Thursday, April 30, 2009
The discussion and debate that is partially about the scope of anarchist pluralism has continued at Radgeek's blog. And that is what this is about in a nutshell: the extent to which anarchists should be tolerant of or accomodating to particular ideologies, which essentially means a definition or clarification of the scope of pluralism for anarchism. To put the question another way: what is a reasonable standard for "anarchism without adjectives"?
While misunderstanding or superficially may think otherwise, I have rather consistently taken a fairly "anarcho-centrist" position on this question, which is to say that I exclude certain "extremes" on both the "left" and "right" from being compatible with libertarian anarchism. To a large extent, my reasoning for critisizing certain ideas and trends are consequentialist arguments in which I think that the logical outcome of a particular idea or principle may lead to illiberal results, either explicitly or implicitly. For example, I would critisize "national anarchism" on the grounds that the underlying ideology of nationalism has communitarian-authoritarian undertones and on the grounds of the impractical consequences of the degree of social isolation often desired by ethnic nationalists.
I have expressed that I think that there is a dual-directional problem, with "vulgar libertarianism" on one end and "vulgar socialism" and orthodox marxism on the other end. My view is essentially that both the "far right" end (constituted by many Hoppeans, Objectivists and an assortion of people obcessed with "capitalism" as a first principle) and the "far left" end (constituted by many Chomskyites, Marxists and an assortion of people obcessed with "democracy" as a first principle) occomodates and risks devolving into authoritarianism. The vulgar libertarians essentially blur the line between individualist anarchism and conservatism, while the vulgar socialists blur the line between state-socialism and social anarchism.
This inherently means that, in some sense, we have to disregard a strict left/right dichotomy as it is normally understood altogether. Or, by the very least, insofar as we are going to continue using the basic categories of "left" and "right", we have to be more nuanced and subtle about it and consequentially make distinctions internal to them (for example, clarifying the differences between Bakunin/Proudhon and Marx/Engels or outlining the differences between a Hoppean perspective and a left-Rothbardian perspective). I think that left-libertarians, while sticking to their criticisms of the unfortunate modern conservative-libertarian paradigm, should simultaneously steer clear of falling into the "vulgar socialist" trap as well.
Another significant part of this issue that I have expressed is the concern that a completely open-ended kind of pluralism undermines any coherant meaning for anarchism to the point at which the goal of "liberty" has seemingly been replaced by the goal of "pluralism" for its own sake. Anarchism without adjectives, to my knowledge, does not mean or imply a completely open-ended tolerance for people to be "free" to tyranize over others based on their personal preferences. An "it's just preferential" attitude must be kept contextual or it will risk devolving into a purely nihilistic orgy in which we are expected to "tolerate" authoritarianism in the name of "pluralism". To use a saying my father sometimes uses, "Your mind shouldn't be so open that your brain falls out".
While I think that anarchism without adjectives must be kept contextual and not "too open" of a tent, my conception of anarchism without adjectives is actually about as reasonably broad as I think it can possibly be. I think that anything ranging from anarcho-communism to market anarchism could, in theory, be subsumed into a pluralist anarchist order on the condition that it is voluntary. The problem comes into play when specifying with it really means for something to be voluntary and when certain segments of the "far ends" of anarcho-communism and market anarchism in particular become dogmatic and monopolistic to the point of undermining the overall goal of anarchism (hence the phenemonon of anarcho-communists who don't even accept mutualists or even anarcho-collectivists, and the phenomenon of market anarchists who aren't even mildly tolerant of mutualism).
It seems to me that the dogmatism is particularly concentrated in the vulgar elements in the market anarchist and social anarchist movements respectively, and that the most reasonable positions have often been put foreward by people who approximately stand at a crossroads somewhere in between the two worlds. I see the partisans of "both sides" as generally being too narrow-minded or one-dimensional in their thinking, often conflating their preference for a particular form of organization with a requirement for being a libertarian. It doesn't take much prodding for this to quickly turn into an outwardly-directed authoritarianism in which people force their economic and social models onto others.
So basically, in the context of our original question about the scope of anarchism without adjectives, I see two basic problems: too broad and too narrow of a conception. Too narrow of a conception can come in many flavors, ranging from the "communism or nothing" approach to the "capitalism or nothing" approach, which really narrows the meaning of anarchism to a singular economic model and hence really has nothing to do with anarchism without adjectives (or any anarchism at all at the point at which it manifests itself monopolistically). Too broad of a conception essentially eradicates any coherant meaning for anarchism by divorcing it from any fundamental and defining qualifications, which leads to the insanity of inventing any sort of weird anarcho-statism one imagines.
So I think it's fairly clear that some basic boundaries have to be set; pluralism has to be qualified.
While misunderstanding or superficially may think otherwise, I have rather consistently taken a fairly "anarcho-centrist" position on this question, which is to say that I exclude certain "extremes" on both the "left" and "right" from being compatible with libertarian anarchism. To a large extent, my reasoning for critisizing certain ideas and trends are consequentialist arguments in which I think that the logical outcome of a particular idea or principle may lead to illiberal results, either explicitly or implicitly. For example, I would critisize "national anarchism" on the grounds that the underlying ideology of nationalism has communitarian-authoritarian undertones and on the grounds of the impractical consequences of the degree of social isolation often desired by ethnic nationalists.
I have expressed that I think that there is a dual-directional problem, with "vulgar libertarianism" on one end and "vulgar socialism" and orthodox marxism on the other end. My view is essentially that both the "far right" end (constituted by many Hoppeans, Objectivists and an assortion of people obcessed with "capitalism" as a first principle) and the "far left" end (constituted by many Chomskyites, Marxists and an assortion of people obcessed with "democracy" as a first principle) occomodates and risks devolving into authoritarianism. The vulgar libertarians essentially blur the line between individualist anarchism and conservatism, while the vulgar socialists blur the line between state-socialism and social anarchism.
This inherently means that, in some sense, we have to disregard a strict left/right dichotomy as it is normally understood altogether. Or, by the very least, insofar as we are going to continue using the basic categories of "left" and "right", we have to be more nuanced and subtle about it and consequentially make distinctions internal to them (for example, clarifying the differences between Bakunin/Proudhon and Marx/Engels or outlining the differences between a Hoppean perspective and a left-Rothbardian perspective). I think that left-libertarians, while sticking to their criticisms of the unfortunate modern conservative-libertarian paradigm, should simultaneously steer clear of falling into the "vulgar socialist" trap as well.
Another significant part of this issue that I have expressed is the concern that a completely open-ended kind of pluralism undermines any coherant meaning for anarchism to the point at which the goal of "liberty" has seemingly been replaced by the goal of "pluralism" for its own sake. Anarchism without adjectives, to my knowledge, does not mean or imply a completely open-ended tolerance for people to be "free" to tyranize over others based on their personal preferences. An "it's just preferential" attitude must be kept contextual or it will risk devolving into a purely nihilistic orgy in which we are expected to "tolerate" authoritarianism in the name of "pluralism". To use a saying my father sometimes uses, "Your mind shouldn't be so open that your brain falls out".
While I think that anarchism without adjectives must be kept contextual and not "too open" of a tent, my conception of anarchism without adjectives is actually about as reasonably broad as I think it can possibly be. I think that anything ranging from anarcho-communism to market anarchism could, in theory, be subsumed into a pluralist anarchist order on the condition that it is voluntary. The problem comes into play when specifying with it really means for something to be voluntary and when certain segments of the "far ends" of anarcho-communism and market anarchism in particular become dogmatic and monopolistic to the point of undermining the overall goal of anarchism (hence the phenemonon of anarcho-communists who don't even accept mutualists or even anarcho-collectivists, and the phenomenon of market anarchists who aren't even mildly tolerant of mutualism).
It seems to me that the dogmatism is particularly concentrated in the vulgar elements in the market anarchist and social anarchist movements respectively, and that the most reasonable positions have often been put foreward by people who approximately stand at a crossroads somewhere in between the two worlds. I see the partisans of "both sides" as generally being too narrow-minded or one-dimensional in their thinking, often conflating their preference for a particular form of organization with a requirement for being a libertarian. It doesn't take much prodding for this to quickly turn into an outwardly-directed authoritarianism in which people force their economic and social models onto others.
So basically, in the context of our original question about the scope of anarchism without adjectives, I see two basic problems: too broad and too narrow of a conception. Too narrow of a conception can come in many flavors, ranging from the "communism or nothing" approach to the "capitalism or nothing" approach, which really narrows the meaning of anarchism to a singular economic model and hence really has nothing to do with anarchism without adjectives (or any anarchism at all at the point at which it manifests itself monopolistically). Too broad of a conception essentially eradicates any coherant meaning for anarchism by divorcing it from any fundamental and defining qualifications, which leads to the insanity of inventing any sort of weird anarcho-statism one imagines.
So I think it's fairly clear that some basic boundaries have to be set; pluralism has to be qualified.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Is the right to keep and bear arms an essential right for citizens of a free society?
This question seems to suggest that you consider it a non issue in a free society or that you may be suggesting that it should not be a right in the first place. But I will not make such an assumption though I do get that feeling form the phrasing of the question.
So, to the question:
Should the right to keep and bear arms really be considered an essential right for citizens of a free society?
well first we must consider what it means to be free and what a free society entails. It seems to me that a free society is essentially the furthest application the right to live ones life as one sees fit without the unwanted intrusions of others. Equal liberty. The liberal ideal. Liberalism is... or should I say WAS... synonymous with this freedom from the unwanted intrusions of others, a laissez faire attitude to ones neighbors and even their enemies, it is opposed to authoritarianism, opposed to irrational traditionalism and social conservatism, opposed to unchosen hierarchy, and in support of equality.
So, if one agrees that a liberal society, a free society, ought to favor these things they must assume that men have a right to secure these things for themselves. And how else can one guarantee that their life and happiness is protected except ultimately, should push come to shove, with weapons or other implements, devices, tools, plans, schemes, to secure this search for eudimonia? Surely I have the right to defend myself from criminals who would rob or harm me and mine? And surely you can not be proposing that the means which I may employ must be limited, for that would limit just whom I may defend myself from.
