Here is the book for the Age of Rothbard, precisely the primer that is needed at a time when his influence—as the most radical and compelling intellectual force in the second half of the 20th century—is higher than during any time during his lifetime.

And so this book is a landmark in Rothbardiana: the first, full, rigorous intellectual biography of Murray N. Rothbard, one that takes a candid look at his public and private papers to cover not only his economic thought but also his historical method, his political ideology, the Rothbardian cultural outlook and social theory, and guides the reader through the whole of his vast output. It even includes a complete (and massive) bibliography.

The beauty of this book consists in its original research (David Gordon had full access to the private correspondence of his subject) and also its brevity: the biographical portion is 125 pages, and so the pace is super fast and the prose compact and riveting.

It is more difficult than it may seem to produce a book of this scale. The author must be well-read in five different fields, and have absorbed the whole of Rothbard's output. And there is the balancing act of not only covering all these fields but integrating them with unified themes, just as Rothbard did.

Here is where Gordon is most dazzling. He provides the reader an overview of Rothbard's thought and times but not in a piecemeal fashion but with an eye to conveying the Rothbardian worldview. All the while, he reports on such tantalizing treats as the notes that Murray took in graduate school. One can just imagine him scribbling furiously during class.

Those who remember Rothbard's own monograph The Essential von Mises know what an impact that had. This does the same for Rothbard. And so the book will be useful for students, professors, reading groups, or just the curious multitudes who are asking: who is this Rothbard anyway, and what did he contribute?

Gordon begins with his schooling, to show his early influences, and continues through his early career. He discusses how Rothbard slowly built the edifice, a full science of liberty, and how he managed to stay so active in public life as well. He even covers material that is yet to be published, so that the reader knows what Rothbard said about a range of topics that has yet to become part of the published corpus.
There are many Rothbardians but few are prepared to do what this author has done.

180 pages with index

Contents
Introduction
The Early Years
Rothbard's Treatise on Economic Theory
More Advances in Economic Theory
Rothbard on Money
Austrian Economic History
A Rothbardian View of American History
The Unknown Rothbard: Unpublished Papers
Rothbard's System of Ethics
Politics in Theory and Practice
Rothbard on Current Economic Issues
Rothbard's Last Scholarly Triumph
Followers and Influence
Bibliography
Index

Order it here.

In the first place, suppose that the majority overwhelmingly wishes to establish a popular dictator or the rule of a single party. The people wish to surrender all decision-making into his or its hands. Does the system of democracy permit itself to be voted democratically out of existence? Whichever way the democrat answers, he is caught in an inescapable contradiction.

If the majority can vote into power a dictator who will end further elections, then democracy is really ending its own existence. From then on, there is no longer democracy, although there is continuing majority consent to the dictatorial party or ruler. Democracy, in that case, becomes a transition to a nondemocratic form of government.

On the other hand, if, as it is now fashionable to maintain, the majority of voters in a democracy are prohibited from doing one thing—ending the democratic elective process itself—then this is no longer democracy, because the majority of voters can no longer rule. The election process may be preserved, but how can it express that majority rule essential to democracy if the majority cannot end this process should it so desire?

In short, democracy requires two conditions for its existence: majority rule over governors or policies, and periodic, equal voting. So if the majority wishes to end the voting process, democracy cannot be preserved regardless of which horn of the dilemma is chosen. The idea that the “majority must preserve the freedom of the minority to become the majority” is then seen, not as a preservation of democracy, but as simply an arbitrary value judgment on the part of the political scientist (or at least it remains arbitrary until justified by some cogent ethical theory).[20]

This dilemma occurs not only if the majority wishes to select a dictator, but also if it desires to establish the purely free society that we have outlined above. For that society has no overall monopoly-government organization, and the only place where equal voting would obtain would be in co-operatives, which have always been inefficient forms of organization. The only important form of voting, in that society, would be that of shareholders in joint stock companies, whose votes would not be equal, but proportionate to their shares of ownership in the company assets. Each individual’s vote, in that case, would be meaningfully tied to his share in the ownership of joint assets.[21]

In such a purely free society there would be nothing for democratic electors to vote about. Here, too, democracy can be only a possible route toward a free society, rather than an attribute of it.

