviathan and cannot adjust quick enough for a dynamic economy. economic theory shows that the very act of taxation and government spending causes a frictional loss, AND THATS BEFORE ANALYZING HOW EFFECTIVE THE SPENDING WAS. you cannot deny no one spends his money more carefully than the one who earned it.
What about the priest-kings of the Aztecs? Absolute authoritarianism. Human sacrifice. No humans, not even the sainted Native Americans (and I'm part Cherokee, so I can say it), are paragons of virtue.
This guy isn't a libertarian, he's a socialist. He just doesn't know it
I thought the same thing towards the end.
that fucking quote at the end is incredible socialist lol
He could be a libertarian socialist but definitely he’s a confused young lad, hopefully he’s fully converted to the left lol
exactly right, libertarian socialist just doesn't understand what he is arguing unfortunately.
Globally, libertarianism is understood to be a socialist ideology. It's only in America we have to specify a different term "anarchist " for them.
Also, Sam has a lot of misconceptions on native American culture, sadly
Libertarians phone calls always start with: "I think they are some misconceptions on the 'real' libertarianism"
Every. Single. Time.
literally havent heard one call that hasnt...and ive been binge watching these for a week.
Wow who would think a bunch of socially maladroit spectrumcases would be so bad at organizing around a deeply antisocial, hyperindividualistic ideology
truth in that statement
And then, after that - "Can you hear me? Hello? Sorry, my phone is having some issues."
thanks for these libertarian caller videos sam they are great, they're single handedly responsible for ending my interest in the viability of the libertarian ideology.
indeed, and while some of high ideals of libertarianism sound nice, they are ridiculously inept with dealing with the current world - they would only work if the whole slate of humanity was wiped and people just started from scratch - though then they would likely once again hit some point of their liberatarian feudalism unknowingly and overshoot because it is is not a logical stopping point for humans who want to share a world peacefully with one another.
like sam says the only way to a 'utopia' would be through dystopia and a horrific one really with regard to everyone without the money and means to defend themselves and get the resources which a libertarian view would announce a free for all on.
The only people to benefit from such ideology would be teh corporations who could use their power to just get it all for themselves and then do with it as they please - if these were humanitarian corporations that would be nice, but again that is a utopia and the word utopia means IIRC, 'no place' any utopia is a non-existent ideal - it is good to have some ideals, but if they never come into contact with reality then they decompose and the rot will be just another fascism - a regime of extreme violence
@@divinuminfernum I just adore pragmatism, don't you?
"If he could not afford a horse or blanket, he would receive it as a gift."
Sounds great. Now replace "horse" with "healthcare".
Also there were no horses in the Americans before Europeans showed up. Makes me wonder the authenticity of that quote.
@@LanceDango lol
@@LanceDango there were, but they died off between 10,000-15,000 years ago during the quaternary extinction event (the cause of which is still undetermined but the two primary theories are early human hunting and climate change).
But yes, horses were brought back to America by Europeans in the late 15th century.
@@neilkristjansson8477 I’m aware but 10,000-15,000 years ago is not the context in which the quote is being referred to.
@@LanceDango I mean, regardless of the context of the quote it is factually correct and historically accurate to say that there *were* once horses in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans; only, they went extinct which would later necessitate colonialists bringing them overseas.
Here are the biggest wastes of time ranked:
1. Being a libertarian
2. Listening to a libertarian
Listening to a libertarian is hilarious though
Do listen to librarians, though. They can help you research more effectively.
😂😂😂💯
he means a commune??? he's so close to anarcho communism i'm rooting for this guy. and he's not entirely wrong reaching back a bit in history, eventhough it's not accurate. kropotkin explains a lot doing that
Agreed. I was rooting for him to get into Anarchosyndaicalism/libertarian socialism.
@@kingmu1 hey I'm a ansyn. Kudos for knowing what it is.
First Nations, at best , were close to being Free Trade Socialists, if that is even a thing...
