I always begin your substacks very intimidated (as I am of the commoner class :)) but as I dig in to your work, I find it so illuminating and ordering of national and global events. I hope your work gets a wide broadcast.
I am concerned about the shattered communities - there is also managerial class that controls local levels and it is a strong sycophant of the national/global managerial class and elites. Seems like a very hard lift for these communities to influence change on the local level.
Good content, and quite thought provoking. At times the article is a bit hard to read. I found your distinctions to be the most valuable part and would like to see them in a list without linking them to citations. They are valuable enough to stand on their own.
One comment on Hayek: the chapter on the Rule of Law is where I see the parallel with Schmitt. For me, I'd describe it as Common Sense and not necessarily Common Law.
Thanks, Barry. At this point, I'm still very much immersed in digging through the theoretical insights from Schmitt for the current situation. But I take your point that some kind of easy to follow summary would be valuable once it's all out on the table, so to speak.
The gradual emergence of legitimate law over centuries of community experience has a name. It's called "tradition." English Common Law is but one example.
Well, tradition-ish. Certainly Common law can be considered a tradition within the English context. Schmitt's recovery of European jurisprudence though is more focused on how discrete national traditions differently absorb Roman law, thereby influencing the specific absorption by other national traditions. So it's more of an inter-traditional dynamic than tradition sensu stricto. But if your point was that I wasn't explicitly addressing the question of tradition, true enough. But stay tuned. ;-)
Doesn't Hoppe write on this? Voluntary society is necessarily right-wing because of innate differences that result in hierarchies as emergent phenomenon? Maybe if we didn't have mass forced schooling we could try to flesh out exactly how voluntary hierarchy functions. Why and how such relationships within a community or society at large can be mutually advantageous. The narrative that all hierarchy is oppressive and must be abolished is a lie that is toxic to the organic development of stable, peaceful communities founded on voluntarism/NAP. Or perhaps I'm just a libertarian ideologue :)
Libertarians, it seems to me, tend to assume that hierarchies will be meritocracies. And that is usually premised on the assumption of the abstract, monadic individual. I don't expect you'd disagree that that isn't how it usually works out in real life. Even hardcore managerial class types -- with their ostensible commitment to the market place of ideas -- make every effort to ensure that their offspring gain extra-merit advantages in educational and apprenticeship contexts. While some libertarians like to herald the virtue of equality of opportunity over equality of outcome, in reality, there never could be any equality of opportunity without equality of outcome in the prior generation. And even that is ignoring genetic and phenotypic differences. So generally you're not going to get some kind of fair or just hierarchy generated out of an imaginary market place of virtues or abilities. (Leaving aside inevitable disputes about the very meaning of fair or just.)
And, more to the point of the post here, the other complication for libertarian individualism is the tendency to overlook obligations. The only obligations libertarians tend to acknowledge are negative ones: obligations to leave others alone. However, organic communities, that root non-abstract, non-monadic individuals, demand positive obligations. One has obligations to one's community, whether that appeals to one's personal preferences or not. Libertarians tend to want to simply wipe-away tradition as the repository of human cross-generational learning manifest in organic communities. This is the cost of the hyper-individualism that imbues many libertarians -- notably those in Mises Institute mold. And of course it is that same hyper-individualism that leads us to our current social malaise in which the self has become conceived as a canvas of autogenous creation. The gender-fluidity and trans-assertive ethos are the natural outcome of such an abstract, monadic, autogenous individualism, severed from the bonds of organic community. Humans are and always have been deeply social animals; it hardly should be surprising that sacrificing those bonds in the name of a deracinated, self-actualizing libertarian individualism has occasioned wide-spread mental illness.
Though, actually, I do think that Hoppe can be read as providing a bridge away from this hyper-individualism. Though I'm not clear to what extent he is comfortable being read that way. Anyway. These are just some disorganized thoughts that may help clarify pertinent questions going forward in the discussion. As always, thanks for your contribution.
