Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Entries by Roderick T. Long
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Happy Birthday, Herbert Spencer
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Today marks the birthday of Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820---8 December 1903), a thinker whose contributions to philosophy, biology, psychology, sociology, and political theory earned him the status of required reading in most universities a century ago. Today he is largely forgotten -- except in ludicrously inaccurate caricature as a "Social Darwinist" who supposedly advocated letting the poor and weak die off in order to improve the breed. (Nope, he never said it.) These days most of Spencer's works are out of print; no historic plaque marks his London residence (38 Queen's Gardens, just north of Kensington Gardens; I paid my respects there last May), and his grave is overgrown and neglected. Happily, however, interest in Spencer seems to be reviving of late.
Spencer was one of the last stalwarts of classical liberalism, holding up the banner of peace and freedom, and inveighing against regimentation and the régime of status, long after the liberal mainstream had sold out to collectivism and militarist imperialism. After working as a railroad engineer and an editor at The Economist, Spencer devoted the rest of his life to developing, over the course of many volumes, an integrated and systematic theory of life and society. His political philosophy (which I summarize in Herbert Spencer: Libertarian Prophet) anticipated -- and influenced -- much of contemporary libertarian thought. Likewise, his theories of spontaneous social order, pattern-perception, and the self-defeating character of direct utilitarianism anticipate the work of Friedrich Hayek; his evolutionary cosmology anticipates that of astrophysicist David Layzer and chemist Ilya Prigogine; his writings on the relation between statism, militarism, and male supremacy anticipate the insights of radical feminism; and his pre-Darwinian (1852) critique of creationism could have been written yesterday.
One of Spencer's contemporaries described him as a "prophet whose greatest discoveries can only be duly appreciated after two or three centuries." Let’s hope we can accelerate that process a bit. (For a list of online works by and about Spencer, click here.)
Monday, April 18, 2005
Molinari Society 2005 - Call for Abstracts
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
The Molinari Society will be hosting its second symposium in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in New York City, December 27-30, 2005. We plan a two-hour session, with two papers, and hereby solicit abstracts on the general topic of "Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin." Papers should address the general question of whether libertarianism should be thick or thin ("thin" libertarianism is libertarianism understood as a narrowly political doctrine, while "thick" libertarianism is libertarianism understood as essentially integrated into some broader set of social or cultural values) and may (but need not) also address the connection between libertarianism and some specific position or set of positions (environmentalism, left-anarchism, Aristotelianism, feminism, egalitarianism, Christianity, secular humanism, the labor movement, etc.).
Send abstracts to Roderick T. Long at:
BerserkRL@gmail.com
(Those interested in being a commentator at the session should do likewise.)
Deadline for receiving abstracts: 5 May 2005
Notification of acceptance / rejection: 15 May 2005
Accepted papers due: 1 November 2005
Sunday, April 17, 2005
JLS 19.1 advenit
The latest issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies -- and the first one to appear under my editorship -- is out. See the contents summary here.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Rock Me Ludwig
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
At the last Austrian Scholars Conference several of the faculty, including myself, were brutally conscripted into performing a musical skit based on the songs that Ludwig von Mises and the other members of the Mises Circle back in 1920s Vienna used to sing at dinner after meetings of Mises' Privatseminar. (The lyrics were written by philosopher Felix Kaufmann, a member of both the Mises and Vienna Circles.)
For this performance Jeff Tucker actually did most of the singing while we drank wine, scarfed down chocolate creams, and read our lines off notes. Guido Hülsmann played Mises (appropriately, since in the songs Mises is about to abandon Vienna for Geneva, just as in real life Guido is abandoning Auburn, the Vienna of the South, for Angers); Walter Block played Hayek ('cause you need a moderate to play a moderate …); and so on. I was cast as the villainous Hans Mayer, a follower of Max Weber who later ditched Austrian economics for National Socialism.
This painfully unrehearsed performance is now available in online video format. Don't say I didn’t warn you.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
JARS Fell on Alabama
Bettina Bien Greaves has a review of the latest issue of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (a symposium issue on Rand and the Austrians which includes contributions by L&P-er Steve Horwitz as well as your humble correspondent) on the Mises Institute site.
1. Can you believe I'm posting this before Chris did? He's getting slow .... :-)
2. Looks like Greaves has already received her copy. How come I haven't gotten my copy? >:-(
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Moscow Bound
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Moscow, Idaho, that is. I'm off to the Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference to deliver a paper on how to reconcile the fact that past and future selves cannot differ in their properties with the fact that some of the properties of future selves are not yet determined. (See the abstract here.) Back Monday!
In the meantime, those wanting something to grumble about can read of anarchists for conscription and Randians for genocide.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Because The World Is Round It Turns Me On
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
In the past I've griped about Jared Diamond's excessively deterministic approach to the influence of geography on history. Today Gene Callahan tackles the same subject, from a Collingwoodian/Misesian/Oakeshottian perspective, in The Diamond Fallacy.
To Gene's excellent article I just want to append some quotations -- two from Collingwood and two from Mises:
It is not nature as such and in itself (where nature means the natural environment) that turns man's energies here in one direction, there in another: it is what man makes of nature by his enterprise, his dexterity, his ingenuity, or his lack of these things. The 'unplumbed, salt, estranging sea', as a nineteenth-century poet called it, echoing with some servility this eighteenth-century conception, estranges only those people who have not learned to sail on it. When they have discovered the art of navigation, and become reasonably skilled mariners, the sea no longer estranges, it unites. It ceases to be an obstacle, it becomes a highway. Beset with danger, no doubt …. but no human being has ever put safety first and stayed at home if he thought, as who has ever not thought? that something he wanted was waiting for him at the other end of the road. And if he did, it would still be his thought about the dangers, not the dangers themselves, that kept him at home.For more on the Collingwood/Mises connection, see my essay R. G. Collingwood: Historicist or Praxeologist?.
(Collingwood, Principles of History, pp. 93-4)
When people … speak (as … Montesquieu, for example, did) of the influence of geography or climate on history, they are mistaking the effect of a certain person's or people's conception of nature on their actions for an effect of nature itself. The fact that certain people live, for example, on an island has in itself no effect on their history; what has an effect is the way they conceive that insular position; whether for example they regard the sea as a barrier or as a highway to traffic. Had it been otherwise, their insular position, being a constant fact, would have produced a constant effect on their historical life; whereas it will produce one effect if they have not mastered the art of navigation, a different effect if they have mastered it better than their neighbours, a third if they have mastered it worse than their neighbours, and a fourth if every one uses aeroplanes.
