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So is anyone else as worried about right-wing libertarianism as I am?
I have this unfortunate feeling that right-wing libertarianism is becoming the dominant anti-establishment ideology. It's like if you're not a liberal or conservative, you have to be a Von Mises fan and believe the problem with capitalism is not capitalism, but the state screwing around with "true" capitalism. Free markets are the answer, or voluntarism, or laissez-faire. I feel like for every leftist I meet, there's like 5 of these libertarians out there. And that's due to a few reasons.
First off, any kind of left-wing ideology can't even be discussed now because no one understands it. No one even attempts to understand it. Anytime you mention socialism or communism, you're equated to Joseph Stalin and you must want the KGB to arrest people for questioning the state. Most people don't even understand that communism requires the abolition of the state and social classes. They think communism is basically feudalism. Which is so bizarre. It's not surprising they're afraid of communism as THEY define it. But their definition is the total opposite.
Also, you have people like Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Alex Jones, Penn Gillete, Adam Kokesh, Stefan Molyneux, etc. who promote this right-wing garbage, but hardly anyone who offers the leftist perspective. Noam Chomsky comes to mind, but many people view him as an out-of-touch elitist who fails to understand "true" capitalism, and the fucking liberals just call him a liberal, which creates even more confusion.
I'm really worried about this right-wing libertarian stuff honestly. It's way more popular than it should be. The Libertarian Party membership has skyrocketed and like 1 million people voted for their candidate Gary Johnson in the last presidential election. This needs to be addressed. Capitalism is in a crises, and people no longer trust the establishment status quo, but since no one offers a leftist perspective, everyone is flocking to the right. It honestly frightens me. Am I alone here?
Last edited by Anarcho Jackson Jones; 28th September 2013 at 06:32.
"Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government."- Pierre Joseph Proudhon
I doubt that right-wing libertarianism can ever be a movement with any true mass appeal, simply because the practical policy proposals of libertarians are not really that popular among the US voting populace, who generally support programs like social security & medicaire, the types of programs that comprise the lionshare of domestic spending (along with military spending, which libertarians could probably gain more popular support for cutting).
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
I've known a few Libertarians in my time. The whole Libertarian movement is really starting to take storm in colleges, or atleast the colleges I've visited. Youths in America are taking to Libertarianism like ants to a sugar cube. It's become the new fad in "rebellion".
The solution, or at least the first step toward the solution, is libertarian socialism!
Libertarian sentiment is all over America. As spread out as a whore on a rich man's bed.
Just like that whore, regret is soon to follow when they realize their payout is shockingly small when all is done done.
I think the internet presence of neoliberals is misleading. I also think, people are more receptive to Leftist ideas more than people here give them credit for however with this being said it's about approach. If you talk about things in all but name(s), you'll find you get a lot more positive and open-minded responses than if you're like "omgah, dis Marx and Lenin guy nd teh bourgeoisie..." and so on.
I will admit though their have been a lot more libertarian, Randoid, etc. stuff online nowadays then I remember.
Come little children, I'll take thee away, into a land of enchantment, come little children, the times come to play, here in my garden of magic.
"I'm tired of this "isn't humanity neat," bullshit. We're a virus with shoes."-Bill Hicks.
I feel the Bern and I need penicillin
Lib soc. That would be interesting I suppose. Anti authority mixed with social aspects such as collective property but with respect for private property.. Would that work though since the two seem somewhat contradictory in terms of how they achieve liberation of the masses.
I live in the UK, so don't have first hand experience of how far the right-wing libertarianism goes in the US, but watching stuff on Youtube is fairly revealing and terrifying.
I think the power of the "there is no alternative" argument is so strong that for a while the 'libertarianism' will be the major anti- establishment trend.
The left is trapped in a 'anti-capitalist' and 'anti-politics' ideology which clearly emphasizes individual liberty, but makes people feel pretty useless against big government and large corporations as individuals must never work together because they have to sacrifice certain levels of autonomy to do so. The message has been repeated over and over again as the truth and the only 'realistic' way to organize society, as pointed out by Mark Fisher in Capitalist Realism.