Neither is democracy conceivably workable under socialism. The ruling party, owning all means of production, will have the complete decision, for example, on how much funds to allocate to the opposition parties for propaganda, not to speak of its economic power over all the individual leaders and members of the opposition. With the ruling party deciding the income of every man and the allocation of all resources, it is inconceivable that any functioning political opposition could long persist under socialism.[22] The only opposition that could emerge would be not opposing parties in an election, but different administrative cliques within the ruling party, as has been true in the Communist countries.

Thus, democracy is compatible neither with the purely free society nor with socialism. And yet we have seen in this work (and shall see further below) that only those two societies are stable, that all intermediary mixtures are in “unstable equilibrium” and always tending toward one or the other pole. This means that democracy, in essence, is itself an unstable and transitional form of government.

Democracy suffers from many more inherent contradictions as well. Thus, democratic voting may have either one of these two functions: to determine governmental policy or to select rulers. According to the former, what Schumpeter termed the “classical” theory of democracy, the majority will is supposed to rule on issues.[23] According to the latter theory, majority rule is supposed to be confined to choosing rulers, who in turn decide policy. While most political scientists support the latter version, democracy means the former version to most people, and we shall therefore discuss the classical theory first.

According to the “will of the people” theory, direct democracy—voting on each issue by all the citizens, as in New England town meetings—is the ideal political arrangement. Modern civilization and the complexities of society, however, are supposed to have outmoded direct democracy, so that we must settle for the less perfect “representative democracy” (in olden days often called a “republic”), where the people select representatives to give effect to their will on political issues. Logical problems arise almost immediately.

One is that different forms of electoral arrangements, different delimitations of geographical districts, all equally arbitrary, will often greatly alter the picture of the “majority will.” If a country is divided into districts for choosing representatives, then “gerrymandering” is inherent in such a division: there is no satisfactory, rational way of demarking the divisions. The party in power at the time of division, or redivision, will inevitably alter the districts to produce a systematic bias in its favor; but no other way is inherently more rational or more truly evocative of majority will.

Moreover, the very division of the earth’s surface into countries is itself arbitrary. If a government covers a certain geographical area, does “democracy” mean that a majority group in a certain district should be permitted to secede and form its own government, or to join another country? Does democracy mean majority rule over a larger, or over a smaller, area? In short, which majority should prevail?

The very concept of a national democracy is, in fact, self-contradictory. For if someone contends that the majority in Country X should govern that country, then it could be argued with equal validity that the majority of a certain district within Country X should be allowed to govern itself and secede from the larger country, and this subdividing process can logically proceed down to the village block, the apartment house, and, finally, each individual, thus marking the end of all democratic government through reduction to individual self-government.

But if such a right of secession is denied, then the national democrat must concede that the more numerous population of other countries should have a right to outvote his country; and so he must proceed upwards to a world government run by a world majority rule. In short, the democrat who favors national government is self-contradictory; he must favor a world government or none at all.

Aside from this problem of the geographical boundary of the government or electoral district, the democracy that tries to elect representatives to effect the majority will runs into further problems. Certainly some form of proportional representation would be mandatory, to arrive at a kind of cross section of public opinion. Best would be a proportional representation scheme for the whole country—or world—so that the cross section is not distorted by geographic considerations.

But here again, different forms of proportional representation will lead to very different results. The critics of proportional representation retort that a legislature elected on this principle would be unstable and that elections should result in a stable majority government. The reply to this is that, if we wish to represent the public, a cross section is required, and the instability of representation is only a function of the instability or diversity of public opinion itself. The “efficient government” argument can be pursued, therefore, only if we abandon the classical “majority-will” theory completely and adopt the second theory—that the only function of the majority is to choose rulers.

But even proportional representation would not be as good—according to the classical view of democracy—as direct democracy, and here we come to another important and neglected consideration: modern technology does make it possible to have direct democracy. Certainly, each man could easily vote on issues several times per week by recording his choice on a device attached to his television set.

