Certainly. But that’s not what the post does. It’s hard not to read this as a clumsy attempt to blame right wing politics and economics (by bringing up Friedman and Hayek) for death squads. That’s literally the headline.
LapsedPacifist is perhaps saying this better in the post above this. People here love to claim that value-neutral is actually evil, but I simply disagree with that. A tool is a tool. It has been effective at certain things, and lousy at others. It’s the people.
A tool is a tool. It has been effective at certain things, and lousy at others. It’s the people.
You mean the people that design the tools?
I agree that “value-neutral” isn’t evil, but it does presuppose an objective concept of amorality.
As such, I commend you on your modernist stance in a post-modern world, despite possibly falling into a tautological argument …
“Value-neutral isn’t bad, it’s neutral. Since it’s neutral, therefore it must also mean that value-neutral can be used for good. Thus, value-neutral must be equally useful as both good and bad.”
However, in some cases, things can be designed in such as way as to be more-likely prone to failure (rather than success) when used as an all-purpose solution.
By its very nature, a market is an all-purpose solution for a group of people who agree on the framework of the exchange.
To be maximally free, a free-market must allow all people to fail. If enough people in a free-market fail to uphold free-market principles, then the market must slide into some sort of semi-mitigated condition that defines the cultural terms of failure.
When the risk of failure benefits only a few people at the expense of everyone else, then the market-system has been compromised.
Need I mention the NRA slogan?
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