Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 19:46:03 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: libertarian


Shawn

what's the situation in the US like with right-wing libertarians in the 
present?

steve

shawn wilbur wrote:

>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
>
>  
>