The issue is not that Ron Paul or the libertarians will become dictators.
But the society Libertarians envision is as much of a fantasy Utopia as that of the Marxian fantasies. Neither is practically achievable given the state of the human condition.
I think the objection in the article is that both philosophies presume a kind of economic determinism, both presumes that the economics concerns and interests of people are the only things that dictate their actions. Although they differ on how they believe economics affect behavior, both are materialistic in that they do not factor in any non-material motivations of people.
Where as one philosophy considers goodness what the collective considers good, while the other considers goodness what each individual considers good. Neither is willing to acknowledge goodness as something beyond the considerations of either the collective or the individual, but as something that is transcendent.
I understand what you are saying, Truthsearcher, and I essentially agree.
I think the article “overreaches”, however, in the paragraph I quoted, saying that Libertarians are just as apt to turn to force and coercion as are Marxists.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Although Marxists and Libertarians both share a “materialist” outlook and mind-set, they are as opposed on the issue of coercion as 2 philosophies can be.
Marxism eats, sleeps and breathes coercion. It is the stuff of which Marxism is made.
Libertarianism, while equal in Utopian outlook to Marxism, does not have any coercion “in its bones”.
Marxism takes a “do it now and damn the consequences” to its vision of utopia. Libertarians are content to imagine their utopia somehow magically taking place in some distant future.