http://www.salon.com/2013/06/04/the_que ... nt_answer/If your approach is so great, why hasn’t any country anywhere in the world ever tried it?
Why are there no libertarian countries? If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?
It’s not as though there were a shortage of countries to experiment with libertarianism. There are 193 sovereign state members of the United Nations—195, if you count the Vatican and Palestine, which have been granted observer status by the world organization. If libertarianism was a good idea, wouldn’t at least one country have tried it? Wouldn’t there be at least one country, out of nearly two hundred, with minimal government, free trade, open borders, decriminalized drugs, no welfare state and no public education system?
When you ask libertarians if they can point to a libertarian country, you are likely to get a baffled look, followed, in a few moments, by something like this reply: While there is no purely libertarian country, there are countries which have pursued policies of which libertarians would approve: Chile, with its experiment in privatized Social Security, for example, and Sweden, a big-government nation which, however, gives a role to vouchers in schooling.
But this isn’t an adequate response. Libertarian theorists have the luxury of mixing and matching policies to create an imaginary utopia. A real country must function simultaneously in different realms—defense and the economy, law enforcement and some kind of system of support for the poor. Being able to point to one truly libertarian country would provide at least some evidence that libertarianism can work in the real world.
Some political philosophies pass this test. For much of the global center-left, the ideal for several generations has been Nordic social democracy—what the late liberal economist Robert Heilbroner described as “a slightly idealized Sweden.” Other political philosophies pass the test, even if their exemplars flunk other tests. Until a few decades ago, supporters of communism in the West could point to the Soviet Union and other Marxist-Leninist dictatorships as examples of “really-existing socialism.” They argued that, while communist regimes fell short in the areas of democracy and civil rights, they proved that socialism can succeed in a large-scale modern industrial society.
Why Libertarianism Doesn't Work
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/29/1049619/-The "Somalia" argument is a sore spot for libertarians. They either fall back on the old line of race and religious prejudice I outlined, or they claim that it isn't true Libertarianism, you see: it's anarchy. True Libertarians believe in just enough government to protect private property and personal safety; without those protections, they argue, anarchy ensues.
The only problem for libertarians is that they cannot point to even a single current or historical example of a government that functions as they imagine it should. They have no concrete, real world examples, so they ply their arguments in a theoretical construct.
Each and every example of places with little centralized government is dismissed by libertarians as an anarchistic situation, not a "true" Libertarianism. It's the "no true Scotman" fallacy, Ron Paul edition. The hellish situation in Afghanistan is blamed on 30 years of war and tribal anarchy, rather than the lack of a central government. The case of Somalia is blamed again on war, on American intervention, and again on tribal anarchy. Historical examples of feudalism arising in the absence of a centralized state, or the repeated Dark Ages that arise after civilization collapses, are dismissed as either irrelevant to the modern world or invalid because of war and anarchy. The fact that corruption and the Mafia are more prevalent in southern Italy where tax collection and central government are weaker than in the North, is again dismissed as a cultural or anarchistic issue. It's always the same argument.
Libertarianism, in other words, is infallible. Wherever it fails, it does so because the people weren't ready for it, or there was too much violence to allow it to work, or because the government wasn't powerful enough to protect people from harm.
Libertarians fail to realize that there has never been--and never will be--a government that functions according to their principles because it runs entirely contrary to human nature.
As any libertarian understands when it comes to statist authoritarians, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. When you decentralize and remove the modern welfare state, leaving only essentially a glorified police force in charge to protect private property and personal safety, one of two things happens:
1) The central police force turns into a right-wing military dictatorship invested in stamping out all leftist thinking, then appropriating the country's wealth for themselves and their friends (e.g., Chile under Pinochet);
or
2) All central authority and protection break down completely as power localizes into the hands of local criminals and feudal/tribal warlords with little compunction about abusing and terrorizing the local population (e.g., feudal France, Afghanistan, Somalia, western Pakistan, etc.) As I said before:
Feudalism is the inevitable historical consequence of the decline of a centralized cosmopolitan state. That's because the exercise of power by those in a position to wield it does not end with the elimination of federal authority: rather, it simply shifts to those of a more localized, more tyrannical, and less democratically accountable bent.
