re limiting govt was re employment was re why not concentrate in article apr isc br isc br com steveh thor isc br com steve hendricks writes in article apr rigel tamu edu gmw rigel tamu edu mr grinch writes in article apr isc br isc br com steveh thor isc br com steve hendricks writes of course one again faces the question of how one circumscribes government power and keeps it circumscribed in a complex society when it is in the interest of neither capitalists nor consumers to refrain from using government power for their own ends but apart from that little conundrum this is a difficult problem for which there is no obviously good solution one approach is simply to try and move political opinion and hope a new more libertarian consensus lasts for a while another approach is to try and amend the constitution the original constitution restrained the u s government from economic intervention for to years depending on just how one wants to count it the first amendment though weakened in many ways still restrains government particularly state and local even though on many particular issues the majority is in favor of censorship i think libertarians would be happy with another years of restraint via an amendment or two not that i think that s likely to happen not necessarily mr hendricks but other posters seem to see this as a problem with libertarianism that it cannot be stable that might be true but it is not an objection to libertarianism per se if a libertarian political consensus forms for a decade or two and then falls apart again we would just be back where we are now this is unlike the case for socialism where a socialist consensus that held for a while and then fell apart would not leave us where we are now but instead with lots of bureaucracy that would be hard to get rid of if not tyranny as the end condition of a strong socialist consensus ervan darnell ervan cs rice edu
