Matt Debates Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute About Welfare
Added 2024-03-22 20:55:24 +0000 UTCBonus content.
Comments
Gg matt. "There is something wrong with that measure. I'll have to think about it. But there is something wrong with that..."
Bryan Melcher
2024-04-22 20:22:59 +0000 UTCLow key embarrassing for this dude
Colin Wick
2024-04-03 23:08:25 +0000 UTCGood debate/discussion. Some intern at the Ayn Rand Institute is probably going to get fired for scheduling the debate, but overall a civil discussion.
J P 3
2024-03-30 08:00:45 +0000 UTCI forgot how bad Brook is at waiting his turn to speak and listening to what is being said to him. 34 minutes in and it's very satisfying to hear Matt casually lapping this ghoul.
Ariel Cruz
2024-03-29 22:01:21 +0000 UTCThe guy wants charities to take care of the poor and not the government. But how many charities would exist without the donations to them being a tax deduction?
Patrick
2024-03-28 18:19:23 +0000 UTCI always think the "you own the property because you produced something with it" is funny because I just like...bought my house. I didn't cultivate or produce shit.
kyle minton
2024-03-28 01:55:45 +0000 UTCI’d be curious to hear a rebuttal to his point about Israel and the UK. I don’t know enough about either to know where to start.
David Woodward
2024-03-27 19:57:31 +0000 UTCYeah that doesn't sound believable at all. US tax rates are much lower than all but a handful other countries. The top marginal tax rate is only 37%, sales taxes top out around 8% and property taxes are usually something like 1-2% of assessed value. He's some sort of hedge fund guy so presumably he's mostly taxed at the capital gains rate of 20%.
Eric Dymond
2024-03-27 19:07:46 +0000 UTCyeah when he summed it up at the end I was a little surprised that the notion of surplus hadn’t come up earlier
Julia
2024-03-27 06:07:25 +0000 UTCthe confusion of average life expectancy with “everyone died at 60” alone made me angry, I can’t imagine how having more knowledge would have made me feel haha
Julia
2024-03-27 06:05:17 +0000 UTCThis was so enjoyable. Lots of laughs, like when Brook basically said it's OK for some people to die. Another good one was when Matt slipped in how Brook still needed time to figure out GDP per hour.
Tim Masterson
2024-03-26 21:16:23 +0000 UTCIt’s so funny how this guy keeps misunderstanding Matt to be advocating for religion or the church when it’s just being used as an example or whatever. Every single time this guy is like “well I’m an atheist and the church is bad” - ok dude we get it, very edgy, but you’re missing the point entirely.
Joey Trimboli
2024-03-26 14:59:42 +0000 UTCMatt (basically): "You're such a fantastic moron, it's terrifying." Gd I love a Matt smack down. I could listen to this all day.
Justine Henry
2024-03-26 14:30:56 +0000 UTCOn the orange example, was also surprised you guys didn't get more into the fact that the landowner probably isn't the one picking and growing the oranges, and that the underpaid farmworkers who are probably aren't making a completely free decision.
Andrew
2024-03-26 14:26:11 +0000 UTCI feel like you should have hit him on a reverse conservatism argument -- as the socialist *you're* the one advocating for tried and tested ideas, while he's going for imaginary utopian fictions.
Andrew
2024-03-26 14:22:58 +0000 UTCHe's a hedge fund manager so he's already rich and is likely to stay that way. He can prioritize freedom or whatever because he will be largely unaffected by the outcome.
Eric Dymond
2024-03-26 14:21:02 +0000 UTCCalling this Yaron fellow “baby-brained” would be an insult to babies
Sam Ozminkowski
2024-03-25 23:39:57 +0000 UTCHoly crap this guy can’t string a coherent thought together to save his life. The orange was mine because I declare it’s mine, therefore when you picked it up you used force.
Joey Trimboli
2024-03-25 22:50:29 +0000 UTCDunno if I can make it through this. 2 minutes into Matt’s opponent’s opening statement and it’s the same question begging bullshit as ever: “welfare requires me to do something I don’t want to and the highest good is for me to do whatever I want therefore welfare is bad” blah blah
Joey Trimboli
2024-03-25 22:30:22 +0000 UTCMust say, this blew my mind too. I hadn’t heard anyone actually make that argument and kind of assumed most leftists I’d heard quoting it were forming straw man arguments. It was bananas hearing it articulated.
