Am I a socialist?
Published by Yazad Jal February 3rd, 2005 in StimulantsLast month, Amit Varma wrote about liberal / libertarian and their shifting meanings. For me, the best point on these labels is made by David Boaz in his book Libertarianism: A Primer. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s website:
The right term for the advocates of civil society and free markets is arguably socialist. Thomas Paine distinguished between society and government, and the libertarian writer Albert Jay Nock summed up all the things that people do voluntarily–for love or charity or profit–as “social power,” which is always being threatened by the encroachment of State power. So we might say that those who advocate social power are socialists, while those who support State power are statists. But alas, the word socialist, like the word liberal, has been claimed by those who advocate neither civil society nor liberty.
(Emphasis in original)
It’s awful how words change their meaning but I love the delicious irony.
3 Responses to “Am I a socialist?”
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Interestingly enough, Boaz’s point isn’t just hypothetical. 19th century libertarians often did in fact describe themselves as both free marketeers and as “socialists”–Benjamin Tucker and his circle at Liberty in particular were fond of characterizing their political-economic position as voluntary socialism, in contrast with both to state-privileged capitalism and to state socialism.
Since the rise of monster state socialism in the 20th century, libertarians have often found themselves, whether willingly or unwillingly, driven into alliances with statist conservatives, and so have tended to identify themselves as first and foremost anti-socialist, where they used to identify themselves as a kind of socialist. They have gained a better understanding of some issues (e.g. interest) in the process, but I think there’s a good argument to be made that they’ve also lost a lot and tended to become apologists for the very crony capitalists (and other traditional elites, for what it’s worth) who so often have strengthened the coercive power of the State. Hence the work that Roderick Long and I have been trying to do through the Molinari Institute to reclaim the 19th century radical libertarian vision for 21st century libertarians.