Comments Elsewhere

DavidCheatham: "Result: Black people dying in the street because white-only hospitals would not treat them. (For just one example of very obvious harm.) ... 
The fact that all three home building companies and all seven real estate companies in a specific city will not sell homes to black people, or transgendered people, or whoever, really does matter, no matter how it would infringe their 'rights' for the government to insist they have to. "

I agree with you that these things are horrible, and that they matter, and that people who do them should be stopped from doing them. But the question here is one of means -- whether the means you intend to use to stop them are violent or nonviolent; whether they are governmental means or grassroots means; whether they depend on legal force or social pressure.

DavidCheatham: "At some point, to be taken seriously, Libertarians are going to have to get on board with the idea that, at some point, private action does reach the level of the public sphere."Well, I am not sure that I care very much about being taken seriously in mainstream political discourse. If I did, I wouldn't be an Anarchist. But I don't disagree with you that there are cases where "private action does reach the level of the public sphere." But then the question is whether legal force is the only public means of addressing a public problem. I don't think that it is.

William Swann: "Consider what may have happened in the south if the civil rights movement had followed libertarian lines.  The Jim Crow laws would have to go, certainly, ..."

Not just the written laws. Lynch law too. No libertarian would oppose efforts to forcibly resist and ultimately suppress systematic violence that was committed outside the official policy of the state, but sanctioned by the dominant white culture and practiced through the dominant white civil society.

William Swann: "but there would likely still have been restrictions on the range of activities of blacks based on cultural norms."

Well, that's only likely if it's likely (1) that the cultural norms could sustain themselves without resorting to extralegal terror against dissenters and against random victims; and (2) that there would be no other means to challenge, undermine or change those crappy cultural norms other than legislation banning them. But it's not obvious to me that (1) is true. And what is certain, from the very history of the Freedom Struggle in the South, is that (2) is definitely false -- nonviolent social and economic activism repeatedly won key struggles with no legal sanction to back them up, years before white politicos showed up to pass laws and take the credit for black activists' triumphs.I would argue that without the laws, the social activism still would have made Jim Crow culturally and economically unsustainable and driven it into extinction. (Whereas if the social movement had sat around waiting for the laws rather than pressing ahead with their grassroots activism, they would not only not have gotten the activist victories; they would never have gotten the laws, either; because it was only the former that made the latter politically possible.)

JTK: "It strikes me that Rockwell's paleolibertarian manifesto, which I gather Rothbard was on board with,  is every bit as thick as Johnson's formulation."

Yes, I agree with you about that. In fact I explicitly mention paleolibertarianism more than once in the essay as another thick conception of libertarianism. (As one which is in fact mutually exclusive with the left-libertarian conception which I personally endorse.) "Thick" is a descriptive term for a particular sort of argument; it's not intended as a virtue term for kinds of libertarianism.

JTK: "Both sides indulge in the vice of movement-ism where it's all about who needs outreach and who needs purging."

Maybe. But my point in the essay has nothing at all to do with "outreach" or with joining movements.  As far as I can tell Matt's post here has nothing to do with that either. Maybe he has views about that, but the point he seemed making here -- and certainly the point I was making in my formulation of the distinction -- had to do with the intellectual reasons that people who believe in libertarianism might have to endorse other kinds of social or cultural views. That only has to do with movements if you think that endorsing a view necessarily means joining a political movement trying to get it. But I don't think that.

3cantuna: "Lincoln was a white supremacist that wanted blacks out of the country. Lincoln was not a fan of chattel slavery-- but was willing to maintain it if it kept the Union together.  . . .  Given the long history of mass murder and destruction commited under the US banner, that flag should give pause to a true libertarian."

That much is certainly true. And it's a good reason not to celebrate Lincoln or the United States flag. But it's not a reason to go around flying the Confederate flag, or otherwise celebrating that rampaging slave empire. When governments go to war with each other, the fact that the belligerent government on one side is despicable and tyrannical is not necessarily a reason to celebrate the belligerent government on the other side -- they may well both be despicable and tyrannical. As a matter of fact, that is pretty much always the case. And it's especially so in the case of the American Civil War.

Jacob: "The white racist who tells you that Lincoln was a great tyrant, or who indulges in the nostalgia of the Confederate flag, is not a non-aggressing potential libertarian who just happens to prefer his own kind."

Probably not. But Lincoln was a great tyrant. Pointing this out has no necessary connection with the ugly and racist fetish for the Confederate State or  nostalgia for the bloody banner of its conscripted army.

Nemo: Rad (or may I call you Charles?) …

Sure, of course. (“Rad Geek” is just a signature I use on account of certain other Charles Johnsons who are on the Internet.)

Nemo: There is a parallel there, but they seem to be pointing in opposite directions.

Different directions, for sure; I’m not sure about opposite. And I think that they might really be less different in the end than they seem at first.