This would not be difficult to achieve. And yet, why has no one seriously suggested a return to direct democracy, now that it may be feasible? The people could elect representatives through proportional representation, solely as advisers, to submit bills to the people, but without having ultimate voting power themselves. The final vote would be that of the people themselves, all voting directly. In a sense, the entire voting public would be the legislature, and the representatives could act as committees to bring bills before this vast legislature. The person who favors the classical view of democracy must, therefore, either favor virtual eradication of the legislature (and, of course, of executive veto power) or abandon his theory.

The objection to direct democracy will undoubtedly be that the people are uninformed and therefore not capable of deciding on the complex issues that face the legislature. But, in that case, the democrat must completely abandon the classical theory that the majority should decide on issues, and adopt the modern doctrine that the function of democracy is majority choice of rulers, who, in turn, will decide the policies. Let us, then, turn to this doctrine.

It faces, fully as much as the classical theory, the self-contradiction on national or electoral boundaries; and the “modern democrat” (if we may call him such), as much as the “classical democrat” must advocate world government or none at all. On the question of representation, it is true that the modern democrat can successfully oppose direct television-democracy, or even proportional representation, and resort to our current system of single constituencies.

But he is caught in a different dilemma: if the only function of the voting people is to choose rulers, why have a legislature at all? Why not simply vote periodically for a chief executive, or President, and then call it a day? If the criterion is efficiency, and stable rule by a single party for the term of office, then a single executive will be far more stable than a legislature, which may always splinter into warring groups and deadlock the government.

The modern democrat, therefore, must also logically abandon the idea of a legislature and plump for granting all legislative powers to the elected executive. Both theories of democracy, it seems, must abandon the whole idea of a representative legislature.

Furthermore, the “modern democrat” who scoffs at direct democracy on the ground that the people are not intelligent or informed enough to decide the complex issues of government, is caught in another fatal contradiction: he assumes that the people are sufficiently intelligent and informed to vote on the people who will make these decisions.

But if a voter is not competent to decide issues A, B, C, etc., how in the world could he possibly be qualified to decide whether Mr. X or Mr. Y is better able to handle A, B, or C? In order to make this decision, the voter would have to know a great deal about the issues and know enough about the persons whom he is selecting.

In short, he would probably have to know more in a representative than in a direct democracy. Furthermore, the average voter is necessarily less qualified to choose persons to decide issues than he is to vote on the issues themselves. For the issues are at least intelligible to him, and he can understand some of their relevance; but the candidates are people whom he cannot possibly know personally and whom he therefore knows essentially nothing about. Hence, he can vote for them only on the basis of their external “personalities,” glamorous smiles, etc., rather than on their actual competence; as a result, however ill-informed the voter, his choice is almost bound to be less intelligent under a representative republic than in a direct democracy.[24].[25]

We have seen the problems that democratic theory has with the legislature. It also has difficulty with the judiciary. In the first place, the very concept of an “independent judiciary” contradicts the theory of democratic rule (whether classical or modern). If the judiciary is really independent of the popular will, then it functions, at least within its own sphere, as an oligarchic dictatorship, and we can no longer call the government a “democracy.”

On the other hand, if the judiciary is elected directly by the voters, or appointed by the voters’ representatives (both systems are used in the United States), then the judiciary is hardly independent.

If the election is periodic, or if the appointment is subject to renewal, then the judiciary is no more independent of political processes than any other branch of government.

If the appointment is for life, then the independence is greater, although even here, if the legislature votes the funds for the judges’ salaries, or if it decides the jurisdiction of judicial powers, judicial independence may be sharply impaired.

We have not exhausted the problems and contradictions of democratic theory; and we may pursue the rest by asking: Why democracy anyway? Until now, we have been discussing various theories of how democracies should function, or what areas (e.g., issues or rulers) should be governed by the democratic process. We may now inquire about the theories that support and justify democracy itself.

One theory, again of classical vintage, is that the majority will always, or almost always, make the morally right decisions (whether about issues or men). Since this is not an ethical treatise, we cannot deal further with this doctrine, except to say that few people hold this view today. It has been demonstrated that people can democratically choose a wide variety of policies and rulers, and the experience of recent centuries has, for the most part, vitiated any faith that people may have had in the infallible wisdom and righteousness of the average voter.

