http://www.slate.com/id/2297019
Closing paragraph:
Meanwhile, the "libertarian" right moves to take the risks of unemployment, disease, and, yes, accidents of birth, and devolve them entirely onto the responsibility of the individual. It is not just sad; it is repugnant.
This is the best response I've seen so far, from Facebook
"Libertarian anarchist becomes a libertarian minarchist in his old age -- the principles of liberty shake on their rocky foundations!!! "
Can it really be that eliminating the income tax shows maximum moral respect for others? I thought a fraction of a rich man's fortune is to the rich man only money but to a starving man is freedom. Am I a moral idiot?
To be frank, yes. This is, as usual, phrased in the Platonic sense of some disembodied spirit willing dollars from the hands of the well-fed into the hands of the starving and imminently dying. But the real world is a little more complicated... somebody has to effect the transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. We all know the rich are not going to do it willingly and leaving it to the poor to take it on their own is asking for social chaos. Enter the middle-man - the humble, angel-like servant of mankind known as The Prince - who also happens to have no profit motive! What a truly angelic being is this Prince! Let us nevermind that the reason he has no profit motive is that he can take any damn thing he needs any time he needs it. So much for altruism.
America, thanks to a dense bundle of historical accidents, is a kind of Lockean paradise
Oh boy.... now, back to reality.
a free society is an interplay between a more-or-less permanent framework of social commitments, and the oasis of economic liberty that lies within it
In other words, you have to accept the Establishment status quo. Don't question it. Just be thankful for the liberties you've been given by your betters who have taken it upon themselves to enforce the "permanent framework".
Clayton -
After reading the first few pages and skimming the rest (because I knew where it was going), a couple of dumb things stood out to me, in addition to Clayton's post:
How does so supple a mind end up committed to so seemingly brittle a belief system? The leap of faith here is, no surprise, in the construal of liberty itself, which unlike other values (says the libertarian) makes no restricting or normative claims on anybody; liberty is instead like oxygen—invisible, pervasive, enabling. Every other value, meanwhile, represents someone else's deranged will-to-power by which, under the guise of high-mindedness or disinterest, he would "pattern" all of society to his own liking.
1. Libertarians only value liberty insofar as it allows them to flourish individually. This could also include participating in the Really Really Free Market at your local communist commune. It could include exploiting your wage slave peons in the form of voluntary exchange, leaving both better off. Or you could sit inside your house all day like a hermit because you don't like being around people. Libertarians are only asking that people be allowed to do this without the threat of physical force, not that everything that happens as a result of liberty is in and of itself good. One of the Cato @ Liberty responses put this succinctly, saying that liberty is the primary political value (i.e., when is the use of force justified?).
Why even Robert Nozick, the philosophical father of libertarianism,
2. Locke is probably the philosophical father of libertarianism. Nozick is the philosophical father of modern libertarianism.....
gave up on the movement he inspired.
3. Except he didn't.
Liberty's current bedfellows include Paul Ryan (his staffers are assigned Atlas Shrugged), Glenn Beck (he flogged The Road to Serfdom onto the best-seller list), Slate's Jack Shafer, South Park, the founder of Whole Foods, this nudnik, P.J. O'Rourke, now David Mamet, and to the extent she cares for anything beyond her own naked self-interest—oh, wait, that is libertarianism—Sarah Palin.
4. Numbskull. Paul Ryan = run of the mill Republican. Glenn Beck = Some hybrid between Republican and paleoconservative. I don't know who Jack Shafer is. South Park has libertarian leanings. P.J. O'Rourke, sure. And then the worst example, Sarah Palin, with a dig at the school of thought itself.
Saying Sarah Palin is a libertarian when she wants to be is like saying Ralph Nader is a libertarian when he wants to be. Whatever agreements policy-wise they may have with libertarians, its overlap is coincidental because the reasonings behind why they and the libertarian believe in policy X are non-related. Thinking that libertarianism is "WAAAAH ME ME ME" is an instant disqualifier on having any worthwhile discussion on the topic. Metcalf is eliminated after the first paragraph.
