Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 19:39:18 -0500 (EST)
From: "Chris M. Sciabarra" <sciabrrc-AT-is2.NYU.EDU>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Whether Freedom Has Any Chance


My apologies to my fellow thaxians and to Justin for not being as timely
in my response.  I'm dealing with a new computer system and new
communications software, and things don't function like they used to.  

I believe that Justin asked me what material conditions could give rise to
the libertarian belief -- in either the nightwatchman state or otherwise.
I'm not sure how to answer this.  I think that one can be dialectical
without necessarily being a materialist, and that one's view of the
potential of social forces, historical and otherwise, is ultimately
informed by what we believe to be the driving modus operandi.  I'm not
sure that material conditions are that modus operandi.  I think they are
important, but they are dialectically interconnected with ideas.  The fact
that libertarianism has gained in both stature and popularity in the last
half of the 20th century may be an indication of the fact that  the
material conditions as such signify a crisis in contemporary political
economy.  Since the state is at the heart of this contemporary political
economy, in my view, it is certainly understandable that much of the
analysis and discussion coming from the libertarian right centers on the
state.  I think a good case can be made for the kind of class analysis
that liberals and neo-liberals are famous for -- analyzing the state as
both a perpetuator and creator of group conflict.  The revolt against the
modern state is akin to a revolt against a kind of ancien regime of
privilege that has found new impetus in the last hundred years.  Pete
Boettke makes an interesting case that the rise of statism and various
forms of it is indicative of a kind of new mercantilism.  Throwing off the
"chains" of political privilege that fuel this mercantilism is in my view,
the "ought" that proceeds from the "is."
	Ah, but you ask, Justin, does the "can" proceed from the "ought"?
I don't know if we "can" affect the kind of change that libertarians seek.
I'd suspect that a lot depends on the "subjective" or ideational
conditions -- a raising of consciousness so-to-speak, on what precisely is
wrong with the current social structure.  But this is ultimately dependent
upon one's acceptance of the libertarian << analysis >> of that structure.

	All this reminds me of what Bertell Ollman once said in response
to my own libertarian musings:  "Libertarians," he said, "are like people
who go into a Chinese restaurant and order pizza."  The implication here
is that pizza is simply not on the menu of available choices.  But who is
to say WHAT is available, especiallly when my esteemed mentor himself,
advocates a vision of communism, that in my view, is NOT on the list of
feasible alternatives, since it entails the absence of markets.  On
somedays, I suppose, I am led to a kind of eternal pessimism; I'm not sure
that I'll see any change radical enough to qualify as "radical" in the
exalted sense that I mean.  But "a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or
what's a heaven for?"  We need only examine our own inevitable utopianism,
or vision of an ideal society, in a self-critical fashion at all times.

						- Chris
==========================================Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ph.D
Visiting Scholar
New York University Department of Politics
Email:      sciabrrc-AT-is2.nyu.edu
Website:    http://pages.nyu.edu/~sciabrrc
==========================================



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