juliusaugustus Posted March 2, 2013 Posted March 2, 2013 Just a theory of mine but in my view Minarchism is being used as a way to sell diluted and fake libertarianism and being used as way to control opposition. For example Austrian economists praise a gold standard as if it is this wonderful thing but the reality is that a gold standard benefits the same people who benefit from central baning which is bankers the people who own most of the world's gold. A government gold standard is not free market and it is likely that in a free market we might look beyond currency for other ways to trade. Many libertarian think tanks will defend government run roads and bemoan government run transit however government roads were built in a time when railroads were largely private enterprises and in a free market it is likely that people would use mass transit in far greater number then they do today. Government is the cause of car dependency, global waming, and oil dependency. Many libertarian think tanks defend big business even though many of the big businesses that support libertarianism benefit from government largess. Finally many think tanks support vouchers which really are just subsidies to private schools. My theory is that big business sells people a fake version of libertarianism people will think that it is a philosophy that benefit big business and so libertarians defend big business effectively you have people thinking freedom=bad. The businesses in my view want a situation where they are protected and subsidized by the government but unregulated and untaxed. Your thoughts?
MrCapitalism Posted March 4, 2013 Posted March 4, 2013 Your thoughts? IMO, Excluding Gustave de Molinari, truely principled libertarianism-anarchism is so new that it hasn't even established itself in any way amongst even the rest of the libertarian mindset. Murray Rothbard's generation was really the first that advocated a complete abolishment of government. Even Mises, his teacher and mentor, was a minarchist. It just hasn't been around long enough, and doesn't have enough influence to be a target for co-opting. Minarchism, as you rightly pointed out, was co-opted long long ago.
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