Mises and Hoppe.
If Joe the Plumber claims to be a libertarian and yet is licensed by the state and therefore charges higher fees for his licit status; he is not a true libertarian and shouldn’t be included on the list of libertarian heroes.
He is just participating in the unfree society out of self-defense. By this type of reasoning, any true libertarian would have to curl up in a fetal position and die since states claim ownership of 100% of the Earth’s landmass. The price of dealing with regulation is passed on to the consumer. Regulations serve as a barrier to entry to smaller competitors, so larger companies can not be bothered to deal with the regulation as long as they gain from the margin of being insulated from competition. They will also lobby for such things as tariffs on foreign goods, like why most American sodas have HFCS but would have sugar if trade barriers were removed. Again, the price is just passed onto the consumer.
Does egoism have no place in libertarianism? It’s a different kind of egoism(?).
There is a high correlation with egoism and libertarianism, however libertarianism =/= egoism. There are, in fact, strains of egoistic communism (including Stirnerites) for example/
I forgot to mention someone important.
Jeffrey Tucker has had the most profound effect on my intellectual development of anyone associated with LvMI not named Ron Paul. As time progresses, I am less interested in political, legal or economic theory, and much more concerned with applying the ideas of liberty to living well and thriving in the marketplace. His enthusiasm and support, his thoughtfulness and prudence has helped me imagine a standard for the type of Austro-Libertarian I want to be.
While he has not perhaps advanced science as far as Mises or Hoppe have, he has certainly helped significantly advance society through entrepreneurship and pedagogy, two activities I value above most others.
If you want to observe someone who is breathlessly enthusiastic about what he does, believes in the rightness of both the work and how he should pursue it, while providing leadership without the slightest hint of ego or paternalism, then Jeffrey Tucker is your man.
Jeffrey Tucker is defenitely up there on the list of heroes. I couldn’t believe the amount of free material he made availabe when I first discovered this website. Not too mention Jeffrey also writes some of the most intersting articles on this site.
Henry Hazlitt.
I agree with this one.
I agree that it is more important to be applying the knowledge that you have learned than it is to be ever searching and never applying any knowledge.
“Personally, I consider illegal immigrants as partial-exemplars of the libertarian ideal. They live and work where they want, regardless of what the government says is okay.”
Certainly, you mean some particular individual immigrants, as I’ve never met a person who hasn’t broken the law.
@ ERO
“any true libertarian would have to curl up in a fetal position.”
The context was the illegal immigrant as exemplar libertarian. Perhaps not by choice, but the illegal opts out of State control. Joe the Plumber could do likewise. He could opt out of licensing, risk the law and charge his customers less and build his illicit business larger. Yet that doesn’t sound like such a great deal to one whom the local building inspector mandates gets the work. The paradigm shift will be difficult because many people have their own little statist/corporate perks that they enjoy.
Because opting-out is the equivalent of martyrdom among self-interested people, it seems that the only hope is to impose libertarian ideology in unison. Which just doesn’t sound very liberal to me. It sounds like the imposition of communism upon a society … except that this ideology is finally the correct one.
Egoism, any kind, would make the individual sovereign of his own thoughts and resist ideologies and values being imposed by the group. So, I don’t understand your “Not really” response to my “I thought libertarianism had embraced a sort-of ideologylessness.” “There is a high correlation” might have been more expected.
“I actually even think Gandhi could be considered one in the practices and tactics he used to oppose the British State, if one ignores his confused socio-economic views (I think it is a little unfair to caricature him as just a typical socialist, he was definitely not in favour of the from of central planning espoused by Nehru).”
Gandhi was rad! Did some epic tax protesting against the British~!
This is why I come here - to the LVMI website and the forums.
There are ample resources here at LVMI dispel (my) ignorance.
What to do with that information, to communicate that information in ways that are readily understood and acceptable to others? - To teach, strike the spark, pass the torch, inspire.
Examples inspire.
From here in the peanut gallery I have to say that it has been an inspiration to see young men like LS and Grayson become that kind of example here on the LVMI forums.
They are not the only ones and there will be others - I know that there is much work that goes on behind the scenes, without which none of this would be possible.
