Libertarianism - The Liberty Scam?
http://www.slate.com/id/2297019
Even though Metcalf repeatedly plays on the apparent failures of Libertarianism as a whole, it slowly starts to become clear that the main flaw, and indeed the harm that has followed the movement in the 1980s bears root exclusively in the laissez-faire, unregulated, purely capitalist economic ideal of the Libertarian Right.
Metcalf’s abuse of the notion of Liberty notwithstanding, his rather intense breakdown of the issues which follow the title of “Libertarian” is, in fact, a rather apt analysis of the nature of capitalism. With his keen mind he carves out of the economic policies of the US in the years after the World War, and during the Cold War period, the fact that capitalism allows that self-serving beast mentality of some to flourish. Leave capitalism untouched, unregulated, uncontrolled, and that process will, unquestionably, be abused.
There are many arguments for capitalism, and proponents of it will definitely unroll their long rolls of parchment filled with ways in which capitalism has, directly or less so, made improvements to the human condition. Without capitalism, they say, industry would have stagnated, innovation would have been limited, and rendered inaccessible to the bulk of society. Yet their very arguments reveal the way capitalism best benefits humanity - as a means. This is in very stark contrast to the world that the right-wingers, or conservatives, or capitalists place their hopes in; a world where, through the free market, everyone gets an equal opportunity and their place in society which they belong in, allocated almost divinely through the “Invisible hand of the market”. No, capitalism has been around, and even in its current, impaired state it has allowed and encouraged such injustice, that unlike these right-wing hopefuls, I can no longer give the benefit of the doubt to the capitalist ideal. Can you?
I suppose the scorn of being snubbed out of the conversation by someone who claims to be above political discourse can bear some pretty succulent fruit.
