This is an outrage. I'm not registered on Wiki nor do I desire to be but someone really has to do something about this:
'Libertarians and other advocates of laissez-faire capitalism believe that most people earning an income from the government (including welfare recipients, civil servants, doctors working in a public health system, etc) are social parasites. Ayn Rand referred to them as "looters" and "moochers"'
Maybe I should start a "Just say No" regular following Mr. van Wyk's example.
Or maybe let's scuttle the 'libertarian' moniker: It's been nice, libty, we still love ya, only you've come to represent something we abhor?
I've been thinking about ideological dynamics, and accompanying linguistic dynamics recently and maybe I'll be able to shed some light on all these developments. Libertarians have paid far too little attention to such issues. Actually, beyond Rothbard's adoption of the Bolshevik "left-sectarian" vs. "right-opportunist" division and maybe reference to the "success" of Eugene Debs' Socialist Party in getting the mainstream to adopt its views, I can't remember any attempt by libertarians to develop a comprehensive theory of ideology (metaideology?) and social movement.
[Technorati: libertarianism, stupid]
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libertarianism. Show all posts
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
A couple of things
Blogging's been ultrasluggish lately, but I'm somewhat swamped with exams. Since nobody is reading this blog at this time anyway (I've been too patient with the BLL methinks), I owe nobody an apology, but in case somebody actually reads this stuff - hey, I'm still alive! :)
But my mind hasn't been as dormant as my keyboard, so let's go over the few things that I remember right now of what I wanted to post about.
1. First of all, the new Pain of Salvation album is out! The Gods of progressive metal have descended upon us yet again and what a descent it is! They could have settled for something old and tried but ooooh no, this is PoS we're talking about. Scarsick seems almost the opposite of their previous effort, the ambitious, broadwayish and orchestral Be. SS is gritty, down-to-earth, sarcastic. And full of surprises, too, such as the second Disco Metal song I've heard in my life (next to Edge of Sanity's Sacrificed).
But more to the topic of my blog, the album is dedicated to bashing capitalism in general, which provides some food for thought.Even though I've been a supporter of free-market capitalism nearly all my life and have never strayed therefrom (even as I'm ever more convinced that the term is self-contradictory), I can't fail be touched by the band's portrayal of indifference, greed and promiscuity - owing to their enormous ability of conveying emotion in music. Of course, it is not my place to assume that my taste for particular cultural values trumps morality, but it makes me wonder just how much of this culture is spawned by modern neoliberal capitalism, and how much is a genuine outgrowth of free markets and free expression.
One aspect that I think needs to be explored is how inflation influences behaviour. As inflation lowers real interest rates, what it does is pushing people to spend more (hence the consumerism Daniel Gildenlow portrays in 'Kingdom of Loss') and to work more (hence greed, prozac and a lot of other things). 'Kingdom of Loss' mentions how 'time' is the root of the problem - the constant pursuit thereof. Doesn't inflation push people to consume and work more and kick back and relax less than they really want to?
Maybe some think-tanks need to stop gloating over how glorious the spirit of consumerism is in neo-Randian litanies and dig deeper into the root of the problem.
2. Which cuts into another point, a peeve of mine, namely the cult of efficiency, or cult of numbers. An outgrowth of current neoliberal thought and yet another reason why libertarians have to distance themselves from corporate capitalists. The Warsaw School of Economics, where I'm studying is a merry collection of individuals, most of whom are infected by this dreadful disease. I swear, if I hear 'nakręcić koniunkturę' ('boost the economy', more or less) again, I'm gone shove... uuugh. Well, the thing is, though the lecturers are bearably pro-free market in the Milton Friedman sense of the word, to them everything is justified as long as it 'boosts the economy.' What's even more irritating, even though 70 years have passed since Keynes' blunder, everybody still buys into the "more inflation=boost to economy" mantra. Of course, inflation pushes people to produce more, which does a great job at cranking up those numbers but does it really serve The People? Nobody knows and nobody cares.
3. On a more-or-less unrelated note, I'm warming up to calling myself a socialist. It was probably Brad Spangler who first suggested that market anarchism of the 'capitalist' brand is, in fact, socialist in its nature. The points raised most often by those denying the title of anarchist (and, subsequently, socialist) to us are the issue of land and wage labour. Now land is a completely separate issue, which I will address some other time (suffice to say, I'm growing dissatisfied with Locke, while remaining none too comfy with usufruct mutualism and Georgism), but the latter I'll take issue with here.
