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Libertarianism and Marxism: Two Heads of the Same Hydra

Hello all!  In my triumphal return to blogging, I have a lot of explaining to do.  Of course, it all starts with graduate school being a lot of work and me being fairly more inclined to spend my precious free time playing CoD rather than pounding out (sometimes…often?…) intellectually-demanding blog posts while I already spend my working hours (and much of my social time, of course) doing basically the same thing.  In short, it can all be a bit too demanding and there are only so many things to cut back on, so I chose blogging to axe for a bit.  But now, the floodgates have opened again, pen must be put to paper, and I feel some inspiration coming on, so for all who may be concerned, here is the first in a series of blog posts and my return to regularly plastering your (whoever you are) FB and G+ pages with libertarianism:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Over the past several months, I have been completing my MA degree in American history, specializing in nineteenth-century American liberalism.  This includes, of course, completing and defending the thesis (which argues that by 1860, southerners had largely rejected the fundamental tenets of Jeffersonian liberalism in favor of Southernism, or plantation corporatism), as well as my normal course work and teaching duties.  In my teaching, I focus most intently upon challenging historical myths and popular wisdom (Was the American Revolution really a huge mistake?).  Currently, I am both teaching with and have a seminar taught by Marcus Rediker, one of our department’s premier historians–indeed, one of the most preeminent Atlantic historians in the world–and a hardcore Marxist.  Now, I should say up front that I haven’t quite figured him out entirely and am not sure about a lot of his philosophical leanings, but one thing I know with absolute certainty:  I have learned more about social dynamics from him than anyone else since I first encountered the Austrian School.  A bit of a shock to me, it shouldn’t have been–but I didn’t really know my stuff back then.  Of course, I knew that Marxist social theory was founded out of Classical Liberal social thought, especially liberal class conflict theory (Power+Gov’t monopoly on force=socialized & intensified conflict in society, simply stated).  What I emphatically didn’t know was how incredibly similar the two still are though both traditions have taken radically different historical trajectories (or have they, really?–more to come on this cipherous strand of thought).   But the two ways of thinking about the world I want to discuss, those loosely represented by my version of anarcho-libertarianism and Marcus’ own (seemingly) anarcho-syndicalism, and their attendant theories of social conflict are almost entirely reconcilable and partisans of both can (as I evidence) learn almost as much–and perhaps, of course, even more–from their opponents than they ever did from their allies.  Take for example Rediker & Linebaugh’s absolutely magnificent The Many-Headed Hydra:  Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic.   The book’s thesis is basically that the Atlantic world witnessed the growth and development of capitalism in England, which encouraged (though, importantly for we Austrians, did NOT determine) the ruthless exploitation of lower classes throughout the Atlantic, the expropriation of masses amounts of labor in the service of capital, and prompted incredible amounts of class revolution, counter-revolution, and synthesis.  Now, this likely is immediately unappealing to most libertarians because it lays the horrors of slavery, genocide, and acts of violence of many other kinds squarely at the feet of capitalism, the great shining jewel of libertarian thought.  Every social problem, after all, is better solved by the private owners of capital than by socialized, terribly inefficient methods, right?  Well, yes–but it that what capitalism is, or is that what free markets look like?  I have definitively decided to scrap altogether the use of the word “capitalism” to represent my beliefs.  Historically, capitalism has been used to mean some very different than Smithian free markets–we could, rather non-controversially, I think (in fact, Rediker himself loosely defined the word this way once in a lecture) define “capitalism” as a system of political economy designed to service the interests of the owners of capital.  The dynamics of a capitalist economy, properly defined, therefore, are incredibly different than what libertarians of my stripe (Roderick Longians, you might say) advocate–MARKETS.  By “markets,” I of course mean simply “voluntary interactions.”  ”The Market,” therefore, is simply used as short-hand for all the voluntary interactions between individuals.  There is a market, then, for friendship and when not being coerced into friendship (if such a thing is even possible), it is a market “transaction”–both parties are seeking some sort of gain and both receive it (ex ante, at least).  It is, fundamentally, no different than the way buying oranges from Giant Eagle is a market transaction.  Slave auctions, however, are in no way market activities, then.  They are, in a sense, the very antithesis of free markets.  They are markets in the material sense–a stage, a crowd, money being passed around–but in no philosophically interesting sense.  The slave auction is not a market activity precisely because the subjective valuations of one of the “participants” in the exchange–in this case, a person being treated as though property/CAPITAL–is ignored entirely and assumed to not have economic motivations.  We know, of course, that this is ridiculous and that any economic analysis of slavery MUST account for the values of the slaves.  Therefore, slavery is ALWAYS inefficient because it produces very little good and tremendous bad for the slave (otherwise it would be a voluntary institution).  Okay, ’nuff said distinguishing capitalism (basically Mussolini’s corporatism by another name that has been fetishized by libertarians over the last century or so) and free markets or voluntarism. Now, I bring this up because Hydra is one of the greatest books I’ve read, in the truest sense of the word.  Admittedly, it’s no Human Action, but it’s goal was never to produce a systematic treatise on the logic of human action, so whaddayagonnado?  No, Hydra tells the story of the growth and development of capitalism and the radicals and revolutionaries it produced.  The process begins with the English Enclosure Movement, in which peasants were kicked off common lands and flocked to cities to find work.  STOP RIGHT THERE.  See anything wrong?–PEOPLE WERE FORCIBLY REMOVED FROM THEIR LANDS!  No serious libertarian thinks that some aristocrat who had never “mixt his labour” (as Locke would say) with that land in his life has the slightest bit of a legitimate claim to that land unless he voluntarily purchased it from the common owners.  This is something that has become an element of libertarian orthodoxy, especially for those associated with Walter Block and the majority of LvMIers.  Okay, so Rediker calls it capitalism and we can agree–it was violent and involuntary and a breach of what was undoubtedly the rightful property of those who commonly worked that land.  Alright.  These people then flocked to the cities (a la Alex Jones’ “super-cities”) where they were often imprisoned, impressed into military or naval service, forced into indenture contracts to stock the prison labor societies of the New World, or otherwise generally exploited by those in power.  Still, no problems here.  Force is being used, the wealthy are using the state to enforce their will, and social conflict is intensifying as a result…surprise, surprise!  As working class resentment rose against those in power viewed as tyrannically exploiting lower classes bubbled to the surface, rebellion and revolution often followed.  Praised throughout Hydra are the same heroes that plaster the pages of mises.org on an almost daily basis.  Pete Leeson’s work on pirates, Jeff Riggenbach’s series on the Libertarian Tradition, Rothbard’s four-volume Conceived in Liberty, his history of the colonial US up to the Revolution, and his equally magisterial Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought immediately come to mind as works that regularly praise the same antinomians, Quakers, pirates, the Levellers, Tom Paine, the Anti-Federalists, and a motley crew of other radicals that are all taken to be heroes to Rediker & Linebaugh, Marxists both, and we libertarians. The reason is not at all difficult to establish–we all seek essentially the same thing:  a diminution of the amount of power and control wielded by the few over the many and/or anyone over anyone (depending on how thick or thin you are, most likely).  We were not wrong, though, to suspect that serious differences will likely permanently divide our camps.  Primarily, it seems that we have a fundamental disagreement on how free markets and property rights work.  While Marxists lay the primary onus for conflict on property (as providing power over others to those who can accumulate the most), libertarians are quick to note that absent government, the tendency is for wealth to be far more evenly distributed than with a government.  YET EVEN THIS GULF CAN BE SOLVED WITH RECOURSE TO OTHER ARGUMENTS:  most importantly, voluntary interaction–the primary concern of libertarians such as myself and Marxists such as Rediker (though always remember my initial caveat)–demands that people cooperate peacefully together, and whether this means a system of private or public property or even NO PROPERTY AT ALL, the market is the sum total of voluntary interactions, and it always produces the most efficient result.  Property or no property, in other words, and you still have the calculation problem.  Therefore, the most efficient way to minimize social conflict is to interact voluntarily with others, let the particular chips (like the institution of property) fall where they may.   Thus are the Marxists and the Rothbardians synthesized!…?

