This Saturday’s "StopWatching.Us" protest in Washington DC promises to be the Mother Of All StrangeBedfellowsPaloozas, the apotheosis of sentimental Boomer politics in which right-wingers hold hands with left-wingers in a righteous People’s Crusade against the government Death Star.
I wouldn't be the first to point out how embarrassingly easy it has been for rancid Koch libertarian front groups to convince those on the Left that they are all on the same team. As Salon writer Tom Watson wrote, the event is "fatally compromised by the prominent leadership and participation of the Libertarian Party and other libertarian student groups [who stand] in direct opposition to almost everything I believe in as a social democrat."
What hasn't been revealed until now, however, is how the libertarians got so good at fooling their lefty marks. For that you have to look back 35 years, to an amazing series of articles in the Koch brothers' REASON magazine in which prominent libertarians lay out to a new generation of followers a playbook of "tricks" to fool earnest leftists, liberals and hippies into supporting their cause....More dupe the rubes bankrolled by billionaires promoting laissez-faire. Again, follow the money.
NSFW Corp
60 comments:
Reason magazine was certainly not a Koch brothers magazine in the 1970s and it certainly was not a Randian magazine ever.
http://reason.com/archives/2008/11/17/40-years-of-free-minds-and-fre/print
The idea that "holocaust denial" has ever been any part of libertarianism is just your typical "progressive" libel because the truth never helps you guys.
"Libertarian Review" was a magazine owned by the Kochs during that period. Such a right wing rag.
http://www.libertarianism.org/lr/LR807.pdf
I note for the 17th time that the core libertarian concept of the total, absolute (no exceptions ever) prohibition upon the initiation of force and violence fails to appear in your lies. Again, the truth would be no help to you guys.
Dani Rodrik: The philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between two styles of thinking, which he identified with the hedgehog and the fox. The hedgehog is captivated by a single big idea, which he applies unremittingly. The fox, by contrast, lacks a grand vision and holds many different views about the world – some of them even contradictory.
We can always anticipate the hedgehog’s take on a problem – just as we can predict that market fundamentalists will always prescribe freer markets, regardless of the nature of the economic problem. Foxes carry competing, possibly incompatible theories in their heads. They are not attached to a particular ideology and find it easier to think contextually.
Scholars who are able to navigate from one explanatory framework to another as circumstances require are more likely to point us in the right direction. The world needs fewer hedgehogs and more foxes.
I guess that makes you "progressives" the hedgehogs, captivated (due to white knuckle fear) by the single idea of NEVER EVER acknowledging the existence of your opponents' position while endlessly distorting it and its adherents.
Dobby Bobbis:
"the core libertarian concept of the total, absolute (no exceptions ever) prohibition upon the initiation of force and violence"
Murray Rothbard
"Suppose, for example, that police beat and torture a suspected murderer to find information (not to wring a confession, since obviously a coerced confession could never be considered valid). If the suspect turns out to be guilty, then the police should be exonerated"
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twelve.asp
No one is required to follow Rothbard's suggestion on police torture. Voluntary communities can follow whatever ethics they chose. They might be minority atheist socialist lesbians who share a single bank account or devout Christians how pray 15 times a day. The only broad libertarian principle is the NAP. Further, Rothbard is not going to be around to boss those around regarding his views on police torture. What a stupid and irrelevant comment (like always with you). The typical ad hominem attack so that the subject can be changed quickly.
"The only broad libertarian principle is the NAP."
Yes, we know. Some people think for good reason that assuming a single principle governing human affairs leading to optimal results socially, politically and economically is incredibly naive, or designed to favor special interests that stand to gain from it.
Ames: Another thing that REASON’s unvarnished nihilism reveals is that they had no audience outside of their own numbers; no one in their right mind read the crap published in REASON back then. Only the tiny numbers of fellow libertarians, most of whom were on one political flak's payroll or another. In that sense, the REASON of 1977 was more like a Koch Industries PR department newsletter for the company's flaks. No need to mince words.
