Left-Libertarianism as Naivety

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Nick Ford has written a long response to both my last two posts at this blog and a recent post made by Scott Forster. I’d like to take a crack at addressing what Nick says.

I'd first like to clarify something that seems to be implied in one of Nick’s introductory paragraphs, when he talks about the ALL as being pluralistic:

“There’s problems with all sorts of movements, probably one of the biggest problems with left-libertarianism is that it’s still so disorganized. It’s decentralized, very pluralistic and sporadically organized and the people all have many differing opinions on many different things.

Is this completely out of the norm for a political movement, even a small one like the left-libertarian one is right now? I’d argue that such a case is only inevitable among interaction with people in such a complex mess that political discussion entails. It necessarily will become pretty complex as more people come in and have different opinions, ideas and different strategies and desired outcomes. So I’d say in my opinion that I don’t think that the Alliance of the LibertarianLeft and left-libertarians in general are so widely different sometimes is a big surprise or even a necessarily a bad thing. In my opinion it’s not a good thing to all be marching in a line all wearing the same colored arm bands chanting similar salutes etc. I’m interested in mobilizing a powerfully radical and consistent liberatory message to the people, not the borg.”

I get the impression that this is meant to counter a perceived complaint about “pluralism”. But I haven’t argued that the Alliance of the Libertarian Left is too diverse. In a way, I've argued the exact opposite, that it dominantly inhabits an American-libertarian and individualist paradigm and is consequentially closed to the social anarchist movement for the most part. 

The sense in which I have criticized "pluralism" in the ALL (and more broadly as market anarchists tend to wield the term) is that it almost always seems to be illusory in that it's on free-market-libertarian terms, or on the other hand that it represents a kind of intellectual incoherency in which people try to let everyone have their cake and eat it too as a conflict-avoidance mechanism without grasping the deep reasons behind the conflict. It often seems like the only sense in which market anarchists can “reconcile” themselves with social anarchists is by not understanding their positions and offering a fig leaf to something more watered down that doesn’t contradict their own position.

But let’s move on to Nick’s commentary on my posts. He starts off by addressing my post titled “Why I am not a left-libertarian”: 

“I believe BP said explicitly that this was mostly a troll post and not a serious critique of it. However, for the sake of this blog I would like to say I do believe that there are a few somewhat critiques you can get out of this article that are worth addressing in of themselves, serious or otherwise.”

To be clear about this, it is not a troll post in the sense of me being insincere in what I stated. It is a troll post only in the sense that I deliberately use a provocative tone and personalize things.

Nick goes on to comment on me calling the ALL a highly eccentric fringe minority inside of a fringe minority:

“I’m unsure how this even matters; that is, whether it’s a fringe within a fringe, this doesn’t necessarily prove or disprove anything. Nor is anything really stated here to prove it’s a “semantic clusterfuck” so I don’t see what evidence I should debate here.”

The point expressed here has to do with just how much of an online echo chamber it is. It’s a criticism of the sociology of the movement, as something largely isolated from meaningful dialogue with the rest of the philosophical and political community. To someone on the outside, it’s likely to be seen as psychobabble, especially when its members deliberately play with language in the attempt to be provocative and eclectic. The sense in which I call it a semantic cluster-fuck has to do with how certain terms are appropriated from other political ideologies while being radically altered into their content and just how obsessed some left-libertarians can be about the use of certain words. More on that later. 

In response to me saying that the ALL’s usage of “left-libertarianism” is largely confined to the context of 1960’s American politics, Nick says:

“While some left-libertarians like agorists, left-Rothbardians tend to do this to an extent that others on the libertarian left may not this doesn’t necessitate that they’re wrong to. For instance a resurgence of a left and libertarian coalition came out of the “new left” coming.”

In my view, what we’re dealing with here is an error in which people try to construe what is Murray Rothbard briefly opportunistically exploiting the political climate of the times in the name of recruiting people to his ideology as if it was the formation of an actual synthesis position. The main issue that attracted Rothbard about the New Left was their anti-war sentiment. But Rothbard fled from the New Left like they were the plague the moment it became clear to him that they weren’t useful for his overall purposes. On the other side of the aisle, Murray Bookchin abandoned his earlier tolerance toward the libertarian right and developed his infamous critique of “lifestyle anarchism”, which is partly a critique of American individualist libertarianism. The “coalition” didn’t last.

