To be sure, certain regions enjoyed high levels of immigration. I’m not sure to what extent the state was complicit or not. My point is that there will be a lot more regional variation under a private property regime. Some areas will be cosmopolitan and have high rates of immigration, others will not for obvious reasons.
Now you are being silly. I can easily argue a communist society (i.e. the individuals in it) will fail if its participants adopt their favoured economic system without slipping into collectivism. A society is not a non-entity, it is a collective of individuals - individuals which can, together, put plans into effect. I’m not hypostatizing society, if that is what you think I’m doing.
Right, conservatives argue for legal impediments in the way of the abovementioned elements. But free movement of people and goods mean there will be as much (or as little) movement of goods as a given society desires. It is not un-libertarian for a group of individuals to boycott a corporation’s goods, and it is not un-libertarian to analogously refuse to associate with individuals with whom they wish no connection.
‘Communities’ like the Amish can exist within a libertarian a society, but they can’t at all create a libertarian society by themselves.The Amish are highly conservative and I believe opposed to a good deal of what libertarianism implies. I don’t know how they deal with dissenters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they used non-christian, non-pacifist methods.
I really don’t know. I tend to believe not. Anyway, I think we agree that the only way to actually know, is by making private property absolute. And if that’s the case, as some people already pointed out, only one dissenter is all it takes to ‘wreck’ the racial purity of such a…‘community’ ?
I don’t thnk so. Human society doesn’t work like that. It’s not a contract made by a bunch of people. And even if a group of consenting adults were to form such a ‘community’ based on ‘racial purity’, it’s not going to work. It’s not realistic.
Right. And if there’s no absolute free movement of goods and people, it is not a libertarian society.
And that’d depend in turn on how willing individuals are willing to put up so-called dissenter - ostracism and refusal to associate with them are powerful influences, and require no force at all. Restrictive covenants and the like may function to resolve this issue. Besides, I doubt that individuals who dislike more homogeneous societies shall choose to remain in them anyway. Again, this will not fit the Objectivist view or even Long’s type of anarchist society (both thick forms of libertarianism), but that is neither here nor there.
Perhaps, perhaps not. That alone does not make it un-libertarian, but merely impractical. And that is what I was driving at.
What makes you think this free movement will be hindered? All it takes for such a society to form is the refusal to dispose of one’s property in certain ways, much like all a boycott requires is abstention from consumption; surely you do not consider boycotts to be a hindrance in the free movement of goods?
My point is something completely different. Namely, that there’s no contradiction for a libertarian to be bigoted, as long as he doesn’t initiate aggression. In principle, it’s possible to be “white supremacist” and libertarian with no contradiction–except that, as others have noted, most “white supremacists” believe in aggression against non-whites, and only mouth libertarian platitudes to the extent it benefits themselves.
Sometimes, I’m sure. But the highest punishment in the Amish community is shunning–which is not only non-aggressive, but in fact the perfect model for a libertarian society. Shunning is the greatest “punishment” libertarians can impose for non-aggressive behavior of which they disapprove.
Wasn’t that part of the premises ? I think you were talking about a voluntary association in wich, let’s say, all members are blue and don’t like red people. So in the blue community no reds are allowed, and blues don’t buy goods made by reds (a boycott, right?). Now, while such a society is based on the libertarian principle of free-association, I wouldn’t say it’s a libertarian society. Just like voluntary socialism is not libertarianism.
White nationalists could be considered “white power libertarians.”
They support peaceful race separation and the right of association. Similarly, I would consider black nationalists to be “black power libertarians.”
If they want to form their own communities where they celebrate their own race and culture, so be it. As long as they don’t force their beliefs on others, I’m fine with them.
The entire point is that in a libertarian society, the Amish, Jews, whites, blacks, etc. are all free to voluntarily form their own separate communities.
If, for example, the Amish don’t like dissenters, then an Amish-dissenter community could form elsewhere, or the dissenting Amish could freely move to a religiously mixed community nearby.
White nationalism, strictly speaking, is a movement that wants to create separate white communities but not force others to do the same. Sure, there are a bunch of stormfront 12 year olds running around yelling “Heil Hitler” and supporting fascism, but they’re only white nationalist in name, the same how there are many racist black nationalists.
The bottom line is that if they wish to separate themselves from non-whites, so be it, as long as they don’t force their views upon others.
