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Libertarian economics is the most radical extremist free market economics that has ever been imagined and has never been implemented and never will be implement

by wfo 9y ago

Libertarian economics is the most radical extremist free market economics that has ever been imagined and has never been implemented and never will be implemented. Every modern and nearly every recent historical society has been a mixed economy. The only reason the middle class exists is because it was fought for, hard, by explicitly anti-Libertarian structures (new deal style reforms and make-work projects, welfare, healthcare, unions, minimum wages, worker protections, tarrifs, GI bill, universities, very high taxes on the rich and very high corporate taxes, publicly owned infrastructure, bailouts) fighting against or protecting free markets from themselves when they inevitably crash and burn and destroy themselves and the societies around them. Without these protections free markets would annihilate the entire middle class in a heartbeat for the sake of "efficiency" as is their nature (the middle class are by definition not the owners of capital so their concerns are not considered by a capitalist economic structure), a process that is occurring albeit more slowly in the US as we speak. Markets are very powerful engines for generating efficiency, so they are good at building economic engines (through exploitation, of course) while ignoring any and all other concerns or consequences. They are a paperclip maximizer. Not entirely useless tools, but horrifyingly murderous and dangerous ones that have a tenancy to seize power with disastrous results wherever they go.

WalterBright 9y ago
The United States, excluding the antebellum southern states, was pretty much a free market economy up until around 1914 or so. Of course it wasn't 100%, but it was a good approximation of one. Far from destroying the middle class, it created the middle class in America. Scores of millions of impoverished immigrants arrived on the shores, and moved up into the middle class. The income tax on the rich came later. I've heard it claimed that the middle class was created by the New Deal, but that is not very supportable. Just look at paintings and photographs of towns and cities from the previous century. Looks like middle class to me. If you like, take a tour of the town of Gettysburg. It's been well preserved, with quite a lot of the same structures still there from the Civil War. They look like middle class homes to me. Have a visit and tell me what you think.
- chrisbennet 9y ago
  It's prosperity was based on the extreme exploitation of the weakest member of its society.

by wfo 9y ago

WalterBright 9y ago

The United States, excluding the antebellum southern states, was pretty much a free market economy up until around 1914 or so. Of course it wasn't 100%, but it was a good approximation of one. Far from destroying the middle class, it created the middle class in America. Scores of millions of impoverished immigrants arrived on the shores, and moved up into the middle class. The income tax on the rich came later. I've heard it claimed that the middle class was created by the New Deal, but that is not very supportable. Just look at paintings and photographs of towns and cities from the previous century. Looks like middle class to me. If you like, take a tour of the town of Gettysburg. It's been well preserved, with quite a lot of the same structures still there from the Civil War. They look like middle class homes to me. Have a visit and tell me what you think.

chrisbennet 9y ago
It's prosperity was based on the extreme exploitation of the weakest member of its society.