On Medium: Murray Rothbard’s Incoherent Libertarian Screed
Read on about humanism, the egalitarian’s revolt against nature, and how conservative libertarians like Murray Rothbard have lost the plot of civilization.
Rothbard's polemic against egalitarianism is certainly a strawman argument, as you pointed out, but I think he might have been onto something when he described egalitarians as rebels "against the ontological structure of reality itself" in their desire to "bring that universe crashing around all of our ears" (what histrionic heights of prosetry he's achieved here!). There is definitely something gnostic at the core of liberal thought. And while I don't believe that most liberals really want to end the cosmos, they'd consider it an acceptable risk in their work of redeeming it. Indeed, I am reminded of the words of another modern day gnostic -- though of a decidedly different political persuasion:
"If my comrades are not destined to rule the world, then away with it! A shower of atom bombs upon it and in place of its meaningsless chatter about 'love' and 'peace' the voice of the howling wind over its ruins."
The silver lining I see in the triumph of neo-liberalism and the reactionary rise of right wing authoritarianism across the globe is that "libertarians" of Rothbard's stripe (though, sadly, not Rothbard himself) may very well live just long enough to see the Darwinian society they've longed for and fought for all these decades. Sometimes the universe does respond to our wishes -- in the way of a cursed monkey's paw.
I agree that liberalism is based on a revolt against nature. That's a theme in my writing. My objection is that Rothbard sneers at this revolt, strawmanning it by associating it with socialism rather than with civilization in general.
Rothbard's polemic against egalitarianism is certainly a strawman argument, as you pointed out, but I think he might have been onto something when he described egalitarians as rebels "against the ontological structure of reality itself" in their desire to "bring that universe crashing around all of our ears" (what histrionic heights of prosetry he's achieved here!). There is definitely something gnostic at the core of liberal thought. And while I don't believe that most liberals really want to end the cosmos, they'd consider it an acceptable risk in their work of redeeming it. Indeed, I am reminded of the words of another modern day gnostic -- though of a decidedly different political persuasion:
ReplyDelete"If my comrades are not destined to rule the world, then away with it! A shower of atom bombs upon it and in place of its meaningsless chatter about 'love' and 'peace' the voice of the howling wind over its ruins."
The silver lining I see in the triumph of neo-liberalism and the reactionary rise of right wing authoritarianism across the globe is that "libertarians" of Rothbard's stripe (though, sadly, not Rothbard himself) may very well live just long enough to see the Darwinian society they've longed for and fought for all these decades. Sometimes the universe does respond to our wishes -- in the way of a cursed monkey's paw.
I agree that liberalism is based on a revolt against nature. That's a theme in my writing. My objection is that Rothbard sneers at this revolt, strawmanning it by associating it with socialism rather than with civilization in general.
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