If one believes that one ought to live and let live then there is no justification for intervening in your neighbors life stripping him of arms and the means to defend his right to live his life as he sees fit. If one is opposed to authoritarianism then one must be opposed to a monopoly on the arms which the state ultimately utilizes in order to protect the status quo and enforce and ensure their continued power over others. It is not exactly a hidden fact that nations who seek to completely dominate their citizens often do so through a two pronged attack upon them... first their minds and secondly their tools of defense. History has shown one to nearly always be accompanied by the other, often followed by disastrous results.
If one truly supports equality then what sort of equality can one possibly see in granting a certain class of men in a position of absolute state authority with the permission to bear arms but not another? Is it their magic crowns or arcane robes? Is it their mystical badges and blue uniforms? Or if you still cling to the belief that men ought not have the right to bear arms, then why do you support the states bearing of arms? they are people after all. Seems if you oppose it for me and you you ought to oppose it for them as well. The only 'middle ground' that can exist between universal right to obtain, keep, bear, and use arms and the absence of this right, is a situation in which one class of men is set into a position higher than other men. Equality is destroyed and the conditions for abuse and authoritarian mentalities and practice are set into motion... the prison guard experiment ought to showcase just what such unequal power structure can do to even normal men and women.
That we have not needed to exercise the right to use arms against the state is not entirely true even in America. Arms have been used in America by black populations to defend themselves from corrupt police officers and KKK members who often are in cahoots with local law enforcement. They have been used to successfully fend off SWAT attacks made on the WRONG homes.
And this all certainly does nothing to ease my mind knowing that in the 20th century alone - 170,000,000 men, women, and children were killed by the governments that ruled over them. There is no guarantee that you will never be faced with holocaust conditions, with an Armenian genocide in America, that this will not turn into a Uganda or the like. In which case your lawyers will be powerless and your money will be only good so far as it can bribe your executioners. No, in this shit hits the fan scenario... in these conditions which often are the violent death throws... the flailing last attempts of a state to keep its head above the rising tides... your only hope will be ensuring your survival through escape resistance and arms.
Should the right to keep and bear arms really be considered an essential right for citizens of a free society?
Only if you value everything that the word "liberal" truly stands for.
So, to the question:
Should the right to keep and bear arms really be considered an essential right for citizens of a free society?
well first we must consider what it means to be free and what a free society entails. It seems to me that a free society is essentially the furthest application the right to live ones life as one sees fit without the unwanted intrusions of others. Equal liberty. The liberal ideal. Liberalism is... or should I say WAS... synonymous with this freedom from the unwanted intrusions of others, a laissez faire attitude to ones neighbors and even their enemies, it is opposed to authoritarianism, opposed to irrational traditionalism and social conservatism, opposed to unchosen hierarchy, and in support of equality.
So, if one agrees that a liberal society, a free society, ought to favor these things they must assume that men have a right to secure these things for themselves. And how else can one guarantee that their life and happiness is protected except ultimately, should push come to shove, with weapons or other implements, devices, tools, plans, schemes, to secure this search for eudimonia? Surely I have the right to defend myself from criminals who would rob or harm me and mine? And surely you can not be proposing that the means which I may employ must be limited, for that would limit just whom I may defend myself from.
If one believes that one ought to live and let live then there is no justification for intervening in your neighbors life stripping him of arms and the means to defend his right to live his life as he sees fit. If one is opposed to authoritarianism then one must be opposed to a monopoly on the arms which the state ultimately utilizes in order to protect the status quo and enforce and ensure their continued power over others. It is not exactly a hidden fact that nations who seek to completely dominate their citizens often do so through a two pronged attack upon them... first their minds and secondly their tools of defense. History has shown one to nearly always be accompanied by the other, often followed by disastrous results.
If one truly supports equality then what sort of equality can one possibly see in granting a certain class of men in a position of absolute state authority with the permission to bear arms but not another? Is it their magic crowns or arcane robes? Is it their mystical badges and blue uniforms? Or if you still cling to the belief that men ought not have the right to bear arms, then why do you support the states bearing of arms? they are people after all. Seems if you oppose it for me and you you ought to oppose it for them as well. The only 'middle ground' that can exist between universal right to obtain, keep, bear, and use arms and the absence of this right, is a situation in which one class of men is set into a position higher than other men. Equality is destroyed and the conditions for abuse and authoritarian mentalities and practice are set into motion... the prison guard experiment ought to showcase just what such unequal power structure can do to even normal men and women.
That we have not needed to exercise the right to use arms against the state is not entirely true even in America. Arms have been used in America by black populations to defend themselves from corrupt police officers and KKK members who often are in cahoots with local law enforcement. They have been used to successfully fend off SWAT attacks made on the WRONG homes.
And this all certainly does nothing to ease my mind knowing that in the 20th century alone - 170,000,000 men, women, and children were killed by the governments that ruled over them. There is no guarantee that you will never be faced with holocaust conditions, with an Armenian genocide in America, that this will not turn into a Uganda or the like. In which case your lawyers will be powerless and your money will be only good so far as it can bribe your executioners. No, in this shit hits the fan scenario... in these conditions which often are the violent death throws... the flailing last attempts of a state to keep its head above the rising tides... your only hope will be ensuring your survival through escape resistance and arms.
Should the right to keep and bear arms really be considered an essential right for citizens of a free society?
Only if you value everything that the word "liberal" truly stands for.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Decentralized "Globalism"?
I'd like to put my two cents in on the discussion sparked by RadGeek, particularly the talk about decentralism and localism.
Firstly, I do not think it is accurate to act as if the issue of "localism" is somehow specific or particularly exclusive to the alliance of the libertarian left. So when Soviet Onion refered to "the left-libertarian tendency to treat localism and decentralization as THE POINT rather than an instrumental tool to some more fundamental desire", I'm left a little bit confused because in my personal experience it has often been me bumping into that tendency when dealing with either right-libertarians or those who are part of the rising trend of nihilist anarchism (most of whom, in my experience, are not particularly left-libertarian-friendly).
That being said, I share Soviet Onion's concern and have made a few posts a little while ago talking about it. In a nutshell, the concern is that "decentralization for its own sake" risks undermining a more broad conception of liberty in the sense that a blind eye may be turned to the qualatative factors. The problem is that there is a sense in which size and scope is irrelevant so long as there is the qualatative element of authoritarianism. In my view, decentralization is necessary but not sufficient. Consequentially, I'm tempted to make a distinction between anarchist pluralism and mere polyarchy because a polyarchy could theoretically accomodate all sorts of authoritarianisms. I do not envision anarchy as a bunch of micro-authoritarian dystopias.
On the other hand, this should not be misconstrued as a defense of centralization. It's not even a problem with decentralization per se, it's a problem with too narrowly focusing on decentralization at the expense of other more broad principles. For example, if one's so-called "pluralism" is so open-ended that it embraces the idea that anarchism accomodates monarchy (or any concievable form of government for that matter), I think that we have a serious problem on our hands because we've essentially defined anarchy out of meaningfulness by turning it into a completely open-ended tolerance for any form of government. What confuses me about Soviet Onion's comment is that I don't particularly see left-libertarians taking that kind of position, so I'm wondering on what basis he's making such a connection - I've critisized it on left-libertarian grounds.
In either case, perhaps it's important to distinguish between different "types of decentralization", or at least different conceptions of it. For the issue here is not really with decentralization itself so much as trying to keep decentralization contextual to libertarianism (what I've called "voluntary-contextual pluralism"). This is to be contrasted with a more open-ended decentralization (I.E. ungrounded in libertarianism) in which there is authoritarianism internal to a given locality. There's also a difference in terms of territoriality: a voluntary-contextual pluralism is rather aterritorial in nature, while a more narrow form of decentralization still subordinates people on the basis of territorial dominion (only the territories happen to be much smaller). It is my view that the "love it or leave it" argument fails in all contexts.
There is also the practical concern of the degree to which decentralization and localism may be linked with isolationism and primitivism, which is to say the degree to which localities are hermetically sealed off from eachother. I make no bones about being a cosmopolitan at heart: I value world-wide interconnectivity and see the fetishization of localism as cutting people off from access to information and resources. This may seem to produce some cognitive dissonance, but I think that decentralization and cosmopolitan "globalism" are perfectly reconcilable. Just because there is a nominally decentralized structure and smaller communities does not mean that those communities cannot be voluntarily federated to some degree or that they cannot enjoy a close economic relationship. Of course, calling this "internationalist" doesn't make much sense, since I reject the very idea of "nationhood" to begin with.
On a practical level, I don't think most people would want to isolate themselves from the benefits of inter-local economics. While I do see certain merits to encouraging self-sufficiency and localized production, I do not see it as tenable as an absolute because one can only get so far with it before inter-local interconnectivity becomes very obviously necessary for a full range of economic choices. Perhaps this is the context in which Soviet Onion refered to this being a problem with the ALL, refering to Kevin Carson's emphasis on green and self-sufficiency economics. And Carson's views on this do seem to be a bit too "localist" even for my taste. Nonetheless, this is a separate concern from the much more serious one of micro-authoritarianism. I don't think that the concern about micro-authoritarianism applies to Carson at all.
Soviet Onion later left a comment that more or less echoes my own sentiment:
"I’m very much in favor of polycentric law, specifically because I think it’s a kind of decentralization (not be confused with mutually-exclusive “localisms” a la Hoppestan/anarcho-communism, ‘cause that shit’s wack) that manages to incorporate the entire cosmopolis in a competitive and collaborative project(+). It’s the kind of decentralization that incorporates multiple overlapping world-strands instead segregating into little chunks where oppressive conditions can entrench themselves. It’s decentralized only in the sense that the same globalized process is taking place everywhere. The center is everywhere. Perhaps a better term for this is “system redundancy”, or even just competition."
