John V.,

But what I didn’t see in that entire article was something about Jefferson’s general views on governance and commerce.

Well, sure, but the post wasn’t intended to be a post about Jefferson’s views in general (much less to compare them to Hamilton’s views, which I also think were despicable). It was intended as a post about the need to take seriously his views and concrete actions with regard to chattel slavery.

If you want a more general take on Jefferson, I’d say that, besides slavery (which is an odd start–would you try to evaluate Augusto Pinochet’s record “aside from the torturing and murdering political dissidents”?) the following do deserve at least some critical attention: (1) his government-imposed Ograbme, (2) his decision to launch the first overseas war in American history, (3) his use of expropriated tax money for massive territorial expansion, (4) his government’s arrogation of title over the unclaimed lands in that new territory, and (5) due to that arrogation, his repeated actions against the land rights of honest homesteaders, in favor of the politically-fabricated land claims of speculators and political jobbers, who had done nothing to earn a right to the land that they claimed, but got the power to grab it away from the people who cleared and tilled it by right of the bribes they paid to the federal government. My own view is that another one of his profoundly anti-libertarian stances, and the root of many of the others, was his belief in the legitimacy of monopoly government, which necessarily involved the willingness impose a government on unwilling subjects, together with its regulations, its imposts and duties, its wars, its claims to vast tracts of land that it had done nothing to earn, etc., even without their consent, even if they wanted nothing but to be left alone to make an honest living in peace, and to violently repress any individual person who tried to do so.

None of this is to say anything about how you ought to rank-order Jefferson, on his libertarian merits, compared to Alexander Hamilton, or any of the other American revolutionaries. As I said in the post, I think Hamilton was perfectly awful as a person and as a political figure. I also don’t actually know or much care how you would go about making all the different kinds and degrees of anti-libertarian views or policies commensurable with each other so that you could do the rank-ordering. Does being for a central bank get you more or fewer or as many libertarian demerits as launching an overseas war, or a “national security” embargo on foreign trade? Or more in some respects but fewer in other respects? How do you even start to do the scoring?

Jacob T. Levy:

and is living in a monarchy– like, say, the UK, or Canada, or Australia, or New Zealand– really inherently more unfree than living in a state with widespread chattel slavery?

William:

Today in the year 2008, no. But in 18th when even the world’s most “benevolent” monarchies – i.e. George III of England and Catherine the Great of Russia – left much to be desired

As opposed to American chattel slavery in the 18th century, which was just peachy.

Hamilton’s views on the Executive, in their more flamboyant monarchistic versions, were contemptible and absurd; his views on the Executive, in their more practical pseudo-republican versions, were no less despicable, and much more damaging (because they were more insidious). But the hereditary absolutist tyranny of slavery, as actually practiced (not merely advocated in speeches) by Jefferson and his fellow white slavelords was no less terrible for being inflicted by means other than formal government.

Jacob T. Levy:

As to whether Jefferson had any anti-libertarian views about government and commerce among whites– setting, as John V insists, “SLAVERY ASIDE”, the answer is yes, certainly. … The Embargo Acts were the most radical restriction of American trade in U.S. history.

William:

They were also enacted as a genuine, if misguided, national defense policy amidst the turmoil of Europe’s Napoleonic wars, and this too was done within the full purview of the Constitution. Nor was the Embargo Act inconsistent with Jefferson’s advocacy of free trade, ….

Well, so?

As far as I can tell, Jacob was discussing libertarianism, not “national defense policy,” the Constitution, or the internal consistency of Jefferson’s anti-libertarian views. If his radical government lock-down on foreign trade was anti-libertarian (and it was), that suffices to show that “Jefferson had any anti-libertarian views about government and commerce among whites.”

William:

That Hamilton not only proposed such a system for the United States but openly praised it as the best system of government illustrates conclusively that he was no friend of liberty.

