Libertäre Presse

Neues von Shawn P. Wilbur:

Als Nachfolger der hier, hier und hier beworbenen 'Zines LeftLiberty und The Mutualist hat der Betreiber von Corvus Editions die ersten beiden Ausgaben des Magazins Contr'Un veröffentlicht, die erste mit dem Titel "Toward an ungovernable anarchism", die zweite zum Thema "Self-governement and the citizen-state" und dem Untertitel "Explorations in Proudhonian Sociology" (mit noch mehr Proudhon). 

Mehr Infos und PDF's findet man hier: http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2013/08/contrun-zine-etc.html

Markets not capitalism

Gary Chartier bei reason.tv über die rezente Anthologie Markets not capitalism. Individualist anarchists against bosses, inequality, corporate power and structural poverty, in welcher anarchistische "Klassiker" wie Proudhon, Tucker, Spooner und de Cleyre sich ebenso wiederfinden wie die "Anarchokapitalisten" Hess und Rothbard (mit Texten aus ihrer "linken" Phase in den 1960ern) und neuere Linkslibertäre und Neo-Mutualisten wie Charles Johnson, Kevin Carson, Roderick T. Long und Chartier selber:

Fans:

(wobei die Kollegen von Anonymous allerdings zu glauben scheinen, es gebe einen "wirklichen ökonomischen Prozess" jenseits des bestehenden (Finanz-)Kapitalismus, den es zu bewahren bzw. "wiederherzustellen" gelte, ebenso wie sie glauben, es gebe eine "reale" - d.h. eigentlich: ideale - Demokratie jenseits der real existierenden...)

145 Jahre Voltairine de Cleyre

The individualist and the communist. 

A dialogue by Voltairine de Cleyre and Rosa Slobodinsky

 