I fully agree with these sentiments. I'd like to add on a somewhat related note that I think that the pursuit of economic incentives in such a process makes cultural and territorial divisions increasingly less relevant.
Soviet Onion also mentions this:
"Isn’t it odd that a group of people who advocate mostly local, self-contained, territorial forms self-government and economic relations still felt that the word “globalization” was worth redeeming, and left-libertarians haven’t?"
Well, that's precisely what I'm doing here: promoting "globalization" as the process of voluntary (and particularly economic) interconnectivity between decentralized localities. I don't see this as contradicting decentralization because it merely means that the decentralized localities are simultaneously interconnected (not centralized). So I'm sort of promoting "both at once": decentralization and federation (only I'm thinking of "federation" primarily in economic terms). I've been vaguely kicking this idea around in my head for a while now. And of course the idea of both decentralization and confederation at once is not unique to me or new to anarchism at all. Atomism and isolationism do not necessarily logically follow from decentralization, although it may be possible for them to overlap. The point is that decentralization does not necessarily conflict with human cooperation across long distances and a healthy dose of the division of labor.
Radgeek reinforces this for us with this comment:
"I agree that the non-territoriality of anarchist justice and defense associations, institutions for deliberating about right, and so on, is important to stress; “decentralism” means the lack of a fixed center, not a proliferation of millions of fixed centers with a small stretch of turf."
I fully agree, and it seems like there isn't really much disagreement here among prominent left-libertarians at all.
Firstly, I do not think it is accurate to act as if the issue of "localism" is somehow specific or particularly exclusive to the alliance of the libertarian left. So when Soviet Onion refered to "the left-libertarian tendency to treat localism and decentralization as THE POINT rather than an instrumental tool to some more fundamental desire", I'm left a little bit confused because in my personal experience it has often been me bumping into that tendency when dealing with either right-libertarians or those who are part of the rising trend of nihilist anarchism (most of whom, in my experience, are not particularly left-libertarian-friendly).
That being said, I share Soviet Onion's concern and have made a few posts a little while ago talking about it. In a nutshell, the concern is that "decentralization for its own sake" risks undermining a more broad conception of liberty in the sense that a blind eye may be turned to the qualatative factors. The problem is that there is a sense in which size and scope is irrelevant so long as there is the qualatative element of authoritarianism. In my view, decentralization is necessary but not sufficient. Consequentially, I'm tempted to make a distinction between anarchist pluralism and mere polyarchy because a polyarchy could theoretically accomodate all sorts of authoritarianisms. I do not envision anarchy as a bunch of micro-authoritarian dystopias.
On the other hand, this should not be misconstrued as a defense of centralization. It's not even a problem with decentralization per se, it's a problem with too narrowly focusing on decentralization at the expense of other more broad principles. For example, if one's so-called "pluralism" is so open-ended that it embraces the idea that anarchism accomodates monarchy (or any concievable form of government for that matter), I think that we have a serious problem on our hands because we've essentially defined anarchy out of meaningfulness by turning it into a completely open-ended tolerance for any form of government. What confuses me about Soviet Onion's comment is that I don't particularly see left-libertarians taking that kind of position, so I'm wondering on what basis he's making such a connection - I've critisized it on left-libertarian grounds.
In either case, perhaps it's important to distinguish between different "types of decentralization", or at least different conceptions of it. For the issue here is not really with decentralization itself so much as trying to keep decentralization contextual to libertarianism (what I've called "voluntary-contextual pluralism"). This is to be contrasted with a more open-ended decentralization (I.E. ungrounded in libertarianism) in which there is authoritarianism internal to a given locality. There's also a difference in terms of territoriality: a voluntary-contextual pluralism is rather aterritorial in nature, while a more narrow form of decentralization still subordinates people on the basis of territorial dominion (only the territories happen to be much smaller). It is my view that the "love it or leave it" argument fails in all contexts.
There is also the practical concern of the degree to which decentralization and localism may be linked with isolationism and primitivism, which is to say the degree to which localities are hermetically sealed off from eachother. I make no bones about being a cosmopolitan at heart: I value world-wide interconnectivity and see the fetishization of localism as cutting people off from access to information and resources. This may seem to produce some cognitive dissonance, but I think that decentralization and cosmopolitan "globalism" are perfectly reconcilable. Just because there is a nominally decentralized structure and smaller communities does not mean that those communities cannot be voluntarily federated to some degree or that they cannot enjoy a close economic relationship. Of course, calling this "internationalist" doesn't make much sense, since I reject the very idea of "nationhood" to begin with.
On a practical level, I don't think most people would want to isolate themselves from the benefits of inter-local economics. While I do see certain merits to encouraging self-sufficiency and localized production, I do not see it as tenable as an absolute because one can only get so far with it before inter-local interconnectivity becomes very obviously necessary for a full range of economic choices. Perhaps this is the context in which Soviet Onion refered to this being a problem with the ALL, refering to Kevin Carson's emphasis on green and self-sufficiency economics. And Carson's views on this do seem to be a bit too "localist" even for my taste. Nonetheless, this is a separate concern from the much more serious one of micro-authoritarianism. I don't think that the concern about micro-authoritarianism applies to Carson at all.
Soviet Onion later left a comment that more or less echoes my own sentiment:
"I’m very much in favor of polycentric law, specifically because I think it’s a kind of decentralization (not be confused with mutually-exclusive “localisms” a la Hoppestan/anarcho-communism, ‘cause that shit’s wack) that manages to incorporate the entire cosmopolis in a competitive and collaborative project(+). It’s the kind of decentralization that incorporates multiple overlapping world-strands instead segregating into little chunks where oppressive conditions can entrench themselves. It’s decentralized only in the sense that the same globalized process is taking place everywhere. The center is everywhere. Perhaps a better term for this is “system redundancy”, or even just competition."
I fully agree with these sentiments. I'd like to add on a somewhat related note that I think that the pursuit of economic incentives in such a process makes cultural and territorial divisions increasingly less relevant.
Soviet Onion also mentions this:
"Isn’t it odd that a group of people who advocate mostly local, self-contained, territorial forms self-government and economic relations still felt that the word “globalization” was worth redeeming, and left-libertarians haven’t?"
Well, that's precisely what I'm doing here: promoting "globalization" as the process of voluntary (and particularly economic) interconnectivity between decentralized localities. I don't see this as contradicting decentralization because it merely means that the decentralized localities are simultaneously interconnected (not centralized). So I'm sort of promoting "both at once": decentralization and federation (only I'm thinking of "federation" primarily in economic terms). I've been vaguely kicking this idea around in my head for a while now. And of course the idea of both decentralization and confederation at once is not unique to me or new to anarchism at all. Atomism and isolationism do not necessarily logically follow from decentralization, although it may be possible for them to overlap. The point is that decentralization does not necessarily conflict with human cooperation across long distances and a healthy dose of the division of labor.
Radgeek reinforces this for us with this comment:
"I agree that the non-territoriality of anarchist justice and defense associations, institutions for deliberating about right, and so on, is important to stress; “decentralism” means the lack of a fixed center, not a proliferation of millions of fixed centers with a small stretch of turf."
I fully agree, and it seems like there isn't really much disagreement here among prominent left-libertarians at all.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Anarchism and Minarchism Blur
Usually if I talk about minarchism I'm going to essentially bash it and promote anarchism against it. This is to be expected, since I am an anarchist. But I would like to point out a certain sense in which I think that the conflict between anarchists and minarchists may be at least somewhat of a misnomer or even a false dichotomy. In particular, I think that there is a sense in which anarchists are defacto governmentalists and at least some minarchists are more or less closet anarchists or anarchists in denial.
To be clear, I'm more specifically refering to libertarian anarchism and libertarian minarchism, which is to say that both of them essentially share the same basic libertarian premises with regard to interpersonal relations such as freedom of association and individual sovereignty. And by minarchism I do not refer to any old vaguely "small government" philosophy, but specifically to what I would call "radical minarchism" or a strictly "bare bones" view of government. I am approaching this from the assumption that both libertarian anarchism and libertarian minarchism share the same basic premises.
Assuming that both more or less have the same underlying premises, the basic difference that distinguishes them can be thought of simply in terms of what conclusions are reached from those premises. At a basic level, libertarian minarchism proposes that the initiation of the use of force is wrong and concludes that we should have a government that is limited to the point at which it does not initiate the use of force, while libertarian anarchism proposes that the initiation of the use of force is wrong and concludes that we should have no government.
So here we arrive at the basic conflict between "limited government" and "no government". At this point, an interesting question that arises is the extent to which the disagreement between these two ultimate conclusions revolve around nothing more than semantics over the word "government". The minarchist tends to define "government" in a way that leaves open the possibility of having a government that does not initiate force, while the anarchist tends to define "government" as inherently involving the initiation of force.
While the minarchist proposes the ideal of a government that does not initiate force, often the anarchist responds to this by claiming that it wouldn't be a government then if it doesn't initiate force. Hence, if the minarchist truly is consistently opposed to the initiation of force (and this includes the tricky and radical part of opposing taxation and coercive barriers to competition), they are in some sense defacto anarchists and their "government" is little more than a homeowners association or some sort of voluntary mutual protection agency. This is part of the cognitive dissonance that tends to turn minarchists into anarchists.
Others prefer to make a formal distinction between "state" and "government". I have never personally been particularly comfortable with this distinction because I see a certain risk of "the state" merely being snuck in through the back door under the label "government". Nonetheless, if we are to make such a distinction, this seems to make the minarchist vs. anarchist conflict even more semantic in nature, to the point at which some "minarchists" may in fact be advocating a form of "government" that would be acceptable to an anarchist and some "anarchists" may in fact be advocating a form of "government" or at leasting advocating an idea that is compatible in theory with certain forms of "government".
