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Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:42 pm
by blindpig
Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"
by anaxarchos
Published on 05-02-2011 07:21 AM1 Comment Comments

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William S. Volker (1859-1947)

Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"
Disclaimer: This is not a conspiracy story, though it has all the elements of one. Anonymous shadowy figures, international "societies", complete political "ideologies" created for convenience alone, social institutions corrupted through the mere distribution of cash (science, politics, universities, governments and even the Nobel Prize), and a global strategy designed to "rule the world" - no doubt about it, this one is better than a novel. But, don't get carried away. There are no secret ceremonies or lizard people in this tale. Nor is it a story about groups named after Italian light fixtures or German beer. It is instead the story of how "everyday conspiracies" work.

Karl Marx wrote that the ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of its ruling class. Looking backward, it is hard to dispute this observation, but how does it actually work? That is what our story is about. It starts with the businessman below and his simple frustration at the success of Marxism as an idea, first among his own workers and then amongst the American establishment whose wide-spread adoption of the appropriately conciliatory "New-Dealism" was entirely in response. In an economic system in which everything is reduced to a commodity, a man of means should be able to simply buy a counter-idea, shouldn't he? So it turns out...

Mr. Anonymous

William Volker, alias "Mr. Anonymous", alias the "First Citizen" of Kansas City, Missouri, "was an extremely modest, enormously wealthy home-furnishings tycoon. He became the unrecognized donor of thousands of gifts, large and small."

Volker was born on April 1, 1859 into a prosperous household in Hanover, Germany. At age 12, Volker's family immigrated to Chicago. At 17 he went to work for a picture frame manufacturer. With the death of his employer in 1882, Volker bought out the company and moved the enterprise to Kansas City. From there, his "little window shade business" grew into a national giant.

In 1911, 52 year old William Volker married. Returning from his honeymoon, he announced he had put one million dollars in his wife's name and, he said, intended to give the rest of his enormous fortune away. Over the next 36 years, he donated millions of dollars, much of it anonymously. When Volker died at age 88 on November 4, 1947, many schools, parks, and public spaces were named for the furnishings tycoon.

So why pick on this guy?

The answer is that the overwhelming priority of Volker's "philanthropy" was focused, not on public spaces but on reactionary ideology. Dismayed by the rise of Socialism in America and doubly dismayed by what he saw as the evolution of government and political thinking towards accommodation and a "new liberalism", eventually personified by the widespread adoption of the economic views of John Maynard Keynes and the New Deal policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Volker set out to create a new and much more reactionary mainstream ideology based loosely around his own ideas of "laissez-faire" capitalism (i.e. a largely unregulated economy) and social Darwinism (the pseudo-scientific notion that in society, unhindered competition would allow the "cream to rise to the top".

In truth, Volker was no great scholar or thinker. The ideology he set out to create was built upside down, starting only with a set of foggy conclusions for which he had a predisposition. From these conclusions, it was the task of Volker's considerable fortune to find a set of justifications, then an enabling ideology or "theory" that gave it all perspective and unity and, eventually, a true philosophical platform from which to launch the whole. But if this task was analogous to building the Great Pyramid, starting from the top, Volker was undaunted. He may not have had a brain but he had money... and he had a personal connection to one of the most reactionary sections of that most reactionary of organizations - the National Association of Manufacturers. Volker's associates, who would all participate closely, included Jasper Crane of DuPont, B. E. Hutchinson of Chrysler, Henry Weaver of General Electric, Pierre Goodrich of B.F. Goodrich, and Richard Earhart of White Star Oil (which through many mergers and aquistions would eventually become Mobil Oil). Moreover, Volker had influence at the leading scholarly institution in his home town: The University of Chicago, founded by none other than John D. Rockefeller and created with a certain ideological predisposition.

In 1932 Volker established the William Volker Fund and, with that, started on the road to becoming perhaps the most significant anonymous asshole of our times. In every way, William S. Volker was the true father of Libertarianism and Modern Conservatism.

For the first dozen years, the fund largely floundered. There is some evidence that Volker may have flirted with Fascism. That ideology though, which attracted such celebrities as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, was thought to have a limited future in America. In the face of Keynesian economics, widespread social spending, and the CIO, what was really required was a return to pre-New Deal economic policy and an anti-communist/anti-union social policy.

Eureka!

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The breakthrough came in 1944, when Volker's nephew, Harold Luhnow, took over, first the business and then the Fund. In the same year, Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom was published. The book was a product of the "Austrian School" of economists, originating at the University of Vienna and first coming to modest prominence at the end of the 19th century in its attacks on Marxist and Socialist economics. Hayek's book was an almost mystical (and hysterical) defense of laissez-faire capitalism and the "free market". According to Hayek, market prices created a "spontaneous order, or what is referred to as 'that which is the result of human action but not of human design'. Thus, Hayek put the price mechanism on the same level as, for example, language". In turn, any attempt at regulation would inevitably lead to "totalitarianism' and in this, both Marxist and New Deal "socialism" were essentially similar. The theory was perfect . Volker and Luhnow had found their ideology. The cash began to flow.

In short order, the Volker Fund and its larger network arranged for the re-publication of Hayek's book by the University of Chicago (a recurring and important connection) despite the fact that it had been almost universally rejected by the Economics establishment. A year later, the book was published in serial form by the ultra-reactionary Readers Digest not withstanding the fact that it was supposed to be a "scholarly text", ordinarily inappropriate for the readership of the Digest, and despite the fact that it had also had been panned by literary critics. In 1950, the Fund arranged for Hayek to secure a position at the University of Chicago and when the University only granted an unpaid position, they arranged for the Earhart Foundation to pay him a salary. Hayek was only the first of a veritable flood of emigre, "scholars".

Recruiting the Homeless

Hayek's teacher in Vienna had been one Ludwig von Mises who, in turn, had been the student of Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk (who had gained fame for his attack on Marxist Economics) and who, in his turn, had been the student of Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian school. Each of these had published several books that were virulent attacks on Socialism and defended "pure capitalism". It was all very good. Von Mises book was called Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis and it too had been received with yawns when it was published in English in 1936.

While von Mises really had "taught" at the University of Vienna, his was an unpaid position. The University had turned him down on four separate occasions for a paid position. Not surprisingly, in 1940 the nearly destitute von Mises had emigrated to the United States. In 1945, an unpaid "visting professorship" was obtained for him at NYU while his salary was paid by "businessmen such as Lawrence Fertig". Fertig was an associate of the Volker Fund and a friend of Henry Hazlitt, the Fund's friendliest journalist. In all, they would fund von Mises for 25 years and von Mises never would need a "real job".

In fact, this was typical of the Fund's bait and switch tactisc for developing resumes. In the United States, von Mises was the "famed economics professor from the University of Vienna". In Europe, he would become the "famous American economist from NYU".

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Uncle Milty

The economist Milton Friedman, during his fifteen minutes of fame, took the opportunity of the publication of his opus, Capitalism and Freedom to decry the shabby treatment that the likes of Hayek and Mises had received from the Economics establishment. On his own similar reception, he wrote in the 1982 preface of his book:

"Those of us who were deeply concerned about the danger to freedom and prosperity from the growth of government, from the triumph of welfare-state and Keynesian ideas, were a small beleaguered minority regarded as eccentrics by the great majority of our fellow intellectuals.

Even seven years later, when this book was first published, its views were so far out of the mainstream that it was not reviewed by any major national publication--not by the New York Times or the Herald Tribune (then still being published in New York) or the Chicago Tribune, or by Time or Newsweek or even the Saturday Review--though it was reviewed by the London Economist and by the major professional journals. And this for a book directed at the general public, written by a professor at a major U.S. university, and destined to sell more than 400,000 copies in the next eighteen years."

It is attractive to believe that Friedman was really this foolish and that his expertise in the politics of fame was similar to his expertise in Monetary Policy. In fact, his separate acknowledgements of the importance of the Volker Fund belie this possibility. In truth, the Fund and its progeny identified Friedman early on, shepherded his career at the University of Chicago, subsidized him through a paid lecture series (which eventually were combined into Capitalism and Freedom), paid his way to Mont Pelerin, arranged for the serialization of his book by Reader's Digest, and bought a signifcant number of the books that Friedman was so proud of "selling".

Friedman was only one of dozens of such local "scholars" who were suddenly discovered through the efforts of the Fund.

The Fund also now began to recruit friendly young "future-scholars" and subsidize their development. Not only was the cause thus advanced, but a modest intelligence network became a part of the Libertarian Movement. One such early recruit was Murray Rothbard, later to become famous as the father of "Left Libertarianism", "Libertarian anarchism", and "anarco-capitalism". Later much castigated for his sellout to the Right-wing Republicans, Rothbard had, from the first, been intimately wrapped up in Anti-Communism, McCarthyism, the Old Right, and the right-wing ideology of the Volker Fund. It was through the Fund that he became an associate of Ayn Rand and a student of Mises.

"Rothbard began his consulting work for the Volker Fund in 1951. This relationship lasted until 1962, when the VF was dissolved. A major part of Rothbard's work for the VF consisted of reading and evaluating books, journal articles, and other materials. On the basis of written reports by Rothbard and another reader - Rose Wilder Lane - the VF's directors would decide whether to undertake massive distribution of particular works to public libraries.

