LIBERTARIAN, A STOLEN WORD

AND ONE WORTH TAKING BACK

Words are important, in that they are a vessel for communication. Many things can be shared through words: truth, beauty, justice. In the case of Josiah Moore (who goes by the pseudonym Volnost online) and his article, words share a message of stupidity.

A brief synopsis of his work is that the words “libertarian” and “libertarianism” no longer is useful, and that there is a need to rebrand to better fit what he and other Hoppeans call the “original” use of the terms. However, how he argues for it is by giving off a half-truth, ahistorical definition of libertarianism, which conveniently for him matches his ideology. But in essence it also shows a more cowardly side: the inability to deal with disagreement and use a label that, while based on fundamental principles of freedom and autonomy, can have a broad spectrum of beliefs.

Let’s first look at his account of history. While he is correct that William Belsham first used the term libertarianism in one of his philosophical essays (thought it was more a metaphysical term than political), his rejection of Joseph Déjacque as being the first libertarian, while technically true, is based off the false premise that he “never used the term “libertarianism” to describe a philosophy”, which he actually did in a letter to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, as a descriptive of his own political ideals and theories (1). This use of libertarianism, while not making him the first libertarian, makes him definitively the first to use libertarianism in the political sense, as the advocacy of liberty.

But of course, that is to assume, like every other rational being, that anarchism -including the subset anarcho-communism- is historically and contemporarily a certain type of libertarianism. Josiah, however, does not care much for rationality or history. His excuse for not defining anarcho- communism as a form of libertarianism can be inferred from the Rothbard quote after that paragraph, claiming that “[Right Libertarians] had taken [libertarianism] over, and more properly from the view of etymology; since [Right Libertarians] were proponents of individual liberty and therefore of the individual’s right to property...” Not only does he inadvertently admit to his ahistorical view, but he uses Rothbard as justification for such, since Rothbard himself used it also with no regards to history. Ironic, as Rothbard put great importance on the historical context of individuals’ lives, as later seen in the article.

Along with his ignorance of history, Josiah is ignorant on libertarian principles, especially the most well known principle of American libertarianism, the Non-Aggression Principle. The principle states that no person should aggress upon or cause harm to another person, and that, if no one is doing harm to you or aggresses against you , you should not do harm to them, whether by your own force, or by the force of a third party, such as the state. If one were to summarize such a principle, it would be in the saying “Live and Let Live” — a saying that “induces a physically nauseating reaction” in him. He argues that libertarians “hide behind individualism as an excuse to be utterly apathetic… they believe libertarianism is atomism,” and goes on to claim that, “Because atomism is the only context in which “live and let live” can function, once there is any social interaction, it starts becoming irrelevant, as there is no more “letting live.”” The proof of such is supposedly shown through two more Rothbard quotes, both critiquing such an atomized view of individuals.

While there is a point to be made that “individuals do not exist as isolated… atoms,” to argue that the concept of “Live and Let Live”, which is essentially the Non-Aggression Principle, cannot function in a standard society, not only leaves him embarrassingly rejecting a fundamental principle of American Libertarianism, the form he claims to subscribe to, but also reveals his great misunderstanding of the point of the Non-Aggression Principle: to be a guiding axiom for a libertarian to live ethically, in the moral and political sense, as well as provide an ethical foundation for a new libertarian society. To chalk it up as being “irrelevant” in our current society is not only an ignorant claim based on little to no actual scholarship in libertarian theory (which he criticizes others for(2) ), but leaves ground open to questioning whether he is even an actual libertarian.

Along with ignorance in history and theory, we can add onto it the inability to be consistent. Josiah comments on another saying used to describe libertarianism: “socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” He argues that such a descriptor, which “assumes libertarianism as thick and prescribes social values to it”, is “laughable” and “ridiculous” and “have been disregarded by the likes of Rothbard and Hoppe…” The argument implicitly made (though in much more childish terms) is that libertarianism is not and should not have any social values prescribed to it, focusing only on decreasing the size of the government and protecting property rights (3) . By itself, this argument is not something of major controversy, and, while deserving to be challenged, would not be something to hold Josiah up to extreme scrutiny over. That is assuming, however, that Josiah subscribes to this viewpoint; in actuality, he merely doesn’t like “liberal” social values being prescribed to libertarianism.