To my critique of the Chamberlain example, a libertarian might respond: Given frictionless markets, rational self-maximizers, and perfect information, the market price for Wilt's services could not stay separable from the market price to see Wilt play. (Visionary entrepreneurs would create start-up leagues, competing leagues would bid up prices for the best players.) In a free-market paradise, capital will flow to talent, until rewards commensurate perfectly with utility. Maybe; and maybe in a socialist paradise, no one will catch the common cold. The essence of any utopianism is: Conjure an ideal that makes an impossible demand on reality, then announce that, until the demand is met in full, your ideal can't be fairly evaluated.
5. There is a lot of confusion on this matter. Saying, "well you have to accept State capitalism and all its shortcomings as proof that your belief system fails" is to miss the point. This is basically the "real world" retort. Radical libertarians are diagnosing the state as the primary problem. And most libertarians agree that the current system sucks, but you needn't wind up in a situation of libertarian anarchy to see the blessings of liberty. It could work like a mathematical limit, "as the government approaches liberty, more net satisfaction/happiness/moral worth/whatever." You could see it in a place like Botswana or Somalia. Not libertarian paradises by any stretch of the imagination, but as they increase the liberty factor, these places become better off.
On the closing paragraph: Well if not the responsibility of the owner of the property in question, the person, then who else is interested in using that property and for what purpose? It is sad and repugnant that some third party using coersion, theft, mistreatment and ultimately if a person resists then murder can lay claim to the output of a person, their property and their very physical being.
As for the article, it fails to explain on little thing: After the "Great Government Experiment WW2", a war between Fascists (National Socialists) and Communists (Totalitarian Socialists) that killed more than 50million people and left half of the population in the busom of Communist misery, the world was left two powers that "won" the war: The Communists of course and the Semi-Free Nations who immediately turned to Fascism in running their societies. But now the Fascist Systems of Money Production and Government Warfare/Welfare are falling apart so what is the Great Government that came out of hte Greate Government Experiment going to do? Because every moment the problem gets worse. Hint the only solution is liberty for all. That is to let the people who made bad business decisions lose and let people who can better use the scarce resources attempt to build a greater society. (Also WW2 did not end anything, that goes for the Great Depression, which ended by my score in November of 1953 when the Dow Jones remade its 1929 high.)
Slate also wrote a very biased article on the Free State Project:
http://www.slate.com/id/2296999/pagenum/all
Pete Eyre's response:
http://freekeene.com/2011/06/17/lots-pete-responds-to-slate-coms-piece-on-free-keene/
Eric080: "Nozick is the philosophical father of modern libertarianism....."
Absurd. Considering it was Rothbard (aka MR. LIBERTARIAN) whose synthesis of anarcho-capitalism was the reason for Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia.
"Then one evening, it must have been in the early 60s, Bruce brought Bob to a gathering of the Circle Bastiat at the Rothbards' apartment on West 88th Street. It turned out to be a historical moment. If Nozick hadn't been impressed by the Rothbardian synthesis before then, he was at that meeting. This was the genesis of his celebrated book.
From all evidence, Anarchy, State, and Utopia will be Nozick's lasting contribution. It is replete with brilliant insights and formulations. Its defense of the free society is exemplary, if obviously in debt to earlier thinkers to anyone who knows anything of the field. But fundamentally it is a response to the Rothbardian challenge on the question of monopoly government — the State — though the author does not make that completely clear." - Robert Nozick: A Historical Note by Ralph Raico
Ok, fine Conza. What I was attempting to say is that Nozick's arguments have been more influential than Rothbard's due to his popularity. I was including minarchists under the "libertarian" umbrella and I would describe the libertarian movement of today as mostly being minarchist.
"Ok, fine Conza."
.
"What I was attempting to say is that Nozick's arguments have been more influential than Rothbard's due to his popularity.
Haha, influential according to who? For the sake of argument I'll accept that premise [mainstream popularity] and ask - 'why is that?' More interested in your reasoning, not the actual answer - Hoppe's already provided that.
