In a recent article for Wired (“The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online”), Kevin Kelly suggested that P2P was the basis for a new form of socialism. The new digital socialism includes peer production efforts like Wikipedia, file-sharing, and open licenses like Creative Commons.
As Kelly says, “When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it’s not unreasonable to call that socialism.” He quotes John Barlow’s definition of “dot-communism” as “a workforce composed entirely of free agents.”
But there has always been a market-oriented strand of libertarian socialism that emphasizes voluntary cooperation between producers. And markets, properly understood, have always been about cooperation. As a commenter at Reason magazine’s Hit&Run blog, remarking on Jesse Walker’s link to the Kelly article, put it: “every trade is a cooperative act.”
In fact, it’s a fairly common observation among market anarchists that genuinely free markets have the most legitimate claim to the label “socialism.”
For example, C4SS director Brad Spangler once suggested that Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism was “actually a variety of socialism, in that it offers an alternative understanding of existing capitalism (or any other variety of statism) as systematic theft from the lower classes and envisions a more just society without that oppression.” As much as Rothbard himself frequently deviated from such sympathies, his stated principles at their best constitute a Rothbard that might have been. His stated principles, by providing the basis for a fundamental critique of state-enforced privilege and artificial property rights, offer much room for a common vision of social justice with the socialist Left.
Sheldon Richman, editor of The Freeman, observed: “I’ve long thought that ‘socialism’ should have been the term reserved for the completely voluntary society, including the truly free market based on self-ownership. Human affairs can play out in the social (consensual) arena or the state (coercive) arena (with some mixture being possible). Therefore, the two great contending political perspectives are socialism and statism.”
If anything, it’s the choice of “capitalism” as the conventional term for a free market that needs explaining. Why name an economic system based on free markets after one factor of production in particular, especially when even neoclassical orthodoxy regards capital as only one coequal factor among several? The choice of terms, perhaps unwittingly, suggests a system in which the interests of capital have an especially privileged status; it may also suggest something about the sympathies of those who chose the term.
The natural tendency of a genuine market is to socialize the productivity benefits of innovation and to socialize the services of land and capital. That’s why individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker described himself as both a socialist, and a consistent Manchester liberal. When banks must compete to supply credit in a totally free market without any entry barriers, and when the supply of land is not rendered artificially scarce through the enforcement of absentee claims to vacant and unimproved land, the natural forces of unfettered market competition will destroy the portion of existing interest and land-rent which results from rents on artificial scarcity. When there are no barriers to the free adoption of new technologies, the productivity gains will be socialized by competition rather than appropriated by the owners of patents and copyrights. And with all artificial scarcity rents removed, market exchange will be an exchange of effort betweenequals.
The emergence of P2P culture reflects the growing untenability of all the privileges and artificial property rights on which capitalism, as opposed to the free market, depends.
Kevin, With regard to your point about asking why a free market would be named after only one factor of production, I would say to look at the reverse. If people insist on referring to the present oppressive economic system as “capitalism”, it’s not hard to trace the vast bulk of its perceived economic injustices to the state-driven monopolization of capital (i.e. “capitalism”).
I posted on this topic, “Is Open Source Socialist?”, a couple of weeks ago at Freedom Democrats.
http://freedomdemocrats.org/node/3349
Good stuff. Please cross-post on the Distributism list (and watch the fur fly!).
The fur has already started to fly at Lew Rockwell’s blog:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/027849.html
Obviously, Kinsella saw only one word in you piece: “Socialism.” He substituted the rest of your words with his own.
Deus, there is nothing disrespectful or inaccurate in my post. I didn’t mischaracterize Carson. Am I permitted to disagree? I linked back here so people can view it themselves–some people might view that as publicity.
Thank you, Stephan!
Brad, the dispute over “capitalism” and “socialism” between the left- and standard-libertarians is partly semantic, though not completely–but the semantic part is a time-waster and muddies the water about the substantive debate. For instance it might well be right that it would have been better to name our view “socialism”–but so what? The term has been taken, and has a meaning. It clearly means state ownership of capital.
