What actually happened was the stupid US Government instructed and encouraged the stupid bankers to loan money to the stupid poor to buy houses they could not afford.

To the bankers it was just junk bonds all over again- Fannie, Freddie and George need to share the blame.

Strange then that big business has often supported state intervention. The reason? They need it to help them compete on the free market. Take away patents, transport subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare and big business wouldn’t be half as big. Check out http://members.tripod.com/kevin_carson/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/Chapter3.pdf

And one of the main reasons for the enormous boom in credit derivatives was the mistaken belief that, by spreading risk paper thin, the banks could effectively eliminate it. In other words, they were happy to offer big loans to the poor, because even if they did default, the bank issuing the loan would only get hit with a tiny proportion of the cost. As I say, this was a mistaken belief, but these things are very easy to see in hindsight. The voices calling for the abolition of CDOs were remarkable for their absence two years ago.

“State intervention at this point of human evolution is the only thing that can keep business honest.”

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Chicken or egg?

Engels wrote: “Bakunin maintains that it is the state which has created capital, that the capitalist has his capital only by the grace of the state. As, therefore, the state is the chief evil, it is above all the state which must be done away with and then capitalism will go to blazes of itself. We, on the contrary, say: Do away with capital, the concentration of the means of production in the hands of the few, and the state will fall of itself.”

The libertarian position is the former, the strict Marxist the latter. You can find arguments to support either pov, but personally (obviously) I find the evidence pretty compelling that it is the state that has created the conditions for ‘state capitalism’ to flourish.

Although this doesn’t look as far back as he has in his printed works, the following by Carson might offer some food for thought: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econn/econn102.htm

First of all, who said anything about there being corporations? As a matter of fact, the existence of limited liability corporations is entirely a creation of the state, and I think in net, a negative one. I bet you didn’t think you’d hear a libertarian saying that, did you?

@120
We *need* state intervention in business though, because left to their own devices corporations become inhuman profit-driven monsters with no social conscience whatsoever. State intervention at this point of human evolution is the only thing that can keep business honest.

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/the-education-of-a-libertarian/

You’re right actually, I should have qualified it with ‘statist’ or ‘traditional.’ There are some people who see themselves as on the left who I have barely any disagreements with whatsoever; if I implied the whole left was statist and authoritarian, I apologize. But I think, suitably qualified, my point still stands.

“Right, and who represents libertarians in this country?”

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Just as the ‘left’ has many different voices, so does the libertarian movement.

However, those on the libertarian right tend to be most vocal, which can give a somewhat skewed idea of what libertarianism _as a whole_ is all about. Imagine what impression folks might get of the ‘left’ if, say, the SWP were it’s loudest voice?

Have a look here for further thoughts:
http://towardsmutualbenefit.blogspot.com/2009/04/right-libertarian-blogging.html

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That’s a simple one. To be a libertarian means accepting the non-aggression axiom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle). That’s it. Everything else — all the different flavours of libertarian thought — flow from that principle, and must be consistent with it.

Note that the bare axiom doesn’t even include reference to property — there are a breadth of positions within the anarchist/libertarian tradition on property from private ownership right through to social ownership.

The NAA is all. Stand by it and you are a “tr00″ libertarian, stand against it and you’re not. Other differences simply reflect the diverse nature of humanity, and are _welcomed_ by “tr00″ libertarians as a simple fact of non-authoritarian life.

I just think this shows the pitfalls of having a narrow, one-dimensional view of politics. Personally, as a libertarian, I’m against anyone who is economically or socially authoritarian – and like it or not, these features are exemplified by both the BNP and by the left. If you think that libertarians aren’t opposed to the BNP, you probably haven’t met very many libertarians.

Not half as much as they both hate ‘lefties’…

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Absolute garbage. Libertarians _are_ lefties, in the _traditional_ sense. We are anti-authoritarian, anti-privilege, and desire a level playing field for all.

With it’s capture by Fabianism over the last century and a bit, it’s the ‘left’ that has completely lost touch with it’s own roots, and morphed into an authoritarian movement that would be anathema to those historic figures that largely brought the movement to life.

Sunny recently asked (“A wake-up call for the left”) how on earth the ‘left’ is going to move forwards, given the obvious drubbing that Labour will reap at the next general election, and the paucity of a coherent left ideological vision. IMHO, that’s a question that the ‘left’ will fail to answer until it starts to look at why a movement against reactionary forces came to arise in the first place.

Right now, we’ve got a ‘right’ that believes in man as fallen, and thus needing of constant parenting by the state. We’ve got a ‘left’ that believes in the perfectibility of man, again under the guidance of the state. Both views presume that someone knows better than you or I how we should live our lives. Both views presume that you and I are somehow ‘less worthy’ than those in power, and consequently ripe for exploitation by the state, and the crooked economic system that both Labour and Tory alike seek to maintain.

Libertarians are not the enemy of the left. We’re about the only bloody group out there that holds to the original values that still infuse your rhetoric, although not your actions.

I had high hopes when this site was launched that it actually meant something when it said that it aimed “to bring together and re-invigorate the liberal-left in Britain”. Although ‘liberal’ and ‘left’ have both been bastardised over the years, it appeared as though somebody here might be serious about reclaiming the heritage of those terms. To see so many floundering around in a sea of reaction and authoritarianism suggests otherwise. It’s a great opportunity going to waste, and ordinary folks, outside of the loops of privilege and power in this country, won’t thank you for it.

But have you considered that the money raised from increasing the income tax on these doctors could be used to train more doctors?

Except that one of the points raised in this thread is that the additional revenue raised will be marginal at best, negative at worst.

103 – You’re right, Glass-Steagall’s repeal was a republican move, albeit one passed by 92-8 in the senate. But… it’s simply not relevant to the current recession for the reasons I set out earlier.

94 – Mark Steel’s a joke. And not a terribly funny one at that.

The argument that raising tax doesn’t bring in any extra money is mad on lots of levels. It’s a good job these people don’t run a shop, as presumably they’d tell their customers “Oh don’t bother giving me any money for those biscuits. The notion that if you give me money, that will raise any more money for me than if you don’t give me any is a myth,” and be bankrupt in a week.,

Fuckwit. It’s a good job he doesn’t run a shop, otherwise he’d presumably tell his customers ‘I’ve just put the price of these biscuits up by ten quid, thereby obviously raising lots more money, as I’ll get ten quid more per packet’. It’s not often that someone so completely disproves their own argument while trying to illustrate it.

Not half as much as they both hate ‘lefties’…