Anti-politics and Revolution
The post “The Libertarian Party Must Die” was mentioned over at Third Party Watch. While I made a few sparse comments over there, there’s one longer one that I want to republish here.
Robert Milnes asked:
Brad, I always admired the Groucho Marxists. But no party? No candidates? What do they do for fun? What about the rest of us?
My response follows:
“Real libertarianism is simply the non-aggression principle. It is an ethical framework rather than a political ideology. The “political†RESULT of making the non-aggression principle the default consideration in matters of justice would demonstrably be some variant or another of free-market oriented anarchism. If a stateless society is not your goal, then, you need to stop reading at this point and go hang out with the other slow minarchist kids. May your chains rest lightly, yada, yada, yada…
Modern “libertarianism†in the sense of a political creed principally crafted by ONE man, Murray Rothbard, consists of a refined version of individualist anarchism used as a rationale for a revived classical liberalism in the political arena. As you’re no doubt aware, the default thinking states that narrowing the scope of state policy, the amount of state spending constitutes “progress†toward that goal.
While certainly no anti-statist advocate of the non-aggression principle could advocate expanding the state, some libertarian anarchists have dissented against the Rothbardian theory of “progress†and more often than not they were otherwise hardcore Rothbardians (“more Rothbardian than Rothbardâ€Â) who deeply valued Murray’s refinement of anarchist theory itself. These “left libertarians†or AGORISTS noted that the ultimate goal, the accomplishment of a libertarian society, was essentially the suppression of the state as criminal activity (which Rothbard taught that it was) by a new market-oriented system of law and justice which respected the non-aggression principle. To these pioneering early libertarians, political reformism was far worse than merely a waste of libertarian activist time. It confused matters by assisting the statists in maintaining the illusion of state moral legitimacy, essential for compelling obedience and without which the state could not last for long.
Samuel Edward Konkin III, in particular, was adamant in insisting on an “anti-political†approach and developed a comprehensive theory of libertarian revolution to guide activistsâ€â€outlined in New Libertarian Manifesto. He also detailed advances in radical libertarian class theory that work in tandem with his theory of revolution and which you can read about in Agorist Class Theory.”
Again, if you want to support an effort to get the Libertarian Party to dissolve itself, pledge money today.
More followup:
Share ThisRegarding your statement “Why not focus on recruiting those Ron Paul MeetUp groups and putting them to work on local LP races?â€Â.
Because they don’t like you very much. Not you personally. I mean “you†the Libertarian Party. Ron Paul brought them into the Republican Party and as the Paul campaign slowly fizzles, all initiatives coming from the Paul grassroots themselves are all about electing “Ron Paul Republicans†to Congress.
You know all of the arrogant pricks on here that refuse to consider the possibility that some of their own basic assumptions might be wrong? The Ron Paul Republicans look at them the way those pricks look at me, the anarchist. I’m interested in neither of those groups at this point. In terms of sheer prioritization, my plan requires focusing on getting the anarchists who have taken a wrong turn into the LP out of it, my premise being that anarchists will be most effective at promoting anarchism when they actually do promot6e anarchism rather than small-government statism. To prevent others from following that wrong turn, as I did for several years of my own life, I want to destroy the Libertarian Party. As a possible side benefit of doing so, the half-hearted and muddle-headed “partialitarians†who head back into the major parties after an LP shutdown would possibly gain a new relevance in electoral terms and create some metaphorical “breathing room†for MY people in terms of civil liberties reformsâ€â€but I won’t be holding my breath. Historically, reformist movements only succeed when an existing ruling class consenses on grudgingly granting reforms as a way to sap support for a burgeoning revolutionary movement. That’s another reason the LP has failed, actually. Most of the key people who had the intellectual foundation to serve as anarchist revolutionaries were instead trying to be classical liberal reformists, so the ruling class never paniced into granting libertarian reforms.
