Roderick Long's Columns
"Following up a natural disaster with the artificial disaster of anti-gouging laws simply compounds the problem; first people get hit by a hurricane, which causes the shortage, and then they get hit by the government, which fights tooth and nail the market’s attempts to fix the shortage." Column by Roderick Long.
Devilish Anarchists and the First War on Terror
"The results were in fact eerily similar to those of the 9/11 attacks: nationwide hysteria, fueled by the government and its claque, was unleashed against immigrants and ideological dissidents. All anarchists, whether revolutionary or pacific, were lumped together without distinction, as Muslims would be a century later; newspapers called for boycotting or exiling this 'brood of vipers,' and laws were passed to bar anarchists from entering the country." Column by Roderick Long.
Libertarianism in One Sentence
"The most succinct formulation of libertarianism I can think of is this: Other people are not your property." Column by Roderick Long.
"Here’s a cheery thought on this gloomy Tax Day: government is one of the few problems that can be gotten rid of by ignoring it. In this respect it compares favourably with such hardier ills as tornadoes, swarming piranhas, and male pattern baldness." Column by Roderick Long.
The Power of Language and the Language of Power
"On the one hand, statist ideology must render the violence of the state invisible, in order to disguise the affront to equality it represents....Yet on the other hand, the effectiveness of governmental edicts depends precisely on people being all too aware of the force backing up those edicts." Column by Roderick Long.
"...one cannot consistently affirm self-ownership and yet cite the fact that we have not created land ex nihilo as a reason for denying or moderating property rights in land." Column by Roderick Long.
"The Greek philosopher Xenophon, pupil of Socrates, was certainly no libertarian; but his writings contain a number of delightful passages pointing in a libertarian direction." Column by Roderick Long.
"Certainly competing agencies might not provide adequate justice at all times. But likewise a governmental monopoly, even one that was designed to be a minarchy, might not provide adequate justice at all times. The question then becomes: which one is more likely to go wrong – a justice system that is subject to the discipline of market incentives, or one that is insulated from them? If anything we know about economics is right, the answer is surely the latter." Column by Roderick Long.
"During the late 1880s, a fierce debate broke out in the pages of the libertarian periodical Liberty over egoistic versus natural-rights approaches to anarchism." Column by Roderick Long.
Today Baghdad, Tomorrow Barsoom?
"Now I’m as big a fan of space exploration as anyone....Indeed, the need to renounce NASA was probably the biggest hurdle for me in becoming a libertarian originally. But I cannot endorse a space exploration program led by an institution both inept and criminal, and funded by extortion." Column by Roderick Long.
Anarchism as Constitutionalism, Part 2
" So for Market Anarchists, any person has the moral right to engage in legislative, executive, and judicial services, just as any person has the moral right to run a factory. It does not follow, however, that anyone has the right to conduct her legislative, executive, or adjudicative activities in a rights-violating way, any more than a factory owner has the right to run her factory in a rights-violating way." Column by Roderick Long.
Anarchism as Constitutionalism
Recommended "The constitution of a free society, then, needs to be a pattern of interaction in which people act – and in so doing give themselves and/or one another an incentive to keep acting – in ways that tend to maintain freedom. Market Anarchists and proponents of limited government both claim to be offering such a pattern. The choice between government and anarchy, then, is not a choice between having a constitution and not having one; it is a choice between two different constitutions. Far from eschewing 'separations and divisions of powers, and checks and balances,' Market Anarchists take market competition, with its associated incentives, to instantiate a checks-and-balances system, and to do so far more reliably than could a governmental system. As I’ve written elsewhere, despite the best intentions of those who framed the U.S. Constitution’s checks-and-balances system 'there has been sufficient convergence of interests among the three branches that, despite occasional squabbles over details, each branch has been complicit with the others in expanding the power of the central government. Separation of powers, like federalism and elective democracy, merely simulates market competition, within a fundamentally monopolistic context.'" Column by Roderick Long.
"We can pledge allegiance to the principles of freedom and equality that inspired those who first bore our flag. Or we can pledge allegiance to the flag. We can’t do both." Column by Roderick Long.
