Libertarianism and Youth Culture....

[RadioRaheem84]

A lot of my my younger brothers friends are into Penn and Teller's Bullshit, South Park, Ayn Rand books and various other Libertarian crap out there.

Right Libertarianism is making a huge comeback in movies, television and literature. I am even finding more and more that liberals themselves are subscribing to libertarian views and shows are starting to have a "pull up your bootstraps" mentality. The Simpsons, Family Guy and other cartoons which are supposed to have a liberal bent are increasingly promoting the "get a job you bum" mantra.

The youth seem to think that Right Libertarianism is the new anti-establishment in the US.

[The Douche]

The youth seem to think that Right Libertarianism is the new anti-establishment in the US.

It is. We are failing (have failed?), there is no coherent left opposition to the administration or to the right opposition.

[¿Que?]

There has to be some manner to arrive at social transformation. We can't just rely on historical conditions alone, we have to understand that the working class has to be conscious, has to become a class for itself, in order to recognize and seize the historical moment. This means that there cannot be a completely structural explanation for a class' objective status, it must be also a matter of consciousness.

If libertarians imagine a completely free agent, we must not imagine one completely devoid of the capacity to choose a life path. This simply allows them to set the terms of debate, and ultimately they will win (unless you're some kind of determinist).

[x359594]

...The youth seem to think that Right Libertarianism is the new anti-establishment in the US.

I only recently noticed this myself. At the March 20 anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles I saw a lot of kids wearing black Ron Paul t-shirts.

I had to ask about this so I talked to a group of three males in their late teens. It seems that rightwing libertarian ideology is appealing because it allows for personal freedom and opposes "big government" in the matter of foreign wars. The US should only go to war to protect itself, and the 9/11 attacks were carried out by a band of individuals who were part of a rouge outfit and not acting as a commando unit of Iraq, Afghanistan or any other country. Also, everyone should be able to live in the way they choose, e.g., smoke dope or not smoke dope, get rich or live with the bare necessities, etc.

The contradictions of this ideology are not apparent to them. They seem to think strictly in terms of the isolated individual and don't see the connections between getting rich and imperial war for example.

[Psy]

Libertarianism is popular because it offers a simple theory that tells people what they want to hear, we have a complex theory and tell people what they don't want to hear. Libertarianism says a moral society has class division and the privileged classes should be proud for being part of a privileged class, while we tell them we live in world where all products of society is produced through exploitation and there is no easy solution to the plights of the world as only a global proletarian revolution can cure the world ills.

[MarxSchmarx]

Let's bring this back to the cultural appeal of classical liberalism, which is really what we are talking about.

Some are actually misguided liberals, who realize that the left is inept and the traditional opposition to American fascism has no viable alternative. But ultimately it is based on the same reformist fantasies that seduces otherwise dedicated leftists. Too many "libertarians" are people who feel that given the impotence of the left, the only hope for closing down places like Guantanamo and restoring what little rights working people enjoy in America lies in the likes of Ron Paul. When one surveys the material circumstances, they raise a valid challenge to the ineptitude of the left that has been utterly pathetic in fighting for human rights in the global north.

The central problem is that liberalism remains, on the whole, a deeply reactionary ideology that relies on a world view that is based on a Hobbesian solution to a war of all on all. As such, it resonates with a large segment of the right, and people who would be rightists on most matters. Cmoney is absolteyly correct. All it betrays is the ineptitude of the contemporary left to absorb this disaffection.

Viz. classical liberalism, until this fundementally hostile and "seige" mentality on the part of classical liberals is overcome, they will continue to cling to their historical fictions as strongly as the Christians do and remain for all intents and purposes just as reactionary.

[¿Que?]

Libertarians also confuse the issue by adopting the aesthetics and rhetoric of the left. Such as, for example, the Ron Paul Revolution (check out the posters for a greater effect). Also, the really annoying ones will refer to him as Dr. Paul. They're quite delusional.

