The article says we are in the problems we have now b/c 3 people who explicitly believe in libertarian or libertarian like ideas followed their philosophy and deregulated specific portions of the market.
The added, and somewhat implicit premise, is that these actions are logically implied by libertarianism, since libertarians are known for logical consistency and the people at fault are a good example of this libertarian virtue.
Thus, their failure of policy is an implied failure of libertarianism. This is analogous, which the article points out, with the failure of communism - the best practical example of the ideology in practice is unsuccessful thus invalidating the ideology.
So, claiming that we don't have a free market does not address the argument the article makes. Instead, it is like the communists claiming communism hasn't worked so far only b/c it hasn't been implemented purely. Even if this is true, arguments like this only mean that the proposed philosophy is practically unworkable, since it is not possible to purely implement any ideology.
Ummm...No. The article says that this is a failure of libertarianism because the 3 people you mentioned believe in libertarian ideals and their policies led to the current economic failures.
The person responded that those 3 people failed to create a free market and you then countered by saying they did the best any people could.
If those 3 people were in turn the very pinacle of competence than your counter argument would hold some weight but that's clearly not what the original comment is saying.
They're saying those 3 people failed to live up to the ideas of libertarianism and so their actions are not a good example of the libertarian ideal.
I don't even agree (at least not fully) with the person you replied to but I can see how your logic is flawed here.
I would agree that the crash doesn't refute libertarianism to the extent that libertarianism demands a completely free market. On the other hand, the chances of libertarians getting their way in a large-scale society like the US is exactly nil, and there's an excellent case to be made that injecting libertarian-motivated policies in a non-libertarian environment, for no reason beyond their agreement with libertarian ideology, can be more disastrous than the alternatives.
I have a friend who was beginning to think anarchism was the way to go, but I nipped that thought in the bud by pointing out that the arguments for anarchism are highly intellectual and incapable of swaying the masses. The same is true of libertarianism.
Democratic and socialist revolutions had their origins in highly intellectual arguments, but the confrontations their ideologies demanded were easily translated into something that the non-intellectual populace could forcibly get behind (to whatever extend this was actually necessary). It's hard to see how you'd sway a majority of the American populace into backing the sort of completely free market libertarians want to see. And if that's not doable, libertarian proponents would better spend their time figuring out how to make a decidedly interventionist society work more efficiently.
> On the other hand, the chances of libertarians getting their way in a large-scale society like the US is exactly nil, and there's an excellent case to be made that injecting libertarian-motivated policies in a non-libertarian environment, for no reason beyond their agreement with libertarian ideology, can be more disastrous than the alternatives.
Exactly; the funny thing about government intervention is that it ends up creating a need for more government intervention. Regarding the current financial debacle, a libertarian might oppose further regulation of financial institutions, but given the reality that the government has proven that it will bail them out when the going gets tough, they would probably just create the same problems again.
A libertarian would just say that we shouldn't bail them out, and maybe they're right, but a half-successful libertarian campaign would just result in more "heads I win tails you lose" bets by the financial sector and would be worse than either a more heavily regulated economy or (if the libertarians are right) an unregulated economy.
I agree that we’ll probably never see true, pure libertarianism in American Society.
But part of guiding society (as you suggest) is trying to push it towards an ideal even if you know it will never fully reach that ideal. The issue here is "what ideology led to our current economic problems" and the author (and yters above) is trying to say these 3 men claimed to adhere to libertarian principles so that means libertarianism caused this problem. That’s simply not true.
The fact is this problem started when the U.S. government started encouraging loans to people with bad credit (which started with Bill Clinton but has continued through the Bush Administration). Banks felt empowered to give risky loans because they were all but guaranteed (and through this bail out actually guaranteed) by the U.S. Government. This was done during the tenure of the men being mentioned above and is the antithesis of libertarian ideals.
So the question is never "will we ever achieve a true libertarian society" its "how can we push society to be as libertarian as possible." The biggest component in doing that is making sure libertarian principles don’t get blamed for things they weren’t responsible for.
