> that being said, the shift in the term "libertarian" is much more recent, and something rothbard explicitly gloats about, and certainly CATO etc played no small part in propagating this new set of terminology . . . That is a more recent shift, but not *that* much more recent -- you see it for example in the career of folks like Charles T. Sprading (as early as 1913, his book "Liberty and the Great Libertarians" could include folks like Paine, Jefferson (?!), Herbert Spencer, Abraham Lincoln (?!), Henry George, John Stuart Mill, etc. alongside Tucker, Spooner, Godwin and Kropotkin), and you then see it picked up and heavily promulgated in more or less its contemporary meaning by Frank Chodorov and especially Leonard Read by the 1940s. By the time Cato came along in 1974 this had already long been the case -- although of course Cato's prominence in the public-affairs newsmedia helped cement what had already been the case, etc. etc. (Although, I suspect, the creation of the Libertarian Party at about the same time had at least as much to do with that as Cato did.) Anyway, I agree that the Nolan Chart kind of sucks and that whole cluster of ideas can make it really hard to discuss anti-capitalist libertarian viewpoints. The consolation I try to take from all this is that there is some opportunity to use these kind of terminological tangles to your advantage -- to use phrases that seem deliberately paradoxical, even though they really aren't. Because part of the reason I do go around calling myself a "libertarian leftist" and a "free market anticapitalist" and all that is that, besides being accurate, it also helps to provoke a question, and prove a point. The fact that these labels seem like a big, crazy contradiction can actually be made to work in my favor -- because it gets people curious, and provokes them to ask "What the hell do you mean by that?" And then I get the chance to explain.

> that being said, the shift in the term "libertarian" is much more recent, and something rothbard explicitly gloats about, and certainly CATO etc played no small part in propagating this new set of terminology . . . That is a more recent shift, but not *that* much more recent -- you see it for example in the career of folks like Charles T. Sprading (as early as 1913, his book "Liberty and the Great Libertarians" could include folks like Paine, Jefferson (?!), Herbert Spencer, Abraham Lincoln (?!), Henry George, John Stuart Mill, etc. alongside Tucker, Spooner, Godwin and Kropotkin), and you then see it picked up and heavily promulgated in more or less its contemporary meaning by Frank Chodorov and especially Leonard Read by the 1940s. By the time Cato came along in 1974 this had already long been the case -- although of course Cato's prominence in the public-affairs newsmedia helped cement what had already been the case, etc. etc. (Although, I suspect, the creation of the Libertarian Party at about the same time had at least as much to do with that as Cato did.) Anyway, I agree that the Nolan Chart kind of sucks and that whole cluster of ideas can make it really hard to discuss anti-capitalist libertarian viewpoints. The consolation I try to take from all this is that there is some opportunity to use these kind of terminological tangles to your advantage -- to use phrases that seem deliberately paradoxical, even though they really aren't. Because part of the reason I do go around calling myself a "libertarian leftist" and a "free market anticapitalist" and all that is that, besides being accurate, it also helps to provoke a question, and prove a point. The fact that these labels seem like a big, crazy contradiction can actually be made to work in my favor -- because it gets people curious, and provokes them to ask "What the hell do you mean by that?" And then I get the chance to explain.

I'm no fan of Charles Koch but the shift, or contraction, of meaning for the term "socialism" -- which had a very wide range of meanings in the 19th century, but now is often used to mean more or less exclusively "state socialism," or "state control of the means of production," or just "regulatory welfare statism," or just "statism" simpliciter -- is not really something you can pin on him. That linguistic shift was already well in effect by the 1920s. You can see it in Mises's book on "Socialism," but also even within the anticapitalist anarchist movement itself -- so for example in 1908 you have the communist Anarchist [Harry Kelly writing an article in Mother Earth where "Socialism" is repeatedly used to mean a state-socialist program distinct from anything the Anarchists advocate](http://fair-use.org/mother-earth/1908/02/anarchism-a-plea-for-the-impersonal). (The rise in popularity of Debs's Socialist Party of America, as well as fallout from the split between the Red and Yellow IWW, both no doubt contributed to this.) And there are moves in that direction at least as far back as [the 1890s](http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/armies-that-overlap), although folks like Tucker tried to resist the shift. Anyway there is no doubt that this kind of thing has blinkered a lot of thought and is worth trying to linguistically jam or explode where possible. (There's a reason I pass out copies of Tucker's "State Socialism and Anarchism" everywhere I go.) But the "newspeak" here is hardly very new, and it's certainly something that was already well entrenched long before the Koch-bros ever came onto the scene.