Likewise, you say, “it’s not hard to trace the vast bulk of its perceived economic injustices to the state-driven monopolization of capital (i.e. “capitalism”).” This seems to me to be a very idiosyncratic view of the term’s proper definition. Of course, we libertarians are all against “the state-driven monopolization of capital”. But is this properly called “capitalism”? I think not; the term is much more close to a synonym for (or maybe a metonymous expression for) libertarianism. The dictionary defines it as: “an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.” Now this definition does NOT include, or even imply, “the state-driven monopolization of capital”; in fact, it is very close to, certainly compatible with libertarianism, or an aspect of a society following libertarian principles. So you guys are just being idiosyncratic and stubborn, it seems to me, in your pet definitions of socialism and capitalism. Look, I understand the appeal–the bastards took liberalism from us (sort of). But our fight with the statist enemy is not over the right word. It is over the underlying ideas.
Shirley, you agree.
If presently accepted definitions contain implicit falsehoods, one’s allegiance to truth demands their inconsistencies be addressed. The corporatist right and the authoritarian left both found it in their interests to pretend that those who have grown fat on stolen loot earned it through production and exchange. Yes, Stephan, the meanings of the words changed. Liberty was caught between two sides in a linguistic version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Time to change them back.
Brad: “If presently accepted definitions”
Speaking of misuse of words: I think you mean currently, not presently. Presently means “in a little while; soon: ‘They will be here presently.'”
“contain implicit falsehoods, one’s allegiance to truth demands their inconsistencies be addressed.”
There is no “falsehood” in the term “libertarian” used to denote what we believe in. In the end, all symbols are arbitrary. They just stand for concepts. There is no “falsehood” in the use of “socialism” to describe the system of state ownership of the means of production–we need some word to stand for this concept. It is not relevant that the word “socialism” could have been used differently and acquired a different meaning. And while we can mount fights over terminology, in my view this is futile; we need to fight about what matters–substance.
“The corporatist right and the authoritarian left both found it in their interests to pretend that those who have grown fat on stolen loot earned it through production and exchange.”
Then it is best to challenge this by dissecting their substantive and argumentative mistakes, not by getting in distracting side-arguments about what term to use.
“Yes, Stephan, the meanings of the words changed. Liberty was caught between two sides in a linguistic version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Time to change them back.”
Persuading people to use the sounds that come from your mouth when they pronounce s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-m to associate with the concept “an untrammelled property rights order” will not do anything to make them accept it. If you succeed in equating socialism with libertarianism, then people will just start hating “socialism”. Big victory.
Everyone understands capitalism is private ownership, and socialism is collective ownership. If this is truly a pro-market institution (the C4SS), then why anyone would want to redefine a term synonymous worldwide with collective ownership, as its opposite? If one was going to reform a word, it seems to me that capitalism is easier to reform since socialism has never been synonymous with free markets or private property however capitalism has been, particularly in the economic profession.
I understand capitalism doesn’t fit Kevin’s clearly pro-socialist positions, but it remains the correct word to use, even if it has the taint of mercantilism and corporatism (which ironically, C4SS members have written many times to reinforce this inaccurate conflation) , it does not have the taint of millions of citizens slaughtered in the fields for “the greater good” or with mass starvation and gulags. Clearly, today’s North Korean regime is not a capitalist one. No one would confuse it as such.
The other issue with this article is, as usual Kevin is very careful to avoid word/phrases like “competition” and “private ownership”. He does a masterful job of discussing voluntary cooperation in markets without addressing that they must fundamentally be private and individualistic at their core before they can be voluntary.
Wanted to add;
Obviously, voluntary cooperation in free markets is to increase competitive advantage, not to negate competition between market actors.
@DixieFlatline — regarding this:
“Everyone understands capitalism is private ownership, and socialism is collective ownership. If this is truly a pro-market institution (the C4SS), then why anyone would want to redefine a term synonymous worldwide with collective ownership, as its opposite?”
Because if a significant amount of what is “privately owned” in the eyes of the state’s laws is actually stolen loot in terms of libertarian theory, then defending the thieves in the name of “private ownership” is itself subversive of private (i.e. non-state, justly acquired) ownership.
I am always suspicious when I read that “everyone knows” something. Weren’t Khruschev-era Soviet leaders fond of beginning propagandistic announcements with “as is well known”?
It’s pretty unlikely that hordes of protestors would turn out in the streets to assail lil’-ol’ private ownership. Among many people around the world, “capitalism” has come to mean something like “social dominance by the owners of capital,” a state of affairs many people might find unappealing. In accordance with the kind of libertarian class analysis it’s easy to find in the work of people like Murray Rothbard, John Hagel, Butler Shaffer, and Roderick Long, Kevin maintains that this social dominance is dependent on the activity of the state. Remove the props provided by the state, he argues, and capitalism in this sense—the sense in which the term is employed pejoratively by millions of people who have no ideological investment in statism or bureaucratic tyranny—is finished.
