What's your beef with Roderick Long and "left-libertarianism"?

Economics Political Theory
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All very good questions. To answer them, I will address what I call the de-facto religion of that state.

I always tell people that there are two things that make up this de-facto religion of the state: neoclassical synthesis (economics) and critical theory (sociology). Anyone deviating from these two “religions” is going to be an enemy of the state. Deviating from one is bad enough, but if you deviate from both then you’re going to be demonized even more. Libertarians in the Austrian tradition, whether left or right, all unanimously agree on the bankruptcy of neoclassical synthesis. From the micro sphere of neoclassical economics to the macro Keynesian models, there is little discrepancy here between the varying camps of Austrians. However, the same is not true for critical theory, as I’ve already indicated.

Left-Libertarians (LL) recognize how academia, the media, etc, “brainwash” the public into accepting neoclassical synthesis, but they cannot see how these same forces “brainwash” them by instilling CT. Quite simply, LL cannot see how the state and the so-called superstructure has influenced their thinking. CT is accepted by some LL, but it is slightly different than the Marxist version. The Marxist version of CT is a bit more ruthless and It essentially states that all white heterosexual men are responsible for everything bad in the world, and that everyone else is victim of their oppression. I don’t think that many LL actually believe in this, but there are traces of similar thinking.

For example, many LL share the “all non-white males are victims of oppression” view. Admittedly, there is some truth to this, but this fact often prevents LL from making value based judgements in the field of sociology (probably because they fear being called a racist, sexist, etc). If it is pointed out that blacks cause crime at a higher rate than other races, then the LL often comes to their defense. If it is pointed out that women have a lower marginal productivity in the workplace than men (on average), then the LL comes to their defense. These are just some examples, and not all LL do it to the same degree, but such lines of thinking represent an implicitly inherent egalitarian way of thinking (social socialism), which they are unaware of. As I’ve already indicated, LL do it because they carry the value-free methodology of economics and praxeology and extrapolate this same thing over to sociology.

I do think that many libertarians think this is a bunch of nonsense, but are afraid to speak out against it. In todays world, you’re considered to be a “racist” when you argue against universal health care; you’re more of a “racist” when you argue against affirmative action in colleges and at the workplace; you’re even more of a “racist” when you suggest that blacks and Latinos commit more crime than whites. While the Marxist version certainly does make value-judgements, the LL version does not; it’s more of a white-guilt installation by academia and the media, and libertarians of all stripes have a fear of speaking the obvious because they might be called racist, sexist, or what ever. Either that, or they are just beaten into submission by the state, academia, and the media.

The reason that CT is sometimes harmful is because this line of thought can serve to increase the power of the state. For example, there was a rallying cry from LL regarding the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell legislation that prevented gays from openly serving in the military. In reality, repealing this legislation just empowers the state further. It would be better if gays were banned from the military entirely. It would be better if women were banned from the military entirely. It would be even better if men were banned too. See where I’m going? Why empower the state further? I also think that LL, under the spell of CT, are in error when they argue for open borders because they don’t understand the sociological implications of such a policy (I don’t want to address open borders here because I’ve already done so in other threads).

I don’t think that it’s unjust for the government to discriminate in certain instances. Rothbard makes this point in that article that I linked to “Big Government Libertarians.” Hoppe makes it in “Democracy.” Point being is that, even some Austrians, can implicitly empower the state. CT helps LL do this without them even knowing it.

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That Rothbard article has little to nothing to do with the left-libertarianism of the C4SS and the ALL.

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The left-libertarian analysis of such situations is that they are exploitative because they are the secondary result of coercion. The left-libertarian prescription for such situation is to free the market. I don’t think there is any real difference between ‘right’, ‘left’ and ‘plumb line’ libertarianism except the variety of thickness (or lack of, in the case of plumb liners) and emphasis on different issues.

You’re not, I don’t call myself a left-libertarian for the very reasons you said. However, for all the fault with the labels, I still think left-libertarianism has important contribtutions to make to the libertarian movement. Markets Not Capitalism, for example, really is a great book, especially to give out to lefties to show them we don’t want to eat the poor, and Kevin Carson, while economically ‘challenged’, has made some solid contributions to history and analysis of state intervention that are worthy of study.

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Then how in the heck are they different than “libertarians”??

So “left” doesn’t designate any sort of area on some political spectrum (as every thinking person would interpret it to mean), it just means they “care more about other issues”? Seriously?

Wha? Like what? You just told me they were basically the same…as in, the beliefs are the same, and the prescriptions/solutions are the same. What in the hell do they have to contribute that “regular” libertarians don’t? (Aside from idiotic self-labels and confusion.)

