Topic: How Libertarianism was created by big business lobbyists - page 20. (Read 23958 times)

As an armchair wikipedia-surfing economist, I can see that Friedman was not the diehard libertarian I'd previously assumed. This quote here, again from wikipedia, suggests he promoted a Minimal State, and was certainly not advocating giant centralized states as suggested by Zanglebert above:
In fact, the wikipedia article suggests he was predominantly liberal, but was unfortunate enough to be paid by Keynesians to decide policy in a Keynesian world, so he did the best he could:
Today I learned something more about economics. Cheers, forum!

See, there are two types of unions. I don't think these are the official definitions, but this is how I separate them:
Labor union: A group of workers who have organized so as to have better collective bargaining power. (What most people think of when they hear "union.")
Trade union: This is more like the old concept of the guild, where in order to work in a particular field, you must be a member. They are typically backed by state power, or have their own, state granted, enforcement power. They serve to limit the supply of a particular profession, thus increasing the price of their labor.

Not at all.  While Friedman wasn't a libertarian in any absolute sense, very few absolutists exist.  I'm not one, either.  While I'd lobby for a complete libertarian state if that were within the realm of possibilities, it's not.  So I'd still favor softer chains if that choice were offered.  It's like the MJ legalization issue; medical MJ or reduction of penalties is not the ideal, but it's still a set of softer chains.

Does wikipedia need correcting?

+1


It's amazing how many people just trust the language of corrupt hypocrites with their "free trade" regulations, and then blame free trade for the resulting catastrophes. 

You mean some kind of mandatory state-endorsed trade unions, right?  Or are you saying workers which organize themselves are evil?  I doubt you're saying that    

Touchè! I guess it's just so ingrained in my mind that I didn't realise I made the swap. True, there may well be good Big Business. When I look at politics, and how it is influenced by lobbying, I genuinely feel that an abolition of big business would do much more good than harm for most people on the planet. Perhaps I'm biased.

Ok. So let's look at the idea of why BigBusiness would *promote* libertarianism. Just like the Christians took what they liked from a plethora of cults before them, and promoted it as their own, maybe BigBusiness did the same with libertarianism. What would the "true" founders of libertarianism have to say about huge multinational corporations, some with budgets the size of countries?

This seems logical. I'd add another upside: elimination of large-scale state-monopolized violence. No entity could challenge the BigCorp's security division. Depending on whether it was a GoodBigCorp or BadBigCorp, this would be a correspondingly good or bad thing. Right?

So when BigCorps now push liberal agendas, do libertarians tend to think this is a good thing? Or do they watch with scepticism and wonder... "Why, what's in it for them?"

No. It is not principally about the evils of employees (who form unions). It is about the evils of masters (who hire employees) and form cartels.

Here is another one which will clarify Adam Smith's attitude towards regulation.

"Whenever the legislative attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in the favor of the workmen, it is
always just and equitable; but it sometime is otherwise when in favor of the masters."

We can see then that regulations on workplace safety, for example, would always be "just and equitable."

I suggest you read the book. Adam Smith is about as statist as you can get. He is terrified by private conspiracies against the public interest. He supports legislation that protects the poor from abuse by wealthier individuals in society. I am not cherrypicking. He is obsessed with these issues.

Trade unions are still evil... It's one thing to require membership to work in a particular shop. Another thing entirely to require membership to work in a particular profession.

Dude, that's was a quote deriding trade guilds, the precursers to unions.  Still, big businesses really didn't exist in Adam Smith era, except for those with official state monopolies such as the East India Company.  He wasn't a fan, but I've yet to meet a libertarian who believes that big business is somehow worthy of special government favors.  I've yet to meet a lib that limited liability for corporations is a good idea, either.

Our friend. A steadfast enemy of big business and libertarianism.

     
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

Upside: Reduction in tax burdens, freedom from regulation.
Downside: Loss of state bailouts, state protection from competition, reduced gov't demand

Note however that business does not need to advocate a coherent ideological package. (why should they? good for them, only zealots do this).
One year they can just advocate for low taxes and no regulation. When they do so they throw in with the libertarian crowd.
The next day they advocate for regulations that protect them from competition. Then they throw in with the
Ross Perot crowd. The next day they advocate for increased gov't spending. Then they throw in with the Keynesian crowd. They play everyone off of each other.

It could be that the libertarian crowd needed a boost to compete with other groups, so big business strengthened their hand. Doesn't mean that they are friends of libertarians though. They just shared mutual interests at a certain point in time.

This is like arming the frontier barbarians to create a buffer between your own state and a neighboring empire. Doesn't mean you think well of the barbarians. Not at all.

Some more...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gallatin

And of course....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_jefferson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

To name a few:
Gustave de Molinari
Frederic Bastiat

Much older.

Austrian School (classical liberalism)

Carl Menger (February 23, 1840 – February 26, 1921)
Eugen Böhm-Bawerk (German: [bøːm ˈbaːvɛʁk]; born Eugen Böhm; February 12, 1851 – August 27, 1914)
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (German: [ˈluːtvɪç fɔn ˈmiːzəs]; 29 September 1881 – 10 October 1973)
Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995)

I think the roots of libertarianism are older than 1950.

The austrian school, makes sense to me. You can access mises.org and read some articles. ;-)


Remembering that the world was 'free market' for centuries.

Well, if the idea of "ad-hominem" is be played out, let's try a new term, "Occam's razor".

Assuming that the claims of support by some businesses for libertarianism are correct, does it follow that "Libertarianism was created by big business lobbyists" in the United States in the 1950's?

It appears that the historical use of the term dates back to the 19th century, so that's quite unlikely.

It's much more plausible that organizations, such as the real-estate lobby found a common objective with the libertarians: reduction in government regulation, particularly rent controls. From the point of view of landlords, big-government Democrats (e.g. FDR) would be an enemy and big-government Republicans (e.g. Hoover) would also be an enemy.  An organization which proposed that government interference was often counterproductive would be seen as an ally.  From the PoV of libertarian evangelists, being paid to promote their own viewpoint would be win-win.

Also, as has been pointed out above, there are limits to the alliance between libertarians and big business.  First, many big businesses (e.g. General Electric, Lockheed, Boeing), while wishing for reduced government regulation in their businesses, are very happy to have a customer who can print up a virtually infinite supply of money to pay his bills. Second, properly formulated regulations can help erect barriers to entry for competitors.  The revolving door between business and government helps to ensure that regulations are "properly formulated" for best effect.  As an example, look at the requirements for setting up a bank or stock exchange.

From libertarianism, very little. Taken to it's logical conclusion, libertarianism spells the end for big business's grasp on power. Many of these companies are way too big to compete with smaller, more efficient companies.

From a more libertarian government, on the other hand... Big business has quite a lot to gain. A more "business friendly" climate - while still retaining the regulations that serve as the gatekeepers to keep those little companies out of the game, would put big business on very good footing, indeed.

Do you see what you did there? You swapped the subject from "big business" to "evil big corporations". Just as you would expect good individuals to support things that are bad for bad individuals, good big businesses generally support things that are bad for evil big businesses -- especially when they compete with them directly.

There are definitely some evil big businesses that take libertarian or quasi-libertarian positions on specific issues that they expect will benefit them.

There is nothing wrong with big businesses.  Why so much hate against them?

Big businesses created and promoted liberarianism, you say?  Yeah, that would not surprise me if people who succeeded in their economic life promote economic freedom.  What's your point exactly?