From this article, it seems as though Lew Rockwell is Anti-State with regards to the Federal Government, but not necessarily state or local governments (although I would conjecture he carries similar positions throughout the various levels of government. It appears he supports extremely limited government.
Anyone know if he claims minarchy, ancap?
Is being anti-state the same as being anti-government? anti-state government? anti-local government?
I’m pretty sure he’s ancap. I don’t think he states it very often, though, and it seems that he is more against large, centralized statism than small, decentralized statism.
He simply believes the federal government to be more dangerous than local government.
I thought that Lew Rockwell was a self-identified anarcho-capitalist. Language can definitely be ambiguous though. I recall once that he described what he supports as “private government”.
I always found him to be rather vulgar; I quickly moved on from reading about the rationlizations about corporations & the Great White Hope that was Ron Paul to more coherent material.
I could be wrong though.
Ha. I also became dissapointed with Lew Rockwell and his website over time, especially when the blog started to be almost nothing but shilling for Ron Paul. I think that’s died down a bit now but it’s still there. There was a time not long ago when literally almost every blog post was praising Ron Paul and political talk about his campaign. I also found some of his rhetoric from the early 90’s (during the heyday of the paleo-libertarian alliance) to be horrid, when he was purposefully trying to pander to white nationalist types and use racial politics as a vehicle for libertarianism. Unfortunately, Rothbard got caught up in that mess as well.
The post concerning the past “Rothbard & Rockwell Race War” over @ the Fushionist Libertarian was what finally broke the camels back for me, but yes the whole thing is rather embarassing.
I do admit however to still reading some LRC guest columnists.
I like Wilt D. Alston and Stefan Molyneux. I don’t think Stef posts there anymore though. I know that Wilt still does.
I think Roderick Long posts on there every once in a while, and they post Rothbard classics (even “Left and Right”, which I find funny) pretty often.
Yea I like the Rothbard collection there.
I read an intro to ancap type article when I was first learning about the subject that said something like “note; not all ancaps label themselves ‘anarcho-capitalist’ for example, Lew Rockwell calls himself a ‘paleoconservative.’”
Knowing whether Rockwell really is an anarchist isn’t as easy as it should be.
What was that article? I don’t think Rockwell ever called himself a paleocon. A “paleolibertarian”, yes, but I think he recently abandoned that label.
in number 14
I think what he claims and what he writes/does can be different, and it is more important to look at the works of a man, rather than the labels he adorns himself with.
This is one of my favorite pieces by him.
It’s not my daydream, but it is a romantic vision of a republic.
Does it matter?
Seriously, I hate these threads. It’s kind of like watching a bunch of kids trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. Accept that in reality one’s thought processes can’t be labeled simply with ancap/minarchist/left/right/up/down. At least if they show even slight independent thought. Worrying about who is what and if they are ideologically pure enough isn’t progress, even if some folks here claim otherwise.
Also, why does pandering to the nationalist right make Paul less valid, but not Rothbard?
Lew is a devout Catholic Christian who pisses off the cultural Marxists (both anarchist and social democrat), the classical Marxists, and the neo-conservatives as well. In my experience, these are usually the people with the most interesting things to say. Ideologically, he seems to me most closely aligned with Hans-Herman Hoppe. His “30-day Plan” essay is a classic.
I don’t remember anyone saying that Rothbard is exempted, but if anyone did, I’d strongly disagree with it.
To me, being ideaologically pure isn’t what’s the point. The point is I disagreed with the tactics involved, and found them morally & ethically offensive.
As for labels, what about using labels for classification purposes, like say, in a discussion? Surley they are useful then; sighing about labels doesn’t make them go away :.
I hate threads that hate threads;). (Does that mean I hate my own thread?)
IMHO, it matters to the extent of developing my own understanding of libertarianism and Austrian Economics. Granted, a label does not necessarily define an individual, but individuals do define labels. Labels appear useful in the capacity of mental heuristics conveying information. Labels may appear accurate, but the precision is in the details. I posited the initial question because Rockwell’s cited writing, while eloquent, whispered ancap, but screamed minarchy.
That was the text that made me posit the initial post. I cited the html version: http://mises.org/about/3225. Great piece.
Mostly everyone involved with the Mises Institute are anarchists. After all, how could someone be around Murray Rothbard and still support the goverment?