Isn’t Chomsky a self professed “anarchist” and “libertarian-socialist” (are these terms mutually compatible?!) ? So doesn’t that make him a “left libertarian”?
Chomsky is not a libertarian of any sort, left, right, center, whatever. He’s a social democrat (anti-federalism, anti-MSM-because-he-thinks-it’s-anti-government, anti-gun, pro-educrat, pro-social security) with somewhat more radical views on foreign policy (he was opposed to Ron Paul’s “ultranationalism” in the form of the US withdrawing from the UN, so it would seem it’s not as isolationist as people repute him to be. Maybe he’s the antiwar movement’s version of Hayek?). If you want real left-libertarianism or, frankly, real radicalism, look at Kevin Carson, Roderick Long, Benjamin Tucker, William Godwin and elements of Lysander Spooner and Keith Preston’s body of work.
I thought Tucker and Spooner could be anachronistically called anarcho-capitalists.
No factory or other business enterprise can operate without an effective system for sound decision-making–about where to build the factory, whether to open a second factory, or a new branch, whether to make this product or drop that one, etc.
That is the most convincing argument to me, I think. Yet it avoids any notion of “fairness.” Though I suppose you could argue that choosing a higher standard of living over a lower one is always more “fair.”
Not sure if this will make any sense, but here’s how I understand the relationship between the different position:
/ Libertarian Marxist (Autonomist; Council Communist; Situationist)
/ Libertarian Communist <
Libertarian Socialist < > Social Anarchist (Anarcho-communist)
\ Anarchist <
\ Market Anarchist (Mutualist; Individualist Anarchist)
/ Left-libertarian
Classical Liberal < - Anarcho-capitalist
\ Minarchist (Misesian; Objectivist)
Just goes to show that “categorization” is useless. We ought to debate the points and ideas.
It in fact does not make sense because the formatting is
To format it another way…
Libertarian Socialist > Libertarian Communist >Libertarian Marxist (Autonomist; Council Communist; Situationist)
Libertarian Socialist > Libertarian Communist > Social Anarchist (Anarcho-communist)
Libertarian Socialist > Anarchist > Social Anarchist (Anarcho-communist)
Libertarian Socialist > Anarchist > Market Anarchist (Mutualist; Individualist Anarchist)
Classical Liberal > Left-libertarian
Classical Liberal > Anarcho-capitalist
Classical Liberal > Minarchist (Misesian; Objectivist)
Now I get it.
“I thought Tucker and Spooner could be anachronistically called anarcho-capitalists.”
Try reading them.
Tucker held some positions that were akin to what would one day become anarcho-capitalism, but his reasons were completely different and he considered himself a socialist, someone working towards the liberation of the laborers. Much of his thoughs are, I think, unapplicable today and maybe even would have fallen apart then given his motivation. His support for things like might makes right property, wage work, etc., were all intended to bring about the full value of product to labor, which just wouldn’t happen.
Out of Tucker and Spooner, I have read the latter - he seemed to be very anarcho-capitalist. Am I wrong?
I initially confused Tucker with Douglass… Ok, yes, Tucker’s a socialist.
“Why would anyone pay to build a factory, if they could lose it to someone else?”
They most likely wouldn’t. The logic of possession is that the workers are going to build it, much of the same workers will probably end up working in it, and the guy paying for it will probably never operate any of the machines in it. So why not give it to the people that are actually using it?
“No factory or other business enterprise can operate without an effective system for sound decision-making–about where to build the factory, whether to open a second factory, or a new branch, whether to make this product or drop that one, etc. These decisions decide the fate of the company; and ought to be made by whomever has the most at stake–or whomever that person hires to make such decisions, presumably someone who has shown sound decision-making in the past. Look at government today and you’ll see that leaving such decisions to common votes leads to more benefits and less revenue–to huge debt.”
Argue the finer points of democratic workplaces all you want, but that’s just not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasinpat FaSinPat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brukman_factory Brukman
To name just two…
Quite honestly, this argument that “common votes” by supposedly common people will lead to utter insanity sounds way more reactionary than it does liberatory. If you’re worried about the common people doing things you don’t like you sound a lot more like a monarchist than you do anything near a libertarian or Anarchist.
Can’t say I’m familiar with Douglass, but here’s a good one about Spooner that pretty much covers the bases.
Thanks. I came to the same conclusion as Rothbard on Spooner when I read Spooner’s essay “The Constitution of No Authority”. Seemed very anarcho-capitalist.
Spooner, in spite of his closeness to classical liberalism, was no more a capitalist than Rothbard was an anarchist.
XD
This just blows my mind…
What workers before the factory is built, Pony? Where do you find these people, and why would they build a factory if they could lose it? You haven’t changed the fact that this factory has to be owned, you’ve just pointed to an imaginary group of God-knows how many people who would own this factory, and failed to answer the basic question…
Have you ever tried deciding on lunch with a group of friends, Pony? Or do you all eat hay?
This is what leftists never seem to comprehend… The actual work, individual initiative and risk that goes into setting up an enterprise. The fact that you have to assume the risk and build a goddam factory before the workers will get off their asses and realise it’s there, and that it can improve their sorry lot in life. Oh, it will just get built, fairies will do it, the worker’s dictatorship will prevail for a thousand years… They’ll all agree on what the party/technical elite wants, or we will declare them insane.
“I thought Tucker and Spooner could be anachronistically called anarcho-capitalists.”
Try reading them.
Tucker held some positions that were akin to what would one day become anarcho-capitalism, but his reasons were completely different and he considered himself a socialist, someone working towards the liberation of the laborers. Much of his thoughs are, I think, unapplicable today and maybe even would have fallen apart then given his motivation. His support for things like might makes right property, wage work, etc., were all intended to bring about the full value of product to labor, which just wouldn’t happen.
They were definitely socialists in a lot of respects. That’s why I have no faith in left-libertarians.
They were definitely socialists in a lot of respects. That’s why I have no faith in left-libertarians.
Idk… Tucker had some great ideas that make for wonderful critiques of the state and of the mainstream view of history:
But it would. In a free market labour would tend towards getting the full value of it’s product discounted by time preference (DMVP). I don’t think Tucker would have suddenly became a Marxist if he had come to an understanding of Austrian economics. The main difference between Tucker-Spooner and Rothbard was land titles, and even there Rothbard said that the property rights Tucker-Spooner envisioned were infintely superior to the current system.
Where’s the face palm smiley? Define socialism and why you are opposed to it.
Bah! That came out wrong. I accidentally included my response to Birthday pony within my quote of Freedom4Me. Whoops.
The ability to invest and build new factories clearly depends on how much investable capital you had before hand.The investable capital at the begining of the industrial revolution was all in the hands of nobles, merchants or land owners, all of which were massive benificiaries of state privilege. So of course the people building the factories are going to be nobles, merchants and land owners, but if it weren’t for the state the capital would have been more evenly distributed and this might have led to more horizontal modes of production.