Libertarianism: Why Do I Hate Thee
I have probably written a lot on my beefs with libertarianism, but I find I keep coming back to this theme. So here goes one more time. Let me count the ways.
1) It's a mask for untrammeled corporate power. Under the guidance of the Kochs and their ilk, American libertarianism has been used to protect the depredations and outright criminality of corporate theft, murder, and environmental destruction. See, e.g., Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
2) Similarly, it justifies the political power of corporations and vast personal fortunes, creating a ruling political aristocracy that controls the legislature and the courts. See as above.
3) It protects one kind of collective power, that of corporations and money, while attacking any collective action of workers and others who lack great financial resources - for example, labor unions.
4) It is deeply dishonest in the way it pretends to celebrate individual freedom but actually promotes the greatest threats to that freedom - the untrammelled power of the growing oligarchy.
5) Individual libertarians I have known seem morally obtuse, in that they celebrate individual freedom as a principle but lack compassion for humans as individuals.
6) I think radical individualism is unnatural for humans and a threat to a just society. Contracts are an inadequate substitute for a sense of shared destiny and responsibility.
7) By their works ye shall know them. I have seen the laws they make.
8) I really hate Ayn Rand.
9) Hayek is one of the most tedious writers ever. Not very honest either.
10) Mumble mumble. Inchoate rage, but ten is the sacred number of the Pythagoreans as well as the usual number of fingers or toes.
1) It's a mask for untrammeled corporate power. Under the guidance of the Kochs and their ilk, American libertarianism has been used to protect the depredations and outright criminality of corporate theft, murder, and environmental destruction. See, e.g., Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
2) Similarly, it justifies the political power of corporations and vast personal fortunes, creating a ruling political aristocracy that controls the legislature and the courts. See as above.
3) It protects one kind of collective power, that of corporations and money, while attacking any collective action of workers and others who lack great financial resources - for example, labor unions.
4) It is deeply dishonest in the way it pretends to celebrate individual freedom but actually promotes the greatest threats to that freedom - the untrammelled power of the growing oligarchy.
5) Individual libertarians I have known seem morally obtuse, in that they celebrate individual freedom as a principle but lack compassion for humans as individuals.
6) I think radical individualism is unnatural for humans and a threat to a just society. Contracts are an inadequate substitute for a sense of shared destiny and responsibility.
7) By their works ye shall know them. I have seen the laws they make.
8) I really hate Ayn Rand.
9) Hayek is one of the most tedious writers ever. Not very honest either.
10) Mumble mumble. Inchoate rage, but ten is the sacred number of the Pythagoreans as well as the usual number of fingers or toes.
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