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David Friedman vs Murray Rothbard
The comments on my earlier post of the Reason TV’s interview may or may not have actually been written by David Friedman. If they were, I’m flattered to have him here.
I am particularly interested in the disagreements between intellectuals because disagreement often inspires rigor. Perhaps this casts people as rivals despite their overwhelming agreement on what a better future might look like.
However, the difference between utilitarian and moral approach has huge implications. This debate is worth exploring and resolving.
Rothbard on David Friedman:
Let us take, for example, two of the leading anarcho-capitalist works of the last few years: my own For a New Liberty [by Murry Rothbard] and David Friedman’s Machinery of Freedom. Superficially, the major differences between them are my own stand for natural rights and for a rational libertarian law code, in contrast to Friedman’s amoralist utilitarianism and call for logrolling and trade-offs between non-libertarian private police agencies. But the difference really cuts far deeper. There runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire which in turn is better than the current system. Amidst the entire spectrum of political alternatives, David Friedman has decided that anarcho-capitalism is superior. But superior to an existing political structure which is pretty good too.
. . . such early influences on me as Albert Jay Nock, H. L. Mencken, and Frank Chodorov were magnificently and superbly radical. Hatred of “Our Enemy, the State” (Nock’s title) and all of its works shone through all of their writings like a beacon star. So what if they never quite made it all the way to explicit anarchism? Far better one Albert Nock than a hundred anarcho-capitalists who are all too comfortable with the existing status quo.
. . . Taking the concept of radical vs. conservative in our new sense, let us analyze the now famous “abolitionism” vs. “gradualism” debate. The latter jab comes in the August issue of Reason (a magazine every fiber of whose being exudes “conservatism”), in which editor Bob Poole asks Milton Friedman where he stands on this debate. Freidman takes the opportunity of denouncing the “intellectual cowardice” of failing to set forth “feasible” methods of getting “from here to there.” Poole and Friedman have between them managed to obfuscate the true issues. There is not a single abolitionist who would not grab a feasible method, or a gradual gain, if it came his way. The difference is that the abolitionist always holds high the banner of his ultimate goal, never hides his basic principles
(Read more)
David Friedman on Rothbard:
Rothbard’s basic point is correct. I do not regard support for government as an act of willful evil but as an intellectual mistake; my arguments (and his) could be wrong, and some sort of government might be the least bad alternative among available human institutions. And even if we are correct, it is not unreasonable for other people to think we are not, as lots of intelligent people I know do.
The flip side of that is that I think one consequence of his attitude was to make him willing to be deliberately dishonest in his arguments—all being fair in war. That included being dishonest in the arguments he made to fellow libertarians.
. . . .
I’ve written at some length online in the past on what I consider Rothbard’s dishonesty with regard to economic history, in particular his misrepresentation of Smith (unfavorable) and his French contemporaries (favorable); see this old post for examples and further links. And there have been other examples. Murray was bright, articulate, and could be charming, but I don’t think he could be trusted. (Read more)
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An intellectually honest pursuit of the truth can make rivals out of men who are 95% in agreement.
In my view, the criticism made by David Friedman — that Rothbard was wrong on Reagen and Adam Smith — grasps at minutia given the enormous breadth and depth of the hyper-prolific Rothbard.
Rothbard’s criticism of Adam Smith alluded to in this essay seems sound to me, but I’ll admit to having read no deeper that that into Murray’s comparison of Smith and his contemporaries.
I am very sympathetic to David Friedman’s comment “I do not regard support for government as an act of willful evil but as an intellectual mistake.” In fact, Albert Jay Nock, who Rothbard cites in criticizing Friedman, writes extensively about how the state may simply be the best that homo-sapiens are intellectually capable of. This is very similar to Friedman’s view of an “intellectual mistake.”
However “willful evil” is not an expression Rothbard used, so its a bit of a straw man. I don’t think either AJ Nock or Rothbard would regard support of the government as “willful evil,” but as an evil none the less — an intellectual mistake AND an evil.
Perhaps the closest I personally come to David Friedman’s view is that to say that Rothbard focused mostly on criticism. Institutions and norms are required for the existence of property and civilization. I could, with many disclaimers and asterisks make a statement like the following: “The modern state is an approximation of the institutions and norms required for civilization.”
Murray’s student and colleague, Hans Hermann Hoppe, worked in that directions, imagining and explaining how those institutions might emerge in a free society.
