Richard Murphy on libertarians

Dickie's all upset with us:

I would love, for example, to see far-right libertarians thrown off the Guardian bogs as a matter of course...

I wouldn't sully my backside with your nasty socialist latrines anyway!

Comments

[Sam Duncan]

Oh dear. He seems to be suffering from the “state=society” fallacy, poor chap. Probably comes from spending too much time at the Graun.

Until a statist can tell me what's so damned civilized about forcibly taking people's money from them against their will under pain of imprisonment and using it to pay for your plasma TV, I'll remain a libertarian and support free, voluntary, civil society against the state leviathan, thanks.

[Pa Annoyed]

His problem is not so much state=society, but the failing to realise that if you didn't tax the economy to buggery, and regulate business to a standstill, you would be able to give the poor proper jobs, and you wouldn't *need* so much in the way of tax-funded benefits. There would be fewer poor because with everyone producing goods and services, instead of on the dole, the average wealth per person would be higher.

In recalling the Victorian workhouse, he fails to realise that our society is now about five times wealthier than the Victorians were, because of Capitalism, so even our poorest can live better lives than prosperous Victorians. He fails to realise that without the dead hand of Socialism stealing 50% of it in tax, we'd be *ten* times wealthier than the Victorians by now, and far fewer of our poor would have to work in call centres - sorry, workhouses - any more.

Socialists are like those monkeys that when shown money going into a box, and money coming out of a box, cannot understand that the money coming out is the same money as went in. They think the money coming out magically appears from nowhere, in infinite quantities. The government print it, don't they? So they fail to realise that all this stuff the government does, we pay for, and that if the government stopped doing it, the money we wouldn't have to pay in could pay for that and so much more. They fail to realise that if rich people weren't paying their money in taxes, they would instead be paying it giving poor people jobs, and buying the goods they produce so they can make a living.

Libertarians *do* have sympathy for the poor, which is *exactly* why we want to get rid of Socialism.

(PS. Actually, I've a vague idea monkeys actually *can* figure that one out. My apologies for traducing monkeys so horribly by comparing them to Socialists.)

[Tristan]

His problem is he fails to see that the capitalism he rails against is supported and encouraged by the state and always has been.
The freer elements have brought us more innovation and greater wealth, the more regulated areas (usually regulated to maintain existing business) end up as stale backwaters needed more and more regulation and funding to survive (GM, the banks etc).

He also seems to think that good can only come from the state (whereas libertarians generally hold that some good may come from the state, but only at the cost of greater damage) and that the private sector is simply not needed, it only provides fripperies.

I don't know, these state socialists seek to destroy society in the name of saving it. What can we do? I only hope that we can mitigate the effects of total societal collapse by working outside the state to provide (voluntary, libertarian) alternatives which can survive somehow.

[Bishop Hill]

I'm increasingly depressed about this Tristan. I think societal collapse will have to happen before this changes.

[Cleanthes]

Very interesting that page. If you look at the home page, it says that there are 17 comments against that post. None seem to have made it through though.

Fascinating bug in his blogging software that it shows up how many comments he's withholding...

[Kevin B]

And of course the old 'far right' slur gets thrown in. Anything that isn't to the left of NuLabour is 'far right' to these kinds of people.

WE live in a multi-dimensional universe, and physicists are coming up with new dimensions by the dozen*, but the Socialists continue to believe in the flat earth theory of politics.

*(Well it's either 11, 17 or 19, depending on which strings you pull)

[James S]

Is it only far right libertarians that shouldn't be allowed to relieve themselves at the Guardian's facilities? I have a few libertarian friends who class themselves as left-wing libertarians - would they be allowed to sneak in for a pee next time we are passing?

[per]

you can just see his revulsion at "handbag economics", and I suspect, Margaret Thatcher.

what is the name for the economics which involes running up lots of hire-purchase debt, spending all your money, and going broke ?

per

[John H]

Interesting that he is calling for libertarians to be censored. A few years ago the Guardian would not have bothered to mention libertarianism. I suspect it is the wonderful democratising effect of the internet on political discourse.
These lefties are always banging on about grassroots activism and democratising society when they want to sound like they are on the side of the people but by 'eck they don't like it up 'em when it actually happens!