Posting as you guys have done - and again, I don’t intentionally exclude others that my feeble recall currently omits - are an example of the learning process. Gaining knowledge and then demonstrating ways to communicate knowledge to others. That is an inspiration.
These forums are an asset for which we can be thankful.
The context was the illegal immigrant as exemplar libertarian. Perhaps not by choice, but the illegal opts out of State control. Joe the Plumber could do likewise. He could opt out of licensing, risk the law and charge his customers less and build his illicit business larger. Yet that doesn’t sound like such a great deal to one whom the local building inspector mandates gets the work. The paradigm shift will be difficult because many people have their own little statist/corporate perks that they enjoy.
So I could cooperate with the thug pointing his gun at me or “risk it”. The state is still the aggressor in either case. I’m not sure what you mean by everyone getting statist perks. States do accomplish things which would be otherwise legitimate in a free society like building roads or delivering mail, but they accomplish nothing without first initiating aggression (taxation, conquest, etc.) It’s like the hostage taker feeding you some apple slices. It seems like you are saying I should choose to starve instead.
Because opting-out is the equivalent of martyrdom among self-interested people, it seems that the only hope is to impose libertarian ideology in unison. Which just doesn’t sound very liberal to me. It sounds like the imposition of communism upon a society … except that this ideology is finally the correct one.
Unison with regards to what? Punishing criminals seems “liberal” to me. Many leftist anarchists seem to feel that a shift in Man’s character will allow them to live in prosperity and pleasure without the need to use coercion to defend property (see the Zeitgeist thread for such fairy tales). I’m just talking about the balance of power shifting, for at least some portion of the world, to where statism is abolished and people go on with their lives.
@Angurse, everyone breaks some law every day. And I did qualify illegal immigrants as **partial-**exemplars of the libertarian ideal.
I think that assertion is fine Skyler. Doesn’t the whole thing of people breaking laws every day point to the fact that current laws are irrational? Under libertarian law, we’d say that most people do not break the law every day.
“@Angurse, everyone breaks some law every day. And I did qualify illegal immigrants as **partial-**exemplars of the libertarian ideal.”
I’m don’t really understand what that qualifier does, why stop at immigrants? If everyone breaks some law every day, then isn’t everyone a “partial-exemplar”?
@Angurse, you could say that, sure. Most people interact and cooperate with others on a voluntary basis. Anarchy is all around us, and what people do most in their lives are anarchistic actions. The illegal immigrant puts himself above the state and it’s laws, and takes great risks to live, work, and raise his family wherever he chooses.
Hazlitt, Peter Schiff, Doug Casey, Jim Rogers, and Marc Faber. But, I think this have all been mentioned along with many other Austrians who have also proven to be exceptional as well.
EDIT: Would Nassim Nicholas Taleb be able to be included here as well? How about Richard Daughty?
I know this question wasn’t directed at me, but I would love to have a crack at it.
It seems to me that you are attempting a reductio ad absurdum of civil disobedience. Namely, that if we are to praise illegal immigrants for violating immigration law, then why not praise thieves and murderers for violating other laws?
The answer lies with the nature of the law itself. As Bastiat pointed out in (http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/The_Law.pdf)]The Law, the only just law is that which protects life, liberty, and property. SInce no form of migration does not violate the Non-Aggresion Principle (NAP), using force against migrants of any sort (emigrants or immigrants) is a violation of the NAP.
Let me throw a reductio right back at you:
If following the law is everywhere and always the right thing to do, then was it right for people in 1850’s America to follow the Fugitive Slave Act? Was it right for people in NAZI Germany to rat out their neighbor who was hiding Jews in his basement?
Of course not. You are a good person, you know that there is such a thing as bad law, and that resisting bad law–far from being bad itself–is heroic. Morality always trumps the statutes of fallible legislators.
“The illegal immigrant puts himself above the state and it’s laws, and takes great risks to live, work, and raise his family wherever he chooses.”
Thats true for some, definitely not all. Many also receive food stamps, medical care, housing subsidies, and other forms of welfare. Personally, I think, this use of the term hero (even that of Block) or ideal is completely mistaken (hence its practical incorporation of just about everyone!) and actions as well as motives are key to what makes a hero.