The VF also asked Rothbard to submit reports on particular questions, such as how to rank sundry economists in terms of friendliness to the free market, surveys of the literature on monopoly, Soviet wage structures, etc., etc. Rothbard's memos number several hundred, covering works in economics, history, philosophy, and political science. The memos, which range in length from one page to seventy pages, provide a window into the scholarship of the period - and Rothbard's views on that scholarship. They thereby shed much light on Rothbard's emerging worldview and his systematic defense of liberty."

They also shed "much light" on how the Fund decided which "scholars" to promote, and which to attack. Rothbard later called his work with the Volker Fund, "the best job I've ever had in my life".

Multiplying Like Rabbits

In support of the imported scholars and the new ideology, the Volker Fund also pioneered a process which would become the hallmark of the Libertarian Movement. The Fund started to spin-off organizations by the boatload, each intended, not just to serve specific purposes but to give the appearance of many independent efforts spawned by a "mass appeal". The list of begats is too numerous to chronicle but the first set are illuminating.

Among the very first front organizations of the Volker Fund was the National Book Foundation. While the Foundation's affiliation to the Volker Fund was not hidden, it was circumspect enough to suggest, even to most Libertarians, that it was independent. The fund began modestly enough by distributing free copies of Eugene Böhm-Bawerk's works to thousands of libraries and universities across the country. As the Volker efforts geared up, the Foundation began to distribute millions of books from dozens of authors, all coming from the Fund's stables. Many educational "incentives" were initiated such as "teach a course on Hayek, get 10 (or 100) textbooks for free"...

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The Foundation for Economic Education was spun out in 1946, under the leadership of Leonard Read, a leading figure in the Chambers of Commerce. The grand-daddy of all libertarian think-tanks, the FEE initiated the original Mont Pelerin Society meetings. Its own publication, The Freeman, became the founding journal of Libertarianism. The rent was paid by Volker.

The Institute for Humane Studies was created by Floyd "Baldy" Harper, the "ace recruiter" of the Volker Fund, in 1961. The IHS identified and subsidized bright young students and promising scholars friendly to the new Libertarian doctrine. Not only did the IHS fund thousands of students, but it spawned dozens of similar organizations throughout the world. After the Volker Fund was finally closed, subsidies for the IHS shifted to some of the most reactionary organizations in America: The Scaife Foundation, Koch Family Foundations, The Bradley Foundation, and the Carthage Foundation.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute was founded in 1953 to combat what they would eventually call "political correctness" and "left-bias" in colleges and universities. The organization now consists of 50,000 college students and faculty and through its lavish subsidies, sponsors dozens of programs representing the entire spectrum of right-wing "Libertarian" causes. The first president of the ISI was a young William F. Buckley Jr.

The Earhart Foundation was created by and named for Richard Earhart of White Star Oil, one of Volker's original collaborators in the National Assosciation of Manufacturers. This foundation was used to subsidize various emigres and not only financed Hayek but also Eric Voegelin, yet another Austrian. Through Voeglin, the Earhardt Foundation became connected with the infamous Leo Strauss and, since then, various projects of not just a libertarian but of a neo-conservative perspective have been beneficiaries of the Foundation. In addition, The Earhart Foundation helped to pioneer still another use of the newly-emergent Libertarian think-tanks. As the network of these think-tanks grew, they undertook not only to promote ideology but also specific points of policy, particularly in support of private corporations. The culmination of the Foundation's efforts in this direction came with the founding of the George C. Marshall Institute in 1984. The Institute was initially a foremost proponent of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), heavily promoted by the Defense Industry, and later became the leading non-industry critic of Climate Change. The CEO of the Institute is currently a registered lobbysist for ExxonMobil.
Through the list of organizations, above, the Volker Fund's near-biblical begats encompass nearly every single prominent individual and organization of the Libertarian and New Conservative movements of today.


The Not-So-Secret Society

In 1947, 39 scholars, mostly economists, with some historians and philosophers, were invited by Professor Friedrich Hayek to meet at Mont Pelerin, Switzerland, and discuss the state, and possible fate of classical liberalism and to combat the "state ascendancy and Marxist or Keynesian planning [that was] sweeping the globe". Invitees included Henry Simons (who would later train Milton Friedman, a future president of the society, at the University of Chicago); the American former-Fabian socialist Walter Lippmann; Viennese Aristotelian Society leader Karl Popper; fellow Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises; Sir John Clapham, a senior official of the Bank of England who from 1940-6 was the president of the British Royal Society; Otto von Habsburg, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne; and Max von Thurn und Taxis, Bavaria-based head of the 400-year-old Venetian Thurn und Taxis family.
If the above rings of Bohemian Grove; and similar fodder for conspiracies, it is because informal retreats at out-of-the-way resorts are one of the favorite methods by which the wealthy of many countries formulate a common international policy. What distinguishes the Mont Pelerin Society, however, is that it did not consist primarily of the wealthy. Instead, it was comprised of a majority of marginal, thread-bare "scholars", united only by their common hatred of Socialism and Keynesianism (which were one and the same for most of them) and sprinkled with only a handful of rich patrons and journalists. In fact the Mount Pelerin Society was organized as much by the Volker Fund as by Hayek himself and the Foundation paid the way for all 10 of the American participants.

Once in Switzerland, the scholars agreed on their hatred of Socialism but on little else except to meet yearly to "facilitate an exchange of ideas between like-minded scholars in the hope of strengthening the principles and practice of a free society and to study the workings, virtues, and defects of market-oriented economic systems.

From this not-so-secret-but-thoroughly-right-wing society's more than humble beginnings, the phoenix of laissez-faire capitalism would rise, propelled skyward by unlimited funds. Over a dozen of the scholars who could not previously get a job, a review, or a book deal would go on to win the "Nobel Prize in Economics" (this "epic" story will be told separately). More importantly, the Mont Pelerin Society would itself beget 500 foundations and organizations in nearly 80 countries... again with strategic contributions from Mr. Anonymous. Once transformed into an "international movement", there was no end to what was possible. One example tells the story.

Initiated at Mont Pelerin and copying the FEE, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) was created in London in 1955. Serving as a conduit for both cash and "ideas", the IEA set about the task of "rejuvenating" the dead and decaying British Tories. By 1985, the "Iron Lady", Margaret Thatcher, would positively gush on the occasion of the Institute's 30th Anniversary: "You created the atmosphere which made our victory possible... May I say how thankful we are to those who joined your great endeavor. They were the few, but they were right, and they saved Britain." With that, the IEA begat the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which in turn created a network of over 50 think-tanks in more than 30 countries.

And what were the scale of these efforts? John Blundell, the head of the IEA, in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, and Atlas in 1990, would identify a rare failure in the Society's efforts. Shaking his head at the abortive attempt to subsidize academic "Chairs of Free Enterprise" in dozens of countries throughout the world, Blundell complained about wasting, "hundreds of millions, perhaps one billion dollars". This was just one initiative among many.


Oceans of Cash

Aaron Director was a lawyer and Ukrainian emigre whose sister had married Milton Friedman prior to the Second World War. That then became the connection which led to the Volker Fund's subsidy of Director and his association with the University of Chicago. He was one of the fund's "imports", alongside Von Mises. Director's collaborator at the University was Edward Levi who would eventually go on to become the President of the University and then Attorney General of the United States. Together, Director and Levi were instrumental in the development of the Chicago School of Economics, or the conquest by the Economics department of the School of Business and the Law School.

The Law School? What does law have to do with economics? The answer was everything according to Director, who developed a theory of "Law and Economics" (called, without tongue-in-cheek, the L&E "Movement"), "stressing free-enterprise principles and the primacy of property law as well as measuring legal rulings with longer-term economic criteria. He founded the Journal of Law & Economics in 1958... that helped to unite the fields of law and economics with far-reaching influence." The journal was of course, funded in large part by what had now become a substantial network of Volker affiliates. Despite the fact that he himself wrote virtually nothing throughout his career, "Director influenced a generation of jurists, including Robert Bork, Richard Posner, Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist."

One part of what made such a thing possible was not just new territories in which to sell the tired old economic ideas, but also new benefactors who spread the message far and wide. In this case, perhaps the most important new convert was the munitions magnate, John M. Olin and his Foundation:

"...John M. Olin was disturbed by a building takeover at his alma mater, Cornell University. At the age of 80, he decided that he must pour his time and resources into preserving the free market system that had allowed him to acquire his own wealth. The Foundation is most notable for its early support and funding of the law and economics movement, a discipline that applies incentive-based thinking and cost-benefit analysis to the field of legal theory. Olin believed that law schools have a disproportionately large impact on society given their size and to this end decided to focus the majority of his funding there."

Between 1969 and 2005, when the Foundation disbanded, the John M. Olin Foundation disbursed no less than $370 Million, "primarily to conservative think tanks, media outlets, and law programs at influential universities. The Foundation is most notable for its early support and funding of the law and economics movement."

