Obviously we all want a free society to develop somewhere on earth. However meanwhile we can take solace in theorizing about how such society could or should function. Here are my predictions about the most important directions in which Libertarian theories will take us in the future. 1. The idea that you are an aggressor only if you physically harmed someone (paying a hitman is not a crime) will catch on just like the anti-IP stance caught on in the last 10 years among libertarians.
2. An important book about NAP-consistent warfare will be written. Finally libertarians will be able to pursuade people that you can defend yourself against aggression without hurting civilians or their property. 3. Homesteading will be researched. How do you homestead a natural reserve? How large an area can you homestead? Is fencing enough or you need to mix your labor with the land? How much labor, what kind of labor? What are your predictions?
While stuff like this is impossible to really predict, here's what I would like to see and what I think we'll see.
What I'd like to see:
1. A huge resurgence in Austrian Economics which begins to makes at least intermediate courses throughout academia thoroughly cover AE and which begins to make academia itself more libertarian
2. A new major Austrian Treatise, or multiple treatises hopefully leaning towards a reconciliation of Austrian economics and public choice theory, financial literacy, expositions of how regulation and moral hazard affects the economy, public goods, and broad attacks on Keynesianism. There was never a seminal Austrian work which acted as a really extensive critique enough upon modern/neo Keynesianism and monetarism, because that is exactly what drives public policy and the FED
3. A reconciliation of nihilism, existentialism, and liber
4. (along the lines of 3) An expansion of praxeology to the area of sociology and a more thorough application of praxeology to history
5. A more personal philosophy of diversity in lifestyles and a much prouder sense of life develop in libertarian circles, somewhat similar to objectivism in terms of pride, not actual philosophy
6. An increased emphasis upon internationalism
7. An expansion of, and more eloquent statement of anarcho-capitalist theory
What I think we will see
1. A large resurgence in Austrian Economics which will tend to make the entire science more Austrian and pro free market
2. Libertarian circles will become increasingly racialistic, threatening the whole ideology and program, both in application and in retaining its libertarian theories
3. Libertarianism will become increasingly anti-IP and IP theory will become straightened out
4. Libertarianism will develop more theories of how to bring about a more libertarian world. Seasteading will either really take off or it will die as a viable theory. States governments and nullification will be seen as increasingly important
5. Personal liberties will take much more of a center stage, as will the benefits of free markets. You will hear much less of "economic freedom" as such and much more about how markets bring about true prosperity, even thought NAP will in no way fall out of favor. I feel that this will occur as America becomes increasingly liberal in attitude.
What I want to see is a principled, economically efficient analysis of deregulation, because deregulation can be a very tricky business. I would especially like political realities to be taken into account.
People act based on the ideas they hold and the expectations they have about the society around them. And individuals want to be free, but individuals in societies don't have the incentive to devote effort into making sure A) everyone else is free or even B) that the individual himself is free so long as he feels free enough. So I'm looking for a shift in technology that unifies mankind to a degree where individuals percieve their society as though it was them. This means unprecedented expansion of information technologies, especially of the social media kind, including genetic modifications and implants. Things like perfect bodies, bodies that are immune to sickness and disease, the ability to download books into your brain, to download the experiences of others into your brain, perfect memory and recall.
We will have a free society when it's forced upon us by the natural progression and tendencies of homo sapiens, and no sooner. Since the tendency of homo sapiens is to perpetually expand power over the world around them, and for each individual to want to be free (as opposed to collectives always tending to not be free), then I'm looking for a time when we've acquired such control over technology that we are essentially unified as one individual composed of billions of individuals, and therefore have the incentive and capacity to maintain a free society without the need for institutionalized violence—indeed, one where institutionalized violence is unnecessary and unacceptable.
I think if homo sapiens wanted institutionalized violence, they've already settled on statism. Institutionalized violence under the banner of "freedom" might be the evolution of statism, so we won't really have a free society until it's forced on us by social information technologies.
