We shall not take from the mouth of labour, the bread which it has earned. - Thomas Jefferson
strategy for libertyThe Secret of LifePosted by Michael Conaghan on 8th June 2011 3:12pm"Armed with this knowledge, let him proceed in the spirit of radical long-run optimism that one of the great figures in the history of libertarian thought, Randolph Bourne, correctly identified as the spirit of youth. Let Bourne’s stirring words serve also as the guidepost for the spirit of liberty:
Excerpted from Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard.
We are at a crossroads in history. People are increasingly unhappy with the State and are losing faith in its ability to solve major problems. Yet, at the same time, those Americans who say they want limited government are also the ones who want Social Security and Medicare to be untouchable. Support for government spending on defense, health care, anti-poverty measures, and pork for the home district is just as high as it was ten years ago, and in some cases even higher.
I have been ruminating recently on what are the crucial questions that divide libertarians. Some that have received a lot of attention in the last few years are: anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government, abolitionism vs. gradualism, natural rights vs. utilitarianism, and war vs. peace. But I have concluded that as important as these questions are, they don’t really cut to the nub of the issue, of the crucial dividing line between us. Let us take, for example, two of the leading anarcho-capitalist works of the last few years: my own For a New Liberty and David Friedman’s Machinery of Freedom. Superficially, the major differences between them are my own stand for natural rights and for a rational libertarian law code, in contrast to Friedman’s amoralist utilitarianism and call for logrolling and trade-offs between non-libertarian private police agencies. But the difference really cuts far deeper. There runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire which in turn is better than the current system.
A version of this article appeared in the May 2004 issue of The Free Market.
So it is with the freedom movement. The more of us there are, the more we do well to specialize, and there is no way to know in advance what is right for any person in particular. But this much we can know. The usual answer—go into government—is wrongheaded. Too many good minds have been corrupted and lost by following this fateful course. It often happens that an ideological movement will make great strides through education and organization and cultural influence, only to take the fateful step of believing that politics is the next rung on the ladder to success. This happened to the Christian Right in the 1980s. They got involved in politics in order to throw off the yoke of the state. Twenty years later, many of these people are working in the Department of Education or for the White House, and do the prep work to amend the Constitution or invade some foreign country. This is a disastrous waste of intellectual capital.
This interview was first published in the Austrian Economics Newsletter, Vol. 16, Number 3 - Fall 1996. An Interview with Joseph T. Salerno Joseph Salerno, professor of economics at Pace University, is a leading figure in today's growing Austrian School. He has been a pioneer in many fields, including monetary theory, comparative systems, the history of thought, and the economics of war. After the death of Murray N. Rothbard in 1995, Salerno assumed the editorship of the Review of Austrian Economics, together with Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Walter Block. He is now editor of its successor and current flagship scholarly journal, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. He was interviewed by the AEN staff at the 1996 Mises University, the Mises Institutes summer instructional conference at Auburn University. AEN: What's your take on the present state of Austrian economics? SALERNO: How could anyone be at the Mises University and not be elated? This is my eighth. The students are more passionate and well read than ever. We've got all levels, all fields, and many different countries represented. Many students have come on the recommendation of their professors, who had attended in the past. So we're now working with the second and sometimes third generation of alumni.
In every movement, we find these three classes of adherents.
Mental ability declines with age.
The first lesson we learn in a course in economics is that there is scarcity.
Those who are devotees of the libertarian movement have an advantage over other promoters of
One of my strongest recollections is my 25th birthday. |
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