The Progressive Promise

This piece, The Libertarian Delusion, by the American Prospect is textbook straw man logical fallacy so bereft of imagination that the author manages to subvert his own position. Memo: if the thing you are claiming to be a failure is also claimed in the same argument to be a creation wholly of the thing you support, you might want to pause a bit to consider what your argument is actually saying:

Government control is not a sufficient condition for market regulation

And this goes to the crux of the matter. For libertarianism is not “the market.”¹ Rather, it is no authority between supply and demand, no authority between consenting adults. Beyond that, it promises little.

Progressivism,on the other hand, is a thousand authorities between supply and demand, a plethora of czars between consenting adults. Of course, in return for our subjugation to these myriad authorities, it promises a lot. However, when it fails to make good on its lofty promises, it hardly bothers itself with any type of self-examination. Instead it goes looking for scapegoats. So desperate to slay any hint of an alternative, it claims itself the only source of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and in doing so, undermines the raison de etre for its supposed authority:

by its own admission, it can’t actually guarantee what it is promising

Oh, I quite realize the progressive response: yes, we can, if we have a million authorities between supply demand and a galaxy of czars between consenting adults. But my observation regarding the progressive promise is pretty simple:

Government authority can only guarantee that there will be scapegoats

¹ For example, Bastiat’s defining libertarian treatise is “The Law”, not “The Market.”