Libertarian is an ethical term for the recognition of (and advocacy for recognizing) individual rights. When acted upon consistently, it overlaps with the political term “anarchism”.
Watch this presentation.
Why not a new party? I’ll tell you why.
In my case, the answer to that question is because I’m against all political parties. I’m an anarchist. I am against the state.
I believe that there is no way to govern, no program of public policy, that is consistent with the libertarian non-aggression principle. Thus, I can’t endorse attempting to gain control of (or participating in) the government.
I believe that all governments are merely glorified criminal gangs, and I’m not interested in making better behaved gangs in an effort to ensure their longevity. I believe that the system of privately provided (i.e. non-state) law and security services described in market anarchist texts can potentially arise from underground as a set of black market enterprises, ultimately suppressing government as criminal activity rather than futilely attempting to reform it.
See here: http://agorism.info/
Scott Bieser provides an excellent analysis of the futility and counter-productive nature of the Libertarian Party.
I endorse his call for a campaign to convince the LP to change their name to something else; something other than “Libertarian” as a “truth in advertising” thing.
Furthermore, I also suggest we make it easier for them to determine to make this change by agreeing among ourselves what they ought to call themselves, making the choice in a way that suits our objectives and then assertively inserting the term into the ongoing discourse ourselves by using it as an insulting epithet against them. That may sound strange, but I believe that constant hectoring with the term as part of a determined harassment effort will inevitably result in their eventual latching onto it themselves in a sort of “reclaimed word” fashion. The way to pull this off would be to sort of self-consciously ape the way Marxist-Leninists used to relentlessly criticize and sneer at bourgeouis “liberal” Social Democrats.
My proposed umbrella term for neo-libertarian conservatoids, minarchists and partyarchs is also the term favored by the Cato Institute, so there is some appropriate precedent there. It’s “market liberal”.
I believe this serves our purposes by complementing the term “market anarchist”, potentially reinforcing the frame of the future “moderate left” being variations on “market liberal” and the future “radical left” mostly being or containing versions of “market anarchism” (until eventually the “market” part gets dropped because it’s just taken for granted and goes without saying).
Ironically, one of our best tools in this effort may be the neo-cons and their desire to label everything slightly less warmongering than General George S. Patton on a heavy meth binge as “left” or “liberal”.
There are a variety of libertarian and anarchist-aligned efforts that continually need your financial support. While we all would like to think that the big donations from donors better off than ourselves can carry the weight, the awkward truth of these matters is that the non-corrupt organizations that refuse to sell out to the ruling class MUST raise their money by getting lots of small donations from ordinary folks like you and me. That’s just economic reality.
Infoshop.org is the nexus for anarchism online. Not “market anarchism” but simply anarchism — including commies, syndicalists, primitivists, surrealists, Groucho Marxists and more. I support the Alternative Media Project and its “ecumenical” approach to building a diverse and polycentric anti-authoritarian left. I want to make free market libertarianism, properly understood, a part of that left.
The project needs our help. Please join me in supporting Infoshop.org and the Alternative Media Project. I just gave $5 via Little Black Cart.
Click here to donate via Little Black Cart.
You can also Paypal a donation directly to:
chuck (AT) mutualaid DOT org
And here’s a Paypal button to click:
For those who find Infoshop.org unacceptable, please consider donating to Rational Review as an alternative.
Another note on left & libertarian fusion…
Absorb the lessons contained in “Giving Libertarianism a Left Hook” [PDF] by Perry de Havilland of the UK’s Libertarian Alliance.
Excerpt:
Let us take the fact that as the airline industries across the world are said to be in dire troubles, various interventionist governments are pouring tax monies into flag carriers to prop them up. This is not really the sort of issue to greatly exercise people on the traditional ‘left’, who view economic intervention as perfectly normal or the ‘right’, who view ‘helping’ companies as perfectly normal, provided they are big companies. However, this issue can indeed be made to resonate with the ‘left’ by framing it precisely in the terms that fit their traditions of thought:
“Yet again the boardroom is using its corrupting influence with politicians to screw the common man and take our tax money to reward poor management by the board and bale out some fat cat shareholders. It is hard to say who is worse, the incompetent directors who did not plan for unforeseen problems, the greedy shareholders or the money-for-the-boys politicians doling out our tax money.”
