10 Unfortunate Facts of Life

[ccbatson]

People forget that Ayn Rand herself disliked Libertarianism more than liberalism.

[elganned]

I didn't forget it. I just consider it irrelevent. A loopy is a loopy, regardless of who she dislikes.

[rb336]

humanmachinery, [[re your post #16)

I will just have to disagree with you about the Founders.

Ola, the founders were largely agrarian in their outlook. those philosophies meant very little, if anything, to them.

MOST of the major founders, including Jefferson and Madison, were very much against allowing any large-scale concentration of wealth -- Jefferson proposed a geometric income tax scale to prevent the creation of a permanent aristocracy-esque monied class, and both proposed rather hefty government estate taxes on everything but farmland

[oladub]

Ola, the founders were largely agrarian in their outlook. those philosophies meant very little, if anything, to them.

MOST of the major founders, including Jefferson and Madison, were very much against allowing any large-scale concentration of wealth -- Jefferson proposed a geometric income tax scale to prevent the creation of a permanent aristocracy-esque monied class, and both proposed rather hefty government estate taxes on everything but farmland

You are right . Those terms were not even coined yet. However, economic and political philosophy was very important to them. That is why they supported the US Declaration of Independence and a Constitution with a Bill of Rights.

Madison and Jefferson were against the large scale concentration of wealth. Jeferson shut down the first national bank - sort of like the Federal Reserve of his day.

I did find one Madison quote showing concern over the unequal distribution of property and you have found at least one for Jefferson.
The most common and durable source of faction has been
the various and unequal distribution of property.
James Madison

However, I found many more quotes leaning toward small government and how government should or shouldn't work. Hamilton is your guy. He more consistently wanted a big centralized federal government including a central bank.
__________________________________________________ ________
Thomas Jefferson quotes-

'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered..'

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.

Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
__________________________________________________ ___________
Madison-
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

"Landholders ought to have a share in the government
to support these invaluable interests and check the other many.
They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority
of the opulent against the majority."

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

"With respect to the words general welfare,
I have always regarded them as qualified
by the detail of powers connected with them.
To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be
a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which
there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
__________________________________________________ ___________

To me, the bulk of this sounds more libertarian than either welfare state Democrat or neocon Republican. They sure don't sound like Bush or Obama.

[EastSider]

Many libertarians [[including one who occasionally posts in this forum) call for the repeal of all zoning laws. They argue zoning laws are a restriction upon the freedom of real estate owners to exercise their property with the full freedom that is due to them.

Except putting a factory or a skyscraper in a residential neighborhood would not just be an exercise in the operation of property. It would be devaluing the properties of those who surround you, and likely creating health and traffic hazards for them. If you lived in a major metropolitan area, such a construction project could very well collapse subway tunnels, or interfere with air traffic patterns.

In your example, there are actual property-rights violations recognized by libertarian philosophy. Property rights can extend not just to the physical structures, but the air and water in the case of a well.

If a neighbor's activities either pollute your air or contaminate your well water, nothing in libertarian philosophy would prevent you from seeking corrective action. The pollution or contamination or even ability to exit your property would amount to aggression on your neighbor's part, and the base of libertarian philosophy is nonaggression in all matters.

You seem to be confusing libertarian philosophy with some sort of corporatism or mercantilism, neither of which is true.

[rb336]

To me, the bulk of this sounds more libertarian than either welfare state Democrat or neocon Republican. They sure don't sound like Bush or Obama.

I would agree on that.

for the bulk of those quotes, I have yet to find an original source cited. I can not address them without knowing the actual context in which they were made

[rb336]

"The additional securities to republican government, to liberty and to property, to be derived from the adoption of the plan under consideration, consist chiefly in the restraints which the preservation of the Union will impose on local factions and insurrections, and on the ambition of powerful individuals in single States, who may acquire credit and influence enough, from leaders and favorites, to become the despots of the people" - Federalist 85

[ccbatson]

Republican with a dash of libertarianism [[a smidge less than Ron Paul) is a great recipe for who we should be supporting for public office.

[oladub]

I would agree on that.

for the bulk of those quotes, I have yet to find an original source cited. I can not address them without knowing the actual context in which they were made

Rb, I found sources for most of the Jefferson quotes. One I couldn't find and a few were worded differently. The gist is the same.


"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - kThomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin [[1802)


"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.'" -Jefferson's comment in a prospectus for his translation of Destutt de Tracy's Treatise on Political Economy


"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820. FE 10:175


"if we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." - Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 29 November 1802


"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. " T.Jefferson The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom - Draft 1779


"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors indeed more at their ease, at the expense of the people." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. [[Forrest version) ME 6:391


"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821


“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.� T. Jefferson "Diffusion of Knowledge" Bill in 1779, in the Virginia legislature


"...in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution..." T. Jefferson Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: [[from draft)


"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." --Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276


"The freedom and happiness of man... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810. ME 12:369


"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild,and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, Paris, 27 May 1788


Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. ["Notes on Virginia," 1784]


"History, in general, only informs us what bad government is." Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Norvell of 14 June 1807


"For authority to apply the surplus [of taxes] to objects of improvement, an amendment of the Constitution would have been necessary." --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:354


Good Jefferson sources: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/...s/jeffcont.htm
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki...n_Encyclopedia

[jt1]

"And do I really need to remind you that "nigger" is a bad word?!"

Don't need to tell me. I don't use it. But I wish someone would tell that to black folks.

Please refer to #3. The part about thinking that 'they' all think alike. Of course there are a lot of white folks that need to be told this as well.

[ccbatson]

Very well done Oladub.

Of course, libs might pull some little factoid about Jefferson out of their backsides to criticise...on balance, this is the philosophy we need to gravitate towards.

[rb336]

Rb, I found sources for most of the Jefferson quotes. One I couldn't find and a few were worded differently. The gist is the same.

Thanks. now I can see them in context

[rb336]

Rb, I found sources for most of the Jefferson quotes. One I couldn't find and a few were worded differently. The gist is the same.


"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - kThomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin [[1802)Good Jefferson sources: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/...s/jeffcont.htm
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki...n_Encyclopedia

should have looked that one up in the 'cyclopedia -- it says the following:

This quotation is at least partly spurious; see comments below.

it says similar things about some of the others as well

Wealth acquired by speculation and plunder is fugacious in its nature and fills society with the spirit of gambling. Letter to G. Washington, Jefferson cyclopedia p 1787

I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of all our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. 1816 letter to George Logan

[ccbatson]

I didn't think I was going to be so prophetic, so quickly.

[humanmachinery]

The modern concept of the corporation didn't even exist in Jefferson's lifetime. Railroad networks, telegraphs, mechanical typewriters, adding machines, integrated assembly, interchangeable parts, and fiduciary responsibility laws all arrived after he'd quit politics.

-------------------

Now, here's my analysis of libertarian economic position, as interpreted through the lens of The Cato Institute [[which I feel to be the most sensible of the libertarian think tanks).

Taxpayers and politicians should be wary of any transportation projects that cannot be paid for out of user fees.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9753

highway users paid for interstate highways, whereas high-speed rail will be almost entirely subsidized by general taxpayers who will rarely use it.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10505

High-speed rail is a technology whose time has come — and gone. What might have been useful a century ago is today merely an anachronism that would cost taxpayers tens or hundreds of billions of dollars yet contribute little to American mobility or environmental quality.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/section...Id=personaDest

The Cato Institute's general thesis is that public transportation is a mistake, because public services run counter to the 'will of the free market,' which would provide those services if the public really wanted them.

In order to accept this premise, we must first presume the market as a whole has a coherent direction and reacts in an inherently rational manner. I can find much evidence to contradict this view, but let's just play along.

Let's consider the role the federal government played in stimulating the "will of the free market," which did not always obey ethical parameters when left to its own devices.