To most socialists, wage labour is exploitative and therefore immoral, because the worker is not paid the entirety of their labours's value. This normative casting of the Labour Theory of Value claims that one is entitled to the full worth of one's work. Since 1871 (and even before), however, an economist is inclined to asked 'value to whom' and this is a question that the classical economist is unable to answer. If by 'value' we mean value to the employer, then no trade is moral, as no trade involves indifference. If no trade is moral, than no socialist or anarchist can support markets, which would put, for instance P. J. Proudhon out of the anarchist and socialst traditions - a pretty absurd conclusion if there is one. If we mean value to the employee then all trade (including wage labour) is moral.
I haven't read Mr Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy in its entirety yet, but I've been led to believe that Mr Carson's support for a revised Labour Theory of Value stems from the Ricardian view that in the long term, wages tend towards an equilibrium between the utility of the produced goods and the disutility of labour. This does not occlude in any way the reasoning above. It is the disutility of labour that would form the basis of such a theory of value and the disutility of labour is, in other words, the value one places on their labour.
One could make the claim that wage labour is immoral in a capitalist environment because capitalists, using State coercion, prevent the market from reaching that equilibrium. And if that is the problem with capitalism then we market anarchists are sure as hell anti-capitalist.
So to oppose what Rothbard dubbed 'capitalism' in the realm of labour makes little sense from whichever standpoint, as it entails no exploitation, even in the Marxist sense of the word.
Unless socialism means having to accept long disproven economic fallacies, market anarchists, like Rothbard, Konkin, et. al. are sure as hell socialists and sure as hell anarchists. Benjamin Tucker, though deprived of the insights of marginalism, understood this, which is why he went so far as to call Gustave de Molinari and Auberon Herbert anarchists, both of whom were somewhat less radical than many representing the non-mutualist side of market anarchism.
More to come!
[Technorati: economics, left, libertarianism, music, socialism]
But my mind hasn't been as dormant as my keyboard, so let's go over the few things that I remember right now of what I wanted to post about.
1. First of all, the new Pain of Salvation album is out! The Gods of progressive metal have descended upon us yet again and what a descent it is! They could have settled for something old and tried but ooooh no, this is PoS we're talking about. Scarsick seems almost the opposite of their previous effort, the ambitious, broadwayish and orchestral Be. SS is gritty, down-to-earth, sarcastic. And full of surprises, too, such as the second Disco Metal song I've heard in my life (next to Edge of Sanity's Sacrificed).
But more to the topic of my blog, the album is dedicated to bashing capitalism in general, which provides some food for thought.Even though I've been a supporter of free-market capitalism nearly all my life and have never strayed therefrom (even as I'm ever more convinced that the term is self-contradictory), I can't fail be touched by the band's portrayal of indifference, greed and promiscuity - owing to their enormous ability of conveying emotion in music. Of course, it is not my place to assume that my taste for particular cultural values trumps morality, but it makes me wonder just how much of this culture is spawned by modern neoliberal capitalism, and how much is a genuine outgrowth of free markets and free expression.
One aspect that I think needs to be explored is how inflation influences behaviour. As inflation lowers real interest rates, what it does is pushing people to spend more (hence the consumerism Daniel Gildenlow portrays in 'Kingdom of Loss') and to work more (hence greed, prozac and a lot of other things). 'Kingdom of Loss' mentions how 'time' is the root of the problem - the constant pursuit thereof. Doesn't inflation push people to consume and work more and kick back and relax less than they really want to?
Maybe some think-tanks need to stop gloating over how glorious the spirit of consumerism is in neo-Randian litanies and dig deeper into the root of the problem.
