Danger of right libertarianism

In the States it’s a problem that’s already well out of hand considering how we have members of congress and government (people like Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and his son Rand Paul - who he supposedly did not name after Ayn Rand - Gary Johnson, etc.) who are self-described “libertarians” - of the private property type of course - and the fact that the right in North America has succeeded in redefining the word to mean pro private property and anti-state, which doesn’t help the people who use the term in its original anti-capitalist and socialist sense to get their politics across to others. I think Gary Johnson did an excellent job, however, of making a complete joke of himself during this last campaign (not knowing what Aleppo is and having an interview meltdown) and discrediting right libertarian views for most people. (Then again, Trump.) I don’t know much about the UK equivalent to the American Libertarian Party or how much of a problem right libertarianism is outside the States. (There’s actually a Wiki article that lists all the different "Libertarian” parties of every country; most of them were formed recently.)

The best way to deal with, as far as terminology goes, these right-wingers as well as people (mostly politically ignorant liberals) who unknowingly associate “libertarian” with private tyranny is to continue pointing out that “libertarian” has always been the shorthand way of saying “anarchist and socialist” and that it was originally used politically by a libertarian communist (Joseph Dejacque) in a letter to Proudhon and then in an anarchist journal, etc. If you’re dealing with “An”Caps who are the more “radical” versions of right libertarians who admire people like Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand and who want to reduce the state even further if not eliminate it altogether, merely point out that anarchism has nothing to do with capitalism and that all of anarchism’s major thinkers (Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, etc.) have supported things like workers’ control and have been against private property. Just point them to any number of introductory books on anarchism (like from Berkman, Malatesta, Guerin, Rocker, etc.) in which there’s no mention of Rothbard or Rand, or point them to how Rothbard admitted to having "[stolen] the word from our enemies":

(Rand also had contempt for the right libertarian movement of her days, correctly noting that anarchism has for the most part been "collectivist" or social:

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Or simply point them to history like Makhno’s Black Army and the libertarian communes in Ukraine, the Spanish anarchist collectives during the Spanish Revolution (in which Orwell participated and wrote a book about, Homage to Catalonia), etc.

As far as content is concerned, just point to the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of capitalism and the inconsistency of calling oneself a “libertarian or anarchist” but giving capitalist social relations (capitalist-worker) a free pass. After all, freedom for capital is not the same as freedom for the working class/majority of the population who don’t have access to the means of production and are forced to sell themselves to those who do in order to survive. The state or an equivalent will always be needed to combat all the anti-social effects originating from the market as well as to protect private property rights, otherwise workers wouldn’t put up with their low wages and poor working conditions, joblessness and so on, and would just take over their workplaces and begin managing them themselves. The state and capitalism have always gone together and have helped one another, so their arguments are not even worth debating or taking seriously.

I don't see what other strategy you have in mind other than directly pointing out all these facts, as well as all the flaws and inconsistencies in their ideas.

In my opinion these "libertarians" are probably the most Dangerous Group out there ideologically. The reason is what they say, without reflection, seems common selse.

Over the last 100 or so years Capitalism has been drumming in an ideology, the ideology of the market being the Natural order of Things, of property being axiomatic, the state and the market being against each other, and of the atomization of human beings; so called "libertarians" just take that ideology to its Natural conclusion.

In my opinion the way to deal with these People is to learn their arguments, learn the theories and spread the arguments against their theiries and ideology.

The fact of the matter is their ideology is based on many, clearly false, assumptions:

1. Property is axiomatic:
It obviously isn't, what makes something property is just the fact that there is a government that will hit you over the head if you don't agree, plain and simple, property arrangements is just one of many ways human beings can deal With conflicts, it isn't the default way at all, history and anthropology shows that it isn't. In fact, in the west, landed private property had to be enforced by Extreme violence (the enclosure movement), it wasn't at all Natural.

The question is why should we assume private property? perhaps it might be a good solution for some problems, perhaps not for others, but there is NO reason to just assume it Apriori.