More females shall become libertarian aligned.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
@Kelvin Silva
Correct Answer
Remember; as long as it's voluntary
That was a very productive scroll-down.
I won't make any predictions beyond saying that I think the LvMI and its sister organizations will continue to make unprecedented inroads into the ideological and even political sphere.
However, I do think we need something even more than the wonderful work that the LvMI has sparked, and that is I think we need to:
a) Revive the Higher Criticism, particularly as embodied by Francis Baur and the Tübingen School. Like it or not, Christianity is here to stay and will continue to be a dominant shaping force of society - particularly government - for a long, long time. However, traditional Christianity has major, major problems both in its historicity and rationality, as well as in its "implied" theories of ethics and metaphysics. These need to be challenged on their own terms which is precisely what the Higher Criticism was doing.
b) Revive Epicurean philosophy as a dominant force within philosophy. The teachings of Epicurus were so widespread in the early Roman era that he was a household name. Yet the Jewish word for "heretic" in the Mishnah is "epikoros"; Dante assigns Epicureans to the sixth circle of hell; the English word "epicurean" means wanton gluttony and orgiastic excess... the diametric opposite of Epicurus's actual teachings. And while the influence of Epicureanism is often mentioned, the actual teachings of Epicurus are given short shrift in any introductory textbook on ancient philosophy. And while dozens of new books are written each year about the ideas of Aristotle or Plato, precious few books are published per decade on the teachings of Epicurus.
c) Revive moral philosophy as a subject of academic (and scientific) study. David Friedman says in MoF: "A … reason to use practical rather than ethical arguments is that I know a great deal more about what works than about what is just… I think more is known about the consequences of institutions than about what is or is not just–that economics is a much better developed science than moral philosophy." [Emphasis mine] Moral philosophy has been virtually dead-on-arrival for the last century at least. The orthodox view of moral philosophy today is half-way between moral nihilism and moral agnosticism. The damage done by this ideological gridlock over such a foundational subject is inestimable. Would two world wars involving mass extinctions of entire cities have been possible in a society that was not gridlocked over whether there even exist any moral truths at all?
d) Research practical alternatives to existing religious orders, along the lines of this and this and/or actually build them. The hyperventilated, Enlightenment-style criticisms of religion as an evil-in-itself are only negative, often overstate their case, and do not provide positive guidance on what "fills the void". After all, it turns out that people aren't born knowing what is right and wrong in the refined sense required for a flourishing social order, so they need moral instruction. Families need structured environments for social interaction. Parents need reference networks to assist their children in finding spouses. And so on.
e) Research family structures and provide "blueprints" for durable, inter-generational families. This is important because it has to do with rationalizing (privatizing) the social order, particularly population growth (family planning), house law (enforcement of moral standards) and propagation of ideologies (i.e. squashing redistributive ideologies before they can metastasize). While LvMI is providing the "R&D" for this, something more along the lines of Hoppe's Property & Freedom Society is what is needed.
f) Continue to challenge the law monopoly head-on. Why should there be only one forum for people to take their disputes to? Tools for binding arbitration need to be liberalized, in particular, the performance bond needs to be revived. Entry to the law profession needs to be unbarred. The prosecutor's office is wholly unnecessary and should be defunded, along with public investigators. National governments need to be amended to allow individuals who lose appeals in so-called "supreme" courts to move their dispute to another recognized judicial system (i.e. to an agreed-upon, neutral foreign court) rather than having their rights thrown overboard and trumped by "interests of State".
Tu ne cede malis
Clayton -
The orthodox view of moral philosophy today is half-way between moral nihilism and moral agnosticism.
Does it really matter, though? The vast majority of the masses still believe in morality.
"Moral philosophy has been virtually dead-on-arrival for the last century at least. The orthodox view of moral philosophy today is half-way between moral nihilism and moral agnosticism."