Of course, Reason was not a Koch publication. Robert Poole's ideas (the guy in charge of Reason) were instrumental in the deregulation of the airline and trucking industries in the late 70s and which had been under total crony capitalist government protection while milking the public.
The Koch publication, Libertarian Review, published stuff like Roy Childs explaining how the CIA had installed the murderous Shah which induced the Iranian revolution.
http://www.unz.org/Pub/LibertarianRev-1980feb-00024?View=PDF
I suppose it is our fault that the MSM has generally suppressed the truth about the shah and the CIA in Iran, much like it and all the "progressive" opponents of libertarianism suppress core concepts like the NAP.
designed to favor special interests that stand to gain from it.
Which is why the elitists ALWAYS want government favors and handouts and not laissez faire. And which is why "progressives" ALWAYS lie about that fact.
Dobby says that the core libertarian concept is the "total, absolute (no exceptions ever) prohibition upon the initiation of force and violence", and Murray Rothbard says that private police should be allowed to beat and torture suspects. Dobby doesn't realize that there is a basic contradiction there.
Either there is rule of law or not. If there is not, then the rule of the jungle applies and the strong dominate the weak. If there is rule of law, then there is enforcement of law, a justice system and an institution that makes law, i.e., a governing institution. Once there is an institution, then there are institutional arrangements. Those arrangement can be either by popular consent or imposed hierarchically. If imposed hierarchically, as in a republic as a representative democracy, then the political process can be corrupted and historically always has been by an elite that legislate privilege for their class. So clearly, more that a principle of non-aggression is required, although such a principle can be incorporated with other principles in balancing individual liberty, equality of persons before the law and with equal rights, and recognition of the interdependence of all beings and the environment in the ecological system.
that there is a basic contradiction there.
Do you understand the word "initiation"? The action of beginning something?
Here, the criminals have INITIATED the force and violence. The torture would be employed to cease a pre-existing and continuing crime. There is no contradiction. Whether it is good policy or not is another question. If someone has set a nuclear bomb that is going to destroy half the nation and torture can reveal a way to stop it, it might make sense to allow such torture and not indict the torturers. Then again, it might be better to always ban torture. And Rothbard is saying that if the cops torture an innocent person, then the cops would be prosecuted. You just can't keep anything in context, can you?
Again, we see nothing but the employment of lies and distortion instead of calm debate.
This so-called "non-aggression principle" is dishonest garbage like most of the rest of the stuff so-called "libertarians" like Dobby endlessly spew.
If private police beat and torture suspects, that is "initiation of force and violence" against suspects.
recognition of the interdependence of all beings and the environment in the ecological system.
Explain how a SWAT team pulling guns on non-violent people is a "recognition of the interdependence of all beings".
The NAP provides strict liability for pollution. Explain how its VIOLATION by a SWAT team increases protection against pollution.
"Explain how a SWAT team pulling guns on non-violent people"
Explain how your strange obsession with SWAT teams is relevant to Tom's comment, Dobs.
The logic doesn't follow. Left-libertarians do not exclude the NAP, in fact they say violence other than in self-defense, including national defense, as well as in enforcement of the law only as reasonably required, is a necessary legal principle in addition to being a recognized moral principle.
They say further that NAP is not sufficient, as right-libertarians claim.
So get off the you guys don't understand NAP. We understand it perfectly well and also say it is naive to think it is the only applicable principle morally and legally.
"they say violence other than in self-defense, including national defense, as well as in enforcement of the law only as reasonably required, is a necessary legal principle in addition to being a recognized moral principle."
Something missing from that sentence I think.
I think I'll stop referring to dobby as a libertarian, as I don't think he really is one. A more correct term would be 'propertarian', or maybe just 'extreme right-wing nutter'.
Explain how your strange obsession with SWAT teams is relevant
By definition, a political act requires force and violence to enforce it. If the victim won't surrender and hides in his house, the government ALWAYS sends out a SWAT team to collect the victim for his court appearance and then for prison.
If the request is voluntary, the victim can just say no and there is no political act.
