I address the nation, alien to it.  With much apprehension I do this for I question the very foundation of its singularity.  I am not impressed by its guns, its agents of enforcement, its character, its “concern” for the “well-being” of its citizens, contortion of economic systems, or its machinations toward those ends.  I do not stand in awe of its wars, protection of illegitimate property, the daily harassment of its citizens, and theft of legitimate property.

What impresses me the most and begs attention are those of its citizens who abide it.  I do not speak of those who would argue for statist solutions but those who see it, know that it is wrong, and say nothing publicly.  I must believe this to constitute a majority of the population because, despite it all, the one thing I have faith in is my fellow human beings.

You, who are “apolitical,” who have grown weary of the two party system.  You, who just wants to be left alone.  Who only pay their taxes so as to mitigate pain and further encroachment by the system, cowering in fear of audit should the IRS catch wind of your rightfully earned yet dwindling wealth.  Those of you who know your votes do not count and, if they did, know the difference between the two choices to be nominal.  Those of you who have the slightest of hope and only vote for the lesser of evils.  You who have little choice but to rely upon government programs to make ends meet.  You who are just trying to find a job to support your families.

You tire of their interference but wish only to live your lives in peace.  Soon this may not be an option.  The days grow shorter with the winter of stagnant civilization.  A new tide has set and your options are being progressively removed.  They are frisking our children in airports when they are not propagandizing them in their schools.  You send your children to private schools but even those are failing them due to a general lack of competition.

They are seeking to remove your means of self-defense while presenting you with pitiful “protection” by hiring more police.  They are arresting your neighbors for ingesting chemicals unapproved while doling out patents and drug approval on dangerous drugs to massive pharma corps.  They may enter your homes for whatever purpose they deem reasonable.  They are laying the legal framework by which they shall dictate your health, regulate your internet content, limit your free speech, and track your movement globally.  They are strengthening the systems by which they maintain the current rate of wealth disparity with the promotion of “intellectual property” and enforcement of oligopolies and monopolies.  Giant husks of empowered multinational corporations and banks are tightening quicker around our collective necks.

Our health system was the envy of the world until government interfered and regulated it.  Every year, medical schools turn away tens of thousands of perfectly qualified medical students who have an ability to pay.  No one is building new schools because of the tight regulations surrounding the industry and the exorbitant fees to do so, despite the demand.  Medical technologies are becoming more and more expensive, locked up in government mandated monopolies.

Our schools were the shining example by which the rest of the world modeled their educational systems until government further centralized it and established caps, standardization, quotas, regulation, and loan programs that did more harm than good.  Standards are lowered in order to graduate more students from high schools.  Universities accept government grants and then teach programs and courses with no applicable industry with artificial demand created by the Universities themselves.

There is certainly no doubt that certain externalities contributed to an extent to the formerly exceptional status of the United States (imperialism) though we are no less interventionist today than we have ever been.  Despite the continued imperialism of the nation, healthcare is suffering and schools are in turmoil.  The primary differences are in centralization, wealth disparity, and corporate empowerment.

For those of you enraged by the rhetoric of “the right” in calling for a “fair flat tax” and arguments that you should pay your fair share into taxes despite being impoverished.  You have every right to be upset, when was the last time the government actually benefited you?  Remember this and keep it in mind.  No one on “the left” is going to change this.  If it were not the case that government benefited the wealthy more, it would soon change.  Recruiting your child into the military, who has limited opportunity otherwise, is not enough for them, they wish to tax the poor only so they may use that money to fight wars overseas and kill poor people there.

I implore you to consider the case of patents, business licenses, and regulations.  These are not detrimental to extant businesses, they are detrimental to you.  Imagine were you to attempt to build a business, all the initial fees for patent licenses, business certification, regulation compliance, et al.  The primary barrier between you and working for yourself is the government itself.  In order to start a business and get out of the system, you have to get a loan from a major bank thereby giving them a say in your business, sublimating you right back into the system once again.  The biggest contributor to both presidential candidates is usually Goldman-Sachs, the epitome of government entitled and massive money manipulators.  Inflation, as artificially instituted by the Federal Reserve, is the quintessential wealth redistribution, it takes money from the poor and middle class and directs it straight into the pockets of the wealthiest corporations.

For those of you disgusted by “the left” and their gun grabbing.  Consider carefully, they will never stop.  Eventually, they will get what they want.  Defeat their bills and another will be introduced in short order.  Every slight victory of theirs brings them a step closer and they will capitalize on every incident and introduce new bill after new bill.

In either of these cases, you cannot stop them so long as government exists.  Government is not society, it is the cancer killing it.  Every major ill and every conceivable problem is reducible in causation or by exacerbation to this malady.  Every year we see new government programs and every year we see new resultant problems needing governmental attention.

It puts to mind a nurse who continuously kicks, prods, and punches her patient in his sleep, to keep him in his bed.  A sick fetish for empowerment is the motivation.  Domination and force are the tools by which they ply their trade.  We are too far gone not to see this, we have got to wake up.

Awaken, stand up, resist, and educate.  The silent majority of disenfranchised need not be silent anymore.

Obfuscation of intent in political objectives is a hallmark of statism and one of the primary methods by which statist politicians will push forward their own careers or the statist agenda, cogently or not.  This occurs on both the left and the right of the statist political spectrum.  These misunderstandings in intent also happen to be easily assailable and an essential tool by which an antistatist can lay the foundations for voluntarist modes of thought in others.

All this requires on the part of the antistatist is to clearly and demonstrably separate statist political objective from the actual intent.  When an antistatist is confronted with ostensibly virulent or repugnant political opinions, it is important to take a moment and clarify the good intent and identify the values inherent.  By doing this, an antistatist is capable of so much more in conversation.  Instead of directly conflicting with the person, you are able to clearly state that good intent to the person, agree with it, show the inherent problems of utilization of the state toward this end, and then identify and assert methods of achieving these goals from without the state.  You become less an enemy and more of a cooperative strategist.

For example, one of the most contentious issues of our modern society is the legal status of abortion.  No matter the personal feelings an antistatist may hold toward the practice of abortion, there is one thing which is undeniable once considered, there are good intentions held by individual proponents on both sides of the debate.  When confronted with this topic, an antistatist should consider intent of both sides and need not come down on either.  Intent and goal will never change so we must identify which side argues for state intervention and then proceed to develop methods of achieving their goal which do not involve state action.

