This is a post by my friend Juan Carpio from our now-moribund group blog, The Libertarian Standard. I paste the whole thing plus comments since I had some extensive comments there. Four questions for “anti-capitalist” libertarians Juan Fernando Carpio April 21, 2010 11:58 am Sheldon Richman, one of the best libertarian writers of the last decade and […]
A few years back, I had a disagreement with left-libertarian Kevin Carson who implied, I thought, that anyone who is “rich”—say, who earns more than $250k a year—earns his money illegitimately, by being part of the state’s exploiting class, and it would be just to confiscate his wealth. See, for example, our interchange in the comments […]
On Facebook, a left-anarchist friend wrote: To the archists out there. What is your philosophical justification for hierarchy such as the hierarchy of a state, corporation, church, or any social organization based upon a chain of command? This engendered much discussion. My own reply was: “To the archists out there. What is your philosophical justification […]
I had an exchange on the C4SS site on Thomas Knapp’s post The Thin Black Line: Kinsella: State chartering of corporations should of course be abolished but I’ve yet to see a careful argument that explains on libertarian grounds why passive shareholders/investors of a contractual firm ought to be vicariously responsible for torts committed by […]
The new book Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard, edited by David Gordon looks great. I already found some gems: see chapter II.1 p. 25, “Are Libertarians ‘Anarchists'”? It has a devastating critique of anarcho-“syndicalists” and left-anarchists. A few delicious choice quotes: The spurious logic of the dialectic is not […]
Reply to Roderick Long’s Fall Right, Swing Left: Stephan Kinsella on May 15, 2010 at 8:26 am I agree with the criticism of Stossel. But I disagree with the idea that libertarians are either left- or right-. In my view, the proper conception of libertarianism rejects the left-right spectrum outright, and also rejects left and […]
Kevin Carson: Sympathy for the Devil, BP. I reply in detail in the comments. Sheldon Richman, Self-Regulation in the Corporate State: The BP Spill. My comments to Richman: This is a good piece–unlike Carson’s (uncharacteristically) weak one on this topic. Of course, Lew’s comments were not a defense of BP of the type Sheldon rightly […]
I chimed in too: *** Steve, a question for you, Sheldon, Roderick, etc.: If we ditch the term “capitalism,” for the reasons you describe, what do we do with the technical economic terms “capital” and “capitalist”? The same arguments you use against “capitalism” seem to apply, with equal force, to “capitalist.” For doing theory, we […]
My reply to one “Chris George’s” post No, The Non-Aggression Principle is Not Enough (see Reply to Left-Libertarians on “Capitalism” for other discussions with Chris): Chris, you are getting better. Glad you accept the NAP as a basic rule of thumb. But confusions remain. “If we got down to the really nitty gritty, I’m sure […]
It is clear that the left-libertarians have lost in their campaign to demonize the word “capitalism.” Nice try, fellas, but you lost. Libertarians are not buying your strained arguments and pointless attempt to fight semantic battles. Capitalism as a word just means private ownership of the means of production. I point you to a dictionary. […]