Perhaps the most common and most cogent argument for democracy is not that democratic decisions will always be wise, but that the democratic process provides for peaceful change of government. The majority, so the argument runs, must support any government, regardless of form, if it is to continue existing for long; far better, then, to let the majority exercise this right peacefully and periodically than to force the majority to keep overturning the government through violent revolution. In short, ballots are hailed as substitutes for bullets.

One flaw in this argument is that it completely overlooks the possibility of the nonviolent overthrow of the government by the majority through civil disobedience, i.e., peaceful refusal to obey government orders. Such a revolution would be consistent with this argument’s ultimate end of preserving peace and yet would not require democratic voting.[26]

There is, moreover, another flaw in the “peaceful-change” argument for democracy, this one being a grave self-contradiction that has been universally overlooked. Those who have adopted this argument have simply used it to give a seal of approval to all democracies and have then moved on quickly to other matters. They have not realized that the “peaceful-change” argument establishes a criterion for government before which any given democracy must pass muster.

For the argument that ballots are to substitute for bullets must be taken in a precise way: that a democratic election will yield the same result as would have occurred if the majority had had to battle the minority in violent combat. In short, the argument implies that the election results are simply and precisely a substitute for a test of physical combat.

Here we have a criterion for democracy: Does it really yield the results that would have been obtained through civil combat? If we find that democracy, or a certain form of democracy, leads systematically to results that are very wide of this “bullet-substitute” mark, then we must either reject democracy or give up the argument.

How, then, does democracy, either generally or in specific countries, fare when we test it against its own criterion? One of the essential attributes of democracy, as we have seen, is that each man have one vote.[27] But the “peaceful-change” argument implies that each man would have counted equally in any combat test. But is this true?

In the first place, it is clear that physical power is not equally distributed. In any test of combat, women, old people, sick people, and 4F’s would fare very badly. On the basis of the “peaceful-change” argument, therefore, there is no justification whatever for giving these physically feeble groups the vote. So, barred from voting would be all citizens who could not pass a test, not for literacy (which is largely irrelevant to combat prowess), but for physical fitness.

Furthermore, it clearly would be necessary to give plural votes to all men who have been militarily trained (such as soldiers and policemen), for it is obvious that a group of highly trained fighters could easily defeat a far more numerous group of equally robust amateurs.

In addition to ignoring the inequalities of physical power and combat fitness, democracy fails, in another significant way, to live up to the logical requirements of the “peaceful-change” thesis. This failure stems from another basic inequality: inequality of interest or intensity of belief.

Thus, 60 percent of the population may oppose a certain policy, or political party, while only 40 percent favor it. In a democracy, this latter policy or party will be defeated. But suppose that the bulk of the 40 percent are passionate enthusiasts for the measure or candidate, while the bulk of the 60 percent majority have only slight interest in the entire affair. In the absence of democracy, far more of the passionate 40 percent would have been willing to engage in a combat test than would the apathetic 60 percent.

And yet, in a democratic election, one vote by an apathetic, only faintly interested person offsets the vote of a passionate partisan. Hence, the democratic process grievously and systematically distorts the results of the hypothetical combat test.

It is probable that no voting procedure could avoid this distortion satisfactorily and serve as any sort of accurate substitute for bullets. But certainly much could be done to alter current voting procedures to bring them closer to the criterion, and it is surprising that no one has suggested such reforms.

The whole trend of existing democracies, for example, has been to make voting easier for the people; but this violates the bullet-substitute test directly, because it has been made ever easier for the apathetic to register their votes and thus distort the results. Clearly, what would be needed is to make voting far more difficult and thus insure that only the most intensely interested people will vote.

A moderately high poll tax, not large enough to keep out those enthusiasts who could not afford to pay, but large enough to discourage the indifferent, would be very helpful.

Voting booths should certainly be further apart; the person who refuses to travel any appreciable distance to vote would surely not have fought in his candidate’s behalf.

Another useful step would be to remove all names from the ballot, thereby requiring the voters themselves to write in the names of their favorites. Not only would this procedure eliminate the decidedly undemocratic special privilege that the State gives to those whose names it prints on the ballot (as against all other persons), but it would bring elections closer to our criterion, for a voter who does not know the name of his candidate would hardly be likely to fight in the streets on his behalf.

