Is libertarianism, the philosophy of voluntary arrangements, free markets and individual liberty, en vogue? After years of overreaching government by the Republican and Democratic parties, there are signs that a freedom movement is beginning to bristle.

The Associated Press moved a story July 7 with the headline: "With 'freedom' in fashion, is libertarianism back?" AP reporter Pauline Arrillaga wrote: "Something's going on in America this election year: a renaissance of an ideal as old as the nation itself that live-and-let-live, get-out-of-my-business, individualism vs. paternalism dogma that is the hallmark of libertarianism." She is correct.

A screen shot of the FreedomFest website.

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Those yearning for a liberty movement in the United States often cite the 2010 midterm elections, where voters, some reacting to the passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, ousted Democrats from office throughout the country and gave control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans. But even before that, liberty-minded voters began rejecting intrusive government policies.

In 2006, Republicans lost control of the House and Senate and a majority of the contested governorships. In 2008, Democrats won the White House, and increased their majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Those discouraging reversals for Republicans were due, at least in part, to the disenfranchisement felt toward the GOP by freedom-focused voters and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. Too many policies enacted by the GOP during the George W. Bush presidency, especially when the GOP controlled both houses of Congress, were suspect. Republicans went along with bailouts, stimulus packages, unpopular wars and an arguable precursor of Obamacare, the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.

Every time politicians of either major party step on liberty, which they do far too frequently, voters react. Now, with the odious requirement in Obamacare that all Americans buy government-approved health insurance or pay what a Supreme Court majority decided to call a tax, the libertarian streak within many American voters may play a deciding role in the presidential election, now less than four months away.

Judging by this week's annual FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas, the liberty movement is gaining momentum. Thousands will pour into the largest city in Nevada, a key swing state, to promote all things free-market and pro-liberty. FreedomFest typically provides insight into what liberty-leaning voters are thinking. This year's event could even turn out as the unofficial kickoff of a push that decides the winners in November.

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Editorial: Political parties earning freedom more fans

Source: Wikimedia Commons One discussion absent in the recent debate on libertarianism and working conditions is: if they don't want more labor laws, then how would libertarians improve working conditions? Some may guffaw at the notion that libertarians think working conditions should improve, but this is to confuse the desire for [...]

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How to Improve Working Conditions

Stefan Molyneux is a popular libertarian broadcaster who has in recent years acquired a considerable following. In Universally Preferable Behavior, he takes on an ambitious task. He endeavors to provide a rational basis for morality. Should he succeed, he would not only have achieved something of monumental importance; he would also have rendered a great service to libertarianism. Molyneux's system of morality has resolutely libertarian implications. If he is right, surely a time for rejoicing is at hand.

It would be cruel to arouse false expectations, so I had better say at once that Molyneux does not succeed in his noble goal. He fails, and fails miserably. His arguments are often preposterously bad.

Let us first be clear, in his own words, on what Molyneux wishes to accomplish:

The question before us is thus: can some preferences be objective, i.e., universal? When I talk about universal preferences, I am talking about what people should prefer, not what they always do prefer. (p. 33, emphasis omitted)

These preferences, furthermore, have to do with morality, behavior that can be forcibly imposed on people. "Those preferences which can be considered binding upon others can be termed 'universal preferences' or 'moral rules'" (p. 40).

Is there, then, behavior that is in his sense universally preferable? Our ever-generous author has an abundance of arguments in support of a positive answer to this question. His first claim is that the very fact of engaging in inquiry over the existence of universally preferable behavior suffices to answer the question in the affirmative. If I am engaged in debate about this topic, must I not prefer truth to falsehood? An attempt to deny this leads to contradiction: "If I argue against the proposition that universally preferable behavior is valid, I have already shown my preference for truth over falsehood as well as a preference for correcting those who speak falsely" (p. 40).

Molyneux is certainly right that someone who wants to discover whether universally preferable behavior exists, prefers, while trying to find the answer, truth over falsehood; but how does this generate a preference to correct others with mistaken views? Molyneux wrongly supposes that if someone wants to discover the truth, he must be in engaged in an actual debate with someone else. Why must he? Further, what has any of this to do with enforceable obligations, the ostensible subject of his inquiry?

