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You people should be at the beach. You should be out there and you should be swimming, relaxing in the time you have to relax. … I look down to see the people that are governing me and making my rules—and they haven’t got any hair on their head—I get very uptight about it.

There’s no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there’s only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I’m trying to go up without thinking about anything as trivial as politics.

"

Bob Dylan, accepting the Thomas Paine Award in 1963

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Twentieth century leftism in all its versions—state socialist left, social democratic left, self-managment, local self-organisation, more creative democratic left—is over. That game is over.

The left will have to begin from the beginning again. And that’s the problem. We don’t yet see it although we see a great need for this. Can we imagine a society whose public life is not organised by state mechanisms? Nobody does this. All we do today is to think how to introduce new legislation or whatever, to make the state and society more tolerant toward sexual and ethnic minorities, more healthcare, more ‘social justice’ and so on and so on.

"

Slavoj Zizek, Living in the End Times

Observation: almost every interesting “leftist” of note has emphatically made the point that most everything “leftists” have done and want to do is shit. I’m thinking Orwell, Camus, Foucault, Hodgson, Sen, Hitchens, Zizek…

"Sabina’s initial inner revolt against Communism was aesthetic rather than ethical in character. What repelled her was not nearly so much the ugliness of the Communist world (ruined castles transformed into cow sheds) as the mask of beauty it tried to wear—in other words, Communist kitsch."

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984)

Good arguments against libertarianism vs. Dumb arguments against libertarianism

Examples of good arguments:

1. Individual freedom can sometimes justifiably be violated, to prevent worse things.
2. The state (as an emergent institution) can overcome free rider and collective action problems and thus can provide sufficient national defense, emergency response services, infectious disease control, welfare safety nets, space exploration funding, etcetera given civil society and free markets cannot sufficiently provide them.
3. Statism is the only stable equilibrium in an extended order relative to polycentric power structures, as Cowen has argued.
4. Institutional efficiency, and relatedly the rule of law, matter more than personal freedom or whether the government is “big” or “minimal.” A larger state may be preferable to a smaller one if it the former has better rules by a given metric.

Examples of dumb arguments:

1. American congressman Ron Paul is racist; newsletters.
2. Employees don’t have complete autonomy at work and as such libertarians are hypocritical for not being against employment or else advocates of state interventionism into the employer-employee relationship.
3. Private property is just as coercive as taxation or drug prohibition laws, because if you don’t get off some guy’s lawn… he can just shoot you.
4. Certain present-day factories in developing countries have poor conditions relative to those in developed capitalist countries.
5. People who own productive goods “exploit” employees by class nature.

If someone can’t understand on honest reflection why the latter arguments are dumb, they’re probably not worth your time.

A student’s Marxist professor told her that “market society is coercive” as people must “join the market or starve.” The student asked me how I would respond to this line of argument. Here is my reply.

(1) Nobody is coercively threatening you with starvation unless they’re going to proactively force you into cage with no food or steal all your food or something.

The only time when this might be said to not be the case is when, for example, you are utterly dependent on your current employer to keep you from starving. Then if they end their interaction with you—even if they are following the contract or whatever—then they may in some sense be said to be indirectly “threatening” you with starvation. This is extremely rare today and would only occur in extremely dire circumstances. 

Dire circumstances may be said to be circumstantially or structurally “coercive” but that it is not what the term usually means in ordinary language or law. It’s not what free market proponents are talking about in any case. Coercion, particularly the kind of coercion libertarians are concerned with, refers to proactive interpersonal imposition—not particular circumstances per se. If your teacher wants to call bad circumstances “coercion,” fine. Don’t get too hung up on semantics. Just point out that he/she is using the word to refer to different concept than libertarians (and most other people).

(2) So once they understand that conceptual distinction, the question becomes economic. What empirically reduces the bad things they refer to as “coercion?” What general rules allow for pluralistic diversity of lifestyle choices so individuals can practically choose whether or not to “join” the market or live in a commune or what have you? What reduces starvation and makes food supply reliable and affordable? What does the opposite? etc. This is where I get into an empirical definition of the state, and a little bit of the history and empirics of market societies vs. societies where the state attempts to impose a particular order. Honestly, one of the best summaries of this that I know of is my essay and my tumblrized version of that essay.

Look at the indices of economic freedom and the robust negative correlation between starvation/malnutrition and economic freedom. Point out that most of the bad things they don’t like in contemporary society are very probably the effects, to large degrees, of statism.

