Rise and Fall of a Libertarian Utopia: A commons resurgence in one Texas town, as seen from 2035

from OnTheCommons.org:




Rise and Fall of a Libertarian Utopia
A commons resurgence in one Texas town, as seen from the year 2035

By Jay Walljasper


From the Wall Street Journal-Fox-National Review Information Link
26 May 2035 1:15:29 p.m.


Cato, Texas, seen as it looked in 2012, the height of its fame as an experiment as in extreme individualism. At that time the town offered no government services and very few civic organizations. (Credit: Photo by Walmart Stores under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com)


CATO, TX (USA)— Libertarians, with their revulsion of government and worship of greedy individualism, dominated politics in the U.S. from the 1980s until the second decade of the 21st Century.

Their mission was to dismantle nearly all government programs outside of the military, law enforcement, corporate subsidies and highway building. They deemed the public sector outmoded and dangerous— a threat to our economic liberties and future prosperity.

So-called conservatives of that era heralded the free market as an infallibly efficient instrument capable of directing decisionmaking at every level of society. They ascribed almost mystical powers to the market, and invoked its wisdom as if their beloved economic theories was actually a sacred union of the Ten Commandments and the Laws of Physics.

The fact there was nothing at all conservative about this political agenda seemed to trouble no one on the right. (Many moderate and more than a few liberal politicians and pundits also jumped on the libertarian bandwagon.) Indeed, rather than “conserving”natural resources and cultural traditions it was actually a radical plan leading to their devastation, and the weakening of the whole intricate web of ecological systems and human relationships which today we call the commons. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/rise-and-fall-libertarian-utopia-0