http://www.slate.com/id/2297019
Closing paragraph:
Meanwhile, the “libertarian” right moves to take the risks of unemployment, disease, and, yes, accidents of birth, and devolve them entirely onto the responsibility of the individual. It is not just sad; it is repugnant.
This is the best response I’ve seen so far, from Facebook
"Libertarian anarchist becomes a libertarian minarchist in his old age – the principles of liberty shake on their rocky foundations!!! "
To be frank, yes. This is, as usual, phrased in the Platonic sense of some disembodied spirit willing dollars from the hands of the well-fed into the hands of the starving and imminently dying. But the real world is a little more complicated… somebody has to effect the transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. We all know the rich are not going to do it willingly and leaving it to the poor to take it on their own is asking for social chaos. Enter the middle-man - the humble, angel-like servant of mankind known as The Prince - who also happens to have no profit motive! What a truly angelic being is this Prince! Let us nevermind that the reason he has no profit motive is that he can take any damn thing he needs any time he needs it. So much for altruism.
Oh boy… now, back to reality.
In other words, you have to accept the Establishment status quo. Don’t question it. Just be thankful for the liberties you’ve been given by your betters who have taken it upon themselves to enforce the “permanent framework”.
Clayton -
After reading the first few pages and skimming the rest (because I knew where it was going), a couple of dumb things stood out to me, in addition to Clayton’s post:
How does so supple a mind end up committed to so seemingly brittle a belief system? The leap of faith here is, no surprise, in the construal of liberty itself, which unlike other values (says the libertarian) makes no restricting or normative claims on anybody; liberty is instead like oxygen—invisible, pervasive, enabling. Every other value, meanwhile, represents someone else’s deranged will-to-power by which, under the guise of high-mindedness or disinterest, he would “pattern” all of society to his own liking.
Why even Robert Nozick, the philosophical father of libertarianism,
gave up on the movement he inspired.
Liberty’s current bedfellows include Paul Ryan (his staffers are assigned Atlas Shrugged), Glenn Beck (he flogged The Road to Serfdom onto the best-seller list), Slate’s Jack Shafer, South Park, the founder of Whole Foods, this nudnik, P.J. O’Rourke, now David Mamet, and to the extent she cares for anything beyond her own naked self-interest—oh, wait, that is libertarianism—Sarah Palin.
Saying Sarah Palin is a libertarian when she wants to be is like saying Ralph Nader is a libertarian when he wants to be. Whatever agreements policy-wise they may have with libertarians, its overlap is coincidental because the reasonings behind why they and the libertarian believe in policy X are non-related. Thinking that libertarianism is “WAAAAH ME ME ME” is an instant disqualifier on having any worthwhile discussion on the topic. Metcalf is eliminated after the first paragraph.
To my critique of the Chamberlain example, a libertarian might respond: Given frictionless markets, rational self-maximizers, and perfect information, the market price for Wilt’s services could not stay separable from the market price to see Wilt play. (Visionary entrepreneurs would create start-up leagues, competing leagues would bid up prices for the best players.) In a free-market paradise, capital will flow to talent, until rewards commensurate perfectly with utility. Maybe; and maybe in a socialist paradise, no one will catch the common cold. The essence of any utopianism is: Conjure an ideal that makes an impossible demand on reality, then announce that, until the demand is met in full, your ideal can’t be fairly evaluated.
On the closing paragraph: Well if not the responsibility of the owner of the property in question, the person, then who else is interested in using that property and for what purpose? It is sad and repugnant that some third party using coersion, theft, mistreatment and ultimately if a person resists then murder can lay claim to the output of a person, their property and their very physical being.
As for the article, it fails to explain on little thing: After the “Great Government Experiment WW2”, a war between Fascists (National Socialists) and Communists (Totalitarian Socialists) that killed more than 50million people and left half of the population in the busom of Communist misery, the world was left two powers that “won” the war: The Communists of course and the Semi-Free Nations who immediately turned to Fascism in running their societies. But now the Fascist Systems of Money Production and Government Warfare/Welfare are falling apart so what is the Great Government that came out of hte Greate Government Experiment going to do? Because every moment the problem gets worse. Hint the only solution is liberty for all. That is to let the people who made bad business decisions lose and let people who can better use the scarce resources attempt to build a greater society. (Also WW2 did not end anything, that goes for the Great Depression, which ended by my score in November of 1953 when the Dow Jones remade its 1929 high.)
Slate also wrote a very biased article on the Free State Project:
http://www.slate.com/id/2296999/pagenum/all
Pete Eyre’s response:
http://freekeene.com/2011/06/17/lots-pete-responds-to-slate-coms-piece-on-free-keene/
Eric080: “Nozick is the philosophical father of modern libertarianism…”
Absurd. Considering it was Rothbard (aka MR. LIBERTARIAN) whose synthesis of anarcho-capitalism was the reason for Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia.
"Then one evening, it must have been in the early 60s, Bruce brought Bob to a gathering of the Circle Bastiat at the Rothbards’ apartment on West 88th Street. It turned out to be a historical moment. If Nozick hadn’t been impressed by the Rothbardian synthesis before then, he was at that meeting. This was the genesis of his celebrated book.
