re: #148 HappyWarrior

There’s a reason why both these ideologies have a lot of appeal with young people. I mean I understand what draws someone to both ideologies. You hear grandiose talk about liberty or equality and you think YES! The ideology for me but if you’re a details guy and I sure am, you just see the reality. I’ve known many a Libertarian over the years due to my alma mater’s economics program. A lot of them were honestly nice people but people who had heard economics from one perspective.

When you argue with these kinds of folks, they almost invariably talk as if everything is a small town, that every business is a Sole Proprietorship with a handful of employees. They speak of employers as if they’re all Bob the Business Owner with his 5 employees, all of whom could go get another job any time. It’s never BobCorp, the multinational that is the largest employer in town, and if you don’t work there, you don’t work.

Why? Because Libertarian economics only actually works when everyone has pretty much equal power, money, and knowledge. To the extent it departs from that, it works less and less well.