> You can be a libertarian without being a capitalist, and you can be a capitalist without being a libertarian
If you say so, but I'm yet to meet such an individual. Anytime someone talks libertarianism, it's some kind of weird Randian objectivism, that is still somehow socially conservative, and they align themselves with the GOP more often than not.
I would consider myself pretty liberal (as in, pro-liberty). I just believe that to experience true freedom, equality is necessary. It's not enough to have the freedom to do X or Y, you also need to have the means to. Why should some people be freer than others just because they happened to be well-born?
> the system was more capitalist, it would get fixed faster and better.
The system is getting more capitalist. That's why we're having more and more potholes. After decades of neoliberal austerity and deregulation, there ain't any money left to fix shit.
What a government employee used to do in an hour of minimum wage now requires 10 government contractors who charge ludicrous sums for useless prestations, and don't even end up delivering because they've successfully lobbied themselves out of liability! You know, in the name of efficiency, since as we all know the government can't do anything by itself, and the private sector is that much more efficient.
> I think most people would be open to increasing cash government salaries if the rest of the job also matched the broader economy - at-will employment, no public sector unions, etc. You trade some of your cash compensation in the government for the cushy benefits, sub-40 hour work week and lots of time off, and the near impossibility of being fired especially once you've been there for a few decades.
I would argue that the rest of the economy should follow the standards of public servants, rather than degrade their working conditions to match this terrible job market.
> The golden age of the West happened due to a war-time manufacturing boom that would put the industrial revolution to shame.
That's a partial myth, a manufacturing boom alone is meaningless if the generated wealth isn't redistributed. Markets have never been this healthy, yet regular people aren't getting any richer.
Same thing for the industrial revolution. It didn't amount to much for the general population until the big labor movements and the invention of unions.
> If you're making a ton of money and your marginal tax rate is 90%, what incentive do you have to work another ten hours a week or open another factor or release a new product if you're only keeping 10% of what you earn?
Look, it worked in the 50s. I am not interested in the classic economist's argument of "it works in practice, but does it work in theory?". You can probably find books written by people much better informed than I am. For instance, do you know about Thomas Piketty?