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August 17, 2007

Comments

robertdfeinman

Debating libertarians only gives them an additional veneer of respectability that they don't warrant.

Perhaps academics like to engage in "academic" arguments, but this isn't a college debating society. The effects of 40 years of neo-con, libertarian thought has had pernicious effects on the real lives of billions of people.

This is comparable to having a "debate" with climate change deniers. The additional exposure they get by engaging real scientists furthers their aims.

Things have now gotten to a point in the world where we can no longer afford the luxury of allowing apologists for the wealthy a platform in the "reality-based" part of the public arena. As long as Cato and other such institutions continue to get their funding from their super wealthy sponsors they will continue to issue their propaganda, but there is no reason to increase their reach by engaging them in a "debate".

Do something more useful with your time.

hari

At my age (+70) I despair at any idea suggesting anarchy, as a system of societal organization, is better than government by- the-people and for-the- people. Why?

I have just been re-reading Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good And Evil, in which there is a fundamental discourse on dawn of 19th century european developments.
That is, state and anarchy! Progress and civilization.

What Lesson is trying to assimilate is not really anarchy but an objective condition of laissez faire capitalism. He seems to be arguing for an unregulated (non-state) form of commerce and enterprise. May be something like a co-operative!

I must remind him within EU (ie. Germany & France, in particular) dismantling of cartels is still not a done deal! They're remnants of an old order.

We've come long way from a society of nobility and slaves to more or less a classless society.

If you wish to turn the tables upside down, you'll need more than rhetorics.
The engine of progress and development - good or bad -will inevitably transform society to new heights, irrespective of its inherent fallacies.

Adieu to Anarchy - forever!

marius

This exchange has surprised me a bit, among others for the following reasons:

1. As they are well-aware, anarchists of all kinds have as largest challenge to show working examples of their personal dream situations.
Theoretical models are nice to ponder, but they convince only the believers. Leeson knows this, and is merrily showing his examples: Pirates, Somalia and slavery-age Angola. If that is the best he can find, how can he even convince himself?

2. Holcombe says quite literally that he believes the only use of talking about extreme libertarianism is to shift the debate, to make abolishment of government education and minimum wages seem more mainstream.
I have read a lot of rantings against the Cato Institute, but as a European I can't judge about it. Are they really this cynical?

3. Mr Rodrik plays the role of the extreme outlier in this debate, while from the outside he seems to be the
representative of the standard, mainstream ideas.
I'm surprised how easily especially Benson and Leeson ignore that they are the ones basically attacking a very succesful system in terms of economics, freedoms and safety.
Even when we grant them every point they try to make, they only prove that their anarchism is not guaranteed to be a hellish nightmare. I see very little argument on their side why it would be better than the current situation.
However, Leeson, Benson and Holcombe agree that abolishment of the government would be such a great good that just showing it can be done is enough argument in its favour.
Where do get they their strong convictions? I suppose they are in a higher marginal tax rate than me, but what makes probably well-settled people argue for anarchy?

Altogether, the debate has a slight air of, well, dishonesty. These people have been thinking about these affairs for years, and they know very well that proposals are extreme, and need stronger evidence than this to be convincing. They don't want to live as pirates, Somalians or Angolans and I am not so sure they even wish to live in a governmentless USA.
Still, they act surprised that a "most prominent academic economist [Dani Rodrik]" does not automatically believe them. If these people really,really wanted other people to believe in anarchy, they would not so strongly dismiss the legitimate concerns about it, but 'sell' proposals to deal with them. The problem
with the pirates case (or Somalia, or Angola) is that is neither an argument against modern governments, NOR any indication how a future capatilist-anarchism might look like.

In the real world, this looks very much like a debate about lower taxes, but than without real arguments

Trizar Rizqiawan

I'm a student from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, Indonesia.
My major is Statistics and Economics.

MJ

A Question to Tyler Cowen, Dani Rodrik and Greg Mankiw
http://bayesianheresy.blogspot.com/2007/08/question-to-tyler-cowen-dani-rodrik-and.html

Mathew

I think debates over anarchism and libertarianism are usually flawed in the sense that those who favor anarchism seem to argue from a world in which we're all dropped down on Earth as-is, and choose from that point how to proceed. Perhaps anarchy would be best as enough people are sufficiently smart to become leaders without the need for centralized leadership.

But almost every government in history is the result of a negotiation (often on the battlefield or in the streets) between two or more pre-existing governments (or a sufficient population of angry citizens). It seems to me that libertarianism is an instinct to more closer to anarchy from essentially any given statist power.

And the answer to any particular libertarian issue of debate depends on whether or not the world is prepared to "move forward" -- when we reach an equilibrium between the cost of ever more incremental revolutions. A "libertarian position" is simply the unit of those increments.

Mathew

I meant to say:

"And the answer to any particular libertarian issue of debate depends on whether or not the world is prepared to "move forward" -- when we reach an equilibrium between the cost of ever more incremental revolutions and the corresponding rewards of saving in costs on the investment in government. A 'libertarian position' is simply the unit of those increments."

Anarcho

I'm surprised that anyone takes the "anarcho"-capitalists seriously. In fact, most anarchists do not think they are anarchists.

Anyone who can serious discuss the merits of voluntary slave contracts does not deserve to be taken seriously -- or be called libertarians.

Justin Rietz

I may be wrong, but I believe anarcho-capitalist theory does NOT allow voluntary slave contracts, as a person is unable to contract away their free will.

Anarcho

Tell that to Walter Block.

He, like Nozick, defends voluntary slavery. As he puts it, "if I own something, I can sell it (and should be allowed by law to do so). If I can't sell, then, and to that extent, I really don't own it." Thus agreeing to sell yourself for a lifetime "is a bona fide contract" which, if "abrogated, theft occurs." He critiques those other right-wing "libertarians" (like Rothbard) who oppose voluntary slavery as being inconsistent to their principles. Block, in other words, seeks to make "a tiny adjustment" which "strengthens libertarianism by making it more internally consistent." His critique, he argues, shows "that contract, predicated on private property [can] reach to the furthest realms of human interaction, even to voluntary slave contracts." ["Towards a Libertarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Smith, Kinsella, Gordon, and Epstein," pp. 39-85, Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 44, p. 48, p. 82 and p. 46]

It is online, if you goggle it you can read the whole argument.

It is all a question of time. Rothbard was all in favour of people contracting away their free will -- he supported capitalism and wage labour, after all. Apparently selling your labour for 8 hours or 8 years was okay, but not 80 years. Rothbard just could not handle the logical implications of his position. Unlike Block, and "minarchist" Robert Nozick.

David Ellerman wrote a great spoof of the "anarcho"-capitalist/right-"libertarian"
position a few years back. Ironically, Block's serious argument is identical. It is also on-line here:

The Libertarian Case for Slavery
http://cog.kent.edu/lib/Philmore1/Philmore1.htm

I understand why Rothbard could not bring himself to support slave contracts even though he did not have any real basis to object. Firstly, it makes it harder to call yourself a "libertarian" if you admit that slavery and dictatorship are compatible with your ideology. Secondly, any serious and logical critique of the slave contract shows up the authoritarian nature of capitalism.

Which is why genuine anarchists are anti-capitalists (as discussing in An Anarchist FAQ, --- http://www.anarchistfaq.org -- there is even a section on slave contracts in its critique of "anarcho"-capitalism).

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