Skeptic Project

It is no secret that I think libertarianism is a really petty political position predicated upon false axioms and an unjustified view of state and private relationships. Anthropologically speaking, there is a good cause for "state intervention" from a historical perspective- but that is neither here nor there. I was reading my econ notes as a result of a recent rash of twitter outbreaks advocating free-market solutions to our current debt problem, and I came upon a historical example we discussed on testing of libertarian principles.

In the mid 1970's a group of UChicago trained economists essentially rebuilt the Chilean government from scratch in accordance with free-market principles. The result? Horribly slow growth, no prosperity, and a general retardation of Chilean markets and services. People paid the price for this little economic experiment.

When faced with a real world example of hyper-free market action taken, how can we take libertarianism seriously? And lets not forget I took this class at the University of Chicago, and there is no pride in what transpired in chilea. Lets also keep in mind that even Adam Smith, father of free-market enterprises, favored a government's role in assuaged the irrationality of consumers and business men alike.

So, what do we make of this very real failure of the libertarian project?

NOTE: I also found an article on the "New Zealand Experiment" which represents another libertarian experiment with similarly dismal results. But I hadn't heard of it before yesterday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics

I actually don't subscribe to a set political ideology. I am left leaning and I believe that there is a crucial role for governmental intervention and regulation. I achieve my political views through a collective understanding of historical particularism and anthropological studies of exchange systems. I find this a particularly tenable position because, while it maintains a firm position that there is nothing inherently correct about any historical perspective, and thus constantly mindful of the complex transformations of society, it also maintains that there is no place for extremes. This idea that you can be "socially liberal and economically conservative" to mee reeks of myopic ethnocentricism that dates back, at best, to the 18th century and the epistemological shift that occurred therein. Questions?

Kaiser, thanks for that wonderful explanation. I don't really have any political stance as I don't understand it as much as I understand science. However, I do understand what you're saying. I did hear michael shermer defending his libertarian "socially liberal and economically conservative" stance a few days ago and i wasn't totally convinced. I am happy to hear that there is someone that has come up with the same conclusion.

No one cares.

Bobbie, why don't you slip into something more comfortable...like a coma?

love you too bobbie

The Believing Brain mixes together regular Libertarianism with US-Rand-Libertarianism in a way that ruined the middle part of the book for me. Fortunately it didn't last too long.

So, what do we make of this very real failure of the libertarian project?

You don't even have to go that far, state intervention can be supported even by market advocates through the application of game theory to social goods and externalities. Bought a couple of economics 101 books and it's in all of them.
Now, you can go further than that and argue that the market itself isn't as rational as it's supposed to be and that intervention can be useful and/or necessary in several other ways that supposedly conflict with market theory, but that have been proven to work out well in practice. But in either position, libertarianism is inefficient, nonsensical and has nothing beyond fuzzy wording to support its main tenets. So you'd have to grant free-market libertarians a free pass on this stage to even reach empirical tests, which, again, also tend to fail.

Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine is devoted to the ill effects of the free market experiment which really is nothing more than legalized pillaging. Also Kaiser had suggested a book to me by Karl Polanyi The Great Transformation which illustrated that everytime free market principles were implemented they had to be done so and maintained through the force of law. And as a result there was a spontaneous counter movement that would arise from the people in an effort to alleviate the effects of a "free" market.

Kaiser Falkner
I feel the problem with third parties in general is that they tend to be so ridged in their set up. As you pointed out Libertarians have this utopia believe in the “Free Market”. With the Constitution Party it is a party back by Christian-Right that hides behind the Constitution to push their extreme religious views of what the “true” America should be. Then you have the Greens that are nothing but extreme Environmentalists that do more harm than good. But the fact is that all three are so out there that they would never be able gather the necessary votes to ever become a major force in American politics.