Hand waving is pretty much the one currency every school of political economy deals in.
I used to be a fully dressed libertard. But the world is too complex for any one humanly comprehensible theory to completely explain. Writing software for a living brought that home. When I got around to reading Hayek, I felt like I was revisiting familiar territory.
I realised that I was doing the same thing as the various lefties I'd mocked during student politics were doing: replacing reality with purity. The cornercase arguments for any strict ideology are always hilarious.
I fully expect that if Rothbardian libertarians were given dictatorial powers tomorrow, they'd buggerise it as much as the communists did.
Interesting Rothbard is actually a fascist, like a real fascist of the old school. He just usually dresses his fascism up in the pretty colors of capitalism but he choose not to do so in the following essay in which he:
* "dog whistles" racism and sexism,
* advocates a police state beyond the rule of law "Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error.",
I have plenty of issues with Rothbard... but, a fascist? His capitalism is a very different capitalism than what most of us would associate with the word capitalism. Even your quote of requiring police to be liable for their faults isn't something that any police force in the United States is subject to.
The key to improving liberty is trying to find allies, not trying to find enemies.
>Even your quote of requiring police to be liable for their faults isn't something that any police force in the United States is subject to.
Police are still subject to the law at least in theory in the US and in actual practice police are charged with crimes on a regular basis. Police in the US are not allowed to be "administer instant punishment". Notice that he is saying "unleash" as in decrease the checks against police abuses. He is writing this directly after the Rodney King beatings in support of the presidential bid of a White Supremacists.
Read his essay, it is a laundry list of fascist polices.
I used to be a fully dressed libertard. But the world is too complex for any one humanly comprehensible theory to completely explain. Writing software for a living brought that home. When I got around to reading Hayek, I felt like I was revisiting familiar territory.
I realised that I was doing the same thing as the various lefties I'd mocked during student politics were doing: replacing reality with purity. The cornercase arguments for any strict ideology are always hilarious.
I fully expect that if Rothbardian libertarians were given dictatorial powers tomorrow, they'd buggerise it as much as the communists did.