(Collingwood, The Idea of History, p. 200)
The geographical interpretation of history failed to recognize [that t]he environment works only through the medium of the human mind. … The natural conditions which render skiing a very useful means for traveling were present both in Scandinavia and in the Alps. But the Scandinavians invented the skis, whereas the inhabitants of the Alps did not. For hundreds, nay thousands of years these peasants were closeted during the long winter months in their mountain homes and looked longingly upon the inaccessible villages down in the valleys and upon the unapproachable homesteads of their fellow farmers. But this desire did not activate their inventive spirit. … Different men and the same men at different times respond in a different way to the same stimuli.
(Mises, Money, Method, and the Market Process, p. 290)
To say that man reacts to stimuli and adjusts himself to the conditions of his environment does not provide a satisfactory answer. To the stimulus offered by the English Channel some people have reacted by staying at home; others have crossed it in rowboats, sailing ships, steamers, or, in modern times simply by swimming. Some fly over it in planes; others design schemes for tunneling under it.
(Mises, Theory and History, p. 245)
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Update With Croutons
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Yesterday was the Ides of March. I celebrated by polishing off a Caesar salad.
I'll be at the Austrian Scholars Conference this week, giving a paper on corporate social responsibility and appearing on a panel of Austrians-with-websites. Jeff Tucker also threatens to conscript me into something called "Mises: The Musical" -- what that is about remains to be seen (or, um, heard).
For those who missed Gary Galles' Mises Daily article on Molinari’s birthday, go un-miss it!
Two relatively new blogs worth reading are Kevin Carson’s and
David Hart’s. Clicke, lege.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
State-Nicknamecraft as Soulcraft
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Did you realize that the state of Alabama has no nickname?
No official nickname, that is. It's sometimes been called the Yellowhammer State, the Cotton State, or the Heart of Dixie, but apparently none of those ever received the approval of our elected Solons. (No doubt it's been called other things as well. I note that under medieval Icelandic law, it was illegal to call someone by a nickname he didn't like.)
Anyway, after years of languishing in forlorn nicknamelessness, some Alabamians have decided to start a political crusade to get the state a nickname. I gather there's a bill being sponsored in the state legislature; I haven't followed the story very closely. But my eye was caught by the latest manifesto on the subject, a letter by John S. Lucas IV in the March 9th Opelika-Auburn News. I hereby quote an excerpt. Note: I am not making this up.
It is my opinion that a colorful, clever and politically sensitive moniker can have a far-reaching impact on the collective psyche of this state's inhabitants. A proper nickname may actually serve as a means to unite Alabamians -- solidifying a common ground of state brotherhood as Alabamians encounter each other out of state.At first I thought (hoped?) the author was being satirical, but no such luck. (By the way, the author's suggestion was "the Rocketing River State." I'm not making that up either. No, there's no Rocketing River in Alabama, but we do have rockets in Huntsville, and rivers passim.)
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Gee Whizardry
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Congratulations to my colleague Nels Madsen for his Academy Award for Technical Achievement. Nels, an Auburn professor of mechanical engineering who co-teaches an interdisciplinary science-and-humanities course with me, worked on the motion-capture system used in Lord of the Rings (particularly for Gollum) and Polar Express, as well as the upcoming King Kong and Chronicles of Narnia.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
The Strange Jurisprudence of Ward Churchill
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Last night I watched the embattled Ward Churchill on C-span. I give his performance a mixed review. His speech was a rousing blend of insight and obfuscation; he made many points that desperately needed making, yet his tone often savoured overmuch of Richard Mitchell's bewildered priest, justly condemning his opponents for selective outrage while engaging in complementary selective outrage of his own. Churchill also did a fair job of rebutting some of the more hysterical interpretations of his original article (though even on a charitable reading he's still guilty of collectivist confusion), and I was pleased to hear Native American libertarian activist Russell Means get a name check. But Churchill quickly lost credibility during Q&A, thanks to his bullying attitude toward dissenting audience members.
The most interesting point in the evening, however, came when one audience member asked Churchill how he could reconcile his claim to First Amendment protection for his controversial views with his position that Columbus Day celebrations should be banned. Part of Churchill's answer was that no one has a right to celebrate or downplay something as evil as the North American genocide that Columbus inaugurated.
The extent to which this response plays into the hands of Churchill's own critics is ironic, but not my present concern; the fact that Churchill's support for free speech is selective, while regrettable, isn't especially surprising or unusual either. (As for his take on Columbus, he has a point -- though, characteristically, an exaggerated one.)
What is unusual (or new to me, anyway) is the Constitutional argument Churchill offered for his position. He claimed that the First Amendment right to march in commemoration of Columbus Day is overridden by the Ninth Amendment right of Native Americans not to be subjected to celebrations of their ancestors' subjugation.
Now I'm always happy to see the oft-neglected Ninth Amendment actually getting remembered. (Churchill asked the audience whether anyone could recall what the Ninth Amendment says. Nobody could. One audience member gave it a stab but ended up paraphrasing the Tenth Amendment instead. For the record, the Ninth Amendment reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It was included to meet the concerns of those like Alexander Hamilton who worried, presciently in the event, that a Bill of Rights might encourage future interpreters to suppose that any rights not specifically listed as protected has been surrendered.) But Churchill's invocation of the Ninth Amendment embodies a novel twist.
Churchill evidently reads the Ninth Amendment as acknowledging not merely rights in addition to those enumerated, but rights contradicting and overriding those enumerated. This is the looniest interpretation of the Bill of Rights since the Clinton administration's claim that the Second Amendment protects only the Federal government's right to bear arms (an interpretation so ludicrous that even the most extreme gun-control advocates were seemingly embarrassed to embrace it). It would appear that for Churchill the Ninth Amendment means: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed as actually endorsing any of the rights enumerated."
Does Churchill really find his bizarre interpretation plausible, or is he simply employing a cynical stratagem of power politics? Either way, it doesn't speak much in his favour. Still, given the mass-murderers who currently run our country I can't get too excited about Ward Churchill’s sins. Plus he was more entertaining than Bill O'Reilly, and probably uttered a higher percentage of true statements; if he had a regular show I reckon I'd watch it. No danger of that in Bush's America though.
Sunday, February 6, 2005
The Virtue of "Selfishness"
Chris mentions Rand's effort to reclaim terms like "selfishness" and "recast them in a new and nondualistic framework."
Although, as I mentioned, I tend to avoid using the term "selfishness," I make a case both for and against Rand's usage here:
http://praxeology.net/unblog11-02.htm#ego
Friday, February 4, 2005
18.4 + 41
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
The newest issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies -- vol. 18, no. 4 -- is devoted to the interconnections between militarism abroad and plutocracy at home, and ranges from the Treaty of Westphalia to the sociology of William Graham Sumner; I summarise the contents here.