The American economy of the last sixty years has developed a disproportionate dependence upon domestic real estate, so much that many economists assume the housing market should naturally drive a large chunk of the economy. This is not sustainable, and the most recent crash showed just how precarious housing bubbles can be.

What did the federal government have to do with this? Back during the Great Depression, some members of Roosevelt's brain trust became convinced that the right to clean, safe, and affordable living space necessitated individual home ownership. This led to the creation of the FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and all sorts of government assistance programs targeted at helping Americans buy houses and escape predatory lending. The whole concept of deductible mortgage interest was alien until the arrival of the New Deal.

And when hundreds of thousands of G.I.s came back from the war and went to college, Harry Truman argued it was America's duty to help them get affordable homes.

I doubt he anticipated the full results. History is full of unintended consequences.

But why suburban homes and not urban condos? I think it's worth noting the first condominiums in the United States were not built until the early 1960s, while bedroom communities on the outskirts of major cities go back at least as far as the late 19th century, when they were promoted as the American ideal by Catherine Beecher.

Now, Beecher was the Martha Stewart of her day, but I realize one person does not create a social movement on their own. There have to be other contributing factors.

Fair enough. Let's examine the more enduring causes of our current predicament.

1.) Rural land is cheaper. It's cheaper to buy, easier to get re-zoned for residential or commercial use, there are prior structures to demolish, and it's easier to find a spot that doesn't contain toxic waste or a garbage dump you have to clean up. Buying houses further from the city was also typically a cheaper proposition in the early days. Many are unaware of the fact that buying a new home qualified for federal housing assistance in the US in the post-war years, while renovations and upgrades of existing housing stock did not. Property owners in cities found they could more easily afford a new home rather than an existing home because of the loan guarantees and other assistance offered in the case of new homes. Living in the hinterlands meant no city income taxes, lower property taxes, lower insurance rates, and probably a lower initial price tag too.

2.) The same rules that applied to domestic real estate were also true for commercial developments. Many factories left cities in the post-war period. Several of these operations moved to suburban locations, but others set-up shop in far flung places. Bergs like Flint, Youngstown, and Gary didn't exist until the manufacturing barons established them. History has shown that mass production of goods requires a lot of land, and that companies will take a resource wherever it is cheapest. Employment is ultimately a buyer's market, and people move where the jobs are, not vice versa. Since the American economy has been dependent upon manufacturing for much of its history, guess where a lot of former city dwellers moved? They followed the factories out of town. Sadly, many of those factories later moved to Asia, where the workers could not follow.

3.) Suburbs allowed people to live in ethnically segregated areas during a period where race riots were increasing in frequency, desegregation was being pushed through by the courts, and violent crime was on the rise. Yes, people were more racist in the bad old days, and it didn't help that a lot of real estate companies played upon these fears to take advantage of white flight. This was exacerbated by the practice of redlining, which banks were permitted to do under federal guidelines. Homes in "poor loan risk" areas did not qualify for loans. These would be areas with any significant percentage of the population being minorities in many cases. Some developers also paid black families to walk through urban white neighborhoods or buy houses from white families. When black families began to move into previously white neighborhoods, this often created a feedback loop. Some residents could tolerate one black family in the neighborhood, or two, or three, but the more white families who moved out, the more likely they were to be replaced by an upwardly mobile black family. This was especially true if the real estate company also helped develop a suburban property, and were looking to make a tidy profit by moving white residents out to the boonies.

4.) The freeways that allowed suburbanites to live further from the city centers were not constructed for that purpose, but it's exactly what they accomplished. The Eisenhower administration planned the the interstates would to help improve shipping efficiency and reduce military response times. The idea that it would lead to the implosion of American cities was totally alien to Eisenhower, though economic adviser Alfred P. Sloan [[also head of General Motors) probably hoped it would sell more cars for his company. These new closed access high speed roads provided easier access to the rural areas beyond city limits.