Perhaps I've just been imposing my own assumptions on libertarianism for the last couple decades. You really think people like Lew Rockwell, Jeff Deist, and Tom Woods advocate for a "deracinated, self-actualizing libertarian individualism"? I won't speak for them, but I know that I understand community to be absolutely critical, along with all of the commitments and responsibility it entails. The only consistent message that I detect coming from the Mises Institute is that the state shouldn't be the source of this community, rather, community is a bulwark against the state. I can't imagine Hoppe wouldn't agree entirely, but who knows. Maybe he'll stop by, I would hope that he would find your work valuable and of interest.
You observations about equality of opportunity are astute as always. I've long recognized this and been critical of those who advocate for such. The only thing we should be striving for in America is equality of treatment under the law, which will ever be out of reach, but at least a noble objective as opposed to a toxic undermining of the American Dream (just like ability is innate, opportunity is innate, and this notion always recognized the limitations imposed by innate differences).
The way you describe libertarians is somewhat alien to me, but then again, I don't hang out with a lot of libertarians. I saw that the Mises Caucus took over the party and that made me think the matter was settled, but I have noticed that the libertine wing has an outsized influence. What the hell am I supposed to call myself if I agree with everything you said here regarding the critical importance of community, but adamantly maintain that the state can't be involved in any way to promote or infringe on the organic development of such natural webs of hierarchy and bonds of commitment?
Grant, to word it "advocate for" deracinated individualism suggests that that was their intended end. I'm not saying that. On the contrary, particularly those rooted in a religious tradition, like Tom Woods, would undoubtedly bristle at the suggestion. What I am claiming is that that is the inevitable outcome of a political philosophy that holds as its highest, sacrosanct axioms negative rights and obligations. Investing the entire measure of virtue into the individual by necessity delegitimizes communal bonds and obligations. Demanding (even coercively: ostracism would be a form of coercion, correct?) that all members provide something like "community service," even without remuneration, even at their own expense, could well be central to maintaining a community materially and/or psychologically. Through the libertarian lens, would that be anything short of slavery?
It's been many years since I've circulated in Mises Institute circles (and, parenthetically, why don't they quit the nonsense and just change the name to the Rothbard Institute? All the radical anti-statism seems to be a dishonoring of Mises' legacy.) But the only one member of that circle I've ever heard pro-actively promote consideration of community over individual rights was Hoppe with his notion of a right of removal. (Which, incidentally, is pretty much a right that the Athenians exercised against Socrates, and I would definitely be on the side of the Athenians in that one.) However, given his libertarian bias, Hoppe imagines such a community as a covenant between property owners.
Privileging such a covenant, a rationally derived set of mutual contracts, inevitably entails the delegitimizing (in some cases, ultimately criminalizing) of those organic community bonds which were never created out of rational decisions, but out of the concrete order evolved from generations of social trial and error -- much of it actually unconscious. Such libertarianism is Rousseauian social contractism on steroids. But, again, the archeological, anthropological, ethological, evidence indicates that humans not only are, but always have been, thoroughly social animals. Imagining that we could engineer a better society, founded upon individual preference-based rational contract, wiping out traditional organic bonds and norms, is just another version of managerial class vanity.
And to cut off at the pass potential objections: obviously I'm not saying any communal infringement upon the individual is universally justified. That's why I'd always argue for a right of exit. And, frankly, likely most organic communities would happily exercise ostracism against communal misfits -- as the Athenians offered to Socrates. Leaving a community to exercise its traditions and obligations, when those come in conflict with personal preferences -- whether voluntary or not -- seems to me like the right balance between community tradition and individual freedom.
