Kinsella: If we are talking semantics,

But David Gendron didn’t ask a question about semantics. He asked a question about your position on “capitalist property rights and profits.” You tried to change the subject and make it about semantics by disregarding what he meant, and inserting a meaning of “capitalism” which you already know (from conversational context) is not the meaning that he had in mind, because that other meaning makes it easier on you rhetorically. That seems to me counterproductive. If you think his meaning wasn’t precise enough, in any case, can I suggest that a better approach would be to ask him what he means?

Kinsella: a reasonable approach is to look at the dictionary, not to argue tendentiously about the origin of a term.

Come on, pull the other one. You obviously don’t follow the dictionary approach when it comes to terms like “Anarchy;” I don’t know why you expect everyone to revert back to grade-school level tertiary sources when it comes to “capitalism.”

But this is, in any case, beside the point. Nobody here is arguing, tendentiously or otherwise, about “the origin of a term,” except for you. You’re the one who has spent time in these comments repeatedly asserting that “some of the left-libs” are trying to “change the meaning” of the term “capitalism,” as if the preferred right-libertarian usage were the original baseline usage. Which is factually absurd, but not the point of my comment above. The point is that when you start responding to what somebody else said, your understanding of the claim ought to be based on what they seem to mean by the terms they use, not what you’d like to mean by them. And if you don’t know well enough what they do mean, that the end of developing an “understood language to convey concepts” is better served by asking people what they mean, and working from there, than it is by pretending as if they really meant by the terms what you mean by them, and expecting everyone else to play along. “Clarification” by means of ignoring your interlocutor and substituting a question you find easier to answer is cheap rhetoric, and wildly uncharitable.

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.

Kinsella: Is Rothbard a libertarian, even, by the standards of the more virulent anti-property “left-libertarians”?

Well, I think that he obviously is, but you know, this is not necessarily a question that can be resolved simply by definition of the term “libertarian.”

If you’re using the word “libertarian” the way that many anarchists have historically used it — not referring to some particular political movement, but rather using it as a term meaning the opposite of “authoritarian” — then the question about whether or not somebody like Rothbard is “a libertarian” is not just going to depend on semantic considerations about what to call anti-statism. Part of why (say) anarcho-communists object to calling Rothbard a “libertarian” is because they think that some of his core commitments (e.g. to for-profit commodity exchange) are authoritarian forms of social organization. I happen to think that they are wrong about some of that — in particular, that market exchange and private property rights are actually radically libertarian, not authoritarian, forms of social organization. Which is just to say that I’m an individualist and a mutualist, not a communist. And which is part of the reason I’m happy to call Rothbard a “libertarian” without qualification, in spite of my disagreements with him about other things. But the underlying debate about whether markets and property are liberatory or authoritarian forms of social organization is a substantive debate that market Anarchists have with other Anarchists, not just a semantic quibble that we can distinguish and define our way out of.

Kinsella: David, sure, of course, if by “capitalist” you mean an advanced free market of a libertarian, property-rights respecting society. How could one not be in favor of property rights and profit?

In other words: “David, sure, of course, if by ‘capitalist’ you mean something that I already know you don’t mean by it, then in that other sense of the word, which has nothing to do with your question, how could one not be in favor of property rights and profit?”

I agree that it’s important in these conversations to clarify the meaning of one’s terms. But can I suggest that this approach to clarification is perhaps not the most productive one?

P.S.: You seem to have confused Roderick Long (the dude who blogs at Austro-Athenian Empire) with Lew Rockwell (head of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, etc.). Roderick is the guy who linked to your post, not Lew.

HTH.

Miko: It gives the impression that market anarchists think that the primary thing wrong with the state is that it isn’t efficient and that everything will be great once we have replaced the state with private competitive police and military forces that are more efficient at bringing about death and destruction.

I’d be interested to hear more about why the term “market anarchist” leaves you with that impression. There have been other terms that have been used in market anarchist literature which might give off the kind of impression you’re worried about (e.g. Bruce Benson’s “Enterprise of Law” or Molinari’s argument that what was needed is “competition” in government — which is true in a sense, but, let us say, potentially misleading). But I don’t see why you think “market anarchism”, as a phrase, is among them. At a linguistic level, “market anarchist” leaves me with the impression of “an anarchist who is for markets” (of course, a lot of the interesting stuff is in how you precisify the fuzzy terms “is for” and “markets”). With the contrast point being an anarchist who isn’t for markets (say, someone who believes in thoroughgoing gift economies without commodity exchange, or something along those lines).

At the level of actual examples, it’d be hard for me to think of any actually existing market anarchist who endorses the view that you’re suggest. The most right-wing anarchocapitalists (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, say, or Lew Rockwell) are certainly clear that the last thing on their mind is replacing the state with something “more efficient at bringing about death and destruction.” For them the point of anarchy just is that the state is far too efficient at bringing about death and destruction. I have my problems with them, to be sure, but I really don’t know who would qualify as having the kind of problem you’re worried about here.

