Actually, Libertarians strike me far more as "let big business do whatever the fuck it wants" than Conservatives.
Let's look at the party platform, shall we?
http://www.lp.org/platform
The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.
This would seem to prohibit the breaking up of monopolies, no?
Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources. [...] Free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. We realize that our planet's climate is constantly changing, but environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior.
Basically, from what I've read here and elsewhere, the Libertarian party believes that big businesses should be able to pollute all they want with no government oversight or prevention. Only "free market" remedies, such as boycotts, should be able to be used against polluters. Of course, those remedies are currently available IN ADDITION TO government regulations, and we still have big businesses who do everything in their power to circumvent the restrictions - and do so without real penalty.
While energy is needed to fuel a modern society, government should not be subsidizing any particular form of energy. We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.
Again with no environmental considerations whatsoever. And while no subsidies could sound good, no government say in energy production would very quickly become an issue. Think frakking has caused an uproar? There are even dirtier methods of energy production. When the bottom line is the entire bottom line, people suffer.
We favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types.
Oh, yes. Let's deregulate banks. THAT'LL go great. This is far, FAR right-wing stuff - much further than your rank and file Tea Partier would take things.
Of course, there's always that argument that mega-corporations wouldn't exist in the libertarian utopia. Except:
We defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and other types of entities based on voluntary association.
No minimum wage or worker safety standards or overtime or anything else for workers, either:
Employment and compensation agreements between private employers and employees are outside the scope of government, and these contracts should not be encumbered by government-mandated benefits or social engineering.
No public education:
Education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality, accountability and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Recognizing that the education of children is a parental responsibility, we would restore authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. Parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children's education.
I mean, there's voucher programs, and then there's this. It's farther to the right than the right.
No social safety net beyond private charities and such - which is another thing we already have IN ADDITION to government benefits and job retirement plans, and already doesn't fully cover the needy:
Retirement planning is the responsibility of the individual, not the government. Libertarians would phase out the current government-sponsored Social Security system and transition to a private voluntary system. The proper and most effective source of help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.
Farther right than all but the extreme right-wing fringe. What I see here is a libertarian ideal where big corporations can pay whatever pittance they want, require whatever work (dangerous or otherwise) they wish for as long as they wish, can pollute and otherwise degrade the environment, can monopolize education, don't have to offer any sort of benefits or overtime, don't have to negotiate, don't face any ethics violations no matter what they do, can use banking and energy production and contracting practices - among others - that would currently run afoul of all sorts of laws for very good reason, have no size or state-line limits, have nothing preventing them from forming monopolies or price-setting or price-gouging, ect.
In other words, they could do whatever the hell they wanted, pretty much. And if people didn't like it, well, they'd be free to blog about it. They could boycott. Maybe they'd build their own cellphone towers if they didn't like what the cell companies were doing, and use their own land in order to build alternate roads when all the roads near themselves became McTolls.
For instance, when it comes to discrimination:
Government should neither deny nor abridge any individual's human right based upon sex, wealth, ethnicity, creed, age, national origin, personal habits, political preference or sexual orientation. Members of private organizations retain their rights to set whatever standards of association they deem appropriate, and individuals are free to respond with ostracism, boycotts and other free market solutions. Parents, or other guardians, have the right to raise their children according to their own standards and beliefs.
In other words, discrimination based on any of those things - sex, wealth, ethnicity, creed, age, national origin, and all - that's all fine for any corporation.
And if you don't like it, blog and boycott and stuff. Again, we already have those "free market solutions." But those seem to be the ONLY solutions to corporate power that the Libertarians will accept.