INDIVIDUALIST: "Our host is engaged and requests that I introduce myself to—I beg your pardon, sir, but have I not the pleasure of meeting the Communist speaker who addressed the meeting on Blank street last evening?"
COMMUNIST: "Your face seems familiar to me, too."
INDV.: "Doubtless you may have seen me there, or at some kindred place. I am glad at the opportunity to talk with you as your speech proved you to be somewhat of a thinker. Perhaps—"
COM.: "Ah, indeed, I recognize you now. You are the apostle of capitalistic Anarchism!"
INDV.: "Capitalistic Anarchism? Oh, yes, if you choose to call it so. Names are indifferent to me; I am not afraid of bugaboos. Let it be so, then, capitalistic Anarchism."
COM: "Well, I will listen to you. I don't think your arguments will have much effect, however. With which member of your Holy Trinity will you begin: free land, free money, or free competition?"
INDV.: "Whichever you prefer."
COM.: "Then free competition. Why do you make that demand? Isn't competition free now?"
INDV.: "No. But one of the three factors in production is free. Laborers are free to compete among themselves, and so are capitalists to a certain extent. But between laborers and capitalists there is no competition whatever, because through governmental privilege granted to capital, whence the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated, the owners of it are enabled to keep the laborers dependent on them for employment, so making the condition of wage-subjection perpetual. So long as one man, or class of men, are able to prevent others from working for themselves because they cannot obtain the means of production or capitalize their own products, so long those others are not free to compete freely with those to whom privilege gives the means. For instance, can you see any competition between the farmer and his hired man? Don't you think he would prefer to work for himself? Why does the farmer employ him? Is it not to make some profit from his labor? And does the hired man give him that profit out of pure good nature? Would he not rather have the full product of his labor at his own disposal?"
COM.: "And what of that? What does that prove?"
INDV.: "I am coming to that directly. Now, does this relation between the farmer and his man in any way resemble a cooperative affair between equals, free to compete, but choosing to work together for mutual benefit? You know it does not. Can't you see that since the hired man does not willingly resign a large share of his product to his employer (and it is out of human nature to say he does), there must be something which forces him to do it? Can't you see that the necessity of an employer is forced upon him by his lack of ability to command the means of production? He cannot employ himself, therefore he must sell his labor at a disadvantage to him who controls the land and capital. Hence he is not free to compete with his employer any more than a prisoner is free to compete with his jailer for fresh air.
COM.: "Well, I admit that much. Certainly the employé cannot compete with his employer."
INDV.: "Then you admit that there is not free competition in the present state of society. In other words, you admit that the laboring class are not free to compete with the holders of capital, because they have not, and cannot get, the means of production. Now for your 'what of that?' It follows that if they had access to land and opportunity to capitalize the product of their labor they would either employ themselves, or, if employed by others, their wages, or remuneration, would rise to the full product of their toil, since no one would work for another for less than he could obtain by working for himself."
COM.: "But your object is identical with that of Communism! Why all this to convince me that the means of production must be taken from the hands of the few and given to all? Communists believe that; it is precisely what we are fighting for."
INDV.: "You misunderstand me if you think we wish to take from or give to any one. We have no scheme for regulating distribution. We substitute nothing, make no plans. We trust to the unfailing balance of supply and demand. We say that with equal opportunity to produce, the division of product will necessarily approach equitable distribution, but we have no method of 'enacting' such equalization."
Com.: "But will not some be strong and skillful, others weak and unskillful? Will not one-deprive the other because he is more shrewd?"
INDV.: "Impossible! Have I not just shown you that the reason one man controls another's manner of living is because he controls the opportunities to produce? He does this through a special governmental privilege. Now, if this privilege is abolished, land becomes free, and ability to capitalize products removing interest, and one man is stronger or shrewder than another, he nevertheless can make no profit from that other's labor, because he cannot stop him from employing himself The cause of subjection is removed."
COM.: "You call that equality! That one man shall have more than others simply because he is stronger or smarter? Your system is no better than the present. What are we struggling against but that very inequality in people's possessions?"
INDV.: "But what is equality? Does equality mean that I shall enjoy what you have produced? By no means. Equality simply means the freedom of every individual to develop all his being, without hindrance from another, be he stronger or weaker."
COM.: "What! You will have the weak person suffer because he is weak? He may need as much, or more, than a strong one, but if he is not able to produce it what becomes of his equality?"
INDV.: "I have nothing against your dividing your product with the weaker man if you desire to do so."
COM.: "There you are with charity again. Communism wants no charity."
INDV.: I have often marveled on the singularity of Communistic mathematics. My act you call charity, our act is not charity. If one person does a kind act you stigmatize it; if one plus one, summed up and called a commune, does the same thing, you laud it By some species of alchemy akin to the transmutation of metals, the arsenic of charity becomes the gold of justice! Strange calculation! Can you not see that you are running from a bugaboo again? You change the name, but the character of an action is not altered by the number of people participating in it."
COM.: "But it is not the same action. For me to assist you out of pity is the charity of superior possession to the inferior. But to base society upon the principle: 'From each according to his capacity, and to each according to his needs' is not charity in any sense."
INDV.: "That is a finer discrimination than logic can find any basis for. But suppose that, for the present, we drop the discussion of charity, which is really a minor point, as a further discussion will show."
COM.: "But I say it is very important. See! Here are two workmen. One can make five pair of shoes a day; the other, perhaps, not more than three. According to you, the less rapid workmen will be deprived of the enjoyments of life, or at any rate will not be able to get as much as the other, because of a natural inability, a thing not his fault, to produce as much as his competitor."