@@LucianCorrvinus Do you… do you think there’s no trade under socialism? Socialism the economic system? Economics, which primarily concerns itself with the mechanism of trade and how that shapes policy?
Sigh.
Yup. David Graeber often cited natives
As soon as the guy says "I'm here to accept your challenge to Libertarians" Seder gets this big smile on his face. LOL
I love how many libertarians accept Sam's challenge and end up failing every time
He didn’t fail he was the only libertarian that did a good job.
You are just being a clapping seal hoping desperately for likes on your comment.
I love when some person says "Native societies", like as though they were all the same and all behaved similarly and never fought over these differences. Maybe some involved womens participation, maybe some didn't. There is never nuance in this kind of statement, which should make anyone suspicious.
he sounded like a Marxist towards the end talking about class consciousness and proletarians
Lots of libertarians are so close to becoming marxists, they just need a little push
@@SamM-lv8hr or a massive kick up the ass
Native American society was basically socialist for the same reason your family is socialist amongst itself. “There’s this much to be done and this much resources to go around, let’s get it done” is the basic structure of ancient independent civilizations and that is socialist in my understanding.
Well, because early groups were basically extended families and there’s a selective pressure to protect those in your family to allow a greater chance of your genes to propagate.
@@Lobsterwithinternet and cooperation is how we out competed the other early hominids, it’s a useful survival strategy
Hes talking like about a resource based economy which is the opposite of libertarianism :D wtf he is confused
+Likely Lad
The caller was probably basing his comparisons of Native Americans and Libertarian philosophy on the bases of Libertarians wanting to put the value of money into the gold standard (resource based economy) and Natives used a barter system (value in resources and man made products) which is true. But Natives never had a capitalist system involving banking, like the Libertarians promote. Most Natives do have both a libertarian and socialist ideology in their cultures.
Thomas Oklahoma
not really. rbe is based on free access and use, no property - theres nothing artificial which backs it up. you interpretate your own values into that.
Likely Lad
I didn't say the caller was right, he was comparing Libertarian gold standard to Native Americans who put value in resources and man made products. Both is a form of basing value on a resource, not money. Most Natives practiced free-trade and Libertarians philosophy advocate free-trade. But the differences is that Natives used a barter system that puts value in resources while the Libertarian philosophy advocates for a free-market monetary system based on the gold standard.
Thomas Oklahoma
the point was they didnt had the philosophy of free trade they didi it because they didnt know how to gain trust and because of scarcity in some resources and knowledge. whithin the tribe often, there was free access no trade.
Likely Lad
Native individuals gathered resources from the common lands and created products from those resources or used natural resources to barter with others. This is free-trade using a barter system that placed value on a resource.
I like this caller. Sounds like he has his heart in the right place, he’s just young.
Both of those should read some Chomsky. The libertarian label is not appropriate at all here.
Btw Seder is wrong when he says what the caller is talking about can't work in industrial societies with millions of people; it did in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Orwell notably wrote about it.
+fattony638 Catalonia was an oversized refugee camp. And was hardly industrialized especially when compared to America.
abyssinia4ever That's a pretty absurd statement. Catalonia, thanks to Barcelona, was Spain's industrial center and the textile capital of Europe outside the UK.
I'm not suggesting their levels of industrialization matched anything we can see today in terms of a modern economy or that everything was all going perfectly for that matter, but it is still a very interesting experiment that actually does prove Seder wrong here.
+fattony638 then you seem to have missed the part in Homage to Catalonia where the soviets started purging people, Orwell included.
Spain during the civil war was indeed more skin to a refugee camp than a land in modernity, and it would have never worked out, anyway.
Regardless of regional or historical governments, humans always seem to form defacto government, regardless of whatever they like to call it.
mrbadguysan Refugee camps don't run factories.
fattony638 you have rose-colored glasses on. Even Orwell referred to the place as precarious at best, primitive worst, and backward usually.
He was talking about Noam Chomsky style anarcosyndicalism not libertarianism
"Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
Native Americans is a crazy broad statement. They were almost night and day every 50-75 miles
"It's just a couple sentences"
French voice: *Two. Hours. Later.*
I like this guy....he is pretty cool....wrong...but cool.
