Zack Sorenson

Is The Bureaucracy That Bad?

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 24, 2017 | Blog

Are all government programs bad? I have a relative who works in government. Their bureau isn’t one of the bad ones that kill people or arrest them. They help with public health research and education, but not regulation. They believe in what they do, and challenge my libertarian beliefs on those grounds. I point out that I believe that what they do is a valid and important social product, and if it was up to me I’d certainly eliminate their program among the last to be eliminated. The question I pose, to highlight the problem with this program, is where their funding comes from? Taxes. I...

Single Payer In America, Really Liberals?

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 23, 2017 | Blog

Single-payer in America would represent the greatest possible disaster in healthcare that our nation could achieve. Why? It wouldn’t be like England’s NHS, a pseudo-military organization of entirely government employees. It would be a cost-plus system of Aetna and Lockheed Martin employing our doctors. Is there any doubt about this? How in the hell else would single-payer ever get passed? Part of the reason why liberals never seem to reckon with this reality of American politics is because they’re magical thinkers. The institutions of healthcare would be managed by the upper middle...

Leftism As A Phenomenon Of Upper Middle Class Magical Thinking

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 22, 2017 | Blog

Those on the right, or more broadly, those not on the left, face difficulties when trying to describe what is conventionally called "leftism". People use terms like "cultural marxist" or "postmodernist" or "socialist". Voices cry from the woodwork: "cultural marxism doesn't exist," or, "postmodernism isn't marxist". I've come to believe that leftism can be precisely described, but that the inability of some to nail it down is nothing more than a problem of categories. Leftism is not a political phenomenon. It is a sociocultural phenomenon. It is the consequence of the existence of a...

War And Peace Put Simply

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 20, 2017 | Blog

War is so costly because it requires reciprocal action and therefore wasteful escalation. The force that drives this is the need to "win". This is the same force that ruins politics. If you can accept some of what you want, maybe even in a context of getting mostly what you don't want, but this avoids conflict because you've given up the need to win, then you save yourself from having to pay the costs of conflict. Most of the time this is a good deal. To guard against war you have to call out people trying to win for winning's sake. You have to contextualize all dispute in their...

Synergy Between Idealism And Pragmatism

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 17, 2017 | Blog

I've always been convinced that what makes sense idealistically ought to parallel what works practically. There shouldn't be a deontology/consequentialism debate in Libertarianism. The same principles which grant ideological sanction to liberty cause it to be an effective ideology in terms of meeting needs. Individual people decide what it is they want out of life. Sure, we sometimes want things by means of our place in a group - but we arrive here for individual reasons. Sure, there are universal human needs such as food, but the context in which people consume or enjoy food, including...

The Killer App Of Decentralized Law

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 15, 2017 | Blog

Anarchy, decentralized law, call it what you will. The key benefit of anarchy, from both the left and right wing perspectives, is that the cost of enforcement is integrated into the form of the law. If a certain punishment is too expensive to enforce, then the market will favor another mode of enforcement. The political effect of this is that by and large any legal order that emerges must conform to the consent of the people to whom it applies. This favors social harmony and economic optimization over the long run.

The Historical Inevitability of Libertarianism

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 10, 2017 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Marxism infamously puts forward a theory of history in which its utopian vision for human society is upheld as an eschatological certainty. According to Marx, irresistible political and economic forces will compel mankind towards a future of full equality and unimaginable abundance. Despite the wishful thinking behind this vision (which also included an anticipation of unspeakable revolutionary violence preceding utopia), it hasn’t come to pass. I would argue that Marx’s ideas are magical thought innovations on nascent Classical Liberal ideas that sadly didn’t survive the rise of Marxism’s...

Proportional Representation – Why Not?

by Zack Sorenson | Jul 2, 2017 | Blog

The government is horrible, so I never balk at ideas that might help it be a little bit better. A Virginia congressman has proposed an interesting bill that might help introduce proportional representation to the House in a sideways manner. I say, why not an amendment? I don't know if this bill is good, but I think the House might as well be elected using a proportional system. The idea of local interest and limited scope of government is a joke long departed. Regional interest today can be served by the makeup of the Senate. Individuals should vote for the party they like best, and the...