But that was not the only thing that the Olin foundation promoted. Through its contacts at the University of Chicago, the Olin Fund ran into political sciences professor Leo Strauss:

Strauss taught that liberalism in its modern form contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards relativism, which in turn led to two types of nihilism.[2] The first was a "brutal" nihilism, expressed in Nazi and Marxist regimes. These ideologies, both descendants of Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy all traditions, history, ethics, and moral standards and replace it by force with a supreme authority under which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered.[4] The second type -- the "gentle" nihilism expressed in Western liberal democracies -- was a kind of value-free aimlessness and hedonism, which he saw as permeating the fabric of contemporary American society.[5] In the belief that 20th century relativism, scientism, historicism, and nihilism were all implicated in the deterioration of modern society and philosophy, Strauss sought to uncover the philosophical pathways that had led to this situation. The resultant study led him to revive classical political philosophy as a source by which political action could be judged.
Well, it was not exactly the same thing but it was close enough... and, with its further evolution, neo-liberalism would abandon the "classical liberals" in favor of medieval scholars, thus coming much closer to a "synergy". Meanwhile, for both, "classical political philosophy" was, of course, synonymous with political reaction. The unmentioned irony was that the critique of Straussianism, that it was "crudely anti-democratic, obsessed with secret meanings and in love with white lies told by powerful men to keep the rabble in line" applied neatly as a summation of the "classical liberalism" or Libertarian Movement as a whole. In addition to its Libertarian mission, The Olin Foundation became a founder and one of the principal funding sources for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Extending their reach, the inheritors of Mr. Anonymous' legacy, also set about creating umbrella organizations for Libertarian funding sources dedicated to funding the counter-intelligentsia. These extended from newly created, shadowy and anonymous Foundations to the famous think-tanks (such as Cato, Hoover, and Hudson) to the infamous (such as the Scaife Foundation). As the network has grown, the financing of scholars has been supplemented by the adoption of campaigns, not just in the name of Capitalism, "Freedom", and "Liberty" in general, but on behalf of individual capitalists in particular. Today there is virtually no public campaign, against anti-tobacco legislation, against environmental legislation, rejecting climate change theory, on behalf of HMOs and private health care, against pharmaceutical regulation and so on - outside of industry and trade associations - that does not originate within the network created or touched by Mr. Anonymous. The scale of the cash flowing is not measured in millions or hundreds of millions or in billions, but in tens of billions, and perhaps even more.


But, what about "ideas"?

In our search for cash and connections without parallel, it might be argued that we have missed the great ideas of Libertarianism. The simple explanation is that there are none. Beyond a pro forma agreement on the evils of Marxism, Keynesianism, and "big government" and a thoroughly mystical, near religious belief in capitalism and "free-markets", reduced to paper-thin slogans such as "Personal Freedom" and "Individual Liberty", there is no other point of consensus. Pressed beyond such platitudes, the theoreticians of this movement have always descended into the most bitter disagreements about the most substantial of issues. Such might easily be suspected of an ideology that embraces a political spectrum which includes right-wing Republicans, and neo conservatives and neo liberals and neo-Fascist Ayn Randians, and "classical Liberals" and Libertarian Party members, and "anarchists".

The economic historian, Jamie Peck, in setting out to write a history of the theories of the Austrian School, was dismayed to find that he could not find an "Aha moment" in that history, nor could he see substantial points of agreement between any of the authors (beyond the obvious), nor could he detect a coherent point-of-view that remained constant amongst any one of them for long. "There was nothing spontaneous about neo-liberalism; it was speculatively planned, it was opportunistically built, and it has been repeatedly reconstructed", wrote Peck.

We will deal with this subject in accompanying material, but for the moment it should be said that even the above misses the point. Beyond congenital disagreements, the embrace of Libertarian Economics as political slogan from the beginning meant that the "science" (and it is only as an attempt at economic science that the ideology has ever had even nominal roots) was still-born, no matter how miserable its stock in trade may have turned out to be. Hayek said as much at the time of his "Nobel Prize". He complained that Serfdom had ended his career as an economist and implied that it began his life as an ideologist. No matter what illusions he may have harbored as to his own "destiny", the comment passes down to us as the complaints of a paid shill of the real Libertarian science - the science of propoganda, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Volker Fund - with Hayek only counting as just another whiney paid-professional, complaining about his job-title.

There is no evidence that the much larger irony ever occurred to Hayek:

Tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of books, hundreds of journals, dozens of universities, tens of thousands of people and thousands of professorships, and so on in a network touching virtually everyone in the "Western Democracies" - all of it centrally planned, all of it subsidized, none of it capable of existing by itself in the commercial marketplace or in the "marketplace of ideas" and all of it failing dozens of times until hooked into the river of cash produced by the the simple subsidies of the rich designed to derail the "free" evolution of ideas as they were actually proceeding... is there any such example in all of human history of a movement so far at odds with its own self-proclaimed principles? No problem, though, for William S. Volker, for whom belief was always optional. Mr. Anonymous got exactly what he paid for.

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For anyone who would attempt to understand class societies, the unmediated slogans of those same societies are the worst possible places to begin. For feudal societies, slogans such as Chivalry, Honor, Fealty, Chastity, Virtue and the like, underlay a social fabric that was monstrous, arbitrary, and treacherous. In most cases the slogans hid social truths which were the exact opposite of their rhetorical claims. The cruelty of the joke was not fully apparent until the end times of feudalism itself.

In our own times, the slogans which have replaced these are those of Freedom, Liberty, Democracy, Enterprise, Individuality, and so on. It is impossible to know the meaning of these as given and even more unlikely that one may make of them as one may wish. In the present society, they are like virgin forests that one may stumble upon while walking. No matter how pristine and unfettered such may appear, in our contemporary social system that forest is inevitably someone's private property and is thus absolutely resistant to any other appropriation.

So too, it is the same with Freedom and Liberty. No matter how one may "choose" to think of them, in truth they have only one source and one meaning.

The current stakeholder for those terms is the anonymous asshole above, William Volker. He mined the ore, refined the technique, processed the product, and merchandised the result; finally sending the finished commodity out on rivers of cash, no less so than Henry Ford did with his automobiles. As with all other industrial Barons of his time, that he knew nothing of the actual ideas, processes, and practices meant nothing at all. He bought them, he paid for them, he owned them, and in the process, he spawned the liberty industry, a multi-billion dollar monopoly which today owns "the marketplace of ideas". So too, just as with Ford, the complete legacy of his works becomes apparent only now.


Postscript

As far as a postscript goes, we end as we began - with yet more fodder for conspiracy theorists. The William S. Volker Fund closed up shop in 1974, secure in the fact that it's mission had been taken up by others. The last millions in the Fund were passed on to the ultra-conservative Hoover Institution. What were not passed on were the files of the Volker Fund, which mysteriously disappeared. The entire paper trail documenting where the money had come from, how it was spent and who was touched by it, all of this disappeared with a POOF. Three decades after he died, Volker seems to have guaranteed his anonymity in perpetuity and to this day nothing but the vague outlines of this story are known. And so it goes...

By anaxarchos
September 28, 2007

http://www.thebellforum.net/Bell2/www.t ... n-Movement

Re: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:48 pm
by blindpig
anaxarchos
09-27-2007, 01:12 PM

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Eyes on the Prize
Bertrand Roehner is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Institute for Theoretical and High Energy Physics at the University of Paris (Sorbonne). Dr. Roehner’s main interest is interdisciplinary, particularly in the application of physics to social phenomena. He has written several books and many articles challenging the accepted theories concerning various social and economic events and substituting simple physical criteria. In his 2007 book, Driving Forces in Physical, Biological and Socio-economic Phenomena: A Network Science Investigation of Social Bonds and Interactions (Cambridge University Press), Professor Roehner interrupts a discussion of “Macro-interactions” as they apply to marketing and cell phones in cars, to discuss “the Promotion of Neo-Liberalism”, particularly with regard to the “Nobel Prize in Economics”.

Why is this a valid subject in a text that is otherwise about networks, connection schemes, and “social bonds”? The simple answer is that the Nobel story is an unbelievable tale. The “neo-liberal” economists were nothing more than a despised sect on the edges of Economic Science, unread, undistinguished, and unknown, until a series of Nobel Prizes transformed them into the rock stars of their field, more important by far than all competing “schools” put together. Unfortunately, Roehner detects what others have also noticed - that the story is quite literally “unbelievable”. The numbers alone tell the story: 58 total “laureates” for the Nobel Prize in Economics, of whom two thirds are from the United States (three quarters if school of affiliation is used instead of citizenship); 8 from the Mont Pelerin society; 5 presidents of that society; 12 politically prominent “neo-libs”; 16 affiliated in some way with the University of Chicago… not if the subject were cancer and the address, “Love Canal”, could such “clustering” be explained.

With meticulous attention to detail, Dr. Roehner dissects the story. He gives particular attention to the role of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Roehner features the Volker Fund and reproduces some of the same material that we have in our accompanying article, but Roehner traces it all back even further – to the IUHEI (Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales) conferences organized by Rockefeller, starting in 1927. The key role is reserved for the Mont Pelerin Society. Roehner demonstrates a pattern whereby 5 former presidents of the Society “became Nobel Prize winners shortly after ending their terms as president”.

