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Libertarianism was tried in the US during the Gilded Age It's very popular among some people to quote the Gilded Age as an alleged failure of libertarianism, b

Libertarianism was tried in the US during the Gilded Age It's very popular among some people to quote the Gilded Age as an alleged failure of libertarianism, but they can never seem to pinpoint just exactly how it was libertarian. Certainly, the climate was economically liberal... and that was about it. The Gilded Age was about industrialization, not any political order. There was no one there to "try" anything. I assume China and Singapore are libertarian, too?

pron 11y ago
It is similarly popular among some to paint libertarianism as some lofty ideal distant from any actual human history so that post facto it can never have been tried so it always holds its promise. China and Singapore are most certainly not libertarian as they impose very strong central government regulations, whereas gilded-age America had a small and weak government, and was almost devoid of regulation (at least de facto; any de jure regulation could be skirted with bribes). The result was neo-feudalism, which came as a surprise to no one as feudalism has grown organically in almost every society with a weak government in human history, and with similar results -- a handful of people enjoying the product of the miserable masses.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  There's the whole elephant in the room of de jure segregation and disenfranchisement that significantly weakened the demand side's ability to engage in voluntary contracts. That's not some incidental thing to gloss over, but a clear case of crippling binary intervention. There were plenty of land grant programs at the time, such as the Homestead Act. The state, through common law, retained eminent domain and condemnation of private land for nominally "public" purposes. There were several immigration restriction acts passed that served as a free trade barrier. Let's not forget that the railroads which characterized the Gilded Age were kickstarted by government initiative in the form of the Pacific Railroad Acts, which ensured land and bond grants. There were at least a dozen tariff acts passed by the time the Gilded Age was emerging, and indeed U.S. trade policy was quite protectionist back then. The U.S. have also been involved in plentiful military interventions, some overseas, others covered by the Monroe Doctrine, since the earliest days for economic and hegemonic reasons. The federal government was weaker, but not as much as often presented. They tried wholesale embargoes as early as 1807, enacted tariffs, controlled trade (Commerce Clause and other justifications), intervened militarily frequently, and remember that the Constitution in general greatly expanded federal power relative to the prior Articles of Confederation. As such, I'd think it disingenuous to qualify the Gilded Age as "libertarian". There wasn't really so much as a system back then, it was a country in an identity crisis trying to see what worked, and often coming to protectionist conclusions that would foreshadow what was to come (ironically, tariffs are much less of a problem in the present than back then). It was economically liberal... that was it. You can't really characterize it as anything beyond that, the circumstances were rather unique.
  - pron 11y ago
    > There's the whole elephant in the room of de jure segregation and disenfranchisement that significantly weakened the demand side's ability to engage in voluntary contracts. That's not some incidental thing to gloss over, but a clear case of crippling binary intervention. How is disenfranchisement relevant? And why would legal segregation matter when blacks were a small part of the population? You could say that the USSR being autocratic is also not something incidental to gloss over (and I'd argue a far greater deviation from the ideal). Feudalism has always had "demand-side" problems, with or without legal roadblocks. > There were plenty of land grant programs at the time... The federal government was weaker, but not as much as often presented... Sure, but all of it amounted to very little regulation compared to any modern Western countries. > You can't really characterize it as anything beyond that, the circumstances were rather unique. True, but again, it was still closer to the libertarian ideals than the USSR ever was to communism, and it would be at least as equally disingenuous to conclude that we can't draw any conclusions from that era to libertarianism. Bear in mind that the Gilded-Age America was only the latest such experiment in the West. All other (older) examples of weak governments gave rise to feudalism and similar results. So while libertarianism later created a well-formed political theory behind free markets and low regulation, it is a stretch to claim that its practices have never been tried. If a valid experiment can be nothing short of full global libertarianism, then it will forever be a beautiful utopia in the minds of the precious few who still prescribe to that ideal.
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      When you have structural barriers around the right to contract, then yes, that's a practical issue with your libertarian narrative. Sure, but all of it amounted to very little regulation compared to any modern Western countries. We actually have an even better example of a contemporary Western nation achieving great results through economic liberalization: the United Kingdom repealing the Corn Laws and abandoning mercantilism circa the 1840s. Agrarians and formerly rural landowners did get shafted in the process of industrialization (as it tends to occur), but free trade policies were a boon for everything else. But there's also the whole problem of just looking at macro-level "regulations" without taking into account the vastly different social and technological climate. See below. True, but again, it was still closer to the libertarian ideals than the USSR ever was to communism Smells of a fallacy of composition. it would be at least as equally disingenuous to conclude that we can't draw any conclusions from that era to libertarianism You can, but it's very limited. The Lucas critique demonstrates that analyzing historical macrotrends in of itself is useless because of a lack of policy-invariance. You need good microfoundations for proper modeling. Hence my assertion that calling the Gilded Age a "libertarian failure" is so simplifying as to be little but a political provocation. You're echoing the old Methodenstreit debate all over again. If a valid experiment can be nothing short of full global libertarianism, then it will forever be a beautiful utopia in the minds of the precious few who still prescribe to that ideal. No, it doesn't have to be a "global libertarianism". The problem is again, you're extracting one component (relative economic liberalism, but still ignoring barriers to voluntary relations) in specific complex time periods as a catch-all argument against "libertarianism" even though you clearly do not have the proper microfoundations of libertarian theory to even make such a judgment at all.

