The question libertarians just can’t answer

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Well the same author is back with another piece on libertarians.

Libertarians: Still a cult - Salon.com

I'll address a few points.

My previous Salon essay, in which I asked why there are not any libertarian countries, if libertarianism is a sound political philosophy, has infuriated members of the tiny but noisy libertarian sect, as criticisms of cults by outsiders usually do.

It's not surprising that his last article upset many libertarians, given how dismissive it was of their political beliefs. People tend to get angry when they're insulted, regardless of their political ideology. As for the cult nonsense, I think Tom Woods once again has the best response.

"Right. Libertarianism is the cult. Not the state! There’s nothing cultish at all about allegiance to the state, with its flags, its songs, its mass murders, its little children saluting and paying homage to pictures of their dear leaders on the wall, etc."

Michael Lind Pretends I Don?t Exist | Tom Woods

An unscientific survey of the blogosphere turns up a number of libertarians claiming in response to my essay that, because libertarianism is anti-statist, to ask for an example of a real-world libertarian state shows a failure to understand libertarianism. But if the libertarian ideal is a stateless society, then libertarianism is merely a different name for utopian anarchism and deserves to be similarly ignored.

Being anti-statist is not necessarily the same thing as being an anarchist, though there are anarchist libertarians as well, of course. But this is not a response to those critics at all. In fact, it is blatantly not a response at all. It's explicitly saying that any response to his original claims should be ignored completely. This is textbook deflection. "Don't listen to my critics, because they're crazy." The irony being that this is his second column on the subject.

Protectionist, nativist paleoconservatives of the Patrick Buchanan school might have reason to idealize the U.S. as it existed between 1865 and 1932. But libertarians who want to prove that a country based on libertarian ideology can exist in the real world cannot point to the United States at any period in its history from the Founding to the present.

This is false, as I can and did point to a period in the history of the United States that was very libertarian. The period under the Articles of Confederation, which could be considered libertarian in their construction of government. This is not, however, to say that the government was perfectly libertarian, which is the straw-man Lind is trying to create here. I'll go back to my original post where I made the point that no country is ever perfectly one ideology or another at any point in time. There has never been a perfectly liberal government, whatever that would be, or a perfectly conservative government. There has never been a perfectly socialist or communist government, and no, there has never been a perfectly libertarian government.

If that's his basis for rejecting libertarianism, however, then one suspects Lind must also reject his own political ideology, whatever that is.

The weak logic and bad scholarship that suffuse libertarian responses to my article tend to reinforce me in my view that, if they were not paid so well to churn out anti-government propaganda by plutocrats like the Koch brothers and various self-interested corporations, libertarians would play no greater role in public debate than do the followers of Lyndon LaRouche or L. Ron Hubbard.

Still waiting on my check from the Koch brothers for my original response to this nonsense.

 

[dblack]

The author of the Salon article debunked this rather well:



Libertarians: Still a cult - Salon.com

More at the link.

The better question is: why do libertarian based societies fail, always.

Because fascism is a particularly insidious virus. Looks like we're gearing up for another round in fact. Buckle up!

Great answer. The belief that anything that isn't libertarian IS facist is probably the number one reason libertarianism remains a cult.

That's not my belief. Try again.

Libertarian societies fail for the same reasons all societies fail. Failure is pretty much the default. The single biggest example of a libertarian society was the United States of America. And we all know what a failure that was.

 

[dblack]

I have to say, we libertarians should be gratified by the elevated criticism coming at us from the authoritarians in both major parties. I do believe they're getting nervous!

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

This is patently false. Many libertarians, including many anarcho-capitalists, hold the Articles of Confederation, which governed the United States from 1776-1787, with a certain fondness, and one could even argue that a strict interpretation of the Constitution is libertarian as well, though perhaps not as good as the Articles.

The author of the Salon article debunked this rather well:

Ever since colonial times, states had engaged in public poor relief and sometimes created public hospitals and asylums. Tracinski to the contrary, there were also two massive federal welfare programs before the New Deal: the Homestead Act, a colossal redistribution of government land to farmers, and generous pension benefits for Union veterans of the Civil War and their families. Much earlier, the 1798 act that taxed sailors to fund a small system of government-run sailors’ hospitals was supported by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton alike.

