No actually it is facism. Facism is merely a more totalitarian form of corporatism. Corporate Anarchism- damn that is scary.
But if you have minimalist government, you have basically the same thing. What you have is basically no regulation of the most powerful social actors. The most powerful social actors today? Corporations, due to their control of high capita, and probably church groups- because of the political leverage given to Christian ideologies.
Ironic how these are Bush's bases. And note "the worst president thread" explains how he got re-elected.
Oh that plus Rove's smear campaign.
In response-
Bradylama said:
Libertarians aren't quite as homogenous as a lot of people believe. There's enough dissention in the party to keep things from getting too crazy.
Thank God for that.
Indeed. The lynchpin of Libertarian thinking is the non-aggression principle. Basically, people should be well within their means to do what they want, and when they want, so long as they do not violate the rights of or harm others.
Which of course negates hundreds of years of politics. Human beings are inherently aggressive. They are, at root, self-seeking rationally driven maximizers or utility. They will do what is necessary to make a profit, and if someone else loses in the process, sucks for them.
Do you doubt it? Well if so than go back and look at hundreds of years of history- even to those points were government has been at its most minimal. You might find some stone age folks living in perfect tropical paradise, but overall, the history of mankind is driven by war, greed and selfishness. This is not to say that everyone has those motivations... but it only takes a few real pricks to ruin it for the rest of us.
Consider for instance Mancur Olson- who gave us the collective action problem. According to Olson, (Dictatorship, Democracy and Development in APSR I think 1993- or you can read Power and Prosperity)- once you get a group of people over a certain size (perhaps 50-100 people) it becomes difficult to get them to work together due to the collective action problem. Government happens when someone comes in with coercive force and takes over. He is a bandit, and the bandit settles down and calls himself king. He rules by coercion, until the lower ranked lords figure that they can do better without him and overthrow him- so they can profit.
Oh, call me a cynic, but this is healthy cynicism. The problem that Libertarians see that come from "big government" is actually a consequence of "power"- and power is help and wielded not by governments but individuals who bring to the table different resources- money, military power, influence, charisma.
This goes back to ole Hobbes and Locke- the purpose of government is to save us from ourselves. For Hobbes, the sovereign state is a leviathon, but Locke gives us a social contract making government accountable to the people.
The danger is not government, but bad government. And government run by special interests, is especially bad.
What the Libertarians would say is that the state is the instrument of evil. Perhaps. But it is those for whom the state serves as an instrument, that are the real problem.
Would a Libertarian society make the vulnerabilities of the poor more pronounced? Perhaps. I would say that consumer trends and collective action are the best way to ensure that people are protected from harmful business interests. With the government's absence in the picture, there's also a hell of a lot more incentive for consumers to act collectively as opposed to whining to representatives that are themselves in the pockets of corporate interests. Noticed how the power of Labor Unions have diminished as more and more labor laws have been passed?
This is pretty foolish, Brady. "The poor to act collectively?" You're kidding.
You know that the poor have always been handicapped in their ability to overcome collective action. It is not the poor that are the most politically active, but the powerful.
Who benefits from regulation now? Not the poor, but the rich. For the past five years you have social income being transferred from the poor to the rich, not the otherway around. Why? Because the powerful have more voice than the poor.
Example? The feminist movement- a desire by women to get great participation and power both politically and economically. But who benefitted most? Middle and Upper class whites- who were regular campaigners and had greater opportunity to mobilize for their interest. Who lost? Poor and minorities- who didn't have the time, money or ability to organize for collective action.
Consumer protection? From a media that has been deregulated and now owned by fewer hands than before. It used to be that there were limits to how many radio stations or TV stations a company can own- now they are owned by fewer hands. Do you trust these people to provide consumer protection? You don't think that even those who would mobilize for consumer protection could not be co-opted or bought out?
The ways that consumers seek protection is not through protests, or by demonstration- but by litigation. One sues the company that makes a defective or harmful product. If there are enough harmed people, you call it a class action, and you seek compensation from that harm.
But the current agenda by W is to reduce the opportunities for litigation, thereby denying consumers the right to receive compensation for their injuries and insulating companies for their own misdeads.