INDV.: "It is true that under our present conditions, there are such differences in productive power. But these, to a large extent, would be annihilated by the development of machinery and the ability to use it in the absence of privilege. Today the majority of trade-people are working at uncongenial occupations. Why? Because they have neither the chance for finding out for what they are adapted, nor the opportunity of devoting themselves to it if they had. They would starve to death while searching; or, finding it, would only bear the disappointment of being kept outside the ranks of an already overcrowded pathway of life. Trades are, by force of circumstances, what formerly they were by law, matters of inheritance. I am a tailor because by father was a tailor, and it was easier for him to introduce me to that mode of making a living than any other, although I have no special adaptation for it. But postulating equal chances, that is free access and non-interest bearing capital, when a man finds himself unable to make shoes as well or as rapidly as his co-worker, he would speedily seek a more congenial occupation."
COM.: "And he will be traveling from one trade to another like a tramp after lodgings!"
INDV: "Oh no; his lodgings will be secure! When you admitted that competition is not now free, did I not say to you that when it becomes so, one of two things must happen: either the laborer will employ himself, or the contractor must pay him the full value of his product. The result would be increased demand for labor. Able to employ himself, the producer will get the full measure of his production, whether working independently, by contract, or cooperatively, since the competition of opportunities, if I may so present it, would destroy the possibility of profits. With the reward of labor raised to its entire result, a higher standard of living will necessarily follow; people will want more in proportion to their intellectual development; with the gratification of desires come new wants, all of which guarantees constant labor-demand. Therefore, even your trades-tramp will be sure of his existence.
"But you must consider further that the business of changing trades is no longer the difficult affair it was formerly. Years ago, a mechanic, or laborer, was expected to serve from four to seven years' apprenticeship. No one was a thorough workman until he knew all the various departments of his trade. Today the whole system of production is revolutionized. Men become specialists. A shoemaker, for instance, spends his days in sewing one particular seam. The result is great rapidity and proficiency in a comparatively short apace of time. No great amount of strength or skill is required; the machine furnishes both. Now, you will readily see that, even supposing an individual changes his vocation half a dozen times, he will not travel very long before he finds that to which he is adapted, and in which he can successfully compete with others."
COM.: "But admitting this, don't you believe there will always be some who can produce more than their brothers? What is to prevent their obtaining advantages over the less fortunate?"
INDV.: "Certainly I do believe there are such differences in ability, but that they will lead to the iniquity you fear I deny. Suppose A does produce more than B, does he in anyway injure the latter so long as he does not prevent B from applying his own labor to exploit nature, with equal facilities as himself, either by self-employment or by contract with others?"'
COM.: "Is that what you call right? Will that produce mutual fellowship among human beings? When I see that you are enjoying things which I cannot hope to get, what think you will be my feelings toward you? Shall I not envy and hate you, as the poor do the rich today."
INDV.: "Why, will you hate a man because he has finer eyes or better health than you? Do you want to demolish a person's manuscript because he excels you in penmanship? Would you cut the extra length from Samson's hair, and divide it around equally among all short-haired people? Will you share a slice from the poet's genius and put it in the common storehouse so everybody can go and take some? If there happened to be a handsome woman in your neighborhood who devotes her smiles to your brother, shall you get angry and insist that they be 'distributed according to the needs' of the Commune? The differences in natural ability are not, in freedom, great enough to injure any one or disturb the social equilibrium. No one man can produce more than three others; and even granting that much you can see that it would never create the chasm which lies between Vanderbilt and the switchman on his tracks."
COM.: "But in establishing equal justice, Communism would prevent even the possibility of injustice."
INDV,: "Is it justice to take from talent to reward incompetency? Is it justice to virtually say that the tool is not to the toiler, nor the product to the producer, but to others? Is it justice to rob toil of incentive? The justice you seek lies not in such injustice, where material equality could only be attained at the dead level of mediocrity. As freedom of contract enlarges, the nobler sentiments and sympathies invariably widen. With freedom of access to land and to capital, no glaring inequality in distribution could result. No workman rises far above or sinks much below the average day's labor. Nothing but the power to enslave through controlling opportunity to utilize labor force could ever create such wide differences as we now witness."
COM.: "Then you hold that your system will practically result in the same equality Communism demands. Yet, granting that, it will take a hundred years, or a thousand, perhaps, to bring it about. Meanwhile people are starving. Communism doesn't propose to wait. It proposes to adjust things here and now; to arrange matters more equitably while we are here to see it, and not wait till the sweet impossible sometime that our great, great grand children may see the dawn of. Why can't you join in with us and help us to do something?"
INDV.: "Yea, we hold that comparative equality will obtain, but pre-arrangement, institution, 'direction' can never bring the desired result—free society. Waving the point that any arrangement is a blow at progress, it really is an impossible thing to do. Thoughts, like things, grow. You cannot jump from the germ to perfect tree in a moment. No system of society can be instituted today which will apply to the demands of the future; that, under freedom will adjust itself. This is the essential difference between Communism and cooperation. The one fixes, adjusts, arranges things, and tends to the rigidity which characterizes the cast off shells of past societies; the other trusts to the unfailing survival of the fittest, and the broadening of human sympathies with freedom; the surety that that which is in the line of progress tending toward the industrial ideal, will, in a free field, obtain by force of its superior attraction. Now, you must admit, either that there will be under freedom, different social arrangements in different societies, some Communistic, others quite the reverse, and that competition will necessarily rise between them, leaving to results to determine which is the best, or you must crush competition, institute Communism, deny freedom, and fly in the face of progress. What the world needs, my friend, is not new methods of instituting things, but abolition of restrictions upon opportunity."
The Twentieth Century, 6. Jhg., Nr. 15 (18. Juni 1891).

