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Considering joining the Cabal but I have one question.
Gard, I have a question for you. Is the Liberty Conspiracy a labor of love? I am more than willing to join up but I need to know that my donations are only going to be used to keep the project afloat and hopefully expand it. Is it a hobby or a money making enterprise? I once read a post by Ian of FTL that the point of the show is to make money for him. Even though I'm a laissez-faire capitalist, this rubbed me the wrong way. If one is going to market their radio show as a commercial enterprise, they should not be asking for donations. For those of you who think I am contradicting myself, I'm not. Economics is not about money, it about "psychic income", to use Rothbard's phrase. For me, I place a higher value on some things over money.
__________________
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it
Learned Hand
In the past men created witches: now they create mental patients.
Thomas Szasz
Relinquish liberty for the purposes of defense in an emergency?
Why? It would seem that in an emergency, of all times, one needs
his greatest strength. So if liberty is strength and slavery is weakness,
liberty is a necessity rather than a luxury, and we can ill afford
to be without it—least of all during an emergency.
F.A. Harper
Either way, I appreciate Gard's work: highlighting the individual topics, all the prep, and contextual material. This is some of the best analysis that I'm able to find, regardless of whether or not I agree with Gard. Personally, I view Cabal membership as a very inexpensive way to thank him for his valuable work.
Agreed.
If one is going to market their radio show as a commercial enterprise, they should not be asking for donations.
I don't understand this. If Ian ends up making a million dollars by FTL don't you think that just invites more producers of similar content to run similar radio shows? Anyways the reason FTL runs for profit is because this is just like buying the man hours of the host. If you don't think you should donate to his show because he is making money for himself, paying himself for a similar job if he runs radio shows in another station then you are simply asking Ian to hold a proper job and do this radio show only in his free time.
No offense but for a laissez faire capitalist and an individual with a username LysanderSpooner you don't know the concept of comparative advantage(well you aren't the only one the whole Open Source movement suffers from that). Ian and Mark run that show(and Gard this website), and you do your job, instead of that we can have Ian and Mark hold regular jobs and you give your own spare time to the show, or we can have Ian and Mark run the show full time and you do your job full time and give your few hours worth of labor to them.
On the other hand you just want Ian and Mark(and Gard or any other liberty activist who asks for donations) to give up their lives, have their kids live in marginally poorer conditions because you consider it unjust.
If there were 2 million liberty lovers in America and they all were willing to pay $3 per month, then you could have FTL guys running a full Television channel, or at least you would attract way more number of people to come and start their own radio shows. I am sorry dude but this is all facilitated through profits.
If becoming an AMP member or becoming a cabal member is too economically inefficient for you then you don't really have do any of these things. Just do not consider real labor contribution to any different from monetary contribution as they are the same thing.
Take for example if you are unemployed then you have more man hours but less money so giving your man hours is much more economical than giving your money which now has more marginal utility to you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
Wow, I'd never heard the term comparative advantage before. Thanks for introducing this concept to me.
This reminds me of how, when I worked for a bagel shop, and we weren't allowed to accept tips from customers. I was making really low wages, but I was working at a place that had cool tunes, and help people get their grub on. So, I was keen on staying, but I needed more money to make my rent.
I asked my boss for a raise, but he said he could not afford to pay me more <rant ("even though I was practically the only one that could get an order to the customer that was what they actually ordered.)"</rant>
I told my boss that if I was to stay in his employ I needed more money, and that I was going to put out a tip cup. If he didn't like it, he could fire me. So, I put the tip cup out, and low and behold, I was able to make my rent! Also, I had many regular customers who only would order from ME! Several would not simply put the tip in the cup, but insisted in placing the money in my hand, so the funds would not be shared with my less than adequate co-workers. I even had a very finicky couple, who gave me a envelope with a greeting card with enclosed cash, because they appreciated my service to them so much. They knew that they were difficult to please, and were willing to reward me with cash for going through a lot of trouble to make sure that their food was made just the way they wanted it.