Another indicated reform would be to abolish the secrecy of the ballot. The ballot has been made secret in order to protect the fearful from intimidation; yet civil combat is peculiarly the province of the courageous. Surely, those not courageous enough to proclaim their choice openly would not have been formidable fighters in the combat test.

These and doubtless other reforms would be necessary to move the election results to a point approximating the results of a combat foregone. And yet, if we define democracy as including equal voting, this means that democracy simply cannot meet its own criterion as deduced from the “peaceful-change” argument.

Or, if we define democracy as majority voting, but not necessarily equal, then the advocates of democracy would have to favor: abolishing the vote for women, sick people, old people, etc.; plural voting for the militarily trained; poll taxes; the open vote; etc.

In any case, democracy such as we have known it, marked by equal voting for each person, is directly contradicted by the “peaceful-change” argument. One or the other, the argument or the system, must be abandoned.

If the arguments for democracy are thus shown to be a maze of fallacy and contradiction, does this mean that democracy must be completely abandoned, except on the basis of a purely arbitrary, unsupported value judgment that “democracy is good”?

Not necessarily, for democracy may be thought of, not so much as a value in itself, but as a possible method for achieving other desired ends. The end may be either to put a certain political leader into power or to attain desired governmental policies. Democracy, after all, is simply a method of choosing governors and issues, and it is not so surprising that it might have value largely to the extent that it serves as a means to other political ends.

The socialist and the libertarian, for example, while recognizing the inherent instability of the democratic form, may favor democracy as a means of arriving at a socialist or a libertarian society. The libertarian might thus consider democracy as a useful way of protecting people against government or of advancing individual liberty.[28] One’s views of democracy, then, depend upon one’s estimates of the given circumstances.

NOTES

[20]This idea that democracy must force the majority to permit the minority the freedom to become a majority, is an attempt by social democratic theorists to permit those results of democracy which they like (economic interventionism, socialism), while avoiding the results which they do not like (interference with “human rights,” freedom of speech, etc.). They do this by trying to elevate their value judgments into an allegedly “scientific” definition of democracy. Aside from the self-contradiction, this limitation is itself not as rigorous as they believe. It would permit a democracy, for example, to slaughter Negroes or redheads, because there is no chance that such minority groups could become majorities. For more on “human” rights and property rights, see below.

[21]To Spencer Heath, this is the only genuine form of democracy:

When persons contractually pool their separate titles to property by taking undivided interests in the whole, they elect servants—officers—and otherwise exercise their authority over their property by a process of voting, as partners, share owners or other beneficiaries. This is authentically democratic in that all the members exercise authority in proportion to their respective contributions. Coercion is not employed against any, and all persons are as free to withdraw their membership and property as they were to contribute it. (Heath, Citadel, Market, and Altar, p. 234)

[22]Even if, as is highly unlikely—especially in view of the fact that rulers under socialism are those most adept at wielding force—the socialist leaders were saintly men, wishing to give a political opposition every chance, and even if the opposition were unusually heroic and risked liquidation by emerging into the open, how would the rulers decide their allocations? Would they give funds and resources to all opposing parties? Or only to a prosocialist opposition? How much would they allocate to each opposition party?

[23]See Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, passim.

[24]The “modern democrat” might object that the candidate’s party affiliation enables the voter to learn, if not his personal competence, at least his political ideology. But the “modern democrat” is precisely the theorist who hails the current “two-party” system, in which the platforms of both parties are almost indistinguishable, as the most efficient, stable form of democratic government.

[25]These considerations also serve to refute the contention of the “conservative” that a republic will avoid the inherent contradictions of a direct democracy—a position that itself stands in contradiction to its proponents’ professed opposition to executive as against legislative power.

[26]Thus Etienne de La Boétie:

Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they could put an end to their servitude. (La Boétie, Anti-Dictator, pp. 8–9)

[27]Even though, in practice, votes of rural or other areas are often more heavily weighted, this democratic ideal is roughly approximated, or at least is the general aspiration, in the democratic countries.

