Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Donald Douglas Doesn't Know Much About Anarchy

After my recent post on Donald Douglas' attack on anarcho-capitalists as being anarcho-commies, I've learned a lot about anarchy.  And the first thing I learned: Professor Donald Douglas doesn't know anything about anarchy.  And that's fairly surprising, seeing as how anarchic his belief system appears to those who try to undestand it, but it's true. 

And one of the main things I learned was that, Martin Rothbard, who Donald cited as evidence that anarcho-capitalists don't exist is, in fact, the founder of anarcho-capitialism.  It was Rothbard's term and he invented the concept.  To quote Rothbard's Wikipedia page:
Rothbard began to consider himself a private property anarchist in the 1950s and later began to use "anarcho-capitalist."  He wrote: "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism." In his anarcho-capitalist model, a system of protection agencies compete in a free market and are voluntarily supported by consumers who choose to use their protective and judicial services. Anarcho-capitalism would mean the end of the state monopoly on force.

And that makes perfect sense to me, far more sense, in fact, than Donald's attempt to thread the needle; in which he argues that he's against Big Government, just not as against it as the anarchists are.  And in Donald's view, you can't love capitalism if you reject America's government or Tea Parties. 

But of course, if you read what Rothbard said, you'll quickly realize that most conservatives fall into the anarcho-capitalist label; assuming we accept it as legitimate.  In fact, I honestly think the term "anarcho-capitalist" is a far better description than the amorphous "conservative" they prefer.  After all, there's nothing conservative about their plans to destroy government as we know it and replace it with good feelings and fairy dust.

And if anything, one mistake Donald makes is the one that most folks unaquainted with anarchy make (including myself), which is to assume that "anarchy" means anarchy.  But as I'll mention in my next post (assuming I write it), anarchy doesn't really mean what you think it means and you'll feel a tiny bit dumber once you realize the truth. 

But Donald's bigger mistake was that he just didn't like the folks at the G20 summit, didn't like the folks helping them out, and therefore, didn't want to think that anyone associated with conservativism could have been involved. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Donald Douglas doesn't know what anarcho-capitalists are and confuses them with anarcho-communists? And he teaches political science at the college level? Is this for real or are you kidding us? No one can be that ignorant and be allowed to teach can they? This country is so full of MORONS - how can we fail to self-destruct?