This is a pretty basic analysis that seems to escape the "progressives". All of them.
As I have for 41 years, I merely ask for the justification of the SWAT team. Hysterics and subject changing invariably follow.
Also 'oligarchists' is a more accurate term for extreme right-wing so-called "libertarians" like dobby and his ilk.
the problem with the word 'libertarian' is that it suggests their ideology has something to do with liberty in a general sense, when really their ideology is solely about the idea of private property.
'oligarchists' is a more accurate term for extreme right-wing so-called "libertarians"
What stupid and baseless statement to make. There is no evidence that the elite supports or has ever supported laissez faire. All the evidence shows that they support "progressive" policies which allow them to control the government and thus society.
http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Conservatism-Reinterpretation-American-1900-1916/dp/0029166500/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394500786&sr=1-1&keywords=Kolko
By definition, your fantasy propertarian dystopia requires force and violence to enforce the laws upon which it is based.
Laws have to be enforceable, hence the use of force to enforce laws in the real world.
"oligarchists"
Murray Rothbard:
“If, then, inequality of income is the inevitable corollary of freedom, then so too is inequality of control. In any organization, there will always be a minority of people who will rise to the position of leaders and others who will remain as followers in the rank and file. Robert Michels [fascist sociologist] discovered this as one of the great laws of sociology, "The Iron Law of Oligarchy." In every organized activity, no matter the sphere, a small number will become the "oligarchical" leaders and the others will follow.
In the market economy, the leaders will inevitably earn more money than the rank and file. Within other organizations, the difference will only be that of control. But, in either case, ability and interest will select those who rise to the top.
“If, then, the natural inequality of ability and of interest among men must make elites inevitable, the only sensible course is to abandon the chimera of equality and accept the universal necessity of leaders and followers. The task of the libertarian, the person dedicated to the idea of the free society, is not to inveigh against elites which, like the need for freedom, flow directly from the nature of man. The goal of the libertarian is rather to establish a free society… In this society the elites will be free to rise to their best level… we will discover "natural aristocracies" who will rise to prominence and leadership in every field. The point is to allow the rise of these natural aristocracies”.
http://mises.org/fipandol/fipsec4.asp
"There is no evidence that the elite supports or has ever supported laissez faire. All the evidence shows that they support "progressive" policies"
Right-wing elites relentlessly campaign to cut taxes on the wealthy, reduce employment and environmental regulations, privatize everything that is currently public, and terminate public services and welfare.
If there truly is a “natural aristocracy” as you claim*, it is best that they are placed on a short leash as the result of the prohibition upon them initiating force. Further, if people have allegedly too much wealth, society can just refuse to further trade with them until they disgorge some of their wealth. There are always peaceful alternatives to SWAT teams, something that “progressives” cannot comprehend.
*If you aren't claiming this, then it can't be problem, can it?
Right-wing elites relentlessly campaign to cut taxes on the wealthy, reduce employment and environmental regulations, privatize everything that is currently public, and terminate public services and welfare.
If that were true, taxes and spending would be much lower. Pollution violates the NAP. Further, big business often love regulations and high wages as they help keep lower cost competitors from coming into existence. Read the Kolko book.
"they say violence other than in self-defense, including national defense, as well as in enforcement of the law only as reasonably required, is a necessary legal principle in addition to being a recognized moral principle."
Something missing from that sentence I think.
Yes, should be "no violence" instead of "violence" in 'they say violence" above.
Non-violence, other than with reasonable justification, is a moral principle enshrined in most modern law.
Anyone following this blog knows that we are as concerned with government overreach in this regard, especially after the suspension of civil liberties after 9/11, in which we have seen widespread abuse. And don't forget that no one was ever convicted wrt the massacre at Kent State in May, 1970 at an anti-war protest, making a mockery of the law.
Bob, how can you have private property without allowing the initiation of force, with such an absolute NAP? The owner or defender of private property is the one who initiates or calls for the initiation of force by authorities, not the one who is taking what is deemed as the other's property.