In other news, I turn 41 today.
Thursday, February 3, 2005
One More
Here's the link I tried to post earlier, to my own Rand centenary notice:
http://mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1738
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Does the Bill of Rights Apply to Iraq?
With regard to David's post below, here's an excerpt from my blog from July 2003.
U. S. forces haven't been able to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq yet, but when it comes to weapons of individual self-defense it's another story.
Most readers of this web journal will understand why the U. S. military's imposition of Nazi-style gun control on Iraq is evil -- arguably even more evil, in terms of consequences at least, than gun control in America. (If you and your family were civilians living in the chaos of postwar Iraq, wouldn’t you have an unusually pressing need for a gun?) I want to raise a different question: is it constitutional?
The Second Amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Since Article VI establishes the Constitution as "the supreme law of the land," every branch and department of the U. S. government is bound by the Second Amendment, including the military.
But does this language protect civilian gun owners in Iraq? After all, "the people" referred to in the Second Amendment are surely the American people, not the human race generally.
Iraqi gun owners are obviously not American citizens. But a case could be made that they are nevertheless part of the American "people" in the constitutional meaning of that term For they are, after all, people under the jurisdiction of the U. S. government.
Should the phrase "the people" then be interpreted narrowly, to mean American citizens only, or broadly, to mean anyone under the jurisdiction of the U. S. government? I am persuaded by Lysander Spooner's arguments in The Unconstitutionality of Slavery that constitutional ambiguities should always be resolved in whichever direction is most consistent with natural justice, so that "all reasonable doubts must be decided in favor of liberty." As he notes in Chapter 17:It is a universal rule of courts, that where justice will be promoted by taking a word in the most comprehensive sense in which it can be taken consistently with the rest of the instrument, it must be taken in that sense, in order that as much justice as possible may be accomplished. On the other hand, where a word is unfavorable to justice, it must be taken in its most restricted sense, in order that as little injustice as possible may be accomplished.A prohibition on infringing the rights of anyone subject to U. S. jurisdiction is certainly more favourable to liberty and justice than a ban on infringing the rights of U. S. citizens only; hence the former interpretation, resting on a "more comprehensive sense" of the phrase "the people," is to be preferred.
Even if this reasoning should be rejected, however, there are other arguments against the constitutionality of the U. S. campaign to disarm the Iraqi citizenry. Here's one: according to the Second Amendment, an armed citizenry (which is what "militia" means in 18th-century English) is "necessary to the security of a free state." So, by the standard endorsed by the Constitution, what is the condition of a state that has been deprived of this necessary condition? Obviously it must be an unfree state -- a slave state. But the Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery "within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction" – including Iraq. (Nor will it do to protest that the Thirteenth Amendment means to outlaw only chattel slavery; the wording specifies that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" shall be permitted, thus ruling out a narrow reading. The condition of a disarmed populace is certainly one of involuntary servitude.)
Second, whether or not the Constitution contains a specific prohibition on the imposition of gun control on a noncitizen populace, there is arguably a general prohibition to the same effect. The Tenth Amendment denies to the U. S. government all powers beyond those granted. Where in the Constitution is the U. S government granted the power to infringe the right of noncitizens to bear arms?
The answer, I may be told, is in Article IV, section 3: "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." Well, what does this mean? Should it be interpreted narrowly, to mean simply that such territory falls under the authority of Congress (rather than, say, of the President)? Under that reading, the provision concerns the apportioning rather than the expansion of authority. Or should it be interpreted broadly, to mean that the Congress is granted an unrestrained and arbitrary power to bind such territory in whatever manner it pleases? Under that reading, the bill would be a grant of despotical power. To quote Spooner once more:
[W]here words are susceptible of two meanings, one consistent, and the other inconsistent, with justice and natural right, that meaning, and only that meaning, which is consistent with right, shall be attributed to them, unless other parts of the instrument overrule that interpretation.Hence we are under no obligation to give Article IV, section 3, a liberticide construction.
Operation Iraqi Enslavement is unconstitutional. What are the implications of this finding? First, President Bush is in violation of his oath of office (again) and deserves immediate impeachment (still). Second, military personnel who implement Bush's gun ban are carrying out illegal orders, and so are legally obligated to cease and desist immediately.
Finally, to pass from the constitutional level to the level of policy analysis: Saddam Hussein was by all accounts a brutal dictator, yet he apparently felt no need to render the Iraqi populace defenseless by disarming them. What fate must George Bush have in store for them, if he feels that need? ...
As the mainstream political spectrum stands, those most enthusiastic about the First Amendment are often those least enthusiastic about the Second, and vice versa. In practice, however, governments that suppress either one of these freedoms usually turn out to suppress the other as well. In my previous post, I discussed the U. S. military's current policy of disarming civilians in Iraq. Today, in the August 2003 issue of Liberty (Alan W. Bock, "Free to Obey," p. 10), I learn that the Coalition Provisional Authority is laying down a "code of conduct" for the Iraqi media. According to Coalition spokesgoons, the code is necessary to "stifle intemperate speech that could incite violence and hinder efforts to build a civil society." In newly liberated Iraq, there's "no room for hateful and destabilizing messages that will destroy the emerging Iraqi democracy. All media outlets must be responsible."
Is this legal? Not under natural law, obviously. But I don’t think it's legal under U. S. law either. Despite talk of a "Coalition" Authority, Iraq is effectively under U. S. rule. It follows, according to the Constitution, that Iraq is under the authority of Congress: "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." (Article IV, section 3) So if censorship is being imposed on Iraq, by what authority is this being done? Not by extra-Congressional authority, because no extra-Congressional entity has any legal authority over Iraq; the Constitution places the relevant authority squarely in Congressional hands. And not by Congressional authority either, because, as the First Amendment stipulates, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." (Note that the First Amendment does not say: "abridging American citizens' freedom of speech or of the press"; the prohibition is quite unrestricted.) Under the Constitution, U.S.-imposed censorship in Iraq could be authorised only by act of Congress; and under the Constitution, censorship is something that Congress is expressly forbidden to authorise.
So long as the Iraqi people are under U. S. rule, they are entitled to receive the full protection of both the First and the Second Amendments.
Don't hold your breath, though.
Don't hold your breath waiting for American citizens to receive the full protection of those Amendments either, of course. Still, the courts do throw us a scrap or two of protection in the name of the First and Second Amendments. What our rulers are doing to the Iraqi people is a good indication of what they would be doing to us, were it not for the few remaining shreds of liberty that the courts are willing to uphold.