[RadioRaheem84]

Libertarians also confuse the issue by adopting the aesthetics and rhetoric of the left. Such as, for example, the Ron Paul Revolution (check out the posters for a greater effect). Also, the really annoying ones will refer to him as Dr. Paul. They're quite delusional.

Well isn't Ron Paul a doctor?

And yes, the Republicans back in 94 also had a "revolution" of sorts.

[entfaltend]

I bought into right libertarianism for a while, when I was first starting to become at all politically aware. I think it was a combination of living in a pretty isolated place that was very right leaning to begin with, and getting caught up in the mania surrounding Ron Paul's attempt at a presidential run.

Fortunately, I moved somewhere more diverse and connected, and learned more about social and economic life in the wider world. Any support I had for extreme free market ideology quickly dissolved when I looked beyond the surface of capitalism, and became more aware of the truth behind that old adage "no man is an island".

The difference between the promise offered by libertarians (you'll be able to do whatever you want!) and the reality that the system they propose would lead to (you'll most likely end up literally or effectively a slave) only becomes apparent when you actually think through what they are selling, and a lot of people, including myself at one time, don't do that.

[RadioRaheem84]

What brought my brother out of right-libertarianism is questioning where people at the bottom would start out in this libertarian wonderland.

[ZombieGrits]

I'm willing to bet that a good portion of them don't really know what they're talking about. For example, whenever we have class discussions in history class, I always speak up on the side of workers, the poor, victims of imperialism, etc. and generally against capitalism (I'm sneaky about it though so I don't get stabbed, I do live in Texas after all :D) and a lot of my friends who self-identify as libertarians agree with me most of the time. I think a lot of the reason behind the popularity of the designation "libertarian" here is because not only of the countercultural persona that the philosophy has adopted lately, but also because libertarianism is fairly openly endorsed by the few history and English teachers that the students actually respect

[¿Que?]

Well isn't Ron Paul a doctor?

And yes, the Republicans back in 94 also had a "revolution" of sorts.
I believe the first part of this post is sarcasm, but I'll answer anyway. I personally find it pretentious to call Ron Paul, Dr. Paul. We don't refer to Chomsky as Dr. Chomsky or Howard Zinn as Dr. Zinn. It's pretentious and it's just a ploy to make him sound more credible with college students sympathetic to intellectualism. In fact, it's tactics like these which drives the movement, and I think specifically answers your question as to why so many young people buy into this shite.

I don't know what you mean about a '94 Republican revolution. If you mean just a rise in popular support, we could say one is going on right now. It's my understanding, though, that the last major ideological shift in the Republican party occurred with Reagan. In fact, I believe it was Reagan who popularized the term "welfare queen."

[RadioRaheem84]

I believe the first part of this post is sarcasm, but I'll answer anyway. I personally find it pretentious to call Ron Paul, Dr. Paul. We don't refer to Chomsky as Dr. Chomsky or Howard Zinn as Dr. Zinn. It's pretentious and it's just a ploy to make him sound more credible with college students sympathetic to intellectualism. In fact, it's tactics like these which drives the movement, and I think specifically answers your question as to why so many young people buy into this shite.

I don't know what you mean about a '94 Republican revolution. If you mean just a rise in popular support, we could say one is going on right now. It's my understanding, though, that the last major ideological shift in the Republican party occurred with Reagan. In fact, I believe it was Reagan who popularized the term "welfare queen."


1.) No, I meant that he really is a Medical Doctor.

2.) And secondly, when Republicans won back the Congress in '94, they dubbed it the "Republican Revolution" and had red Ronald Reagan shirts in the same pose as the famous Che pic. It was pathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution

[¿Que?]

1.) No, I meant that he really is a Medical Doctor.
I know he's a doctor. My point is that all that Dr. Paul stuff is intellectual posturing, nothing more.


2.) And secondly, when Republicans won back the Congress in '94, they dubbed it the "Republican Revolution" and had red Ronald Reagan shirts in the same pose as the famous Che pic. It was pathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution
Point taken.

