Libertarianism

Is It A Market Economy?

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Thoreau asks:

When so many major elements of the ostensibly private sector–the press, telecommunications, and oil, just to name a few (I’m not including the “defense” industry, because there’s nothing even ostensibly “private sector” about it)–are part and parcel of our security state and imperial policies, does it make sense to describe this as being even the faintest semblance of a market economy and system of private enterprise?

That is a question that really shouldn’t need asking. The US economy is not a market economy and has not been since, well, pretty much forever.
It is important to remember that every time someone blames the market, or the free market, or some other similar entity for failing that it is a corporate state economy that has failed and the corporate state economy will fail again and again except at achieving its primary objective: scraping wealth off of the backs of the rest of us.

For more details read Kevin Carson’s The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand.

Global Nonsense

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At Cafe Hayek Don Boudreaux reacts to a New York Review of Books review by singing the praises of globalization :

I doubt that McKibben knows what he’s talking about. That is, I doubt that he has any real appreciation for just how much our lives depend upon global commerce and industry. I doubt that he understands that each of us daily depends for our standards of living — indeed, for our very lives — on the creativity and efforts of tens of millions of people worldwide.

The good folks at Catallarchy pick up the drum beat:

It’s illuminating how expensive these experiments in buying local-only turn out to be. You never seem to hear about “working class” people rejecting global capitalism to prove some sort of ecopolitical holier-than-thou point. Maybe because they are too busy shopping at WalMart just trying to get by. Eliminating or reducing global trade would make their lives unbearably more difficult, if not impossible.

This is true enough. Pull the plug now on today’s global economy and things would look pretty bleak for anyone not currently “living locally.”
But, it is surprising to hear such supposedly strong free market supporters praising so loudly a structure so substantially built and maintained by the force of the state.
Boudreaux goes on to say:

…McKibben’s prescription would ironcially also likely require a vast, global government possessing awesome powers to force we humans to live — and to keep living — in local economies.

Right.

Just like our current version of a global economy is subsidized and maintained by vast government structures possessing awesome powers.