As to how this was accomplished, Roehner traces the composition of the Nobel Committee which consisted of 5 Swedish economists. Particularly important was Erik Lundberg, the President of the Swedish Bank, who was also a fanatical “neo-lib” and a leading member of the Mont Pelerin Society, and who simultaneously served on the Nobel Committee for over a decade and was its Chairman for half that time. It was under his term that the “libertarian flood” began. Lundberg was succeeded as Chairman by Assar Linbeck who had not only been part of the Society but had collaborated with Milton Friedman. Linbeck had written a hysterical book, Turning Sweden Around, which called for slashing Sweden’s social programs and the drastic privatization of state enterprises. Linbeck’s co-author for that book was Torsten Persson, yet another member of the Committee destined to become its Chairman. Roehner’s story details nearly endless corruption of this sort.

The resulting critique is devastating even though it is hidden deep within the bowels of a scholarly tome about other subjects. Professor Roehner might not voice it in the following terms, but the conclusion is inescapable: that a bunch of mediocre balding old white men hijacked the Nobel committee for Economics and proceeded to shamelessly give each other the Nobel Prize on ideological grounds alone (i.e., to “save capitalism”).

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Yet, despite all this, Roehner’s analysis is somewhat unsatisfying. Roehner does not dwell on or perhaps is only dimly aware of the central fact which trumps all others in this story:There is no such thing as the “Nobel Prize in Economics”!

There never has been one. “Economics” was not one of the five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel (Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Medicine), there is no mention of “economics” anywhere in Alfred Nobel’s will nor in the enabling documents for the Prize when it was established in 1896, and not a nickel of Nobel’s money has ever been awarded for such a “prize”. So where did it come from?

In 1968, the Swedish Bank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, put up the money for the “award”, and talked the King of Sweden into giving away their “prize” at the same time as the Nobels. The President of the Bank, the very same Erik Lundberg discussed above, promised a selection process and committee “kinda, sorta, just like” that of the “real” prizes, immediately stacked the committee, and they were off to the races.

In 1971, the first prize was awarded to a “neo-liberal”, F.A. Hayek, and the new “prize” became bathed in controversy. The “prize” was awarded jointly to Gunnar Myrdal, Sweden’s most famous economist, and to Hayek. The ungrateful Myrdal immediately turned around and announced publicly that Hayek didn’t deserve the prize. Oddly, Hayek agreed. Nevertheless, none of this prevented the world press from trumpeting, Universities from gushing, and Foundations from funding, the flood of new “laureates”, blissfully, or perhaps intentionally, unaware of the underlying fraud.

The comedy went on unhindered until Peter Nobel, the great-grandnephew of Alfred Nobel, went public with a blistering criticism of the “memorial Prize” in the 1990s. “The Swedish Riksbank, like a cuckoo, has placed its egg in another very decent bird’s nest. What the Bank did was akin to trademark infringement – unacceptably robbing the real Nobel Prizes.” Nobel said, “Two thirds of these prizes in economics have gone to US economists, particularly of the Chicago School… These have nothing to do with Alfred Nobel’s goal of improving the human condition and our survival – indeed they are the exact opposite.”

Faced with an unwanted controversy, the Swedish Bank promised significant “reforms” in its selection criteria and in the committee for the “prize”. The “neo-liberal” flood had already ended in any case. The final irony was played out in 2001 when the reformed economics committee awarded the prize to American Economist and Columbia Professor, Joseph Stiglitz.

Stiglitz’s contribution is essentially a complete refutation of the one scientific claim made by “neo-liberal” or “Austrian” economics: that unregulated free-markets provide the highest possible economic “efficiency”. Nope. Not true. Perhaps even worse, “Stiglitz mathematically and formally demonstrated the potential efficiency-enhancing properties of the state based on the Greenwald-Stiglitz theorems (by establishing the - constrained - Pareto inefficiency of market economies with imperfect information and incomplete markets”). In other words, “big government” isn’t the “problem” from even the most elementary of economic standpoint. It is capital and markets which contribute the fundamental inefficiencies.

No Libertarian “retraction” is expected…

https://web.archive.org/web/20130327213 ... 47996.html

Re: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:58 pm
by blindpig
Liberals for fascism?
09/20/2014

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Russian liberals are not shy about Bandera slogans

The Russian liberal opposition is once again organizing a "peace march . " Moreover, the main requirement of this event, as usual, is not the complete cessation of the punitive "ATO" in Ukraine, but rather the cessation of even the very limited support that Russia provides to the rebel residents of the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, nowadays the LPR and the DPR. At the same time, Ukraine, which has rolled down to fascism, enjoys the unconditional support of Russian liberals. It comes to the point that at their rallies the liberal public chants the Bandera greeting “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!".

It is strange, it would seem, as people who declare their commitment to all kinds of freedoms, support fascism, these very freedoms that are actively trampling on. However, the presence of a chasm separating liberalism from fascism in ideology and practice is only a myth that the liberals have been diligently spreading after the defeat of the most notable fascist countries in World War II.

Let's take a historical example: in the period 1932-1934. in Austria, the fascist dictatorship of Chancellor Engelbert Dolphus was established. In 1933, almost simultaneously with the German Nazis, Dolphus banned the Communist Party - a measure familiar to us from modern Ukrainian politics. In February 1934, in response to the elimination of democratic freedoms and the establishment of a fascist dictatorship, a revolt of workers broke out in Linz, Vienna and other cities in Austria. To suppress the uprising, government troops, the police and the fascist armed organization Heimver were thrown - roughly speaking, the then Austrian Right Sector. To suppress the workers, they used heavy guns, mortars, armored cars - a set of tools, again, familiar to us from reports from Ukraine.

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Dolphus with his teacher Mussolini

So, the main adviser on economic issues to Dolphus was the idol of the liberals and the classic of the Austrian economic school Ludwig von Mises. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that modern liberals like Yatsenyuk occupy prominent posts in fascist governments - they only follow in the footsteps of glorious predecessors.

True, in foreign policy, Dolphus was guided not by Nazi Germany, but by fascist Italy. Therefore, in 1934, he was killed by pro-German Nazis. So one should not think that those who kill fascists are certainly anti-fascists. Often these are simply fascists acting in the interests of another group of capitalists. This is worth remembering when evaluating current events in Ukraine.

But back to Mises. Already after the war, when fascism was universally condemned, Mises tried to disown fascism and ascribe to it proximity to socialism. But despite all the evasions, in his work “Liberalism” he nevertheless speaks out :

It cannot be denied that fascism and its close movements, striving to establish a dictatorship, are full of best intentions and that their intervention at the moment has saved European civilization. This merit of fascism will remain in history forever. But, despite the fact that his policy has brought salvation at the moment, it is not one of those that can promise sustainable success. Fascism was a temporary means necessary in an emergency. To see in it anything more would be a fatal mistake.

In another place, he speaks just as revealingly as to whether fascism is really closer - to communism or liberalism:

The fact that they [the fascists] have not yet succeeded to the same extent as the Russian Bolsheviks, free themselves from a certain respect for liberal ideas, ideas and traditional ethical standards, should be attributed solely to the fact that they operate in countries where the intellectual and moral heritage of several it’s impossible to destroy the millennia of civilization with one blow, and not among the barbaric peoples on both sides of the Ural Mountains ... Because of this difference, fascism will never succeed as completely as Russian Bolshevism in freeing itself from influence liberal ideas. The acts of the fascist and corresponding parties were emotional reflex actions caused by the outrage of the acts of the Bolsheviks and Communists. When the first tide of rage passed, their policies took more moderate forms and, possibly, with time will become even more moderate.

Another liberal idol, Friedrich August von Hayek, in an interview in 1981, gave the following assessment of Pinochet’s fascist dictatorship in Chile (hereinafter translated by O.T.):

I am an absolute opponent of dictatorships as long-term institutions. But dictatorship may be a necessary system for the transition period. Sometimes a country needs a temporary establishment of dictatorial power in one form or another. As you know, a dictator can rule in a liberal way. Just as democracy can rule completely without liberalism. Personally, I prefer a liberal dictator to a democratic government that lacks liberalism. My personal impression — and this is true for [all] South America — is that in Chile, for example, we will see a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition, it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as temporary measures.

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Pinochet's Liberal Dictatorship in Chile

So, from the liberal point of view, fascism is justified as a temporary measure in a situation where the organized working class begins to threaten the free market as a condition of capitalist domination. But in this case it is difficult to call such a dictatorship temporary: simply, when the workers' organizations are defeated and the workers themselves are intimidated, open terror ceases to be expedient and can be abandoned. Having shot a leg in rebellious slave, you can remove the gun on the shelf, the main thing is that it should be loaded there.

So it is not at all surprising that Pinochet’s dictatorship is also admired by modern Russian liberals, such as, for example, Julia Latynina :

It is ridiculous, for example, to separate Pinochet’s economic reforms from his military actions and to believe that liberal economic reforms could be carried out in Chile without repression against the revolutionary bastard class that had formed under Allende.

Latynina knows very well that real, not fake democracy is harmful to capitalism, it knows it as well as the founders of the ideology of liberalism:

How did all these people, so different - from members of the Venetian Council of Ten to American founding fathers - be guided in their dislike of universal suffrage? <...> The second thing all these people were guided by - from the Venetian giants to Locke and John Stuart Mill - was elementary common sense. Simply put, they believed that a wealthy man protects his property, and a beggar thinks about how to get someone else's. <...> Towards the middle of the 19th century, proponents of progress and opponents of democracy made their claims crystal clear: pure democracy "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property" [O.T.] (James Madison ), and it will be destroyed by a “disease called socialism” (Lord Acton).