Die "Neue Linke" als Geburtshelferin

Interessante These auf dem Blog Libérale et Libertaire:

"At the turn of the 20th century, libertarianism, i.e, 'individualist or liberal anarchism' was a minority subset(more of an intellectual movement) compared to the population of left, 'social anarchism (more of a labor movement)'. However, even libertarianism was anti-capitalist. But Corporate Liberal consolidation essentially subsumed the 'social anarchist' movement (i.e., labor) and beat the remnant of the libertarian movement like a pathetic, yelping dog over to the capitalist side.
In 1926, Benjamin Tucker, in a postscript to his original 'State Socialism and Anarchism' essay, argued for an educational propagation of a libertarian remnant to allow the possibility of a future movement to gain political power to execute a massive redistribution of political power to break the monopoly trusts. But Tucker’s libertarian remnant would not survive. Instead, 'the remnant' would survive via the so-called 'Old Right', which was a network of businessmen, journalists and the refuge from the crumbled regime of Bourbon Democrats. Tucker’s 'radical political redistribution objective' would be supplanted by an objective for the revival of 'Lockean liberalism', which would entail the restoration of the 'social contract' along Lockean terms, and not the outright abolition of all political authority, which is what libertarianism proper demanded.

The New Left Critique against Corporate Liberalism that emerged in the context of the political radicalism of the 1960s was an academic critique. But there was no 'civil society' of labor, a 'remnant' so to speak, that could actually take advantage of it and run with it. The 'new' social anarchism of the counter-culture communes was no match for the realities of latter-half 20th century Global Corporate Capitalism. Libertarianism was the only radical framework that had built up a 'civil society', or a 'market', that could take the New Left Critique and run with it in the context of 20th century Global Corporate Capitalism.

The reality is that the New Left inadvertently played an important hand in spawning 'anarcho-capitalism', the capitalist version of individual anarchism in the late 20th century-early 21st century America."

(Kontext hier)

Könnte man dementsprechend sagen, dass die Left Libertarians weniger eine "zentristische", vermittelnde Position zwischen "Sozialanarchismus" (i.e. Anarchosyndikalismus, libertärer Kommunismus) und "Anarchokapitalismus" einnehmen, als vielmehr den Versuch einer Restauration der Tuckerschen Spielart eines Anarchismus, der sich gleichermaßen als individualistisch/liberal und als "antikapitalistisch" (also gegen die gegenwärtige Wirtschaftsordnung gerichtet) verstand, darstellen?

Kevin Carson trifft eine Randroidin

Seltsames Video...

(via François Tremblay)

"Libertarian Unionism", bis

Als Zugabe zum hier kürzlich verlinkten Economist-Onlinebeitrag im Zusammenhang mit den Protesten in Wisconsin, zwei weitere Stimmen aus dem US-amerikanischen libertären Milieu, die darüber hinaus gehen, und ausdrücklich die demonstrierenden Staatsbedienstete unterstützen. Dass der bereits im ersten Beitrag zitierte Kevin Carson die Staatsbeamten unterstützt, mag wenig überraschen, dass allerdings sogar ein Walter Block die Gewerkschaften des öffentlichen Diensts als "kleineres Übel" einschätzt, erstaunt dann doch etwas:

Libertarian mixed feelings about Wisconsin (Carson)

Scott Walker vs. the public employee unions (Block, Rechtfertigungen hier)

Strikt gegen eine Unterstützung der Proteste wendet sich hingegen Sheldon Richman, sonst eigentlich recht nah bei Carson: Wisconsin Labor Brouhaha.

85 Jahre Murray N. Rothbard

Zu Murray Rothbards diesjährigem Geburtstag eine Analyse aus linkslibertärer Sicht: Roderick T. Longs Vortrag aus dem Jahr 2006 über Rothbards Annäherung an die Linke in den 1960ern.

"Libertarian Unionism"?

Ein Economist-Kolumnist entdeckt seine Liebe für die urliberale Institution der Gewerkschaften des Privatsektors (gegen die gerade in Wisconsin demonstrierenden Gewerkschaften des öffentlichen Sektors):

"The right of workers to band together to improve their bargaining position relative to employers is a straightforward implication of freedom of association, and the sort of voluntary association that results is the beating heart of the classical liberal vision of civil society. I unreservedly endorse what I'll call the 'unionism of free association. My difficulty in coming out wholeheartedly for private-sector unions as they now exist is that they are, by and large, creatures of objectionable statutes which have badly warped the labour-capital power dynamic that would exist under the unionism of free association."

