John writes:
Michael Lind has caused
a bit of a stir recently with his June
4, 2013 article arguing that libertarians cannot provide an example of
a libertarian country, something that even Marxist-Leninists could do, as
discredited as their ideology is. Mr. Lind answered libertarian critics of his
article with another piece
defending his position.
In a similar vein, Lord Keynes over at Social Democracy for the 21st Century discusses Medieval Iceland, perhaps the most commonly cited example of real-world libertarianism. Lord Keynes has also recently written some compelling blog pieces on Murray Rothbard's legal theories here, here, and here.
Now, to add some spice to the mix, here is a link to Kevin Carson's December 28, 2012 article critiquing social democracy from a left-libertarian perspective.
I will withhold significant comment, although I will say that I am sympathetic toward both social democracy and some strands of left-libertarian thought. My ideal would probably be something like guild socialism, but I would settle for social democracy if the former is not practicable.
In a similar vein, Lord Keynes over at Social Democracy for the 21st Century discusses Medieval Iceland, perhaps the most commonly cited example of real-world libertarianism. Lord Keynes has also recently written some compelling blog pieces on Murray Rothbard's legal theories here, here, and here.
Now, to add some spice to the mix, here is a link to Kevin Carson's December 28, 2012 article critiquing social democracy from a left-libertarian perspective.
I will withhold significant comment, although I will say that I am sympathetic toward both social democracy and some strands of left-libertarian thought. My ideal would probably be something like guild socialism, but I would settle for social democracy if the former is not practicable.
Really?
ReplyDeleteVictorian Britain was a small-state country with a free people, and socialism an alien concept.
Welfare (and morality) was delivered by charity or Church-education was a Church of England affair.
The police were unarmed and unconnected to the state (tiny local foot-patrolling forces were the norm ever since the Peel Act).
We never even had a nationalised welfare state until the 1911 National Insurance Act.
Want a free, small-state country?
Try Britain.
Before the liberals took over, that is.
Take it up with either Michael Lind or his libertarian interlocutors. Funny how none of them seem to have noticed it. Couldn't be balls, could it?
ReplyDeleteYou can easily verify everything I said is true, by acquainting yourself with a history book on Victorian Britain.
ReplyDeleteRead how welfare and education was delivered in those days, for a start.
Funnily enough, we didn't need a Labour Party to deliver it.
You are addressing the wrong audience. Take it up with your own side, which is clearly unaware of it. Funny, that.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if you were right, then no one would ever have bothered to have set up the Labour Party, among numerous other things. And yet, they did.
Ah, I'm glad you've nailed your colours to the mast.
ReplyDeleteSo you are happy that in Britain (as in the rest of Europe) state replaced Church as a welfare provider, thereby heralding the decline of Christianity, as the Church warned at the time?
And you call yourself a Catholic?
All over Europe, it was done explicitly as an expression of Catholic Teaching, which requires that the State do these things, holding that such are its moral obligations, which Catholics as citizens, including as voters, have a duty to compel it to meet.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, you have not the faintest idea what you are talking about. And you are still talking to the wrong audience. You still refuse to consider quite how it can be that you know these things but the rest of your own side does not.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteCouldn’t it also be argued that the capitalism of Victorian Britain was itself a creation of state-led development strategies? The British state used tariffs, subsidies and sundry regulations to help give birth to British industry.
Additionally, there is the question of why Great Britain and other nations eventually gave up laissez-faire policies and adopted “statist” ones, often with great success, as the prosperity of the post-war era shows.
Regarding charity, I am not so sure modern industrial societies can really solve problems relating to poverty by relying solely on private action.
Prior to the introduction of Social Security, elderly Americans often suffered from grinding poverty. Sadly, they could not always rely on their family or charities to adequately care for them once they were unable to work. Social Security has been a very successful tool for alleviating poverty among the elderly.
Mr Lindsay, you've revealed yourself a historical illiterate.
ReplyDeleteRead Boli and Ramirez's 1987 investigation "The political construction of mass schooling".
Its a history of how the post-French Revolution state squeezed out the Church as a provider of education and welfare in France and then across Europe and how the Church fiercely resisted...as it realised this was its death knell.
Far from the Church "requiring the state" to do these things-it was the Church that did them without the state....before the secularisation that emerged from the French Revolution.
I know this subject well, Lindsay.
I urge you to read my recommended literature on it.
John.
ReplyDeleteI urge you also to read Boli & Ramirez's seminal 1987 historical study "The political construction of mass schooling" which goes in-depth on this.
Mr Lindsay has it all the wrong way round-when the Church supplied welfare and education, they both came with Christian morality attached.
But, when the state took over-they were secularised, morality and personal responsibility were stripped out of the welfare system, it ceased to support marriage... and it was turned into a tool to bribe people to vote for political parties.
Hence we have the situation we have now-where (as Peter Hitchens never ceases to explain) the welfare state is the biggest enemy of marriage in this country.
Its become a tool to secure votes for the Labour Party-and to subsidise unmarried lifestyles.
That's what happens when the state takes over.
Because, unlike the Church, the state is not interested in morality.
Nor does it act out of charity, but out of political self-interest.
As if I hadn't!
ReplyDeleteYou know absolutely nothing about Catholic Teaching, and shouldn't waste your energy on the weirdoes who think that it is whatever might happen to be doing the rounds in the American Republican Party (an extremely anti-Catholic organisation into very recent history) at any given time.
Anonymous assumes an American separation of Church and State. When the C of E, or any church in Europe, was doing these things, no such separation applied. Still doesn't in England. Or in many ways in Germany, for example. This being one of those ways.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much indeed for that, Adrian.
ReplyDelete