“Why don’t libertarian ideas ever catch on?” The answer is: most people are stupid. In a libertarian society, stupidity is punished at the individual level. Under statism, stupidity is cushioned & the costs are redistributed collectively. Bad loan? Bailout. Bad diet? Regulate the food. Bad investment? Print more money. In other words, the state rewards the stupid, and because the state makes stupidity less costly, people indulge in more of it. Lbertarianism is a hard sell because it offends the fundamental instinct of most people: the desire to be protected from their own retardation.