Zar

There are a number of people here who probably class themselves as Libertarians. I wonder what they'd have to say about this opinion from Harry Browne?

A Little History Can Be A Dangerous Thing

yaktldg

I guess I'm a libertarian, but not of the capitalist variety. I read that a couple days ago and I found it pretty interesting. I've quoted it several times since then in this forum.

Happy Wonderer

I'd say that his reasoning for the start of WWI is too simplistic. The killing of Archduke Ferdinan wasn't the root cause of the war -- it was the spark (or excuse.)

France had territorial designs on the Alsace & Lorraine (which was theirs at various times); the imperial countries were bickering over how to dismember Turkey and Africa, and in general the relatively new country of Germany was beginning to exercise its power and upsetting the balance of power in Europe, where nationalism was overtaking the dynastic heritage of the old powers. (Hey, I can oversimplify history, too!)

The biggest take-away from WWI for us today is that nobody thought it would last more than a couple of months, a similarity it shared to the American Civil War.

I would agree (but it can be disputed) that WWII was caused in large part by WWI -- although with the caveat that it happened after Germany had financially recovered from the reparations. Many Germans believed that they hadn't actually lost the war (similarities to anybody we can think of?) and had been forced into an unfair treaty by incompetent political leaders and trickery. IIRC they were fond of pointing out that the Entente' powers hadn't set foot on German soil. (I'm not sure if that claim is strictly true.)

It is significant that Hitler made a point of taking France's surrender in the same railway car that Germany surrendered in.

HW

Cool, I just found this
essay on the web. You don't even have to write your own papers anymore, history class must be so much easier...

moon

Harry Browne tells a fanciful tale, which has the merit that it leaves out the best parts.That's just idiotic. Who, first of all, are "the Germans." God I hate that! When people talk about a whole country of people as if they all shared the same interests, the same political philosophy, and the same station in life, as if there were no class divisions, no differences in material well-being, and so on...just one big happy (or unhappy) family.

So, right there you know that Browne is an idiot. Of course, we already knew that.

The rise of Hitler is slightly more complicated than just one guy capturing the imagination of an entire country. No, it was much more complicated!

The Nazis came to power in Germany as a reaction to the growing working-class movement that had threatened to turn Germany into a workers' state. Indeed, the revolution almost happened in 1918, but capitalism was rescued by the Social Democrats in Germany. However, working class power was always there, and could have broken out if it hadn't have been held back by its despicable leadership.

In the face of declining profits and a rising communist threat (internal), the industrialists in Germany enlisted Hitler's Blackshirts to go around terrorizing the workers movement, and financed them with tons of cash to run populist and nationalist sounding political campaigns. Under orders from Stalin, the German communists refused to enter into an alliance with the German liberals in the early 1930's, which allowed Hitler to come to power.

Essentially, the rise of Nazism was a reaction by the capitalists in Germany to the threat of socialism.

OK, so maybe Browne isn't such an idiot. Obviously, he can't write these obvious facts, since it shows how evil his entire program is.

But, what history does teach us is that the forces of reaction will use everything at their disposal to maintain their grip on power and increase their profits. ...thus the war in Iraq.

beyelzu

how can you be a libertarian and not like capitalism?


rather, what specifically makes you a libertarian when you disagree with a huge part of their philosophy? what parts of their philosophy or platforms do you agree with?

ieyeasu

This isn't true. Austro-Hungary had been on the verge of collapse for a long time; the Hungarian part was a manifestation of that. The empire was composed of many different minorities, and the Hungarians managed to seize enough political power to create the dual-monarchy. Franz Ferdy, as the heir apparent, had actually considered a tri-monarchy to rein the Serbs in from their flirtations with Russia, the attempted Pan-Slav state. Germany allied with Austro-Hungary specifically to prevent it from collapsing; in the event of an Austrian collapse, poor ethnic Germans would flood across the border into rich Germany. Bismarck wanted to prevent further dilution of Prussian wealth, so he allied to the dual monarch in an attempt to prop them up. Then came the entente; France saw a way to get at the Germans by upsetting the Hungarians by allying with Russia; Britain was nervous of German dreadnaughts, duh duh duh duh duh duh duh......

Revisionist. Outside of Baghdad, their is virtually no commonality between any of the provinces of Iraq, let alone Kuwait. Iraq is that shape cause that's the shape the Brits made it, and we later enforced it.

Kinross

The libertarians have been against the war from the begining.

I find it highly amusing that the very same people who are against the war but hate libertarianism take the time to bash an anti-war article just because it was written by a libertarian.

seanie

Many people (Chomsky included) are happy to describe themselves as libertarian socialists.

That may seem a contradiction in terms but it all depends on how you define your terms.

beyelzu

That's interesting. I didnt know that Chomsky counted himself as a libertarian socialist. I am afraid that I am not very familiar with that stand. Anyone want to fill me in on their(libertarian socialists) perspective?

seanie

Theres a myriad of different ideological positions on the libertarian left and I've never been bothered to to find out exactly which one is closest to my own position (although I guess I'm probably in a similar region to Chomsky).

Here's a very simplistic overview.

If you want a more detailed examination of Chomsky's position you could try this which I've been meaning to read for a while but haven't got round to.