Why aren't liberals complaining about U. S.-imposed censorship in Iraq? Why aren't conservatives complaining about U. S.-imposed gun control in Iraq? Wasn't this war supposed to be about bringing freedom to the Iraqi people? Doesn't the Bill of Rights define what the United States means by "freedom"?
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Free At Last
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
All hail George W. Bush, the Liberator!
During his deification inaugural address today, our Prince President announced: "America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling."
Well, golly. As an anarchist, I'm one of the unwilling. And finally, an American President has promised that the American government will stop imposing itself on me, as well as on all similarly unwilling persons!
In short, the American state has peacefully withered away, and a purely voluntary association now stands in its place. This has got to be the best second term ever.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Re: Apology Accepted. Apology Extended
I would like in turn to thank Wendy McElroy for her gracious reception of our apology, as well as for her own counter-apology, which I am likewise very happy to accept. I am proud to count her as a colleague, and relieved that any bad feelings have been avoided or amended.
In my earlier agitated frame of mind I neglected to say -- I am also sorry to hear about Joan Kennedy Taylor's poor health. My best wishes are with her.
Second Response to Wendy McElroy
While we continue to be puzzled by Wendy McElroy's interpretation of our paper as a charge of homophobia against her and Joan Kennedy Taylor, a charge we most emphatically had no intention of making and do not regard anything we said in our paper as plausibly embodying, we are certainly eager to avoid contributing even slightly or inadvertently to promoting any such impression regarding two writers for whose work we have considerable respect and admiration despite our various theoretical disagreements.
Accordingly, the latest public draft of the essay uses the term 'Radical Menace' rather than the analogical use of the term 'Lavender Menace,' and adds an explanatory footnote, in order to avoid the possibility of unintentional misunderstandings.
We apologize for any misunderstanding generated by our earlier terminology.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Response to Wendy McElroy
I've posted the following in in the comments section but I want to put it here too:
=====================================
I'm dismayed and mortified to see that our piece is being interpreted as a personal attack and/or accusation of homophobia against Wendy McElroy and Joan Kennedy Taylor, two thinkers for whom Charles and I both have enormous respect. Our criticism of some of their ideas was certainly not intended as a personal attack on either. "Lavender Menace rhetoric" was never intended by us as a code word for homophobia.
The phrase is explictly introduced in our paper to pick out the rhetorical strategy of "[dividing] the feminist world ... into the 'reasonable' (that is, unthreatening) feminists and the feminists who are 'hysterical' or 'man-hating' (so, presumably, not worthy of rational response)." This strategy we chose to call, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the "Lavender Menace" approach. We also said explicitly that McElroy and Taylor show "considerably more understanding of, and sympathy with, classical feminist concerns than the anti-feminists who employ this strategy" -- in other words, we were not atempting to lump them in with anti-feminists or lesbian-baiters, but merely pointing to ways in which we thought their approach made unfortunate concessions to that enemy.
I had been looking forward to seeing Wendy's comments on our piece, and while I expected disagreement, it never occurred to me that she would take it as a personal attack. The culture of personal attack on the internet is one of my chief betes noires, and I would never willingly contribute to it. (In my defense I'll note that of the others who've posted here agreeing or disagreeing, no one else raised such an interpretation either.) Wendy, please believe me that no such attack was intended; I'll make sure the paper is emended or footnoted to forestall any further such interpretation.
=====================================
See also Charles' comments here.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Reclaiming Libertarian Feminism's Radical Legacy
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
(Apologies to Chris Sciabarra for this post's title.)
The paper that Charles and I presented at the APA is already stirring up controversy -- even among folks who haven't had a chance to read it yet!
But now the latest draft of Libertarian Feminism: Can This Marriage Be Saved? is available online.
"Back to the 19th century!" doesn't sound promising as a feminist slogan; but for those seeking to close the gap that currently exists between feminism and libertarianism, we argue that the 19th century is the place to look. We also argue that, in many ways, the natural complement to libertarianism is not mainstream liberal feminism but the radical feminism often maligned as "gender feminism." Check it out!
Saturday, January 1, 2005
Incipit MMV
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
On September 14, 2001, three days after the destruction of the World Trade Towers, economist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that "the terror attack could even do some economic good. Now, all of a sudden, we need some new office buildings. ... Rebuilding will generate at least some increase in business spending."
And now -- on December 29, 2004 -- C. Fred Bergsten of the Institute for International Economics has opined on NPR's Morning Edition that the recent catastrophic tsunami in South Asia -- which by the latest estimates has killed fifty times as many people as the 9/11 attacks -- will bring economic benefits to the countries affected:
Like any disaster, you get negative effects through destroying existing property and people's health, but you do get a burst of new economic activity to replace them, and on balance, that generally turns out to be quite positive.(Conical hat tip to Christopher Westley for the Bergsten quote.)
Over time, properties that have been destroyed will be fully replaced, and probably by better and newer substitutes, so at the end of the reconstruction process, the countries will probably be wealthier.
If it weren't a violation of the nonaggression axiom, I'd be tempted to favour requiring, at gunpoint, anyone who seeks to pontificate on economic subjects to first read Frédéric Bastiat's essay What Is Seen and What is Not Seen (along with Henry Hazlitt's elaboration thereon). It's bad enough when people fall for the Broken Window Fallacy in one of its comparatively subtle forms, as in the arguments for protectionism, public works, wartime prosperity, or Keynesian macro policy; but when distinguished "experts" happily swallow it in the blatant and naked form of that very absurdum to which Bastiat and Hazlitt sought to reduce the subtler versions, some sort of public shaming seems called for.
For me the case is not primarily strategic, since I'm far more in inherent sympathy with the left's economic and cultural concerns than most libertarians are (and part of the point our panel were making in Boston is that libertarians have done too little justice to such concerns); but it certainly is at least strategic. The statist right, which now controls the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and much of the media, is, as Lew rightly observes, "the most pressing and urgent threat to freedom that we face in our time," and it's in the interest of libertarians to build bridges with the left, who have been "solid on civil liberties" (at least by comparison) and "crucial in drawing attention to the lies and abuses of the Bush administration."
While there are, admittedly, plenty of authoritarian types on the left (as everywhere else), there are also plenty of people whose instincts are firmly anti-authoritarian but who have been lured into supporting state socialism because it's been sold to them as the only effective counterweight to state capitalism. These leftists are our potential allies, but no alliance will be forthcoming so long as we continue to confirm most leftists' impression of libertarianism as a variant of conservatism.
