During this semester in a political theory class, I have become re-aquainted with a lot of existentialist authors. Existentialism as a system of thought always seemed like it would be something that would be very open to having a libertarian view of politics. However, many big name existentialist theorists have been Marxists. Do you think that existentialism and libertarianism can work together? Is there anybody who takes this view?
"Man thinks not only for the sake of thinking, but also in order to act."-Ludwig von Mises
Yes, the socialism of the existentialists always had a certain tension with the rest of their philosophy. It never made sense that individualists would want to be ordered about and told what to produce or consume.
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
I think part of what drew me to libertarianism in the first place is that it jived with my tendency towards existentialism. I'm no expert on the writings of either, but from what I know they should go hand in hand.
Indeed, it seemed like quite the act of cognitive dissonance when I read Sartre talking about the subjective valuations that we as humans make, while at the same time trying to rescue Marxist thought from complete ruin.
It seems to me that libertarianism pertains to the individual in relation to other individuals, while existentialism pertains to the individual contemplating matters that are not transmittable or conveyable to others.
I have an exestientialist philosophical theory constructed nearly independant from Sarte, soon to be coming on my blog. I've had some exposure to philosophical discourse of those like Sarte, but at the time during my undergrad studies I found it an absolutely incomprehensible string of "catch phrases" that wasn't rigorously proving anything.
More to your question you might want to look for a copy of "Freedom as a Value: A critique of the ethical of John-Paul Sartre" by David Detmer (1988). There are publically available reviews of the work, but I counldn't find an open copy of the book itself online. One such review is available in the archives for "Liberty Magazine" by David Gordon, here.
I just myself printed off a copy of the review, after doing some research for my upcoming article, and found your post in the same search. So I have more to say, but I'm not quite ready to support it yet.
The earliest (and by far the best) existentialists could hardly be called leftists. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Stirner are anathemic to leftism if one actually understands them.In fact Stirner's one little book essentially refutes all of Marx.
Agreed, Mises prefigures in relation to Mises' points about the subjectivity of value and individual valuations. Heidegger's point about the intentionality aspect of thought and action is also relevant here. Sartre, the most communistic 'existentialist', both grossly misinterprets Heidegger and is generally a poor philosopher.
People should realize that Sartre only flirted with Marxism. He was a critic of the communist party and later abandoned his affiliation and decided his ideas could not be reconciled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-aBxQCmu5Q
This is true, and there is something that is sort of funny about Sartre's attraction to Marxism: it started with a misinterpretation of Marx as his existentialism started as a misinterpretation of Heidegger.
Sartre was deeply concerned with alienation of the individual from others, and the alienating effects of social life. He took Marx' alienation to be such, when in fact Marx as a quasi-Hegelian was talking about alienation in the sense of physical separation and loss of control over his labour products, rather than some kind of internal struggle and disassociation from the individual life. This angst-based intepretation, which became popular in Marxist humanism and post-modernism has been criticized by many hardcore Marxists, and I doubt that Marx himself would have endorsed it.
I think he thought it was a framework within which you could be free. Since the final form of marxism is anarchism.
In the end, Camus was right in his work The Rebel which identified authoritarian socialism with the caesarist methods of other absurd revolutionary movements. Camus, by the way, might be another quasi-existentialist (though he, like Heidegger, denied association with existentialism) that is pertinent to libertarian thought.
There are two interesting books about Sartre that are basically interviews. One is John Gerassi's Talking with Sartre. In this, he makes it clear that since even his childhood he had been interested and surrounded by anarchist thought. That indeed predated his Marxism.
The other book is Benny Levy's book Hope Now, in which Levy had been the assistant to Sartre and caused Sartre to examine Judaism as a replacement for Marxism/nihilism. (I actually uploaded this book to scribd, before being banned from that site. but the book is still there).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25393670/Hope-Now-Last-Interview-with-Sartre
Sadly, in both of these interviews it sort of sounds like he is being bullied and usually will not defend himself. I think maybe that is why he was inclined toward Marxism; it might have seemed like a duty at that time to avoid being bullied as an intellectual.
This is a great video having to do with Camus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8SG0PXrV4U
"More and more, revolution has found itself delivered into the hands of its bureaucrats and doctrinaires on the one hand, and to the enfeebled and bewildered masses on the other. More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure... The "welfare of the people" in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.
The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action."
- Albert Camus