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Comment by pyoung | Hacker News Reader

I think he did a good job at making the distinction. Not sure if you got the jist of it, but he clearly states that despite the heavy libertarian leaning culture, SV overwhelmingly voted for Democrats the last few elections, indicating they were not on board with the Republican platform.

My take on it is that SV is 'liberaltarian', in that they prefer small, efficient, decentralized organizational structures, but that they also recognize the need for social welfare as a stabilizing force. Additionally, I would guess most of them are turned off by the conservatism side of the Republican party (pro-religion, pro-drug controls, etc), and as such tend to vote for democrats based on the 'lesser of two evils' decision making process. This pretty much describes my views, and I would imagine a lot of others in SV.

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That's how I see it as well.

The fact is, that there is a strong demand for social insurance/welfare services (e.g. health insurance, unemployment stipends, retirement pensions, etc), and the supply of those services can either come mostly from the government (as it tends to in Western Europe) or mostly from employers (as it tends to in the US).

"Liberaltarians," I think, believe that we're better off letting the government provide the social insurance services to everyone, so that citizens' access to them is no longer dependent on employment, which will increase liquidity in the labor market and take some of the risk out of entrepreneurship. Then employers also won't have to be burdened with providing and administrating these expensive "benefits." Win-win.

Meanwhile, people that live in sparsely-populated rural areas believe that they have less demand for social services, and that their tax dollars are paying for the social services that are only consumed by low-income city-dwellers. I've read studies that show this is false, and most rural counties consume more tax dollars than they contribute, mostly due to farm subsidies. Regardless, that seems to be the main economic concern of rural Republican voters.

> "Liberaltarians," I think, believe that we're better off letting the government provide the social insurance services to everyone, so that citizens' access to them is no longer dependent on employment, which will increase liquidity in the labor market and take some of the risk out of entrepreneurship.

Also, employer-funded health insurance is a drag on US companies that must compete with foreign companies that can rely on government health insurance/services.

And it depresses salaries. Companies could afford to pay more in salaries if they didn't have to pay for health insurance. This could potentially make up for the higher taxes we might have to pay for a national single-payer health plan.

Of course, we might not have to pay higher taxes at all if we didn't have all these private health insurance companies skimming the pot.

Also remember that there was a very pro-George W. Bush sentiment in Silicon Valley in 2000, but eight years of the pro-war, pro-deficit spending Bush administration was enough to turn things around in 2008.

From 2008:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10079225-38.html Calling venture capitalist Tim Draper an ardent Republican is something of an understatement. In 1999, he was enough of a fan of then-candidate George W. Bush that he chaired three fundraisers over a year before the actual election. Salon once dubbed him "George W.'s point man in Silicon Valley." The Draper, Fisher Jurvetson managing partner is a longtime proponent of limited government, free markets, and libertarian concepts like school vouchers, making him a natural fit for a political party whose platform lauds "lower taxes, reasonable regulation, and smaller, smarter government." This year, though, something odd happened. Draper gave $2,300--the legal maximum--to Barack Obama and zero to John McCain. Draper also did something that would have been unthinkable in the days when Bush was touting laissez-faire principles: he disclosed publicly that he will vote for a Democrat. [...]

but he clearly states that despite the heavy libertarian leaning culture, SV overwhelmingly voted for Democrats the last few elections, indicating they were not on board with the Republican platform.

The author seems to use this fact to negate the idea that many in SV lean libertarian:

If libertarianism is so rampant in Silicon Valley, why are they voting for higher taxes and funding a big government liberal by such overwhelming numbers?

The premise that voting for the Democratic Party is the opposite of a "Gilded Age" is confusing to me though - it seems too reductive to assume that every person who voted for a Democrat is an ardent redistributionist who wants to see the welfare state expanded. I agree with your take on the politics of the region though.

Also, I wish that the title "Learning from Los Gatos" was explained in any way - what is the "Los Gatos" in reference to?

> what is the "Los Gatos" in reference to?

Presumably the town of Los Gatos (a relatively wealthy suburb of San Jose). Why Los Gatos in particular? I have no idea.

If I had to guess, I'd guess the writer's appreciation of alliteration. 'Learning from Sunnyvale' doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely.

I think "Los Gatos" just made for a catchy, alliterative title.

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