Anyway, don't misunderstand me: I'm not trying to change your mind; I know too much about evolved human psychology to undertake that mission. I'm merely explaining my own perspective. And, as it happens, the next post will be elaborating on the foundational importance of organic community. ;-)
You're convincing me that some of my biases might have led me to assume inaccurately that most libertarians see things the way I do. I've always implicitly understood that there is a more fluid relationship between individual rights and social responsibility, especially within a family. Since these relationships are complex, I haven't focused on them other than to acknowledge the state is incapable of promoting the kind of social cohesion that is the foundation of a healthy society at that level. That's what federalism is for, to allow for a multitude of cultures that map appropriately to whatever geography, demographics etc. to flourish independently with perhaps wildly different customs and values as long as it all falls under the wide umbrella of Americanism. I think it is difficult to talk about what is optimal at that micro-level because it will necessarily be highly variable. So I haven't given it much consideration and I figured this was kind of understood by all freedom loving people. If your position is that the PCBM traits associated with libertarianism tend to promote deracinated individualism socially, I can appreciate that. I think expecting the state to provide a social safety net and egalitarianism correspond with PCBM traits that drive towards such an outcome with considerably greater speed, but I appreciate how important it is to consider the ultimate consequences of our dispositions. Don't misunderstand me, I want you to change my mind. While there are typically insurmountable barriers to such a thing, I don't think most of them are present in this circumstance. From my perspective this is very much a student-professor relationship and I appreciate you taking the time to break things down for me so that I may piggyback off of your considerable erudition. Looking forward to the next post!
In an exchange with Harrison I realized that I have a response to this: "What I am claiming is that that is the inevitable outcome of a political philosophy that holds as its highest, sacrosanct axioms negative rights and obligations." that is a little more fleshed out. Summary in one sentence: The state is to enforce negative rights, culture is to promote positive rights. If you ever find the time, I'd love to get your feedback: https://radicalamerican.substack.com/p/what-the-freedom
I always begin your substacks very intimidated (as I am of the commoner class :)) but as I dig in to your work, I find it so illuminating and ordering of national and global events. I hope your work gets a wide broadcast.
I am concerned about the shattered communities - there is also managerial class that controls local levels and it is a strong sycophant of the national/global managerial class and elites. Seems like a very hard lift for these communities to influence change on the local level.
Good content, and quite thought provoking. At times the article is a bit hard to read. I found your distinctions to be the most valuable part and would like to see them in a list without linking them to citations. They are valuable enough to stand on their own.
One comment on Hayek: the chapter on the Rule of Law is where I see the parallel with Schmitt. For me, I'd describe it as Common Sense and not necessarily Common Law.
Thanks, Barry. At this point, I'm still very much immersed in digging through the theoretical insights from Schmitt for the current situation. But I take your point that some kind of easy to follow summary would be valuable once it's all out on the table, so to speak.
I'm catching up, reading some back posts. One more suggestion for folks like me: cross link your citations to the locations in the text.
I can certainly see the value of that...If I had any idea how to do it. :-(
Anybody that can write what you write can find a way.
The gradual emergence of legitimate law over centuries of community experience has a name. It's called "tradition." English Common Law is but one example.
Well, tradition-ish. Certainly Common law can be considered a tradition within the English context. Schmitt's recovery of European jurisprudence though is more focused on how discrete national traditions differently absorb Roman law, thereby influencing the specific absorption by other national traditions. So it's more of an inter-traditional dynamic than tradition sensu stricto. But if your point was that I wasn't explicitly addressing the question of tradition, true enough. But stay tuned. ;-)
Doesn't Hoppe write on this? Voluntary society is necessarily right-wing because of innate differences that result in hierarchies as emergent phenomenon? Maybe if we didn't have mass forced schooling we could try to flesh out exactly how voluntary hierarchy functions. Why and how such relationships within a community or society at large can be mutually advantageous. The narrative that all hierarchy is oppressive and must be abolished is a lie that is toxic to the organic development of stable, peaceful communities founded on voluntarism/NAP. Or perhaps I'm just a libertarian ideologue :)
Grant, we're all ideologues to some degree.
