
The Two Flaws Of Libertarian Economics - bdfh42
http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009-01-08.html
======
thomasmallen
For impatient types like myself:

Proposed flaw #1:

 _That is basically the first flaw of libertarianism: If you shrink the
government down to nothing and have corporations in control then you won’t
have a rule of law._

Proposed flaw #2:

 _That leads me to the second flaw of libertarian economics: efficiency. ...
economists use the term “efficiency” differently than programmers.

You see, most libertarians think of efficiency as “Fast! FAST FAST FAST!” They
think it means lean and trim companies all working to gain the maximum profit
with the least effort necessary._

\---

Of course, at no point does Mr. Shaw prove that libertarians think this way,
but that would put a stick in his spokes, I suppose, and boy, is he riding
quickly down the hill of psuedo-political invective.

And as for flaw #1, libertarianism is _not_ in any way, shape, or form,
anarchy. Rather, libertarianism preaches that the government should be as
small as practical.

~~~
Rod
You're right. Zed is confused.

Libertarianism is NOT Anarcho-Capitalism. Libertarianism advocates that the
government should be reduced to the minimum which is necessary to protect the
citizens' rights. Anarcho-Capitalism advocates that corporations should
replace government.

~~~
halo
But that can quickly devolve into arguments as to what counts as a 'right':
the most obvious examples being food, water, shelter, healthcare and
education. That 'minimum' is an arbitrary line.

~~~
Rod
You made a very good point. I don't know what to answer. Defining what a
"right" is and what it is not would lead to endless discussion.

In any case, I would say that instead of discussing in rather vague terms
whether more government is better / worse than less government, it would be
sensible to think of what kind of government.

By principle, I believe that goverment bureaucracy and interference should be
kept to a minimum. However, I would rather live under a Scandinavian-like
government (even though it's _big government_ ) than in a Somalia-like
anarchy. We all agree on the goals: freedom, prosperity, etc. Sometimes we
disagree on how to get there. I vote for pragmatism over ideology.

~~~
mseebach
> However, I would rather live under a Scandinavian-like government [...] We
> all agree on the goals: [...] prosperity, etc.

Yes, I've totally cut up your point, and I'll take this over Somalia any day.
But Scandinavian government (Denmark in this case) couldn't care less about
prosperity. Right out of college, you're in the top tax bracket, paying 63% on
everything above $64.000 annual income (and just under 50% on everything
below). Buying a car? 180% registration tax, and slap 25% sales tax on top of
that.

But yeah, we've got worse schools than Portugal and free mediocre healthcare,
but most importantly: we have high economic equality.

So no, unfortunately we don't agree on the goals.

~~~
Rod
With all due respect, compared to 90% of the world's population, Danes are
pretty prosperous IMHO.

~~~
mseebach
Absolutely, we are. But Denmark is, along with the rest of "old Europe" going
to wake up pretty soon and realize that the half bln. Chinese and Indian
citizens that are moving into the middle class these years, are going to send
their kid to college, and the white collar jobs are going to go the same way
the blue collar jobs did over the past 20 years.

Without a strong focus on wealth creation, instead of the constant preaching
to the mediocre and the "good enough", we're not going to have much to show
once the Chinese and Indians get started.

In short: Prosperity is not a goal to attain, it's a continuous effort, and we
just stopped trying.

~~~
Rod
A few years ago I spent a Summer in Copenhagen, so I know a _tiny_ bit of
Denmark. I remember talking to Danish friends on how ridiculously high the
taxes were. Yes, I was amazed that you guys pay 180% tax on cars.

On the necessity of wealth creation, I fully agree with you. I think the
Germans, Danes, Swedes (etc) will soon find out that they will have to work a
whole lot more than their parents to enjoy the same standard of living their
parents could enjoy. It's not a pleasant thought, but then, the prosperity
that _Old Europe_ has enjoyed over the last few decades is pretty much an
historical anomaly.

I could not agree more that prosperity is a continuous effort. I suppose the
old Europeans are just a bit _blasé_ and refuse to look at the facts. The
world has changed.

