Roderick T. Long has been published in Cato Unbound. Yeah, it’s that Cato. This doesn’t mean that Long has gone mainstream and isn’t cool anymore to those of us in the libertarian leet. Kevin Carson is cited favorably, and William Gillis of RNC WC fame seizes a footnote.

Long lays it down:

In a free market, firms would be smaller and less hierarchical, more local and more numerous (and many would probably be employee-owned); prices would be lower and wages higher; and corporate power would be in shambles. Small wonder that big business, despite often paying lip service to free market ideals, tends to systematically oppose them in practice.

So where does this idea come from that advocates of free-market libertarianism must be carrying water for big business interests?

The article addresses these issues brilliantly.

The only thing I would have to add (cuz I’m a picky bastard) is to Long’s discussion of deregulation. There is regulation by government, and there is regulation by the market. The former operates through coercion and political favoritism. The latter operates through competition, true consequences, free unions, and independent product testing. The former can only be increased at the expense of the latter. Thus when government regulations are increased, free market regulation necessarily suffers, and it is in this way only that “deregulation” can be blamed for economic troubles. When libertarians say that we are in favor of deregulation, we run the risk of appearing to want businesses to get away with anything, when we are actually presenting the best possible restraint on business: the power of the market.

But seriously, read the article.

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