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. It would seem to me that morality is pretty alive and well, even if it is in a very sikly state, everywhere that matters, in the halls of academia, government, and the houses of the common man. Also, when you call for a revival of Epicurean/general moral philosophy, what do you mean by that? Do you intend for these moralities to be objective and sacred duties, or just general and reasoned values.
"Research family structures and provide "blueprints" for durable, inter-generational families."
What do you mean by this? Could you give me a mock example of what this would look like?
"Moral philosophy has been virtually dead-on-arrival for the last century at least. The orthodox view of moral philosophy today is half-way between moral nihilism and moral agnosticism." I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. It would seem to me that morality is pretty alive and well, even if it is in a very sikly state, everywhere that matters, in the halls of academia, government, and the houses of the common man.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. It would seem to me that morality is pretty alive and well, even if it is in a very sikly state, everywhere that matters, in the halls of academia, government, and the houses of the common man.
I was particularly addressing academia (moral philosophers) in context. Sure, the common man has some moral philosophy or other but the quote of Keynes regarding the influence of defunct economists comes to mind: "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."
I think he is almost right... but I think moral philosophers actually wield much more influence. Implicit within the adoption of any particular economic philosophy (e.g. utilitarian economics) is some moral philosophy or other. Economics itself may be value-free but its application to the social order necessarily cannot be. But without a thriving groundwork of moral philosophy on which to build, most academics, most politicians, most religious leaders, most individuals of any type are usually "the slaves of some defunct moral philosopher."
By essentially putting moral philosophy on ice for at least a century, we have been doomed to groping about in the dark. No one doubts that murder is wrong because nobody has ever concocted a convincing argument why murder should be considered moral behavior. But the power interests have concocted armies of, at least superficially, convincing arguments to justify their unjustifiable agendas and have deployed them into the public mind with little or no serious challenge. And the consequences of that (mass murder and mass property destruction and confiscation, aka war) has been the true cost of neglecting moral philosophy.
Also, when you call for a revival of Epicurean/general moral philosophy, what do you mean by that? Do you intend for these moralities to be objective and sacred duties, or just general and reasoned values.
Epicurean moral philosophy is this: The good is that which is pleasurable and leads to happiness, the evil is that which is unpleasant and leads to unhappiness - and nothing else. There isn't really anything there to dogmatize except the assertion that nothing else is good or evil, in other words, that moral philosophies that prescribe self-sacrifice as a foundational principle are mistaken. I would not want this to be a sacred duty or a dogma, of course, but I would like to see a revival of Epicurean thought, particularly on morality, vis-a-vis the big names like Plato and Aristotle.
Just read a little Epicurus. While Aristotle also gives lots of good things to think about in the Nicomachean Ethics, for example, Epicurus is so much more direct and to the point and states his overall position succinctly and precisely. The clarity of his thought is attention-grabbing.
"Research family structures and provide "blueprints" for durable, inter-generational families." What do you mean by this? Could you give me a mock example of what this would look like?
Yes. By this, I specifically mean applying the "Power Elite analysis" described (and done) by Rothbard or Hoppe to providing concrete recommendations for family-building. For example, the Power Elite have long practiced (and the most powerful still do) male primogeniture and patriarchy. This is in contrast to the masses who generally practice proportional inheritance and where patriarchy is virtually nonexistent anymore. Clearly, the families of the Power Elite are "doing something right" when viewed without regard to how they are deriving their revenues and there is nothing immoral about how they pass on the wealth they have from generation to generation and having the household be run by a single male. Hence, there is nothing immoral about copying it and I think that those with an interest in private property rights and the flourishing of a healthy social order should adopt this form of inheritance and house rule. It should be used to a) preserve the family's wealth (by concentrating it in the hands of a single individual, the incentives to care for the wealth are increased), b) enforce house law (that is, to enforce standards of conduct and decency within the family on pain of disinheritance) and c) provide for a minimal level of ideological conformity within the family.
