The difference is there are plenty of countries that are run well for the most part by various governments. Please list me ONE successful country in modern time that is run as a libertarian form of government.
It lasted longer than that and would have had a chance were it not for Acts of Franco. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Fko5fYIBJFU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
There has never been an attempt at a modern time libertarian country. There have been numerous failed attempts at state-run countries in modern times. But you're missing the point. It's an ethical position that holds the state is illegitimate to begin with, so to debate the "success" of one relative to the other is a mistake. Debate the legitimacy of a state, and then you can debate the "best" type of state if you find it to be legitimate. You cannot declare states to be legitimate simply because they already exist. PS - On my phone so forgive sloppiness
States are illegitimate in their current form, yes. But regarding the topic at hand, I really enjoyed the article. Very well written, and shines light on how the theory of free markets is constantly hammered into people's minds from the minute they can understand until the day they die. People do actually believe that the market has some sort of right to freedom, and that those rights are in harmony with some mythical natural law.
Questioning if you've read Homage to Catalonia if you really believe that. The anarchist parts of the Republic fell apart for reasons that really didn't have to do with Franco.
I think I've read everything Orwell ever wrote, and the infighting he describes amongst the radical left is pretty much unchanged...and it's been that way since the First International. The Soviets and their useful idiots were the only major power that offered "help" to the Republic. Had the UK or US answered the call for help, even if just equipment or supplies or had Franco not ascended into prominance and solicited help from Italy and Germany, Catalonia at least might have survived as a successor state, true to its syndicalist form. It was my best attempt at trying to come up with a modern liberatarian state. I could say the Paris Commune, but that would really be reaching.
not really, it fosters innovation, gears up production, muffles dissent, and inspires selflessness and hard work
Well it is all well and good in philosophy 101, in after class discusssions or in sci-fi novels to put forward abstractions. For instance: What is the good? What is evil. How do I know I exist.? Let's imagine how a continent (no countries/ states. please!) with a billion or two could function without the "state". Yeah, it is so unethical to not allow a person to be hungry or ill because omg democratically enacted (I know you are not a believer in democracy) tax laws made by the the greatest evil i.e. a state, tax (steal per libertarians) from other folks to give the hungry and sick money to buy food or healthcare. I know; imagine that if there is no big bad state with its unethical takings i.e taxes everyone would evolve to a level in which everybody would willingly give some food to the hungry so that problem goes away. Let's assume or hope or theorize that without the evils state we would willingly have a cut back on carbon emissions to save us from climate change? Difficult to do so? Simple let's just deny so that problem goes away. Would all this college bull level imagining be that important? Not really but the kernels of "libertarianism" have been exceedinlgy useful to the very rich to justify and maintain their wealth. They have funded and helped spread the tenants of "libertariansim" beyond the small journals and its minor niche in philosophy. Hence we have guys like Paul Ryan who has said Ayn Rand inspired him to go into politics where he votes to take away food stamps from poor people.
For one prominent example of the very wealthy pushing the obscure phiilosophy of libertarianism into the mainstream. *********** Yasha Levine and Mark Ames September 27, 2011 | This article appeared in the October 17, 2011 edition of The Nation. There’s right-wing hypocrisy, and then there’s this: Charles Koch, billionaire patron of free-market libertarianism, privately championed the benefits of Social Security to Friedrich Hayek, the leading laissez-faire economist of the twentieth century. Koch even sent Hayek a government pamphlet to help him take advantage of America’s federal retirement insurance and healthcare programs. Mark Ames and Yasha Levine 87 comments This extraordinary correspondence regarding Social Security began in early June 1973, weeks after Koch was appointed president of the Institute for Humane Studies. Along with his brothers, Koch inherited his father’s privately held oil company in 1967, becoming one of the richest men in America. He used this fortune to help turn the IHS, then based in Menlo Park, California, into one of the world’s foremost libertarian think tanks. Soon after taking over as president, Koch invited Hayek to serve as the institute’s “distinguished senior scholar” in preparation for its first conference on Austrian economics, to be held in June 1974. http://www.thenation.com/article/163672/charles-koch-friedrich-hayek-use-social-security#
I think it is pretty clear Reich stands unrebutted on the myth of the free market. by the conservatives and libertarians on the board. Some musings about possible societies that have never existed is about the best the libertarians and conservatives could do. And yet it will be their fall back position on ever policy choice from food stamps to minimum wage to what to do about climate change.
Every economy that doesn't use the free market is a joke. Good to see this thread barely made 2 pages. Does not deserve more.