I'm no fan of Charles Koch but the shift, or contraction, of meaning for the term "socialism" -- which had a very wide range of meanings in the 19th century, but now is often used to mean more or less exclusively "state socialism," or "state control of the means of production," or just "regulatory welfare statism," or just "statism" simpliciter -- is not really something you can pin on him. That linguistic shift was already well in effect by the 1920s. You can see it in Mises's book on "Socialism," but also even within the anticapitalist anarchist movement itself -- so for example in 1908 you have the communist Anarchist [Harry Kelly writing an article in Mother Earth where "Socialism" is repeatedly used to mean a state-socialist program distinct from anything the Anarchists advocate](http://fair-use.org/mother-earth/1908/02/anarchism-a-plea-for-the-impersonal). (The rise in popularity of Debs's Socialist Party of America, as well as fallout from the split between the Red and Yellow IWW, both no doubt contributed to this.) And there are moves in that direction at least as far back as [the 1890s](http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/armies-that-overlap), although folks like Tucker tried to resist the shift. Anyway there is no doubt that this kind of thing has blinkered a lot of thought and is worth trying to linguistically jam or explode where possible. (There's a reason I pass out copies of Tucker's "State Socialism and Anarchism" everywhere I go.) But the "newspeak" here is hardly very new, and it's certainly something that was already well entrenched long before the Koch-bros ever came onto the scene.

> You speak as if you're the author, Because I am. Or more precisely, the co-author of that passage (with my co-editor, Gary Chartier). The "Charles W. Johnson" on the cover of the book is me and the website you're probably reading it on (radgeek.com) is my website. So I don't mean to be overbearing about this, but I do think I can speak from some expertise on what I might have meant when I wrote that line. > the quote I gave explicitly says "politically imposed...", which is a stretch to suggest it's not referencing government. You are completely misunderstanding the point. Of course the reference to "politically imposed ... interruption of the free operation of exchange and competition" is a reference to government. (As is my reference above to "regulatory coercion.") However, I will repeat what I said before: the issue being discussed in that line is an issue with *government interruption of market coordination*. The problem, again, is the *lack* or the diversion of a certain kind of peaceful social coordination. Government is here doing the interrupting, not the coordinating. The point is not primarily about whether the regulating is, or is not, the result of collusion between government and businessmen. (It may well be. But if it were not, that wouldn't change the point that we are making about "coordination problems.") The kind of coordination I'm talking about is not the kind that goes on among members of a successful cartel. In fact the kind of cartelization I mentioned above was specifically mentioned because it is dependent on government privileges for its success, and will generally be unstable or unsustainable in a freed market. As for union strikes, if severed from government labor laws or legal recognition (=), they are *a part of* the competitive market process, not an "interruption" of it. People of course have every right to withdraw their labor power if they see fit to do so -- to hold back, to quit, to drive hard bargains with would-be employers, and -- if they want to do so -- to do it en masse. The operation of free trade and competition is a matter of being able to say "No sale" quite as much as it's a matter of saying "Yes." (= Which is specifically discussed in the book, and advocated in, e.g., Kevin Carson's chapter on "Labor Struggle in a Free Market") > You have brought up a very good point, but I still think these words were carefully woven so as to allow a form of government that would be free of capitalism. O.K. But I happen to know that you are wrong to think that. And if you actually read the essays in the book, all of which are by explicit anarchists, and which repeatedly call for absolute laissez-faire and the abolition of the state as such, it should be fairly obvious to you that you are wrong.

