Posts tagged Sheldon Richman

Self-described libertarians

Thanks for the mention, and for the kind words. I agree about the tone of that OC Weekly article. It’s kind of baffling, because the analysis is actually so much better than the analysis in most abusive-cop pieces, but the tone comes off as if it were written by a fugitive from a direct-to-video American Pie script.

As for self-described libertarians, what I’ve found is that they (we) are a pretty diverse lot. A lot are tools or creeps, and especially those “small government” types whose views are conventional enough to fit into the outer fringes of mainstream political discourse. But, while I don’t want much to do with those folks, radical libertarians tend to be a very different sort, and those that I get along with and try to learn from (e.g. Roderick Long, Kevin Carson, Jennifer McKitrick, Carol Moore, Anthony Gregory, Sheldon Richman, Brad Spangler ….) are generally maneuvering to out-Lef the establishment Left, in terms of exposing the class dynamics of the State and making a case for radically decentralist, grassroots approaches that achieve Leftist and feminist goals by ordinary people getting together amongst themselves, and bypassing or confronting the State, rather than collaborating with it or trying to seize control of it. Maybe that approach is the right approach, and maybe it’s the wrong approach; but in any case it’s a very different approach from the one that you’d be likely to see from the “small-government conservative” types, or at your local Libertarian Party, or in your average MeetUp for Chairman Ron’s Great Libertarian Electoral Revolution. And it’s an approach that more libertarians seem to be adopting lately; a tendency which I hope I might be able to encourage, in whatever small ways I can manage.

Anyway, that’s how I see it now. Does that help clarify, or does it muddy?