[Jason Vines]

In January 2009, Georgetown University business professor John Hasnas posted this screed to his web site: "What It Feels Like to Be a Libertarian."

This libertarian, of course, appreciated the article. The balance of economic research, from what I've gathered over the years, perforates the assumptions underpinning social democracy while highlighting the virtues of free enterprise capitalism. Even my economics textbook from college -- Economics: Principle and Policy (Ninth Edition), one of the writers of which was a Clinton administration economist -- mightily endeavors to show how, "Attempts to fight market forces often backfire." Meanwhile, as Hasnas notes, libertarians who take to heart the teachings of economics have been most consistently right about the consequences of suppressing free markets and using politics to attempt to pick winners and losers. (I'd add, astute libertarians have also been most consistently right about the consequences of military adventurism and suppression of civil liberties, but that's another argument.)

This doesn't evoke joy at being correct but despair, which Hasnas captures, over proving unable so far to convince our friends across the world to stop imperiling their economic future.

My buddy Sim, though, objects to elements of Hasnas's essay. Sim has given me permission to quite his email on the subject:

Quote

It's an interesting article, but I wonder if it's a bit too self-flattering for libertarians. As far as I am concerned, I don't think it's by far not proven that FDR's measures actually did more bad than good (even if it prolonged the crisis, it may very well have eased the symptoms and thus did the right and necessary thing during crisis -- 10 years of moderate hardship are easier to stand for a society than 5 years of extreme hardship), and I think it's ridiculous to blame government for the recent crisis (at best, the government was a minor contributing factor, and 90% of the problem was the extreme carelessness and lack of responsibility on the side of financial market actors. But that's just my personal impression).

At least that's the absolute consensus position you find over here in Germany/Europe, which may either be because 95% of our commentators and elites are ignorant and unaware of basic market principles and thus idiots -- or because maybe, just maybe, the remaining 5% are ideologically misguided based on stubbornness, potentially blinded by greed and their agenda to promote a status quo that they only profit from. Considering that the mob often is ignorant, I don't discard the former possibility entirely, but I think it's not very likely.

What I think is much more probable, though, is not that libertarians are ill-meaning, nor that the majority is ignorant. I think it's that libertarians have a very good grasp on economy, but are blind for social matters because of their ideology. It's true that a good economy is a necessity for general wealth -- but what if it's not the only necessity, and what if the importance of a good market alone is way over-estimated by libertarians? That compromises in favor of certain social values are necessary for a fair and well-running society, which necessarily cause slightly more inefficiency in the market, which are small enough to be tolerated and worth the result?

If that's the case, then libertarians have an important role: They remind that an efficient economy does matter, and that ignoring the economy because of social values is indeed a dead end, and even dangerous. Many advocates of social values certainly do that -- and I agree that's dangerous, and criticism is warranted. But still I think libertarians may be way too one-sided, and overshoot the mark. Sure, there is no prosperity without a good economy, but a good economy is not the solution to all problems.

So my answer to the article: It's easy to claim having been right all the time and in the first place, when your ideas have never needed to stand the test of time. Libertarian solutions have never been fully enacted, and thus, there is no proof they are any more right than what had been done. It seems presumptuous to me at best to claim having been right all the time with such a certainty, when it was never proven.

I'll respond in detail later rather than posting another hyper-long message as in the "treatise on libertarianism" thread. But I thought I'd "open the floor," as it were, to comments.