In Defense of Corporations, Tax Breaks, and Wal-Mart

Economics Political Theory
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21

Divisiveness was already there; in fact, divisiveness was abound plenty when people were arguing for or against certain libertarian and/or anarchist authors. Blaming the left-libertarians can however further it, just as much as blaming right-libertarians does as well.

Frankly, all they have done is apply libertarianism & anarchism into different areas in an effort to address what they perceive as problems with past libertarian and/or anarchistic thought. (A bit unrelated, but I was reminded of the furthering of such thought this morning regarding this: http://www.blackoakmedia.org/BlackOakPresents/Black_Oak_Presents-_Autumn_2008.pdf; “Notes Towards A Manifesto of Paleo-Anarchism”, pg. 7)

The efforts to further develop the libertarian and/or anarchistic philosophies unavoidable creates allegiances & loyalties to certain ideas and schools within, imo. The fact that elitism (and a focus on labels as tools) still exists in humans, regardless of a community’s political thought, makes things that much more complicated & messy; sometimes as a given, and sometimes unnecessarily.

I do agree that the eagerness of some within a political school to set themselves apart from others doesn’t help unity if this within a larger school of thought, but neither is assuming that all left-libertarians (in this case) do so. Frankly, I’m sick of using the left & right prefixes, & i think that whatever the left-libertarianism regarded as an increasingly “bad” Rightist influence was not Right but more generally a Statist Conservative influence.

Individuality & community are not necessarily opposite ends; would not “right”-libertarians regard the family as an increasingly more important feature of society if & when The State falls? Would not “left”-libertarians regard the invidividual role as increasingly more important if & when the state falls?

Wasn’t there more or less a type of class warfare going on regarding Statists & Anti-Statists?

22

I would argue that there isn’t much difference between those who receive net privilege from the state and those who actively use the state for privilege. But that’s for another day [:P]

I hate to get into this, but what do you mean by capitalism? If you mean the free, uncoerced exchange of goods and services, than a lot of radical leftists will agree with you; even more will when you dress it up in leftist terminology. However, when a leftist or social anarchist says that they oppose capitalism, they mean that they oppose the currently-existing system of statist privelege and corporatism. That is what pretty much everyone, besides Objectivists, minarchists and anarcho-capitalists, means by capitalism.

23

And it is up to the left libertarians who fits this, not the poor, obviously.

And you aren’t bothered by that, because?

24

No. The poor don’t recieve net privilege from the state.

Because of panarchism: they live in their communities and live by their rules, we do the same.

25

I actually didn’t notice that on Carson’s site before; then again, I haven’t been there in a while either.

However, I disagree with Carson on tactics, & do not agree with mutualism either.

It does bring the question up though: At one point does broad tactics & strategy, whether through apolitical or political means, violate the original intent and/or philosophy that one utilizes those tactics for? If one “supports” the IWW insofar as a vehicle for a certain message, but not the IWW’s goals or political philosphy, does that make him a violator of the supposed philoshy one advocates?

This question popped into my mind when reading earleir on Chomsky’s reaction to the election, & subsequently reading the comments on the reddit submission. In my mind, Chomsky’s “anarchism” is hyprocrticial, because he advocates voting for a political party, & has done so numerous times. However, I am not so sure if Carson’s support (to what extent, I am unsure of, admitelly) of the IWW violates in the same manner.

Of course, I am there’s also the valid approach of not supporting the lesser of evils, which supporting the IWW can easily be :\ .

Also, I didn’t mean to imply that there is an alliance of the libertarian right, I meant it only insofar as much as left-libertarian regard non left-libertarians (this label stuff is getting messy).

I agree that the Alliance of the libertarian left, while I support it broadly, is a bit of misnomer & is an act of drawing a line in the sand.

26

I don’t see what’s so wrong about receiving privileges, just like there is nothing wrong with being lucky. There is something wrong with creating them and giving them out, but that’s it.

27

No, let’s have it out today. If someone goes to the hospital and gets covered by medicare, are they receiving a net privilege?

How will you sort out the net privilege?

