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Comment by epi8 | Hacker News Reader

Can we stop saying things like "more freedom"? Freedom is really poorly defined even to an individual, and tends to lead to sentences like "they hate our freedom".

You could very well argue that freedom means absolutely no laws, absolutely no government, no public sector, period. You could also very well argue that freedom means being able to be confident that you have access to medical care, education, and child-support regardless of who you are, or your income level.

Freedom doesn't actually _mean_ anything anymore, it's just a political catch-phrase.

Can I rephrase your post and say "less government support would scare Francois..."?

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Freedom used to have a perfectly good definition: the absence of coercion. During the 20th century the word was co-opted by people, such as yourself, arguing that freedom should mean something else, such as "access to medical care, education, and child-support regardless of who you are, or your income level". Unless intended in a strong negative sense (that no-one can prevent anyone from procuring these services, which was by no means always the case), those freedoms can only be realised when someone else are ultimately coerced to provide them.

Those services might well be worthwhile enough to warrant such coercion, but it's downright Orwellian to insist on the coercion being called 'freedom'.

"such as yourself"

I take a fair amount of offense at this statement. I am stating that, given that the word "freedom" is commonly being used not as a word, but as a political catch-phrase with multiple, often contradicting meanings, I prefer to clarify the usage, either by substituting it with another word, or defining carefully what one means by "freedom". Far from attempting to redefine "freedom", I am attempting to _totally ban its usage goddamn it_, since, as you have pointed out, its definition has been co-opted to mean something entirely alien to its original meaning.

Edit: To clarify, when I said ban, I was exaggerating. I am not supporting literally banning the word "freedom", nor sending anyone to the gulags. I simply would prefer if people were to choose other, more exact, less politically-charged words in the place of "freedom".

hoho, here comes the communist mind control - let's ban words! What is next epi8? We will introduce gulags?

This use of freedom is much older than the 20th century. Already from the middle of the 19th century, socialists and others were arguing that freedom is contingent on the means to exercise them, and so that there is no true absence of coercion unless resources are distributed in such a way as to give people actual choice, not just legal choice.

I find it downright comical that you call this Orwellian, given that George Orwell was a lifetime socialist.

>Those freedoms can only be realised when someone else are ultimately coerced to provide them.

The same argument actually applies to pretty much anything you care to call "freedom".

If you say freedom means no slavery, you have to coerce people not to keep slaves.

This is why the word "freedom" is so useless. There is no such thing as a system with no coercion. What people mean when they say freedom is "coercion is only used to enforce the balances I think are important".

When I visited San Francisco some years ago I was appalled by the many comments on all the people living on the streets as being "homeless by choice". It also seems to me as if having to switch to the other side of the street or by having to circumvent a dangerous block as some form of coercion resulting from a very inconsiderate and self-serving illusion that everybody starts life with a similarly equivalent set of cards.

As a privileged individual (middle class, white, male, above average IQ) I've always found the liberal point of view naturally alluring but ultimately it seems to be dishonest and unethical no matter how many ideological writings on anarcho-capitalist theory I keep reading. So again, while I like the ideas of extreme freedom (voluntaryism, etc) in the end it seems like it's just extreme ideology disconnected from reality and actually resulting in less freedom.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Liberty

It also seems to me as if having to switch to the other side of the street or by having to circumvent a dangerous block as some form of coercion resulting from a very inconsiderate and self-serving illusion that everybody starts life with a similarly equivalent set of cards.

Can you elaborate on the first part? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Sorry, the sentence really is a bit off.

The point I was trying to make was essentially that it seems logical to me that a higher crime rate can be connected to substantial inequalities in terms of opportunities / wealth.

Having to switch to the other side of the street or having to circumvent a dangerous block is a loss of freedom, a kind of coercion born of inequality, normalized by the very inconsiderate and self-serving illusion that everybody starts life with a similarly equivalent set of cards.

Yes, I think so too.

Of course. I should have said freedom of choice. Francois has less choice. About a third of his wages (and 20% of everything he buys) is used for the different types of government support. In return, he has the welfare-state benefits.

Still bad. I grew up in Norway. I moved to the UK at 25. Employment rights and social welfare in the UK is a joke compared to in Norway - the UK is "US light" in those respects.

Yet I felt I had much more freedom of choice in Norway: Becoming truly destitute in Norway is pretty much only possible if you refuse to apply for government support.