I’m sorry, just who was claiming that Hamilton was a “friend of liberty”? My original post was explicitly about Jefferson’s vices and crimes, not about Hamilton’s virtues — which, as I said, I can find very few of. As far as I can tell, nobody else in the more widely-ranging follow-up comments made the claim you’re attacking here, either.

I think you’re walloping a strawman.

Micha,

Point taken; but I’d say that the issue here really just turns on what verb “thin conception of libertarianism” is supposed to be the object of. You can follow a thin conception of libertarianism without ever promoting libertarianism (of any kind), but you can’t advocate or promote a thin conception of libertarianism. But presumably someone who follows a thin conception may want to promote it, too, for reasons which they may think of as having to do with libertarianism (in which case I guess we’re talking about some slight thickening, at least in the strategic dimension, away from the degenerate case of thinness), or which may not have anything to do with libertarianism, but rather be for the sake of other reasons (which puts us back in the degenerate case, and may seem quite weird, but is in the end a conceivable option).

Of course, the real upshot here may be that it may be somewhat misleading to speak of “thick” and “thin” conceptions as if they involved a distinction of kind. Really the debate is between thickerer conceptions, with variations in degree along several different axes. Certainly, you could characterize my own position, in part, by saying that it’s much thinner than that of, say, orthodox Objectivsts — in the sense that my ideas about what would constitute the proper context and preconditions for a flourishing free society are much broader and less detailed — but much thicker than that of, say, Walter Block.

Mark,

Micha never claimed that exercising the rights of nonviolent association and dissociation might itself “involve coercion.” He said that doing so foolishly or viciously might causally contribute to the emergence of a social environment in which certain kinds of coercion are widely practiced. That’s a distinct claim, and one which is, I think, obviously true.

Mark,

Well. The scope of the debate is not actually limited to what are commonly called “lifestyle” issues, unless you mean to expand the word “lifestyle” out from its conventional meaning into something much broader (i.e. so broad as to cover absolutely any feature of social or personal life other than those immediately connected with the use of violence). For example, in addition to dealing with genuine “lifestyle” issues (e.g. what kind of sex acts and with whom you should or should not treat as worth indulging in; whether or not you participate in traditional religious rituals in your community or subculture; etc.), the debate also touches on more strictly intellectual issues (e.g. what kinds of explicit philosophical positions, or tacit worldviews, best cohere with libertarianism), and also with material and institutional structures that are larger and more formalized than any individual lifestyle choice — e.g. I believe that a free economy should have a large and vibrant network of wildcat unions and grassroots mutual aid associations; whereas some other libertarians believe that a free economy should be dominated more or less exclusively by large-scale corporations or proprietorships, with little or no unionization in the workforce. The difference between these two views is not settled by the non-aggression principle alone (presumably, we both reject, on principle, all forms of coercive social or corporate welfare, all State patronage to either big business or to organized labor, etc. etc. etc.). But it’s not really a difference over individual lifestyles, either; it’s a difference over the relative merits of certain organizing structures within social society that are much larger than any individual and which come about through deliberate, entrepreneurial social coordination, not simply from a series of uncoordinated individual lifestyle changes.

A consequence could involve being ostracized or criticized by others who live by the NAP, but should not involve being lynched or defamed by them.

You’re right about that. Thick conceptions of libertarianism aren’t intended as a way of carrying non-libertarian policies into libertarianism. The point is to make clear what kinds of things are worth criticizing, ridiculing, ostracizing, boycotting, striking, or whatever, and what kinds of things are worth praising, celebrating, materially supporting, etc. A thick conception of libertarianism holds that libertarians, as such, have some good reasons to take a definite stance on that, even where what’s being criticized, ridiculed, ostracized, boycotted, struck against, praised, celebrated, materially supported, or whatever is not directly, logically tied to the question of aggression or liberty.

