I can’t help but wonder lately if this ongoing discussion between left-and non-left libertarians on this topic is not entirely the right one to have and that the two sides are grappling toward conclusions that are somewhat irrelevant to the bigger picture.

To be sure, there are some very obvious, cut-and-dried instances where a net beneficiary of the statist system can be clearly identified (the players in the military-industrial-congressional complex immediately come to mind). But I agree with Stephan that below that obvious level of benefit from statist force and coercion, it all tends to get rather “messy” from the point of view of libertarian ethics. Rather than trying to identify a market actor as either clearly villainous or heroic in these more muddled situations, maybe we should instead keep focusing our efforts (as, of course, many here already make great effort to do in a variety of forums and publications) on educating and persuading people on the destructiveness of statism, which means attempting to convince many of the very people who perceive themselves as somehow benefiting from it, which as far as I can see at this point, is about 95% of the population. They see some “common good” in cannibalizing themselves and one another. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I think they’re all “evil” and “criminal”, though perhaps some of them are. A great many of them are more likely just very, very confused, trying to make their way in a world that initially was not of their making.

In this system, most market actors are likely both “heroes” and “villains” to some degree or other, depending on the context. I would think this implies that one can observe specific instances of state-enforced privileges lobbied by and granted to particular businesses without all sorts of dark and sinister implications that the observer is somehow anti-market in doing so (this in fact would highlight one’s pro-free market cred, I would think). At the same time, another observer can also point out that it’s the rent-seeking and rent-granting apparatus itself that must be abolished instead of particular forms of business, without all sorts of dark and sinister implications that the observer is somehow shilling for the established order.

There’s my two pennies.

This could have something to do with the fact that this “claim”, in your own words is “implicit”. But it has not been made *ex*plicitly, and refuting a claim that has not been made, however much you wish to personally submit that it must follow logically from the originally stated opinions, is called a strawman argument.

You would do far better if you asked Mr. Long whether or not this is what he is claiming, and continue the discussion from there based on his reply.

That seems like a strangely collectivist way to approach the issue. Kevin has made a case against Walmart. Roderick has made a case against Walmart. Others who call themselves left-libertarians have made cases against Walmart, but that doesn’t add up to “the left-libertarian case.” Left-libertarians are not exactly a party-line crowd, as ought to be obvious from the differences between Kevin and Roderick’s work. But even if there was a party-line position on Walmart, it’s pretty likely that it wouldn’t be based on the particular set of property assumptions that, say, Stephan has advanced. It is possible that those assumptions are principled, but they are pretty obviously not the only possible principles. Presumably, “the case” would be “shredded” by some logical contradiction or hypocrisy, but only, I think, given a specific understanding of what is at stake.

“Some people…somewhere condone window breaking” doesn’t change Walmart’s (apparently undisputed) use of governmental means in the marketplace. Nor does it change the terms of the prediction about the viability of big-box chains in anarchy.

If the standards are really lax, perhaps nowhere. If, on the other hand, the problem is not the laxness of the standards but the pervasiveness of the interferences in the market, then where it gets us is somewhere rather far from treating the complicit institutions as anything like saintly.

Government subsidies tend to amplify the market power of certain kinds of businesses, and then that amplified market power produces amplified market feedback. If the only government-created distortion in the market was, say, in transportation and communication infrastructure, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a big deal. But the government has explicit agendas regarding the transformations of markets, which have remained fairly constant across administrations. We’re not just talking about building highways, but about NAFTA Superhighways, and cities and towns transformed into shipping hubs, using tax dollars and eminent domain and federal matching grants for “redevelopment.” There are currently plenty of examples of this sort of development continuing, because the federal money has been pledged, even when it doesn’t make much local economic sense. The more activist government becomes, responding to the problems and failures built into its initial interventions with more interventions, the more the market is skewed, as everyone responds to realities that aren’t really much like market signals anymore. This stuff can build up to perfect storm proportions in small markets. The most authoritarian planned state could hardly match the clumsy conniving of local legislators in a crisis, when it comes to just forcing directions on commerce.

Now, I’m inclined to think that there are retail successes that are much easier to hate than Walmart, and lots of other businesses entities more odious. Walmart just strikes me as a fairly mediocre retail jack-of-all-trades, as much a symptom of a broken retail model as a particular villain. Anti-worker policies are all too common in retail, as is abuse and neglect of small suppliers. Maybe we could all pick on Amazon or eBay, both highly deserving targets, for awhile instead, as our symptoms of government-driven centralization.

Anyway, it’s worth considering the possibility that most of our economic environment is now built on foundations no serious libertarian could feel good about. Is the answer then to shrug, and say “well, what else could we do?” If next to nothing in contemporary society corresponds to the sort of arrangements where individual rights would be clear, then we have bigger problems than a few rocks that might be thrown. Seems like these narrow little pissing matches don’t get us very close to any real solutions.

I’m sorry but this little bit puzzles me. I was under the apparently mistaken assumption that individuals chose to incorporate voluntarily. Further, I assumed that corporate taxes (unlike personal income taxes) are also voluntary, for precisely this reason. These regulations and taxes you claim as being “harmful” are accepted freely by people who are fully informed of their existence before signing the papers and agreeing to incorporate. Why? It would seem to me that they have assessed that the advantages of incorporating far outweigh the disadvantages. (And that is before any additional potential benefit of corporate welfare.)

Interesting, but wouldn’t Rothbardian appropriate compensation theory demand the aggressor repay double the amount stolen? If so, Wal-Mart would probably owe even more to the victim of eminent domain, since the compensation they originally received was probably undervalued, given the nature of the forced transaction.

It’s an incredibly common thing. This is precisely how eminent domain seizures like this work. Do you really think the state goes around stealing land on spec?