There is something about that definition of “vulgar libertarianism” that does not pass the sniff test to me. It seems like a strawman criticism.
Either the “vulgar libertarian” advocates the non-aggression principle or he does not. There is nothing in Kevin Carson’s definition which provides any clarity yet he uses it pejoratively. Is he judging the libertarian morally? or dismissing the prediction of how people will conduct their affairs while living out the non-aggression principle?
Myself, I am gradully turning towards primitivism. In other words, if every single person respects the non-aggression principle, my personal opinion is that we would technologically go back in time, so to speak. I am not saying a primitivist life is morally more sound than a technologically advanced society. I just believe things would turn out that way. The non-aggression principle is holy. How everybody socializes while following the non-aggression principle is anybody’s guess.
Therefore, in my opinion, I could say a “vulgar libertarian” would be anybody who expectsanything more than a luddite lifestyle while advocating anarchy. Everybody else is wrong.
Well like I said, the question of vulgar libertarianism is off-topic for this thread. But to sum up vulgar libertarianism: it’s the misuse of the concept of a free market to function as an apologist for current conditions that came about as a result of corporatism. I think that Carson’s original point is a valid one.
The concept has more to do with what one’s function is within political discourse and how one’s policy positions with regaurd to the current state of affairs meshes with the principles of a free market.
I believe the term vulgar libertarianism was coined to refer to those libertarians, particularly those closely associated with conservatism, who sometimes function as defenders of big buisiness in and of itself irrespective of context. The vulgar libertarian falls into the trap of legitimizing current conditions in the corporatist economy as if they are justified by “the free market”. In short, free market theories are used by the vulgar libertarian to justify conditions that come about in an unfree market, particularly neo-liberal policies. The vulgar libertarian effectively becomes a defender of the status quo.
I don’t want to get way off topic though, as this is entirely unrelated to the OP.
You’re trying to frame this in a language of particular venom and its become more incoherent.
No. What I mean is that any government action, even repealing laws, is unlibertarian because it presupposes that the state had the authority to do it in the first place.
I am not advocating that people abide by these laws, to the contrary! I am advocating that they stop wasting their time trying to change them, and just start breaking them regardless. Ignore the state; it will go away.
I am not supporting CRA. I am calling it an act of immorality. However, I am also calling the condition of government oppression an immoral one and this connects to the defacto racism in the south.
Now, the argument is that the imposition of CRA is obviously immoral, but the non-imposition of it allows for immorality as well. Why? Because in both cases the premises are the same - the premise is the state.
You think so? Really? Methinks it most likely it will make you go away first. As Plato said (I paraphrase), refusing to participate in politics results in your being ruled by lesser men. You denigrate Ron Paul for trying to change the system from within. You’d rather have us all standing outside trying to convince lazy, selfish, short-sighted people that they should all just up and forget about the state. These ideas are so far off the mainstream, let’s be clear, that most people have never even considered them.
You’re both right. If enough people ignored the state, it WOULD go away. If too few ignore the state, it will make them go away.
Note: It’s easy enough to prove my assertion. If everyone ignored the state, then by definition it no longer exists. Somewhere between “everyone” and “just Niccolò,” we find that elusive quantity called “enough.”
Look, man, I hear what you’re saying, but I really think this comes down to a question of human nature. Sure, intellectuals like ourselves might be able to think around our instincts, but humans, like most social mammals, naturally think in terms of hierarchies. People want someone to be “in charge”. It is my contention that, no matter how vile the crimes of state, you will never get the majority of people to believe that it is the existence of the state, of concentrated force, that caused it. They will instead blame the individual bad leaders. I am not even sure they’d be wrong. In any case, though, anarchy is a pipe dream and always has been. Laws and government will be, because most people want them, and no, they won’t let you opt out, because most people are also relentless busybodies.
We need to acknowledge the nature of the creature we are trying to manage (or not) with these ideas. Recorded history supports my contention. What in history supports your idea that anarchy is even possible, long-term?
I think it’s pretty clear that Nicky is a leftist just trolling around here. I always suspected it, to be honest, ever since he started spouting his “libertarian is leftist” garbage. Anyone who is opposed to “the state” repealing oppressive laws (in fact, anyone who wants to act like organizations do things rather than individuals) is an anti-liberty collectivist. Think that doesn’t follow? Read on…
Your fellow leftists, socialists, communists, and black-flag leftist anarchists need to realize that aside from being smug, arrogant elitists, you all make a false distinction between state coercion and other forms of coercion. If you’d apply your logic elsewhere, slave-owners have no right to free their slaves! Under leftist logic (Nicky), a man raping a woman has no right to stop.
How in the world is expressing you’re own opinion garbage, Ego? Smug, arrogant elitists? As if conservatives, paleos, vulgars, rainbow spotted whatevers, etc. aren’t capable of being such? Why don’t you cease your attempts at punditry and say something that isn’t laced with your own obvious sympathies? Otherwise it’s just the pot calling the kettle black.
Your post didn’t make much sense to me, actually. I also hardly see how calling others socialist trash is productive as well, when you very well know there are differences between various schools of anarchism (market anarchism being one of them), when compared to socialism & communism.
Turn it down a notch, Ego. Niccolo is definitely quite annoying, but Nitroaddict is right in that you’ve ventured too far into the ad hominem. A little ad hominem is okay, but you just weaken the position of those of us who disagree with Niccolo when you start throwing invectives.
Beyond that, I think your points here need some clarification, as I’m not sure what you mean. I suppose, if one were to propose that the ownership of slaves somehow helped make up for the unfavorable Northern tariff policies Southern farmers faced, then I could see how Niccolo’s logic might get there, but I don’t see how the rapist point is valid, and even the former seems a stretch.
Nicky says that individuals within the government have no right to cut back or end oppressive policies. If this were truly the case, a rapist would have no right to stop raping.
That’s not my suggestion. My suggestion is direct action, not indirect action that leaves men gutted of all life and vigor.
Voltairine de Cleyre put it best,
But the evil of pinning faith to indirect action is far greater than any such minor results. The main evil is that it destroys initiative, quenches the individual rebellious spirit, teaches people to rely on someone else to do for them what they should do for themselves; finally renders organic the anomalous idea that by massing supineness together until a majority is acquired, then through the peculiar magic of that majority, this supineness is to be transformed into energy. That is, people who have lost the habit of striking for themselves as individuals, who have submitted to every injustice while waiting for the majority to grow, are going to become metamorphosed into human high-explosives by a mere process of packing!
No, Nicky says that the presupposition of the government is wrong and that it shouldn’t matter what laws it enacts - everyone should disobey regardless.
The raping analogy is a truly bad one, it doesn’t even make sense. I’m saying that the state, as an abstraction, should be ignored or fought outright. This, however, does not apply to a rapist as he is not an abstraction.
Your problem is that you’re lumping men like Paul in with the libertarian movement; they aren’t members. They don’t represent YOU. Paul lives a cushy life making nearly $200,000 a year from blood money. HE IS NOT ONE OF US; HE IS NOT A VICTIM, but we are.