Bob,
I'm catching up!
I'm certainly a libertarian and have been influenced by them all,
from Tom Paine and the early anarchists through the Georgist
libertarians, Frank Chodorov and Albert J. Nock, to the modern
Objectivists (though by then I wasn't so much being influenced as
doing the influencing).
I've spoken to libertarian conferences -- local, state, national,
and international. My message wasn't always what they wanted to
hear ("Why the free-market always fails.")
I know very little about modern political libertarianism. My
experiences with the early philosophical libertarians and such
contact as I have continued in recent times has been with
philosophical libertarians. From what little I've seen and heard
they've become political like the rest.
As they want to remove an oppressive than coercive government,
they must surely be on the left. Unfortunately, the nominal left
has long since abandoned its attack on the privileged --
preferring to compensate us for the depredations. Thus, such
palliatives as the welfare state, which offers a not to effective
safety net to those who have been robbed. The left is caught up
in a policy of bandaging the wounds caused by the system, rather
than tackling the causes of the wounds.
I suppose such philosophical socialists as are still with us
believe in striking at the root rather than hacking at the
branches of evil (you'll recall Thoreau's remark) but they've had
such poor luck in introducing socialism that they must be a
little dispirited.
Modern American liberals seem to spend their time chasing after
effects and consequences, with little thought of causes.
At least libertarians seem to be aware of the need to find causes
-- although this doesn't mean that they are correct in their
conclusions.
Harry
-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 10:33 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Fwd: Re: [Futurework] Re: direct democracy //
Schwarzenegger
>From: "Robert E. Bowd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>Hi Harry,
>
>For starters, (and others may want to jump in with definitions)
I agree
>there is a libertarian dialectic, as you point out - 'right
libertarians'
>and 'left libertarians.'
>
>The contemporaneous libertarianism is of the right wing variety
and is
>legitimated, most often, by the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and the
>economic thinking of Hayek and Friedman. It shares elements of
the
>neoconservative and neoliberal critique of what's wrong with
>contemporary society, particularly the idea that government is a
>millstone around the neck of the individual. Any notion of a
>collective identity, based on race or class, or gender, would
likely be anathema to a right-libertarian.
>
>In our earlier discussions of Buddhism and the workplace, I was
trying
>to suggest that the Buddhist concern with the invidual reaching
their
>own individual Buddha state, through inner self-development, is
an
>attractive idea where libertarian ideology has taken root,
either
>individually, or institutionally. Not to forget that possessive
>individualism is a cornerstone of capitalism.
>
>When I was being politically socialized, in the 60s and 70s, the
>libertarianism I became acquainted with was 'left
libertarianism',
>influenced by the thinking of anarchists like Peter Kropotkin.
Noam
>Chomsky is probably the best example of this kind of
left-libertarianism.
>
>Both libertarianisms share a preoccupation with the role of
>individualism and freedom, in their epistemologies, but
otherwise are
>starkly different; right libertarians embracing
hyper-capitalism,
>whereas left libertarians critique captialism and embrace the
>hyper-individualism of self-regulated individuals in civil
society,
>sans a state; the latter being not necessarily incompatible with
the
>political thinking of Marx and Engels in a society where the
state has
>already withered away, but not in the transitional stage towards
such a society.
>
>Defining is not necessarily an easy task as the 'right
libertarians'
>have appropriated many of the key words once associated with
'left
>libertarians' - a common discourse reframing in the conservative
>restoration we are living.
>
>Off the top. What are your thoughts?
>
>Bob
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