This guy sounds like a confused an-com
dude Sam's face ALWAYS lights up when he hears a libertarian wants to challenge him
The only reason this guy is a libertarian and not a socialist or socdem is because he grew up in a Conservative area.
Exactly
Digital coins has shown us how a libertarian commodity system would work.
Nothing like generalizing the political structure of thousands of tribes between North America and South America. Poor kid. Needs some critical skills
Your 'Guess' about 'Indian' people is totally wrong. The Constitution was founded on the principles of the Iroquois Confederacy, written on Hemp. There wasn't a division between men and women. This is a Euro-centric notion that came from colonization. Women held positions that were equal, with different responsibilities. Representative Democracy was what was taken from Indigenous North American Tribes. Kinda like Thanksgiving, there's real information out here. We didn't have slaves the way you associate it to, in this culture. 'Slaves' were associated with War, not the basis of a society, and it was more of a punishment than an 'Economic' strategy, like t was to the Founding Fathers. We didn't have the death penalty, we had expulsion. All 'Native Americans', which is a derogatory term to me and alot of my Culture as that implies that 'America' is where we set our standards, had trade and respect for different tribes as intermarriage, even from opposing Nations (cuz that's what they were, different languages and traditions yet a similar Spirituality, also only way you can sign a 'Treaty'), were an integral part of our societal structure, which ,in turn, was 'used' for the basis of the United States. Our Society, which was so vastly different than anything being debated here, really can't be cited by someone outside of it. Not because we don't want them to, Howard Zinn makes an excellent point in this regard, but because no one wants to. The European notion of 'success' is this system we're living in. It isn't 'successful' to us, by the way, so that term being used to describe this country is truly relative.
And to say that you couldn't run a country that has 300 million people having a say is contradictory to the founding of this system of government, regardless of how that was manipulated under the 'Capitalist' system. 'America' isn't a Country with 300 million people in one area. The population is distributed, unevenly, in class-driven localities. If everyone started to realize that self-sufficiency is what every Nation strives for, they may understand that Human Beings can ONLY live in Localized Government structures. Minimally weak centralized governments with more emphasis on municipalities and their self-sufficiency, providing the driver for perpetuation of the society lies in the realm of Human endeavor and well-being, is the only successful way Humans can live. Relying on importing and exporting in a world where knowledge is the only real power, is total suicide. We're seeing this now. More a symptom of 'Capitalism' really.
The Indian Men when young are Hunters and Warriors; when old, Counsellors; for all their Government is by Counsel of the Sages; there is no Force there are no Prisons, no Officers to compel Obedience, or inflict Punishment.-Hence they generally study Oratory; the best Speaker having the most Influence. The Indian Women till the Ground, dress the Food, nurse and bring up the Children, & preserve & hand down to Posterity the Memory of public Transactions. These Employments of Men and Women are accounted natural & honorable, Having few artificial Wants, they have abundance of Leisure for Improvement by Conversation. Our laborious Manner of Life compar’d with theirs, they esteem slavish & base; and the Learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous & useless.
- Benjamin Franklin Papers 1782-1783
So which of the Iroquois Confederacy members do you belong to then? You speak like you're a member of a tribe, although you failed to mention which one.
I should point out that I live near several Lakota reservations. Their social structure wasn't like the Iroquois. And the same is true when you look at pretty much every tribe that wasn't part of the Iroquois Confederacy - they were very different. My own ancestors were Creek - they owned slaves and they adapted white men's ways and religion because they saw economic and strategic advantages to doing so (and then ended up in Oklahoma anyway). In fact, many of the Seminole tribes in Florida are descended from escaped slaves that had been owned by the Creek tribes. My ancestors weren't exactly nice ppl - and that's without looking at the white side of the family.
