Numerous people have answered my question of “What am I missing?” with respect to David Boaz’s statement about airline deregulation. I’ll be honest — the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was not on my radar. And it’s not just because I was literally an inch tall when it was passed. If a libertarian were quoted as saying (by a libertarian-friendly source, I might add) that liberty has made great strides, such as in the area of telecom deregulation, I wouldn’t have batted an eye (although much could be said about whether using antitrust legislation to break up a government-sanctioned monopoly is helping liberty in general, so perhaps a bad example). I can’t personally attest to the before versus after of the breakup of the AT&T, but telecoms have not become noticeably more regulated in my lifetime. In contrast, government involvement in air travel has increased significantly in my memory, specifically in the last decade.
In contrast, imagine if a libertarian — let’s not leave this vague, but say that a blogger of this site (whose motto is anti-state, anti-war, pro-market) – said:
There have been great advancements made toward peace, such as when the US stopped its war in Vietnam.
There’s no doubt that ending the war in Vietnam was a great achievement and led to some peace. But to say this in 2011 — when the US has been openly fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade, plus many other bombings that somehow don’t count as “war” — that would just be silly, wouldn’t it?
One reader complained that it’s not the airlines that are more regulated now. Just because Congress didn’t name the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act (or the Aviation and Transportation Security Act) the “Airline Regulation Act” does not mean that it is not regulating airlines. Nor does it mean that politicians are so convinced of the libertarian argument for airline laissez-faire that they weren’t salivating over a chance for more power over the airlines long before 9/11. Sure, more people can afford to fly now than in 1975, but they have to strip to do it. I just think it’s risky putting “liberty” and “airline” in the same sentence these days.