~~~
opticksversi
_I remember talking to Danish friends on how ridiculously high the taxes were.
Yes, I was amazed that you guys pay 180% tax on cars._

<http://www.skovgaard.org/europe/denmark.htm>

 _The Danes believe Denmark is the best country in the world, that Danish beer
is the best in the world, and that anything they do is better than anywhere
else in the world. But however contradictory it may seem, between them, they
don't like to see others being successful. Thus, they do everything they can
to bring down the brightest amongst them. The communist tax system that has
brought the highest overall taxation level in the world is an effective way of
doing so._

~~~
mseebach
That article is a bit on the edge, it should be said. But, by and large, his
points are valid.

Most importantly, most parties aren't communist, they are "social democratic",
definitely very left leaning compared to anything. There is a general (far
from thorough) respect for private property, something you wouldn't expect
from communists.

------
blergh
I like Zed, but this is full of bullshit. Every economist worth the name (fuck
that Krugman/keynesian bullshit, read some Tyler Cowen, Peter Boettke, Steve
Horwitz) knows that the Fed is to blame for the current episode of the
business cycle. They printed too much money, it causes inflation and, even
worse, disastrous malinvestments. In short: printing money fucks up the
structure of production.

Moreover, the Fed isn't even a libertarian institution. He tries to discredit
libertarianism by proclaiming that an airhead like Greenspan is a libertarian.
He's not. He might once have said he was one, his actions have proven
otherwise. The Fed is a government monopoly on money. And that's a bad thing.

~~~
davidw
> fuck that Krugman/keynesian bullshit, read some Tyler Cowen

Well, _there's_ a clear, cogent, and knowledgeable rebuttal of his points.
Even for someone such as myself who is not a libertarian, Shaw's arguments are
weak, and yet the best you could do is sling around a bunch of four letter
words?

By the way, I do read Tyler Cowen, who is, by the way, much better at
elucidating his point of view without resorting to profanity, and most likely
has a lot more respect for smart people like Krugman and Keynes, even where he
disagrees, and he is certainly not pinning blame on "The Fed":

[http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/10...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/10/my-
views-on-the.html)

~~~
mightybyte
Usually I agree with you on profanity. But in this case, I think its irony (in
light of Zed's recent history) is amusing and actually has a point. In fact I
the thought of writing a profanity-laced blog post as a rebuttal to this
article actually crossed my mind.

------
DanielBMarkham
There's nothing like attacking something you are oblivious to.

I think I have a new maxim for the internet: Never have so many people said so
much about that which they knew so little about.

(And yes, I count myself in that)

~~~
walterk
> There's nothing like attacking something you are oblivious to.

This is why, when it comes to rejecting a particular ideology, I believe you
need to have adopted that ideology to the point that you genuinely _grok_ it.
If you can't replicate the mental operations that allow a subscriber to make
sense of the world, what its problems are and how to solve them, and the ways
they derive comfort and validation from those operations, then you're guilty
of being uncharitable to their worldview. And if you're uncharitable, you're
unlikely to develop an argument that demonstrates how an ideology is flawed
given its own values and assumptions, or how that ideology actually conflicts
with one's pre-ideological values and assumptions.

The ideologies that survive are always more resourceful at countering
counterarguments than a non-grokker will expect. Which is as good a reason as
any to actually try it out, first.

~~~
Retric
One of the problems with that viewpoint is reality is harsh. Pollution is a
classic cases of the tragedy of the commons and all successful forms of
government need to deal with this and thousands of other issues. Maximizing
prosperity is something with many local minimums over the short and long term.
IMO saying X is correct when you are wrong should lead to ridicule lest others
assume it's a reasonable argument.

PS: Read <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene> works as an analogy
for ideologies. They don't need to help their followers as ideology only needs
to propagate faster than it's killed off.

~~~
walterk
> IMO saying X is correct when you are wrong should lead to ridicule lest
> others assume it's a reasonable argument.

I think ridicule is a bad idea, because it invariably activates one's ego
defense mechanisms. When that happens, your chances of convincing someone that
they're wrong (assuming that they're wrong) drop to zero, while the level of
polarization goes up. Granted, some people are so hardened in their beliefs
that only widespread ridicule may be able to put a crack in their shell
(albeit at high psychological cost).

~~~
stcredzero
Since this reaction is so strong, wouldn't the logical move be to _exploit_
it? I think successful salesmen often figure out how to reinforce people's ego
defense mechanisms. They play to their audience's fears and offer some sort of
relief.

~~~
walterk
Not if you want to live in a reason-based society.

