Well I finally finishing Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression by Dr. Mary Ruwart.  Incidentally you can find an older version of this text for free online.  You have to give this book a lot of credit for being well organized.  There is a full index in the back as well as an appendix of citations.  Each chapter is broken into small sections with a one page chapter summary at the end.  In that respect, it kind of reads like a textbook.  I know I’ll use it in the future if I need to look up information on a particular topic.  The book also deserves credit for covering everything.  I mean that in the Cleveland quoting Peter Griffin, “Eeeeeevvvverythaaaang” sense.  I’ve never seen a libertarian book do such a good job of covering so many topics in three hundred some pages.

Most importantly it is writen from a compassionate perspective, which has caused me to by a few extra copies for my friends and parents.  No vulgar libertarianism here, just genuine concern for other people.  Dr. Ruwart cites numerous examples of how aggression hurts everyone, from the playground all the way up to wallstreet.  The language is simple, direct and quotes are included in the margins pertaining to the topics being addressed.

Now, this review isn’t just going to be a Ruwart love-fest.  There are a few things wrong with the book as well.  Let’s start with the most readily apparent, the cover.  It’s terrible and it’s turned a decent amount of people off from the book.  People I recommend the book to look at me like, “You want me to read that?  With the twin towers and the dove?”  I’ve considered putting a brown paper bag dust cover on it before I give it to people.  As much as it goes against conventional wisdom, people do judge a book by its cover.  I’m sure this book’s cover has hurt its sales.

As I stated earlier, it reads like a textbook.  Textbooks are usually packed with information, but not particularly engaging.  I could knock this book for not grabbing the reader, but I don’t really think that’s what it’s about.  I’d recommend that people read it slowly and pick topics they are already interested in to research.  Treat it like a textbook and it will serve you well.  Just don’t go thinking that it’s going to be riveting.

So to sum things up, I’d say this is a book you definitely have to own.  In time you’ll probably read all of it.  You may disagree with parts and you may find yourself quoting other parts.  It’s very well researched and organized so you’ll probably use it as a reference.

http://finance.yahoo.com/…

In a defining moment for American capitalism, President Barack Obama ushered General Motors Corp. into bankruptcy protection Monday and put the government behind the wheel of the company that once symbolized the nation’s economic muscle.

The fallen giant, the largest U.S. industrial company ever to enter bankruptcy, is shedding some 21,000 jobs and 2,600 dealers. Sparing few communities, the retrenchment amounts to one-third of its U.S. work force and 40 percent of its dealerships.

“We are acting as reluctant shareholders because that is the only way to help GM succeed,” Obama said of the temporary nationalization of the 100-year-old company.

Obama lauded what he called a “viable, achievable plan that will give this iconic American company a chance to rise again” as GM followed Chrysler LLC into bankruptcy court. Of Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers, only Ford Motor Corp. has avoided bankruptcy restructuring and has not taken federal bailout money.

H/T to Mish for the comparison and therefore title.

https://docs.google.com/View?id=dhbvr2gz_18gk9wt8gt

Note: the below was created from OCRing screencaps of a Flash based chatroom. Excuse the mistakes.

Xaq Fixx 3:39 pm
Alright… Question 1:
Political Identified Profile field, when will it return

Lee Doren
As soon as I get confirmation to add it back—it was my intention to add at asap Friday, but then it was unclear what my authority was to do so
The only reason why it was removed was so I could add something else asap
Like an open-ended political affiliation
Read More…

Leaves a lot to be desired but decent enough. The author appears to be some right wing type and so while he’s ignore some rather important components to his rebuttals (like serious market distortions caused by government regulation and allowing of property infringement) some of the factual points he makes are spot on.

http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/…

A couple of people have asked me:

FSK frequently criticizes anarcho-capitalists as pro-State trolls. Aren’t anarcho-capitalism and agorism the same thing?

