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How libertarianism started, a look back in its history

JP Hochbaum

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How big business and Milton Friedman created libertarianism, a must read:

"It starts just after the end of World War Two, when America’s industrial and financial giants, fattened up from war profits, established a new lobbying front group called the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) that focused on promoting a new pro-business ideology—which it called “libertarianism”— to supplement other business lobbying groups which focused on specific policies and legislation.

The FEE is generally regarded as “the first libertarian think-tank” as Reason’s Brian Doherty calls it in his book “Radicals For Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern Libertarian Movement” (2007). As the Buchanan Committee discovered, the Foundation for Economic Education was the best-funded conservative lobbying outfit ever known up to that time, sponsored by a Who’s Who of US industry in 1946.

A partial list of FEE’s original donors in its first four years includes: The Big Three auto makers GM, Chrysler and Ford; top oil majors including Gulf Oil, Standard Oil, and Sun Oil; major steel producers US Steel, National Steel, Republic Steel; major retailers including Montgomery Ward, Marshall Field and Sears; chemicals majors Monsanto and DuPont; and other Fortune 500 corporations including General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Eli Lilly, BF Goodrich, ConEd, and more.

The FEE was set up by a longtime US Chamber of Commerce executive named Leonard Read, together with Donaldson Brown, a director in the National Association of Manufacturers lobby group and board member at DuPont and General Motors.

That is how libertarianism started: As an arm of big business lobbying."

I post this because it is vital and important to point out bias and the politicalization of economics, and which schools of thoughts are not only bogus, but harmful to this country.

Not Safe For Work Corporation | When Congress Busted Milton Friedman (and Libertarianism Was Created By Big Business Lobbyists)
 
Im sure all the pre-WWII libertarians will be shocked to read this...
 
How big business and Milton Friedman created libertarianism, a must read:

"It starts just after the end of World War Two, when America’s industrial and financial giants, fattened up from war profits, established a new lobbying front group called the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) that focused on promoting a new pro-business ideology—which it called “libertarianism”— to supplement other business lobbying groups which focused on specific policies and legislation.

The FEE is generally regarded as “the first libertarian think-tank” as Reason’s Brian Doherty calls it in his book “Radicals For Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern Libertarian Movement” (2007). As the Buchanan Committee discovered, the Foundation for Economic Education was the best-funded conservative lobbying outfit ever known up to that time, sponsored by a Who’s Who of US industry in 1946.

A partial list of FEE’s original donors in its first four years includes: The Big Three auto makers GM, Chrysler and Ford; top oil majors including Gulf Oil, Standard Oil, and Sun Oil; major steel producers US Steel, National Steel, Republic Steel; major retailers including Montgomery Ward, Marshall Field and Sears; chemicals majors Monsanto and DuPont; and other Fortune 500 corporations including General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Eli Lilly, BF Goodrich, ConEd, and more.

The FEE was set up by a longtime US Chamber of Commerce executive named Leonard Read, together with Donaldson Brown, a director in the National Association of Manufacturers lobby group and board member at DuPont and General Motors.

That is how libertarianism started: As an arm of big business lobbying."

I post this because it is vital and important to point out bias and the politicalization of economics, and which schools of thoughts are not only bogus, but harmful to this country.

Not Safe For Work Corporation | When Congress Busted Milton Friedman (and Libertarianism Was Created By Big Business Lobbyists)

And, of course, they always had an absolute reliance on the State to defend their thievings.
 
Yes, because the ideas of individual freedom, the constitution, and the free market were all founded after WWII.

Way to crack the case wide open.
 
The above was a very incomplete, indeed outright deceptive, view of libertarianism's origins.


During the 18th century, classical liberal ideas flourished in Europe and North America. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by classical liberal ideas.[38] The term libertarian in a metaphysical or philosophical sense was first used by late-Enlightenment free-thinkers to refer to those who believed in free will, as opposed to determinism.[39] The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" (or determinist) views.[40][41] In 1793, William Godwin wrote Political Justice, which some consider to be the first expression of anarchism.[42][43][44] Godwin opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal state as a present "necessary evil" that would become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge.[43][45]
 
The potshots taken at the OP want to ignore the political and economic realities behind modern libertarianism and who it is that pushes it and most importantly WHY it is being pushed by those folks. I will read this book. Thanks to JP for this thread.
 
The potshots taken at the OP want to ignore the political and economic realities behind modern libertarianism.

Not really, I imagine most of the "pot shots" are actually due to the complete lack of reality in the OP.

In my case the sarcastic aside came from my father being around pre-WWII, so even being non-libertarian myself I was well aware the OP was a deceptive piece written to actually distort realities.
 
Not really, I imagine most of the "pot shots" are actually due to the complete lack of reality in the OP.