What have we just done? We have just made a seemingly ‘anti-business’ argument designed to fit within the meta-contextual world view of the left. We have also just made an argument in favour of laissez-faire.
This looks promising as a good, basic, ultra-cheap field laptop for bloggers & activists — the Alpha 400. It runs Linux, of course. Supposedly, it can be ordered from here for $250 and that reportedly includes the courier cost (apparently from Hong Kong).
The phrase “a candid world” is one you don’t hear very often. Its one notable occurance in history to date has been very notable, though. That occurance is as the addressee of a letter, if the US Declaration of Independence is thought of as an open letter of explanation from the Colonies regarding why they were revolting.
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
It is now also, though, the name of an upcoming documentary about the Free State Project. Watch the trailer.
I approve of and salute the civil disobedience, public education and other non-electoral efforts of the libertarian activists in New Hampshire.
Please help promote the trailer for “A Candid World” on Digg.
Learn more about the documentary project at: http://candid-world.com/
UPDATE: The post below is misplaced criticism, wrongly directed at David Gordon due to my own misinterpetation of what he was saying at the end of the piece discussed. After the second of Gordon’s comments below, I’m satisfied that my reading of the piece was in error. I am sorry, Mr. Gordon.
David Gordon’s “The Kochtopus vs. Murray N. Rothbard, Part II” would be a great piece on the rivalry between Mises and Cato (in which all earnest libertarians should side with the Mises Institutue, as I see it, if they take a side in it at all) if Gordon hadn’t abused the opportunity to enlighten by pulling a bait-and-switch at the very end with regard to the Ron Paul newsletter fiasco.
“As mentioned in Part I, the Kochtopus strongly opposes the Mises Institute, which aims to continue the Rothbardian policy of Austrian economics, laissez-faire, and peace that Cato was established to promote. The opposition continues to the present day. Reason, now under Koch patronage, did not react to Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto with the praise one would expect for this best-selling libertarian book. David Weigel, in a post of April 30, 2008 on the Reason website, took the occasion to attack Lew Rockwell and other so-called “paleos.” The Kochtopus cannot forgive those who continue to champion Murray Rothbard.”
Weigel’s motives for writing whatever (or rather, the motives it is speculated he has) shouldn’t have anything to do with the matter of whether or not the ideas expressed in that writing stand or fall on their own merits. Gordon has very carefully spent time and effort detailing a true story of real libertarian struggle in the Mises-Cato rivalry, the corrupting influence of state-capitalist Koch money and the resulting institutionalized establishmentarianism in what started out as a radical organization, Cato. How sad that Gordon chooses to metaphorically spit on his own work by attempting to use it deceitfully in support of the contemptible.
Those who don’t want libertarianism falsely equated with racism, and have resulting concerns about the Ron Paul newsletter thing, are just Koch lackeys with a grudge against Rothbard? Is that what you’re saying, Mr. Gordon? I’m not buying that.
I was reviewing some stuff and noticed where I had promoted on Digg a recent book review by Kevin Carson. There was one key passage in the piece that seemed particularly apt for explaining the overall left-libertarian approach as I see it.
“…[M]ost people who display egalitarian reactions against existing inequalities and concentrations of wealth may well believe that what they hate is the “free market.” But that’s only because the rhetoric of “free markets” has been perverted, for the most part, by apologists for those concentrations of wealth which result from privilege and other forms of state intervention. What they hate, they rightly hate. They’re wrong to believe that what they hate is the “free market.” But it’s hard to blame them, when you can’t turn on the TV or read an editorial page without seeing a fundamentally statist economic system of special privilege and protection for big business and the rich described as “our free market system.”
This has organizational implications for both radicals and moderates, both libertarians and “leftists”. The socio-political mass maneuver that needs to be accomplished can be compared to a zipper zipping. Proponents of fundamentally correct but often tragically misapplied theory, on the one hand, need to be melded with groups of people who, on the other hand, have instinctually latched onto approximately correct views about the world around them and then rationalized/supported those views with less-than-ideal theory.
While I’m not sure that I’ll definitely find it useful, I’ve been persuaded to try Twitter. Those interested can follow me there[RSS] or get a consolidated activity feed[Atom].