For the very reason that far from all liberals understood this and admitted some democratic rights, the Nazis usually denied liberalism, criticizing its softness and dangerous tolerance for the organization of the working masses. However, there were exceptions. You can recall the philosopher Giovanni Gentile, a former member of the fascist party, the Minister of Education in the government of Mussolini, and generally one of the ideologists of the regime. He wrote in a letter to Mussolini (quoted by Ishay Landa. The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism. Brill, 2010) that he sees the Duce as a genuine interpreter of “liberalism, as I understand it and how people understood it ... who led Italy in the era Risorgimento . "

Obviously, not all liberals share an enthusiastic attitude towards the Nazis. However, under certain conditions, their own ideology pushes them to this. Indeed, for liberals, the main freedom is the freedom to own property and make a profit. Accordingly, democracy is good as long as the common people agree with the established order of things. As soon as the people have doubts about the justice of the social system, the basis of which is the liberal capitalist economy, and the desire to change something, democracy is discarded. If this were not so and the liberals put democracy above the liberal economy, they would have to become socialists, agreeing with the democratic demands of the masses of socialist transformations.

Ishay Landa, author of the wonderful book The Apprentice Wizard: Liberal Tradition and Fascism ( Ishay Landa. The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism. Brill, 2010 ) compares liberalism with the sorcerer's apprentice from Goethe's famous poem, which“Brought to life the forces, which at first were useful, but later out of control, these terrible violent and multiplying brooms - modern workers - who refused to put up with their role as simple tools in the production process and began to gain their own life and will. And now, the liberal student calls the sorcerer, again, so that he restores order, and turns the revived brooms back into ordinary woods. Fascism, in spite of [his] words and gestures, did not come to fight liberalism at all, but first of all as [his] ally, though arrogant and arrogant, but providing much-needed assistance. ”

A bloody October 1993 can be considered a classic example of this .when Russian liberals supported the usurped dictatorial power of Yeltsin. Then they applauded the execution of the tank guns of the Supreme Council, shouting "crush the reptile!" and demanded a classic measure for the Nazis - a ban on communist parties. Moreover, they did this under the hypocritical pretext of the fight against fascism - after all, on the side of the Supreme Council there were also nationalists, as reactionary as the liberals, but dissatisfied with Yeltsin's pro-Western course, fearing the transfer of property from the hands of the national bourgeoisie to the hands of a foreign one. And the reason for this liberal attack on democracy and the rule of law was that the activities of the then Supreme Council could slow down the implementation of market reforms and limit the capitalist plunder of public property. When democracy threatens capitalism, liberals are enemies of democracy.

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It is also appropriate to recall the results of the elections to the Reichstag immediately before the Nazis came to power in Germany. The amount of votes cast for the Social Democrats and Communists in 1932 remained at about the same level as in 1928 — a little more than a third of all votes (40.4% in 1928 and 37.3% in November 1933 g.). But at the same time with the take-off of votes cast for the NSDAP in 1932, there was a sharp drop in the number of votes cast for the liberal party (German People’s Party) - from 8.7% to 1.9%. That is, apparently, most of the liberals at the decisive moment voted for the Nazis. A little earlier, in August 1917, the cadets (the party of people's freedom, the name of which is being imitated by today's RPR-PARNAS Kasyanov and Nemtsov) supported the rebellion of General Kornilov,

However, such changes do not happen to liberals from scratch. If we talk about the current situation with the civil war in Ukraine, here is indicative of the recognition of Konstantin Remchukov, editor-in-chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta (spelling preserved):

... it became obvious that the Russian character of the militias is a secondary sign for me compared to the primary sign - their social-class is this "red Orthodox project", an extremely conservative, essentially inherently left-wing movement.

In this confused speech, the main thing is clear: Russian liberals saw behind the conservative form of the uprising of the DPR and LPR the left, working class content. They saw - although in reality the workers had not yet completely matured to independent actions - and were immediately frightened. And this fear makes them ignore and even justify any violation of the rights and freedoms of citizens by the Ukrainian government and militarized fascist organizations. At the same time, the Russian government is confident that the working class of Donbass and the Luhansk region is under control and is currently not so much a threat as a convenient ally in the fight against competitors represented by the USA and the EU.

However, the Russian government, not excluding the president, is made from the same liberal test as the “swamp-bulk opposition”. Indeed, in every cabinet in Putin’s ministers of economics are staunch liberals, right up to the present — student and ally of Gaidar Ulyukaev. At the same time, in the ideological sphere, nationalist, great-power, conservative ideas, characteristic of fascist regimes, in the field of legislation, are playing an ever greater role - the democratic rights of citizens are becoming increasingly limited. So far, liberals from the opposition see in these measures only a harmful restriction of access to the “feeding trough” of the budget and state monopolies. However, if tomorrow a simple working people stir up their demands, they will immediately support all these measures, as happened with Ukraine. Like the current pro-government patriots, if they press,

So for real democracy, only conscious and organized workers can consistently fight, there is no one else.

O. Taranov

https://www.rotfront.su/%d0%bb%d0%b8%d0 ... %b7%d0%bc/

Google Translator

Re: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:54 pm
by blindpig
Why The Rage Against The War Machine Rally Is #AntiWarSoWhite
Jacqueline Luqman 08 Feb 2023

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Leftists, especially the Black left, do not share common cause with everyone who wants to end U.S involvement in Ukraine. The politics of some who call themselves anti-war cannot be ignored.

I’m looking at this Rage Against The War Machine rally that is being organized by the Libertarian Party and I am genuinely confused about how folks on the left are involved in this at all. Oh, I understand the need to revive and mobilize a strong not just anti-war movement, but an anti–imperialist and people-centered human rights movement, so sure, sometimes we’re going to have to organize with people we don’t agree 100% on everything with. But THESE people?

And look, on the surface, if one would look at the list of demands on the Rage Against The War Machine webpage - and I do take offense at their play on the name of the band Rage Against The Machine - one easily agrees with not sending one more penny to Ukraine, to slashing the Pentagon budget, to abolishing war and empire, to disbanding NATO, and to freeing Julian Assange, among others reasonable sounding demands and think, “Well this is great, I agree with all of these things, so of course I’ll support/align with them!”

But, if you compare those nice-sounding words to the actual ideology of today’s Libertarian Party, and particularly of the Mises Caucus that has gained control of it, something starts to smell funny. So let me hip you to who these people are and why I’m now calling this and the support from too many white so-called leftists in the anti-war movement, #AntiWarSoWhite.

Back in May of 2022 Reason Magazine published an article examining the takeover of the Libertarian Party by the Mises Caucus which happened when the Caucus got their candidate Angela McCardle elected to chair the national party with 69% of the voting delegates. The article points out that while McArdle was the Mises Caucus candidate, the behind-the-scenes mastermind of its victory was caucus founder and leader Michael Heise.

The caucus's official platform is typical libertarian stuff - personal liberty, little to no federal government oversight or no federal government for that matter, no “unconstitutional” war, no federal regulation on guns, the primacy of private property - which has always screamed capitalist greed and a host of other problems including racism, since racists have taken the libertarian creed of freedom to associate with no federal oversight on freedom to exclude people of color. But the key to understanding the danger of the Mises Caucus isn’t in what their platform says; it is in what their members have said and have done. Because even old-guard libertarians say that too many of the Caucus members are obnoxious bullies, and are also often racist.

The Reason Magazine article cites the example of the New Hampshire L.P., a powerful vector of Mises Caucus messaging, tweeting on Martin Luther King Day that "Black people in America get special access to essential drugs, receive special federal funding due to race, and are first-in-line for every college and every job. America isn't in debt to black people. If anything it's the other way around."

Aside from the assertions that Black people get preferential anything in this country being typical racist drivel and patently false, the racist imaginary grievances were a response to Nicole Hannah Jones tweeting not her sentiments, but the words of Dr. Martin Luthe King, Jr. when he said in the oft miscontextualized “I Have A Dream” speech: “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds…” But sure, we get preferential essential drug and job and college admittance treatment at a time when economic inequality between Black and white persists , with whatever meager gains the so-called Black middle class has achieved not translating to increased economic stability for the Black masses, and all Black households are far behind white households in income and assets, including the much-celebrated Black petit bourgeoisie.

Then there’s the influential member of the Caucus Jeremy Kauffman who tweeted that transgender people should be killed to achieve a more moral world, as long as it doesn’t incur additional taxes. These tweets were deleted after pressure to do so, but you know twitter is forever and thank goodness it is so that we have evidence to back up the reasons for actual leftists to steer clear of these #AntiWarSoWhite people.

Let Mises Caucus Libertarians tell it, though, they are merely carrying on Ron Paul’s Revolution. But more evidence of their true ideology can be seen when they succeeded in deleting the line from the Libertarian Party’s long-time platform plank condemning bigotry as “irrational and repugnant.” Heise says that the anti-bigotry condemnation fed what he called a "woke," or "cultural Marxist" agenda. He said, "What is happening nowadays with the 'wokeism' is people are using language as dialectics along cultural lines to push for collectivist ends," says Heise. "So back in the day…the Marxist revolutions, they had the dialectics of the rich versus the poor and the owner versus the worker. And they were pushing towards collectivist ends. It's the same ideology that's happening now, but they're pitting cis versus straight and male versus female and trans versus whatever." Look at that, it’s the old communist gay/trans collectivist agenda trope!