2. Which cuts into another point, a peeve of mine, namely the cult of efficiency, or cult of numbers. An outgrowth of current neoliberal thought and yet another reason why libertarians have to distance themselves from corporate capitalists. The Warsaw School of Economics, where I'm studying is a merry collection of individuals, most of whom are infected by this dreadful disease. I swear, if I hear 'nakręcić koniunkturę' ('boost the economy', more or less) again, I'm gone shove... uuugh. Well, the thing is, though the lecturers are bearably pro-free market in the Milton Friedman sense of the word, to them everything is justified as long as it 'boosts the economy.' What's even more irritating, even though 70 years have passed since Keynes' blunder, everybody still buys into the "more inflation=boost to economy" mantra. Of course, inflation pushes people to produce more, which does a great job at cranking up those numbers but does it really serve The People? Nobody knows and nobody cares.
3. On a more-or-less unrelated note, I'm warming up to calling myself a socialist. It was probably Brad Spangler who first suggested that market anarchism of the 'capitalist' brand is, in fact, socialist in its nature. The points raised most often by those denying the title of anarchist (and, subsequently, socialist) to us are the issue of land and wage labour. Now land is a completely separate issue, which I will address some other time (suffice to say, I'm growing dissatisfied with Locke, while remaining none too comfy with usufruct mutualism and Georgism), but the latter I'll take issue with here.
To most socialists, wage labour is exploitative and therefore immoral, because the worker is not paid the entirety of their labours's value. This normative casting of the Labour Theory of Value claims that one is entitled to the full worth of one's work. Since 1871 (and even before), however, an economist is inclined to asked 'value to whom' and this is a question that the classical economist is unable to answer. If by 'value' we mean value to the employer, then no trade is moral, as no trade involves indifference. If no trade is moral, than no socialist or anarchist can support markets, which would put, for instance P. J. Proudhon out of the anarchist and socialst traditions - a pretty absurd conclusion if there is one. If we mean value to the employee then all trade (including wage labour) is moral.
I haven't read Mr Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy in its entirety yet, but I've been led to believe that Mr Carson's support for a revised Labour Theory of Value stems from the Ricardian view that in the long term, wages tend towards an equilibrium between the utility of the produced goods and the disutility of labour. This does not occlude in any way the reasoning above. It is the disutility of labour that would form the basis of such a theory of value and the disutility of labour is, in other words, the value one places on their labour.
One could make the claim that wage labour is immoral in a capitalist environment because capitalists, using State coercion, prevent the market from reaching that equilibrium. And if that is the problem with capitalism then we market anarchists are sure as hell anti-capitalist.
So to oppose what Rothbard dubbed 'capitalism' in the realm of labour makes little sense from whichever standpoint, as it entails no exploitation, even in the Marxist sense of the word.
Unless socialism means having to accept long disproven economic fallacies, market anarchists, like Rothbard, Konkin, et. al. are sure as hell socialists and sure as hell anarchists. Benjamin Tucker, though deprived of the insights of marginalism, understood this, which is why he went so far as to call Gustave de Molinari and Auberon Herbert anarchists, both of whom were somewhat less radical than many representing the non-mutualist side of market anarchism.
More to come!
[Technorati: economics, left, libertarianism, music, socialism]
Sunday, December 10, 2006
and good riddance
Butcher Augusto has joined his buddy Reagan in Hell.
Now what's irritating is that the Polish libertarian community is blindly devoted to anything that's ever been said to be in favour of free markets, murder or no murder, corporate fascism or no corporate fascism. Consequently, we can expect lots of fawning over Miracle Boy and miscellaneous posthumous adoration. And that's really sad - that Polish right-wing libertarians - or conservative-liberals, as they like to call themselves, who are usually stepped in the arcana of Christian theology and philosophy have failed to absorb one basic lesson that so many American libertarians have been repeating for such a long time - never trust a polititian.
I suppose that it's the extreme socialistophobia that marks my fellow libertarians in our part of the globe pushes them to revere anything anti-communist. How fortunate for us (paradoxically) that libertarianism has not yet become a particularly well-known political truth and we've managed to avoid being branded by the media with the stigma of Reaganism or Pinochetism. Before we venture out into the wide, wild world of Polish politics we first have to shed libertarianism of this kind of ignorant reverence towards strongmen.
In other words, Poland needs a Libertarian Left.
Now.
[Technorati: left, libertarianism, Poland]
Now what's irritating is that the Polish libertarian community is blindly devoted to anything that's ever been said to be in favour of free markets, murder or no murder, corporate fascism or no corporate fascism. Consequently, we can expect lots of fawning over Miracle Boy and miscellaneous posthumous adoration. And that's really sad - that Polish right-wing libertarians - or conservative-liberals, as they like to call themselves, who are usually stepped in the arcana of Christian theology and philosophy have failed to absorb one basic lesson that so many American libertarians have been repeating for such a long time - never trust a polititian.
