Here’s why this economist believes libertarianism is essentially a form of white supremacy

[ZiprHead]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-why-this-economist-believe-libertarianism-is-essentially-a-form-of-white-supremacy/

And in a recent Twitter discussion on several different economics themes, documented by economist Brad DeLong, Marshall Steinbaum offered a theory that explained both the prominence of the ideology and the fact that its supposed adherents aren’t generally consistent advocates of its implied outcomes. The discussants were debating the merit of anti-monopolistic policies and to what extent it could be useful to frame the messaging around the topic in a way that would get libertarians on board.

“You might have noticed that I don’t particularly care about ‘winning over’ libertarians given their longstanding intellectual commitments,” Steinbaum, research director at the Roosevelt institute, said. “If it is self-defeating to refuse to ally with white supremacy, then fine.”

“Are you equating libertarianism with white supremacy?” asked E. Glenn Weyl, founder of RadicalxChange.

“I am indeed, with much in the historical record to back me up. For example: ‘the United States, with trivial exceptions, has never been a colonial country.’ —Milton Friedman,” replied Steinbaum. “There are flavors, but they all serve one another’s purposes and are part of the same political movement, yes.”

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-why-this-economist-believe-libertarianism-is-essentially-a-form-of-white-supremacy/

You found an idiot on AlterNet (what are the odds?) who says that anything he disagrees with is White Supremacism (what are the odds?) and know so much about the subject that he lumps Friedman (a monetarist) in with libertarians (free market) (what are the odds?) Next I suppose you will show us how Stalin and Mao are proof that libertarians are icky.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-why-this-economist-believe-libertarianism-is-essentially-a-form-of-white-supremacy/

. . . “Are you equating libertarianism with white supremacy?” asked E. Glenn Weyl, founder of RadicalxChange.

“I am indeed, with much in the historical record to back me up. For example: ‘the United States, with trivial exceptions, has never been a colonial country.’ —Milton Friedman,” replied Steinbaum. “There are flavors, but they all serve one another’s purposes and are part of the same political movement, yes.”

How does that quote --

the United States, with trivial exceptions, has never been a colonial country

-- equate with white supremacy?

Is this the best example from the historical record for equating libertarianism with white supremacy?

If Steinbaum is right, libertarians should endorse the white supremacy cause. Why is this guy trying to convert libertarians to white supremacy? Is he really a white supremacist himself? Why is he encouraging these people to become white supremacists?

 

[untermensche]

It's a lie.

It's just that the modern world has allowed strong nations different ways to colonize.

Today you colonize by controlling the economy of the colonized.

That is why the US has attacked every developing nation that refused to allow the US to come in and rape their nation.

Indonesia, Guatemala, Haiti, all US economic colonies.

Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, Iran. All attacked for not allowing control by the US.

 

[dismal]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-why-this-economist-believe-libertarianism-is-essentially-a-form-of-white-supremacy/

You found an idiot on AlterNet (what are the odds?) who says that anything he disagrees with is White Supremacism (what are the odds?) and know so much about the subject that he lumps Friedman (a monetarist) in with libertarians (free market) (what are the odds?) Next I suppose you will show us how Stalin and Mao are proof that libertarians are icky.

Wait, so this guy's theory is that if government gets out of the way whites will dominate the world? Sound's like he's the white supremacist.

 

[PyramidHead]

The primary freedom of American libertarians (which I must again stress, are not the norm across history and around the world as far as libertarianism is/has been concerned) is the freedom of a business owner to control his business, the freedom a property owner to protect his property, and so on. It's what happens when you take libertarian thought as it originated and developed across Europe and combine it with the notion that private ownership of commonly used resources is not theft but rightful appropriation by those who deserve it most because they claimed it first and have the means to defend it. Because those with the power to enclose common resources, live off the proceeds of everybody else's labor, and manipulate political action to their advantage by leveraging ownership of said resources tend to be whites, anybody who wants to preserve that situation has a strong incentive to profess American libertarian values. The overlap is not accidental, but it's not total either. Many libertarians on the right are of course not racist in any way, even though their advocacy for property rights and market freedoms disproportionately harms those with the least property, market access, and means to acquire more, which in the current environment is non-whites.

