An Austro-Libertarian View, Vol. II An Austro-Libertarian View ESSAYS BY DAVID GORDON VOLUME II POLITICAL THEORY Mises Institute 518 West Magnolia Avenue Auburn, Alabama 36832-4501 334.321.2100 www.mises.org An Austro-Libertarian View: Essays by David Gordon. Vol. II: Political Theory. Published 2017 by the Mises Institute. This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non- Commerical-NoDerivs 4.0 International License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/4.0/. ISBN: 978-1-61016-672-0 Table of Contents by Chapter Titles Preface . xi Foreword . 1 Political Theory Simple Rules for a Complex World . 5 Classical Liberalism: The Unvanquished Ideal . 11 Hayek and After: Hayekian Liberalism as a Research Programme . 17 Marx, Hayek, and Utopia . 23 Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence . 29 Passions and Constraint . 33 Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality . 39 The Ethics of Liberty . 43 Murray N. Rothbard e L’anarco-Capitalismo Americano . 49 The Quest for Cosmic Justice . 55 The Rise and Decline of the State . 61 If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? . 67 The Law of Peoples . 73 Social Welfare and Individual Responsibility . 77 Equality in Liberty and Justice . 83 Justice As Fairness: A Restatement . 89 Democracy: The God That Failed . 95 “Jaffa on Equality, Democracy, Morality” . 101 The Ideal of Equality . 147 The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice . 153 Launching Liberalism: On Lockean Political Philosophy . 159 The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum . 165 VI • AN AUSTRO-LIBERTARIAN VIEW, VOL. 2 Justice, Luck, and Knowledge . 171 On Nozick . 177 The Case Against the Democratic State: An Essay in Cultural Criticism . 183 Libertarianism without Inequality . 189 Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis . 195 Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life . 201 Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices . 207 In Defence of the Realm: The Place of Nations in Classical Liberalism . 213 Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism . 219 The Virtue of War: Reclaiming the Classical Christian Traditions East and West & Christianity and War and Other Essays against the Warfare State . 223 Right, Nature and Reason: Unpublished Writings against Hayek, Mises, Strauss and Polanyi . 229 Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics . 235 The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America . 243 Elements of Justice . 249 Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership . 255 The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (Second Edition) ............................... 263 Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation & Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem . 271 Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics . 279 The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions & “Preventive War and the Killing of the Innocent” .............. 285 The Rise and Fall of Society . 289 Morality and Political Violence . 295 Sovereignty: God, State, and Self . 303 Rescuing Justice and Equality . 309 Deleting the State: An Argument about Government . 323 Killing in War . 329 Why Not Socialism? . 335 Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? . 341 Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea . 347 The Conscience of an Anarchist: Why It’s Time to Say Good-Bye to the State and Build a Free Society . 353 Free Market Fairness . 357 What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets . 365 Table of Contents by Chapter Titles • VII Robert Nozick . 373 Why Tolerate Religion? . 379 A Libertarian Critique of Intellectual Property . 385 The New Libertarianism: Anarcho-Capitalism . 389 Against the State: An Anarcho-Capitalist Manifesto . 395 Endnotes . 399 Index . 413 Table of Contents by Review Titles A Libertarian’s Plea . 5 Liberalism Made Right . 11 The Hayekian Cul-de-sac . 17 All in the Family? . 23 With Charity Toward Too Many . 29 More Liberal than Thou . 33 A Reluctant Marxist . 39 Private Property’s Philosopher . 43 Rothbard’s Intellectual Power . 49 Wrestling Reality from Rawls . 55 Deliverance . 61 The Mythologies of Marxism . 67 Rawls Unravels Himself . 73 Welfare State: Pro and Con . 77 One Flew over Equality . 83 Rawls’s Ballet . 89 No Safety in Numbers . 95 Don’t Dream the Impossible . 147 Property: Convention or Right? . 