As Kevin, Brad, Charles, and others have observed, as a historical matter there clearly have been people who have argued for the abolition of state-supported privilege and who have enthusiastically favored freed markets who have worn the label “socialist” confidently. Tucker and Hodgskin wouldnt’t have agreed that socialism is synynomous with collective ownership. Rather, they would have said, various schemes for state ownership (or for collective ownership by some quasi-state entity) are ways of achieving the underlying goal of socialism—an end to bossism in the workplace, the dominance of the owners of capital in society, and to significant, widespread deprivation. But, Tucker and Hodgskin would have said, these are both unjust and ineffective means of achieving this goal—better to pursue it by freeing the market than by enhancing the power of the state.
If “socialism” means “collective ownership of the means of production,” I am at a loss to see how anyone who’s read Kevin’s work could characterize him as defending “clearly pro-socialist positions.” On the other hand, if “socialism” can have a sufficiently broad meaning that it makes sense to say that Kevin does defend such positions, then it is unclear why his use of “socialism” should be objectionable. Do you really think Kevin is engaged in some sort of deceitful effort to conceal opposition to private ownership? But he clearly supports the existence of private ownership rights. And I have seen nothing to suggest that he would disagree with the claim that market interactions have to feature non-state ownership if they are to be voluntary. He’s consistently clear that there could, would, should be alternate kinds of property regimes in a stateless society, but none of those he considers appropriate would be rooted in coercion. So I’m puzzled by the implication that he’s an opponent of private ownership.
No, North Korea’s regime is not capitalist; it wears the socialist label proudly. But surely if the idea is to point to despicable applications of a term, one can do the same with “capitalism” as with “socialism”? The association of “capitalism” with mercantilism and corporatism is hardly a creation of folks at C4SS: it’s an association that’s common in the minds of many people around the world and which is thoroughly warranted by the behavior of states and many businesses.
@Brad, that’s a non-sequitur.
@Gary, I don’t think Kevin has been deceitful. I think libertarianism is a vehicle for him to promote his specific preference views, and social outcomes. I’ve always suspected he had a preference for socialism, this article just makes it somewhat obvious for those who are a little slow on the uptake.
As far as private property, Kevin pretty consistently seems to come down (at least in my perception of his work) on the side of voluntarism being the vehicle to voluntary socialism (re: the article) not to selection and market competition.
Your last paragraph has a strawman. I didn’t say the conflation was a creation of the C4SS. I said it was encouraged and promoted by C4SS authors well before this article. One need go no further than the Mutualist Blog tagline.
“Free Market Anti-Capitalism”
Re: NorthKorea/applications, I will reiterate that socialism is commonly associated with the sort of brutality we see in North Korea, specifically gulags, mass graves and the absence of civil liberties. While that doesn’t make capitalism the ideal term by default, there are larger connotations than the strictly economic ones Kevin has mentioned, and those connotations should be reasonably considered.
I’ve just started reading the Anarchist FAQ.
The funny thing is this debate is mirrored in there. Capitalism has a meaning contrary to that which Stephen would put upon it, and socialism is definitely not the state ownership of capital (which is identified as a form of capitalism).
The adoption of the term ‘capitalism’ to describe a system of voluntary trade is a mistake in my opinion since this is contrary to what most people think of it as, or its historical meaning. It seems to have been adopted in opposition to the authoritarian socialists since it was what they were (supposedly) against.
Oh well, I suppose we’re just destined to have people slinging mud at each other over these terms.
Gary: “If “socialism” means “collective ownership of the means of production,” I am at a loss to see how anyone who’s read Kevin’s work could characterize him as defending “clearly pro-socialist positions.” On the other hand, if “socialism” can have a sufficiently broad meaning that it makes sense to say that Kevin does defend such positions, then it is unclear why his use of “socialism” should be objectionable.”
Exactly. This all depends on what a word means; so it’s semantical confusion.
I’m in the middle of computer difficulties until the used iBook I ordered gets here, and taking advantage of a brief window of more-or-less functionality on my desktop, so I don’t have time to address all the comments–or to do any of them justice.