Nemo: After a conversation with Socrates, one would say to himself, “I don’t know what t’m talking about! I don’t know what [the thing] really means. I’ve got a problem.”‘ With Wittgenstein, “I know it now! Avoid logical fallacies and speak proper grammar, there is no problem at all.”

Well, I think that the bit after “I know it now!” is for L.W. much easier said than done, but it’s the doing that he’s interested in. The AoTLP seems to have some faith that there is a state you can be in where you will become perfectly adept in the avoiding and in the grammaticalizing — a state that can only be really understood by reaching it, but which will disclose itself to you, irresistibly when and to the extent that you reach it. (In many ways it ends up sounding something like what Socrates is portrayed as teaching Meno about the unforgetting of true knowledge in the second third of the dialogue.) Now, as I understand the later L.W., that faith in the End of Analysis is one of the things that really does change and come under the later L.W.’s criticism. In some ways this makes his project seem less Socratic (or Platonic, whichever), since it means a much less idealized picture of what logical understanding amounts to; in other ways, it makes it seem more Socratic, since it means that there is no end of philosophy to aim at — it’s not a matter of reaching some perfected state of clarity, only an ongoing process of recognizing confusion and clarifying. . . . (In PI, Wittgenstein says that the real discovery is the one that allows you to stop doing philosophy when you want to — but of course stopping it is rather different from finishing it.)

In both cases, though, it also seems important to me that the kind of clarity that you’re supposed to come to — either the silence at the end of TLP, or the scratched itch of later L.W. — is not supposed to be a purely cognitive, intellectual or linguistic achievement. Philosophical clarification isn’t just a matter of understanding something that you hadn’t understood before, it’s a matter of doing things you hadn’t been able to do and going on with your life in a different way that you hadn’t previously been able to live. The outcome really is supposed to issue not only in knowledge but in something that’s at least a little like the kind of seriousness and earnestness about thought and life that Socrates characterizes as the outcome of pursuing philosophy — not just a feat of technical cleverness. I mean, Russell could do that.

Well, you know, if you thought the point of the slogan was to tell you that you secretly really wanted whatever it is the market tends to provide (as the purpose of “We are the government” is to tell you that you secretly really wanted whatever it is that a democratic government does to you), then I suppose they would seem pretty similar. But that is actually just about exactly the opposite of the point of the slogan.

It was not made in ignorance of marginal analysis; it was made to stress the difference between two different ways to look at the marginal case. You can look at it as an already-decided fact and relate to it as a consumer; or you can look at as an outcome of an open-ended process of choice and discovery, and relate to it as an entrepreneur. There is nothing in any “marginal utility theory” worthy of taking notice of that would rule out the second kind of attitude. Nor is there anything that would require the attitude to be taken only with regard to monetary returns, or only within the institutional context of a formal business relationship.

In any case, (1) the “We” in “We are market forces” is “We” rather than “I” for a reason (the reason has to do with the fact that the slogan is used to talk about consciously organized activist campaigns carried on among many people interacting consensually within a market context *).

(2) And the slogan also says “We are market forces,” not “We are the market,” for a reason. Because the point is that you can shift equilibrium points from where they are through entrepreneurial action; not that you can just pick them up and place them wherever you would like them to be. (**)

(*) Which is rather different from the “We” in “We are the government,” since that “We” is of course not a group of people who are assembled consensually, but rather literally everyone within the corral of a democratic government, relating to each other through a political system that they were forced into and have been blocked from exiting.

(**) Which is rather different from claiming that “We are the government,” tout court. One slogan is making a much more sweeping claim about the individual’s relationship to collective efficacy than the other slogan is. If the political slogan were not “We are the government,” but simply that, in a democracy, “We are political forces,” then it seems to me that it would be a lot harder to complain about that. But then the more modest slogan wouldn’t do the justificatory work that “We are the government” is supposed to do. (Since “We are market forces” is not intended to justify outcomes in the first place, it labors under no such burden.)

Nemo: Before Wittgenstein’s therapy, the person was dumb, after the therapy, he became mute. I think I’ll stay with the Greeks a little longer . . .

M: “. . . I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits’ end. And if I may venture to make a jest upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who paralyzes those who come near him and touch him, as you have now paralyzed me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really numbed, and I do not know how to answer you; and though I have been delivered of an infinite variety of speeches about virtue before now, and to many persons-and very good ones they were, as I thought-at this moment I cannot even say what virtue is. And I think that. you are very wise in not voyaging and going away from home, for if you did in other places as do in Athens, you would be cast into prison as a sorcerer. . . .”

S: “. . . As to my being a torpedo, if the torpedo is paralyzed as well as the cause of paralysis in others, then indeed I am a torpedo, but not otherwise; for I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself. And now I know not what virtue is, and you seem to be in the same case, although you did once perhaps know before you touched me. ”

– a couple of Greek guys flirting with each other about the effects of philosophy

Off topic: could you be so kind as to reply to this comment on your own blog?