Nick goes on:

“And it’s not “defining history out of existence” if we make constant references to those like Benjamin Tucker, Voltairine de Cleyre, Lysander Spooner, Proudhon, means we’re remembering and moving forward with our history. Left-libertarians such as mutualists can’t even be considered targeted by this remark due to how far back mutualism goes, the same goes for the georgists, voluntary socialists, etc.”

There are a few points to make here. From what I see, the elements of the earlier anarchist tradition that the ALL refers to are dominantly American and individualist elements. You don’t particularly see ALL intellectuals referring to people like Bakunin, Kropotkin, or Malatesta. One could hold up references to Proudhon as an example, but it often seems like Proudhon is being grossly misinterpreted or appropriated through the lens of a more contemporary market-libertarian framework, making him a French version of Benjamin Tucker. The closest person I know of who can claim to be an expert on Proudhon is Shawn Wilbur, and he has expressed disagreement with much of how Proudhon has often been read by many ALL associates. Indeed, Wilbur seems quite disappointed with what many people are saying “mutualism” is these days.

In response to my commentary on how I think Brad Spangler in particular has a habit of playing obscurantist word games, such as claiming that anarcho-capitalism is a form of libertarian socialism, Nick says:

“Well for one thing Brad merely speaks for himself, I’m unsure how many left-libertarians really agree with such a diagnosis or whether Brad even still agrees with this. I know I recently (in the past few weeks or so) saw him say that he doesn’t refer to himself as an an-cap for both terminological and substantial reasons. However I could be wrong and in the end it’s best to ask him either way.”

I brought this up because it is one of the most clear-cut examples of ALL members disingenuously using semantics to try to erode substantive distinctions between political positions. As far as people ceasing to refer to themselves as anarcho-capitalists, this is quite a common maneuver that I myself engaged in at a much earlier stage. The initial motivation for doing this is often to simply avoid the stigma attached to the word capitalism while keeping one’s position the same.

However, I imagine that what Brad Spangler would cite as his “substantive” reason for not calling himself a capitalist is the largely semantic-based basis upon which many ALL associates call themselves “anti-capitalist”, I.E. by associating capitalism with statism and then concluding that they are anti-capitalists as an extension of their anti-statism. This is precisely what I’ve criticized as not substantive enough.

At this point Nick turns his attention to my latest post. He starts by responding to my claim that the ALL’s basis for claiming to be anti-capitalist tends to be on the least substantive grounds, tending to amount to anti-state reductionism.

“While I think relying on the state too much for the evils of the world is certainly a libertarian problem I’m unsure how widespread such a tendency is occurring within the left-libertarian movement. It was my understanding that it’s much less if not really present at all because we as left-libertarians also recognize that interconnecting systems of oppression can reinforce statism through such social phenomenons of racism, sexism, patriarchy and more.”

The reason I consider it wide-spread even within the ALL is that if you look at the bulk of material produced by its main intellectuals, the focus is always on blaming state intervention and for the most part nothing more beyond this is said. The Center for a Stateless Society is practically founded on producing articles that argue this same point over and over, and it’s also the same automatic response to concerns that many libertarians who don’t even associate with the ALL will often give.

When it comes to the whole thick libertarian thing, I have the impression that this is mostly used to focus on “social issues”. Notice that Nick himself mentions racism, sexism, and patriarchy, but nothing is said about economic oppression. What I see is a lot of people giving lip service to the notion of “interlocking systems of oppression”, but then when the discourse about economic questions gets going, everything always comes back to “the state did it”. There does not seem to be awareness of economic hierarchy as a problem in and of itself or how power can operate outside the context of state intervention.

The next maneuver that Nick makes is to respond to my characterization of the hallmarks of capitalist ideology. He makes three points:

“1. I’m unsure of what’s wrong with valuing a “robust conception of private property” exactly. From a quick Google search it just means well structured or healthy…so what’s the problem? Even if you mean that you nominally oppose private property and the tensions in individual liberty you see it necessarily cause why not explicitly state them instead of begging the question of what’s wrong with that? At least it’s begging the question for me since I’m not totally familiar with your position on the matter.”

My reasoning is that certain ingrained notions of private property are a significant part of what capitalism is based on, which is why the classical anarchists were skeptics about property. By “robust” I basically mean broad and deep. I happen to think that a robust conception of personal freedom inherently comes into conflict with at least the kind of property that American, individualist libertarians tend to support and that in realistic consequentialist terms such property systems enable authoritarianism even if a “left-libertarian” in good faith thinks that they lead to egalitarian results.