But re Stephan’s and Dixie Flatline’s comments,
1) I agree that Stephan’s comment was not disrespectful and was a civil statement of semantic disagreement; but
2) I strongly disagree with both that socialism “clearly” means state or collective ownership. For the first several decades of the classical socialist movement, there were strong cooperativist and market strands in the larger movement, and the individualist anarchists were claiming the s-word for themselves until the end of the 19th century. Even F. Engels, the ultimate state socialist, did not regard state ownership as such as a sufficient criterion of socialism. For Engels, state ownership was a precondition, but whether it was just a case of the capitalists’ state administering the economy in their class interests, or actually developed into genuine socialism, depended on whether the working class held real political and economic power. Mises, by equating “Socialism” simply to “state ownership,” and treating it as a capital-letter abstraction distinct from “Syndicalism,” imposed an ahistorical meaning on the term. This is a case of what “everybody clearly knows” being clearly WRONG.
And by my count, I used the term “compete” once and “competition” twice, in all cases identifying market competition as the *vehicle* by which productivity gains of innovation were socialized.
KEvin:
“2) I strongly disagree with both that socialism “clearly” means state or collective ownership.”
Let’s say you are right. You could argue similarly about any word, it seems to me, if you go back far enough and find some semantic “mistake” in its chain of meaning. The point is you, and I, are opposed ot state ownership of the means of production (whatever we label this), and some others are in favor of this. You are free of course to have a semantical crusade, but in my view this is not compelled by libertarian principles, but is your own private project.
Stephan: I’m not sure that using “socialism” as the label for a particular sort of market anarchist project has to be seen as just an exercise in semantic game-playing.
1. Using the “socialist” label provides the occasion for a clear distinction between the genus “socialism” and the species “state-socialism.” Thus, it offers a convenient opportunity to expose and critique the statist assumptions many people reflexively make (so that political theory is really just about the question, ‘What should the state do?’).
2. Labeling a particular sort of market anarchist project “socialist” clearly identifies its emancipatory intent: it links that project with the opposition to bossism and deprivation that provide the real moral and emotional force of socialist appeals of all sorts.
3. Thus, identifying one’s project as “socialist” is a way of making clear one’s opposition to “capitalism”—as that term is understood by an enormous range of ordinary people around the world. The “socialist” label signals to them that a market anarchist project like Kevin’s is on their side and that it is opposed to those entities they identify as their oppressors.
4. Suppose a market anarchist like Kevin points out to the state-socialist—by sincerely owning the “socialist” label—that she or he shares the state-socialist’s ends, while disagreeing radically with the state-socialist’s judgments about appropriate means to those ends. This simultaneously sincere and rhetorically effective move allows the market anarchist to challenge the state-socialist to confront the reality that there is an inconsistency between the state-socialist’s emancipatory goals and the authoritarian means she or he professes to prefer. It sets the stage for the market anarchist to highlight the fact that purported statist responses to bossism create more, and more powerful, bosses, that the state is much better at causing deprivation than curing it. And it therefore creates an occasion for the state-socialist to ask her- or himself, perhaps for the first time, “Am I really more attached to the means or to the end?”
These semantic disputes get tedious pretty quickly. The words “capitalism” and “socialism” both have enough misleading connotations that you usually need to waste a lot of time explaining what you mean if you invoke them. So outside of particular contexts where the meaning is already obvious — and satiric uses, like when you have the opportunity to describe some statist Republican proposal as “creeping socialism” (*) — I usually avoid both words.
(* Arthur Hlavaty had the best of those. Quoting from memory: “I’m against this creeping socialism of prayer in the public schools. If the government would just get out of the way, our free-market churches could provide all the prayer our children need.”)
Jesse: I agree; which is why I use anarcho-libertarian mostly.
Gary: “1. Using the “socialist” label provides the occasion for a clear distinction between the genus “socialism” and the species “state-socialism.””
okay, but this begs the question. If “socialism” means state ownership of the means of production, then… there is no separation. And it is this meaning that we say is unlibertarian.
Apparently you guys think of socialism as something other than the state ownership of the means of production–that is “state socialism,” some kind of corruption of real socialism (which sounds suspiciuosly similar to how “socialists” (of the state-socialist kind) always try to distance themselves from Soviet Russia’s implemenation of it by saying communism etc. is not “real” socialism.