So if someone screams out "Theft" all you have to say is "Theft" is only "Theft" if society recognizes something as legitimately Yours ... why should we recognize all of what is called property today as property?

2. Markets are the Natural order of Things:
Again, they oviously are not, history and anthropology shows this. Also as David Graeber and others have pointed out, even WITHIN Capitalist workplaces they get rid of markets, that's why they have labor contracts, so as to avoid the inefficiencies of markets. If you og to almost ANY pre-Capitalist village society, you'll find that markets are a tiny part of how goods and services are Distributed. If you before centralized states, you'll find almost no markets.

Markets are constructed, they are constructed by the State creating currency (through taxation systems which require a standard, and thus bring about currency), and through the threat of violence breaking up traditional mutual aid/sharing economic systems that simply work better.

3. The state and the market being against each other:
This is just false. The State; through taxation, strict property laws and standards, regulation of the commons and externalities, and currency creation, actually creates markets, or creates a situation where markets are possible. Not only that but the state also destroys traditional mutual aid/sharing economies so that markets can move in (a great example of this is for example the destruction of Fishing communities in eastern africa by Oil Companies, which then forces those in the Fishing communities to find other ways to live, and to sell labor and consume through the market).

The market is inherently (as Marx and others have shown) full of contradictions, for example the Paradox of thrift. So the state has to constantly come in and fix those contradictions.

Also the market isn't good at innovating, it's too high of a risk and too little of a reward; so the state (through the military and universities) does the innovating and then hands the Technology over to the market to commercialize it.

And so on and so forth.

4. The Atomization of man:
The idea here is from John Locke (the Source of a lot of this bullshit in my opinion), it is that human beings are naturally free and independant and autonomous; and they only engage in relationship With others through freely chosen contract for mutual benefit, and any non-chosen relationship is some kind of slavery.

Again this is nonsense, and to be honest the conservative tradition (from People like Edmund Bruke) does a great job of debunking this. Every human being is born completely dependant on others and remains dependant on others their entire life. Nobody creates their own Language, nobody raises themselves, nobody builds their own roads, nobody builds their own electricity stations, nobody creates history from scratch, nobody grows every thing thei eat, nobody builds all the buildings they ever use, nobody Writes all the books they ever read and so on.

The Market allows us to pretend we are independant and autonomous, because we can pretend that we "earned" the right to these Things, we can pretend that becuase the market alienates us from those whom we actually depend on. But NO ONE is ever autonomous, we ALL alwasy depend on others all the time to survive, nobody chooses most of their relationships, so the question what obligation do we have to each other given the fact that we depend on each other.

Again I cannot stress how Dangerous this ideology is. I've recently talked to a "libertarian" who said that taxation was the equivalent to rape; which, given the perverse ideology of self ownership, is consistant, i.e. if we "own" ourselves, and rape is a property crime then taxation is in the same category. The fact is we don't "own" ourselves, we ARE ourselves, rape is not a property crime it is a crime against humanity. But these conclusions are why I think this "libertarianism" is the most Dangerous ideology out there. It ultimately reduces humans to commodities.

i think its can be useful to point out how there arguments don't make sense, but i dont think you can defeat the ideology though argument, since the arguments they put forward act more as a protective screen for what they actual want, complete removal of al business regulation, rather than being reasons why they believe in it, which is as you say because of the overwhelming capitalist ideology. the ideas they use to justify this can be use discarded and reused as needed

You're right, the hardcore ones are just plutocrats really. It's very easy to weed those ones out; I usually just ask them what they think of the so-called "right to work" laws; if they are for them they just outed themselves as major hypocrites, right to work laws are state regulations on the market but against unions and for the benefit of businesses, they literally ban a kind of contract made by two private entities, it's the state interfering in the market.

But many so-called libertarians are for those laws because in reality, they are plutocrats.

But I do think we anti-capitalists need to get the arguments or there; you'd be amazing how many people who are attracted to capitalist libertarianism have simply never heard a coherent case against it; most of what is in the public sphere on the "left" is mere emotional appealing, not hard nosed coherent arguments. You'd be amazed how many people haven't even considered the obvious fact that propert is a social construction just like government.