Libertarians: Still a cult - Salon.com

More at the link.

The better question is: why do libertarian based societies fail, always.

Well you're going to have to decide, and quickly, whether there has never been a libertarian government, or whether libertarian governments always fail.

As for debunking my claim, he never actually addressed my claim regarding the Articles of Confederation, he just makes the claim that at no point in American history has the government been libertarian. I address his straw-man argument in my previous post.

 

[Bfgrn]

If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Free-Market-Kenneth-Friedman/dp/0875862233"]MYTHS OF THE FREE MARKET[/ame] - Blind Faith

The gap between rich and poor is now the widest in US history. This is disturbing, for if history is any guide we have unwittingly placed ourselves in grave danger.

Over the last millennium Europe has witnessed long cycles of widening and narrowing economic disparity. In each cycle, once the gap between the rich and the rest widened beyond a certain point, it presaged decline and disaster for all of society, the rich as well as the poor. Could we be seeing the first tremors of a new cycle, the outliers of the next menacing storm? In recent decades, many US citizens have come under increasing financial pressure. Since the 1970s, our number of working poor has increased sharply. Nearly all of our much-vaunted newly-created wealth has gone to the richest.

For a country that has prided itself on its resourcefulness, the inability to address such problems suggests something deeper at work. There is something, powerful but insidious, that blinds us to the causes of these problems and undermines our ability to respond. That something is a set of beliefs, comparable to religious beliefs in earlier ages, about the nature of economies and societies. These beliefs imply the impropriety of government intervention either in social contexts (libertarianism) or in economic affairs (laissez faire).

The faithful unquestioningly embrace the credo that the doctrine of nonintervention has generated our most venerated institutions: our democracy, the best possible political system; and our free market economy, the best possible economic system. But despite our devotion to the dogmas that libertarianism and free market economics are the foundation of all that we cherish most deeply, they have failed us and are responsible for our present malaise.

The pieties of libertarianism and free markets sound pretty, but they cannot withstand even a cursory inspection. Libertarianism does not support democracy; taken to an extreme, it entails the law of the jungle. If government never interferes, we could all get away with murder. Alternatively, if the libertarian position is not to be taken to an extreme, where should it stop? What is the difference between no government and minimal government? Attempts to justify libertarianism, even a less than extreme position, have failed. Laissez faire, or free market economics, characterized by minimal or no government intervention, has a history that is long but undistinguished. Just as the negative effects of a high fever do not certify the health benefits of the opposite extreme, hypothermia, the dismal failure of communism, seeking complete government control of the economy, does not certify the economic benefits of the opposite extreme, total economic non-intervention.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Is that meant to be a response to something?

 

[Bfgrn]

Is that meant to be a response to something?

You really can't understand it Kevin, or is it you don't want to accept the truth.

THE seminal question with libertarianism is to what extreme? Because if taken to full extreme in is most certainly 'freedom' and 'liberty', but it is the 'freedom' and 'liberty' of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. It ends very poorly.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Is that meant to be a response to something?

You really can't understand it Kevin, or is it you don't want to accept the truth.

THE seminal question with libertarianism is to what extreme? Because if taken to full extreme in is most certainly 'freedom' and 'liberty', but it is the 'freedom' and 'liberty' of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. It ends very poorly.

I can understand it perfectly fine, and whether or not it's the truth depends on your own ideological stance. I can obviously point out that libertarians, who have no political power in the United States, and their political and economic views, generally Austrian free market economics, cannot possibly be to blame for the "present malaise." That's simple logic. No libertarians in power and Austrian economics not being anything close to the dominant economic view in the past century means that they can't be at fault.

 

[Bfgrn]

Is that meant to be a response to something?

You really can't understand it Kevin, or is it you don't want to accept the truth.

THE seminal question with libertarianism is to what extreme? Because if taken to full extreme in is most certainly 'freedom' and 'liberty', but it is the 'freedom' and 'liberty' of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. It ends very poorly.

