Comments on: More on Rothbard the libertarian socialist

By: jeremy

jeremy — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:12:18 +0000

The issue of accumulation is precisely what I was trying to address in my essay, “Let the Free Market Eat the Rich”. It’s speculative, of course, and I could stand to find some data to back up my points, but it’s based on what should be an obvious concept: accumulation is subsidized. My blog’s down right now, but you should be able to google it.

By: morris181340

morris181340 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:48:11 +0000

Ok, I’ll admit I don’t understand your theory, perhaps I never will have time to really get the nuts and bolts.

Just tell me this: is your view of Rothbard the socialist just some strange theoretical similarity or does it have any practical consequence?

Do you believe that the day we live in a society where Rothbard’s theories are accepted by the majority of people there is going to be some great redistribution of wealth to the masses? If yes, I can show some information that this is not correct.

If no, then I’m not really interested in whether you can twist definitions to make AC to mean socialism.(Marx, Rothbard..both Jewish, hey what’s the difference?)

PirateRothbard

By: Robby

Robby — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:30:05 +0000

I may be way off base here, but wouldn’t it make sense that in order to compare and contrast anarcho-capitalism and libertarian socialism to at least derive the definitions from a comparable source. In one post on this subject, “Re-stating the point: Rothbardian socialism,” you attempt to define capitalism “as the status quo and that it is oppressive in an economic sense as a result of the monopolization of capital.” However, when you define socialism, as done in this essay, you define it according to you own research and interpretation of the term. Wouldn’t it make more sense that if you use the status quo definition of capitalism that you also use the status quo definition of socialism?

You know, as well as I, that Rothbard’s interpretation of the term capitalism is not the status quo interpretation nor is his definition of socialism that which you have described. If it was, would he not have named it such?

By: Brad Spangler

Brad Spangler — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:30:40 +0000

@morris — I left it out because it was not pertinent to what I was saying. If something that was originally stolen comes into your possession as an innocent recipient, you yourself *are* homesteading it at that point. If a legit original owner then presents themself, that means they have a superior claim to your own. But that has nothing to do with what I was saying, because the monopoly capitalist system of massive collusion between state and business does not leave corporations (and the statist plutocracy generally) as recipients of state largesse as innocent recipients of property. Their title is void in any ethical analysis.

By: morris181340

morris181340 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:20:53 +0000

“I’ve already explained in other posts that the revolutionary redistribution of property would be an unavoidable consequence of the rise of a non-state system of law not beholden to fake grants of title to politically favored interests.

If property title under market anarchism would derive, as Rothbard asserted it ought to, from homesteading and/or exchange from the homesteader, this necessarily supposes state granted title to politically favored interests that never homesteaded what they supposedly “own” wouldn’t
be protected.”

WRONG!

You leave out that Rothbard asserted thtat the benefit of the doubt goes to person holding the property. If I own property that I bought, and way back when it was stolen, but no one knows who is descended from the victims..than the benefit of the doubt, according to Rothbard, goes to me and my ownership. So no massive wealth redistribution.

So a provocative article, but not true. AC is not socialist. By the way, Rothbard is not the only AC out there, I sometimes prefer David Friedman’s version. I don’t think the right to property has to come from homesteading, just consensual accumulation.

http://cptacs.blogspot.com/

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