Rothbard on Left and Right Libertarianism.

This is a post from Aristotelian Anarchy by Scott F. I have been following his blog and strongly suggest you subscribe here.

“Most libertarians also reject the laissez-fairist position that it is morally imperative to obey all laws, no matter how despotic, as well as the all-too-common laissez-fairist patriotic devotion to the American Constitution and the American State. They have also found current laissez-fairists (though this was not true of the 19th-century brand) to be conspicuously silent in mentioning the heavy responsibility of big business for the growth of statism in 20th-century America; instead, the blame is almost always placed on unions, politicians, and leftish intellectuals.”

(It seems Rothbard noted it as a problem even then.)

“Even at its peak, however, the effectiveness of the Randian movement was severely limited by two important factors:

One was its extreme and fanatical sectarianism; Randians refused to have anything to do with any person or group, no matter how close in outlook, who deviated by so much as an iota from the entire Randian canon – a canon, by the way, that has a rigid “line” on every conceivable question, from aesthetics to tactics. (An odd exception to this sectarianism, by the way, is the Republican Party and the Nixon administration, which includes several highly placed Randians as advisors.) Particularly hated by the Randians is any former colleague who has deviated from the total line; these people are reviled and personally blacklisted by the faithful. Indeed, Rand’s monthly magazine, The Objectivist, is probably the only magazine in the world that consistently cancels the subscription of anyone on their personal blacklist, including any subscribers who send in what they consider to be unworshipful questions.

The second, associated factor is the totalitarian atmosphere, the cultic atmosphere, of the Randian movement. While the official Randian creed stresses the importance of individuality, self-reliance, and independent judgment, the unofficial but crucial axiom for the faithful is that “Ayn Rand is the greatest person who has ever lived” and, as a practical corollary, that “everything Ayn Rand says is right.” With this sort of ruling mentality, it is no wonder that the turnover in the Randian movement has been exceptionally high: attracted by the credo of individualism, an enormous number of young people were either purged or drifted away in disgust.”

“While Rand opposes the war in Vietnam, for example, she does so on purely tactical reasons as a mistake not in our “national interest”; as a result, she is far more passionate in her hostility to the unpatriotic protestors against the war than she is against the war itself. She advocated the firing of Eugene Genovese from Rutgers, on the surprisingly anti-individualist grounds that “no man may support the victory of the enemies of his country.” And even though Rand passionately opposes the draft as slavery, she also believes, with Read and the laissez-fairists, that it is illegitimate to disobey the laws of the American State, no matter how unjust – so long as her freedom to protest the laws remains.”

“Anarchocapitalism, however, also contains within it a large spectrum of differing ideas and attitudes. For one thing, while they have all discarded any traits of devotion to the State and have become anarchists, many of them have retained the simplistic anticommunism, devotion to big business, and even American patriotism of their former creeds. ”

“The factional differences centered on the problems of revolution, relations with the Left, and communalism vs. individualism. For as the RLA youth took the concept of alliance with the New Left to heart, they increasingly and to varying degrees became “leftists,” thus setting up an extreme-left tendency within the anarchocapitalist movement. Leading this tendency was former Goldwater speechwriter Karl Hess, who had been one of the most spectacular converts to right-libertarianism during 1968. Going through a Randian phase – reflected in his famous Playboy article “Death of Politics” in mid-1969 – Hess had passed through the center and on to lead the extreme left by mid-1969.”

“Responsive to the call for alliance with the New Left, the Left tendency began to oppose any criticisms of their newfound allies, leading to an uncritical adulation of the Black Panthers and other groups on the Left, including the anarchocommunists headed by Murray Bookchin. As in the history of many ideological movements, tactics began to merge into principle, so that many of the extreme left began to become anarchosyndicalists or anarchocommunists, or, failing that, to see little or no difference between the various branches of anarchism.”

(this seems somewhat conservative judgement on Rothbard’s part)

“Another split within the libertarian movement centers on “youth culture”: drugs, rock, dress, etc. Almost exclusively, the split is generational, with the over-30s (with the exception of Hess) lined up against the youth culture, and the under-30s (with the exception of dyed-in-the wool Randians) strongly in favor. However, the California youth lead their generation in pushing youth culture as a supposedly mandatory part of the libertarian struggle; a similar but less important split centers on “Women’s Liberation” and “Gay Liberation,” both of which are pushed strongly by the CLA youth. “