Given the sheer power of the "totalitarian" label against anything even remotely left-wing it has to be taken seriously. I had a period when I doubted communism and readHayek's The Road to Serfdom and whilst it makes a powerful argument, it's evidence base for linking reformist socialism with fascism is weak at best and reading it pushed me further left because it was clear most of it was articulate nonsense. Most of the fear stirred up by 'totalitarianism' is not rational; there are some real screw ups out there, but in most cases it's just a scare tactic so everyone thinks "my liberty is threatened; we must attack big government welfare programs and protect private property".
Libertarianism is a smokescreen for increasing the power to corporations to dominate society by disguising it as increasing the rights of the individual; e.g. reducing the size of government by privatizing everything, cutting tax rates. But at the same time, it is also a problem for the establishment, as libertarian heroes like Jullian Assange and Edward Snowden point out as an individual you can fight the state, but you almost never win. the power of public opinion is very limited when it is not organized. The big corporations need a big state to enforce their property rights and police society in such a way as to maintain the effectiveness of their rule.
I suspect it will therefore start to collapse in on itself under it's own internal contradictions; as an ideological dogma of individualism, it increases the power of big business as a manifestation of neo-liberalism, but as a political movement it is pretty futile against the government because everyone is supposed to do their own thing and anything else is 'socialism'.
I don't think the problem is solely or mainly one of not enough revolutionary views being articulated, I think the problem is that these views don't make practical sense to people in the absense of a concrete class movement.
Issue by issue, in many cases there is more social-democractic sentiment than principled neoliberal or libertarian sentiment. For example, 38% of people in a recent poll favored single payer healthcare in a country where this is considered not even on the table according to official politics. But where does this sentiment go, what are the forces that could push for even social-democratic reforms? The broad sentiment goes to the Democrats, the reformist forces (potentially) like the unions support the Democrats and the Democrats support neoliberal policies and turn around and try and convince their supporters that this is the only "realistic" option.
So with little independant class avenues for influencing society, what are regular people to do? Many conclude that their only source of influence is through the ballot box. Without class avenues for class-advancement or mobility, many conclude that maybe if we let business do what it wants, the economy might grow and create more room for workers to get some crumbs. On top of that there is the neoliberal arguments from above from both parties and many petit-bourgeoise people for whom "getting the government off our backs" and "the market" are actually in their class interests and so members of a materially weak working class (in terms of struggle, organization, and independance) get pulled in these directions.
I really think this is exaggerated.
Over 50% of your youth favour socialism over capitalism. You have a very good objective situation for your work. People are thirsty for revolutionary ideas, looking for change. Now go out there and organize. Someone here mentioned approach, speaking about things in all but name. I think that's a very good point. Talk about ideas, not marx or lenin. Sure, don't hide that you're a socialist, but don't start talking about dictatorship of the proletariat and so on with people you just met. Try to express the same ideas using accessible language, and beginning with concrete problems that connect with your audience and leading them to the logical conclusion that taking and planning production, socialism, is the answer.
And if people in your social circle are the problem, they aren't your demographic and you shouldn't get your social life mixed up with your political.
The typical political layperson will understand conflated political terms because it simplifies everything. This quite frankly distorts terms to mean almost exactly the opposite of what they really mean. I believe this worked for stymieing the left throughout the twentieth century.
In the U.S., the term "libertarian" means a laissez-faire, Nozickian principle of individual gain (to put it in its most benign form, if you can call it that). Obviously, that's not the traditional meaning of the term libertarian. Like the term "liberal," certain bourgeois elements in society have used the naivety of young people in order to promote their own agendas (what do most people in the U.S. think the term 'liberal' means?). I'm not saying there's a "Libertarian conspiracy" (that would be absurd considering people like Alex Jones), but it certainly disguises itself as revolutionary.
It is poisonous, and it does have its contradictions, but I'm not afraid of the movement producing any kind of radical change.
On one hand, I don't think "libertarianism" is a serious "threat" to anything other than the quality of internet comment threads - which were beyond saving to begin with.
What I will say is that its popularity represents a failure of the left. By playing the game of liberal-appeasing soft-sell defend-the-welfare-state, instead of putting forward an open, unashamed, and uncompromising communist politics, the left has seriously hampered its ability to be taken as authentically "anti-establishment". Or, in other words, the left has gotten the libertarian trolls it deserves.
