Little help wiht "Prove a Libertarian are Wrong"

[rbaradoy]

http://thedailybanter.com/2012/12/how-to-quickly-prove-a-libertarian-wrong/

 

any thoughts would help me on this one.

 

Thanks

 

Ross

[Mister Mister]

First of all I would point out that the whole article assumes a utilitarian POV, that capitalism has to prove itself to be "good for everyone", which is a nonsense concept.  The burden of proof is not on those who advocate capitalism, but on those who wish to initiate force through the State.  But, if I'm to play their game, I'll take a quick stab.

 

#1.  This is relative.  Markets can be relatively free, or relatively controlled.  You have to look at the growth and improvement over time, relative to the amount of freedom in the market.

#2.  Health Insurance in modern America is a terrible example of free markets, as it is a heavily regulated industry.  The best example would be something like tech and software, which gets better and cheaper every year, is readily available to the poor, and easy to get in as an entrepreneur.  Also, the US is responsible for most of the innovation in the Health sector.  All the socialized health care systems in Europe and Canada and other places, use drugs and technologies developed by evil profit-seeking companies in the US

#3.  Tax cuts as a Republican policy, specifically under Reagan and GW Bush, did not go along with spending cuts.  That's not what libertarians advocate at all.  Also, there's no mention of debt or unfunded liabilities here.

#4.  This is a very complex issue, one facet of which is race:  Norway is a very homogenous white, high IQ society, which is funny because multicultural liberals have such a hard-on for places like this, along with Finland, Denmark, and Iceland: the whitest places on Earth!  But again, this is very confusing.  The article concedes that US is actually not a free market, but also presumably all of our problems are to blame on the free market.  The fact that we have 10-30 million illegal immigrants subsidized by the government, from 3rd world countries may have something to do with wealth inequality.  Also, the Federal Reserve System and Regulatory Capture  probably have something to do with it.  And yes, in a free market there will be wealth inequality, as there are vast differences in peoples' capacities.  But the benefits of capital accumulation and technological innovation accrue to everyone.

#5.  Wait...weren't they just saying American capitalism is bad, now America is not capitalist???  Also, do any Libertarians argue this point?  They're a tiny political minority who has great objections to all kinds of US government policies, from the military to monetary policy to economic regulations etc...so it's a complete strawman to say that the modern US represents libertarianism at all.  And don't get me started on Chomsky - he's pretty good on foreign policy, but on domestic/economic issues, he just makes blanket assertions without ever arguing anything.  This whole article is either incredibly confused or deliberately manipulative - if you really want to discuss these things, you have to start with basic definitions.  Of course they've avoided doing this, because the whole thing is about dismissing your annoying libertarian article with his tired Ayn Randian fantasies...

[Cuffy_Meigs]

Attempting to unravel what the author was trying to say in his first point:

 

#1 One large region of the world - America - had free movement of people, a relatively free market economy and it prospered enormously. Another region - the rest of the world - had a much less free market and did much less well. The two regions were kept separate by a trade barrier. The author concludes that the reason for America's success was the barrier. No other possibilities are examined.

 

#2 As a beneficiary of the tender mercies of the NHS, don't get me started on this subject!

[rbaradoy]

thanks consider this thread closed