"Truly free markets are also free of privilege"

Sheldon Richman, the editor of The Freeman, adds another nail into Jacob "end of libertarianism" Weisberg's coffin:

According to Weisberg, editor in chief of Slate, the financial turmoil taking place worldwide is the fault of . . . libertarians. That must mean libertarians have been in a position to repeal generations of deep-seated government intervention in the financial and related industries, including the Federal Reserve system. That would have taken a long time, yet I don't recall reading that a libertarian revolution occurred in the United States. Surely it would have been in the newspapers. Hence, I must conclude that I, like old Rip [van Winkle], was slumbering all those years. I missed the revolution! It's the only possible explanation.

Unless Weisberg is wrong.

[…]

Weisberg obviously hasn't been paying attention. For him the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie and Freddie, and past bailouts make up three separate libertarian explanations, when in fact they are all parts of a single integrated explanation of how government intervention created the problem. That he doesn't know this suggests that he doesn't understand the libertarian case. One ought to understand something before dismissing it.

Whole thing here. reason on Weisberg's lousy article here and here.