Roderick T. Long Auburn University / Molinari Institute

By “radical leftists” I don’t mean these folks:

I mean these folks:

Of course there are plenty of people who read Chomsky but vote for Obama. Like people who read Hayek but vote for Bush.

FREE-MARKET LIBERTARIANISM: Right to dispose of own life and property without government interference so long as the like right of others is respected moral basis: self-ownership economic basis: incentival and informational advantages of markets

RADICAL LEFTISM: Concern with domination, exclusion, inequality, oppression, exploitation, hierarchy, and environmental degradation See capitalist society as pervaded by malign power structures of class, race, gender, etc.

Proponents of either perspective tend to be hostile to the other Some overlap in what they condemn – notably, war (usually) – but reasons and applications differ Radical Leftists see Free-Market Libertarians as defenders of the rich

Free-Market Libertarianism seems to permit what Radical Leftism forbids: socioeconomic inequality, discrimination, hierarchical workplaces, environmental damage Radical Leftism seems to permit what Free- Market Libertarianism forbids: coercive interference with liberty and property

Yet the two perspectives once went together, as in the case of the 19 th -century individualist anarchists:

Common roots: equality of authority opposition to privilege

Since the 19 th -century: Libertarians have specialised in studying forms of oppression that are directly governmental, while leftists have specialised in studying forms that aren’t Each can learn from the other

Free-Market Libertarianism and Radical Leftism belong together; each is the natural completion of the other.

Those who value Radical Leftist ends have reason to care about Free- Market Libertarian means – because the chief (though not sole) enabler of the evils that Radical Leftists oppose is not the market but rather the State

Those who value Free-Market Libertarian means have reason to care about Radical Leftist ends – because if it’s wrong to push people around by using force, it’s arguably wrong (even if not a rights-violation) to push people around at all

Libertarians as libertarians must embrace certain values causally or conceptually connected with, even though not entailed by, the nonaggression principle

grounds thickness: values entailed by the best reasons for NAP (anti- authoritarianism) application thickness: values needed in order to apply NAP correctly (animal rights)

strategic thickness: causal preconditions for implementing NAP (gross economic inequality) consequence thickness: opposing independently bad things caused by NAP violations (sweatshops)

Hence libertarians should see their struggle against the state as part of a unified struggle against, e.g., patriarchy, white supremacy, heterosexism, bossism, and environmental waste This is a return to libertarianism’s 19 th -century roots

Both defenders and opponents of modern “capitalist” society tend to assume that a) our society approximates to a free market, and so b) the socioeconomic inequality and corporate power that prevail in our society are mainly the result of the market Conflation of corporatism (i.e. rule of big business / big government partnership) with free markets

Left-conflationism: treat the evils of present-day corporatism as a reason to reject free markets Right-conflationism: treat the virtues of free markets as a reason to defend the results of present-day corporatism

Historically the term “capitalism” refers to a system favouring employers (“capital”) against workers (“labour”) Most people use the term conflationistically, to mean “the free-market system we [supposedly] have now” On both counts, libertarians should stop using the term to mean a genuinely freed market

Is Free-Market Anti-Capitalism (FMAC) the same as Bleeding- Heart Libertarianism (BHL)? Yes and no.

BHL is the combining of the social- justice perspective of the left with the free-market concerns of libertarians So in that sense, FMAC is a form of BHL

But most members of BHL (not all; Gary Chartier and I are exceptions) seem to see the libertarian and leftist commitments as moderating each other

For example, many BHLs: water down libertarianism by accepting a government-guaranteed minimum income (ignoring property rights, the levelling effects of markets, and the dangers of state power) water down leftism by defending sweatshops as the “best available alternative” (without asking what conditions have ruled out better options)

By contrast, those taking an FMAC perspective tend to see libertarian and leftist commitments as reinforcing each other We are radically libertarian and radically leftist

Big business as libertarians sometimes describe it:

Big business as most people actually experience it:

Right Cop, Left Cop: conservatives pose as critics of big government, liberals pose as critics of big business Those who oppose one wing of the ruling Gov/Biz partnership are lured into supporting the other The genuine libertarian alternative is rendered invisible

Gov and Biz each want to be dominant partner (like Church & State), so hostility between them is not fake – but commitment to partnership is real too. Left Cop duped voter Right Cop

In fact markets are a levelling force Regulations insulate dominant firms from market feedback, making them islands of centrally planned chaos

Competition would render firms smaller and less hierarchical More workers’ cooperatives and independent contractors More employee control over conditions of employment

Libertarians developed theory of class struggle before Marx did In libertarian version, differential access to the means of production is mainly the product, not the cause, of differential access to state privilege

Libertarian defense of private property does not (or anyway should not) mean defense of all existing property arrangements The present distribution of property is maintained by systematic state interference with libertarian property rights

As a firm grows larger, economies of scale (gains in efficiency from larger size) at some point get overtaken by diseconomies of scale (informational and incentival chaos from growing too unwieldy)

Firms that grow past the efficiency point will be weeded out by competition – unless government-granted privilege enables them to pocket the benefits while socialising the costs

Direct and indirect subsidies Bailouts Protectionist tariffs Eminent domain Licensing, zoning, and other regulatory restrictions that hurt small start-ups more than large established firms

Increased firm size  greater productivity  need to distribute products over wider area  higher distribution costs Government to the rescue: highway subsidies. Long-distance shipping causes most wear & tear; so distribution indirectly subsidised

Transactions between firms are taxed; transactions within firms aren’t Incentive to move operations in-house Smaller firms penalised

Inflation fueled by monetary expansion: Favoured firms get new money first while still facing old, lower prices The “little people” face new, higher prices before getting new money

Quality standards: implicit cartelisation, pricing smaller competitors out of business Copyrights and patents: ruling aspects of service off limits to competition

Deposit insurance encourages banks to make risky investments Liability caps encourage oil companies to drill in risky ways Obamacare’s individual mandate = corporate welfare Government enforces land titles not based on homesteading

Large hierarchical firms have greater trouble determining employee productivity, but (thanks to government) can avoid the cost this brings Hence racial, sexual, etc. discrimination are subsidised

Labour laws tame unions by diverting them from worker empowerment to being junior partners of the Gov/Biz partnership, bargaining for higher wages Unions that bypass such co-opting are penalised

Regulatory restrictions on mutual aid and on starting small firms, plus artificial scarcity caused by resource monopoly, force people to work for employers, and create a employers’ market The left’s complaints about wage slavery are right!

The ruling powers in society (both governmental and corporate) are too far outnumbered by those they rule to be the sources of social order they claim to be Both social order and elite power depend on popular acquiescence

Hence: a) the state is not necessary for maintaining social order; anarchy is a viable end b) petitioning the state, or seizing control of it (whether by electoral or revolutionary methods) is not necessary as a means

The path to a free society: education direct, bottom-up grassroots action building alternative institutions to bypass the state

We abolish the ruling elite merely by ceasing to support them.

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