Eugene:1. The idea that you are an aggressor only if you physically harmed someone (paying a hitman is not a crime) will catch on just like the anti-IP stance caught on in the last 10 years among libertarians.
I certainly hope not, as that idea is ridiculous. In most instances of aggression, which all of us would recognize as such, the aggressor is not the immediately antecedent cause of the harm. That is, there are causal chains intervening between the action of the aggressor and the harm. For example, if Bob shoots Jones in the head, Bob's action was not the immediately antecedent cause of the harm: the bullet entering Bob's skull was, and the action of several mechanisms within the gun intervened between Bob's action and the bullet entering Bob's skull. To say that Jones is therefore not liable is obviously absurd, but this is the same logic as is used to say that the employer of a hitman is not liable. The degree of causal separation between the action of the aggressor and the harm is not itself what determines liability. What determines liability is whether the alleged aggressor knew or should have known that his action would (eventually...no matter how many intervening steps) cause the harm. The action itself, as in the bodily movement, of the aggressor does not have to be a property rights violation, it only has to have been a necessary condition for the eventual property rights violation to occur, and the aggressor needs to have known, or should have known, that it would lead to that result. All attempts to define liability in terms of a specific degree of causal seperation end up being either arbitrary or absurd or both.
An important book about NAP-consistent warfare will be written. Finally libertarians will be able to pursuade people that you can defend yourself against aggression without hurting civilians or their property.
The free-rider problem for private provision of military defense is the real issue, not whether wars can be fought in accordance with the NAP, and I think that problem is insolvable in principle.
3. Homesteading will be researched. How do you homestead a natural reserve? How large an area can you homestead? Is fencing enough or you need to mix your labor with the land? How much labor, what kind of labor?
Libertarian ethics has nothing to say on the details of homesteading. It would be something outside of libertarian ethics to produce hard rules. Just as it would be outside of libertarian ethics to produce hard rules for trial procedures.
1. Left-libertarianism is going to increase in popularity (as a theoretical position) because of its willingness and capacity to engage the academic left and speak its language. A lot of "left" ideas are going to become part of orthodox libertarian thought.
2. The renewed interest in virtue ethics among moral philosophers will make its way into libertarian theory. The idea that libertarianism is a strictly legal philosophy will be replaced with a robust political philosophy which entails personal ethical commitments in addition to the NAP. This will provide the framework in which libertarians theorize about children and animals.
3. Praxeology will be over-extended and misapplied to all sorts of things in an attempt to further popularize the Austrian approach. I think this will lead to either A) the term losing its meaning and becoming something of a catch-all fetish term for libertarians or B) a backlash against its misuse resulting in a diminished interest in the field as far as new research is concerned.
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
Personally I think libertarianism is going to veer further into the direction of legalistic (Kinsella's estoppel approach)/epistemological (arg. ethics and works by de Jasay) moral arguments, because they are much easier to sustain as critiques of opposing systems than virtue ethics, deontology etc. I think virtue ethics/eudaemonism has a lot of potential as an ethical system, but it isn't easy to make its case. Whilst a lot of the focus of libertarian legal/ethical theory has been on its more formal, overarching aspects (the NAP), I suspect future materials will focus on things like children's rights, what in the concrete apprioriation might consist in, various lifeboat scenarios etc.
I also don't think left-libertarianism alone will flourish; conservatives are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the state and its ability to actually preserve their values. Right-libertarians, whilst they don't necessarily adhere to these values (which include things like racial dissociation), do present a case as to how libertarianism can better preserve them than statism. The state has contributed in innumerable ways to the destruction of the nuclear family, so I think libertarianism will be able to capitalise on this. The sort of things Clayton mentioned, i.e. how to create non-state institutional frameworks for the propagation and preservation of libertarianism are of particular interest.