I suppose that it's the extreme socialistophobia that marks my fellow libertarians in our part of the globe pushes them to revere anything anti-communist. How fortunate for us (paradoxically) that libertarianism has not yet become a particularly well-known political truth and we've managed to avoid being branded by the media with the stigma of Reaganism or Pinochetism. Before we venture out into the wide, wild world of Polish politics we first have to shed libertarianism of this kind of ignorant reverence towards strongmen.
In other words, Poland needs a Libertarian Left.
Now.
[Technorati: left, libertarianism, Poland]
Saturday, December 9, 2006
It takes an Agora
It's always the children, always for the children, always through the children. But it's never really about a child. It doesn't really come into the governmental equation. Its usefulness to the State is limited to its belonging to a particular abstraction.
Such was the case with the child of the Monahan family, which went through purgatory at the hands of the airport Cheka four years ago. I'm not exaggerating when I say my hand are still trembling after reading the horrifying account, which just about shows the ingenuity power-adorned officials display in coming up with new ways of depriving of their dignity the victims of their protection. As if the injury and insult weren't enough, some officer-in-league decided to show in this letter just how unmitigated his gall and indifference are. Our nigh illiterate friend does have an uncanny aptitude towards irony as he prompts all to 'put down our newspapers full of bs, one sided stories and get an opinon of our own' just before implying that to be indignant over the embarrassment and emotional trauma that one's wife incurred because of the 'job' the screeners are 'doing' is to want another 9/11 to happen.
Our humble officer feels 'disgusted' because of the 'total lack of confidence' of Mr. Monahan's 'in the TSA'. That's interesting, cause I'm likewise disgusted at the lengths to which some people, the letter's author included, are willing to go in order to justify their colleagues' deeds and, more generally, the perverse rules that they are willing to obey as part of their employment.
I feel dirty trying to use Mr. Monahan's terrible experiences to make some kind of point, especially that they largely speak for themselves. I think that the behaviour of the Portland screeners shows just how alienated public officers are from the very people they are supposed to serve. They've stopped seeing people as people and started portraying them in categories, in faceless blobs: there's the 'officer' blob, the 'terrorist' blob and the 'potential terrorist' blob. That's how we are all supposed to think in the modern world, especially post-9/11. As blobbying becomes more prevalent, fear of one another becomes more acute and we're coming to a point where trust is too dangerous a feeling to harbour, a burden, a liability. Is this intentional on the part of the lawmakers and their lapdog corporate media? I don't know and I don't think it's really all that relevant any more. What matters is that the USA are fighting an enemy they can never defeat and whose hostility is probably fueled by the very struggle against it and that until that enemy is defeated - that is, never - society cannot function any more. Communities dissolve into tribes kept alive by some semblance of mutual trust - the officer tribe, the elderly tribe, the million mom tribe - whatever - and are pitted against each other in a carnival of hatred on display for our leaders. Though I'm not trying to jutify what the screeners were doing, I'm willing to say they're just as much victims of this new world chaos as everybody else is. It's just so much easier to be indifferent and blame it on the law, on the superiors, on the 'job'. And it's just the beginning of the road that we're facing. These tensions will not just dissipate - they will aggravate. And that's a scary thought.
All this fear and tension can be easily traced back to the State - its wars, its unjust laws, its conflicts and attritions. But some people would never let society organise itself spontaneously and voluntarily - ooo no! After all, a nation not moulded in their image would offend their delicate sensibilities. Their utopian schemes would be - gasp! - left unenforced on everybody else in the world. It reminds me of an article by Jerome Tuccille (I believe) in one Libertarian Forum issue about the "right-wing" and "left-wing" mindsets. The right-winger is concerned with abstract principles and rational ideas. The left-winger is concerned with actual people and how they fare in the world. Of course, nobody in their right mind would suggest that neocons have any kind of principles or that liberals actually care about the poor - this distinction is more of an archetypal one. It is worth noting, however, that the beliefs of statists are more often than not rooted in some kind of mental fantasy - "a world without the poor" "a world without terrorism" "it's for the children" etc. While libertarians has often been accused of looking only at abstract principles and utopian ideas, it is the statists themselves who are most often guilty of it. Hopefully liberts will be able to free themselves from this preconception and the MLL is a good step on the way.