[Angry Young Man]

Maybe we should swallow our pride and make marxism sexy. What's the worst that can happen?

[The Douche]

Maybe we should swallow our pride and make marxism sexy. What's the worst that can happen?

Yeah, cause libertarians are sexy...:laugh:

Libertarianism is becoming popular because it is adopting the image and in some ways the language of the left.

[The Essence Of Flame Is The Essence Of Change]

Wow, im happy that we don't have strong libertarianism here.The social democrats or the ''progressives'' are equally irritating though.Btw can someone explain what's the difference between right libertarianism and plain liberalism?The first just seems an updated version of the second (free market, civil rights, humanism, yada yada...)

[Ravachol]

Wow, im happy that we don't have strong libertarianism here.The social democrats or the ''progressives'' are equally irritating though.Btw can someone explain what's the difference between right libertarianism and plain liberalism?The first just seems an updated version of the second (free market, civil rights, humanism, yada yada...)

Libertarianism is a more extreme version of classical liberalism in the vein of Baptiste-Say and Malthus which has been expanded upon by Autrian School economists (most of whom were of Aristocratic heritage) like Hayek, Mises,etc.

Although they have their mouth full of 'freedom', Hayek's quote regarding Pinochet's regime says it all:

"Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism".

They're corporate police state fetishists mostly, with extremists like David Friedman (Milton Friedman's son) and Rothbard arguing in favor of privatising the law itself :rolleyes:

[Raúl Duke]

I partially noticed this but it isn't really a big influence...

There's 2 types of people who get into libertarianism:

1) Those who bought into the Ron Paul stuff when he was running elections. Basically, some of these people you would assume to be progressives open to leftist ideas but due to Ron Paul's talk against certain wars and against the Patriot Act, etc are basically open to libertarianism but in reality know very little of what the fuck it is. Some of these people, at least when I was in high school, don't seem to be those open to left ideas but either way don't know what the fuck libertarianism is about anyway and/or are kind of social rejects.

2) Those who do know what it is, are either obsessed over Rand or Mises, tend to be somewhat ideologues, articulate their distrust of democracy, etc. The ones who I meet that are like this tend to be a weirdo in some way.

[ZombieGrits]

Maybe we should swallow our pride and make marxism sexy.

What are you talking about? Dead guys with intimidating facial hair have always been sexy!

But in all seriousness, if we aestheticize socialism then we'll just end up with a bunch of angry kids that don't know shit about capitalism or communism or much of anything political for that matter. which is really too bad, socialist symbolism is hella cool :cool:

speaking of symbolism: echoing whats been said before a bit, aside from the adoption of socialist jargon the adoption of socialist/anarchist style symbols (which look awesome) might have something to do with resurgence of libertarianism among youth

[Stranger Than Paradise]

How anyone could be into Ayn Rand's books is minds boggling. It really does seem to be an image thing and what they perceive libertarianism to be rather than any moral or ideological conviction about libertarianism. I think a lot of these people would be open to leftist ideas if they were exposed to them.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

I don't think its so much due to fashionable symbols or chance media attention as the natural result of the erosion of social democratic norms that has taken place over the past 30 - 40 years.

In the past, the mainstream view on the scantity of property and the efficency of the market was tempered by the propaganda bourgeious goverments/organisations put out that they were too, concerned with things like "equality" and "the disadvantaged" - that while they didn't challange the basic functioning or right of capitalism to exist, temperered the conclusions that capitalist mentality/ideology would foster amoung people I think.

In the last 30 years there has been an incessant attack on those principles - so we seem to be returning to a more victorian view of things, where any goverment intervention (aside from against poor people, espcially those who are brown and from far away places!) is "violence", if there is a recession, its the fault of greedy poor people being frivilous, and higher wages and shorter hours will cause the collapse of society though drunkeness/idleness, and we should all doff our caps to the super - enterperneur/innovators that do all the real work in society.