The only way to equitably sort this out, is not by condemning those who receive privilege, even if they do not ask for it, but rather who is facilitating the privilege in the first place and why. You seem to miss the point that it’s the stealing that is the issue, not the spending.

The problem with revolution is that it relies on emotion, not reason. You can’t have a revolution on moral grounds, if you will abandon morals whenever it becomes inconvenient.

I use it the way Mises and Marx used it. You shouldn’t hate getting into it.

Right, if I pander.

Then they are idiots. Instead of encouraging their ignorance, shouldn’t we be educating them?

Everyone else includes millions of sheep who thinks Obama is going to be the saviour and that the government is good when it’s killing ay-rabs and propping up the stock market. These are the very people we are trying to overcome and inspire in the direction of liberty. Why would we take our direction from them?

Libertarians retard themselves by pandering instead of educating. They think the ends justify the means, but it’s a bad crop they are growing by subverting honesty and accuracy for attention and friendship.

No one has ever satisfactorily answered this. Anarchist has negative connotations. Liberal is mis-used. Someone made the case that libertarian is misused now ( to mean minarchist). How many more words are we supposed to surrender? And they aren’t just words, but rather we’re allowing our opponents to frame and define the debate. Like we don’t have a big enough challenge.

Guys like Carson are no friends to the Austrian school. He regularly takes cheap shots at the Mises.org crowd. He is not an ally to an Austrian. He’s not an ally to a Rockwellian. He’s not my ally. But he sure is chummy with the socialist unions.

28

Oh really? The people who don’t believe in property rights, and who endorse violence as a means to an end are going to leave you alone?

Ha. Wishful thinking.

29

If the right is characterized by greed and abuse, then the left can be characterized by jealousy and resentment.

30

What does any of that have to do with the use of the word? If anything, “capitalism” in the sense used by Mises, Rand, and Rothbard is a neologism. Marx’s use of the word capitalism was thoroughly statist, and that’s the definition that nearly everyone uses. If you go up to the every-day person on the street and say, “I want to establish a capitalist society!”, they’ll look at you funny and say, “Don’t we already have that?” If your going to defend a word, defend “free market”. It will fit everywhere that “capitalist” will, doesn’t have nearly as many negative connotations, and even makes more sense etymologicalically.

31

You clearly do not know what you are talking about and have fangs drawn.

Some choice quotes from anarcho-capitalists (from the Mises Forum)
32

What part of, “I don’t take my vocabulary from state supporters” do you not understand?

The man on the street thinks government is good. He thinks taxes are his fair share. Decapitating Ay-Rabs with precision bombs is patriotic.

Why in the name of all that is holy, would I take my marching orders from Boobus Americanus?

33

Incorrect. The “radical leftists” of the left-libertarian alliance are dominantly libertarian anarchists! Not statists, but aparently the word “left” brings up an inherent statist association with some.

That claim is quite disputable, considering the amount of WN’s who like him.

Again, you’re basing this off of prejudicial stereotype rather than what left-libertarianism actually consists of. You clearly do not understand the left-libertarian position.

34

These claims are all based on your own prejudicial misunderstanding of left-libertarians. Not everything that doesn’t fit your right-wing cliches is marxist. I constantly debate with the true marxists who are trying to co-opt anarchism all the time (mr1001nights being the main example on youtube).

35

That they like him in no way implies the non sequitur that he courted them.

36

Then why would you use a word invented by Karl Marx, popularized by Communists and other state-socialists, and defended by the religious nuts of the right wing? One that is understood by 90% of the population as to mean, literally, “the currently existing system”?

37

You have it backwards. The entire point is to get people to believe in and respect those things and not see them as antogonstic with their overall viewpoint. There is no pandering, the whole point is to bring them over. I’ve watched it occur first hand myself, to see rabid collectivists transformed into individualist anarchists.

38

That’s a non-sequitur and you know it. Nice try though.

39

Yes there is, it’s been the standard of American libertarianism since around the time of FDR - conservative-libertarian fusionism.

I find that claim disingenous because you clearly do favor the right based on your commentry and hostility.

40

And I would just as easily argue that neither do the buisness people you so hate.