Jacob Levy has a more in-depth discussion of Ron Paul, Guy Fawkes, and V for Vendetta than I would ever dare attempt.
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07 Nov 2007 09:44 am
Comments (6)
The simple answer is that Paul isn't trying for anything more than to piggy-back on a popular movie with vaguely anti-government feelings.
The hard thing for me is the implications of the three dimensions to the "V for Vendetta" symbol.
1. The actual event in history,
2. The comic book/graphic novel
3. The movie (which, I believe was disavowed by the original author).
Each of these has it's own context and meaning...and they don't line up. I only really know number 3.
Ok, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but in seeing the movie, I keyed in on the whole the-government-is-watching/controlling-you theme as well as the ideas-can-give-your-life-meaning theme. I liked both, but especially the first since it is an indictment of the current administration.
I agree with Jeffrey, then, that this is an attempt to "piggy-back on a popular movie". What makes this particularly funny to me, though, is that this seems to be a domestic policy parallel to the "penis size" arguments that came out last week (I'll see your oppressive Big Brother state and raise you a hyperliterate sociopath with mad knife and demolition skillz).
I still think while V had a lot of anarchist/libertarian philosophies, he's still best understood as blowback.
I agree on the second point, but not that there's a ton of overlap between libertarianism and anarchism.
You don't hear many libertarians calling for the abolishment of local police or even the FBI (and certainly never for the popular overthrow of those organizations).
Even the anarcho-capitalists, who do fall just under the edge of the libertarian umbrella, aren't exactly anarchists: they want to replace the state with a kind of buffet of private businesses offering pay-as-you-go state functions. That might result in anarchy, but not because things worked out as the anarcho-capitalists wanted or expected.
Shinyk, anarcho-capitalists are just as anarchist as left anarchists. Keep in mind that corporations are creatures of the state. Without the state, private businesses would be no more effective at controlling people than any other grouping.
You are correct that "big-L" Libertarians are not usually anarchists - although there were "anarchist wings" of the Libertarian Party at one point. At Party conventions, they would do things that refer to "the area of Montana" instead of the "state of Montana". I don't know if there still are any such. I haven't followed the Party since the '70's.
However, there is a historical argument that says that originally the word "libertarian" meant "anarchist". It only changed in the 20th century with people like Rand and even earlier radicals appropriating the term to mean "min-archists."
In fact, many of the anarchists in the early days of anarchism in the US - before Emma Goldman and the like - were essentially free market anarchists - people like Lysander Spooner.
In any event, "small-l" libertarians are considered to consist of anarchists and "big-L" Libertarians.
So there is a "ton of overlap". Probably the two best known "libertarians" are Ayn Rand - a minarchist - and Murray Rothbard, an free-market anarchist.
I have graduated from those now irrelevant categories to "radical Transhumanist". Compared to me, Rothbard is George Bush.
Richard:
I agree with most of this, I just want to comment on a few points.
When I said that anarcho-capitalists are not anarchists, I meant that anarchist-anarchists seem to believe that state functions like, say, police are as unnecessary and illegitimate as the state. Anarcho-capitalists don't seem to oppose things that are thought of as state functions, only the state that performs them. They think a business would always be better a better fit (and yes, that corporations are a figment of the state's imagination).
That's why I don't classify them as anarchists, though I acknowledge that David Friedman and others sometimes self-classify as such. Modern anarcho-capitalism is really interesting stuff, even if it is, as you say, rather irrelevent.
My other point is a disagreement in the characterization of Rothbard and Rand as the most famous "libertarians" and how that implies that the heart of libertarianism is anarchism.
Rothbard is only one of the two best known libertarians if you throw out (Milton) Friedman, Hayek and about two dozen Classical Liberals (none of whom can be accurately described as anarchists). Likewise, for small l "libertarians" to be considered as mostly anarchist, you have to ignore not only classical liberals, but also the entire libertarian wing of the Republican party, which, while small and currently marginalized, probably outnumbers self-descibed anarcho-capitalists 1000-1. Hell, Fred Thompson might qualify as a libertarian Republican and no one seems to think he looks out of place in the party because of it.
As for Rand, while certianly famous, she adamantly and repeatedly disavowed libertarianism, though many libertarians cite her as an influence. Considering the regard libertarians hold her in, this distinction may seem irrelevant, but no matter how much Objectivism and libertarianism look alike to the naked eye, the differences become striking on more thorough examination. To me, Rand was always best understood as the inevitable antithesis produced as an independent reaction to communism, while libertarianism (in some forms) predates Marx. That reaction just happened to look a lot like classical liberalism, even though it was made of quite different internal stuff.
In any case, I probably should have paid attention to the fact that some of the devoted Rothbardians self-describe as anarchists (though I would hesitate to say there are a "ton" of them--they could be better described as a small subset of a small subset of a small subset of a minority philosophy), even if they don't fit my own classification.
My intention was to point out why V's particular brand of anarchism didn't have a "whole ton in common" with libertarianism, which I hope excuses me a bit.
Comments closed November 21, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I still think while V had a lot of anarchist/libertarian philosophies, he's still best understood as blowback.
The system made him, he took down the system, and he was insightful enough to know that just made him part of the old, broken, horrible system, and not a leader able to build anything shiny, new and better.
Posted by anon | November 7, 2007 10:03 AM