> But part of guiding society (as you suggest) is trying to push it towards an ideal even if you know it will never fully reach that ideal.
Right, but again, my point is that pushing for libertarian-motivated policies for no reason other than that they agree with libertarian ideology doesn't always make sense given the ecology of non-libertarian policies they have to interact with. It can make things worse.
If there's to be any pushing towards an ideal, it has to be done in a way that ensures the stability of the modified system. If it doesn't, those making the push are justifiably responsible for the problems that arise.
Look, clearly people should use their best judgment when making decisions and I don’t think anyone is saying otherwise. But you’re pushing compromise as an ideal and that’s just wrong.
An ideal is an ideal and compromise is what people do to make their ideals compatible and create an actual system of government.
So what you want comes out in the process because, as you said, a society run by politicians is going to be interventionist by its very nature and people with Libertarian ideas are going to have to compromise. But if the people with Libertarian ideals don’t come to the table firm in their own beliefs they end up compromising even more than they normally would.
Which (bringing it back to the housing bubble) is exactly how we ended up in this situation. People with libertarian views were willing to compromise to the point where what actually got implemented is the polar opposite of libertarianism and the result was disaster.
There is a problem with the type of ideal you describe.
If (as previous comments suggest) libertarian ideal is something that only works in its entirety, then introducing a 'libertarian law' outside of a libertarian system is damaging. It may be a step towards the completion of you ideal in a very general way, but if it doesn't get you closer to it, doesn't improve the intermediary state etc. etc. , then it's not a good law.
Actually I think yters deals with your sort of complaint. He deals with it fatalistically. Libertarians will continue to say that libertarianism never had a clear shot. Communists will continue to say the same. Both are not particularly easy to test. This argument is stuck when you encounter this.
But we do have a situation that is not high level theory that we need to make a decision about: We can push Governments to be more/less liberation, elect libertarian politicians etc. etc. What are the likely consequences of these actions assuming that an imperfect world exists where there will be opposition from politicians of different opinions etc.
Many of the problems were blatantly and directly caused by Government intervention, for example when they forced lower lending standards on banks in the name of anti-racism. And Fannie and Freddie were not private companies. One thing they did was use their connection to the Government to get better deals than any private company could get (because dealing with the Government = no risk. The tax payers won't all go broke.)
I am hearing this claim more often these days, that the government somehow caused this by 'forcing' lower lending standards, but I don't know of a factual reference. Can you help me out?
The idea of home ownership for minorities probably does appeal to politicians, especially Democrats. But my understanding is that the real engine here was a worldwide glut of capital, creating demand for new sorts of high-yield securities, such as the now famous securitized mortgage pools. Finally, the worst of it only became possible with deregulation, which incents fraud committed by thousands of individual lenders (particularly victimizing low-income people).
In other words I can easily imagine a Kennedy signing a bill and proclaiming "mortgages for all!" but the real force behind such a bill would be on Wall Street.
There's a bill called the Community Reinvestment act or something like that, except that the minorities who got their mortgages through that act have a <i>lower</i> rate of default than the general population.
I didn't really find anything helpful, but there is a story that's going around conservative blogs that it was the liberals' obsession with extending credit to minorities that ultimately caused the crisis.
There's a lot of things wrong with that story. This American Life just did a segment on it. They point out that the problem really originates elsewhere, on Wall Street, and that both conservatives and liberals share the blame here. Listen to the second segment of this episode:
The added, and somewhat implicit premise, is that these actions are logically implied by libertarianism, since libertarians are known for logical consistency and the people at fault are a good example of this libertarian virtue.
Thus, their failure of policy is an implied failure of libertarianism. This is analogous, which the article points out, with the failure of communism - the best practical example of the ideology in practice is unsuccessful thus invalidating the ideology.
So, claiming that we don't have a free market does not address the argument the article makes. Instead, it is like the communists claiming communism hasn't worked so far only b/c it hasn't been implemented purely. Even if this is true, arguments like this only mean that the proposed philosophy is practically unworkable, since it is not possible to purely implement any ideology.