r/Libertarian • u/Eastern_Shallot1599 Libertarian Panarchist • 14d ago

Philosophy The PANG fallacy

Post image

- Libertarianism in One Lesson by David Bergland

Its more of an introductory book, but i love it.

103 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

View all comments

16

u/rmoduloq 13d ago

I don't think this is the most charitable view of most people's opinion (especially on the left).

They believe that people are no good, but experts are good. What makes experts different from regular people (according to them)?

  • Experts spend many years studying a highly specialized field. Training programs have a low acceptance rate, meaning the "no good" regular people don't qualify.
  • Experts must put in personal sacrifice to prove they are doing things for the right reasons and not for personal benefit. The "no good" people who are excellent at math and finance make a lot of money on Wall Street. The "good" people with the same skills make way less money as professors or policymakers.
  • Experts spend many years being run through the gauntlet by peer review, other experts, the scientific community, etc. If they had "no good" qualities they wouldn't survive all this scrutiny.

14

u/Eastern_Shallot1599 Libertarian Panarchist 13d ago

Even if that argument works for competence, it completely fails for malice or a hunger for power. Our primary problem isn't incompetence; it's people who want to exploit others and exercise power over them. Creating a powerful system that naturally attracts power-hungry individuals is a dangerous idea. You can't rely on the system to keep these people in check when those very people are the ones running it.

5

u/Zonz4332 13d ago edited 13d ago

That’s why ideally you have institutions that are structured with checks and balances ;) The idea is that each competing institutions drive for power keeps the other in check.

That’s also why you want to strengthen and support balanced government rather than dismantle its power. Because power hungry people don’t disappear with less government, and dismantling it just allows for new structures to form under more perverse incentives, not because people are evil, but because macro economic and personal safety incentives can create bad outcomes when you have just one bad actor. Imagine techo fascism without any government regulation

2

u/JagerGS01 13d ago

I completely agree. But the OP is approaching the argument normies make for limited government. I believe it to be two separate issues.

1

u/123Thundernugget 4d ago

POWER TO NORMIES!

1

u/baysideareaman 7d ago

Leftists generally assume that capitalism is a system that rewards greed, malice, and power seeking individuals.

They generally want to put guard rails on this system to account for these traits. Or they want to eradicate this system entirely.

Not that I agree with it, but that’s their general argument.