Ken MacLeod

I have a permanent love and devotion for Ken MacLeod, just for having taken all my favorite philosophical and science fictional themes and using them, in his great SF novel, Stone Canal, to introduce me to Benjamin Tucker and individualist anarchism -- and then, indirectly to David Friedman and Murray Rothbard, whose anarcho-capitalism inspired two of the settings in the novel, according to a later article MacLeod wrote for the British Libertarian Alliance. One of the very successful "tricks" he used in his novel was having his anarcho-capitalist protagonist surrounded by the usual band of complacent university lefties, and letting the left-leaning reader know, through history, language and reference, that our libertarian anarchist is no stranger to Marxism, Trotskyism, and all the communist -isms ...

My devotion is permanent, but not invariable -- and I was devastated to learn that not only does MacLeod make a habit of voting, but he votes Labour. Here I was, convinced that MacLeod had left his socialist past behind and embraced individual liberty and free-market ethics and economics as the true path to greater wealth and happiness for everyone. Silly me. He's a fiction writer. His talent is taking on the mindset of his protagonist. But it's so hard for us libertarians to believe that anyone can actually grasp individual liberty and not instantly convert to our persuasion -- unless he's an amoral, Machiavellian cynic who knows the actual effects of the State and plans to benefit from them.

So now I don't really know what he is. He subscribes to a left-Rothbardian mailing list I belong to. He writes for libertarian publications, while speaking Marxist language. He plays up the free market while blasting capitalism -- and I can't tell how carefully he's distinguishing between politically-privileged capitalists and laissez-faire propertarian economics, as I try to discuss in my first LRC piece.


Anyway, his blog continues to be one of the few worth following, and his latest post is much better advice for the post-election American Left than I could have possibly had the patience to put together.

(N.B., MacLeod believes that "the American people" chose Bush last week. Thomas Knapp and others question that conclusion.)