journal . Ben Sommer

Once in a while I like to read the opinion and analysis of my "intellectual enemies", to assure myself of their ignorance and malevolence, as well as to keep my argumentation chops up. Perhaps the most problematic are not welfare lefties or warfare righties, but the types that call themselves libertarians or 'classical liberals', but differ not an iota in substance from the mainstream. Here's this guy.

Jubak makes a good point initially - the Federal Reserve is quietly ending the publishing of an important inflation-measuring statistic - M3. The obvious reason: it wants to soft-pedal its run-away growth of the money supply, which is all that inflation is.

I don't know Jubak's politics, but his line of argument and his poo-pooing of "conspiracy theorists" is the same as those sunday libertarians who drive me nuts. He intimates that, well, there might be a conspiracy here, but its just too much for him to be identified with "nuts" who claim that the evil Banking Industry and Federal Government collude to extract wealth from the people at home and abroad to fund its guns and butter.

Gimme a break. People who don't believe in conspiracies, in government or elsewhere, must instead believe in fairies and knights in shining armor. To believe that powerful men wouldn't seek unjust advantage for themselves contradicts our understanding of human nature - that we are pain-avoiding, pleasure-seeking animals.

But in a sense, Jubak is right - the FED has long ceased being a conspiracy - it is a well-established swindle with all the solemn pomp of any government institution.

In related news, our hero Rep. Ron Paul has filed legislation to reverse the change, and commented on it here.

Dear Editor,

Thanks for Joseph Newhard's earnest and well reasoned attempt to refute anarcho-capitalism as a theory.

Though he writes very well, and obviously knows a good deal about the theory and the major figures (Rothbard, Hoppe, others), his argument fails.

[In a free and anarchic society] Private security agencies are
expected to emerge despite the presence of gang warfare and
the systematic aggression of tyrants and criminals alike. I
believe that this notion is false, and is demonstrably so on
empirical grounds.

Private security agencies exist now. Private judges (called arbitrators) exists now. Period. Newhard implies that "well, they don't really prove much". Hogwash - you want empirical evidence, there you have it.

Monopolist governments currently permit citizens some leeway to provide for their own self-defense. Whether consumers and producers of private security engage in free exchange on the market now depends on 1) how far the governments allow them to go, and 2) how badly governments fail in providing their own security services. In a free society security production is expected to multiply not _despite_ rogue aggressors, but on _account_ of them.

Also, anarchists don't naively believe in man's good nature, and that aggressors must first be banished to establish a free society. This is a common smear - that anarchism is utopian. Read Rothbard's For a New Liberty for exhaustive refutation of this criticism. Yes, the monopoly state must be banished for a free society to emerge, but not the odd antisocial gang. Its irrelevant whether this happens through armed revolt or long-term ideological warfare.

I insist that [with the current tyrannical, criminal US government]
the prerequisites for the emergence of anarcho-capitalism already
exist within the American society, and that the fact that it has
not yet manifested itself represents a serious flaw in
anarcho-capitalist theory.

So, Newhard's first two contentions - that current private security production "doesn't count", and that anarchists are naive - are wrong. That renders his follow-up assertions wrong, too. I must say I'm surprised to hear a good Randian spin a syllogism like this:

• Anarchist theory says private security will arise amidst aggression *false/confused*
• There is rampant aggression in the US today *true*
• Anarchism is not here now *true*
• Anarchist theory is flawed *false*

Anyway, I thought Randians were supposed to look down their noses at such facile appeals to 'empirical reality'. Its bad enough to attack the libertarian right using such bad logic. I sure hope Newhard doesn't use the same argument against our common enemies on the left:

• Socialism hasn't worked yet
• Socialism is flawed