Not all libertarians are in an affectative death spiral, obvious or otherwise. It’s true that many are, but I, for example, recognize tragedy of the commons scenarios and accept that some regulation can be useful to mitigate these problems. I believe there are some specific legitimate purposes of government, such as outlawing aggression, internalizing costs, and coordination (e.g., everyone drives on the right side of road, it would have worked for everyone to drive on the left, but as a society we had to pick one and go with it). Further, I think that every law should be validated to be achieving such an objective with minimal intervention.
I understand how you can form this view, seeing all the pro-business conservatives seizing on libertarian rhetoric to oppose regulation, but then neglecting the responsibility part when they want subsidies, or all the people who correctly notice that most laws are counterproductive and then incorrectly conclude that all laws are counterproductive. But when you claim that all advocates of libertarianism are like that, you are attacking a strawman.
“Libertarian” doesn’t carve out a very precise cluster in people-space any more. Pretty much anyone who’s reflexively wary of government intervention in the private market can call herself a libertarian. Some libertarians will support meaningful government intervention in tragedy of commons type problems; some may even go so far as to support some level of government assisted/coerced redistribution of wealth. You can argue ’till you’re blue in the face that that’s not a “real” libertarian, but usage defines meaning, and I think enough such people self-identify that way that the word has become fairly imprecise.
Not all libertarians are in an affectative death spiral, obvious or otherwise. It’s true that many are, but I, for example, recognize tragedy of the commons scenarios and accept that some regulation can be useful to mitigate these problems. I believe there are some specific legitimate purposes of government, such as outlawing aggression, internalizing costs, and coordination (e.g., everyone drives on the right side of road, it would have worked for everyone to drive on the left, but as a society we had to pick one and go with it). Further, I think that every law should be validated to be achieving such an objective with minimal intervention.
I understand how you can form this view, seeing all the pro-business conservatives seizing on libertarian rhetoric to oppose regulation, but then neglecting the responsibility part when they want subsidies, or all the people who correctly notice that most laws are counterproductive and then incorrectly conclude that all laws are counterproductive. But when you claim that all advocates of libertarianism are like that, you are attacking a strawman.
“Libertarian” doesn’t carve out a very precise cluster in people-space any more. Pretty much anyone who’s reflexively wary of government intervention in the private market can call herself a libertarian. Some libertarians will support meaningful government intervention in tragedy of commons type problems; some may even go so far as to support some level of government assisted/coerced redistribution of wealth. You can argue ’till you’re blue in the face that that’s not a “real” libertarian, but usage defines meaning, and I think enough such people self-identify that way that the word has become fairly imprecise.