It sure as hell takes a village to raise a child. But there are those who sow the seeds of aggression and fear in our midst. Let us get rid of them and make sure they don't threaten our village - our Agora - again.
[Technorati: agorism, libertarianism]
Such was the case with the child of the Monahan family, which went through purgatory at the hands of the airport Cheka four years ago. I'm not exaggerating when I say my hand are still trembling after reading the horrifying account, which just about shows the ingenuity power-adorned officials display in coming up with new ways of depriving of their dignity the victims of their protection. As if the injury and insult weren't enough, some officer-in-league decided to show in this letter just how unmitigated his gall and indifference are. Our nigh illiterate friend does have an uncanny aptitude towards irony as he prompts all to 'put down our newspapers full of bs, one sided stories and get an opinon of our own' just before implying that to be indignant over the embarrassment and emotional trauma that one's wife incurred because of the 'job' the screeners are 'doing' is to want another 9/11 to happen.
Our humble officer feels 'disgusted' because of the 'total lack of confidence' of Mr. Monahan's 'in the TSA'. That's interesting, cause I'm likewise disgusted at the lengths to which some people, the letter's author included, are willing to go in order to justify their colleagues' deeds and, more generally, the perverse rules that they are willing to obey as part of their employment.
I feel dirty trying to use Mr. Monahan's terrible experiences to make some kind of point, especially that they largely speak for themselves. I think that the behaviour of the Portland screeners shows just how alienated public officers are from the very people they are supposed to serve. They've stopped seeing people as people and started portraying them in categories, in faceless blobs: there's the 'officer' blob, the 'terrorist' blob and the 'potential terrorist' blob. That's how we are all supposed to think in the modern world, especially post-9/11. As blobbying becomes more prevalent, fear of one another becomes more acute and we're coming to a point where trust is too dangerous a feeling to harbour, a burden, a liability. Is this intentional on the part of the lawmakers and their lapdog corporate media? I don't know and I don't think it's really all that relevant any more. What matters is that the USA are fighting an enemy they can never defeat and whose hostility is probably fueled by the very struggle against it and that until that enemy is defeated - that is, never - society cannot function any more. Communities dissolve into tribes kept alive by some semblance of mutual trust - the officer tribe, the elderly tribe, the million mom tribe - whatever - and are pitted against each other in a carnival of hatred on display for our leaders. Though I'm not trying to jutify what the screeners were doing, I'm willing to say they're just as much victims of this new world chaos as everybody else is. It's just so much easier to be indifferent and blame it on the law, on the superiors, on the 'job'. And it's just the beginning of the road that we're facing. These tensions will not just dissipate - they will aggravate. And that's a scary thought.
All this fear and tension can be easily traced back to the State - its wars, its unjust laws, its conflicts and attritions. But some people would never let society organise itself spontaneously and voluntarily - ooo no! After all, a nation not moulded in their image would offend their delicate sensibilities. Their utopian schemes would be - gasp! - left unenforced on everybody else in the world. It reminds me of an article by Jerome Tuccille (I believe) in one Libertarian Forum issue about the "right-wing" and "left-wing" mindsets. The right-winger is concerned with abstract principles and rational ideas. The left-winger is concerned with actual people and how they fare in the world. Of course, nobody in their right mind would suggest that neocons have any kind of principles or that liberals actually care about the poor - this distinction is more of an archetypal one. It is worth noting, however, that the beliefs of statists are more often than not rooted in some kind of mental fantasy - "a world without the poor" "a world without terrorism" "it's for the children" etc. While libertarians has often been accused of looking only at abstract principles and utopian ideas, it is the statists themselves who are most often guilty of it. Hopefully liberts will be able to free themselves from this preconception and the MLL is a good step on the way.
It sure as hell takes a village to raise a child. But there are those who sow the seeds of aggression and fear in our midst. Let us get rid of them and make sure they don't threaten our village - our Agora - again.
[Technorati: agorism, libertarianism]
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