[28]Some libertarians consider a constitution a useful device for limiting or preventing governmental encroachments on individual liberty. A major difficulty with this idea was pointed out with great clarity by John C. Calhoun: that no matter how strict the limitations placed on government by a written constitution, these limits must be constantly weakened and expanded if the final power to interpret them is placed in the hands of an organ of the government itself (e.g., the Supreme Court). See Calhoun, Disquisition on Government, pp. 25–27.

My eager anticipation of seeing this film was tempered, somewhat, by past experiences. Was this to be just another superficial anti-establishment flick, with a few libertarian one-liners thrown in for effect, and a sufficient amount of pyrotechnics to induce teenagers to attend? I have seen enough movies in which tyrannical statists brutalize innocent people, but with an heroic FBI or Justice Department official entering, at the end, to expose and rectify the wrongdoing and, in so doing, leave the audience with the assurance that the “system” works to correct itself.

My wife and I attended the opening day of this film and, I am happy to report, it far exceeded my expectations. Not only is this the most powerful anti-state film I have ever seen – one that makes no compromises with the system – but is, purely from a film-making perspective, one of the best movies I have seen in some time. Had the subject matter of this film been anti-vivisectionism, the depletion of the rainforests, or the sorrows of divorcées, its acting, writing, direction, and other production features would have made watching it an enjoyable experience.

The story takes place in a 21st century England that is ruled by the most vicious of tyrants, played by John Hurt. In his regime, people are continually reminded that a state-imposed curfew is “for your protection,” with painful consequences awaiting those who do not comply. Into this setting steps the hero, “V” – played by Hugo Weaving – a man who had been brutalized by statist functionaries, and who is intent on destroying this most inhumane, fascistic state.

I shall not spoil the movie for you by revealing more of its story. Suffice it to say that, from a libertarian/anarchistic perspective, this film is for real! It digs beneath the surface of events to reveal the psychological factors – particularly our own fears – and institutional interests that combine to make tyranny possible. Natalie Portman – who plays the heroine, Evey – does a magnificent job playing out the sense of self-liberation so essential to a free life.

Prior to my attending this film, I encountered reviews by a few statists who saw the film as a “defense of terrorism.” Such a comment reveals more about the reviewers than of the movie itself. Any kind of resistance to tyranny is bound to strike terror into the hearts of members of the established order. Thus were the American colonials and Mohandas Gandhi “terrorists” to the British; the Warsaw ghetto uprisings and the French underground movements “terrorist” actions to the German government; and the organized resistance of Algerians acts of “terrorism” to the French. Even today, the Iraqi resistance to the destruction and domination of their country is regarded as “terrorism” by the invading American state!

The openly anarchistic nature of this movie will produce shudders in well-conditioned statists who, in the words of F.A. Hayek, cling to their “fear of trusting uncontrolled social forces.” Such people will trot out historic instances in which self-proclaimed “anarchists” killed a few score of people, as evidence of the need for government. That states managed, in the 20th century alone, to slaughter some 200,000,000 people in wars and genocides has never provided an occasion for defenders of political systems to do a practical cost/benefit analysis of these alternative systems!

While V for Vendetta contains a great deal of violence, “V” reminds us, early on, of the social application of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In a political context, it is as childish to posit the violence engaged in by one group as “peacekeeping” and the opposing group as “terrorism,” as it is to regard one side as “good” and the other as “evil.” It is the interdependent violence inherent in all political systems that is made evident in this film.

There is one poignant scene in this movie in which thousands of unarmed, peaceful individuals confront the well-armed military forces of the state. This scene, more than any other, may provide insight into how society might evolve in a world in which vertically-structured institutions are collapsing. The transformations of thinking that are arising from the study of “chaos,” or “complexity,” are producing changes in social behavior that make state systems obsolete. The predictability the statists imagine inheres in their structured apparatuses has been rendered illusory. Terry Pratchett’s observation that “chaos always defeats order because it is better organized,” reflects a world in flux. Perhaps a film such a V for Vendetta will provide us an opportunity to begin exploring the orderly nature of anarchistic systems.