In the case of abortion, the side arguing for state intervention is the “pro-life” movement.  Though their statist political objective is to ban the practice of abortion outright, the underlying good intent is to stop abortions.  They view their cause as the protection of life and defense of helpless infants.  From the outset, it is important to point out that, even with the most effective state actions, abortion will never be entirely wiped out, a black market will develop with the codification of prohibition.  This should not be stated as an argument against state action but, rather, as a statement of fact.  Then one must effectively communicate that their real goal is in preventing as many abortions as possible and it would be impossible to prevent all abortions.  Research has shown that the most commonly given reasons for having an abortion are economic, they do not have enough money as they are often in college, single, and/or impoverished (1).  A prominent ancillary reason for seeking an abortion is relationship problems and the most common relationship problem is economic as well (2).

Explain to the person that with current regulation practices, monetary inflation, and corporation law, government encourages the development of monopolies in markets, discourages savings, devalues labor, and increases the cost of market entry, limiting effective competition in the market.  This has very real consequences for families and opportunity.  The very structure of a family and how strong it is is directly impacted by its economic status.  Too often two parent families are forced into having both parents working just to cover basic expenses and education for their family.

The most common cause for divorce is economic (2).  Single and split parent family homes tend to have more difficulty in saving money for their children’s education and even more of an issue giving their children proper attention and maintaining lines of communication.  Families with both parents working have very similar problems (no gender bias; it is perfectly viable for either a man or a woman to be the primary caretaker).  A young woman from a free market middle class two parent family who feels they can communicate and share in decisions with her family should be able to comfortably afford childcare while going to school or working and would have fewer reasons to convince herself to have an abortion.  They might also feel less compelled to seek attention in the form of one-night stands as they are able to attain fulfillment in their family life, they will wait until they are in a more committed relationship with a man who is emotionally and financially capable of taking on the responsibility of parenthood.

A “pro-life” proponent should have a difficult time arguing that state enforcement could prevent even fifty percent of abortions, let alone upwards of seventy.  It is also much less invasive and solves other social woes.  It could also be argued that many “pro-choice” advocates could be won as powerful allies in the pursuit of this alternative strategy since their primary concern is the woman’s right to choose, they should have no moral objection to alleviating economic realities facing women which contribute to the total number of abortions.

Another example of a contentious debate is that of the “war on drugs.”  Those who are convinced by the argument for prohibition of substances are encouraged by politicians to conflate it with fighting drug use.  When the 18th Amendment was passed in the United States, prohibiting alcohol nationwide, there was seen an initial decrease in alcohol consumption of some thirty percent but this was soon followed by a dramatic increase by as much as sixty percent as compared to pre-prohibition levels (3).  Not only this but the prohibition encouraged the development of massive black market infrastructures which fed alcohol profits directly into the pockets of criminal organizations instead of peaceful businesses.  It is fairly simple to extrapolate from this the source of the current drug proliferation when comparing pre-prohibition levels of drug consumption with that of today.  The drug trade has not suffered but, in fact, thrived under prohibition.  It inflates the price of the substance, increases profits, encourages purposeful “drug pushing,” and empowers criminal enterprises, making us all that much less safe.  The good intent here of people who are for prohibition is in decreasing drug use and addiction.

Again, a lot could be said here for economic arguments against regulation and corporation law and families, like abortion, considering those at highest risk for addiction to powerful drugs are those already impoverished and from single family homes.  The real problem is drug use and addiction.  People do not quit drugs because they are illegal or for fear of imprisonment, if this were a reason we would expect to find low rates of recidivism for people exiting prisons who had served time for a drug conviction.  The opposite is true.

People do not quit drugs because they are prohibitively expensive, they instead turn to a life of crime or play on the emotions of those closest to them.  People quit drugs when they wish to and they only do this when they have a good reason.  Often they can only do this with treatment and help, though by the time they are ready to stop, they have already expended the wealth of those most willing to help them due to the excessive cost of the drugs.

When economic disparity is not such a problem and labor is not devalued by a monopolist controlled market, people are a lot less likely to turn to drugs in the first place.  They are also given more compelling reasons to quit.  Life is a lot more fulfilling when there are more opportunities for success.

Private individuals do exist who want an action to be performed by the state for evil or selfish purposes though these are far and few between.  Even when this is the case, few only hold selfish political opinions and, oftener still, they may wish for personally beneficent state action to alleviate harm done to them in other ways of which they may not even be aware.  Even these may be approached with patience, understanding, and clarification.

Any argument with a person convinced of a statist ideology may quickly devolve into name-calling and aggravation on both sides.  Though it may be personally fulfilling in a way to obliterate the person, it is far more functional and fulfilling to make a connection with them, endear yourself with the person, and sow a seed of liberty and voluntarist thought.  Your goal should not be to “win points” but to benefit the other person and help them to see the true nature of their intent and how much more efficiently and ethically this goal can be accomplished.  Whenever entering into a conversation with a person deluded by statist myths, it should be your singular goal to spark the light of antistatism through elucidation of intent.

While today’s states are very powerful, cracks in their power can open as they adapt to a changing world. Recession is not the only force of change. Economic and social practices and pressures that develop through increasing global contact will have a massive impact on the power and role of the state. Global commerce and communications continue to make the world more interconnected and interdependent.

Possible courses for the changing role of the state in an era of globalization can be represented by three general tendencies, keeping in mind that politics in reality will often be characterized by tensions between them.

The first possible course is reactionary nationalism.

The second is global corporate rule.

The third is global distributed power.

Reactionary nationalism involves the cultivation of local or national chauvinism, the closing of borders to people, products, and capital, and the suspicion of those perceived as “others” or “outsiders.”

Though this tendency does have the potential to inflict significant damage to life and prosperity, it probably will not see much success unless economic trouble becomes significantly more serious – which is of course possible. Regional spheres of influence and trade established in opposition to globalism can arise but they will still be connected to the global economy.

Reactionary nationalism is likely to be less prominent because of increased communication and its influence on ideology and economics, the need for outside resources and products, and improved transportation. If the use of sustainable energy reduces transport costs over the long term then autarky becomes economically less viable.

But more important than transportation or trade is communication – today it is faster, connected to larger networks, and more democratic than ever before, meaning that the average person has an unprecedented ability to not only receive, but to broadcast and fact-check information. Meme Generator pictures can be used to further a cult of personality, but they can also undermine it.

Social identification becomes less nationalistic with increasing global connectivity. Anyone with access to online social networking, especially when a common language or translation is available, can become known to worldwide peers. When we hear unfiltered news from Twitter we become involved in the process of sifting truth from rumor and share the feelings of outrage or triumph. The people we feel are “like us” can be those whom we see as sharing our struggles and successes, not those who look like us or talk like us. A sense of global community really comes into view when pizza orders placed from Egypt feed protesters in Wisconsin, and Anonymous hackers from around the world stage the electronic version of a sit-in protest by defacing a Syrian government website.