I can understand it perfectly fine, and whether or not it's the truth depends on your own ideological stance. I can obviously point out that libertarians, who have no political power in the United States, and their political and economic views, generally Austrian free market economics, cannot possibly be to blame for the "present malaise." That's simple logic. No libertarians in power and Austrian economics not being anything close to the dominant economic view in the past century means that they can't be at fault.

As an icon of the right former president used to preface his comments: "Well..." you're wrong Kevin.

Although no one from the libertarian party has been elected president, Republicans have certainly practiced and preached the political and economic views of laissez faire, Austrian free market economics and minimal or no government intervention in the market. It is what led to the recent collapse of our economy. It is even the philosophical basis of the egregious right wing robes Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling.

(more for) Blind Faith

Even our own internal comparisons fail to flatter laissez faire. Over the past half-century we have seen lower tax rates and less government interference. We have come a long way toward free enterprise from the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since the Kennedy Administration we have reduced the marginal tax rate on our highest incomes from the 91% that remained in effect from the 1940s into the mid-1960s (and a brief peak of 94% during World War II) to 28% in the 1986 tax code. Yet our economic growth has slowed.

Decade Average Real GNP per Capita GNP Growth
1960-1969 4.18% 2.79%
1970-1979 3.18% 2.09%
1980-1989 2.75% 1.81%
1990-1994 1.95% 0.79%

Despite our adoption of the most enlightened free market policies, our performance resembles that of a declining Great Britain in the late nineteenth century. “Britain soon lost what early lead it possessed. Industrial production, which had grown at an annual rate of 4 percent in the period 1820 to 1840 and about 3 percent between 1840 and 1870 became more sluggish; between 1875 and 1890 it grew at just over 1.5 percent annually, far less than that of the country’s chief rivals… finally, British industry found itself weakened by an ever rising tide of imported foreign manufactures into the unprotected home market — the clearest sign that the country was becoming uncompetitive.” (Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, p. 228.)

Although our government policies have been increasingly laissez faire and increasingly friendly to corporate America, our investment, productivity and economic growth have all lagged. Similarly, as the world has moved toward purer capitalism, worldwide economic growth has slowed. From 5.5% in the 1960s, world GNP growth declined to 3.4% in the 1970s, 3.2% in the 1980s, and further in the 1990s. (Maddison, Monitoring the World’s Economy 1820-1992, p. 227.) It is likely to decline still further in this first decade of the new millennium.



It may seem odd, given the parabolic arc of our financial markets and the swelling chorus of paeans to free market economics, but despite the important role of the market, purer free market economies have consistently underperformed well-focused mixed economies. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the mixed economies of Meiji Japan and Bismarck’s Germany clearly outperformed the free market economies of Britain and France. Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

The persistently mediocre track record of laissez faire casts doubt on the claim that an economy free from government interference invariably maximizes the wealth of society. In fact, there are sound reasons the pure free market must underperform well-focused mixed economies.

But despite laissez faire’s mediocre track record and despite powerful arguments that it cannot possibly provide what it promises, the notion of the unqualified benefit of the free market has become deeply embedded in our mythology. Apologists have exulted in claims that glorify free market mythology at the expense of reality, and also at the expense of society. Free market principles, even though they have failed in economics, have been eagerly applied to sectors ranging from politics to education, where they have contributed to societal dysfunction.

One politically popular myth, that free market economics and government non-intervention provide the basis for true democracy, flies in the face of history. The first democrats, the classical Athenians, had a word for the ideal free marketer, the homo economicus, working for his own economic gain but unconcerned with the community. It was not particularly complimentary, the ancestor of our word “idiot.” Pericles expressed the sentiment underlying this: “We regard the citizen who takes no part in these [public] duties not as un-ambitious but as useless…”

We have ignored the ramifications of this as we remodeled our pantheon. We have replaced the notion of public-spirited citizens interested in the common weal, a vital part of democratic thought from ancient Athens to our founding fathers, by the invisible hand of the free market. This promises to maximize benefit for society, if only we will be idiots.