(weiter hier).

Ausführlich zitiert wird dabei Kevin Carsons Kritik der gegenwärtigen gesetzlichen Beschränkungen des Gewerkschaftswesens in den USA, anknüpfend an dessen Wobbly-genährte Studie "Labor Struggle: A free market model", die mit dem Satz endet: "You people who have whined about 'class warfare' for so long will get a taste of what class war is really all about, when the other side starts fighting back for a change." Irgendwie fällt es mir schwer zu glauben, dass das die neue Economist-Linie ist. On verra.

Währenddessen mobilisieren die realexistierenden Industrial Workers of the World in Wisconsin für den Generalstreik gegen Walker.

Und noch ein paar Links mehr - Luxemburgensia Special

- Eine Zugezogene aus Green Bay, Wisconsin, über das Kuriosum des heute begangenen Nationalfeiertags.

- Das hierzu stattfindende Brimborium namens Te Deum in der hauptstädtischen Kathedrale ist den hiesigen Laizisten seit jeher ein Stein des Anstoßes - gegen das "weltliche" Brimborium in Form von Militärparaden, Wachablösungen und Fackelzügen haben sie hingegen nichts einzuwenden.

- Nach Proudhon entdeckt die luxemburger Solidarökonomie auch Elinor Ostroms Governing the commons, wenngleich die Rezensentin vieles reinliest, was man bei Ostrom gar nicht findet (weder lehnt  die Ostrom grundlegend eine "Marktlogik" ab, noch leitet sie aus einer Abhängigkeit des Staates gegenüber privaten Monopolisten den Bedarf einer stärkeren staatlichen Förderung von "öffentlicher" Forschung ab, und der Schwerpunkt des Buches liegt schon gar nicht auf geistigem Eigentum, wie die Rezension nahe legt, sondern auf Modellen kollektiver und nichtstaatlicher Governance von natürlichen Ressourcen).

- Der erzliberale Rabauke CK über den Film Mir wëllen net bleiwen, zu dessen Vorpremiere er mich netterweise mitgenommen hat (danke!). Seiner Rezension habe ich eigentlich nichts hinzuzufügen.

- Eine positive Rezension von Taguieffs jüngstem Buch über den "neuen Antisemitismus" reicht mittlerweile beim Tageblatt für ein Schreibverbot aus - es sei daran erinnert, dass das Tageblatt sich im Fall "Marguerite Biermann" als große Verfechterin der Meinungsfreiheit gegenüber der "jüdischen Lobby" aufspielte, vergleiche hier. Sans commentaires.

- Einen Überblick über die luxemburger Blogosphäre gibt übrigens das Portal d'Blogbuerg. Bei der Gelegenheit: wieso werden meine neuesten Posts dort nur unregelmäßig aufgelistet? Mache ich was falsch?

- Die Schafsfreunde sind weiter im Winterschlaf. Schade!

Fundsachen

- Was wäre wenn... Robert Crumb statt des Buches Genesis die Geschichte der Band Genesis illustriert hätte? (via Comicsbeat)

- Kevin Carson über Elinor Ostrom im neuesten Freeman.

- Achtung, Satire: Ron Paul hates white people (wie immer bei Youtube wird vor einer Lektüre der Kommentare abgeraten).
Siehe auch: Ron Paul: no friend of freedom (von 2008).
Aber auch: Noam Chomsky über "common grounds" mit Ron Paul-Unterstützern.

Und noch ein Fundstück:

 Aus Jungle Comics #33 (September 1942)

156 Jahre Benjamin Tucker

Als Nächster in der Reihe bärtiger Männer aus dem 19. Jahrhundert widmen wir uns heute dem Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift Liberty Benjamin Tucker, dessen Wirken und Ansichten bis heute im linkslibertären Milieu in den USA nachwirken. Ausgesucht habe ich eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Wort "Sozialismus" aus der 42. Ausgabe der Liberty vom 17. Mai 1884:

Socialism: What it is

Do you like the word Socialism? said a lady to me the other day; I fear I do not; somehow I shrink when I hear it. It is associated with so much that is bad! Ought we to keep it? 

The lady who asked this question is an earnest Anarchist, a firm friend of Liberty, and—it is almost superfluous to add—highly intelligent. Her words voice the feeling of many. But after all it is only a feeling, and will not stand the test of thought. Yes, I answered, it is a glorious word, much abused, violently distorted, stupidly misunderstood, but expressing better than any other the purpose of political and economic progress, the aim of the Revolution in this century, the recognition of the great truth that Liberty and Equality, through the law of Solidarity, will cause the welfare of each to contribute to the welfare of all. So good a word cannot be spared, must not be sacrificed, shall not be stolen.

How can it be saved? Only by lifting it out of the confusion which obscures it, so that all may see it clearly and definitely, and what it fundamentally means. Some writers make Socialism inclusive of all efforts to ameliorate social conditions. Proudhon is reputed to have said something of the kind. However that may be, the definition seems to broad. Etymologically it is not unwarrantable, but derivatively the word has a more technical and definite meaning.

Today (pardon the paradox!) society is fundamentally anti social. The whole so-called social fabric rests on privilege and power, and is disordered and strained in every direction by the inequalities that necessarily result therefrom. The welfare of each, instead of contributing to that of all, as it naturally should and would, almost invariably detracts from that of all. Wealth is made by legal privilege a hook with which to filch from labor’s pockets. Every man who gets rich thereby makes his neighbor poor. The better off one is, the worse off the rest are. As Ruskin says, every grain of calculated Increment to the rich is balanced by its mathematical equivalent of Decrement to the poor. The Laborer’s Deficit is precisely equal to the Capitalist’s Efficit.

Now, Socialism wants to change all this. Socialism says that what’s one man’s meat must no longer be another’s poison; that no man shall be able to add to his riches except by labor; that in adding to his riches by labor alone no man makes another man poorer; that on the contrary every man thus adding to his riches makes every other man richer; that increase and concentration of wealth through labor tend to increase, cheapen, and vary production; that every increase of capital in the hands of the laborer tends, in the absence of legal monopoly, to put more products, better products, cheaper products, and a greater variety of products within the reach of every man who works; and that this fact means the physical, mental, and moral perfecting of mankind, and the realization of human fraternity. Is that not glorious? Shall a word that means all that be cast aside simply because some have tried to wed it with authority? By no means. The man who subscribes to that, whatever he may think himself, whatever he may call himself, however bitterly he may attack the thing which he mistakes for Socialism, is himself a Socialist; and the man who subscribes to its opposite and acts upon its opposite, however benevolent he may be, however pious he may be, whatever his station in society, whatever his standing in the Church, whatever his position in the State, is not a Socialist, but a Thief. For there are at bottom but two classes,—the Socialists and the Thieves. Socialism, practically, is war upon usury in all its forms, the great Anti-Theft Movement of the nineteenth century; and Socialists are the only people to whom the preachers of morality have no right or occasion to cite the eighth commandment, Thou shalt not steal! That commandment is Socialism’s flag. Only not as a commandment, but as a law of nature. Socialism does not order; it prophesies. It does not say: Thou shalt not steal! It says: When all men have Liberty, thou wilt not steal.

Why, then, does my lady questioner shrink when she hears the word Socialism? I will tell her. Because a large number of people, who see the evils of usury and are desirous of destroying them, foolishly imagine they can do so by authority, and accordingly are trying to abolish privilege by centring all production and activity in the State to the destruction of competition and its blessings, to the degradation of the individual, and to the putrefaction of Society. They are well-meaning but misguided people, and their efforts are bound to prove abortive. Their influence is mischievous principally in this: that a large number of other people, who have not yet seen the evils of usury and do not know that Liberty will destroy them, but nevertheless earnestly believe in Liberty for Liberty’s sake, are led to mistake this effort to make the State the be-all and end-all of society for the whole of Socialism and the only Socialism, and, rightly horrified at it, to hold it up as such to the deserved scorn of mankind. But the very reasonable and just criticisms of the individualists of this stripe upon State Socialism, when analyzed, are found to be directed, not against the Socialism, but against the State. So far Liberty is with them. But Liberty insists on Socialism, nevertheless,—on true Socialism, Anarchistic Socialism: the prevalence on earth of Liberty, Equality, and Solidarity. From that my lady questioner will never shrink.

