Brainpolice : Socialism, Philosophy

Mikhail Bakunin and Collectivist Anarchism

Brainpolice — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:35:00 GMT

Mikhail Bakunin was the Russian father of the strain of anarchism known as collectivist anarchism. He was initially loosely associated with both Karl Marx and Pierre Joseph Proudhon, and eventually he developed anarcho-collectivism using both of them as influences while deviating from them both at the same time. Bakunin's anarcho-collectivism, which wasn't completely developed until towards the end of Bakunin's life, differs from mutualism and individualist anarchism in certain significant ways, but it also differs from Marxist communism in certain ways as well. While it does call for collective worker ownership of the means of production, Bakunin's anarcho-collectivism is more along the lines of a half-way point towards communism since it still allows the renumeration of labor.

However, there are certainly some similarities between communism and Bakunin's ideas. Like the communists, Bakunin emphasized anti-theism. He reversed Voltaire's quote that "if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent" him to "if god really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him". And like the communists, Bakunin had a materialist basis for his philosophy, which makes his economic analysis similar to that of Marx. The Russian, Polish and generally pan-slavic cultural context that Bakunin was working with was primarily a reaction to the royal or noble classes which were much more prevailent in such a context than in America and certain parts of Europe at the time. This helps explain the cultural trends towards collectivism that took place around Bakunin.

But beyond this, Bakunin was actually a critic of Marx. He rejected the notion of a "dictatorship of the proletariet" and supported the notion of decentralization or federalism, and hence there is supposed to be free association between the communes in an anarcho-collectivist society. While the goals between anarcho-collectivism and Marxism were quite similar, Bakunin fundamentally clashed with the Marxist communists over questions of strategy, rejecting formal political strategy in favor of a more social form of revolution and what he called "the propaganda of the deed". However, some controversy exists over the degree to which Bakunin's notion of "the propaganda of the deed" is dangerous and has been used to justify violence, and individualist anarchists tended to shy away from the revolutionary methods of many collectivist anarchists.

Bakunin is known to have been a strong supporter of the Paris Commune of 1871, which was surpressed by the French government. Bakunin persisted in favoring social revolution over political strategies, which eventually lead him to be purged by Marx from The First International. The difference between Marx and Bakunin over how to go about reaching their mutually held goals became irreconcilable. Bakunin thought that Marx's strategies would just lead to another despotism, which turned out to be a wise foresight. He strongly opposed the idea of seizing the power of the state as a method of revolution. In this regaurd, Bakunin must be credited as the first thinker to effectively try to depoliticize communism.

Bakunin's historical significance in anarchism more or less represents the planting of the seeds for all forthcoming collectivistic variants of anarchism such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism. At the same time, it must be said that he also represents the initial cause of a fragmenting of communism between Marxist and anarchistic strains. In either case, Bakunin was most definitely a key figure in the history of anarchism.

Remembering Proudhon

Brainpolice — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:13:00 GMT

Many contemporary libertarians may be mystified at Proudhon being considered a libertarian, but Proudhon was undoubtably the first genuinely libertarian socialist. Proudhon's political philosophy represents a synthesis of sorts between classical liberalism and socialism, without yielding any ground to authoritarian strains of socialism, which eventually resulted in his anarchism. Proudhon was critical of both capitalism and communism, and was generally an opponent of absolutism, making heavy use of the mechanisms of synthesis and deconstruction, which obviously is at least partially Hegelian in nature. His political philosophy arguably became more radical as he aged, leading him to take more of a refined view on property.

The initial form of anarchism that Proudhon set the basis for, mutualism, predates anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism by a number decades and significantly differs from them in certain ways. Proudhon and Marx had certain fairly significant disagreements, leading Marx to more or less dismiss him as a "petty burgousie individualist". Unlike Marx and the communists, Proudhon did not advocate purely collective ownership or even worker ownership as an absolute norm. His idea was more along the lines of individual worker ownership of the means of production (I.E. I own my own tools, therefore I don't need to rent your tools). He also advocated cooperative management, but always in a context that allows for individual liberty. Proudhon supported the notions free contract and free competition, only placing more emphasis on cooperative forms of organization than many classical liberals.