And yeah, ppl have a tendency to over-generalize about Native tribes prior to European arrival. They seem to either see them as viscous savages with no redeeming qualities or peace-loving hippies. The reality is they were just humans living in human societies - they had their pros and their cons, just like every other civilization that's ever existed on this planet.
except that utopia didnt happen with the native american either the two biggest civilizations the aztecs and the incas had god kings, human sacrifice and went to war constantly to get slaves
Sam should not really baldly assert that women did not have voting rights within the native american societies that practiced direct demoracy. In the Iroquois confederacy the chiefdoms which formed the representative councils were all bestowed by the clan mothers, and passed on matrilinearlly. They could recall these representatives at any time. I'm not saying it's utopian, and there would have been many other systems in many other nations, but the best examples of direct consensus democracy among the native Americans definitely had female representation. We have this weird view of history from a western perspective that every non modern civilization must necessarily have been entirely patriarchal.
I know this is nearly a decade old but this guy was very pleasant which is a change from self identified libertarians. Hopefully he found his way.
The native American tribes had societies akin to anarcho-socialism at least within one's own tribe..the caller is confusing that with libertarian capitalism, direct democracies don't exists in capitalism because the market is what governs all social relations.
These libertarians don't think
lmao at the end his quote was very anti-capitalist
"Whole for free" means that there be a collection of basic sustenance & shelter; Healthcare & even entertainment provided to EVERYONE who lives in the borders of said state. That MEANS, Mr "Libertarian" that people be allowed a certain level of basic creature comforts-whether they have the ability to contribute to it or not YET-so that a person doesn't have anxieties over how they will survive.Because whether you believe it or not, almost EVERYONE wants everyone else to be Healthy, SAFE & Sound!
Oh, sure. "Imagine how great anarchy would be, now that we already have all the modern comforts that government has made possible." Way to stand on the shoulders of giants.
Native Americans weren't capitalists so I fail to get the callers point. If American libertarians weren't staunch free market capitalists I'd get it
I don't think the caller was a libertarian despite him believing himself so. You are right Native Americans were not capitalistic and were collectivist neither which fit libertarianism.
This guy is not a very good libertarian. Too much concern for human wellbeing.
So native americans didn't fight? What is this guy reading? He said is someone was so poor that they didn't have a horse or blanket they would be Given one. There were no horses here before Europeans arrived.
I'd agree that Singapore's living conditions aren't the worst in the world, especially compared to Somalia or some other small-government paradise. As for your opinion of unions: I'd say the German auto industry blows that preconceived notion out of the water. In Germany, unions and corporations are not enemies. Collective bargaining is not evil.
"Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power " lord acton
I feel as if no one actually research the history and manifesto of what libertarianism is....
+MrWiibetrollin No, we do. That's why we think it's hilarious and adorable.
Every libertarian says that the other libertarians aren't actually libertarians and the rest of us just don't understand true libertarianism.
A free market society that failed ? I can name several of those in both American and European history . The Puritans ? They were a " free market " society , look how well they turned out . The Spanish Inquisition were also " free market " and they didn`t do much better . Pre-colonization Native Americans also had a " free market " system of a more tribal and proto-socialistic nature which worked pretty well before the Pilgrims came with their diseases and imperialist schemes .
Obviously Jamie wasn't around in 2012 but I would have loved for him to have had a discussion with her!
I actually have held a vision of what this country could have been had Native Americans been invaded and wiped out, so it’s a nice dream to envision that we live in nature, respect the Earth, have various tribes with their laws,and chiefs, etc. Maybe we could even still be riding horses! It’s not naive to just want a better world for our kids and grandkids, and think outside the box. Another party May spice things up, too. I give the guy credit for wanting a better society. I read about a tribe whose one law was to do nothing that harms a child, if you think about it that covers all the bases(stealing, abuse, murder , etc all harm) and making children a priority makes for a great society. Everyone should read “Bury my heart at wounded knee, to grasp what America is built on, slavery wasn’t the original atrocity. Way to burst his bubble Sam.
Libertarians seem like the folks who watched those commercials about buying gold...spent way too much and now want us back on the gold standard.
You understand. Please spread the word.
