I see that the Libertarian party seems to be gaining some measure of popularity. They speak in terms of freedom, which most Americans would agree is a good thing. The Libertarians are more liberal on social issues than most of the right wing and are non-interventionists in most international affairs. Both of those strike a chord with many folks and I agree with them on many of those issues.
My problem with the Libertarian platform relates to business and the economy. They are in favor of full-bore laissez faire capitalism, which they say rather explicitly. Under laissez faire capitalism, there would be no governmental interference in business whatsoever. Everything would be based on profits and the choices of the business owners.
Minimum wage laws were instituted because in our economy business owners had far more power than employees with regards to wages. When your economy is made up primarily of many small businesses, it is harder for business owners to squeeze employees and keep their wages down. We are now however in an era of large multinational companies which in many communities exert a great deal of control over wage levels. Workers may have little or no recourse but to accept whatever wages the employer is willing to offer. Libertarians oppose minimum wage laws as restricting their freedom.
Under laissez faire, ideally worker compensation was based on supply and demand. When the demand for workers exceeded the number of workers available for that job, wages would be bid up, and when the supply of workers exceeded the demand, the wages would be pushed down. Individual business owners would set their own wage scales, and since economies are seldom at full employment, there is little incentive for employers to raise wages. Some business owners have believed it in their interests to have higher wages, but often those have been the exceptions, and there is no obligation to do so.
Businesses will often pay workers as little as they can get away with and will fire workers who try to unionize the workforce. Pay is not based on one’s contribution, but rather is based on economic power, and those with the power will reap most of the rewards. Advancement is not necessarily based on merit, but on whatever measure the existing managers choose to use. Managers and business owners would be free to discriminate in employment and promotion based on gender, race, religion, national origin, sexual identity, etc under ideal Libertarianism.
Businesses may not find it in their interests to install worker protections, resulting in things like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where over one hundred workers died, or coal mines where many hundreds of miners have been killed, along with others who suffered black lung and similar ailments. Businesses may not find it in their interests to eliminate or reduce pollution of the air, water, or land. Economists refer to these sorts of things as ‘externalities’, where the costs and benefits are not wholly to the same entity.
If I pollute the water that is shared by the community, I get the benefit of not having to pay the costs of cleaning up my waste before I discharge it. The whole community (and any others downstream) pays the cost by having fouled water. This may require cleaning costs to purify drinking water, otherwise it may result in disease from the fouled water. The same can be true for air and land pollution, and such pollution controls are opposed by Libertarians, under the guise of ‘freedom from government interference’.
Markets are not self-regulating, regardless of what capitalist idealists say, but rather are quite capable of distortions based on market power. Supply and demand are not sufficient to control the excesses of laissez faire capitalism. We established that around the end of the 19th century when the robber barons controlled trains, banking, petroleum, steel, and many other industries. A Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, led campaigns to break up the trusts and monopolies that had taken control of American industry.
Government stepped in to require an end to child labor and establish worker protections. Later, given the number of elderly people living in utter poverty, government stepped in to establish Social Security, and later Medicare. Government established workers compensation laws and funds so people who were injured on the job would not be impoverished. There were also unemployment compensation funds to cover those who were between jobs. These are all worker protections, which average workers insisted on, but which businesses opposed, and which Libertarians oppose still today.
Though I may agree with them on social issues, I am and will be firmly opposed to the Libertarian economic agenda.
No comments:
Post a Comment