"Heroic figure" and "more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, [Che] was the living embodiment of the principle of revolution".
- Murray Rothbard
I was quite surprised to read this recently. It sounds like Rothbard admired Che very much. Could this mean that Rothbard supports libertarian revolution? Perhaps according to Guevara's tactics of "focalism?"
Rothbard always seemed like one of the major libertarian theorists who seemed to have a revolutionary-leaning, citing the Bengali revolt against the Punjabi occupiers as a prime example of a way he'd like to see it done.
Thoughts?
Possibly. Rothbard also favoured a political strategy to attain liberty, which is unproductive.
So you suggest Agorism?
I suggest despair. :P
I think libertarians need to achieve social, economic, and community standing, while at the same time having a close solidarity in these goals (the two go hand in hand). This requires initial dissemination of information in order to discover those who can understand liberty and can join in this endeavour (building up what Albert Jay Nock called 'The Remnant').
So, quietly taking over, basically.
Yes. You can't win a fight against a vastly more powerful opponent. So don't fight directly. Undermine him in other ways until he is weakened. Use his own strengths against him, e.g. the division of people against eachother and the waste of their energy in politics, the fact that conspiracy theorists are so stigmatised that conspiracies are less suspected by the general population (the key point is that his makes all conspiracy theories less believable to the average joe, even non-state ones).
But if we want a stateless society, wouldn't a revolution have to occur eventially, regardless of how many libertarians "quietly take over?" I don't think the state will simply dissolve once that happens, and bloodthirsty statists in power won't go without a fight.
Technically, the non-aggression axiom has already been violated by the state. At this point, we have a right to an anti-oppression revolt.
But if we want a stateless society, wouldn't a revolution have to occur eventially, regardless of how many libertarians "quietly take over?"
Not necessarily. It really depends on the particular situation. A Galt's Gulch would probably be more effective. Even politics could be useful if the required societal infrastructure had already been captured.
At this point, we have a right to an anti-oppression revolt.
Of course, but it's an extremely counter-productive activity (unless you just want to be a martyr).
If we want to overthrow the state we must make sure WE WIN.
If we lose by violent means, the state will make its iron grasp even tighter, and we might as well see the death of libertarianism.
“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
but theres a bigger practical problem, and thats that people need society to work. Youre not going to take over the government and then make them go fill out job applications or something. For a lot of people, that would be a fight to the death, which is bad news but also bad for the survivors. People would be so traumatized that they wouldnt care what government they had as long as no more of their young people were killed. Then you have two armies that are now supposed to go get jobs? Its a historical fact that figting men dont always want to quit fighting.
Whereas the state doesnt even actually exist, its just an idea that allows people to transfer liability. Once you destroy the idea, the illusion is gone, no one needs to kill or get killed.
look dude, liberty is inevitable. Theres no stopping N idea whose time has come. Our progeny arent going to become too stupid to figure out that human action is purposeful, its only the combination of cultural identity and a monstrous social machine piloted to dubious ends that has allowed things to get this far. Cultural identity is uncontrollable in the long term for most people. They make their own culture.
I still don't believe statists would give up their power under that manner. I just don't think it's their nature.
@ Your earlier post
I'd just like to know what we can do right now, to make that idea's time come sooner. I'd like to see a stateless society, or, at the very least, a minarchist country in my lifetime, and the two options that I've heard that sound like a quick way to get there are seasteading/creating a new society elsewhere or revolution. I hate violence, but the NAP HAS been violated, and it has been violated as long as the state has been stealing from individuals (a long time).
If we believe in the NAP, then we believe that retaliation is justified.
Imagine you're walking down the street, unarmed, and a 6'8", 250 lbs muscle-bound dude pushes you to the ground and steals your sunglasses. Do you have a right to retaliate? Sure thing. But would you?
