Justin must be looking in the mirror.
"It is of course true that in Vietnam and Cambodia, one State has been immediately displaced by another--not surprisingly, since the Communist-led insurgents are scarcely anarchists or libertarians. But States exist everywhere; there is nothing remarkable in that. What is inspiring to libertarians is to see the final and swift disintegration of a State."--source
If I could find the rest of the article, I'd post it.
Libertarians praise markets for dispensing with brute force and state coercion and leftists attack them for reflecting unequal distributions of wealth and influence, but it should be recognize that markets themselves can be great reservoirs of power that shape the development of the world.
Historically, it's taken states to create wider and more powerful markets. Governments suppress pirates and bandits, break down local and guild trade restrictions, open up countries to foreign commerce and investment, enforce contracts and promote commercial codes, and guarantee returns to capital and labor. It's perhaps true that much of this could be done by private firms and voluntary associations, but that appears to be a later development. Before such wider markets are created, voluntary associations are usually confined in caste, tribe and clan limits. A private firm or voluntary association that did take on roles in opening foreign markets could also be seen as exercising state functions.
Anyway, I think this is where Postrel is coming from. She wants to create the great, unlimited empire of freedom for autonomous individuals. She is impatient with all local groups that want to opt out of this "great society." And she doesn't have much of a problem with using power, including state power to construct, preserve and extend the global free trade zone and the empire of liberty.
The other side in this controversy, the paleolibertarians, is at a crossroads. Just what are you for? Is it the traditional liberties of Americans? As exercised in traditional political institutions? Or are you aiming at breaking up the nation in favor of smaller units? This may look to some like a return to what is truly American and truly libertarian, but annulling 200 years of American history seems like a strange way to be truly American.
The paleolibertarians seem to represent those who wish to opt out of larger political units and perhaps of the global market as well and to legislate according to their own beliefs and preferences. All the libertarian arguments against state power can be applied to state efforts to restrict the force of markets. Efforts by such breakaway states to restrict individual liberties are also likely to be condemned by libertarians.
One can sympathize with some secessionists efforts, but supporting them is another matter: what heed did Jefferson Davis give to the rights of those who didn't fit into his core constituency? Can one unequivocally label efforts at getting local elites their own independent states to legislate over as they wish a victory for liberty?
The secessionist idea looks like a great folly. The break-up of larger states into smaller ones which represent smaller groups or narrower ideologies which oppose each other absolutely doesn't look like a boon to individual freedom. And it's to be expected that at some point a unit will resist the process of breakup. Conflict results, and the cycle of conquest and repression resumes.
The question that needs to be asked is whether the secessionist idea really advances liberty or simply changes the context from economic liberty, or action through political institutions, or apolitical freedom of choice to the replacement of larger by smaller political units.
So it looks as though "libertarianism" is bound to break up over the question of individual versus group freedom or autonomy or self-determination. The side that chooses individual freedom of choice or self-fulfillment for the average or exceptional person is often apt to support efforts to expand that realm of individual freedom even to areas where most people don't accept libertarian ideology. And the side that favors the independence and self-determination of political units won't always support the advance and extention of the empire of individual liberty.
While I disagree with Postrel's policy recommendations, it does look to me like she is more in synch with the pulse of American libertarianism. Its momentum, and that of the country seems to be more inclined to dissolve smaller units into the global market and universal zone of individual freedom, than to support resisting local and regional cultures at the expense of the growth of the market and individual choice.
There is something of value in paleoconservative ideas and values, but the endless paleolibertarian mucking around with lost causes and their mystique tends to alienate people whose concern is with America, and not with this or that radical secessionist movement.
There must be more divisions. The more hawkish Freepers among us don't strike me as ex-leftists or ex-liberals. There are people who have been conservatives since day who are 'pro-war.'
"Virginia Postrel, guru of the "dynamist" trend in libertarianism, and ex-editor of Reason magazine, has long used her website as a kind of pulpit to correct the old, "static" libertarian movement and encourage a new generation of properly dynamic Bright Young Things..." - Justin RaimondoFor an opposing viewpoint, listen to Virginia on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, or visit her website:
LOL.