Why I am Slowly Becoming a Progressive Libertarian

I strolled over to Cato Unbound yesterday for some fascinating reading. I found this month’s Lead Essay entitled Corporations Versus the Market. These guys are Libertarians, and I thought I was reading just to get a different perspective on things. On Facebook, some friends and I have been having a discussion about Red States versus Blue States, which led into a discussion about illegal immigration, and finally to corporate profits. With a newly elected Obama, I think we all need to reassess. The Bush years exposed the so-called conservative Republicans as none-of -the-above. The spending and federal bloating were out of control.

The fascinating thing about the Cato essay is that I found that I agreed with all of it. The essay argues (I hope I am paraphrasing accurately) that our current system is actually a huge promotion of corporate welfare via bailouts, subsidies, protectionist tariffs, and even the use of eminent domain for corporations. We don’t have a “free market.” If we did, we’d see lots more small and local businesses and fewer big-box and national chains. Government policy protects these businesses. They don’t really occur naturally. (I suppose by “naturally” I mean in a truly free market economy.)

This environment of the federal government favoring large corporations, combined with the federal government taxing us hugely, has led to a worldview that expects the government to redistribute wealth because we have neither control of any spare income (which instead goes to federal taxes) nor control over huge bureaucracies like in the case of the healthcare industry.

Here’s a real world example. I have been working for the past year to establish safe routes to school for our local elementary and junior high. I petitioned the city to improve signage and reclaim roadway on a very narrow and very high-traffic stretch of road. This is (IMHO) a traditional obligation on the part of local government: ensure safety for local residents on local roads.

But the city won’t help. Why? They told us to go get a federal grant to pay for it. The federal government’s reach into all areas of civil life has undermined our power as local citizens to have an impact. Not good!

So there it is. Duh pookie is now a Progressive Libertarian blog! I keep laughing to myself about how I just became a “compassionate conservative”!! I’d love it if there truly was such a thing.

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November 19, 2008 | Filed Under Great Recession, Thinking Too Hard 

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One Response to “Why I am Slowly Becoming a Progressive Libertarian”

  1. Libertarians, Tea Parties, and Economic Plumbing : duh pookie on April 25th, 2009 6:53 pm

    [...] should be a self-correcting system. I understand this and agree, to some extent, for the reason I explained in this post. I could never be a true Libertarian because I’m big on wealth redistribution. To the poor [...]

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