Proudhon was most certainly an individualist in many ways, with the theme of "individual sovereignty" running strongly throughout his work. While he rejected the vulgar collectivism of the communists, he synthesized individualism with themes of social cooperation, which is to say that he steered clear of atomism. Proudhon envisioned a free society and the process of working towards such a society as a "spontaneous order" that is emergant from the free interactions of individuals. At the same time, he rejected utopianism and romanticism and he appears to have held a fairly pluralistic attitude with regaurd to what such a spontaneous order entails. The vision is always realistic in that it's not some kind of uniform model for the entire society.

It's important to note that mutualism (and its culmination within individualist anarchism) does not normatively or absolutely oppose wage labor, rent and interest per se. These things may contextually be opposed as a consequence of political authority and it may speculate about a trend towards such things starting to diminish in conditions of free competition, but they are not opposed on an absolute normative ethical level as in often the case with communism, syndicalism and collectivism. A mutualist qua mutualist cannot advocate arbitrary violence to oppose such things. Something more along the lines of agorism makes sense as a strategy for mutualists. Proudhon was skeptical towards traditional methods of revolution.

Proudhon's analysis of property is far more subtle and complicated than a first-reading or face-value-reading of his writtings may reveal. A statement such as "Property is theft", followed by seemingly contradicting statements such as "Property is impossible" and "Property is liberty" is likely to confuse the reader. To a degree, Proudhon is probably being rhetorical and is purposefully trying to intimidate the reader or grab their attention. But a more in-depth look reveals that he is quite creatively making use of synthesis and antithesis here, and a more clear meaning is revealed with this understanding. These statements are contextual and part of a process of synthesis and antithesis, not to be interpreted as absolutes.

What Proudhon is most strongly challenging is the arbitrary legal title to property, property as a legal construct that indeed is historically tracable back to theft in many ways. Property as a state legal construct often is the state doling out a privilege to the property that it initially stole. During Proudhon's time, many of the old legal private property titles that used to belong to the noble class and the feudal landlords had not completely been abandoned or abolished, and in the process of transformation into more modern capitalism, this privilege was slowly being transfered to a new industrial managerial class in bed with the state. Proudhon was more keenly aware of this than most of his collegues and associates.

There is also a context in which Proudon was very much in favor of private or individual property, viewing it as an indispensible counterweight to the state. Unlike the communists, Proudhon had no inherent problem with money, exchange and buisiness. The Marxist aesthetic distain for just about anything that has to do with commerence is nowhere to be found in him. Proudhon's vision of socialism was more along the lines of individual proprietorship, small cooperative buisinesses and unions of artisans. When not exploitative and when not an a monstrous scale, Proudhon supported more small-scale examples of what would be considered private property by contemporary free market anarchists.

Proudhon has been indispensibly influential on the history of anarchism, particularly individualist anarchism. The actual continuation of Proudhon's work was done by the early individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker (prior to his transformation into a Stirnerite egoist), while the anarcho-collectivism of Bakunin and the anarcho-communism of Kropotkin significantly differed from this trend in certain ways. Some anarcho-communists were even lead to dismiss Proudhon from the anarchist tradition as just "a liberal disguised as a socialist". The rise of anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism has a notaby different cultural context, centered around Russia and somewhat detached from classical liberalism. Proudhon, on the other hand, was much more exposed to the classical liberalism of the French and Americans.

This isn't necessarily to completely dismiss figures such as Bakunin and Kropotkin out of hand, but to be clear about differences between the direction anarchism took from their standpoint vs. the standpoint of Proudhon and the individualists, as it was definitely the American individualist anarchists such as Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker who picked up where Proudhon left off. While Kroptkin arguably took anarchism in a direction that made it closer to Marxism, the individualist anarchists took it in a more individualistic direction or generally steered clear of such collectivistic tendencies. Over time, the individualists tended to come to reject the particular revolutionary methods of the collectivists and ventured to produce some fairly scathing criticisms of anarcho-communism.

Factional griping aside, Proudhon's legacy remains as the first formal anarchist and one who presented a political philosophy that can help bridge the gap between free market oriented thought and the anti-authoritarian left. I think that he is definitely important enough on both a historical and philosophical level that all libertarians should familiarize themselves with him to one degree or another.

