Exactly, it is very hard to submit all the influences and value something through them. Even influences take their roots from somewhere and therefore it is quite impossible to say whether the source for his natural law views was praxeology, Aristotle or something else. They are just too mixed and in the end he was probably influenced by them all.
Regarding the left-right, I remember taking a test on political views a while back that consisted of personal and economic freedom axioms. The whole left-right has gotten very twisted through centuries, allthough I doubt whether it made any sense even in the beginning. Perhaps only when questions infront of the parties were purely economical and pretty much everyone was a nationalist.
Correction. The individualist anarchists did not primarily draw influence from marxists, they drew influence from the mutualists (such as Proudhon), who were not marxists. Benjamin Tucker was also a big fan of Herbert Spencer, even though Spencer appeared to grow more “conservative” in his later years. As for Thomas Paine, he also once gleefully commented on how wonderful it was when there was no formal government in place in some areas during the revolution. As for classical liberalism, it disintegrated within its own ranks as state-socialism and progressivism rose, as Spencer himself wrote about first-hand.
You’re making a mistake in assuming that early left-anarchists were necessarily Marxists. Many were not marxists. Individualist anarchists were not marxists, they were the an extension of the philosophy of mutualism, which originated from Proudhon. Proudhon was not a Marxist (in fact, Marx dismissed Proudhon as a “bourgeios socialist”) and a close examination of his ideology reveals a distinct propertarian sentiment, especially as he grew older. He is usually taken out of context by contemporary socialists to further their own ends.
The disagreement between Marxism and early Anarchism was one of strategy. They both agreed in the ultimate goal of a future stateless, classless society but advocated polar opposite strategies for going about it. Marxists advocated taking over the state and using it to crush “the capitalists”, and then it will just magically “wither away”. Even anarcho-communists such as Bakunin did not agree with that strategy, and instead opted for secession and the formation of federations.
In response to the title, Rothbard changed affiliations many times over the course of his career.
It’s unfair to analyze his early position in the 1950’s as he was just starting out and to apply it to his entire career.
Rothbard believed in custom laws and largely what is meant by “a constitution must be arrived at” could be seen from a perspective as it is just necessarily so through the course of interaction that a custom of law will be discovered - the evidence for this is overwhelming.
Here’s something Rothbard said that I believe is more refined:
Nathyn, please leave the forums. You’re not here to contribute anything, and you know it. Your entire air of contentiousness reaks in your avatar alone, and the fact that you’re here more or less to see a rise out of people doesn’t play well. This is a simple request, after which I will just go onto ignore you and encourage others to do the same.
Nathyn asserts “Paine, for existence, who advocated public education and healthcare”
Really ?
“Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of civilised community upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything which is ascribed to government.”
That sounds like market-anarchism, does it not ? And I see no mention of so called ‘public education’, or so called ‘social security’ - do you ?
That is exactly one of the Thomas Paine quotes I was thinking about. There’s another quote where he talks about how wonderful it was that there was no formal government in place in some areas during the period of the American revolution. Paine was most definitely one of the early “philosophical anarchists”. Here’s the gem I’m talking about, from the same writting:
“For upwards of two years from the commencement of the American War, and to a longer period in several of the American States, there were no established forms of government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country was too much occupied in defence to employ its attention in establishing new governments; yet during this interval order and harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any country in Europe. There is a natural aptness in man, and more so in society, because it embraces a greater variety of abilities and resource, to accommodate itself to whatever situation it is in. The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act: a general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.” – Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
I completely agree with Rothbard. A constititution would be enforced by the threat of violence under anarchy.
Let’s say punishment for a entity that disobeys the constitution is required.
Let’s say you are a soldier in the army. If you disobey an order, you would be killed by other soldiers. But if everyone disobeyed orders, every soldier would not be killed, since no one would have the incentive to kill ones that disobeyed an order. If there are more and more soldiers, the incentive of disobeying orders would exponentially less.
Let’s say there is a cartel agreement fixing price. The more and more firms, the likelihood that the agreement would be enforced would be exponentially less.
If a firm disobeys the constitution, other firms would have the incentive to punish the bad firm. However, if these firms didn’t punish the disobeying firm, then different other firms would punish them for not punishing a firm that disobeys the constitution.
That’s how government works. If a bureaucrat does bad, then the bureaucrat is punished by the gov’t. But if all gov’t bureaucrats does bad things, then no bureaucrat would be punished.
The constitution would be enforced by the threat of violence, as described above.
The Rothbardian constitutional-anarchy is simply an ultra-minarchist state, non-aggression principle enforced by collective other entities. Collective other entities would obey the constitution due to threat to violence of other entities Ad infinitum. It’s a self-sustaining network.
Brainpolice, culture is very, very dynamic. Consider the role that race and religion plays in politics. Humanity is not divided into two collectives: One against freedom, the other for it.
Instead, politics are a dynamic web of influence involving individual ideas. It’s possible to accept ideas from one person’s philosophy, but not others. Marx, for instance, can accept Ricardo’s labor theory of value, but reject Laissez-faire. Milton Friedman can accept Keynes’ AD/AS model, but reject Socialism. In either case, it’s about what individuals themselves think – not our own collectivist generalizations based on what we think of such ideas.
To see a good idea of how this model would work, see Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic music. We regularly invoke the web model in popular discourse when we say “such and such person was influenced by such and such other ideologies” and don’t look at them strictly as left\right.
To give you a perhaps better example than Iskur’s electronic music guide, here’s how I see the development of Liberalism:
(That’s a very, very rough diagram. I tossed it together quickly right now – it’s somewhat inaccurate and missing a lot of important stuff.)
The point is that if we treat political theory as something developed by individuals, who are very different from person to person, you cannot make such collectivist generalizations as “The Classical Liberals,” and “The Libertarians” and so on – or even worse “The Left” and “The Right.” Such generalizations are useful, but largely inaccurate and definitely inaccurate if you rely on them as descriptions of collective ideas rather than generalizations about individual ideas.
Marx, thank God, is dead. So there’s nothing he can accept or reject now. The fact that Marx ‘accepted’ a wrong theory of value only shows that he was a pretty bad economist, if he deserved to be called an economist at all. His rejection of liberalism shows that he was a totalitarian.
Your picture shows how you think that one thinker influenced another. But there’s absolutely no proof for your claim. And at any rate, liberalism, the real one, is not something arbitrarily created by a bunch of writers, however brilliant they were.
Labeling Spencer as ‘economic liberalism’ seems to hint that you’re rather confused…
Okay, I’m not really paying attention to what’s going on, but are people actually objecting to Nathyn’s statement that Marx accepted Classical economics’ labor theory of value, but rejected liberalism? I mean, Marx did get the labor theory of value from Classical economics, and he did reject liberalism, so…
P.S. I actually think I would pay to see Niccolo try to confront one of Nathyn’s professors.
Just as Economic Liberalism can be understood as “radical economic liberalism,” to the point that some of its supporters eventually broke off to become Fascists, Socialism Liberalism can be understood as “radical social liberalism,” that broke off from Liberalism very early in the history of Liberalism, to become authoritarian Socialism and Anarchism – two ideas very different and in many ways opposed to Liberalism.
But there is absolutely no denying the influence of Classical Liberalism and Classical economics on Marx, because he regularly invoked them in the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. Marxism is almost entirely based upon the work of Smith and Ricardo – what Marx did was interpret their ideas differently. He invoked a primitive understanding of the problems with “perfect competition” (which you agree with) and “perfect information” (which you agree with) and “perfect equilibrium” (which you agree with) and the idea that markets never have any overall problems – again, something you agree with. On the last statement, whenever you’re accused of being utopian idealists, you respond, “Markets wouldn’t be perfect under anarchism,” – you just think it would be a lot better.
Marx himself had a strong regard for freedom, but like Nietzsche, he saw the mere establishment of marginal non-aggression as leading to overall infringements upon freedom.
From the Communist Manifesto:
You reject the very possibility of considering the notion that any Socialist has any regard for any kind of freedom.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is ‘Socialism Liberalism’ ?? A new compound noun ??
Also, there’s no such thing as ‘economic liberalism’. You should know better than trying to use a fallacious classification as argument.
Yes, he was srongly bent on destroying it.
What if I do ? Is there a law against it ? Anyway, here’s Bakunin talking about Marx.
“Marx naturally has managed to form a Communist school, or a sort of little Communist Church, composed of fervent adepts and spread all over Germany. This Church, restricted though it may be on the score of numbers, is skillfully organised, and thanks to its numerous connections with working-class organizations in all the principal places in Germany, it has already become a power. Karl Marx naturally enjoys an almost supreme authority in this Church, and to do him justice, it must be admitted that he knows how to govern this little army of fanatical adherents in such way as always to enhance his prestige and power over the imagination of the workers of Germany.”
A comment if I may: Actually I do grant that a socialist can have regaurd for freedom. But they have to be voluntary socialists, which is a rare phenomenon. But socialism in the statist context of the word is not compatible with any kind of freedom. Even if it could be said to maintain freedom as its ends, it supports violations of freedom as it means, and is therefore self-contradictary. One cannot be said to support freedom when they are in favor of means that directly contradict the ends of freedom. Freedom cannot come from strategies that violate it in principle. And this criticism does not apply exclusively to socialists, as I see many right-libertarians and even some anarcho-capitalists as running into the exact same problem.
The problem with Marx, among other things, is that his strategic view for reaching the ultimate end of a stateless, classless society was incompatible with his goal. That is, Marx advocated statism as a means to reach a theoretical future anarchy. Marx proposed state control of property in the name of worker’s control of property, not understanding that the nature of the state (namely, that the state and the workers are mutually exclusive) makes this self-contradictary and counterproductive to his own goal. This is where the traditional anarchists, at least those with half a brain, and Marxists differ. Interestingly enough, although in a somewhat different context (market anarchism), this is also where agorists and political anarchists differ.
You guys might be interested in reading G. A. Cohen’s book, Self Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cohen’s not really a Marxist, but given that no one important is really a Marxist anymore, a prominent socialist like Cohen is probably the sort of person you guys should be concerned with. Having read part of the book, I can tell you it’s very well written and well thought out, and poses a lot of questions which directly concern libertarian ideas (the book is largely a response to Nozick). Before you go off ranting against socialists, you should probably check out what socialists actually think, because it sounds like they’re getting an undeserved reputation around here.