Exploitation as an effective maneuver is dependent on a society unpracticed
and unconditioned in the use of reason. It may be a practical move in the
short run, but invariably has terrible consequences in the long. A society
that remains vulnerable to such exploits will be swayed by the best exploiters
rather than the best arguments (which is how it is now).

In the long run, our best strategy is to cultivate cool, calm, collected, and
charitable discourse.

~~~
stcredzero
"cool, calm, collected, and charitable discourse" will always only exist in
the right environments. At no time in history has there been a society that
was completely rational. It's just not human nature.

~~~
walterk
There was a time in human history when it did not exist, period. There are no
demonstrated limits as to how pervasive it can be.

The ability to engage in charitable discourse is simply a skill that can be
taught like any other. Parents could be teaching it to their children, but
socially and culturally we haven't yet made it a priority. We should.

~~~
stcredzero
I agree with all of your points. But the truth is, is that it is just one
current in human affairs. No nation has ever been free of irrational delusion
or demagoguery and entirely driven by rationality. This includes regimes like
the Soviet Union, which supposedly had rationalist materialist philosophical
underpinnings.

True, rationality can be pervasive, and it can be taught, but it can never be
totally dominant. Our primitive substrate keeps coming out, and that is every
bit as pervasive as rationality.

~~~
walterk
I agree that we'll never be completely free of irrationality, or that
rationality will be totally dominant. It takes self-restraint to keep our
primitive substrate, as you put it, at bay, and that's impossible to do every
time. But I nevertheless think there's considerable room for improvement, and
it starts with efforts like, say, PG's essay on disagreement.

Someone suggested turning that hierarchy of disagreement into tags that people
could assign to comments on a debate site, and filter accordingly. I built
something of precisely this sort for my master's project, and believe the idea
should be implemented for nearly all online communications. It's doable, and
an effective way to impress a great many people with the value of rational
discourse, to which they simply may not have had enough exposure to
appreciate.

And there is, I think, potentially a tipping point or critical mass where a
culture of charitable discourse enters a positive feedback loop and makes
gains even faster than before.

Whatever the case, I think there are definitely plausible means for
improvement. They deserve to be tested.

------
Prrometheus
Thank you, Zed, for debunking internet-forum libertarianism. To the non-naive
libertarians among us, however, you have provided no new information.

If you have the time, you should pick up some Friedman or Hayek. Friedman's
"Free to Choose" is a mass market book on libertarian economic policy. Hayek's
"The Use of Information in Society" is a beautiful exposition on the function
of a decentralized market. But there are plenty others.

You might also benefit from a well-reasoned, economic critique of regulation.
"Regulatory capture" is a real phenomenon, as is self-serving bureaucracy. If
hundreds of thousands of pages of rules and a multi-trillion dollar budget
weren't enough to fix the market, there is probably something wrong with the
process. "More rules and money" probably isn't going to fix things.

I can find such writing for you if you don't have the time. Drop me an email.

However, you will find that writings by competent libertarian economists are
not so easy to "debunk" when compared to forum posts written by 16-year-olds.
Or Misesians. Those guys are crazy.

~~~
mhartl
_Or Misesians. Those guys are crazy._

How so?

------
michaelkeenan
I would like to see a social news aggregation site, such as Reddit and Hacker
News, focused on quality debate. Users would tag each submission with its
label in Paul Graham's disagreement hierarchy
(<http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>).

This submission, for example, would probably be tagged "Level 4: Counter-
argument". And, probably, also with "Strawman".

You could filter out all submissions rated lower than Level 5 or 6 or whatever
your threshold is.

~~~
walterk
I actually think this sort of functionality should be present throughout all
forms of online communication. If that happened, the same standards of
discourse might leak into offline communication as well.

------
Dauntless
I would just like to point out that Enron pushed for deregulation and always
blamed government regulation of the market for the huge price rise that
followed the deregulation, even though it was made on purpose by their
corporation. Check out this documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the...>, it's nice
to learn from history. I agree that government regulation can be as dangerous
as out of control police force, but libertarians (similar to communists) are
completely oblivious (sometimes on purpose) of how absurd their idealistic
word is and lack basic understanding of human nature. It's better to have an
open, accountable, public police force than nothing at all.

