\r\nA distinct mainstream movement specific to the United States,\r\nLibertarianism had its inception during the 1960s. In 1971 it formed\r\ninto a political party and went on to make a strong showing in several\r\nelections.[1] Libertarianism is at times referred to as ``anarchism,''\r\nand certain of its adherents call themselves ``anarchists,'' e.g.,\r\nthe economist James Buchanan.[2] More significant, the work of\r\nUS individualist anarchists (Benjamin Tucker et al.) is cited\r\nby some Libertarians.[3] Accordingly, it may rightly be asked whether\r\nLibertarianism is in fact anarchism. Exactly what is the relationship\r\nbetween the two? To properly decide the question requires a synopsis\r\nof anarchist history.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nThe chronology of anarchism within the United States corresponds to\r\nwhat transpired in Europe and other locations. An organized anarchist\r\nmovement imbued with a revolutionary collectivist, then communist,\r\norientation came to fruition in the late 1870s. At that time,\r\nChicago was a primary center of anarchist activity within the\r\nUSA, due in part to its large immigrant population.[4]\r\n(Chicago was also where the Haymarket affair occurred in\r\n1886. An unknown assailant threw a bomb as police broke up a public\r\nprotest demonstration. Many radicals were arrested, and several hanged on\r\nthe flimsiest of evidence.) Despite off and on political repression, the\r\nUS anarchist movement continued in an expansive mode until the mid-1890s,\r\nwhen it then began to flounder. By 1900, anarchy was visibly in decline.[5]\r\nBut like its counterpart in Europe, anarchism's marginalization in the\r\nUnited States was temporarily slowed by the arrival of syndicalism. North\r\nAmerican syndicalism appeared 1904-1905 in the form of a militant unionism\r\nknown as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Anarchists entered the\r\nIWW along with revolutionary socialists. The alliance did not last long.[6]\r\nInternal squabbles soon split the IWW, and for a time there existed\r\nanarchist and socialist versions. Finally, with involvement of the US in\r\nWWI, the anarchist IWW, and anarchism in general, dropped from the public\r\ndomain.[7]<\/p>
\r\n\r\nAnarchy in the USA consisted not only of the\r\nBakunin-collectivist\/syndicalist and Kropotkin-communist strains, but\r\nalso the Proudhon-mutualist\/individualist variant associated most closely\r\nwith Benjamin Tucker. Individualist anarchy actually had a longer history\r\nof duration within the United States than the other two, but not only\r\nbecause Proudhon preceded Bakunin and Kropotkin. There were other\r\nindividualist anarchists before Tucker who had ties to various radical\r\nmovements which predate Proudhon. Within the United States of early to\r\nmid-19th century, there appeared an array of communal and \"utopian\"\r\ncounterculture groups (including the so-called free love movement).\r\nWilliam Godwin's anarchism exerted an ideological influence on some of\r\nthis, but more so the socialism of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier.[8]\r\nAfter success of his British venture, Owen himself established a cooperative\r\ncommunity within the United States at New Harmony, Indiana during 1825.\r\nOne member of this commune was Josiah Warren (1798-1874), considered to be\r\nthe first individualist anarchist.[9] After New Harmony failed Warren\r\nshifted his ideological loyalties from socialism to anarchism (which was\r\nno great leap, given that Owen's socialism had been predicated on Godwin's\r\nanarchism).[10] Then he founded his own commune (\"Modern Times\") and\r\npropounded an individualist doctrine which nicely dovetailed with\r\nProudhon's mutualism arriving from abroad.[11] Warren's activities\r\nattracted a number of converts, some of whom helped to further develop\r\nAmerican mutualism. The most important of these were Ezra Heywood\r\n(1829-1893), William B. Greene (1819-1878), and Lysander Spooner (1808-1887).\r\nThe advent of the Civil War put an end to much of the utopian movement and\r\nits communal living experiments. Individualist anarchism was itself reduced\r\nto an agitprop journalistic enterprise of some measurable popularity.[12] And\r\nin this form it found its most eloquent voice with Benjamin Tucker and his\r\nmagazine Liberty. Tucker had been acquainted with Heywood and other\r\nindividualist anarchists, and he subsequently converted to mutualism.