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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Strange Bedfellows
Message-ID: <261@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Nov-85 19:33:03 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.261
Posted: Sat Nov 30 19:33:03 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Dec-85 20:45:52 EST
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 68

I agree with much of what Gabor says in the referenced article, but
I will mention a point or two of disagreement.

>The attitude of the two camps toward democratic guarantees and institutions
>ranges from indifference to outright contempt....
>
> Unfortunately, such practices do have their
>roots in the works of the founders who consistently devalued
>democratic guarantees and institutions by using terms such as
>'bourgeois parliaments', 'bourgeois "press freedom"', 'bourgeois
>courts' and the like, creating an atmosphere in which the abolition
>of jury trials, execution of hostages or armed action against the
>Constitutional Assembly seemed quite permissible to Bolsheviks of
>Lenin's generation. 

There is a tendency, with which I am not in sympathy, among some
socialists to denigrate liberal-democratic institutions and values as
"bourgeois", something to be abolished with the coming of socialism.
And yes, one can find the "roots" of this in Marx and Engels.
Similarly, there is a tendency towards authoritarianism and
anti-intellectualism among many Christians of the present day, and
the roots of this tendency can be found in the New Testament.  This
does not mean, however, that Christianity is inherently authoritarian
and anti-intellectual, nor does it mean that socialist views imply
indifference or contempt towards liberal democracy.  Indeed, Marx was
a profound believer in democracy throughout his life except for a
short period around 1850, although he was of course critical of the
political forms of liberal capitalist society.  

The libertarian/socialist debate is really a debate about the nature,
viability, and justice of capitalism and its relation to democratic
political life.  To most Americans, capitalism and democracy either
are identical or coexist harmoniously.  I think both libertarians and
socialists are right to recognize a profound incompatibility between
them.  Each proposes a radical cure for the ills of society which
they perceive as deriving from this incompatibility:  (1) Smash the
state, abolish politics, and establish a "pure" form of capitalism.
My criticisms of this view are in brief that capitalism is inherently
unjust and inherently dehumanizing (preventing people from realizing
their potential), and (perhaps more important) that man is *by nature*
a political animal, and nature cannot be driven out with a pitchfork
in this manner.  (2) Smash capitalism by abolishing the particular
form of property relations which are its basis, and extend democratic
political life over a wider realm. 

I distinguish between the sophisticated libertarianism of such
important philosophers and economists as Nozick, Hayek, and M.
Friedman, and the Brain-Damage Libertarianism that seems to be
popular on the net.  The latter is the philosophy of those who have
heard tell that the free market is the most efficient economic system
but do not ask what "efficient" means and do not notice that the
system which has been shown to be efficient is a highly abstract
model which no economist claims is an accurate representation of the
real world; who advocate a society in which coercion is "minimized"
without asking what that could possibly mean; who forbid the
"initiation of coercion" on basic principle and in the next breath
say they have a right to initiate coercion against someone who
trespasses on their property or tries to steal it; who assume without
question that individuals have a moral right to own privately the
means of production, apparently on the grounds that they have been
owned privately in the past; who claim to be defenders of "liberty"
but in fact defend only the liberty of private property-owners to do
as they wish with their own property; who declare that "taxation is
theft" as if this were self-evident; and who, in short, do not
understand what it is to think philosophically (which means
*rigorously*) about political and social questions.
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes