Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Epiosde 215: The Libertarian Delusion
Play Now!Everybody likes to suggest changes that will fix problems found in everyday life. What we don't often have, though, is a clear idea of whether those utopian changes will—or won’t—work. I present one example in this Epiosde 215: The Libertarian Delusion.In this episode, I read from: Joel Salatin's books, first Folks, This Ain't Normal, and then Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: Stories from the Local Food Front; and Tim Wu's book The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads.I play: Sydney Greenstreet as the evil corporate soap advertiser in The Hucksters. Seriously, folks, you have to see that 1947 movie. Musically, KMFDM backs Douglass Rushkoff in the opening, and I close with Julie & Rolf and The Campfire Gang doing "Over the Rainbow."
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Just listened. I am always looking for a pithy comment to summarize polemics like these, because they're so common. "Big business bought out the government, and then they used the government to oppress people, so therefore we need to abolish the government."
ReplyDeleteIt's like saying that a robber bribed your local PD not to respond to your call, when he burglarizes your house -- and then responding that we need to abolish the entire concept of the police.
First off, _why_ are you absolving the robber of all consideration. Did he bribe you too? Next, okay, maybe I like the idea of abolishing the police, but that conversation isn't going to go the way you think.
Yes certainly, in that analogous situation, we may need to fire some police officers. But again people don't seem to want to consider the analogous possibility of changing the government.
Hey, Kevin! Jim here!
Delete"I am always looking for a pithy comment to summarize polemics like these, because they're so common."
Yup. I remember a neighborhood gathering, where the fact that politicians got money and therefore gave influence to donors was a reason to hate *the politicians*. I was inches away from asking, So if someone is told the only way to make any money at all was to engage in paid sex with those guys over there with the money, we shouldn't arrest the money guys?
It's weird that these guys (and they are mostly guys) seem to assume that property is naturally the, well, property of the owner, an assumption that seems to conveniently ignore the social recording and legal framework that makes such an assumption possible. Oh, and let's abolish that legal framework and all the paperwork mills that make property recording possible?
Huh? Oh, Dear.
And I'll bet no one is going to admit anytime soon that advertising can so reliably sway opinion, are they? That would completely demolish their position.
Later!
—Jim