------
paddy_m
The thing for me is, I don't just distrust the government, I distrust large
organizations in general (government, fortune 500 companies, religions), I
find that they are fairly inefficient. I am not interested in replacing one
inefficient system (government) with another inefficient system
(corporations). I don't want a corporatist society at all, I do want a strong
rule of law.

I would welcome a world where we have an efficient market, not only of
companies but of governments. There is a market for governments now, but it
has very high transaction costs (moving to another country is expensive and
dificult, often requiring years of residency to establish yourself as a
citizen). One way to make for a more efficient market for government in
america would be to have a less powerful federal government, note I didn't say
"and more powerful state governments", at the state level you can break it
down to counties and then cities. Ideally you could have (and actually do now)
a world where people choose the government they want (not so much by voting
but by moving). Voting by moving sends a much more powerful message than
voting at a booth.

Here's the thing, if we had a small government, there would be no point in
lobbying (rent seeking) because having the government's favor wouldn't get you
much. Campaign finance reform attacks the wrong side of the problem, like
using insecticide around your garbage can instead of taking out trash to get
rid of flies.

Notice also that zed asked for a strong rule of law. We don't have that. The
result of a bank becoming insolvent is not known, sometimes they will get a
bailout, sometimes they won't. Many of the regulations for financial
industries wouldn't be necessary if the companies thought they would be held
accountable for their actions, they didn't think they would be held
accountable, and they weren't, so given that set of rules they played the game
properly.

Zed alludes to a couple of concepts. I think the efficiency that he is
referring to is better thought of as maximizing utility.

No one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

A state where the above is true is known as a pareto optimal state.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency>

Sorry if this was rambling, just my thoughts.

~~~
eru
The EU (or more specifically the Schengen agreement) eases migration in Europe
--- making voting by moving easier. Unfortunately they also tune down the
competition between regimes by making the differences smaller.

------
alexandros
What most people do not see is that libertarianism is against big corporations
as well as big govrnment. In fact bigcos can not exist without government
support. Reducing government and allowing the market to work should result in
smaller, not larger organizations, a dinosaurs to mammals transition.

~~~
nfg
"In fact bigcos can not exist without government support"

That is a mighty big claim which flies in the face of practical experience.

~~~
michaelkeenan
alexandros might be referring to the argument was made by Roderick Long in
Cato's lead essay in November: [http://www.cato-
unbound.org/2008/11/10/roderick-long/corpora...](http://www.cato-
unbound.org/2008/11/10/roderick-long/corporations-versus-the-market-or-whip-
conflation-now/)

He points out that government funding of highways acts as a de facto subsidy
of Walmart and similar chains by partly socializing the costs of shipping,
making it easier to compete with local businesses; and that regulations (which
large companies can more easily understand and comply with than smaller
companies) provide barriers of entry to industries.

He concludes: "In a free market, firms would be smaller and less hierarchical,
more local and more numerous"

(I don't have a strong opinion on this. It sounds plausible but it's a bit
anecdotal for my taste.)

~~~
bmj
I'm sympathetic to this, but at the same time, most local sellers (outside of
those who exclusively sell locally-produced goods) rely on the same
transportation system.

~~~
trickjarrett
I would argue they don't rely on it so much as make use of it. As cities grow
then they need to truck supplies in from elsewhere, but for suburbs and rural
areas they can survive on the local economy.

~~~
bmj
Maybe. It depends where you live, though--not every area is capable of
sustaining its own food supply(1). And, even those that are still import some
goods.

But I think we're shifting the discussion a bit to a "Long Emergency"
scenario.

As a bit of localist, I'm more troubled by local governments who bend over
backward to bring large retailers into an area. I think these more localized
benefits (tax breaks, development dollars, etc) are far more beneficial to,
say, Wal-Mart, than the highway system.

(1) And many that can have transformed that land into housing and strip malls.

EDIT: Fixed formatting.

------
biohacker42
Zed's point 3 is fascism not libertarianism.

Fascism the the standard straw man to throw at libertarians.

And because I can't bare to go through this again, let me just say:

Hitler was a vegetarian, and if you're a vegetarian you're a nazi.

Good day and Goodwin!

------
natmaster
I stopped reading when he misstated everything about Libertarianism: " 1.
Corporations are more “efficient” than the government because of the “natural
selection” of our capitalist system. 2\. Corporations are therefore better
than the government at everything. 3\. Corporations should be the government,
or at least in control of it."