Libertäre Presse

Als Nachfolger von LeftLiberty, die es letztlich nur auf zwei Ausgaben brachte, hat Shawn P. Wilbur bzw. Corvus Editions dieser Tage die erste Ausgabe von The Mutualist. A Journal for Free Absolutes (Download) veröffentlicht. Verstand sich LeftLiberty als linkslibertäre Zeitschrift in der Tradition von Benjamin Tuckers Liberty, will sich Wilbur nunmehr verstärkt der Ausarbeitung eines zeitgenössischen "Neoproudhonismus" widmen. Die erste Nummer enthält dementsprechend auch einen Auszug aus Proudhons La guerre et la paix (1861) in englischer Übersetzung, sowie seltene Schriften von Joseph Déjacque, Maria und Thomas Varney, Dyer D. Lum, Joseph Perrot und Claude Pelletier. Eingeleitet wird das Ganze durch den ersten Teil von Wilburs Aufsatz " 'Two-Gun Mutualism' and the Golden Rule" (die beiden geladenen Pistolen sind dabei - frei nach Pierre Leroux - Individualismus und Sozialismus, zwischen denen der Mutualismus vermitteln soll).

P.S. Etwas off topic, aber es sei des Weiteren darauf verwiesen, dass die auf diesem Blog schon öfters erwähnte Individualanarchistin und -feministin Wendy McElroy am kommenden Donnerstag bei John Stossel auf FoxBusiness zu Gast sein wird, mehr Infos hier).

84 Jahre Murray N. Rothbard

Heute jährt sich der Geburtstag des Erfinders des Begriffs "Anarchokapitalismus" (ausführlicher Wikipedia-Artikel hierzu) zum 84ten Mal. Rothbard, der in den USA über den Umweg des Agorismus bzw. "left Rothbardianism" auch einen deutlichen Einfluss auf die linkslibertäre Richtung hatte (jedoch von libertären Sozialisten, Anarchosyndikalisten und Anarchokommunisten immer als pseudoanarchistischer Apostat und Befürworter eines "Raubtierkapitalismus" gesehen wurde), wobei es wohl kaum jemand gibt, der sämtliche Wendungen des radikalen Individualisten und Naturrechtlers - bis hin zur Unterstützung der Präsidentschaftskandidatur Pat Buchanans 1992 - mitgemacht hätte. Wie immer habe ich wieder einen Text des Geburtstagskindes mitgebracht; anknüpfend an die Mattick-Auszüge hier ein Artikel aus dem Jahr 1989 über die heute vergessenene Renaissance des Keynesianismus unter Reagan II und Bush Vater:

Keynesianism redux

"One of the ironic but unfortunately enduring legacies of eight years of Reaganism has been the resurrection of Keynesianism. From the late 1930s until the early 1970s, Keynesianism rode high in the economics profession and in the corridors of power in Washington, promising that, so long as Keynesian economists continued at the helm, the blessings of modern macroeconomics would surely bring us permanent prosperity without inflation. Then something happened on the way to Eden: the mighty inflationary recession of 1973-74.

Keynesian doctrine is, despite its algebraic and geometric jargon, breathtakingly simple at its core: recessions are caused by underspending in the economy, inflation is caused by overspending. Of the two major categories of spending, consumption is  passive and determined, almost robotically, by income; hopes for the proper amount of spending, therefore, rest on investment, but private investors, while active and decidedly non-robotic, are erratic and volatile, unreliably dependent on fluctuations in what Keynes called their 'animal spirits.'

Fortunately for all of us, there is another group in the economy that is just as active and decisive as investors, but who are also--if guided by Keynesian economists--scientific and rational, able to act in the interests of all: Big Daddy government. When investors and consumers underspend, government can and should step in and increase social spending via deficits, thereby lifting the econ omy out of recession. When private animal spirits get too wild, government is supposed to step in and reduce private spending by what the Keynesians revealingly call 'sopping up excess purchasing power' (that's ours).

In strict theory, by the way, the Keynesians could just as well have called for lowering government spending during inflationary booms rather than sopping up our spending. But the very idea of cutting government budgets (and I mean actual cut-cuts, not cuts in the rate of increase) is nowadays just as unthinkable, as, for example, adhering to a Jeffersonian strict construction of the Constitution of the United States, and for similar reasons.

Originally, Keynesians vowed that they, too, were in favor of a 'balanced budget,' just as much as the fuddy-duddy reactionaries who opposed them. It's just that they were not, like the fuddy-duddies, tied to the year as an accounting period; they would balance the budget, too, but over the business cycle. Thus, if there are four years of recession followed by four years of boom, the federal deficits during the recession would be compensated for by the surpluses piled up during the boom; over the eight years of cycle, it would all balance out.

