The Libertarian Delusion

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Here is an article by Robert Kuttner. Have at it.

 

http://prospect.org/article/libertarian-delusion

[AncapFTW]

I read the first two paragraphs and gave up on reading it.  The thing read like a stuck up kid lecturing another kid on what "the truth" was. 

 

For example:

 

"The price of carbon-based energy is “correct”—it reflects what consumers will pay and what producers can supply—if you leave out the fact that carbon is destroying a livable planet. Markets are not competent to price this problem. Only governments can do that. In formal economics, this anomaly is described by the bloodless word “externality”—meaning costs (or benefits) external to the immediate transaction. Libertarian economists treat externalities as minor exceptions."

 

In other words "I believe Carbon is a major issue, and therefore I think the government, as the great and wise leader we all know it to be, should tell us what is fair.  Let's completely forget that if other people thought as I did they would pay extra for clean power, which would shift the market towards producing more clean power.  I think we need to use violence to make everyone follow my beliefs."

 

The way they just assume that the free market can't fix a problem, and that, obviously, the government and it's use of force is the only way to fix a problem they see, either means they think they are smarter than most other people, and therefore they should be able to make us do the "smart thing" or that they are so self absorbed that they can't even consider an idea that doesn't fit into their world view.  Probably both.

[J. D. Stembal]

I absolutely loathe the argument, "That's not how the real world works."

 

 

 

The free market doesn’t live up to its billing because of several contradictions between what libertarians contend and the way the real world actually works.

 

I had this pounded into my head by my parents. That's just the way things are. This is how the world works. You can't change it.

 

The health insurance “markets” created by the Affordable Care Act can’t fully address the deeper problem of misplaced resources and excessive costs in our medical system.

 

What markets were created by ACA? Millions of formerly insured were squeezed out due to across the board rate hikes. I am one of them.

 

 

It taxes to provide revenues to pay for public goods that markets under-provide at affordable prices—everything from education to health to research and development.

 

Now, I'm just laughing. The reason that the free market "under provides" for education and scientific research is because the public sector is cock-blocking the free market and keeping most of the capital investment for itself.

 

Social contract... a figment of Uncle Sam's imagination.

 

There would be no internet without government investment. The government has no money to invest.

 

I suppose there would never have been a World War or a nuclear bomb detonated over Japan without the government either, following that logic.

 

Ugh, I only made it 9 paragraphs. I skimmed. Later on, he calls for single payer health care because Democrats lacked the political will to pass a comprehensive government health care initiative, and caused the failure of Obamacare.

 

From where does this idea of politicians "lacking political will" originate? Doesn't everyone know that they are bribed just to get into office at any level? There is no such thing as political will when your agenda has been swallowed up by the Leviathan!

[Alan C.]

Robert Kuttner: political commentator, senior fellow at a left-liberal think tank, college professor, and journalist. No wonder he is so ignorant.

 

Could there have been an Internet without the State? Tom Woods interview.

 

The myth that government created the internet

 

...the defense department’s ARPANET project (started in 1969) only occurred because of earlier inventions by capitalists.

 

IBM and ATT had major labs and were vitally interested in computers talking to one another as early as the late 1950s and early 1960s. Bell Labs invented UNIX in 1969; it made the internet possible. IBM invented FORTRAN and hard drives in 1956. Bell transmitted packet data over lines in 1958. Texas Instruments invented integrated circuits in 1958. In 1961 Leonard Kleinrock published a paper on packet switching networks. Bell Labs made the first modem in 1961. The mouse was invented in 1963. Digital Equipment Corporation produced the first minicomputer in 1964. In 1965 time sharing at MIT and mail command started. Intel began in 1968. The year 1966 saw the first use of fiber optics to carry telephone signals.