[ExI] Usages of the term libertarianism

[Damien Sullivan]

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 11:38:24PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> One of the excuses used against libertarian thought is, "it is a
> natural monopoly, and we can't expect private industry to act
> responsibly with monopolistic power." I would say the government does
> no better with such systems because of the lack of checks and
> balances. If it were a corporation with government oversight, then at
> least there are two members involved in checks and balances.

Alternate view: more inefficiency and room for corruption.  With a
public service, the administrators make decisions, answerable to the
legislature for the public interest.  With a regulated private service,
the business makes decisions, and then the regulators have to approve
the decision.  Two steps instead of one, and I don't see where checks
and balances are coming in relative to the public service; the business
isn't balancing the regulators, at least for the public interest.  But
it can capture and corrupt them, as with the FCC commissioner who
approved Comcast's merger, then left to get a job at... Comcast.

Plus, you're paying for the private firm's profits, for not obvious
public gain.

The virtue of markets comes from their being competitive, not from their
being private; I see no inherent virtue to regulated private monopoly
vs. public monopoly.

> I know lots of people on food stamps that live with their parents in
> $500,000 homes. It's easy to game the system. I don't begrudge the
> people who take food stamps. My disgust is at the government that
> keeps people like that from having true opportunity by overtaxing the
> capitalists that could employ them if they were allowed to do so

With the lowest tax rates in decades?

-xx- Damien X-)