06-01-2017, 02:45 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-01-2017, 02:47 PM by Eric the Green.)
If pure libertarians were in total charge, no doubt spending and debt would decrease, at least initially. Those are not the only desirable priorities in our public life. The question is, what is public money spent on? Who pays it?
Our country's policies have been largely libertarian in the emphasis on tax cuts, deregulation, and touting self-reliance as an alternative to government. In practice, since the Republican Party is the vehicle for libertarianism, not the Libertarian Party, in actually-elected offices, our policies have also included continuous, expensive wars, subsidies to outdated industries, expensive drug wars and prisons, religious right nostrums like censorship and abortion restrictions, etc.
If the Libertarian Party gained power, libertarian economics would be pushed further. The lack of USA wars might be a benefit, except that foreign terrorists and dictators would have a freer hand, and alliances crippled, with costs to America to be determined. Taxes and debt would decrease, but real costs to the people would rise dramatically. Business would be allowed to pollute as much as it wants, which would result in increased costs for natural disasters like floods and fire as well as contamination of water and air and the resulting health costs. Wages would decline, unemployment rise and poverty mushroom due to business being allowed to pay workers little and impose poor working conditions, as well as continue to fire workers and hire machines and foreigners instead with no safety net for the victims of these firings. Education would be restricted to those who can afford it, which would increase the lack of skilled employees available to business, as well as inability for people to rise economically. No social programs leaves all ability to deal with social problems to the local police, which would increase addiction and crime markedly. The result would be a society opposite to libertarians' claims of freedom, but instead a police state where shooting people is the remedy for social and racial problems instead of social workers. Economic crashes would be frequent and severe because of the allowed rampant speculation and abuse of peoples' investments. This would further increase poverty, especially among non-whites.
Our country's policies have been largely libertarian in the emphasis on tax cuts, deregulation, and touting self-reliance as an alternative to government. In practice, since the Republican Party is the vehicle for libertarianism, not the Libertarian Party, in actually-elected offices, our policies have also included continuous, expensive wars, subsidies to outdated industries, expensive drug wars and prisons, religious right nostrums like censorship and abortion restrictions, etc.
If the Libertarian Party gained power, libertarian economics would be pushed further. The lack of USA wars might be a benefit, except that foreign terrorists and dictators would have a freer hand, and alliances crippled, with costs to America to be determined. Taxes and debt would decrease, but real costs to the people would rise dramatically. Business would be allowed to pollute as much as it wants, which would result in increased costs for natural disasters like floods and fire as well as contamination of water and air and the resulting health costs. Wages would decline, unemployment rise and poverty mushroom due to business being allowed to pay workers little and impose poor working conditions, as well as continue to fire workers and hire machines and foreigners instead with no safety net for the victims of these firings. Education would be restricted to those who can afford it, which would increase the lack of skilled employees available to business, as well as inability for people to rise economically. No social programs leaves all ability to deal with social problems to the local police, which would increase addiction and crime markedly. The result would be a society opposite to libertarians' claims of freedom, but instead a police state where shooting people is the remedy for social and racial problems instead of social workers. Economic crashes would be frequent and severe because of the allowed rampant speculation and abuse of peoples' investments. This would further increase poverty, especially among non-whites.