Communicating Capitalism

Capitalism and other libertarian principles are difficult ideas to market to others outside the liberty movement, but what can libertarians do to present their ideas in a better way?

Recently, I was in a webinar hosted by Dan Sanchez of FEE, the Foundation for Economic Education and he went over some do’s and don’ts of communicating capitalism to everyone, including socialists.

Here were some of the ideas Dan discussed.

Don’t act condescending and don’t be like Dwight Scrute or like Ben Shapiro talking over people. There’s no doubt that Ben Shapiro is well versed in logic, reason, and debate but even he is prone to committing errors like the smokescreen fallacy.

Don’t be like Ben and bombard your opponent with lots of verbiage and considerations thrown in, and not giving them a chance to sift through.

One of the libertarian stereotypes, which has turned into an inside joke, is the neckbeard. He acts condescending and is socially unaware of how others feel and think, and is quick to dismiss any points they make.

Have some emotional IQ and don’t immediately judge the other person’s character based on their economic and government views.

Do appeal to shared values and other common ground opinions. Presume the other person has good intentions, just a different way of solving problems.

Another interesting point made was being able to pass the ideological Turing test. The Turing test engages computers with humans and the machine has to emulate human responses. If it’s responses are indistinguishable from a human then it passes the test.

Similarly, if you engage in a debate, be able to know your opponent’s argument better than they do.