Comments on: Folk Activism…Signaling

By: patrissimo

patrissimo — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:56:56 +0000

Heh, synchronicity on the technology – I totally agree that the greatest contributions to freedom are probably from entrepreneurs.

Cooperthwaite is a good example, maybe Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew deserves similar credit?

By: patrissimo

patrissimo — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:55:36 +0000

I wonder whether people like the founders of Google and Southwest Airlines are the ones who have done the most to increase practical liberty.

By: patrissimo

patrissimo — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:55:08 +0000

Right, but I don’t know if it’s true about the draft. Was it mainly ended because it was the right moment historically after the failure of Vietnam, and he just happened to be the individual taking advantage of it? Or would it not have ended so early had it not had such an able champion? I have heard each claimed, and don’t have the historical context to judge.

By: Mike Gibson

Mike Gibson — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:53:38 +0000

To follow up Robin’s comment, with respect to liberty, perhaps we shouldn’t even care what someone’s intentions are, but instead focus on his or her accomplishments. It may be that a top 20 list of liberty-creators in history contains but a few libertarians or liberals. A revolutionary technology–the automobile, perhaps–may have created greater mobility and freedom than many libertarians created with their own projects at the time.

But as for someone whose accomplishments far outweigh the value of his rhetoric, I nominate Sir John James Cooperthwaite and his positive non-interventionism in Hong Kong.

This Cooperthwaite Telegraph obituary recounts some of his private beliefs, which certainly had a strong libertarianish streak, but I would say his accomplishments–Hong Kong’s prosperity and the subsequent example it set for the rest of China–far outweigh whatever pronouncements he gave.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1508696/Sir-John-Cowperthwaite.html

It’s sad not too many people know of him. But I’m happy he spent less time proselytizing.

By: teageegeepea

teageegeepea — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:53:31 +0000

The one example normally given is Milton Friedman helping to get rid of the draft. On the other hand, he also came up with income withholding. Those who ascribe to the ideology of libertarianism may not actually have had much to do with most increases in liberty.

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:39:00 +0000

OK, to attempt to switch the status metric, it might help to create and celebrate a list of the libertarians who have actually increased liberty, rather than talked eloquently about it.