"If there truly is a “natural aristocracy” as you claim"
I'm not claiming. Murray Rothbard is telling you how he envisions his propertarian dystopia. It is a world controlled by a wealthy oligarchic elite, or so-called "natural aristocracy". Duh.
“If, then, inequality of income is the inevitable corollary of freedom, then so too is inequality of control."
Hans Hermann Hoppe tells us some more about the strictly hierarchical, oligarchic propertarian dystopia:
“the natural outcome of voluntary transactions between private property owners is non-egalitarian, hierarchical, and elitist. In every society, a few individuals acquire the status of an elite through talent. Due to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, and bravery, these individuals come to possess natural authority... Moreover, because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are likely to be passed on within a few noble families."
http://mises.org/etexts/intellectuals.asp
Now I have to sleep. So I will not be responding to any more of dobby's dumb and delusional comments today.
I'm not claiming. Murray Rothbard is telling you....
If Rothbard is wrong, who cares? It can't be a problem then, can it? It is only a problem if Rothbard is right as you must be claiming.
Anyone following this blog knows that we are as concerned with government overreach in this regard, especially after the suspension of civil liberties after 9/11, in which we have seen widespread abuse. And don't forget that no one was ever convicted wrt the massacre at Kent State in May, 1970 at an anti-war protest, making a mockery of the law.
I would agree that this website has been consistent in its critique of Obama and the suspension of civil liberties.
However, the whole point of MMT is to provide the same monsters who invariably run governments with unconstrained financial control over the whole of society (about which you constantly brag). A major purpose of the NAP is to completely cut off the source of their funding and to ban their nefarious activities.
Yes, and we think that this recipe would be worse, leading to a conservative utopia of "meritocracy," which Rothbard calls a natural aristocracy.
This is the fundamental conservative position, based on rule by the fittest, which was by strength of arms under monarchy and feudalism and in capitalism under classical liberalism and now neoliberalism through ownership of the means of production, land and capital, and control of institutions as levers of power.
Rothbard lays out that position forthrightly. The article I posted above is about how Libertarians need to conceal that in promoting their agenda by talking about "freedom" instead, without going very deeply into what their version of freedom implies socially, politically and economically.
Libertarianism rests solely on the Non Aggression Principle. The Non Aggression Principle doesn't exist in nature. The Non Aggression Principle is a fantasy. A certain portion of humans are aggressive, horrible creatures. Even the ones that aren't do aggressive things. Bob's example of pollution comes to mind among endless possibilities. Good luck, Bob.
Bob,
Here they come!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sss51tFfsW4
y - Addressing Bob Roddis as Dobby Bobbis makes you sound like you are 12 years old.
Dobbis is a delusional clown who deserves a name suited to his character and intellectual stature.
I find y's retort "The NAP is a secret plan to impose mass torture - even when Rothbard isn't there!" amusing. Amusing but pathetic.
When a group of minority atheist socialist lesbians buy up a 6 square mile piece of land for their community and adopt the NAP, they will invariably resort to torturing each other and their neighbors. And all because Rothbard suggested (speaking only as Rothbard) that torture that results in a rescue perhaps should not be prosecuted.
I love MMTers because they are such deep thinkers.
Comments are closed that do not advance the argument.
Here's where the argument stands. I posted a link to an article claiming that Liberarians understand that their position is unacceptable to left-libertarians and so they should emphasize agreement rather than disagreement. Part of that is downplaying certain aspects and consequences of Libertarianism like anarch-capitalism.
Bob Roddis had a right to rebut the position and he did by asserting NAP with the implication that it is necessary and sufficient as a governing/legal principle.
I objected that although I and left-libertarians that espouse non-violence agree NAP is necessary, but deny that it is sufficient.
That counter has not be addressed.
y addressed the Roddis rebuttal obliquely with quotes from Murray Rothbard admitting that the economics of Libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, 1) do not take the concept of rights into account in allowing for police use of torture (showing the insufficiency of NAP), and 2) that anarcho-capitalism leads to "natural aristocracy" as the rule of a plutocractic oligarchy.