In my case the sarcastic aside came from my father being around pre-WWII, so even being non-libertarian myself I was well aware the OP was a deceptive piece written to actually distort realities.

Have you read the book that PJ is talking about?
 
Have you read the posts made?

Deception is deception

That would be a NO - you have not read the book PJ is discussing here.

So how then can you judge the book based on a very teeny tiny six or seven sentence excerpt?
 
That would be a NO - you have not read the book PJ is discussing here.

So how then can you judge the book based on a very teeny tiny six or seven sentence excerpt?

Well lets see. If I made a post saying Carter invented the Democrats, would you tell me it was an honest post hinting at an honest book?

Or a book that said Nixon invented Republicanism?

I think we'd both be able to judge those books, dont you?
 
Well lets see. If I made a post saying Carter invented the Democrats, would you tell me it was an honest post hinting at an honest book?

Or a book that said Nixon invented Republicanism?

I think we'd both be able to judge those books, dont you?

If you made a post saying that carter re-invented the Democratic Party or remade it into a modern new functioning body, you would have a thesis that would be worth reading.

That is the angle from which I see the OP.

All JP needed to do was add one single word to his opening line

How big business and Milton Friedman created MODERN libertarianism, a must read

And now it is more of a debatable subject.
 
The OP is a wonderful example of revisionist history.
 
To live in the Eighteenth Century you need large estates and plenty of slaves.


Which, besides being untrue, has absolutely nothing to do with anything being discussed...


... how very not surprising.



Early libertarianism was an outgrowth of the same economic radicals and political philosophers who variously produced anachism, minarchism, and anarcho-communism.

It certainly had little or nothing to do with aristocrats and plantations.
 
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If you made a post saying that carter re-invented the Democratic Party or remade it into a modern new functioning body, you would have a thesis that would be worth reading.

But that would be completely different from what I said though, wouldnt it?

You know, sort of deceptive & wrong?

That is the angle from which I see the OP.

No it definately says "Started", not "Re-started", & "Created", not "Re-created", so clearly deceptive.
 
But that would be completely different from what I said though, wouldnt it?

You know, sort of deceptive & wrong?



No it definately says "Started", not "Re-started", & "Created", not "Re-created", so clearly deceptive.

Yes, you have point.... it may be that you have a very good point, but then I have not read the book either. it could very well be that the book goes into far greater detail about the historical beginnings of libertarianism and it is simply not being presented in the OP. Until somebody actually reads it , we are all talking about how we liked the ten hour movie when all we really saw was the coming attractions standing 500 feet away outside in the rain as it was projected on a cave wall.
 
Yes, you have point.... it may be that you have a very good point, but then I have not read the book either. it could very well be that the book goes into far greater detail about the historical beginnings of libertarianism and it is simply not being presented in the OP. Until somebody actually reads it , we are all talking about how we liked the ten hour movie when all we really saw was the coming attractions standing 500 feet away outside in the rain as it was projected on a cave wall.

Let's see, it begins with "It's starts after WW2."
Well we already know, that's wrong.

Do we really need to read the whole book to decipher that it's full of bull****?
 
To live in the Eighteenth Century you need large estates and plenty of slaves.

Or be an abolishonist (or neutral on the subject)?

Remind me, in the UK, which side of the political divide did the abolishonists come from?

Wasnt it the Whigs (Classic-Liberalism)?

Wonder what happened to classic liberalism?
 
Let's see, it begins with "It's starts after WW2."
Well we already know, that's wrong.

Do we really need to read the whole book to decipher that it's full of bull****?

But unless we read the actual book under discussion, we have no idea what was discussed - if anything - about earlier historical origins. It could very well be that the book makes a clear declared case that the modern version of post WW2 libertarianism is somehow different than classical libertarianism and makes a case to support it. I do not know since I have not read the book.

I do think it is worth reading and NOT judging the book by six or seven sentences presented here.
 
The potshots taken at the OP want to ignore the political and economic realities behind modern libertarianism and who it is that pushes it and most importantly WHY it is being pushed by those folks. I will read this book. Thanks to JP for this thread.

The OP is about a think-tank, not the libertarian philosophy, which can be traced back to 18th century philosophers..
 
But unless we read the actual book under discussion, we have no idea what was discussed - if anything - about earlier historical origins. It could very well be that the book makes a clear declared case that the modern version of post WW2 libertarianism is somehow different than classical libertarianism and makes a case to support it. I do not know since I have not read the book.

I do think it is worth reading and NOT judging the book by six or seven sentences presented here.

I'm judging the book based on it's conspiracy theory nonsense and historical revisionism, that was easily debunked by a wikipedia reference.
In total, the preface we saw, was demolished.
 
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