Of course the creation of law is a form of regulation, which runs contrary to libertarian agendas. Now someone is going to say "frivilous lawsuits!" Yeah, sometimes. Not as many as most people thing and there are measures in the law to combat such suits. The right to litigate is like the right to free speech. Some folks will use it for fraudulent or malicious purposes- but overall its like having a gun- better to have it and not use it, than need it and not have it.
Another illustration- The US up until the 1930s. Corporate america and the elites basically run the state. The Supreme Court is packed with Corporate Lawyers who use the "freedom of Contract" as substantive due process to deny workers the right to organize, to strike, deny women access to equal wages, who allow children to continue working, sustain unsafe working conditions. Why? Because the corporations benefit and economic distribution continues to favor the rich over the poor. The new laws created, beginning with the New Deal, allowed workers greater rights under law.
Remember the goal- "Equality and Justice under Law." The question is who controls what is the law- those with the most political and economic power.
Also, if I may interject, the key aspect regarding taxes isn't just lower taxes, but fair taxes. The US Tax code is a gigantic mess with enough loopholes that allow any person able to afford a Tax Lawyer to pay a fraction of, or no taxes. The end result is that the burden of taxation is shifted to the Middle Class. Progressive tax systems sound nice, but they're also easily corruptible, since standards do not apply universally. This is why a Flat Tax is key, whether it come in the form of a Consumtion Tax, or a flat Income Tax. If everybody pays the same tax rate to the dollar, any attempt to change the conditions of that rate can't help but be exposed as having a currupting motive.
In few places are the battlelines between society and state more clear than with the issue of extraction. Governments need to extract money to live- it's the nature of the beast. And in few areas does society resist that extraction more than in taxation. So a flat tax? Good luck. A fair tax? Now that's wishful thinking.
And equal education is not good education, Welsh. We're the only nation in the world that actually assigns our kids to schools, which kills any incentive for competition in the public school system. That allows Private institutions to charge a premium, because they can establish a higher standard of education, which screws the poor and lower middle-income brackets. Especially since they still have to pay taxes for the public school system, despite their children not being a part of it.
While its true that private institutions can charge a premium and get a higher education- is that because the schools are unequal or because private schools allow the elite to perpetuate themselves?
And you think allowing kids to opt out of school will make them better and schools more competitive? Or will it only allow those populations with higher dropout rates to sustain themselves as an underclass- afterall those are the folks with the highest dropout rates and the worst schools.
"The poor and middle class pay taxes to schools and are not part of it?" What? THe poor and middle class can't usually afford to send their kids to private schools, so what schools are you planning to send them to?
Are you thinking about privitizing education all over? And thereby create an even dumber workforce?
The problem with education is not privitizing it, but investing in it and making it better. It is hard to justify having highly trained and competent teachers when those same folks can gain higher pay in the private sector- teachers are woefully underpaid.
And School systems are paid for by local property taxes. This allows a status quo- the worst neighborhoods keep the worst schools- because they can't pay for any better. Equality in school + investment is necessary- and probably more important than further expansion of the national defense. Why? Because its essential to have a highly trained and capable workforce in an increasingly competitive world economy.
Though, the Democrats have too many Centralizing influences to be effectively dominated by a decentralizing interest. It'd require a revolution in Democratic thought that would have to coincide with a change of the old guard (Kennedy, Hillary, etc.,) in favor of idealistic representatives (with the pre-requisite libertarian ideals).
Ah... so you are preaching libertarianism again? "Pre-Requisite Libertarian ideals?"
That depends on which ideals- greater civil rights, access to justice, equality, fairness, opportunity- if that's the Libertarian agenda, fine.
But if it's about removing the government and supporting the economic and political status quo, I have to dissent. What that suggests is more of the same, and more of that is going to cause us trouble.
It is not about goverment. Governments are only institutions of rule, formalized by those with the power to create those institutions. Remove the government and you will still have those people to contend with.
What worries me about Libertarianism is that it might be a cloak to deconstruct those institutions that remain that have created more opportunity, equality, justice and economic growth that the Republicans have been chewing away. If so, than it's a false promise of a better future.
The answer to bad government is not "no government" but "better" of "good" government.