5.) Automobile manufacturers and their suppliers did quite a bit to dismantle public transportation networks in this country. Companies like General Motors, Ford, and Firestone went out of their way to end train and trolley service by buying the providers and converting the old rail routes to bus routes. The quality of bus service was subsequently cheapened over and over, while the number and frequency of buses on routes were decreased. This had the dual effect of making public transportation less attractive while encouraging vehicle ownership. More cars and trucks meant more drivers, which made living in a city more cumbersome.

6.) The process of urban implosion changed the demographics and economies of American cities. Poor people could not move to the suburbs, but middle class people could. The suburbs thus became almost completely middle class, while cities became where poor people lived. The ethnic/cultural identity of those poor people was often black in the US, so the racial demographics of cities changed as well as the economic ones. The older cities of the Northeast and Midwest lost population in absolute numbers, and those that remained were more likely to be poor minorities. City tax revenues struggled to maintain services as populations and land values declined, along with the decline of downtown retail and the out-migration of manufacturing from downtown locations near railway lines to suburban areas near highways that could be served better by trucking. These cities went into absolute decline, becoming quite unattractive places for people to live.

Thus, the pull of the suburbs was joined by a push from the cities.

This phenomenon was much less pronounced outside the US, largely because other countries did not have such extensive housing policies favouring suburban homes, and typically invested far less money on highway construction.

So much for the free market serving the public good.

[ejames01]

That is a very interesting post.

[ccbatson]

Eh...overthought...people buy what they want/need/desire at a price that they are willing to pay and can afford. It is that simple.

[oladub]

humanmachinery, It seems like you are making more of a case against the effects of government programs than against the CATO statement. My guess is that CATO would never even except your premise that there is a "right to clean, safe, and affordable living space". Desirability, perhaps, but not a right. Roosevelt's brain trust, though, might have thought it a Constitutional right as you suggested.

I am not very acquanted with CATO but libertarians lean toward Austrian explanations. The "many economists [[who) assume the housing market should naturally drive a large chunk of the economy" that you mentioned are probably Keynesian economists. Austrians never made such assumptions. [[1:30 - 2:30 mark)

Our recent Cash for Clunkers program could have been included on your list. Instead of spending federal money on intercity trains and light rails, the decision was made to replace old vehicles with new ones. In this way, it perpetuated the suburban status quo.

One significant thing I would add to your list which contradicts your final statement; "So much for the free market serving the public good." You didn't bring up population increases. Since Roosevelt became President , US population has almost tripled. The US now houses almost three times as many people. Housing did get built. In that way, the population was well served. Americans wouldn't take up as much space of they were all apartments or condos, but some of the services like parks, roads, and entertainment facilities do grow with the population. Maybe people who live in apartments require more such things than people with back yards. We are expected to have 403 million Americans in 21 years so we will need housing for an additional 95M Americans by then.

k

[elganned]

Just a few clarifications and comments. I don't have the time at the moment to go into a thorough analysis of humanmachinery's very thoughtful piece.

My guess is that CATO would never even except your premise that there is a "right to clean, safe, and affordable living space".

humanmachinery did not put forward this as his premise. He was merely reporting what the Roosevelt administration concluded.

Our recent Cash for Clunkers program could have been included on your list. Instead of spending federal money on intercity trains and light rails, the decision was made to replace old vehicles with new ones. In this way, it perpetuated the suburban status quo.

If you have a wound, where do you put the bandage?

Light rail is a long-term concept, probably many years before it is realized and operating. Cars are the current reality. Attacking the problem where it is while working on the long-term solution seems a viable strategy to me.

One significant thing I would add to your list which contradicts your final statement; "So much for the free market serving the public good." You didn't bring up population increases. Since Roosevelt became President , US population has almost tripled. The US now houses almost three times as many people.

Good point, and needs to be addressed in the analysis.

[elganned]

Eh...overthought...

...for you, perhaps. It doesn't make any bald sweeping generalizations in a two-sentence post, so you think it has no value and therefore dismiss it.

people buy what they want/need/desire at a price that they are willing to pay and can afford. It is that simple.

