Libertas

Murray Rothbard (1926 – 1995) "The state is a gang of thieves writ large."

I started out as a conservative, then rediscovered my libertarian leanings and began calling myself a classical liberal. While definitely a minority position, it has some respectability, but after reading Murray Rothbard at mises.org, tolfa.us, and the freedom school, I have to come clean. I admit it, I’m an anarchist, and even worse, still a capitalist!

That should irritate just about everybody: Left and Right, liberal and conservative. I don’t want to irritate anybody, well except the statists. They are the enemy. The rest are just misinformed, and I have hope for them.

So, basically I believe there is no good government. It’s not a necessary evil. No evil is necessary. It’s evil and should be eliminated.

We’re ruled by a gang of thieves, thugs, charlatans, and killers. Even the “good” officials can’t do what they promise. For everything they try, promise, or claim to do for good, the end result is worse, intended or otherwise. I’m not so sure some of these unintended consequences are unintended. Are they really that stupid? Or, are they really that evil? Is it a confederacy of dunces or a conspiracy of devils?

I’ll leave that to another post.

Doesn’t Government Provide Stability?

Anarchy does not necessary mean chaos. There have been anarchic societies. Israel during the times of the Judges and Medieval Iceland were self-ordering stateless societies. There was no legal entity with a monopoly on the initiation of force. Somalia, Colombia, and Northern Mexico are chaotic because of conflicting groups (including the government) trying to gain that monopoly of force. Whoever gains the monopoly becomes the government.

Anarchism is new to me, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I’m going out to throw bombs and destabilize society. That’s what I’m against. That’s what government does. No, I am merely saying that a society without an entity having a monopoly on force or any legal means to initiate force would be a far more just, freer, and prosperous society.

I’ve always been a capitalist, but never thought much about it. Communism was obviously against freedom, and I assumed we had a capitalistic economy. We don’t. It’s a mixed fascist/socialist economy. I want complete separation of economy and state, until we have no state. I want a completely free-market.

Isn’t Capitalism Based On Greed?

As anarchy doesn’t mean chaos, neither does self interests mean greed. People in a free-market are made to cooperate and thrive through mutual aid. A free market trade is made when both parties believe they are gaining in the trade. If they did not, they would not make the trade.

Government intervention however forces people to go against their self interest, to do things against their wills. What good is freedom, if people cannot work for their self interests? What is wrong with that anyway?

Karl Marx (1818-1883) "For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him."

“From each according to ability, to each according to need” sounds good, but how would that be enforced? Wouldn’t that require state intervention? Doesn’t state intervention mean forcing people to go against their self interests? It’s simply interfering in the actions and trades of people.

Free-market capitalism is the only way I can see an economy that is free and anarchist. It is self ordering. It allows each individual to pursue his or her goals, dreams, interests without the state interfering or forcing interactions that would go against one or both parties wills and self-interests.

Big business or corporations do not want the free-market. They want the power of the state to intervene on their behalf. Remove the state, and big business looses it’s dangerous power and must instead persuade and provide useful and desirable services and products. The free-market will thrive, thugs will not.

Planned economies require the state; planned economies require a powerful state. It must know as much as possible to make the “correct” decisions. It must have as much power to enforce those decisions. Yet, it never can and so always strives for more knowledge and power (That’s the great thing about government. It’s failure is rewarded with more money and power). What is that knowledge and power? How is it obtained? How is it used? Don’t you see the danger?

Think of a free-market economy as an ecology. State interventionism is much like human interventionism in nature. There are unintended consequences. The free-market, like nature, self regulates – self orders.

The free-market would allow greater generosity among people because people would be more responsible for themselves and their neighbors. The more freedom, the more responsibility required. The freer the market, the more prosperous the society.

Recommended:

An Enemy Of The State: The Life Of Murray N. Rothbard by Justin Raimundo

Bionomics: Economy as Business Ecosystem by Michael Rothschild

Freedom School

mises.org

tolfa.us

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