“2. Sure, Austrian economics is used quite a bit, though I don’t think it’s nearly universal and within left-libertarians I think a good portion of the insights come from them but it’s not as dogmatically or tightly held. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on your interpretation of Austrian economics and since I haven’t read a lot of it I can’t comment much beyond that.”

The bulk of Austrian economists, from my observations, use it for capitalist apologetics. A good look through the material produced at Mises.org makes this quite clear. Now, I understand that people in the ALL may call this “vulgar libertarianism”, being of the mind that Austrian economics does not support the conclusions that the Misoids think it does. But the fact of the matter is that Austrian economics, perhaps with the exception of a few conclusions that happen to be correct (and are ironically shared by Marxists), is a dogmatic system of thought that does not work as a very accurate tool to describe social phenomena. And more often than not, the function of sticking to belief in what Austrians consider “economic laws” is as an automatic denial of the reality of economic power.

“3. I’m completely baffled by this third claim. How do left-libertarians in inherently recognizing interconnecting oppressive systems, cultural thickness, going past the NAP and property rights, seeing social relations of being more than just voluntary and there’s more to your actions than just yourself (for example cultural norms you reinforce, the environment you may damage, etc.) how is that possibly a somehow atomistic viewpoint of human relations? I don’t think BP knows what he’s talking about quite frankly and would love to hear what makes him think I’m wrong, I’m willing to listen.”

The question is if they sufficiently really recognize this, especially to the extent that they espouse economic reductionism. Market economics and “methodological individualism” (as something more than a valid rejection of the reification of society and social groups) is quite often wielded in a way that simply ignores the social context in which phenomena takes place in order to apply a presupposed “law” to explain it. Man is reduced to an egoistic economic utility calculator. There is a strong focus in much of economics on the subjective as opposed to the intersubjective. To the extent that ALL associates espouse much of the same economic ideology as anarcho-capitalists, the critique applies to them too.

Next, Nick comments on three examples I give of what I think are wrong-headed positions that float around the ALL. The first example I gave is the notion that “occupancy and use” is just a tendency on an abandonment continuum, within a commonly held propertarian framework. To this, Nick says:

“Ironically this is largely where I stand. But that’s only because I haven’t done enough reading on property theory for my own liking to come to any other conclusions. I fully and readily admit that Lockean ideas are difficult and have their conceptual holes but then use and occupancy seem to as well. Is there a good middle ground? I’m unsure. Some people like Gary Chartier and Brad Spangler and I think even Charles Johnson though I could be wrong (and I’ve largely adopted this view) is that a multitutde of property rights systems would emerge in an a truly freed society. Whichever one works best in a certain context would most likely be used the most.

Does this mean relativism insofar as property use and rights are concerned? Well I think to a certain extent that’s possible. But on the other hand I also think that emerging systems will come through people deciding what is just or more beneficial towards individuals and the larger communities. So it’s a sort of emerging and evolving relativsm that has some thickness to it. I’m unsure if this is the big answer to it but I think it’s at least a decent start.”

Firstly, not to be mean-spirited, but it starts to become really clear at this point that Nick hasn’t sufficiently looked into this stuff, and that this kind of relativism about property is often an easy way out of having to thinking deeply about it and come to a clear position. Nick doesn’t really say anything here that addresses why or why not occupancy and use is a quantitative position on an abandonment continuum. He jumps to the more general question of co-existing property systems, while I’m objecting to necessarily framing everything in terms of a property system and the trivialization of the notion of occupancy and use to neo-lockeanism with a personal preference for shorter abandonment time-scales.

Since Nick isn’t quite talking about the same thing that I was, I’ll reserve my objections to this characterization of occupancy and use. Rather, I’ll focus on the relativism, or more accurately, localist conventionalism. The problem I have with this is that it seems obvious that different positions on property have radically different levels of compatibility with person freedom and radically different implications for people’s lives in general. So it seems like if we really are concerned with personal freedom and people living the best possible lives, it doesn’t make sense to be have an indifferent attitude toward norms and structures that effect people. I also don’t think it’s true that whatever “emerges” is whatever is best or better. If we want to make an analogy to evolution, it definitely does not work that way.

