Somehow I missed Paul Krugman’s epic sequel to why libertarianism doesn’t work. The first time around he explained that a non-libertarian politician putting a non-libertarian cap on tort liability for oil spills proves libertarianism is infeasible in the real world. Well shockingly, he received a fair bit of criticism because, in his words  “some readers responded by saying that no true libertarian would support such liability limits, which, um, missed the point.”

Aside by the fact that the criticism doesn’t miss the point and the cap on tort liability is something he either doesn’t understand or simply mischaracterizes,* his argument is really worse than I initially stated. I said that Krugman’s own argument could be turned around on liberalism since liberal politicians have been known to subsidize the rich, too. But given that the policies of affordable housing caused housing prices to skyrocket, just as the policies of affordable healthcare and college tuition have made healthcare and college tuition unaffordable, perhaps liberalism doesn’t work because liberals can be trusted to do what they believe in. When they move away from their beliefs and engage in pure cronynism, that just makes things all the worse.

But I digress. This time Krugman takes aim at a “true libertarian.” He quotes libertarian-Republican Rand Paul saying that he thinks the BP oil spill was an “accident” and he “has heard nothing from BP about not paying” and “doesn’t like “the blame game” or talk of “[putting a] heel on the throat of BP.” Dr. Paul did say that he thought such blaming was “un-American,” which is ridiculous, but he agrees that BP should pay for the damages and even agrees we need regulation of the ocean.

Now BP was negligent as Krugman points out, but he concludes that Paul’s stance on personal responsibility is only applied to the “poor and powerless.” Disregarding that BP will be required to pay for this mess, perhaps, just perhaps, whatever cronyism is involved is because those who are powerful often have closer access to government, thereby the bigger the government, the more money, power and influence they can extort.

In fact, this is the very point that underlies the libertarian fear of government power. As Milton Friedman said, “…one of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary worker and the ordinary consumer.”

But no, I’m not done. I want to beat Paul Krugman’s corpse of a worthless argument into the ground a little more. So here are a few parting thoughts. 1) The federal government has also been extremely negligent in the BP oil spill, having caused enormous delays in granting permits to state governments to erect sand barriers. 2) BP has donated a grand total of zero dollars and zero cents to Rand Paul, (his Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, received $9,600). 3) BP has contributed more money to Barack Obama than any other candidate 4) Paul Krugman supported Barack Obama. 5) Paul Krugman should give back his Nobel Prize.

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*The cap on liability doesn’t count the reimbursement for cleanup costs nor does it override state law and liability, it merely supplements it on the federal level. See here for more details.

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