by Nick Land

https://genius.com/Nick-land-meltdown-annotated

〔〔 〕〕 〔 〕 The story goes like this: Earth is captured by a technocapital singularity as renaissance rationalitization and oceanic navigation lock into commoditization take-off. Logistically accelerating techno-economic interactivity crumbles social order in auto-sophisticating machine runaway. As markets learn to manufacture intelligence, politics modernizes, upgrades paranoia, and tries to get a grip. Continue reading →

This is an interesting critique of the self-ownership principle, and one that other libertarians ignore at their own stupidity. The lack of nuance that Rothbard sometimes presented in his theoretical and philosophical abstractions is a problem for relating theory to praxis in the case of libertarianism and propertarianism. Lewis rightly points out that the prevailing moral psychologies and legal precedents negate the views of Rothbard on things like children and the totality of a contractual society. However, I disagree with his view that social contractarianism is the negation of a contractual society. Rather I believe they can be complementary in their creation of solid, customary law through common law courts and juries, and the mindset and customs of a natural law society which negate the capabilities of parasitism and state-based coercion. (by the blog author)

by Todd Lewis Continue reading →

Rothbard hits the nail on the head in seeing many libertarians as far too nihilistic in their approach. They want to castigate questions of culture down to the simplistic idiom of the NAP. However, in creating a broad-based movement with many facets, that simply will not do. How can one ally himself to Christian, working-class Southerners when he bashes the church unintelligently and sings the praises of free-trade agreements. How can one seriously critique the wage system yet ignore its cultural underpinnings found in the Enlightenment, in the mechanistic philosophies of power. Paleolibertarianism rightly pushes against such vacuousness. (by the blog author)

by Murray Rothbard Continue reading →

A society of control, with institutions becoming the mere whisper of control by fluid elites, shows a liquifaction of life. All that is solid has melted into air. Even the existential realities that defined early capitalism have given way to new lifeforms and politics.The mechanisms of neoliberalism infect large levels of relations, charging capital accumulation for new locations of exploitation. However, despite the negative picture that Delleuze paints, there is the capacity for change in the new discursive institutions created, such as the neighbourhood clinics which sit on the border of authoritarian control and decentralised freedom. Freedom to control these mists of reality becomes much more important, and much easier as these are mists, fragments of reality, constructed from thought and power with the capability to be reconstructed, rethought. (by the blog author)

by Gilles Deleuze Continue reading →

Rothbard’s critique of much of modern libertarianism is spot on. Groups like the Cato Institute and the Adam Smith Institute have become mouthpieces for corporate policy. Whether it be the totalitarian humanism of modern discourse which says one cannot disassociate or hold beliefs that are tribal, or the corporatism of economics which justifies public expenditure on infrastructure and schooling from the top-down as it’s good for business and good at creating wage labour. These are the kind of idiots Rothbard rightly excoriates. Hopefully, libertarianism becomes much more radical, from both the left and right wings, and stops acting as a justification for modern markets and capitalism. (by the blog author)

by Murray Rothbard Continue reading →

Sturgeon gives us an interesting picture of how to reconceptualise anarchy within ancient social and spiritual bonds. His analysis of pre-Norman England is certainly enlightening, as it shows the voluntary aspects of that society, with its social hierarchies and social connection to the land. In many ways it falls in with other aspects of voluntary feudalism, such as the early clan system of Scotland and the tuatha of Ireland. However, we should not fall into the trap of pure historical romanticism. We have to understand that these voluntary, quasi-anarchist systems were on the peripheries of life at that time. Like all stages of history, there is a consistent tension between the modes of centralisation and decentralisation. So far the latter has lost. What Sturgeon shows though is that by understanding these historical systems (that only ended due to centralised forms of power conquering them) we can understand ways of constructing intentional communities of anarchy, where relations are voluntary and bound in common conceptions of community, economy and law. (by the blog author)

by Wayne John Sturgeon Continue reading →

The argument here is interesting. Viewed in the round, representative democracy has the capability of maximising aggregated social choice that is narrowly defined and curtailed over subjective preferences and the ground up building of institutions with multiplicitous characters and formations. However, the essay should have brought in the issue of the leviathan in general, as this wider construct maintains an elite which sets the rules of a democracy, thus resulting in maldistributed wealth not from rich to poor but rather from recycled taxation of the poor or from middle class to poor. This entrenches artficial class divisions and maintains the fluid power of the modern elite, that of bureaucrats, politicians and corporations. (by the blog author)

by Anthony de Jasay Continue reading →

This is probably one of Rothbard’s best pieces of intellectual work. Its analysis of the burgeoning liberal movement and its divergence into forms of socialism, particularly forms that Tucker would have seen as anarchistic, is exemplary. The only criticism I would have is that in the analysis of the industrial revolution, Rothbard should have made the distinction between the theoretical considerations of developing industry and its revolutionary potential, as had been by Hodgskin, Mill and later Kropotkin, and the actual developed industrial revolution which relied on the coopting of conservatives and the landed gentry onto the side of capital and big business. Apart from that its excellent. (by the blog author)

by Murray Rothbard Continue reading →