As far as I can see the main problem with libertarianism (versus any variety of freebie-ism for any favored group, left or right) is the classic monkey trap problem. Freebie-ism delivers you a candy now. Libertarianism lets you work like stink and pass it on to the kids. It gives you industrial revolutions, which blacken the air—and result in modern communication, travel, medicine, computers, materials, and an upraised middle class to appreciate them. The trouble is that the “jam tomorrow” of libertarianism is quite obvious from an theorist’s armchair overview but is too far into the future for the monkey mind to feel it as personally relevant.
Of course it helps when your culture is long-termist, like the Victorians, not short-termist, like today.
As far as I can see the main problem with libertarianism (versus any variety of freebie-ism for any favored group, left or right) is the classic monkey trap problem. Freebie-ism delivers you a candy now. Libertarianism lets you work like stink and pass it on to the kids. It gives you industrial revolutions, which blacken the air—and result in modern communication, travel, medicine, computers, materials, and an upraised middle class to appreciate them. The trouble is that the “jam tomorrow” of libertarianism is quite obvious from an theorist’s armchair overview but is too far into the future for the monkey mind to feel it as personally relevant.
Of course it helps when your culture is long-termist, like the Victorians, not short-termist, like today.