This, to me, meant I was free to make a lot of decisions without considering consequences that would put me at substantial risk in the UK, and much more so in the US. It is hard to describe the feeling. I've mentioned before, how I started my first company (an ISP) pretty much on a whim because we were dissatisfied with the available ISPs; we threw together a business plan, found an angel investor, found offices and moved into them (literally; three of us lived there for a while) in the span of a few months. During this time, not once did the potential consequences of failing enter my mind, for the simple reason that there'd pretty much not be any consequences: I'd be able to get government support if I needed it, and I'd "just" go back to my studies or find another job.

Not really needing to worry about healthcare, or housing, or whether or not you might starve, are important forms of freedom to me. I'd take that over a few percent lower taxes any day, and I'd argue that I get more freedom of choice from those benefits than what few percent more disposable income could buy me in other ways.

> About a third of his wages (and 20% of everything he buys) is used for the different types of government support.

If Francois makes enough to pay 1/3 of his wages in income taxes, he's earning enough that he'd pay roughly 1/3 of his wages in taxes in many pats of the US too. Sure, if Francois went to live in Utah, he'd be better off, tax wise. If he were to go to California, on the other hand, the difference would be minimal.

VAT makes up very little of the typical tax burden. I'm in the UK, and 20% VAT translates to about 4% of my gross wage, because most of my income does not go to products that are taxed at the 20% bracket (for starters, I pay tax with some of them; then I pay my mortgage, and so on; and food is zero-rated).

Tax differences are not as great as people tend to think. My tax burden in Norway was about 1-2 percentage points higher than in the UK. A salary giving me the same purchasing power in Silicon Valley, would cut my tax bill by about the same as my added costs for healthcare insurance, and certainly wouldn't cover my increased transport costs... I did the maths for this to excruciating detail because we were considering moving to the US at one point. There may be specific income levels where the differences are more pronounced due to differences in tax policies, and certainly some countries / states are more or less expensive (as I learned the other day: stay clear of Belgium... )

Norway is an outlier - much of it's government services are funded by petrodollars and temporary deforestation.

That is completely irrelevant to the argument. Replace Norway with Sweden or Denmark. Or for that matter France or Germany or any number of other European countries. The argument would be exactly the same:

That strong welfare systems can provide more freedom of choice by removing a lot of concerns that you have to consider when those systems are not available.

The 2013 budget had a deficit of 3.3%, which it used capital from the oil fund to fill. The biggest deficit that they are allowed to have - and to cover with that kind of money - is 4.0%.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

In addition to the direct 3.3% - Norway's petrochemical economy provide 36% of government funding through taxes.

In addition, 445 Billion dollars from the oil fund is in reserve for pensions.

Simply put, the Norway model is not repeatable unless you're have a natural resource reserve. One could argue that the US shale reserves should be used in similar fashion.

> In addition to the direct 3.3% - Norway's petrochemical economy provide 36% of government funding through taxes.

That is a pretty big industry. Crude petroleum and crude gas consists of over 50% of exports. A lot of economical activity leads to a lot of tax revenue. Imagine if this industry did not exist, that the petroleum simply did not exist to begin with - the people that work in this industry now would be working in other sectors and industries. (The real problem is to replace this industry with something else once the well dries up. But that is a problem brought by such a big oil industry, not a problem that exists in spite of it).

> In addition, 445 Billion dollars from the oil fund is in reserve for pensions.

I think the whole point of the fund(s) is for them to be pension funds. But it may vary how strictly they are ear marked.

Now you're undermining your original point of the oil sector subsidizing the budget. The whole point of the Pension Fund is so that the incumbent government can't go on a spending spree and leave the future generations in the mud.

>Now you're undermining your original point of the oil sector subsidizing the budget.

I've made my point clearly - your insistence isn't backed up with any new information to the contrary.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Norway's welfare system funded by oil revenues (including returns on an enormous sovereign wealth fund created through said revenues)?

It's easy to have a rich developed country with a high quality of life when you have a small population and lots of natural resources.

This argument is entirely orthogonal to the argument I was making: That welfare systems can provide more freedom of choice than increased taxes takes away: The incremental "freedom" that a slight difference in taxation provides in the form of disposable income does not do much; the incremental freedom from having a lot of concerns pretty much taken away because the welfare system reduces the worst case impact substantially, on the other hand, is a big deal.

