The battle lines are drawn. The left libertarians and the other libertarians.
In Defense of Corporations, Tax Breaks, and Wal-Mart
by J. H. Huebert and Walter Block
November 24, 2008
Do big business and big government team up to rip you off? Of course they do. All the time.
Unfortunately, Roderick Long has taken that important insight and, in a new essay for the Cato Institute, twisted it into a misguided attack on “corporate power,” tax breaks, and Wal-Mart.
Let’s set the record straight on the correct libertarian view of these matters.
Before we do, we should note that Roderick Long is a leading libertarian theoretician. He was for several years editor of the flagship libertarian publication, the Journal of Libertarian Studies, and did a wonderful job in that capacity. He has written the best short defense of the libertarian anarchist position ever written. And not only is he a pure libertarian, he has made important contributions to technical philosophy
Still, with all due respect, we cannot agree with him on this occasion. Indeed, his importance as a libertarian philosopher makes his comments all the more alarming.
There’s nothing new about left-libertarians. They are still the same anti-capitalist who hated big business when Lenin promised to keep control of the commanding heights of the economy.
The left libertarians make a strange leap from “Wal - Mart exists today” to “Wal - Mart could only exist today”, and ultimately misidentify the cause.
The government corrupts or abolishes every institution out theere that stands in its way, this isn’t limtied to big business. The leftists need to know who to blame, buisness isn’t the answer, no matter how much their egalitarianism would like it to be.
I’m tired of the anti-capitalists. They insist on muddying the picture by pretending to be populist revolutionaries.
I find it very interesting that they focus more on the big bad company than the big bad state. Class warfare of this variety is disastrous for human liberty.
I view Roderick largley doing a similar thing that Ron Paul attempted with Republicans. I see little harm in trying to de-brainwash Leftists from eating from the palm of the Rightists abuse of the rhetoric of the free-market.
Frankly, it would make my job easier whenever I have to parry petty attacks from idiots who, despite their pride in ignoring or debasing the “opposition’s” thinking, spend too much time consuming & buying into their very opposition’s lies. This goes both ways, though, obviously.
To my understanding, I thought it was left-libertarian to simply hold the view that capitalism may not the ideal economic system, and if there was an “ideal”, it would not be represented by any other specific economic system other than the free-market itself, which would encompass other economic systems. I hardly see this as anti-capitalist, but I could see this as anti-plutocratic.
I ultimately do not see how Long’s alliance with the left is anymore counterproductive than if one were to ally with the right. Hopefully, that line doesn’t piss off too many here, because I frankly do not feel like going into another round of “Whose Side Is it Anyway?” regarding political alliances.
If Long helps more people see that free-market does not equal plutocratic / corporatist rule, I would call that success for all libertarians/anarchists.
I disagree; the focus has always been on both the state & the “big bad company” (I suppose monopolies would be what those are, but companies or some analog of companies would exist regardless of an economic system due the inherent use of said company as a technological tool).
Then again, I view capitalism as neither good nor bad, & realize it’s current importance as an economic tool, & do not subscribe to blind rhetoric concerning it’s evils either. We might as well call computers evil generations before Skynet is created & get the fear mongering over with.
I wouldn’t call those who do so left-libertarians or right-libertarians; I would call them idiots who don’t do their research and/or think enough.
Not a very good article. They don’t back up their claims with empirical evidence, and they misunderstand Long’s position on tax breaks and transportation subsidies. To be fair, though, Long’s piece wasn’t his best work, either; he doesn’t explain his position as well as he usually does.
YES! Especially the last line. Long and Carson have introduced many leftists and social anarchists to the idea that a free market =/= plutocracy. They haev done at least as much with the Left as Ron Paul has with the Right.
It depends on if you view whether or not RP made any sucess with the Right, which I do not think is very accurate. You could possibly say with those who identified with the Old Right & who were disenfranchised, but otherwise, the republican party absolutely refused to listen to RP. RP hasn’t done much to the Right, honestly.
He had far more broad success with 3rd party types, Independents, anti-war types (basically, outside of the right), however.
They aren’t allying with centrist leftists. They are allying with radical leftists, whose ideology is in opposite to libertarianism.
Ron Paul doesn’t court right wing fanatics. He doesn’t try to find common ground with neocons. He marches straight to the center, where the most people are, right and left and makes the case for freedom. It’s an enormous difference. Paul attracts right and left. His campaign may have pandered a little, but good luck sticking that charge on Paul. He stands for what he stands for, and people find that naturally attractive, because they perceive him to be the little guy, honest and truthful.
Left libertarians go out of their way to antagonize and ostracize the right. And they court groups like the IWW and other socialist organizations. Socialists are not our allies. Just because they are pissed at being disenfranchised, or are anti-war, doesn’t mean they aren’t pro-socialism, pro-communism, anti-property rights, and pro-welfare.
No they haven’t. That is totally false. What they have done, is creative divisiveness, first by their insistence on branding themselves apart from other libertarians, and second by promoting class warfare with capitalists. It’s the same crap Marx did. Proletariat vs. Bourgeoisie.
All they have done, is co-opted Marxism and institutionalized collectivism.
Evidence? I haven’t read of anyone doing any courting aside from maybe trying to spread libertarian messages and/or ideas to other various audiences (since when was communicating with non-libertarians allying?)
And before this thread goes deeper into more Left vs. Right libertarianism nonsense, why shouldn’t both be antagonized & ostracized? Both have valid insights & valid stupidity; neither of them are exclusively more correct than the other, although anyone from either side who claims so wouldn’t necessarily be a left or right libertarian, just an assumptive idiot, in my book.
When the word “libertarian” is associated with defending corporatism and sweatshops in the eyes of many, then a little qualification may be needed. As far as “class warfare” goes, the classes are A) the state and those privileged by the state and B) those oppressed by the state. Do you disagree with that?
The Marxism remark is just inaccurate. I am not a Marxist. Almost all left-libertarians aren’t. The closest thing you will get to a Marxist in the LL movement is an autonomist or anarcho-communist who is sympathetic towards mutualism and panarchism.
Clarification is not throwing capitalism under the bus. That’s pandering.
No, I don’t agree. Class A is the state and those who use the state for privilege, not everyone who receives privilege. No harm, no foul.
There is no LL movement. There is LL pandering to people who do not believe in freedom, who believe in using coercion, and who will not respect the right to own property.
It doesn’t matter if one is left or right. If you can’t agree on property and coercion, you are no ally of mine.
Carson promotes the IWW on his website. Wombatron was promoting them, and that Students group as well. These are not libertarian organizations. They do not respect the right to own property.
There is no such thing as the Alliance of the Libertarian Right. It’s these so-called libertarians who insist on picking sides, not me. I dislike the left and right equally, but the libertarian left more than both.