Rejecting The Natural/Synthetic Dichotomy

Brainpolice — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:34:00 GMT

I reject the natural/synthetic dichotomy. The natural/synthetic dichotomy is manifested in two fundamental ways: (1) the assumption that humans and/or human constructs are separate from nature and (2) the assumption that certain human constructs are "natural" while others are not. The problem with this dichotomy is that humans and their constructs are a part and product of nature; it is impossible for humans to step outside of the context of nature. Unless one wishes to posit a supernatural, all that exists or occurs is natural by default. Something that is not natural would be something that simply does not exist or occur at all. Hence, it makes no sense to speak of existing things or phenomenon as if they are not natural, or to defend or support a given thing or phenomenon by appealing to it being natural.

Everything is natural, regaurdless of how common or rare it is, when it occurs or doesn't occur, wether its beneficial or detrimental, good or bad, and so on. That which is natural, which is simply to say something that occurs or exists, cannot be construed as being good or bad by mere virtue of being natural. Nature is morally neutral in this sense, because the mere existance of a thing or phenomenon in of itself does not signify value. In other words, nature does not have intrinsic value. Understood broadly, it simply is what it is. This is not to say that there is no purpose or merit to assigning value to certain phenomenon, but that its mere occurance is not what gives it value. For if that which is natural is inherently good or bad, then literally everything must be assumed to be inherently good or bad, and that is absurd.

It's also important to note that just because something is natural does not necessarily mean that it is universal, inevitable or permanent. Nature is not static, it is dynamic, which is to say that it is in a constant state of flux. That which is common in the present may very well be rendered obsolete and archiac in the future. It can be quite fallacious to appeal to phenomenon from the past as if it is representative of an inevitable future or to regaurd current phenomenon as if they represent a permanent state of affairs. What once was natural can be rendered non-existant over time, and what once was little more than a pipe dream can become "the natural order". Appealing to the past as "natural" is simply a weak argument. The present and future is no less "natural" and the "naturalness" of things is really irrelevant.

One way in which the natural/synthetic dichotomy is manifested is in the arguementation of primitivists, anti-civilizationists and radical environmentalists. The contemporary technology and extended division of labor produced by humans is demonized as "unnatural" while more primitive and "self-sufficient" ways of living are romantisized as "natural". Human civilization is characterized as being inherently antagonistic with nature, and nature is assumed to have intrinsic value. Radically egalitarian philosophy makes use of the dichotomy as well, with egalitarianism being construed as "natural" while heirarchy is considered to be "unnatural". Interestingly, primitive societies are often pointed to as examples of egalitarianism, even though a non-biased look at such societies likely reveals quite a bit of heirarchy.

The natural/synthetic dichotomy is also manifested in conservative philosophy. Rigid class heirarchy, religious authority, familial authority, racism, nationalism, have been charactered as "the natural order" (with strong use of naturalistic language used to defend them), as if they are inevitable laws of nature and intrinsic authorities, and deviations from them are construed as synthetic attempts to produce a "new man" in antagonism with nature. Conservative philosophy strongly appeals to tradition as being "natural", and deviations from tradition such as homosexuality, secularism and multiculturalism are construed as "unnatural". All of this could be said to stem from a pessemistic and archiac accessment of nature that lies at the heart of conservatism.

Social contract theory and traditional statist apologetics is riddled with the natural/synthetic dichotomy because it tends to construe centralized political organization as if it involves man exiting "the state of nature", while at the same time there is a very strong temptation to characterize the rise of centralizd political organization as a "natural" phenomenon in the sense that is inevitable. Statism is construed as "the natural order" that inevitably arises from social organization. And statist politics is riddled with debate over precisely what kind of centralized political organization is the most "natural" or what the "natural progression" will lead to. Traditionally, anarchy is either brushed off as "unnatural" or is conflated with a primitivist "natural state" before centralized political organization took place.

While these various types of social phenomenon and organization most certainly can be evaluated, wether or not they are "natural" is really irrelevant to such an evaluation, because they are all "natural" to the extent that they occur or exist at all. The natural/synthetic dichotomy is a misnomer that sidetracks from the real substantive debates that could take place.

Resolving Anarchist Conflict

Brainpolice — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:57:00 GMT

Conflict between the socialist oriented and market oriented camps within anarchism can get very tedious. Many anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists appear to emphatically claim that market anarchism isn't truly anarchism, that opposition to private property and capitalism is a requirement for one to be an anarchist, conflate currently existing political and economic systems with a free market and sometimes even defend welfare states as if take the edges off of the alleged evils of capitalism. Some anarcho-capitalists appear to get baited into functioning as vulgar libertarians or they generally associate themselves too closely with contemporary conservatism and therefore end up defending currently existing corporatism as if it is the result of a free market, claim that all forms of socialism are statist political systems, defend paleoconservative positions on issues such as immigration and romantisize feudalism and colonial America.