1, along with my objection of insufficiency, has not been addressed and therefore stands.
2 leading to natural oligarchy has not been denied and also stands.
Conclusion: At this point left and right libertarianisms are irreconcilable and the article above is evidence that right-libertarians are aware of this and are trying to conceal it in order to get the cooperation of left-libertarians.
Comments that do not address these points to advance the debate, or don't bring in new material that is relevant will be deleted.
I appreciate Mr. Hickey's input here.
It is untrue that the NAP is both a necessary and SUFFICIENT basis to organize society. It is necessary but deals only with a limited aspect of life, the proper role of violence in social life.
The fact is that libertarianism is not and does not pretend to be a complete moral or aesthetic theory; it is only a political theory, that is, the important subset of moral theory that deals with the proper role of violence in social life.
Political theory deals with what is proper or improper for government to do, and government is distinguished from every other group in society as being the institution of organized violence. Libertarianism holds that the only proper role of violence is to defend person and property against violence, that any use of violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive, unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion, should be free to do as he sees fit, except invade the person or property of another. What a person does with his or her life is vital and important, but is simply irrelevant to libertarianism.
http://mises.org/daily/2616
Each voluntary community would/could agree to various different sets of bylaws governing such community that did not concern the initiation of force against third parties not in privity of contract with the citizens of such community.
I suspect that each society will have certain members who are smarter and more affluent than others. The NAP precludes them from violence which is a substantial solution to whatever problem one thinks they might cause. Community bylaws could easily address the “problem” of “excess wealth”.
The supposed moral foundation of dobby’s propertarian ideology is 'homesteading'. This is the idea that if someone ‘homesteads’ something all by themselves, like a piece of land for example, that thing becomes their exclusive private property and no-one else has a right to use or take that thing without the homesteader’s consent. It is on the basis of this ‘homesteading’ idea that propertarians justify their other beliefs, such as that taxation is theft and violence, etc.
However in the real world private property is not based on fanciful individual 'homesteading' so the propertarian ideology is completely incoherent.
Y, that is indeed Locke's imaginary narrative, like the Robinson Crusoe barter narrative that grounds liberal economics, as well as the narrative that underlies metallism as a theory of the origin of money.
This is the problem with classical liberalism. It is based on 18th and 19th century ideas that we now know to be myths based on findings of anthropology, anthropological economics, and social science. It was a first approximation, so to speak, and holding on to that now after much further knowledge has been gained is anachronistic.
Conventional macroeconomics has a similar problem with the assumption of equilibrium. It's a holdover from 19th century physics. And finance is beset with the holdover of gold standard thinking that no longer applies.
"It was a first approximation, so to speak, and holding on to that now after much further knowledge has been gained is anachronistic."
It's obvious that private property isn't derived from individual people individually homesteading in imaginary voluntariness since the garden of eden. No need for 'much further knowledge' to figure that out.
Propertarians like dobby choose to ignore basic, obvious facts, such as history and reality, because they are first and foremost ideologues whose beliefs are primarily motivated by their emotions (generally feelings of hatred towards other people in the case of propertarians).
The entire propertarian belief system is based on a completely ridiculous fabrication.
Almost all of the phony “progressive” opposition to the NAP is based on their phony and dishonest assertions that laissez faire led to the Robber Baron era. The Kolko book referenced above completely refutes that. Further, a book by Butler Shaffer, “In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign against Competition, 1918-1938 again demonstrates for this later era that businesses never support laissez faire and are always on the prowl to use government to protect them from competition. You can get the Kindle version of this book for $2.99.
http://tinyurl.com/qe2ovp2
There is no basis in fact, history or theory to support the assertion that laissez faire leads to monopoly or to the concentration of elite power. All of the evidence demonstrates the exact opposite: By allowing government to “regulate” business, Pandora's Box is opened by the regulation process which is soon controlled by the oligarchy at the expense of the 99%. You “progressives' have everything bass-ackwards. Your “solutions” are the problem.
the demented propertarian brain is quite a thing to behold. The following sequence makes no logical sense whatsoever, but it is what propertarian ideologues like dobby actually believe:
1. big business corrupts government.
