Middle thoughts on the limitations of the market

When I was in high school, I probably would have told you I was a libertarian, classical liberal, or capitalist. Recently a coworker told me that the reason libertarians don't get many votes is because people don't know what they are; when you explain libertarianism to people, everybody agrees with it.

I think libertarianism is perniciously idealistic. Free markets aren't enough to care for the poor, the disabled, unwanted children, the environment, or public education. It's easy to become disenchanted with governments and their often-destructive policies, but other policies really do promote the public welfare, and the stand-out countries in the world provide public services.

On the other hand, I recognize the power of the market mechanism--when properly applied. For instance, a cap-and-trade system can reduce pollutants or become an unstable, ineffectual financial game. Similarly, a good environment for business combined with universal education can quickly grow an economy.

When I stop and think, I'm also sympathetic to libertarian accusations that non-minimal-government types are wrongly imposing their values on other people. What right do I have to advocate policy against consumerism when it's what so many people choose? (I originally wrote "choose freely," but a choice is always dependent on context--including cultural and institutional necessities that one might hate, not to mention all the forces that guide and warp one's perceptions.)

Of course, I do have a case: Consumerism is causing and will continue to cause suffering and deaths because of its environmental impacts. If stuff was free or close to it, I'd love it. If the costs fell solely on the individuals choosing to participate in the transaction, I'd be fine with it. But instead they fall upon the entire world, especially the least empowered, the poor, the ill, the non-human, and future generations. This knowledge came before and drove my dislike of consumerism, which was only then joined by my own disgust with the shallowness, loneliness, and pointlessness of my American life.

I look forward to learning more about libertarian thinkers' ideas. I think they have a great deal to add to the public discussion and to future policy decisions (if only we could get past the damage conservatives do!). Economic efficiency is good in many contexts, personal liberty in even more.

I don't know anything about the philosophy, but I've gotten the idea that my beliefs tend toward "libertarian socialism". Unfortunately, another thing that I think the libertarians get right most of the time is the value of private property--people are more likely to protect the things they have a stake in or a sense of ownership over, spoil the things they don't.

I enjoy having no sweeping political/economic ideology that I can put a name to. There are certainly many political ideologies I ascribe to, including many I've never noticed, but I have no faith in one system or other that will bring us to utopia. Lack of such faith both strikes me as realistic and relieves me of the emotional friction experienced by someone possessed of answers the mainstream don't ask for.