Mises has long been identified with the political Right and American conservatism. Mises, however, regarded himself as a liberal in the classical sense, and even used the world libertarian to describe his views. Moreover, his criticisms of the political right stretch from his 1919 book on European politics (“Every reactionary lacks intellectual independence”) to his 1956 book on method, in which he argued that it was the conservatives who brought socialism to Britain. [Full Article]
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/2741/libertarianism-conservatism-and-all-that/
Libertarianism, Conservatism, and all that
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The founding fathers of USA created (a) a government, which was also (b) an anti-government government binding and restricting its own powers of force right and left. The people of other countries of that time did not understand what was happening (Or perhaps they did understand) and sometimes referred to the American founders, or to all Americans generally as “anarchists,” not because they wanted to call them a name, but because it seemed to these foreigners that “anarchist” best described American political philosophy.
The anti-government government has caused confusion ever since, as well it might. Conservatives are the ones who emphasize that it is a government. Conservatives will generally support whatever seems likely to enforce obedience to the government, obedience to one’s government seeming to them to be a good thing. Libertarians are the ones who emphazise that it is supposed to be an anti-government organization, which leaves people free–free to burn flags, own their own money, use bad words, whatever.
I never see a movie about a werewolf but that I think of the US government. Like werewolves, the US government is created from human beings who seem not to be innately evil. Once they become werewolves (or a government), though, they are in anguished conflict and are unable to control themselves, and eventually the evil that they inevitably do far, far outweighs their good qualities. They HAVE to be killed eventually, and the whole process begins anew.
Somebody has said that laws are never invented but are instead discovered.
The second law of thermodynamics, for example, is not something some human being created and then ran around trying to enforce. Human beings can create and produce only to the extent they DISCOVER and recognize such laws.
I believe that “Thou shalt not steal” is a law that most human beings have not yet discovered. Most human beings think that stealing is okay if it is “authorized personnel” that is doing the stealing. Most human beings do not know that to whatever extent stealing is authorized and encouraged, human beings are unproductive–right down to the point that they starve to death, as in Biafra.
Sometime the human race will DISCOVER the already-extant LAW that stealing is evil. They will discover that it is not just something some people are saying because they would like to have the most money possible.
Maybe this might help. On election day in 1948, a comment by a Democratic uncle caused me to be a Republican because Democrats don’t even know who they vote for and what the candidate stands for. And they don’t even care that they don’t know – they just vote the ticket.
At that time, the GOP (at least here in Idaho) stood for minimal government. So when the liberal-conservative debate arose, and Democrats were “liberal” I called myself a conservative. But it wasn’t long until the GOP started pushing big, intrusive government, so I called myself “right wing” instead of “conservative.”
In the mid-1960s I became aware of Robert LeFevre, whom I guess you could call the founder of political (as opposed to economic) libertarianism.
Whatever you want to label it, to me political “libertarianism” simply means minimal government. The sort expressed in/by “the social contract” as Locke and Rousseau spoke of. Jefferson was also one of “us” because he cited Locke a time or two. Basically, we say that people accept government for one purpose, and one purpose only: to protect the person and property of each individual with the common force of all. PERIOD. NOTHING more. NO welfarism, no “regulations,” nothing else.
Jude,
I enjoyed your article and the extensive cites to sources on the web that you included. I have a couple of comments on this which I hope you don’t mind me making.
I have been a great admirer of Frank Chodorov all of my life and have done some work on his background. He was quite actively involved in the single tax politics for many years before he was involved in the HGSSS’s (Henry George School of Social Science) Freeman and had a rather colorful time. Most biographers have not taken the time to research this and I would recommend that if you have the time, you should read a number of the major georgist periodicals from the turn of the last century onward to get a feel for his background.
Let me give you a couple of examples. Chodorov led the effort to destroy the party of the ‘48′ers during their attempt to run a presidential candidate, and was widely admired by other single taxers for his work in bringing in his single-tax cohorts into their convention and breaking it up. Chodorov also was the vice-presidential candidate for the Single Tax Party during another year. There are no biographies of Chodorov which detail his political activism, only his efforts after he gave up politics. This earlier Chodorov period helps to broaden our understanding of the trials that he went through in coming to the antipolitical stance held later in life.
You should understand that the single tax movement was the political wing of the libertarian movement for many years (much like the LP is today), and that there was a constant flow of anarchists and other libertarians in and out of the single tax organizations. Surprisingly, later on, many became involved in the CPUSA!
This brings me to my second comment. Here is where I think Murray missed understanding the evolution of the libertarian groups into what he referred to as the “Old Right” (his term, I believe—don’t recall it ever being used prior to Murray’s use). This error has continued to this day.
Much has been made, and quite rightly so, of the anti-New Deal forging of various groups into what would be the “Old Right” in the 1940′s. If one puts together all of the disparate elements: cooperativists, agrarians, distributists, decentralists, single taxers, classical liberals, traditionalists, etc., and various other stripes of libertarians of the time, the disconnect from the left of the libertarians is in many respects a more significant element.
Why did libertarians leave the Left? What were the issues involved? Was it simply economic theory? Most libertarians had been separated by the left long before the 1940′s. Many still accepted cooperative economic theory as the best in economic theory. Many were never familiar with free market economics, and certainly not with Austrian economics!
I suggest that the central, defining element in the libertarian movement out of left-wing politics, the issue that forced them out was another matter, one that forged a spike between the Left and the libertarians: the Russian Revolution. The classic example of this is a comparison of Nock’s treatment of soviet socialism in his series of essays, “The State” which was published in his The Freeman (1920-24) and the final version in his book, “Our Enemy The State”, which is now a classic standard in libertarian thought.
In the first collection of essays, he completes the series with a defense of Soviet Russia and hopes that the model of the soviet will be used throughout the world, and particularly in the U.S.A! He also makes, in the final essay, a moral case against the state, which disappears in “Our Enemy The State”. By the time that he turned the series into the “Our Enemy The State” which we all know and love, no mention of support for the USSR appears. This is not the only example of this, but one of the most notable. Suzanne LaFollette and various others refused to go along with supporting the soviet cause after the horrors of the later Lenin and Stalin were revealed.
Libertarians were purged from their left allies. They found themselves outside of their historic friends and eventually sought alliance with the others later in the period that Murray refers to in his view of forging of the “Old Right”.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/
“The spirit of man cannot be conqueredâ€
No responsible leader shall state that he will destroy a country or a nation and its people.
Hate breeds hate.
In a shrinking Global economy, people of the world should and must learn to live in harmony.
Every one is entitled to practice their religion and beliefs without interfering with others and/or enforcing their beliefs and customs.
Everyone should be treated with respect and dignity.
It is time for everyone to open their eyes and realize that conflict and hate will only advance world destruction and the abomination of humanity.
I believe that Coexistence means peace and harmony. If we do not achieve peace and harmony soon, we will all perish. It is up to us to change the world and bring peace and harmony to all people.”
Yehuda Draiman, Northridge, CA. Dec. 30, 2007
PS
Science must be learned; it cannot be conquered. An army that can occupy knowledge has yet to be built. And that is why armies of occupation are a thing of the past. Indeed, even for defensive purposes, a country cannot rely on its army alone. Territorial frontiers are no obstacle to ballistic missiles, and no weapon can shield from a nuclear device. Today, therefore the battle for survival must be based on political wisdom and moral vision no less than on military might.
Countries used to divide the world into their friends and foes. No longer. The foes now are universal – poverty, famine, religious radicalization, desertification, drugs, proliferation of nuclear weapons, ecological devastation. They threaten all nations, just as science and information are the potential friends of all nations.
Classical diplomacy and strategy were aimed at identifying enemies and confronting them. Now they have to identify dangers, global or local, and tackle them before they become disasters.
As we part a world of enemies, we enter a world of dangers. And if future wars break out, they will probably be wars of protest, of the weak against the strong, and not wars of occupation, of the strong against the weak.
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