Libertarianism RIP
Tudi kriza prinese nekaj dobrega…
A source of mild entertainment amid the financial carnage has been watching libertarians scurrying to explain how the global financial crisis is the result of too much government intervention rather than too little. One line of argument casts as villain the Community Reinvestment Act, which prevents banks from “redlining” minority neighborhoods as not creditworthy. Another theory blames Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for causing the trouble by subsidizing and securitizing mortgages with an implicit government guarantee. An alternative thesis is that past bailouts encouraged investors to behave recklessly in anticipation of a taxpayer rescue.
There are rebuttals to these claims and rejoinders to the rebuttals. But to summarize, the libertarian apologetics fall wildly short of providing any convincing explanation for what went wrong. The argument as a whole is reminiscent of wearying dorm-room debates that took place circa 1989 about whether the fall of the Soviet bloc demonstrated the failure of communism. Academic Marxists were never going to be convinced that anything that happened in the real world could invalidate their belief system. Utopians of the right, libertarians are just as convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried, and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history. Like all true ideologues, they find a way to interpret mounting evidence of error as proof that they were right all along. Več…
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The problem is, this individualist description of human nature seems to be wrong.
Ja , človek ni sebična, individualistična zver, ampak socialna, družbena enota, ki ji je mar za druge (pa pustimo dobrodelnost libertarcev ob strani).
Zato pa ima Obama toliko nesebičnih podpornikov, ki seveda ne bodo nikoli od njega zahtevali koncesij. Navsezadnje ga podpirajo zato, da jih bo bolj obdavčil in s tem denarjem nahranil revne. Pri tem ni prostora za sebične interese :).
The record-shattering $150 million in donations that Sen. Barack Obama raised in September represents only part of [his] financial advantage. … [It] is compounded by Obama’s ability to continue to raise money through the election because he decided not to participate in the federal financing program. McCain opted in, meaning he received $84.1 million in federal funds to spend between the Republican National Convention and Nov. 4, and he must rely solely on the Republican National Committee for additional financial support. …
The Democratic Party created a separate committee to capture millions of additional dollars from individuals who had already given Obama the most the law allows and who had also anted up $28,500 to the Democratic National Committee. … The Committee … has become a vehicle for ultra-rich Democratic donors to distinguish themselves from the 3.1 million others who have put $600 million behind Obama’s presidential candidacy. … Only a quarter of [this] has come from donors who made contributions of $200 or less. … That is actually slightly less, as a percentage, than President Bush raised in small donations during his 2004 race.
Obama supporters seem to have these alternatives:
1. Reject the private interest theory, and thus reject campaign finance reform, or
2. Accept the private interest theory, and
* A. See Obama’s donors as an unusual aberration, or
* B. Agree this is bad news, but see enough other good news about Obama, or
* C. See this as good news as they share private interests with Obama’s rich donors.
(vir: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/donations-as-ne.html)