My beats finally broke while watching this I hope you're fucking happy
you literally made him jibber. He could not make a coherent argument by the end of it.
LOL @11:48 "The Proletarians are asleep." You mean proletariat?
Lolbertarians.
let me use your logic. there is no faster car than the fastest car that exists. therefore it never will. GENIUS!
This guy was the most sane smart libertarian
Yeats said it best: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." :-)
I don't get it. That Native American quote sounds more like communism/anarchism than libertarianism, especially if Ayn Rand's objectivism and its vehement rejection of altruism is considered. This caller seriously needs to reconsider his political ideology.
I mean, at least this libertarian was a nice guy. I could definitely see him being able to be moved left with a longer and more in-depth conversation.
I'm Kanienkeha, which is known as Mohawk in English, a nation in the Six Nations Confederacy also known as the Iroquoian Confederacy which is a nontraditional name given by the French. The Six Nations Confederacy is the world's oldest democracy that has been continuously active until today. Of course Athenian democracy predates it, but also hasn't existed for Millenia. The Six Nations Confederacy has been active for over 600 years, and the United States through Ben Franklin modeled many parts of American Democracy on our confederacy.
Sam raised the point about whether Women were able to participate and the answer is yes. However men and women had different roles. Each clan (extended family) had it's own representative, call it a chief if you want, and that representative was chosen by the women of the family with the final decision coming from the eldest female called the clan mother. Anyone in the clan could voice their concerns to the "chief" who would attend the councils of "chiefs" from each clan of all the nations in the confederacy. These chiefs were only men, however if the chief did not represent the family well the clan mother could depose the chief at anytime and choose someone new. Women played a significant role in the government and were able to voice their concerns, just not at councils but through their family representative.
If I'm understanding this guy properly, he wants a system of what are effectively localized clans with a loose treaty among all of said clans for trade based on a commodity backed currency?
Libertarians: “Many men of course became extremely rich, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of.”
I consider my political views to be libertarian, and would like to express my appreciation to Mr. Seder for his many debates delving into philosophies broader than just "left vs. right"
The closed captioning is skewed.
This calls are gold
wasn't the whole problem about the European invasion the fact that Native Americans were split into so many disparate tribes that they couldn't unify and repel the aggressors?
Currency by definition comes out of spontaneous interactions in the marketplace, not central planning. If gold coins were useless in the market, it would either be because of gov't policy or better currencies offered by the market.
The libertarian contradicted myself with the quote.
The quote said that there is no private property. And is the person needs something that society will give it to them.
Give. Not sell. Not that he has to work for it or suffer. But give to him if he needs it.
So the libertarian caller wants true socialism were everybody is equal and get paid the same.
So no matter your job you get all the necessities of life that the society has demeaned a utility.
A question for anyone to answer: with the availability of the internet why should a representative democracy not be obsolete in the future? Casting votes across all layers of government could be a total trivial matter for each citizen willing to participate.
Agreed. Direct democracy is now possible through the age of the internet, but our institutions are too old and antiquated to adapt.
No it's not. Also, you can't apply mechanical physics without considering fluid friction (and rolling friction given the mechanism). Again, I doubt you passed math.
I've heard that argument too. I've heard some people say that regulations are the cause of costs too. You gotta love libertarians. They've no grasp on reality. They think John Galt is a hero.
I know I do. I once considered myself a "Democratic Libertarian," though I FINALLY evolved to understand that what people like you "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps & hang all others that couldn't with their bootstraps (then take their bootstraps for ourselves)" --I finally evolved to see what you're saying for what it really is: Survival of the fittest. Even if "the fittest" were born into a life of privilege they had absolutely NOTHING to do with creating.
I'm seeing some crossover between libertarian and anarchist ideology. There are some clear differences, but it makes me feel like libertarians are worth talking with. They correctly identify a lot of problems and often do present arguments in good faith. I don't see much point in debating with hyper religious, authoritarian Right wingers, but I see libertarians, as a group, as one who are worth sharing ideas with.
