The Humble Libertarian original

Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign introduced many people to the word “libertarian.” Since Paul is a Republican and Republicans, like libertarians, use the rhetoric of free markets and private enterprise, people naturally assume that libertarians are some kind of quirky offshoot of the American right wing. To be sure, some libertarian positions fit uneasily with mainstream conservatism—complete drug decriminalization, legal same-sex marriage, and the critique of the national-security state alienate many on the right from libertarianism. But the dominant strain of libertarianism still seems at home on that side of the political spectrum. Paeans to property rights and free enterprise—the mainstream libertarian conviction that the American capitalist system, despite government intervention, fundamentally embodies those values—appear to justify that conclusion. Read the rest of Sheldon Richman's article at The American Conservative . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles ...

The prospect of a state collapsing brings forth worries about a “power vacuum,” an unrestrained state of nature where chaos rules until the strong take over. But chaotic conflict is produced by efforts to seize power and exert power over other people. It is not the rejection of rulership, but the struggle to achieve rulership, that creates deadly conflict. The negation of authority, as advocated by anarchists, does not necessitate the chaotic mess associated with the phrase “power vacuum.” Anarchy would mean that power is dispersed among individuals who would rather safeguard each others’ freedom than rule over each other. And if power is firmly in the hands of organized people then there is no power vacuum. Read the rest of Darian Worden's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

A long running debate among the anarchists, especially between individualist and more communist type, centers around the justice of wealth disparities. Certainly the existence of the State serves to enrich particular interests at the expense of others, but in anarchy would the rich dominate society – just as they do with the State? Even if we could immediately switch off the institutions that forcibly manipulate society, there is danger that the legacy of privilege and accumulated wealth could persist for some time, distorting markets and continuing the frustrate the balance of power between individuals. Individualist anarchists have had a variety of responses to the problems of historical property and wealth distribution. Even anarcho-capitalists who see large scale social coordination as the natural direction of society have different views, such as Hans Hermann Hoppe’s theory of a natural elite and Murray Rothbard’s support of syndicalist takeover of State-supported corporations. On...

No, it’s not an abortion rant. My topic is education in general and the weird phenomenon of “school choice” advocacy in particular. But the parallels between the two issues deserve exploration. The school choice movement, broadly defined, proposes to improve public education — the state’s mandate to provide K-12 schooling to all comers — by introducing “market values” in the form of competition between schools (“public,” i.e. government-operated, and private) for the tax dollars allocated to that mandate. The school choice movement breaks down into three camps: Charter schools supporters, voucher advocates and tax credit advocates. Read the rest of Thomas L. Knapp's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

You know the drill: A formerly useful dictator outlives his usefulness to the U.S. government, becoming a public embarrassment, or maybe even a loose cannon who can no longer be relied on to follow orders. So — they suddenly discover he’s a dictator! The folks in Washington develop a sudden enthusiasm for “People Power,” and start replaying inspiring footage of the Berlin Wall coming down. Then the people marching in the streets, despite all their sincere sacrifice and hopes for building a new kind of society, find — when the smoke has cleared — their revolution stolen out from under them and trademarked as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Soros Foundation, NED or IRI. And the face of Vlaclav Havel or Nelson Mandela is slapped on the side of the box as a brand-name icon. Read the rest of Kevin Carson's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

Neoconservatives like Charles Krauthammer warn that the popular uprising against U.S.-financed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak could easily become a victory for radical Islamists. The neoconservatives scoff at assurances that the Muslim Brotherhood has traded violence for a constructive role in Egyptian society and democratic politics. Indeed, the neocons argue, the Brotherhood, as the best-organized force in Egyptian society (representing up to 30 percent of the population), is in the ideal position to seize the popular movement, betray the people, and install a theocratic state in the post-Mubarak era. With Egypt as a base of operation, goes the narrative, the Islamists would spread their ideology to the rest of the region through terror and subversion, with terrible consequences for the West. Is there any merit to this analysis? Perhaps. No one can predict such things; revolution is a radically uncertain process. Nevertheless, one should not casually assume that Egypt is like Iran o...

