Comment on I’d Like to Buy the World a Koch by Rad Geek
MBH:
Anyone who advocates tearing government “out at the root†is an anarchist
Man, I don’t care what you consider them really to be. When you use the phrase ‘so-called’ and then wrap the following term in quotation marks, that very strongly suggests that you mean to say that somebody actually called them so, in as many words.
If you’re trying to make a point about the public meaning of words like “anarchy†and “anarchist,†then certainly you ought to be able to back up the claim that at least somebody, somewhere calls the Kochs “anarchist†in as many words. If you can’t find any such description, then (1) the Kochs are probably not very good paradigm cases, or particularly important to understanding the public meaning of the terms “anarchy†or “anarchist,†and (2) the Kochs are definitely not ‘so-called “anarchistsâ€.’ Maybe you think they really are anarchists who are not so called; but if so, you ought to think of a better way to express what you mean.
whether they prefer to be called “autarchist†for politically correct purposes or not.
The article says nothing to suggest that either Charles Koch or David Koch considers himself an “autarchist,†or prefers to be called “autarchist.†Do you have any independent data to suggest this is true?
The bit about “autarchism,†in the article, is a brief description of Robert LeFevre’s self-identification. (That’s also the only mention of “anarchism†in the article, as well.) Which shows us that the Kochs hung out with some anarchist libertarians. Which we already could have told you. Later, prior to the big nasty Cato split, they also hung out with Rothbard and Roy Childs, who really were so-called anarchists. Incidentally, LeFevre’s reasons for wanting to be called an “autarchist†were idiosyncratic, not conformist (*), and had nothing in particular to do with “political correctness†in any plausible interpretation of that term. (Roughly, he thought — wrongly — that all Anarchists truly so-called were anti-propertarian and anti-market; and he also thought the term suggested the breakdown of all control, including even self-control, which conflicted with LeFevre’s personal interest in Stoic moral philosophy.)
(*) Just about nobody — not even his own students — followed LeFevre’s usage (Roy Childs, for example, was describing himself as an “anarchist†within about a year), or even took it very seriously.