> You speak as if you're the author, Because I am. Or more precisely, the co-author of that passage (with my co-editor, Gary Chartier). The "Charles W. Johnson" on the cover of the book is me and the website you're probably reading it on (radgeek.com) is my website. So I don't mean to be overbearing about this, but I do think I can speak from some expertise on what I might have meant when I wrote that line. > the quote I gave explicitly says "politically imposed...", which is a stretch to suggest it's not referencing government. You are completely misunderstanding the point. Of course the reference to "politically imposed ... interruption of the free operation of exchange and competition" is a reference to government. (As is my reference above to "regulatory coercion.") However, I will repeat what I said before: the issue being discussed in that line is an issue with *government interruption of market coordination*. The problem, again, is the *lack* or the diversion of a certain kind of peaceful social coordination. Government is here doing the interrupting, not the coordinating. The point is not primarily about whether the regulating is, or is not, the result of collusion between government and businessmen. (It may well be. But if it were not, that wouldn't change the point that we are making about "coordination problems.") The kind of coordination I'm talking about is not the kind that goes on among members of a successful cartel. In fact the kind of cartelization I mentioned above was specifically mentioned because it is dependent on government privileges for its success, and will generally be unstable or unsustainable in a freed market. As for union strikes, if severed from government labor laws or legal recognition (=), they are *a part of* the competitive market process, not an "interruption" of it. People of course have every right to withdraw their labor power if they see fit to do so -- to hold back, to quit, to drive hard bargains with would-be employers, and -- if they want to do so -- to do it en masse. The operation of free trade and competition is a matter of being able to say "No sale" quite as much as it's a matter of saying "Yes." (= Which is specifically discussed in the book, and advocated in, e.g., Kevin Carson's chapter on "Labor Struggle in a Free Market") > You have brought up a very good point, but I still think these words were carefully woven so as to allow a form of government that would be free of capitalism. O.K. But I happen to know that you are wrong to think that. And if you actually read the essays in the book, all of which are by explicit anarchists, and which repeatedly call for absolute laissez-faire and the abolition of the state as such, it should be fairly obvious to you that you are wrong.

> * coordinated grassroots activism > * vigilante gang > > You say potato, I say potato. Well, except of course that one kind of coordinated social activity is violent. And the other is not. Which seems to me a rather more important difference than tomayto / tomahto. In any case, it has something to do with why your "presumably through violence" was a completely unwarranted and really pretty insane presumption, given what I had written; and why that section of the book argues has many arguments in favor of the former and none in favor of the latter. At least, as far as I can tell. If you have a specific example from the book where you think gang violence (?) is being defended, feel free to cite it and we can discuss that.

> * coordinated grassroots activism > * vigilante gang > > You say potato, I say potato. Well, except of course that one kind of coordinated social activity is violent. And the other is not. Which seems to me a rather more important difference than tomayto / tomahto. In any case, it has something to do with why your "presumably through violence" was a completely unwarranted and really pretty insane presumption, given what I had written; and why that section of the book argues has many arguments in favor of the former and none in favor of the latter. At least, as far as I can tell. If you have a specific example from the book where you think gang violence (?) is being defended, feel free to cite it and we can discuss that.