It is important to take a brief aside to remember that access to communication technology is not equal. This was well demonstrated by an Al-Jazeera report about residents of northern Uganda viewing the Kony 2012 video for the first time. After millions of people had seen the Kony 2012 video on the internet, many residents of northern Uganda, the region the film focuses on, had not been able to view it until a local charity organization screened the film. The reaction was generally negative.[1] Arab Spring protests were not caused by Twitter or Facebook, but internet communication was one tool used by organizers and protestors, sometimes more to broadcast to the outside world than to locals taking the streets. However as technology becomes cheaper and more accessible and various organizations work to distribute the tools the world will become more connected.

If reactionary nationalism is taken out, that leaves 2 choices: global corporate rule, or global distributed power.

Global corporate rule means the rule of political and economic elites, where political power typically is applied so that risk and cost are socialized while profits are privatized as much as possible. It sees a world of “hollow states” and crony states as people become resources to further the power of politicians and the profits of capitalists. In some cases border crossings offer little restriction on capital but major restrictions on labor, prohibiting labor choice in the global market, appeasing nationalists, and putting further barriers on inter-ethnic solidarity.

Appealing to rationality or the common good will sway few elites in this system, as many would rather have the power that comes with a greater share of wealth than have a lesser share of a greater amount of total wealth – or subjectively value political power over prosperity.

Global distributed power means that the powers held by political and economic elites become more widely dispersed among the population, with no region or body dominating others. It means trade between strong communities. It means that more people are able exercise more decision-making power over their own lives.

The environment of global distributed power provides the greatest opportunity for expanding individual liberty, making it the best choice for libertarians.

But any intention to disperse power runs into several problems.

States tend to be heavily armed organizations. The Federation of American Scientists estimates that over 19,000 nuclear weapons at various stages of readiness currently exist on the planet. The US alone has 8500 nuclear weapons. The US Navy has about 250 commissioned ships including 11 aircraft carriers. Well over a million people are in the US Armed Forces. [2]

Domestic police forces are being militarized. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York, boasted last fall, “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.” The last ten years have seen more police forces equipped with SWAT teams, military rifles, armored vehicles, and even drone aircraft.[3]

Such factors suggest the benefit of avoiding the appearance of a “collapse” into “anarchy” – if only to discourage domestic crackdown and foreign military intervention. It might be best to approach the goal as a transition to an open, cosmopolitan decentralism that continually builds opportunities to further disperse power and to undermine the authority of one person over another in political, economic, and social relations. Rather than create a power vacuum that we must race against authoritarians to fill, it would be better to fill today’s personal and social power vacuums with popular power and individuals empowered by their relations in functioning libertarian communities. It is competing against the state by doing better where it falls short.

Of course, every gun requires someone to control it. This underscores the power of ideas, and the power of identity and allegiance. Will people identify with state power and orders from above or with a libertarian populism? How do they define their interests?

Another potential problem is that an overemphasis on decentralism can be exploited by authoritarians. Militarized police won’t just disappear, so who controls them and what for? Bloomberg the Duke of New York? Decentralism can also be used as a buzzword to promote exclusionary fiefdoms where “outsiders” who don’t belong are violently excluded and a tight-knit tyranny is tied over those who do “belong.” A twisted principle of “non-interference” or “self-determination” can be invoked to argue against outsiders trying to block the ability of local powers to interfere with individuals.

Educational work can mitigate or prevent such outcomes. Individuals deserve the freedom to do whatever does not interfere in the equal liberty of other individuals, to advocate for a way of life and help others when invited, and do not have the right to organize for the purpose of doing violence to people who aren’t invading the liberty of others.

Empowered individuals and libertarian communities bring counter-power to check the power of authoritarians. Within a libertarian community, the availability of a variety of alternatives and the realistic ability to create new alternatives establish a real check on power as organizations cannot stay in existence without pleasing individuals exercising free choice.

Of course, most of today’s powerful probably do not want to let go of their power, and they have many resources and techniques to steer events and discourse their way.

The solution is to dismantle power structures and create alternative social groupings to disperse power horizontally.

People today tend to rely on job and state. How to shift to dependence on voluntary mutual aid associations and alternative trading networks? The friendly societies that used to exist provided a worker-created source of stability: if someone got injured or lost a job, there were people and funds to take care of them as they got back on their feet – no application to the government required and no loss of medical coverage with the loss of a job.[4] But the organization used for emergencies can become a new model for everyday living. In this context the cooperative movement, which promises and often delivers people a chance to be greater participants, to have a greater say, in the services they rely on or the workplace that occupies a large part of their lives, has illustrative value.[5]

Building greater social power removes the personal power vacuum that states exploit, while displacing the authorities from political power.

Showing that a person will derive concrete benefits from participation in organizations of distributed power invites more participation in a community where libertarian social norms can be made to predominate. One kind of organization with the potential to create more widely distributed economic power is the makerspace or hackerspace. Members can pay a fee for private workspace and/or access to machine tools with less investment than would be needed for a startup business or garage tinkering – and they also get the benefits of interaction with other people in a voluntary organization with similar goals.[6] The global exchange of information can make localized production more feasible as people have a broader pool of knowledge to draw upon. More innovation and customization results from more people having access to knowledge and the tools to employ it.[7]

Going local typically doesn’t mean going against the world, but showing an interest in local diversities and in reducing the global burden of energy consumption.

Education will play a major role in bringing about the world of global distributed power. Ideas of liberty and solidarity and skills for making the transition in any specialty need to be researched and taught. The advantages and disadvantages of various alternatives to the status quo should be studied, and the way that emerging economic structures actually function can be better understood through the research methods of economics, anthropology, history, and sociology.

While the state does not hold a complete monopoly on education, state education policy does directly bear on the day-to-day lives of the majority of people of schooling age. Within state institutions, education for global distributed power can be done – in research, courses, and organizations at various levels. Alternatives like unschooling and voluntary community schools can educate while also demonstrating different models of dispersing power. Public gatherings, like those of the Occupy movement also offer opportunities for discussion and teach-ins.

The internet’s importance to making libertarian changes should not be underestimated. Social media and digital content are widely used for all types of information. The hyperlink and the search engine provide a faster way to verify claims than citations in print media or sources listed on television or radio broadcasts. Using Twitter can be more effective in learning global citizenship than looking at textbooks in a classroom. People who specialize in education need to work with, not against, the digital world.

How do some of today’s organizations and activities stack up in terms of tending toward global distributed power?