Actually, that doesn't make it automatically inefficient at all. In fact, because you can eliminate the need for extra profits from the single-payer (e.g. the government) that can easily save 15-25% right there. It also allows the system to concentrate on helping patients and providing services rather than the current system that spends huge amounts of time trying to justify NOT providing services. In the end you are just repeating prejudices, not offering us actual facts or arguments.
"Humans will never reach any type of Utopia unless they become more than human, hopefully through genetic engineering."
You do understand how dangerous that way of thinking can be.
If you'd start manipulating human thought, where would you begin and where would you end?
Would you eliminate desire to eliminate greed?
Would you eliminate independence to eliminate rebellion?
Bliss comes through satisfaction or ignorance. Usually both.
Satisfy some needs and make people oblivious to the rest.
I've noticed that too. Their ideology is a house of cards, and they get really pissed off if you cause a breeze.
FYI I knew a lot of Native Americans growing up. There were two neighboring tribes, the Menominee and Winnebago. I witnessed an awkward exchange between a Menominee and a Winnebago. After the Winnebago walked off, the Menominee explained that in the old days Menominee would capture Winn. and keep them basically as livestock, killing and eating them eventually.
Libertopia!
I'd like to become a libertarian, but who can afford the drugs.
suppliers of a good have a natural incentive to regulate the parameters of their goods. and through competition the market as a whole will be more flexible with the rules, which is more likely to find the optimum parameter given the conditions. government regulation reacts after the fact, implements slowly, and by the time they do anything the market already adjusts causing an overcorrection which is just as bad if not worse than the original problem.
I wish Jamie was around for this; Sam has some pretty bad takes here. He didn't actually listen to the guy, he just boxed him in with all the other Libertarians who call in. Also direct democracy is more possible than ever with the internet, but there are plenty of models of this that encorperate representatives in a more responsible and accountable way than we do now in the US. Disappointed in this one.
“A Native American Chief”
Therein lies the problem. What nation? Too often people think of Native Americans as a monolithic group. The Iroquois Confederacy, for example, had a tiered representation system.
Medicare puts caps on what Dr.'s can charge medicare patients, and since medicare patients are already paid in and old, they tend to use the system more than they paid in, forcing Dr.'s/hospitals/insurance companies to cover the difference by raising the price on the rest of us. When Medicare was passed, we were told healthcare would be cheaper, but it got even more expensive.
Oh, boy. Talk about taking a quote out of context. “I don’t know what to tell ya” - Sam Seder
Warfare among Native Americans was often brutal and terrifying. There were cannabalistic death squads that raided other tribes and... ate them. These people are so naive and uninformed.
lemme do my best imitation of this dude. "hey i heard that argument, therefore it isnt valid. nevermind i cant remember the refutation that seder gave on a youtube video. dammit where did i put my crackpipe?"
in my town i expect everyone would vote to change the traffic signals. red light means go. green means stop. just to cause a ruckus and because they could.
Actually, the Laffer Curve can easily be a good argument for HIGHER (compared to what the US has now) taxes, not less. It is certainly not the simplistic "lower taxes is always better, higher taxes always worse" definition you imply here.
I feel like this caller got all his knowledge of Native Americans from the movie Pocahontas...
So a return to a system of city-states would be a better system? And large cities like NYC wouldn't simply try to absorb nearby smaller towns and become empires? That is what happened historically, and that's what would happen again.
You’ve just described modern day Europe. There are about 30 countries in that small area.
It would certainly be less expensive. It's impossible to know how cheap, but if you also got rid of all the regulations/taxes associated with healthcare, it would be even cheaper.
Friedman's theories have not been tried in most countries. Yes, phD's can say something about a persons ability to comprehend complex system. Milton Friednman, Adam smith, Murray rothbard, thomas sowell and others have shown time and time again that they understand various human social systems as demonstrated in their writings(which you apparently have not read)
I'm not one to over glorify native Americans because of some of the things Sam mentioned there at the end, they had their own issues as well. But his tone was a little too self righteous and condescending when he was talking about it. I love you Sam, but it's that kind of attitude that kind of turns me off when listening to this show. By the way, plenty of native Americans made it into old age.
