On Libertarianism

[pozorvlak]

For those of you who don't know, Libertarianism is a political philosophy that aims at maximising human freedom, by shrinking government as much as possible and leaving everything up to the free market. Now, I'm definitely in favour of freedom, and I accept that free markets are a very elegant way of allocating scarce resources, but I'm rather less

Comments

[ext_5743]

Basic Adam Smith economics would say that the private sector needs vigorous competition to work well, so my opinion would be that in any sector where there is genuine and direct competition (telecommunications is a good example) that the state should have minimal involvement - although it may regulate to ensure that, for example, services are provided nationwide rather than just in profitable regions.
The mid-ground between free-market and state-run is the consumers co-operative - an organisation owned by its customers. I would argue that the water companies should be in this form.
Things which are a national public good and are not easily provided by competition (like, for example, education, healthcare, quality public broadcasting) should be funded by general taxation.

The thing that hamstrings all public sector organisations is the same thing that cripples British manufacturing industry - a lack of access to borrowing on good terms in order to invest in infrastructure. This is the centrepiece of Will Hutton's argument - the City's demands for a short-term return, and its reluctance to commit funding for any length of time means that it's virtually impossible to raise the large sums of capital required to improve worn-out infrastructure. Instead, we're left with ridiculous private-finance schemes, where the government pays several times over the odds to avoid having to borrow money itself.

[pozorvlak]

Interesting. So what's the national debt if it's not governmental borrowing?