The European Union sounds good at first. On lands where millions have been killed in combat, war crimes, and genocide over the last century the EU engenders political and economic cooperation between 27 countries of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and operates with an ethic of fostering the rule of law and liberal democracy. But it has drawbacks. The way it treats political representation holds the danger of locking current nation-states in place. More immediately, it represents an effort at economic centralization. The EU operates a central bank, and promotes the use of a single currency which has been adopted as the official currency of 17 member states. This is centralizing economic power, and it operates within the system of finance run by economic elites.

With the economic crisis in Greece, many people have turned to local alternative currency networks, which participants generally describe as benefitting them economically as well as providing a sense of empowerment that comes with feeling a reliance on one’s own labor yet having deep connections with others.[8] Alternative networks can scale up from local initiative. Mobile applications and digital repositories open opportunities for exchange between a number of systems, and there is no reason why several currencies, local, regional, and global, cannot operate in parallel.

Bitcoin is an innovative digital global currency. It is not without its issues, but it is used to get around state controls. As a competing currency, it spreads economic power wider.

Today’s protest movements – whether Arab Spring, Greek rage, Indignados, Occupy, or even Chinese revolts – have a local basis but a global impact. In populist movements that shake up the status quo and get people into the streets and working together to make alternatives, a number of solutions are going to be proclaimed and sought, but importantly there are opportunities for people to try to live without the control of elites, and communication on what paths to take.

Anonymous and related cyber activist and hacktivist efforts are global undertakings that tend to target those who use repressive force in preventing the wider distribution of power. WikiLeaks makes it harder for organizations to operate in secret – they have a greater risk of public exposure to balance against internal communication, or could choose to bear the cost of operating honestly.

The state might think it’s not going anywhere but the globally-connected world means that it will need to adapt or perish. A creative approach to dispersing power globally can undermine the very foundations of state power. A true international community arises from the conversations held and solidarity felt through social networking and global protest – not from meetings of political and economic elites behind closed doors and security barricades.

Notes:

This essay was presented at the 2012 Association of Private Enterprise Education Conference.

[1] “Kony screening provokes anger in Uganda,” Al-Jazeera, March 14 2012.http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/03/201231432421227462.html.

[2] “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists.http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html. Retrieved March 19, 2012. Nuclear weapons figures include weapons slated for dismantling. However for the purposes of dismantling the state they remain a factor.

“Fleet Size,” US Navy Naval Vessel Register. http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/FLEET.HTM. Retrieved March 19, 2012.

“Military Personnel Strength Figures,” US Department of Defense.https://kb.defense.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/253. Retrieved March 19, 2012.

[3] Hunter Walker, “Mayor Bloomberg: ‘I Have My Own Army,’” Politicker, November 30, 2011.http://www.politicker.com/2011/11/30/mayor-bloomberg-i-have-my-own-army-11-30-11.

Charles Johnson, “No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter… (#7).” October 6, 2008. http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/10/06/no_seriously.

Police Drones Are Already Here, Defense Tech, March 8, 2012. http://defensetech.org/2012/03/08/police-drones-are-already-here.

[4] See for example, Roderick T. Long, “How Government Solved the Health Care Crisis: Medical Insurance that Worked — Until Government ‘Fixed’ It.” Originally published in the Winter 1993-94 issue of Formulations. Online at Roderick T. Long’s website: http://praxeology.net/libertariannation/a/f12l3.html.

[5] For more on cooperatives, see Keith Taylor, “The Lost Generation’s Call To Action,” Center for a Stateless Society, January 20, 2012. http://c4ss.org/content/9526.

[6] TekArts in Milford, New Hampshire is a hackerspace with active libertarian participants. http://tekarts.com.

[7] For more on localized production, see Kevin Carson, “The Homebrew Industrial Revolution,” Center for a Stateless Society, September 2009. http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/C4SS-Desktop-Manufacturing.pdf.

[8] Darian Worden, “Alternative Currency: Coming to Stores Near You?” Center for a Stateless Society, October 15, 2011. http://c4ss.org/content/8644.

Jon Henley, “Greece on the breadline: cashless currency takes off,” The Guardian, March 16, 2012.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/16/greece-on-breadline-cashless-currency.

Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS.org) News Analyst Darian Worden is a left-libertarian writer and activist. He hosts an internet radio show, Thinking Liberty. His essays and other works can be viewed atDarianWorden.com.

From the  No More Sunsets blog, April 9, 2012

Can Agorism Eliminate the State?

Any An-Caps out there with a different spin on this argument? 

I’d love to see your comments below!!!

Basically, I’m arguing that from an economics standpoint, Anarcho-capitalism can only exist if wage slavery exists, and that the two are dependent on each other. I think the biggest problem that Anarcho-capitalists have in understanding traditional Anarchism, is that they generally define “voluntary” different and use this as a smokescreen to legitimize their beliefs. AnCaps belief that a transaction in which a man comes to a boss and seeks a wage in exchange for labor is voluntary, but this is only true if wage slavery didn’t exist, which AnCaps never take into account. Wage slavery, the idea that social coercion is the basis for capitalism and WHY people go to capitalists in the first place, is the center of the capitalist system and is an inevitable part of capitalism. If all the means of production are privately owned, people simply MUST work for a capitalist in order to obtain their basic living necessities through a wage (then food, shelter, etc… on the market). The Austrian Economists believe that wage slavery merely does not exist, in that if a man needs more, he/she simply enters into a wage labor agreement so that he/she could obtain compensation and that non-violent coercion isn’t legitimate coercion, but natural aspects of the economy. That’s just the problem in the language we’re having here. Anarcho-capitalists believe that their interactions are “voluntary” (the worker-boss relationship), while traditional Anarchists ardently believe that this relationship is socially coerced, because the means of production are privately owned. Within Anarcho-capitalism, you would still have a boss in the private sector, and to be self-employed, you must gain the resources and capital to do so, thus initially going through a phase of having a boss in the private sector. Anarchism seeks to abolish the private boss (capitalist) and the public boss (government).

Now, in a society without a state. Let’s say that 50% of the world was socialist and the means of production were public, and that 50% of the world is Anarcho-capitalist, I would argue that Anarcho-capitalism would eventually, naturally become economically and inevitably impossible. Workers drive the capitalist modes of production. If the worker can enter a commune, create a product, receive its full compensation as well as being able to control it, AND work without a boss, then he will do so. Over time, The Anarcho-capitalist sphere will slowly diminish until it’s turned to nothing but a few property owners with no workers. Basically what i’m arguing, is that any system of free association exists, where the means of production are commonly owned, will inevitably lead to the diminish of capitalism, as the workforce will soon depart from the realm of the capitalist. Therefore, wage slavery and capitalism NEED each other, and neither exist without the other. There is no incentive for capitalism if wage slavery isn’t there. To put it into a sentence: Capitalism requires social coercion to be economically viable as well as possible. Thoughts, criticisms etc?