Ron Paul: Occupy Wallstreeters and Tea Partiers are Natural Allies

Probably both camps are a little put off my this, but lo and behold!–It’s very true.  Check out Ron’s very recent (this morning) interview on Meet the Press.  See especially 12:59 onward for a wonderful discussion of the travesty of a two-party system we have in the United States.  Everyone–and by that I mean everyone who meets these conditions:  1) has a functional brain, 2) uses it honestly and doesn’t delude him/herself–from BOTH the Occupy and the Tea Party movements knows that neither Obama nor Romney would present them with real choices.  Both are whores to the corporatist establishment.  In the case of Romney, he’s been on both sides of American corporatism, and in the case of Obama, he’s been in charge of running the government half of the unholy alliance.  Both are whores to the money power of the Federal Reserve, maintaining the orthodoxy that it’s authority to manipulate the economy (the tasty side effect of which is enriching the wealthy at the expense of the poor) at will, always ready to monetize the bailout of their friendliest friends (with money stolen from all of us by the IRS).  Both are whores to the military-industrial complex, Romney vowing to continue and intensify the relationship by continuing Bush-Obama’s immoral, insane, and dangerous foreign policy, Obama vowing to deepen and extend the half-a-dozen wars his administration has either continued or began.  Neither can be trusted to do the right thing by either the Occupiers or the Tea Party, whereas ONLY someone like Ron Paul–NOT the phony Bachmann, Perry, or Cain–offers real changes that both sides can honestly say are triumphs for their movements.  If Ron Paul were to be elected, the Occupiers would have the wars finally and truly ended, civil liberties finally respected–which means ending the Drug War–the Federal Reserve’s transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich ended, and corporatism dealt the severest blow in American history.  The Tea Partiers would have a candidate who seriously slashes the budget and restores fiscal sanity, someone who gets out of the way of honest industry and lets entrepreneurs free, taxes would be slashed, and states would be empowered vis a vis the federal leviathan.  Who could complain about accomplishing so much for a single movement in a single presidential election?  In the case of Ron Paul, he could do that twice.

Ralph Nader–Libertarians are Progressives’ Best Friends…Especially Ron Paul!

In yet another display of absolutely magnificent humanity, Ralph Nader has proposed a “Grand Alliance,” of libertarians and progressives against Republicratic corporatism.  Nader does so not because he thinks Paulitarians are right about everything (and vice versa), but because we have “foundational convergence” on the most important, fundamental issues–civil liberties, war, corporate welfare, and much, much else.  To those for whom these are the most pressing issues–to those who think it’s about time we stop killing people around the world to make corporate interests even richer off our stolen tax money–Ron Paul should absolutely get your support.  Ron often beats Obama in polls that place them in opposition in the general election, yet he only polls about 15% in the primaries.  Why?–because up to 2/3rds of his supporters are NOT REPUBLICANS!  If you were all to do what was necessary to vote for him in the primaries, say a short, everlastingly sweet “goodbye,” to the hated (corporate) welfare-warfare state!

Ron Paul is Stirring Up the Republican Sh*tpot

Serious business is going down now in the Republican primaries.  With Rick Perry’s general awfulness and failure to excite anyone but Mitt Romney, Ron Paul (who is fresh from handily surpassing Michelle Bachmann in what appears to be a permanent poll shift) is poised to nab second place in the running and from there become the most serious anti-establishment candidate in decades (Sorry, Deanies!).  Ron has been quietly grabbing firsts, seconds, and thirds in poll after poll (straw and otherwise) and raising millions and millions in no time at all.  There really is something amazing happening here and it could easily pass by those of us who were so active four years ago.  We were used to fighting in the trenches, playing the education game.  Now it’s serious time for electoral politics–we have a winner on our hands, people.  And here’s exactly why.  There are over 1800 people in that crowd, mind you.  Truly amazing days.