In so far as it fails to value disinterested public spirit, free market doctrine only pretends to cherish democracy. Let the people concentrate on their economic gain while their leaders rule in any manner they choose. The Peoples’ Republic of China instituted free market reforms to sustain its autocratic political regime. Augusto Pinochet brutally repressed even mild political dissent while pursuing free market economic policies in Chile.

The reality of our own political power structure is that despite the primacy of our financial markets and our contemporary rituals of democracy, powerful corporations, unions and special interest groups fund political campaigns and exact repayment in the form of enormous influence on legislation. Our government is responsive primarily to these organizations, rather than to citizens. This resembles the corporatism of Mussolini’s Italy more closely than any historic democracy. We are blind to the connection between corporatism and the lack of public interest in politics and in the common good.

In our enthusiasm for the dogma that any government interference is necessarily bad, we forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

This is not meant to imply that everything government does is beneficial. But to start from the faith that everything government does is necessarily harmful not only disregards history; it sacrifices the ability, and even the interest, to distinguish between the beneficial and the harmful.

Just as the value of government needs to be assessed independent of dogma, the value of the free market has to be gauged in the real world. Free markets provide incentives for innovation. They enforce pragmatism at the expense of ideology. They fit production to needs and desires of consumers and they lower the price of goods. But free markets can also cause problems. Some of these stem from the pre-eminence of the short term. This endangers long-term prosperity.

Independently, free markets encourage an extreme concentration of wealth that has historically destroyed the fabric of society and led to a lower standard of living for everyone. Government intervention may be our only defense against the natural economic forces that lead to such a concentration of wealth. But the prevailing libertarian/laissez faire credo, even though it may be held by intelligent and well-meaning individuals, blinds us to both the danger and the potential for any response that is not generated by the free market itself. Our beliefs, despite the sincerity with which we hold them, lead us astray.

 

[kaz]

Sadly there is no overarching canon of beliefs that defines LIBERTARIANISM

No, but there are traits like that we recognize that liberty doesn't come from government

 

[chikenwing]

If your approach is so great, why hasn’t any country anywhere in the world ever tried it?

Why are there no libertarian countries? If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?

It’s not as though there were a shortage of countries to experiment with libertarianism. There are 193 sovereign state members of the United Nations—195, if you count the Vatican and Palestine, which have been granted observer status by the world organization. If libertarianism was a good idea, wouldn’t at least one country have tried it? Wouldn’t there be at least one country, out of nearly two hundred, with minimal government, free trade, open borders, decriminalized drugs, no welfare state and no public education system?

The question libertarians just can?t answer - Salon.com

Libertarian Tom Woods answers this question on his blog, by asking a series of other questions.

For some reason, the finger-waggers at Salon think they’ve got us stumped with this one: “If your approach is so great, why hasn’t any country in the world ever tried it?”

So this is the unanswerable question? What’s supposed to be so hard about it? Ninety percent of what libertarians write about answers it at least implicitly.

Let’s reword the question slightly, in order to draw out the answer. You’ll note that when stated correctly, the question contains an implicit non sequitur.

(1) “If your approach is so great, why doesn’t local law enforcement want to give up the money, supplies, and authority that come from the drug war?”

(2) “If your approach is so great, why don’t big financial firms prefer to stand or fall on their merits, and prefer bailouts instead?”

(3) “If your approach is so great, why do people prefer to earn a living by means of special privilege instead of by honest production?”

(4) “If your approach is so great, why does the military-industrial complex prefer its revolving-door arrangement and its present strategy of fleecing the taxpayers via its dual strategy of front-loading and political engineering?”

(5) “If your approach is so great, why do businessmen often prefer subsidies and special privileges?”

?The Question Libertarians Just Can?t Answer? | Tom Woods

However, there are a few comments I'd like to make regarding the article.



Here we see that the author doesn't really have a firm grasp on libertarianism. Privatized Social Security and school vouchers are not libertarian-approved policies. A libertarian would not privatize Social Security, a libertarian would abolish Social Security and let people prepare for their own retirements in any way that they choose to do so. A libertarian is also uninterested in school vouchers, and would rather privatize education completely and let schools compete for the business of children's parents by offering different rates and styles of education.