The bulk of the debate between the two sides consists of a language barrier, semantics and quibbling over property. There is a language barrier over terms such as capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism and libertarianism to the point where any true meaning is rendered obsolete. Each side suspects that the other side are merely authoritarians in disguise, and sometimes the suspicion is entirely justified (with some social anarchists functioning as state-socialists and some anarcho-capitalists functioning as conservatives). The more that each camp acts foolishly intolerant and monopolostic, the more likely they are to be pushed back into the statist paradime due to reactionary sentiments, leading to the use of political means to dominate against their alleged enemies. Sometimes they spend more time critisizing eachother than they do critisizing contemporary statist ideologies.

Capitalism has different connotations to the various camps. Some consider capitalism to be the current system, some consider it to be separation between labor and ownership, some consider it to be private ownership of the means of production or the extensive use of capital and some consider it to be a spontaneous order resulting from the voluntary and mutually beneficial interpersonal relations between people in the absence of a central planner or state through a process of free trade relations and competition. Socialism has different connotations as well. Some consider socialism to be worker ownership of the means of production, some consider it to be state ownership of the means of production and some consider it to be some sort of egalitarian free market. There are nearly endless semantics over the meanings of the terms which avoids a real discussion and debate about the actual principles that people advocate. These semantic conflicts even exist within each respective camp, as some market anarchists have abandoned the term capitalism.

Etymologically, anarchism simply means "no rulers". Anything that is without rulers is therefore anarchic by definition. Any philosophy that is opposed to rulers is an anarchistic philosophy by definition. Whatever additional features they may have is only a matter of flavor. On a fundamental level, all anarchists of any type oppose the institution of the state. Anything else that they may support or oppose beside the state is comparatively inconsequential, although it is of course true that non-state institutions may sometimes qualify as examples of rulership. So it does make some degree of sense to say that anarchism is more than mere consistant/radical anti-statism, even if one wants to quibble that such institutions would qualify as states anyways. One way to put it is that anarchists are opposed to crime or plunder in general as a matter of principle, and more large-scale manifestations are merely the institutionalization of crime or plunder. In either case, there is no reason to ostracize people who truly do oppose rulers from the anarchist movement just because they have perhaps a somewhat different flavor than one's particular camp.

The issue of property is the main area of conflict. The property debate has been going on forever. Some social anarchists seem to think that private property is either a product of the state or inevitably leads to a state. Private property may be thought of as either a legal construct or a form of exploitation that precedes and leads to the formation of states. Of course, one cannot logically hold both positions at once, since that would be like taking both sides of a chicken/egg debate at once. Market anarchists tend to define private property in terms that should actually appeal to a socialist, which is that legitimate private property is the product of labor - a labor theory of property aquisition. How can a socialist oppose labor when that is supposed to be their forte? If consistant to their principles, the market anarchist does not support all legal private property titles, for they have an independant standard of justice in property aquisition that would delegitimize currently existing conditions. In short, they oppose the currently existing legal construct. The vulgar libertarian, however, does fall into the trap of defending all or some illegitimate portion of currently existing private property titles and buisiness arrangements.

On the other hand, complications arise over the value of labor, as social anarchists tend to cling to some kind of labor theory of value. This is problematic because it doesn't adequately take into account the labor of the enterprenuer, the dynamic nature of prices and the factor of time in general. Contemporary market anarchists usually have discarded the labor theory of value for a subjective theory of value and theories of time preferance. However, if one observes individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker who still held to a labor theory of value, it would seem to be that case that the such people thought that a free economy would naturally reflect a labor theory of value. So in this sense classical individualist anarchists are entirely supportive of laissez-faire and only disagree with more contemporary market anarchism in terms of what they think the outcome of a free market would be. More contemporary individualist anarchists have merely modified the position in light of changes and improvements in economic theory. If one takes a 19th century individualist anarchist and merely substitutes the subjective theory of value in place of the labor theory of value, one essentially has a contemporary market anarchist.

