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daveonGetting what you voted for, good and hard | Samizdata.net
This is an interesting piece from Perry de Havilland, one of the UKs leading libertarians, seriously it's interesting, read it.
Of course, the reasons I find it interesting, and many readers will is somewhat different to the reasons Perry thinks it is interesting.
He makes an interesting thesis, that markets work because the actors in the market are flawed and acting only from Self Interest. His point, and I've heard this argued somewhat by David Friedman, is that the real problem is that politicians are flawed and therefore Statist solutions don't work either. Only the market will magically punish the irrational.
One of the vast problems I have with this line of logic is that the only rational course of action is to punish the stupid or gullible, no matter what the cost to society is. I may, perhaps, be too empathic for my own good.
This is an interesting piece from Perry de Havilland, one of the UKs leading libertarians, seriously it's interesting, read it.
Of course, the reasons I find it interesting, and many readers will is somewhat different to the reasons Perry thinks it is interesting.
He makes an interesting thesis, that markets work because the actors in the market are flawed and acting only from Self Interest. His point, and I've heard this argued somewhat by David Friedman, is that the real problem is that politicians are flawed and therefore Statist solutions don't work either. Only the market will magically punish the irrational.
One of the vast problems I have with this line of logic is that the only rational course of action is to punish the stupid or gullible, no matter what the cost to society is. I may, perhaps, be too empathic for my own good.
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Date: 2009-01-19 07:44 pm (UTC)>"the market will magically punish the irrational."
But it hasn't has it? It's punished the rest of us. The irrational free-market self-interest brigade walk away with $billions. They have gained from creating this "credit crunch".
The countries that are in the best shape are the ones that were furthest from a free market. The scandinavian countries where the banks had already been nationalised, and France, where regulation was much tighter. The most libertarian banking systems, like the US and UK, are the ones that are fucked.
This isn't even the first time it has been obvious that libertarianism doesn't work. It's just the latest, and particularly serious, market collapse caused by light regulation.
Part of his error seems to be in thinking that all the World's governments are one organisation that answers to nobody. When obviously different governments have different agendas and even in countries without proper democracy there can still be leadership change and/or regime change. Governments answer to their people and have to do as much as is necessary to remain in power. This is an imperfect system but introduces checks and balances that he doesn't seem to think exist, which makes him an idiot.