Molyneux has many more arguments on offer. How can we deny the existence of universally preferable behavior, he asks: does not life itself depend on it? "Thus it is impossible that anyone can logically argue against universally preferable behavior, since if he is alive to argue, he must have followed universally preferable behaviors such as breathing, eating and drinking."

Is it not obvious that Molyneux has confused two different senses of "universally preferable behavior"? Biological laws are, as even our author elsewhere realizes, descriptive regularities; Molyneux fails utterly to show that acting in accord with such laws to keep oneself alive has anything to do with moral obligation.

Molyneux is not content with "proving" that moral obligations exist. He also has distinctive views about the nature of these obligations. Moral rules must be universal, in a very strong sense:

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The Molyneux Problem

The Affordable Care Act is not "the largest tax increase in the history of the world," despite what you might have heard on The Rush Limbaugh Show. In fact, it's not even the largest tax increase in the history of The Rush Limbaugh Show. Two years after Rush's national syndication, President George H. W. Bush signed a slightly bigger tax increase in 1990. And Reagan's tax increase from 1982 was bigger than both of them.

The following graph of the biggest tax increases since 1950 is Kevin Drum's data graphed by Austin Frakt (via Ezra Klein):

Obamacare tax chart

If you're looking for something/anything superlative to say about the ACA, you could say it's the biggest tax increase of the entire millennium (!!!) or perhaps that it's the second-biggest tax increase signed by a Democrat since LBJ. As for the biggest tax acts in "history," health care reform barely cracks the top ten ... for the last 60 years.

More From The Atlantic

Originally posted here:

2 of the Last 3 GOP Presidents Signed Larger Tax Increases Than Obamacare

Death may be permanent, but headstones are always changing.

That is, unless you paste a QR code sticker onto one of them, which is newly possible thanks to at least one Seattle company. Buried at the end of Business Week's QR-code takedown, we find the following nugget:

But there is one important way in which the QR code differs from the gravestone technologies that came before it. Whereas all previous technologies required only the eyes and a basic sense of literacy, a QR code is not legible without a third-party device. It is worth noting, however, that they do have a key predecessor in the symbols, a kind of afterlife code, that members of fraternal organizations often placed on tombstones around the turn of the last century. These symbols -- an elk, two shepherds crooks crossing -- would have been easily recognizable at the time they were affixed on the headstones, but now they are as mysterious as the QR code will probably be to our descendents.

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Finally, You Can Have a QR Code On Your Headstone

By: Roderick T. Long of Auburn | Letter to the editor Published: July 02, 2012 Updated: July 02, 2012 - 9:14 PM

In his letter on June 19, Edzard van Santen quotes the saying that one person's right to swing his fist ends where another person's nose begins.

Well and good; but what puzzles me is that he cites this saying as though it's meant to be a critique of libertarianism. On the contrary, that saying encapsulates the essence of libertarianism.

In the 19th century, Herbert Spencer stated the same principle less metaphorically:Each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other.And in the 20th century, Murray Rothbard explained it more fully:"No one may threaten or commit violence (aggress) against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a non-aggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory."

Van Santen also quotes the saying that no one is an island, again as though this conflicted with libertarianism.But libertarianism is the only political philosophy that actually takes seriously the idea that no one is an island.

Other ideologies assume, explicitly or implicitly, that human beings are inherently atomistic, with naturally conflictual interests, and so that society needs to have order imposed on it by top-down authority. Libertarians, by contrast, have traditionally rejected this atomistic vision of society, emphasizing that a human being is, in Emerson's words, "all made of hooks and eyes, and links himself naturally to his brothers."

It's precisely because we recognize that no one is an island that social order arises spontaneously and organically through voluntary, nonhierarchical relations among equals that we are libertarians in the first place.

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We were libertarians in the first place

NASA

In this picture, taken last week near Buenos Aires, Venus and Jupiter gleam above the sea, joined by the star Aldebaran below and to the right. The dwarf planets Vesta and Ceres, normally invisible to the naked eye, were also captured. NASA points them out in its version of this photograph, available at its Astronomy Picture of the Day site.