“2. Labeling a particular sort of market anarchist project “socialist” clearly identifies its emancipatory intent: it links that project with the opposition to bossism and deprivation that provide the real moral and emotional force of socialist appeals of all sorts.”
Gary, comments like this make me wonder if some of our left-libertarian brethren realize that some of your standard-libertarian allies have no idea what you are talking about when you talk like this. Bossism? Deprivation? Qua libertarian I am not against “bossism,” unless someone can coherently define this and show me that it is some species of aggression.
“3. Thus, identifying one’s project as “socialist” is a way of making clear one’s opposition to “capitalism”—as that term is understood by an enormous range of ordinary people around the world. The “socialist” label signals to them that a market anarchist project like Kevin’s is on their side and that it is opposed to those entities they identify as their oppressors.”
Let me get this straight. You are saying that real libertarianism (“market anarchism”, i.e. anarchism) is against state-corporatism (“capitalism”), and is for anti-bossist, non-statist “socialism”. Therefore, people who are also against state-corporatism, and against “bossism,” and who are for “non-statist socialism,” might be more inclined to look into libertarianism if they realize it is compatible with these positions.
Is this about right?
Okay… but in this case, 2 pionts: (1) I see no difference to similar argumentative strategies when we point out countless other ways in which freedom is really the best way to attain any number of values people hold–religious freedom, prosperity, harmony, on and on and on. and (2) it is quite obvious to me that libertarianism is against state-corporatism (which you guys seem to want to call “capitalism”–more semantics) b/c we are against the state (so the “vulgar” charge falls flat and is attributable to the left-lib’s equivocation re the term “capitalism”). But whether a private property order supports “non-state socialist” values, or “anti-bossism,” depends on what these nebulous, murky terms mean. If “non-state socialism” is compatible with freedom, then sure. If “anti-bossism” is compatible with libertarian-Lockean property rights, then sure. But then, it’s just one among thousands of peaceful, valued, private institutions that can benefit from a private property order. I see no special reason to single these things out, but everyone is free to pursue his particular interests.
“4. Suppose a market anarchist like Kevin points out to the state-socialist—by sincerely owning the “socialist” label—that she or he shares the state-socialist’s ends, while disagreeing radically with the state-socialist’s judgments about appropriate means to those ends. This simultaneously sincere and rhetorically effective move allows the market anarchist to challenge the state-socialist to confront the reality that there is an inconsistency between the state-socialist’s emancipatory goals and the authoritarian means she or he professes to prefer.”
Yes, I understand this general notion; but as noted above, (a) I don’t see why it’s different than any other similar rhetorical attempt to win someone over; adn (b) I still am not sure what socialism is without “state”–since to me, socialism just means “state ownershp of the means of production”–or, to generalize, institutionalized aggression with (Lockean) libertarian ownership rights. If the “non-state socialists” are avowedly opposed to “institutionalized aggression with (Lockean) libertarian ownership rights” (and are willing to loudly and clearly say so) then whatever their private project or interest is, I support their right to pursue it, and of course this is compatible only with libertarian ethics.
” It sets the stage for the market anarchist to highlight the fact that purported statist responses to bossism create more, and more powerful, bosses, that the state is much better at causing deprivation than curing it.”
I am really not sure waht “bossism” is; as a libertarian, I oppose aggression. I only oppose “bossism” as a libertarian, if and to the extent it’s aggression.
As for deprivation–if you mean impoverishment.. this is just the standard libertarian argument that only voluntary exchange results in prosperity. Sure. Point it out.
” And it therefore creates an occasion for the state-socialist to ask her- or himself, perhaps for the first time, “Am I really more attached to the means or to the end?””
…. which are you saying they should be more attached to? Which is the means and which is hte end, as between state-socialism and “real” (?) socailism?
I think the defenders of Capitalism are confusing it with a free market system. Capitalism can be defined as both corporate share ownership and the management structure and profit distribution systems of both corporate and privately owned companies. It includes the kind of trust fund socialism that has workers own significant portions of their firms without any kind of control – indeed with the management of those funds charged with assuring good financial return even if such action were to result in job loss for the very workers who own the shares.
Capitalism brought us the kind of tunnel vision management which resulted in the current economic crisis, including the abandonment of basic market rules such as making sure that the makers of short sales actually have access to the stock they are selling short.