As long as the means of production are privately owned, wage slavery will always exist.

By Wendy McElroy

Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) – the greatest libertarian theorist of the 20^th century – expressed what he considered to be the central political issue confronting mankind. He wrote, “My own basic perspective on the history of man…is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power.”¹ Liberty v. Power. In its most blatant form, the struggle manifests itself as war between the peaceful, productive individual and the intrusive State that usurps those products. The tension between freedom and authority is hardly a new subject for political commentary. But Rothbard managed to bring a newness to everything he touched intellectually.

Rothbard was a system builder. Unsatisfied with past attempts to present a “philosophy of freedom,” Rothbard sought to create an interdisciplinary system of thought that used the struggle between Liberty and Power as its integrating theme. He explained, “Strands and remnants of libertarian doctrines are, indeed, all around us. … But only libertarianism takes these strands and remnants and integrates them into a mighty, logical, and consistent system.”² Without such a systematic world view, he believed Liberty could not succeed.

In forty-five years of scholarship and activism, Rothbard produced over two dozen books and thousands of articles that made sense of the world from a radical individualist perspective. In doing so, it is no exaggeration to say that Rothbard created the modern libertarian movement.³ Specifically, he refined and fused together:

As a result of the fusion, libertarianism blossomed in the ’60s as the philosophy of absolute individual rights based on natural law – of rights that were expressed domestically through the free market and internationally through non-aggression (isolationism) with its corollary of unbridled free trade. But more than this. Following in the footsteps of his mentor, the pioneering Austrian Economist Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard grounded human liberty in human nature. Developing an explicit philosophy of Liberty, he drove his insights through history to re-examine the real implications and meaning of events, such as the American Revolution. He laid a moral foundation for freedom, then used it to springboard into a strategy by which to achieve it. The integration was a stunning accomplishment. And one that stirred the love of Liberty within a generation of scholars and activists who proudly called themselves ‘Rothbardians.’ I include myself in those ranks.

Given that he was a lightning rod for controversy and critical analysis, it may seem that all aspects of Rothbard’s work have been exhaustively explored. But Rothbard has not received sufficient credit for the monumental task of integration that he achieved with such elegance. There are a number of reasons for this oversight. One of them is the short shrift that academia gives to system-building in preference to extreme specialization within disciplines that are already carefully defined.

Rothbard once complained, “Probably the most common question that has been hurled at me – in some exasperation – over the years is: ‘Why don’t you stick to economics?’” Calling the question a “said reflection on the hyperspecialization among intellectuals,” Rothbard continued, “…this syndrome has been carried so far that they scorn any attention to politico-economic problems as a demeaning and unclean impurity…”⁴

Yet, Rothbard observed, the economists he knew “became interested in economics because they were interested in social and political problems and because they realized that the really hard political problems cannot be solved without an understanding of economics.”(ix) Rothbard simply refused to give up the youthful passion for solving social problems. Instead, he quoted the call-to-arms of Randolph Bourne, “The secret of life is then that this fine youthful spirit shall never be lost…. To keep one’s reactions warm and true is to have found the secret of perpetual youth, and perpetual youth is salvation.”⁵

Another reason Rothbard has been denied due status as an integrator has been his tendency to include what most academics would view as “dubious” cultural references in his economic and ethical writings. For example, in his iconoclastic essay “Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature,” Rothbard unabashedly discusses the plot of “the British anti-Utopian novel Facial Justice, by L.P. Hartley.”⁶ This unpretentious approach to ideas reflected Rothbard’s eagerness to popularize the ideas of liberty in addition to providing a scholarly basis from which to argue toward strategy. He had a rare talent: he could express the same argument in pop-culture or in academic terms. As he once wrote, “Especially in an age of galloping statism, the classical liberal, the advocate of the free market, has an obligation to carry the struggle to all levels of society.”⁷

Although Rothbard’s popularizing of ideas is a key ingredient that makes his works fresh and entertaining, even when read repeatedly, academia would certainly frown upon using science fiction to illustrate ethical points. In short, not only did Rothbard stray outside of a narrow specialty – not only did he not know “his place” – Rothbard displayed an irreverent and joyous love of ideas, no matter where they came from. Translation: his more popular books were not deemed ‘serious’ works.

I have sympathy with at least one reason for which people overlook Rothbard’s status as a system builder. His “philosophy of liberty” is a superbly consistent whole but, for those who browse it casually without being familiar with classical liberalism, his system may appear to be a ill-fitting synthesis of opposites. To those steeped in the traditional left/right analysis of politics, his insistence on radical civil liberties may seem utterly at odds with his championing of laissez-faire capitalism. His anarchism may seem antagonistic to individualism, since that political position is far more generally presented in collectivist terms.

To clear up what might be a reasonable confusion as to the consistency of Rothbard’s meticulous system, it is valuable to explore the manner in which it was constructed.

The Construction of a World View

Rothbard self-consciously built upon traditions. The tradition that was core to his passion and vision may well have been Austrian economics. He considered Mises’ great work Human Action (1949) to be pivotal in his intellectual formation because it resolved the many contradictions in economics with which he had grappled as a doctoral student at Columbia University. When Mises held his famed seminars at New York University, Rothbard attended eagerly from the very beginning.

Mises emphasized the key role that human psychology and behavior – that “acting” man – played in economics. He contended that the marketplace was not an equation that functioned according to mathematical calculations. It was not a precise machine, but one driven by uncertainties. It was the collective expression of human preference and judgment, and many of its ‘mechanisms’ were best described in psychological terms. For example, marginal utility is analysis of how human beings value goods more as they become scarcer and, thus, each unit must be put to its highest use. I do not shower with water that is essential for drinking purposes.

In Man, Economy, and State: A Treatise on Economic Principles (2 vols., 1962), Rothbard embodied and extended Mises’ broad approach to economics. Llewellyn Rockwell, head of the Ludwig von Mises Institute wrote, “Beginning with the philosophical foundation, Rothbard built an edifice of economic theory and an unassailable case for the market…. The book treated economics as a humane science, not as a branch of physics.” He concluded, “…Rothbard’s great work, was the key to the resurgence of Austrian economics after Mises’s death.”⁸ It is difficult to overstate the impact of Man, Economy, and State in certain circles of scholarship. Its influence was not limited to students of economics. For example, Rothbard’s magnum opus was solely responsible for turning me from the advocacy of limited government to a lifetime of work within the individualist-anarchist tradition. My experience was a microcosm that repeated itself within thousands of others, each reacting in his or her own manner.