[13]\r\nThereafter he served as the movement's chief polemist and guiding hand.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nThe Proudhonist anarchy that Tucker represented was largely superseded\r\nin Europe by revolutionary collectivism and anarcho-communism. The same\r\nchangeover occurred in the US, although mainly among subgroups of working\r\nclass immigrants who were settling in urban areas. For these recent\r\nimmigrants caught up in tenuous circumstances within the vortex of\r\nemerging corporate capitalism, a revolutionary anarchy had greater\r\nrelevancy than go slow mutualism. On the other hand, individualist\r\nanarchism also persisted within the United States because it had the\r\nsupport of a different (more established, middle class, and formally\r\neducated) audience that represented the earlier stream of indigenous North\r\nAmerican radicalism reflecting this region's unique, and rapidly fading,\r\ndecentralized economic development. Although individualist and communist\r\nanarchy are fundamentally one and the same doctrine, their respective\r\nsupporters still ended up at loggerheads over tactical differences.[14] But\r\nin any event, the clash between the two variants was ultimately resolved\r\nby factors beyond their control. Just as anarcho-communism entered a\r\npolitical twilight zone in the 1890s, American mutualism did likewise.\r\nTucker's bookstore operation burned down in 1908, and this not only\r\nterminated publication of Liberty, but also what remained of the\r\nindividualist anarchism ``movement.'' The aggregate of support upon\r\nwhich this thread of thought had depended was already in\r\ndissipation.[15] Individualist anarchy after 1900 receded\r\nrapidly to the radical outback.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nWhat then does any of this have to do with Libertarianism? In\r\neffect, nothing, aside from a few unsupported claims. Libertarianism is\r\nnot anarchism, but actually a form of liberalism. It does, however, have\r\na point of origin that is traceable to the same juncture as anarchism's\r\nmarginalization. So in this limited sense there is a shared commonality.\r\nTo be more precise, the rapid industrialization that occurred within the\r\nUnited States after the Civil War went hand in glove with a sizable\r\nexpansion of the American state.[16] At the turn of the century, local\r\nentrepreneurial (proprietorship\/partnership) business was overshadowed in\r\nshort order by transnational corporate capitalism.[17] The catastrophic\r\ntransformation of US society that followed in the wake of corporate\r\ncapitalism fueled not only left wing radicalism (anarchism and socialism),\r\nbut also some prominent right wing opposition from dissident elements\r\nanchored within liberalism. The various stratum comprising the capitalist\r\nclass responded differentially to these transpiring events as a function\r\nof their respective position of benefit. Small business that remained as\r\nsuch came to greatly resent the economic advantage corporate capitalism\r\nsecured to itself, and the sweeping changes the latter imposed on the\r\npresumed ground rules of bourgeois competition.[18] Nevertheless, because\r\ncapitalism is liberalism's raison d'tre, small business operators had\r\n\r\nlittle choice but to blame the state for their financial woes, otherwise\r\nthey \r\nmoved themselves to another ideological camp (anti-capitalism).\r\nHence, \r\nthe enlarged state was imputed as the primary cause for\r\ncapitalism's \r\n``aberration'' into its monopoly form, and thus it\r\nbecame the scapegoat for \r\nsmall business complaint. Such sentiments\r\nare found vented within a small \r\nbody of literature extending from\r\nthis time, e.g., Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, The State (1935); what\r\nmay now rightly be called proto-Libertarianism.[19]<\/p>