Noam Chomsky can tell everybody everything they want to know about Libertarianism... he identifies as a social libertarian, but the first thing he would say is that what we call libertarianism in the US is just the opposite of libertarianism.... And that there is nothing really "Libertarian" or Anarchistic about anarchocapitalism or what is essentially coded Neoliberalism calling itself Libertarianism. For it to be Libertarian it really is supposed to be anti worker boss relationship, no bosses, and democratic and fair markets...
Funny, I've always heard sociologists refer to Native American societies as "paleo-socialism" and "paleo-anarchism"... (primitive socialism/anarchism in the old books.) So.... yeah. I bet this guy would just love that.
I hate when someone pushes for deflation under the argument that it empowers the consumer. Whatever gains they get from falling prices, they lose from a fall in wages. And then some.
my question to you is, is slavery profitable in an information age without government subsidies? what makes you think that even if i take your claim, that slavery is sustainable?
Obviously a little late to the party, and not to take away from Sam's points, but Sam makes a few broad sweeping remarks about North American Indigenous peoples at the end of the vid and many of them are kinda wrong and I feel obligated to post this as noone else said it. Not every group had slaves, some did, some didnt with the number that had them skewing to the minority. Life expectancy was similar to today if you lived to be past the age of 16 (the same as europe roughly) and didnt get a European communicable disease. There was warfare, but the number of wars dramatically increased following the escalation of the fur trade and the pushing of indigenous groups into the interior as europeans flooded the coasts, and there is lots of evidence that the preferred method of dealing with disputes was to make a treaty, marry some of the kids off to create alliances etc.. and finally most groups if not all viewed others as human beings who had different stories and different ways of living and being. Whether those different groups had rights in certain territories is a different matter, but it's kinda ridiculous and bigoted to say that all native American groups viewed each other not as members of the same species. Am North American Indigenous and have a degree in this stuff.
Apparently this guy has never heard of the French and Indian Wars.
The Iroquois and the Huron were not exactly buddy-buddies.
@Barron Brust that guy needs some of if not all of those social programs lol
I know this gets repeated often but why does every libertarian caller have a potato for a phone?
On direct democracy: now IS the day and age when it could work. Either now or in the coming decades. A direct democracy can be handled as an eDemocracy.
Get the population connected enough to electronic means of mass communication (let's say a $20 smart phone of some sort), and run a govt. run app on it. A vague idea, but I believe it has merit.
How does the surgeon get such a bloated salary in the first? Partly market demand, but also bloated revenue coming into the hospitals because of medicare and other gov't contracts. 1/2 of every dollar spent on healthcare in the U.S., is spent by the gov't. Part of the reason Healthcare providers bill the insurance so much, is because they have a lot of costs, which gov't contributes to.
I enjoy these debates so much. I feel guilty about it.
Why would a private company build a shitty road and have no rules? Why would they risk pouring a bunch of capital into a project that gets a bad reputation and loses customers?
Ask your lib callers what they do for a living, own a car, own a home..??? They all stand in judgement 90% inspiration 10 % perspiration.
I've been told, have an argument, support your side with facts , listen to the other side, balance thinking.
Well, at least he’s honest and pretty damn polite. Wrong as hell, a guy you can at least have a good conversation with.
I would be interested in what you mean, in the context of the Lacrosse game.
also, theory points out the mechanism why government control fails. government has the same information problem that any other economic actor has. but it is a slow moving, slow adjusting leviathan and cannot adjust quick enough for a dynamic economy. economic theory shows that the very act of taxation and government spending causes a frictional loss, AND THATS BEFORE ANALYZING HOW EFFECTIVE THE SPENDING WAS. you cannot deny no one spends his money more carefully than the one who earned it.
What about the priest-kings of the Aztecs? Absolute authoritarianism. Human sacrifice. No humans, not even the sainted Native Americans (and I'm part Cherokee, so I can say it), are paragons of virtue.