> This subreddit is surprisingly good at avoiding that, but in my experience, most discussions between market anarchists from different "camps" tend to amount to little more than which words are good, which words are bad, and showing which "team" one belongs to by arguing what the words "really mean", and using strawman arguments based on one's own definition of a word while being fully aware that the other person defines the word in a different way. I agree that all of these things happen, and that it really kind of sucks. > Since we are all aware that people define these terms differently, we should also be aware that any statement containing one of those words is an empty statement containing no information. I don't see how that follows at all. It seems to me rather that the information contained in the statement is dependent on what the person making the statement meant by the critical words (by "capitalism," or "socialism," or whatever). Now that might leave the meaning of the statement a bit mysterious -- if there were no way to solve the mystery of what the writer meant by the critical word in the statement she wrote. But it seems to me that there are ways of figuring that out, and acknowledging it -- you could try to glean it from context, you could try to glean it from the use that is made in argument, you could make a distinction between different senses and try out each alternative to see what makes for the strongest argument or the most plausible statement; or if all else fails you could just ask. Can I suggest that just putting yourself out there in your own terms, and then trying to develop and encourage skills for exploring ambiguities, negotiating mysteries and conflicts over the meanings of words, etc. after the fact -- really, more or less ad hoc, as the situation requires -- is probably more likely to help good conversations happen than ex ante policing of vocabulary for "wrong" words? I mean things like using conceptual distinctions, subscripts, etc. to work out an ad-hoc common language, or or "what-you-call-X, I-call-Y" sorts of rephrasings and good-faith efforts to restate your interlocutor's position in your own terminology or to put your statements into theirs; trying out a number of alternative meanings of terms ("If by X you mean A, then ....; if by X you mean B, on the other hand ...") if one of them may offer a more charitable interpretation; and cultivating a certain attitude of tolerance and charity, and a basic willingness to just stop and ask if you're not clear on what somebody meant, or to make a good-faith effort to help other people out if they ask what you mean. Because it seems to me inevitable that this sort of thing is going to happen -- certainly even if you completely ditch "socialism" and "capitalism" there are plenty of run-ins still to be had over terms like "profit," "redistribution," "rent," "interest," "competition," "work," "commodity," "cooperation," "capital," "property," "possession," "spontaneous order," "business," "entrepreneurship," "market," and a million other common terms of debate that I could think of, and it seems to me likely that these kinds of problems are going to be problems that keep recurring all the way down no matter how much you try to specify or stipulate or rephrase. If we need to chuck out less useful terms, or mint new language, then we'll get to that in the process of trying to understand the words we started out with.

> This subreddit is surprisingly good at avoiding that, but in my experience, most discussions between market anarchists from different "camps" tend to amount to little more than which words are good, which words are bad, and showing which "team" one belongs to by arguing what the words "really mean", and using strawman arguments based on one's own definition of a word while being fully aware that the other person defines the word in a different way. I agree that all of these things happen, and that it really kind of sucks. > Since we are all aware that people define these terms differently, we should also be aware that any statement containing one of those words is an empty statement containing no information. I don't see how that follows at all. It seems to me rather that the information contained in the statement is dependent on what the person making the statement meant by the critical words (by "capitalism," or "socialism," or whatever). Now that might leave the meaning of the statement a bit mysterious -- if there were no way to solve the mystery of what the writer meant by the critical word in the statement she wrote. But it seems to me that there are ways of figuring that out, and acknowledging it -- you could try to glean it from context, you could try to glean it from the use that is made in argument, you could make a distinction between different senses and try out each alternative to see what makes for the strongest argument or the most plausible statement; or if all else fails you could just ask. Can I suggest that just putting yourself out there in your own terms, and then trying to develop and encourage skills for exploring ambiguities, negotiating mysteries and conflicts over the meanings of words, etc. after the fact -- really, more or less ad hoc, as the situation requires -- is probably more likely to help good conversations happen than ex ante policing of vocabulary for "wrong" words? I mean things like using conceptual distinctions, subscripts, etc. to work out an ad-hoc common language, or or "what-you-call-X, I-call-Y" sorts of rephrasings and good-faith efforts to restate your interlocutor's position in your own terminology or to put your statements into theirs; trying out a number of alternative meanings of terms ("If by X you mean A, then ....; if by X you mean B, on the other hand ...") if one of them may offer a more charitable interpretation; and cultivating a certain attitude of tolerance and charity, and a basic willingness to just stop and ask if you're not clear on what somebody meant, or to make a good-faith effort to help other people out if they ask what you mean. Because it seems to me inevitable that this sort of thing is going to happen -- certainly even if you completely ditch "socialism" and "capitalism" there are plenty of run-ins still to be had over terms like "profit," "redistribution," "rent," "interest," "competition," "work," "commodity," "cooperation," "capital," "property," "possession," "spontaneous order," "business," "entrepreneurship," "market," and a million other common terms of debate that I could think of, and it seems to me likely that these kinds of problems are going to be problems that keep recurring all the way down no matter how much you try to specify or stipulate or rephrase. If we need to chuck out less useful terms, or mint new language, then we'll get to that in the process of trying to understand the words we started out with.