There are also various "lifestyle" aspects of libertarianism developing, from approaches to personal finances to homeschooling/unschooling, to diets like the palaeo diet which has taken off quite well within this movement.
I agree with some of Clayton and Neodoxy's predictions but I regard Austrian theory as separate to libertarian theory for the most part. Areas where Austrianism and libertarianism already seem to be headed are:
1) abolition of IP in its current form and views on how companies can protect their intellectual creations absent IP
2) fusion of Austrian theory on power with public choice, delivering more trenchant critiques of democracy
3) A modern reconstruction of the Austrian method, bringing it up to date with modern arguments in the field of epistemology/phenomenology/logic/philosophy of science/theory of the mind; perhaps even an Austrian-influenced philosophy of science
4) More extensive critiques of competing macroeconomic theories and even less well known heterodox schools
5) A further refinement and elaboration of the ABCT and capital theory, e.g. how it can affect durable consumer goods due to their interest-sensitive nature
6) Research on free societies, as well as libertarian mores within existing societies, and how they might come to be and preserve itself
7) Deeper critiques of green subsidies, climate change control freak economics and the implications of climate change/pollution for a libertarian legal system
8) Further research on the role of education in shaping a free society, and its contribution to recent financial scandals and the crisis
9) Continuing research on how a free society can undertake services the state currently monopolises
10) An Austrian sociology
11) Defences of advertising and distinguishing it from brainwashing, as well as how the latter can be dealt with by libertarian theory
12) Extensions of the socialist calculation argument to various 'anarchist' forms of collectivism as well as the non-monolithic, mixed economy state
13) Austrian-influenced finance theory
14) More Austrian-influenced works on history
15) Research on supposed failures of deregulation and corporate "scandals", as well as on corporatism and collusion between private interests and the state
16) More extended, systematic critiques of neoclassical econ re public choice, inferior goods, Veblen goods, monopoly theory, monopsony theory, its theory of taxation etc.
So yes, perhaps we will see a few more unified treatises as there are areas of both Austrianism and libertarianism which remain nascent and which will benefit from it.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Here are some things I want Libertarians to take up:
1) A Carsonian analysis of political economy, which is really just a more robust development of Rothbard's.
2) A realization that the money supply is not so important as the credit supply. This is something Mike Shedlock writes a lot about, as well as Steve Keen. This is simply an element of an economy with a central bank, wherein one can write out a loan to a borrower and then take out a loan from the Fed; it isn't necessary to have the reserves on-hand prior to the loan.
3) An exposition on the sociological effects of Keynesian and inflationary policies and their pairing with the rise of consumer culture.
Here are some things I think will happen:
1) Supporters of Austrian conclusions become jingoistic. The intuitive conclusions turn into slogans, used to shout down opposition rather than engage it.
2) Libertarians adopting a Hoppean position of immigratin will find homes with racialists and/or nationalists. Separation in Libertarianism along the cosmopolitan/nationalist line.
3) Adoption of Anti-IP position.
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
"2) Libertarians adopting a Hoppean position of immigratin will find homes with racialists and/or nationalists. Separation in Libertarianism along the cosmopolitan/nationalist line."
God I'm so afraid that this will happen. The scary thing is that it's already happening to a certain extent.
Regulation always passes the cost on to the consumer. With market-driven regulation, only those affected will pay some cost but ultimately be compensated through adjudication.
I don't see why lbrtns would become jingoistic at all. The NAP tends to fight that idea, as it decloaks the idea of nationalistic legitimacy in warfare.
@ Neo
This is a non-judgmental statement, just analysis:
Yep. The thing is, there's a group of libertarians that want action. The far-right provides the institutions conducive to it: cultural militarism and survivalism. Some aren't content to exist on the internet anymore and so are seeking alliances with existing sympathetic networks who actually have communities, which are, most importantly, armed.
EDIT: An optimistic scenario I can see from this is that instead of libertarians splintering off to radical groups (meaning they'll be marginalized/ridiculed), libertarianism might swell in number with rightists, granting libertarians adopt an anti-immigrant stance. This is controversial however.