 

[ronburgundy]

The economist doesn't actually explain the connection in those quotes. The connection is NOT one of logical necessity in which one cannot honestly come by a libertarian stance without also being a white supremacist. The connection is a pragmatic one in which a huge % if not large majority of self-labeled "libertarians" either use libertarians as a cover for white supremacy or endorse white supremacist ideas disguised as "science" to protect their irrational faith in free markets and denial that regulation is neccessary to prevent injustices and reduce the impact of past injustices, including those initiated by non-market forces.

Whites already dominate US society because they used white supremacist tactics from slavery, to Jim Crow laws, and now just good ol' racism to suppress the wealth and power of non-whites. Since in a "free market system" past and present wealth and power are the #1 causal determinants of future wealth and power, whites will continue to disproportionately control society in their favor without some other force to keep it in check.

Those who want to maintain white supremacy want to eliminate government in order to eliminate any opposition to their use of power gained by past racism to ensure their continued dominance. Despite revisionist lies, white supremacy and desire to maintain its most overt practice of slavery was the defining feature of and motive behind the Confederacy and it's opposition to the Federal government. Just like today, "states rights" rhetoric was a smokescreen to oppose the Fed b/c it and the majority opinion evolved under enlightenment principles to oppose slavery and white supremacist tactics, while the southern states were still controlled by white supremacist sympathizers (as many still are and the Presidency currently is). Most self-proclaimed "libertarians" side with "states rights" arguments for the same reason, and even when they want to reduce State government power as well, that is usually an extension of the same motives to eliminate any force that might have the power to impede whites from using their ill-gotten powers to continue to ensure they retain economic and social supremacy.

The alt-right is a white supremacist movement whose intellectual heroes are among the most notorious pseudo-intellectual white supremacists pretending to use science to support their ideology. They don't have the decency to be honest about their white supremacy, so they pretend to oppose overt white supremacists like the KKK and others who literally where it on their sleeve. Instead, they pretend to use science to support the idea that most non-white groups are inherently inferior and therefore inequality is just a byproduct of a free market system where people get what they deserve.

Not only do those who start as white supremacists have a motive to buy into anti-government "libertarianism", but those who start out as "libertarian" free-market faithers have a motive to buy into white supremacist pseudo-science. The massive inequalities of all sorts that their preferred unregulated markets produce expose the need for regulation due to the inherent injustices an unregulated system produces and it's inability to correct and tendency to enhance long term effects of injustices produced by non free-market forces like slavery. Thus, free market faithers and those who oppose gov regulation are forced to pretend that all inequalities and differences in outcome are purely the result of innate differences in either ability or motivation, and therefore all group level inequalities under a free market system are due to some groups being innately inferior in ability or willingness to put in the effort. Note that nothing about valid libertarian philosophy presumes that unregulated markets do not produce injustices nor denies the need for regulation by democratic government. These are not actual libertarian stances but are the stances of most people who claim to be a libertarian, but are really just anti-government for other self-serving reasons, a major one of which is racism.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

The connection is a pragmatic one in which a huge % if not large majority of self-labeled "libertarians" either use libertarians as a cover for white supremacy or endorse white supremacist ideas disguised as "science" to protect their irrational faith in free markets and denial that regulation is neccessary to prevent injustices and reduce the impact of past injustices, including those initiated by non-market forces.

Sure, and communists believe in private property.

Whites already dominate US society because they used white supremacist tactics from slavery, to Jim Crow laws, and now just good ol' racism to suppress the wealth and power of non-whites.

Jim Crow was government mandated discrimination. That obviously describes a position friendly to those who oppose government mandates. That was sarcasm, by the way, although I'm sure you think it is literally true.

Just like today, "states rights" rhetoric was a smokescreen to oppose the Fed b/c it and the majority opinion evolved under enlightenment principles to oppose slavery and white supremacist tactics, while the southern states were still controlled by white supremacist sympathizers (as many still are and the Presidency currently is).

Actually today "states rights" is all about opposing Trump's immigration policies and legalizing marijuana. You're behind the times. Now tell me more about how opposing Trump's immigration policies is a smoke screen for hiding racism.

Most self-proclaimed "libertarians" side with "states rights" arguments for the same reason, and even when they want to reduce State government power as well, that is usually an extension of the same motives to eliminate any force that might have the power to impede whites from using their ill-gotten powers to continue to ensure they retain economic and social supremacy.

Actually most libertarians say "states don't have rights". We do support strictly enforcing the separation of powers between fed and state because if the fed can pick and choose which parts of the constitution to follow then the constitution doesn't matter, which is entirely different from supporting the supremacy of the states over the federal government. I know, you can't tell the difference, but it is a crucial difference.

The alt-right is a white supremacist movement whose intellectual heroes are among the most notorious pseudo-intellectual white supremacists pretending to use science to support their ideology.

Yeah, I thought we were talking about libertarians, but you've switched topics and hoped nobody would notice. Well, I did notice, and hope that next you're going to rise to the challenge and show how Stalin and Mao "prove" libertarians are icky.

 

[ronburgundy]

Sure, and communists believe in private property.

Completely false analogy. There is absolutely nothing in the definition libertarianism that excludes belief in white supremacy or a desire to use unregulated markets to maintain that supremacy. It is a matter of whether libertarians would have a motive to accept white supremacist ideas, which they certainly do if they want to equate libertariansim with being anti-regulation of the market system that have maintained and increased racial inequalities.

Jim Crow was government mandated discrimination. That obviously describes a position friendly to those who oppose government mandates. That was sarcasm, by the way, although I'm sure you think it is literally true.

White supremacists support government when they think they can ensure control over it to promote white supremacy. There is no principled argument for states rights, so it is only used when it the person thinks that those who share their political agenda can better control local or state government that the Fed. Crow laws were created by the powerful private interests who held white supremacist views and wanted to use local and state government they had control over to counter the Federal push for equal rights. In states were white supremacists lacked majority control, they just engaged in the same sort of discrimination on an informal level and used individual rights arguments against any efforts to stop them.

Most so called "libertarians" favor states rights over using the Fed for their agenda, simply because it is easier for them to control, and many states, especially conservative ones, do not have any meaningful civil rights rights protections of their own.
So, rejecting the Fed is often used as a way of rejecting civil rights.

Just like today, "states rights" rhetoric was a smokescreen to oppose the Fed b/c it and the majority opinion evolved under enlightenment principles to oppose slavery and white supremacist tactics, while the southern states were still controlled by white supremacist sympathizers (as many still are and the Presidency currently is).

Actually today "states rights" is all about opposing Trump's immigration policies and legalizing marijuana. You're behind the times. Now tell me more about how opposing Trump's immigration policies is a smoke screen for hiding racism.

Nonsense. Virtually all who oppose his immigration policies and want legal marijuana want those policies changed at the Federal level and would be happy if the Federal government prevented states from engaging in Trump-like immigration policies or criminalizing marijuana.
However, they cannot realistically hope for that at the moment and thus try to use "states rights" arguments against the same conservatives who more consistently trumpet such rhetoric. But that doesn't mean that "states rights" arguments are "now all about" such limited ironic use of the rhetoric.
"State's rights" is used to allow State's to do things against what the Fed wants to. Liberals make limited use of such arguments only when their are states that are more progressive and humane than the Fed. But that is atypical, b/c the Federal Constitution and other Fed laws tend to be much stronger in protecting basic rights and preventing the majority from oppressing the minority.
Thus, the most typical users of "state's rights" rhetoric are people who want to use their majority to oppress minorities (aka conservatives and most self-labeled "libertarians").

I noticed you conveintly cut out the part about how the Confederacy used anti-Fed arguments to preserve slavery, b/c it is such a glaring example of the long history among white supremacists to use anti-government and state's rights rhetoric.

Most self-proclaimed "libertarians" side with "states rights" are same reason, and even when they want to reduce State government power as well, that is usually an extension of the same motives to eliminate any force that might have the power to impede whites from using their ill-gotten powers to continue to ensure they retain economic and social supremacy.

