Economic Libertarianism is Pure Claptrap

Economic libertarianism is one of those ideas like Marxism, the Kama Sutra or NBC replacing Jay Leno that looks better on paper than in practice. It smacks suspiciously of greed in search of philosophical validation. You're hearing more about it lately because it has unseated thoroughly discredited neoconservatism as the Republicans' party line flavor of the year.

Sure, there's a handful of principled libertarians, like Ron and Rand Paul, who take exception to all government "meddling" including laws regulating who's having sex with whom and who's putting what substance into which nose.

But for mainline Republicans, economic libertarianism is simply opportunistic claptrap employed to do the bidding of their corporate patrons. The red meat of the movement is shrinking or, better yet, eradicating those reviled government regulations people love to hate until some corporation swindles, maims, poisons, suffocates or kills them or a loved one in the name of "free market capitalism."

Let unfettered market forces prevail and eventually everything will come up roses, economic libertarians argue. Corporations that don't perform adequately will fail: investors will flee; customers will leave; employees will quit. Maybe, but at what cost to society and human life in the meantime?

This nonsensical idea that the market can exist without rules is comparable to the NFL playing without sidelines, end zones and referees. It could be fun to watch until your favorite player ends up with a spinal cord compression fracture.

Even ignoring Wall Street's implosion and the disaster in the Gulf, we've long seen the results of intemperate deregulation and lax oversight: The dot-com bubble, vanishing pension funds, mine disasters, environmental degradation, faulty tires, unsafe baby cribs, tainted food, recalled drugs, runaway cars, nursing home abuses, usurious credit charges and on and on and on. What're needed are not fewer regulations of these corporate cretins but harsher ones.

No less a capitalist whoremonger than former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan admitted his major mistake in the run-up to the 2008 crash was believing Wall Street would self-regulate for its own good. Yeah, and I let my 12-year-old grandson stuff himself with candy and hope he'll stop gorging before he needs his stomach pumped.

It's one thing to believe in personal responsibility and accountability, as do I. It's another to advocate the kind of dog-eat-dog social Darwinism pursued by economic libertarians. Do they really think individuals can stand up to this massively complex world of crony capitalism, monopolistic collusion, deceptive marketing, stock manipulation and general corporate rapaciousness without some sort of countervailing government intersession?

This is not Road Warrior Nation! Isn't averting the violence, predation and inhumanity that exists in the natural state exactly what the whole "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (secured by instituting) Governments" was all about?