Matt Yglesias: belief

Transcript context

…If I think of myself — when I analyze, say, Denmark or Singapore, I’m less libertarian than when I analyze America because I think their governments have a higher chance of succeeding at what they might set out to do. So this Matt Yglesias one-billion-Americans world of the future — will that future, Matt Yglesias, be more libertarian, just like I’m less libertarian when I analyze Denmark? I think in terms of direct public provision of things is one way in which some of the small countries really suggest nonlibertarian solutions to problems that I don’t think is appropriate for America or would be for the future. I was in Stockholm sometime, and I was super-confused by how their city bike-share thing worked. And I just went into the Teavana, and I asked someone who worked there — obviously in English, not in domestic language — I was like, “How does this public service that you are not responsible for in any way or work for, how does it function?” She explained it really well to me in a foreign language for no good reason. Like, no, I’m sure they have strong unions there. There’s no reason for her to provide high quality customer service, and no American transit agency employee would do that. That’s just nice, right? That’s not America, and it’s not going to be America, and it’s really not going to be one-billion-Americans America. I think that level of libertarianism in which we do not expect direct public provision of things to be all that high quality is very much baked into the cake and could become even more so. It’s time for a bout of overrated versus underrated. Are you game?…

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