The Libertarians present themselves as the saviors of our economic system. This is the system presented to the public as already destroyed.
The business community recognizes that the implementation of the economic demands of the Libertarian Party would destroy any modern industry base and economy. It is for this major reason that the Libertarians have been rejected by business.
The answer to why our business leaders have rejected the Libertarian Party is found within their party Platform.
First we will take a look at paragraphs two and four of the Platform Plank, Inflation and Depression. These two paragraphs are the major parts of their demand to end the current orderly banking system
We favor free-market banking. We call for the abolition of the Federal
Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Banking
System, and all similar national and state interventions affecting banking
and credit. Our opposition encompasses all controls on the rate of interest.
We also call for the abolition of the Federal Home Loan Bank System, the
Resolution Trust Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration,
the National Credit Union Central Liquidity Facility, and all similar national
and state interventions affecting savings and loan associations, credit
unions, and other depository institutions. There should be unrestricted
competition among banks and depository institutions of all types.
PARAGRAPH 4
Pending its abolition, the Federal Reserve System, in order to halt inflation, must immediately cease its expansion of the quantity of money. As interim measures, we further support:
a. the lifting of all restrictions on branch banking;
b. the repeal of all state usury laws;
c. the removal of all remaining restrictions on the interest paid for
deposits;
d. the elimination of laws setting margin requirements on purchases
and sales of securities;
e. the revocation of all other selective credit controls;
f. the abolition of Federal Reserve control over the reserves of non-member
banks and other depository institutions; and
g. the lifting of the prohibition of domestic deposits denominated
in foreign currencies.
The implementation of paragraphs two and four of the Inflation and Depression plank would be disruptive to the current banking system. The things the Libertarians object to in our current system are the things that keeps the banking system working in an orderly and reasonably secure manor. Being anarchists the Libertarians feel compelled to insist on a system that has it's own self destruction built in rather than safeguards against any foreseeable failures.
Now that the Libertarians have destroyed banking, some would think people would still manage to make transactions with money.
Despite the Libertarians portraying themselves as ultra Capitalists their anarchist hearts demand that money also be outlawed. Money is a device that is used in an orderly society and by their nature anarchists dislike money.
Paragraphs one and three of the Inflation and Depression plank target money for destruction.
We recognize that government control over money and banking is the primary
cause of inflation and depression. Individuals engaged in voluntary exchange
should be free to use as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item,
such as gold coins denominated by units of weight. We therefore call for
the repeal of all legal tender laws and of all compulsory governmental
units of account. We support the Right to private ownership of and contracts
for gold. We favor the elimination of all government fiat money and all
government minted coins. All restrictions upon the private minting of coins
should be abolished so that minting will be open to the competition of
the free market.
PARAGRAPH 3
To complete the separation of bank and State, we favor the Jacksonian independent treasury system, in which all government funds are held by the government itself and not deposited in any private banks. The only further necessary check upon monetary inflation is the consistent application of the general protection against fraud to the minting and banking industries.
When I first read that they wanted to eliminate "government fiat money"
I had to find out what they meant. Fiat money is money printed onto
paper, not money issued by an Italian car maker.
The outlawing of money would leave only a system of barter. People trading goods and services for bits of metal, being copper, gold, sliver, platinum or scrap iron. Perhaps the barter would be so many pounds of flour for so many hours of labor.
The many different coins would of course create a field day for counterfeiters. Nobody would be able to know that if the coin they received had the pure metal content it claimed or was an alloy of other metals.
The lack of standardization would immediately bring to an end the coin and paper money vending industry.
Coupled with a banking industry stripped of all safety regulation the ability to pay by check also disappears. The ability to pay by check is dependent on a system of standardized money.
With paper money being outlawed the many and varied bits of metal carried in your pocket would create a bottleneck at every place you needed to pay for something. Every vendor would have to figure out what to accept from each customer. They would have to convert what metal the customer carried to what they were asking in exchange for their products. Nothing would be priced in dollars and cents but as so many ounces, or fractions of ounces, of some metal. The price may be posted in gold and the customer has only lumps of silver to pay with. Plus the vendor has to figure out if they are willing to accept the lumps of metal the customer is offering to barter for their goods. When you get an US minted coin you know what you are getting. But in the Libertarian model the lumps of metal could be minted by any number of millions of corporations, businesses, organizations or individuals. Conducting business on a large scale would face similar problems.
Without government issued money modern business could not operate, which
is one more reason the business community has rejected the Libertarian
Party.
The final section for this paper is the Libertarian Party Platform plank on monopolies.
The first paragraph is the section that contains the material that is one of the causes the business community to reject the Libertarian Party is.
We condemn all coercive monopolies. We recognize that government is the source of monopoly, through its grants of legal privilege to special interests in the economy. In order to abolish monopolies, we advocate a strict separation of business and State.
Now the rational reader can see "that government is the source of monopoly" is a ridiculous statement. Sure there are businesses where government has given an exclusive franchise to conduct certain business. Such businesses as phone, electric, gas service, etc. have worked well with this type of arrangement which is one of the things the Libertarians object to.
The rational reader also knows that it is the nature of business to attempt to monopolize the market and that the "strict separation of business and State" will not abolish monopolies. In other parts of this plank the Libertarians make reference to accepting such business monopolies.
But there are other types of business monopolies granted by government legal privilege that would be abolished resulting in the final Libertarian blow to modern economics. My final entrys will be with these two forms of government granted monopoly the Libertarians intend to outlaw. This section is the part the Libertarians get their claim that "government is the source of monopoly, through its grants of legal privilege to special interests in the economy".
COPYRIGHTS
Copyrights are one of the other government grants of legal privilege covered by the blanket demand that the Libertarians.
The attitude expressed by Libertarians is that words cannot be owned. I put the question to a county level Libertarian Party chairman of how authors would be able to publish books if they could not copyright their work. The answer is that the publisher would simply keep the books in reading rooms where people would pay to sit down and read the book. This of course is impractical and their demands would end the modern publishing industry.
In addition to ending copyrighted reading material it would also end copyright protection for computer software. Another modern industry that would no longer be able to function.
PATENTS
Patents are the other less obvious government grants of legal privilege that the Libertarian Party would bring an end to.
Companies would be able to manufacture and sell their products but be unable to stop others from copying the product and selling it under their own label. The attitude expressed by the Libertarians is that products (property) produced by a company would be protected by the Libertarian government. But that a design is an idea and that it is impossible to own an idea as an idea is not property.
I asked, of the same Libertarian Party chairman I asked about copyrights, for instance would it be allowed to copy a Chevy and then make and sell the car. He answered that it would be allowed and can be an exact copy of the Chevy except for the name put on the car. This way the public would be best served by being able to buy from the person best able to manufacture and sell at the lowest price.
So there you have a look into the future the Libertarians have determined is best for you. An economic system barely into the bronze age where modern industry, and all the advances it brings to our everyday lives, dies off into a primitive barter society. The Libertarian Party Platform has been likened to the Una Bomber's manifesto, I have not had the chance to read the manifesto.
There are other sections in the Libertarian Party Platform that add
to the chaos I have outlined above. For the sake of brevity I kept the
examples to just the ones above.