As I've written elsewhere:
The 1960s, too, were a time of political confusion, cultural conflict, ideological disappointment, and an unpopular war; but back then, libertarian scholars were a tiny remnant, much of their output confined to mimeographed broadsides of small circulation, and so were unable to take full advantage of the opportunities for libertarian education that such a situation offered. Today our numbers are rapidly growing, and our potential audience is as wide as the internet.This time around, we are much better positioned to make a success of the left/libertarian coalition that Murray Rothbard, Karl Hess, Leonard Liggio, and others sought to build four decades ago. Let's get to work!
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Boston Anarchist Thinking Brigade
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
A reminder to anyone who's planning to attend the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division meetings in Boston (home of Samuel Adams and Benjamin Tucker!) this coming week: the Molinari Society will be holding its first symposium from 2:00 to 5:00 on Tuesday, December 28th. The topic is "Libertarianism and Feminism"; the scheduled presenters are Jennifer McKitrick (University of Nebraska - Lincoln) on "Liberty, Gender, and the Family"; Elizabeth Brake (University of Calgary) on "Free Love, Marriage, and Individual Sovereignty: From Stephen Pearl Andrews to Laura Kipnis"; and Charles Johnson (Molinari Institute) and myself on "Libertarian Feminism: Can This Marriage Be Saved?"
There are other libertarian sessions on offer that same day -- John Hasnas and Aeon Skoble on Hayek from 9:00 to 11:00, and then from 11:15-1:15 a choice of either Jan Narveson (inter alia) on economic justice or Doug Rasmussen on Rand. (See the full program for details.) So the hardiest souls can enjoy seven hours, nearly uninterrupted, of libertarian philosophy. (I fear I can't muster up such hardihood myself; I'll be at the 9:00 panel, which I'm chairing, and the 2:00 panel, which I'm on, but I doubt I'll have sufficient endurance to take in an 11:15 session as well. That's no excuse for you, however.)
Merry Krishna to all!
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Tussling With Tidwell
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
No, not Cameron Tidwell! I’m talking about Rudy Tidwell, a theocratic columnist for the local paper. (See my previous gripe about one of his columns.) I usually try to avoid reading him, so as to maintain my serenity, but I succumbed a couple of times recently; the fruits of my weakness follow:
My December 5th letter to the Opelika-Auburn News (not published):
To the Editor:My December 18th letter to the Opelika-Auburn News (published today):
Rudy Tidwell (Dec. 5) objects to hearing members of the anti-homosexual lobby called "homophobic," since, he says, this term falsely implies that they have a "persistent, abnormal, or irrational fear" of homosexuals.
Well, the anti-homosexual lobby has been loudly proclaiming for some time that allowing gays to marry would somehow, inexplicably, lead to the destruction of the institution of marriage, and thereby to the destruction of civilisation itself. In addition, Senator Rick Santorum has stated that legalising homosexuality will also lead to the legalisation of child abuse. Then of course there's Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who claim that American gays have provoked God into sending hurricanes and terrorist attacks toward the United States.
Gee, sounds like "persistent, abnormal, or irrational fear" of homosexuals to me.
Roderick T. Long
To the Editor:I thought the one they didn't print was a bit more important than the one they printed, but who can fathom the ways of the Opelika-Auburn News?
Last February, in the pages of the Opelika-Auburn News, Rudy Tidwell attacked the poem "Invictus" (and insulted its author) for expressing the viewpoint "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Mr. Tidwell called such a viewpoint "the essence of sin." (I remember because you published my response on Feb. 22.)
In today's column Mr. Tidwell praises the poem "The Winds of Fate" (which he incidentally misattributes to the infamous Henry Ward Beecher; it is actually by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850-1915) for expressing substantially the same viewpoint -- that it is "the set of a soul" and not the winds of circumstance that determine our fate.
I'm glad to see that Mr. Tidwell has changed his mind.
Roderick T. Long
Monday, December 13, 2004
Submission is Ecstasy
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
I'm pleased to announce that, starting next year, I’ll be assuming the editorship of the Journal of Libertarian Studies. For details, see the full announcement.
As I note there, since "scholarship progresses through civil but vigorous debate, not through confinement in an echo chamber," as incoming editor of the JLS I "enthusiastically solicit contributions from across the ideological spectrum, both within and beyond the libertarian movement." If you’re writing a scholarly article that bears on libertarian thought, please consider submitting it to the JLS. Submit, submit!
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Goodbye and Good Riddance
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
I'm tempted to cheer Tom Ridge's departure. Problem is, I cheered when Janet Reno left, and they replaced her with John Ashcroft; then I cheered when Ashcroft left, and they're replacing him with Torture Bertie. So there's no reason to think Mr. Panic Button's replacement is going to be any sort of improvement. Still I can say this much: I won't miss Ridge. Not even a little bit.
When Good Texans Do Bad Things
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Don't miss a great LRC piece by Jeff Tucker today on The Glories and Pathologies of Texocentrism.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Fiery Braille?
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Do you have a "pre-9/11 mindset"? I do! For some reasons why that might not be such a bad thing, see my article on LRC today.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
L&P-ers in RAE
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
The latest issue of the Review of Austrian Economics is out this week; this one features an article by L&P-er Steven Horwitz on the Misesian microfoundations of Hayekian social order; Steven's review of L&P-er Chris Sciabarra's Total Freedom; and my own article offering a Wittgensteinian defense of Misesian methodology. Tolle, lege.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Better Dead Than Opiated
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
If you think the War on Drugs is a threat to freedom in the U.S., wait till you see what it means for Afghanistan.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
The Open-Source Society and Its Enemies
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Microsoft is apparently now attempting to use patent law as a club against open-source competitors like Linux, as well as against the basic protocols of the internet itself; see the story here.
Anyone still think intellectual property laws are something other than pure evil?
Écrasez l’infâme!
Science and Skepticism
[cross-posted at Mises Blog]
Philosopher John Searle has recently argued that the progress of empirical science has now made possible a "new kind of philosophy" no longer beset by the skeptical doubts that worried Descartes and Hume. I agree that philosophers needn't be troubled by such skeptical doubts, but I don't think the case against skepticism depends in any way on the progress of empirical science; on the contrary, we can take empirical science seriously in the first place only because we already have grounds for rejecting skepticism. See my discussion, which also touches on such topics as praxeology and socialist calculation, here.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Tough Love at 50,000 Volts
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
We're all a little bit safer now that cops in Miami are using Taser stun guns to protect us from children as young as six. Most recently, a twelve-year-old girl was immobilised with a 50,000-volt zap to her neck and lower back, in order to prevent her from ... um ... playing hooky from school.
Well, it's about time these menaces to public safety got what they deserve! (I mean the kids, of course.)
So remember, kiddies, the policeman is your friend ....
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Rednecks or Greenbacks?
