Rationalwiki about libertarian history

[Metus]

Found on RationalWiki.

@RationalWiki

Many of the ideas libertarians propose were actually in practice in 19th and 18th century America, especially during the Gilded Age. They didn’t work out so well. There was a free banking system and competing currencies, but it led to widespread bank failures and counterfeiting. There were very few regulations, but big business got away with whatever it wanted most of the time and cartels and trusts were common. There were private defense agencies, but they were used as strikebreakers and spies. Essentially, post-Civil War, Gilded Age America was the closest we ever got to a Libertopia and it resulted in quasi-feudal trusts that became their own mini-governments, with their own defense agencies, their own towns for workers, and their own currencies (workers were often paid in company scrip so they could only shop at company stores). Libertarians often ignore this entirely or write revisionist history to connect these problems to government intervention. This often produces hilarious results, such as all the libertarian histories demonizing Abraham Lincoln as an evil statist and lionizing James Buchanan as a heroic constitutional conservative.

About what in this quote is true?

[EmperorNero]

It’s complete progressive propaganda bs. The laissez-faire era was utterly horrible, until the progressives came in the late 19th century and saved us with government. And world wars, but never mind that. In reality the gilded age witnessed the greatest increase in standards of living in human history. Poverty went from being the norm to being the exception, and wars were rare. The problem with the argument in this article is that it enumerates bad things that happened in the 19th century and acts as if everything before and after was a blissful utopia. They act as if every fault of a past era was due to too free markets, and not that humanity simply was worse off in the past. In same way libertarians could say that the ideas of progressivism were tried before in the medieval ages, and didn’t work out so well. I have to go, will write more later.

[The_Freeman]

It’s too vague and simplistic to be true or false.

Except the name of the website… That’s definitely a lie.

[AdrianHealey]

There is no empirical proof to back that quote up. Just some angry leftist who wrote somethingdown.

[AnonLLF]

@Metus

Found on RationalWiki.

[quote user="RationalWiki

"]

Many of the ideas libertarians propose were actually in practice in 19th and 18th century America, especially during the Gilded Age. They didn’t work out so well. "

This was an era of great statism.

“There was a free banking system and competing currencies,”

Rothbard talks of wildcat banking and banking regulation.Neither of these existed.

“There were very few regulations, but big business got away with whatever it wanted most of the time and cartels and trusts were common.”

This never happened.The Progressives increased government intervention.

“There were private defense agencies,”

To some extent though no one denies PDA’s can’t do evil.

“but they were used as strikebreakers and spies.”

True.

“Essentially, post-Civil War, Gilded Age America was the closest we ever got to a Libertopia”

It was an era of massive statism,protectionism,corporatism and the like.

" their own towns for workers,"

these have always happened and have nothing to do with anything.

"This often produces hilarious results, such as all the libertarian histories demonizing Abraham Lincoln as an evil statist "

Why is that hilarious? he suspended habeas corpus.

“and lionizing James Buchanan as a heroic constitutional conservative.”

He wasn’t.

The idea to take from this is there never was a golden age of liberty in america or any country ever.

[Metus]

Thank you for you replies. Though some sources would be nice.

[Autodidact]

RationalWiki is a product of the Progressive Dawkinsian atheist, who is so immersed in the religion of liberal statism that he is not aware it is a religion. These people are intellectually of little value, simply repeating the tropes they learned in college, but they are representitive of the ‘elite’ in the United States.h

[Eric080]

I just read their articles on the Libertarianism one that you linked, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, and the LvMI. Plenty was accurate, others weren’t. I’d rather read Uncyclopedia or Encyclopedia Dramatica

They have a habit of rejecting ideas out of hand without any explanation as to why they are wrong. A couple examples I can think of: Calling praxeology a “pseudo-psychology”, saying that speculation about libertarian themes or how a market would work are “dense” and read like “Marxist material”, saying Hoppe’s defense of monarchy (in relation to democracy which was not pointed out) is asinine, repeating the debunked claim that Ron Paul is racist, saying that the LvMI folks are crazy for calling Lincoln a statist without addressing any relevant points that the an-caps discuss (he’s Lincoln! He’s great and he has a monument and stuff!), and saying that Somalia, while divided, is still controlled by mini-States.