True, and not the question under discussion. humanmachinery was discussing how government programs "tweaked" the free market to achieve certain ends, and how unintended consequences ensued.

You really need to brush up on your reading comprehension, CC.

[rb336]

Eh...overthought...people buy what they want/need/desire at a price that they are willing to pay and can afford. It is that simple.

yep, it goes beyond the simple black-or-white world view to which you limit yourself. never before have you so clearly stated your anti-thought intellect. Thank you

[humanmachinery]

humanmachinery, It seems like you are making more of a case against the effects of government programs than against the CATO statement. My guess is that CATO would never even except your premise that there is a "right to clean, safe, and affordable living space". Desirability, perhaps, but not a right. Roosevelt's brain trust, though, might have thought it a Constitutional right as you suggested.

And that is why I reject the central economic assumptions of Libertarianism. Market values must never be allowed to dictate social policy. I hold it akin to the separation of church and state.

Remember Reagan's assertion that "government is not the solution, but the problem." Sorry Ron. Your use of a definite article is misplaced. Nothing is ever just one thing, especially when it's as vast and nebulous as a government.

I am well familiar with the libertarian assertion that monopolies and unfair business practices arise from government intervention. I'm also familiar with the era that existed in the era between Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt's administrations. It was cleverly referred to by Mark Twain as "The Gilded Age."

The Libertarian opposition to public service claims that any roadblocks to total economic autonomy, absolute privatization, and complete deregulation amounts to totalitarian rule. This ignores the authoritarian results of Corporatism. Capitalism is a marvelous system for generating wealth, but a horrible way to run a government. A governing body run by proxy through business interests will invariably assume an authoritarian bent, because this is the most efficient way to preserve the powers of established interests –who have the most political capital at their disposal.

There's more than one way to boil dissenters in oil.

Look up the Grant administration for further reference. Privatizing public services did not in any way prevent corruption or waste during his tenure. Whether or not government takes an interest in business, business will always have a stake in government.

The "freest of free markets" also happened to involve perpetual warfare against the Indians and the existence of a slave economy in the southern US. It also glosses over the unjust seizure of Mexican lands 1846-1848. Shall we discuss child labor, cholera epidemics spurred by non-existent urban sanitation systems and all the other horrors of the 19th century that free market fetishists love to ignore? Golden age my ass. "All that free land" in the west involved a certain amount of state persuasion in the form of the army.

Democracy, human rights, and capitalism often come into conflict with each other. They are all necessary, and yet it is important to keep them within moderate and contexts.

I think it is, however, also important to make a distinction between capitalism and the free market. Capitalism is merely a system of using goods and services to generate wealth. It is practiced in every nation in the world, with varying levels of efficiency. The free market is what occurs when the means of production for goods and services are privately owned.

Consider Richard Nixon. Many of his policies involved utilizing the taxing, lawmaking and spending powers of the state to achieve progressive policy goals within the capitalist framework. This can be called "social democratic" if the base of support is principally the working class, unions, civil servants and academics and others interested in expanding state intervention, or "Progressive Conservatism" or "Business liberalism" if the goals are social and economic stability within a generally pro-business context. In practice, the programs of social democrats and business liberals can be indistinguishable. However, their power bases are different. Business Liberals will stop short of demonizing capitalism because they are themselves capitalists.

Going back even further, look at New York City. The giant metropolis would not have emerged if the Erie Canal had not made it the port by which goods entered the American Midwest. etc.....

Free market economics does not necessarily preclude centralized decision-making and publicly financed projects.

For a private organization to own and build the Erie Canal, it would have required a toll system and spending on security that was unnecessary if funded from the public purse. Thus, the Erie Canal, and most other transportation infrastructures, are best decided upon and funded by collective bodies.

The Erie Canal made the American Midwest possible in that it greatly reduced the cost and time it took to ship goods to the East Coast. Later came the land grants and railway subsidies. The 1950s Interstate highway system was the latest in a long series of transportation initiatives.