[x371322]

Penn and Teller's Bullshit is exactly what got me into Libertarianism several years back. I'm soooo glad I got away from it. Their arguments aren't even that good. My change of heart came after watching Michael Moore's Sicko for the first time. In a libertarian world, the unfortunate are pretty much left to fend for themselves. The only public help they advocate is through charitable organizations, which are almost always religious in nature. And if you don't love the God their selling, you can feel free to get the fuck out. Learning a bit about Marx in my sociology class, I realized all the evil horror stories about him weren't true, and his ideology made way more sense to me than Penn fucking Gillette's.

[Cal Engime]

Wow, im happy that we don't have strong libertarianism here.The social democrats or the ''progressives'' are equally irritating though.Btw can someone explain what's the difference between right libertarianism and plain liberalism?The first just seems an updated version of the second (free market, civil rights, humanism, yada yada...)I think the word "libertarian" was coined because in America, "liberal" has come to mean almost the exact opposite of what it used to mean, and what it still means everywhere else.

Political views here tend to be divided into "liberal" and "conservative." Libertarians tend to be identified with conservatives because they use a lot of the same rhetoric about free enterprise, the Constitution, and limited government, but conservatives tend to oppose gay marriage, abortion, and immigration while favouring a large defense budget and "world police" foreign policy, so most libertarians describe their position as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal."

[x359594]

I think the word "libertarian" was coined because in America, "liberal" has come to mean almost the exact opposite of what it used to mean, and what it still means everywhere else...

It would be more correct to say the term "libertarian" was appropriated rather than coined by a section of the right. It goes back to 19th century socialist usage by the anarchist wing of the movement and occurs often in Spanish language texts starting in the 19th century in such expressions as communismo libertario and socialismo libertario.

As a specific political ideology I place its modern US iteration as appearing in the mid 1960s when Goldwater conservatives such as Karl Hess broke with the Republican Party and Ayn Rand apostles such as Murray Rothbard broke with Rand to go their own ways. Eventually the two strands of individualist conservatism came together to form the modern US libertarian movement, with Hess providing the life-style arguments and Rothbard the economic arguments.

[IcarusAngel]

I think the Libertarian influence on culture is really blown out of proportion on the net. They claim they are more popular than they are. For example, many geeks are supposed to be Libertarians.

In real life, I've never met a single geek who is a Libertarian, although one of the authors of one of the programming books I have is written by a Libertarian who uses Ayn Rand rhetoric in the programming examples (he even calls himself "Jesse Liberty" - I've noticed tyrants always talk about how they're for vague concepts like "Liberty," "Freedom," "justice," etc. without defining what these are).

There's no doubt though that they are a serious problem on the net.

[kalu]

Libertarianism in my opinion is a highly overrated phenomenon. Just by empirical observation of which candidates get elected in the US, I don't think it's that close to challenging the current political hegemony of "bipartisanship." If anything, Libertarians are more of a subterranean sensation (though increasingly invoked in the mainstream media, too, thanks to the loud-mouthed "tea party" contingent). It's obviously annoying when "being anti-establishment" is now defined along the axes of "being free to make money and smoke dope" (and implicitly beating down the poor), but I think the issue assumes greater prominence in our own discussions and debates because we are also located in the privileged spaces within which libertarianism circulates (I'd venture a guess that most people on this forum, for example, are younger privileged males with at least a bit of money because they have internet access; I doubt many revlefters rely solely upon public access). An alternative explanation could be that because both leftists and libertarians are not obvious options for mainstream political candidacy, they inhabit the same space of political marginalization and are thus more likely to be talking to (or past) each other in places off the radar of the mainstream, such as esoteric internet forums. Finally, libertarianism appears to be a quintessentially US phenomenon, meaning it probably doesn't even hold water as "a problem" in many other places. Either way, I think focusing on libertarianism and spending time fashioning it as our ideological enemy, however annoying some of its proponents can be, takes our eyes off of a deeper structural understanding of the very terms of debate presupposed by "politics" in the neoliberal era.

