Category Archives: Private Property

UPDATED: Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy

Free Markets, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property, South-Africa

“Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is the new essay, now on WND. It tackles the “economic reductionism, typical of the impoverished analysis of South Africa, offered so authoritatively by libertarian economists stateside.” Excerpted below are two sections therefrom:

… LITE LIBERTARIANISM VS. THE RIGHT KIND

Herein lies the difference between the paleolibertarian analysis and what this column has termed the lite libertarian one, philosopher Hans-Hermann Hope being the finest example of the former. The rest fall into the latter, lite category.

A crucial difference between lite libertarians and the Right kind is that to the former, the idea of liberty is propositional–a deracinated principle, unmoored from the realities of history, hierarchy, biology, tradition, culture, values.

Conversely, the paleolibertarian grasps that ordered liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which we all must live, cannot endure. “The pursuit of the … paleolibertarian ideal,” explained Catholic philosopher Jack Kerwick, Ph.D., “is the pursuit of an ideal of liberty brought down from the clouds to the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged.” …

… FREEDOM VS. EGALITARIANISM

Contra the economic reductionism of the lite libertarian, free-market capitalism is a necessary but insufficient condition to sustain freedom in a country of South Africa’s complexion.

The truth absent from the phantasmagorical formulations critiqued is this: Economic freedom does not necessarily reduce so-called wealth inequality. Inegalitarainism is a feature of a free economy. If history is anything to go by, certain minorities will achieve prosperity from poverty, no matter how gravely the state and society impede them. Jews did it in Europe. Levantines and Indians in Africa and the Middle-East. Chinese in southeast Asia and everywhere else they go. Europeans in South Africa.

Moreover, “While all people want safety and sustenance for themselves, not everyone is prepared to allow those whom they dislike and envy to peacefully pursue the same.” (P. 4.) Free-market capitalism is not enough to safeguard ordered liberty in racially riven societies like South Africa, where the majority will always covet the possessions of immensely wealthier minorities and associate these riches with racial privilege.

Ultimately, the rights to life, liberty and private property will forever be imperiled in a country whose constitution has a clause devoted to “Limitation of Rights,” and where redistributive “justice” is a constitutional article of faith. (P. 101)

This, paleolibertarians (all three of us) know too well.

In “The Cannibal” chapter entitled “Saving South Africans S.O.S.,” secession is explored as one solution, it being a species of the private-law society delineated by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe, of course, has never been afraid to speak to the “unequal civilizing potential” (in James Burnham’s coinage) of different people and peoples. …

Read the complete essay. “Apartheid South Africa: Reality Vs. Libertarian Fantasy” is now on WND.

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UPDATE (12/22): INTERESTING DISCUSSION @ PRAGG.ORG, to which I have replied.

A Bum’s Rush To Pope Francis

Capitalism, Christianity, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Private Property, The State, Uncategorized

In his 1998 encyclical, “Faith and Reason,” Pope John Paul spoke with unhectoring clarity about the errors of relativism in modern thought. While Karol Wojtyla’s role in the fall of communism is likely exaggerated, he was no communist. Pope Benedict XVI was—still is— a great intellect, who took a risk in attempting to explain why “Islam may be a closed and irrational system, impermeable to reform.”

Pope Francis, the new Holy See, is no match to his predecessors. In fact, Jorge Bergoglio is shaping up to be more of a bumpkin than expected.

Courtesy of conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh comes Pope Francis’ “latest papal offering”:

Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as ‘a new tyranny’ and beseeched global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality, in a document on Tuesday setting out a platform for his papacy and calling for a renewal of the Catholic Church. … In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the ‘idolatry of money.'” … “Pope Francis said that trickle-down policy…” We hear about trickle-down policies? “Pope Francis said that trickle-down policies have not proven to work.”

Preached Pope Francis: “I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: `Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs,’ said Francis, quoting the fifth-century St. John Chrysostom.”

In other words, the livelihood for which a successful man labors belongs not to him, but to the poor and their benevolent proxy: the government. Some doctrine that is.

Rightly, Rush rails against the Pope. Read on.

The Private, Online Alternative To Gov.Con.

Government, Healthcare, Private Property, Socialism, Technology, The State

If you’re going to let the government herd you into Gov.Con., go to HealthSherpa.com to “Instantly compare premiums for health exchange plans.”

No, this simple, working site is not a government stopgap. “Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work” explains why a command-and-control fix will always fail.

HealthSherpa.com was designed by “three 20-somethings.”

three young men from San Francisco, George Kalogeropoulos, Ning Liang, and Michael Wasser, did what the government has not been able to do: build an easy to use site where people across the country can get quotes and compare different health care plans through the federal exchange.

A couple of kids built the site the state could not build. It took them three days. It cost a few hundred dollars, while Gov.Con. contractors have conned the taxpayer out of half a billion dollars and counting. And the Gov.Con. site will likely never quite work. (What’s the incentive to get it to work? Close to none. Read why.)

UPDATED: WND & EPJ: Unfettered Market-Place Of Ideas (Knockout Reporting)

Free Markets, Free Speech, Journalism, libertarianism, Media, Private Property

THE WND EDITORIAL SPREAD SHOWCASES the site’s tradition of good, vibrant debate. Like it or not, WND is always at the forefront of journalism. Has been since the late 1990s. No censorship, no party-line to toe; just an unfettered market-place of ideas.

The caption places my weekly column’s case that, “Firearms are meant for self-defense, not needless killing”—a case that, if anything, bolsters the 2nd Amendment and the absolute right to self-defense—against Jeff Knox’s utilitarian argument for Esau’s way.

The libertarian equivalent of WND is Robert Wenzel’s lively EPJ. Robert is another editor who knows how to mix it up.

UPDATE: WND was first to “document [the] hundreds of examples of the Knockout Game around the country over the last two years.” Now Fox News is taking credit for being first to do journalistic diligence to this story. Not so.