http://www.slate.com/id/2295829/?wpisrc=obinsite

The Nozick discussion starts at the 14:15 mark. It’s clear from this discussion that Mr. Metcalf and his lady pals are clueless. He doesn’t write about Rothbard or the ABCT because he knows absolutely nothing about them. I’m shocked.

Metcalf:

Slate’s Culture Gabfest
Heya –Stephan, as always, great to hear from you, and delighted we didn’t lose you on this issue. I’ll be addressing the “factual error” meme on Slate later today/tomorrow. In the meantime, YES, I don’t think Nozick was necessarily a big inspirer of the movement –correct me if I’m wrong, but he is vastly secondary to Hayek. (I will be writing an essay on Hayek.) However, I have to add, the idea that Nozick did not repudiate libertarianism in ’89 is going to make people look foolish for promoting it. That essay is thoughtful, not short, and unequivocal; and though he may have tacked back in a later interview, he was quite definite in print in The Zig Zag of Politics. Anyone who thinks they have me in a gotcha ought to read it before they pipe up. (SM)

Steve, of course you didn’t lose me. I already knew your politics. And we libertarians are a tolerant bunch… I think what bothered me most was your comment in the podcast that you find libertarianism “hateful.” This is extremely unfair, I believe, and uncharitable; the rest is more of a substantive disagreement. But libertarians as one of your critics pointed out work tirelessly to defend the rights of others–those in jail for drug crimes, those impoverished by state policies, victims of war, etc. So the “hateful” comment boggles the mind.

Re Nozick: I am aware he somewhat repudiated libertarianism, but you seem to exaggerate its extent, and its relevance, and ignore later recantations of the “recantation.” In any case it does not matter; it’s like a reverse appeal to authority.

I think you are wrong to say he was secondary to Nozick. I think he is very very low on the spectrum of libertarian *influences*. I agree w/ Payne who writes “I’ve been active in libertarian circles for nearly a decade now. I work for a free market think tank. I probably know around 1,000 libertarians personally. Yet I have not heard even a single person credit Robert Nozick for making them a libertarian. I’ve heard all the others–more times than I can count–but Nozick comes up only occasionally as an influence and never as the decisive one.”

That is my experience too. Especially among radical libertarians, we OPPOSE Nozick’s attempt ot JUSTIFY the state. And remember, Nozick nowhere even argues for libertairan rights: he starts out assuming there are rights (side constraints). So his whole case is hypothetical: assuming there are rights, even this does not stop a state from emerging (albeit a minarchist one). So it is not a defense of libertairan rights at all, and not even a defense of libertarianism. It’s a defense of the state.

As I mention in my post about this http://blog.mises.org/17383/slates-metcalf-on-libertarianism-and-nozick/ , Rothbard, the key libertarian, levels a devastating critique of NOzick in Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State. Rothbard was the real libertarian radical; Hans-Hermann Hoppe does great job comparing and contrasting the approaches of Nozick and Rothbard in Murray N. Rothbard and the Ethics of Liberty, which is the introduction to the 1998 version of Rothbard’s seminal book. (links are in that post).

As you can see in Brian Doherty’s fantastic book Radicals for Capitalism, http://www.amazon.com/Radicals-Capitalism-Freewheeling-American-Libertarian/dp/1586483501 , the main libertarian influences have been Hayek, Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and Rothbard. And last century, people like Henry Hazlitt, Albert Jay Nock, Leonard Read; of late, people like Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul. I mean Nozick simply does not rate as a major influence. This is just empirical and factual. Yes, I read ASU in my early libertarianism but partly that is b/c I’m into scholarly and academic stuff; most libertarians I know have not.

In short, you took the wrong libertarians to attack. You should have gone after Rothbardians.

as for recanting–it is rare among libertarins, as you may konw; far more often do liberals see the light and move in our direction–if ideological movement has any relevance.

Finally–for another interesting libertarian “recanting” story, see that of Roy Childs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Childs — he wrote a famous letter to Ayn Rand in the 70s about why she should be an anarcho-capitalist; later he recanted of his anarchism, but without explaining why.

Other libertarinas I’ve heard of somewhat recanting include Morris Tannehill, who wrote the famous The Market for Liberty; and Victor Koman, libertarian sci-fi author. And of course the Objectivists, many of them are more war-mongers than “libertarians.”