\r\n\r\nAs a self-identified ideological movement, however,\r\nLibertarianism took more definite shape from the 1940s onward\r\nthrough the writings of novelist Ayn Rand. The exaltation of liberal\r\nindividualism and minimal state laissez-faire capitalism that permeates\r\nRand's fictional work as a chronic theme attracted a cult following within\r\nthe United States. To further accommodate supporters, Rand fashioned her\r\nown popular philosophy (``Objectivism'') and a membership organization.\r\nMany of those who would later form the nucleus of Libertarianism came out\r\nof Objectivism, including two of its chief theoreticians, John Hospers and\r\nMurray Rothbard.[20] Another conduit into Libertarianism carried a\r\nbreakaway faction from William F. Buckley's college youth club, the Edmund\r\nBurke-style conservative Young Americans For Freedom.[21] More academic\r\ninput arrived from the Austrian school of neoclassical economics\r\npromulgated by F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises (of which the economist\r\nRothbard subscribes).[22] All these marginal streams intermingled during\r\nthe mid to late 1960s, and finally settled out as Libertarianism in the\r\nearly 1970s.[23]<\/p>
\r\n\r\nIt is no coincidence that Libertarianism solidified and\r\nconspicuously appeared on the scene just after the United States entered\r\nan economic downturn (at the same time Keynesian economics was discredited\r\nand neoclassical theory staged a comeback). The world-wide retrenchment of\r\ncapitalism that began in the late 1960s broke the ideological strangle\r\nhold of a particular variant of (Locke-Rousseau) liberalism, thereby\r\nallowing the public airing of other (Locke-Burke) strains representing\r\ndisaffected elements within the capitalist class, including small business\r\ninterests. Libertarianism was one aspect of this New Right offensive. It\r\nappeared to be something sui generis. Libertarianism provided a simplistic\r\nstatus quo explanation to an anxious middle class threatened by the\r\nunfathomed malaise of capitalism and growing societal deterioration, i.e.,\r\nblame the state. And this prevalent grasping at straws attitude accounts\r\nfor the success of Robert Nozick's popularization of Libertarianism,\r\nAnarchy, State, And Utopia (1974). It rode the crest of this polemic rift\r\nwithin liberalism. The book was deemed controversial, even extreme, by\r\nestablishment liberals (and social democrats long pacified by the welfare\r\nstate), who, secure in power for decades, were now under sustained attack\r\nby their own right wing. Yet at bedrock, Nozick's treatise was nothing\r\nmore than old wine in a new bottle, an updating of John Locke.[24]<\/p>
\r\n\r\nLibertarianism is not anarchism. Some Libertarians readily admit this.\r\nFor example, Ayn Rand, the radical egoist, expressly disavows the communal\r\nindividuality of Stirner in favor of liberalism's stark individualism.[25]\r\nPlus Robert Nozick makes pointed reference to the US individualist\r\nanarchists, and summarily dismisses them.[26] This explicit rejection of\r\nanarchism is evidence of the basic liberalist ideology that Libertarians\r\nhold dear. But more specifically, within the movement itself there exist\r\nfactional interests.[27] There are Libertarians who emphasize lifestyle\r\nissues and civil liberties (an amplification of John Stuart Mill's On\r\nLiberty). They want the state out of their \"private\" lives, e.g., in drug\r\nuse and sexual activity. Others are chiefly concerned with economics. They\r\nchampion laissez-faire\/``free-market''\/ neoclassical economics, and fault\r\nthe state for corrupting ``natural'' capitalism. Although both groups\r\ndespise the state intensely, neither wants to completely do away with it.\r\nThis minimal state position, sufficient by itself to debar Libertarianism\r\nfrom classification as anarchism, is embraced by Rand, Buchanan, Hospers,\r\nand Nozick.[28] More revealing, however, is why Libertarians retain the\r\nstate. What they always insist on maintaining are the state's coercive\r\napparatuses of law, police, and military.[29] The reason flows directly\r\nfrom their view of human nature, which is a hallmark of liberalism, not\r\nanarchism. That is, Libertarianism ascribes social problems within society\r\n(crime, poverty, etc.) to an inherent disposition of humans (re: why Locke\r\nargues people leave the ``state of nature''), hence the constant need for\r\n``impartial'' force supplied by the state. Human corruption and degeneracy\r\nstemming from structural externalities as a function of power is never\r\nadmitted because Libertarianism, like liberalism, fully supports\r\ncapitalism. It does not object to its power, centralization, economic\r\ninequality, hierarchy, and authority. The ``liberty'' to exploit labor\r\nand amass property unencumbered by the state is the quintessence of\r\ncapitalism, and the credo of Libertarianism ne liberalism, all of\r\nwhich\r\nis the utter negation of anarchism.