I was including minarchists under the "libertarian" umbrella and I would describe the libertarian movement of today as mostly being minarchist."
As do I (those who support the NAP) with war being the fail clause i.e 'no - you're a neocon/objectivist' etc. So there goes a ton of 'libertarian-lites' from the Beltway.
However, to whatever the extent there are a large number minarchists in the movement - it ain't because of Nozick.
Out of interest, what would the proper term be for someone who held libertarian positions on economics and, for instance, supported the Korean War? Neoconservatives are economic interventionists who hold their views on foreign policy as a spiritual descendant of the Trotskyism they once inhabited, replacing "worker's revolution" with "global democracy". Objectivism is a very specific philosophy that fiercely despises libertarianism as effectively taking some (for instance, Objectivists aren't really that firmly supportive of the Second Amendment, nor of decentralism) of it's political conclusions without their proper epistemological and philsophical context, so it can't be them either.
"Out of interest, what would the proper term be for someone who held libertarian positions on economics and, for instance, supported the Korean War?"
There is no such thing as a libertarian position (political philosophy) on economics (value free science). You can be an Austrian Economist & be a Nazi for eg. you realise price controls destroy, so you support the Israeli government implementating them.
As for your second point, I know what they are & how they differ, thanks.
By "economics" I meant economic policy. So, for instance, abolition of tariffs, the minimum wage or price controls.
Praetyre:Out of interest, what would the proper term be for someone who held libertarian positions on economics and, for instance, supported the Korean War? Neoconservatives are economic interventionists who hold their views on foreign policy as a spiritual descendant of the Trotskyism they once inhabited, replacing "worker's revolution" with "global democracy". Objectivism is a very specific philosophy that fiercely despises libertarianism as effectively taking some (for instance, Objectivists aren't really that firmly supportive of the Second Amendment, nor of decentralism) of it's political conclusions without their proper epistemological and philsophical context, so it can't be them either.
You're very wrong on both counts.
Neoconservatism has changed since the old 1950s ... Not everyone today is a Trotskyist or old left-winger. No. Nor, do they support "global democracy" - at least, in the way you've spoken about it.
Objectivism doesn't despise libertarianism anymore than anything that is different! Ayn Rand =/= objectivism.
I really don't like it when people take their misinformed views about a complicated subject and plaster everything. It's like saying all libertarians are anti-state. This kind of nonsense makes me roll-my-eyes!
"I really don't like it when people take their misinformed views about a complicated subject and plaster everything. It's like saying all libertarians are anti-state. This kind of nonsense makes me roll-my-eyes! "
Well if you follow the NAP, then you should be anti-state since the state is a violation of NAP.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Not all libertarians (indeed, I'd say the vast majority) are anarchists, though.
"Not all libertarians (indeed, I'd say the vast majority) are anarchists, though."
Was this directed toward my comment?
Praetyre: Not all libertarians (indeed, I'd say the vast majority) are anarchists, though.
If say, Obama or George Bush declare themselves libertrians tomorrow. Do they automatically go into your "majority" of non-anarchist libertarians or as someone else here put it: libertarians that are not anti-state?
Twas indeed directed towards your comment.
By the "vast majority", I mean people like the 14-something % of Americans who identify their political views as "libertarian". Or the Cato/Reason people. Or most Ron Paul supporters and LP members, I'd wager.
Bush or Obama identifying their political views as "libertarian" would be highly inconsistent with their actual economic policies ("compassionate conservativism", the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-medical marijuana jihad and on the Obama side, the new "stimulus packages" and cap-and-tax. Whereas the people I'm referring to are well within the mainstream of libertarian thought, most I suspect deriving their views from people like Robert Nozick or Milton Friedman.
Praetyre:Bush or Obama identifying their political views as "libertarian" would be highly inconsistent with their actual economic policies
But they could decide and declare that they are libertarians and that their policies are consistent with libertarian thought. What then?
Maybe the more relevant question is: Who or what authority decides what government policies are libertarian and what are not? Can I nominate Stossel? Since according to you and many here, logic cannot resolve this issue. You are left with nothing but appeal to authority it seems on this issue.
