I comment over at the Mises Econ Blog in response to commentary on today’s daily article, Rothbard’s “The Case for Radical Idealism.”
While I agree with Rothbard’s general argument for radical idealism as opposed to gradualist opportunism and utopian sectarianism, there is an element of his argument in this essay with which I am not convinced. In short, Rothbard seems to greatly underappreciate the structural, cultural, and ethical foundations (particularly the latter two) that are necessary for the functioning of an anarcho-libertarian society, not to speak of being necessary for bringing it about in the first place. How is the state to be abolished, especially in such a way as to not pave the way for a new state to arise from its ashes, without a corresponding sea change in the institutions and values of the people? It seems to me that the state will not be abolished (for the most part) until there has been a significant cultural shift toward libertarianism. Likewise, it seems to me that if the state is abolished in a cultural climate alien to libertarianism, then the result will be first anarchism in the popular (not philosophical) sense of that word followed by the revival of the state by some new warlord. Thus, Rothbard teeters on the precipice of utopianism, though anarcho-libertarianism need not be utopian.
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the