As for this, my question is: Can the author point out to us one absolutely liberal or progressive country, and one absolutely conservative country? There are no such countries. Governments are never purely one ideology or another for any sustained period of time. The Soviet Union was forced to enact certain market reforms even under Lenin, and even today China's "communist" government openly embraces the market in many instances.

Libertarianism has never even been tried on the scale of a modern nation-state, even a small one, anywhere in the world.

This is patently false. Many libertarians, including many anarcho-capitalists, hold the Articles of Confederation, which governed the United States from 1776-1787, with a certain fondness, and one could even argue that a strict interpretation of the Constitution is libertarian as well, though perhaps not as good as the Articles.

The Heritage Foundation is free to define economic freedom however it likes, by its own formula weighting government size, freedom of trade, absence of regulation and so on. What about factors other than economic freedom that shape the quality of life of citizens?

How about education? According to the CIA World Fact book, the U.S. spends more than Mauritius—5.4 percent of GDP in 2009 compared to only 3.7 percent in Mauritius in 2010. For the price of that extra expenditure, which is chiefly public, the U.S. has a literacy rate of 99 percent, compared to only 88.5 percent in economically-freer Mauritius.

Infant mortality? In economically-more-free Mauritius there are about 11 deaths per 1,000 live births—compared to 5.9 in the economically-less-free U.S. Maternal mortality in Mauritius is at 60 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 21 in the U.S. Economic liberty comes at a price in human survival, it would seem. Oh, well—at least Mauritius is economically free!

The only response to this is that correlation does not equal causation. That Mauritius is allegedly more economically free does not mean that that is the reason that their infant mortality rate is higher than the U.S.'s. Rather, it's likely that, even if they technically have a freer economy, their economy is not as developed as the United States. Nor is the Heritage Foundation claiming that Mauritius is better than the U.S. in general. Their claim has only to do with economic freedom, not development as a whole.

So basically, what we have here is a poor attempt to discredit libertarianism, which is easily answered as evidenced by Tom Woods' response, a series of incorrect statements regarding libertarianism and history, and a few illogical extrapolations from economic freedom indicies from a few conservative, not even libertarian, think tanks.

Simply,it takes a fair measure of honest objectivity and maturity in all things to be a libertarian. Man hasn't matured enough yet.

 

[kaz]

Simply,it takes a fair measure of honest objectivity and maturity in all things to be a libertarian. Man hasn't matured enough yet.

While there is certainly some truth in that statement, the follow on to your thought that ... so we should let government do it for us because they will do it better ... is far less honest, objective or mature by a wide margin.

 

[Bfgrn]

Sadly there is no overarching canon of beliefs that defines LIBERTARIANISM

No, but there are traits like that we recognize that liberty doesn't come from government

Really? We forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

You really can't understand it Kevin, or is it you don't want to accept the truth.

THE seminal question with libertarianism is to what extreme? Because if taken to full extreme in is most certainly 'freedom' and 'liberty', but it is the 'freedom' and 'liberty' of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. It ends very poorly.

I can understand it perfectly fine, and whether or not it's the truth depends on your own ideological stance. I can obviously point out that libertarians, who have no political power in the United States, and their political and economic views, generally Austrian free market economics, cannot possibly be to blame for the "present malaise." That's simple logic. No libertarians in power and Austrian economics not being anything close to the dominant economic view in the past century means that they can't be at fault.

As an icon of the right former president used to preface his comments: "Well..." you're wrong Kevin.

Although no one from the libertarian party has been elected president, Republicans have certainly practiced and preached the political and economic views of laissez faire, Austrian free market economics and minimal or no government intervention in the market. It is what led to the recent collapse of our economy. It is even the philosophical basis of the egregious right wing robes Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling.