Praetyre:Robert Nozick or Milton Friedman
What makes them libertarians other then that they are on record saying they are?. Really, I don't understand this "logic" of yours and most people on this board. Why can't Obama be considered a libertarian? He is not for total government. He is for some government. So is Milton Friedman and so is Robert Nozick.
Almost no one is frankly anti-state. It really took several shocks to my psyche and multiple exposures to Rothbardian analysis of the State before I began to really wrap my head around the simple truth that government is mafia, nothing less and nothing more. I call it the Day Mafia because they are the only mafia that can operate in broad daylight. The Godfather is not a metaphor, it's a literal description of politics-as-it-is.
I don't see what you seek to gain by using a definition of "libertarian" entirely unique to yourself and redefining it to exclude anyone who isn't a natural-rights based anarchist. The values, intellectual forebears and precepts of Nozick and Friedman have vastly more in common, "political DNA" wise with Rothbard than do those of Obama. If Nozick and Friedman aren't libertarians, what are they? Communists? Nazis? Anti-dissestablishmentarians?
It's this kind of absolutist, binary thinking in politics that scares me off identifying myself firmly with any particular label.
undefined: undefined »
A minarchist is someone who believes that the state should do nothing, except those utilities which cannot be effectually achieved by other means.
Naturally, even totalitarian socialists are 'minarchists'. They just think that there's comparatively little good that can be achieved by other means. :p
Clearly everyone other than anarchists are minarchists, therefore everyone is a libertarian.
Praetyre:I don't see what you seek to gain by using a definition of "libertarian" entirely unique to yourself and redefining it to exclude anyone who isn't a natural-rights based anarchist.
I'm with you on that.
If a libertarian violates the NAP by shoplifting a candy bar, how much time must pass before he can call himself a libertarian again? If he is still a libertarian after shoplifting, then adherence to the NAP doesn't decide what makes a libertarian. If shoplifting is ok, then why is support for minimal government not?
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
Someone can spend his whole life as a natural law-abiding person (a libertarian in practice), but he'll be remembered as a murderer if he kills just one person.
It's possible to forgive a crime like shoplifting, but that doesn't mean it's ok. Maybe it's conceivably possible to forgive much worse crimes than petty theft.
But you can't forgive someone if they won't admit or can't figure out how they went wrong.
"Twas indeed directed towards your comment.
By the "vast majority", I mean people like the 14-something % of Americans who identify their political views as "libertarian". Or the Cato/Reason people. Or most Ron Paul supporters and LP members, I'd wager."
They should be. Following the NAP to its logical conclusion results in evolving into an anarchist. That is the greatest inconsistency of "minarchists," the arbitrary stopping of NAP before it reaches its greatest transgressor.
"If a libertarian violates the NAP by shoplifting a candy bar, how much time must pass before he can call himself a libertarian again? If he is still a libertarian after shoplifting, then adherence to the NAP doesn't decide what makes a libertarian. If shoplifting is ok, then why is support for minimal government not?"
Until justice is served. If the individual is principled then he/she would seek restitution through some manner. If they steal the candy bar and are unphased by the activity then one would have to ask how devout they were in their beliefs of NAP.
Andrew Cain:Until justice is served
Wow, ok. I mean, I respect your opinion on this, but basically anyone claiming to be a libertarian who has ever commited fraud, theft, assault, etc. and never fessed up is not a true libertarian.
I bet there isn't one libertarian on the planet.
I am. Checkmate!
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
It's a waste of time arguing over political labels and engaging in line-drawing. I tend to think of libertarians as minarchists + anarchists. There's obviously a marked difference between somebody like George Bush and Gary Johnson. Bush is very statist, Johnson much less so. If you look at it like a continuum, Gary Johnson may as well count as a "libertarian."
Wow, ok. I mean, I respect your opinion on this, but basically anyone claiming to be a libertarian who has ever commited fraud, theft, assault, etc. and never fessed up is not a true libertarian. I bet there isn't one libertarian on the planet.
