4 ms·

Even most libertarians support strong contract enforcement, because it lubricates the free market. You can have a free market without, but binding contracts ma

by ip26 4y ago

Even most libertarians support strong contract enforcement, because it lubricates the free market. You can have a free market without, but binding contracts make it work much more efficiently. Truth in labeling & advertising should be grouped into that same category, in my opinion. It makes the market work better by reducing friction.

deckard1 4y ago
I see the difference being passive vs. active. The FDA would be active. Getting a bad product, finding a lawyer, filing a court case, getting a court date, going to trial would all be passive. It requires every individual to seek justice in an expensive manner. In addition, timing. Wouldn't it be better to avoid needless injury and death, than having to seek justice after the fact? Once a bad product enters the market, the market can be forever tainted. Look at China and baby formula.[1] No one trusts the baby formula there now. A few bad apples spoils the bunch. You could look at this as the FDA actually protecting the market by keeping it at a trusted quality. [1] https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced-infant-milk-tragedy-deep-distrust-remains/ https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced...
Upgrayyed_U 4y ago
This is where the entire libertarian ideology starts to fall apart for me. Who does "contract enforcement" in a libertarian society? Who enforces "truth in labeling and advertising"? How do you scale those things without introducing regulation into the market? Edit: grammar
- pessimizer 4y ago
  It's not falling apart. It's expressing its final form, which is an all encompassing world government with the duty of tracking the ownership of every molecule of matter on the planet, and of enforcing every contract without judgement on its contents or the conditions under which it was signed. Libertarians are people who believe that markets are natural, like trees. Markets are not natural, they are arbitrary sets of rules that people agree to abide by in order to have the agreements they make within those rules enforced by whatever institution is dictating those rules. Markets are an endorsement by the powerful, where at the least the loss of that endorsement will get you ejected from the market, but at the most it could get you broke and imprisoned. So the fact that they don't recognize what markets are, and think that they can be free (either as in speech or beer) forces them to make governments the ultimate market, but their desire for unlimited freedom and autonomy (or rather limited only by your property) forces them to deny governments the right to make rules about their own markets. Instead, they revert to natural rights, natural freedoms, natural markets, social Darwinism, etc. Mysticism. That's why when you scratch a Libertarian for long enough, you eventually either find a blood & soil racist or an ex-Libertarian.

by ip26 4y ago

deckard1 4y ago

I see the difference being passive vs. active. The FDA would be active. Getting a bad product, finding a lawyer, filing a court case, getting a court date, going to trial would all be passive. It requires every individual to seek justice in an expensive manner. In addition, timing. Wouldn't it be better to avoid needless injury and death, than having to seek justice after the fact? Once a bad product enters the market, the market can be forever tainted. Look at China and baby formula.[1] No one trusts the baby formula there now. A few bad apples spoils the bunch. You could look at this as the FDA actually protecting the market by keeping it at a trusted quality. [1] https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced-infant-milk-tragedy-deep-distrust-remains/ https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced...

Upgrayyed_U 4y ago

This is where the entire libertarian ideology starts to fall apart for me. Who does "contract enforcement" in a libertarian society? Who enforces "truth in labeling and advertising"? How do you scale those things without introducing regulation into the market? Edit: grammar

pessimizer 4y ago
It's not falling apart. It's expressing its final form, which is an all encompassing world government with the duty of tracking the ownership of every molecule of matter on the planet, and of enforcing every contract without judgement on its contents or the conditions under which it was signed. Libertarians are people who believe that markets are natural, like trees. Markets are not natural, they are arbitrary sets of rules that people agree to abide by in order to have the agreements they make within those rules enforced by whatever institution is dictating those rules. Markets are an endorsement by the powerful, where at the least the loss of that endorsement will get you ejected from the market, but at the most it could get you broke and imprisoned. So the fact that they don't recognize what markets are, and think that they can be free (either as in speech or beer) forces them to make governments the ultimate market, but their desire for unlimited freedom and autonomy (or rather limited only by your property) forces them to deny governments the right to make rules about their own markets. Instead, they revert to natural rights, natural freedoms, natural markets, social Darwinism, etc. Mysticism. That's why when you scratch a Libertarian for long enough, you eventually either find a blood & soil racist or an ex-Libertarian.