James Buchanan was an illiberal masquerading as a liberal. His big idea was that government regulation of industry or of society is inevitably going to be captured by industry or by interest groups, so there's no point in any regulation. He was a Southerner who wanted to keep the South segregated. Basically a lot of educated segregationists like Buchanan and the Kochs fastened on to libertarianism as an intellectual way of opposing any of the substantive changes that the civil rights movement was calling for. No doubt industry does capture the regulatory framework, but it is not inevitable. But it's interesting how the Koch family, who owned the largest private oil company in the U.S. were bankrolling the re-publication of many classical libertarian tracts and it doesn't seem a coincidence that many libertarians of my aquaintance were also global-warming deniers. Rather than seeing government overreach as the problem here, it seems that certain industries, like the fossil fuel industry have succeeded in capturing a huge part of the American legislative branch, ie. the Republican party. Trump's exiting the global agreement on climate change was one of many egregious examples.
What speaks loudest-clearest to me from this (wonderfully) elevated discussion is the sense of loss. The loss of several things, of which the loss of common ground is the most painful, and perhaps the most difficult to compensate for. Or is there hope of such?
James Buchanan was an illiberal masquerading as a liberal. His big idea was that government regulation of industry or of society is inevitably going to be captured by industry or by interest groups, so there's no point in any regulation. He was a Southerner who wanted to keep the South segregated. Basically a lot of educated segregationists like Buchanan and the Kochs fastened on to libertarianism as an intellectual way of opposing any of the substantive changes that the civil rights movement was calling for. No doubt industry does capture the regulatory framework, but it is not inevitable. But it's interesting how the Koch family, who owned the largest private oil company in the U.S. were bankrolling the re-publication of many classical libertarian tracts and it doesn't seem a coincidence that many libertarians of my aquaintance were also global-warming deniers. Rather than seeing government overreach as the problem here, it seems that certain industries, like the fossil fuel industry have succeeded in capturing a huge part of the American legislative branch, ie. the Republican party. Trump's exiting the global agreement on climate change was one of many egregious examples.
What speaks loudest-clearest to me from this (wonderfully) elevated discussion is the sense of loss. The loss of several things, of which the loss of common ground is the most painful, and perhaps the most difficult to compensate for. Or is there hope of such?
(Thanks, Emily, from a former Beloit colleague.)