Would you consider that to be an example of comparative advantage?
FUR3jr Said:
Would you consider that to be an example of comparative advantage?
Actually its a bit different from that. Compartive advantage is the basis of free market, capitalism and division of labor. Comparitive advantage goes something like this.
You play good piano and would like to create some good world class piano music.
I also play good piano and I am better than you in playing piano, but I need someone to teach my kids maths.
You can teach kids maths.
I (since I am a Genius) can definitely teach kids maths much better than you.
So what should be done? Should you make piano music and I teach kids or other way around, how should we divide our labor? The answer is simple since I am a much better pianist than you than I am a math teacher than you, so I should stick with playing piano and making good music. You on the other hand should teach kids. I will pay you to teach my kid and you will pay me to play piano for your pleasure.
That's called comparative advantage, you could be better than me in all aspects but you should do what you are maximum better than me. David Ricardo gave this idea in terms of nations.
Take for example US is better in manufacturing everything than China(say in terms of quality),but US is even better in innovation and entrepreneurship than china than it is better in manufacturing. So US should stick to innovation and entrepreneurship and leave manufacturing to China. This is said as US is having higher comparative advantage in entrepreneurship over China than it has in manufacturing.
The reason why I brought it up earlier is because I am explaining that why its ok for people to donate money to Liberty conspiracy and FTL, because by donating they are giving the task of spreading liberty through a radioshow to Gard and FTL Crew who have a larger comparative advantage over us. If you think that its not ok for FTL crew to make money that way that means to achieve the same ends in life FTL crew will have to hold regular jobs(that would be like I taking time off from creating piano masterpieces to teach my kids, a job I could do better but its not what I am BEST at and I will be still wasting my piano skills).
I mean if Ian takes a regular full time job and then earns enough money to buy that car is that ok for him to do so? If yes then why is it not ok if Ian does the same by his FTL donations? If you think that when your donations are not used for spreading the ideas of liberty because he bought a car with it, then its not true at all. The truth is that if Ian spends all his profits on FTL on promotion he increases his future earnings. If he spends all revenue on a fancy car then he reduces his future earnings from FTL.
There is a tradeoff between Ian's time preference to enjoy his current income, and his future income. There is no reason for him to give his full time job to work here if he cannot buy the stuff he would have if he had his original job. Similarly there is no reason for him to use all the FTL revenue(not profit but revenue) to buy fancy house and fancy car.
If Ian makes profit from FTL then it is a huge incentive for Ian to spend donations on promotion of FTL because more promotion means more profits in future. The only way this thing will work out best if you allow him to make maximum profits he decides for his business.
I got a better example(from Human Action) for Comparative Advantage.
If lets say there are two individuals A and B.
If A is fit to produce in 1 unit of time 6 p or 4 q, and B only 2 p, but 8 q, they both, when working in isolation, will produce together 4 p + 6 q; when working under the division of labor, each of them producing only that commodity in whose production he is more efficient than his partner, they will produce 6 p + 8 q.
But what will happen, if A is more efficient than B not only in the production of p but also in the production of q?
If A is in such a way more efficient than B that he needs for the production of 1 unit of the commodity p 3 hours compared with B's 5, and for the production of 1 unit of q 2 hours compared with B's 4, then both will gain if A confines himself to producing q and leaves B to produce p. If each of them gives 60 hours to producing p and 60 hours to producing q, the result of A's labor is 20 p + 30 q; of B's, 12 p +15 q; and for both together , 32 p + 45 q. If, however, A confines himself to producing q alone, he produces 60 q in 120 hours, while B, if he confines himself to producing p, produces in the same time 24 p. The result of their activities is then 24 p + 60 q, which, as p has for A a substitution ratio of 3/2 q and for B one of 5/4 q, signifies a larger output than 32 p + 45 q. Therefore it is manifest that the division of labor brings advantages to all who take part in it.