Evidently, the 'cyclically balanced budget' was the first Keynesian concept to be poured down the Orwellian memory hole, as it became clear that there weren't going to be any surpluses, just smaller or larger deficits. A subtle but important corrective came into Keynesianism: larger deficits during recessions, smaller ones during booms. 

But the real slayer of Keynesianism came with the double-digit inflationary recession of 1973-74, followed soon by the even more intense inflationary recessions of 1979-80 and 1981-82. For if the government was supposed to step on the spending accelerator during recessions, and step on the brakes during booms, what in blazes is it going to do if there is a steep recession (with unemployment and bankruptcies) and a sharp inflation at the same time? What can Keynesianism say? Step on both accelerator and brake at the same time? The stark fact of inflationary recession violates the fundamental assumptions of Keynesian theory and the crucial program of Keynesian policy. Since 1973-74, Keynesianism has been intellectually finished, dead from the neck up.

But very often the corpse refuses to lie down, particularly one made up of an elite which would have to give up their power positions in the academy and in government. One crucial law of politics or sociology is: no one ever resigns. And so, the Keynesians have clung to their power positions as tightly as possible, never resigning, although a bit less addicted to grandiose promises.

A bit chastened, they now only promise to do the best they can, and to keep the system going. Essentially, then, shorn of its intellectual groundwork, Keynesianism has become the pure economics of power, committed only to keeping the Establishment-system going, making marginal adjustments, babying things along through yet one more election, and hoping that by tinkering with the controls, shifting rapidly back and forth between accelerator and brake, something will work, at least to preserve their cushy positions for a few more years.

Amidst the intellectual confusion, however, a few dominant tendencies, legacies from their glory days, remain among Keynesians: (1) a penchant for continuing deficits, (2) a devotion to fiat paper money and at least moderate inflation, (3) adherence to increased government spending, and (4) an eternal fondness for higher taxes, to lower deficits a wee bit, but more importantly, to inflict some bracing pain on the greedy, selfish, and short-sighted American public.

The Reagan Administration managed to institutionalize these goodies, seemingly permanently on the American scene. Deficits are far greater and apparently forever; the difference now is that formerly free-market Reaganomists are out-Keynesianing their liberal forebears in coming up with ever more ingenious apologetics for huge deficits. The only dispute now is within the Keynesian camp, with the allegedly 'conservative' supply-siders enthusiastically joining Keynesians in devotion to inflation and cheap money, and differing only on their call for moderate tax cuts as against tax increases.

The triumph of Keynesianism within the Reagan Administration stems from the rapid demise of the monetarists, the main competitors to the Keynesians within respectable academia. Having made a series of disastrously bad predictions, they who kept trumpeting that 'science is prediction,' the monetarists have retreated in confusion, trying desperately to figure out what went wrong and which of the many 'M's they should fasten on as being the money supply. The collapse of monetarism was symbolized by Keynesian James Baker's takeover as Secretary of the Treasury from monetarist-sympathizer Donald Regan. With Keynesians dominant during the second Reagan term, the transition to a Keynesian Bush team--Bush having always had strong Keynesian leanings--was so smooth as to be almost invisible. 

Perhaps it is understandable that an Administration and a campaign that reduced important issues to sound bites and TV images should also be responsible for the restoration to dominance of an intellectually bankrupt economic creed, the very same creed that brought us the political economics of every Administration since the second term of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It is no accident that the same Administration that managed to combine the rhetoric of 'getting government off our back' with the reality of enormously escalating Big Government, should also have brought back a failed and statist Keynesianism in the name of prosperity and free enterprise."

aus: The Free Market, vol. VII, 1, Januar 1989 (Download).

RIP Colin Ward

Am 11. Februar ist mit Colin Ward einer der bekanntesten anarchistischen bzw. mutualistischen Schriftsteller der jüngeren Vergangenheit gestorben. Ein paar ausgewählte Nachrufe:

- AK Press;

- Die sozialliberale Fabian Society;

- Libcom.org;

- Jesse Walker auf Reason Hit&Run.

Bonus: Colin Ward - Anarchism as a theory of organization (1966) auf panarchy.org

Libertäre Presse

Die Nummer 55 des Libertario aus Venezuela ist erschienen. Hübsches Cover, interessante Artikel (auch wenn man des spanischen, so wie ich, nur ansatzweise mächtig ist), ein paar nett gemachte Comics:
http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario/libertarios/libertario55.html

Eine "Demoversion" der ALLiance (neue Zeitschrift der Alliance of the Libertarian Left) findet man hier.