File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/97-02-10.192, message 108


Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 18:53:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Whether Freedom Has Any Chance



Chris thinks that ideas can bring about a libertarian society without
there being a social basis to those ideas. I guess I don't see it. A good
thing, I think, since I think that freedom depends on our getting
socialism, not libertarrianism.

--jks

On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, Chris M. Sciabarra wrote:

> 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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