Tag Archives | Anarchy

JLS 20.4: What Lies Within?

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Journal of Libertarian Studies The latest issue (20.4) of the Journal of Libertarian Studies features Marcus Verhaegh on Rothbard vs. Rousseau, Philipp Bagus on the history of private dikes and levees, my colleague Michael Watkins on Thomson’s defense of abortion, John Hamilton on pro-capitalist themes in left-wing Italian cinema, J. H. Huebert on Posner’s doomsday scenarios, Ludwig van den Hauwe on Holcombe’s critique of democracy, and Leigh Jenco on freedom and Asian values in Kirby and de Bary.

Read a fuller summary of 20.4’s contents here.

Read summaries of previous issues under my editorship here.

Read back issues online here.

Subscribe here.

In other news, my recent blog post Cleopatra on Mars has been reposted on LRC today with a slightly more prosaic title.


Amazonian Anarchy

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Kevin Carson’s Studies in Mutualist Political Economy is not 700 pages long, I’m happy to say; but it is now at long last available through Amazon.

Angry Amazon While I don’t always agree with all the details of Carson’s updated version of Tuckerite anarchism (the two main points of contention are the labour theory of value and the opposition to absentee land ownership – though given Tucker’s subjectivised spin on the labour theory and his acceptance of competing property regimes under anarchy, these differences are less sharp than they might seem), his book is an absolutely essential text for the cause of left/libertarian reunification, and I’m delighted to see it in a position to reach a wider audience. For more on Carson, see here. (For what it’s worth, I suspect Carson makes the best gateway author for libertarian-curious lefties, and that Konkin and 60s-Rothbard make the best gateway authors for left-curious libertarians; so give your lefty friends Carson first, and then Konkin and 60s-Rothbard, and give your libertarian friends Konkin and 60s-Rothbard first, and then Carson. Maybe – I’m not wedded to this hypothesis.)

Speaking of left/libertarian reunification, Brad Spangler’s website, blog, and Agorism page seem to be back to normal. The Center for a Stateless Society site is only half back (the front page loads but not much else does), but I expect this’ll be corrected shortly.


Left Over

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Chairman Rothbard This is the third 700-ish-page libertarian book I’ve plugged this year: the entire run (1965-1968) of Rothbard’s Left & Right (archived online here), from the height of his New Left period, has just been released in book form by the Mises Institute (making a nice companion piece to the print edition of Libertarian Forum). (Conical hat tip to Jeff Tucker.)

Left & Right is a sacred text for left-libertarian reunificationists today – a second glimpse of the promised land, after forty years in the desert.

Also check out some other recent Mises Institute publications – Frank Chodorov, Albert Jay Nock, Henry Hazlitt, and more!


Transalpine Goodness

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

A most welcome arrival today, from a bookseller in Basel: several volumes (specifically 5-8 and 11-12, from the years 1817-1819 – though I suspect the binding dates from somewhat later), Le Censeur Europeen beautifully preserved and in excellent condition (and cheap enough for me to afford them!), of Le Censeur Européen, pioneering journal of radical liberal “industriels” and founders of libertarian class theory Charles Comte, Charles Dunoyer, and Augustin Thierry (about whom more here). Some of these volumes can be found as PDFs online, at Google Books or Gallica; but not all of them, and not this legibly.

Now I just need to build a shrine for them ….


Happy Molinari-Rothbard Day(s)!

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]

Today is Murray Rothbard’s birthday; and tomorrow, as Dan D’Amico reminds me, is Gustave de Molinari’s. Seems to me this conjunction deserves commemoration, a sort of market anarchists’ equivalent of Presidents’ Day – without Massa George or Emperor Abe. (Murrlinari Day? Perhaps it’s appropriate that it falls roughly between Presidents’ Day and the Ides of March.)

Gustave de Molinari and Murray Rothbard

The parallels between Molinari, “the law of supply and demand made into man,” and Rothbard, “Mr. Libertarian,” are interesting. Both were leading representatives of the major free-market traditions of their day (the French Liberal and the Austrian respectively) who dismayed their mentors by pushing the logic of market principles to the point of replacing the full range of government services entirely. Both were extremely prolific writers who had broad interests in, and made important contributions to, economics, philosophy, history, sociology, and political theory. Both sought to bridge traditional left/right divides. Both were fierce critics of imperialism and war. Both wrote with engaging clarity. Molinari pioneered market anarchism in the 19th century, while Rothbard was its foremost proponent in the 20th.

The differences in their reception are somewhat puzzling: Molinari gained mainstream recognition and respect (while an obscure figure in our day, he was quite celebrated in his own), but won very few converts to his free-market version of anarchism (Benjamin Tucker’s version seems to have been developed independently); Rothbard gained relatively little mainstream recognition or respect – but many more converts. Go figure.

Anyway – happy birthday, Gustave and Murray!


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