What the NFL referee lockout tells us about libertarian thought

On a couple of levels it's been fun watching the NFL replacement referee disaster unfold. The league is trying to stick it to the unionized professionals while sending in what appear as rank amateurs to officiate regular season games.

It also works as an illustration of why letting the market do its thing (a.k.a. laissez-faire) is a terrible way to run an economy. Business and commerce need compentent referees to achieve a fair, accountable outcome from trade. Letting the players go at it without oversight falls far short of assuring orderly transactions. Weak, ineffective regulation is an invitation to mishap or mayhem--preventing a just and fair resolution. Go ask the Greenbay Packers' fans.

James Madison said it far more eloquently in Federalist #51: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Let's fit that statement for a capitalist context: "If market players participated fairly, no regulation would be required." The 2008 financial crisis proved this wasn't the case. Why can't libertarians grasp this?

Fnding out the hard way: democracy is not a wind up toy

©Jennifer Cannard

Only a few evenings ago, California's City of Bell voters cleared the slate of their municipality's corrupt council, who are alledged, along with City Manager Robert Rizzo, to have padded their salaries and siphoned city funds in excess of five million dollars.

And just yesterday, Wisconsin's legislature succeeded in passing a bill to strip the state's employee unions of most of their bargaining rights--defying the will of fourteen Democratic state senators who refused the upper chamber the quorum necessary to pass the original union-busting budget; as well as ignighting the opposition of tens of thousands of union members and supporters who massed in Madison over the last three weeks in protest.

State Sen. Bob Jauch, one of the fourteen senators who temporarily frustrated Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union scheme, stated aptly, "I think we have to realize that there's only so much we can do as a group to make a stand.... It's really up to the public to be engaged in carrying the torch on this issue."

So true; the turmoil of Middle Eastern countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, et. al. remind us of democracy's cost--whether citizens take to the streets or take arms to stand against abuse of power and to oppose the burdensome privilege of the elite few at the expense of the many.