<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">On Jan 31, 2018, at 2:38 PM, William Flynn Wallace <<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com">foozler83@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">American Character, by Colin Woodard.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">OK, so I have always hated history classes, and never made above a C in it (exception: ancient history, a B). Still hate it, but I am afraid that some of what I read in this book changed by beliefs about libertarianism and communitarianism.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Many examples throughout show that what results from either one of these alone results in tyranny. You have to have a balance of both.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Free markets associated with libertarianism in the late 1800s strangled the marketplace, made prices wildly out of whack with supply and demand, and many more. Result - the free market was not free. Railroad boardrooms ran the country.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000">Truly an eye-opener. Some of you may know all this, but if so, how could you remain a strict libertarianism? By being a Social Darwinist?</div></div></div></blockquote><br><div>Have you read the work of Gabriel Kolko on how railroad companies in the 19th century generally lobbied for regulations and subsidies — and were often successful? This was not because free markets failed so much as because price drops cut into railroad company profits. When folks who own businesses are complaining about price fluctuations they are almost always merely trying to defend their businesses from competition. </div><div><br></div><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Regards,</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dan</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Sample my latest Kindle book "Sand Trap":</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><font color="#000000" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://mybook.to/SandTrap" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://mybook.to/SandTrap</a></font></div></div></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><br></div></body></html>