Actually most libertarians say "states don't have rights". We do support strictly enforcing the separation of powers between fed and state because if the fed can pick and choose which parts of the constitution to follow then the constitution doesn't matter, which is entirely different from supporting the supremacy of the states over the federal government. I know, you can't tell the difference, but it is a crucial difference.

If states can choose to make their own laws that violate the constitution and civil liberties (e.g, the Civil Rights Act), then the constitution doesn't matter at all. Actual philosophical libertarians recognize that not only can States and local government rob people of their basic rights and liberties, but that other citizens can do so also. Which is why actual libertarians do not engage in mindless "smaller government" rhetoric and recognize that government regulation is neccessary to prevent the otherwise rampant oppression of some people (especially those in the statistical minority) from other citizens.
Most self-labeled libertarians fail to take any principled stance on actual liberty, and instead attack the Fed power when it prevents their State from doing their will, and attack state power when it prevents their favored majority from oppressing people they don't care about.

The alt-right is a white supremacist movement whose intellectual heroes are among the most notorious pseudo-intellectual white supremacists pretending to use science to support their ideology.

Yeah, I thought we were talking about libertarians, but you've switched topics and hoped nobody would notice.

No, we are talking about the actual people who exist and claim to be libertarians, almost all of whom make inconsistent use of libertarian arguments, which includes a huge % of the alt-right and a large % of Trump supporters. I'm not talking about fairy tales and fictional creatures. I'm talking about 99% of the people who argue for "smaller" government, and pretty much every "libertarian" who doesn't find the GOP to be a vile and thoroughly racist and immoral organization that they would never support.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Most so called "libertarians" favor states rights over using the Fed for their agenda, simply because it is easier for them to control, and many states, especially conservative ones, do not have any meaningful civil rights rights protections of their own.

Libertarians don't have control over any state legislatures. There was an interesting attempt in New Hampshire, but it was ultimately unsuccessful.

So, rejecting the Fed is often used as a way of rejecting civil rights.

For some people, yes. Of course you want to broad brush everyone who rejects federal power for any reason into the group with those who reject it for a bad reason. What is your position on Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States?

Nonsense. Virtually all who oppose his immigration policies and want legal marijuana want those policies changed at the Federal level and would be happy if the Federal government prevented states from engaging in Trump-like immigration policies or criminalizing marijuana.

That's why we have Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary States. Still, you made an interesting point earlier when you wrote "There is no principled argument for states rights, so it is only used when it the person thinks that those who share their political agenda can better control local or state government that the Fed." Which means the exact same argument you used to defend opposition to Trump's immigration policies are the arguments you ascribe to racists. "They'd do it at the fed if they could." That is also what essentially separate libertarians from BOTH of them.

Yes, both. But you so desperately want to lump libertarians in with one of them that you'll ignore that the exact same relationship exists with the other.

If states can choose to make their own laws that violate the constitution and civil liberties (e.g, the Civil Rights Act), then the constitution doesn't matter at all.

That's why I used the word "federalism" to describe my position instead of "state's rights", but I'm sure you "forgot" to notice that. It is an important distinction.

Actual philosophical libertarians recognize that not only can States and local government rob people of their basic rights and liberties, but that other citizens can do so also. Which is why actual libertarians do not engage in mindless "smaller government" rhetoric and recognize that government regulation is neccessary to prevent the otherwise rampant oppression of some people (especially those in the statistical minority) from other citizens.

Actual philosophical libertarians (of which you refuse to learn what they believe) do recognize that violation of rights can come from states or from individuals, true, but they also recognize that it can come from the federal level as well. You seem to think any criticism of the federal level is white supremacy. What was your position on Trump's immigration policies and Sanctuary States again?

No, we are talking about the actual people who exist and claim to be libertarians, almost all of whom make inconsistent use of libertarian arguments, which includes a huge % of the alt-right and a large % of Trump supporters.

I actually travel in libertarian circles, and have not met any of those you claim exist. You have already demonstrated you never talk to libertarians, now you are giving evidence you never talk to Trump supporters either, and you are also giving evidence that you never talk to al-righters as well.

 

[skepticalbip]

It looks like an essay written by a racist that is consumed by the bigotry of low expectations. I guess that happens to people who buy into identity politics.