This guy obviously not only misunderstands what Libertarism is, or Austrian
economics. But also grossly misunderstands the cause of our economic collapse.
I tend to trust the scientists that have models that can accurately predict
the future: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o>

~~~
chasingsparks
He also misunderstands evolution; That's a greater offense.

------
gaius
This sort of thing always happens when people who know a bit about computers
stray outside their area of expertise.

~~~
hc
this sort of thing is known as argument ad hominem.

~~~
gaius
Dude has just made up his own definition of a word in order to have something
to rant about. What would _you_ call it?

~~~
likpok
But you are still attacking the person, rather than his argument.

~~~
stcredzero
Okay, then, Zed's _argument_ fits the pattern of something formulated by
someone outside of their area of expertise.

Zed has exhibited difficulty with the precise use of terminology before. In
the recent talk that was posted, you hear him saying for people not to come up
and correct him on his use of terms like "Turing Complete."

[http://blog.cusec.net/2009/01/05/zed-shaw-the-acl-is-dead-
cu...](http://blog.cusec.net/2009/01/05/zed-shaw-the-acl-is-dead-cusec-2008/)

There are other terms that he unintentionally abuses in the talk. (left as
exercise) Still, I think it's a great talk and agree with a lot of what he
says. He reminds me of a coworker of mine. This coworker is hazy on things
like the laws of Thermodynamics and some aspects of Object Oriented
Programming, but he seems to get things done, and I'd have to say he's a good
programmer.

~~~
gaius
I shudder to think what Zed's code is like. Did I say rm? I meant cp...

------
mightybyte
Zed's essay is actually pretty good after applying the following
transformation:

sed 's/libertarian/republican/'

Without that transformation, the essay is positively enraging.

I should note that republican here refers to the republican party who at times
has espoused libertarian ideas. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

~~~
mmmurf
Excellent point. There has been nothing remotely libertarian about the Bush
administration.

------
chasingsparks
His article made me angry enough to write a rebuttal post. It can be found at
[http://justlikejesse.com/2009/01/08/re-the-two-flaws-of-
libe...](http://justlikejesse.com/2009/01/08/re-the-two-flaws-of-libertarian-
economics/) for all two of you that may be interested

~~~
awt
Good point about gov't encouraging home ownership. It is extremely frustrating
to hear all the rhetoric about the failure of capitalism and free markets when
the markets are anything but free due to government subsidies designed to
encourage home ownership.

------
natmaster
In case you were wondering what this guy is describing. It's basically our
current system of corporatism (where corporations control government) - which
is not only the very opposite of Libertarianism, it approaches Fascism. More
info: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ticytEUvVhQ>

------
jmtame
The best solution I've heard proposed was Socially Responsible Libertarianism.
Which means the public is held responsible (not the government).

So basically when pollution problems arise, for example, it is the obligation
of the general public to boycott or pressure the corporation to change
(instead of the government fining the corporation, which ultimately may pay
for the people in office to carry out the litigation in the first place).
Another downside is that the government can easily be inflated with lobbyists
to carry out a corporation's dirty work.

Libertarianism by itself is flawed because many corporations will establish
monopolies or duopolies, stop innovating, raise prices, and call it a day.

~~~
corentin
> Libertarianism by itself is flawed because many corporations will establish
> monopolies or duopolies, stop innovating, raise prices, and call it a day.

Whereas with big government, they'll never ever hire lobbyists to ask for
bailouts, subsidies and protectionist legislation...

------
anthonyrubin
I think Zed should stick to Ruby rants.

------
alecco
>First off, the unstated goal of most libertarian doctrine is basically the
following: > > 1\. Corporations are more “efficient” than the government
because of the > “natural selection” of our capitalist system. > 2\.
Corporations are therefore better than the government at everything. > 3\.
Corporations should be the government, or at least in control of it. >

and >> But that means that the only way to get government out of business is
to get business into government.

>> There's already a lot of money in Libertarian think tanks; it comes from
business. The explosion of dedicated Libertarian volunteerism necessary to
transform the United States has yet to materialize, even though the Republican
Party has harnessed an explosion of socially conservative volunteerism in the
service of the same business interests that benefit from Washington's
"Libertarian" bullshit factories. Money from business interests provides the
only real political pressure pushing policy in a Libertarian direction.

Yes, the libertarian "movement" in USA is quite undefined. Very often
statements by referents get out of the core of the concept. For example:

* Privatization of large public sectors, but not making a proper market and destroying regulation, therefore placing monopolies or oligopolies (e.g. Enron's abuse of pricing.)

* Keeping a systems of taxes and special bailouts or credit lines to large corporations that never reach small business or individuals.

* Keeping the system of immunity of owners of corporations for the behavior of the organization (something that appeared after Adam Smith, and is more aligned with his economic rivals.)

* The backers of US mainstream (alleged) Libertarians (save Ron Paul) are mostly backed by the US military-industrial complex, an industry completely against free market and almost exclusively based on tax-dollars supplied by a gigantic war-mongering government.

And the list goes on. I'm sure there are true good Libertarians but the masses
seem to be enchanted , yet again, by large anti-free market interests.

IMHO, Libertarians shouldn't support _any_ large organization as it would just
replace government with similar flaws. And a true Libertarian can't be part of
the Republican Party.