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire and Mises Blog]
An interesting economic demographic from Charles Johnson: contrary to much Democratic hand-wringing and Republican gloating, it appears that Kerry won the working-class vote, even in the red states; and the wealthier a voter was, the likelier she apparently was to vote for Bush. Degree of economic benefit from the existing system may thus be a better predictor of Bush support than fundamentalist religious convictions are (though I agree with Chris Sciabarra that the religious issues are relevant).
In other words: perhaps "it's the plutocracy, stupid!" After all, it's the economic élite who have traditionally been the chief boosters of the corporatist-imperialist state. (See, e.g., Roy Childs' Big Business and the Rise of American Statism; Walter Grinder and John Hagel's Toward a Theory of State Capitalism; Chris Sciabarra's Understanding the Global Crisis; Joseph Stromberg's Political Economy of Liberal Corporativism and The Role of State Monopoly Capitalism in the American Empire; and Kevin Carson's Austrian and Marxist Theories of Monopoly Capital.)
Tuesday, November 9, 2004
Exit Strategy
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
My recent posts on secession have generated some commentary over at Mises Blog; see here, here, and here.
Anarchy Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
As a follow-up to my earlier post on the disenfranchisement of the world under American hegemony, check out this site. (Thanks to Cameron for the link.)
Telling the world "sorry" is fine, but what next? Most of the opponents of our Prince President don't fundamentally question the electoral system itself. They've been taught that the only alternatives to "democracy" (and by "democracy" they mean this ritual whereby the populace gets to pick between two marginally different doofuses every four years) are various forms of dictatorship. Few of them yet recognise that there are -- to put it somewhat paradoxically -- forms of political order more democratic than "democracy." As long as the "other 49%" still accept the basic legitimacy of the electoral system, their expressions of regret, however sincerely meant (and I do appreciate the "Sorry, Everybody" site -- particularly as a counter to the prevailing international tendency to view the entire American populace through the lens of that blood-red electoral map), will ring objectively hollow.
Herbert Spencer argued for the citizen's right to ignore the state. Now that "democracy" apparently means that 51% of the American electorate gets to rule the other 49%, plus the rest of the planet, what the world most urgently needs is the right to ignore the United States.
Monday, November 8, 2004
Anarquismo!
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire and Mises Blog]
My Mises U. talk on objections to anarchism has been translated into Spanish by Larry Nieves and is posted over at El Liberal Venezolano. I don't read Spanish well enough to understand the translation, but there it is.
Friday, November 5, 2004
Most Likely to Secede
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
In my previous post on secession and the red/blue divide, I forgot to include a link to Secession.net. This is a worthy outfit whose goals include the following:
Legitimatize Secession of Small Political Entities: the United Nations and human rights organizations give lip service support to autonomy and self-determination movements; we promote factual and moral arguments for the right of individuals, communities large and small, and national sub-groups to seek independence.Of course there are also many relevant articles in back issues of Formulations.
Promote Nonviolent, Libertarian and Decentralist Political Visions: ones that will replace centralized, authoritarian economic-political institutions and offer concrete nonviolent strategies for achieving true peace, freedom, justice and prosperity.
Influence Existing Secessionist Movements: too many movements want to replace one big, centralized authoritarian state with two or more smaller ones. Only a worldwide movement promoting the radical goals of freedom for individuals and communities can legitimatize the aspirations of hundreds of suppressed national and regional groups for freedom.
Promote New Secession Movements: billions of people are ready for radical decentralist alternatives and secessionist strategy, they just need a firmer philosophical basis and a little encouragement to begin organizing their own movements.
Network among these Movements to coordinate nonviolent secessionist strategies and tactics.
Causes Which Impel
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
As the blood-red electoral tide oozed across the map of America's heartland, many in the blue states were starting to think about secession (see, e.g., here and here). Most such talk has been meant as a joke, but it might be worth taking more seriously. As I've suggested before (see here, here, and here), secession is an attractive solution to problems ranging from terrorism to anti-gay laws. The blue states certainly have the population and the economic might to make a go of it on their own; and the division in the country is so strong right now that people who ordinarily wouldn't consider secession as a serious option might now be more willing to give it a listen. Plus, a successful secession by the blue states would make it easier for black (i.e., anarchist) and sea-green (i.e., libertarian) regions to secede from them. And even an unsuccessful secession campaign would at least give issues of consent, sovereignty, and legitimacy a much-needed airing. So in Rothbard's words: "U. S. Out of the Bronx!" (For a general discussion of secession see David Gordon's anthology Secession, State, and Liberty.)
Chuck Munson objects that secession advocates would be abandoning anti-Bush residents of the red states: "If we want to change minds of the folks living in Bush Country, we should support progressives, radicals, and anarchists living and agitating out here." As a resident of an extremely red state myself, I have no eagerness to be abandoned either; but secession need not equal abandonment. Before the Civil War, many abolitionists favoured secession by the North in order to end the covenant with death and agreement with hell represented by the Constitution's fugitive slave clause. But they certainly didn’t intend thereby to abandon the slaves; on the contrary, they expected to be able to combat Southern slavery better from outside the Union than from within it. I expect that political activists in seceding blue states would likewise continue to seek influence over events in the Union, just as Europeans tried (unsuccessfully, alas) to influence this past election. (By the way, when Americans complain that Europeans have no business telling Americans how to vote, they seem to be forgetting -- even leaving aside considerations of humani nihil a me alienum puto -- that the United States is rapidly transforming itself into a world government, and that other countries have accordingly as good grounds for lamenting their lack of representation in American politics as American colonists in 1776 had for lamenting their lack of representation in the British Parliament.)
For those who still find talk of secession far-fetched, Charles Johnson makes a good case for a less extreme form of activism: trying to get referenda on the ballot. Charles writes:
Nearly half of the states in this country empower you and [me] to gather signatures and put laws straight on the ballot without having to lobby legislators or roll logs or hope the least-worst major candidate might consider making a speech about it sometime. … [W]hen I vote on an initiative I don't have to worry about spoilers, parties, trade-offs between candidates, or anything of the sort. It's a simple up or down and I can make my choices on each issue on the ballot independently -- rather than trying to figure out which dude will line up with more of my choices on the whole than the other (and whether that dude can get elected or whether I should vote for someone who's a bit worse but in a position to win, and…). … We've been building a vast network of interlinked volunteers with a do-it-yourself political ethic …. [H]ow about we start putting those resources to work in the 20-odd states with voter initiatives? (And while we're at it, bringing them to bear on the state legislature in states that don't yet have voter initiatives.)So there’s my suggested solution for the Blues of the Blues: referenda in the short run, secession in the long run. Let's get to work.
