The Industrial Radical a Quarterly Publication of the MOLINARI INSTITUTE Volume I, Number 4 Liberty the Mother Not the Daughter of Order Summer 2013
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Industrial Radical A Quarterly Publication of the MOLINARI INSTITUTE Volume I, Number 4 Liberty the Mother not the Daughter of Order Summer 2013 CLASS STRUGGLE IN BRAZIL Chelsea Manning and the Persecution of Whistleblowers Obama vs. the Environment American History: Reality vs. Fantasy The George Zimmerman Verdict: Pro and Con Editor: Roderick T. Long Associate Editor: Charles W. Johnson Publisher: The Molinari Institute Anarcho-“Capitalism” Is Impossible by Anna O. Morgenstern 1 Authority: If It’s So Good, Why Does It Make Us Feel So Bad? by Kevin A. Carson 3 The Pervasive and Grotesque Logic of Victim Blaming by Nathan Goodman 5 A Moral Spring by Grant Mincy 6 The Myth of 19th-Century Laissez-Faire: Who Benefits Today? by Roderick T. Long 7 Financial Freedom versus the Stability-Stagnation-Surveillance State by Amir Taaki 9 The Revolution of Brazil: An Interview by Grant Mincy 11 Egypt Is Gonna Take a While .... by B-psycho 14 Biddle on the Land of Liberty by Irfan Khawaja 15 Passing Over Eisenhower by Smári McCarthy 16 Ignore Obama – It’s the Green Thing to Do by Grant Mincy 18 Bradley Manning: One Soldier Who Really Did “Defend Our Freedom” by Kevin A. Carson 19 What Makes Bradley Manning a Hero? by Darian Worden 21 The Government’s Us? Not Last Time I Checked by Kevin A. Carson 22 Stand With Whistleblowers by Nathan Goodman 23 Another Hero of the Freedom Movement: Jeremy Hammond by Kevin A. Carson 24 The Manning Show Trial: These Teachable Moments by Thomas L. Knapp 25 Manning Show Trial Exposes the Fraud of Representative Democracy by Kevin A. Carson 26 J’Accuse ...! by Thomas L. Knapp 27 A Radical Constitutional Amendment to Protect Whistleblowers by Jason Lee Byas 27 The Security State’s Reaction to Snowden Shows Why It’s Doomed by Kevin A. Carson 29 Bradley Manning: The Mighty Fist! by Grant Mincy 30 The State, Not Manning, Is the Criminal by Nathan Goodman 31 The State: Judge in Its Own Cause by Kevin A. Carson 32 Chelsea Manning and the State’s Abusive Transphobia by Nathan Goodman 33 Zimmerman and Manning: The Demands of Justice by Grant Mincy 34 Zimmerman Case Is No Grounds for Gun Control by Sheldon Richman 35 Idle Threats by B-psycho 36 George Zimmerman, Prosecutorial Abuse, and the Sorry Politics of Race by William L. Anderson 37 What an Honest Conversation About Race Would Look Like by Sheldon Richman 40 Class vs. “Identity Politics,” Intersectionality, Etc.: Some General Observations by Kevin A. Carson 42 Abortion, Rape Apologism, and Civil Resistance by Roderick T. Long 44 My Experience at PorcFest X by Mattheus von Guttenberg 46 The Industrial Radical is devoted to radical libertarian political and social analysis in the tradition of Benjamin Tucker’s 1881-1908 Liberty, Emma Goldman’s 1906-1917 Mother Earth, and Murray Rothbard’s 1965-1968 Left & Right. The title “Industrial Radical” honors the libertarian and individualist anarchist thinkers and activists of the 19th century, who were “industrial” in the sense of championing what they called the industrial mode of social organization, based on voluntary cooperation and mutual benefit, over the militant mode, based on hierarchy, regimentation, and violence; and who were “radical” in the sense of recognising that social problems are embedded in sustaining networks of institutions and practices, and so can be addressed only via thoroughgoing social change. Their approach informs our vision. Subscribe to The Industrial Radical For a year’s subscription (four issues), send a check for $25 U.S., payable to The Molinari Institute, to: The Molinari Institute 402 Martin Ave. Auburn, Alabama 36830 U.S.A cover pic: L’Émeute, by Honoré Daumier, 1848 or pay online: praxeology.net/molinari-agora.htm (public domain) Industrial Radical I.4 Summer 2013 1 Anarcho-“Capitalism” capitalists follow anarchist means, the results will be anarchy, not some impossible “anarcho-capitalism”. Is Impossible Anarchy does not mean social utopia, it means a society where there is no privileged authority. There Anna O. Morgenstern will still be social evils to be dealt with under anarchy. But anarchy is an important step toward [19 September 2010, C4SS] fighting those evils without giving birth to all new ones. Many anarchists of various stripes have made the My take on the impossibility of anarcho- claim that anarcho-capitalists aren’t really anarchists capitalism is simply as follows: because anarchism entails anti-capitalism. I happen to think this is actually backwards. If they genuinely ● Under anarchism, mass accumulation and wish to eliminate the state, they are anarchists, but concentration of capital is impossible. they aren’t really capitalists, no matter how much they ● Without concentration of capital, wage