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Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism

To dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or governmental system in the economic system by reducing, simplifying, decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of this great machine, which is called the Government or the State. --Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution

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Saturday, August 20, 2005

Blogosphere of the Libertarian Left

If you look in the left column, you should see a new box for the Blogosphere of the Libertarian Left ring, recently started by Thomas Knapp. Definitely worth checking out! Most of the membership is more or less left-Rothbardian (that is, keeping up the tradition of Rothbard's and Hess' alliance with the New Left ca. 1970), in keeping with Tom's vision; but there's also a miscellaneous assortment of other left-decentralists, including old Tuckerites like me, and various and sundry land or money cranks. I believe most of us are what the Marxists call petty bourgeois deviationists.

3 Comments:

Blogger b-psycho said...

How far they consider the definition of left-libertarian to extend puzzles me. I considered signing up briefly, but that led to higher questions:

For example, I personally question why libertarians like the kind that exist in the Libertarian Party don't consider the modern interpretation of corporate status to be a government regulation, and find myself in surprising agreement with some of your views on how a free-market economy should really work.

But at the same time, I'm slightly cautious of anarchy, and haven't been able to muster much of a response to Georgists other than "huh?".

Also I have an internal conflict going: philosophically, I find virtually nothing worth keeping in our current political system. Yet pragmatically speaking, I doubt heavily that enough of a movement can be organized to do anything except by incremental steps.

I know I'm a libertarian, but left-libertarian? I dunno, and really dunno whether I should care...

Not to bother you, I'm just in a thinking mood today for some reason.

August 21, 2005 5:24 PM  
Blogger Kevin Carson said...

Thanks for the comment, Brian. I'm not sure what the answer is, except to pressure the state to scale back (first from its central structural props to big business and the plutes, and then from the welfare measures created to make state capitalism endurable for the rest of us), and build counter-institutions to replace it. Easier said than done, huh?

I'm actually attracted to the logical elegance of Georgism, as a system. I just think the occupancy-and-use of J.K. Ingalls and the other individualists would solve most of the problems they object to, but with less institutional doo-dads to carry it out. I do think the Geolib ideas on treating some scarce resources as a common are useful, but not site value as such.

August 22, 2005 11:08 AM  
Blogger b-psycho said...

Speaking of corporatist props, figured you might find this amusing...

August 24, 2005 12:16 AM  

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