re limiting govt was re employment was re why not concentrate in article apr tijc uucp pjs tijc uucp paul schmidt writes steveh thor isc br com steve hendricks writes as noted in another thread limiting govt the problem libertarians face is insuring that the limited government they seek does not become the tool of private interests to pursue their own agenda believe it or not we liberals are frequently as opposed to anti competitive measures as you conservatives we don t believe however that competition will necessarily be protected by the actions of business interests in a free market after all in the example you cite it was not liberals that pressed for such regulations but good staunch conservative businessmen as adam smith so eloquently demonstrated the free market is not something that capitalists seek to protect when they can profit from its elimination the same point was made by marx a point of agreement between the two theorists that should tell us something i do not want the government to become a tool of private interests limited government cannot insure that private interests will not use this government for their own agenda agreed but this is not a failure of libertarianism it is the fact that utopia is not an option there is no single system where everything is perfect it is a failure of libertarianism if the ideology does not provide any reasonable way to restrain such actions other than utopian dreams just as marxism fails to specify how pure communism is to be achieved and the state is to wither away libertarians frequently fail to show how weakening the power of the state will result in improvement in the human condition so it is wise to look for the best solution if you compare countries to see which ones people would rather live in which ones have less starvation hunger poverty and misery you will find that they have a more limitted government than countries with alot of poverty misery and suffering no limitted government cannot insure anything but it sure is better than the alternative big government this is a strawman argument and fails on several grounds in this case limited and big government are not defined i would point out that lebanon somalia and the former yugoslavia are by some definitions nations with limited government while the us canada and nations in western europe where people would rather live are often pointed out as nations with big government from a libertarian point of view the argument is not between those who want limited government and those who want unlimited government it is between those who believe government regulation in a capitalist economy serves worthwhile ends and those who believe such regulation is neither desirable on empirical grounds nor justifiable on ideological grounds jsh paul schmidt advocates for self government davy crockett chapter president steve hendricks domain steveh thor isc br com one thing about data it sure does cut uucp uunet isc br thor steveh the bulls t r hofferbert ma bell
