Vulgar Libertarianism Alert: Rockwell gets it wrong
While I have tremendous respect for Lew Rockwell and, indeed, his life has been one of absolutely remarkable dedication to the advancement of libertarian principles, he gets a fair amount of stuff wrong occasionally, as I see it. Sometimes, he’s very, very wrong. For example:
Another Criminal Strike — Strikes are not mass resignations, which are the workers’ right. Strikes are an attempt to punish employers and customers by temporary mass leavings, combined with violence or the threat of violence directed at “scabs,” people who would like to be workers at the prevailing wage. Thus the strike is entirely illegitimate. Of course, union coercion is backed by state coercion.
So now the UAW, one of the most-rotten of US unions, is striking against GM, complete with typical pro-union press coverage. It all reminds me of the ancient fable of the turtle giving a ride across the river to the scorpion, who then stings the turtle to death, so the scorpion dies as well.
This seems a far cry from Karl Hess’s question in The Libertarian Forum (June 15, 1969):
“What, for instance, might or should happen to General Motors in a liberated society?”
…that Carson noted Rothbard basically answered in Confiscation and the Homestead Principle that same issue.
Rothbard’s enumeration of potential answers spanned from anarcho-syndicalist style workers takeover by the specific workers at the enterprise (under “homesteading” doctrine for unowned property — in that the purported property of state-subsidized business is not legitimate private property), to pro-rata direct distribution of ownership to taxpayers all the way through full-blown Leninist style nationalization (as a prelude to purportedly authentic privatization).
Now, the UAW does use statist methods, as do most mainstream unions. But, then, most mainstream organizations of any sort are run by statists. It’s the default intellectual framework that it is our job as libertarians to undermine. Rockwell’s denunciation of the UAW, to the extent that he serves as a proxy for GM’s point of view in this instance, can be seen as an instance of the pot calling the kettle black. When one considers those UAW methods are used against a stereotypical pillar of the state subsidized corporatist economic order like (oh the irony, Mr. Hess…) General Motors, one can see there’s no true violation of the libertarian non-aggression principle occuring. A Rothbardian analysis, such as the one supplied by Rothbard, shows that libertarians have “no dog in that fight”, at the very least. As for me, I give at least qualified/nominal support to the UAW.
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Brad,
I couldn’t agree more, and had much the same reaction that you did. What I find so disturbing about some of the trends in libertarian thought is that many libertarians, unfortunately, are falling into the very stereotype that collectivists have used against them for decades — that they are libertarian and anti-state only insofar as it comes to freedom of business, but fail to recognize much of the Statist economic ties to the corporate economy. In other words, many libertarian thinkers tend to fall back on the dogmatic “business is good” without recognizing the true difference between Capitalism (i.e. capital “C” State sponsered corporate Capitalism) and a free market.
I’ve posted about this before, but I think that the anti-Union stance that many libertarians tend to take is grossly generalized, and fails to recognize that in an open, free market economy sans State, the Union simply becomes one more form of ‘corporation’ — so while a business owner(s) might be in control of one set of assets/corporation/business etc, the Union becomes a competing firm. Take an example of GM and the UAW: in an open market, GM would represent the interests of it’s stockholders/investors, and the UAW would represent the interests of the workers involved in the business. Both are representing assets that are in collusion, but that also have a right to competition with each other for negotiating purposes. What libertarian thinkers SHOULD be arguing is not that “business is good” but that “free market competition” is good. Again, I don’t mean to represent ALL libertarian thinkers with this, just the trend towards “the Libertarian Party” type thinking.
Anyway, I’m rambling and don’t need to repeat what you said, but good post!
-olly
without hyphens