We wouldn't need to have ethics if people were incapable of doing evil. It would be a physical science if that were the case. It would simply be how people, as objects, behave in all situations rather than how they think they should behave as subjects with free will. The cliche is that no one is perfect.
But this isn't about a "libertarian" doing things in private that contradict his stated views, although that does make him a hypocrite. It's about his stated views. It's not about a person denying the fact that he stole something, it's about a person admitting it and trying to justify it, and then still claiming that he believes in property rights as his universal, pre-eminent ethical basis. It's a bit trying, really. All the lies; not least to one's self.
Nevertheless, the word "libertarian" is not this sacred cow. You're using it as a synonym for law-abiding, but strictly-speaking it is actions which are right or wrong. Calling a person 'good' or 'bad' just means that you subjectively associate them primarily with good or bad actions. Of course no one is really good or bad in an absolute or objective sense. Only actions.
Political labels are dangerous and misleading. They're really meant to describe policies, i.e. actions - not the actors themselves, yet they're constantly applied directly to actors. You either accept libertarian conclusions as true or untrue - i.e., you are being a philosoper, and it is your actions and conclusions which are libertarian or not. You don't really 'become' libertarian by accepting libertarian conclusions, except in a colloquial sense.
Philosophy cannot involve lying, by definition.
'Wow, ok. I mean, I respect your opinion on this, but basically anyone claiming to be a libertarian who has ever commited fraud, theft, assault, etc. and never fessed up is not a true libertarian.
I bet there isn't one libertarian on the planet."
Welcome to the world of principles. If you say you follow the NAP, then follow it.
Conza88: Eric080: "Nozick is the philosophical father of modern libertarianism....." Absurd. Considering it was Rothbard (aka MR. LIBERTARIAN) whose synthesis of anarcho-capitalism was the reason for Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia. "Then one evening, it must have been in the early 60s, Bruce brought Bob to a gathering of the Circle Bastiat at the Rothbards' apartment on West 88th Street. It turned out to be a historical moment. If Nozick hadn't been impressed by the Rothbardian synthesis before then, he was at that meeting. This was the genesis of his celebrated book. From all evidence, Anarchy, State, and Utopia will be Nozick's lasting contribution. It is replete with brilliant insights and formulations. Its defense of the free society is exemplary, if obviously in debt to earlier thinkers to anyone who knows anything of the field. But fundamentally it is a response to the Rothbardian challenge on the question of monopoly government — the State — though the author does not make that completely clear." - Robert Nozick: A Historical Note by Ralph Raico
While it is true - as acknowledged by Nozick in his introduction to ASU - that Rothbard influenced Nozick in constructing the argument and engaging with libertarian anarchism, it doesn't mean that Rothbard was the philosophical father, depending on what you mean by philosophical. Ideological father; sure. But saying 'we should not engage into violance' and citing a few natural rights theorists isn't a fundamental defense of liberty.
Rothbard's framework is pretty much irrelevant. His 'natural law' defense of libertarianism relates to the philosophical foundation of libertarianism as Hazlitt's 'economics in one lesson' relates to the philosophical foundation of (Austrian) economics. It's not bad per se as far as it goes, but you can hardly call it foundational or in depth. (I'm not saying it's wrong. Economics in one lesson isn't wrong. But you don't get all the in's and out's of AE out of Economics in one lesson.)
It's also weird to call Nozick the philosophical father; very few - if any - libertarians call themselves 'Nozickean'. Very few, if any, are libertarians _because_ of Nozick. Hayek/Rothbard/Mises/Friedman (M&D) are far more influential in 'creating' libertarians. Nozick is rarely, if ever, cited by 'other' libertarians. The only real engagement with Nozick I'm aware of in 'academic philosophy' is by Cohen. (Whose book is really interesting, if you care about philosophical arguments against libertarianism. A lot of Cohen's argument can also be levied against the Rothbardian framework.)
I'm not sure if there is 'a' philosophical father in libertarianism. We have Lockeans, Aristotelians, Humeans, Kantians and probably some more I'm forgetting.
