LiberaLaw

I'd like to try to tie together and expand my observations re. the great “socialist”/“capitalist” terminological debate that’s been proceeding at C4SS and AAE . “Socialism” as Genus; “State-Socialism” as Species I think there is good reason to use “socialism” to mean something like opposition to: bossism (that is to subordinative workplace hierarchy); and deprivation (that is, persistent, exclusionary poverty, whether resulting from state-capitalist depredation, private theft, disaster, accident, or other factors . “Socialism” in this sense is the genus; “state-socialism” is the (much-to-be-lamented) species. Indeed, using the “socialist” label provides the occasion for a clear distinction between the genus “socialism” and the species “state-socialism.” Thus, it offers a convenient opportunity to expose and critique the statist assumptions many people reflexively make (assumptions that make it all-too-easy for political theory to take as given the presupposition that its subject...

Some lively conversation has already erupted at the Center for a Stateless Society over Kevin Carson 's new commentary, “ Authoritarians in Libertarian Clothing .” Carson expresses his puzzlement at the support many putative libertarians seem inclined to offer to hierarchical social arrangements in the workplace, the family, etc. Offering a characteristically clear and pugnacious response, Stephan Kinsella begs to demur. For whatever reason, WordPress hasn't made it possible for me to contribute to the thread of comments on Carson’s post, so I’ve decided to take the opportunity to react to one aspect of Kinsella's argument here. Carson notes “the argument, by Hans Hermann Hoppe and his followers, that immigration would be restricted in a free market anarchy by the universal appropriation of land,” and points out some objections to it. Kinsella responds: As for Hoppe–well, although he’s actually against state immigration restrictions as an anarchist, at worst, his second-b...