By Cake Boy

When you critique rent, most libertarians will always say, “You choose to rent from the landlord.”

Here you see how their views are limited, and here we see they are not deep thinkers.

I’m not against markets, but when is something a market? In a market, a person has different options. For example, I can choose to buy apples from supermarket A, or supermarket B, C, or D, or I grow them myself in my garden, or I do not buy them. There are six options.

The rental market works like this: you rent from a landlord who is connected to the corrupt government, or you get a mortgage from the banks, or you are homeless.

You can rent from the landlord who is connected to the government and has few competitors because the housing market is not a market. This means you will pay extortionate prices.

There is no free banking (the banking/money sector is not a market either); only some banks are too big to fail, and their policies are very predatory.

So, there are actually not really any options. This system doesn’t care about choice. You have the choice to conform or get into some kind of trouble.

Modern Libertarians often critique the current neoliberal order because it is state capitalism and not based on Austrian theory. Still, they always defend this neoliberal order when it’s under attack.

They say this system doesn’t work, it’s not a real market. But when I refuse to work in this system, when I rebel against this system, then I’m a lazy communist.

The system doesn’t work and is unjust, but people should not complain about it, and “just find a job.”

Their protestant ethics shine through—the ethics of frugality and modesty.

I heard a libertarian say: the banking system is corrupt, but only neat/good people work there, and you can’t blame them. Of course, you can blame them. This guy is living in bad faith. You are always responsible for your deeds. If I were to work in a slaughterhouse, then I’d be accountable for killing animals. If i don’t want to kill animals, than i don’t work in a slaughterhouse. If i work in the finacial sector, im part of a rotten system. It’s a trade-off. Do you sell your soul to the devil for money?  A lot of people do, but at least be honest about it. You can’t hide behind your smooth appearance. We see through you, we know what you represent

What is libertarianism in practice? What happened in Argentina? A libertarian president became head of state (as a so-called anarchist). This president formulated a neoliberal program and made sure he had good ties with American financial institutions and the Zionist/Israeli state. Meanwhile, nothing really changed. What he does is not that different from republican rule. The system isn’t decentralized, the monopolies aren’t broken, and there is no free association/dissociation. It’s just another kind of statism. A neoliberal statism, instead of a social democratic statism. Current libertarianism isn’t different from neoliberal statism/MAGA, when it gains political power (Having political power is a contradiction in classical libertarian theory in the first place, but anyway).

So, libertarianism developed out of Spooner and Tucker’s mutualism. But it turned into a sort of confused Republican statism/conservatism/MAGA populism.

There are still some intelligent libertarians. Springtime of Nations is a libertarian who is thinking about libertarian unity/panarchy solutions. This is a bottom-up libertarianism, not a top-down Milei authoritarianism. It is a libertarianism you choose to be part of, not something that is shoved down your throat.

We can see that part of the libertarian movement got absorbed by MAGA, and the other part got interested in the panarchy/libertarian unity position. I think people like Springtime of Nations create a sort of fracture within libertarianism. He asks: Are you a MAGA conservative, or are you an anarchist? Is libertarianism about autonomy, or is it about the profits for big business? Are you about direct self-government for people, or are you Thatcher?

Some months ago, I heard that Hans Herman Hoppe sided with the Palestinian cause. Something that surprised me, in a good way. This was another rupture in the libertarian world.

I think the main issue with libertarians is psychological. Libertarians want to be part of neoliberalism/statism to make money, but they also present it as unjust. They want the comfort of being part of the system while fighting it. They want to be a landlord and a squatter at the same time. They want to revolt without any friction and without any danger. They feel the need to preserve and disrupt at the same time. This is why their views are often pretty confused.

I also see this dilemma in the bureaucrats I know. They are part of the state to earn money, but when this state does things that go against their values/ethics, they just don’t want to talk about it. It makes them nervous. You can’t have it both ways. You choose to be part of the system, so you are responsible for the things this system does. It’s a trade-off. Do you stick to your values/ethics or choose comfort?

We see the same in the academic sector. You don’t want to lose your job, so you don’t say anything about woke, or about the COVID policies, about transgender issues, or about the management structures ruling the academy. I knew an academic who got immediately fired for being critical about some queer theory concepts. So, often, the deal is conformity and money, or authenticity and no money. Power or integrity?

Then, people try to have it both ways. They are part of the system, and then they think they can reform it. This is impossible because the system has its own logic and interests.

The difference with the first (19th century) libertarians, the Tucker/Spooner supporters, is that they fully rejected the statist/capitalist order. They said: The current order is not a market, we need something else, we can do better. Someone who suffered under state/monopoly capitalism was a victim of state capitalism, in their eyes. This person was not ‘a loser’ who ‘needs to work harder’. They thought that in an actual free market, the working class and middle class could flourish. And they pointed out all the time that American capitalism is a system of oligarchic plunder, made possible by the state. Although they were not against markets and free exchange, there was still a class component to their thinking.

Modern/vulgar libertarians, on the other hand says: neoliberalism is the market, we need more of it, but its also not the market, but it is, and you should not ask questions, and a zionist president of a country is an anarchist, and you are lazy and should work harder. Andrew Tate can teach you about stoicism. We are against the state, but we also need the state to protect property rights. Modern property isn’t real property, but it is. The banking system is rotten to the core, but some good people working don’t have a choice. However, everyone can make his/her own choices because of individual liberty.

When you read Tucker and Spooner’s works, you can agree or disagree with them, but you can see that their positions are consistent. This is not the case with modern Milei libertarianism/populism. Modern libertarians always contradict themselves, but their followers never notice it.

There are a lot of studies in which academics point out how capitalism was made possible by state intervention, expropriation, and force. These studies point out how modern neoliberal capitalism is a monopoly system, in which the private and state systems flow into each other (it’s hard to say what the state and private sectors are). Somehow, modern libertarians never read these studies. Modern libertarians would rather play video games and drink energy drinks than read a boring academic paper. Meanwhile, they get their immense wisdom from ‘masculinity influencers’.

Could we apply the Tucker/Spooner doctrine to this situation? Isn’t it too outdated? This is another discussion, which we could discuss another time.

There was a lot of noise, and the political and cultural movements in the last few years were strange and vague. I think in the coming period, everything will become clearer. People will see where they stand and what their actual alignments are.