With another State of the Union address in our rear view — and all of its “Greatest Show on Earth” excitement reverberating through the political firmament — the mainstream’s pallid analysis can begin. Pundits and politicians, their animated views all firmly grafted onto a broader, elite orthodoxy, have wasted no time in getting down to explaining “what it all means.” By itself, the word socialism requires no statism whatsoever; instead it denotes a set of outcomes as an answer to the “Social Question” raised by disparities of wealth and economic power in society caused by statist intervention. On that account, it’s very possible to be both a socialist and an advocate for a truly free market, and American anarchists like Benjamin Tucker advocated for just this union of concepts “free market” and “socialism.” Read the rest of David D'Amato's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

Yesterday, while channel-surfing, I saw a pundit on one of the news channels’ talking head shows pontificating on the internal contradictions inherent in U.S. government policy toward the new “Twitter Revolutions” in Tunisia and Egypt. He said that, no matter how unpopular and authoritarian autocratic regimes like Mubarak’s are at home, the United States unfortunately has an interest in preserving their stability because such regimes “support our interests” in the Middle East. Note the unintended irony there. When I hear a reference to “our interests,” or what “we” are doing in Iraq or Afghanistan, my automatic response is “Are you carrying a friend in your pocket?” Read the rest of Kevin Carson's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

I want to talk about some of the main objections that have been given to libertarian anarchism and my attempts to answer them. But before I start giving objections and trying to answer them, there is no point in trying to answer objections to a view unless you have given some positive reason to hold the view in the first place. So, I just want to say briefly what I think the positive case is for it before going on to defend it against objections. Read the rest of Roderick T. Long's article at Lew Rockwell (dot) com . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

We seem to hear the words “freedom” and “liberty” from some pretty unlikely sources. Think back to the “liberty cabbage” of WWI — recently updated as “freedom fries.” The word “Freiheit” figured pretty prominently in Nazi propaganda; Nazi Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels started out as editor of Volkische Freiheit. In other words, all images that would have been just as much at home in Nazi propaganda posters, in which the word “freedom” was so ubiquitous. For the Nazis, “freedom” was about a collective way of life — the right of the German people to their “place in the sun.” And for the American Right, “freedom” — in their idiosyncratic sense of a collective way of life — seems to be threatened mainly by other people being allowed to do what they want: Like people with the same sexual equipment being allowed get married, or people with unfamiliar religions being allowed to build places of worship. Read the rest of Kevin Carson's article at The Center for a Stateless Socie...

As I write this, the Egyptian state seemingly totters on the brink of collapse. One last push from what appears to be a genuine, spontaneous popular uprising may be all it takes to send “president for life” Hosni Mubarak into exile or to a wall with (perhaps) a blindfold and final cigarette. That’s how it looks, anyway. Predicting the future of developments like this is always risky, but with the army apparently operationally neutral and its troops openly fraternizing with the revolutionary masses, I’d strongly advise against buying Egyptian government bonds at the moment. The question, as always at times like this, is “what next?” Read the rest of Thomas L. Knapp's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

Defenders of freed markets have good reason to identify their position as a species of “anti-capitalism.” To explain why, I distinguish three potential meanings of “capitalism” before suggesting that people committed to freed markets should oppose capitalism in my second and third senses. Then, I offer some reasons for using “capitalism” as a label for some of the social arrangements to which freed-market advocates should object. There are at least three distinguishable senses of “capitalism”: capitalism-1 an economic system that features property rights and voluntary exchanges of goods and services. capitalism-2 an economic system that features a symbiotic relationship between big business and government. capitalism-3 rule — of workplaces, society, and (if there is one) the state — by capitalists (that is, by a relatively small number of people who control investable wealth and the means of production). Read the rest of Gary Chartier's article at The Center for a Stateless S...

For years, I’ve had to listen to bilious rhetoric about “anti-Americanism,” “treason” and the like from the Legion and Dittoheads. Now I get to enjoy the same kind of posturing from “Progressives” — with Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O’Donnell and their ilk sounding like a bunch of know-nothing Republicans. The latest case in point is Ian Fletcher (“ Libertarianism, the new anti-Americanism ,” Huffington Post, Jan. 19), writing in criticism of an article by Don Boudreaux. Fletcher quotes a very short snippet from Boudreaux to the effect that an increase in the economic well-being of a South Korean is as worthy of celebration as an improvement for a South Carolinian (“ Another Open Letter to Ian Fletcher ,” Cafe Hayek, Jan. 9). Of course Fletcher eschews any context, like Boudreaux’s remarks on the long-term benefit to American workers from increased productivity and better and cheaper goods. No, he prefers to keep things simple (even at the cost of folding, spindling and mutilating the t...

As someone who defends Paul Krugman more often than not, I know I stand out from the libertarian mainstream. But given the realities of the form of state capitalism we live under — an essentially corporatist system whose resemblances to the “free market” are mostly coincidental — I find the Keynesians have it right when it comes to analyzing the causes of the Great Recession. Those on the Right who think the problem is that the rich lack money to “invest in jobs” are living in a dream world. No, the rich invested money in Ponzi schemes like the real estate bubble precisely because they had more capital on their hands than they could find productive ways to invest. The economy was already plagued with excess industrial capacity that could barely be utilized, even with the level of demand revved up by debt on bubble-inflated equity. The rich already have more money than they’re willing to invest, because no sane person would hire people to produce more stuff in an environment where ...