Diehard social anarchists oppose what they consider to be private property. They often make a distinction between personal property and private property or between possessions and property. They tend to have a principle loosely based on "use" of property that is supposed to be more limited than the extent of control and amount available to the individual that private property allows for. It would seem that there is a threshold of requirements for property ownership with perpetual use at one end and perpetual ownership in the absence of use on the other. If they are pushed and in a logical state of mind, the social anarchist will not tend to condone a standard of perpetual use and the market anarchist will not tend to condone a standard that allows one to hold a title to blatantly abandoned or unowned property, for each of those standards leads to endless absurdities and may justify clearly wrong and exploitative scenarios.

Perpetual use is an absurd criteria for ownership, for it would imply that as soon as one parks their car somewhere then it is no longer theirs and therefore someone else may expropriate the car for themselves. In short, it would justify theft. On the other hand, there are problems with titles to ownership of property, particularly land, that has blatantly been abandoned or neglected by the person with the title to ownership and while there simultaneously are actually other people who actually actively labor upon it. Intergenerational or perpetual ownership over property that one makes no use of yet others do leads to fuedalism. Surely future generations of people should not be bound to a nullified claim of ownership by someone else, some rich aristocrat who no longer contributes in any real way to the upkeep of the property or makes any use of it at all. In order to resolve the issue, some process of identifying or clarifying whether or not the property in question is abandoned by its original owner would make sense. It should be noted, however, that this does not necessarily justify the claims of the geolibertarians, who erroneously conclude that private land ownership is illegitimate and/or there should be collective land ownership as a universal standard.

When the absurdities resulting from the idea of perpetual use are pointed out, the social anarchist will often proclaim "general use" to be the standard for ownership. But general use is very vague, leaving open a range of possibilities. It would seem to be the case that what constitutes general use would have to be agreed upon or arbitrated, quite possibly varying from organization to organization and/or community to community. If this is conceded, then the only real difference between the two sides is a matter of what type of voluntary precedent one personal prefers. So long as each side remains at least passively tolerant of the fact that perhaps different communities or organizations of people will have somewhat different standards, then there is no reason for conflict. Free association resolves the problem. If a standard objectively ends up being more sucessful and efficient through voluntary interactions, then it will tend to win out in the dynamic and evolutionary process of trial and error that is inherent in free association and competition.

Social anarchists demand worker ownership of the means of production. If consistant to the principles of voluntary interpersonal relations, the market anarchist has no choice but to support the liberty of individuals to voluntarily form worker's collectives and opt out of or secede from other particular organizations. If the social anarchist is likewise consistant, they have no choice but to support the liberty of individuals to voluntary form into employer-employee relationships and opt out of or secede from their worker's collectives. If one is forced into or out of such associations through force or the threat thereof, then they would effectively become slaves. So long as neither side actually forces anyone into their prefered organizational structures, each side can mutually persue their desires without infringement upon others. In a sense, the key question to ask is: can I opt out of your organization/community/society? If not, then it is no different than a state. If so, then there obviously is not going to be absolute uniformity in terms of what particular organizations and types of organizations people choose to participate in, as everyone is not identifical in their preferances, traits and abilities.

An interesting cunundrum to present a social anarchist with is, "I want to be a wage slave, I want to work for a boss, so what do you do if I truly do choose to enter into a contractual relationship with someone for wages in exchange for my labor? Why can't I rent out the products of my labor if I sincerely want to? What if I want to opt out of the worker's collective and look for an employer?". If an individual is truly autonamous, then noone may legitimately force them out of this personal association or force them to remain in a particular association, whether it is a single individual or "the majority" or "community". Likewise, an individual should have the liberty to opt out of an employer-employee relationship and voluntarily organize with others into worker's collectives or other types of organization. One must recognize the liberty of even a single individual to secede from an organization. So long as one does not have any genuine debt or contractual obligations withstanding, they should be able to exit the association and persue other ones. That's precisely how free competition works, as undesired and inefficient modes of organization become obsolete by people's choices not to associate with or participate in them.

