The founding fathers believed it was the right of the people to abolish the government once it no longer protected the natural rights of its citizens. They believed in secession - afterall, the Revolutionary War was fought so that the US could secede from Britain. According to Rothbardian logic, if you believe that states have the right to secede, then so do counties, cities, households, and ultimately - individuals.
To me, this implies that they believe government is truly voluntary, and individuals should have a right to opt out, and if need be, establish their own voluntary government. Isn't this really anarchy/panarchy?
Well the founding fathers were hardly all unanimous in their opinions about government.
Thomas Jefferson has been described as a sort of proto-anarchist of sorts, so idk....
I think that it's important to not speak of "the founding fathers" as if they all had the exact same ideas or constituted some sort of unanimous group. They ranged from mercantalists and monarchists to individualistic proto-libertarians. That being said, if we at least mean to refer to the more explicitly classical liberal "founding fathers", they nonetheless did not follow their own premises to their logical conclusion, and supported the notion of a constitutional republic. Despite the anti-government rhetoric and rebellion against the British, they established a government, and it was not consistently voluntary in its formation. It was a handful of aristocrats in a room that "consented" to it, nothing more and nothing less. Nonetheless, in the case of the more radical types like Jefferson and Paine, they certain held ideas that could be considered to border on "philosophical anarchism". But it didn't mature into anarchism until other people took up the mantle. So my answer in such a case is: did they influence what later came to be anarchism? Yes, they definitely did. Were they actual full-scale anarchists? No, they weren't.
Brainpolice: Despite the anti-government rhetoric and rebellion against the British, they established a government, and it was not consistently voluntary in its formation. It was a handful of aristocrats in a room that "consented" to it, nothing more and nothing less.
Exactly. Many individuals gloss over this fun fact. I would state that Thomas Paine, among a very few, was someone who stayed consistent before, during and after the revolution. Other men when given power were no better then their British counterparts.
'It is difficult to imagine any normal person wishing to meet Marx for a third time.' - Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition
I haven't read Woods' PIG Guide to American History, but he mentions that the American colonists were actually considered "conservative" in their times: they didn't like the British "innovations" of 1760s and 1770s (i.e. higher taxes and more government interventions). They'd always enjoyed a large degree of independence having their own assemblies and realized that in order to preserve it they had to get rid of the imperial government. There were actually some founding fathers (Hamilton, specifically) who even wanted to recreate British mercantilist empire on the basis of the newly independent colonies, but the majority probably were closer in views to Jefferson and supported a limited government in the form of the constitutional republic. Articles of Confederation even called for a more loose conglomerate of independent states with a very weak central government - it's too bad they didn't stick to that idea.
If I hear not allowed much oftener; said Sam, I'm going to get angry.
J.R.R.Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
sirmonty: Well the founding fathers were hardly all unanimous in their opinions about government. Thomas Jefferson has been described as a sort of proto-anarchist of sorts, so idk....
Last I heard Jefferson wasn't even in the country when the constitution was written.
Microsecession as a strategy for revolution | Challenge to minarchist | How would a private road system work?
Stranger: sirmonty: Well the founding fathers were hardly all unanimous in their opinions about government. Thomas Jefferson has been described as a sort of proto-anarchist of sorts, so idk.... Last I heard Jefferson wasn't even in the country when the constitution was written.
I don't think he particularly liked the Constitution. He was still a bit pissed that the Declaration of Independence was compromised.
Brainpolice:Nonetheless, in the case of the more radical types like Jefferson and Paine, they certain held ideas that could be considered to border on "philosophical anarchism". But it didn't mature into anarchism until other people took up the mantle. So my answer in such a case is: did they influence what later came to be anarchism? Yes, they definitely did. Were they actual full-scale anarchists? No, they weren't.
Sorta how I feel about Mises.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
If we describe anarchism as a system where there are no organized means of coercion, as the term was understood by Mises and his contemporaries, then of course Mises would have been against it. His entire life was devoted to explaining the benefits of capitalism and the division of labor in organized capitalistic enterprises. The state being an organized capitalistic enterprise, it was preferable to "subsistence security".
Only later was anarchism redefined by Rothbard and his followers into anarcho-capitalism.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Anarchist Cain: Brainpolice: Despite the anti-government rhetoric and rebellion against the British, they established a government, and it was not consistently voluntary in its formation. It was a handful of aristocrats in a room that "consented" to it, nothing more and nothing less. Exactly. Many individuals gloss over this fun fact. I would state that Thomas Paine, among a very few, was someone who stayed consistent before, during and after the revolution. Other men when given power were no better then their British counterparts.
They stayed very much consistent after the war, they weren't really that radical to begin with.
I am becoming a Burkean Whig.
- F.A. Hayek
laminustacitus:They stayed very much consistent after the war, they weren't really that radical to begin with.