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that term “Markets Not Capitalism” before. Pardon my french, but fuck that. Enough perfectly great words have been co-opted by socialists already. I’m not content to just surrender one of the most important, (and arguably a cornerstone) of the entire free-market philosophy (“capitalism”) and let them fully mutate its understood meaning into what is actually the opposite. It’s funny that you would point to something like that as a positive contribution because in my view that’s a negative thing…playing along with (and ultimately acquiescing to) socialists. I don’t care whether you’re an anarcho-syndicalist and actually agree with their socialist policy, or whether (you think) you’re a libertarian and are just trying to “appeal to” or “reach out to” socialists. You’re not helping.

Let them make “capitalism” a dirty word, and then what? Then you can’t even talk about “capital” anymore, because that’s just exploitative property. Before you know it, you’re fighting to maintain control of the word “property”…the very institution that allows our peaceful existence on this planet.

They’re going to take everything they can. It’s a hard enough battle as it is. I do not see that simply handing over pieces of our language, the very thing we use to communicate these ideas, helps anything.

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I’m with JJ on this one. I have no idea what “left-libertarianism” means. To the extent that it refers to libertarians who have strong preferences (care strongly) about particular market outcomes (more brown people or women employed, less white men in power, less children breaking a sweat, etc.) I don’t see how it makes them different from any other libertarian who strongly prefer blondes, Porsches, or chocolate ice-cream.

If they simply care about (strongly prefer) these outcomes while not interfering with the market process (free exchange of property and labor between consenting individuals) then they are simply libertarians (with preferences, but so are all other libertarians). If they DO propose intereference with the market process (aggression) as a path to realizing their preferred outcomes then they are not libertarians.

No?

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Search the term “mutualism”.

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I have no idea what “left-libertarianism” means.

It means: “you are misrepresenting my position”, being “anti political” and yet insiting on tagging the wod “left” in front of your “non political” title, and saying you are not right wing.

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Wow, yeah, that was a long post, I do get carried away sometimes. And my summary is pretty confusing, sorry about that.

Let me explain my understanding of the terms thick and thin. Thick and thin are similar terms to left and right in that they refer to a libertarian’s style or flavor, rather than being a modifier for what the word libertarian actually means. Thick/thin/left/right… the NAP and associated libertarian principles remain intact whatever. The left-right spectrum and the thick-thin spectrum refer to two different things within libertarianism, though they are sometimes conflated. I referred to Hoppe and Long being on opposite sides of the left-right spectrum, but I’m not sure which one of them would be considered thinner. They are both pretty thin, meaning they refrain from making broader sociological points and generally stick to libertarianism.

The thinnest libertarian would probably be Walter Block. Perhaps this is why Block doesn’t give Clayton the warm-fuzzies. His style is too thin for Clayton. Block sticks to the NAP and doesn’t bring in any cultural values or anything beyond what libertarianism says. That post of Clayton is an example of a libertarian being thick, if you pardon the expression, or writing from a thick perspective. Clayton’s saying something about social theory - that prostitution ought to be ‘in the shadows’ even when it is legal - that libertarianism says nothing about, because it has nothing to do with the NAP.

To someone being thin, it makes no difference whether the service being discussed is prostitution or hairdressing: both are identically non-violations of the NAP, and both industries would be better if they were free markets. That’s the thin, cold analysis. This analysis isn’t left or right, because those terms only apply to thick arguments.

Clayton’s thick argument in this case would be considered ‘right’ (conservative) rather than ‘left’ (modern liberal). A libertarian who wants to engage in a thick argument and who has the view, contra Clayton, that prostitution should be ‘in the light’, might counter Clayton’s argument, and he’d be arguing from a leftist perspective. His viewpoint would be described as left-libertarian and Clayton’s as right-libertarian.

I prefer staying thin most of the time. Nothing wrong with making thick arguments, as long as it’s clear you’re venturing outside of the strict realm of libertarianism and are making a ‘cultural’ point. I’m not saying these distinctions are particularly useful - it’s probably a case of over-labelling - but I did just want to say that they have meaning, at least to me.

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@ FunkedUp

I agree. I have begun reading about critical theory, I’m not yet comfortably making any strong statements about critical theory yet, however it doesn’t seem like critical theory has to be Statist. Although critical theory is currently Statist for the most part, it seems like Libertarianism and critical theory aren’t irreconciable. From Wikipedia: “Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism. This has led to the very literal use of ‘critical theory’ as an umbrella term to describe any theory founded upon critique. According to critical theorist Max Horkheimer a theory is critical in so far as it seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them” (Horkheimer 1982, 244).”

