Either way to base oneself in psychology , that encourages proactivness (even if it is passive agressive) in an environment of many young adults / kids in an unaccountable environment is a move that desreves nothing but contempt
What's worse is that it isn't even good psychology; he takes his views on child abuse being endemic in nearly every family from a radicalized version of the already fairly radical theories of Alice Miller (her work in the field seems to be primarily intuitive, since she apparently is known for being very sloppy when it comes to citing case studies or other articles of evidence) and he seems to appropriate his views on the emergence of the state from Lloyd deMause, who among other things believes that there is a direct correlation between American foreign policy and how children are raised in the United States, the latter causing the former.
I'm not even sure if Molyneux is a libertarian per se, or if he is then he's the strangest libertarian I've ever seen.
For what it's worth, my parents are both Republicans and I think they've done a pretty good job raising me, but Molyneux would just respond by saying that that's a result of my "false self" suppressing memories of my abuse from them.
I think Molyneux has at least gotten what he deserves. While he has some pithy anti-state stuff (e.g. his Story of Your Enslavement video), I find his anti-family stance suspicious in the extreme. Family/community are the State's worst enemy in that the social networks and kinship bonds superseded any statutory measures the State can devise. What difference does it make what tax rules the government writes when my brother and I can trade debt and cash "off the books" in whatever way suits our respective business and "tax reporting" interests. As long as there is rock-solid loyalty, the government's threats are all irrelevant because they are all predicated on the fear that one party might turn the other into the authorities.
Not surprisingly, Molyneux is a proponent of tabula rasa psychology, which is also a bedrock foundation of the State's ideological power - without widespread belief in tabula rasa, people would naturally object to the idea of "redesigning society" as fundamentally impossible and would rightly see that the taxes collected to fund such Quixotic endeavors are simply going up in smoke.
In short, my view is that Molyneux is a Pied Piper. Whether he is insidious and is doing this on the behalf of unseen backers or he is just massively - yet genuinely - misguided, I don't really care. He needs to be called on the carpet and I was pleased to see David Gordon take him out to the woodshed for some much-needed "abuse".
Clayton -
I don't know that Molyneux has substantial financial backers to begin with; while his website nets him a handsome pre-tax income of $60,000 annually this is most likely an aggregate of thousands of his followers donating or subscribing to FreeDomain Radio.
I found this gem: "the Mises Institute is specifically Catholic", How Not to Achieve Freedom p. 7.