I consider “agorism” and “free market anarchism” to be equivalent. Agorism and real free markets are the “One True Version of Anarchy”.

The fallacy of “anarcho-capitalists” is that they fail to answer “How will the State be eliminated?” They assume that the State will gradually shrink and then voluntarily shut itself down. This will occur by voting, which is the usual (L)libertarian fantasy.

How is a failure to answer “How will the State be eliminated?” make it fallacious? There is no assumption, just no explicit component to the philosophy. Perhaps because to claim any one method is the surest or only way is highly suspect and limiting. Agorism provides a set of steps which if carried out could bring about a the State’s destruction. Little more than libertarian black market, Fabian strategy style. Agorism is more then anything a tactic. One of many theoretical means to ending the State. An explicit means to an preexisting end.

And to lump Libertarianism and libertarianism into a single basket is just as fallacious as claiming the “usual” fantasy of those isms is to vote away the State. Lowercase ‘l’ libertarianism applies to a rather large range of philosophies. Both anarchist and not. Propertarian and not. Besides a belief in the non-aggression principle (ignoring consequentialist vs. deontological differences) there is nothing more to libertarianism.

Anarcho-capitalists sometimes defend large corporations as a natural free market occurrence. Large corporations cannot exist without State subsidies.

How can the author possibly know that? We can say they won’t have the State subsidies to make them that big, we can say that they won’t be corporations in the way they are now due to state intervention but how can anyone claim to know to what size a business can or can not get to in a freemarket? How can one claim that a business would be unable to provide for their customers so well, through efficiencies of scale and division of labor, as to be as large as some businesses now? They obviously wouldn’t exist in the same capacity or for the same reasons.

Anarcho-capitalists defend the current State. They say “We should obey State regulations for now. In the present, the State has legitimacy. The State is evil, but we need it right now.” Anarcho-capitalism is a pro-State philosophy of anarchy.

I’m glad the author know what all ancaps everywhere think and defend. As an ancap and a friend of ancaps… I have never made such statements or hear such statements as above. Anyone who would is not a libertarian ancap.

An agorist says “The State has zero legitimacy *STARTING NOW*.

As mentioned before an proclaimed ancap isn’t an ancap if they claim the State has legitimacy.

We will ignore all the stupid taxes and laws that restrict our productivity. We will boycott the State as much as possible, but a perfect 100% boycott is not feasible in the present.”

All? Doubtful. It is improbable to get 100% outside the taxation of the state. The second sentence admits as such and therefore the first sentence is negated by it. And what does “as much as possible” mean? A rugged individualist anarcho-primitivist is likely to tell the agorist that using State built and controlled roads is completely avoidable.

An agorist wants the State to get bigger and more inefficient and then collapse, instead of gradually shrinking and disappearing.

I’ve never read that as the explicit goal of agorism. The point of grey and black market agorist action is multifacited. To undermine the state’s “business” by providing alternatives (leading to shrinkage of the State hopefully) and grow successful enough as to provide free market defense against those who would  still call themselves the State. It would seem that wanting the State to grow before collapsing is akin to desiring people to get harmed. You can say that such a situation would work in favor of free market anarchism but to want it is anti-libertarian if we agree that the growing of the State would lead to more infringement of liberties.

If you call yourself an anarcho-capitalist and aren’t a fool, your beliefs will be similar to those of agorists. However, the people who call themselves anarcho-capitalists tend to fall into the usual (L)libertarian intellectual trap.

If you advocate the State you aren’t an ancap. If you are an ancap then of course your beliefs are similar to an agorist. Many, including Konkin, consider agorism to be an evolution of Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist philosophy. Konkin describes agorists as “strict Rothbardians… and even more Rothbardian than Rothbard [himself].”¹

This is the problem with using labels over descriptions. I prefer to substitute definitions for what they actually mean, especially when there could be confusion.

While I don’t completely disagree… labels exist for a reason. They are a shortcut to having to explain everything every time you discuss a topic. When diving deeper into a topic one must always lay down specific definitions otherewise you end up arguing semantics endlessly.

