Comments on: Barnett on Rothbard

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 10:34:37 +0000

Gil,

Narveson used to be explicitly utilitarian, but has since changed his views. Now he considers himself a contractarian. Perhaps Barnett is not aware of this change.

By: Vince Daliessio

Vince Daliessio — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 07:09:36 +0000

I agree with Ike – if idealogical “purity” is going to be the sole criteria for membership in the libertarian movement, then most of us are going to be disqualified for one reason or another. It is not necessary for all of us to be the Rothbardian version of “The Boys From Brazil”. It is sufficient that we agree that the federal govenment as presently constituted represents an intolerable usurpation of the rights of all, and that we support one another in effective remedies therof.

By: Gil Guillory

Gil Guillory — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 03:26:24 +0000

In the subject article, Barnett characterizes Jan Narveson as a utilitarian. Narveson is far from utilitarian. His The Libertarian Idea and his more recent Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice specifically criticize utilitarianism. One might characterize Narveson better as a neo-Hobbesian, however odd that might seem to some who have never read Narveson. Nonetheless, if one must pigeonhole Narveson either a natural lawyer or a utilitarian, he clearly falls into the previous camp. This is not to say that many of Randy Barnett's works are not outstanding -- The Structure of Liberty is one of less than a dozen essential works for anyone wishing to understand how a stateless order might work with regard to the provision of law and order.

By: Ike Hall

Ike Hall — Tue, 27 Jul 2004 15:34:41 +0000

As an admirer of Randy Barnett, I am puzzled as to why he would be setting up such an ugly Rothbardian strawman. It is certainly not necessary to make his point, which is essentially that libertarianism does not mandate a certain code of morality (and please correct me if I misunderstood the thrust of the article), it just seeks to limit the use of power to its legitimate sphere. How Rothbard would disagree with that I have no idea. The Ethics of Liberty, IIRC, came to pretty much the same conclusions. Having never met Rothbard, I can’t say how accurate Barnett’s portrayal was, but it certainly does not jibe with the image I have gathered from myriad sources. If it was not accurate, what on earth was Barnett’s motivation?