[RED DAVE]

It would be more correct to say the term "libertarian" was appropriated rather than coined by a section of the right. It goes back to 19th century socialist usage by the anarchist wing of the movement and occurs often in Spanish language texts starting in the 19th century in such expressions as communismo libertario and socialismo libertario.

As a specific political ideology I place its modern US iteration as appearing in the mid 1960s when Goldwater conservatives such as Karl Hess broke with the Republican Party and Ayn Rand apostles such as Murray Rothbard broke with Rand to go their own ways. Eventually the two strands of individualist conservatism came together to form the modern US libertarian movement, with Hess providing the life-style arguments and Rothbard the economic arguments.Actually, as I recall, there was a brief period in the mid-60s when the term was used by nonorganizational leftists. The traditional organizations of the Old Left, the CP, SP, SWP and SLP were imploding for various reasons. The New Left had not yet found its sea legs, and the Old Left groups that grew up in the late 60s and 70s, such as the IS, PL, the WL and the Sparts had not yet hit their strides.

It was at this point that independent leftists like Stan Aronowitz referred to themselves as libertarians or libertarian socialists. As I recall the other Murray, Bookchin, used the term.

RED DAVE

[x359594]

Actually, as I recall, there was a brief period in the mid-60s when the term was used by nonorganizational leftists...It was at this point that independent leftists like Stan Aronowitz referred to themselves as libertarians or libertarian socialists...

Now that you mention it I think you're right. I think Aronowitz referred to himself as a libertarian socialist around then in interviews he gave to the radical press.

[ZombieGrits]

something very demonstrative of what i was talking about in my earlier post happened today. One of my buds (who actually scored further to the left than me on that little 'political spectrum' quiz thing) sez: "Ron Paul is a cool guy." :confused:

[Raúl Duke]

something very demonstrative of what i was talking about in my earlier post happened today. One of my buds (who actually scored further to the left than me on that little 'political spectrum' quiz thing) sez: "Ron Paul is a cool guy." :confused:

People attracted to Ron Paul fall into 2 categories, in my experience.

I've meet many people who would be considered progressives yet in reality they're not very...how do I put it...knowledgeable or observant of how the world works and politics.

These people were captivated by the whole pro-civil liberties and the non-interventionist/isolationist policies of Ron Paul plus just his image of being "different." These people probably have no idea what Ron Paul's economical policies entail nor of his alleged racism and reactionary positions. Also, they might have been captivated by the whole Zeitgeist films (I noticed many progressive-minded people make a big deal about these films and probably many especially like the whole "project venus" part which is basically some utopian, since they don't specify how this will be put into place, technocratic-communism project.)

The other group are libertarians and those who know what Ron Paul is all about.


Penn and Teller's Bullshit is exactly what got me into Libertarianism several years back. I'm soooo glad I got away from it. Their arguments aren't even that good. My change of heart came after watching Michael Moore's Sicko for the first time.

I actually liked that show somewhat but for some reason it failed to get me into libertarianism. All because those 2 might have exposed some bullshit doesn't mean they're impervious to other kinds of bullshit.

[Green/Red]

The Port Huron statement of the Students for a Democratic Society was based on left libertarianism.

[Takanago]

I've noticed lately that people I know are turning into libertarians. I even know an Anarcho-Capitalist who often compares himself to Andrew Ryan from Bioshock. He really confuses me every time I hear him speak.

[RED DAVE]

The Port Huron statement of the Students for a Democratic Society was based on left libertarianism.Yes, but as I've posted elsewhere, the meaning of "libertarianism" for the Left and Right were almost completely different.

There was an prototype libertarian organization existing at the time of Port Huron, the Young Americans for Freedom, but its ideology was as far from that of the New Left as the Moon is from the Earth.

RED DAVE