Max Horkheimer’s quote actually sounds compatible with Libertarianism. It seems like the only problem with critical theory is that it is dominated by Statist sentiments, but that is probably because most people are Statist.

You are right, LL tend to be very “politcally correct”, a bit too much in my opinion. Defending black people and women aren’t necessarily a bad thing, it is how they are defended, some attempt to relieve them of all responsibility whatsoever which is problematic. The “political correctness” does get in the way of making value judgements but the LL do raise a very a good point, much of the problems that black people face is due to the government. Why do blacks commit more crimes than whites? Because on average they are poorer, live in poorer neighborhoods, in large part due to them being enslaved by the welfare system which was supposed to help them. The Left typically is concerned for the well being of disadvantaged peoples, such as black people, the Statist Leftists says that we need the government to protect them, the LL say that market anarchism will help the disadvantaged better than the goverment. I don’t see the problem with wanting to help the disadvantaged, as long as it isn’t at the expense of other people.

I believe now is the time to address what I believe is actually the problem with LL. The LL want to help the disadvantaged so badly that I think they too easily sympathize with government. They don’t value freedom as much as Right Libertarians do (from my very limited experience of LL), they value things like fairness and harm-avoidance more, which makes them susceptible to the gravitational-like-pull of Statism. They see the government as morally wrong because of its use of aggression, they don’t see the aggression as as bad as Right Libertarians do, because they see the government as trying to help the disadvantaged, or rather that the disadvantaged might be worse off in a stateless society. I think the “Big Government Libertarian Syndrome” comes from uncertainty in the market. LL know that in theory the market will better help the disadvantaged, howbeit they aren’t absolutely certain of it, and thus they seem to at times defend government aggression because they think that the government might actually be necessary to help the disadvantaged.

Now we might say that LL aren’t worthy of being called Libertarians because they don’t value freedom as much as we do, after all the one thing that all true Libertarians have in common is the high value on freedom. A person who grows up with drunken, abusive, irrational parents, who never had anyone to protect them, is unlikely to have much faith in their fellow human beings however. Furthermore, when we think about how the media fear mongers constantly showing the worst side of human beings, can we really blame the LL, for not being certain of the ability of the market to improve the lives of all? I mean the market is simply people and their transactions with other people, when you believe (sometimes with good reason) that people are irrational and selfish it is difficult to be confident that people will help the disadvantaged. We know that it is in fact in people’s interest to help their neighbors, but for some it is very difficult to be sure of that, given the fear mongering etc.

I understand what you are saying and I agree to some extent. It’s true that it would be nice for as little people as possible, (hell, none at all would be ideal, too bad that’s too much to ask for), to be allowed in the military. To say that people should be banned from doing something which doesn’t directly violate the non-aggression principle though is problematic. Yes joining the military will likely result in the violation of the NAP, but if we start stopping people from doing things which might cause harm to others then a whole list of other things must also be banned, once that happens then rampant Statism occurs. I agree with you completely on how under the current Statist system, opening the borders would cause massive problems though.

I will comment further on critical theory and it’s effects on Libertarianism at a later time. (Probably after I finish reading about critical theory and have given it more thought.)

This post ended up being longer than I thought it would be, sorry about that.

Several people have mentioned how Left Libertarianism is poorly defined, I think I can answer that question.

What’s the fundamental difference between Right Libertarianism and Left Libertarianism?

I think Left Libertarianism is a radical form of Libertarianism while Right Libertarianism is a reactionary form of Libertarianism. (I don’t mean reactionary in a bad way.) When I say radical I mean “favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order” and when I say reactionary I mean “a movement towards the reversal of an existing tendency or state”. Which I can already see will be misunderstood. I will try to better explain what I mean. The left libertarians support libertarianism because they think it will make society better, the right libertarians seem to support libertarianism because it fits their values. (This isn’t to say that the right libertarians don’t care about making society better.) The impression I get is that left libertarianism is more consequentialist in nature and right libertarianism is more deontological in nature.

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What’s the fundamental difference between Right Statism and Left Statism?

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“What’s the fundamental difference between Right Statism and Left Statism?”

I felt the urge to say there is no difference but that would be imprecise. I see there as two kinds of Right Statism and Left Statism. The Elite Right Statism, these people are the neocons who want to tell everyone else what to do and start wars so they can make money off it, then there are the just the Average Joe Right Statists who want small to medium size government. (The Republican voters who believe the Republican rhetoric.) Then there are the Elite Left Statism which also wants to tell people what to do, and the Average Joe Left Statism which wants to help the poor and fall for the usual Democrat rhetoric.

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I said the book is a good compilation of essays which highlight issues which are often ignored by mainstream libertarians. Whether you think we should keep the word ‘capitalism’ or not, my point stands, as does my point about Carson’s contributions.