In the current case lets consider P being Liberty oriented work(like running FTL or Liberty Conspiracy) and consider Q as anything non-libertarian, which could mean any regular job. Now we all do Q, and we have given the job of doing P to Ian and Mark.
Lets say FTL guys are able to do 500 units of P if they work fulltime for FTL.(as they are running a nationally syndicated show). We are doing 40-50 units of Q. Sure we try to take our time and talk to other people and try to do say 1-2 units of P per week or month, but its obvious that having FTL guys work full time producing P would be much better than us doing the same job(it does not have to do with the individual capabilities of these guys, but the fact that since they are giving many many hours a week and for many years, their output is way more than ours without any such full time effort).
LysanderSpooner wants Ian and Mark to work for a car(consider it to be Q) on their own. He thinks its something wrong if they buy a sports car by working units of P, but being a Capitalist I am sure he doesn't mind them working of Q units to buy a sports car.
But if Ian and Mark start to produce q, then that will reduce their production of units of p. If its ok for them to use the money from producing q to buy a sports car, why is it not ok for them to use the money from p to buy a sports car, unless there is something inherently wrong with them buying a sports car(which is clearly not).
Its nothing but an example of economic fallacies.
Thanks for your comments. I do understand comparative advantage. To use another example, let's look at antiwar.com. Every quarter Justin Raimondo solicits donations. I am pretty confident that he is using the money to keep the website going. He's probably operating on a shoestring. I don't think the money is going to make BMW lease payments. It's a not for (monetary) profit thing. Although I didn't mention it and maybe I should have, Ian, whom I like and think is a pretty good advocate for liberty, has mentioned that he's doing the show first and foremost to make money. Again, nothing wrong with this motive. But for me, I think that someone who is looking to primarily make money shouldn't be soliciting donations. I understand the argument that maybe he's doing something that I can't and it's in my best interest to do my job and let him focus on doing his best job. (comparative advantage). There's just something about giving money to someone whose goal is to line their own pockets that rubs me the wrong way.
I just recently became a member. After listening to the podcasts for a while I assured myself that I would continue to find value in the work being done here and I'm now voting with my dollars. IMHO it would be immoral and hypocritical if Gardner wasn't it doing this for profit. I hope he becomes very wealthy from this endeavor for that would mean that a lot of people are getting educated about freedom, and that he is good at what he does. Our future depends on him and others like him.
"There's just something about giving money to someone whose goal is to line their own pockets that rubs me the wrong way."
This line rubs me the wrong way. It's blatantly anti-capitalisitc. And the only way we will achieve freedom is through Capitalism.
Any form of exchange for a product is valid as long as it is voluntary. "Donation" is not synonymous with charity. If you donate to the LC are you paying for value already received or yet to come? You get to decide. In my case both.
Sorry but if someone is asking you for money claiming they are not going to profit, then they won't be around much longer to deliver the product or the product won't be very good. Either way you lose. For the epitome of the dangers of non-profit I give you the State.
"This line rubs me the wrong way. It's blatantly anti-capitalisitc. And the only way we will achieve freedom is through Capitalism"
It could be construed this way. But profit, in the broadest sense, is not necessarily about money. There are non-monetary profits. Mother Teresa "profited" doing what she did. I play a higher value than money on some things. And you're also right in that I am getting some value back for my donation/contribution.
In the end, I'm probably going to join because I like the intellectualism that Gard brings to his podcasts as opposed to the mostly anti-intellectual FTL.
@LysanderSpooner
Brother I realize that you are a Capitalist but you must understand when I say that your ideology is capitalist but there is a lot of anti-capitalist thinking in your head(for which years of statist/socialist brainwashing is to be blamed).
If Mother Teresa made money from what she did, and maybe started driving Limosines everywhere you have no idea how much it would have benefitted her cause because she would have invited thousands of women into her field just from the incentive of profits.
