:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 ::

LIBERTARIANISM: BOGUS ANARCHY


Libertarianism is
not anarchism, but actually a form of liberalism. It does, however, have
a point of origin that is traceable to the same juncture as anarchism's
marginalization. So in this limited sense there is a shared commonality.
To be more precise, the rapid industrialization that occurred within the
United States after the Civil War went hand in glove with a sizable
expansion of the American state.[16] At the turn of the century, local
entrepreneurial (proprietorship/partnership) business was overshadowed in
short order by transnational corporate capitalism.[17] The catastrophic
transformation of US society that followed in the wake of corporate
capitalism fueled not only left wing radicalism (anarchism and socialism),
but also some prominent right wing opposition from dissident elements
anchored within liberalism. The various stratum comprising the capitalist
class responded differentially to these transpiring events as a function
of their respective position of benefit. Small business that remained as
such came to greatly resent the economic advantage corporate capitalism
secured to itself, and the sweeping changes the latter imposed on the
presumed ground rules of bourgeois competition.[18] Nevertheless, because
capitalism is liberalism's raison d'etre, small business operators had
little choice but to blame the state for their financial woes, otherwise
they moved themselves to another ideological camp (anti-capitalism).
Hence, the enlarged state was imputed as the primary cause for
capitalism's ``aberration'' into its monopoly form, and thus it
became the scapegoat for small business complaint.

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It is no coincidence that Libertarianism solidified and
conspicuously appeared on the scene just after the United States entered
an economic downturn (at the same time Keynesian economics was discredited
and neoclassical theory staged a comeback). The world-wide retrenchment of
capitalism that began in the late 1960s broke the ideological strangle
hold of a particular variant of (Locke-Rousseau) liberalism, thereby
allowing the public airing of other (Locke-Burke) strains representing
disaffected elements within the capitalist class, including small business
interests. Libertarianism was one aspect of this New Right offensive. It
appeared to be something sui generis. Libertarianism provided a simplistic
status quo explanation to an anxious middle class threatened by the
unfathomed malaise of capitalism and growing societal deterioration,

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:: Jim Nichols 10/08/2002 10:02:00 PM [+] ::
...