Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 12:44:12 -0500 From: shawn wilbur <swilbur-AT-wcnet.org> Subject: Re: libertarian Folks, I'm going to try to avoid the sort of brain-dump on the subject of the struggles within and over libertarianism of which i am notoriously capable. Suffice it to say that pretty much anyone who claims to be a "libertarian" these days, except perhaps some of the more passive Libertarian Party types, knows they are claiming contested terrain. The claimants range from syndicalists and mutualists, to so-called anarcho-capitalists and minimal- statists. There are two competing FAQs on anarchism online which grew out of a debate drawn a number of years ago on pretty strict socialist vs capitalist lines. One of the points of contention was the actual doctrines of the 19th century mutualists and individualist anarchists, from Thomas Hodgskin and Josiah Warren through Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. That debate has drawn a number of us into extensive research on radicalism in both the 19th and 20th century, with a focus on anti-capitalist market anarchists (many of whom considered themselves socialists) - a surprisingly common position prior to the conflict between Marx and the (roughly) mutualist sections of the First International. Marx's was not the only break with the "utopian" aspects of Owenite socialism (for which the term was coined), nor was he the only one to attempt to posit a "scientific" alternative, or to attempt to organize on an international scale. His victories in the IWA helped him to be the front-runner, of course. They also colored the term "socialism" for radicals who might otherwise have seen themselves as part of the International. [SEK3, of the Movement for the Libertarian Left, which most of us would suspect of being somewhat to the right, claims that "capitalism" as Marx used the term, was a coinage of Hodgskin, an early "anarchist" (a little too early for the term to be in use) with a fine critique of capitalism, if a bit too much faith in The Market.] In the US, by the 1890s, otherwise identical political positions might be considered by their proponents socialist or anti- socialist, with equal ardor. A few red scares later, as Austrian economics gained footholds in the antistatist movements here, and the Randite use of "capitalism" in an ideal sense gained currency, we've now developed a sort of inverted babble, where everyone speaks the same language and nobody really knows what anyone else means. Right now, with political stakes high, there seems to be some willingness among a significant if small group of "anarchists" and "libertarians" of various sorts to move the debates beyond the semantic level. Historical discussion is helping clarify what the various positions actually amount to on the ground. Naturally, not everyone on the left is happy that some of us are actually taking the time to talk to self-identified "capitalists." A group of us received email calling us "fascists" when a friend of mine had the gall to note on infoshop.org that many early anarchists had made a distinction between capitalism and commerce. Ken MacLeod seems to be one of the folks talking to what we've generally considered "the other side." The Mutualist FAQ at mutualist.net is being compiled by folks from the Voluntary Cooperation Movement. In a debate with George H. Smith, on the Movement for the Libertarian Left list, i predicted that the more seriously we looked into the actual histories of socialism, anarchism, and libertarianism, the less any of our preconcieved notions were likely to be flattered. My experience is that this is true, and will be. But it has been a pleasant surprise to find that at least some of the apparent disagreements between different sorts of "libertarians" are only apparent, matters of language and tradition, while others can at least be clarified. We're filling in a lot of blank spaces in our histories, finding plenty of defeats and apparent wrong turns, but also perhaps the grounds for solidarity on a broader scale. -shawn
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