Profits are alway about money because money is what helps you achieve your ends in the least violent way(you could also achieve the same ends through govt coercion). If Gard stops eating and put all his money into Liberty Conspiracy site he would be promoting the site a lot more than he is right now but then soon he will die of starvation and the whole liberty conspiracy thing will die out.
If he uses all his donations on himself then yes he will live life large but his movement will not go anywhere, so not only his goal of liberty will suffer, but even if he was doing it only for profit then his future profits will suffer massively.
So what's the best way to decide how much Ian and Gard should spend on themselves and how much they should spend on the cause, well its best if you let them decide. Even if Ian and Mark were performing cold heart profit and loss calculations they would still make the same decisions as they would if they were making humane liberty oriented decisions.
This is the beauty of Capitalism, the butcher may or may not be ideologically interested in providing people with meat, but as long as he performs profit and loss calculations he will try to provide people with maximum amount of meat with cheapest possible price. An ideological movement is no different.
I run a website called http://www.reasonforliberty.com/ with a so-called Capitalist girl who refuses to understand the difference between revenue and profit. She accuses me of profiteering from the website(I am not making profits my money is going down instead), but she fails to understand that if I was actually making huge profits then it would be even better, if I was making sa 400% profit on every dollar I spent on it then it would be nothing better for me than to quit my job and work full time for my site and promote the cause of liberty even more. Unfortunately she refuses to listen and I am forced to share the ad revenues(not ad profits, but ad revenues) with her.
Open Source software movement suffers from same problems, there aren't any for profit open source development teams, because the moment they try to make profits they will be accused of being sell outs or greedy and they will be shunned by the open source community. Its not going to help anyone but only harms the open source movement that people aren't allowed to make profits from open source softwares.
RD
I would argue that profit is not just about money. Mother Theresa was seeking profit by trying to help people, forgetting for a moment that she caused those people more harm than good. And I'm confident that GG feels he is profitable with the knowledge that he is spreading right (not to be confused with right wing) concepts to his listeners.
With Open Source not all products strictly follow the model. Take mySQL for example which is open source unless you intend to make a commercial product using it, then you pay hefty fees and royalties, something that i do in my business. Furthermore many programmers who develop or support mySQL benefit or profit by any one of a number of things such as getting to improve or extend a product that they use in other programming pursuits or simply raising their self esteem or gaining additional knowledge to use in obtaining work.
Finally, i don't know all the details of your website revenue stream versus costs but a share of the revenue is proper, however a share of the revenue must also go to your costs. Tell your partner that each of you gets a share of the revenue, but a share of the revenue also goes to your overhead.
I prefer free-market to capitalist. I believe Capitalism is a term Marx coined. In any event, free-market includes all voluntary activities. Capitalism refers more to commercial enterprises.
Free market economics is not about money, it is about subjective value. While it's true that we reckon many things in money, there are other values besides monetary ones. For example, some people patronize their local hardware store instead of Home Depot. They may pay higher prices but they are willing to because they value a local business over a "corporate" one. You may disagree with their choice but you cannot question their scale of values. It is their scale, not yours. Value is subjective.
If I don't want to give my money to libertarians who first priority is making a buck, this does not necessarily make me anti-capitalistic. I don't begrudge anyone in the liberty movement a living. If someone is just scraping by or even living comfortably and putting out a message I like, I'll throw them some money. If they're living high on the hog, then I won't. If their goal is to get rich, I probably wouldn't give them money. These are my values.
I think FTL makes it fairly clear that their 'AMP' money (ie: the donations) goes in full to purchase better equipment, spread the word to other radio stations etc. while the salary of the hosts comes from the advertising, only (as I understand it).
Money is fungible. Unless they have separate accounts for AMP and ad. revenue. What happens if they're ad revenue dries up. Will they take a cut in pay or will they dip into the AMP money? What other commercial enterprise asks for donations?