Trying to enact a premise that government is contractarian in nature and that if provoked citizens can take back their rights through Lockean principles had never been tried in the world. Mainstream outlooks towards divine will stated that the citizens will always tied to a king for good or bad. Breaking that tradition and establishing something new [ perhaps not agreeable to anarchists ] is none the less radical.
Juan:Only later was anarchism redefined by Rothbard and his followers into anarcho-capitalism. Libertarian anarchism was firstly proposed in 1849 by Gustave de Molinari - who was hardly a 'commie'. What you are saying is confused and confusing.
De Molinari was an unknown until the anarcho-capitalists dug him up.
Juan:De Molinari was the most important economist writing in French after Bastiat. Read his biography.
Nobody remembered Bastiat either. It is not reasonable to assume that Mises would have been aware of early 19th century French authors until he arrived in Geneva, and then he would have been through the contemporary literature first before starting to dig around. Besides Molinari himself did not consider himself an anarchist, and would therefore not have influenced Mises to become one.
Stranger:Besides Molinari himself did not consider himself an anarchist, and would therefore not have influenced Mises to become one.
Mises was never an anarchist....
While two of Molinari’s works discuss what has now been termed “anarcho-capitalism,” these were quite short and should not be compared to the system Rothbard developed, whether one agrees with such a system or not. Besides, the French Optimist School did not offer very much after Bastiat, so to state that Molinari ranks as the most eminent member during his time masks the school’s slow decline. It is also interesting to note that Molinari later distanced himself from his original position on private defense. Nineteenth-century anarchism had a reputation for faulty economic doctrine. There were also those with an anti-intellectual streak who were unfortunately, and wrongly, associated with anarchist ideas. This response is not an attack on Molinari or anarchism by any means. Rather, under these circumstances, I can understand how Mises, or any other early Austrian Economist, would fail to find much of a reason to adopt anarchism as he or she understood it at that time.
While two of Molinari’s works discuss what has now been termed “anarcho-capitalism,” these were quite short and should not be compared to the system Rothbard developed, whether one agrees with such a system or not. Besides, the French Optimist School did not offer very much after Bastiat, so to state that Molinari ranks as the most eminent member during his time masks the school’s slow decline. It is also interesting to note that Molinari later distanced himself from his original position on private defense.
Nineteenth-century anarchism had a reputation for faulty economic doctrine. There were also those with an anti-intellectual streak who were unfortunately, and wrongly, associated with anarchist ideas.
This response is not an attack on Molinari or anarchism by any means. Rather, under these circumstances, I can understand how Mises, or any other early Austrian Economist, would fail to find much of a reason to adopt anarchism as he or she understood it at that time.
Rather, under these circumstances, I can understand how Mises, or any other early Austrian Economist, would fail to find much of a reason to adopt anarchism
Juan:I don't see any reason to justify their mistakes.
I agree with Juan. Anarchism is itself the logical conclusion towards free trade.
econ student: Nineteenth-century anarchism had a reputation for faulty economic doctrine. There were also those with an anti-intellectual streak who were unfortunately, and wrongly, associated with anarchist ideas. This response is not an attack on Molinari or anarchism by any means. Rather, under these circumstances, I can understand how Mises, or any other early Austrian Economist, would fail to find much of a reason to adopt anarchism as he or she understood it at that time.
It should not be surprising that 19th century anarchists, or anarcho-communists as Rothbard labeled them, espoused faulty economic doctrine. Their opposition to the state stemmed from the same idea as their opposition to capitalism, that large-scale organized capital was detrimental. They wanted to both wipe out capitalist enterprise and the state and replace them with nothing. The result of such a revolution would be a return to self-defense, that is to say a subsistence production of security, accompanying a subsistence lifestyle working the land.
Capitalism is in that sense closely aligned with monarchism. The state, under a hereditary monarch, produces security at a large enough scale that organized capitalist production is possible. The monarchical state is a capitalist enterprise itself, relying on an organized bureaucracy instead of a system of kinship relations to secure the livelihood of its subjects from external threats. Once the state severs its obedience to the monarch, it then takes on a much different character comparable to that of a large corporation vis-a-vis its small shareholders. It can grow without limits and consume their capital at will. That is when it becomes most destructive.
It suffices to say that no anarchist society could withstand aggression from an organized enemy unless it was itself organized on capitalistic lines, thus showing that anarchism is a death-wish not only economically but also quite literally. For these reasons it makes no sense for any kind of economist, in the classical sense of the word, to align himself with anarchism. It was only one of Rothbard's short-lived alliances that brought anarchism into economic thought. For very wise reasons Hoppe has distanced the term from libertarianism and instead uses a natural order as a way to label a political society where force is organized but not monopolized.
This divergence in viewpoints also necessarily affects their strategy and relationship with the state. While an anarchist wants the state to be destroyed or collapse, a natural order libertarian only wants to fight it to such a point that it surrenders its power, thus making a progressive and peaceful transition towards a natural order possible with no period of "anarchy" where only self-defense is available.
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