Ron Paul: You Want Him, You Know You Do.

Especially because, as has been the case since 2008, he gets more money in campaign donations from active duty military personnel than ALL OTHER CANDIDATES (Including O-Bombs-Ya) PUT TOGETHER.  Don’t be fooled by the nationalistic, flag-waving blather of the GOP–those in the military want Ron Paul as much as conscientious tax-payers and dollar-users do.  For us, he wants to slash spending, taxes, and bolster the value of the dollar.  For them, he wants to save lives.  What better combination in a candidate than peace AND prosperity?

Ron Paul the Progressive

This question has plagued me for some time now:  Why would peace-loving Progressives support O-Bombs-Ya over our own peace-loving Dr. Paul?  It may strike you as no surprise that while plenty do, none of them should, and that’s based on their own political assumptions.  Okay, okay, okay, Paul is opposed to social welfare programs, disaster relief funds, Social Security, and a host of other darlings of the Left, but what about bombs?  Paul, of course, has an absolutely spotless record of opposition to American militarism around the globe.  He has never voted for a spending bill–loaded down as they all are with explosive pork–and has never once supported anything close to intervention in the affairs of other countries.  Stated simply, if ending our five+ wars is more important to you than continuing to bail out the big banks and sponsoring worthless make-work programs to boost “jobs” numbers, you should vote for Ron Paul–the anti-murder candidate!  Isn’t this a strange world where a candidate has to be sold in such a manner?  Has the presidency sunk to so low a point that the assumption becomes not that the president will avoid conflict as long as possible, but that they seek out new “preventative wars,” because some enemy might be out there waiting for us…Well, Ron Paul doesn’t spout such nonsense.  He doesn’t lie, he votes his conscience, and his conscience says murder–whether shrouded in fatigues and a flag or not–is simply wrong.  Imagine how many Iraqi, Afghan, Pakistani, Yemeni, and Libyans souls (not to mention countless others, no doubt) would have wished for an American president like that over the past 10 years…Wait, make that about 90 years…maybe more.

Why White Nationalists are Anti-Market (and Anti-Ron Paul)

Give a listen to this clip of two despicable white nationalists (repetition, I know) gabbing on the radio (presumably) about why Ron Paul should be rejected by their comrades in hate.  Their reasons:  he wants ‘a sound, functioning economy for the brown people.’  Yes, he’s pro-sound money and anti-war as well as pro-free market, so he is to be detested.  Why, exactly?  Because sound money, no militarism, and free markets would lead to the greatest advancements for all races–not simply whites–since the Industrial Revolution, and racists simply can’t have that.  Pay close attention to why they are anti-free market, most especially.  They say that the essence of racism is preferring “your own” to “aliens,” and the free market favors, first and foremost, the consumer–ALL consumers.  Regardless of color, Ron Paul’s version of a free market would tear racism to pieces, scattering pockets of white nationalists to the corners of the Earth, never to reclaim even the tiniest bit of their 18th-century white paradise.  I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again–Ron Paul and libertarianism are the very best choices available to minorities precisely because they are the most individualist choices a person can make, politically and philosophically.  Libertarians don’t see people as groups, but individuals, and markets don’t see individuals, but their millions of choices and preferences, color-blind to all of them.

Ron Paul Will Not Run for Reelection

Ron Paul has decided to not run for reelection to his House seat, focusing all his attention on his presidential campaign.  Unfortunately, this means he will no longer have such a large soapbox from which to spread the message of free markets and prosperity, but perhaps he will gain an even larger one in the private sector…We can only hope that 1) he is elected president, or, barring that, 2) CAROL PAUL FOR CONGRESS 2012!!!  ; )  Good luck, Ron.