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
A Crumb of Consolation
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
One minor (well, okay, very minor) bit of solace regarding today's election results: according to the count so far, Badnarik received only slightly fewer votes than Nader, despite having been accorded far less publicity by the media. How well might he have done otherwise?
Ubi Libertas Ibi Patria
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
The latest (Dec. 2004) issue of Reason magazine has an article by Brian Doherty, "Revolt of the Porcupines!," about the Free State Project and other attempts to establish autonomous libertarian regions. Because of my history of involvement in the free-nation movement (most notably through the Free Nation Foundation and Libertarian Nation Foundation), Doherty interviewed me some months ago for the story. Here's the paragraph that features an excerpt from that interview. (Please note that I am not responsible for the misdescription of me as “the” brains behind LNF!)
The Free State Project is the most recent and successful face of libertarian separatism -- or, as some call it, libertarian Zionism. To be sure, many involved in the search for new libertarian communities reject such terms. Roderick Long, a philosophy professor at Auburn University and the brains behind the Libertarian Nation Foundation, a group dedicated to theorizing about the possibilities for libertarian polities, tells me he doesn't like the term separatist because "the attraction is not that I don't want to live near or interact with nonlibertarians. Most of my best friends are nonlibertarians. We don't want to live by ourselves but simply want a chance to demonstrate to the world that libertarian principles actually work. We want to escape from government, not escape from ordinary decent people" who happen not to share their political philosophy.
Monday, November 1, 2004
Kerry or Badnarik?
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
FERRIS: Are you going to be as impractical as that?While I hear a lot about "undecided voters" on the news, I don't personally know anybody who is undecided between Bush and Kerry. I do, however, know quite a few people who are undecided between Kerry and Badnarik. I certainly can't blame anybody who ends up choosing Kerry as a means to unseating the most dangerous president of my lifetime. But as the last grains of pre-electoral sand are running out, I think it's worth explaining once more why I'm voting for Badnarik rather than Kerry.
REARDEN: The evaluation of an action as "practical," Dr. Ferris, depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
FERRIS: Haven't you always placed your self-interest above all else?
REARDEN: That is what I am doing right now.
-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Two recent posts (see here and here) from Robert Bidinotto offer a convenient foil. Bidinotto argues that those who support Michael Badnarik (or, as Bidinotto mistakenly calls him, "John" Badnarik) are forgetting that "the 'perfect' is the enemy of the 'good'." (Whenever anybody invokes that phrase, some compromise of principle always seems to be in the offing.)
Bidonotto aims to be making a case for Bush over Badnarik, rather than for Kerry over Badnarik. That’s because Bidinotto assumes, first, that a Bush victory would promote libertarian values better than would a Kerry victory, and second, that a vote for Badnarik "is a de facto vote for Kerry." I think the first assumption is clearly false; if we look at results rather than rhetoric, Bush comes out as objectively far more anti-liberty than Kerry. I'm not sure the second is true either; certainly I would vote for Kerry over Bush if I had to choose between the two, and this is likewise true of most of the Badnarik supporters I know -- so it's not obvious that most Badnarik votes would otherwise have gone to Bush. (It's true, though, that Badnarik, bless him, is specifically targeting Republican voters in an attempt to hurt Bush.)
But Bidinotto's argument is worth addressing apart from these two assumptions. For if his argument, with those assumptions, makes a case for supporting Bush over Badnarik, then the same argument, without those assumptions, makes a case for supporting Kerry over Badnarik. Thus Bidinotto's argument counts, objectively, as an argument on behalf of Kerry; those of us who plan to vote Libertarian tomorrow thus need a reply to Bidinotto's argument in order to justify voting for Badnarik rather than Kerry.
Bidinotto's argument, briefly, is this: When faced with a choice between voting for a lesser evil (whether you think that's Bush or Kerry) who can win, or endangering that candidate's chances by voting for a principled libertarian (which describes Badnarik, whatever his personal eccentricities) who cannot win, Bidinotto thinks that the principled choice is to vote for the lesser evil, whereas to risk hurting the lesser-evil candidate by supporting the one who can't win is moral fanaticism. For Bidinotto, "the difference between a man of principle and a fanatic .... comes down to whether you primarily view moral principles as means to your ends (values), or whether you primarily view moral principles as ends in themselves." Badnarik supporters, he suggests, are moral fanatics who "cast purely symbolic votes for Principle," thereby expressing their "moral commitment to the platonic Ideal" -- but insofar as this choice helps to get the worse of the two viable candidates elected, it counts as "an objective sell-out of our lives, our security and all we hold dear, for the sake of a subjective feeling of smug self-righteousness." Those who hold principles, not as ends in themselves, but as means to achieving values in real life as far as possible, will vote for the least bad viable candidate.
This argument doesn't sway me, for two reasons. First, as an Aristotelean I cannot accept Bidinotto's dichotomy between principles as means and principles as ends. And I'm surprised that Bidinotto accepts it; for he himself has previously argued (see his article Survive or Flourish? A Reconciliation) that principles adopted as means to maintaining our lives become constitutive parts of the kind of life we aim to maintain. Hence on Bidinotto's own neo-Aristotelean view, the principled person cannot regard her principles merely as strategies for advancing some independently specifiable mode of life, but must regard adherence to those principles as part of the mode of life to be advanced. (The quotation from Rand at the top of this post arguably expresses the same idea; Bidinotto is in effect condemning Badnarik supporters as impractical, and the proper reply is Rearden's: that depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.)
Second, even if one were to adopt a purely strategic attitude toward one's principles, Bidinotto's conclusion still does not follow. The strategic point of acting on principle is to think long-range, rather than sacrificing significant longterm gain for the sake of some slight but immediate advantage. As I wrote in a piece titled Thinking Beyond the Next Election: A Strategy for Victory:
In playing chess, a sure way to lose is to spend your first few moves capturing as many of the opponent's pieces as possible. It’s much more important to let those juicy-looking pieces go than to allow them to distract you from your main mission of building a strong presence at the center of the board.Bidinotto considers this sort of argument, but only to dismiss it by asking: "Does anyone believe that Ross Perot had any enduring impact on the major parties, or on ensuing debates about economic policy? And will anyone be talking about Ralph Nader's views two weeks from now?"
I think the same lesson applies in politics. In crafting our strategy we need to plan several elections ahead, not just one. ... If we plan ahead only as far as the next election, then it's absolutely true that a vote for a candidate who loses is an ineffective vote.
But if we think ahead four years, or eight years, or twelve years, then a vote can do more than just elect a candidate. A vote can help to build a vote total which, even if it is a losing vote total, can, if it's big enough, draw more attention and support to the losing candidate and his party or cause.
