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Why I am NOT a Libertarian
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Why I am NOT a Libertarian (I assume the software is automatically rejecting this. There isn't a thing in the world about it that violates the TOS.) Why I am NOT a Libertarian
If we must deal in snappy slogans, I'd say that Libertarians are Liberals who misconstrue, misunderstand, or misunderestimate (sic.) the significance of Milton Friedman's notion of externalities. To be specific, consider public education (in all its forms, including subsidized higher education and research) as a positive externality: the benefits to society are greater than the costs to the actors (parents, educational institutions). Therefore government should be in the "business" of financing public education with taxation - and regulating it via public standards. If you think American aren't very well educated now, imagine living in a society where half the adults can't read or write a single word, because their parents couldn't afford to send them to school. That is the case in most Third World countries. Democracy can't be very effective under such conditions, right? And would such a populace be attractive to high-tech employers? Hard to train employees who can't read. A similar argument goes for transportation infrastructure. Toll roads might be acceptable as a way of financing large interstate highways, or reducing urban congestion, but do you want to pay a nickel to go to the grocery store? (Actually the notion of general taxation represents a pretty good economy of scale in itself. Instead of having 50 different entities which might own the roads in your area, there are - at most - three. Turns out that the American transportation system was originally Balkanized by the free market 80 years ago, when it took Eisenhower several months to cross the country in a military convoy. That's one reason we have the US and interstate highway systems now.) Worker, consumer, and environmental protection statutes deal with negative externalities, i.e. those activities whose costs are not borne by the actors. If an employee is exposed to dangerous working conditions or toxic chemicals on the job site, the employer might pocket a few extra bucks, but society will bear the costs of the worker's loss of a productive future. Not to mention the people who live near a polluting industrial plant -- never mind the human rights issues ... if they're too poor to sue, are we going to let them die of cancer without treatment? Let's not forget their who grow up with diminished mental capacity. (Incarceration isn't cheap: no nation can make a living off the "internal security economy." If you think police, prisons, and armed gaurds generate wealth, then I suggest you relocate to certain South American countries in which kidnapping is considered the norm.) And no consumer can possibly get enough information to purchase the enormous myriad of products available on the market today ... information is itself a "transaction cost," which health and safety regulation spreads over the whole of society. Exploding television sets? Food contaminated by pathogens? Um, well - as with transportation infrastructure - we tried addressing these problems without governmental action prior to the early 20th Century. (Lawsuits have been around since the founding of this country. By themselves, they weren't enough to make consumer products safe for the public.) The market failed: Americans demanded safe working conditions, safe food and consumer products, clean water and air, toxic waste cleanups, etc. And for that reason, their confidence in the market and the society increased ... thus making them more willing to purchase products, change jobs, start businesses, or relocate to different parts of the country. Their confidence was also bolstered by banking, securities, antitrust, and financial services regulation - all of which Libertarians oppose. (That's why most folks don't keep their life savings under their mattresses anymore!) Don't care for unions? True, there's a lot not to like about their history. But look at the distribution of income before employees had the right to organize. Sure, it was illegal to hire gangs of thugs to beat up troublesome employees, but the local authorities were easy to bribe. Few societies with a highly-skewed income distribution have either an effective legal system, nor a genuinely functional democracy. We're not talking socialism here. It's strict capitalist economics: costs; benefits; actors; and incentives. I'll grant you that regulation costs money. Overzealous enforcement eventually ends up hurting the very folks whom it's designed to protect. But naked "robber baron" capitalism has never been successful in creating a consumer-based economy with a broad income distribution that supports the strong rule of law and democratic institutions which enable the free market most effectively. Think of it like this: if you oppose socialism because all the wealth is in government hands, and therefore true democracy is impossible, then "naked capitalism" does the obverse - it puts all the power in the hands of a powerful oligarchy that ends up controlling the government and the market - both of which end up being UNfree as a result. And without democracy and a robust rule of law, you can have neither civil liberties, nor a vibrant free market. In that sense, Libertarianism (like socialism) ultimately contains the "seeds of its own destruction." (Apologies to Hegel, but not Marx.) Modern liberal democracies - with their concomittent, admittedly inefficient regulatory frameworks - operate like a fulcrum that balances the power of capital and government in a way that gives the people (as voters, workers, and consumers) their best chance to tip the scales. In that sense, the vitality of the free market, the robust rule of law, and the strength of democracy itself are the ultimate "external benefits" of the very taxation, regulation, and other governmental activities so thoroughly detested by Libertarians.  |
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