Here's what I get as the libertarian or free market argument. I'll use the current airline screwup in the US as an example.

1. Planes need to be serviced regularly.
   
2. This is expensive, so scrimping makes a firm more profitable than competitors.
   
3. Scrimping will eventually lead to a failure.
   
4. Failure will lead to deaths
   
5. Deaths will lead to a loss of business as people migrate to safer airlines.
   
6. The airline that scrimped either goes out of business or reforms.
   
7. QED the free market "worked".

What's wrong with this picture? How about all the dead people it took until the market corrected?

Now here's my version.

1. Planes need to be serviced regularly.
   
2. This is expensive, so scrimping makes a firm more profitable than competitors.
   
3. Scrimping will eventually lead to a failure.
   

-->4. Failure is unacceptable so regulations are created (hopefully before a disaster) that require servicing.
-->5. Regulations need to be created by experts. Under the best conditions this would be the airline maker, since they don't want to see their planes fail.
-->6. Regulations need to be enforced. The (modified) libertarian position (which admits that inspections are necessary) will have the firms set their own enforcement. This is the business-based ideas favored by the present administration. It hasn't worked out too well in the banking sector.
-->7. Since cheating on enforcement also provides an advantage to the firm scrimping it is necessary to have a neutral third party do the enforcement. In a functioning democracy this is the role of government. In a corrupt regime no regulations are safe.
-->8. The free market was a myth, but nobody died. Also cheaters did not steal from those playing by the rules.

Economic conservatives always think of "eventually", but as Keynes said: "eventually we are all dead". Policies must prevent harm now, not just eventually.

RR. If you want people to engage in a discussion, it is best not to start off by insulting them. Any comments of yours which refer to the poster, their style, mindset or attitude don't deserve a reply. Ad hominem arguments don't win the battle of ideas. I've made an exception this time, since you seem not to have been around much and perhaps you've forgotten.

Also just because a person has opinions doesn't mean that one is obligated to discuss them. I don't debate flat earthers, no matter how sure of their beliefs they are.


Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape