I wanted to pass along a link to an essay that I think you all should read. Preston is what I guess he would call a "left-libertarian" or "anarcho-socialist", or perhaps he has another term. Anyway, the piece is brilliantly constructed and it won the Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize. I think it would be interesting to read the end, and then backtrack to see how he gets there. Here’s a paragraph that not many people here would be inclined to fully agree with:
An economy organized on the basis of worker-owned and operated industries, peoples' banks, mutuals, consumer cooperatives, anarcho-syndicalist labor unions, individual and family enterprises, small farms and crafts workers associations engaged in local production for local use, voluntary charitable institutions, land trusts, or voluntary collectives, communes and kibbutzim may seem farfetched to some, but no more so and probably less so than a modern industrial, high-tech economy where the merchant class is the ruling class and the working class is a frequently affluent middle class would have seemed to residents of the feudal societies of pre-modern times.
Sorry, but I don’t find that statement very compelling. It smacks of egalitarian nonsense.
Here’s the thing Mike. I had a seriously difficult time trying to pin down Preston’s views into easy labels. He has called himself an Anarcho-Socialist, but he loves Rothbard, links to LRC, participates in discussions on Mises.org, and has been quoted in the LRC blog. To read him you’d never know most of the time that he was anything but a Rothbardian.
My purpose in quoting the end of the piece was to provoke the kind of reaction you’ve had, but to then experience how he got from the unquestionably accurate description of the modern American society — Corporate Plutocracy — to that point. You might be surprised how much you agree with him. I certainly was.
The ideas in that paragraph may sound egalitarian and leftist, but note: he doesn’t ever use the word mandatory or compulsory, and in the piece he never argues for anything that isn’t completely voluntary. I my view, the important fact of a libertarian society is that it is totally free, and however it chooses to organize itself, well that would be market-based too. Maybe Preston’s idea here would win out, or maybe not.
The larger issue is that the anarchist movement, regardless of whether it’s “left” or “right”, needs to unite against the current system, and people like Preston that emphasize commonalities between the different anarchist sects are in my view on the right track. It seems to be Preston’s biggest concern.
On Preston’s site another writer pointed out that left-anarchists typically think right-anarchists want some version of the current corporatist system to continue, while right anarchists think left-anarchists want a radical democracy where the majority has total power over the minority. Actually both sides want to dispense completely with the current political system and set up a voluntary alternative society. And isn’t that the important thing?
Yep.
I think the free market-socialist critique of standard modern libertarianism is the most vital issue of all…This excellent article by Roderick Long was mentioned on rockwell’s blog yesterday:… http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/11/10/roderick-long/corporations-versus-the-market-or-whip-conflation-now/ …and this article by Kevin Carson is pretty interesting:… http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/01/vulgar-libertarianism-watch-part-1.html…In this article:… http://mises.org/story/2099 …Roderick Long covers the shifting of loaded terms such as “socialism”, “capitalism”, “liberal”, and “conservative” and traces the shifting to Herbert Spencer…Long quotes Benjamin Tucker criticizing Spencer: “[Spencer] is greatly shocked that the rich should be directly taxed to support the poor, but that the poor should be indirectly taxed and bled to make the rich richer does not outrage his delicate sensibilities in the least. Poverty is increased by the poor laws, says Mr. Spencer. Granted; but what about the rich laws that caused and still cause the poverty to which the poor laws add?”
Have libertarians become so indoctrinated by government/corporatist (fascist) propaganda regarding huge multi-national corporations that anything else sounds like egalitarian nonsense? In light of current events – trillions to bail out traditional large corporations that are too big to fail, tax policies and subsidies that protect big business from domestic competition, etc. – it seems these types of associations or organizations are very natural.
This stuff is actually rather conservative mom and pop type stuff that is as American as apple pie. This stuff isn’t new. It isn’t leftist.
worker-owned and operated industries: sounds like a partnership – there are millions of them in America right now
peoples’ banks: not a lot of difference from credit unions, not exactly some commie construct to spread the wealth – more like a way to avoid high banking fees
mutuals: there still remain some mutual assurance societies (non-profit customer owned insurance companies) that provide cheap insurance – no more socialist than group policies except the insured are stockholders and dividends offset premiums
consumer cooperatives: did libertarians ever consider price club or costco to be socialist collectives? Would it be a commie plot to have local cooperatives to save money by purchasing in volume?
anarcho-syndicalist labor unions: in the absence of government coercion, who gives a damn what they do?
individual and family enterprises, small farms and crafts workers associations engaged in local production for local use: OH MY GOD! A shocking example of Marxism run amok??
voluntary charitable institutions: libertarians used to talk about civil society taking over the operations of the welfare state, have we become so randian and hard-hearted that we would be against voluntary charitable institutions? I guess all those church collection plates would make nice ashtrays.
land trusts: i guess libertarians could eliminate open spaces and parks OR pay the government to mismanage them – these land trusts could be a secret leftist plot.
voluntary collectives, communes: yikes! sounds like hippies smoking dope or having oral sex while burning incense and playing bongos – no room for this type of madness in an anarcho-libertarian world.
If libertarians reject this kind of stuff, just what the fuck happened to the freedom movement? Is it better that we only buy from chain stores in bankruptcy, bank with insolvent partially nationalized members of the federal reserve cartel, work for multi-national corporations owned by off-shore hedgefunds, and get insurance only from AIG? Libertarians need to be careful not to have knee-jerk responses to anything that is not plumb line Republicanism (economic fascism).
In my reading of the philosophy, Anarcho-socialists are captivated by particular forms of organization rather than by liberty itself. As Ozy pointed out, whatever mechanism brings liberty is not that important, so long as it produces liberty. An-socs should stop making a fetish of organization.
I think I approached it tentatively because Walter Block and others in Lew’s ambit have criticized left-libertarians like Preston and Roderick Long for being too reflexively against large corporations or “big business”. You’ll notice that most of the things you just mentioned are small — small family farms and businesses, etc. while the Rockwellians like Block tend to believe that large organizations can exist absent the State. Left-libertarians say mega-corporations wouldn’t exist without subsidies and legal protections that wouldn’t exist in an anarchist society.
I’d like to reiterate what I said earlier — whatever, as long as it’s not coercive.
When you say COERCIVE….Do you necessarily mean state (government) COERCION or COERCION in general??….anything from peer pressure…..to communal shunning….. to ostracism from a religious (or social community)….. to disenheritance could be coercive….. The government is only one of many firms of social coercion….If your position is only GOVERNMENTAL COERCION it might be prudent to identify it as such…..
I’m talking about the term coerce in its primary sense, that is to compel under the threat of violence. That’s a crime everywhere except when it involves the State. There are non-State forms of coercion, such as the old Godfather story about the band leader — “your brains or your signature”, but that’s a crime.
The examples you provided contain no violence. Shunning, ostracism, peer pressure are not conducted under the threat of violence.
I’ll push it a little farther…. Must VIOLENCE only mean physical violence….for example I’ve heard certain libertarian factions say (leaving anarchism aside for the moment) that the only proper role for government is to protect against FORCE or FRAUD….FORCE being DIRECT VIOLENCE and FRAUD being INDIRECT VIOLENCE….. (1) Is someone perpetrating a fraud – by your understanding of the term – commiting an act of violence (albeit indirectly)… or is fraud not a violent act – by any definition…. Also, must fraud be positive (a deliberate falsehood) or can you have negative fraud (where a seller my conceal a vital and relevant fact in a transaction)…..
We’ve strayed far from my original point, and I’m not sure why.
Yes, fraud, which is deliberately lying to someone in order to obtain goods or services from them, is a crime under a libertarian system. Fraud isn’t violence but it is theft. Block has numerous mises.org talks in which he says fraud is a crime and would be punished as theft would be. If you consult Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty, you can see that the punishment for being convicted of theft is quite ruinous, at least twice the cost of whatever you wanted to steal.
My point originally was that in the absence of the institution of the State, which coerces people into organizing as it sees fit — coercion being ordering under the threat of violence — people would be able to organize however they want, be it in a ‘leftist’ way as Carson and Long as the rest of them suggest, or in a more ‘rightist’ way as Block suggests. I’d see that organization as yet another market process, which means that the ways that people most want would be the ones that would eventually be dominant.
I’d like to point out that in the absence of government, there would be no corporations as we know them, large or small. Corporations are fictitious entities created by statute. These fictitious entities protected by limited liability would only be recognized by individuals to the extent that they could guarantee stockholders, customers and vendors their dividends, warranties, and payment, respectively.
I suspect that in the absence of government laws giving corporations limited liability, huge corporations that are “too big to fail” would not exist. Competition would be stiff, investors would have more difficulty assessing the integrity of their investments, and lenders would be more reluctant to lend large amounts of money. I also suspect that with decentralization or elimination of government, we would see the decentralization of business.
Block and Rockwell tend to pander to the right. Long and Carson tend to pander to the left. I’d like to see more libertarians pander to libertarians. That is to say that I’d prefer to see libertarian or anarchist ideas presented without language designed to push the emotional buttons of the left or right. For example, the term “peoples bank” will warm the hearts of leftists and repel most right-wingers regardless of what this bank is. Why not “depositor owned bank” ?
While I don’t deny the right and left continue to exist, I think it is time for libertarians to stop trying to associate with either of these groups by pandering to them. The right and left have demonstrated that they are intellectually, morally and politically bankrupt. Libertarians won’t convert these people without reason merely by pushing on the same old hot buttons that motivate these groups. Dealing with these people on their own terms using their political language hasn’t worked and only validates their wrong thinking.
“Block and Rockwell tend to pander to the right. Long and Carson tend to pander to the left. I’d like to see more libertarians pander to libertarians.”…Yes, it seems the right wing “anarchists” only criticize the “parasitic underclasses” and the left wing anarchists only criticize the robbing murdering elites…Tucker’s complaint against Spencer remains unresolved over 100 years later:…
“[Spencer] is greatly shocked that the rich should be directly taxed to support the poor, but that the poor should be indirectly taxed and bled to make the rich richer does not outrage his delicate sensibilities in the least. Poverty is increased by the poor laws, says Mr. Spencer. Granted; but what about the rich laws that caused and still cause the poverty to which the poor laws add?”
Its always fun to combine organic state theory and social Darwinism…..
Scott….. Just heard MACK WHITE on Jack Blood’s new show on FU radio….His first guest….. It coulda been you man… You coulda deflowered Jack Bloods show as his very first guest….You coulda been an Answer to a great trivia question…WHO WAS JACK BLOOD’S FIRST GUEST ON FREEDEOM UNDERGROUND RADIO???? Damn….