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I feel sorry for the author but it's somewhat ironic that Quillette published this article considering their strong Libertarian leanings. It's years of misguide

I feel sorry for the author but it's somewhat ironic that Quillette published this article considering their strong Libertarian leanings. It's years of misguided economic policies built on baseless and fictional Randian ideology trumpeted by publications like Quillette that got us to the point where the largest economies in the world with the most resources are suddenly the most ill equipped and dangerously unprepared nations in a global crisis.

mindslight 7y ago
> As any small business owner knows, there are costs that you have to pay regardless of whether or not there’s work. For us, that includes a bank loan that’s killing us, vehicle loans and insurance, employee health benefits, commercial general liability insurance, workers compensation premiums, utilities, and mortgage payments. Before I fuel up a single truck, cut a single paycheck or buy a single pallet of materials, I need CAD$8,134 (about US$5,800) just to pay these costs. Most of this business's cashflow problems are seemingly due to debt, which is somewhat orthogonal to "Randian ideology". Libertarian thinking is actually more associated with hard money and the Austrian school of economics, rather than the Keynesian debt-treadmill that is currently binding up. If this business were asset-positive, health benefits and utilities would be the few remaining costs when work shut down. Tangentially as a libertarian I was actually hoping to glean something from this article to help me understand why the plague suddenly has a political party. Alas.
- weare138 7y ago
  Modern Libertarianism is Ayn Rand's horribly written capitalist pornography in practice. You can't separate the two at this point.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    Every political philosophy is rooted in valid critique and lofty ideals, but gets selectively amplified by the status quo and used to justify oppression. This is part of why I use a lower case 'l' to describe being a libertarian. It comes down to judgment. If a "Libertarian" thinks that reducing government means taking the opportunity to dismantle the CDC while NSA/DEA/TSA/ATF remain untouched, they're a useful idiot. Or more aptly, defunding the CDC/FDA while leaving their veto authority in place. If you do not see how your own favored philosophy ends up doing this bait and switch in the limelight, you too are likely working as an enabler for oppressive paid-for policies. The major function of voting is to make the winners think they actually want the ensuing corruption.
gnusty_gnurc 7y ago
It's hard to argue this when (capital L) Libertarians are constantly marginalized and hold effectively no sway across every level of government. And the simplest measure of the size and health of government (spending) is at a record high. This is compounded by the FDA/CDC: not only did they catastrophically fail to deliver on testing, they prohibited private companies from saving lives and providing testing, drugs, etc.

mindslight 7y ago

> As any small business owner knows, there are costs that you have to pay regardless of whether or not there’s work. For us, that includes a bank loan that’s killing us, vehicle loans and insurance, employee health benefits, commercial general liability insurance, workers compensation premiums, utilities, and mortgage payments. Before I fuel up a single truck, cut a single paycheck or buy a single pallet of materials, I need CAD$8,134 (about US$5,800) just to pay these costs. Most of this business's cashflow problems are seemingly due to debt, which is somewhat orthogonal to "Randian ideology". Libertarian thinking is actually more associated with hard money and the Austrian school of economics, rather than the Keynesian debt-treadmill that is currently binding up. If this business were asset-positive, health benefits and utilities would be the few remaining costs when work shut down. Tangentially as a libertarian I was actually hoping to glean something from this article to help me understand why the plague suddenly has a political party. Alas.

weare138 7y ago
Modern Libertarianism is Ayn Rand's horribly written capitalist pornography in practice. You can't separate the two at this point.
- mindslight 7y ago
  Every political philosophy is rooted in valid critique and lofty ideals, but gets selectively amplified by the status quo and used to justify oppression. This is part of why I use a lower case 'l' to describe being a libertarian. It comes down to judgment. If a "Libertarian" thinks that reducing government means taking the opportunity to dismantle the CDC while NSA/DEA/TSA/ATF remain untouched, they're a useful idiot. Or more aptly, defunding the CDC/FDA while leaving their veto authority in place. If you do not see how your own favored philosophy ends up doing this bait and switch in the limelight, you too are likely working as an enabler for oppressive paid-for policies. The major function of voting is to make the winners think they actually want the ensuing corruption.

gnusty_gnurc 7y ago

It's hard to argue this when (capital L) Libertarians are constantly marginalized and hold effectively no sway across every level of government. And the simplest measure of the size and health of government (spending) is at a record high. This is compounded by the FDA/CDC: not only did they catastrophically fail to deliver on testing, they prohibited private companies from saving lives and providing testing, drugs, etc.