The fatal flaw of Libertarians is that they can’t see that their ideology contains a programming error that ensures the death of that ideology: an ironclad belief in democracy.
Thread on Libertarianism
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Libertarians are useful for one thing: highlighting government inefficiency. Other than that, they’re almost useless and have little to no understanding of human nature.
The fatal flaw of Libertarians is that they can’t see that their ideology contains a programming error that ensures the death of that ideology: an ironclad belief in democracy.
Arthur Conan Doyle was correct when he said: “While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty.”
Libertarians (outside of a few in the Mises Institute) all believe in democracy.
Democracy has proven to us that, regardless of what people say as _individuals_ about freedom or taxes, they _collectively_ vote for benefits and larger gov’t.
Example: simply look at US debt and what its government's largest expenses are.
This ensures the death of the libertarian experiment because more benefits & bigger govt also expands govt authority and regulation. Govt has no reliable subculture of restraint to prevent this, because representative govts exclusively comprise those who WANT to be in govt
Ergo, those who want to be in govt (ie, ran for election) will, in the aggregate, always find ways to increase their power and authority over time. In the US it started by politicians trading votes (power) for the treasury (benefits, entitlements, etc) in the 1930s and 1960s.
It's been exacerbated by adding a massive surveillance state since 2001 and Covid authoritarianism since 2020. And I haven't even mentioned corporate welfare which has been going on, in some form or another, almost since the country was founded.
The only libertarians I've even heard of that don't believe in democracy (because they see it as incompatible with liberty) are the Hans Hermann Hoppe type, who believe in a quaintly hallucinatory dictatorship, ruled by insurance companies.
More from World
Watch the entire discussion if you have the time to do so. But if not, please make sure to watch Edhem Eldem summarizing ~150 years of democracy in Turkey in 6 minutes (starting on 57'). And if you can't watch it, fear not; I've transcribed it for you (as public service). Thread:
"Let me start by saying that I am a historian, I see dead people. But more seriously, I am constantly torn between the temptation to see patterns developing over time, and the fear of hasty generalizations and anachronistic comparisons. 1/n
"Nevertheless, the present situation forces me to explore the possible historical dimensions of the problem we're facing today. 2/n
"(...)I intend to go further back in time and widen the angle in order to focus on the confusion I believe exists between the notions of 'state', 'government', and 'public institutions' in Turkey. 3/n
"In the summer of 1876, that's a historical quote, as Midhat Pasa was trying to draft a constitution, Edhem Pasa wrote to Saffet Pasa, and I quote in Turkish, 'Bize Konstitusyon degil enstitusyon lazim' ('It is not a constitution we need but institutions'). 4/n
https://t.co/1GtPJaxi1H - Ka\xe7\u0131rmay\u0131n bu muhte\u015fem Bo\u011fazi\xe7i hocalar\u0131 ge\xe7idini !
— dilek cinar (@dlkcinar) February 16, 2021
"Let me start by saying that I am a historian, I see dead people. But more seriously, I am constantly torn between the temptation to see patterns developing over time, and the fear of hasty generalizations and anachronistic comparisons. 1/n
"Nevertheless, the present situation forces me to explore the possible historical dimensions of the problem we're facing today. 2/n
"(...)I intend to go further back in time and widen the angle in order to focus on the confusion I believe exists between the notions of 'state', 'government', and 'public institutions' in Turkey. 3/n
"In the summer of 1876, that's a historical quote, as Midhat Pasa was trying to draft a constitution, Edhem Pasa wrote to Saffet Pasa, and I quote in Turkish, 'Bize Konstitusyon degil enstitusyon lazim' ('It is not a constitution we need but institutions'). 4/n