From all evidence, Anarchy, State, and Utopia will be Nozick’s lasting contribution. It is replete with brilliant insights and formulations. Its defense of the free society is exemplary, if obviously in debt to earlier thinkers to anyone who knows anything of the field. But fundamentally it is a response to the Rothbardian challenge on the question of monopoly government — the State — though the author does not make that completely clear." - Robert Nozick: A Historical Note by Ralph Raico
Ok, fine Conza. What I was attempting to say is that Nozick’s arguments have been more influential than Rothbard’s due to his popularity. I was including minarchists under the “libertarian” umbrella and I would describe the libertarian movement of today as mostly being minarchist.
“Ok, fine Conza.”
.
"What I was attempting to say is that Nozick’s arguments have been more influential than Rothbard’s due to his popularity.
Haha, influential according to who? For the sake of argument I’ll accept that premise [mainstream popularity] and ask - ‘why is that?’ More interested in your reasoning, not the actual answer - Hoppe’s already provided that.
I was including minarchists under the “libertarian” umbrella and I would describe the libertarian movement of today as mostly being minarchist."
As do I (those who support the NAP) with war being the fail clause i.e ‘no - you’re a neocon/objectivist’ etc. So there goes a ton of ‘libertarian-lites’ from the Beltway.
However, to whatever the extent there are a large number minarchists in the movement - it ain’t because of Nozick.
Out of interest, what would the proper term be for someone who held libertarian positions on economics and, for instance, supported the Korean War? Neoconservatives are economic interventionists who hold their views on foreign policy as a spiritual descendant of the Trotskyism they once inhabited, replacing “worker’s revolution” with “global democracy”. Objectivism is a very specific philosophy that fiercely despises libertarianism as effectively taking some (for instance, Objectivists aren’t really that firmly supportive of the Second Amendment, nor of decentralism) of it’s political conclusions without their proper epistemological and philsophical context, so it can’t be them either.
“Out of interest, what would the proper term be for someone who held libertarian positions on economics and, for instance, supported the Korean War?”
There is no such thing as a libertarian position (political philosophy) on economics (value free science). You can be an Austrian Economist & be a Nazi for eg. you realise price controls destroy, so you support the Israeli government implementating them.
As for your second point, I know what they are & how they differ, thanks.
By “economics” I meant economic policy. So, for instance, abolition of tariffs, the minimum wage or price controls.
You’re very wrong on both counts.
Neoconservatism has changed since the old 1950s … Not everyone today is a Trotskyist or old left-winger. No. Nor, do they support “global democracy” - at least, in the way you’ve spoken about it.
Objectivism doesn’t despise libertarianism anymore than anything that is different! Ayn Rand =/= objectivism.
I really don’t like it when people take their misinformed views about a complicated subject and plaster everything. It’s like saying all libertarians are anti-state. This kind of nonsense makes me roll-my-eyes!
"I really don’t like it when people take their misinformed views about a complicated subject and plaster everything. It’s like saying all libertarians are anti-state. This kind of nonsense makes me roll-my-eyes! "
Well if you follow the NAP, then you should be anti-state since the state is a violation of NAP.
Not all libertarians (indeed, I’d say the vast majority) are anarchists, though.
“Not all libertarians (indeed, I’d say the vast majority) are anarchists, though.”
Was this directed toward my comment?
If say, Obama or George Bush declare themselves libertrians tomorrow. Do they automatically go into your “majority” of non-anarchist libertarians or as someone else here put it: libertarians that are not anti-state?
Twas indeed directed towards your comment.
By the “vast majority”, I mean people like the 14-something % of Americans who identify their political views as “libertarian”. Or the Cato/Reason people. Or most Ron Paul supporters and LP members, I’d wager.
Bush or Obama identifying their political views as “libertarian” would be highly inconsistent with their actual economic policies (“compassionate conservativism”, the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-medical marijuana jihad and on the Obama side, the new “stimulus packages” and cap-and-tax. Whereas the people I’m referring to are well within the mainstream of libertarian thought, most I suspect deriving their views from people like Robert Nozick or Milton Friedman.
But they could decide and declare that they are libertarians and that their policies are consistent with libertarian thought. What then?
Maybe the more relevant question is: Who or what authority decides what government policies are libertarian and what are not? Can I nominate Stossel? Since according to you and many here, logic cannot resolve this issue. You are left with nothing but appeal to authority it seems on this issue.
What makes them libertarians other then that they are on record saying they are?. Really, I don’t understand this “logic” of yours and most people on this board. Why can’t Obama be considered a libertarian? He is not for total government. He is for some government. So is Milton Friedman and so is Robert Nozick.
Almost no one is frankly anti-state. It really took several shocks to my psyche and multiple exposures to Rothbardian analysis of the State before I began to really wrap my head around the simple truth that government is mafia, nothing less and nothing more. I call it the Day Mafia because they are the only mafia that can operate in broad daylight. The Godfather is not a metaphor, it’s a literal description of politics-as-it-is.
Clayton -
