The Myth of Silicon Valley Libertarianism

[applegrove]

The Myth of Silicon Valley Libertarianism

by Gregory Ferenstein at the Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/31/the-myth-of-silicon-valley-libertarianism.html

"SNIP...............


Tech CEOs are arguably some of the Democrats’ biggest fan-boys: In the 2012 presidential election, 83 percent of employee donations from some of the nation’s top tech firms went to Obama. Among the tech elite, 64 percent of all political donations from investors and startup founders since 2008 have gone to liberal candidates and causes. Perhaps the most brutal statistic of all: Only 3 percent of tech startup founders identify as Republican.

“Most of Silicon Valley, most of the executives, tend to be Democrats,” the famously libertarian PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel told me (for The Daily Beast) last year.

But before the Democratic National Committee gets too excited, it’s not so simple to lump them in with their liberal peers. Tech titans are the archnemesis of labor unions on a variety of battles, from high-skilled immigration to free trade and union-less public charter schools.

It’s Silicon Valley’s unabashed love affair with unregulated free-market capitalism that gets it branded as a hotbed of libertarianism (by many, many critics). When libertarian icon Rand Paul made a fundraising journey to San Francisco, cultural critic Susie Cagle said, “Rand Paul is exactly what San Francisco needs: a personification of the unregulated market idealism that’s so rapidly remaking the Bay Area region.”


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[struggle4progress]

1. An "unabashed love affair with unregulated free-market capitalism" defines libertarianism

[pnwmom]

2. They appear to be economic libertarians, then -- not really Democrats.

There are two versions of libertarians. The kind that believe in "free markets" and free love (and pot, etc). And the kind that believe in "free markets" but want to put all kinds of restrictions on people's personal lives.

But neither version are close to Democrats, because their unregulated free-market capitalism puts them on the opposite side, no matter how they feel about sex and pot.