O.K.

Your analogy shows how it could work, but not how it does.

Sure. My comment was intended to answer the conceptual question you asked — “How is wide-spread adoption hampered if not through hampering of performance?” — by pointing to a possible mechanism — politically-imposed barriers to entry. (As it happens this is a mechanism that’s of some importance to left-libertarian analysis, in general.) It wasn’t intended to answer the additional empirical question of whether or not this really is a factor holding back the prevalence of worker-owned enterprises, or, if it is, how much or how little that factor matters compared to other contributing factors. That’s the sort of thing we’d need to look at economic data to prove or disprove. My point here is simply that the data we were looking at right now (about the performance of those worker-owned enterprises that do manage to clear barriers to entry under state capitalism) doesn’t prove what you initially seemed to think it proves (that their lack of prevalence is not due to being somehow more hampered by the state).

Since government interference doesn’t stop after a company is started, I don’t think it does.

I am not sure how this is supposed to cut against the claim? I’m not sure how this cuts against the claim? Certainly “government interference” doesn’t stop after a company has started, but “government interference” is not homogeneous. There are different kinds and the several kinds may each differently affect people who are in different sorts of material and institutional positions.

There are a lot of controls that specifically create problems for startups and not for incumbent companies (since they depend on things like the cost of initially obtaining licenses or legal recognition, the need to start out with artificially high levels of initial capitalization, the costs of competing with already subsidized incumbents, etc. etc.). These might disparately hamper entry without disparately hampering performance for those who have successfully entered.

On the other hand, there are some controls and costs that are persistent over time, which don’t go away simply in virtue of getting yourself established in business. But if we look only at those, I still don’t see how it changes the conceptual point. You have to consider what is not seen as well as what is seen. It may well be that the limited number of worker-owned enterprises that can clear those costs, not only at entry but over time, will — provided they do that — proceed to outperform capitalist-owned enterprises. But that doesn’t tell you anything (yet) about how many worker-owned enterprises might be able to do just as well in a freed market, but are not able to clear the persistent costs. (Again, think of the racetrack. Suppose it is full of hurdles. Well, you’d expect to see the same result, wouldn’t you? The Reds that can jump may well beat the Yellows every time. But if the Yellows are generally better at jumping than the Reds, then most of the winners will be Yellows nevertheless. But it’s not clear that adeptness at clearing politically-imposed hurdles is the sort of thing that people ought generally to have to cultivate. In any case it is not the same thing as adeptness at running on an even market track.)

And why would the hurdle (or hurdles) be more difficult for the reds? Why would starting a worker-owned firm be more difficult than starting a non-worker-owned firm?

I don’t know. I can think of some possible reasons that I could suggest tentatively.

For example, the overwhelming difficulty involved in any startup is very often initial capitalization. But there are many sources of capitalization (conventional business loans, VC funding, angel investors) that are much harder for worker-owned enterprises to get at than they are for capitalist-owned enterprises. (If your management model won’t allow absentee investors a seat at the management table, you’re less likely to attract absentee investors. If your plan is to start something that the state tax laws would see as a not-for-profit enterprise — as many co-ops are — then it’s nearly impossible to get any kind of bank loans. Etc. But the fact that there is such a rich financial industry looking to lay out capitalization for your competition; and the fact that banks are so conservative in the kinds of business models they’re willing to deal with; and the fact that workers and their friends and families have so little money or personal credit of their own to pool towards starting up the business, whereas professional-class managers and capitalists and their families and friends have so very much; and the fact that the fixed costs that you need to cover in initial capitalization are in the first place so very, very high are all facts that are not exactly innocent of politics or of the effects of money monopoly.) Similarly, it may be (I’m not committed to this claim, but let’s consider it for the sake of argument) that there are basic coordination problems in scaling up worker-ownership beyond a certain number of workers or a certain scale of operations. It’s certainly possible — very large enterprises cause all kinds of communication problems, and if your model of management is based on everyone talking to and consulting with everyone else, then that becomes geometrically more costly as the number of people in the enterprise increases. It may be that beyond a certain size the only practical way to deal with this difficulty is to start adopting different, more vertical models of management, and vertical models of management may not be the sort of thing that worker-ownership is very conducive to establishing. But if so, that’s a competitive problem for worker-owned firms only if firms need to be or become very large in order to stay competitive, or in order to stay afloat at all. But, again, the predominance of very large firms, and of firms which someday might become very large — and the difficulties that small firms have in sustaining themselves — are also not things that are innocent of political privilege.

That said, I think that this is an area that needs a lot more research and a lot of empirical data. But for the research and the data to have much import, we have to get some conceptual issues straight (since it is the conceptual issues that guide our ability to understand what the data might mean). My point was to answer the latter kind of question, so that we can get a better grip on how to study the former.