For several years after the appearance of Man, Economy, and State. Rothbard focused on historically documenting his case for economic liberty by dealing with specific issues. The books from this period included The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies (1962, and his Ph.D. dissertation), America’s Great Depression (1963), What Government Has Done to Our Money (1964), and Economic Depressions: Causes and Cures (1969). These works fleshed out and gave context to his economic insights. They also defied the common economic wisdom of the day.

For example, in the words of Rockwell, America’s Great Depression [applied] the Misean theory of the business cycle to show that the 1929 crash resulted from Federal Reserve credit expansion.”⁹

The true intellectual sequel of Man Economy and State, however, was Power and Market: Government and the Economy (1970) which carried on the earlier book’s logic by providing an overview of the devastation caused by state intervention, with special emphasis on the destruction wrought by taxation. The book also offered a tantalizing but sketchy model of the stateless society.

Rothbard was acutely aware of the deficiencies of these works with regard to establishing a solid base for freedom. He wrote, “Economics can help supply much of the data for a libertarian position but it cannot establish that political philosophy itself. For political judgments are necessarily value-judgments, political philosophy is therefore necessarily ethical, and hence a positive ethical system must be set forth to establish the case for individual liberty.”¹⁰

Much of Rothbard’s subsequent writing aimed at providing the necessary “political philosophy” that would allow liberty to flourish. Ethics of Liberty(1982) became his overriding moral defense of a free society. Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (1974) was a popular version of this defense. It is useful to examine both works.

The Popular Moral Case for Liberty

The collection of his essays entitled Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature is a much neglected tour de force in terms of popularizing the basics of liberty.

In the foreword to this collection, the political commentator R.A. Childs, Jr. remarked upon a contention he had heard bandied about in intellectual circles: namely, that anarchist theory contains no great system-builders. By this criticism, critics meant to observe that anarchism has not benefited from the presence of profound thinkers who have integrated divergent schools of thought – e.g. philosophy, history, psychology, economics – into a coherent and cohesive world view. Anarchism has lacked a system-builder, like Karl Marx, who could create the stern stuff of ideology.

Childs disagreed. The anarchist world – and, specifically, individualist (or libertarian) anarchism – had produced at least one great system-builder: Murray N. Rothbard. Although Childs gave a well-deserved nod of respect to the theoretical contributions of Spooner and Tucker, it is to Rothbard whom he points as the integrator and synthesizer of theory. It was Rothbard who provided “the entire libertarian worldview, the unique way of viewing history and world affairs…”(v)

The essays in Egalitarianism express this integration and achieve, in a popular non-scholarly style, nothing less than “the discipline of liberty” upon which modern libertarianism rests. The lead essay, bearing the same title as the book itself, sets the tone by going back to absolute fundamentals in human nature. That is, the essay establishes a biological case for human diversity, a diversity upon which individual liberty must rest. As Rothbard noted, “if individuals were as interchangeable as ants, why should anyone worry about maximizing the opportunity for every person to develop his mind and his faculties and his personality to the fullest extent possible?”(x-xi) Following the example of his mentor, Mises, he looked to ‘acting man’ in order to ground “libertarianism in individualism and individual diversity.”(xi) Indeed, the denial of diversity (individualism) is a denial of “the very structure of humanity and of the universe.”(p.13)

In its broadest terms, then, this was Rothbard’s framework for liberty. Human diversity, and the need to respect that condition as one of the most basic facts of human nature, formed the immense outer structure within which Rothbard rolled up his sleeves to construct the specifics.

The next essay in the collection, entitled “Left and Right,” begins the task of sculpting specifics by placing the “current movement and ideology [of individualism] in a world-historical context and perspective…”(xi) It asks the empirical question, “What…of the prospects of liberty?”(p.14) In a spirit of optimism, Rothbard contended “while the short-run prospects for liberty at home and abroad may seem dim, the proper attitude for the Libertarian to take is that of unquenchable long-run optimism.”(p.15) He based his optimism on a sweeping worldview of the struggle between Liberty and Power, which transcended the traditional Left/Right political distinction.

Rothbard pushed his theme of Liberty vs. Power through centuries and through the works of such divergent writers as Lord Action, Karl Marx and George Bernard Shaw to arrive at post World War I America. Here, even with the surging socialism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rothbard saw nothing but hope. He chided the reigning individualists of that day – Albert J. Nock and H.L. Mencken – for adopting “the great error of pessimism” and “despairing.”(p.28) They simply did not understand that the world had become industrial and “only liberty, only a free market, can organize and maintain an industrial system, and the more that population expands and explodes, the more necessary is the unfettered working of such an industrial economy.”(p.29)

Thus, with a broad framework of Liberty based in human nature and set in the historical perspective of optimism, Rothbard marched with a jaunty step straight toward the single greatest enemy of Liberty: the State. The next essay is entitled “The Anatomy of the State” and it systematically argues that statism is the antithesis of individualism. In religious terms, it is the Antichrist. This essay begins by addressing “What the State Is Not” (pp.34-35), “What the State Is” (pp.35-37) and, then, proceeds into a now-classic analysis of how the State acts primarily to preserve and expand itself. (pp.37-52) The concluding section on Social Power v. State Power briefly describes the conflict between those who live through productive labor (society) and those who live by usurping the products of others (the State). It springboards directly into the fundamental principles through which Social Power can be encouraged and maintained.

The essay, “Justice and Property Rights,” provides the “philosophic groundwork for the libertarian axiom of non-aggression against person and property” then goes on to derive a theory of “justice in property rights.”(xi) In a traditionally libertarian manner, Rothbard grounds property rights in what he calls two “fundamental premises”: “(a) the absolute property right of each individual in his own person, his own body; this may be called the right of self-ownership; and (b) the absolute right in the material property of the person who first finds an unused material resource and then in some way occupies or transforms that resource by the use of his personal energy. This might be called the homestead principle…”

The essay applies these premises to a panorama of issues, from land to intellectual property to so-called ‘animal rights.’ In non-scholarly terms, it provides broad guidelines by which to translate the principles of property rights into a system of justice. “To sum up: all existing property titles may be considered just under the homestead principle, provided (a) that there may never be any property in people; (b) that the existing property owner did not himself steal the property; and particularly © that any identifiable just owner (the original victim of theft or his heir) must be accorded his property.”(p.69)

(At this point in Egalitarianism, Rothbard skipped an important step in the construction of a philosophy of liberty; it was an oversight that he corrected elsewhere in his writings. Namely, Egalitarianism gives no sense at all of how the free market institutions of justice could be best constructed or encouraged to evolve. There is no hint of a blueprint. Without the institutionalization of liberty through the establishment of e.g. anarchist defense agencies, the prospects of freedom are diminished.)

