Reply #26: There was a time when Libertarianism was in force

[Lydia Leftcoast]

It was called the nineteenth century. The prevailing legal principle was "let the buyer beware," so businesses were allowed to sell tainted food or dangerous equipment, rent out squalid, over-crowded buildings, rape the landscape in any way they chose, sell colored water laced with alcohol or opium as a magic cure-all, and sell fake shares in non-existent companies. There was no unemployment insurance, no minimum wage, and no child labor laws. Meanwhile, the rich lived without any taxes to speak of and had enough money to buy whatever they wanted.

The laws we have today were enacted for a reason.

Anyone who wants to experience a "Libertarian paradise" in today's world just needs to pick any Third World hellhole on the globe, and he will find the same lack of basic services for the poor and the same unbelievable luxury for the rich. Even in so-called "famine" regions, the rich never starve, because they can buy imported food.