Libertarians, it seems to me, tend to assume that hierarchies will be meritocracies. And that is usually premised on the assumption of the abstract, monadic individual. I don't expect you'd disagree that that isn't how it usually works out in real life. Even hardcore managerial class types -- with their ostensible commitment to the market place of ideas -- make every effort to ensure that their offspring gain extra-merit advantages in educational and apprenticeship contexts. While some libertarians like to herald the virtue of equality of opportunity over equality of outcome, in reality, there never could be any equality of opportunity without equality of outcome in the prior generation. And even that is ignoring genetic and phenotypic differences. So generally you're not going to get some kind of fair or just hierarchy generated out of an imaginary market place of virtues or abilities. (Leaving aside inevitable disputes about the very meaning of fair or just.)
And, more to the point of the post here, the other complication for libertarian individualism is the tendency to overlook obligations. The only obligations libertarians tend to acknowledge are negative ones: obligations to leave others alone. However, organic communities, that root non-abstract, non-monadic individuals, demand positive obligations. One has obligations to one's community, whether that appeals to one's personal preferences or not. Libertarians tend to want to simply wipe-away tradition as the repository of human cross-generational learning manifest in organic communities. This is the cost of the hyper-individualism that imbues many libertarians -- notably those in Mises Institute mold. And of course it is that same hyper-individualism that leads us to our current social malaise in which the self has become conceived as a canvas of autogenous creation. The gender-fluidity and trans-assertive ethos are the natural outcome of such an abstract, monadic, autogenous individualism, severed from the bonds of organic community. Humans are and always have been deeply social animals; it hardly should be surprising that sacrificing those bonds in the name of a deracinated, self-actualizing libertarian individualism has occasioned wide-spread mental illness.
Though, actually, I do think that Hoppe can be read as providing a bridge away from this hyper-individualism. Though I'm not clear to what extent he is comfortable being read that way. Anyway. These are just some disorganized thoughts that may help clarify pertinent questions going forward in the discussion. As always, thanks for your contribution.
Perhaps I've just been imposing my own assumptions on libertarianism for the last couple decades. You really think people like Lew Rockwell, Jeff Deist, and Tom Woods advocate for a "deracinated, self-actualizing libertarian individualism"? I won't speak for them, but I know that I understand community to be absolutely critical, along with all of the commitments and responsibility it entails. The only consistent message that I detect coming from the Mises Institute is that the state shouldn't be the source of this community, rather, community is a bulwark against the state. I can't imagine Hoppe wouldn't agree entirely, but who knows. Maybe he'll stop by, I would hope that he would find your work valuable and of interest.
You observations about equality of opportunity are astute as always. I've long recognized this and been critical of those who advocate for such. The only thing we should be striving for in America is equality of treatment under the law, which will ever be out of reach, but at least a noble objective as opposed to a toxic undermining of the American Dream (just like ability is innate, opportunity is innate, and this notion always recognized the limitations imposed by innate differences).
The way you describe libertarians is somewhat alien to me, but then again, I don't hang out with a lot of libertarians. I saw that the Mises Caucus took over the party and that made me think the matter was settled, but I have noticed that the libertine wing has an outsized influence. What the hell am I supposed to call myself if I agree with everything you said here regarding the critical importance of community, but adamantly maintain that the state can't be involved in any way to promote or infringe on the organic development of such natural webs of hierarchy and bonds of commitment?
Grant, to word it "advocate for" deracinated individualism suggests that that was their intended end. I'm not saying that. On the contrary, particularly those rooted in a religious tradition, like Tom Woods, would undoubtedly bristle at the suggestion. What I am claiming is that that is the inevitable outcome of a political philosophy that holds as its highest, sacrosanct axioms negative rights and obligations. Investing the entire measure of virtue into the individual by necessity delegitimizes communal bonds and obligations. Demanding (even coercively: ostracism would be a form of coercion, correct?) that all members provide something like "community service," even without remuneration, even at their own expense, could well be central to maintaining a community materially and/or psychologically. Through the libertarian lens, would that be anything short of slavery?
