“Atheistic Taliban”
That’s Jerome Tuccille’s description of the followers of Ayn Rand, in this Reason TV video. He has harsh words for Murray Rothbard, too. I don’t agree with him on either score, actually, but here’s the clip:
Tuccille is getting modal in his old age, but his youthful memoir, It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand, is still a classic.
A few thoughts on Tuccille’s complaints against Rothbard: although you could conceivably have several kinds of legal systems develop in a free market for justice, I think a functioning Rothbardian system would include a “loser pays” rule that would mitigate Donald Trump’s advantage in lawsuits. High-power legal firms could offer to represent a plaintiff in a suit against Trump in the hope of getting a big payout if they win the case. The willingness of such a firm to take on the suit would, of course, depend on how strong they thought they suit was. There is a natural balance here: where Trump is plainly guilty or probably guilty of a violation, a firm would be eager to take the plaintiff’s case. Where the suit was frivolous or weak, they would be much less inclined to accept it. Trump would enjoy fewer advantages against poor plaintiffs in this system than he does under the current system — surely Tuccille is well aware that the rich already enjoy the kind of advantages he says they would have under Rothbardian justice.
These matters can’t really be discussed in brief, and I don’t have time to write up a full-scale defense of Rothbardian justice. So, for the time being, I’ll leave my remarks about the judicial system at that. As for “libertarian slavery,” this is a question on which Rothbardians differ, but again keep the parallels to the status quo in mind. Is it really worse to insist that a thief work to pay for his crime (he need not be a “slave” — garnishing his wages may be sufficient) than to throw him into prison for years, where instead of providing restitution to his victim the thief instead becomes a burden upon taxpayers? That’s a poor system for criminal and victim alike. White collar criminals who commit fraud presently go to jail; would it be better or worse if they had to provide restitution for their actions? Or does Tuccille propose something else entirely? And just as there are (officially) no debtors’ prisons today, why assume that debtors will be subjected to harsher penalties in a Rothbardian world? I suppose the claim might be made that we have benevolent government to thank for the abolition of debtors’ prisons, and that without such state benevolence we would go straight back to savagery. I don’t believe it.
Update: David Gordon takes down Tuccille here.
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July 7th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
As usual I think the complaints against Rothbard are misguided. most of the potshots taken against anarcho-capitalism can be deflected by a simple comparison to the status quo, which you did.
However, I don’t know enough about Rothbard to know what a Rothbardian legal system is. What I can say is that the current system has all manner of inefficiencies and petty (and not so petty) injustices. However, I don’t see much point in thinking, talking, or acting to improve upon it in the political sphere. Better to identify the root causes of why libertarian has never been attempted, than try and fix those root causes (the root cause I believe happens to be that the bulk of mankind possesses low cognitive and emotional intelligence and once this is lifted than more of mankind will become inclined toward libertarianism - one reason being that natural biological inequalities will be less of an issue when we can choose our own biological capacities).
July 8th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Libertarianism has never been attempted because the total rejection of the “commons” is something the overwhelming majority of human kind finds dangerous, bizarre and immoral. As someone who believes strongly in private property and secession, arguably the two most important aspects of Rothbardian theory, I myself can not imagine what a totally “private” society would look like.
As for the legal/justice system and libertarian values, it seems to me the first step should be to decentralize power greatly. David Friedman and others have done valuable work on what a utopian anarcho-capitalist system of jurisprudence might look like, and that has its place, but it has no relevance in the here and now. For the time being efforts should be spent trying to curtail federal law enforcement and the militarization of local police forces.
A sensible goal on the municipal level would be the election of police officers by the citizens they patrol. While this concept may be unfavorable to those who fear the infamous “rabble”, it is a populist concept, rooted in conservatism and yes libertarianism. I eventually plan to write at length on this subject, but for the time being it is worth noting that such a proposal would likely lead to a drastic reduction in things like asset forfeiture, and incarceration of non-violent “criminals”. It would also put a stake in the heart of the cash cow that is traffic law, which would essentially be a tax cut, that would slash the jugular of local and state government waste (if you really want to make yourself ill, look at the highway funding and infrastructure costs at the state level sometime. It’s unreal).
The long term goal, might be a Rothbardian system, or it might be a return to citizen militias (something advocated by Alexander Cockburn in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy). Regardless it would be a valuable step in restoring trust within communities, which ultimately is the bedrock of society and law.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:26 am
There are libertarians who have conceived of how it would be possible, even desirable, to have public property even in the most libertarian of worlds. Roderick Long, for instance, has written on that theme here, http://libertariannation.org/a/f53l1.html
I’m not confident that electing police officers would change anything for the better. The record of elected officials of all levels, from sheriff all the way to president, gives little cause for hope. But it’s worth thinking about, at least.
My guess is that libertarianism has not been tried in any systematic fashion not because people are so attached to commons — the attachment is real, but probably not a strong motivation — but because those who have the resources to practice a thoroughgoing libertarianism benefit too much from present arrangements to want to change (or to feel any pressing need to change), while those who might have more desire for a change don’t have the resources to do much of anything.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Dan,
Thanks for the link. I think we are both right actually.
When I talk to people about libertarianism, inevitably the first thing that comes up once we get past the preliminaries is fear of a totally privatized society. I myself share that fear, but in a decentralized world, I think the dangers of such an arrangement would be drastically reduced. Regardless, it comes up often.
On the other hand, you are right about the relationship between those with the means to “practice thoroughgoing libertarianism” being unwilling to stress it. In large part these reasons are economic, which is why Rothbard’s “populist” libertarianism is the only strategic model that I think can get us anywhere.
Dylan