Forms of organization that are considered to be socialistic are theoretically possible options in a free market. This is something that some people from both the anarcho-capitalist and social anarchist camps seem to not want to aknowledge, each for different reasons and from different perspectives. The consistant proponent of voluntary interpersonal relations has a certain kind of tolerance that allows for those who disagree with them to opt out of their prefered organizations and voluntarily form alternatives. It's essentially a live and let live perspective: don't force me into your community or organization and I shall do likewise. Call it whatever one wants, the law of equal liberty, the non-aggression principle, decision-making in proportion to the degree that one is effected, etc., it's all essentially the same thing. Within the confines of the general principle, anything additional is only optional or preferential.

Philosophies and ideas in general evolve over time, and this is just as true about anarchism as it is about anything else. The economics and philosophy behind anarchism have evolved, sometimes into territory that is very market oriented. There is a progression and tree of sorts that can be traced from the most original anarchists to currently existing factions, including market anarchism. Mutualism can be seen as progressing to individualist anarchism and eventually into contemporary market anarchism, so claims that market anarchism has no place within anarchist tradition is false and ignores the variance that has always existed within the general movement. To try to cling absolutely to every single aspect of an obsolete theory from centuries ago starts to make one rather conservative, and in this sense some social anarchists have become blind traditionalists who are unwilling to modify their ideas in the face of new information. On the other hand, contemporary market anarchists should have a lot of appriciation for early anarchist tradition and be willing to see what they may have in common with more socialist oriented anarchists. They should understand themselves in historical context and aknowledge that certain segments of their philosophy wouldn't exist without those who came before them, the Proudhons and Bakunins and Tuckers and Spooners.

There is no rational reason for there to be the degree of conflict that currently exists between the different camps of anarchists.

The Nail in the Coffin of "The Right"

Brainpolice — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:54:00 GMT

It is common for many libertarians, especially those in America, to assume that they have a natural alliance with "the right". This is based on certain assumptions, such as the notion that contemporary libertarianism grew out of the old American conservative movement and that "the right" is generally supportive of less government and more free markets in comparison to "the left". In short, the libertarian who makes such assumptions is at least partially buying into the way in which the political spectrum is typically framed in contemporary public discourse, with "the right" standing for less and less government control and "the left" standing for more and more government control, with "the left" standing for collectivism and communism and "the right" standing for individualism and capitalism. One would think that the libertarian should know better than to buy into this false dichotomy. It eradicates all nuances.

I find such assumptions to be mistaken for a number of reasons. In historical terms, libertarianism predates the existance of contemporary American conservatism altogether and the term "libertarian" itself actually derives from certain socialists from the 19th century. And, the term libertarian itself aside, the bulk of those who are considered to be the forefathers of libertarian ideas were originally considered to be on "the left", including free market proponents. Furthermore, it seems to me to be the case that the bulk of self-identified "rightists" do not actually support a free market or any consistant philosophy of individualism. I see no serious compelling reason to assume that "the right" necessarily supports state power any less than "the left". Conservative devotion to individualism and free markets is largely rhetorical, not substantive. These are campaign slogans, not seriously or consistantly held philosophical positions.

If viewed in terms of the original meaning of the left-right political spectrum, the meaning that it had centuries ago, libertarians are actually on the "far left" while the conservatives are on "the far right". For the left originally was supposed to represent anti-authoritarianism, anti-statism and revolution, while the right was supposed to represent the status quo, the oligarchy and reactionaries. Taken in its original context, conservatism has always been the polar opposite of libertarianism or liberalism. Libertarians are often mislead by the modern assumption that "the left" is necessarily in favor of statism and opposed to free economic interaction. Since this is assumed about "the left", the libertarian may make the mistake of then concluding that "the right" is therefore their natural home on the political spectrum.

But what does "the right" of today really stand for? Not to make too hasty of a generalization, as a "rightist" may not necessarily support all of these things, but here's what immediately comes to mind: corporatism, protectionism, monarchy, theocracy, traditionalism, militarism, nationalism and racism. It is important to note that all of these things were strongly opposed by historical libertarians and classical liberals to varying degrees. Classical liberals tended to be cosmopolitans in their worldview, and therefore nationalism does not jibe very well with such a philosophy. They also respresented a radical divergence from past political traditions, which implies an opposition to monarchy and theocracy. And there was always a strong opposition to war and imperialism within the old libertarian "left". Furthermore, obviously any sensible understanding of free market economics would lead one to oppose protectionism and corporatism.

