by Lysander Spooner » Sun Aug 20, 2006 12:41 am
Rothbardian,<br><br>Of course the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>state</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> socialists of RI are wrong. The state theft machine is not a tool that can be used for good or ill depending on who controls it. It is a mafia-like organization by definition whether controlled by left wing soccer moms or right wing church ladies. <br><br>In theory I might choose to have the government mafia's hitmen working for greenie-liberal types who promise to give all of the loot to teachers, doctors, and welfare queens rather than right-wing mass-murderers and torturers. At least the welfare queens just stay home and watch TV. Sure, giving all the loot to the teachers unions and the MIC (medical-industrial-complex) destroys the quality of important consumer products such as education and healthcare, but you have to admit that funneling the power and money to Milton Friedman and Pinochet is much messier, bloodier, and uglier--especially when they have their hands on state monopoly printing press "money."<br><br>But I can't think of anything scarier than a so-called libertarian who wants to abolish "most of the government" except the police and the military, since these armed robbers provide so-called "legitimate functions of government." These welfare queens-the police and the military--must be first to be forced into the streets to have to fend for themselves and find honest work. In my libertarian transition program, for every school teacher who's forced to give up relying on hit men to collect her salary, 2 cops, 3 soldiers, and 5 technocrats getting paid to make bombs for the other MIC (military industrial complex) should be forced to find honest work.<br><br>As a Rothbardian, I'm sure you understand all of this. And when one reads Rothbard, it seems one should reach the same conclusion, but somehow this isn't the message that the word "libertarianism" conjures up nowadays. The now loaded terms "libertarian," "socialist," and "individualist" were not at odds with each other 150 years ago during the time of Spooner and Tucker. There's a great recent speech about this by Roderick Long that you may have heard or read:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.mises.org/story/2099">www.mises.org/story/2099</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>Here's a couple of interesting citations from Long that might interest RI's state socialists. Long concluded with a quote from Brad Spangler:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Genuine libertarianism is very much left wing. It's revolutionary. The long and tragic alliance of libertarians with the right against the spectre of state socialism is coming to a close, as it served no purpose after the fall of the Soviet Union and so-called "conservatives" have subsequently taken to letting their true big-government-on-steroids colors fly…. In the period since the demise of the Soviet Union, both the radicals and moderates among the left have been subconsciously seeking a new radical creed to orient themselves upon to replace Marxism…. I believe that radical libertarians … will be most effective when they overcome any lingering right wing cultural contamination of their libertarian views and embrace their inherent radicalism — which is most at home on the left. For as the radicals go, so do the moderates grudgingly follow in small steps…. It's time for libertarians to stop fighting the left and take up the challenge of leading the left.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Here's a quote from Tucker that Long cites concerning Herbert Spencer's late shift to allying with the right's opposition to increasingly statist socialism:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Liberty [magazine] welcomes and criticises in the same breath the series of papers by Herbert Spencer on "The New Toryism"…. They are very true, very important, and very misleading…. I begin to be a little suspicious of him. It seems as if he had forgotten the teachings of his earlier writings, and had become a champion of the capitalistic class. It will be noticed that in these later articles, amid his multitudinous illustrations … of the evils of legislation, he in every instance cites some law passed, ostensibly at least, to protect labor, alleviate suffering, or promote the people's welfare. He demonstrates beyond dispute the lamentable failure in this direction. But never once does he call attention to the far more deadly and deep-seated evils growing out of the innumerable laws creating privilege and sustaining monopoly. You must not protect the weak against the strong, he seems to say, but freely supply all the weapons needed by the strong to oppress the weak. He 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?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>What about the rich laws? Indeed. This is what the word "libertarian" called into question 150 years ago and there's no reason why it shouldn't again. <p></p><i></i>