Re-stating the point: Rothbardian socialism
From a comment I made on Facebook, once more re-stating the point that agorism IS libertarian socialism:
“I would suggest, as I have before, that no anarchism is ‘capitalist’ if capitalism is understood as the status quo and that it is oppressive in an economic sense as a result of the monopolization of capital.
Rothbardian market anarchism as a body of theory, particularly as contextually modified by Konkin’s theories of revolution and class, *answers* the social question (i.e. it addresses the problem of ‘capitalism’) and is therefore just as much a part of the libertarian socialist tradition as Tuckerite/Proudhonian mutualism. In some ways, it’s very nearly the same thing explained with different rhetoric.
*Abolition of state granted privilege? Check.
* Labor-based ownership rights? Check.
* Redistribution of property as a result of the above? Check. (An unavoidable consequence of the rise of a non-state system of law not beholden to fake grants of title to politically favored interests).
We’re socialists. Get over it.
In fact, it could even be argued that we’re ‘redder’ in the sense that having a theory of revolution that Tucker and Proudhon never had makes us a tad more insurrectionary. I’m not really in the mood to get in a pissing contest over this point, but there it is.”
More…
Comment:
those three things define anarcho-socialism? We’re propertarians tho … you are a propertarian right?
Response:
Yes, I’m propertarian.
Anarcho-socialism is a misnomer. Anarchism (all of anarchism) is libertarian socialism.
The argument that anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism because it’s “capitalist” is shown to be wrong once capitalism is properly understood as state driven monopolization of capital. Rothbardian market anarchism is socialism because it meets the most basic (and original) definition of socialism — attempting to answer “the social question”. [It's actually anti-capitalist, and therefore misnamed]
Most of what we’ve come to see as indicators of socialist thought (hostility to markets & true [labor-based] property rights, pro-state authority — are actually indicative of a subset of socialist thought that gained influence. The labor theory of value was simply the leading edge of economic theory at the time in the 1800’s. Now it’s subjective value theory and the Austrian school generally. We’re still answering the social question.
Comment:
Almost every single political philosophy “attempts to answer the social question.”
Response:
Share ThisYes and no. Almost everything post-liberal does. The context of this is that the term “the social question” arose as a search for what was wrong with liberalism (i.e. classical liberalism or minarchism or libertarianism as conventionally understood in the “small government” sense).
Before liberalism was monarchy and aristocracy — the “ancien regime“. After the liberal ascendancy of the American and French revolutions, the mercantilism of state monopoly trading privileges that Adam Smith opposed morphed into state driven monopolization of capital (”capitalism”) as the industrial revolution swung into high gear.
So, yes, almost everyone except monarchists and minarchists are some sort of socialists. Wouldn’t the average Ron Paul fan agree that everyone in Congress except Ron Paul is a socialist? The point is that after the experiences of the 19th century, any successful political doctrine has to address the question of what was wrong with liberalism. Let me stress — this is one important reason why a classical liberal political party will never succeed. And the US Libertarian Party is a classical liberal political party despite having anarchists in it, because the nature of electoral politics is such that anarchists involved with electoral politics are *operatively* something else — classical liberals, nominally “democratic” socialists or nominally “progressive” social democrats.
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