Peter Thiel - The Education of a Libertarian

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/the-education-of-a-libertarian/

by tpinto • 16 years ago

16 9 16 years ago

cato-unbound.org

guelo• 16 years ago

What an asshole, no wonder paypal is such a piece of shit.

kiba2• 16 years ago

He doesn't run paypal anymore.

redwood2• 16 years ago

Now presumably he's far more involved in facebook than paypal

axiom• 16 years ago

That's a really repulsive, and disrespectful comment. It adds nothing to the discussion and just serves to make the environment on HN really unpleasant.

redwood2• 16 years ago

Hmm while I can totally understand what he's saying to some extent, it does reek of "I'm a billionaire and here are the kinds of fantasies I focus on"

kiba2• 16 years ago

It's not just a billionaire's ambition. It's also the ambition of a wide range of techno-libertarian.

Take a look at the bitcoin community. It is full of libertarians trying to invent or grow solutions to political problem, mainly monetary problems.

It's not entirely the domain of the libertarian rich.

okaramian• 16 years ago

Yeah, the part where he wants to form some kind of Randian society in space and this part:

"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians"

seem to be pretty good indicators that the article is completely terrible.

mithaler• 16 years ago

I'm no libertarian, but I don't see why those statements make the article terrible. After all, are they not true, and do they not underscore his point--that both of those constituencies benefit from government intervention in society as it is and was in the 20's, and therefore would not theoretically be amenable to principles of less government?

If there's anything that makes the article terrible--which I don't think it is, it's well-argued for the point it's making--it's the blind assumption underlying it that less government is always better. I think that's a silly principle to argue for, but then I haven't read anything else he's written; for all I know he's made efforts to defend it in the past, so I can't assume he considers it a matter of faith.

jberryman• 16 years ago

In the late 1990s, the founding vision of PayPal centered on the creation of a new world currency, free from all government control and dilution — the end of monetary sovereignty, as it were.

...what resulted was ugly, oppressive and pretty much universally despised as far as I can tell. Much how I imagine a "libertarian state" would turn out.

Peter Thiel - The Education of a Libertarian

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