One way in which capitalism is not the same as the free market is the creation of legal structures which limit the liability of the owners. As such, capitalism is not anarchism, in that it relies on state actions, including the act of incorporation, which make it possible.
When there is really a free market for positions, where all barriers to entry have been dealt with and all leadership positions are elective rather than hierarchical (i.e. bossism), with additional payments for seniority, innovation and family size not included in the base wage, it will become possible to compute a standard labor hour’s value. If the entire economy is made up of firms which use this method of compensation then people will bank hours rather than money and pay for their houses with hours rather than dollars – as in it takes a certain number of hours to construct a home – with food growing appliances – as well as to maintain it. It also takes a certain number of hours to educate a worker, educate a child, build a road system, build a car, operate a telecommunications system, buy or produce raw materials (included in the other standard hour calculations) , make clothing, make and distribute a movie or restaurant meal, etc. People will work off their hour requirements – with an additional allowance if they have kids to pay for the additional hours needed by having kids (bigger house, more clothes, etc). The loan agreement for the house will require the payment of hours over time, with the time period to coincide with the banking of enough hours to maintain the home and have additional standard hours for entertainment, vacations, etc., in retirement. People will work enough hours to pay off the debt, save for retirement and spend in the current period. Firms will produce services internally and externally, and external services must match or exceed external spending by coopertive members, with profits distributed to the membership retirement accounts and to the individual members.
Is what I am describing as an antidote to capitalism rightly called socialism? It might be – even though there is no hint of ownership of the enterprise by the state involved.
Here is an excerpt from something I published on TaxVox last week which might prove illustrative”
Income from exploiting the labor of others (is also taxable). If reward was tied to actual productivity, rather than the ability to bargain for a reward for productivity (in other words, if wages captured the entire productivity contribution of workers), you would have a point about the social justice of taxing non-rent income. Sadly, much of the benefit from worker productivity is transferred to those who “own” the output of that labor without just compensation – mostly because there are barriers to level bargaining (too few employers, barriers to entry, outright racism, sexism and classism).
Income taxes serve the function of tapping these transfers and returning at least a portion of this revenue to those who should have been paid their fair share in the first place through government benefits. When these transfers are adequate, there is enough purchasing power in the economy to match productivity. When these transfers are not adequate – sometimes due to the failure to adequately collect worker productivity losses to the owners of capital – there is excess production compared to income.
Let me underline the fact that if we want to get rid of both income taxes and the Federal Reserve, we must first pay off the national debt. Secondly, we must set up a business income tax system where the redistribution of income is “internalized” within companies rather than collecting taxes from individuals and sending the money to beneficiaries or to programs for the needy. When custom and the distribution of ownership assets in the employer firm internalizes this redistribution of income, even business income taxes will be dispensed with – as will any government spending on regulation of employee and consumer health and safety.
Kinsella:
“Deus, there is nothing disrespectful or inaccurate in my post. I didn’t mischaracterize Carson. Am I permitted to disagree? I linked back here so people can view it themselves–some people might view that as publicity.”
Of course you’re permitted to disagree, Kinsella. You hardly need my or anyone else’s permission. I never stated otherwise. And am I not permitted to disagree with your disagreement?
You didn’t mischaracterize Carson’s position so much as you simply failed to address it, and then tagged on an image of Lenin surrounded by a pile of skulls. I think it’s clear you’re trying to make some kind of association—clumsy and awkward, to be sure, but it’s bullshit and deserves to be called out as such.
“The post-Wall Germans were under the impression that socialism was a bad thing”??? Oh, did they reject mutualism, left-libertarianism or market anarchism? I wasn’t aware of that! Odd, I’ve never read that particular interpretation of the fall of the Iron Curtain before. If that’s not the historical truth, then what you say in that post is largely a non-sequitur and I can think of no other reason for it other than it’s yet another clumsy attempt to smear Carson with some kind of guilt by association to commies.
(BTW, you may be interested to know that if you think that the Germans have rejected STATE-socialism—as opposed to the purely voluntary, private property-based Tuckerite socialism that Carson promotes—you’re wrong once again. Last time I checked with people who live there, Germany is still a STATE-socialist shithole.)
Your past inference that market anarchists are somehow opposed to little crippled girls getting prosthetic legs is another big stinking pile of bullshit that comes to mind. Bullshit of this kind should be called out as such whenever you or any other anti-left-libertarian libertarian serves it up.