Attempting to collectivize the social order for the transcendent “public good” or whathaveyou more likely results in mass starvation because it eliminates emergent information signals like prices and necessarily replaces them with attempts at some kind of top-down constructed order, and thus adds incentive and calculation problems. Better to allow dispersed individuals to follow their own interests and information according to general rules (which necessarily means “private property” in some form in order to have general rules with regards to stuff outside your body).

If they bring up “workplace democracy” or something along those lines, then it’s best to point out that free marketeers are not opposed at all to such things. They simply think they should be one of many organizational options that people can choose. If they insist, look at these points (1, 2) on why majority rule “democracy” is often quite obviously problematic and not the best option for people. And point out how profit signals and private spheres of control help fix these problems.

(3) It sometimes works, and is sometimes useless, to appeal to “freedom for freedom’s sake,” that is the intuitive and visceral appeal of the liberty that libertarians and others talk about. This is the absence of the kind of coercion that does not refer to bad circumstances, but to proactive interpersonal imposition—like enslavement, murder, government control, theft, and so on. This is the freedom of Camus (1, 2), Hugo, Hayek, etc. This is the kind of freedom that most libertarians and many other people are primarily concerned with. But even if they don’t care about this kind of freedom at all, argument (2) if correct should theoretically convince them.

Fatuous of course. In response to this mind-blowing post.

"In economics there exists a law of supply and demand, the effects of which were never more obvious than during the four years of the occupation [of France]. A product for which there is little demand will decrease in price in order to attract buyers. But it will increase in price if demand is heavy. So much is obvious. But when all commodities become scarce throughout a country, all are demanded with increasing urgency, and all prices rise with the implacable regularity we have come to know. Add to that the massive quantity of unbacked banknotes placed in circulation by the government of Vichy, and the purchasing power of money falls to absurd lows as prices soar. The large quantity of paper money in circulation means that there is too much cash chasing too few goods, so prices will remain at their current unreasonable levels. This economic phenomenon, with which we are forced to cope, is called inflation."

Albert Camus, Combat (1944)

Sounds like Ron Paul or something. Camus cites The Economist and goes on to decry the “illicit profits” made by those to whom “money flowed” first from the government. A common and sound libertarian point. This is before The Rebel era and Camus’ big split with the left over socialism. Indeed around this time Camus did suggest more state regulation in France to counter the problem of inflation. But his economics is notable nonetheless.

"Private property is a human device. It is not sacred. It came into existence in early ages of history, when people with their own power and by their own authority appropriated to themselves what had previously not been anybody’s property. Again and again proprietors were robbed of their property by expropriation. The history of private property can be traced back to a point at which it originated out of acts which were certainly not legal. Virtually every owner is the direct or indirect legal successor of people who acquired ownership either by arbitrary appropriation of ownerless things or by violent spoilation of their predecessor."

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (1949)

"We must admit that today conformity is on the Left. To be sure, the Right is not brilliant. But the Left is in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable merely of stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with the truth from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws. The Left is schizophrenic and needs doctoring through pitiless self-criticism, exercise of the heart, close reasoning, and a little modesty. Until such an effort at reexamination is well under way, any common rallying will be useless and even harmful."

Albert Camus in Resistance, Rebellion, & Death (1960)

Albert Camus on truth vs. expedience, the role of intellectuals, freedom, and the Left

Above all, we cannot grant expediency any precedence over regard for truth, as the communists do and the leftist intellectuals who follow them; for such systematic relativism leads to the death of intelligence and oppression of the worker. A press or a book is not true because it is revolutionary. It has a chance of being revolutionary only if it tries to tell the truth. We have a right to think that truth with a capital letter is relative. But facts are facts. And whoever says that the sky is blue when it is grey is prostituting words and preparing the way for tyranny.

Expediency for a communist newspaper perhaps amounts to saying that the whole population of Hungary is “fascist” except Kadar, his policemen and his executioners. But the factual truth is that we have seen a revolt of workers, intellectuals, and peasants who wanted national independence and personal freedom. …

He [the intellectual] must create if he can, first and foremost, especially if his creation does not sidestep the problems of his time. But in certain exceptional circumstances, he must leave no room for doubt as to the side he takes; he must be very careful not to let his choice be clouded by wily distinctions or or discreet balancing tricks and leave no question as to his personal determination to defend liberty. 

Grouping of intellectuals can, in certain cases, and particularly when the liberty of the masses and of the spirit is mortally threatened, constitute a strength and exert an influence; Hungarian intellectuals have just proven this. However it should be pointed out for our guidance in the West that the continual signing of manifestoes and protests is one of the surest ways of undermining the efficacy of and dignity of the intellectual. There exists a permanent blackmail that we all know and that we must have the often solitary courage to resist.