It's been many years since I've circulated in Mises Institute circles (and, parenthetically, why don't they quit the nonsense and just change the name to the Rothbard Institute? All the radical anti-statism seems to be a dishonoring of Mises' legacy.) But the only one member of that circle I've ever heard pro-actively promote consideration of community over individual rights was Hoppe with his notion of a right of removal. (Which, incidentally, is pretty much a right that the Athenians exercised against Socrates, and I would definitely be on the side of the Athenians in that one.) However, given his libertarian bias, Hoppe imagines such a community as a covenant between property owners.
Privileging such a covenant, a rationally derived set of mutual contracts, inevitably entails the delegitimizing (in some cases, ultimately criminalizing) of those organic community bonds which were never created out of rational decisions, but out of the concrete order evolved from generations of social trial and error -- much of it actually unconscious. Such libertarianism is Rousseauian social contractism on steroids. But, again, the archeological, anthropological, ethological, evidence indicates that humans not only are, but always have been, thoroughly social animals. Imagining that we could engineer a better society, founded upon individual preference-based rational contract, wiping out traditional organic bonds and norms, is just another version of managerial class vanity.
And to cut off at the pass potential objections: obviously I'm not saying any communal infringement upon the individual is universally justified. That's why I'd always argue for a right of exit. And, frankly, likely most organic communities would happily exercise ostracism against communal misfits -- as the Athenians offered to Socrates. Leaving a community to exercise its traditions and obligations, when those come in conflict with personal preferences -- whether voluntary or not -- seems to me like the right balance between community tradition and individual freedom.
Anyway, don't misunderstand me: I'm not trying to change your mind; I know too much about evolved human psychology to undertake that mission. I'm merely explaining my own perspective. And, as it happens, the next post will be elaborating on the foundational importance of organic community. ;-)
You're convincing me that some of my biases might have led me to assume inaccurately that most libertarians see things the way I do. I've always implicitly understood that there is a more fluid relationship between individual rights and social responsibility, especially within a family. Since these relationships are complex, I haven't focused on them other than to acknowledge the state is incapable of promoting the kind of social cohesion that is the foundation of a healthy society at that level. That's what federalism is for, to allow for a multitude of cultures that map appropriately to whatever geography, demographics etc. to flourish independently with perhaps wildly different customs and values as long as it all falls under the wide umbrella of Americanism. I think it is difficult to talk about what is optimal at that micro-level because it will necessarily be highly variable. So I haven't given it much consideration and I figured this was kind of understood by all freedom loving people. If your position is that the PCBM traits associated with libertarianism tend to promote deracinated individualism socially, I can appreciate that. I think expecting the state to provide a social safety net and egalitarianism correspond with PCBM traits that drive towards such an outcome with considerably greater speed, but I appreciate how important it is to consider the ultimate consequences of our dispositions. Don't misunderstand me, I want you to change my mind. While there are typically insurmountable barriers to such a thing, I don't think most of them are present in this circumstance. From my perspective this is very much a student-professor relationship and I appreciate you taking the time to break things down for me so that I may piggyback off of your considerable erudition. Looking forward to the next post!
Much too kind, Grant. As always, though, I'm happy when anyone finds value from taking the time to read anything I've written.
I don't believe anyone really changes anyone else's mind. But that's a whole other discussion. Maybe for somewhere down the road. ;-)
In an exchange with Harrison I realized that I have a response to this: "What I am claiming is that that is the inevitable outcome of a political philosophy that holds as its highest, sacrosanct axioms negative rights and obligations." that is a little more fleshed out. Summary in one sentence: The state is to enforce negative rights, culture is to promote positive rights. If you ever find the time, I'd love to get your feedback: https://radicalamerican.substack.com/p/what-the-freedom