~~~
demallien
Hey! Put some carriage returns in there! You're screwing up the page
rendering...

~~~
thomasmallen
Not his fault that "pg" hasn't implemented something along the lines of:

    
    
      pre {
          overflow: scroll; /* currently set to hidden. Why? */
          width: /* something reasonable */
      }
    

A little CSS goes a long way for usability.

~~~
demallien
I think he did that so that things like code, which are messed up by wrap-
around, can be presented cleanly.

~~~
mightybyte
That could be, but there's got to be a solution that doesn't force me to set
my browser window to 1920 pixels wide to get rid of the horizontal scroll bar.

~~~
thomasmallen
Sounds like a job for user preferences.

~~~
APLonDrugs
Thought you were going to say "Sounds like a job for big government!" :-) only
joking

------
puzzle-out
"Greenspan and friends were all major libertarians, and even Greenspan said he
was full of shit." Oh well, at least that line made it worth reading.

~~~
jordanf
Greenspan was a self-proclaimed libertarian who used to support a gold
standard.

Of course then he gained virtually unlimited power by controlling the entire
US economy. Power naturally corrupts, he renounced his views, encouraged every
American to spend more than he or she possessed, artificially lowered interest
rates and caused the entire housing boom.

Article is a joke. Can't believe this crap gets out there.

~~~
zzzmarcus
This is, however jaded it sounds, is basically correct. Read Greenspan's book
(Age of Turbulence) to get it in his own words. While he was running the fed
he was definitely not a libertarian.

In fact, I'd argue that that you can't be a member of the fed and be a
libertarian, their entire purpose is to artificially manipulate the economy
through government... or quasi-governmental intervention.

------
wustl07
Maybe I missed the day where they fed us the bullshit that it all is a zero
sum game. You cannot "make a fortune" at the expense of others, but only by
offering others a better deal and, thereby, making them richer.

------
sutro
Zed's political commentary is a ghetto.

------
jpwagner
See how pointless BSchool is?

------
kingkongrevenge
Libertarianism is fundamentally about _liberty_ , not efficiency or anything
to do with government vs. corporations. The "unstated goal of most libertarian
doctrine" is to prevent people from getting bossed around or stolen from at
gunpoint. He can't even comprehend such an approach from his "let's tinker
with society for optimal outcomes" political vantage point.

------
logjam
Zed. There are _many_ more than two.

For starters:

<http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_libertarianism>

Notwithstanding these and the adolescent, Platonic fantasyland in which
libertarians reside, it's a source of predictable and endless amusement how
libertarians perenially attempt to present (and poorly camouflage)
simpleminded greed as supposed societal good.

Odd, that dishonesty. And the last eight years, if not the last three decades,
further show the lie of libertarian economics.

Any libertarians celebrate the 24th anniversary of Bhopal (and all the
subsequent "market corrections" of Union Carbide) back in December?

------
KirinDave
This is the first well-written, lucid piece of writing on zedshaw.com in a
long time, and it's actually quite good. For those of you turned off by just
the name Zed Shaw, put that aside for a second. I'm not sure I agree with what
he's saying, but there is no cursing, complaining about mean people, or
talking about how unfair the ruby/rails community has been.

Maybe he _is_ going to keep that no-rant promise.