The interplay of private and public enterprise is so interlaced that you will not find a way to examine each on isolation.

A private trucking company that relies on the existence of the interstate highway system is but one example. There were virtually no long-haul trucking companies in the 1940s. By the 1960s they were ubiquitous.

[[Ever wonder why the Pentagon, the biggest welfare state on Earth, is rarely discussed for what it is?)

Beyond the historical examples, the facts remain that market forces never exist within a vacuum. They never have and never will.

My point here is not to get wrapped up in the specifics of historical wrongs or the excesses of state intervention in areas it should have stayed out of, but rather to acknowledge that neither the free market nor state policy are panaceas. Hardly an earth-shattering revelation, but lionizing private industry and demonizing the state [[and vice versa) is pointless. Capitalism provides the economic engine, and the state must establish the rules of the game through the framework of law.

Railways killed off the canals. Highways and airlines killed off the passenger railways. Cue Elton John music from the Lion King.

This can also be acted out in a modern context. I do not care if my neighbor desires to paint his house purple, but if he wants to demolish it and put up a fifty story commercial skyscraper in a residential district, we've got a problem. The traffic will keep me awake at night, the construction will send debris all over my lawn, and the idiot kids from the ice cream parlor will probably key my car at some point. My neighbor has not caused me physical harm or damaged any of my property, but he has still violated a social contract. This should not be permitted, though persons like Von Mises and Rand would argue there should be no restrictions on the use of private property or enterprise.

A truly unfettered economy only makes sense if you believe the meek have consented to be crushed by the strong.

I am not very acquanted with CATO but libertarians lean toward Austrian explanations. The "many economists [[who) assume the housing market should naturally drive a large chunk of the economy" that you mentioned are probably Keynesian economists. Austrians never made such assumptions. [[1:30 - 2:30 mark)

Actually, many Libertarians are divided on whether to adopt the arguments the Austrian School or the Chicago School. Granted, these are scarce degrees of difference based on monetarism, but they exist.

And while Keynesianism is anathema to most Libertarians, it retains a strong following in many corners of the world. Paul Krugman may not be the first and last word on Keynes theories, but he has a sizable number of followers, and gets invited as a "guest of honor" to any number of international conferences.

Krugman cannot speak for Keynes though, just as it is futile to speculate on what Friedman and Hayek might have said about the current housing meltdown. They're all dead. Fundamentalism has the general problem of lionizing the words of dead people [[even brilliant dead people), and applying them to situations where they are not relevent.

One significant thing I would add to your list which contradicts your final statement; "So much for the free market serving the public good." You didn't bring up population increases. Since Roosevelt became President , US population has almost tripled. The US now houses almost three times as many people. Housing did get built. In that way, the population was well served. Americans wouldn't take up as much space of they were all apartments or condos, but some of the services like parks, roads, and entertainment facilities do grow with the population. Maybe people who live in apartments require more such things than people with back yards. We are expected to have 403 million Americans in 21 years so we will need housing for an additional 95M Americans by then.

It's difficult to make accurate estimates that far in the future, but the United States Government and private enterprise should definitely plan ahead, so that infrastructure expansion and resource management may proceed in an orderly manner.

An intelligent strategy would be to approximate the most efficient ways in which commerce and public service can interact in a way that provides the public with choices while maintaining a framework that reinforces national interests. Capitalism is the engine, but a government must provide rules and standards for its operation.

And that government must provide those services essential to the public good, wherein individuals and private enterprise either cannot perform them, or have a disincentive to performing them well.

[sarge]

This is a great thread. Kudos to those who have taken the time and effort to articulate their positions -- you know who you are.

[vetalalumni]

Good job [[in your post # 89) humanmachinery.

[rb336]

Humanmachinery, that is one of the all-time great posts on this board. much of what was in it has been stated or aluded to by many in the past, but you brought it all together in a wonderfully cohesive fashion