If you aren’t an idiot, when you refer to “anarchy” or “market anarchism”, you mean what I call “agorism” or “really free markets”. I frequently see people calling themselves anarcho-capitalists with pro-State troll false beliefs. Whenever possible, substitute labels for what you actually mean, to avoid confusing.

If you call yourself an anarcho-capitalist and you aren’t an idiot, you’re beliefs will be the same as what I call “agorism”. However, I see a lot of pro-State trolls calling themselves anarcho-capitalists.

Gets a little ad hominem and repetitive here.

Agorism is the only philosophy that answers “How can the State be eliminated?” and “What will the replacement look like?”

I doubt that’s true. I’m sure some Fabian socialists were anarchists. However, even if true I fail to see why a means should to be married to the end or what benefit it provides. It is difficult enough to maintain an idea of an end with changing understandings of life and economy (mutualism for example). Adding to that the need to justify a means seems excessive and unnecessary.

If lots of pro-State trolls start calling themselves agorists, then do I have to find a new name for my philosophy?

If you want to dilute the waters I suppose. Those who wish to minimize your impact and undermine your message will attempt to steal words and redefine them. It’s a great tactics that has been use for hundreds of years if not longer. It is a way to keep you on the run. To make you waste your time with semantics and definitions. There is little that can be done about this tactic but running away from definitions does not seem to me a reasonable attempt at a solution. If a word is misused then make a point to correct that person who does so. I have found it far easier to point out the true meaning of a word and explain that it has been usurped by those who either don’t understand it or are out to discredit it rather then dispel the misunderstanding and introduce a new work in addition to describing it.

http://www.cato-unbound.org/…

by Peter Thiel:

As a young lawyer and trader in Manhattan in the 1990s, I began to understand why so many become disillusioned after college. The world appears too big a place. Rather than fight the relentless indifference of the universe, many of my saner peers retreated to tending their small gardens. The higher one’s IQ, the more pessimistic one became about free-market politics — capitalism simply is not that popular with the crowd. Among the smartest conservatives, this pessimism often manifested in heroic drinking; the smartest libertarians, by contrast, had fewer hang-ups about positive law and escaped not only to alcohol but beyond it.

As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a libertarian politics appear grim indeed. Exhibit A is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and leverage, facilitated by a government that insured against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that the response to this crisis involves way more debt and leverage, and way more government. Those who have argued for free markets have been screaming into a hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any remaining hopes of politically minded libertarians. For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our education culminates with the knowledge that the broader education of the body politic has become a fool’s errand.

Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920-21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

1. capitalist democracy is an oxymoron in practice. Read Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.
2. libertarian politics has always been grim. Politics can help legitimize libertarian beliefs to some people but a libertarian society can never truly exist within a traditional political system.
3. What the fuck are you hoping to do by saying that women are naturally more statist? The argument can be made (and has) but the reality is that it must be made by a woman. We all know how the MSM and statist liberals would react to such a statement… that’s how I found this article in the first place.

From http://valleywag.gawker.com:

Peter Thiel, foremost among Silicon Valley’s loopy libertarians and the first outside investor in Facebook, has written an essay declaring that the country went to hell as soon as women won the right to vote.

On the side, though, his pet passion is libertarianism and the fantasy that everything would be better in the world if government just quit nagging everybody. But, now he’s given up hope on achieving his vision through political means because, as he writes in Cato Unbound, a website run by the Cato Institute, all those voting females have wrecked things:

So there you have it: The problem with women is that they don’t vote like their menfolk tell them. We would have so much more freedom, Thiel suggests, if only we’d deprived women of it.

Yes… because voting who your slave master is is freedom.

And it seems that sarcasm is lost of these people. He is speaking of drugs in relation to bothering to proselytize free markets. That it was smarter to do drugs rather than waste time with trying to convince the unconvincable.