@ Anemone
I already find Libertarianism highly susceptible to jingoism precisely because of the NAP. Like with the Molyneauxvians, often whenever people present criticisms of 'the vision' it is rebutted with "NAP! NAP!" Meaning, Libertarianism in that vein is heading towards a state of unthought: the only analysis required is the NAP-test. No learned knowledge is really required to determine whether something is 'correct' by libertarian terms on these grounds.
I don't see how the NAP can be applied without a reasoning process.
Can you give me an example? I don't know what you mean by 'the vision' either. Maybe I haven't experienced enough Molyneux.
By 'vision' I mean Libertarian Society.
Well I'm more talking in hyperbole than in formal debate. It's impossible to employ the NAP without a reasoning response, but it's just been my experience that there is a group (Kokesh, Molyneaux, etc.) whose singular defense of libertarianism is the NAP, which smacks of a near pavlovian response. They ought to arm themselves with knowledge and lay it down, rather than conceding nontrue effects of the ideology and creating an illusory dichotomy between morality and a 'fair'/'just'/'desireable' society.
Well, the NAP is the most effective moral argument we have, and when explained it's something most people will intuitively agree with.
Perhaps they're thinking something along those lines.
Are you also suggesting that this jingoism you detect is something like a libertarian jingosim among libertarians, rather than being a nationalistic jingoism? That would be interesting.
I agree it's a good moral argument. But sometimes it backfires. Consider this scenario: an inexperienced libertarian and a well read leftist.
Lef: What about the Gilded Age coal miners? They dropped like flies, lived like dogs and had no other recourse! That's the true face of Capitalism!
Lib: It was voluntary, therefore good.
Lef: We need to regulate mining companies for the good of the worker!
Lib: No that would be an act of aggression and morally wrong.
Lef: Well if it's wrong to live in a world where the working man lives with dignity and parasitic executives can't fatten themselves on the labor of the poor and middle class, then I don't want to be right!
Yeah that's the way I meant it.
Well, that's just one more reason why we need to start arguing in deeds rather than in words. Show them a working libertarian social system, sans government, make our ideas realities, and their idea that a society can only exist regulated to the teeth will be utterly and laughably destroyed.
They'll say, "We must regulate the market more!" and we'll say simply, we don't, and it's working fine.
They'll yell, "We must raise the minimum wage!" and we'll simply say, we don't even have a minmum wage, and look, our workers make more on average than yours do!
They'll scream, "Your whole society is going to be abused by monopolies!" and we'll look left and look right and say, there's no monopolies here, monopolies after all are created by government.
They are so far from understanding libertarianism that it's hard to believe. It's like the difference between understanding classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Between knowing geometry and knowing calculus. Between using a computer and programming a computer.
They are like the sleepers in the Matrix in a very real sense, they don't even question the system they're born into. Neo was ready because the question had fascinated him utterly. He didn't merely encounter it and shrug it off. The question, for us:
What is freedom?
There are so many corollaries to that question, but it is foundational. We understand that true freedom is possible only in a propertarian context, thus property rights become the rubric of freedom, the progenitor of the economy, and also the touch-stone of ethics. Ethics becomes the basis for a legal system, and thus is born the NAP, and also a rational means of dispute resolution. And with those we can form a working society.
What is so frightening about it?
The fact that it changes libertarianism into an ideology synonymous with racism. This would not only change its nature into something that I find much less appealing but it would also destroy its progress in the United States. It was bad enough when there were rumors that RP was a racist.
There's already articles on the internet accusing Murray Rothbard of racism. Just look up "the racist history of libertarianism." It's this kind of crap that scares away people from the movement.
That's only going to get worse as the United States becomes increasingly "minority" based
Please tell me what you mean by "minority based." If it means that the U.S. propaganda all revolves around minorities getting involved in the "democratic process" or whatever the hell, then aren't we already there?