Indeed, anarchists (except perhaps at the fringes of primitivism) tend to clarify that they are not opposed to social organization itself and they favor a basic standard of justice. If the term "government" is concieved of as merely refering to any sort of social organization and basic reasonable rules for interpersonal relations, then anarchists are defacto governmentalists precisely because they are not anti-social-organization-in-itself. In backing away from that position, and probably with a lot of annoyance at constantly being misrepresented via cultural stereotypes, anarchists inevitably are forced to make a distinction between voluntary social organization and "the state" as they understand it.
And so therein lies the interesting rub: a radical minarchist tends to advocate a "government" or "state" as defined specifically in terms of voluntary social organization (at which point, from the anarchist's perspective, it is no "state" at all), while an anarchist tends to advocate a "stateless society" in terms of voluntary social organization (and it ultimately makes no practical difference whether or not you slap the word "government" on to it). So it seems to be the case that if voluntary social organization in general is what the common goal is, then there may very well be little to no meaningful difference between these positions beyond personal semantics.
Of course, by no means do I intend to argue that all minarchists are closet anarchists by definition. Quite frankly, in my judgement the vast majority of minarchists significantly fall short of consistently favoring voluntary social organization, partially because the way things have been traditionally done is often taken for granted and people easily get sucked into reformism. So while libertarian minarchists may have a proto-anarchist political philosophy, in practise they often tow a more moderate line in which they defend the existing reality of "government" - which is to say a "government" that initiates the use of force in some way. Either the minarchist is blinded to the force or pragmatically endorses some level of it.
There are many minarchists who make glaring exceptions to their principles that are big no-no's from an anarchist perspective. For example, libertarian anarchists are opposed to taxation, while many minarchists (despite reoccuring quasi-anarchistic vocal opposition to the concept of taxation) asquience to the need for at least some limited form and rate of taxation (Rand was an exception to this, but she still clung to a doctrine of violent retribution theory and supported violence used to crush competitors of her "objectivist government", hence falling short of anarchism; but screw her, despite her influence she wasn't exactly a "libertarian" anyways).
But in all honesty, some of the exact same problems that tend to plague minarchism plague certain individuals and segments within the anarchist movement as well. Let's be crude about this: at least *some* self-proclaimed anarchists are either closet statists or implicitly statist without realizing it, and this problem can be found in all segments of the anarchist movement ranging from anarcho-communism to anarcho-capitalism. Anarchists do face a certain danger of merely taking the form of social organization that they previously have been biased towards and renaming it something else or merely sticking the word "voluntary" next to it or merely proposing a more localized version of the exact same thing. Certain self-proclaimed anarchists are, at best, minarchists that are a bit more radical than the rest.
It also works the other way around: at least *some* self-proclaimed minarchists are essentially advocating anarchism and are probably accused of being anarchists a lot (hell, I was accused of being an anarchist by people when I was a minarchist, and I used to back down from the accusation while still flirting with anarchism but not fully embracing it). When one is proclaiming that "taxation is theft" and referencing Lysander Spooner to reject the authority of the constitution while simultaneously clinging to minarchism, one probably has some cognitive dissonance to resolve. It makes sense why so many libertarian anarchists used to be minarchists; they resolved their cognitive dissonance, which pushed them into anarchism.
While I am most certainly biased (and for good reason, not mere prejudice) towards anarchism, looking back at the evolution of where my head is at makes me see some senses in which the distinction between anarchism and minarchism may not be as wide as a black and white analysis may imply and I can say that "I used to be in that position". I've found that anarchy, as a practical matter, is in some sense merely a different paradigm of "governance". Furthermore, the internal conflicts among anarchists helps illuminate the fact that anarchism is in some sense very concerned with social organization, since a lot of the conflicts revolve around the compatability of certain forms of social organization with libertarian principles.
I have not set out to prove that anarchism and minarchism in general are necessarily indistinguishable, but merely to provide some food for thought that perhaps there may be a certain point at which the lines blur a bit, at least depending on the kind of minarchism that one encounters. Sometimes you might scratch a minarchist and find an anarchist inside, and sometimes you might scratch an anarchist and find a rather extreme authoritarian inside (*cough* curse the Hoppe cult!). The details of political ideas and the relationship between ideas in political philosophy can be rather complex sometimes. Perhaps we should be more sensitive of subtleties.
To be clear, I'm more specifically refering to libertarian anarchism and libertarian minarchism, which is to say that both of them essentially share the same basic libertarian premises with regard to interpersonal relations such as freedom of association and individual sovereignty. And by minarchism I do not refer to any old vaguely "small government" philosophy, but specifically to what I would call "radical minarchism" or a strictly "bare bones" view of government. I am approaching this from the assumption that both libertarian anarchism and libertarian minarchism share the same basic premises.
Assuming that both more or less have the same underlying premises, the basic difference that distinguishes them can be thought of simply in terms of what conclusions are reached from those premises. At a basic level, libertarian minarchism proposes that the initiation of the use of force is wrong and concludes that we should have a government that is limited to the point at which it does not initiate the use of force, while libertarian anarchism proposes that the initiation of the use of force is wrong and concludes that we should have no government.
So here we arrive at the basic conflict between "limited government" and "no government". At this point, an interesting question that arises is the extent to which the disagreement between these two ultimate conclusions revolve around nothing more than semantics over the word "government". The minarchist tends to define "government" in a way that leaves open the possibility of having a government that does not initiate force, while the anarchist tends to define "government" as inherently involving the initiation of force.
While the minarchist proposes the ideal of a government that does not initiate force, often the anarchist responds to this by claiming that it wouldn't be a government then if it doesn't initiate force. Hence, if the minarchist truly is consistently opposed to the initiation of force (and this includes the tricky and radical part of opposing taxation and coercive barriers to competition), they are in some sense defacto anarchists and their "government" is little more than a homeowners association or some sort of voluntary mutual protection agency. This is part of the cognitive dissonance that tends to turn minarchists into anarchists.
Others prefer to make a formal distinction between "state" and "government". I have never personally been particularly comfortable with this distinction because I see a certain risk of "the state" merely being snuck in through the back door under the label "government". Nonetheless, if we are to make such a distinction, this seems to make the minarchist vs. anarchist conflict even more semantic in nature, to the point at which some "minarchists" may in fact be advocating a form of "government" that would be acceptable to an anarchist and some "anarchists" may in fact be advocating a form of "government" or at leasting advocating an idea that is compatible in theory with certain forms of "government".
Indeed, anarchists (except perhaps at the fringes of primitivism) tend to clarify that they are not opposed to social organization itself and they favor a basic standard of justice. If the term "government" is concieved of as merely refering to any sort of social organization and basic reasonable rules for interpersonal relations, then anarchists are defacto governmentalists precisely because they are not anti-social-organization-in-itself. In backing away from that position, and probably with a lot of annoyance at constantly being misrepresented via cultural stereotypes, anarchists inevitably are forced to make a distinction between voluntary social organization and "the state" as they understand it.
And so therein lies the interesting rub: a radical minarchist tends to advocate a "government" or "state" as defined specifically in terms of voluntary social organization (at which point, from the anarchist's perspective, it is no "state" at all), while an anarchist tends to advocate a "stateless society" in terms of voluntary social organization (and it ultimately makes no practical difference whether or not you slap the word "government" on to it). So it seems to be the case that if voluntary social organization in general is what the common goal is, then there may very well be little to no meaningful difference between these positions beyond personal semantics.
Of course, by no means do I intend to argue that all minarchists are closet anarchists by definition. Quite frankly, in my judgement the vast majority of minarchists significantly fall short of consistently favoring voluntary social organization, partially because the way things have been traditionally done is often taken for granted and people easily get sucked into reformism. So while libertarian minarchists may have a proto-anarchist political philosophy, in practise they often tow a more moderate line in which they defend the existing reality of "government" - which is to say a "government" that initiates the use of force in some way. Either the minarchist is blinded to the force or pragmatically endorses some level of it.
There are many minarchists who make glaring exceptions to their principles that are big no-no's from an anarchist perspective. For example, libertarian anarchists are opposed to taxation, while many minarchists (despite reoccuring quasi-anarchistic vocal opposition to the concept of taxation) asquience to the need for at least some limited form and rate of taxation (Rand was an exception to this, but she still clung to a doctrine of violent retribution theory and supported violence used to crush competitors of her "objectivist government", hence falling short of anarchism; but screw her, despite her influence she wasn't exactly a "libertarian" anyways).
But in all honesty, some of the exact same problems that tend to plague minarchism plague certain individuals and segments within the anarchist movement as well. Let's be crude about this: at least *some* self-proclaimed anarchists are either closet statists or implicitly statist without realizing it, and this problem can be found in all segments of the anarchist movement ranging from anarcho-communism to anarcho-capitalism. Anarchists do face a certain danger of merely taking the form of social organization that they previously have been biased towards and renaming it something else or merely sticking the word "voluntary" next to it or merely proposing a more localized version of the exact same thing. Certain self-proclaimed anarchists are, at best, minarchists that are a bit more radical than the rest.
It also works the other way around: at least *some* self-proclaimed minarchists are essentially advocating anarchism and are probably accused of being anarchists a lot (hell, I was accused of being an anarchist by people when I was a minarchist, and I used to back down from the accusation while still flirting with anarchism but not fully embracing it). When one is proclaiming that "taxation is theft" and referencing Lysander Spooner to reject the authority of the constitution while simultaneously clinging to minarchism, one probably has some cognitive dissonance to resolve. It makes sense why so many libertarian anarchists used to be minarchists; they resolved their cognitive dissonance, which pushed them into anarchism.
While I am most certainly biased (and for good reason, not mere prejudice) towards anarchism, looking back at the evolution of where my head is at makes me see some senses in which the distinction between anarchism and minarchism may not be as wide as a black and white analysis may imply and I can say that "I used to be in that position". I've found that anarchy, as a practical matter, is in some sense merely a different paradigm of "governance". Furthermore, the internal conflicts among anarchists helps illuminate the fact that anarchism is in some sense very concerned with social organization, since a lot of the conflicts revolve around the compatability of certain forms of social organization with libertarian principles.
