Most of this debate has been sparked and is being flamed by the use of “capitalism” to describe what libertarians advocate. Some have been clinging to it, others want it jettisoned, and some want it jettisoned so that libertarians can call themselves “socialists.” I’ve addressed this specific issue twice before and have concluded that “capitalism” is a wholly stupid word than means a million different things to a million different people. I’ll only use “capitalism” in the company of people who understand what I’d mean by it, so, in general, people who understand Mises. The thing with Mises is that he didn’t mean “capitalism” to be “free markets;” he’s an economist, he was referring to a structure/organization of production. The statement “libertarians support capitalism” is a bogus platitude, but I’ll get to that shortly. The same applies to “socialism” as well: it means a million things to a million different people. Why anyone would want to flip the “libertarians are capitalist” into “libertarians are socialist” is beyond me. It’s for this reason, as “capitalism” and “socialism” can each be a thing that a libertarian could support, that I don’t identify as either, nor do I identify as “anti-” either. I see no point.
That being said, since the people arguing for the jettisoning of “capitalism” are sort of the “new” voice, it’s been those opposing the change who seem to be clinging to the “capitalism” security blanket. Walter Block’s argument boils down to “Ayn Rand supported ‘capitalism’ and she converted more people to libertarianism than anyone else.” I’ve dealt with Block’s argument before, but, in regard to Rand, who exactly did Rand bring to the table? She’s clearly influenced many people to learn more about libertarianism, but, at the same time, she also generated a cult of pseudo-egoists and pro-war nuts. This isn’t bash Ayn Rand day, but I think Rand gets way too much credit. From my experiences, those who were entirely drawn in by Rand developed into psychotics, and those who were receptive to the egoist philosophy, found others with which to hone their libertarianism, Rothbard in particular. The other arguments against dropping “capitalism” seem to just be a bunch of snarky rhetorical questions about “well, what if they co-opt the next word?” Who cares? Are we having love affairs with words now? If it's beyond saving, find another one for Christ’s sake! Not using “capitalism” would sure do a lot to avoid the common association of libertarians as corporate stooges.
I mean, we’re having all these battles about words! Why aren’t we using the appropriate words to convey what we mean at the appropriate time to the appropriate people? If you’re talking to some person who hates “socialism,” it’s probably best to avoid the use of “socialism” to describe yourself. Instead, how about we make an effort to desensitize these stupid words? Some people hear “socialism” or they hear “capitalism” and it’s like they’ve been threatened with death. You can’t have rational discourse that way and what libertarians need more than anything is rational discourse with non-libertarians, not preaching about the “virtues of capitalism” or “how you’re evil if you support taxes.” Give me a break. If there’s one thing holding libertarians back, it’s the idea that you can convert people to your “side” by calling them “parasites” and “thieves and murderers by proxy.”
So, I’ve got the background out of the way and have hopefully explained why everyone is acting like an idiot (except when they aren’t). It’s possible to have this discussion about broader libertarian values without strawmanning and throwing hissy fits about how precious words are!
What’s really gotten me riled up though has been a couple statements from some right libertarians. Both Stephan Kinsella and Juan Fernando Carpio have, for no good reason that I can see, decided to refer to left-libertarians, a group of which Roderick Long, Kevin Carson, Sheldon Richman consider themselves to be a part and which I see myself a part of as well, as left “libertarians.” While it may seem like no big deal, these kind of back-handed, condescending ways of dealing with someone with whom you disagree have an apparent childishness to them. It’s pretty hard to be cordial when you implicitly question the integrity of those with whom you are debating. What left “libertarian” says is: “you’re not real libertarians because I disagree with you about X and Y and all libertarians disgree with X and Y.” Now if it were true that all libertarians did disgree with X and Y, Kinsella and Carpio would have a point, but the X’s and Y’s they speak of are not antithetical to libertarianism at all.
What exactly is the libertarianism we are excluding people from? Libertarianism is the philosophy advocating maximum individual liberty which we can say means: people should have the maximum amount of decision making power over their own lives. That seems like a pretty broad category to me. It’s also highly interpretable as to what “liberty” even means. In fact, because libertarianism is so broad and interpretable, it’s possible to have many different takes on what it means for the real world or how it should be accomplished. Thus, you have minarchists, agorists, mutualists, geoists, and many other varieties. Hell, a communist could be a libertarian so long as they aren’t forcing people into communes. Libertarianism is as diverse as the people who identify with it. It might get a little hairy as to how much government can be compatible with libertarianism, but, eh, that’s boring. So long as someone is promoting their libertarianism with compatible means of social, political, or economic organization, they are libertarians.
The sectarianism that’s been going on is pretty much analogous to this:
There’s two libertarians. One declares: “I don’t like jeans.” The other declares: “I like jeans, but sometimes I wear slacks.” Then they each dishonestly frame the position of the other as unlibertarian.
What does the preference with regard to jeans have to do with anything? It’s perfectly consistent with the non-aggression principle, if that’s your standard for libertarianism (to make a concession to the Rothbardians), to like or not like jeans. Why isn’t there anyone to declare: “Jeans? Slacks? Whatever floats your boat. They keep you warmer than naked.”
The same goes for “anti-capitalism” and “anti-socialism” or “anti-bossism” or anit-racism. I’ve never heard a left libertarian advocate stabbing your boss for being a jerk. There’s a pretty apparent hierarchy of goals: oppose aggression, then oppose things that, to a lesser degree, interfere with liberty (racism, bossism). How exactly is opposing, in principle, shitty bosses an unlibertarian thing?
Kinsella:
What some left "libertarians" oppose is the economic order most standard libertarians favor and expect to accompany an advanced free society… I think this is a large motivation for their hostility to the word “capitalism”–they mean capitalism like we do, and dislike it.
Kinsella means this in a "bad" way and then proceeds to call opponents of laissez faire capitalism “unlibertarian.” Why? I’ve never heard any of the left libertarians to which he refers espouse preventing others from participating in capitalism. This is just nonsense on par with: “only jean wearing libertarians are real libertarians.”
This whole thing is annoying and senseless. Instead of discussing how certain ideas fit in or don’t fit in with libertarianism, it’s just been a game to see who can out-dismiss the other person. There’s plenty of room for different strategies, rhetoric, and ideas within libertarianism. And it’s plenty disheartening that anyone with a sensible position is disregarded on the grounds that they don’t fit the mold. There is no founder of libertarianism. There is no Mecca of libertarianism. Libertarianism has evolved as an idea over a long period of time. If I wasn’t so interested in this movement, it’d be easy to write it off on these grounds alone. We’ve got a small group of people who spend all their time fighting each other. It makes perfect sense for left libertarians to be the ones to bring leftists on board. It makes perfect sense for right libertarians to be the ones to bring rightists on board. Whatever strategy works and gets principled people to support the common cause is the strategy that needs to be used. Since people are different, they’re going to need different bridges from which to cross the ideological river.
The question we’ve really got to ask when debates starting turning the direction they have been is: “who made you King of Libertarianism?”