Except that’s not really the political platform of what most ethnic nationalist groups advocate. Many seem to support forced separation through central institutional means. While it is certainly true that some may be secessionists, which is fine, secession is hardly the only strategy advocated by most WN’s. Out of pessemism and desperation felt from living under the current system, they may tend to advocate the usage of the current system in the present to coercively enforce their ends. For the most part, it seems to me that such movements are reactionary rather than revolutionary.
True, in a libertarian society different groups are free to voluntarily form into homogenous communities (they are also free to voluntary form into more pluralist communities). However, do you seriously think that if we became a libertarian society (especially in America, where a relatively significant degree of ethnic mixing has already taken place), everyone of each respective ethnic group would uniformly form into “pure” communities with no cross-overs at all? I don’t. Do you really think it is likely that a truly 100% ethnically “pure” community is sustainable, at least in any long-term sense, through voluntary means? I don’t.
Socialists want material equality. They can’t tolerate different people. The same is true for racists. They can’t tolerate different people. I do not think that libertarianism has anything to do with such mindsets. Of course it’s technically correct that in a private property framework people are free to discriminate other people in any way they wish. But that’s not libertarian, just like voluntary socialism is not libertarianism.
(I replied to a previous post of Inquisitor’s as well but my post got ‘moderated’ and hasn’t shown up yet)
I agree that some religious ‘communities’ have some libertarian bent, in a way. I also believe that people like the Amish exist because they brainwash and coerce ‘their’ children, and that if they wouldn’t do so, the Amish ‘communities’ would vanish overnight.
I’ve actually never seen this. One thing we’ve experienced over the years are Nazis attacking the Mises Institute for putting commerce before nation and race etc. These people hate us as much as the left, if not more. Actually I don’t mind. The whole nationalist, right-wing racialist tradition is anti-liberal and anti-market.
Juan, what exactly is libertarianism to you? To me, all it is is a common political framework based on the NAP that unites a variety of political ideologies. Personally I am a neo-Objectivist/neo-Aristotelian of the sort Reisman is (except I’m a market anarchist), and to me that is the sort of libertarian society I’d prefer - and that is how I justify my position; but I take this to be a specific type of libertarianism.
Jeff, that is largely my experience of them too. Some are open to libertarianism and voluntary means of organizing society (and attaining their sought ends) and thus convert, whereas others might just adopt it rhetorically and yet others vehemently oppose voluntaryism. I see the latter two as no more than repugnant statists. They often argue that we put the market before society, or other such hogwash.
Economism. [;)] Yes, that is sort of what I had in mind, although the claim is usually stronger than that. There are “capitalists” of which it can be said this is true (e.g. those who horribly misread Rand), but generally it’s invalid when applied to Austro-libertarianism.
To me it is indeed a political framework based on the NAP. If I have to name libertarian authors I like, I’d mention Spencer, Bastiat and Molinari(among others…). I also believe that if the NAP was consistently applied, the majority of individuals would choose to live in a progressive, industrial society, not in small conservative towns that enforce ‘racial purity’, or in kibutzs, or similar ‘communities’
I think that the multicultural and ‘progressive’ position of the left is something they stole from classical liberalism, except that of course classical liberals don’t want to impose ‘multiculturalism’ at the point of a gun.
I believe that the incentives towards integration and inclusivity would increase rather than decrease over the long-term. I believe that more pluralist forms of social organization would tend to outcompete comparatively monocentric or homogenous ones. I base this on ideas such as harmony of interests (mutual self-interest), social evolution, comparative advantage and the economics of discrimination.
There’s a definite element of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism in a lot of classical liberal writings. However, as I said earlier, I am willing to bet there will be a lot more diversity in organizational firms under private property anarchism, and so long as some people genuinely desire homogeneity, egalitarianism, rural settings or whatever., they will pursue and sustain such societies. The Amish are an example of a people who differ radically from most modern individuals, as is the town of Orania, for instance, in South Africa. A desire for uniformity is too statist for my likings, and I think it is unrealistic to assume that such communities will fail outright or will be doomed to failure - provided their participants are willing to shoulder the costs. Some no doubt will, of course. So as not to argue in circles I’m going to leave it at this, but I do think that the widespread trend towards urbanization, just like the trend towards heavy industry, is at least partially due to the State (in fact I recall articles on Mises.org to this effect), and that in its absence there will be a multiplicity of organizational forms and living arrangements.