I have not set out to prove that anarchism and minarchism in general are necessarily indistinguishable, but merely to provide some food for thought that perhaps there may be a certain point at which the lines blur a bit, at least depending on the kind of minarchism that one encounters. Sometimes you might scratch a minarchist and find an anarchist inside, and sometimes you might scratch an anarchist and find a rather extreme authoritarian inside (*cough* curse the Hoppe cult!). The details of political ideas and the relationship between ideas in political philosophy can be rather complex sometimes. Perhaps we should be more sensitive of subtleties.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A Critique of Stefan Molyneux's Ethical Theory of Universally Preferable Behaviour
Hi everyone! I didn't want to bomb this blog with my multiple page critique of Stefan Molyneux's book, Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, but I figured it would nevertheless be of interest to some of the people who visit this site. So here's a link over to my own blog where the critique is housed.
A taste:
A taste:
Stefan's project is an audacious undertaking. He describes his task as a battle against the "beast" of folk morality -- a view that he defines as "...the superstition that, without the tirades of parents, the bullying of gods or the guns of government, we cannot be both rational and good" (7) -- and contends that "Of course, if I have failed, I have at least failed spectacularly, which itself can be both edifying and entertaining!" (10). In this critique, it will become clear that I believe that Stefan has failed. But I am somewhat inclined to agree that his failure was rather spectacular.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Molyneux Criticism Archive
27 posts from Danny Shahar trying to dissect UPB
ReignOfRadness's youtube channel, which has a lot of criticisms of Molyneux and UPB
My commentary and criticism on Molyneux and UPB
Laughingman0x's formal criticism of UPB
The Liberating Minds Forum, made up of to a large extent by ex-molyneuxians
Dospook's post-modern series "Deconstructing Stefbot"
ReignOfRadness's youtube channel, which has a lot of criticisms of Molyneux and UPB
My commentary and criticism on Molyneux and UPB
Laughingman0x's formal criticism of UPB
The Liberating Minds Forum, made up of to a large extent by ex-molyneuxians
Dospook's post-modern series "Deconstructing Stefbot"
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Is Stefan Molyneux A Moral Nihilist In Denial?
That's essentially what this ultimately seems to boil down to. Keep in mind that during my "debate" with Molyneux, he claimed that he doesn't believe in either "rights" or "oughts" of any sort. He even said that there is no way to prove that you "ought" or "ought not" to do something. Well then why the hell is he talking about ethics, since ethics is a question of what you "ought" and "ought not" to do? Furthermore, if he doesn't believe in "rights", then what the hell was his "proof of property rights" video about? Either he's lieing or he is hopelessly confused and in denial of his own internal contradictions.
Furthermore, it seems rather obvious that Molyneux constructed UPB as an attempt to escape moral nihilism, and he himself even claims that he literally "started with nothing". My reasons for connecting Molyneux to moral nihilism go beyond this, however. I've come to the realization that the logical conclusion of his UPB should in fact be moral nihilism, because it can tell us nothing about the validity of the values themselves (it can only make an analysis of compatibility between values and the consistency between one's values and one's actions, but it ultimately does not tell us what one "ought" or "ought not" to do; and hence it is amoral in practise).
In fact, this point is particularly illuminated by the fact that a good deal of the people who have recently turned on Molyneux (which is made up of some people in the youtube anarchist community) have dived straight into hardcore moral nihilism. This is not purely coincidental. It makes sense because they are merely taking UPB to its logical conclusion, since at the end of the day it involves no actual ethical theory at all. In the absensce of any other ethical theory, once one takes UPB to its logical conclusion and realizes that it cannot actually prove or disprove any sort of moral claim, one is left with nothing.
The consequence of this has been a split with Molyneux and his followers on one side and a bunch of former Molyneux followers turned moral nihilists on the other side. As for me personally, I don't strictly fall on either side of that divide, since I reject both UPB and moral nihilism - fortunately, I have been fairly aquainted with ethical philosophy outside of just UPB to the extent that I don't accept a dichotomy between accepting UPB and being a moral nihilist. On one hand, I agree with a lot of the criticisms of Molyneux and UPB. On the other hand, I do not agree with the hasty conclusion of moral nihilism. It seems short-sighted and oversimplistic that upon the rejection of one particular theory (UPB), one should run straight to moral nihilism.
Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that Molyneux is preaching both moral nihilism and moral realism at the same time. If someone speaks positively of "rights" and "oughts", Molyneux goes on his usual tangent that "rights don't exist" and makes arguments that sound a lot like that of a moral non-cognitivist. On the other hand, as soon as someone proceeds to critisize UPB, suddenly Molyneux defensively acts like a moral realist and proceeds to appeal to science and empiricism as if they validate UPB or as if UPB literally is science and empiricism. This is oppurtunistic, inconsistent and confusing. Does Molyneux advocate libertarian ethics or not? There's no way to be sure, because he perpetually switches positions in order to "win" a debate.
Furthermore, it seems rather obvious that Molyneux constructed UPB as an attempt to escape moral nihilism, and he himself even claims that he literally "started with nothing". My reasons for connecting Molyneux to moral nihilism go beyond this, however. I've come to the realization that the logical conclusion of his UPB should in fact be moral nihilism, because it can tell us nothing about the validity of the values themselves (it can only make an analysis of compatibility between values and the consistency between one's values and one's actions, but it ultimately does not tell us what one "ought" or "ought not" to do; and hence it is amoral in practise).
In fact, this point is particularly illuminated by the fact that a good deal of the people who have recently turned on Molyneux (which is made up of some people in the youtube anarchist community) have dived straight into hardcore moral nihilism. This is not purely coincidental. It makes sense because they are merely taking UPB to its logical conclusion, since at the end of the day it involves no actual ethical theory at all. In the absensce of any other ethical theory, once one takes UPB to its logical conclusion and realizes that it cannot actually prove or disprove any sort of moral claim, one is left with nothing.
The consequence of this has been a split with Molyneux and his followers on one side and a bunch of former Molyneux followers turned moral nihilists on the other side. As for me personally, I don't strictly fall on either side of that divide, since I reject both UPB and moral nihilism - fortunately, I have been fairly aquainted with ethical philosophy outside of just UPB to the extent that I don't accept a dichotomy between accepting UPB and being a moral nihilist. On one hand, I agree with a lot of the criticisms of Molyneux and UPB. On the other hand, I do not agree with the hasty conclusion of moral nihilism. It seems short-sighted and oversimplistic that upon the rejection of one particular theory (UPB), one should run straight to moral nihilism.
Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that Molyneux is preaching both moral nihilism and moral realism at the same time. If someone speaks positively of "rights" and "oughts", Molyneux goes on his usual tangent that "rights don't exist" and makes arguments that sound a lot like that of a moral non-cognitivist. On the other hand, as soon as someone proceeds to critisize UPB, suddenly Molyneux defensively acts like a moral realist and proceeds to appeal to science and empiricism as if they validate UPB or as if UPB literally is science and empiricism. This is oppurtunistic, inconsistent and confusing. Does Molyneux advocate libertarian ethics or not? There's no way to be sure, because he perpetually switches positions in order to "win" a debate.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Review of Laughingman's Debate With Stefbot
Stefan Molyneux recently had a debate with my friend John (laughingman0X on youtube, which was video recorded using oovoo and consequently put up on Stefbot's channel on youtube. As was to be expected, Molyneux barely directly addressed a single point or argument that was presented to him. Laughingman brought up many of the same concerns that I have, such as the context-dropping and misleading way in which Molyneux uses "self-ownership", the mind/body problem and the incompleteness of an internal consistancy standard for ethics. It doesn't seem like Molyneux wants to meaningfully address such concerns so much as use them as a starting point out of which to build a segway into another context or an implied misrepresentation.
Molyneux uses a definition of self-ownership that is not the same definition that the vast majority of libertarians use. He defines it as a physiological fact of personhood or purposeful action with one's body. In libertarianism, the concept is generally concieved of as a broad negative rights/entitlement claim; the right of self-ownership. However, Molyneux is using the term purely descriptively (as "the fact that you control your own spine"), while libertarians generally use it in a prescriptive context, although sometimes appealing to it as if it were descriptive in order to prove it as a prescription (such as is the case with Hans Hoppe's "argumentation ethics", which is misleading).
Stef did the exact same sleight of hand on the self-ownership question as he did for me. He refuses to address the is/ought gap and the actual argument, and merely repeats that he doesn't believe in rights, then goes on to conflate biological or physiological facts with ethical claims. It's as if he wants UPB to seem like it's just descriptive. But that's not ethics! Where is Stefbot getting any ethics at all, any "oughts",if all he is doing is a scientific description of traits? I've yet to see him actually put foreward a theory of ethics or a justification for any particular ethical proposition; he mostly just acts like he's engaging in a scientific analysis. It's almost as if he purposefully avoids having to actually put foreward an ethical theory by falling back on such a scientific and descriptive mask.
Part of what's confusing about Molyneux is that he wants to treat UPB purely descriptively while simultaneously using it to valididate or invalidate moral propositions. He claims to not believe in rights or entitlement claims and clearly wants UPB to be regarded as a descriptive tool of natural science. At the same time, he wants to treat it as a method applicable to ethics; the ultimate method, in fact. In this way, Molyneux conflates moral propositions with scientific descriptions of traits, and he constantly is making analogies to such scientific descriptions in a discussion or debate about ethics. If anyone questions UPB as an ethical methodology, he tends to respond by acting as if they are questioning the scientific method itself, which is misleading and context-dropping.
Stefbot's analogy to the theory about mammals (in which someone claims that mammals are both warm-blooded and cold-blooded) was a false analogy. Laughingman's example was someone who believed in pacifism and supported the state simultaneously. Stef's analogy does not hold because in laughingman's example neither pacifism or statism are proven or disproven in themselves, they are only shown to contradict eachother when put together and that the person who does so suffers from cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy. The context of Stef's example is a description of traits, which is not laughingman's context, which is the compatability between moral propositions. Stef also refused to actually address the mind/body problem or explain how he concieves of self-ownership in the context of epistemology and metaphysics.
