Thomas,

Thanks for the replies.

In re: (1), whether or not you’re right to characterize those sort of economic projects “leftist Utopianism,” again, my point is that I didn’t say (and don’t believe) that those are the only forms of economic activity that are going to be on offer in a free society. What I did say is that a certain kind of argument used to dismiss them apriori is really a non sequitur.

Maybe you think that there’s another, different argument which shows that anything but a conventionally capitalistic firm would be unsustainable, or overwhelmingly out-competed in a freed market. Certainly, below, in (6), you suggest another, different line of attack — that they are forms of organization which somehow conflict with “deep seated human impulses,” etc. If so, OK, we can talk about that; but it’s a different argument from the argument that I was responding to, and you’ll need to keep in mind that I have more to say on the subject than what you’ll find in a paragraph narrowly concerned with another, different point; that the list you just quoted is intended as suggestive, not exhaustive; and so on.

In re: (2), the claim about the net effect of government interventions is not an “assumption;” it’s the conclusion of an argument. Part of the argument is contained in the body of the article, and the rest is alluded to insofar as restrictions of space would allow (I mention, e.g., Gabriel Kolko’s work on the historical backgrounds and economic effects of “progressive” regulation; I might also mention the work of David Beito on grassroots mutual aid, Butler Shaffer’s work on antitrust law, etc.). Maybe you think the argument is a weak one, but of course you should keep in mind that there may be more to it than what you could find outlined in one general-audience magazine article (certainly, I’ve written a lot more on the subject, and referred to many people who’ve written much more on it than I have). In any case though, I do sketch the outlines of a response to exactly the worries you raise here: I already specifically responded to the claim about economies of scale in the paragraph you were quoting above, and I give some specific reasons for thinking that the main effects of “the complex web of restrictions” are not actually what their “progressive” sponsors claim them to be, but rather tend to favor monopolization and cartelization, by suppressing start-up competitors. Again, maybe you think that this argument is not strong enough, as presented, to justify the conclusion I draw from it. And maybe it’s not. But if so, it seems like you’d do better to actually reply to the points that I made on the subject, rather than repeating the same objections I already replied to in the article as if I had been too busy dream-spinning to ever hear tell of such a thing as OSHA or an antitrust lawsuit.

In re: (5), you make fun, but it’s a serious point. My article spends more or less no time at all on any question about the ethical status of corporate commerce. I’ve certainly got something to say about it (and have said so elsewhere), but when I’m being accused of ignoring economic principles in order to suit my own preferences, I really do have to insist that the central point of the article (the purely economic point that the patterns of corporate commerce as we know them are substantially the result of an identifiable set of political interventions, and are — therefore — not good examples of market forces at work) is a point that makes no significant claim at all about the ethical status of any of the people or organizations engaged in it, and it is not refuted by arguing about whether or not big corporations are “evil,” good, noble, base, delightful, unsightly, or utterly humdrum.

In re: (6), OK. Then I will gladly tell you that I have no problem with so “assessing” or so “arguing.” If “true libertarianism,” as you understand it, means refusing to “assess” any social relationship, or pattern of social interaction, “as undesirable” so long as it “arose through the exercise of individual liberty,” or ever to argue with someone as to whether a choice they freely make is in fact the right choice to make, then “true libertarianism” sounds like a form of voluntary imbecility, and I’m happy to apostasize myself from it.

You call this a “strawman” of your view, but in what particular respect have I misrepresented you? I asked you if in your view “true libertarianism” is supposed to require no social relationship, or pattern of social interaction, should be subject to criticism, or to attempts to persuade others against it, if it arises consensually. You seem to have answered fairly directly that that is indeed your view, although apparently you prefer the even broader word “assess” to “criticize,” and the word “argue” to “persuade.” But if assessing any voluntary relationship as undesirable is “pseudo-libertarianism,” just what sort of “intelligent cultural criticism and non-violent persuasion” do you intend to leave for the true believer? And, since, again, such criticism and such non-violent persuasion is itself entirely non-coercive, and in no way violates the person, property or individual liberty of anyone who happens to hear it or to be the subject of it, what does this call for a sweeping norm against such talk have to do with the truth or falsity of someone’s libertarianism?

But in any case this seems like special pleading. On the one hand, you want to rule out arguments against the desirability of capitalistic relationships by appealing to this sort of quietism. And yet when it comes to the arguments against the desirability of non-capitalistic relationships, you seem to think you have a very good idea already of what sorts of social relationships are desirable, and which are not, as reflected in your attempt to justify some of them, and to dismiss others as sterile and utopian, by appeals to “deep seated human impulses.” As for those “deep seated human impulses,” I had already read the previous post, and I’m pretty sure that you and I differ pretty radically about just what those impulses are, and also what it is that “seats” them “deeply” where they occur. But while that’s an interesting psychological or anthropological question to contemplate, I don’t really know what if anything it is supposed to decide about libertarian politics. It’s natural for humans to crap in the woods, but civilization gives us toilets, and it’s natural for women to die in childbirth before they reach middle age, but we’ve generally thought it worth our while to make some deliberate effort to change and improve on our natural capacities and life-cycles.