I mean that in something like twenty years or so it's estimated that more than half of all American will be non-white; they'll be what we call "minorities". I don't know exactly how this will affect the political realm, whether or not it will mean that things like affirmative action will cease to be or increase dramatically. No matter who you are there is cause for concern.
The minority group most on the rise (the latin American population) is much more likely to be poor, grow up in bad areas, and be less educated. Whether or not you think that this is because of racially based IQ, culture, discrimination, the state ruining poor families, the f***ing capitalists, the public education system, any of the explanations given to explain this phenomenon, the fact that this will constitute a majority/ massive part of the voter base is very, very bad.
That has more to do with the fact that "racist" tends to be a catch-all term for anything people don't like. Libertarianism is not hostile to racialists because it allows for dissociation and secession, so naturally these people will be drawn to it. The entire ideology of egalitarianism in its current form is a state construct. People have simply been trained by the media to stop thinking when someone shrieks "racism".
@ Neodoxy
Yeah. 99% (oops) of the people in those minorities who have arrived here and become poor won't look to capitalism (being that that's what we are, right?) they will look towards more...leftist..."solutions."
@SM
Yep. It's an exciting time to be a leftist, although the fact is that it should still be a scary time because, for the reason that I pointed out, every one of your programs is likely to get f***ed up through the wonders of democracy.
@John
Correct. Regardless of whatever the reality is, if libertarianism becomes increasingly racialist in its focus then it will become exceedingly unpopular and it will have practically no chance of reaching popularity. Libertarianism is also friendly to racists right now while it isn't for or against their programs. What I'm talking about is a libertarianism that is more based and focused around that.
Oh yeah. If there's one thing leftists hate (especially the loud-mouthed radical ones, i.e. MaoistRebelNews and AmazingAtheist), it's neutrality on something like racism. Just saying "I'm not racist," isn't good enough. You have to want to hold a gun to a racist's head in order to control what they say.
Penn talks a little bit about that here:
I don't think libertarianism will necessarily move in that direction. I think the populace at large will. People are still very familially focused, and a libertarian society will bring back to the forefront the importance of the family in dealing with adverse circimstances. But the current anti-racialist (I'll distinguish racism as advocacy of state-backed aggression against other races) dogma will likely collapse without the support of the state behind it. It doesn't even really benefit the state much, except to the extent that it can use it to foment the illusion of a "problem" to fix.
I would note that supposed minorities are not themselves anti-racist/anti-racialist. Besides, hispanics are not really a 'race' so much as a cultural grouping.
Jon Irenicus: That has more to do with the fact that "racist" tends to be a catch-all term for anything people don't like. Libertarianism is not hostile to racialists because it allows for dissociation and secession, so naturally these people will be drawn to it.
That has more to do with the fact that "racist" tends to be a catch-all term for anything people don't like. Libertarianism is not hostile to racialists because it allows for dissociation and secession, so naturally these people will be drawn to it.
Oh, is this the worry? That racialists would be drawn to it for these aspects? I suppose they'd like secessionist aspects, but they'd simply run headlong into other aspects of libertarian philosophy counter to racialisms. Racialists have historically sought to use state power to get their way, just like everyone other statist group willing to fight it out for power.
By rejecting statism we reject racialism power over anyone.
I know the call for state's rights / secession has been historically viewed as racist especially by the black community because they perceive the fed gov as the entity that ended slavery, and state's rights as code words for confederacy.
Anyway, the thing about being a libertarian is that we can pursue paths that are not easily politically opposed because we aren't playing the political game. They want us to play the political game in the established halls of power. As long as we continue to play that game, they are confident they can defeat us in those halls of power.
It's when we begin acting outside those halls that they will worry.
If we're against those halls, we shouldn't be working within them. We would tear them down. So there's no better time than now to start building effective parallel libertarian institutions.