By Jacob Weisberg | Slate | Oct. 18, 2008
Haven't you people [libertarians] done enough harm already? We have narrowly avoided a global depression and are mercifully pointed toward merely the worst recession in a long while. This is thanks to a global economic meltdown made possible by libertarian ideas...Any competent forensic work has to put the libertarian theory of self-regulating financial markets at the scene of the crime...REBUTTAL:
Blaming Liberty for the State’s Depredations
by Anthony Gregory | LewRockwell.com | October 20, 2008
Surely, libertarians have not exactly been in charge of the state. Indeed, it would be a contradiction to say that we have – insofar as the state is libertarian, it ceases to be a state. Yet somehow, America’s $3-trillion federal government – the largest state in our planet’s history – is associated with free enterprise in the minds of confused pundits, left and right. But every single dollar spent by that government is of course a dollar that has nothing to do with free enterprise...
REBUTTAL:
Has Libertarianism Ended?
D.W. MacKenzie | Mises Institute | 10/29/2008
The recent financial crisis has been a source of new hope for those who despise capitalism. The Democratic presidential candidate has gone out on a limb by declaring that the current crisis is the result of deregulation during the Bush presidency. (No such deregulation took place.) Slate.com's Jacob Weisberg has taken a more cautious approach. According to Weisberg, the current crisis is the result of the lack of new regulations rather than the shredding of old regulations. While Weisberg is not as obviously wrong as Obama, his claims are unsubstantiated, poorly argued, and false...
REBUTTAL:
The Attack on Libertarianism
Aaron David Ward | LewRockwell.com | October 30, 2008
A source of tremendous frustration amid the financial carnage has been watching the mainstream media exemplified by Jacob Weisberg.
RELATED
Is Laissez Faire Responsible for the Financial Crisis?
George Reisman | Mises Institute | 10/23/2008
The news media are in the process of creating a great new historical myth. This is the myth that our present financial crisis is the result of economic freedom and laissez-faire capitalism...
Critique of Interventionism
Ludwig von Mises | 1929
In Mises's view, interventionism is an inherently unstable policy because it creates new dislocations that would seem to cry out for further interventions, which, in turn, do not solve the problem. The end of interventionism is socialism, a fate which can be logically avoided only by a sharp turn towards free markets...
What deregulation?
Pierre Lemieux | Financial Post | October 29, 2008
Many critics blame the current crisis on loosened financial regulations. But they can’t get specific.
The Economic Crisis and the Future [audio]
Lew Rockwell Show, special guest: Ron Paul | October 26th, 2008
Greenspan has joined the gang of liberals and socialists to blame the free market for all the problems.
Why The Mortgage Crisis Happened
M. JAY WELLS | Investor's Business Daily | October 29, 2008
It is not free-market capitalism at the root of the current mortgage industry crisis, but rather the very socialism Obama hawks. The historical record makes this fact unmistakably clear.