Marcy Snyder
2024-03-25 21:30:53 +0000 UTC"The whole economy is a government program" legendary
Nick Cee
2024-03-25 17:30:31 +0000 UTCLmao it’s like every time that dude opens his mouth, he steps on a land mine that blows up his whole argument.
Johann Strottman
2024-03-25 16:56:11 +0000 UTCMAWWAIGE
Mr. Mike Man
2024-03-25 16:52:08 +0000 UTCNo, it's things like property tax and sales tax. He's not talking about just income taxes. He's saying he pays 50% of his income in taxes, which is believable for people in the US and Europe.
Murtaent
2024-03-25 15:46:23 +0000 UTCI haven't looked in a while but I'm pretty sure the median effective tax rate in the US is 25%. I guess if you want to add healthcare costs and retirement savings with the argument the state should be paying those but isn't you could get to 50%. But Yarn is implying his income taxes paid / AGI is 50% which I just find very unlikely.
KMB24
2024-03-25 15:26:54 +0000 UTCThink that's probably true. It's true, give or take, for most of the US. And most Europeans.
Murtaent
2024-03-25 15:23:45 +0000 UTCStill undefeated
Dan
2024-03-25 15:08:14 +0000 UTCHe's saying he pays a 50% effective tax rate? lol sure buddy. Sure.
KMB24
2024-03-25 13:59:55 +0000 UTCPeople should buy insurance again poverty has me holllllllering omg. Brain worms.
KMB24
2024-03-25 13:57:45 +0000 UTCIsn't that just the israeli accent?
Eric Dymond
2024-03-25 13:09:31 +0000 UTCAbsolutely +1 to everyone congratulating our King on yet another W. I did appreciate that this debate revealed another core difference to be valuing work or leisure. Yaron stated that he wants to continue to work forever whereas Matt clearly implied that 20 years of retirement should be considered normal, good, and something to be planned for. Yaron also stated that one of the good things about America is how much time people work compared to Matt's argument that Nordic wealth is in part demonstrated by the amount of paid leave they are entitled to. I feel like there could be rich veins of Bruenig args once you approach matters from the value of leisure.
Matthew Lee
2024-03-25 09:09:59 +0000 UTCAt one point he said there's still so much unclaimed land. Dude, the map's filled in
Ryan Yates
2024-03-25 02:21:19 +0000 UTCWe need more Nozick-style libertarians, imo. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/479572.Anarchy_State_and_Utopia
Aaron Cohen
2024-03-24 23:59:01 +0000 UTCYeah but are there any?
Kiwi
2024-03-24 23:16:25 +0000 UTCHe thought Morrisey’s song about Sunday was real
Ben Trenary
2024-03-24 23:11:15 +0000 UTCThis ruled
Ben Trenary
2024-03-24 23:10:27 +0000 UTCWell he was a piece of work. I'm curious what this coastal town in England is: over here they're nearly all notorious for deprivation, since - now people go on holiday to Spain or wherever, and most other industries have not survived deindustrialization - they basically don't have economies at all. There's no social mobility at least in part because there's barely a capitalist class at all, beyond used car dealerships and shit like that. There are, of course, "true" free market societies, although most of us prefer to call it warlordism.
Jim Macfarlane
2024-03-24 22:51:40 +0000 UTCalso love the randian mind wanting to claim the position as being the more non-normative choice. interesting way to handicap yourself for no reason.
Cameron Obama
2024-03-24 19:02:11 +0000 UTChttps://www.youtube.com/live/FoAGhBeYjaA
Nigel C
2024-03-24 18:51:20 +0000 UTCyar dog gave up the game when he reached for the no existing counter factual argument. “no, empirical argument puts me at a disadvantage and my moral argument is that morality serves my desired system that i unfortunately cant test and refute all reasonable inferences towards”
Cameron Obama
2024-03-24 18:36:52 +0000 UTCEverything Yaron said about human history and society was dead wrong and I was so mad I couldn't interrupt and correct him (got a couple degrees in anthropology, so it always enrages me when people just totally make up their own ideas about these things, lol). It was only through highly socialized labor and activity that humans accomplished nearly everything they have. If people were just producing to keep themselves, individually, alive, we wouldn't have had large scale migrations across the globe, for one thing. Mechanisms for redistribution are also a HALLMARK of human society. Grain storage (via the ancient states) and "the commons" are a couple key mechanisms. Also, private property really only emerged with the appearance of the state and actually corresponds with an INCREASE in violence.
