Liberty Movements in American History

Want to advance liberty?: http://lrnlbty.co/ABw93P

Historian Stephen Davies describes how various nonprofit institutions have made the advocates of liberty more productive and effective. These institutions have also made the ideas of liberty more available and have created and facilitated networks that enable people to share and strengthen their ideas.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of advocates. There are those who advocate policies for their own self-interest and there are also those who advocate polices on principle. The second group tends to benefit society most effectively, but in order to enact change, must overpower the incentives of the first group. This is a difficult task, as the first group derives concentrated benefits to themselves by dispersing costs on everyone else through the political process.

Luckily, there are historical examples of the principled advocacy groups defeating the vested interests of the rent seekers. The most obvious example is the campaign against the slave trade in Britain and France in the late 18th and early 19th century. Despite the large interests of those employing slave labor, the principled advocates abolished slavery.

It is often claimed that the liberty movement is a self-interested right-wing conspiracy. However, this is logically invalid. If it were indeed a conspiracy, the wealthy individuals who invest in liberty advancing institutions would be acting against their own financial self-interest. Individuals who lead large corporations can most easily maximize profits by befriending politicians and encouraging them to grant their business special government privileges. Liberty advancing institutions fight relentlessly to abolish these government granted special privileges, and therefore, are advancing ideas that are not nearly as beneficial to the bottom line of big business.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Learnliberty
• learn liberty
• learn
• liberty
• video
• freedom
• movement
• educational
• Stephen Davies
• Steve
• Stephen
• Davies
• nonprofit
• think tank
• america
• history
• business
• corporation
• greed
• self-interest

[yakyakyak69]

Progressivism / Liberalism / Statism advocates change or reform through GOV'T action.

Give ANY politician or bureaucrat the power to "redistribute & regulate" OTHER people’s money & choices and they will ALWAYS legislate to benefit THEIR “special interest” campaign backers; Banks, Wall Street, Military-Industrial Complex, Marxist Unions, Giant "Green" Corps, Big Oil, Pharma, Insurance etc.

Statism = Corrupt Political Cronyism.

The Fed’s FIAT (counterfeit) debt-currency FUELS THE FIRE!

[kriskats19]

@RevolutionNewsDotUS2 Don't blame the corporations that play the game, blame the referee aka Government. The corporations just compete for your business. You don't have to buy anything from them. The Government is all powerful though and grants certain corporations privileges that allow them to become the behemoths that they are. We need to fix the system rather than 1 or 2 corporations.

[limeleaf414]

Thanks very much for sharing the great explanation about the liberty movements.

[ihatemoses]

@cyrus79100 Actually, the STATE gave them absolute power. Don't forget it.

[cyrus79100]

"They were not very effective.." Because they were fucking morons. But when the rich decided to pretend that they had half a brain, because that would help them abuse the majority of the population, that was when they gained prestige for their bullshit. Libertarianism and conservatism are not ideologies, they are rationalizations for the absolute power of the wealthy.

[RevolutionNewsDotUS2]

@kriskats19 who put bush in office?

watch?v=GSEOd1W3fZA

[kriskats19]

@RevolutionNewsDotUS2 No, the voters put them in office. Corporations might have lobby powers, but it is up to the people to demand new legislation to get rid of lobbyists. I know the people aren't very forceful in this, but they should be. The corporations are forced to protect their interests because that is how the game is structured. We need a fairer structure that doesn't give favors to one particular company.

[Magicwillnz]

6:06 - 6:30 Is he trying to tell us that corporations don't fund right-wing think tanks? What a blatant falsehood.

[RevolutionNewsDotUS2]

@kriskats19 it's the corporations who put their pals in office... it's the corporations and banksters who write the laws!