Mark,

The debate between “thick” and “thin” conceptions of libertarianism encompasses several interrelated but more specific debates, having to do with (1) correct application of the non-aggression principle in hard cases; or (2) libertarian strategy and the possibility of there being cultural, intellectual, or other causal preconditions for a free society to emerge, survive, or flourish; or (3) views about the likely effects of liberty, and whether freedom will tend to produce more of certain rare positive goods, or to undermine certain prevalent (but non-coercive) positive evils; or (4) whether the best logical grounds for libertarianism (whatever that may be) also justify some further set of voluntarily-adopted beliefs, principles, projects, practices, traditions, institutions, etc. If you’re interested, I’ve discussed (1), (2), and (4) at some more length in my remarks from the Molinari Society symposium on thickness, and (3) briefly towards the end of my remarks on Matt MacKenzie’s paper on libertarian theories of exploitation.

Because the debate involves a lot of smaller debates that are interrelated but logically distinct from each other, and because many people who consider their conception of libertarianism to be “thin” (e.g. Jan Narveson) often actually end up endorsing a thicker conception in at least one of these respects (the “thinness” that they have in mind in their self-identification usually just amounts to accepting fewer thick commitments in total than are accepted by most self-identified advocates of a “thick” conception), I don’t think there is any good single formula to separate the thick from the thin. The closest that you can come to would be something like this: if you believe that libertarians should (in some sense or another, yet to be discussed) concern themselves (in some sense or another, yet to be discussed) with stuff other than just the non-aggression principle, and ought (in some sense or another, yet to be discussed) try to non-aggressively promote stuff other than just consistent non-aggression as part of their libertarian program, then you’re advocating a thick conception of libertarianism. If not, then you’re promoting a thin conception.

For what it’s worth, the internecine battle you’re thinking of, between paleolibertarians and so-called “cosmopolitan” libertarians, is not really a battle between thick and thin libertarians. Both those who think (1) that voluntarily cultivating some form of parochial traditionalism is (in some sense) vital to libertarianism, and those who think (2) that voluntarily cultivating some form of anti-traditionalist “cosmopolitanism” is (in some sense) vital to libertarianism, are advancing a thick conception of libertarianism, and battling over which thick conception is the right conception. (There are also those, like me, who think (3) that the battle, such as it is, is largely founded on a confusion, and who advance quite different claims about the best social-intellectual context for liberty from either of the two warring parties. There are also those who think (4) that libertarians shouldn’t be feuding over this stuff at all, and should just push the non-aggression principle and nothing else, wherever they go, whether to rock-ribbed but non-violent white supremacists, or to cocktail parties by snooty but non-violent New York intellectuals, or to rabble-rousing but non-violent popular liberation movements, or to kooky but non-violent survivalist-conspiracy theory types, or whatever. Only those who advocate (4) are advancing a thin conception of libertarianism.)

Hope this helps.

This is the text of the communique issued today by a newly-formed activist group, the Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left:

This is the first communiqué from the Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left.

Today, April 15^th, guerrilla educators affiliated with Southern Nevada ALL struck targets in the streets of southeastern Las Vegas and on the UNLV campus. Flyers—with slogans including Taxes Pay For Torture, Taxes Pay For War, and Your Money Or Your Life,—were raised to reach out to unwilling taxpayers and potential new ALLies, and to raise public consciousness about taxes.

On the filing deadline for 2007’s federal income tax—when countless honest working folks are sick of meddlesome government—when they are tired of being forced to fill out complex forms—and when they are forced to take (on average) 30% of the money that they worked to earn in the previous year and render it as tribute to the United States federal government—against their will, and whether or not they approve of what the government will do with the money—we have a perfect opportunity to spread our message about the violence of government taxation.