Bourbachi
2024-03-24 13:10:18 +0000 UTCThis was painful. I'm already in agreement with Matt of course, but always try to be open to other perspectives. It's clear libertarianism is just completely incoherent. Start with the premise, every distribution I dislike is force and violence, then pretend it's an objective fact about the world.
Hampus Bystrom
2024-03-24 09:45:27 +0000 UTCThe part where it got embarrassing was when Matt was helping him with read the data correctly omg
JoinDSA B4thePodcastEnds
2024-03-24 04:31:12 +0000 UTCThat shit sounds like something the dumbest an-com ever would say lol
JoinDSA B4thePodcastEnds
2024-03-24 04:28:44 +0000 UTCWow I literally laughed out loud a few times from how badly Matt was embarrassing this guy. Great job.
JoinDSA B4thePodcastEnds
2024-03-24 04:26:29 +0000 UTCThis guy talking about a free market in the first place is meaningless. As Matt pointed out, and as is borne out by the historical record, markets and the economy exist at the whim of the state. P.S. I love when Matt cites data and Brook just says “that’s not true” and you can just hear Matt sigh
iamonceagain
2024-03-24 04:20:37 +0000 UTCMatt doing the lord's work but this was very painful to listen to. I started to kinda feel bad for this guy, he is just incapable of thinking clearly and it's causing him to be evil
Gina Calabrese
2024-03-24 02:53:35 +0000 UTCI was kind of hoping for a wild tangent about how specifically Rand folks are also atheist
Burlington Vote Factory
2024-03-23 22:35:50 +0000 UTCWild to hear a libertarian bring up old people on ice floes *in moral defense* of libertarianism
Molly
2024-03-23 21:25:13 +0000 UTCAlso a bunch of weird assertions about how there's anti-poverty insurance that does a better job than any government program. I assume it's one of those things that has a grain of truth but is wildly misrepresented.
Eric Dymond
2024-03-23 19:11:50 +0000 UTCThe weirdest thing about his argument is that it keeps returning to the idea that you need all of your property to flourish and if you're deprived of any iota of property then you're not a fully actualized person.
Eric Dymond
2024-03-23 19:10:43 +0000 UTCHe basically said it's ok because there's laws to deal with people abandoning property and apparently there's lots of free real estate in the US? I guess that assumes that in the objectivist future the government gives over all the national parks to whoever asks.
Eric Dymond
2024-03-23 19:09:36 +0000 UTCgood god this dude was embarrassing and painful to listen to. the classic matt args seem to hold up strong
victor recabarren
2024-03-23 18:03:03 +0000 UTCone time i saw a cat toy with a field mouse for like an hour before he got it and this is what that felt like
haz
2024-03-23 17:54:18 +0000 UTC“There’s no scarcity” lol
Jeffinternet
2024-03-23 17:36:00 +0000 UTCThis guys brain is hilarious
Damian
2024-03-23 17:19:51 +0000 UTCOnly 25 minutes in, but I really want to know what Yaron has to say about people who buy property and don’t do anything with it. Happens all the time. Should they have to give it up?
Rorbus Von Balzar
2024-03-23 15:37:58 +0000 UTCWhere can we find the video?
alexanderhg1 .
2024-03-23 15:15:34 +0000 UTCHe's already at going to war. These people are insane. 😵💫
TS + KL
2024-03-23 13:56:56 +0000 UTCI'm 15 minutes in and cringing so hard. I've read a fair amount of objectivism and I think Brooks is doing a better job of representing the position than Rand. It's also impressive that someone can so smoothly, clearly and confidently be so narrow minded and obtuse.
Cheetahforce
2024-03-23 13:44:00 +0000 UTCI'm watching the video and Matt miming grabbing and eating an ear of corn off Yaron's land while Yaron gets mad about it is the funniest shit I have ever seen. Thanks Matt
Ronald Peabus
2024-03-23 07:47:52 +0000 UTCI kept waiting for you to hit him with "actually its the capitalists who don't work"
Ligma
2024-03-23 05:37:30 +0000 UTCStop! Stop! He’s already dead!
Martin Ross
2024-03-23 05:30:42 +0000 UTCThe funny thing is, I had the same problem. From a very young age I used to roll my Rs. Do you know what happened to me? My public school provided a free speech pathologist to help me correct that problem. From 2nd to 5th grade I would go 1 hour a week (during recess) to Mr. Alberg’s office along with 2 other students to work on our speech impediments. And what was the result of all those speech correction exercises? I don’t have a speech impediment anymore! The welfare state provided yet another valuable service that charity or capitalism didn’t believe was “necessary”.
