The following is a critique of libertarianism by David Brin, which focuses on the influential Cato Institute. The text has a core argument: that a defense of markets does not imply a defense of the manipulative power of great corporations, a fine point that is lost on the market libertarians. It’s a long article, here’s just a quote.
David Brin:
“Alas, the paradox only gets worse, the higher your IQ! In every walk of life we are surrounded — especially at all extremes of the hoary/insipid “political spectrum” — by bright fools who wallow in sanctimonious just-so stories, blithely dismissing contrary evidence, always ignoring the suspiciously pat convenience of just-happening to be oh-so right.
Take for example* the erudite, “freedom-promoting” scholars of the Washington DC Cato Institute — purported to be the key think tank for studying and propounding principles of libertarianism. Let me zero in on them, because right now they offer a marvelous case study illustrating our problem — the mountain of rationalizing human nature that we must still overcome.
Why pick on Cato? I mean, other than the fact that they wear they IQs on their sleeves. You see, these passionate and articulate champions of the free market have lately found themselves in a difficult situation. A real bind.
Year after year, members and affiliates have maintained a marvelous high wire act, claiming surficially to be nonpartisan – to find equal fault between “Republicans who oppress freedom of the bedroom and Democrats who oppress freedom of the marketplace.” And yet, as donations poured in from well-heeled private sources, a funny thing happened to the production line of scholarly documents and position papers. It veered right.
Oh, occasionally (for credibility’s sake) Cato fellows would fire a very general – and very soft – fusillade in favor of abortion rights or against Alaska’s pork “Bridge to Nowhere.” Still, as the propaganda wheels turned, there appeared to be one guiding principle behind almost every missive produced by the Cato Institute.
We, who style ourselves as the defenders of a free market, shall obsessively and relentlessly ignore the market’s greatest enemy. We will never mention or acknowledge the blatant fact that, for 5,000 years, the most deadly foe of free enterprise has always been conspiratorial aristocracy.
Indeed, the Cato Institute has long promoted the worst social, economic and political conflation of modern times. A delusion that Adam Smith warned against. The notion that ownership of capital is the prime correlate with wise market capitalism. A very different concept, fundamentally, than saying that markets are themselves wise at allocating, rewarding or promoting innovative goods and services.
Just scan Cato’s sage and scholarly thinktank documents propounding upon the inherently superior wisdom of markets. Apparently, “pre-selecting outcomes” is a sin when it is done openly, by a nation’s broadly-inclusive and constitutional deliberative process. Even (especially) when it is shown that intergenerational costs cannot be accounted-for without some regulated market tuning, this kind of accounting is dismissed as an impossibly utopian and unachievable, due to the limited knowledge and predictive power of governing bodies.
Point taken. Score one for Hayek. And yet, “pre-selecting outcomes” is somehow portrayed as perfectly okay, when it is performed by much smaller clades of secretively collusive owners, scheming in small groups to allocate resources, labor and capital as capriciously as the feudal lords of any other era. Eras that, though less trammelled by well-meaning social tinkering, somehow managed to be far, far less successful than our own.
Somehow, under those conditions, nobody speaks about “limited knowledge and predictive power.” The secrecy that nearly all economists call poisonous to markets, is somehow portrayed as just fine when it is used by a few golf buddies to manipulate those same markets and squeeze out all players who aren’t in-the-know.
While the obsolete, ridiculous and long-discredited spectre of socialism continues drawing ire and alarm, the Cato and its allies keep on shrilly pointing at “government” as the sole and inherent foe of enterprise, never allowing attention to drift toward those who (increasingly) control government for their own enrichment. Aristocracies who exercise extreme influence over law and regulation, ensuring that government favors elites, in ways that Adam Smith cogently denounced during his own era.”