Nick goes on to try to address my claim that mutualism is being propagated as Tuckerite individualism + Austrian economics:

“Is it now? I’ve heard Shawn P. Wlbur say that Tucker was hardly a mutualist to begin with and I don’t know many who think that it’s only these two. Then again Shawn wouldn’t call himself a left-libertarian anymore probably so take that for what it’s worth I suppose. Also Carson to my knowledge only takes some inclinations and such from Austrian Economics and while he’s certainly more influenced by Tucker it seems to me (I mean Tucker is on the front cover of his mutualist political studies so one would think anyways…) I doubt he hasn’t read Proudhon, Greene and the like and incorporated much more into his ideas than just Tucker and the Austrians. I think the same is for the mutualists I’ve talked to in the past.”

When it comes to some of the nitty gritty details, Shawn Wilbur can say a lot more about this than I can. In either case, my point is that there are a whole lot of people (especially people with a history as ancaps) crawling around the internet calling themselves mutualists who have either not read Proudhon or do not understand him very well, and that the crux of what they understand mutualism to be tends to be watered down to be pretty similar to standard free market libertarianism. If mutualism is just free market libertarianism with a personal preference for co-ops, or a propertarian position with a stricter abandonment convention than the one held by anarcho-capitalists, then it isn’t that substantive or distinct of a position. Fortunately, we have people like Shawn Wilbur around to establish that this isn’t the case.

“All of these criticisms seem to be rooted in some truth but then that little truth is amplified to the point that it really becomes a bigger deal than it really is or BP tries to make it seem so. Such is also the case here I fear. For instance, I don’t think left-libertarians just see predication of market forces going towards their favor but also social relations being grown and developed in certain ways towards certain ends. It’s not just about the market place for left-libertarians, I was fairly certain that was one of the points of being a left-libertarian to begin with come to think of it. So it’s not just “rosy predications” but prescriptions and descriptions of what will most likely happen as well as how to make it possible and so on.”

Yet a significant aspect of the Tuckerite-Carsonian position is precisely to avoid explicitly taking a normative stance on various questions and claim that the natural tendency of a free market is to diminish economic woes. The context in which those woes are supposed to be addressed is one in which good consequences simply emerge as a market phenomenon, which seems to be implicitly based on an equilibrium model. I’m then lead to wonder if one would take a more proactive, normative stance if it ended up being the case that things don’t turn out as they’ve been predicted after the fall of a state, or if everything that is considered a negative feature of capitalism would be accepted in the name of “the free market”.

Next, Nick Ford goes over what I said about Sheldon Richman’s Freeman piece about the double inequality of value and Shawn Wilbur’s commentary on it:

“The rest of this is just BP saying that somehow because Richman buys a certain premise of Austrian economics and didn’t give a long response to Shawn that he somehow a “capitalist in disguise”.”

More specifically, I highlighted the fact that Richman holds to a premise commonly held by anarcho-capitalists and free market libertarians, which adds to the case for doubting that such “left libertarians” can meaningfully distinguish themselves from that ideology. I was also taking note of the fact that on the rare occasion these days that someone like Shawn Wilbur does try to enter into dialogue with the main intellectuals of the ALL about certain things, he is mostly met with silence. This is meant to underscore that it has become a bubble.

In response to my objections to “the double inequality of value” and my claim that they’re not really on the table, Nick says:

“Really? I’m unsure of that. I know Roderick Long himself has explicitly stated that hierarchy is at best dangerous and should always be kept in check or under control if somehow possible. I certainly think there’s a tendency in the left-libertarian community to not be as specific as possible with what exploitation constitutes so I’d see that as a valid point in that light. But otherwise I’m unsure all of what you say is always completely off the table or that it should be. I definitely agree this is stuff worth discussing more in depth for the record.”

The point is that the very nature of “the double inequality of value” as it is presented by Austrian economists is an a priori denial of the possibility of economic exploitation, because it defines all parties as inherently benefiting or “profiting” from market phenomena. And in discussions about various things, I’ve seen it (and “the subjective theory of value” more generally) brought up mostly by anarcho-capitalists as a counter to claims of exploitation.  

Nick goes on to my comments about Charles Johnson’s piece, specifically when I say that the notion of a “truly free market” as an absence of state intervention is an insufficient basis upon which to oppose capitalism:

“I’m not sure how this is correct. Saying you support a “truly freed market” doesn’t just means a market place without government intervention. It also prescribes certain things such as more decentralism, horizontalism, equity in social relations, more evolving cultural and property based relativism and so on. At least, these seem to me to all be other things that left-libertarians favor. That and perhaps more inclinations towards communal property, keeping in place cultural freedom, reciprocity, and less disparity in wealth in a truly freed market.”