Don't think the "Stateless" right wingers are the ones we need to be worrying about right now. The views of the ultra-reactionary, dark-enlightenment Hard-Right is what seems to be on the rise at the moment. Extreme authoritarians, anti-feminist, anti-welfare, openly racist, unashamedly anti-progressive.etc The Libertarians/Voluntaryists actually seem to be worried that they're being overtaken by the new kid on the block. Hayek isn't sexy any more, all the cool kids are reading Milo Yiannopoulos.

I thought the dark enlightenment folks were mainly located in/revolving around Silicon Valley types like Peter Thiel and others? Or are you referring to this commonly held notion among the alt-right that a business person is better equipped at running government/ we should become vassals of CEOs?

I guess I am just confused as to why so many people would all of a sudden had read Nick Land (while he is a fucking dirtbag, I doubt that most of the alt-right folks would get Land's mix of Deleuze, Marx, and Lovecraft).

Yeah, there's some overlap in politics there; the people who bang on about 'SJW's' and defend the likes of Milo or Spencer also watch Molyneux.

I completely dissagree, not because I think Libertarians are more popular numerically, but because I think at a fundamental Level it is more Dangerous, and it is growing among those With Power.

this "alt-right" stuff I see as more of a symptom, these are People who have no community, who are being offered a community by fascists, they are not pro-state or pro-capitalism nor anti, they are usually People who need to belong to something and are being offered something by nationalists.

the libertarians, in my opinion, are more Dangerous because they oppose even the idea of community, they are Extreme fundamentalists and they are not being challenged at all.

Libertarians are also winning, Capitalism is the default, markets are assumed, property is the defualt, social-democracies have been being dismantled since the 80s.

The alt-right, in my opinion, is the symptom of neo-liberalism winning and the left failing so terribly.

The "left" is busy fighting the "alt-right" over who uses what bathrooms and whether or not the tiny amount of terrorism that happens is theologically based or not while the financeers and technocrats are taking over everything and destroying everything that matters.

If the only opinion People are given is nationalism or neo-liberalism, many People will pick the former, especially People who are not financially powerfully, People who want to belong to something, a community.

But nationalism only wins when the neo-liberals have convinced everyone that there is no other option but total capitalism.

Very true. While I agree the left is failing, it has more to do with how the left was almost completely defeated by the 1970s. And on top of that, the working class has was decomposed. This decomposition has continued--and this is the reason for why the left is failing. We've not recomposed as a class, meaning that we're still relying on strategy and tactics from the Fordist era (the trade union as especially bad when it comes to this; most unionists I know in my town wants to bring back the old times, not make a new one). Against the autonomists who, despite coining the term working class composition, seem to have thought that there has been a process of recomposition when it fact we were still being decomposed. In other words, we're starting from scratch when it comes to organizing.

I completely agree.

I think one mistake of the "left" (I mean here, liberal left, the actual left isn't so guilty of this) is to ignore issues of class and poverty (other than platitudes and cliches), and rather just attack conservative Cultural issues; the problem is often the Things that the left attacks, or is seen as attacking (Things like the Family, masculinity, gender roles, and so on), are Things that many poor People view as a form of pride and Identity, or community, they'll view that attack as an attack on their Source of community and there is nothing else offered.

For example, a poor working class man doesn't have a stable job, he's a precarious worker (like many), his wife Works part time; they barely can survive. Chances are he takes pride in the fact that he can protect his wife and children physically, chances are she takes pride in the fact that she cares for her children ... they have these ready made Sources of value and community they turn to. Chances are they have a neighbourhood, or Church community which is built up on all sorts of concepts and values like that.

When you take those away, if nothing is offered in Return, the ONLY Source of value and community left is what capitalism offers, i.e. whatever you can afford.

The Fascists are doing something VERY Dangerous, they are telling those People we are going to protect Your Sources of value and community, and Guess what, Guess whose threatening it, it's those Muslims, black People, immigrants, and whatever, ignore the fact that capitalism has been destroying working class communities and values since its inception. Unfortunately the liberal left is still offering nothing.