I’d think those who have a conception of a left-wing market anarchism would want to do everything they could to distance themselves from them and to make that distance obvious to all observers.

I dunno; I think Gary’s aim is to teach a course in anarchist political theory. Selecting a text for a course is not always based primarily on how much you agree with the authors. Or on how much you want or don’t want people looking in from the outside to “associate” you with the authors. If he finds the Tannehills’ book a useful starting-point for the conversations he wants to have with the people actually following the course, I don’t think that he should chuck out a text he finds useful in the interest of PR.

David Gendron:

Is Chartier a proprietarian, or not?

Depends on what you mean by the term.

In response to Gary’s distinction of three different meanings of the term “capitalism”:

I agree with the position against capitalism-2 and capitalism-3, but what about the Carson-type of Free-Market Anti-capitalism?

What about it? Kevin is explicit that his objection is to capitalism-2 and capitalism-3, not to “an economic system that features PROPERTY RIGHTS and voluntary exchanges of goods and services.” That last is the work that “Free Market” is supposed to be doing in that phrase.

Capitalism-1 is anarcho-capitalism,

No it’s not. It’s a free market. When anarcho-capitalists fight with mutualists and other anticapitalist market anarchists about “capitalism,” the fight is about whether or not free markets ought to be accompanied by capitalism-3 (or something else kind of like capitalism-3). Anarcho-capitalists say yes; anticapitalist market anarchists say no.

Anyway, did you read the rest of Gary’s paper? The whole point of the paper is that free-marketeers should think of themselves as being opposed to capitalism, in an important sense of that term.

Tremblay:

Now keep in mind, this course is called AN INTRODUCTION TO ANARCHISM. And their main text is a book written by two Objectivists to promote capitalism! –Francois Tremblay, at Check Your Premises

Right. Because it’s obvious that nobody could ever learn anything from anybody who was influenced by Objectivism at some point in their intellectual career.

So, Francois, tell me again how you came up with the name “Check Your Premises” for this blog of yours?

dukemeiser:

Where the hell did we go from ILLEGAL ALIENS … to Islamic terrorists? Anyway the original discussion was about illegal aliens.

You’re mistaken. Here’s a quotation from the original post:

Two things conservatives like to say: … (2) Illegal immigrants and terrorist suspects don’t have constitutional rights …

dukemeiser:

And it has everything to do with other people’s money. MY money as a taxpayer. When illegal aliens come to America and take advantage of our social safety net.

That sounds like a problem with the “social safety net.” Not a problem with undocumented immigration. In any case, the “rights” that American conservatives typically want to deny to undocumented immigrants go way beyond access to the welfare state. If the proposal were merely “undocumented immigrants don’t have a right to get money through welfare state programs,” I would have a problem with that. I don’t think anyone has a right to get money through welfare state programs. I’m rather more concerned about claims that undocumented immigrants don’t have the right to be left the hell alone in their own homes or to work for a living with a willing employer.

And because they are plentiful there is no competition from American workers at a fair wage.

You know, when you go around claiming that “American workers” have a right to a “fair wage” (as determined by you), whether or not other workers are willing to compete at lower wages, and that, if those other workers would be willing to take jobs at lower wages, this is a reason to round them up and force them out of the country, that sounds a lot like you’re saying that “American workers” have a “right to access other people’s money.” My view is that nobody has a right to any wage at all; wages should be the result of free agreements in an open market, not the result of political protectionism.

As for Islamic terrorists, did you expect for planes to be hijacked on 9/11?

Nope. But what has any of that got to do with whether or not people have a natural right not to be tortured, or locked in prison forever without charges?

The rest of the paragraph is just a bunch of conservative talking points about how bad terrorists are. Well, so what? If that’s supposed to be a reason for denying that people have individual natural rights not to be tortured, or not to be locked in prison forever without charges, then you can go ahead and believe that. But, again, that does seem to suggest rather strongly that you don’t believe in any meaningful set of natural God-given rights. (Because, if those rights don’t qualify, again, what the hell does?)

We have to play be the rules even though they don’t?

I don’t know about you, ese, but I never tortured anyone or locked anyone in prison forever without charges. Maybe you have, but if so you ought to speak only for yourself. If not, then I guess by “we” you really mean “them” — that is, the United States government. And, yes, I do believe that that government, like all governments, should be held to strict standards of respect for the rights of the individual. No matter what’s going on. If you don’t believe that, fine, but then you may as well stop pretending like you believe in God-given unalienable rights. The “unalienable” is supposed to mean something in that phrase.

Joe,

Do you think that the right not to be tortured by the government or the right not to be locked in a cage forever without charges are “not natural rights”? If those don’t qualify, what the hell do you think DOES?