Yes, people’s notion of a “true free market” always has more to it ideologically than “whatever occurs in the absence of state intervention”. Indeed, I went on to say precisely that when I brought up Murray Rothbard in the next paragraph, because typically “a true free market” is conceptualized in the context of a property rights system that is part of a whole political theory. In either case, the fact remains that state intervention is the only thing that most associates of the ALL point to in order to explain capitalism, and this is what I’m taking issue with.

Nick goes on to produce this howler:

“So I think I get what BP is doing finally. He’s just cherry picking certain views of certain individuals within the left-libertarian movement, saying it’s somehow a bigger problem within it without really backing that hidden assertion up and then rinse, wash, repeat.”

You know what’s funny? What I did was choose to give some examples because I’ve been accused before of making general statements about the anarcho-capitalist and libertarian movement without exemplifying what I’m talking about. Then when I actually do give examples, all of which comes from the leading intellectuals of the ALL, I’m accused of cherry-picking. Excuse me while I laugh out loud!

Next, Nick quotes from the Roderick Long piece that I linked to as if it disproves what I’ve been saying, a quote to the effect that political legitimacy can’t be simply assumed, and says:

“So if he perceives better outcomes from similar principals perhaps he’s applying it in a better or more consistent/different way than you imagine. After all, if authority can’t be assumed as correct just because it exists then landlords, bosses and the like can’t just be assumed to be just.”

From the fact that Roderick Long quite correctly denies that political authority is justified a priori, it does not follow that his position does not have authoritarian consequences or is not compatible with authoritarianism. What matters is what people do in fact put forward as justification, and the Rothbardian framework that Roderick relies on does justify political authority on the basis of property rights. I’ve extensively argued before that it is logically consistent with Rothbard’s premises to justify an institution that functions exactly like a state on the grounds that its territory was achieved through homesteading or trade. Furthermore, if we want to talk specifically about Roderick Long’s position on land, to my knowledge he makes no distinctions about land property and doesn’t adhere to an occupancy and use position that would significantly question absentee landlordism.

Nick goes on to quote Roderick Long outlining a fairly standard neo-lockean position on property and libertarian conception of the non-aggression principle, and expresses:

“Briefly skimming over Professor Long’s property rights I don’t see any huge problems with it, the principles seem sound enough for me”

I’d have to start at square one with the problems with the neo-lockean position. I’ve argued about this elsewhere ad nauseum and a portion of my objections are on other posts at this blog. For now, I’ll simply say that there are problems with considering transgressions against external property as being the equivalent of initiating force against a person (this is a case of taking “property as an extension of the self” quite literally), and that the narrative of property originating from “labor mixing” isn’t particularly applicable to a modern industrial society and isn’t historically accurate as a description of the accumulation of property.

Nick returns to my commentary in reaction to Charles Johnson’s article, responding to my statement that substantive opponents of capitalism have never accepted anything like Rothbard’s views on property:

“Well so what? Why does tradition now matter so much to an anarchist? I don’t mean to say that no tradition is important to an anarchist being an anarchist but why does suddenly the fact that just because traditional anarchists (which is never really defined…anti-capitalist anarchists?) disagree with it doesn’t mean much if you don’t elaborate on why their opinion matters in the first place. This just sounds like a vague appeal to traditions to me. There are certain ways in which capitalism is tolerable to some and intolerable to others.”

It isn’t an arbitrary appeal to tradition, especially because it applies just as much today as it did in the past. I’m underscoring the fact strong private property rights of the sort that Rothbard favored is a basic foundation of capitalism, and this is why opponents of capitalism are property skeptics. The fact that classical anarchism is anti-capitalist is not important simply because that’s what the tradition is. There are good reasons why that is the tradition. And if we do want to talk about history, it formed partly as a reaction to the rise of liberalism in the 19th century. This isn’t something that can just be ignored. 

After this, Nick reacts to my statement that the application of Rothbard’s ideas to the world leads to hierarchical systems of control based on accumulated property:

“Left-libertarians seem to me to be at worst thinking that hierarchy is dangerous but acceptable in some places, perhaps that’s where I put myself. But regardless I think a lot of us also don’t think hierarchy is generally necessary for human relations to flourish like they should. And accumulated property? Well it’d be tough to finance such accumulation without slave labor, a state to reinforce it, a culture a lot less full of imbalances in social relations and more. And all of these things I see left-libertarians working towards.”