The life we have conferred upon these objects confronts us as something hostile and alien.
Formerly Virgin Molotov Cocktail (11/10/2004 - 21/08/2013)
Worried about it? Not at all.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
Well first off I don't consider the right-wing's "libertarianism" to be actual libertarianism.
I consider libertarianism to be an anarcho-communist idea like Joseph Dejacque did.
Too many people are falling for this "anarcho-capitalist" crap, the black-gold flag bastards.
Their ideology is incoherent.
They have some strange fantasy I guess of an economy consisting of businesses with less than 20 workers and that people will willingly go along with exploitation.
I don't know enough about the political climate in America to comment on it but here in Denmark we certainly have experienced an alarmingly shift to the right, accelerated by the rise of a small but influental extremist libertarian party. Far right views on the economy and unemployment that were previously taboo has become part of the accepted political discourse and government policy has become remarkably more hostile towards the working class.
The loony libertarians are not dangerous because of their numbers. Their membership base seems to be mostly angry young members of the bourgeoisie and their disdain for working people is so blatant that they will never win them over in substantial numbers. They are dangerous however because they expand the spectrum of acceptable beliefs to the right. Their extremist nonsense enables the established bourgeois parties (including the social democratic ones) to move to the right without sounding too extreme.
What is happening now with libertarians can be seen as an economic equivalent to how right-wing populism shifted the standard for acceptable beliefs back in the 90's and 2000's.
"What is a thief? - A thief is someone who covets his neighbour's property so much that he doesn't take the time to form a corporation."
"The poor complain - they always do
but that's just idle chatter.
Our system brings rewards to all
- At least to all who matter."
"It is good that things have gotten better but it would be better if things were good."
The reason why these ideas spread from petty bourgeoise into working class, I think, is historical. When formerly simple social world became overwhelmingly complex (quantitatively spoken) for most people in 60's and 70's, libertarian ideas promised to reduce this complexity by throwing everything "social" overboard and leaving individual alone into social void. There's only You and the Other. No "Us" in between. Simple!
Where I live, US style libertarian ideology used to be widespread. Not so anymore. Basically it became apparent that they fail to deliver their promise - universal economic wealth. In fact their ideas lead to complete collapse of producing economy. Only sociopaths are happy with that. Secondly, these anti-government people, once elected, use their governmental power routinely in personal interest for personal business deals; i.e. are utterly corrupt (not really surprising, is it?). So libertarians-on-power lasts usually until next recession.
However, where left is desorganized, classical strong state conservatives and fascists will follow the libertarians. That's why they are a problem.
I try to be optimistic about it. I think that libertarians, in the Ron Paul 2012! vein, are in a way more clever then then your typical American 'liberal'. They seem to know something is deeper is wrong, but do not have the political vocabulary and resources to articulate it. So long as they aren't virulently racist, they are excellent candidates for the left - someone just has to reach out to them. Once it is pointed out that their own ideology is being used to control them, something I have found they hate above all, eventually they discover they were pinkos all along.
I think it has something to do with the level of anti-communist indoctrination that leaves otherwise leftist people grasping at political straws, trying to hammer out a coherent ideology in the confines of a rigid framework that essentially denies the possibility of an alternative.
It took me over two years but I converted a pretty fringe libertarian to a bona fide socialist. All he needed was information and the belief that he figured most of it out on his own.
I agree with adipocere. My little confession, I am a former libertarian. I didn't agree with any of their views but it was a third option away from the Rep. and Dem. parties of America. Now I'm studying leftism and all the cliched reasons people use to scare the youth such as myself to stay away are starting to evaporate and I'm learning I am a leftist at heart.
I wouldn't go about saying that Libertarianism is a specifically right-wing idea. Libertarian Socialism exists, and personally I think that some Libertarian ideas go along well with Socialism. If the American Left can adapt to and exploit the rising tide of Libertarianism for its own devices, that could be the way for the Left to retake the spotlight, especially because Libertarian ideals are popular all across the political spectrum.
It's not, but the term has been hijacked by the Right, especially in the US.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