Christmas 1914 — Soldiers stop being pawns of the state for a day
Netanyahu: Jerusalem is ours, I don’t care what the UN says
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday said he would continue to ignore the international community’s condemnation of Israeli construction plans across the Green Line, in an interview with Channel 2. “The Western Wall is not occupied territory, and I don’t care what the United Nations says,” Netanyahu said. “We are living in the Jewish State. The capital of the Jewish state, for 3,000 years, has been Jerusalem. I want to say it clearly.” (Read more)
The History, Philosophy and Ethics of Gun Control
Is a college degree worth the cost? You decide.
Gérard Depardieu says he will give up French passport over tax rises
Gérard Depardieu has said he is handing back his French passport and social security card, lambasting the French government for punishing “success, creation, talent” in his homeland.
A popular and colourful figure in France, the 63-year-old actor is the latest wealthy Frenchman to seek shelter outside his native country by buying a house just over the border in Belgium in response to tax increases by the Socialist president, François Hollande.
The prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, described Depardieu’s behaviour as pathetic and unpatriotic at a time when the French are being asked to pay higher taxes to reduce a bloated national debt.
“Pathetic, you said pathetic? How pathetic is that?” Depardieu said in a letter to the weekly newspaper le Journal du Dimanche.
“I am leaving because you believe that success, creation, talent, anything different must be sanctioned,” he said.
An angry member of parliament has proposed that France adopt a US-inspired law that would force Depardieu or anyone trying to escape full tax dues to forgo their nationality. (Read more)
TSA detains Santa
Maddow Propaganda: “The fastest deficit reduction in generations”
We learned about a month ago that the U.S. budget deficit for the most recent fiscal year fell to $1.089 trillion, $200 billion smaller than it was last year, and nearly $300 billion smaller than when President Obama took office. (Read more)
Iraq 2002, Iran 2012: Compare and contrast Netanyahu’s speeches
Ten years before his “red line” speech at the United Nations last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the United States Congress and called for bringing down Saddam Hussein before he developed nuclear weapons. (Read more)
Rabbis Sign Letter Opposing Settlement Construction
Over 500 U.S. rabbis, cantors, rabbinical students and cantorial students have signed an open letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warning against his decision to advance settlement construction in the sensitive E1 area of the West Bank and build 3000 new housing units in East Jerusalem. The decision, which was announced the day after the U.N. voted to upgrade Palestine’s status, constitutes “the final blow to a peaceful solution,” the letter states. “If Israel builds in E1, it will cut East Jerusalem off from its West Bank surroundings and effectively bifurcate the West Bank. (Read more)
H.L. Mencken Speaks
Anarcho-Capitalism going mainstream?
Nice to see Friedman catching up to the intellectual work of Hoppe:
Further proof that Anarcho-Capitalism is becoming main-stream is this poorly written, rambling criticism from the Southern Poverty Law Center: www.salon.com/2012/12/18/how_to_spot_an_anarcho_capitalist/
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I imagine some power brokers thinking to themselves — okay, we can’t stop this thing, so let’s try to own it.
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Wow! Just found Rothbard’s critique of David Friedman’s Anarcho-Capitalism.
Socialism!
Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday!
Guy creates open-source, free font for dyslexic readers; gets copyright cease-and-desist threat
The plight of dyslexic individuals served as inspiration to Abelardo Gonzalez, a New Hampshire-based mobile app designer, who devised a clever font to help dyslexics read digital text easier.The font, dubbed “OpenDyslexic“, employs a trick in which the bottoms of characters are weighted. Curiously some dyslexic individuals visual processing cortexes rotate images that look slender, making characters appear backwards or upside down. By making the bottom look “heavier” the font reportedly reduces this kind of visual “bug” in the brains of people with this disability.
Mr. Gonzalez wasn’t the first to use this trick, he explained, but he was the first font designer to make an affordable version.
. . . .
Then he “was contacted by font designer Christian Boer (who sells an alternative font called dyslexie for $69 USD per “single-use” license) to “cease and desist” early during his process.” That’s right. He was threatened with a copyright lawsuit for … making an affordable, open-source font to help dyslexics.
At the time he was charging a nominal fee and did reuse some bitstream-vera-sans characters as the basis for his font. Bitstream-vera-sans’ license explicitly allows derivative fonts to be sold (free of fee to the bitstream font creators), however, Mr. Boer was claiming that the offense occurred due to the fact that Mr. Gonzalez had changed the (free) font in a similar way as he had. By all appearances the real issue was that Mr. Gonzalez was offering it for far cheaper than Mr. Boer.
So Mr. Gonzalez went a step further and simply made the font free.