slavery want to claim they are. is impossible. People calling themselves “anarcho-capitalists” ● Without wage slavery, there’s nothing most usually want to define “capitalism” as the same thing people would recognize as “capitalism.” as a free market, and “socialism” as state intervention against such. But what then is a free market? If you The first part of this, that mass accumulation and mean simply all voluntary transactions that occur concentration of capital is impossible under without state interference, then it’s a circular and anarchism, has several aspects. redundant definition. In that case, all anarchists are One big one is that the cost of protecting “anarcho-capitalists,” even the most die-hard property rises dramatically as the amount of property anarcho-syndicalist. owned increases, without a Defining capitalism as a system state. This is something that rarely of private property is equally gets examined by libertarians, but it’s problematic, because where would crucial. you draw the line between private One reason for this is that large and public? Under a state, state scale property ownership is never all property is considered “public,” but geographically massed. A billionaire as an anarchist, you know that’s a doesn’t have all his property in one sham. It’s private property owned small geographic area. In fact, this by a group that calls themselves the sort of absentee-ownership is State. Whether something is owned necessary to become a billionaire in by 10 people or 10 million doesn’t the first place. Most super-wealthy make it more or less “private.” own stock in large corporations that Going a bit deeper, there may have many factories, retail outlets, be issues about how property rights are defined, and offices and the like all over the place. Leaving aside the nature of ownership between different sorts of whether joint-stock companies are even likely in anarchists. Obviously, anarcho-capitalists do not anarchy for now, this geographical dispersion means want the government to decide who owns what that the cost of protecting all of this property is property. So even at their hardest of hard-core enormous. Not only because of the sheer number of propertarianism, they are still effectively anarchists; guardians necessary, but because one must pay those they just have a different idea of how an anarchist guardians enough that they don’t just decide to take society will organize itself. over the local outlet. You could hire guardians to But the focus on goals, I think, is very much over- watch the guardians, but that in itself becomes a new emphasized in anarchist communities, at the expense problem .... of looking at means. Goals sometimes lead people But the property needs to be protected not only toward certain means, but it is the means that from domestic trespassers, but from foreign invasion determine results, not the goals. And if the anarcho- as well. Let us imagine that an anarcho-capitalist 2 Summer 2013 Industrial Radical I.4 society does manage to form, Ancapistan, if we of entry, this limits and reduces the amount of will. Next to Ancapistan is a statist capitalist nation, competitors in every industry, driving wages down. let us call it Aynrandia. Well, the Aynrandians decide And the current fiat money/central banking “hmm, Ancapistan lacks a state to protect its regime, by constantly inflating the money supply, citizens. We should take over and give them one, for destroys the ability of people to save, thus forcing their own good of course.” At this point the them to borrow in order to start or expand a business, billionaires in Ancapistan must either capitulate, to buy a home or a car. It literally and directly welcome the Aynrandians, and Ancapistan is no concentrates the supply of capital in the hands of a more, or they must raise a private army to repel the smaller and smaller group of people, destroying Aynrandians. Not only will the second option be savings and feeding effective purchasing power to ridiculously expensive, for the reasons I’ve outlined those with higher credit ratings. This drives down above, but a lot of property will get destroyed if the wages and makes people dependent on those who still Aynrandians decide to engage in modern total have large amounts of capital to hire them. warfare. Ahh but what about all the middle class Under anarchy, anyone could lend money to people in Ancapistan, won’t they form a militia to anyone, there would be no special thing known as a defend themselves? Well yes, but they won’t form a “bank” per se (or to put it a different way, anyone militia to defend a bunch of billionaires’ property. could put up a shingle that said “bank”). Without The anarcho-capitalists often have a nonsensical legal tender and the ability to create large amounts of rosy picture of the boss-worker relationship that has money out of thin air (the threat of “bank runs” no basis in reality.