What The Hell of Libertarian Anarchist?

Libertarian Anarchist in Fostering the Capitalist Authoritarianism Society

By: Nofia Fitri

“Such freedom may not be given at all, but to a proper subset of individuals. However to make a sense the subset must have more than one member, since it includes only one then we might have a dictatorship. Hence, we demand such freedom for at least two individuals.” (Amartya Sen, the Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal, 1970).

“If they have not moved to the utopian yet, yes they may in dreaming now.” That is my first impression towards the sophisticated idea of Murray Rothbard, a prominent figure of libertarian anarchists’ trend. I have claimed this current thought as ‘a trend’ because on fact the idea of anarchy would disappear since it could not proven that it is not utopian itself. Since the very begin, the idea of anarchist on political term that had been brought by William Godwin, so idealist, as he dreamed “there will be no war, no crime, no administration of justice, as it is called, and no government, besides there will be no disease, anguish, melancholy, or resentment” (William Godwin, 1979) was an impossible aspiration.

Understanding the Libertarian Anarchist

“Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just” (Nozick).

For Murray -if not influenced by Godwin at all- “every man is a self-owner” (Murray Rothbard, p. 182) which he argued that society should be free from any interfere, no one can allow to owning either physic or mind of others. As a theory what is something that Rothbard has emphasized definitely true, no one can deny it, but as we have been seen that in practice we have been living in a complex society which every idea needs to adapt itself.

Quoted from Kant “that maybe true in theory but is of No practical use” (Immanuel Kant, 1991: 61), I would like to ask the libertarian anarchist to get back, go down to the earth, before they lost in the beyond.

One of the very famous statement of Rawls was “a theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue” (John Rawls, 1971: 3). I am so much agree of it, hence through this paper I reject the theory of libertarian anarchist as a rational political-economic thought by giving several arguments and evidences showed that ibertarian anarchist possible but there is a contradiction within this theory.

Rothbard illustrated how the private sector can undertake more effectively all government activities (Rothbard, 1982). He then argued that the government should be eliminated because everything that government does, the market can do better.

Libertarian theories based on agent-causal theories and event-causal theoriest. Two important features of libertarianism are: first “the primary purpose of negative general rights is the protection of individual liberty to insure that no one’s is restricted without his consent” and second “the libertarian holds that a sufficient reason to reject any alleged moral rule or principles of distributive justice is that not or principle restrict someonefreedom without his consent” (Rothbard, 1982).

Within the political economy the libertarianism could be understood as a principle that “subscribes to a conception of freedom, liberty, and justice which intrinsically interlaced with natural and negative rights, individualism and charitable interdependency, personal responsibility, the limited and minimal state.”

Capitalist Authoritarianism Society as the Critiques of Libertarian Anarchist

In 1984, Bob Black through “The Libertarian as Conservative” concluded that “the libertarian do not denounce what the state does, they just object to who’s doing it.” Libertarian argued government is an evil, on contrary as what Andrew Jackson responded it “there are no necessary evils in government, their evils exist only in its abuses.”

Many critiques towards the libertarian have been produced by many scholars. They free to express themselves without being libertarian however. Built arguments, made examinations on politics, economy, social and philosophy, used theories and approaches and gave conclusions and suggestions.

When Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin declared their conceptions of freedom through Anarchism, they might never thought that one day the desire for not have a government would expand itself and dealing with so many economic conceptions. They criticized the authority of states which dominated the freedom of people. Nowadays they may face that the authority of state has been holding by people who thinks that they have a freedom as individual.

Freedom, Alineation and Authoritarianism

The term of “alienation of man from himself is the greatest sins of capitalism” has been emphasized by Marxian tradition. According to Fromm, capitalist societies has promoted marketing personalities Thus those scholars agreed that capitalist societies tend to produce person who alienated and authoritarian. When people free to choose everything they wanted without any consideration, they become authoritarian. In the capitalist society when everyone compete for his/herself then get a power to rule everything without monitored by the higher power owner, he/she will be so powerfull and tend to be autoritarian.

The emerging of capitalist authoritarianism use a definition of Chomsky means “domination with authoritarian control.” In Chomsky’s words “it fosters the capitalist authoritarians.” Chomsky stated that “the weird offshoot of ultra-right individualist anarchism that is called “libertarian” here happens to amount to advocacy perhaps the worse kind of imaginable tyranny, named unaccountable private tyranny.”

Besides of Chomsky, several researches had been held to proven that the emergence of market economies promoted individuals with the sense that they can control their own destinies. Like Cohen states “the libertarian tend both to use a rights definition of freedom and to take it for granted that interference with his private property diminishes its owner’s freedom” (G.A Cohen, 1995: 60).

Since it has been emergent, the idea of freedom for libertarian degenerates into a more advocacy of free enterprise as Polanyi stated “reduce a fiction by the hard reality of giant trusts and princely monopolies” (Polanyi, 257). Quoted from Polanyi, “as long as he is true to his task of creating more abundant freedom for all, he needs not to fear that either power or planning will turn against him and destroy the freedom he is building by them instrumentally.” (Polanyi, 1957, 258B).

Libertarian theory assumes “people will act charitably in order to advance their own personal flourishing, the very nature of such charity much be questioned.” It assumes that people will act charitably in order to advance their own personal flourishing, the very nature of such charity must be questioned. Towards this assumption Smith saw that the libertarian is “going too far.” Smith concludes that “libertarian justice is held as utopian.” Her argument based on the facts that by using the libertarian’s view such a justice. Justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made rights by a greater good shared by others like Rawl states “being first virtues of human activities, truth and justice are uncompromising!” (Rawls, 1971: 3-4).

There were several contradictions have been marked toward Murray’s preposition. I quoted one of them from Cohen. According to the Libertarian “each person belongs to himself and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else it reflects that each person’s freedom do as he wishes with himself. Rejected by Cohen, he states “freedom, is the point of departure for generating the rights over bodies and our powers on which he insist (Cohen, 68). “If libertarianism is necessary for moral responsibility, we are not morally responsible for what we do” Cohen, 10).

The authoritarian desire could be emergence under of human consciousness, should we justify this as a natural law as same as that we accepted that we are the human-animal. Polanyi argued “the fascist answer to the recognition of the reality of society is the rejection of the postulate of freedom (Polanyi, 258 A).” Freedom’s utter frustration in fascism is, indeed, the inevitable result of the liberal philosophy, which claims that power and compulsion are evil, that freedom demands their absence from humanity (Polanyi, 257). Thus in condition that a Free Market System be authoritarian, there would emerge the unwilling situation: exploitation, dependence, and structural poverty, as what the anti-globalization protested for. These are the things that have been happened in most developing countries which is they learn to implemented the capitalist system into their economic policy but then affected as negatively.

Further Study

Two plus Two Equals Four” – as if Freedom means that! (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Let me be an anarchist if my freedom would not threaten me with its authority, or I may suppose, have put my self in the intersection between the alienation of man or incoherently sticking with the thing I have dreamed about.

The thing that never mentioned by the libertarian anarchist who defense the individual freedom is the government is a group of individuals. I classified the type of government into two different model but base on one, principle of authoritarian. Government controlled by corporate anarchist. We can not neglect that today we can classify countries as two types: the country which the government is fascist as itself and the country which the government being fascist caused by corporate anarchist.

Thus the further study would be necessary on the practical of state regarding on the government power and the role of interest and pressure group on the economy making policy.

Nofia Fitri was graduated from University of Nasional (Jakarta), and is doing MA. Program on International Relations Department, EMU (TURKEY) with the field of concentration on the International Political Economy (IPE) study.