I really shouldn’t waste any photons or brain cells on refuting the Rockwell/Rothbard/Paul strategy on the merits. It’s about as challenging as shooting fish in a barrel, to say nothing providing irresistible temptation to sarcasm. But hey, who can resist an irresistible temptation?
So I’ll start by indulging in sarcasm. Let’s get this straight. Lew Rockwell wanted to embrace the Birchers, neo-Confederates, white supremacists, Buchananites and even David Duke because he wanted to give libertarians more mainstream appeal?!? He worried that they seemed like a bunch of dirty, stinking hippies who needed a bath and shave, but didn’t realize that bathing in the sewer just makes you smell worse? He worried that libertarians would remain marginalized so long as they were associated with “abhorrent cultural norms”? Uh, yeah, he was right about that.
OK, now that that’s out of my system, let’s take a look at what Rockwell actually said. He said that libertarians should support authority so long as it isn’t the authority of the state. Libertarianism isn’t about liberty in general, but only liberty from the state. This is good to the extent it rejects the oversimplified view of liberty as atomization taken by the Ayn Rand wing of libertarianism. But all it has to offer in exchange is the equally oversimplified view of government bad, private actor good. (Admittedly, Rockwell makes an explicit exception for criminals and kind of sort of hints that unions might be another exception, as well as the Civil Rights movement, and who knows what else).
The claim that private actors (other than criminals) can never infringe on liberty is ridiculous. The neo-Confederate wing of Rockwell's brand of libertarianism take this to extremes, arguing that slavery couldn’t possibly be oppressive, since slave holders were private actors. But even omitting slavery, Rothbard, at least, must have known better. Rothbard wrote an excellent critique of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist movement for its cult-like grip on members, which he compared to the Communist Party (in non-Communist countries, of course). Members dared not deviate from the party line, even on a matter so simple as music (Rachmaninoff was better than Bach) or smoking (a moral duty). Granted, Objectivism did not have the coercive power of the state at its command, and that makes a big difference. And granted, it never descended to some of the types of isolation and coercion seen in real cults.* But Rothbard illustrated very well the iron grip that even a private, non-coercive actor could have.
And speaking of cults, Rockwell also raises the issue of Christianity. Christianity, he says, is responsible for all good things about western culture. "It was the transnational [presumably meaning Catholic] church that battled nationalism, militarism, high taxes, and political oppression, and whose theology proclaimed the right of tyrannicide." The thought of fighting for freedom by battling Catholic orthodoxy outraged Rockwell. He does grant that it is possible to be a libertarian without being a Christian.
In fairness to Rockwell, this was before the pedophilia scandals in the Catholic Church had broken, along with other frightful tales of abuse from Ireland to Mexico. But in Rockwell's time Catholic orthodoxy had still not admitted it had been wrong in saying the sun travels around the earth, and still (to this day, in fact) did not allow the use of artificial contraception. The subsequent pedophilia and other abuse scandals stand as a shocking illustration of the power and abuse a private actor can exercise even without the power of the state behind it. And it is no coincidence that the scandals broke first in the United States, where people were prepared to question churchly authority.
Furthermore, any objective history of Christianity would have to acknowledge not only the fine and noble aspects, but a darker side as well -- Christians waging war on Christians and burning each other at the stake in the name of orthodoxy, a Christian thought police (which Stalin's thought police often used as their model), and so forth. The Wikipedia identifies Rockwell as a Catholic, which no doubt shaped his thinking. Rothbard, by contrast, was a secular Jew. He must have known about the Christian history of anti-Semitism. My point here is not that Christianity is inherently oppressive, but that it is one of many non-state actors that have that potential.
Rockwell then goes on to argue that government programs such as Social Security, Medicare and public schools should be opposed not only because they are taxpayer funded, but because they undermine the authority of family. What he doesn't consider is the awkward possibility that maybe families like that. Maybe children don't want to be burdened with supporting their parents in their old age. Maybe parents not only fear being a burden on their children, but also fear that depending on their children will subject them to their children's authority. Maybe both generations fear that this will lead to conflict and struggles over authority that seem a lot more intrusive than just paying a tax. Von Mises Institute libertarians don't consider the intrusiveness of a tax to matter. They consider all taxation to be theft, morally indistinguishable from jackbooted thugs breaking into your house and robbing your valuables at gunpoint. That a tax is less intrusive does not make it less oppressive, merely more insidious. But maybe people outside the von Mises Institute consider intrusiveness important. Maybe they prefer the minimal intrusiveness of a tax to the greater intrusiveness of supporting elderly parents, or submitting to the authority of one's children.**
And this is to say nothing of the much more concentrated and less predictable medical expenses that elders avoid by having Medicare. Maybe most people consider losing their savings (or even their house) because of an unexpected medical emergency to be more of an intrusion than paying a Medicare tax. Maybe it is the fear of losing these things, and not "abhorrent cultural norms" that limit the appeal of libertarianism.