And although they added a new line stating in their party’s plank stating that the party would "uphold and defend the rights of every person, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or any other aspect of their identity," it hard to see how that can be done when the Mises Caucus is shaping the L.P. environment to drown out discussions about people’s identity and how policies impact them differently from the majority. Amazing how allegedly freedom-loving Libertarians sound hauntingly like rights-stripping bigoted Republicans.

Then there’s the fact that The Mises Caucus also succeeded in removing the party's pro-choice plank, which McArdle said was called for because abortion represents "an irreconcilable difference" within the libertarian movement and they didn’t want to keep alienating Trump and socially conservative voters. "We tend to push out people who are a little bit more socially conservative," says McArdle. "And I think that there's room in the party for people who are libertine and socially conservative. And I would like them to feel that way."

Let me get this straight…there’s enough room in the party to protect women’s right to privacy and bodily autonomy and enough room for the people who want to take it away from them? What’s the floor plan in that big tent look like because I’m not seeing how you arrange enough room for both. You’re going to inevitably drive one group out, and that will always be the group that feels threatened, that IS threatened, by the other.

And old guard Libertarians agree, which is why many of them have been very vocal in their opposition to the Mises Caucus and its takeover of the L.P. One old-guard Libertarian elected official who quit her post in protest to the Mises Caucus takeover in New Hampshire said, "...we are a big tent party, but no tent is big enough to hold racists and people of color, transphobes and trans people, bigots and their victims.."

If a Libertarian can understand that there is no unity to be had between people who are fighting for their rights and people who want to deny them, what is wrong with so-called white Leftists who don’t get this? I know the answer, but I’ll get to that in a minute, because there is more to consider when examining why this #AntiWarSoWhite rally is such a problem.

There’s the fact that if the Libertarian Party and anyone else who sponsored and organized this event were serious about building the “anti-war movement,” why didn’t they reach out to the very visible and very active Black, Brown, and Indigenous-led anti-imperialist organizations and invite their representatives to speak? As many white leftists, or at least anti-war activists, are really dollar store Latte Leftists peddling vapid and narrow anti-war rhetoric without actually dealing with imperialism have told me, “...we all need to come together to stop this war in Ukraine because it presents an existential crisis for all of us!! ALL OF US WILL DIE FROM NUCLEAR WAAAARRRRR!!!!” they scream.

True enough. But considering the people most impacted by US imperialism and imperialist war have been organizing against it long before these Mises people came along, why haven’t I seen most of these white Latte Leftists engaged in organizing with us? I mean, Black, queer, trans, disabled, Global South, African people will certainly all die should there be a nuclear war, so why not include representatives of ALL OF THE PEOPLE who would be impacted if this war is not stopped on your platform?

And the organizers of this rally didn’t even have to reach out to real anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist organizations like the Black Alliance for Peace or ANSWER Coalition or the like. They could have been less obviously racist had they reached out to even a liberal formation like the Poor People’s Campaign.

But nope! The organizers looked at their speaker’s lineup and nobody said, “Dang this is mighty white up in here we need to get some legit Black anti-war speakers and really build a solid anti-war coalition.” But since that’s not who they want to build their base with, they didn’t.

And I’m not making this up. The new Mises Caucus-backed chair of the L.P. McArdle made it clear who the party wants to grow their base with in another Reason Magazine article where she says, “Mises Caucus supporters say they want to ‘make the Libertarian Party libertarian again,’ that it should no longer be concerned about offending progressives or Beltway types and shouldn't be afraid to reach out to the coalition that elected former President Donald Trump.” That’s right, their bold action to rejuvenate the Libertarian Party is not to reach out to the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist (they would never because private-property-loving Libertarians are NOT anti-capitalists) formations and activists, but to the right and alt-right young podcast edgelord personality-loving Trump voter. And to get unprincipled white Latte Leftists to give them public legitimacy by speaking at their opportunistic recruitment event they call an anti-war rally, or course, which too many are happy to oblige.

And despite how much some of the speakers now publicly whine about some others backing out because they succumbed to “the woke mob” or favored an LGBTQ+ agenda over participating in their little #AntiWarSoWhite rally, the truth is that people probably hadn’t looked into what the Libertarian Party has become with the Mises Caucus now leading it, and when they found out decided it wasn’t worth damaging their formations’ reputation associating with them, and ultimately decided that betraying the marginalized people within their formations and coalitions was also not worth the limited visibility their participation would have given them. Especially when you factor in that for the Libertarian Party, the purpose of this rally is really to seize the political moment to raise their flailing political party’s profile and gain some legitimacy from the speakers they invited.

Because it is worth noting that the money is drying up for the Libertarian Party because of this rightward shift the Caucus has created. Long-time significant donors to the L.P. have said that the Mises turn made them stop funding L.P. candidates. At the time the Reason article was published in March 2022, the number of active donors to the LP including several major ones, had been falling for seven straight months following the four-year battle for control of the party between the old-guard Libertarians and the Mises Caucus. And now that the Mises Caucus has won, this rally is part of their strategy to win and expand their party’s political power.

And here I have to go back to the folks who choose still after all that has come to light about the Libertarian Party and the Mises Caucus. I wonder if they are asking themselves what the Mises Caucus-led Libertarian Party will do with the political power they win if they are able to cash in on the legitimacy they are looking for with this event. And if they are asking themselves that, who do they think they would wield that political power against?

Of course, they will use that power against the people they have already told us with their own words and actions that they want to use it against, to disenfranchise the marginalized the way the GOP that they are actively courting to grow their ranks are already attacking. The Libertarian Party under Mises Caucus control will help the GOP do it, and what will these white Latte Leftists do then? Despite the delusional assurances of some who have engaged me, they will not change the minds of these people because the L.P. is not interested in changing their ideology. And these white Latte Leftists are not demanding that they do.

Among many of the white alleged leftists who challenged my analysis of this L.P.-backed #AntiWarSoWhite rally, I seem to recall none of them engaging with other anti-imperialist groups for nationwide protests against a potential war in Ukraine as far back as the beginning of February 2022. Facebook reminded me that I was at such a rally. You see, we anti-imperialists have been protesting imperialism, war, and THIS war in particular for quite some time, even before this war with Russia using Ukraine began. We saw it coming and were protesting against the possibility, if not the inevitability of the US/EU/NATO coalition pushing it. But let these alleged white veterans of the anti-war movement tell it, a real powerful anti-war coalition couldn’t have been built until the L.P. rally came along, so if we value our lives we’d better hop on that bandwagon.

The truth is, however, that if they ever valued our lives, they would have been organizing with us all along, but too many white so-called anti-war veterans have not been, and that’s why much of what is considered the anti-war movement - as much of it as there is left - is also an #AntiWarSoWhite formation.

Because I must point out that much of this discourse around defending these bigots and transphobes in the new Libertarian Party among white anti-war veterans looks, sounds, and feels like plain ol’ liberal racism, where the allegedly nice white people gaslight us for pointing out that the people they want to do business with would just as soon see us wiped out, so we cannot - for our own safety and that of our comrades - align with those forces and people. In response, the allegedly nice white people dismiss our concerns, tell us that we’re making too much of nothing like we always do, and that we’re the reason no change can happen because we don’t want to work with anybody. We’re too stuck on “ideological purity” or worse, “identity politics” rather than building a broad coalition. That’s racist gaslighting y’all and there is really no other way to call that. Especially when they try to support their flimsy arguments against us by using quotes by Frederick Douglass or the example of the original Rainbow Coalition led by the Black Panther Party to prove to us that we should unite with racist white people. Except that they, once again, remove all context from their examples, and have not done anything close to what those freedom fighters did to challenge racist domination. Hell, these white leftists won’t even ADMIT that the folks organizing this rally have a bigotry problem, let alone require them to repudiate it as the Black Panther Party did with the members of the Young Patriots who may have been racist, as Frederick Douglass did in challenging the system of white supremacist domination. No, these white Latte Leftists are not making ANY demands of the organizers of this event for their party’s bigotry and that of some of the speakers aligned with their party, but they are making all the demands of US to capitulate to them, So the misuse of our own history against us is an additional racist insult committed by the #AntiWarSoWhite crowd on the so-called left.

Further, there is also the very uncomfortable truth that too many white people on the so-called left do not want to be in coalition with people who aren’t like them. They don’t want to have to deal with conversations about their racism and white supremacist tendencies, their patriarchy, their homophobia and transphobia, their ableism, their superior attitude as if they know All Things Organizing, and their resistance to being led by nonwhite non-men. They want to organize with people who only want to talk about how war and maybe capitalism affect our class as a whole, but they do not want to talk about the additional oppressions that are heaped on those of our class because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc. There, I said it out loud for you - too many so-called white people on the so-called left who claim to be anti-war do not want to be led by people of color because they’re tired of talking about racism, and they want to continue to call the shots.

