Los liberales no tenemos voto, ni siquiera en el contexto de una crisis que los austriacos llevan tiempo augurando, pero tenemos voz y es importante que se nos oiga. Steve Horwitz escribe un atinado artículo acerca de la necesidad de controlar la narrativa sobre la crisis y evitar que los enemigos del libre mercado se apropien indebidamente de ella, como sucedió con la Gran Depresión.
We are not going to change what government is doing, nor have much influence in stemming any problems that arise from it. We can, however, speak to history by doing our part to ensure that the political causes of this crisis are well understood and that free markets don't take yet another undeserved hit in the histories of the future.
It is imperative that we continue to point out that this crisis was caused by a whole host of government interventions, from the Fed to the GSEs to the CRA to land-use regulations and so on. We need to constantly argue that this was not the result of "free markets" or "deregulation." It's also worth noting that the one bit of deregulation that did take place in recent years (the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall) has been key to avoiding a worse disaster by allowing commercial banks to buy up investment banks and allowing the struggling investment banks to go commercial to keep themselves afloat. If this bailout becomes the disaster that many of us believe it will be, we need to make sure we pin the blame where it belongs.