"Statists like Dennis Kucinich, George W. Bush, and their ilk celebrate the violence of the State (though not in so many words – Kucinich calls it 'nonviolence,' Bush calls it 'freedom' and 'peacekeeping') but they generally do not call for private individuals to imitate the state in this regard. This is partly because it is generally advantageous for the State to retain its monopoly control over political violence, and partly because the mystique of the State depends on veiling its violent character in a sacramental guise, which requires de-emphasising the similarity between private and State violence." Column by Roderick Long.
Roderick Long takes on intellectual property--an issue I'm still trying to get my arms around.
"A form of social organization whose power to do evil is enormous while its power to do good is minuscule is a form of social organization that needs to be mothballed." Column by Roderick Long.
"...the state government does not have as much incentive to economise costs as a competitive enterprise would have, because, unlike a competitive enterprise, the state government runs no risk of losing customers to a competitor. No matter how far taxes exceed necessary costs, Alabama’s customers cannot withdraw their patronage except by physically relocating to another state." Column by Roderick Long.
"I prefer not to frame this as an issue of 'states’ rights' – since, as an anarchist, I regard states as criminal organisations that have no rights. Neither the United States Government nor the State of Alabama has a 'right' to do anything. Neither can claim justice on its side. From an anarchist perspective, the conflict between the two is a tussle between two rival gangs of thugs; we cannot in good conscience endorse either side." Column by Roderick Long.
"Under Mr. Sobran’s favoured political régime, and mine, the legal definition of marriage, like all legal issues, will be decided not by a monopolistic government but by private, co-territorial enterprises competing for customers. Within the same geographical area, some legal institutions will cater to socially conservative customers by offering only traditional heterosexual marriage contracts and advertising boldly 'We defend the family!' while other institutions will cater to socially liberal customers by offering a wider variety of marriage contracts and advertising with equal boldness 'We defend equality!' And the whole legal wrangle over marriage will be done with, forever." Column by Roderick Long.
"That Mr. Rabeman commits the very error of which he mistakenly accuses me is clear from his criticism of my equating Bush with bin Laden, which he says is like equating Nixon with Pol Pot. What exactly is the problem? Nixon and Pol Pot were both mass murderers. (Which of the two killed more innocent Cambodians is a still-debated question.) Bin Laden is another mass murderer. Bush is about to engage in his own campaign of mass murder. Of course I equate them. To be sure, Bush has grievances; so does bin Laden. Bin Laden’s grievances do not justify his assaults upon the innocent; neither do Bush’s. If there are interesting moral differences between Nixon and Pol Pot, or between Bush and bin Laden, I look forward to learning from Mr. Rabeman what they are. Until he does, I can only assume that, in his eyes, some mass murderers are more equal than others." Column by Roderick Long.
An Open Letter to the Peace Movement
"Much has been said, and eloquently so, about the need, in dealings between nation and nation, to choose persuasion over violence whenever possible. Hear, hear! But why this qualification: between nation and nation? If persuasion is preferable to violence between nations, must it not also be preferable to violence within nations?" Column by Roderick Long.
"...when libertarians on the other side point out that the preservation and extension of slavery was central to the South’s motivations for secession (as seems clear from what secessionists said at the time of secession, as opposed to what they said in their memoirs years later), and that the Confederacy was just as bloated and oppressive a centralized state as the Union, equally hypocritical on secession and equally invasive of civil liberties, once more I agree and applaud. (As I like to say, the Confederacy was just another failed government program.)" Column by Roderick Long.
An Open Letter to Osama bin Laden
"The governments of the United States and its allies are, as you rightly observe, 'criminal gangs.'....In particular, such gangs exercise control, partial or total, over their territory's educational systems. The people in these territories end up 'supporting' their governments because they have been subjected to a lifelong barrage of propaganda and disinformation. Hence the civilians in these countries are not your enemies. They are the victims of your enemies. When you strike at these civilians, you are, in effect, joining forces with your enemies." Column by new Root Striker Roderick Long.