Synthaholic
Diamond Member
- Jul 21, 2010
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From Brian Beutler's latest newsletter, talking about how these "libertarian" startups want to avoid any government regulation, then rely on government to clean up their messes, and spend taxpayer money trying to save them.
Before the U.S. Coast Guard discovered the remains of the tourist submersible in a debris field near where the Titanic sank, the startup that built the vessel had already used various platforms to slough responsibility for its own heedless adventurism on to the U.S. government.
“When I communicate with the U.S. government, I get ‘out of office’ replies, not from everyone, but from key people that have a signoff on this,” said David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate. “That’s unacceptable.”
Concannon would later add, “I hope to get a few hours of sleep, wake up and see very positive responses from the U.S. government in my Inbox. If I don’t, the whole world will know the names of the people who did not do their jobs.”
My friend Eve Fairbanks noticed this and wrote, “Somebody simply has to write the ultimate catch-all essay on disruptive, libertarian, private-sector-touting entrepreneurs simply begging and demanding for state intervention at the end of their journeys.”
I can’t write the ultimate catch-all essay on any topic in 48 hours, but I'm gunning to be first to respond to her prompt at length, because we really do see this over and over again on the greediest frontiers of wealth and power. And I think what we’ve seen in the past several years is the formation of a more conscious ethic, and even a partisan political movement, of wreckers—people who’ve never taken libertarianism or any ideology seriously, but find libertarian jargon and histrionics useful on both ends of their journey: at the outset, when they clamor for investment money and demand regulatory forbearance; and the end, when they blame governments for their messes and insist they (we) foot the bill for the cleanup.
Titans of industry
The implosion of the Titanic submersible has shined a light on the culture of pseudo-libertarian greed suffusing the tech sector, startup world, and political right. These Wrecker Libertarians always come begging liberals to clean up their messes, but as long as liberals are shy about...
us19.campaign-archive.com
Before the U.S. Coast Guard discovered the remains of the tourist submersible in a debris field near where the Titanic sank, the startup that built the vessel had already used various platforms to slough responsibility for its own heedless adventurism on to the U.S. government.
“When I communicate with the U.S. government, I get ‘out of office’ replies, not from everyone, but from key people that have a signoff on this,” said David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate. “That’s unacceptable.”
Concannon would later add, “I hope to get a few hours of sleep, wake up and see very positive responses from the U.S. government in my Inbox. If I don’t, the whole world will know the names of the people who did not do their jobs.”
My friend Eve Fairbanks noticed this and wrote, “Somebody simply has to write the ultimate catch-all essay on disruptive, libertarian, private-sector-touting entrepreneurs simply begging and demanding for state intervention at the end of their journeys.”
I can’t write the ultimate catch-all essay on any topic in 48 hours, but I'm gunning to be first to respond to her prompt at length, because we really do see this over and over again on the greediest frontiers of wealth and power. And I think what we’ve seen in the past several years is the formation of a more conscious ethic, and even a partisan political movement, of wreckers—people who’ve never taken libertarianism or any ideology seriously, but find libertarian jargon and histrionics useful on both ends of their journey: at the outset, when they clamor for investment money and demand regulatory forbearance; and the end, when they blame governments for their messes and insist they (we) foot the bill for the cleanup.
