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I think what you're seeing is the implementation of the libertarian ideal. No regulation when companies are doing well, but no stomach to suffer losses when the
by Traster 6y ago
I think what you're seeing is the implementation of the libertarian ideal. No regulation when companies are doing well, but no stomach to suffer losses when they aren't.
- snikeris 6y agoWhy would this be anyone’s ideal? You are not being charitable towards libertarians.
- Traster 6y agoI'm not saying what's happening is the libertarian ideal, I'm saying what's happening is what happens when the libertarian ideal is implemented. A libertarian may want to not bail out big businesses when times are bad - they may truly believe that ideally you just let the bad businesses fail and the market is stronger for it. The problem is that in reality, you're talking about letting voters take a huge amount of pain a few months before an election. So as a result you end up in a situation where you can have a laissez faire approach to regulations when the economy is booming, but you can't actually allow all the people who vote for you to lose their jobs.
- darepublic 6y agoThat's fair but also fair to consider what practically happens when big government philosophy is implemented.
- FactolSarin 6y agoPeople get good quality healthcare and spend less doing it?
- Jotra7 6y agoSeems to work fine in Europe.
- take_a_breath 6y agoWe could just study any other wealthy country, no?
- kwhitefoot 6y ago> You are not being charitable towards libertarians. Why would anyone, including other libertarians, be charitable toward them?
- whynotminot 6y agoThen they're being treated exactly as they prefer--no charity all bootstraps baby! :P
- hirundo 6y agoLibertarians have no problem with voluntary charity, just with compulsory charity.
- 34679 6y agoThat's cronyism, and has no relation to Libertarianism whatsoever. Libertarians will never support government bailouts, as the only way they are possible is by taking money from someone more productive to give to someone less productive, backed by the threat of force. Nothing Libertarian about that.
- Ididntdothis 6y agoLibertarianism is the free market version of Communism. Maybe it will be good if it reaches a pure implementation but in reality it has never been achieved and probably never will be. If Libertarianism isn’t implemented fully then it will almost for sure devolve into cronyism. It can only work if there is no way to influence government or courts to do things your way. It also can’t really deal with things like pandemics or probably even war. In a pandemic you would have a lot of people die before the truly free market figures out which treatments work and which are scam.
- 34679 6y agoIn the US, it was the catastrophic failure of government that led to inadequate testing and fears of ventilator shortages. Businesses stepped up with tests that work and factories shifted production to ventilators and PPE to rapidly make up the shortfall.
- Ididntdothis 6y agoDo you think business would have planned for this? I agree that government has failed but I doubt business would have done any better. Who would pay for stockpiling supplies?
- 34679 6y agoThe ones that did plan for this would have made an obscene profit, so that would lead me to believe that some businesses would indeed plan for this. But I'll admit I have no way of knowing.
- bilbo0s 6y agoI would retort that real libertarians would be very much in favor of consequences, but of course that would be to fall victim to the No True Scotsman fallacy. I think the best we can say in the current environment is that libertarianism is a philosophy that a large number of elected officials promote for the purposes of getting votes, but also a philosophy that most don't really have the stomach for when the excrement hits the fan. Maybe there really are no libertarians in foxholes?
- qeternity 6y agoWhat you've described is the antithesis of libertarianism.