In the fifth essay of Egalitarianism, entitled “War, Peace and the State,” Rothbard explicitly interwove the isolationist foreign policy attitudes of the Old Right into the core of libertarian theory. Having noted elsewhere that war is the single most destructive Statist activity – both to individualism and to morality – he aimed at the essential task of constructing a countervailing “libertarian theory of war and peace.” Rothbard applied the “axiom of non-aggression to an area where most Libertarians have been weakest: war and foreign policy.” (xi) With a policy of “no compromise,” Rothbard consistently applied the principle “it is completely impermissible to violate the rights of other innocent people,” and concluded that libertarians should condemn “all wars, regardless of motive.” (78)

The remainder of the essay collection is more haphazard, mostly reflecting Rothbard’s specific application of the broad principles he sketched in the first half of the book. For example, the initial and defining essay “Egalitarianism” had stated “since egalitarians begin with the priori axiom that all people, and hence all groups of peoples, are uniform and equal, it then follows for them that any and all group differences in status, prestige or authority in society must be the result of unjust ‘oppression’ and irrational ‘discrimination.’” (7) This observation springboards into the latter essays “Kid Lib” and “The Great Women’s Liberation Issue: Setting It Straight,” in which Rothbard analyzes two groups who are popularly believed to be oppressed because they are ‘different.’

In terms of Rothbard’s heritage as a system-builder, two remaining essays within Egalitarianism are of particular interest: “The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist’s View” and “Ludwig von Mises and the Paradigm for Our Age.” In “The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine,” Rothbard praised the two great 19^th century American anarchists not only for realizing that government and individual liberty were incompatible, but also for exploring the ways in which individuals could cooperate together without the State to achieve what Tucker called a ‘society by contract.’ They were, in essence, social utopians as much as they were political theorists.

Despite his deep respect for the 19^th century American tradition, Rothbard was painfully aware of his predecessors flaws. He critiqued a point of economic error that they both shared, “…it was their [Tucker's, Spooner's] adoption of the labor theory of value that convinced them that, rent, interest and profit were payments exploitatively extracted from the worker.” (129)

Rothbard’s remedy for this weakness, his attempt to correct the errors of the past century so that they did not cripple the 20^th century world view, is embodied in the last essay of Egalitarianism. It is entitled “Ludwig von Mises and the Paradigm for Our Age.” He explained, “There is, in the body of thought known as ‘Austrian economics,’ a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung.” (133) This was the point at which radical civil liberties embraced the free market and became virtually indistinguishable: that is, economic and civil liberties became points on the same continuum of freedom.

The Scholarly Moral Case for Liberty – The Ethics of Liberty

Egalitarianism was a popular work. In the Preface to The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard continues the theme that dominated his life in a more scholarly fashion. He wrote, “All of my work has revolved around the central question of human liberty. For it has been my conviction that, while each discipline has its own autonomy and integrity,in the final analysis all sciences and disciplines of human action are interrelated, and can be integrated into a ‘science’ or discipline of individual liberty.”¹¹

Through The Ethics of Liberty – a scholarly work in political philosophy – Rothbard laid the theoretical underpinning of liberty. He believed, “The key to the theory of liberty is the establishment of the rights of private property, for each individual’s justified sphere of free action can only be set forth if his rights of property are analyzed and established.” (vi)

Thus, Part I of Ethics comprehensively deals with the importance of Natural Law, which has long been considered the moral underpinning of private property. It includes Natural Law’s relationship to reason and science; its irreconcilability with positive law; and, its role as the foundation for natural rights.

Part II continues in a logical flow from Natural Law into “A Theory of Liberty.” Here, Rothbard began by using what he called “one of the most commonly derided constructions of classical economic theory” – the Robinson Crusoe model. This approach of considering man in isolation has been widely criticized, most prominently by Karl Marx and his followers who believe that man cannot exist as human being qua human without socialization. But Rothbard insisted that it was necessary “to isolate man as against nature, thus gaining clarity by abstracting at the beginning frontier-personal relations.” Moreover, Rothbard did not believe Crusoe lost his essential humanity by being in isolation. For example, Crusoe still judged the goods he had – e.g. coconuts – according to marginal utility. He also had to produce before he could consume and used human judgment (reason) to survive.

The Crusoe example facilitated clear, unambiguous analysis. In isolation, Rothbard contended that Crusoe “owns his body; his mind is free to adopt whatever ends it wishes, and to exercise his reason in order to discover what ends he should choose, and to learn the recipes for employing the means at hand to attain them….” (p.31) Then, Friday is introduced “to show how the addition of other persons affects the discussion.” (29) The discussion being ‘man in society,’ man in relation to other human beings. Friday is introduced in order to go beyond the economic principle of production to the principle of exchange, both economic and psychological. Yet the opportunity for exchange introduces the possibility of Friday exerting force on Crusoe, or vice versa.

In other words, a desert island offers absolutely unbridled individual freedom to Crusoe. In society, he always confronts the threat of possible violence. Why would he run such a risk? To Rothbard, the answer is clear. “The process of exchange enables man to ascend from primitive isolation to civilization: it enormously widens his opportunities…” (p.36) Moreover, society maximizes Crusoe’s choices if only because many of his decisions, and some of the most important ones he could make, require the presence of other people, e.g. the decision to have a child.

The primary concern of man, therefore, should not lie in how to remain in isolation, but in how to interrelate in a manner that maximizes opportunity: that is, in a manner that minimizes the possibility of violence. To Rothbard, the key lies in two concepts that are at war with each other – property and crime. Indeed, Rothbard attempts to define property in large part as a means by which to define crime. Crime is viewed as the violation of property rights and, thus, the usurpation of another person’s opportunities. In Chapter 9 of Part II, entitled “Property and Criminality,” Rothbard concludes, “We thus have a theory of the rights of property: That every man has an absolute right to the control and ownership of his own body, and to unused land resources that he finds and transforms….We also have a theory of criminality: A criminal is someone who aggresses against such property.” [Emphasis in original] (p.59)

Property v. Crime as the defining themes of civil society were a refinement on and a subcategory of Rothbard’s overriding theme of Liberty v. Power. Having defined these concepts as the essentials of society, Rothbard built upon them as a foundation to address property and criminality as it affects such issues as land, children, animal rights, self-defense, and the theory of contracts. Then, Rothbard proceeded – as he inevitably did – to an analysis of the State as the penultimate foe of Liberty.

