Category Archives: Free Markets

UPDATED: Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy

Free Markets, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, South-Africa

“Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is the new essay, now on WND. It tackles the “economic reductionism, typical of the impoverished analysis of South Africa, offered so authoritatively by libertarian economists stateside.” Excerpted below are two sections therefrom:

… LITE LIBERTARIANISM VS. THE RIGHT KIND

Herein lies the difference between the paleolibertarian analysis and what this column has termed the lite libertarian one, philosopher Hans-Hermann Hope being the finest example of the former. The rest fall into the latter, lite category.

A crucial difference between lite libertarians and the Right kind is that to the former, the idea of liberty is propositional–a deracinated principle, unmoored from the realities of history, hierarchy, biology, tradition, culture, values.

Conversely, the paleolibertarian grasps that ordered liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which we all must live, cannot endure. “The pursuit of the … paleolibertarian ideal,” explained Catholic philosopher Jack Kerwick, Ph.D., “is the pursuit of an ideal of liberty brought down from the clouds to the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged.” …

… FREEDOM VS. EGALITARIANISM

Contra the economic reductionism of the lite libertarian, free-market capitalism is a necessary but insufficient condition to sustain freedom in a country of South Africa’s complexion.

The truth absent from the phantasmagorical formulations critiqued is this: Economic freedom does not necessarily reduce so-called wealth inequality. Inegalitarainism is a feature of a free economy. If history is anything to go by, certain minorities will achieve prosperity from poverty, no matter how gravely the state and society impede them. Jews did it in Europe. Levantines and Indians in Africa and the Middle-East. Chinese in southeast Asia and everywhere else they go. Europeans in South Africa.

Moreover, “While all people want safety and sustenance for themselves, not everyone is prepared to allow those whom they dislike and envy to peacefully pursue the same.” (P. 4.) Free-market capitalism is not enough to safeguard ordered liberty in racially riven societies like South Africa, where the majority will always covet the possessions of immensely wealthier minorities and associate these riches with racial privilege.

Ultimately, the rights to life, liberty and private property will forever be imperiled in a country whose constitution has a clause devoted to “Limitation of Rights,” and where redistributive “justice” is a constitutional article of faith. (P. 101)

This, paleolibertarians (all three of us) know too well.

In “The Cannibal” chapter entitled “Saving South Africans S.O.S.,” secession is explored as one solution, it being a species of the private-law society delineated by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe, of course, has never been afraid to speak to the “unequal civilizing potential” (in James Burnham’s coinage) of different people and peoples. …

Read the complete essay. “Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is now on WND.

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If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

UPDATE (12/22): INTERESTING DISCUSSION @ PRAGG.ORG, to which I have replied.

Administration Hits Gov.Con’s Tiny Target. Or So It Claims.

Business, Free Markets, Government, Healthcare, Internet, Technology

CNN cracks me up. Reports of “continued problems with the 2010 Affordable Care Act” they call “anecdotal.” The writer also chortles that the “website deadline” has been met. The administration promised to fix Gov.Con by November 30.

Although insurance companies dispute that the fix is in—as the latest claims-making has it, the site is working for the “vast majority” of users. It is said to “now handle its original intended volume of 50,000 concurrent users.”

(“Insurers are still getting enrollment files that are duplicative and have missing or inaccurate information,” Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for health insurance industry trade association group America’s Health Insurance Plans, said in a statement to CNN. “In some cases they are not getting the enrollments at all.”)

Imagine worrying whether you’ll be able to purchase an item on Amazon or eBay when you want to, because you could be the 50,001th customer. Such commercial sites handle millions upon millions of customers all at once.

UPDATED: WND & EPJ: Unfettered Market-Place Of Ideas (Knockout Reporting)

Free Markets, Free Speech, Journalism, libertarianism, Media, Private Property

THE WND EDITORIAL SPREAD SHOWCASES the site’s tradition of good, vibrant debate. Like it or not, WND is always at the forefront of journalism. Has been since the late 1990s. No censorship, no party-line to toe; just an unfettered market-place of ideas.

The caption places my weekly column’s case that, “Firearms are meant for self-defense, not needless killing”—a case that, if anything, bolsters the 2nd Amendment and the absolute right to self-defense—against Jeff Knox’s utilitarian argument for Esau’s way.

The libertarian equivalent of WND is Robert Wenzel’s lively EPJ. Robert is another editor who knows how to mix it up.

UPDATE: WND was first to “document [the] hundreds of examples of the Knockout Game around the country over the last two years.” Now Fox News is taking credit for being first to do journalistic diligence to this story. Not so.

UPDATED: Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work

Free Markets, Government, Healthcare, Objectivism, Private Property, Republicans

“Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

At every opportunity, Jedediah Bila, a regular among the pig-ignorant panelists paraded on the Fox News and Business channels, parroted Bill O’Reilly’s “not ready for prime time” line. The premise of that fatuity is that given time, Obamacare could be readied for prime time.

A “scandal” bleated another cipher in a skirt—a Republican, naturally—about the error-riddled Obamacare website, when she should have been explaining that HealthCare.gov not working is no more a “scandal” than waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid, perpetrated by program administrators, program recipients, elected and unelected officials alike.

Failure and fraud is business as usual in government.

Liberals are incapable of grasping economic truths. That goes without saying. But why are “conservatives” every bit as dumb about the dynamics in a nationalized enterprise as opposed to the workings of a market society? Republicans appear incapable of articulating why it is that centrally planned systems fail.

The gold standard for stupid is this Republican riff: “Government would work much better if it were run like a business.” It is in violation of the Law of Identity. A is A. Things are what they are. Government is government; it is not business. The task of a rational man, advised Ayn Rand, is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it.

Rep. Fred Upton does Jedediah Bila one better. “Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars [have been] spent for a system that still does not work,” complained the Republican from Michigan.

Wrong. Government spends trillions of taxpayer dollars on systems that don’t work (the military included). That’s what government does by definition; by virtue of being government.

The problem is not so much the 55 contractors involved in designing Barack Obama’s signature Web portal, but the Central Planning Board that selected inept coders—and the kinky incentives to which any federal agency in charge will subject any and all contractors under its control.

The same web developers generally do a great job on each of our personal computers; in other words, when handling private property. If they don’t …

Read the complete column. “Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work” is now on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

• At the WND Comments Section. Scroll down and “Say it.”

• On my Facebook page.

• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” this week’s “Return To Reason” column.

UPDATE (10/24): To add to the litany in “Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work,” show me a company in the private sector (which is not the recipient of government handouts) that is shielded from bankruptcy. An audit would reveal that most government departments, the Obamacare bureaucracy included, are insolvent. Yet the fact that the taxpayer is forced to bankroll them indefinitely with tax dollars, immunizes these systems against all forms of accountability, fiscal and other.

You have to be a dimwit to want care from such an establishment.