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nLastly to be addressed is the apparent anomaly of Murray Rothbard.\r\n\r\nWithin Libertarianism, Rothbard represents a minority perspective \r\nthat\r\nactually argues for the total elimination of the state. However\r\nRothbard's claim as an anarchist is quickly voided when it is shown\r\nthat he only wants an end to the public state. In its place he allows\r\ncountless private states, with each person supplying their own police\r\nforce, army, and law, or else purchasing these services from\r\ncapitalist venders.[30] Rothbard has no problem whatsoever\r\nwith the amassing of wealth, therefore those with more capital will\r\ninevitably have greater coercive force at their disposal, just as they\r\ndo now. Additionally, in those rare moments when Rothbard (or any other\r\nLibertarian) does draw upon individualist anarchism, he is always highly\r\nselective about what he pulls out. Most of the doctrine's core principles,\r\nbeing decidedly anti-Libertarianism, are conveniently ignored, and so what\r\nremains is shrill anti-statism conjoined to a vacuous freedom in hackneyed\r\ndefense of capitalism. In sum, the ``anarchy'' of Libertarianism reduces\r\nto a liberal fraud. David Wieck's critique of Rothbard, applicable to\r\nLibertarianism in general, will close this discussion.<\/p>
\r\n\r\n``Out of the history of anarchist thought and action Rothbard\r\nhas pulled forth a single thread, the thread of individualism,\r\nand defines that individualism in a way alien even to the spirit\r\nof a Max Stirner or a Benjamin Tucker, whose heritage I presume\r\nhe would claim - to say nothing of how alien is his way to the spirit\r\nof Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and the historically\r\nanonymous persons who through their thoughts and action have tried to\r\ngive anarchism a living meaning. Out of this thread Rothbard\r\nmanufactures one more bourgeois ideology.''[31]\r\n\r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.ozarkia.net\/bill\/anarchism\/rants\/","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"A rebuttal to this essay is Contra Sabatini: Bogus Critique<\/A> by Tim Virkkala, wherein Sabatini's interpretation of the individualist anarchists is disputed. In my opinion the analytic meaning of "anarchism" takes precedence over historical factors. Thus any ideology which wants to disband the State can rightfully be called anarchist. \r\n\r\n\r\n","numcomment":4,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2006\/02\/147614.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":147616,"heading":"Bogus Critique","article":"I won't post it here, but if you've read this, you should read the rebuttal as well:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.ozarkia.net\/bill\/anarchism\/rants\/VirkkalaBC.html","author":"sh(A)ne","parent_id":147614,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-02-18 10:59:43","modified":"2006-02-18 10:59:43","fileurl":""},{"id":147622,"heading":"Another thing to read","article":"Same site, another article:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/www.ozarkia.net\/bill\/anarchism\/rants\/HighleymanAnarch.html\r\n\r\nThis is an overview of anarchism, and things that call themselves anarchism.\r\n\r\nIt was written in 1988, more proof that this "anarcho-capitalism" issue is a dead horse.","author":"johnk","parent_id":147614,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-02-18 13:54:29","modified":"2006-02-18 13:54:29","fileurl":""},{"id":147649,"heading":"Is libertarianism a progressive ideology?","article":"Anyone who thinks so should ask themselves why its ranks produce so many outlandish reactionaries - such as Charles Murray, who thinks that lower income people in general and Blacks in particular are biologically inferior. Or Thomas Szasz, the quack psychiatrist who wants to deprive even obvious psychotics of the insanity defense in criminal trials because mental illness, in his Medieval opinion, is a "myth."","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":147614,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-02-18 20:53:41","modified":"2006-02-18 20:53:41","fileurl":""}]}