Why Anti-globalists Are Dumbasses
It’s no surprise, given the name of this blog, that I’m very much in the Austin Powers camp (“Yay capitalism!”). That’s one of the reasons that I like reading Coyote Blog, although he’s much more of a hard-core Libertarian.

In his latest post, he dissects the anti-globalization protesters who plague things like last week’s G-8 summit. Essentially, he argues that the protesters want to help poor countries (good), want the wealthiest countries to help those countries (pretty reasonable), and want to encourage those poor countries to avoid the capitalism that helped the wealthiest countries get that way (say what?).

There are certainly some aspects of capitalism as practiced in the United States that are unseemly. Criminal CEOs. Rampant lobbying (which is just bribery by another name). Rogue companies that flout regulations and deliberately endanger the public.

But it’s hard to see how the alternatives of nationalization and socialism can do better. In fact, it’s proven that they do worse.

Critics of capitalism should focus on enhancing capitalism, not trying to replace it with wishful thinking.