Michael Hoogenakker
2024-03-23 05:21:46 +0000 UTCYaron had no idea what he was in for. Texas just giving away PhDs these days? Wild levels of incoherence from Brook, like he couldn't even follow what were the logical conclusions of his own arguments vs. Matt's. Yes Yaron, your argument is ridiculous -- glad you could see that when it's being recounted back to you. Matt lawyered him, wonked him, and philsophized his a**. Would be nice to hear Matt debate a coherent libertarian though.
Aaron Cohen
2024-03-23 03:14:10 +0000 UTCThe little inhale of excitement from Matt when yaron says the Nordics have less restrictive labor market policies
Ben
2024-03-23 01:11:02 +0000 UTCYou wanna see a dead body?
Ben
2024-03-23 01:09:33 +0000 UTCGreat performance Matt, I used to want you to debate more but I realize you have already said a lot of your args on the podcast. I would like to see you debate someone like Shapiro or Jordan Peterson just because I would like to see them run into the Brunig Buzzsaw.
Joseph Dixon
2024-03-23 00:40:01 +0000 UTCUnbelievable. YB: Countries with high welfare are poor. Look at Sweden - lower GDP than the united states! MB: the better measure is GDP per capital per hours worked. It’s higher in Sweden but they choose more leisure. YB: but look at their high unemployment! Sweden has a 7.3 rate! They want to work but they can’t! They don’t want to work because of welfare! MB: the better measure is the employment rate. Sweden’s is higher than the US. YB: that’s because they’re poor!
Uri Strauss
2024-03-23 00:31:00 +0000 UTCPPP stands for pinfinite patural pesources
☃️
2024-03-23 00:13:34 +0000 UTCI love that Yaron spent like 15 minutes basically saying that exploiting workers by not giving them property rights over what they produce is worse than violence. BTW his name is iambic.
Uri Strauss
2024-03-22 23:07:03 +0000 UTCIt is so jarring to hear him move from being outraged by Matt dismissing the importance of the voluntariness of redistribution, to the question of natural resource ownership not being important because there is "infinite" land.
Will Durant
2024-03-22 22:57:43 +0000 UTCI'm about to say something petty and ableist: How does one person develop this deep a vocabulary in english but not the ability to not say their Rs like a three-year-old?
Eric Neal
2024-03-22 22:42:00 +0000 UTCHere is the YouTube link as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoAGhBeYjaA I recommend skipping through the Rand guy's arguments because Matt does a good job of recapping his nonsense in one sentence when he starts his own arg.
Adrian
2024-03-22 22:21:37 +0000 UTCMatt - I don’t know how painful this was to participate in (though I could hear the moments of joy in your voice), but this is the content I’m here for. Great work
Patrick
2024-03-22 22:05:51 +0000 UTCI'm glad there is tho... adult libertarians are fascinating
Murtaent
2024-03-22 21:46:14 +0000 UTCThere are infinite resources. There is infinite land.
Noah French
2024-03-22 21:42:39 +0000 UTCYou used land that you didn't produce and which you excluded me from.
Murtaent
2024-03-22 21:42:12 +0000 UTCI can only imagine the grin on Matt's face
alexanderhg1 .
2024-03-22 21:39:06 +0000 UTC25:20 YB: "There is [sic] an infinite amount of resources, natural resources, in the world. There's no..." MB: "INFINITE"
alexanderhg1 .
2024-03-22 21:38:49 +0000 UTCThis guy's disregard for how humans actually behave when given unlimited power and resources is staggering. Also, I've never tapped download faster on a podcast.
Eric Neal
2024-03-22 21:33:25 +0000 UTC~”I’ll take freedom over GDP growth” you can’t argue with someone who’s completely disinterested in outcomes! He’d rather stick to his first principles and have every human being die than to live somewhat adequately under any other system
Justin Hubbard
2024-03-22 21:32:44 +0000 UTCHis argument hinged in part on “unclaimed land is unlimited”
Jay
2024-03-22 21:26:00 +0000 UTCI grew the orange. They are my oranges.
Aaron
2024-03-22 21:14:42 +0000 UTCCan’t believe the Ayn Rand institute even exists
Andrew Swann
2024-03-22 21:00:16 +0000 UTCRoasted his ass, it was cool to watch. Nice job Matt!
Christian Wulff
2024-03-22 20:58:53 +0000 UTC