Taxes mean violence, both at the point of collection, and at the point of government spending. Collecting taxes is inherently violent because taxpayers are forced to pay the government whether or not they want to, under the threat of government violence. Those who refuse to turn over the money are subjected to government fines, confiscation of their homes and effects, or locked away in prison. It must never be forgotten that anything is funded by taxes could have been funded voluntarily, if enough people could have been convinced to donate the money willingly, or to give it freely in exchange for something that they get in return. In the last analysis, there is no reason to fund a project by taxation unless there is no honest and peaceful way to persuade people to support that project voluntarily. But if there is no honest and peaceful way to fund something, then it should not be funded. Taxation ought to be considered the last resort of the scoundrel and the thug. Morally, there is no difference between tax collection and highway robbery.

But the violence of taxation is even worse than the violence of highway robbery—for while the robber takes your money violently to satisfy his own greed, and then leaves you alone, the tiny handful of people who constitute the the ruling faction of the federal government take your money violently, and thenthey use that money to fund yet more violence — whether by locking nonviolent drug users away in government prisons, or in the form of police brutality, or in the use of torture by government intelligence agencies in the name of “National Security,” or in the form of government wars and occupations. The government’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost more than half a trillion dollars, and which cost millions of dollars more with every passing day, and the only reason that this government can afford to continue with their occupation and their bombings, long after the majority of people in the United States have concluded that the wars are hopeless and fundamentally wrong, is that tiny handful of people have the power to force the millions of us who are against these wars to fund them anyway, against our will and in violation of our own conscience. Taxes pay for police brutality. Taxes pay for torture. Taxes paid for Guantanamo. Taxes paid for Abu Ghraib. Taxes pay for war. And when taxes pay for something, what that really means is that unwilling victims, including you and me, are forced to pay for it even if they don’t think that it is worthwhile. Even when they think that it is abhorrent to their own beliefs.

We believe that there is another way. Southern Nevada ALL is working to raise public awareness, and to work towards a new, consensual society, in which no-one will be forced to pay for torture or war, and in which working folks will be able to keep what they have earned, rather than being forced to turn it over to be used at the whim of the violent minority faction known as the United States federal government. We are starting small, and we are starting here, because that is what we have, and this is where we live. We ask that everyone in Southern Nevada who believes in peace, voluntary co-operation, mutual aid, and individual liberty join us in our struggle.

—ALLy C.J., 15 April 2008.

The Southern Nevada Alliance of the Libertarian Left can be reached through its website, sonv.libertarianleft.org, or through its e-mail list ALLSouthernNevada.

These are the flyers that were found posted today on the streets of southeastern Las Vegas:

How Government Works (#1)	How Government Works (#2)
Taxes Pay For Torture (#1)	Taxes Pay For Torture (#2)
Taxes Pay For War (#1)	Taxes Pay For War (#2)
Your Money Or Your Life!	Your Tax Dollars At Work (#1)
Your Tax Dollars At Work (#2)

William H. Stoddard:

[The Republican Party] also has moved to big government, denial of Constitutional rights by presidential [fiat], unbalanced budgets, fiscal irresponsibility generally

Well, you know, all that’s not really anything new for Republicans.

I read the platforms of the dozen Libertarian candidates who got onto the California ballot (not including Paul, Barr, Gravel, or Ruwart) and I only thought three of them were remotely credible as libertarians; the rest included some conservative Republicans trying to claim the libertarian label

Indeed. As much as I despise Bob Barr, I actually have to say that he’s not the biggest tool in the LP race. Unfortunately, I can only say that because his competition happens to be Wayne Allyn Root.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so. Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as keeping out of politics. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer….

— George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

Dave Holmes: We need an emergency mobilisation of society, a five- or 10-year plan to achieve a drastic reorientation of our economy ….

You know, I’ve got the funniest feeling that I’ve heard this one somewhere before.

Jon,

Depends partly on what you’re looking for, of course.

On superhero comics, I don’t have much to contribute other than what’s already been said.

In the broader field of comics, I really, really strongly recommend Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis books, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Dykes to Watch Out For (you might want to wait for a while on the last before buying; there’s supposed to be a big collection coming out this fall, with most of the run collected in one volume rather than spread out over 11 different (varyingly difficult-to-find) books.