Here at last (in PDF format – HTML versions to follow in futuro) are two broadly left-libertarian articles I wrote in the 90s that I’ve been promising for some time to post here. (The second one is broken into two parts because I can’t upload files greater than 5 MB.)
1. Immanent Liberalism: The Politics of Mutual Consent
2. Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class, Parts One and Two
[Originally published in Social Philosophy & Policy 12.2 (Summer 1995) and 15.1 (Summer 1998), respectively; © 1995 and 1998, Social Philosophy & Policy Foundation; posted by permission of the Foundation.]
The first article critiques mainstream liberalism for privileging indirect and hypothetical forms of consent over direct, actual consent; the second explores the relation between big government and big business and argues that the malign power of the latter depends mostly though not entirely on that of the former. Both articles attempt to overcome the dichotomy between “capitalist” and “socialist” versions of antistatist radicalism.
I’m more pleased than not with the results of yesterday’s election (meaning pleased that Obama won out over McCain, not pleased that we got ourselves yet another president). Sure, Obama is a corporate liberal whose policies are not really any less fascistic or imperialistic than McCain’s, but a) he at least seems less trigger-happy than McCain; b) culturally, his election is a satisfying slap in the face to racism and parochialism (it’s great to see a black person at last in the nation’s highest-profile and most influential job – I just wish the nation’s highest-profile and most influential job weren’t the goddamn presidency); and c) hell, if I have to listen to some guy’s speeches for the next four to eight years, just from an aesthetic standpoint it’ll be a relief to have them coming from someone who’s charismatic and articulate rather than from an irritating doofus. (Mind you, the argument could be made that from an anarchist standpoint it’s better to have an irritating doofus in the White House rather than someone charismatic and articulate – but I’m skeptical; we’ve had plenty of irritating doofuses in the White House over the last two centuries without any noticeable positive effect.)
The glare cut a moment’s wedge across his eyes, which had the color and quality of pale blue ice – then across the black web of the metal column and the ash-blond strands of his hair – then across the belt of his trenchcoat and the pockets where he held his hands. His body was tall and gaunt; he had always been too tall for those around him. His face was cut by prominent cheekbones and by a few sharp lines; they were not the lines of age, he had always had them: this had made him look old at twenty, and young now, at forty-five. Ever since he could remember, he had been told that his face was ugly, because it was unyielding, and cruel, because it was expressionless. It remained expressionless now, as he looked at the metal. He was Hank Rearden.