This has two beneficial effects: First, it increases the good guys' chance of winning in the future. Second, it forces the major candidates to move in our direction in order to avoid precisely that.
Well, who cares what anybody is talking about two weeks from now? That’s short-term thinking again. What matters is what gets talked about four years from now; 2000 could be dismissed as a fluke, but if Nader makes the Democrats lose two presidential races in a row, I find it hard to believe that they won't scramble their hardest to win back Nader voters in 2008. Indeed, fear of Nader may already have influenced the Democratic nomination process by making more conservative candidates like Lieberman, Gephardt, and Clarke too risky. (As for Perot, he sacrificed much of the influence he could have had through his own erratic behaviour, and through not running a second time.)
There is historical precedent for the strategy I favour. As David Friedman points out in his book The Machinery of Freedom:
I believe the answer is that we should learn from our enemies; we should imitate the strategy of the Socialist party of 60 years ago. Its presidential vote never reached a million, but it may have been the most successful political party in American history. It never gained control of anything larger than the city of Milwaukee but it succeeded in enacting into law virtually every economic proposal in its 1928 platform -- a list of radical proposals ranging from minimum wages to social security.And it did this precisely by forcing the Democrats to move leftward in order to keep voters away from the Socialists. No doubt there were, in every election year, left-wingers who told the Socialists "This election is too important! You must support the Democratic candidate to prevent the even-less-socialistic Republican from getting in." If the Socialists had listened, their influence would have been zero; there would have been nowhere for socialistically inclined voters to go, and so the Democratic Party would have gone on taking such voters' support for granted and never thrown them so much as a bone.
My argument is not intended as a criticism of those who think, not unreasonably, that the Prince President is so egregiously horrific that this election really is a case where preventing his re-election immediately is worth the setback to any longterm LP strategy (especially if they have doubts about the LP's longterm viability anyway). These are trade-offs that each individual must judge for herself. (I would note, however, that those who do not live in a swing state still have no good reason to vote for a major-party candidate.) It's also not intended as a criticism of those who are so disgusted with the electoral process that they prefer not to vote at all. While I don't buy the argument that voting is inherently immoral (see my counter-argument here), nor the argument that voting is pointless unless a single vote is likely to determine the outcome (I believe in an imperfect duty to contribute to public goods, so the fact that something would be good if lots of people did it is a reason, albeit a defeasible one, to do it), there is nothing inherently obligatory about voting (since the duty to contribute to public goods is imperfect, we can pick and choose which public goods we contribute to -- which is also why I'm not a vegetarian, but that's another story) and the whole process is pretty distasteful. My argument aims merely to explain my reasons for supporting Badnarik, and to show that Bidinotto's arguments against those reasons do not succeed. (And Bidinotto should be relieved that I'm not persuaded by his arguments, since if I were, I would be voting for Kerry.)
One final topic: Bidinotto also condemns the Libertarian Party for promoting "a philosophical package-deal that links free-market economics with absolutely [loathsome], Leftist positions on other vital issues, such as criminal justice and foreign policy -- positions which the L. P. now insists are integral aspects of 'libertarianism.'" I won't take the time now to defend those particular positions (I've defended the anti-punishment position here and here, and the military non-interventionist position passim), but I do want to make two points.
First, there is nothing specifically "Leftist" (in Bidinotto’s sense) about these positions, which were being defended by libertarians and classical liberals long before being borrowed (and mangled) by statist socialists. William Graham Sumner, for example, analysed the connection between imperialism and plutocracy in such articles as "War" and "The Conquest of the United States by Spain"; does Bidinotto think Sumner was a "Leftist"? (For that matter, as Chris Sciabarra reminds us, Ayn Rand adopted an anti-interventionist position with regard to Korea, Vietnam, and both World Wars. Was she a "Leftist"?)
Second, the LP does not enforce any "party line" with regard to these positions. They may be in the LP Platform (actually the anti-punishment position isn't, strictly speaking), but Libertarian candidates have never been, and are not now, bound by the Platform; Badnarik's own running mate, for example, is (regrettably) a pro-interventionist and a supporter of the "war on terror."
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Southward Aye We Fled
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Tomorrow I'm off to the Alabama Philosophical Society meetings in Mobile, and so will be incommunibloggo for a few days. Back Sunday!
To console yourself during my absence, check out this excellent reply by Lew Rockwell to those who still think a Bush victory has more to offer libertarians than a Kerry victory.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Division of Household Labour
I posted the following in the comments on Jim Otteson's post (below), but thought it was worth saying in the section for regular posts as well:
I don't think an asymmetrical division of household labour is a sign that something is necessarily wrong. But in light of the social expectations and practices that tend to encourage and reinforce this policy -- and in light of the more vulnerable position it tends to put women in -- I think it's reason for suspicion/concern. Whether that suspicion/concern is warranted in any particular case will depend on a variety of factors, but it's something that deserves attention. (As Foucault said when accused of seeing inimical power relations everywhere: "My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous.")
As for whether, in those cases where the division is problematic or objectionable, it's "probably the man's fault" -- again, not necessarily. Men respond unconsciously to social pressures and expectations just as women do. The power relations about which feminists complain needn't be deliberately planned by anybody; to borrow a Hayekian (or really Fergusonian) phrase, they are often "the products of human action but not of human design."
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Platonic Productivity
[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
Women on the job market make, on average, 75 cents for every dollar men make for the equivalent jobs.
What explains this wage gap? Various possibilities have been suggested. But some Austrians have argued that there is only one possible explanation: women are less productive than men.
The argument goes like this: If employers pay an employee more than the value of that worker's marginal revenue product, the company will lose money and so will be penalised by the market. If employers pay an employee less than the value of his or her marginal revenue product, then other companies can profit by offering more competitive wages and so luring the employee away. Hence wage rates that are set either above or below the employee's marginal revenue product will tend to get whittled away via competition. (See Mises and Rothbard for this argument.) The result is that any persistent disparity between men's and women’s wages must be due to a corresponding disparity between their marginal productivities.
As Walter Block puts it:
Consider a man and a woman each with a productivity of $10 per hour, and suppose, because of discrimination or whatever, that the man is paid $10 per hour and the woman is paid $8 per hour. It is as if the woman had a little sign on her forehead saying, "Hire me and earn an extra $2 an hour." This makes her a desirable employee even for a sexist boss.The fact that the wage gap does not get whittled away by competition in this fashion shows that the gap must be based, so the argument runs, on a real difference in productivity between the sexes. This does not necessarily point to any inherent difference in capacities, but might instead be due to the disproportionate burden of household work shouldered by women --