Molyneux was also being misleading with his example of a guy putting a hat on not having any change in properties, and hence on this basis he rules out the moral proposition that guys with hats on can kill while guys without hats on cannot kill. Once again, he very obviously is conflating a description of properties with moral claims. It might be arbitrary and absurd to make the proposition, but the proposition is not meant to be a description of traits. To say that it is inconsistant or not universal because humans do not change properties when they put a hat on is to completely miss the point, because the moral proposition is not necessarily claiming that! Hence, Molyneux has to switch the context to a description of traits in order to try to maintain his point about universality.
What Molyneux either fails to understand or refuses to admit is that moral propositions generally are not meant as scientific descriptions of traits, and that if one were to seriously stick to his method of absolutely clinging to a test of internal consistancy alone then there is nothing particularly illuminating with regard to the validity or invalidity of the actual content of a given proposition beyond its consistancy with itself or its consistency relative to other propositions. In fact, in the absence of any other ethical methodology or theory, UPB should actually lead us to moral nihilism precisely at the point at which this becomes aknowledged, since we are left without any criteria for meaningfully analyzing the content of the values themselves.
Molyneux doesn't seem to understand that universality by itself is not enough. He harps incessantly on about the need for propositions to be universal, and proceeds to act like that's all there is to it. The problem is that universality is only one aspect or criteria, which reveals very little by itself. It's simply naive to act like universality is the only criteria for ethics. It tells us absolutely nothing about what the moral propositions actually mean or imply, even if they are universally applied. UPB doesn't tell us anything meaningful at all beyond that "principles must either be true or false", "principles cannot contradict eachother" and "principles cannot contradict themselves".
We're going to need a lot more than such simplicities to develope a sound ethical theory, and the idea that one has developed a "science of ethics" by merely insisting on consistency is to totally miss the meat of ethical theory and reduce it to nothing more than a test of consistency. But I don't only want to moral theories to be consistant, I want them to be correct, and you need more than consistency to be correct. This "universality for its own sake" is contextless and oversimplisitic, and the reasons for this should be fairly obvious upon reflection. All that Molyneux is saying is that "moral propositions should apply to everyone", and even if we agree with this it still tells us nothing about which moral propositions should apply, I.E. it tells us nothing about the validity or unvalidity of the moral propositions in themselves. This is why UPB is really quite empty of content.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Liberty and Pluralism
In libertarianism, there seems to be an interesting internal conflict revolving around the concept of pluralism and its place within libertarian political philosophy. On one hand, there are certain ethical concepts of liberty that are essentially meant to be consistently applied, and yet on the other hand there is a certain attitude of tolerance and indifferance with respect to society. Sometimes the two are exclusive and seemingly contradictary, with some people insisting on a rigid ethical stance and other people expressing an attitude of moral indifferance or neutrality. This may also vary depending on where the scope of the ethical concepts of liberty start and end, with pluralism taking up the space outside of the scope of such ethical concepts.
This leads to an important question - namely, how to reconcile pluralism with an ethical concept of liberty. It could be said that there are two basic concerns: the concern that an absolutist ethical concept of liberty will become an unecessarily intolerant and closed system that undermines or opposes pluralism, and the concern that what might be called "absolutist pluralism" will become relativistic to the point of eradicating any fundamental or common ethical concept of liberty, essentially rendering libertarianism meaningless. The former concern seems to indicate that an ethical concept of liberty needs to accomodate a diverse array of choices, while the latter concern seems to indicate that pluralism needs to be grounded in a fundamental concept of liberty and given a context.
Pluralism can mean different things depending on the context one provides for it. The inevitable question is: pluralism in terms of what or pluralism relative to what? Pluralism in terms of religion, for example, would generally mean that the belief, practise and general co-existance of multiple religions are permissible and at least tolerated at a basic level. Pluralism in the context of libertarian ethics, in the way that we are considering it here, generally means that multiple lifestyles and types or forms of social organization are permissible in the context of rights-respecting behavior. It is important to note that this conception of pluralism is not completely open-ended in that its scope is limited by certain ethical constraints. For example, I might respect your right to join a commune, but not your authority to force me to join it as well. Hence, this concept of pluralism is contextual to liberty.
In contrast to such a libertarian-contextual pluralism, it is possible for one to treat pluralism as an overriding principle of an explicitly amoral character in which plurality or diversity is seemingly valued regaurdless of ethical concerns. For example, one might favor decentralization for its own sake to the point of not caring if one of the smaller areas is a monarchy. This may be represented by the attitude that any form of government and any concept of ethics is compatible with anarchism. Hence, such a pluralism is no longer grounded in libertarianism or possibly anything at all for that matter. It is a completely open-ended pluralism in which "anything goes".
I have some major problems with the latter open-ended concept of pluralism because I think it easily devolves into a rank communitarianism in which any concievable form of tyranny is tolerated on the grounds that it resulted from a particular consensus. I also find the idea that any concept of ethics is compatible with anarchism to be nonsensical when one actually considers the consequences of various ethical concepts, which may practically lead to authoritarianism. Hence, the open-ended concept of pluralism may be subject to a "thickness from consequences" and "thickness from grounds" argument, which is to say that in fact we can rule out certain ethical concepts as being incompatible with anarchism on the grounds that they either explicitly or implicitly undermine or oppose it in practise.
Some may object to this by accusing those with such "thickness" concerns of being "modal libertarians", which was a term that Rothbard used to describe libertarians who act as if one is obligated to engage in a certain lifestyle to be a libertarian, a criticism which he specifically targeted towards "leftists". Unfortunately, that is not what "thickness" actually means, and there is an extent to which Rothbard was simply strawmanning people with such a category. No, the point is not that people have an obligation to engage in a certain lifestyle to be a true liberterian, the point is that certain ethical concepts and cultural norms have consequences that contradict libertarianism. The point is that ideas have consequences and the prevailance of certain ideas explicitly undermine the prospects for and ultimate sustainability of a free society.
Interestingly enough, a certain kind of tolerance and pluralism actually seems to be a healthy thing that helps foster and sustain a free society. In this sense, pluralism is a "thick" value rather than a suicidal one. On the other hand, a totally open-ended and arbitrary pluralism seems to be "thin" in the sense that it is in opposition to meaningfully taking a stand on anything; it is indifferant towards the cultural and ethical landscape of society. This seems to be either defeatist or naive. A society that does not meaningfully value liberty isn't likely to obtain very much of it or be able to sustain it for very long. Cultural, religious and ethical ideas have had a lasting influence on human societies over the course of history, and it seems odd to neglect the effects that they have tended to have.
There are also some concepts of libertarianism that could be said to be too narrow and exclusive than a libertarian pluralist may be comfortable with. This may occur when a libertarian has a certain economic preferance and proceeds to moralize it as if their economic preference is the same thing as liberty or the only choice one can make in a free society, creating an exclusive group with a narrow "party line" and promoting an explicitly monocentric attitude. While it is possible for such a narrow party line to constitute a form of "thickness" in its own right, it lacks a sufficient pluralism as a value and ends up coming off very much like a cult. One of the major problems with this approach is that it creates stagnation as a result of staving off internal criticism and clinging to an old doctrine that may need to be modified in light of new info.
If a particular political or economic system is being put foreward as an ethical absolute, there is a certain risk of that conception and practise both becoming monopolistic to the point of undermining libertarianism. In this sense, a libertarian-contextual pluralism functions as a check against the concentration of power. Individual liberty does imply a certain kind and degree of pluralism with respect to economic models and forms of social organization. Libertarians should be weary about the central state being effectivly slipped in through the back door in the form of a uniform social model or plan. On the other hand, without at least a basic common understanding of liberty to provide pluralism with a context, pluralism risks devolving into an open-ended free-for-all in which there is no way to distinguish liberty from authority.
Pluralism with respect to those with some pragmatic differances who more or less agree on fundamentals seems reasonable. However, pluralism with respect to those who ultimately are going to violate your liberty on some basic level probably is not reasonable precisely because tolerance and co-existance is not mutual or reciprocal in such a context. This is not to say that there should not be free discourse between people of different opinions, but the idea that your philosopy subsumes someone else's philosophy even when that philosophy contradicts and opposes yours to the point of undermining it at its very core makes no sense. For example, I don't think that libertarian pluralism subsumes white nationalism and monarchy into it because there is something about white nationalism that contradicts libertarianism at a fundamental level. In short, libertarians should be careful about what they consider their pluralism to accomodate.
And so it seems that a rational answer to the question must be found somewhere in between the two extremes. I have not completely done that here, but I did provide an outline of the issue.
This leads to an important question - namely, how to reconcile pluralism with an ethical concept of liberty. It could be said that there are two basic concerns: the concern that an absolutist ethical concept of liberty will become an unecessarily intolerant and closed system that undermines or opposes pluralism, and the concern that what might be called "absolutist pluralism" will become relativistic to the point of eradicating any fundamental or common ethical concept of liberty, essentially rendering libertarianism meaningless. The former concern seems to indicate that an ethical concept of liberty needs to accomodate a diverse array of choices, while the latter concern seems to indicate that pluralism needs to be grounded in a fundamental concept of liberty and given a context.
Pluralism can mean different things depending on the context one provides for it. The inevitable question is: pluralism in terms of what or pluralism relative to what? Pluralism in terms of religion, for example, would generally mean that the belief, practise and general co-existance of multiple religions are permissible and at least tolerated at a basic level. Pluralism in the context of libertarian ethics, in the way that we are considering it here, generally means that multiple lifestyles and types or forms of social organization are permissible in the context of rights-respecting behavior. It is important to note that this conception of pluralism is not completely open-ended in that its scope is limited by certain ethical constraints. For example, I might respect your right to join a commune, but not your authority to force me to join it as well. Hence, this concept of pluralism is contextual to liberty.
