I’m not a freak, I tell you!
Jun 20th, 2009 by Micah Tillman | Start the Discussion |
I’m almost finished with Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement, by Brian Doherty.
I’m in the Epilogue, and have run across a couple things I wanted to share.
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First, I thought the following passage would be interesting to you (p. 589):
If government were restricted to its libertarian minimums of protecting citizen’s life and property from force and fraud, all a corporation could do is try to sell us something, and we could decide whether or not to buy. It couldn’t tax us for its benefit, raise tariffs on its competitors to make their products more expensive, subsidize bad loans or overseas expansion, or take formerly private property on the grounds that it will make more lucrative use of it than would the original owner. Libertarianism could be a very powerful weapon for the anti-corporate left, as soon as it abandons the fantasy of a perfectly fair government that can be empowered to do only the good progressive things the left wants it to do. An end to what libertarians attack as “corporate welfare” would go along way toward equalizing, as progressives wish to do, the citizen and the corporation.
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And then, as I continued to read, I discovered the following (p. 597):
Whole Foods grocery chain founder John Mackey, a libertarian and a successful entrepreneur inspired by Mises, Hayek, and former Reason editor Virginia Postrel, has pursued a similar line of thinking [to that of Chris Sciabarra, on "embrac[ing] a more holistic view of the dangers of statism,” and “prov[ing] [libertarians] are willing to link libertarian ideas with larger questions about what makes a worthwhile, livable culture, and [to] avoid seeming like atomists out for number one or obsessed with mere freedom to buy and sell”] with an organization he founded called FLOW (Freedom Lights Our World), which tries to frame free trade and free markets as a progressive cause, the key to raising the Third World out of poverty in a sustainable way, rooted in self-actualization through personal responsibility and control over health care, education, and retirement.
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I bought Doherty’s book to educate myself on the movement I identify myself with. It has been extremely enlightening, as well as entertaining.
Doherty has what I call a “smiling” style; it sounds like he’s smiling as he writes. I don’t mean to say that it sounds like he’s being silly. Rather, it sounds like he’s being pleasant and reasonable (and occasionally jocular); serious about his subject, but not in the least defensive about it (and therefore able to discuss all aspects thereof pleasantly).
If what I just said sounds trite or demeaning, that’s not how I meant it at all. I’m trying to pay Mr. Doherty a compliment. It’s a significant achievement to be able to write about something so close to one’s own heart in the way Mr. Doherty does. Most authors wouldn’t be able to do it.
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Anyway, I found it striking/vindicating to hear the way Doherty put the libertarian view of corporate/government interaction in the first quotation above.
And I found it fascinating/vindicating that the head of the upper-middle-class, college-educated, city-dwelling progressive’s favorite grocery store is owned by a libertarian who cares about people and is doing something to make their lives better — through libertarian free market economics.