153 The Secret Locke . 159 Can Liberty Limit War? . 165 The Politics of Good Fortune . 171 Freedom or Slavery . 177 The Trouble with Democracy . 183 Is Inequality Indefensible? . 189 • IX X • AN AUSTRO-LIBERTARIAN VIEW, VOL. 2 Insurance Fraud . 195 The Morals of Nations . 201 Szasz on the Liberal Tradition . 207 Liberty and (Rightly Understood) Nationalism . 213 Liberty But Not Yet . 219 Thou Shalt Kill, or Not? . 223 Rothbard vs . Everyone . 229 The Trouble with Sandelism . 235 Objectivism, Hitler, and Kant . 243 The Myth of Redistributive Justice . 249 The Welfare Mind Gone Mad . 255 The Hoppeian Way . 263 What did Leo Strauss Believe About Politics? . 271 The Case for a Robust Ethics of Freedom . 279 There is No Justice in Preventive War . 285 The State is a Predator . 289 When Is Violence Justified? . 295 Medieval Theology and the Modern State . 303 Contra Rawls—From the Left . 309 Game Theory Versus the State . 323 The Liability of Soldiers in Combat . 329 A Camper's Guide to Equality . 335 Unprincipled "Justice" . 341 The Philosophical Origins of Neoconservatism . 347 Making Anarchy Believable . 353 A Libertarian Rawls? . 357 Another Case of the Anticapitalistic Mentality . 365 Guide to a Great Philosopher . 373 Freedom of Conscience: To What Extent? . 379 Scarcity, Monopoly, and Intellectual Property . 385 Anarcho-Capitalists Against Ayn Rand . 389 Limited Government Is a Vain Hope . 395 Preface alph Raico, the great European historian who passed away this year, once said: “Who needs the Library of Congress when you Rhave David Gordon?” As the founder of the Mises Institute, I’ve had the good fortune to meet quite a few extraordinary minds over the course of many years . Yet David Gordon is unique . In fact, I’d go so far as to say that one of the great plea- sures of my life with the Institute these past 35 years has been the oppor- tunity to give David a platform and an outlet for his considerable (and important) output . It’s not simply that the depth and breadth of David’s knowledge are so astonishing, though indeed they are: David is profoundly learned in history, economics, philosophy, and related fields, and can effortlessly summarize the scholarly literature on even the most abstruse debates within obscure cor- ners of numerous disciplines . It’s also that his mind seems capable of feats that are denied to the rest of us . After speaking about Ludwig von Mises’s discussion of Rome inHuman Action at our annual Mises University summer instructional event in July, David (who always lectures without notes) casually added, “If you have the scholar’s edition, it’s around page 762 ”. That’s typical David . You can imagine what his book reviews are like . His vast knowledge equips him to ferret out errors big and small . His agile mind detects weaknesses and fallacies that escape other reviewers . Even books David likes rarely escape with- out the exposure of a minor error or two . Of course, a good review from David is especially meaningful: if someone of David’s learning and intellect thinks you’ve made a valuable contribution, you surely have . • XI XII • AN AUSTRO-LIBERTARIAN VIEW, VOL. 2 Who even knows how many book manuscripts David has received over the years, from authors hoping he might discover their errors before the book review stage? And David, as a kind and generous a scholar as anyone could ask for, has in so many cases gladly obliged . So you can see why David’s book reviews are worth collecting, studying, and cherishing, and therefore why we chose to highlight them in this form . In fact, all the way back in 1979, Murray N . Rothbard was already marvel- ing at David’s extraordinary intellect, the likes of which he had never before encountered: I have been in the scholarly world for a long time, and it is my considered opinion that you are a universal genius unequalled in my experience . The only flaw in your makeup is that you don’t seem to have the slightest idea of what a genius you are . The fact that your talents have so far gone unrecognized and un- tapped is a horrible waste and injustice, and Ron Hamowy and I are embarking on a personal crusade to do something about it . With that endorsement, you have a taste of the treat that awaits you in the pages that follow . Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Auburn, Alabama July 2017 Foreword hortly after Murray Rothbard’s lamented death in Janu- ary, 1995, Lew Rockwell telephoned me . He.