Jun 29, 2022·edited Jun 29, 2022Liked by Andrew Van Wagner
Throughout much of history, "Liberty" has been the liberty to own slaves, the liberty to control women and treat them as minors, and today the liberty to rent other people as servants or employees. So-called "libertarians" today cannot be taken seriously until they face up to the historical abolition of free and voluntary contracts such as contracts for lifetime servitude or the coverture marriage contract. Until they rediscovered the history of the theory of inalienable rights (that accounted for the abolition of those free contracts), then they are only using college kid libertarian talking points against strawmen. Either call for the reinstatement of those historical contracts or dig deep enough to understand the abolition of those contracts that legally transfer the rights associated with personhood from one person to another, e.g., from employee to employer. Otherwise, stop wasting our time with schoolboy talking points that are sufficient to get you grants from billionaire foundations.
I would argue to the contrary— putting aside sincere v. cynical— that libertarians have more in common with free marketeers than they do with the so-called left. For example, the left has no desire to do away with the state, but rather to change the state from serving capital to serving the people. Something that the libertarians and free- marketeers are strongly opposed to.
Throughout much of history, "Liberty" has been the liberty to own slaves, the liberty to control women and treat them as minors, and today the liberty to rent other people as servants or employees. So-called "libertarians" today cannot be taken seriously until they face up to the historical abolition of free and voluntary contracts such as contracts for lifetime servitude or the coverture marriage contract. Until they rediscovered the history of the theory of inalienable rights (that accounted for the abolition of those free contracts), then they are only using college kid libertarian talking points against strawmen. Either call for the reinstatement of those historical contracts or dig deep enough to understand the abolition of those contracts that legally transfer the rights associated with personhood from one person to another, e.g., from employee to employer. Otherwise, stop wasting our time with schoolboy talking points that are sufficient to get you grants from billionaire foundations.
I would argue to the contrary— putting aside sincere v. cynical— that libertarians have more in common with free marketeers than they do with the so-called left. For example, the left has no desire to do away with the state, but rather to change the state from serving capital to serving the people. Something that the libertarians and free- marketeers are strongly opposed to.