Urban street gangs in under-policed neighborhoods, mafias in under-taxed countries, and groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon invariably step in to fill the void where government fails. When the Japanese government wasn't able to adequately help the population after the earthquake and tsunami, the yakuza helpfully stepped in to do it for them. The devolution of local authority and taxation into the hands of criminal groups willing to provide a safety net in exchange for their cut of the action is the invariable pre-feudal result of the breakdown of the government-backed safety net. It happens every single time. The people will want a safety net where utter chaos doesn't prevent it: they'll either get it from an accountable governmental authority, or from a non-governmental authority of shadowy legality. Both kinds of authority will levy their own form of taxation, be it legal and official, or part of an illegal protection scheme.
In its own way, the "No True Libertarianism" argument is very similar to the "No True Communism" of those on the far left, who argue that the fault of Communism lies not with the idea, but with the practice--despite the fact that no successful large-scale Communism has ever been implemented in the world. Neither ideology can fail its adherents. They can only be failed by imperfect practitioners.
Both ideologies run counter to human nature for the same reason: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The people with the money and guns will always abuse the people who don't have the money and guns, unless there are multiple levels of checks, balances, and legal and economic protections to ensure the existence of a middle-class tax base with a stake in maintaining a stable society. The modern welfare state didn't arise by accident or conspiracy: it evolved as a means of avoiding the failures of other models.
Libertarianism is a philosophical game played by those without either enough real-world experience of localized, non-state-actor tyranny, or enough awareness of history to understand the immaturity of their political worldview. Unfortunately, the harm they do to the social safety net and to governmental checks and balances is all too real, and all too damaging.
Libertarianism and Poverty
http://www.spectacle.org/0403/loo.htmlWelfare and the Minimum Wage: What to expect in America if Libertarian Policies are Implemented
The poor- both the recipients of cash from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families(31) as well as low-wage workers- are already in a difficult position. The lives of the working poor are marked by fragility, where one disaster- a brief layoff or a sick child- will place the family into dire circumstances(32). In the next few paragraphs, we will examine the effects of libertarian policies on the already precarious state of the poor.
The repeal of welfare programs is called for by most right-libertarians: The Libertarian Party(33), David Friedman(34), Murray Rothbard(35), and the Mises Institute(36) are all in favor of getting rid of welfare(37). Some, like Robert Nozick(38), even state that compulsory taxation for welfare purposes is equivalent to forced labor. This includes the payments most commonly associated with welfare- the Temporary Aid for Needy Families- as well as programs like food stamps and subsidized housing. Libertarians tend to argue for this repeal based on two claims- the first being that such a redistribution of wealth infringes on the liberty of those being taxed, and that second being that the poor will actually be better off(39) if welfare were abolished. As we are examining specifically whether libertarian ideas really aid in fighting poverty, we will focus on the second reason.
The usual implication behind the speech of libertarians calling for the repeal of welfare is that those taken off welfare will now find jobs to support themselves. This idea is usually bundled with calls for the repeal of a minimum wage(40). As the interactions of these two policy changes feed off each other, we shall examine them together.
Most workers earning the minimum wage, or wages very close to it, are in jobs which are considered unskilled or minimally skilled employment. The classic example of this is the "McJob," the stereotypical burger-flipping fast food employment. Similarly, most welfare recipients have few marketable skills, and very few have college degrees. Many do not even have high school diplomas or GEDs. The repeal of welfare would force current welfare recipients to find jobs with extreme urgency- after all, if the "safety net" of welfare disappeared, then the lack of a job means that one would have trouble feeding one's self, making the search far more urgent. As most of these workers are unskilled, minimally skilled, or lack the proper credentials(i.e. a high school diploma, GED, or often a college degree) for better jobs, this will inject a massive increase of comparatively low-skilled laborers into the market. These workers will compete for the jobs which require few skills or credentials- in other words, low-wage jobs. Combined with the lack of a minimum wage, a labor glut will cause wages to plummet even further(41) as employers have their pick of workers and a high unemployment rate discourages workers from leaving a low-wage job to find a better one(42). As the earnings from a full-time minimum wage job fail to cover the full cost of living for a single adult(43)- much less a family- David Friedman's call for repeal of welfare as well as the minimum wage would make a family even worse off than they are currently, as they will lack both welfare benefits and the wage they earn will be lower. It is quite probable this would lead to families where both parents are employed yet the family is homeless and often hungry(44). Even if the repeal of welfare was phased in over a few years, it is unlikely that enough jobs could be created to keep unemployment levels down- for example, in New York City in 1998, there were 810,000 people on welfare.(45) Given that New York City's labor market already could not absorb all of the job-seekers(46), it would not be able to absorb a few hundred thousand more workers even if those workers entered over a span of years rather than all at once.
