View source for Yet More Free Market Double Standards

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[[Category:UnlearningEcon]]
[[Category:Free Market Double Standards|30]]
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{{DES | des = Yet another hilarious collection of examples of self-contradiction by free marketeers. | show=}}
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It has gotten to the point where I think ‘free market’ proponents will advocate anything, so long as you frame it to be opposed to the state/Keynes/Marx.

1. Credit expansion causes boom bust cycles, but we shouldn’t use capital controls to prevent this (because liberty).

2. The fact that regulators can be captured means we shouldn’t use them. Similar arguments don’t apply with police and corruption, however.

3. The government should regulate and prevent fraud, but not information asymmetry, which is self-correcting. This is despite the fact that they are the same thing.

4. Historical context matters for gold as a medium of exchange. The historical context of capitalism, however, can be swept under the rug.

5. In a free society, we earn our income. Inheritance? Erm…

6. The best thing for wages and working conditions is full employment, and we can achieve this by getting rid of the minimum wage and regulations. This will increase wages and improve working conditions, but these higher wages and conditions won’t reduce employment in the same way as the regulations did before because free market.

7. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but perpetual economic growth is a costless path to prosperity.

8. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. This doesn’t apply with tax cuts for the rich and positional luxury goods.

9. We must evaluate theories based only on whether they corroborate with empirical evidence. However, I will ignore it when my theories do not.

10. The state is useless at doing anything. We don’t, however, question its ability to define property and enforce contracts effectively.

11. You favour domestic redistribution! You nationalist, look at all the starving people in Africa! What? No, we shouldn’t redistribute to them either.

12. I’m opposed to Keynes. Except I advocate expansionary fiscal and monetary policy, the same as him.

13. The arguments I use in favour of private property do not apply to intellectual property (as well as the inverse).

14. It  matters when the public sector crowds out valuable resources, but not when unproductive parts of the private sector do the same.

15. I’m an anarchist. Except I want corporations to rule the world.

16. Deficit spending on tax cuts for the rich is fine, but not on schools and other bad stuff.

17. I will argue against anti-trust and redistribution, despite advocating them elsewhere.

18. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but competition always improves market outcomes.

19. Everything is subjective and individualistic. But it doesn’t matter how free people feel, we will use my definition of freedom and impose it on them.

20. Choice, choice, choice. But if a monopoly or cartel arises in the free market, it’s fine.

21. Being made to pay taxes just because you live in a certain territory is unjust. Paying rent is fine, though.

22. We claim the name of Adam Smith, yet neglect to criticise the division of labour, reject worker regulations, banking regulations, active monetary policy and misuse the term ‘the invisible hand‘.

23. We claim the name of Mises, but our views also conflict directly with many of the things he said.

24. I am Mises, and my views also conflict directly with many of the things I’ve said.

Bonus: Many libertarians are also Christians. It is difficult to reconcile these two belief systems.
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