What left-libertarians think or intend is irrelevant. One can not want hierarchy or think it is necessary, but that doesn’t mean that one’s ideas and principles aren’t compatible with hierarchy. One can be against something and build a grand theory opposing it that actually enables or supports it when applied to the real world, because one’s theory is bad. When left-libertarians take Rothbardian, propertarian ideas and attach good intentions to them, that doesn’t change their nature.

Nick then quotes the ALL website’s mission statement (to the effect of “we’re united against this laundry list of social ills”) as if it proves my contention about its anti-state reductionism wrong, and asks:

“So what gives? Where’s the disconnect here? Am I just missing something?”

You’re missing the difference between intentions and realities. My conclusion has been that left-libertarians are people with good intentions around a core of mostly bad theory that is left over from standard capitalist libertarianism.

Nick continues by challenging my contention that the left-libertarians, even Charles Johnson in the cited article, still bring things back to anti-state reductionism:

“But how? Where? Where’s the evidence? I read his piece and I’ve read a lot of his other pieces and from his membership to the IWW, opposition to things like Walmart and the wage labor and pure skepticism of hierarchy in general I’m just not seeing it.”

Charles Johnson’s article in question reiterates the narrative that capitalism is to be explained by state intervention, and goes no further. I looked at the comments section, and the thrust of what he had to say in response to critical posters was to talk about how state intervention is responsible for what they decry and to try to get into the empirical evidence of this. What isn’t there to see?

Then Nick denies that the left-libertarians are missing the way in which market dynamics and property systems can produce massive power disparities:

“Wait…we’re missing this? Because I’m personally not. I understand the market place is perfect, that property rights can be fucked up as well…but how does the fact that some of us still have some sense of property rights mean we’re not “left” enough for you? I’m not interested in appeasing people per se’. I mean, I like good marketing and all and that’s a part of left-libertarianism but for me what the main thing is that it’s about consistency, radicalism and truly caring about others and trying to build the new society within the shell of the old.”

It’s funny that Nick made the error of not putting the word “not” before “perfect”. I’ll put that aside. Bracketing for the moment the more general problems with propertarianism, it isn’t that some of you still have some sense of property rights that means you’re not “left enough”. It’s that many of you adhere to doctrines that are just about as absolutist and strong as one can get in favor of property rights, while attaching egalitarian intentions to them. Behind the slogans (“building the new society within the shell of the old”) is bad theory with dangerous consequences.  

Nick then tries to quote Charles Johnson as an example of agreement with my claim that states form from pre-existing power disparities, but the quote says nothing about state formation. He continues to try to act as if the positive premises behind my criticisms are actually supported by the very people I am criticizing:

“The trouble is that BP doesn’t realize that left-libertarians largely do recognize this already. Ironically it seems to be in the very thinkers he’s only criticizing through cherry picking however.”

My point is that their theories do not sufficiently account for the factors that I bring up, even if they explicitly put forward the intention to do so, and indeed the content of their theories contradict those intentions. It’s all well and good to say that one wants a world devoid of authoritarianism and without capitalism, but there is tension within one’s ideology if one wants to join that with theories derived from capitalism and norms that justify authority.

Nick starts to conclude things thusly:

“I guess this last paragraph really sums up BP’s biggest problems: confused criticisms, priorities, mis-identifications, artificially enlarging minor problems in the left-libertarian problems out of basic problems that stand better on their own and trying to make the left-libertarian movement what he personally wants to see. Now to be fair, all of us want that to some extent or another, but the way BP puts it out here he makes it (and this apples to Mr. Forester as well) that it’s somehow nowhere near what’s going on with what they want to see. I just think that if BP and Mr. Forester looked a bit deeper into the people and material they seem to like to criticize so much (and that I like to try to defend) that they’d find themselves making better arguments. Because left-libertarianism and the people who subscribe to such an idea have flaws, no doubt, but not to the level or sometimes not even how both BP and Mr. Forester frame it.”

In truth, it is Nick Ford who largely comes off as someone who has not looked very deeply into the material on these matters. He often speaks from a position of unfamiliarity with the points of contention that are being talked about and responds with naivety when people are critical. He defends figures while simultaneously admitting to not being sure what their positions are, and bases some of his views on 2nd hand opinions about thinkers that he has not read yet. I don’t think that Nick Ford is stupid, but he certainly does not seem properly equipped to form a strong opposition to what I’m presenting. Honestly, at various points it doesn’t seem like he has a strong sense of what his own position is. If my wit has in some way wounded him over the course of this post, this is the unfortunate price to pay for stepping into the ring this extensively. I wish him luck on his ideological journey.