Why Independence Day is a Sham

On the Fourth of July, Americans routinely gather together, blow things up, eat lots of food, and socialize to commemorate the day on which the British North American colonies (excluding Canada, to the great chagrin of more imperialist-minded Founders) declared their independence from the metropole.  The reasons for such a declaration were made explicit by the immortal Thomas Jefferson in his justly famous “Declaration of Independence.”  While I have dealt with the extreme historical folly and shortsightedness of this action in the past, I will now deal with why the continued celebration of independence is a paramount example of the lack of historical depth and political vision which plagues our country today.  I will attempt to use the “Declaration” itself to illustrate how deeply corrupted our political culture has become since 4 July, 1776, and how terribly inconsistent are those voters who insist on maintaining some meaningful connection to the Founding Generation while perfectly willing to maintain political policies 100% antithetical to the Founder’s wishes for the fledgling country.  In the “Declaration,” Jefferson begins by illuminating the political philosophy which undergirds the colonists’ revolt:  ”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”  Notice that Jefferson does not claim that rights come from the government, from the Constitution (which would not exist for another 11 years, any yet somehow they managed to defeat the world’s premier military power and do quite well under a cacophony of state governments and a weak central power), or from the Christian god, but rather from “their Creator,” the unnamed deity which established the laws of Nature, including the limits of universal human rights.  Today, however, voters of all persuasions insist that some article or another of the government grants rights, which can then include whatever said government wishes–both extending and dramatically curtailing the sphere of supposed rights.  Further, notice that the document insists that governments destructive of rights ought to be overthrown and replaced with one more suited to protecting individual’s rights.  Well, Lincoln, the man worshiped as  an American demigod, saw to that.  (By the way, if you doubt my description of Lincoln as a demigod, tell me what you think of this compared to this).  The real meat of the “Declaration,” however, is in the train of abuses committed by the King George III and the English Parliament.  I will take selections to further illustrate my case… 1.  ”He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.”  Federal violations of state medical marijuana laws, anyone?   2.  ”He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. ”  The original US Congress had about one member for every 50,000 citizens in the country, which provided for at least a somewhat adequate and accurate representation of constituents’ interests, but now the proportion is about one representative for every 800,000 citizens–How can a single person possibly represent 800,000 people and their disparate interests and opinions properly?   3. “He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”  How about this anti-immigration (couched as anti-illegal immigration, but really just a guttural dislike of  anyone deemed “non-American”…although, as I hope I’m showing, the most anti-American people are those who fit the intellectual pattern of the status quo, including the anti-immigration crowd) movement?   4.  ”He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”  Does this one really need comment, or should I simply list off all of the oppressive regulatory offices our State has created in the past 100 years?  5/6/7.  These are really big ones, and deserve their own section:  ”He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. |  He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.  |  He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:”

Okay, I know, I know–if you’re a Neocon, you’re hyperventilating and about to go into some kind of severe shock, but don’t worry!…Yes, Thomas Jefferson and the Founders were entirely opposed to standing armies (armies which are always on active duty as opposed to militias which are only called to duty in time of conflict) and the standing army is the bastion of the Republicrat political machine, without which we would all inexplicably be speaking German, Russian, Chinese, or some other language aside from our own glorious version of English.  But try to move past that ridiculous and life-long unchallenged assumption for a moment–What are the costs (ALL the costs) of maintaining a standing army?  Our treasury expends oceans of money of maintaining our global empire, to the tune of 1 TRILLION dollars a year.  Further, and more important, is the fact that a standing army exists purely to protect the interests of the State which wields it as a weapon against all opponents, foreign and domestic.  Jefferson famously stated that ‘When the people fear the government, they have tyranny, and when the government fears the people, they have liberty.’  Why on Earth, then, would we forsake the tremendous blessings of liberty to protect the very agent of its destruction, the State?  Instead, we should reject the rule of insane, power-hungry Presidents like our past…oh, I dunno, 18!  (though perhaps I unjustly malign Eisenhower, Ford, and Carter) and instead entirely dismantle the wretched, corrupt, and entirely immoral military State?  As to numbers 6 and 7, consider the extent to which our latest two presidents have supposedly deferred to “The Generals,” or “The Experts,” rather than civilian authorities in making not merely tactical decisions, but general foreign policy decisions.  Shouldn’t we instead follow Ron Paul’s advice and maintain a commanding civilian presence in our military leadership?  That is, after all, why the Constitution directs a civilian officer (the President) to also be Commander-in-Chief.  Further, consider the terribly destructive and pointless Korean War and the current illegal and immoral war in Libya–Are not those conflicts examples of presidents attempting to make political entities other than the United States (i.e the UN and NATO, respectively) the arbiters of American foreign policy? Okay, back to other topics:  8.  ”For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:”  Protective tariffs, anyone?    9.  ”For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:”  What about the Federal Reserve’s constant devaluation of the dollar, producing dramatic and constant rises in consumer prices–a functional TAX on all spending done by each one of us?  Who among you are really concerned about reigning in this illegal, immoral, uneconomical monster?  10.  ”For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:”  Wasn’t O-Bombs-Ya supposed to be closing Guantanamo Bay?   And finally, 11.  ”For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”