But the fascists can ONLY do this, because neo-liberalism and, really, right-libertarinaism, has one; Capitalism is the only game in town, it's the default, right libertarianism has created a problem and fascists are offering a solution, but the real problem is the actual victory of neo-liberalism.

The problem With neo-liberalism is almost no one has to believe in it, it's enough that a couple ministers of Finance, technocrats, and powerful financeers and econominists believe in it, as long as they can convince everyone else that it's basically just "how Things are" and thats it, then everyone else is going to end up fighting about other issues.

I'm MUCH more worried about 1 guy in a suit in the city of London than 50 drunken idiot skinheads.

I don't think they would frame it as "patriarchy" ... that's the point.

It is a fact that men in poverty tend to take pride in traditionally masculine traits ... they have to. It's been demonstrated that during economic downturns men tend to workout more. In impoverished neighborhoods men tend to be measured more by their toughness. There are good reasons for that, the ideology of Capitalism basically is that if you're not making a lot of Money you're less of a man, of less value, poor People generally live in areas With more crime also, thus more brutal life.

Poor People tend to be more dependant on their families.

So if you're attacking the indentities and values that they need, the values that give them some kind of Identity ... what are you offering them?

Well, those things still exist in parts of the working class, but they are being destroyed. I have a Church community, mainly made up of the working class/immigrants, so I of course have a specific perspective.

you miss characterising the support for this kind politics as coming from the poor when actually it comes from people like small business owners

was literally just reading this https://www.thenation.com/article/trumpism-its-coming-from-the-suburbs/
but its been covered multiple times before

I'm not talking about the Trump phenomenon perse ... that's a whole different animal.

its really not, their is massive overlap between the trump supporters and right "libertarians" and quite honestly the idea that the typical "libertarian" is poorer or more working class than the typical trump supporter is one of the most ridicules ideas ever

I think you missunderstood my point ... I wasn't saying that libertarians are usually poor, I in fact said the Complete opposite, please take a look at my posts again if you want to understand my point.

your clearly making the argument that those ideas particularity appeal to poor people

NOT libertarian ideas, I was talking about Cultural issues that the liberal left tend to attack.

My point is that liberarianism is the more important enemy.

There's been a coalescing of these groups the past few years:

'Centrists' like Jonathan Haidt who's cited in nearly every single thinkpiece against SJWs/campus safe spaces and who wants affirmative action for conservatives (justified by evolutionary psychology where he puts 'conservativism' on a spectrum of thought, then argues that diversity of thought is an evolutionary prerogative). Other bits of social/evolutionary psychology focused on ingroup/outgroup dynamics vs. structural discrimination and class.

Mens Rights Activists.

G*m*erg*te.

Right Libertarians (Richard Spencer was attending fundraisers and similar with Rand Paul and similar in the late '00s).

NRx via Nick Land and Moldbug.

Anarcho-capitalists, at least judging by twitter, a fair few have dealt with the congnitive dissonance of supporting monarchy/techno-feudalism and a lot of them have gone over to NRx and similar.

Dawkins/neo-atheism is very close to this too.

And a lot of both-sides liberals/journos are repeating the cultural talking points as generic red-baiting without fully understanding the consequences a lot of the time, or they just don't care about it.

This isn't just a bunch of teenagers, but as mentioned above it's people like Thiel, Bannon and if not millions of people quite a lot of tech business owners and similar into this stuff. With Breitbart and Milo a lot of the arguments are getting more airtime than they would have a few years ago as well.

The anime nazis/pepe lot and similar probably are teenagers, but they're getting pulled into this via reddit/twitter/youtube. Generally a lot of people haven't been taking it seriously until the period between GG and the Trump campaign, and to me at least it's looking more like a real movement and one which doesn't lend itself to street antifascism - since except for maybe Berkeley this lot don't necessarily make it onto the streets, but it doesn't mean they aren't doing a lot of damage on the internet and infecting discourse generally.