John Robb, who writes about asymmetric warfare and networked organization, is one of my favorite writers. A central theme of his work is what he calls “systems disruption.” To disrupt centralized, hierarchical systems, it’s not necessary to take over or destroy even a significant portion of their infrastructures. It’s simply necessary to destroy the most vulnerable of their key nodes and render the overall system non-functional. These vulnerable, high-value nodes are what Robb calls the “systempunkt.” It’s a concept borrowed from German blitzkrieg doctrine. The “schwerpunkt” was the most vulnerable point in an enemy’s defenses, on which an offensive should concentrate most of its force in order to achieve a breakthrough. Once this small portion of the enemy’s forces was destroyed, the rest could be bypassed and encircled without direct engagement. Likewise, a few thousand dollars spent incapacitating several nodes in a gas or oil pipeline system can result in disruption that co...

It’s a familiar story, re-told three or four times a year with few alterations apart from geography: A dictator, long ensconced in power, holds formal “elections,” claims victory versus a proponent of “real democracy” despite clear evidence of loss, attempts to remain in power, but is eventually overthrown by his country’s people (with a little help from the United Nations, or the United States, or some regional organization of states). The current version of the tale comes to us via western Africa’s Cote d’Ivoire, or as we English-speakers put it, Ivory Coast, where sitting president Laurent Koudou Gbagbo continues to hold out against the alleged democratic victory of Alassane Ouattara to succeed him in office. Plot familiarity alone constitutes reasonable cause for suspicion. States love old standards and tend to recycle successful propaganda, rinsing and repeating until the colors fade completely out before moving on to new narratives. Read the rest of Thomas L. Knapp's articl...

Libertarians frequently argue that government entities are recompensed for failure, not by going out of business, but by having their budgets increased. A bloated educational bureaucracy churns out illiterates despite spending thousands of dollars per pupil every year, and “public education” advocates call for more education spending. The U.S. government acts as policeman for global corporate capitalism and churns up the resentment of people all over the world, and when the resulting blowback causes thousands of American deaths the national security state’s amen choir immediately demands more foreign interventionism and more “defense” [sic] spending. As Ivan Illich put it, bureaucracies solve problems by escalation. Read the rest of Kevin Carson's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

In 1984, the three global superpowers of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia were in a constantly shifting pattern of wars and alliances, two against the other. Oceania was always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. But as described by the fictional Emanuel Goldstein, the very distinction between war and alliance was meaningless. It was the state of permanent economic and military mobilization, and the psychic benefits of an ever-present foreign “threat,” that propped up the totalitarian system of domestic power in each country. The three superpowers were really de facto allies that propped each other up through the pretense of perpetual war, like three sheaves of wheat. The ostensible opposing sides in the so-called Drug War have a similar relationship. In the real world, the private drug cartels derive their power from the existence of a lucrative black market which the state plays a central role in maintaining. And the state itself is just another drug cartel which profits from ...

I frequently argue that, far from being the result of the “free market,” the recent speculative bubble was the result of over a century’s worth of government intervention. The bubble resulted from vast disparities of wealth — disparities of wealth created by the state and its enforcement of privilege — with a growing share of income going to classes looking to use it for investment rather than consumption. Someone recently challenged me to describe exactly what government interventions I’d eliminate to remedy this situation, and exactly what effect I’d expect them to have. So here, without further ado, is my free market agenda for macroeconomic stability. Read the rest of Kevin Carson's article at The Center for a Stateless Society . James Tuttle , Regular Columnist, T H L Articles | Author's Page | Website

A US federal court has charged a pamphleteer with jury tampering for his attempts to distribute literature outside the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. For months, Julian Heicklen, a septuagenarian libertarian, has been distributing pamphlets about jury nullification in front of federal courthouses. He has been arrested on numerous occasions at the district court in Manhattan. Each arrest has seen Heicklen going limp and being carried or dragged away by federal officers. But he kept coming back. Heicklen’s pamphlets were not about any specific case, but explained the power of juries to acquit people who appear to have violated laws the jury considers unjust. Jury nullification has helped set free William Penn, John Peter Zenger, fugitive slaves, and violators of alcohol prohibition. More recently a Montana man arrested for possessing a very small amount of marijuana went free because the state was unable to seat a jury that might convict him. Jury nullification clearly holds pote...