The state is not the enemy. The idea of the state is.
"While it is true - as acknowledged by Nozick in his introduction to ASU - that Rothbard influenced Nozick in constructing the argument and engaging with libertarian anarchism, it doesn't mean that Rothbard was the philosophical father, depending on what you mean by philosophical."
Given what I said & your agreement. Rothbard > claim than Nozick for the label of "philosophical father of modern libertarianism". Game, set, match clearly. And if you think someone has a greater claim than Rothbard for that title, I'd love to hear it. Not that I particularly care, my original point was simply to point out the absurdity of labeling Nozick as such. If you however, ignore the Mises Institute and the Ron Paul movement - and pretty much the entire history of the movement, by all means you could reach that conclusion.
And in the cases where it isn't clear (or at least is contested among libertarians) whether or not something constitutes a violation of the NAP? If libertarian A says spanking your child is aggression, and libertarian B says the child is your property you can do as you please, then one of them must not be a libertarian. And before Kinsella came on the scene, libertarians who supported IP were supporting a violation of the NAP. They must have not been libertarians either. Maybe someone will come along and point out how something you support right now is actually a violation of the NAP.
The point is they are trying to apply the NAP. Same goes with abortion & immigration. They aren't 'deal killers' that get you kicked out of the 'movement'. War - when not applying the NAP at all, and that pre-emptive war is justified - does however...
Conza88: Game, set, match clearly. And if you think someone has a greater claim than Rothbard for that title, I'd love to hear it. Not that I particularly care, my original point was simply to point out the absurdity of labeling Nozick as such.
Game, set, match clearly. And if you think someone has a greater claim than Rothbard for that title, I'd love to hear it. Not that I particularly care, my original point was simply to point out the absurdity of labeling Nozick as such.
"I'm not sure if there is 'a' philosophical father in libertarianism. We have Lockeans, Aristotelians, Humeans, Kantians and probably some more I'm forgetting."
The point is they are trying to apply the NAP. Same goes with abortion & immigration. They aren't 'deal killers' that get you kicked out of the 'movement'.
But if you try to apply the NAP and support a minimal state several posters have already determined that such an individual isn't a libertarian.
Anyway, I'm just being contrarian to show how the NAP shouldn't be the sole determinent of what makes a libertarian.
James:A minarchist is someone who believes that the state should do nothing, except those utilities which cannot be effectually achieved by other means. Naturally, even totalitarian socialists are 'minarchists'. They just think that there's comparatively little good that can be achieved by other means. :p Clearly everyone other than anarchists are minarchists, therefore everyone is a libertarian.
It's libertarian halo-polishing ...
Libertarian anarcho-capitalists, some but not all, go out of their way to deride minarchists like Friedman more than socialists, and why? because he happens to have a different opinion on the use of the state vis-a-vis the three main duties.
I don't see why anyone on this forum has to deride a minarchist who thinks that government ought to maintain law and order ... I think things would be more effecient in the free-market - but I wouldn't scoff and call him an anti-libertarian.
It's also true that there was a libertarian movement before Rothbard and the Mises institute. If anyone is 'the father' of modern libertarianism, it would be someone like Hazlitt, Mises or Leonard Reed, i.e. the people who made the first libertarian think tank in the USA (the FEE).
Rothbard didn't come to the scene after people like Read, Hazlitt, Harper, Mises and Friedman were big. It doesn't make sense to call him 'the father' of either libertarianism in general or philosophical libertarianism in particular. This doesn't mean he didn't have a big influence, but that's far from calling him the father, which implies (imo) something like 'originator'.
I'm not sure, but isn't Hazlitt's 'foundation of morality' the first book that both counts as (1) modern and (2) a philosophical foundation of libertarianism? Anyone's got a time line on that? (I'll look it up myself.)
Nozick is often regarded as the father of modern libertarianism by non-libertarians. I know of no actual Libertarian that considers him so. Narveson sums it up nicely:
"Nozick is regarded by all other philosophers who aren't libertarians as the bible of libertarianism, they don't know anything else."