I can't help but point out that the "businesses" most likely to have "CEOs" murder each other are those businesses that the state has declared illegal: drug lords, prostitution ring pimps, rum runners during alcohol prohibition. In other words, "organized crime." Where people do not have recourse to the law to settle their disputes, they will work outside the law. The Fortune 500 have lawyers and courts. Drug lords do not.
For me, this is yet another reason to legalize all this stuff and let disputes get settled in civil and non-violent ways. Market capitalism and the rule of law civilize us in precisely these ways.
I'm always amazed by how little libertarians understand those things which undergird their beloved markets. Goldberg's correspondent needs to read "The Theory Of Moral Sentiments", and probably needs to be less selective about what he takes in when reading "Wealth Of Nations".
Strictly from a "morals market" point of view I'm quite happy that pimps and drug lords bump each other off. And I'm confident Smith would have agreed.
Libertarians like to describe themselves as being "classical liberals". But the actual liberals they think they are emulating where not nearly as liberal on moral matters. In most cases they were not even as extremist about laissez faire in economics as the modern libertarians.
In many respects modern libertarianism is a whole new concept, without precedent in Anglo-American liberalism or conservatism. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of the movements founders were/are former communists. They simply inverted some of their old beliefs and substituted 'liberty' for 'equality'. But they never learned not to be rigid and dogmatic ideologues, and they retained their intense materialism and hostility for religion and tradition. These traits are almost the reverse image of the original 'classical liberals' like Adam Smith, or even Hayek in more contemporary times.