pron 11y ago

It is similarly popular among some to paint libertarianism as some lofty ideal distant from any actual human history so that post facto it can never have been tried so it always holds its promise. China and Singapore are most certainly not libertarian as they impose very strong central government regulations, whereas gilded-age America had a small and weak government, and was almost devoid of regulation (at least de facto; any de jure regulation could be skirted with bribes). The result was neo-feudalism, which came as a surprise to no one as feudalism has grown organically in almost every society with a weak government in human history, and with similar results -- a handful of people enjoying the product of the miserable masses.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
There's the whole elephant in the room of de jure segregation and disenfranchisement that significantly weakened the demand side's ability to engage in voluntary contracts. That's not some incidental thing to gloss over, but a clear case of crippling binary intervention. There were plenty of land grant programs at the time, such as the Homestead Act. The state, through common law, retained eminent domain and condemnation of private land for nominally "public" purposes. There were several immigration restriction acts passed that served as a free trade barrier. Let's not forget that the railroads which characterized the Gilded Age were kickstarted by government initiative in the form of the Pacific Railroad Acts, which ensured land and bond grants. There were at least a dozen tariff acts passed by the time the Gilded Age was emerging, and indeed U.S. trade policy was quite protectionist back then. The U.S. have also been involved in plentiful military interventions, some overseas, others covered by the Monroe Doctrine, since the earliest days for economic and hegemonic reasons. The federal government was weaker, but not as much as often presented. They tried wholesale embargoes as early as 1807, enacted tariffs, controlled trade (Commerce Clause and other justifications), intervened militarily frequently, and remember that the Constitution in general greatly expanded federal power relative to the prior Articles of Confederation. As such, I'd think it disingenuous to qualify the Gilded Age as "libertarian". There wasn't really so much as a system back then, it was a country in an identity crisis trying to see what worked, and often coming to protectionist conclusions that would foreshadow what was to come (ironically, tariffs are much less of a problem in the present than back then). It was economically liberal... that was it. You can't really characterize it as anything beyond that, the circumstances were rather unique.
- pron 11y ago
  > There's the whole elephant in the room of de jure segregation and disenfranchisement that significantly weakened the demand side's ability to engage in voluntary contracts. That's not some incidental thing to gloss over, but a clear case of crippling binary intervention. How is disenfranchisement relevant? And why would legal segregation matter when blacks were a small part of the population? You could say that the USSR being autocratic is also not something incidental to gloss over (and I'd argue a far greater deviation from the ideal). Feudalism has always had "demand-side" problems, with or without legal roadblocks. > There were plenty of land grant programs at the time... The federal government was weaker, but not as much as often presented... Sure, but all of it amounted to very little regulation compared to any modern Western countries. > You can't really characterize it as anything beyond that, the circumstances were rather unique. True, but again, it was still closer to the libertarian ideals than the USSR ever was to communism, and it would be at least as equally disingenuous to conclude that we can't draw any conclusions from that era to libertarianism. Bear in mind that the Gilded-Age America was only the latest such experiment in the West. All other (older) examples of weak governments gave rise to feudalism and similar results. So while libertarianism later created a well-formed political theory behind free markets and low regulation, it is a stretch to claim that its practices have never been tried. If a valid experiment can be nothing short of full global libertarianism, then it will forever be a beautiful utopia in the minds of the precious few who still prescribe to that ideal.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    When you have structural barriers around the right to contract, then yes, that's a practical issue with your libertarian narrative. Sure, but all of it amounted to very little regulation compared to any modern Western countries. We actually have an even better example of a contemporary Western nation achieving great results through economic liberalization: the United Kingdom repealing the Corn Laws and abandoning mercantilism circa the 1840s. Agrarians and formerly rural landowners did get shafted in the process of industrialization (as it tends to occur), but free trade policies were a boon for everything else. But there's also the whole problem of just looking at macro-level "regulations" without taking into account the vastly different social and technological climate. See below. True, but again, it was still closer to the libertarian ideals than the USSR ever was to communism Smells of a fallacy of composition. it would be at least as equally disingenuous to conclude that we can't draw any conclusions from that era to libertarianism You can, but it's very limited. The Lucas critique demonstrates that analyzing historical macrotrends in of itself is useless because of a lack of policy-invariance. You need good microfoundations for proper modeling. Hence my assertion that calling the Gilded Age a "libertarian failure" is so simplifying as to be little but a political provocation. You're echoing the old Methodenstreit debate all over again. If a valid experiment can be nothing short of full global libertarianism, then it will forever be a beautiful utopia in the minds of the precious few who still prescribe to that ideal. No, it doesn't have to be a "global libertarianism". The problem is again, you're extracting one component (relative economic liberalism, but still ignoring barriers to voluntary relations) in specific complex time periods as a catch-all argument against "libertarianism" even though you clearly do not have the proper microfoundations of libertarian theory to even make such a judgment at all.