And look where that’s gotten us, a bunch of people who claim to be anti-war activists tripping over themselves to give a bunch of bigots legitimacy because western chauvinism and American exceptionalism has them really believing that a movement ain’t right unless it’s led by whites. The resistance to focusing the anti-war effort on the people who are and always have been most impacted by imperialist warmongering is something they refuse to confront, struggle with and overcome. So they don’t want a real anti-imperialist coalition, they want their own #AntiWarSoWhite movement.

My observations here are less of a condemnation of any of these groups - organizers or participants - and more an honest analysis of the factors that lead me to see this Rage Against The War Machine rally of the L.P. as a dangerous distraction from true anti-imperialist coalition building and organizing. People and formations must make decisions about who they align with based on their own principles of unity and shared interests, but there should also be principles of solidarity with the most marginalized to bring no harm to them with the alliances we make.

I just know that the interests of the working class, poor, oppressed, and colonized people who are marginalized additionally by racial oppression, gender oppression, ableist exclusion and other intersectional points of struggle are not served by aligning with people who would continue those oppressions should they ever win enough power to be able to do it.

We cannot afford to lend those groups legitimacy now, only so they can win the power to use it against us later. It is a grave betrayal of our humanity to demand that we do.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-r ... warsowhite

Re: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2023 2:35 pm
by blindpig
“Charter/Model Cities:” A Privatization Scheme that Violates the Sovereignty of Nations
By David Starr - September 13, 2023 0

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[Source: boomers-daily.com]

“Build New Cities. Maximize Human Prosperity.” That is the slogan of Prospera, an entity that creates what it calls “model cities” or “charter cities,” a privatization scheme built for investors like libertarians, etc., in other words, voracious capitalists. These cities have operated in foreign countries, like Honduras, a victim of this mad, monetary experiment.

Prospera’s website says that it is “for builders, pioneers, and risk-takers who believe in the boundless potential of human achievement and choose to build the future we want.” (Who is “we”?) It continues: “Our platform powers the development of new cities in special economic zones that maximize generalized prosperity and wealth creation.” Translating the rhetoric: It is a haven for the privileged, mainly white people, who come from developed countries like the United States to get obscenely rich.

What Prospera’s website does not mention is that these cities govern themselves, can ignore labor rights, and can sue real governments if the latter try to implement policies that truly benefit the population or for a government to protect a nation’s sovereignty.

For Honduras, charter/model cities began in 2011 by the passage of constitutional amendments that would allow them. This occurred under the rule of right-wing President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, who benefited from a 2009 right-wing coup that overthrew the previous, duly elected, President Manuel Zelaya Rosales.

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Manuel Zelaya Rosales [Source: desedelarepublicadominica.blogspot.com]

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Porfirio Lobo Sosa [Source: desedelarepublicadominica.blogspot.com]

It was a typical right-wing coup, with elites taking over while the United States looks the other way. And in conclusion, the U.S. says that the country, where the coup occurred, is a “struggling democracy,” when in reality it is not.

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Kari Lydersen [Source: linkedin.com]

Inevitably, there was, and is, organized resistance to Prospera in Honduras. Writing in the publication In These Times, Kari Lydersen, a Chicago-based journalist, author and assistant professor at Northwestern University, detailed the consequences of charter/model cities and described the opposition to them.

In November 2013, Honduras had a presidential election that included Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, who had gained momentum in the polls. But the candidate for the conservative National Party, Juan Orlando Hernández, officially won due to large-scale fraud and became president.

The human rights situation in Honduras at the time had worsened. Before the election, there were 36 killings and 24 armed attacks against candidates and family members of candidates.

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Juan Orlando Hernández [Source: hch.tv]

Castro was backed, Lydersen wrote, “by the multi-faceted National Front of Popular Resistance.” The Resistance movement had begun after the 2009 coup. A number of groups that comprised it had never worked together in such a way before. They included “union members, campesino organizations, indigenous people, the African-descended Garifuna communities on the Caribbean coast, students, and gay and lesbian groups.” There was, thus, strength in numbers for this movement.

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Xiomara Castro [Source: elsoidmixco.com]
The Resistance movement was strongly opposed to the government’s allowing the building of charter/model cities. Lydersen wrote that these cites would be “enclaves free from Honduran laws that would be planned and run by private entities and meant to stimulate business and foreign investment.” But who would really benefit? The private entities and their investors.

Among those challenging the charter/model cities was attorney Antonio Trejo Cabrera. As a result, Trejo was eventually shot dead in Tegucigalpa, Honduras’s capital.

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Antonio Trejo Cabrera [Source: lawyersforlawyers.org]

Santos Cruz, “a national campesino leader who has spent his entire life fighting for land and human rights,” also challenged the charter/model cities. Over the years, Cruz had seen various instances of repression and atrocities that resulted in the murder of campesino activists, for example. The death threats against Cruz and other activists have been constant.

Backing up the Resistance movement in this struggle are “Critics in Honduras and abroad,” who see the private cities set up inevitably “violating labor rights, civil rights and the Constitution.”

Foreign actors have been the deciders and influencers of the charter/model cities. Paul Romer, U.S. economist and New York University professor, was one of the original founders of the cities. Romer boasted that these cities offer a new start for eliminating corruption, bureaucracy, and economic and social problems in an effort to “help” the Global South. With that kind of help, the Global South does not need enemies.

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Professor Paul Romer [Source: wagner.nyu.edu]

Besides Prospera, another project of this nature is a British outfit called Grupo MGK. One of its leaders is Kevin Lyons, who wanted to establish a charter/model city in Nevada, but was denied permission by the state. Another Grupo MGK leader was Michael Strong, the “American founder of charter schools and head of a touchy-feely, save-the-world-through-entrepreneurship outfit called FLOW (Freedom Lights Our World),” wrote Lydersen.

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[Source: linkedin.com]

Additionally, “The Economist described the Honduras model cities movement as the playground of seemingly fringe American libertarians with ‘links to prominent libertarians with deep pockets…’” Another co-founder of FLOW was libertarian John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods Market and its CEO until he retired in September 2022. For Strong, quoting from Fox News, the goal is “to be the most economically free entity on Earth.”

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John Mackey [Source: wikipedia.org]

One example of the continuing struggle by Hondurans against the likes of Prospera is the situation on the island of Roatán. In it is a community called Crawfish Rock, inhabited mostly by English-speaking Blacks of Caribbean descent. Next door there is the headquarters of a city that is being established, and a security booth with cameras monitoring the area, a gate and a security guard, resembling what sounds like a gated community.

The phrase, “Go home,” is the feeling of many Hondurans toward Prospera. Land rights and sovereignty are the crucial issues for Hondurans, not just on Roatan, but for the country as a whole. Jeff Ernst, writing for The Guardian, describes the foreigners taking advantage of the situation. There are “often cryptocurrency enthusiasts, libertarians or both,” who are “invading” (my description) the country.

The charter/model cities would be located in what is called Employment Development Zones or ZEDEs. But a new Honduran government repealed the laws that allowed the ZEDEs to exist. Investors of Prospera then challenged the decision to repeal the laws. The investors cited agreements and treaties that they say make the ZEDEs, and in turn the cities, legal. Ernst wrote, “The result was a standoff in which investors are gambling with millions, the government could be at risk of a costly lawsuit and the fate of the affected communities hangs in the balance.”

Obviously, the cities are a product of capitalist maneuverings. The cities, thus, could be called anti-democratic. After all, when it comes down to it, democracy and capitalism are not compatible. Although in the United States there is capitalism and a degree of democracy, the latter is always threatened by the former. Democracy is especially threatened now with the greed and callousness as the rule of capital is being not only maintained but expanded.

For decades, Honduras has been a market satellite of the United States. It was known as the first “banana republic,” with U.S. corporations, backed by the U.S. military, imposing banana plantations throughout the country. The U.S. and its corporations dominated Honduras’s economy and politics. And Honduras was used as a base for the Nicaraguan Contras, fighting a U.S.-backed war against the Sandinista government and its people.

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[Source: orinocotribune.com]

But in recent years, Hondurans have gradually gained the strength to rebel against the subservient role that Honduras has played. A major example of this was the electoral victory of Xiomara Castro for the Honduran presidency in 2021. Castro has not fooled around in her determination to shut out the charter/model cities. But it is of course a very difficult struggle with Prospera also determined to maintain those cities.

Castro went about repealing the law beneficial to the ZEDEs. While the people of Crawfish Rock were jubilant about Castro’s action, Prospera made new investments totaling $60 million and put in cryptocurrency bitcoin as the official method of transactions. So, Prospera was not deterred, not only continuing the building of these cities but, in Ernst’s words, “clinging to their plan to building a libertarian oasis of sorts.”

Prospera continued to cite trade agreements to justify their “oasis” scheme. But government officials made it clear that the ZEDEs had one year to adapt to another kind of legal structure. The ZEDEs, however, have a “sunset clause” that Prospera investors wanted to take advantage of, claiming that, according to trade agreements, they have ten years to adjust. Further, they used the excuse of other trade agreements that they claim gives them 50 years to adjust.

It appears that Prospera technically had a case, but the trade agreements were strongly opposed by the majority of Hondurans, who truly had no input in accepting them. It became a decision of the elitist right-wing (and neo-liberals), going along with the idea of permanently establishing and developing charter/model cities.

