Murray Rothbard & Cultural/Social Conservatism
Unfortunately, I do not have a solid or definite definition of left-libertarianism. In some cases it refers to people that can hardly be called libertarian at all. Noam Chomsky is an example. He refers to himself as a libertarian socialist. But it can also be referred to those libertarians that embrace, to one degree or another, Cultural Marxism, i.e., cultural leftism. They embrace hedonism and cultural relativism. It is semi-egalitarian. Many have an outright hate for religion and family. They claim that religion is not rational and thus cannot be libertarian. Nor do they have a sense for tradition or history. Many of them embrace "open borders." They believe that if a government exists (if the given left-libertarian is an anarcho-capitalist at all), it should be run completely egalitarian.
Here I provide some insights from Murray Rothbard on his views on culture and left-libertarians, or as he called them "modals."
Modal Libertarians (MLs):
... The ML is fairly bright, and fairly well steeped in libertarian theory. But he knows nothing and cares less about history, culture, the context of reality or world affairs. ... The ML does not, unfortunately hate the State because he sees it as the unique social instrument of organized aggression against person and property. Instead, the ML is an adolescent rebel against everyone around him: first, against his parents, second against his family, third against his neighbors, and finally against society itself. He is especially opposed to institutions of social and cultural authority: in particular against the bourgeoisie from whom he stemmed, against bourgeois norms and conventions, and against such institutions of social authority as churches. To the ML, then, the State is not a unique problem; it is only the most visible and odious of many hated bourgeois institutions: hence the zest with which the ML sports the button, “Question Authority.” ... And hence, too, the fanatical hostility of the ML toward Christianity. I used to think that this militant atheism was merely a function of the Randianism out of which most modern libertarians emerged two decades ago. But atheism is not the key, for let someone in a libertarian gathering announce that he or she is a witch or a worshiper of crystal-power or some other New Age hokum, and that person will be treated with great tolerance and respect. It is only Christians that are subject to abuse, and clearly the reason for the difference in treatment has noting to do with atheism. But it has everything to do with rejecting and spurning bourgeois American culture; and any kind of kooky cultural cause will be encouraged in order to tweak the noses of the hated bourgeoisie. ... In point of fact, the original attraction of the ML to Randianism was part and parcel of his adolescent rebellion: what better way to rationalize and systematize rejection of one’s parents, family, and neighbors than to join a cult which denounces religion and which trumpets the absolute superiority of yourself and your cult leaders, as contrasted to the robotic “second-handers” who supposedly people the bourgeois world? A cult, furthermore, which calls upon you to spurn your parents, family, and bourgeois associates, and to cultivate the alleged greatness of your own individual ego (suitably guided, of course, by Randian leadership)... [Quoted from Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy - The God That Failed.]
In "Big-Government Libertarians," he says:
Libertarianism is logically consistent with almost any attitude toward culture, society, religion, or moral principle. In strict logic, libertarian political doctrine can be severed from all other considerations; logically one can be – and indeed most libertarians in fact are: hedonists, libertines, immoralists, militant enemies of religion in general and Christianity in particular – and still be consistent adherents of libertarian politics. In fact, in strict logic, one can be a consistent devotee of property rights politically and be a moocher, a scamster, and a petty crook and racketeer in practice, as all too many libertarians turn out to be. Strictly logically, one can do these things, but psychologically, sociologically, and in practice, it simply doesn't work that way.
And here is what he says in “KULTURKAMPF!”:
Furthermore, I, along with other paleos, am convinced that the Old Culture, the culture pervading America from the 1920s through the 1950s, yes the culture of the much-derided Ozzie and Harriet and the Waltons, that that culture was in tune not only with the American spirit but with natural law. And further, that the nihilistic, hedonistic, ultra-feminist, egalitarian, "alternative" culture that has been foisted upon us by left-liberalism is not only not in tune with, but deeply violates the essence of that human nature that developed not only in America before the 1960s, but throughout the Western world and Western civilization.
He continued:
Since I am convinced that left-liberal, and the now dominant, culture is profoundly anti-human nature, I am convinced that removing the poison, as Mel Bradford put it, and getting government out of the picture, would spark a return to natural law and the Old Culture with much greater speed. If it took the intellectual-media political elites twenty-five years to effect their own Cultural Revolution, then we should be able to lead a successful counter-Revolution in much less time.
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Maybe I should note here, examples of his cultural conservatism are not limited to his alliance with paleoconservatives in the 1990s. In the 1970s, for instance, you can find Rothbard writing essays against radical feminism, "kid lib," egalitarianism, etc. Likewise, you can find him defending "bourgeois" values. You can even find him praising some of the work of Robert Nisbet on the importance of authority and tradition, and their differences with power.
Here's an example:
Authority vs. Power. Too many libertarians make the mistake of believing that liberty is the polar opposite of "authority". The brilliant conservative sociologist R. A. Nisbet has been demonstrating just the reverse: that genuine authority, the authority of standards, of civilization, of language, above all of reason, is based on voluntary consent. Furthermore, the mistaken revolt against this kind of authority leads to cultural and social chaos, and finally to a turning toward the imposition of social order by force, by the evil of power and coercion, particularly by an adored dictator (Mao, Fidel). For the most recent of his writings on this subject, see Robert A. Nisbet, "The Nemesis of Authority", Intercollegiate Review (Winter-Spring 1972). Should be particularly sobering reading for our left-wing.
Reading Material:
- "Beyond Economic Man."
- "Society's (Good) Conformity."
- "Rothbard versus Rothbard: A False Dilemma" by Joseph R. Stromberg.