As for the correct use of the word ‘capitalism’, I personally think it’s an utterly useless term, and I don’t use it in any sense. When people use the term ‘capitalism’, I’d be willing to bet 99% of them don’t mean the free market. They talk of ‘capitalism’ not as if it’s some far off hypothetical, but as if it’s already here. Go to Google News and type ‘capitalism’ and most of the articles entitled “Capitalism Saved - For Now” or “Politician X Bashes Capitalism”. Most people just use it as a term for whatever we have now, I don’t see why we should want a genuinely free market to be associated with that.

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Could you please demonstrate what some of these “ignored issues” are? And more importantly, exactly what unique contributions these people bring to the world that “regular” libertarians haven’t?

Gee. I wonder why.

“Capitalism” does exist. It is “already here.” “Capitalism” does not inherently mean “market anarchy”, and to pretend it does just so that you might be able to claim the word is essentially never used properly and is therefore useless, is wholly dishonest. “Capitalism” exists in every voluntary transaction that takes place.

Regardless, that is a sidebar debate. The focus here is the nonsensical term “left-libertarian” and what exactly makes someone who calls himself that different than “regular” libertarians.

You have tried to make a case that there is a difference, and so far I am not at all convinced. I’ve asked you multiple times for what this difference actually is, and the most you seem to have been able to come up with is they “care more about other issues”. First of all, z1235 already elucidated the fact that this is essentially a non-answer, as it’s essentially a distinction without a difference.

Second, I’ve ask you if that’s really the answer to my question, and you offer no response. I asked you what exactly these “important contributions” “left-libertarianism” has made to the libertarian movement, and you haven’t named any. You’ve simply restated that contributions were made and they were important.

So again,

Could you please demonstrate what some of these “important contributions” that “left-libertarianism” has made? (And of course, differentiate and explain how these contributions are unique to “left-libertarianism”.)

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Could you please demonstrate what some of these “important contributions” that “left-libertarianism” has made? (And of course, differentiate and explain how these contributions are unique to “left-libertarianism”.)

The word “left” placed directly in front of the word libertarian - which make it the most revolutionary (and leftists love to be revolutionary) contribution to political theory ever.

PS: If you want some links where we were just as confused as you are about what the hell LL means, there are some pretty funny threads I can link where there was an LL influx - and no one had any clue as to what the hell they were saying.

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I have no clue as to what you are saying.

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I’m saying left liberterians have no clue what they are saying - it’s just sloganing

oh, and if you want links from about a year and a half ago when there was a LL influx; there were threads of us asking what left libs where trying to say - and they never were able to say anything.

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That’s basically what I feel like is happening here in this thread.

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I think what they’re saying is that;

suppose we are in a hypothetical free market private paradise. They’re still going to call you out, and call you a dick, for being a raicst (not to say YOU are, just the general “you” as in a hypothetical person).

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LL’s seem to not have their emotional and analytical sides integrated. For example the left side of the brain, the analytical side, understands the economics of private property and libertarianism, but the right hand emotional side wants forceful intervention to right percieved and imaginary injustices.

What most distinguishes anarcho-libertarians in my view is the ability to reject personal biases based on emotion and envy as being irrational. For example, when I make a market transaction with a wealthy business to buy some goods, yes I FEEL they have authority over me, yes I FEEL they are dictating the terms of the exchange, yes I FEEL it is all unfair and I should just be handed the goods without having to work. But I know this to be irrational.

The LL’s just gives in to these emotions, they make constant appeals to social justice, talk about heirachies, bosses, inequality e.t.c A lot of it sounds no different to what Marxists and progressives talk about.

But when you push a LL as to whether we should violate property rights or use coercive force to achieve these aims, most of them quickly revert back to their analytical framework, and deny that such a thing would be a good idea.

I agree with EvilSkeptic that there is something to be learned from them, Kevin Carson, Guy Chartier e.t.c makes great points about State Capitalism that is very often lacking in the libertarian movement. Roderick Long is the least irrational and I do not consider him a LL like a lot of the rest. ‘Markets Not Capitalism’ is still a great book.

In my opinion, all the things Left-Libertarians worry about are solved by the spontaneous order arising from private property rights and the free market anyway. The fact that LL’s cannot see this means they still cling to the Marxist theory of exploitive capital accumulation, even if they do not know it.

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My personal disagreement stems from the labor theory of value and absentee ownership (though I have yet to read Carson’s new work on property).

I think C4SS is a ver valuable tool. I personally enjoy their ideas on micro-manufacturing and networking. Co-op and Communal workshops may be a good alternative for some people.