Positive Liberty

Frankly, I’m tired of it. I wish I had a couple bucks for every person I’ve heard over the last few weeks say something like, “I’m a free-market guy, but we need the government to step up and do something.” I could buy some put options or more gold, and really profit from this un-principled wavering.

There are all kinds of variations of the phrase. One can substitute “conservative,” “small government,” “libertarian,” or “capitalist” for “free-market.” I’ve heard all of them. And the “government stepping up” part has taken a bunch of different forms, as panic induced philosophies tend to do. Nearly everyone has a brilliant scheme to defy gravity.

Often, a “but” in a sentence means you can disregard what came before it, and this is one of those instances. You’re not really a free-market conservative capitalist if you believe the government should bail-out businesses that failed. Call yourself what you want, but, at best, you’re a sunshine or fair weather free-marketer, and you resent how supply, demand, prices, and risk work. You think some person or committee should engineer a solution. There are words to describe that belief. They are Continue Reading »