In contrast to such a libertarian-contextual pluralism, it is possible for one to treat pluralism as an overriding principle of an explicitly amoral character in which plurality or diversity is seemingly valued regaurdless of ethical concerns. For example, one might favor decentralization for its own sake to the point of not caring if one of the smaller areas is a monarchy. This may be represented by the attitude that any form of government and any concept of ethics is compatible with anarchism. Hence, such a pluralism is no longer grounded in libertarianism or possibly anything at all for that matter. It is a completely open-ended pluralism in which "anything goes".
I have some major problems with the latter open-ended concept of pluralism because I think it easily devolves into a rank communitarianism in which any concievable form of tyranny is tolerated on the grounds that it resulted from a particular consensus. I also find the idea that any concept of ethics is compatible with anarchism to be nonsensical when one actually considers the consequences of various ethical concepts, which may practically lead to authoritarianism. Hence, the open-ended concept of pluralism may be subject to a "thickness from consequences" and "thickness from grounds" argument, which is to say that in fact we can rule out certain ethical concepts as being incompatible with anarchism on the grounds that they either explicitly or implicitly undermine or oppose it in practise.
Some may object to this by accusing those with such "thickness" concerns of being "modal libertarians", which was a term that Rothbard used to describe libertarians who act as if one is obligated to engage in a certain lifestyle to be a libertarian, a criticism which he specifically targeted towards "leftists". Unfortunately, that is not what "thickness" actually means, and there is an extent to which Rothbard was simply strawmanning people with such a category. No, the point is not that people have an obligation to engage in a certain lifestyle to be a true liberterian, the point is that certain ethical concepts and cultural norms have consequences that contradict libertarianism. The point is that ideas have consequences and the prevailance of certain ideas explicitly undermine the prospects for and ultimate sustainability of a free society.
Interestingly enough, a certain kind of tolerance and pluralism actually seems to be a healthy thing that helps foster and sustain a free society. In this sense, pluralism is a "thick" value rather than a suicidal one. On the other hand, a totally open-ended and arbitrary pluralism seems to be "thin" in the sense that it is in opposition to meaningfully taking a stand on anything; it is indifferant towards the cultural and ethical landscape of society. This seems to be either defeatist or naive. A society that does not meaningfully value liberty isn't likely to obtain very much of it or be able to sustain it for very long. Cultural, religious and ethical ideas have had a lasting influence on human societies over the course of history, and it seems odd to neglect the effects that they have tended to have.
There are also some concepts of libertarianism that could be said to be too narrow and exclusive than a libertarian pluralist may be comfortable with. This may occur when a libertarian has a certain economic preferance and proceeds to moralize it as if their economic preference is the same thing as liberty or the only choice one can make in a free society, creating an exclusive group with a narrow "party line" and promoting an explicitly monocentric attitude. While it is possible for such a narrow party line to constitute a form of "thickness" in its own right, it lacks a sufficient pluralism as a value and ends up coming off very much like a cult. One of the major problems with this approach is that it creates stagnation as a result of staving off internal criticism and clinging to an old doctrine that may need to be modified in light of new info.
If a particular political or economic system is being put foreward as an ethical absolute, there is a certain risk of that conception and practise both becoming monopolistic to the point of undermining libertarianism. In this sense, a libertarian-contextual pluralism functions as a check against the concentration of power. Individual liberty does imply a certain kind and degree of pluralism with respect to economic models and forms of social organization. Libertarians should be weary about the central state being effectivly slipped in through the back door in the form of a uniform social model or plan. On the other hand, without at least a basic common understanding of liberty to provide pluralism with a context, pluralism risks devolving into an open-ended free-for-all in which there is no way to distinguish liberty from authority.
Pluralism with respect to those with some pragmatic differances who more or less agree on fundamentals seems reasonable. However, pluralism with respect to those who ultimately are going to violate your liberty on some basic level probably is not reasonable precisely because tolerance and co-existance is not mutual or reciprocal in such a context. This is not to say that there should not be free discourse between people of different opinions, but the idea that your philosopy subsumes someone else's philosophy even when that philosophy contradicts and opposes yours to the point of undermining it at its very core makes no sense. For example, I don't think that libertarian pluralism subsumes white nationalism and monarchy into it because there is something about white nationalism that contradicts libertarianism at a fundamental level. In short, libertarians should be careful about what they consider their pluralism to accomodate.
And so it seems that a rational answer to the question must be found somewhere in between the two extremes. I have not completely done that here, but I did provide an outline of the issue.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Review: "The Ego and His Own" by Max Stirner
[Note: I actually finally got to buying and fully reading this book a few months ago, but I didn't decide to review it until now. One could say that this book requires some time to fully digest its content, so to speak.]
"The Ego and His Own" by Max Stirner (which should actually be properly translated as "The Unique One and His Property", as the editor's preface of this edition indicates) is definitely a unique and thought-provoking book. If the book is read with an open mind, Stirner grabs the reader and may have somewhat of a seducing effect on them, although as one reads further into the book their own presuppositions may begin to be challenged more and more. Stirner's style sometimes shifts in and out of a semi-poetic form, and he also seems to deliberately taunt the reader, sometimes almost as if they are directly speaking to the reader in the 1st person. In comparison to the extremely dry style of many philosophical writtings (Kant and Hegel come to mind), Stirner's style can be fairly enthralling.
The book starts off with somewhat of a "bang" with a short introduction, titled "All Things Are Nothing To Me", which is a little more than the size of a long aphorism. This functions as a brief and not yet elaborated upon summary of his "thesis", so to speak. From this point onwards, Stirner dives into what might be called an analysis of "the self", "the spirit" and philosophical tradition throughout prior history. The book is divided into two basic parts, with the first part functioning more as a historical and psychological analysis that is focused more on criticism, while the second part seems to be more of a positive elaboration of Stirner's ideas.
Stirner takes us on what might be called an epistemological and metaphysical journey. It's as if the reader is being brought through a process of analyzing and ultimately deconstructing the geneology of metaphysical and epistemological ideas, like a dialectical progression. Stirner talks about the antagonism between ego and "spirit", the material and the metaphysical, the anchients and the moderns. He explains how people invented their own ethereal realms and how such an ethereal realm is then internalized into the subject by modern philosophy in order to fill the void that is created upon the rejection of religious and platonic metaphysics. Stirner is not just an atheist who critisizes religion, he is also a critic of mainstream secular philosophy, politics and culture.
Stirner indicates that modern, secular philosophy has tended to merely divinize earthly things after doing away with traditional religion; it still clings to absolute abstractions or conjures up new ones in place of the old ones. For Stirner, it is not enough that we merely do away with god, we have to do away with what he calls any "fixed idea". He critisizes practicality everything that is taken for granted in popular culture, both past and present. Consequentially, Stirner rejects concepts and authority of the state, society, the nation, the family, the spirit, moralit, legality, and even "the truth", viewing such things as alien to him. Stirner openly and proudly proclaims that nothing is more to him than himself, that he will not allow himself to be made the prisoner of an idea, as if "possessed" by it.
Consequentially, Stirner essentially deconstructs the metaphysics and epistemology of the enlightenment tradition, rejecting essentialism and rationalism. In this sense, Stirner could be seen as a precursor to existentialism, although it would probably be incorrect to categorize him as an "existentialist". Put in historical and academic context, Stirner is a dialectical thinker who rejects and transcends Hegel. His main dialectical triad is Materialist - Idealist - Egoist with egoism being the resolution of an antinomy. He presents us with a shrewd psychological analysis of the history of and conflicts between ideas, describing a lot of ideas and behaviors in terms of "possession" and madness. Stirner describes many concepts as "spooks" and accuses philosophers and moralists of making the world into a mere ethereal semblance. He describes "the anchients" as constructing "spirit" or "essence" as representations of things in the world and "the moderns" as constructing things in the world as representations of "spirit" or "essence"; bringing them "down to earth" but only transforming them into the subject.
Stirner could be said to put foreward a certain kind of psychological egoism in that he describes behavior and identity in terms of egoism. However, Stirner does not adhere to any sort of strictly deterministic phsychological egoism; people can choose to not be fully egoistic by his standards. Hence, he establishes two fundamental categories of egoists: the voluntary egoist and the involuntary egoist. The voluntary egoist is not only fully concious of their egoism, but aknowledges their egoism and does not combat it. The involuntary egoist, on the other hand, is not fully aware or honest about their egoism and they actively combat it, splitting themself into an essential and unessential part and fettering oneself with social constructs. The involuntary egoist has an internal struggle in this sense, and Stirner could be said to be trying to resolve such an internal struggle.
Stirner's egoism is not an ethical egoism like Ayn Rand's egoism, it is an amoral form of egoism. From Stirner's standpoint, Rand's "man qua man" would probably be viewed as a "spook" that one sacrifices one's ego to. Stirner classifies the egoist as being neither good or evil, moral or immoral. What defines the egoist for Stirner is in terms of uniqueness, even to the point of undefinability. This undefinability of oneself seems to be what Stirner means by proclaiming himself to be "nothing" in the sense of a "creative nothing". He proclaims that he cannot be properly described by a predicate such as "man". In a sense, for Stirner egoism is the antithesis of universal abstraction, not merely altruism, and it isn't exactly a moral imperative so much as a highly personal process of transformation.
Stirner can be both an inspiration and challenge for anarchists. On one hand, he rejects the state and can provide a useful analysis of power relations, while on the other hand he rejects the concept of "right" or "rights" and he critisizes anarchists (namely, Proudhon). Stirner yields a crushing criticism of nationalism, state-socialism and communism, and many anarchists may very well tend to agree with or be inspired by such criticisms. Stirner essentially made one of the earliest major critique of secular humanism, the liberal nation-state and the early ideas of communists such as Marx. However, he does not do this on the grounds of "natural rights" and rejects the authority of ethical maxims. Stirner's egoist form of ethical nihilism may tend to offend the ears of most anarchists.
