

My libertarian vacation nightmare: How Ayn Rand, Ron Paul were all debunked - kldavis4
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/02/my_libertarian_vacation_nightmare_how_ayn_rand_ron_paul_their_groupies_were_all_debunked/

======
bko
Few issues with the article.

1\. A quick Google search would help the author learn that Ayn Rand was an
objectevist, not a libertarian.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism)

2\. The author builds up straw men and uses unnecessary flourish. Example: >
The government won’t fix the roads, so these desperate entrepreneurs fill in
potholes with shovels of dirt or debris. They then stand next to the filled-in
pothole soliciting tips from grateful motorists. That is the wet dream of
libertarian private sector innovation.

I imagine that most libertarians would prefer private roads that are privately
maintained. Kind of like Starbucks doesn't rely on panhandlers to clean up
after their stores, private roads would be maintained by the owner.

3\. The author provides no concept of what it means to be a "libertarian"
country and expects the reader just to accept that on face value. Is tax
revenue low as percentage of GDP? What percentage of industries are private?
Are there many business regulations? All good questions the author could have
gone into instead of a childish rant on how poor this country is.

4\. Ridiculous statements like: "Part of the reason this discredited,
libertarian bullshit still carries any weight for Americans is because so few
of us travel. Only 30 percent of Americans have passports, and if Americans do
go places, it’s not often to Honduras."

There are poor countries that come from all political philosophies.

------
kls
He could have easily wrote the same piece about Venezuela and their leftist
policy, but that would tread too close to his ideological home. Fact is parts
of South America have systemic problems that transcends political dogma,
Honduras is not impoverished due to libertarianism no more than Venezuela is
due to communism, both are in the state they are in due to corruption which
seems to transcend the government duJour of many South American states.

~~~
anindyabd
1\. Honduras is in North America.

2\. Venezuela has been having troubles recently (it has been very slow to
recover from the 2008 crisis) but it is not impoverished by any sense of the
word. It has a human development index (HDI) of 0.764, ranking 67 in the
world. It has a per capita GDP of $17000. In comparison, Honduras is 129th in
the world in terms of HDI, and has a per capita GDP of around $5000. I'm not
saying Venezuela is doing well (and its troubles are mostly due to corruption)
but it's doing much better than Honduras.

~~~
eliwjones
1\. I see your pedantry and raise you a "Honduras is in Central America"

~~~
astrodust
Some would argue Central America is a subset of North America.

~~~
eliwjones
I don't engage devil's advocacy.. only pedantry.

------
ohnomrbill
This seems to touch on the biggest problem I have with libertarianism. Things
which require constant maintenance are fixed in spurts. Some wealthy Hondurans
may eventually decide that the situation with their roads is annoying and
worth fixing, and may offer to fix the problem at a reduced price which
reflects their personal interest in the matter. Until then, they will have
crumbling roads. Infrastructure is best served by constant effort, and there
is no will to act on the part of people with money. The solution to that
problem seems to be a real blind spot for them.

That said, I respect their stance on personal responsibility, which is
something I think liberals neglect. I don't mean to pick on them too much.

------
jottinger
The problem is that it's Salon - the writing is really badly biased, doesn't
actually understand Libertarianism at all, and is mostly trying to smear Ron
Paul.

~~~
bko
Author defines Libertarianism as "eliminate all taxes, privatize everything,
load a country up with guns and oppose all public expenditures". Not biased at
all

~~~
astrodust
Doesn't sound that far off the mark, actually. Maybe you have a different
definition?

------
jedharris
The only actual refutation this needs is some country that is practicing "real
libertarianism" or some approximation and doing well. There are lots of
countries out there, isn't there a good example?