Why do I identify "the right" with these traits? Because as far as I can tell such traits are implicit in their own rhetoric and in the substantive content of their policy positions. Obviously I do not mean to lump all "rightists" together into one arbitrary camp, as there are different factions within the contemporary conservative movement. But each faction represents some selection among the listed traits. Neoconservatives tend to support corporatism and militarism. Paleoconservatives tend to support protectionism, nationalism and traditionalism. The Christian right tends to support theocracy. Furthermore, despite quibbles among different factions of conservatives, they all are united by an irrationalist opposition to anything that is considered to be part of "the left". When it comes down to it, many conservatives are willing to set aside their differences to function as reactionaries to what they commonly oppose. Therefore anti-communism, anti-Islam, anti-multiculturalism and anti-secular sentiments prevail.

The problem is that in the name of opposing such things, the conservative tends to enter into a desperate state in which they will support just about any means in the name of defeating their common enemies. Thus, whatever disposition they may have had towards restraint in political affairs is at least temporarily set aside. The communists, radical Islam, the secularists and multiculturalists must be defeated at all costs first - then, only when the enemies have been defeated, we can worry about restraining the government, freeing up the economy and adhering to a non-interventionist foreign policy. But even when one boogeyman is defeated, it usually is replaced with another one. Thus, when the Soviet Union fell and left a void of rationales for foreign policy interventions, radical Islam was then used as the new rationale.

Even if the conservative is somewhat or even entirely correct in opposing something, such as a communism, they may tend to make the mistake of going on to form or join equally dangerous reactionary movements and end up supporting other things that should merit opposition as well. In short, they fall into the trap of thinking that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". But it does not logically follow that since one opposes communism, one must join forces with the fascists. It does not logically follow that since one opposes social democracy, one must join forces with the monarchists. It does not logically follow that since one opposes the state's discrimination laws, one must join forces with white nationalists. It does not logically follow that since one opposes government ownership of the means of production, one must indiscriminately support corporations.

The economic views of contemporary conservatism are also very warped. For the modern conservative does not support laissez-faire, but some form of a mixed economy or corporate state. Sure, the conservative's rhetoric is often devoted to laissez-faire, but their support for "capitalism" is more often than not merely a knee-jerk apologia for current economic conditions, corporations and the rich, irrespective of wether or not it has anything to do with laissez-faire. In short, the contemporary conservative often ends up using the term "free market" to describe and legitimize what we currently have. But we do not currently have a free market. The average conservative has not read Ludwig Von Mises or Frederic Bastiat. Their support for "capitalism" is more or less merely cultural, not an informed and substantive position. All they know is that they oppose "socialism" and "communism", and "capitalism" is the opposite of those things, therefore they must support whatever "capitalism" is. But their "capitalism" happens to be either the status quo (or elements of it at least) or some romantisized past utopia.

Since the conservative tends to conflate laissez-faire with corporatism or the effects of a mixed corporatist economy with "the free market", actual consistant proponents of laissez-faire may actually be demonized and brushed aside as being "socialists", since a consistant adherance to laissez-faire would naturally lead one to oppose corporatism. The conservative loves to see red where it does not really exist, therefore going on red-baiting witch hunts. The conservative may see red in positions that don't necessarily have anything to do with being a communist, such as opposition to political borders and support for multiculturalism. They accept an absurd false dichotomy: either you support the conservative agenda or you are a "far leftist". A "far leftist" is defined quite simply as anyone who disagrees with the conservative to any significant extent.

While there certainly are conservative intellectuals, the average conservative does not derive their position from any serious study of philosophy, economics or history. They derive their position from the media, their parents and cultural cliches. They are brought up to believe that whatever the conservative establishment happens to be supporting equates to small government, free markets and individualism - and that everyone and everything else is more or less a representation of big bad communism and "big government". In contemporary politics, conservatism has more to do with one's cultural preferances than any half-seriously thought out political philosophy. Dimwitted talkings heads such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter determines the conservative's views rather than anything remotely resembling a rational thought process.

What does the libertarian truly have in common with the contemporary right? In my estimation, very little. What they have in common is a matter of rhetoric and to some limited degree over what they are opposed to. But the libertarian ultimately has no compelling reason to support what the contemporary right does. For the contemporary right is largely a reactionary statist movement. Figures such as Ronald Reagen and Pat Buchannan are not particularly libertarian, despite any correct positions they may hold to on certain individual issues. Contemporary conservatism is just another brand of statism.