Except for those they choose NOT to enforce. Like borders. Like income tax liability owed by WH staff, IRS staff, etc. Like voting fraud/intimidation. Like Sebelius squeezing health companies for Obamacare propaganda, contra existing law.

Like a teenager with selective hearing, statists use selective enforcement.

Actually I would have guessed he’s on board with the Admati-style ‘increase capital requirements to some much bigger number I basically made up’ school of thought that’s all the rage these days. No?

For me the biggest difference in philosophy between statists and libertarians is the moral attitude toward coercion of others. I’m willing to coerce others in a physical emergency that endangers others, such as theft, rapine, or murder; I’m even willing to sign up for a government that does some of the coercion in the collective name, when all else fails. I’m not keen on coercing other people into doing the best things for their own good, or at least not by using government force. I prefer to rely on letting them stew in their own consequences, at least until they form adequate human ties to inspire someone to help them out of the jam they made for themselves. That way, the incentives all work in the right direction, and people deal with each other out of either respect or love, but not a creepy paternalism.

Also, this notion of the right to sell oneself into slavery is always coming up, as if it were the crown jewel of libertarianism. The prospect of people selling themselves into slavery wouldn’t have much bite without a government standing by to enforce the contract, to send escapees back to their masters, to prosecute people who helped slaves escape, and so on. Statists always seem to assume that laws are self-effectuating; they resist thinking about how laws are enforced. Libertarians at least consider how people spontaneously regulate each other through voluntary and informal means, such as the willingness to continue doing business together, the formation of non-commercial bonds, and the development of reputations for trustworthiness.

Libertarianism isn’t about anarchy; it’s about dispersing responsibility and authority as much as possible to individuals and their voluntary associations and institutions. Keep government in its own appropriate sphere, the way we keep fire in the fireplace.

Of course, Yglesias wants to have his cake and eat it too – plenty of cheap money to “stimulate” the economy, while simultaneously growing the state. Also, making the financial institutions more secure by forcing banks back into closely examining retail loan buyers would probably be rasict.

Ironic hipster bloggers like himself secretly know that the Regulatiors Are Secretly Really Effective, even if he explains this fact by hosing down the reader with a stream of bullshit.