(more for) Blind Faith

Even our own internal comparisons fail to flatter laissez faire. Over the past half-century we have seen lower tax rates and less government interference. We have come a long way toward free enterprise from the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since the Kennedy Administration we have reduced the marginal tax rate on our highest incomes from the 91% that remained in effect from the 1940s into the mid-1960s (and a brief peak of 94% during World War II) to 28% in the 1986 tax code. Yet our economic growth has slowed.

Decade Average Real GNP per Capita GNP Growth
1960-1969 4.18% 2.79%
1970-1979 3.18% 2.09%
1980-1989 2.75% 1.81%
1990-1994 1.95% 0.79%

Despite our adoption of the most enlightened free market policies, our performance resembles that of a declining Great Britain in the late nineteenth century. “Britain soon lost what early lead it possessed. Industrial production, which had grown at an annual rate of 4 percent in the period 1820 to 1840 and about 3 percent between 1840 and 1870 became more sluggish; between 1875 and 1890 it grew at just over 1.5 percent annually, far less than that of the country’s chief rivals… finally, British industry found itself weakened by an ever rising tide of imported foreign manufactures into the unprotected home market — the clearest sign that the country was becoming uncompetitive.” (Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, p. 228.)

Although our government policies have been increasingly laissez faire and increasingly friendly to corporate America, our investment, productivity and economic growth have all lagged. Similarly, as the world has moved toward purer capitalism, worldwide economic growth has slowed. From 5.5% in the 1960s, world GNP growth declined to 3.4% in the 1970s, 3.2% in the 1980s, and further in the 1990s. (Maddison, Monitoring the World’s Economy 1820-1992, p. 227.) It is likely to decline still further in this first decade of the new millennium.



It may seem odd, given the parabolic arc of our financial markets and the swelling chorus of paeans to free market economics, but despite the important role of the market, purer free market economies have consistently underperformed well-focused mixed economies. In the latter part of the nineteenth century the mixed economies of Meiji Japan and Bismarck’s Germany clearly outperformed the free market economies of Britain and France. Our own economy grew faster when we abandoned the laissez faire of the 1920s and early 1930s for the proto-socialist policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It has become increasingly sluggish as we have moved back to a purer free market. Data of the past few decades show that our GNP and productivity growth have lagged those of our trading partners, who have mixed economies characterized by moderate government intervention.

The persistently mediocre track record of laissez faire casts doubt on the claim that an economy free from government interference invariably maximizes the wealth of society. In fact, there are sound reasons the pure free market must underperform well-focused mixed economies.

But despite laissez faire’s mediocre track record and despite powerful arguments that it cannot possibly provide what it promises, the notion of the unqualified benefit of the free market has become deeply embedded in our mythology. Apologists have exulted in claims that glorify free market mythology at the expense of reality, and also at the expense of society. Free market principles, even though they have failed in economics, have been eagerly applied to sectors ranging from politics to education, where they have contributed to societal dysfunction.

One politically popular myth, that free market economics and government non-intervention provide the basis for true democracy, flies in the face of history. The first democrats, the classical Athenians, had a word for the ideal free marketer, the homo economicus, working for his own economic gain but unconcerned with the community. It was not particularly complimentary, the ancestor of our word “idiot.” Pericles expressed the sentiment underlying this: “We regard the citizen who takes no part in these [public] duties not as un-ambitious but as useless…”

We have ignored the ramifications of this as we remodeled our pantheon. We have replaced the notion of public-spirited citizens interested in the common weal, a vital part of democratic thought from ancient Athens to our founding fathers, by the invisible hand of the free market. This promises to maximize benefit for society, if only we will be idiots.

In so far as it fails to value disinterested public spirit, free market doctrine only pretends to cherish democracy. Let the people concentrate on their economic gain while their leaders rule in any manner they choose. The Peoples’ Republic of China instituted free market reforms to sustain its autocratic political regime. Augusto Pinochet brutally repressed even mild political dissent while pursuing free market economic policies in Chile.

The reality of our own political power structure is that despite the primacy of our financial markets and our contemporary rituals of democracy, powerful corporations, unions and special interest groups fund political campaigns and exact repayment in the form of enormous influence on legislation. Our government is responsive primarily to these organizations, rather than to citizens. This resembles the corporatism of Mussolini’s Italy more closely than any historic democracy. We are blind to the connection between corporatism and the lack of public interest in politics and in the common good.