Stirner rejects "society" along with "the state", ultimately rejecting both the concepts of "the free society" and "the free state". Stirner's alternative is "the union of egoists", which he puts some effort into describing, but it must be said that it may be thought of as somewhat vague and consequentially there may be some trouble interpreting what Stirner intends with "the union of egoists". On one hand, it can be interpreted as not being particularly different from what is advocated by many anarchists (especially individualist anarchists; Benjamin Tucker was influenced by Stirner and was the first person to translate it in America). On the other hand, it could be interpreted as constituting some sort of defacto state made up of "voluntary egoists". It's hard to tell what the implications of "the union of egoists" really are because Stirner's concept of "the union" seems to be both anti-state and anti-society at the same time.
While Stirner bears certain similarities to Neitzsche, his style is much more straight-foreward and his work predates Neitzsche by a number of decades (in fact, Neitzsche was born the same year that "The Ego" was released, and Neitzsche did not write his first official book "Human All-Too Human" until he was round 36). Despite some seemingly obvious parallels between the two, the outlooks that they represent are by no means identical. Their personal histories and the philosophical contexts therein also differ: Neitzsche was formerly affiliated with Shopenhauer's philosophy and Wagner, while Stirner was affiliated via historical context with the Left-Hegelians, which had essentially fragmented by the time the young Neitzsche was learning philology and philosophy. While both moved beyond a former paradigm, the context and ultimate results of their transcendances are different.
Overall, "The Ego" is a book well worth reading, regardless of whether or not one agrees with Stirner. It can be very hard to fully agree with everything that Stirner says in this book; I certainly don't. But it is a great book precisely because it is so challenging to the reader in a sense. It threatens to reveal the nakedness of one's ideas and to reveal the world as a great big madhouse to an extent. It is not only a radical book for it's time, but even for our time. Stirner has an interesting place in the history of philosophy and politics, despite the fact that he has be downplayed and neglected by academia for the most part. There is definitely something to be learned from "The Ego", no more how subtle or indirect it may be and no matter how hard one's conceptual habits may resist digesting it.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Normative Assumptions of a False Paradigm
Part of the problem with both vulgar libertarianism and vulgar socialism is that they cling to certain normative assumptions asabsolutes. Generally, these are normative assumptions about what is economically preferable in terms of modes of production and organizational structure. To an extent, the problem is a manifestation of a lack of sufficient pluralism, since a certain form of economic organization is conflated with liberty as such or proposed as if it is some sort of absolute model for all of society. The problem also has to do with libertarians still being effected by mainstream political rhetoric and categorizations.
In the case of vulgar libertarianism, the normative assumption is that a large corporate structure and a wage system more or less along the lines of the current one is simply naturally superior to any other mode of economic organization, and hence it is simply assumed that everyone would inherently choose such a system. While some anarcho-capitalists may be prone to make a time preferance argument that people become wage laborers because they would prefer not to take the risk of becoming a "capitalist", this is an oversimplification and it misses the point. What is obfuscated is the degree to which people have no choice in the matter as it is due to barriers to entry and the externalization of costs. Vulgar libertarianism seems to neglect the extent to which the current system has warped incentives.
Consequentially, vulgar libertarianism proposes a vision of a free society that isn't fundamentally different from our current society in terms of economic organization. This seems to ignore the extent to which and the specific way in which the economic organization of our current society is skewed by politics. It ends up coming off as a sort of naivety about the effects of political intervention and the relationship between the economy and the state, which is simply out of touch even with common experience. Hence, vulgar libertarianism is at least implicitly statist in that it produces apologetics for the consequences of politics and may logically entail a political system that is not fundamentally different.
In the case of vulgar socialism, the normative assumption is that everyone would naturally choose not to be a wage laborer in a free society, as if communes are simply naturally superior to any other mode of economic organization. All wage labor is absolutely opposed, possibly even to the point of intervening with violence to stop someone from entering into a wage labor contract. All social problems are essentially blamed on the economy itself, and the degree to which the state warps the economy is likewise either minimized or ignored outright. Anti-statism barely seems to be an issue at all to the vulgar socialists who associate themselves with anarchism.
Since the vulgar socialist, like the vulgar libertarian, assumes that the current system is more or less a "free market", the vulgar socialist bashes the very concept of a "free market" and falls back on left-statist arguments against libertarian ideas. The extent to which the state causes or is tied up in the social conditions that they oppose is largely lost. Non-vulgar libertarians and various market anarchists are consequentially misrepresented as if they were your run-in-the-mill capitalist, since no meaningful distinction is made between "free market" and "current system". But the vulgar socialist actually ends up defending aspects of the current system. Namely, the state's intervention as such - even some of those interventions which largely cause the social problems they are against.
It is important to point out that there is an extent to which both sides share the same false normative assumptions; the difference being the conclusions they draw from those assumptions. Both assume that the current system is, in one way or another, more or less a "free market"; although they are selective about which aspect of the status quo to defend or attack. Vulgar libertarians use free market economics to defend elements of the status quo, while vulgar socialists assume that we currently have a free market in order to make apologetics for the state and critisize conditions within the economy. Vulgar libertarianism is at least implicitly statist, while vulgar socialism is perhaps explicitly statist. Vulgar libertarianism can also be explicitly statist.
They also tend to share similar assumptions in terms of absolute dichotomies of political categories. The vulgar libertarian tends to assume that a "free market" contradicts "socialism", while the vulgar socialist tends to agree and approach it from the other angle. There is the shared assumption of an absolute left-right/socialism-capitalism dichotomy. They are still very influenced by cliche political categorizations, and hence a vulgar libertarian may denounce a left-libertarian as a "marxist" and a vulgar socialist may denounce an individualist anarchist as a "capitalist", when neither may be true at all. The legacy of Marxism and the cultural cliches of the cold war haunts them. With vulgar libertarians, this manifests itself as a knee-jerk anti-leftism, and with vulgar socialists this manifests itself as a rather shallow knee-jerk anti-capitalism.
Both of these groups are "vulgar" precisely because they are monocentric, they engage in apologetics and they are unecessarily hostile based on assumptions wrapped up in the current mainstream political paradigm. They still cling to a lot of the baggage of statist politics - and they still think too much in terms of "systems".
In the case of vulgar libertarianism, the normative assumption is that a large corporate structure and a wage system more or less along the lines of the current one is simply naturally superior to any other mode of economic organization, and hence it is simply assumed that everyone would inherently choose such a system. While some anarcho-capitalists may be prone to make a time preferance argument that people become wage laborers because they would prefer not to take the risk of becoming a "capitalist", this is an oversimplification and it misses the point. What is obfuscated is the degree to which people have no choice in the matter as it is due to barriers to entry and the externalization of costs. Vulgar libertarianism seems to neglect the extent to which the current system has warped incentives.
Consequentially, vulgar libertarianism proposes a vision of a free society that isn't fundamentally different from our current society in terms of economic organization. This seems to ignore the extent to which and the specific way in which the economic organization of our current society is skewed by politics. It ends up coming off as a sort of naivety about the effects of political intervention and the relationship between the economy and the state, which is simply out of touch even with common experience. Hence, vulgar libertarianism is at least implicitly statist in that it produces apologetics for the consequences of politics and may logically entail a political system that is not fundamentally different.
In the case of vulgar socialism, the normative assumption is that everyone would naturally choose not to be a wage laborer in a free society, as if communes are simply naturally superior to any other mode of economic organization. All wage labor is absolutely opposed, possibly even to the point of intervening with violence to stop someone from entering into a wage labor contract. All social problems are essentially blamed on the economy itself, and the degree to which the state warps the economy is likewise either minimized or ignored outright. Anti-statism barely seems to be an issue at all to the vulgar socialists who associate themselves with anarchism.
Since the vulgar socialist, like the vulgar libertarian, assumes that the current system is more or less a "free market", the vulgar socialist bashes the very concept of a "free market" and falls back on left-statist arguments against libertarian ideas. The extent to which the state causes or is tied up in the social conditions that they oppose is largely lost. Non-vulgar libertarians and various market anarchists are consequentially misrepresented as if they were your run-in-the-mill capitalist, since no meaningful distinction is made between "free market" and "current system". But the vulgar socialist actually ends up defending aspects of the current system. Namely, the state's intervention as such - even some of those interventions which largely cause the social problems they are against.
It is important to point out that there is an extent to which both sides share the same false normative assumptions; the difference being the conclusions they draw from those assumptions. Both assume that the current system is, in one way or another, more or less a "free market"; although they are selective about which aspect of the status quo to defend or attack. Vulgar libertarians use free market economics to defend elements of the status quo, while vulgar socialists assume that we currently have a free market in order to make apologetics for the state and critisize conditions within the economy. Vulgar libertarianism is at least implicitly statist, while vulgar socialism is perhaps explicitly statist. Vulgar libertarianism can also be explicitly statist.
They also tend to share similar assumptions in terms of absolute dichotomies of political categories. The vulgar libertarian tends to assume that a "free market" contradicts "socialism", while the vulgar socialist tends to agree and approach it from the other angle. There is the shared assumption of an absolute left-right/socialism-capitalism dichotomy. They are still very influenced by cliche political categorizations, and hence a vulgar libertarian may denounce a left-libertarian as a "marxist" and a vulgar socialist may denounce an individualist anarchist as a "capitalist", when neither may be true at all. The legacy of Marxism and the cultural cliches of the cold war haunts them. With vulgar libertarians, this manifests itself as a knee-jerk anti-leftism, and with vulgar socialists this manifests itself as a rather shallow knee-jerk anti-capitalism.
Both of these groups are "vulgar" precisely because they are monocentric, they engage in apologetics and they are unecessarily hostile based on assumptions wrapped up in the current mainstream political paradigm. They still cling to a lot of the baggage of statist politics - and they still think too much in terms of "systems".
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