Below, recent Pictures of the Day:

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Picture of the Day: Jupiter and Venus Gleam Above the Pacific

The progressive Democrat who ruled Chicago for 22 years has a simple explanation for America's decline: "The federal government destroyed big cities."

"Once the federal government said it was going to control urban education, it destroyed the cities," he said. "People fled. It didn't matter who you were ...They mandated everything in big cities. They destroyed us and they destroyed the middle class."

Despite his fierce support of local regulation on certain issues (gun control, climate changeto name a few) Daley's reflection of his 22-years in office conveyed a hopelessness in federal power. "It's not the Obama administration. It's every administration since Roosevelt," he said. From immigration to education to foreign policy to Congress, he described an entire system of bumbling bureaucracy. "Could you see your board of directors meeting every day, continuously, all year around? Congress meets every day, all year around. They have more bureaucracy than the executive branch."

He introduced a utopian vision of the 21st century in which the federal government was reined in domestically and internationally to make way for a more nimble power structure of mayors working together. "We should dilute the power of the federal government," he said. "The more we do that, the better the city and state and the better it is for international relations."

"Mayors can deal with mayors," he said. But the federal government "is sobureaucraticand dysfunctional. There are good people there but they're getting in the way of the century. This century we should have economic power and aid" as opposed to going "the military route."

While Daley has long-depicted himself as an independent-minded Democrat, it's starting to feel like less of a coincidence that two of the country's most progressive mayors (Daley and Bloomberg) are finding it impossible to lend their full support behind a Democratically-controlled White House. Does the office of mayor just lend itself to federal antagonism?

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The Radical Libertarianism of Richard M. Daley

"Libertarianism: The radical notion that other people are not your property."

We don't know who first said those words. But we've seen the bitty meme circulating the social media sites recently. Could people finally be catching on? Probably only the "radicals"...

But it sounds simple enough, doesn't it? A kind of "do unto others...but not without their permission." Of course, there are other ways to express this basic idea too: live and let live...to each his own and his own to each...and our personal favorite, mind your own [insert expletive of choice here] business...

Alas, some people can't just leave well enough alone. They feel the need, the compulsion, the "hand of history," as Tony Blair once called it, to "do something." Whether or not that something is the right thing is, to their mind, beside the point. Just so long as it's not nothing...

That's the real problem with statism, Fellow Reckoner. All its various machinations are, in one way or another, inherently prescriptive. You try to mind your own business. You try to live a quiet and decent life...but there's always someone telling you there's a better way: their way. Oh, and they'll be needing your money and/or person to make it happen.

But how can anyone possibly claim the right to tell you how to live your life... and to force you to do it?! Seems a tough point to win, no? What about self-ownership? What about the non-aggression principle? What about "live and let live" and all that?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought he found a workaround: The "Social Contract" he called it in his waffling 18th century treatise of the same name. In a nutshell, the social contract holds that, because we are considered part of "society," we must therefore accept the terms - whatever they may be - of that "society." In other words, it posits an implicit consent on the part of the individual to be governed by the state...simply because the state exists, and because the majority have so willed it.

Call it "tyranny of the mob-jority."

But what kind of contract is this, Fellow Reckoner? A "contract" that makes up for lack of consent by simply presupposing it, is no contract at all. What kind of court would uphold such a flimsy non-agreement...besides one owned and operated by the beneficiaries of such an absurd ruling?

Not that the enthusiastic Genevan is solely to blame. He was simply building on the misguided works of previous meddlers. Hobbes gave mens' rights to the government. Locke gifted them to God (But which God? Interpreted by whom? And what for the agnostics?) Few left them in the hands of free men themselves.

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How the State Exploits Ignorance and Complacency

M. Turner snapped this self-portrait that went viral in the debate over President Obama's Affordable Health Care Act.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Tampa, Florida (CNN) -- Sitting on a corner of her brown sofa in a modest rental apartment, Miss M. Turner creates hand-made jewelry -- not quite the image you might expect from a public face in the nation's bitter fight over health care reform.

What the health care ruling means to you

In the months leading up to Thursday's Supreme Court ruling about the White House-backed Heath Care Affordability Act, Turner's photo went viral across the political blogosphere, accompanied by the provocative headline "I am Obamacare."

The high court ruled that the law's individual mandate -- the provision requiring all Americans to have health insurance -- will stand. Turner called the ruling "historic," "amazing" and "the right direction."

Health care and the high court

Health care and the high court

Health care and the high court

Health care and the high court

Originally posted here:

'Obamacare' symbol: Court ruling is 'right direction'

M. Turner snapped this self-portrait that went viral in the debate over President Obama's Affordable Health Care Act.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Tampa, Florida (CNN) -- Sitting on a corner of her brown sofa in a modest rental apartment, Miss M. Turner creates hand-made jewelry -- not quite the image you might expect from a public face in the nation's bitter fight over health care reform.

What the health care ruling means to you

In the months leading up to Thursday's Supreme Court ruling about the White House-backed Heath Care Affordability Act, Turner's photo went viral across the political blogosphere, accompanied by the provocative headline "I am Obamacare."

The high court ruled that the law's individual mandate -- the provision requiring all Americans to have health insurance -- will stand. Turner called the ruling "historic," "amazing" and "the right direction."

Health care and the high court

Health care and the high court

Health care and the high court

Health care and the high court

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Cheers from Obamacare symbol

The Koch brothers have been fighting to take control of the Cato Institute, against the wishes of its current leaders and staff, who they deem insufficiently devoted to the cause of plutocracy and the Republican Party. After a lengthy, public fight, the two sides reached a compromise, in which CEO Ed Crane will be pushed out and John Allison will take charge of the libertarian think tank. Allison is the former chairman of BB&T bank and best known for donating vast sums to universities and using his leverage to force them to assign their students to read Ayn Rand screeds. The running of a libertarian think tank seems like a more appropriate venue for Allison to act upon his devotion to Rand's nuttery than forcing it upon students who are trying to learn actual stuff.

Allison's ascension is in keeping with the general trend of the Washington libertarian movement to define itself mainly in economic terms. (The trend has been opposed by a handful of libertarian dissidents, the most prominent of whom have been purged.)

It's not just economic libertarianism in general that moves the likes of Allison, but a specific belief that economic freedom is defined primarily as opposition to egalitarianism. (As opposed to focusing on something like the regulatory power of state and local business cartels.) Allison has called egalitarianism "the most destructive principle in our society." The general thrust of Rand-influenced libertarianism, which you see in the philosophy of Rand-influenced Republicans like Grover Norquist and Paul Ryan, is that the central evil in public life is the poor using the political system to gang up on the rich and redistribute their resources. (For those unfamiliar with my thoughts on Rand and her influence on the contemporary right, you can read them here.)

Allison will no doubt continue to support Cato's libertarian work on foreign policy and social issues, but expect Cato's central thrust as an anti-egalitarian organization to continue or intensify. And since this places Cato in support of the Republican Party, it will probably satisfy the Kochs.

Originally posted here:

Koch Brothers Reach Deal With Cato

To the editor:

Dr. Leonard Duckworths letter to The Courier Sunday was full of frustration. He wondered how the non-thinkers could vote for President Obama. His frustration is systematic of all minorities. All surveys show Americans in general are empathetic and pragmatic. It is these feelings that make our political majority an amalgamation of libertarianism, inclusiveness, the ecologically bent, competitive and nationally centric. Throughout our history, Americas political philosophy has been center-right on economic issues and center-left on social issues.

If you are a liberal, progressive, socialist, etc., you are a minority. If you are a conservative, libertarian, a Tea Party supporter, a follower of the Christian right, etc., you are a minority. This makes for diverse views in letters to The Courier. It is this diversity of thought that makes America great. It is also this diversity of thought that leads to frustration for many. It is not the non-thinkers but the thoughtful center that elects the president.

Duckworth and other minorities need to keep their pens handy. No matter whether Obama or Romney gets elected, the president will pander to the majority and implement policies that frustrate the minority. As ugly and frustrating as it is, this is the American way and in todays world there is no better way.

If you need proof, just think of this; Texas is one of the most conservative states in the country, and its largest city has an openly gay mayor. How strange is that?

Tim Doherty

Conroe

To the editor:

The Tea Party position is that they want to keep their hard-earned money and that they basically should not pay any taxes all the while driving on streets and highways that are paid for through taxes.

They dont want government to touch their Medicare or Social Security, but they do not want to pay any taxes. They fly safely on airlines, are protected by our military abroad and by first responders locally, but they do not want to pay any taxes. They buy foods that are safe to eat due to our Department of Agriculture and they do not wish to pay any taxes.

Continued here:

America made up of minority groups, diverse views

Why Do We Hate Work? I found these video clips on http://www.youtube.com they were made by The Left-Libertarian on the The LeftLibertarian's Channel A note from the creater of the videos found . . .

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Why Do We Hate Work?

Libertarians think about economic justice primarily in terms of personal freedom. Their argument is that since we all own ourselves and the fruits of our labor, we must be free to do with them as we wish, as long as we do not harm others exercising that same freedom.

Consistent with this thinking are the libertarian ideas of free markets and minimalist government.

According to libertarians, government has only three legitimate functions:

To respect and uphold the validity of contracts;

To protect private property; and,

To keep the peace.

For government to operate or interfere in areas other than these (including the marketplace) violates the libertarian principle of freedom and is thus illegitimate.

The libertarian emphasis on freedom has much merit. We are all citizens of the "land of the free." Yet, freedom pursued without regard for the well-being of society and individual citizens can easily become a fault because of the damage that can be done in the name of freedom.

Libertarian opposition to government regulation in the marketplace is based on the claim that it will stifle the ability of business to compete and that government has no business regulating functions in society that the market will putatively take care of.

This reasoning fails to acknowledge, however, that government regulation ensures that we have safer consumer products, including food and drugs, cleaner drinking water and air, reduced workplace danger, and safer automobiles with higher gas mileage.

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Sullivan: How libertarians think about economic justice

Establishment Republicans have been eager to get past the part of the election cycle where Ron Paul has played an outsized role. Rand Paul?s recent endorsement of Mitt Romney divided libertarians, but the Paul heir?s apparent capitulation to business as usual actually underscores how the GOP faces a more complex challenge to the ideological status ...

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From Ron to Rand, the GOP's Paul Problem Isn't Going Away. It Also Isn't a Problem

Libertarianism, a resurgent ideology that is confoundingly on the retreat within the more friendly of Americas two major political parties, represents a fascinating case study in both grassroots political success and failure. The ideology, and the party as well, have had some major victories as well as some devastating defeats over the last four years. A libertarian philosophy has much to offer American politics, but they have thus far been unsuccessful at attracting a broader audience for their policy prescription to the nations nagging problems. Whats more, supporters of mainstream libertarianism seem more inclined to isolate themselves from criticism. Libertarianism is an important element to American politics but it will not achieve a wider acceptance among the electorate if the task of mainstreaming the ideology is left to its present practitioners.

RELATED: Which Party Is Looking Out For Your Civil Liberties?

The financial crisis that began in 2008 with the collapse of the mortgage-based derivatives market forced both Democrats and Republicans to reevaluate their legislative priorities. While traditional Democrats and left-leaning progressives found new impetus to push for legislation that favored fairness and equality in financial markets not to mention an expansion of the social safety net for those most exposed to the economic downturn Republicans found new reason to return to their fiscally conservative roots.

Compounded by Sen. John McCains loss to President Barack Obama in 2008, Republican voters repudiated their compassionate wing; a branch of Republicanism that was happy to oversee the growth of the state, so long as it could be managed and directed in the most politically advantageous of ways. Welfare programs like the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind education reform law, championed by President George W. Bush and his Republican-led Congressional majorities, came to symbolize a GOP that had lost its way.

But in the light of the new reality ushered in by the financial crisis, Republicans found that these programs formerly buoyed by Americas once ever-expanding largess were simply unjustifiable. Those programs short-lived successes were outweighed by their costs. It was in this political environment, amid a thorough repudiation of Bush-era Republicans, that the GOP embraced their libertarian wing.

The tea party movement, born spontaneously in early 2009, drew heavily from the libertarian grassroots organizations that were already active and viciously opposed to the big government wing of the conservative party. As the average Republican found new value in the tenets of mainstream libertarianism, (sound currency, a less interventionist foreign policy and reduced government intervention into the private sector to name a few examples) it seemed clear that the national GOP would quickly follow suit.

The 2010 midterm elections suggested that this transformation was well underway, but somewhere along the line the Republican partys drift towards libertarianism halted. It would be a mistake for libertarians to blame the loss of this opportunity to secure a critical level of influence over the GOP as the result some cabal of establishment-types working behind the scenes to shut them out. Worse, libertarians should avoid consoling themselves in the belief that Republican voters were simply cowed by sharp advertising or too close minded to embrace a libertarian philosophy. No, it was the base of the libertarian movement that sabotaged its own rise.

The Weekly Standards Mark Hemmingway outlines the follies of the libertarian movement in the magazines most recent issue. In his article, he chronicles the small ball issues that the libertarian movement seems to obsess over. The legalization of marijuana and prostitution are among libertarianisms most favored causes that simply do not resonate outside the bounds of the ideologies most faithful adherents.

Furthermore, Hemmingway notes how mainstream libertarians embrace conspiratorial notions that Republican officeholders eschew. [W]hen you start inquiring about the economy, the talk escalates quickly from paper currency to conspiracy, Hemmingway writes. On a Libertarian message board, youre often just one click away from a frightfully earnest conversation about the Bilderbergers and the Rothschilds.

While GOP leaders have done all within the power to tamp down foolish conspiratorial notions about, for example, President Obamas parentage and place of birth, libertarian leaders are often guilty of legitimizing conspiracy theories among their faithful supporters.

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Libertarianism In The Obama-Era: Taking Stock Of Libertarianism’s Victories And Defeats

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Robert Reich: Ponderings on the New Politics of Extremism

June 16, 2012 11:24:12 PM

The days of railing against "taxpayer-supported schools" are over. And so, it appears, are the days of Freedom Newspapers, later known as Freedom Communications.

The final shoe dropped last Monday with announcement of the sale of the final chunk of the media empire cobbled together by Raymond Cyrus Hoiles.

Fittingly, there was no government bailout for Freedom. Banks, repositories of dollars, got the government largesse. Newspapers, repositories of ideas, were left to fend for themselves.

There was no Newspaper Preservation Act this time around to save "failing" newspapers.

It was sink or swim. A devil's brew of family feuding, an economic collapse and the quickening shift of reading habits from print to digital proved too powerful for Freedom to overcome.

As for Hoiles, who died in 1970, his newspapers were the Santa Ana Register (now Orange County Register) and everything else, including this one.

Back in the early part of the 20th century, Hoiles could see the future in mostly small markets, where his newspapers could grow along with the population of readers, most of whom went through those "taxpayer-supported schools."

The newspapers' guiding philosophy was a simple one: Libertarianism. He was a tea party guy before there was the tea party.

Five years ago, long after Hoiles' death, he was still being extolled, in a way, on the Reason.com website, where Libertarian ideas live on.

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Off Beat: Terms not disclosed

Maybe instead, Spangler, after Kevin Carson and other collectivist anarchists, has very high standards for what it means to homestead land (or property in general), and a very low standard for accepting newcomers as new owners against the claims of previous occupants. I have questioned at length this approach in the past (see for instance my comments on another blog: if these standards mean that you lose rights to any property any time that you stop watching it personally, then it's not much of a property right approach. Are you forfeiting part or all of your property if you invite some people in? If some people move in without your permission? If you go on a trip? If you visit your family? Visit a doctor? Go to the market? Shop at a store (assuming there are any left)? What if you stop watching your belongings while in the bathroom? What if you fall asleep? Can you still claim your property five seconds after it's been seized by newcomers? Five minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Decades?

If somehow any greedy newcomer can seize the property of previous legitimate owners, then this spells the economic death of the society that adopts such standards for the involuntary transfer of ownership, as no one will take pains to create, build, grow, develop, trade, or otherwise produce anything, for that thing would as soon be taken away by the first-come greedy claimant, specialized in looting producers. Unless some loophole is quickly found in such standards and massively exploited, this society will soon be overrun by neighbours with less absurd laws, who will defend their property against the claims of these anti-propertarians, no doubt under complaints by would-be looters that their defence is "violent" and "aggressive." In any case, such rules would imply a considerable regression as compared to the already quite imperfect respect for property rights in current western societies.

Rothbard may have been a great philosopher, economist and historian, but he was far from infallible, and often ventured with miserable results into fields in which he wasn't qualified. In practical politics especially, whether domestic or international, his tentative alliances led him nowhere except to condone criminals and unsavoury people on both sides of the political spectrum. Contra Rothbard, I will thus paraphrase one of my favourite authors:

It is no crime to be ignorant of politics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a "dismal science." But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on political subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

Of course, the original author of the quote is Rothbard himself, although he was discussing economics, not politics.

Politics is the science of force. Force follows its own laws. The study of force certainly isn't completely unrelated to the study of law, in which Rothbard excelled; but it is nevertheless quite distinct. (I briefly discussed this relationship in my essay Capitalism is the Institution of Ethics.) And so any applicable solution to abolishing monopoly mismanagement of resources should take into account the balance and dynamics of existing forces, and offer a way out that is a win-win proposition to all the existing parties that will partake, and a win-lose proposition for said parties against those that won't. You cannot wish away the costs of politicking and then claim you have an economical solution; you cannot side with some political group and suppose its opposition will magically disappear (if it disappears, it will be through murder); you cannot support violence without expecting a retaliatory escalation of violence.

Now, in all his political endeavours, Rothbard's basic stance has been that the United States government is his first and greatest enemywhich is correctand he therefore supported any enemy of his enemy as his friendwhich is absurd. The czar may have been the first enemy of the Russians he dominated, but in a rivalry between the czar and the Bolsheviks, the latter were hardly the friends of the people, and as tens of millions discovered to their dismay, were several orders of magnitudes more murderous and oppressive a regime than the one that preceded it. Similarly, the US government may be an evil exploiter, but its violent enemies can be a worse threat if they win, and even when they don't, their violent actions cause the situation to become more violent rather than less so. Sometimes, it is better to recognize that you have no dogs in the fight; and sometimes even, it is indeed better to help quickly put to death the rabid dog rather than let it either win or infect the other one.

As such, for instance, Rothbard's infamous praise of the Vietnam communists as enemies of the US government is particularly disingenuous. Rothbard is no authority at all in the realm of politics. In the particular piece linked to by Brad Spangler, he is naive at best in his praise of Tito's policies as an improvement over not just the Stalinist status quo (which they may well be in this particular case; though one should be wary of praising his policies in general, for as a whole they have led his country to civil war), but also the American status quo (which is demonstrably absurd, whichever way you measure things).

The privatization that happened in many countries of Eastern Europe as they abandoned communism, however imperfect, at least recognized some sound principles that Rothbard seems to ignore, and that could be systematized: there have been attempts to return property to previous owners in the few cases when they could be identified; sometimes, the new regime identified a class of legitimate creditors of the State (there is a justification for offering compensation to distinguished victims of State oppression, and for considering currently occupied possessions and promises of future welfare payments, if not as ownership titles of said resources, nevertheless as claims of credit against assets to be liquidated). Otherwise, it was recognized that the remaining capital goods should be distributed among the mass of undistinguished victims, the former taxpayers and oppressed subjects of the State.

One could endlessly argue how much each one should be entitled to as compared to other people; an equal distribution amongst people without a distinguished title is but a good first approximation, and one that is easier than others around which to gather political consensus. Workers and managers in a company were often recognized to have a title to some of its assets, but not all of them (and hopefully, no bigger a share than workers and managers have through stock grants in a typical free-market company); for inasmuch as the capital was provided by taxes and oppression imposed on the population at large, that population has a title to this capital. Basically, as Mencius Moldbug points out, the proper treatment of the State is to declare its bankruptcy and liquidate its assets to the benefit of its victims and other legitimate creditors.

Original post:

Thou Shall Not Steal, Not Even from the State