labels
Here is my letter to
Robert Klassen on his LRC article,
"Labels":
Sir, why isn't your concern addressed by the distinction between libertarian anarchists and libertarian minarchists?
I try to address some of these terms and distinctions at blackcrayon.com, my libertarian anarchist website.
http://www.blackcrayon.com/library/dictionary/?term=libertarianism
I agree with you that libertarian minarchists haven't accepted the logical consequences of libertarianism, if you understand the label in terms of the non-aggression principle, but of course at its most literal level, libertarianism just means "pro-liberty" with all the resulting connotative disputes, and in its historical sense, it seems to have replaced classical liberalism when the term 'liberal' was successfully appropriated by democratic socialists. So there are plenty of self-labeled libertarians who I and Murray Rothbard and Walter Block would refer to as "so-called libertarians".
Ralph Raico addresses a similar question in his lecture series on the history of classical liberalism. Why fight over a word? Why not just define your principles and take whatever label is available? Because there is a history to claim and a principle to defend and the language can't be meaningful if we let all distinctions blur under the force of popular political pressure.
Whatever words you chose today to describe the things you do and don't believe can be taken over tomorrow by those who will not only deride your beliefs, but worse: they will claim to represent them in a truer, higher, more "sophisticated" form.
The language bandits deserve our resistance.
laissez faire,
bk
http://bkMarcus.com/blog/
(permalink)
2 Comments:
Rothbard argued in the mid-'60s that even the "Left" label had been hijacked by authoritarians, "true" conservatives, and socialists. (See his essay "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty.") That's why the late Samuel Edward Konkin III launched the Movement of the Libertarian Left back in the mid-'70s (and wrote NEW LIBERTARIAN MANIFESTO), when Rothbard joined the "partyarchs" of the Libertarian Party, turning "rightward." MLL (of which, despite SEK3's death last February, I still consider myself a part) was made up of Radical Rothbardians -- those who sometimes out-Rothbarded Murray himself, taking his teachings to their furthest reaches.
A quick comment in favor of language banditry:
For a long time now, people criticizing or deriding homosexuals have used words like "queer" or "fag" or "dyke." But people who find themselves labeled by those terms tend to reframe them, using the words themselves to change the definitions, complicating them from something inherently negative to something positive or neutral.
Linguistic history is important, but so is language usage. Yes: try to keep tabs on the word you choose to label yourself. Just don't expect language change to stop, or think that such change is an inherently negative thing.
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