When I was in law school 20-some odd years ago, I had the good fortune to have Professor Larry Lessig as a teacher. Professor Lessig was a committed left-libertarian; as such he came under fire from right-libertarians like me as well as from left-progressives like most of my classmates.
Lessig saw his libertarianism as based on the maximization of liberty against all sources of power. When criticized by the left-progressives, he would warn of the danger of government power; when facing right-libertarians, he would warn of the danger of corporate power.
At the time, I dismissed this (incredibly smart) man's views, arguing that Lessig did not understand the difference between public government and private corporations. I argued that private corporations, operating without coercion in the voluntary exchange of value between property owners, could never be dangerous to liberty, properly understood.
This essay represents my mea culpa. I was wrong and Lessig was right. My error arose from an ignorance of how property law arose, and what property ownership was, and thus of believing that the distinction between public and private was far sharper than it is.
I got there via the realisation that the Queen of England (and many other places) was the head of a family business, that ran a large estate, upon which many people lived, often holding a 999 year lease to some part of that estate.
The next interesting thought, if you consider this family business justifiable (debated), is that it has often been the share holders in this enterprise that have had their rights trimmed and trampled over many generations, and by their very own customers. Once upon a time, some of them even lopped off the head of the C.E.O.. Dastards!
The lines splitting one category of thought from another are often more malleable than we, at first, realise.
Individuals really only have liberty to their ideas. Collective ventures have the possible right to a deed, trust, or other physical piece of property. I learned, graduating from high school in 1985, that our exchanges of property or money are legal contracts and, by nature, they are collective. You can trade ideas with yourself and involve no one else (or argue with yourself), but if you make phantom companies to benefit yourself, they will involve another or others' for even the sea involves another, that is nature.
It is from a thought process not so different from this (my seasteader built nuclear missiles and only charged rent and tariffs) that I went from anarcho-capitalist to anarcho-monarchist to simply monarchist.
In my mid-twenties I was a card-carrying libertarian. I no longer hold those views. What Edward O. Wilson said about Marxism applies to libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism as well: great theory, wrong species.
I'd like to share this essay with some of my anarcho-capitalist pals. Would it be possible to unlock it?
Wow !! Just saw this in your "Conservatism is Dead" (I subscribed the other day and reading everything in the chronological order):
"The problem, of course, is that libertarianism doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for the same reason communism doesn’t work: us. <...> Men are not eusocial insects such as ants or bees, and ought not aspire to live as if we were. Communism, as E.O. Wilson said, might be a great idea, but we’re the wrong species for it."
When I was in law school 20-some odd years ago, I had the good fortune to have Professor Larry Lessig as a teacher. Professor Lessig was a committed left-libertarian; as such he came under fire from right-libertarians like me as well as from left-progressives like most of my classmates.
Lessig saw his libertarianism as based on the maximization of liberty against all sources of power. When criticized by the left-progressives, he would warn of the danger of government power; when facing right-libertarians, he would warn of the danger of corporate power.
At the time, I dismissed this (incredibly smart) man's views, arguing that Lessig did not understand the difference between public government and private corporations. I argued that private corporations, operating without coercion in the voluntary exchange of value between property owners, could never be dangerous to liberty, properly understood.
This essay represents my mea culpa. I was wrong and Lessig was right. My error arose from an ignorance of how property law arose, and what property ownership was, and thus of believing that the distinction between public and private was far sharper than it is.
I got there via the realisation that the Queen of England (and many other places) was the head of a family business, that ran a large estate, upon which many people lived, often holding a 999 year lease to some part of that estate.
The next interesting thought, if you consider this family business justifiable (debated), is that it has often been the share holders in this enterprise that have had their rights trimmed and trampled over many generations, and by their very own customers. Once upon a time, some of them even lopped off the head of the C.E.O.. Dastards!
The lines splitting one category of thought from another are often more malleable than we, at first, realise.
Here endeth the lesson.
Individuals really only have liberty to their ideas. Collective ventures have the possible right to a deed, trust, or other physical piece of property. I learned, graduating from high school in 1985, that our exchanges of property or money are legal contracts and, by nature, they are collective. You can trade ideas with yourself and involve no one else (or argue with yourself), but if you make phantom companies to benefit yourself, they will involve another or others' for even the sea involves another, that is nature.
It is from a thought process not so different from this (my seasteader built nuclear missiles and only charged rent and tariffs) that I went from anarcho-capitalist to anarcho-monarchist to simply monarchist.
Live long Moldbug ;)
In my mid-twenties I was a card-carrying libertarian. I no longer hold those views. What Edward O. Wilson said about Marxism applies to libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism as well: great theory, wrong species.
I'd like to share this essay with some of my anarcho-capitalist pals. Would it be possible to unlock it?
Wow !! Just saw this in your "Conservatism is Dead" (I subscribed the other day and reading everything in the chronological order):
"The problem, of course, is that libertarianism doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for the same reason communism doesn’t work: us. <...> Men are not eusocial insects such as ants or bees, and ought not aspire to live as if we were. Communism, as E.O. Wilson said, might be a great idea, but we’re the wrong species for it."
Ah, I see: "If I do any blogging on current affairs, it will be locked behind a paywall"