Subject to these reservations, we must hope for a common rallying. But first, our leftist intellectuals, who have swallowed so many insults and may well have to begin doing so again, would have to undertake a critique of the reasonings and ideologies to which they have hitherto subscribed, which have wreaked the havoc they have seen in our most recent history. That will be the hardest thing. We must admit that today conformity is on the Left. To be sure, the Right is not brilliant. But the Left is in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable merely of stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with the truth from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws. The Left is schizophrenic and needs doctoring through pitiless self-criticism, exerctentof the heart, close reasoning, and a little modesty. Until such an effort at re-examination is well under way, any common rallying will be useless and even harmful. 

Meanwhile, the intellectual’s role will be to say that the king is naked when he is, and not to go into raptures over imaginary trappings.

—Demain, 21-27 February 1957

"First, and most importantly, it is abundantly clear the Constitution does not guarantee that individuals may avoid taxation through inactivity. A capitation, after all, is a tax that everyone must pay simply for existing, and capitations are expressly contemplated by the Constitution."

Chief Justice John Roberts, in today’s Supreme Court decision (2012)

A “capitation” by the way is a poll tax, which is exactly as Roberts puts it any “tax everyone must pay simply for existing.” Apparently such existence-taxes are considered obviously constitutional in the US. Creepy. This really borders on making the slavery-statism analogy in kind utterly appropriate.

Why are online “political quizzes” so crappy?

You are a Liberal. 4 percent of the test participators are in the same category and 30 percent are more extremist than you.

(Source: politicaltest.net)

Socialism, The Tyranny of the Least and the Dumbest

On the misappropriation of Nietzsche:

ABSTRACT

In recent years, several political theorists have attempted to enlist Nietzsche in their egalitarian political projects.  The result has been a “domesticated” Nietzsche who can be counted as an ally in progressive politics.  In this essay, I combat this appropriation of Nietzsche by offering a detailed reconstruction of his critique of socialism.  Through an analysis of Nietzsche’s views on the intellectual forerunners, immediate causes, psychological assumptions, and errors of socialism, I hope restore his place as an important critic of egalitarian ideals. I contend Nietzsche’s rejection of socialism is rooted in two basic claims.  First, he loathed the “idealism” of socialists—the illusion that the right “social combination” could bring about heaven on earth.  Second, he viewed socialism as a particularly repugnant manifestation of the “pessimism of indignation”—a  psychological “sickness” that afflicts individuals who are unwilling to accept responsibility for their own wretchedness. I conclude that we would do well to restore Nietzsche’s status as an important critic, not ally, of egalitarian politics.

N. Buccola (2009) “The Tyranny of the Least and the Dumbest: Nietzsche’s Critique of Socialism” in Quarterly Journal of Ideology, Volume 31, 3&4.

A good article that goes over much of the same territory I have when talking about Nietzsche and socialism. While Buccola admits that there is a striking overlap between liberalism (libertarianism, for Americans) and Nietzsche, he argues that they are distinct because (1) Nietzsche does not rely on the liberal conception of liberty or the individual subject and (2) Nietzsche did not offer “a deontological or utilitarian defense of market economics against the socialist challenge.”

I think (1) is quite spurious given a very large part of libertarianism, economic liberalism (Hume, Bastiat, Smith, Friedman, Hayek, Jasay, etc.), also spurns argumentation based on a presupposed ethical or normative basis. This is one of the reasons Foucault was attracted to neoliberalism.

I think (2) is more substantive, but it would be too much to expect that Nietzsche present a Hayekian defense of markets in terms of economic coordination via price mechanism. However, Nietzsche did offer a defense of property along the same line, which amounts to largely the same thing. Buccola also draws a parallel between Michael Oakeshott’s (Hayekian) critique of socialism as societal-constructivist rationalism and Nietzsche’s critique. This speaks to (2) as well.

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Self-ownership is not the fundamental principle of libertarianism, interpersonal liberty itself is. Where there are clashes we minimize any infringements of liberty, if necessary by referring back to the pre-propertarian theory of liberty. As outlined in reply to Zwolinski (2012):

Phase 0: Assume that interpersonal liberty as non-invasiveness (absence/minimization of proactive impositions) is applied in a pre-propertarian, state-of-nature, thought-experiment.

Phase 1: Everyone controls (de facto owns) themselves (as this minimizes proactive impositions).

Phase 2: Everyone controls/owns whatever else he can acquire without proactively imposing on others.

Phase 3: Strong prima facie libertarian property rights in persons and several property (where acquired as in 2). But in the event of disputed or problem cases apply the pre-propertarian libertarian theory.

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Jan Lester, simplifying the thorough argument he makes in the very good book Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy Reconciled (2001)