In July, on Democracy Now, hosts Amy Goodman and Juan González interviewed two individuals fighting the charter/model cities: Melinda St. Louis, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, and Vanessa Cárdenas, a leader of the community of Crawfish Rock. They detailed how the struggle is going for the community and the attempts by Prospera to violate the sovereignty of Honduras.

There are other measures Honduran President Castro promised to implement. According to Rohit Yadav, writer for TFI Global News, Castro, “leading the Liberty and Refoundation party (LIBRE)…promised to reverse the severe neoliberal policies, human rights violations, corruption, and drug trafficking that had plagued the nation for the past 12 years.” Yadav is correct in writing that it is a “daunting task.”

At first the United States did not have a problem with the election of Castro. When she proceeded with implementing reforms, however, U.S. leaders/officials had a problem with that since it challenged U.S. corporate interests. Then, the old scenario of U.S. interference in a nation from the Global South became evident.

After attempts by the previous government to privatize the National Electrical Energy Company, at the suggestion of international financial institutions, Castro, LIBRE, and the new government implemented the Energy Reform Law to “combat corruption and poverty.” The U.S. did not accept this because it would “threaten” power generators and “eliminate” private investment.

Castro, nevertheless, stood her ground, and moved on to labor reform. There was the Temporary Labor Law, which was implemented and made permanent in 2014 by the previous government. It gave a chance for employers to not pay the minimum wage and eliminated benefits or health care.

This move was criticized by labor leaders, among others, within the Honduran population. After Castro became president, the Temporary Labor Law was repealed because of the emergence of harsh labor conditions. U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu criticized the move, and absurdly added that Honduras should respect labor rights. The law, however, violated the Honduran Labor Code.

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U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Laura Dogu [Source: latribuna.hn]

And regarding the ZEDEs, considered to be the charter/model cities and established by what accurately can be called an illegal government (due to the 2009 coup), they were challenged by the Castro government. And for good reason: To reiterate, the cities were set up on Honduran territory and, as explained by Yadav, “have their own government, legal and judicial system, tax and social security policies.”

Many Hondurans, such as the Movement Against ZEDEs, social movements, and municipalities, rejected the ZEDEs “for violating sovereignty, national security, the rule of law, and human rights.” The Castro government proceeded to repeal the laws that protected the ZEDEs. Prospera responded, filing a complaint against the Honduran government and seeking $10.7 billion in “lost” profits.

The United States, however, still wanted to push the cities on Honduras, claiming it provides economic growth and opportunities. (But, again, for whom and to do what?) Meanwhile, Prospera is widely unpopular in Honduras.

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[Source: youtube.com]

Yadav concluded that, “[d]espite U.S. attempts to intervene in Honduras, Castro has been successful in thwarting them. Although the U.S. may continue to try to exert influence over Honduras, Castro has proven to be a formidable opponent of U.S. intervention.”

Prospera will no doubt try to continue with its imposition of charter/model cities not only on Honduras, but elsewhere, particularly in the Global South. Its creators and investors see a golden opportunity to experiment in various developing countries. They say it is for prosperity and economic growth, but no doubt leaves out the vast majority of Hondurans. After all, Prospera doesn’t give a damn about them.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/0 ... f-nations/

Re: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian "Movement"

Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2024 8:47 pm
by blindpig
On Libertarianism
JANUARY 21, 2024

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Canadian Gadsden flag. Photo: Substack.

By Riel Republicans – Jan 19, 2024

This decade kicked off with a series of major protests in the Capitals of the West, in response to the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Ottawa to Amsterdam, both on the Left and Right, these protests took the form of Libertarianism. With the masses awakening to the system as a whole, it is critical for us to assess whether this trending approach will be up for the task ahead in building enduring resistance and long-term success for the People.

We must clearly state that Libertarianism — while many of the ideology’s adherents are well-meaning people — is not an effective ideology in forming the basis of our New Republic. The focus on individual liberties and freedoms sounds great in isolation, but the ideology is unable to go deeper in addressing the complexities of geopolitics, flattening contradictions when taken in the context of the era of the rising Multipolar World combatting the Unipolar Hegemony of Global Finance.

The “Anti-Authoritarian” rhetoric of Libertarianism, again sounding noble, actually mirrors much of the same talking points from the Imperialist media when describing resistance states who stand up to the “rules-based international order.” When these pundits refer to resistance states as “Authoritarian,” they are obscuring the fact that all governments are indeed “Authoritarian,” the question is for who’s authority?

Being situated in the Imperial Core can make it hard to see the forest from the trees. It makes sense that an ideology like Libertarianism would crystalize here where the governments are controlled directly by Global Finance. As a result, Libertarians take the idea of “the government” and identify this abstraction of “the state” as the main issue facing society without its given societal context of who the state serves. We will elaborate throughout this piece on why a People’s State is necessary for People’s Power, but if you are a Working Class person or small business owner who subscribes to Libertarianism, you are correct in your intuition that you are indeed being held back by the current system of “Crony Capitalism.”



The private property rights cited in Libertarianism are rooted in the Enlightenment’s Classical Liberal ideals of Liberty, but in reality, these high-minded “human rights” apply exclusively to the Capitalist Class, not the everyday person. This is unattainable to the Working Class followers of the ideology today with the system having long since consolidated and reached the stage of Monopoly Capitalism.

Much like Left-Anarchists, many Right-Libertarians genuinely want to oppose Globalism, however, the ideology does not reinforce the People against Global Finance on a physical or spiritual level. Libertarianism follows a Satanic notion of “do as though wilt.” While freedom is something desirable, the freedom described by Libertarianism is fundamentally a negative freedom, it is the freedom from any reasonable constraints in society, best characterized in the works of Jewish American novelist Ayn Rand. These are the very same values, or lack-there-of, promoted by the Elites of Global Finance.

Both Globalism and Libertarianism share the same values, different only in a magnitude of scale, as both are rooted in Liberalism. Classical Liberalism has a direct throughline to today’s Progressive Liberalism. The ideological development of Liberalism followed the development of Capitalism, as Liberalism is the ideology of Capitalism, with the primitive accumulation of Capitalism begetting over time the Mega-Corporations which are a fixture of Monopoly Capitalism. This Monopoly Capitalism is the economic basis of Globalism.


In a popular YouTube animated film, ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: The Movie (2018), a dystopian world is depicted where conglomerates of mega-corporations have near total global dominance of markets, save for one. In this fictional scenario, North Korea or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the last bastion of freedom left on the planet in upholding their nation’s sovereignty in the face of the relentless commodification of the Capitalist mode of production. With franchises in South Korea, MacDonalds invokes the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) — a Libertarian concept that the use of lethal force is justified when private property could be compromised — as grounds to invade the DPRK. This point on the NAP again shows how the logic of Libertarianism can be scaled up to justify the Imperialist actions of Globalism or Monopoly Capitalism with its roots in Liberalism and the sanctity of Private Property for the Capitalist Class.

The movie is not that far from reality. It shows Imperialism works in the real world with the desire to transform all nations in the world into captive markets. Substitute the choice of fast-food and entertainment companies such as MacDonalds, Burger King, and Disney; with the financial conglomerates of Black Rock, State Street, and Vanguard Group; and then add a few more resistance states that exist today, and you pretty much get the geopolitics of our world. The film’s irony is portraying the DRPK as the rebels as they are usually depicted as the “Authoritarians” in Western media, but this is not necessarily at odds with their other characterization of being called a “Rogue State.”

Libertarianism’s greatest fault is misunderstanding any power through the generic concept of “Anti-Statism,” at the Anarchist extremity of “Anti-Authoritarianism.” Government alone does not constitute an organism in and of itself, a state is a tool used by a specific class to achieve their interests. Capitalist States in the West, such as the Dominion of Canada, exist to mitigate the actions of the mega-corporations, guided by the larger conglomerates like Black Rock which are downstream of Global Finance. In contrast, People’s States are those who are vilified in Western media because they stand sovereign in the face of this dominance. There is a reason why at Canadian Schools students are taught “Anti-Statist” books — such as Animal Farm or 1984 by the British author George Orwell or Lord of the Flies which paints a terrible view of human nature assuming all authority descends to totalitarianism or barbarism — which are meant to deter young people for aspiring to reach for people’s power, beyond a wage slave future of “individual freedom,” to participate in a collective project.

A People’s State is essential to resist the tentacles of Global Finance that are strangling the freedom of the weaker individual. Perhaps for a time, you can become a recluse, living remotely in a cabin in the woods, but eventually, the Empire’s frontier will reach you too. No amount of personal firearms stockpiled will stop the onslaught against you, the individual, from the Trans-Atlantic Axis when they turn inwards. A strong collective is what is needed to uphold Popular Sovereignty. We do not want to dictate to someone how to live their personal lives or attempt to confiscate their personal property. The role of a People’s State must be to provide for the core functions of society so that the People can live healthy and empowered lives, and be able to deal with their problems. What we do need is a robust public property with the infrastructure to deal with the challenges that face all of humanity.

The parameters of the fight today are not simply “government versus citizens,” but a worldwide battle of Global Finance versus the sovereign peoples of the world. We need a New Republic in the Spirit of the Honourable Louis Riel and the original resistance state of Manitoba! Onwards to a Northern Continentalism!

https://orinocotribune.com/on-libertarianism/

Eh!