Surely someone must hear the ring of Obamacare in this charge against Parliament.  After all, what is the mandate to purchase healthcare but asserting the “power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever?”  It is merely one of the latest and most egregious links in a long chain which has been being forged by statist leaders at least since the days of the Great Tyrant, Lincoln.   What, then, do we celebrate this Independence Day?  Do we celebrate any real and properly-maintained tradition of limited government of the people, by the people, for the people?, or do we celebrate a sham–a hoax of faulty historical memory and an irresponsibly lax political culture which has let the true legacy of the American people wither and die, scorned even by those who think they are most connected to it?  Unfortunately, NRA membership and a Tea Party voting record and not sufficient to produce true patriots, much less valiant defenders of liberty.  No, a much deeper, more honest philosophical change in the hearts and minds of everyone who has supported any of the positions (or any similar positions) attacked above, is absolutely necessary to restore any semblance of respectable American political traditions.  A true Revolution is needed, a new Revolution.  In any case, it’s high time we stopped acting like our society holds sacred the ideas of Jefferson, Adams, and Washington–the ideas and ideals of liberty.  It’s high time we fight the new fight, against an enemy virtually inconceivable to the Founders.  The modern Leviathan is a monster greater and more dangerous enemy to Man than has ever before been known, and it must be slain. *EDIT*:  If you found this post thought-provoking, consider Gary North’s wonderful arguments against the actions of the Founders, as well.

The Ugly Truth Behind Pro-War Votes

They’re based largely in racist beliefs, of course.  You’ve all probably heard it come out of older (and perhaps even younger) generations mouths, perhaps during a conversation after a holiday meal, or something of the sort:  ’We should just nuke the whole damned Middle East and be done with ‘em.’  Well, while such likely racist arguments are not likely to affect the day-to-day lives of whoever utters them, their impact on public policy is felt around the world.  So much more value is placed by Americans on pure, wholesome, white American bodies by our culture and voters that it has become institutionalized in our foreign reparation policies.  When innocent Iraqis are killed by American soldiers, their families are remunerated $602.27 whereas when innocent Americans are killed by soldiers, their white, American families are remunerated $2.8 MILLION.  That means that in the estimation of the government (our seriously disturbed culture), a single American life is worth the lives of 4649.078 brown people.  Perhaps that’s why we’re so dramatically overstaying our welcome in five wars around the world:  we haven’t yet killed the 13,947,000+ Muslims that would apparently equal the American death toll on 9/11, thereby balancing the scales of Justice.  How many disgusting policies will the Obama administration have to perpetuate, devise, adopt, and enact before liberals of good conscience abandon him to his fate as one of the very worst human beings to be president–a tough field of competition, mind you–and one of the worst presidents, to boot.  There are clear racial elements to our foreign policy and it should be explicitly recognized as such.  Today, being pro-Obama on foreign affairs is tantamount to being pro-Robert Byrd in the 1950s (i.e. you’re a vicious racist).