4si4:
As some of you may know, I claim to be a Republican most of the time. However, that is only because I place a high value on conservative economic policy, and in the current political system voting for a third political party is equivalent to throwing your vote away. In reality my true political affiliation is the Libertarian Party. For those of you less educated on political parties other than the 2 major parties (Republican and Democrat) let me lay down the basics of the Libertarian Party on some of the hot button issues:
-Stance on Markets:
“A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner.”
[…]False. Markets have well known intrinsic inefficiencies: externalities, bubbles, and crashes.
also: efficiency isn’t the goal of allocation. we don’t say; “i will allocate these resources so as to become more efficient.” efficiency is something we strive for while we allocate. we say “i allocate these resources efficiently so as to achieve my desired outcome”. so when libertarians say, “A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner” - I say, okay, but a state doesn’t allocate - i.e. a state doesn’t make choices about using and redistributing resources on the basis efficiency. A state wants outcomes - poverty reduction, affordable housing, stronger economy, whatever - and it allocates resources to achieve those goals.
this libertarian obsession with efficiency derails the more important discussion of what are our goals? and how many resources are we willing to commit to our goals, and therefore how we set our priorities. it’s very unproductive.
(Source: lp.org)