We can see this written out when he speaks of the dichotomy of left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism and of the supposedly “false notions” people have of libertarianism. Firstly, we must quickly get out of the way, when he wrote the article, that Josiah claims to be a right-libertarian (4), as is shown with his linking of libertarian philosophy with Austrian economics(5), as well as his favoring of Murray Rothbard, H.L. Mencken, Jeff Deist, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, etc., all noteworthy figures and thinkers of right- libertarianism. With that out of the way, in his defining of the right-libertarian versus left-libertarian definitions, he goes to name both the disagreements on property (which is a large disagreement between the two), but also oddly names abortion as a substantial disagreement between them, claiming that “right-libertarians are generally much more “pro-life,” left-libertarians are much more “pro-choice.”” Where he gets such an idea is unclear, as right-libertarians such as Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand, who influenced much of right-libertarianism, argued firmly for abortion (6). However, as his influence does include Hoppe, who is known for his more socially conservative following, it could be that Josiah subscribes to a socially conservative right-libertarianism (he doesn’t subscribe to any form of libertarianism, but for the sake of argument, and of not spoiling, we’ll say he does). This is further propounded by his characterization of drug use and prostitution as a “pathetic lifestyle”.

And while this could be excused on the ground of his own personal opinions, the contradiction in his argument comes in this: when characterizing what he calls the “false notion of what libertarianism is”, he claims that the people who do so “adopt it as a political ideology because they believe it can excuse their hedonistic degeneracy.” What makes up this supposed “degeneracy”? Josiah uses “sexual promiscuity or hardcore drug use” as his examples for what consists of “degeneracy”, and with this brings up common libertarian arguments for the legalization of prostitution and drugs as examples of arguments made by those with the “false notion” of libertarianism. What he is in essence doing is prescribing social values to libertarianism; but instead of prescribing liberal social values to it, he prescribes his own conservative social values to it. He is not only, then, a hypocrite, but in rejecting arguments for abortion, rejecting arguments to legalize prostitution, and rejecting arguments for legalizing drugs, he has prescribed to libertarianism a defense of the state’s overreach of power in interfering with the individual’s life, whether that be through the War on Drugs or through over laws and policies that criminalizes a person’s right to do what they want with their own body. In essence, he is defending the state’s aggression, which is utterly preposterous and idiotic from the libertarian point of view.

But it is clear to see that Josiah is not a libertarian in any sense of the world. From his ahistorical reasoning and illiteracy of theory, to his rejection of the Non-Aggression Principle, to his defense of the state’s violence, to call him a libertarian would be fallacious. His “proposed solution” of taking on a new term is not in order to give a truer essence of what libertarianism is, but to merely create a new subgroup for conservatives to co-opt libertarianism without needing to deal with those critical of them, the horrid “leftists” as they call them, who are most likely truer libertarians than they will ever be.

As time goes on, the repeated pleads for right-libertarians to clean house has seem to have fallen on deaf ears. While this article is not fairly recent, it still embodies a great amount of current thinking in right-libertarian circles. I fear that the continual asking will lead to nowhere.

But what is the point of life but to fight! Josiah and his circle may be willing to “lose the label” of libertarian in order to fit their conservative ideology, but why allow them the victory of gatekeeping libertarianism and letting them “not allow for them [actual libertarians] to use the term “libertarian””? If anything is to be learnt, it is that yes, words are important, language is important, and it shall be a cold day in hell before we let anyone define us or define libertarianism as anything but liberty and freedom!
VIVA LA LIBERTE!

1. Joseph Déjacque, "De l’être-humain mâle et femelle–Lettre à P.J. Proudhon" (1857).
2. In his article , linked above: “For the past few years, it seems the majority of people who claim to be libertarian are very poorly read on libertarian philosophy…”
3. This belief, which is more widespread in Right Libertarian circles, is known as “thin libertarianism”.
4. He is anything but a libertarian, preferring to align himself with the right and bring libertarianism into the conservative mold under the pretext that it will somehow be more beneficial (making similar arguments as Radical Capitalist, who made an article arguing Fascism was a step towards a libertarian society, which I rebutted before). He is, at best, a proto-fascist, using nazi imagery in his content (content which he has deleted, but was thankfully screenshotted beforehand):

5. The Austrian school is a school of thought propounding laissez-faire capitalism and private property ownership, and is most notable for its proponents Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, both considered to be right-libertarians.

6. For Rothbard’s defense of abortion, see his “For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto”, chapter 6; for Rand’s defense, see the Ayn Rand Lexicon (linked here)