There Can Be No Tolerance Under a Libertarian Social Order!

anyway, this is nearly as good: The university "has severely damaged my reputation as well as my health," the professor, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, wrote on Saturday in an e-mail message to The Chronicle. "It owes me reasonable compensation for this." haha MARKETPLACE of IDEAS fuckface, you're free to speak and we're all free to react, tra la.

'mom, what's wrong with communism?'

'go to your room!'

[five minutes later]

'oh, come back honey, I'm sorry - that wasn't very libertarian of me'

GMU Law is a right-wing sewer. who cares what anyone from that septic tank things?

every libertarian man- and woman-child gets very warm and very damp somewhere very private when they read this kind of shit.

Dr Bob,

I read your book with great interest. As a libertarian I share your
concerns about the rise of authoritarianism.

However I was surprised by your claim that authoritarians are usually
right-wing, when I have come to believe that the most thoroughgoing
authoritarians are on the _left_. Let me provide some examples. It was
the left (not the right) that invented modern totalitarianism, in the
form of Stalinist communism. It's the left that supports institutions
like communes in which "there is no private life." It's the left which
first believed that their political ideals could only be achieved
through revolution, and through violent imposition. It was the left
alone which believed, and continues to believe, that the _whole_ of
social life should be organized according to their ideals.

Let me anticipate an objection to what I've just said. You may object
that leftists no longer believe those things. However it appears to me
that the leftist zeal for control remains much stronger than that of
their right-wing opponents. Let me provide some more recent examples
than 1930s leftist radicalism. A recent example involves Robert Reich,
former labor secretary under Clinton and leading left-wing ideologue.
Recently he published an article in "Hope" magazine advocating that
all young people should be "drafted" and forced to perform "compulsory
service" in the military or in Americorps. In other words, Reich
suggested that we should instate a draft which requires all people of
a certain age, under penalty of imprisonment, to be assigned to a camp
or communal living situation in which they will be forced to perform
labor. It should be perfectly obvious that what Reich has suggested is
that we institute forced labor camps. I am not exaggerating, and I
choose my words carefully. Of course Reich didn't call it that.
Instead, he preferred some euphemism like "community service centers"
or something similar. But that's not surprising; the proponents of
forced labor camps always use some euphemism. Isn't it more accurate
to describe involuntary confinement in a camp with forced labor, a
forced labor camp?

To my amazement, quite a few people on the left agree with him. In
fact, quite a few people on the left have recently called for re-
instating the draft. Recall that it was the Democrats, not the
Republicans, who have called for re-instating the draft. But they
don't believe in the war! Instead, they believe in forced internment
_for its own sake_. Or (worse still) for the sake of "fairness", for
the sake of subjecting _everyone_ to command rather than just some.

And that is not the only example of leftist authoritarianism. Another
example comes from Canada, where the author comes from. In Canada
there was recently a law preventing people from procuring private
health services to save their own lives. In other words the state
required certain people to die who otherwise wouldn't, in order to
support the leftist social ideal of "fairness". Happily the law was
overruled by the high court in Canada. Unsurprisingly, however, almost
the entire left joined together in castigating the court and
expressing support for the notion that the state should occasionally
prevent certain people from attempting to preserve their own lives. Of
course they don't call it "state-sanctioned murder". When the
authoritarianism is their own, they prefer pleasant-sounding phrases.

These days, nobody on the right, no matter how extreme, has dared
suggesting anything so frankly authoritarian as labor camps or state-
sanctioned murder of people not convicted of any crime. Not once,
during my entire life, has such a thing emanated from the right.
Nobody on the right has ever suggested that an authority should be
given complete control over social life. Even the onerous restrictions
and powerful authorities of the traditional order, which reactionaries
wish to resurrect, grant far more liberty to the individual than any
socialist utopia. In fact, many leftists want to overturn the
traditional restrictions only to impose far more comprehensive
restrictions of their own.

I find it strange, therefore, when leftists castigate the right for
"authoritarianism" while remaining completely blind to their own
authoritarianism. That blindness was apparent in the otherwise-
excellent book, in which right-wing authoritarianism ("I believe
people should be forced by authority to adhere to the true religion")
is carefully examined but left-wing authoritarianism ("I believe
people should be forced by authority to adhere to my notion of the
Great Society") was ignored.

...The reason I bring this up is because I'm a libertarian who feels
he must vote Republican in order to avoid the extreme authoritarianism
of the left. I choose the lesser of two evils, the lesser
authoritarianism. And I suspect that most libertarians (who represent
about 14% of the population) vote Republican for that reason alone.

Which brings me to my final point. For the last few years,
authoritarianism on the right has been increasing, especially with
regard to the war on terror etc. This development has tempted many
libertarians to abandon the Republican party and perhaps vote
Democrat. In that vein, a cato scholar wrote an open letter called
"liberal-tarian" in which he suggested that libertarians would happily
vote for the left (and give the Democrats a majority) if the left
would simply abandon their own authoritarianism and stop talking about
the "Great Society", and stop pushing for the view that "The State
Should Control the Commerce (and the Health)" or whatever else. The
letter suggested that the libertarians and the democrats could unite
to expand social freedom and end the war. In response, the leftists of
the New Republic (where the open letter was published) suggested that
if the left _must_ make concessions to gain votes, it would be better
to court the religious right than to consort with free-market
libertarians. It appears that the editors of the New Republic would
rather have authoritarianism of all kinds than abandon their own kind.

...The book made some excellent suggestions about how to combat
authoritarianism. But most of those suggestions involved trying to
persuade religious fundamentalists to change their beliefs--a very
difficult task. Instead, perhaps you should try to convince the _left_
to change their beliefs? Or even change your own beliefs?

I don't believe the left or the Democrats could ever triumph against
authoritarianism if they make exemptions for when they do it. "Oh, but
that's _different_; when we do it, it's for _fairness_." In other
words, they support authoritarianism, but for their own program, not
their opponents' program. But that's not a very strong condemnation of
authoritarianism. If both sides agree on authoritarianism, then
they'll get it. They may disagree on how it should be used, in which
case one side will end up dominating the other, and the loser will
just have to live with it.

...If the Democrats abandoned their own authoritarianism then many
people who now vote Republican could switch parties. By abandoning
their own authoritarianism, the Democrats may discover some
unsuspected allies. The Democrats might even win more elections, who
knows. Perhaps the only thing necessary to defeat authoritarianism is
not to practice it.