 8 Jan 2009 @ 20:41
Economic Libertarianism has never been tried. Or it had never been tried until now, as it has during the Bush-Cheney presidency. So says Robert Brent Topilin a Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The article published on History News Network almost 4 years ago is stunning by its foresight:
Bush and other libertarian-style thinkers that have gained prominence in Washington, D.C. in recent decades champion markets in the extreme. They are enthusiasts of laissez faire who oppose governmental intervention in the affairs of individuals and businesses. Libertarians prefer to reduce government’s activities to a few essential services such as defending the public from foreign threats and protecting citizens from criminals. They seek the privatization of state-run programs (such as Social Security) and massive tax cuts. Often they advance their goal of limited government by squeezing the budgets of social programs.
(More here)
The above 2007 strip from Slowpoke Comics by Jen Sorensen says it well. It is satirical of course, and as such a bit caricatural in its portrayal of the L World, but its basic point is sound. Or, more specifically, as Jacob Weisberg put it:
”…neglecting to prevent the crash of '08 was a sin of omission—less the result of deregulation per se than of disbelief in financial regulation as a legitimate mechanism.
[ Oct. 18, 2008]
Understandably defenders of free market fundamentalism (and its most predictable and immediate consequence: unchecked plutocracy and corporate feudalism) have been scrambling like mad to try and reshape perception and dissociate themselves from the economic policies (or lack thereof) of the Bush-Cheney era.
Some good might come out of all of this: Cato recently posted a long soul searching essay by Roderick Long: here.
Talk to the hand?
“It's not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring”
---Spanish Proverb
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9 Jan 2009 @ 14:30