I’ll close this comment with a variation on the quote of Ayn Rand Kinsella cites in his LRC blogpost:
“As Rand said when asked: ‘Why do you use the word [’socialism’] to denote virtuous qualities of [‘voluntary cooperation’], when that word antagonizes so many people to whom it does not mean the things that you mean?’ Her answer, as mine, was: ‘To those who ask it, my answer is: “For the reason that makes you afraid of it”.’
And why would right-libertarians be afraid to redefine socialism and insist on drawing a permanent line in time that dictates that the term may no longer evolve beyond this point? One can only surmise that deep down they’re afraid that in a true state of liberty there would be many and varied paths to libertarian social organization for different individuals of varying temperaments and cultural preferences, rather than the only one being one that would require “a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin,” with “no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal…[S]uch as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism,” all of whom “will have to be physically removed from society…if one is to maintain a libertarian order.”
DXN – I’m sure you could also add feminism to the list of things many right-wing libertarians would fear as interfering with their libertarian order.
For any readers of this comment thread who haven’t discovered it, there’s an extensive, parallel discussion of these issues ongoing at AAE:
http://aaeblog.com/2009/06/22/pootmop-redux/
Also: Brainpolice has offered a thoughtful analysis of the “anarcho-semantics” debate here:
http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/2009/06/anarchist-and-socialist-semantics-and.html
And, I’ve tried to tie together my remarks on this thread, along with some responses to Stephan’s most recent observations, here:
http://liberalaw.blogspot.com/2009/06/socialism-revisited.html
@dixie flathead:
“it [captialism] does not have the taint of millions of citizens slaughtered in the fields for “the greater good” or with mass starvation and gulags.”
this is the biggest crock i’ve heard in a long time. if you take off your Western goggles for a minute, you’d realize that BOTH capitalism and state-socialism (mostly called communism) have the taint.
next time people are protesting or striking or asserting their rights in some way across the world somewhere, check the independent media, and you’ll probably find they’re sick of both state-socialism AND capitalism.
p.s. the only reason this ‘debate’ about semantics exists is because vulgar libertarians wont stop being so vulgar.
The debate over semantics within “libertarian circles” can be stupid at many times, but not here.
Important points I take from this article:
1.) Anarcho-capitalists are playing doublethink when they refer to criticize domestic policy as “socialist”, instead of “fascist” or “corporatist”. AnCap’s, anarcho-libertarians, poop-on-the-state, give-it-some-other-cute-name are students of Rothbard, right? For students of such a revisionist historian, to play along with the Newspeak of the political class relays disinformation.
2.) Misusing “socialism” is ignorant of a very real tragedy of common sense that: Democrats are socialist-leaning leaders for the people and Republicans are capitalist-leaning leading to trickle wealth up to the already rich. This is the giant wall for libertarians to break down — that “socialism” and “capitalism” are either both words to describe statism or they aren’t.
To say they are communicates a new form of doublethink when libertarians push free-markets (or whatever else term you come up with), people outside of libertarian circles (the audience) is going to lead to the conclusions using reasoning with which they’re already familiar: that socialism and capitalism are polar opposites and capitalism is the school which promotes free exchange of private poperty. The conclusion becomes: libertarians are Republicans who are against persecuting gay people, etc.. Hence, the much more commonly understood term in our culture: “civil libertarian” to describe FDR-type fascists against persecuting gay people, etc.
3.) Mr. Carson’s point that: “[Rothbard’s] stated principles, by providing the basis for a fundamental critique of state-enforced privilege and artificial property rights, offer much room for a common vision of social justice with the socialist Left.” is some illusory big-tent tactics to compromise Truth; it is Truth. Freeing the Market is an act of social justice above all other reason. Continue to misuse “socialism” and this message will get lost. When this message gets lost, we might as well just go to the beach.
Forgive the errors in my rant. I was watching BBC while typing.
@xveganx – Without a doubt, mercantilists, imperialists and other capitalists [sic] have caused death, suffering and mayhem in the world. But that again relies on a leftist definition of capitalism. No genuine capitalist would identify with George Bush or Richard Nixon.
As far as people protesting, they're protesting the state, monopoly, violence, privilege and theft, things which I universally and unconditionally oppose. Things which are part and parcel of a system of collective ownership, but have no place in a system of private ownership of property necessary to have a free market.
I lol'd at dixieflathead.
"No genuine capitalist"
No true Scotsman fallcy here?