BrianGarst.com

You have to read this to believe it. Jacob Weisberg says the financial crisis has killed libertarianism. Notably absent from his list of villains are any of the people actually responsible (to see the real culprits, as well as my prediction for just this kind of left-wing response, see here).

There’s just so much nonsense in his article, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Weisberg clearly is not prepared to address any argument on its merits, but rather wants to tar his opponents with dismissive labels and insults. Libertarians are “immature” and the intellectual equivalent of Marxists in denial about the failure of communism. I find it ironic that such a hatchet piece, which freely admits that the author cannot and won’t address specific arguments from free market adherents (really, he waves them away with his magic wand in the second paragraph), would label anything immature.

The reason the author has to resort to such insults is because the facts are overwhelmingly against him. It’s pretty hard to lay the financial crisis at the feet of libertarians (who have warned of the disastrous consequences of meddling for years, identifying specifically this kind of crisis) when 12,000 bureaucrats were regulating the financial sector in the lead up to the meltdown. Does that sound like libertarianism? A libertarian market would have looked nothing like what we had. Just go back a few years and look at all the libertarians railing against the current system. If no libertarian was satisfied with the system, what makes Weisberg think it was libertarian?

Blaming the messenger is always tempting, but it’s utterly dishonest. The real blame rests with government interventionists who think they can meddle in markets without creating moral hazards. They were wrong, and now silly apologists like this author are intent to make sure they can do it again. We all know who will be asked to pony up the next time they fail.