So you’re saying that the Holocaust never happened, or that you consider it inward-focused aggression because the Nazis invaded before any of that shit started?
I am going to go ahead and echo a previous poster’s sentiment that we’re dealing with a false dychotomy here. From a libertarian perspective, one can hardly make a distinction between war waged on a state’s own citizens and war directed against foreigners. Murder and oppression shouldn’t be judged based on who issued the victim’s passport.
You can’t conquer anything when your regime has been overthrown by a coup. He was a paranoid maniac that cared about nothing but his grip on control. His plan was to build up his own army whilst the armies of Europe smashed each other and then invade the feeble remains. Everything he did was calculated for maximum long term territorial gain at low risk, which often meant compromising temporarily. Does that make him less of a conqueror? The USSR ultimately succeeded in extensive worldwide subversion before its collapse. They didn’t need to use guns most of the time.
If we take Rothbard to mean that the US has been the most aggressive nation, externally, then that is clearly true. Take the period from 1900-1973 (when For A New Liberty was published, I think) and even then you will find that the US was more warlike than any other nation - think about the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
Far more people died in the battle of Okinawa - and far more people died in the fire bombing of Japanese cities than in those two big explosions.
They were just big.
And how about 6 000 000 exterminated by the Nazis?
We have no idea how expansionist the Communists might have been, had there not been a counter force pushing back on them.
Though I do believe the USA has taken a turn for the worse lately.
I’ve read the other article and I know his famous quote – “Philosophically, I believe that libertarianism — and the wider creed of sound individualism of which libertarianism is a part — must rest on absolutism and deny relativism” – but I know also, from his own words, that he was an explicit admirer of Leninist-Stalinist Russia, and that he cheered publicly when communist North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam. The quote I was referring to is from Modern Age, pg 355, in which he writes:
“As a political theory, Libertarianism is a coalition of adherents from all manner of philosophic (or nonphilosophic) positions, including emotionalism, hedonism, Kantian a priorism, and many others…”
He goes on to say that although he himself grounds his own view of Libertarianism in Aristotlean-Lockean realism and rights “this is an argument within the Libertarian camp about the proper basis and grounding of Libertarianism rather than about the doctrine itself.”
So on the one hand, Libertarianism must be grounded on an Aristotelian premise, but, on the other, “all manner of philosophic (or nonphilosophic) positions, including emotionalism, hedonism, Kantian a priorism” are consistent with Libertarianism. That is relativism.
“Hey Conza88 - the Quote was from the 1973 edition and the emphasis was there.”
Oh that makes complete sense then! Your friend is still operating in 1973.
“but I know also, from his own words, that he was an explicit admirer of Leninist-Stalinist Russia, and that he cheered publicly when communist North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam.”
Why is this guy trying to drag / ‘salvage’ Rothbard, to try depict him in some relativist light? It is most amusing, but beyond absurd.
How Murray Rothbard Single-Handedly Brought Down the Saigon Government with Malice Aforethought by Joseph R. Stromberg
A Hardy Weed
As the current US foreign policy adventure drags on, it seems as good a time as any to address a recurring charge brought against Murray Rothbard by sundry libertarians (sic), Randians, near-Neo-Conservatives, and other worthies. Strictly speaking, the complaint is not that Rothbard, alone and unaided, brought down the Saigon Government in 1975; even Rothbard’s enemies do not go quite that far. The complaint seems to be that Rothbard “cheered” when that government fell, proving that he was “pro-communist,” had a bad attitude about these things, was crazy and immoral, etc. cont…
So this guy is the other side of the coin, same charge - but supports it… haha
The quote I was referring to is from Modern Age, pg 355, in which he writes:
“As a political theory, Libertarianism is a coalition of adherents from all manner of philosophic (or nonphilosophic) positions, including emotionalism, hedonism, Kantian a priorism, and many others…”
Modern Age? And why is it that all his quotes as ‘proof’ are always incomplete and completely out of context? So anyway to verify this quote.
“Libertarianism is logically consistent with almost any attitude toward culture, society, religion, or moral principle. In strict logic, libertarian political doctrine can be severed from all other considerations; logically one can be - and indeed most libertarians in fact are: hedonists, libertines, immoralists, militant enemies of religion in general and Christianity in particular - and still be consistent adherents of libertarian politics. In fact, in strict logic, one can be a consistent devotee of property rights politically and be a moocher, a scamster, and a petty crook and racketeer in practice, as all too many libertarians turn out to be. Strictly logically, one can do these things, but psychologically, sociologically, and in practice, it simply doesn’t work that way.”
The point is that those things are outside the realm of political philosophy. He’s not a relativist at all, he merely makes the distinction between personal morality & political ethics. In terms of personal morality, although he never essentially wrote about it (he had a political edifice to develop), besides being brought up here in 1973 (lol) edition of Libertarian Forum.
