We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day If I go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my neighbour, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich. Authority may (and may not) make all men equally rich in purse; it certainly will make them equally poor in all that makes life best worth living
– Benjamin Tucker
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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A spark of brilliance by an otherwise confused and conflicted soul. Tucker subscribed to the labor theory of value (except when he did not), and defined private property as by actual occupancy and use (except when he did not). My personal, and decidedly non-expert, opinion of him is that he had the right instincts about liberty, but did not have the data and economic apparatus to justify important aspects of it. Therefore, he swung wildly all over the spectrum. His phobia of monopolies mars his legacy.
The quote is nonetheless a gem, if one could dissociate it from the author.
Beat me to the punch Plamus – agreed.
Tucker’s “phobia of monopolies” did not mar his legacy; his subscription to a labour theory of value and occupancy and use for property did. On monopoly he was spot on. He defined monopoly in the proper, traditional sense of a government privilege of exclusive trade, so that only specific individuals or groups are legally entitled to carry on a particular trade. He had great foresight in acknowledging that being the single supplier of a good in an industry on a free market does not entail that you have a monopolistic powers. This is clear from the fact that he pointed out that even if a single supplier of defense or protect got all the business in an industry, it would still have an incentive to to become tyrannical because it would be held in check by the threat of competition. Whilst I think he was wrong to say this (such a firm would be in a position to coercively exclude new entrants), he was clearly pointing out the importance of potential competition in ensuring consumer sovereignty.
Richard, I agree that three of Tucker’s four legal monopolies are well identified – money/banking, tariffs, and patents. However, Tucker considered private property of land to be a monopoly too – the “land monopoly”. Plain and simple, he wanted to dispossess landowners from property he did not think they needed. This is what I meant by “phobia of monopolies” – he saw one in land ownership, and promptly added it to the list.
This is, after all, what makes him an “Egoist” – his disrespect for natural laws. It’s fine to try to postulate a society with loose property laws – I just do not like how it has worked historically. Property appears to be a consistent bulwark against tyranny, not cause of it.