Additionally, the repeal of welfare deprives many who are in the labor force of a desperately needed resource- inexpensive(and sometimes free) child care(47). The working poor often can retain their full-time job, and sometimes a full-time plus an additional part-time or full-time job, because of this availability of child care. In some families, it takes a combination of welfare, off-the-books child care by the person receiving welfare, and the money from a low-wage job by the adult not receiving welfare to get by financially(48). Additionally, if libertarians remove existing government-subsidized child care programs, this problem becomes even worse. Though the most immediate problem is the juggling of work and child care by the working poor, perhaps an even uglier problem is that if the child of a working-poor, single mother is given low-quality care will almost certainly be at a greater risk of illness, injury, or retarded development. Even if one argues that people should not be having children if they are unable to support the child, such theoretical arguments not only ignore the real-world situation but also dismiss the plight of the child. If a libertarian states that he does not care if a semi-permanent underclass is created, and that it's just their own bad luck if a child is born in a slum and has virtually no chance of ever getting out, I will admit that this argument will not persuade them. But for everyone else, this scenario should be deeply disturbing. (49)
Even when one obtains a job, there is no guarantee that hard work will lead to eventual promotion and a more prosperous lifestyle. Often, the number of slots open for, say, a fast food managerial position is dwarfed by the number of aspirants(50). Not many make it to the swing manager position which pays roughly $6 an hour(51), and from that pool, there will be eight to ten swing managers competing for the pair of available general manager positions. Even if one makes it into the swing manager position, the additional pay may be illusory. Managers are often asked to put in voluntary unpaid overtime(52). Were minimum-wage laws repealed, the increases in wages for managers are likely to be similarly depressed, making the escape out of poverty even more difficult- as if the game of musical chairs between worthy applicants competing for those managerial slots was not already difficult enough. Additionally, the pay is low enough that the worker often cannot afford the basic costs of higher education(53), further reducing the chances of moving out of poverty.
The analysis of libertarian economic policies show that the policies will neither help the poor get out of poverty, nor increase the amount of liberty they possess by reducing coercion. Clearly, the libertarian arguments based on moral grounds fails with respect to the econometric analysis.
Chile: Unemployment, Unpaid Overtime, Increased Poverty, and the Degrading of the Minimum Wage
During Pinochet's regime in Chile, the lack of an hourly minimum wage(54) led to expectations that employees work long hours of unpaid overtime. When an employee complains about unpaid overtime, he could simply be fired(55) since high unemployment ensures that there will be no shortage of volunteers to take his place. This effective degrading of the hourly minimum wage was an effect of the free market reaching a balance between employment and wages in the absence of regulation; a regular practice of Chile's construction projects was the weekly queuing up of workers to underbid each other for the week's work(56). Even when the Chilean economy recovered, wages remained low as profits simply went into the pockets of employers(57). Indeed, the rapid growth years of 1986-1989 resulted in no increases in real wages(58), despite a study that estimated that the minimum wage could be increased by 50 percent without increasing unemployment significantly(59). Not surprisingly, the poor remained poor, and the percentage of families in poverty increased. Real wages in 1989 were only 90.8% of what they had been in 1970(60). The real minimum wage dropped 40% from 1981 to 1988(61). As Lois Oppenheim writes, "Does freedom of choice really exist when only a small group has the resources to exercise choice?"(62). The utter lack of ability to exercise a choice is not functionally better than not having that choice at all- and the libertarian policy, rather than increasing the freedom of the poor, drastically reduced it. The historical record of Chile shows that the poor became further impoverished, impeding their upward mobility and reducing their liberty, thereby making the libertarian argument based on moral grounds a failure.[/b]
Here are a few more: Libertarianism Is A Fundamentally Flawed Ideology
By Business Insider
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-libe ... ls-2012-12
Why Libertarianism Is Mistaken
http://www.hughlafollette.com/papers/libertar.htm
The Moral and Practical Failures of Libertarianism and Small Government Conservatism
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/09/ ... servatism/
The Failed Libertarian Experiment in Chile
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/2 ... t-in-chile
A Libertarian State would probably fail. What do you think NSG? Would Libertarianism fail?
The answer on NSG is almost univeraslly NO.