“How about Professor Block’s second premise, that evil is only the initiation of violence? Here I think it is possible to partially reconcile the Block and Halliday positions. It is a question of what context we are dealing with. I would agree with Block that within the context of libertarian theory, evil must be confined to the initiation of violence. On the other hand, when we proceed from libertarianism to the question of wider social and personal ethics, then I would agree with Halliday that there are many other actions which should be considered as evil: lying, for example or deliberately failing to fulfill one’s best potential. But these are not matters about which liberty - the problem of the proper scope of violence - has anything to say. In short, qua libertarian there is nothing wrong or evil about breaking dates, being gratuitously nasty to one’s associates, or generally behaving like a cad: here not only do I join Professor Block, but I would expect Mr. Halliday and all other libertarians to do the same. On the other hand, qua general ethicist, I would join Mr. Halliday in denouncing such behavior, while Professor Block would not.”
Recently; “Block: I’m shocked that I ever wrote it. I don’t think I meant it. I agree, fully, with Murray.”
If you want more stuff on relativism:
“The essential message of deconstructionism and hermeneutics can be variously summed up as nihilism, relativism, and solipsism. That is, either there is no objective truth or, if there is, we can never discover it. With each person being bound to his own subjective views, feelings, history, and so on, there is no method of discovering objective truth. In literature, the most elemental procedure of literary criticism (that is, trying to figure out what a given author meant to say) becomes impossible. Communication between writer and reader similarly becomes hopeless; furthermore, not only can no reader ever figure out what an author meant to say, but even the author does not know or understand what he himself meant to say, so fragmented, confused, and driven is each particular individual. So, since it is impossible to figure out what Shakespeare, Conrad, Plato, Aristotle, or Machiavelli meant, what becomes the point of either reading or writing literary or philosophical criticism?” - The Hermeneutical Invasion of Philosophy and Economics - MNR
Sorry Conza - but it is important - in the first edition - the emphasis is there.
That was the intent of Rothbard.
I realise that. Part of my comment wasn’t just about that, but also a side mention / jibe as to why your friend is a stalin-russian sympathizer. He must have missed the break up of the Soviet Union / it hasn’t happened yet, since he’s in 1973 and that takes place in 1991.
Who has access to the 73’ version anyway? I guess he has the book?
We need to remember that the US has been continously in existence as a political entity for the entire 20th century. Other countries that have been aggressive externally have a lower death & destruction toll because they were different countries in the past. That’s why their DD toll goes down compared to the US, because we can’t say “X country was warlike” we have to say “the loose coalition of states was warlike” or the “country formerly known as X - with these borders - but now called Y - with a different set of borders- was warlike”.
If you added up the sum total of death and destruction caused by the US (including indirectly, through the sponsoring of terrorist groups), it’d come out on top. The American military budget has, for a long time, been ridiculously high compared to other countries. Most of that spending is used for offensive purposes, rather than national defense, as Ron Paul keeps pointing out. In the 20th century, it started with Teddy Roosevelt and has been ‘taking a turn for the worse’ since then.
I haven’t seen any evidence that Rothbard conducted careful empirical study before making that statement however. So it was careless on his part to make such a strong statement without substantiating it. Nevertheless, my feeling is that he’s correct.
You have changed your argument but act as if you were stil defending the same argument.
You have stated "it is false that Stalin was looking to avoid war with Germany." Then you failed to provide meningful evidence to support the claim that Stalin was not looking to avoid war, but that he was interested in war.
Now you have changed your argument into approximately: ‘there were irreconciliable differences so there was always going to be a war’.
A conflict of interest is not evidence that Stalin was interested in starting a war with Germany. Examples of a conflict of interest are meaningless for your original point.
PS, USSR expanding into territories allocated to it by the Hitler-Stalin pact does not even prove a conflict of interest. If anything the pact proves that any conflict of interest may be overcome if idelogical motivations give way to pragmatism. Also I would like to hear about this “tension” in regard to the Balkans. I don’t know that pre-WWII USSR had any meaningful interest in the Balkans. Nor was Hitler interested in it more than just from a defensive standpoint.
The fact that Germany invaded the Soviet Union does not prove there were territorial tensions between the two or a conflict of interests. Hitler invaded in order to bring Britain to the negotiating table and from idelogical considerations. Not from any sort of real clash of interest which had been resolved by the Hitler-Stalin pact’s division of spheres of influence and expansion.
The invasion only came about after Hitler achieving hegemony in Europe adopted an ideological foreign policy in the East whereas before he had practiced an extrodinarily pragmatic foreign policy. Stalin on the other hand never in his lifetime let ideology guide his foreign policy, but was always a pragmatic so even ‘ideological tension’ could only ever be one sided.
You should rethink this. Nazi Germany killed almost exclusively non-Germans.
No it was not. The Japanese killed a hundred times more Chinese than were killed in the atomic bombings. And just in Leningrad the Germans starved to death more people than were killed in all of the Anglo-American bombings of German cities combined.
The US is clearly the most interventionist country around. It is only logical since it is the world hegemon (and was before that a hegemon over 2/3rds of the world, and before that a hegemon over the western hemisphere). But so far its hegemony has probably been less evil and murderous than a hegemony of eg Nazi Germany would had been.