Still, maybe you could make an important contribution to seeing some degree of freedom in your lifetime. You mentioned seasteading. Well, if you could just help to solve one specific difficulty of such a venture, you would be contributing a lot. If many others did the same, the project would be far easier to undertake. So if that's what you want, develop your skills towards that end and see what you can come up with.
as for what to do, you need to educate yourself and then everyone around you. The only reason this will work is because we are right. And, look at how far marxism got with agitprop and determination. Surely we can do better, for the truth is on our side.
besides, I am tired of war.
@ Aristippus
Good point. But my problem is what everybody else here sees - the government is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Every day. We have to weigh what's better here - revolution based on libertarian principles NOW, or the possibility of seasteading, which seems like it would be decades away.
That's the thing about libertarianism - how do you make it come about? And as for political action, I think Konkin had a point when he emphasized how you can't change the state by becoming the state. I think Ron Paul even knew this when he ran, as he even admitted at one point that it was all about the education.
@ Malachi
Could you expand more on your plan?
You have to understand that in modern 'democracies', people identify with the state. Thus any assault on the state or coup d'etat is considered an affront to themselves, and the entire populace is mobilised against you. That was not the case in the old, pre-nationalistic monarchies, where the people viewed the ruler as apart from them and it was largely irrelevant to most people who that particular person was. Your plan for a coup d'etat, then, would be much more effective in such an enviornment. Try conquering some place that has no 'politics'.
Have you read Etienne de la Boetie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude?
let it reductio ad absurdio itselfio
That would be 'se ad absurdum reducat'. :P
I had to put your Latin in Google Translator.
But on a serious note, I'm not sure I am particularly crazy about sitting around and waiting for the state to fail, something that could produce extreme chaos in itself.
Unfortunately I have not read it. But I suppose mass education is needed in order to make a revolution succeed in that regard.
youre not supposed to be sitting around waiting, youre supposed to educate yourself and others. Yah, when everyone has trillions of dollars but theres no food and no farms, its gonna be bad. Thats why we need to educate people and convince them to walk away instead of go down with the ship.
I also changed my mind. The official plan is this:Talk to People instead of Shooting Them.
'se ad absurdum reducat
Okay. So in Paulian terms, an "intellectual revolution."
He made it pretty widespread due to his presidential campaign that, as I said before, I have a strong feeling was never meant to get in in the first place, just to educate. How do you propose we mass educate people once again? I'm not going to make a game-changing difference if a convince one guy of the libertarian ways.
I feel that a more effective plan would go beyond the intellectual aspect into actually gaining social and economic standing through solidarity between libertarians. This would allow libertarians to acquire the necessary resources, connections, and organization to be a major force in society. Of course, the education aspect has to be there in order to recruit new core members and to create a general understanding of liberty, but that is only the beginning.
Hmm...how did Marx do it? I guess he automatically gained support from low wage workers who liked the "dictatorship of the proletariat" scam.
Oh wait, that scam came from some other Marxist.
Hence my support for making sure to retaliate against the state IF we have made sure taht we can abolish it instead of petty rebellions.
If you retaliated agains the huge muslce massed man pushing you, you will get beat up instead of being merely pushed, that is, if you lose the fight. If you can win the fight, then might as well retaliate.
I dont think that intellectual revolution, nor a violent revolution will do it.
We need all of them combined. We need people who are poltiically active in their libertarian mindset, and educated, and also strong if need arises to do so.
Hence the perfect libtertarian man will be like me. Buff, smart, strong, and charming.
I think what you just described was, in it's libertarian form, Foco.
Yep. It's just a power-hungry douchebag's way of getting into power by winning the support of the masses by making hell look like heaven for them. That's why Marxism targets the destruction of culture over anything else, because that's what you have to control if you want the people to keep following the dillusion of the communist spirit. Hitler did it the other way. He controlled the culture by revering it and forming it around him, rather than the communist way of completely destroying it and then reforming it. Either way, when you have control of the culture, you can make anything seem cool.