As for crime, well, Rockwell calls from a crackdown and appears to applaud vigilantism, including by the Mafia, as a way of fighting it. He lamented that many libertarians oppose such things merely because the criminals in question are so often black. Um, no, the problem is that we have this little thing called due process that we require to state to meet precisely because we fear its power and recognize its susceptibility to abuse. Turn vigilantes loose with the power of violence freed from due process and abuses will be rampant. Mafia neighborhoods have less street crime than other neighborhoods. They also have higher and more arbitrary taxes (in the form of protection money), more arbitrary and less economically rational regulations, and so forth. And let Rockwell compare the economic performance of southern Italy where the Mafia rules supreme to northern Italy where the state rules supreme to see which is the better system.
The form the actual Rockwell/Rothbard strategy took soon became clear. "The populist outreach program centered on tax reduction, abolition of welfare, elimination of 'the entire "civil rights" structure, which tramples on the property rights of every American,' and a police crackdown on 'street criminals.'" The flaw of this as a libertarian strategy is obvious. It isn't even that it is not so much libertarian as pseudo-libertarian, seeking to limit government to Essential Core Functions, and to remove all restraints on that. It is that such a strategy is not even based on a blanket opposition to all taxes and (non-core) spending. It's only really opposed to spending when someone else benefits. Instead of actually attacking Social Security and Medicare as threats to family, it ignores then and focuses all the ire on much smaller and less expensive programs that someone else benefits from. In short, it is not so much anti-statist as anti-other.
So I’ll start by indulging in sarcasm. Let’s get this straight. Lew Rockwell wanted to embrace the Birchers, neo-Confederates, white supremacists, Buchananites and even David Duke because he wanted to give libertarians more mainstream appeal?!? He worried that they seemed like a bunch of dirty, stinking hippies who needed a bath and shave, but didn’t realize that bathing in the sewer just makes you smell worse? He worried that libertarians would remain marginalized so long as they were associated with “abhorrent cultural norms”? Uh, yeah, he was right about that.
OK, now that that’s out of my system, let’s take a look at what Rockwell actually said. He said that libertarians should support authority so long as it isn’t the authority of the state. Libertarianism isn’t about liberty in general, but only liberty from the state. This is good to the extent it rejects the oversimplified view of liberty as atomization taken by the Ayn Rand wing of libertarianism. But all it has to offer in exchange is the equally oversimplified view of government bad, private actor good. (Admittedly, Rockwell makes an explicit exception for criminals and kind of sort of hints that unions might be another exception, as well as the Civil Rights movement, and who knows what else).
The claim that private actors (other than criminals) can never infringe on liberty is ridiculous. The neo-Confederate wing of Rockwell's brand of libertarianism take this to extremes, arguing that slavery couldn’t possibly be oppressive, since slave holders were private actors. But even omitting slavery, Rothbard, at least, must have known better. Rothbard wrote an excellent critique of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist movement for its cult-like grip on members, which he compared to the Communist Party (in non-Communist countries, of course). Members dared not deviate from the party line, even on a matter so simple as music (Rachmaninoff was better than Bach) or smoking (a moral duty). Granted, Objectivism did not have the coercive power of the state at its command, and that makes a big difference. And granted, it never descended to some of the types of isolation and coercion seen in real cults.* But Rothbard illustrated very well the iron grip that even a private, non-coercive actor could have.
And speaking of cults, Rockwell also raises the issue of Christianity. Christianity, he says, is responsible for all good things about western culture. "It was the transnational [presumably meaning Catholic] church that battled nationalism, militarism, high taxes, and political oppression, and whose theology proclaimed the right of tyrannicide." The thought of fighting for freedom by battling Catholic orthodoxy outraged Rockwell. He does grant that it is possible to be a libertarian without being a Christian.
