absurdsequitur: If the objection that Francois is raising is that Objectivist literature is being taught WITHOUT REFERRING TO IT as Objectivist literature, then fine, that’s a sustainable objection, given that Objectivism as I understand it is explicitly a Statist (minarchist) system. … I think most people’s objection here is that you COMPLETELY jumped the gun as to the intent of this course, simply ‘judging the book by it’s cover’, or in this case by it’s authors
Ayn Rand’s position (and hence the orthodox Objectivist position) is minimal-statist, but The Market for Liberty is a market anarchist book, not a minimal-statist book. The Tannehills were deeply influenced by Objectivism, but (like some other Rand-influenced libertarians, e.g. Roy Childs) they disagreed with the orthodox Objectivist position on the State, and wrote The Market for Liberty as an elaboration of why the state should be abolished and how a peaceful stateless society might work.
Anyway, while it’s not a minimal-statist text, Gary has plenty to say about the background of the book, and plenty of disagreements with the text, which anyone who listens to the lectures rather than flipping the fuck out over minimal course descriptions will hear all about. Personally, I haven’t spent much time dwelling on the caveats that Gary offers, though, because, like you said, Tremblay’s being an asshole, and what I really object to is the intellectual Stalinism on display from Tremblay when he condemns a course based solely on their use of a disapproved textbook — which, in turn, is based on the (bizarre, but revealing) tacit premise that someone teaching a course would obviously only pick a textbook that she agrees with. In a non-totalitarian intellectual climate, teachers aren’t expected to offer up a defense of the texts they choose or prove their ideological correctness to avoid being called “a traitor†to The Movement.
David Gendron: I have no problem with the rest of his paper. But the more I read about this debate, the more I see a semantic debate.
Well, it clearly has something to do with the meaning of words — that’s why Gary leads off his paper by distinguishing three different senses of the word “capitalism.†The debate Gary is having in that paper is actually more than a purely semantic debate — but the important point I want you to see is that it’s not a debate where he and Carson (say) are on opposite sides, not even semantically. It’s a debate where he and conventionally pro-capitalist “libertarians†are on opposite sides.
The point of the paper is to explain why he sides with Carson and against the capitalists. (Hence, he first explains the capitalism-1 usage, and then explains why he doesn’t use the term “capitalism†that way — because it’s potentially confusing, and tends to confuse a position he accepts — market anarchism — with a position he rejects — support for the practices of actually-existing capitalists.)
Tremblay: Dude, have you ever been on an anarchist forum? I am downright open-minded and angelic compared to most anarchists, who would basically shoot any ancap on sight.
Dude, I’ve been actively involved in the Anarchist movement for 9 years now (not “forums,†on-the-ground organizing), and I don’t know where these “most anarchists†are, but I sure haven’t met them. From what I can see, there are a handful of screamers on those Internet forums, who piss and moan anytime something that vaguely reminds them of “anarchocapitalism†comes up — most of them people who were directly involved in the Usenet Wars at alt.anarchism in the 1990s. But the consensus opinion among a handful of screamers on the Internet is not “most anarchists.†Offline in the scene or in organizing spaces, that kind of kneejerk hostility is hardly ever seen. (While I’m not an anarcho-capitalist, I am sometimes mistaken for one, because I do sit around at Anarchist bookfairs with stuff by Rothbard and Hess included among the items on my table. And yet I haven’t been “shot on sight†yet.)
All I’m doing is keeping ancaps honest, and they need plenty of it.
As you please. But Gary Chartier’s not an anarchocapitalist. Neither is Brad Spangler, or most of the other people affiliated with C4SS.