2. therefore we should get rid of government, remove all regulations on big business and stop taxing big business completely.
3. also we should take away everyone's right to vote, terminate every single public service and support they currently rely on, and sell everything that is currently public property to big business.
4. the above steps will make everyone free and happy and big business won't control everything.
1. Have you ever played Monopoly™?
2. Classical liberalism begins with an assumption that everyone start outs in a race approximately equal but with different dispositions and abilities, running on a level playing field. That is a stylized assumption to begin with. Secondly, it's clear with with economies of scale and compounds interest, over time some runners are going to be way ahead of the pack just assuming difference of disposition and ability and no other factors.
3. Government is necessary for the rule of law at minimum. This leaves open the potential for some to pass laws favoring their own or special interests from which they stand to gain. Just from the most basic parameters, inequality is almost guaranteed.
4. Moreover, some inequality is assumed if incentive is a motivating factor. If there is no inequality, then there is no individual incentive to excel. Granted that if all applied themselves equally, all could advance equally. But that only applies in rather limited contexts.
This is just the construction of a stylized model.
When we look at history, this construct never applied to a non-tribal society, and it did not apply to a tribal society either since there was no clear concept of property, money, exchange, or markets, and custom prevailed rather than law.
At this point, creating the conditions for a level playing field with an equal start are impossible. The fact is that Locke's story about homesteading is fiction. Most land title can be traced back not to primitive homesteading but rather to ascendancy of a warrior class, most often with a priesthood class, too, with the subsequent temple taxes, taxes to support the warriors who expanded territory and influence trough pillage and conquest. This developed into subsequent grants by lords to vassals. Land title was essentially equivalent to feudal title of the lord, so that the fief of county was the governed by a count, a duchy by a duke, a barony by a baron, etc. Land-bound serf eventually replaced slaves in many place. Even the tenants that were not land-bound were tied to the land for subsistence — land that was theirs to till but to which they did not hold title.
Laissez-faire as the basis for a social, political and economic system sounded very good at the time that feudalism was crumbling and classical liberalism was providing a philosophical foundation for a propertied bourgeoisie. None of the people propounding that narrative were the formers serfs and new laborers in factories, who had no property.
In fact, the rational that made property holders free was designed to replace the feudal titled land holders and lord of the manor with merchants, tradesmen, and factory owners. Laborers were freed from being bound to land but that was the extent of it. They had to earn incomes and they were bound to their work, rarely ever able to save enough to become property holders. So this was just the replacement of one class by another.
Laissez-faire originally meant leave the government out of it, meaning business. Merchants wanted free trade, free markets and free capital flow. They were not interested in freedom for laborers other than freedom from being bound to land so they could work in factories.
This is essentially the same meaning of "freedom" in contemporary laissez-faire, only even then is only a rationalization, since business not only welcome government involvement when it benefits them but also demand it.
In other words, so-called principles involving "freedom" such as "free trade," "free markets," and "free capital flows" are largely BS used to rationalize for favoring interests.
The notion of free individuals competing on a level playing field based on inalienable rights of life, liberty and property is a fiction, as is "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." This is feel-good stuff, not reality.
1. big business corrupts government.
I never said such a thing per se. What I said was that provision for violation of the NAP under the guise of a regulation which addresses something other than a real crime or tort is a process that will inevitably be taken over by what you guys call the “natural oligarchy” for their benefit at the expense of society. Absent such provision for the violation of the NAP, the “natural oligarchy” is defanged.
Regarding the “Monopoly” analogy, I believe I've stated 145 times that the analogy is false and without historical, theoretical or factual basis. I've also noted the Kolko and Shaffer books.
You cannot refute a proposal to apply and strictly enforce the NAP in society with historical examples where the problems were all caused by VIOLATIONS of the NAP.
Imagine we have a society that has one rule:
Thou shalt not do anything aggressive.