Rothbard was a great man, but a little irresponsible when writing short commentary like this. An extenuating circumstance perhaps is that he wrote 8 pages per hour so it is unlikely he ever slept on a short current affairs article like this.
I think you do have to work within the system, but the power isn't in the elections. It's in the bureaucracies. The appointed positions, management(upper and lower). Imagine you were in charge of hiring all the _________ inspectors in the state. There'd be an awful lot of' everyone's in compliance' in a big hurry.
It's jury nullification in a society where law is decided by dork in a uniform with a ticket book. Customs agents, OSHA, Department of whatevers, DMV! That's where you can make magic happen. What if suddenly car registration and licensing was an efficient process? Then somebody at a newspaper says "do we even really need one?" at the right time. And have you ever met a top-level POS at a DMV? They're Nazis, no question. These people need to be on the street, out of jobs.
But think about it. Everyone loves the government until they have to deal with them. They love the military, but not girls who've dated someone in the Marines. They love the cops, until they get a ticket and have to go to court. Really, all that's happening is what you already do: Talk to the people most receptive to the message. And where are people more accepting of anti-government rhetoric than government buildings?
SkepticalMetal: But if we want a stateless society, wouldn't a revolution have to occur eventially
But if we want a stateless society, wouldn't a revolution have to occur eventially
Is that what happened in Russia for the USSR to be found? Or for that matter, is that how the USSR ended? Nah.
The end of the USSR is actually a decent model for how the US could be freed from federal tyranny. Basically, the USSR was broken up by powerful regional governors simply deciding to ignore the Kremlin from then on. They walked away from the Kremlin, and it collapse. But there was broad support for this, even within the Kremlin. Gorbachev knew Russia was floundering too, so he couldn't bring himself to oppose this change like, say, Stalin would have.
Maybe one day the US governors of state can simply walk away from the Fed too. Businesses could refuse to withhold. Etc.
SkepticalMetal:regardless of how many libertarians "quietly take over?" I don't think the state will simply dissolve once that happens, and bloodthirsty statists in power won't go without a fight.
Listen, the state needs to be deligitimized in the eyes of the masses before broad-based change can occur. The left has long known the connection between legitimacy and political power, and we libertarians understand it fairly well.
Americans still believe in the concept of America, so American leadership is still legitimate and will successfully resist any attempt to break out of the system entirely. The delegitimation strategy is more powerful than the education strategy, but really the two go hand in hand.
Even things like my creation of a seastead help towards delegitimation depending on the US's response to it. The great thing is, whether they allow my seastead or not, both decisions hurt US legitimacy and advance the education aspect of libertarianism, for it generates news either way and they'll have to break their own laws to shut me down, thus showing the hypocrisy of the system.
SkepticalMetal: Technically, the non-aggression axiom has already been violated by the state. At this point, we have a right to an anti-oppression revolt.
I maintain that as long as the possibility of voting in change still exists, and as long as you have the right to end their aggression by non-violent means such as leaving the country and renouncing citizenship, then you don't have a right to violent revolt within the US.
Even if you did consider seriously a violent revolt, you realize that such a revolt held to the bounds of the NAP would mean stopping only their aggression against you and no more? It wouldn't be a revolt in any sense like historical ones. You couldn't storm Washington DC or anything :P Only engage in just enough force to stop their aggression against you. Which would mean things like becoming a tax protestor.
At which point they'd simply drag you to tax court and you end up in jail for a term. Because they still have legitimacy on their side when it comes to taxes.
The intellectual state-allies that run all the state schools have inoculated the masses against critical thinking, against political and ethical reasoning, against even reading in general.
With a populace that doesn't like to read, I don't think the education strategy will be particularly effective. What we need are to create events that will create international news which then give a forum to our ideas and attract others to our cause. Secondly we need to group together physically, for iron sharpens iron. Things like Liberty Fest or w/e are good for that.
I think things will take off once we have a libertarian jurisdiction to settle in. From there, ways to influence the world will multiply rapidly.
I think what you just described was essentially the free-state project.