Yoshie wrote, "There are differences between self-identified liberals and libertarians in their conception of liberalism in America, but they have a lot in common also, such as the idea of the Constitution guaranteeing the fundamental rights and liberties inalienable even if they go against the majority rule, the idea of checks and balances, especially an independent judiciary checking the majority rule, and so on -- all ideas that the Marxist tradition has not theoretically or practically embraced, though many Marxists have adopted them tacitly."
Let's just set aside the beef against Marxism for the present.... As I've been saying, I have no interest in quibbling over words when the issue is really substance. When you discuss things like "the idea of checks and balances," you are making the entire question abstract.... The concrete historical experience of "checks and balances"--or the institutionalization of "the majority rule"--regularly set aside those "inalienable" rights and liberties in which say liberals and libertarians share a belief. Not only did they act as though the rights and liberties of Indians, slaves, Spanish-speaking people who got in the way of "Manifest Destiny," working people of European descent were "alienable," but they alienated those rights from the people for them and did with them whatever profited them. And "majority rule" was institutionalized in such a way as to sustain and legitimate their will. Libertarians do not share a belief in special checks and balances when it comes to privately owned business. As a group, the more prominent libertarians do share a rhetoric of legitimate concern about the institutional power of government, but also an absolute blindness to the practical power of corporations. Saying this would be checked by the invisible hand of the marketplace has no more practical meaning than telling slaves to leave justice for them in the hands of God. Liberals have been historically (we're talking 20th century here) quite satisfied to set aside the rights of the people in the name of the Constitution and the law when the Constitution and the law went against those rights. In fact, I can't recall any prominent liberals who actually defended the Constitution and the law when they were institutionalizing the National Security state. The exception proving the rule is surely Henry Wallace, who called himself a liberal and a progressive as he challenged the rewiring of government in the interest of the Truman Doctrine...and the liberals established what Jim was calling a "convention" about what "liberal" means by taking him to the quarry and stoned him to death. Probably a definitive statement of how much practical weight I'm not trying to quibble with you, Yoshie, but positing that common faith in liberty and rights you attribute to liberals and libertarians requires taking their abstract rhetoric on face value...and selectively at that. Doing this and being understood requires everyone in the discussion to do likewise. Solidarity! Mark L.