In our enthusiasm for the dogma that any government interference is necessarily bad, we forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

This is not meant to imply that everything government does is beneficial. But to start from the faith that everything government does is necessarily harmful not only disregards history; it sacrifices the ability, and even the interest, to distinguish between the beneficial and the harmful.

Just as the value of government needs to be assessed independent of dogma, the value of the free market has to be gauged in the real world. Free markets provide incentives for innovation. They enforce pragmatism at the expense of ideology. They fit production to needs and desires of consumers and they lower the price of goods. But free markets can also cause problems. Some of these stem from the pre-eminence of the short term. This endangers long-term prosperity.

Independently, free markets encourage an extreme concentration of wealth that has historically destroyed the fabric of society and led to a lower standard of living for everyone. Government intervention may be our only defense against the natural economic forces that lead to such a concentration of wealth. But the prevailing libertarian/laissez faire credo, even though it may be held by intelligent and well-meaning individuals, blinds us to both the danger and the potential for any response that is not generated by the free market itself. Our beliefs, despite the sincerity with which we hold them, lead us astray.

OK everyone. Flames of any kind should be extinguished in the threaad. The mountain of strawmen in here is at dangerous levels.

 

[kaz]

Sadly there is no overarching canon of beliefs that defines LIBERTARIANISM

No, but there are traits like that we recognize that liberty doesn't come from government

Really? We forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

Ignoring the silly parts, like that the government ended the Great Depression, you didn't understand what I said. Government does not create liberty. Do you understand what the Constitution is? That is a perfect example of the point.

 

[Bfgrn]

OK everyone. Flames of any kind should be extinguished in the threaad. The mountain of strawmen in here is at dangerous levels.

Please run along sonny, adults are talking here. Children should be seen and not heard.

 

[Bfgrn]

No, but there are traits like that we recognize that liberty doesn't come from government

Really? We forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

Ignoring the silly parts, like that the government ended the Great Depression, you didn't understand what I said. Government does not create liberty. Do you understand what the Constitution is? That is a perfect example of the point.

The Constitution was created by WHOM?

 

[TemplarKormac]

Sadly there is no overarching canon of beliefs that defines LIBERTARIANISM

No, but there are traits like that we recognize that liberty doesn't come from government

Really? We forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

Government action that enforced Jim Crow, endorsed slavery, banned women from voting, wilfully discriminated against Chinese immigrants in the 1800's, and is now targeting people with certain political affiliations, spying on them, and lying to them about it's behavior overseas.

A government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Remember that. Liberty doesn't come from government.

Or did you ever read the Federalist Papers? I gather you didn't from you half-witted responses.

 

[g5000]

This is patently false. Many libertarians, including many anarcho-capitalists, hold the Articles of Confederation, which governed the United States from 1776-1787, with a certain fondness, and one could even argue that a strict interpretation of the Constitution is libertarian as well, though perhaps not as good as the Articles.

There's a reason that period only lasted 11 years. And it really only lasted a little over 5 years. From the end of the war in 1781 to the Convention of 1787.

There would not even be a United States today if we had continued on that path.

So to look back with a "certain fondness" on that period is to be willfully blind to the realities which necessitated the end of that foolish experiment. If there is one thing I have learned about Libertarians, it is they do not live in the real world and wear rose colored welder's glasses when viewing the past.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Really? We forget it was government action that ended child labor. It was government action that outlawed slavery, despite its profitability. It was government action that ended the Great Depression, after years of failure of nonintervention. It was government action that curbed the most virulent expressions of racism, that provided an education for the great majority, that created a large stable middle class. The free market did not achieve any of these goods, and there is no indication that it ever would have done so.

Ignoring the silly parts, like that the government ended the Great Depression, you didn't understand what I said. Government does not create liberty. Do you understand what the Constitution is? That is a perfect example of the point.

The Constitution was created by WHOM?

A government which you most certainly would label as extremist.