Part III of Ethics is entitled “The State Versus Liberty.” Chapter 22, located within this section, is entitled “The Nature of the State.” The chapter begins, “So far in this book we have developed a theory of liberty and property rights, and have outlined the legal code that would be necessary to defend those rights. What of government, the State?” Rothbard pointed to the many essential functions performed by the State, such as fire fighting and postal delivery, then asked, “But this in no way demonstrates that only the State can perform such functions, or, indeed, that it performs them even passably well.” (p.161)

The stage was set to present the concluding two sections, the first of which is entitled, “Modern Alternative Theories of Liberty.” He wrote, “Having presented our theory of liberty and property rights, and discussed the inherent role of the State vis a vis liberty, we turn in this part of the work to a discussion and critique of several leading alternative theories of liberty brought forth in the modern world, by those who are very roughly in the free-market, or classical liberal, tradition. Whatever the other merits of these theories, they will be seen to provide a flawed and inadequate foundation for a systematic theory of liberty and the rights of the individual.” (199)

The last section of Ethics proclaims itself to be moving “Toward a Theory of Strategy for Liberty.” This is different than moving toward a strategy – a blueprint – for liberty. Instead, it is a discussion of the methodology which should be used in order to create a blueprint appropriate to liberty. To Rothbard, “Libertarianism…is a philosophy seeking a policy,” and it was “the responsibility of philosophy to deal with strategy.” It is precisely the goal of moving “from the present…state of affairs to…consistent liberty” that impelled Rothbard to lay such a meticulous foundation of theory. (p.253)

Having laid the necessary groundwork, however, Rothbard does not plunge into a specific vision of liberty. He pauses to carefully establish the boundaries of such a vision. Liberty, he declared, is not necessarily the highest value of libertarians: it is merely the highest political value….politics being the form of ethical philosophy that deals with the role of violence in human society.

Always building on a former insight or argument, Rothbard then asked, “If liberty is to be the highest political end, then this implies that liberty is to be pursued in the most effacious means,….” He sets up the parameters by which a sincere libertarian must abide to achieve Liberty. He writes, “This means that the libertarian must be an abolitionist, i.e., he must wish to achieve the goal of liberty as rapidly as possible.” Abolitionism, then, was a key to the policy of libertarianism. Absolute consistency was another. “[A] strategy for liberty must not include any means which undercut or contradict the end itself…” (p.255-256) The rejection of utilitarian arguments in favor of the moral grounding provided by natural law was also part of the policy of liberty.

Rothbard’s implementation of the “policy” of libertarianism to specific issues was scattered, in large measure, throughout hundreds of articles. It was also expressed in the powerful For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, which is probably the work best known to libertarians. It also is to be found in the subtext of his sweeping four volume analysis of the American colonies and revolution from 1620-1780, entitled Conceived in Liberty (1975-1979). There, institutions evolve and one sees both the ennobling and the corruption of principles through human endeavor.

I have undoubtedly slighted many aspects of Rothbard’s contribution to the literature of liberty. The fault lies in Rothbard himself for having achieved so much in so many areas. For a more encompassing sense of his legacy, I recommend the chronology. For a focusing of his legacy, it is useful to quote Rothbard himself in a passage that could apply to virtually any of his writings. In doing so, I reiterate part of the first sentence of this essay:

“My own basic perspective on the history of man…is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power…. I see liberty of the individual…as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and science, economic prosperity…. I see history as centrally as race and conflict between ‘social power’ – the productive consequences of voluntary interactions among men – and state power.”¹²

A Personal Note

Before closing, I want to render a sense of something that history books will not capture and future generations may not understand: namely, the profound and benevolent impact of Murray Rothbard’s charisma on young scholars. Although reprints of his work will display the stunning breadth of his scholarship, they will give no clue as to the humor that made his listeners literally laugh for hours in after-conference sessions and gatherings at his home. When people finally walked away from Murray – reluctant to leave a world in which ideas were so much fun – they scattered to libraries and typewriters to research and write up the articles he had inspired. Murray Rothbard believed that ideas mattered. He infused you with that belief. I still hear his voice – admittedly a bit squawky – insisting that a certain insight was “key! it’s key to the issue!,” and admonishing me to write it up.

Murray had a habit of sitting with his right arm draped over his head, the elbow resting about five inches above ear level. I remember walking into a room where Murray was holding court for three young men who sat attentively before him, lined up on the couch. Each one had his right arm draped over his head. Not one realized they were mimicking him. A whole generation of libertarian theorists wanted to be Murray Rothbard. We adopted his slang terms, his gestures, his eccentricities… hopefully some of his intellectual magic has rubbed off as well.

1.  Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty, Volume Two (Arlington House, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1975), p.9.
2. Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Revised Editor (Fox & Wilkes, San Francisco, 1994), p.321.
3. By saying this, I do not demean the contributions of pioneering libertarians, such as Karl Hess or Leonard Reed, who infused their own unique radicalism into the movement. I mean only to say that modern libertarianism is an identifiable structure of interconnected beliefs, and Rothbard was the first theorist to make those connections complete.
4. Murray N. Rothbard, “Introduction,” Egalitarianism As a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays. (Washington, D.C.: Libertarian Review Press, 1974) p.ix-x.
5. Ibid, Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty, p.33.
6. Ibid, Egalitarianism, p.4.
7. As quoted by Rockwell, Murray N. Rothbard: A Legacy of Liberty.
8. Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Murray N. Rothbard: A Legacy of Liberty.
9. Ibid.
10. “Introduction”, Egalitarianism, v.
11. Murray Rothbard. Ethics of Liberty. Atlantic Highland, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982, v.
12. Murray N. Rothbard. Conceived in Liberty, Volume II. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1975, pp.9-10.

July 6, 2000

Wendy McElroy is author of The Reasonable Woman. See more of her work at ifeminists.com and at her personal website.

Wendy McElroy Archives

Walter Block is back with another controversial article this time questioning a four year old article by Wendy McElroy.

Here is Wendy’s response to Walter from four years ago when he raised similar issues, but never replied.

This is an ongoing debate that last reared its ugly head in a discussion between Walter Block and Stefan Molyneux. Here is Molyneux’s response to an article by Walter Block on arguments on the value and potential of political action, who is and who is not a libertarian, and Ron Paul.

Fittingly, here is an excerpt from a letter from Murray Rothbard to Wendy McElroy, dated October 1982, in which he offers a counter to the voluntaryist contention that voting is immoral.

Christine Smith makes the counterpoint more succinctly: