07-12-2011, 06:42 AM
There is a lengthy six-part interview of an anonymous libertarian Naked Captitalism, who looks at Ayn Rand, for one, as sell outs. Read this person's vision for a world without ANY government. How does he do it without chaos? Hint: Hans-Hermann Hoppe (quotes high lighted in red) and these things called Government Like Organizations (GLO's). Here are a few paragraphs from the last section (CNC is Code Name Cain):
CNC: Once upon a time, there was a certain man, and he had two sons. The older son stayed at home and worked hard and did whatever his father wanted. But the younger son got bored of life at home, and asked for his portion of the inheritance. The father consented, and the younger son left. He took a journey into a far country, and there wasted his money in riotous living.
The younger son became hungry, and in order to survive, he took a job feeding hogs. But he still did not have enough food to eat, and decided to return to his father.
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me one of thy hired servants."
But the father said to his servants, "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry."
Now the older son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants, and soon learned what was afoot. He became angry, and refused to go inside; and so his father came out, and entreated him to join the celebration.
But the older son answered his father, and said, "I have served you all of this time, and you never killed a goat for me so that I could have a feast with my friends. But this other son of yours, who has devoured all of your money with harlots when he came home, you killed for him the fatted calf."
And the father said unto him. "Son, you are right. I have been a fool, and I have paid too much heed to my emotions." And the father went inside, and took the clothes and the ring from the younger son, and cast him out from his lands. And he called the friends of his older son, and the feast continued in the honor of the son who deserved it.
ANDREW: But you changed the story! That isn't how it ends the father doesn't agree with the older son. He says it is right for them to celebrate, for "thy brother was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." And most readers assume that at that point, the older brother realizes that he has been acting like a two-year-old.
CNC: Look, I'm not like Ayn Rand or Ludwig von Mises. I don't think that being a libertarian is incompatible with being a Christian. But since, as Mises put it, "all efforts to find support for the institution of private property… in the teachings of Christ are quite vain," it is true that the New Testament needs to be edited a little.
ANDREW: I'm sure you have other examples in mind.
CNC: Think about how much more inspiring the Sermon on the Mount would have been if Jesus had said: "Blessed are the rich in spirit, for as they lay up for themselves treasures upon earth, so they will also lay up for themselves treasures in heaven."
The key is to realize that since libertarianism reconstructs all of ethics… in terms of a theory of property rights [200], it is fine to believe in Christianity provided that whenever a correct understanding of property rights conflicts with Christianity, property rights shape one's understanding of Christianity, and not the other way around.
ANDREW: This interview has become very interesting, but I'd still like to hear your answer to my original question about freedom.
CNC: Let's see. As I've been trying to explain to you, due to democracy the genetic quality of the population has most certainly declined [185]. It is in the big cities… that the process of genetic pauperization is most advanced [184]. Now you asked me how I could support a future in which everyone would be free, but not everyone would be effectively free.
ANDREW: Yes.
CNC: What you have to understand is that I believe in negative liberty, not positive liberty. Everyone, even the most brutish individual, has a right to freedom, because that's negative liberty but effective freedom is a form of positive liberty, and so no one has a right to effective freedom. In fact, creating a right to effective freedom actually means coercing some people into doing forced labor for others.
ANDREW: I think I'm starting to see where this is going.
CNC: A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person… but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a "free good") or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest).
On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but… who knowingly act wrongly… esides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished… to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future. [173]
Now yes, maybe some of these quasi-humans will be effectively slaves in a future libertarian society but they have no right to be effectively free, nor have they done anything to earn effective freedom. In today's America, the government expropriates more than 40% of the income of private producers, making even the economic burden imposed on slaves and serfs seem moderate by comparison [278]. In today's America, everyone, even productive geniuses, is unfree whereas in a libertarian society, everyone will be free, and people who deserve it will also be effectively free. Everyone will be better off.
[B]ANDREW: Maybe I understand now. But don't you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if there isn't as big a difference as you imagine between you and the people you see as human trash? Don't you ever think that maybe, deep inside, they have the same dignity as you or worry that in your future libertarian society they will be plunged into a living hell?
CNC: Look, am I my brother's keeper?
Postscript
Nietzsche… has a description… of the disgust and disdain which consume him at the sight of the common people with their common faces, their common voices, and their common minds. …[T]his attitude is almost beautiful if we may regard it as pathetic… When he makes us feel that he cannot endure the innumerable faces, the incessant voices, the overpowering omnipresence which belongs to the mob, he will have the sympathy of anybody who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in a crowded omnibus. Every man has hated mankind when he… has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog, humanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell. But when Nietzsche has the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us to believe that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or an aristocracy of strong wills, it is necessary to point out the truth. It is an aristocracy of weak nerves.
G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, p. 185 (published in 1905)
Part One: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/j...ision.html
CNC: Once upon a time, there was a certain man, and he had two sons. The older son stayed at home and worked hard and did whatever his father wanted. But the younger son got bored of life at home, and asked for his portion of the inheritance. The father consented, and the younger son left. He took a journey into a far country, and there wasted his money in riotous living.
The younger son became hungry, and in order to survive, he took a job feeding hogs. But he still did not have enough food to eat, and decided to return to his father.
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me one of thy hired servants."
But the father said to his servants, "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry."
Now the older son was in the field, and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants, and soon learned what was afoot. He became angry, and refused to go inside; and so his father came out, and entreated him to join the celebration.
But the older son answered his father, and said, "I have served you all of this time, and you never killed a goat for me so that I could have a feast with my friends. But this other son of yours, who has devoured all of your money with harlots when he came home, you killed for him the fatted calf."
And the father said unto him. "Son, you are right. I have been a fool, and I have paid too much heed to my emotions." And the father went inside, and took the clothes and the ring from the younger son, and cast him out from his lands. And he called the friends of his older son, and the feast continued in the honor of the son who deserved it.
ANDREW: But you changed the story! That isn't how it ends the father doesn't agree with the older son. He says it is right for them to celebrate, for "thy brother was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." And most readers assume that at that point, the older brother realizes that he has been acting like a two-year-old.
CNC: Look, I'm not like Ayn Rand or Ludwig von Mises. I don't think that being a libertarian is incompatible with being a Christian. But since, as Mises put it, "all efforts to find support for the institution of private property… in the teachings of Christ are quite vain," it is true that the New Testament needs to be edited a little.
ANDREW: I'm sure you have other examples in mind.
CNC: Think about how much more inspiring the Sermon on the Mount would have been if Jesus had said: "Blessed are the rich in spirit, for as they lay up for themselves treasures upon earth, so they will also lay up for themselves treasures in heaven."
The key is to realize that since libertarianism reconstructs all of ethics… in terms of a theory of property rights [200], it is fine to believe in Christianity provided that whenever a correct understanding of property rights conflicts with Christianity, property rights shape one's understanding of Christianity, and not the other way around.
ANDREW: This interview has become very interesting, but I'd still like to hear your answer to my original question about freedom.
CNC: Let's see. As I've been trying to explain to you, due to democracy the genetic quality of the population has most certainly declined [185]. It is in the big cities… that the process of genetic pauperization is most advanced [184]. Now you asked me how I could support a future in which everyone would be free, but not everyone would be effectively free.
ANDREW: Yes.
CNC: What you have to understand is that I believe in negative liberty, not positive liberty. Everyone, even the most brutish individual, has a right to freedom, because that's negative liberty but effective freedom is a form of positive liberty, and so no one has a right to effective freedom. In fact, creating a right to effective freedom actually means coercing some people into doing forced labor for others.
ANDREW: I think I'm starting to see where this is going.
CNC: A member of the human race who is completely incapable of understanding the higher productivity of labor performed under a division of labor based on private property is not properly speaking a person… but falls instead into the same moral category as an animal of either the harmless sort (to be domesticated and employed as a producer or consumer good, or to be enjoyed as a "free good") or the wild and dangerous one (to be fought as a pest).
On the other hand, there are members of the human species who are capable of understanding the [value of the division of labor] but… who knowingly act wrongly… esides having to be tamed or even physically defeated [they] must also be punished… to make them understand the nature of their wrongdoings and hopefully teach them a lesson for the future. [173]
Now yes, maybe some of these quasi-humans will be effectively slaves in a future libertarian society but they have no right to be effectively free, nor have they done anything to earn effective freedom. In today's America, the government expropriates more than 40% of the income of private producers, making even the economic burden imposed on slaves and serfs seem moderate by comparison [278]. In today's America, everyone, even productive geniuses, is unfree whereas in a libertarian society, everyone will be free, and people who deserve it will also be effectively free. Everyone will be better off.
[B]ANDREW: Maybe I understand now. But don't you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if there isn't as big a difference as you imagine between you and the people you see as human trash? Don't you ever think that maybe, deep inside, they have the same dignity as you or worry that in your future libertarian society they will be plunged into a living hell?
CNC: Look, am I my brother's keeper?
Postscript
Nietzsche… has a description… of the disgust and disdain which consume him at the sight of the common people with their common faces, their common voices, and their common minds. …[T]his attitude is almost beautiful if we may regard it as pathetic… When he makes us feel that he cannot endure the innumerable faces, the incessant voices, the overpowering omnipresence which belongs to the mob, he will have the sympathy of anybody who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in a crowded omnibus. Every man has hated mankind when he… has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog, humanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell. But when Nietzsche has the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us to believe that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or an aristocracy of strong wills, it is necessary to point out the truth. It is an aristocracy of weak nerves.
G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, p. 185 (published in 1905)
Part One: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/j...ision.html