Quote:
Originally Posted by t_roy
As a libertarian, I favor a government that protects private property rights (and everything that springs from them) and that is essentially all (although that does include quite a bit.) The argument is not at all that it is unfair to moderate the effects of variance. The libertarian argument is that attempting to "moderate the effects of variance on people" not only leads to a overall economy with less wealth but an economy in which almost everyone is worse off long term when compared to a government that simply protects property rights. I could go on and on about why and how this can be, but I think I'll leave that for another thread.
I disagree that we have seen true libertarianism before. Either there was government interference or the government was unable to properly protect property rights. America was basically the closest we got to libertarianism and we did pretty frikin good.
You are stating the argument that is unfortunately put forth by most libertarians. If people really understood that everyone would be better off (despite a large wealth gap) then libertarianism would be much more widely accepted. However, as is the case with many ideas, the vast majority that hold to libertarianism do not understand economics enough to form the best arguments.
I couldn't disagree more. America was not 'pretty frikin good' for the vast majority of Americans from 1850-1942. For much of that period we had what you've described as 'the closest we got to libertarianism'.
Income inequality isn't some little problem that 'balances out in the end' because of human nature. It's human nature to prefer to be the guy making 50k a year in a neighborhood where everyone makes 15k than to be the guy making 100k a year in the neighborhood where everyone makes 300k.
It's also the nature of a truly free market that firms are free to cooperate with each other. And they do. And cooperation is the polar opposite of competition. This leads to monopoly. They were called 'trusts' and they encompassed basically every industry.
If you know a fair bit about microeconomics you understand that monopolies are bad economically with significant dead weight loss.
The place where we disagree pretty strongly is that Libertarians believe that people are intrinsically good and won't actively screw other people over... And I know for a fact that humans are on the aggregate animals who aggressively pursue their own interests at the expense of others. This is what happens when you know a lot about history and economics... You start to realize that math that contradicts history is flawed somehow.