If not, I'm strongly inclined to think that there's some reason libertarian
ideas don't work in practice -- like most theories. The real question then is
why an unproven theory gets so much respect.

~~~
mike_hearn
Like most discussions about politics, the words are too imprecise to enable
meaningful conclusions.

Consider the history of the United Kingdom in the second half of the 20th
century. Between the 1950s and end of the 1970s the UK was implementing
something quite close to communism. The government owned vast swathes of
industry, everything from coal mines to steel mills to removal companies and
hotels. Government policy was to target full employment at the cost of all
else, including inflation. The country was in the grip of extremely powerful
unions who had the ability to topple governments.

By the end of this era, the UK was being called the sick man of Europe. In
1976 it had to go to the IMF for a bailout.

Starting with the election of Margaret Thatcher this all started to change.
She was someone who would in the UK have been described as a "liberal" except
unfortunately political words get mangled the most in the trans atlantic
crossing. Americans would have called her a libertarian except minus the gun
fetish. She believed in a small state, in individual enterprise, etc.

Amongst her many libertarian decisions after winning the election was to end
the policy of targeting full employment in favour of inflation targeting, to
engage in massive privatisation programs, and to take on the extremely
powerful and outright communist coal mining unions (which had previously
toppled any government that tried to engage in reform).

By the time she left power the UK was in recovery and almost universally
agreed to be in much better economic shape. Still, lots of people truly
despise Thatcher and her libertarian policies, especially in the post-
industrial north that was most heavily left leaning. And the UK is by no means
some kind of Randian vision of anarcho-capitalism. Thatcher didn't touch the
direct government provision of health care and there are virtually no private
roads in the UK.

Regardless, I present it as a case study in one countries journey from quasi-
communism to more libertarian ideals with an associated economic recovery.

~~~
dreamweapon
_Between the 1950s and end of the 1970s the UK was implementing something
quite close to communism._

This is a pretty ridiculous statement to make. You might want to look up any
generally accepted definition of 'communism' (as opposed to Western European-
style socialism) at some point. (Hint: it doesn't simply mean the idea that it
might be advantageous for the government to own certain major industries).

 _She believed in a small state, in individual enterprise, etc._

"A small state and individual enterprise", indeed:

 _Thatcher was a fierce Cold Warrior, and when it came to Chile never mustered
quite the appropriate amount of compassion for the people Pinochet killed in
the name of anti-Communism. She preferred talking about his much-vaunted
“Chilean economic miracle.”_

 _And kill he did. Pinochet’s soldiers rounded up thousands in the capital’s
sports stadiums and, then and there, suspects were marched into the locker
rooms and corridors and bleachers and tortured and shot dead. Hundreds died in
such a fashion. One was the revered Chilean singer Víctor Jara, who was
beaten, his hands and ribs broken, and then machine-gunned, his body dumped
like trash on a back street of the capital—along with many others. The killing
went on even after Pinochet and his military had a firm hold on power; it was
just carried out with greater secrecy, in military barracks, in police
buildings, and in the countryside. Critics and opponents of the new regime
were murdered in other countries, too. In 1976, Pinochet’s intelligence agency
planned and carried out a car bombing in Washington, D.C., that murdered
Allende’s exiled former Ambassador to the United States, Orlando Letelier, as
well as Ronni Moffitt, his American aide. Britain regarded Pinochet’s killing
spree as unseemly, and sanctioned his regime by refusing to supply it with
weapons—that is, until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister._

 _In 1980, the year after Thatcher took office, she lifted the arms embargo
against Pinochet; he was soon buying armaments from the United Kingdom. In
1982, during Britain’s Falklands War against Argentina, Pinochet helped
Thatcher’s government with intelligence on Argentina. Thereafter, the
relationship became downright cozy, so much so that the Pinochets and his
family began making an annual private pilgrimage to London._

"Neruda, Pinochet, and the Iron Lady." \-- The New Yorker, April 9 2013

~~~
mike_hearn
State / collective ownership of the means of production is pretty much the
definition of communism.

[https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&e...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-
instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%3Acommunism)

com·mu·nism ˈkämyəˌnizəm

noun

 _a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading
to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and
is paid according to their abilities and needs._

There's not technically any requirement that communist countries be
dictatorships, even though they normally are. A country with outright Marxist
union leaders who could topple actual governments - sounds pretty close to me.

I don't know what your second part has to do with anything. We are discussing
economics, not Thatcher's foreign policy. The UK has always sold weapons to
tyrants.

~~~
dreamweapon
Again, it sounds like you're basically unaware of the distinction Western
European-style democratic socialism, and communism (Marxist or otherwise). Yes
there's some overlap, but the differences are greater than the overlap, and
are really quite fundamental.

------
eevilspock
This article's case against libertarianism is rather flimsy. But I loved this
bit:

 _" In America, libertarian ideas are attractive to mostly young, white men
with high ideals and no life experience that live off of the previous
generation’s investments and sacrifice. I know this because as a young, white
idiot, I subscribed to this system of discredited ideas: Selfishness is good,
government is bad. Take what you want, when you want and however you can. Poor
people deserve what they get, and the smartest, hardworking people always
win."_

~~~
Rudyard
So I guess we're back to the "The White Man's Burden" then?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden)