As I said in a response to someone else: Replace Norway with Denmark, or Sweden, or Germany, or France or any number of other European countries in my comment above, and the argument still stands.

No it doesn't. It would stand if Microsoft, Google, IBM, transistor, Apple, etc, etc were all from socialist (regulated economies) Europe and not capitalistic (economic freedom) US. If the system in Europe is so full of freedoms why people are not so creative there? Because they aren't. Whatever it is from IT to movies, from cinema to healthcare, most of the innovation always comes from the US. You tell me why.

It probably has to do more with being open to immigration and innovation than being ruthlessly capitalistic that the US has been able to maintain its competitive edge.

Immigrating to the US has become harder over the years and "regulators" are against potentially disruptive technologies like Bitcoin while countries like Denmark are trying to embrace those kinds of technologies.

It remains to be seen if the USA can maintain its position going forward. In any case it's tough times ahead for many highly privileged economies. I'm from Austria and the disconnect between what used to be and the current realities is often huge. I guess the most important thing is to not get blinded by your own success, then you survive and possibly even thrive.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23og0b/danish_polit...

Agreed that the tax burden argument is bunk unless you live in a US state with no income tax.

I was recently surprised to find that if I earned $80,000 in Australia, married to a partner who does not earn, and with two children, my effective tax rate would be ~ 15% (!), even if self-employed, once you factor in the Family Tax Assistance payment ($500/mo) and the government rebate for private health insurance purchase. That doesn't include other benefits I could receive such as child care rebate (50% of child-care costs up to $7,500 per child).

Compare to NYC, where as a self-employed person I pay 30-40% on $80k, with high property taxes on top! And I get no government assistance and certainly not healthcare.

This is astounding. And yet Americans think these countries are "socialist" and "high tax." Not true, US scores lower on economic freedom and higher on government size and tax as %GDP.

There are so many cool things about living in the US, but raising a family here just sounds absurdly stressful and expensive.

What you call "choice" is empty of meaning or significant because you leave out the very relevant context in which that "choice" may be exercised. For example, it's dishonest to say a person with $20,000 in savings has the "choice" to pay cash or take a mortgage for a $200,000. Such "choice" is not real or meaningful, because it can't really be exercised. Likewise, it's dishonest to suggest that "choice" in America is not correlated strongly to income and wealth. The lower one's income and means, the fewer real, meaningful choices one has about a great many things--including medical care, food, housing, and basically everything else humans need to subsist.

I have lived in every income spectrum up through my current one--from severe poverty to relative affluence. One of the most important observations I've made is how little "freedom of choice" there is the further down the socioeconomic ladder one goes in this country. It's just an empty phrase most often spouted by people who have never known anything other than a life of upper-middle-class or better living.

Well, we were discussing Bubba and François not homepess people.

> ...by people who have never known anything other than a life of upper-middle-class or better living.

Is it? I would not know what you're talking about as I grew up during the '80 recession and my family was on welfare.

I am glad I was able to go to a university in part thanks to gouvernement student-aid in a not so expensive city.

Well, "most often" isn't "always", and that your family was on welfare doesn't mean anything with respect to the fact that you seem to not understand how empty the phrase "freedom of choice" is. The one has nothing to do with the other.

Actually, the U.S. Supreme Court has a formal definition of freedom: "The right to be left alone." This is a very frequently quoted phrase in USSC decisions. BTW: the right to privacy is considered by many to be half of this.

You are off base here. I'm not aware of any SCOTUS definition of freedom.

The phrase you quote is most associated with Louis Brandeis' conception of a right to privacy (it was his in-a-nutshell definition).

Privacy and freedom are not the same, obviously. And, there is nothing explicitly in the Constitution (or the Amendments) about privacy per se, which is why Brandeis had to write the article grappling with the issue.

> Actually, the U.S. Supreme Court has a formal definition of freedom: "The right to be left alone."

[citation needed]

Me again. I committed a serious spelling error. The Actual phrase is the "right to be LET alone." This is actually quite explicit in the Fourth Amendment. Privacy was not "invented" by the Supremes. As far as citation, here is a list: http://law.justia.com/lawsearch?query=%22right%20to%20be%20l.... As I said, this is commonly quoted phrase. I stand by my original comment, with the change of one word.

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