In fairness to Rockwell, this was before the pedophilia scandals in the Catholic Church had broken, along with other frightful tales of abuse from Ireland to Mexico. But in Rockwell's time Catholic orthodoxy had still not admitted it had been wrong in saying the sun travels around the earth, and still (to this day, in fact) did not allow the use of artificial contraception. The subsequent pedophilia and other abuse scandals stand as a shocking illustration of the power and abuse a private actor can exercise even without the power of the state behind it. And it is no coincidence that the scandals broke first in the United States, where people were prepared to question churchly authority.
Furthermore, any objective history of Christianity would have to acknowledge not only the fine and noble aspects, but a darker side as well -- Christians waging war on Christians and burning each other at the stake in the name of orthodoxy, a Christian thought police (which Stalin's thought police often used as their model), and so forth. The Wikipedia identifies Rockwell as a Catholic, which no doubt shaped his thinking. Rothbard, by contrast, was a secular Jew. He must have known about the Christian history of anti-Semitism. My point here is not that Christianity is inherently oppressive, but that it is one of many non-state actors that have that potential.
Rockwell then goes on to argue that government programs such as Social Security, Medicare and public schools should be opposed not only because they are taxpayer funded, but because they undermine the authority of family. What he doesn't consider is the awkward possibility that maybe families like that. Maybe children don't want to be burdened with supporting their parents in their old age. Maybe parents not only fear being a burden on their children, but also fear that depending on their children will subject them to their children's authority. Maybe both generations fear that this will lead to conflict and struggles over authority that seem a lot more intrusive than just paying a tax. Von Mises Institute libertarians don't consider the intrusiveness of a tax to matter. They consider all taxation to be theft, morally indistinguishable from jackbooted thugs breaking into your house and robbing your valuables at gunpoint. That a tax is less intrusive does not make it less oppressive, merely more insidious. But maybe people outside the von Mises Institute consider intrusiveness important. Maybe they prefer the minimal intrusiveness of a tax to the greater intrusiveness of supporting elderly parents, or submitting to the authority of one's children.**
And this is to say nothing of the much more concentrated and less predictable medical expenses that elders avoid by having Medicare. Maybe most people consider losing their savings (or even their house) because of an unexpected medical emergency to be more of an intrusion than paying a Medicare tax. Maybe it is the fear of losing these things, and not "abhorrent cultural norms" that limit the appeal of libertarianism.
As for crime, well, Rockwell calls from a crackdown and appears to applaud vigilantism, including by the Mafia, as a way of fighting it. He lamented that many libertarians oppose such things merely because the criminals in question are so often black. Um, no, the problem is that we have this little thing called due process that we require to state to meet precisely because we fear its power and recognize its susceptibility to abuse. Turn vigilantes loose with the power of violence freed from due process and abuses will be rampant. Mafia neighborhoods have less street crime than other neighborhoods. They also have higher and more arbitrary taxes (in the form of protection money), more arbitrary and less economically rational regulations, and so forth. And let Rockwell compare the economic performance of southern Italy where the Mafia rules supreme to northern Italy where the state rules supreme to see which is the better system.
The form the actual Rockwell/Rothbard strategy took soon became clear. "The populist outreach program centered on tax reduction, abolition of welfare, elimination of 'the entire "civil rights" structure, which tramples on the property rights of every American,' and a police crackdown on 'street criminals.'" The flaw of this as a libertarian strategy is obvious. It isn't even that it is not so much libertarian as pseudo-libertarian, seeking to limit government to Essential Core Functions, and to remove all restraints on that. It is that such a strategy is not even based on a blanket opposition to all taxes and (non-core) spending. It's only really opposed to spending when someone else benefits. Instead of actually attacking Social Security and Medicare as threats to family, it ignores then and focuses all the ire on much smaller and less expensive programs that someone else benefits from. In short, it is not so much anti-statist as anti-other.
Which will be the subject of my next post.
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*Rand's organization broke up in a lover's quarrel when it was revealed that, Rand, a married woman, was having an affair with her second in command, a married man. One doesn't have to condone such things to recognize that compared to the sort of sexual exploitation and depravity that takes place in real cults, this looks pretty mild.
**Needless to say, Social Security does not prevent children from supporting elderly parents if the wish to.
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