It occurs that someone may have done something aggressive (it's human nature to do so, after all). Private police officers (there is no government, hence no public police force) arrest the "aggressive" person and torture them to determine whether or not they did something aggressive. If yes, the aggressor is in trouble. If no, the private police force is in trouble.
Why are we bothering to argue about this nonsense? If the NAP was a possibility, we wouldn't have/need governments.
"violation of the NAP"
applying a legal regulation is not an act of aggression. If businesses want to operate within a given jurisdiction they have to abide by the laws of that jurisdiction. These laws might include not dumping cyanide into drinking water or treating employees like slaves, for example.
If 'big business' connives to bring about some form of government regulation which specifically benefits them at the expense of everyone else, that is a form of corruption of government.
1. If the government has no ability to "regulate" beyond strict enforcement of the NAP and fraud, business cannot capture the process. The process precedes the ability of business to capture it. The "cure" for a non-existent problem is the cause of the problem.
2. Business capture of the government in the US is almost ALWAYS technically legal and is perpetuated by the democratic process. Without electoral support of the politicians who pass those laws and rules, it would disappear.
3. It is apparently beyond the grasp of the voters to view this capture of government by business as corruption (although libertarians view it as such and rail against it) because otherwise it would be abolished by the voters.
It is Rothbard who refers to a 'natural aristocracy' which he describes as being oligarchic. I quoted him, idiot.
Since you are saying Rothbard is wrong and there is no such "aristocracy" running around to cause trouble, why all the concern about what these people might do, smart guy?
Your argument is that business corrupts government so therefore we should get rid of government and remove all regulations on business. It doesn't matter how many times or in how many different ways you repeat this argument, it will not begin to make any logical sense. It is an illogical argument.
"The "cure" for a non-existent problem is the cause of the problem."
You're simply asserting that there are no conceivable problems that would ever need to be addressed by any form of government regulation. Because you never bother to try and justify these idiotic no-nothing, reality-denying assertions with any sort of substantial argument I will simply refute your assertion by responding in kind: yes government regulations can and do serve a positive purpose, so there, I win.
"Without electoral support of the politicians who pass those laws and rules"
Name a few laws and rules you think are especially corrupt and which benefit big business at the expense of everyone else, instead of just talking about everything as if its all the same.
Same old Lockean argument about the role of government being solely to protect life, liberty and property. It is belied by the founding fathers, who were all classical liberals, in the formulation of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, which go far beyond classical liberalism in spite of the attempts to argue otherwise.
The actions of the founders in applying the Constitution subsequently show their intent, as it was by Hamilton's successful advocacy of the establishment of a central bank based on implied powers, and Washington's personally taking part in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion by leading the army against it.
The idea of going back to the original intent of the framers of the Constitution does not get to NAP. The only way to do this in the US is to write a new constitution. Call me when that happens. Otherwise, back to reality.
"Since you are saying Rothbard is wrong"
I have to walk you through all of this don't I?
Rothbard argues that in the ideal "libertarian" world there will inevitably be a wealthy oligarchy - a "natural aristocracy", or elite - which will be in a position of control over the rest of the population - the "rank and file" - as a result of their superior wealth.
The point of the oligarchist/propertarian, so-called "libertarian" movement is to remove all forms of power, i.e. elected governments, which can exert control over the oligarchic elite. The purpose of so-called "libertarianism", i.e. propertarianism/oligarchism, is to place the oligarchic elites at the very top of the hierarchy of control. As Rothbard says:
"The task of the libertarian, the person dedicated to the idea of the free society, is not to inveigh against elites which, like the need for freedom, flow directly from the nature of man. The goal of the libertarian is rather to establish a free society… In this society the elites will be free to rise to their best level… we will discover "natural aristocracies" who will rise to prominence and leadership in every field. The point is to allow the rise of these natural aristocracies”.
Of course Rothbard deceitfully uses the word 'freedom' to prettify his very unpleasant beliefs and to sugar-coat them for the mindless foot soldiers of the propertarian ideology.
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