I have no doubt that this film will generate “terror” in the minds of those who regard the domination of others either as some inherent right or as an inevitable necessity for social order. But it is not the fear of violence that will be their principal concern. Violence will be the fear that the media will transmit to the booboisie to keep them huddled at the feet of their masters. The establishment’s fear is not that buildings will be blown up – on the contrary, the destruction of the World Trade Center actually benefited the state – but that men and women will begin to dismantle the structures of political authority in their thinking. To paraphrase the words of Evey, it is not buildings that people need, but hope.

For those who are serious about living in a society in which peace, liberty, and the inviolability of the human spirit prevail, V for Vendetta provides an opportunity to rethink our social assumptions; to develop new ideas about our relationships to one another. And as “V” informs us, “ideas are bulletproof.” This film is a powerful antidote to the mindset that is destroying mankind. It is not for those who wish only to reform the state and confirm beliefs that the 20th century has rendered no longer suitable to the interests of humanity.

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com

New York's Finest, for example, who are also unionized, by the way — they feel such solidarity with their "brothers and sisters," you see, but, more decisively, expect support should they ever strike — were uncharacteristically inept when it came to nabbing the perps who torched newsstands during the truckers strike. (Some stands somehow managed to get their newspaper deliveries, but that turned out to be as prudential as movin' in on the Gambinos' turf in the '60s.)

Unions are little mafias that want to be big mafias, and are not above breaking a few legs to "set an example" that's only "good for business." And they can count on the applause of all "responsible" segments of our "free society."

The TWU's political theater, captured in all its ugliness on the local news, is performed daily outside the Hyatt hotel where the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) "negotiates" with those who would commandeer and, if it suits them, sabotage its property. You can just smell the thuggery. All that Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki seem capable of doing, however, is to commend "both parties" (i.e., aggressor and victim) for "staying at the bargaining table" or some such bullshit. Perhaps Bloomberg doesn't care to hear TWU's President Toussaint repeat his invitation of three years ago to shut his trap.

Strikes are politically protected thefts, and those men are politicians who covet Union support would rather die than be thought of as "anti-Union," even though that label should be no more malodorous than "anti-Mafia" or "anti-terrorist."

Tens of thousands of Americans are ready and willing to work for the MTA on current or even inferior terms, which would still be superior to what many of them enjoy now. Those TWU members who want "more, more, more" need only make themselves more productive as the free market defines and rewards productivity and then let prospective employers bid for their fine services.

But why work so hard, they must think, when crime pays so much better? Such musings reveal striking unionists to be, not "friends of labor," but enemies of real, flesh-and-blood working people who would gladly take their place.

After the TWU held the city hostage for eleven days in 1980 (April 1-11), members of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) thought they could reinforce their monopoly privilege by the same means. So several months later, on August 3, they walked off their jobs.

In response, however, President Reagan did not stand alongside I-95 asking drivers, as then-Mayor Ed Koch did during the transit strike, "How am I doin'?" Reagan simply did what he had promised to do: he fired and replaced them all.

By the way, the feared mid-air collisions never materialized. "I thought Reagan was bluffing," one striker belched.

NYC's and New York State's "leadership" could free NYC once and for all from this triennial hostage scenario, with its devastating economic and psychologic toll, by inducing the MTA to place ads for those rocket-scientist jobs — driving trains and buses! The netherworld to which Reagan dispatched the dispatchers would then soon have a vibrant immigrant population who, I'm sure, would bestow upon that realm all the blessings of diversity.

Government, in sum, must be limited to the smallest possible minimum; "inaction" was the proper function of government, since only inaction can permit the individual to flourish and achieve happiness. Any intervention by government, Lao-tzu declared, would be counterproductive, and would lead to confusion and turmoil. After referring to the common experience of mankind with government, Lao-tzu came to this incisive conclusion: "The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished…. The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be."

The wisest course, then, is to keep the government simple and for it to take no action, for then the world "stabilizes itself." As Lao-tzu put it, "Therefore the Sage says: I take no action yet the people transform themselves, I favor quiescence and the people right themselves, I take no action and the people enrich themselves…."

Lao-tzu arrived at his challenging and radical new insights in a world dominated by the power of Oriental despotism. What strategy to pursue for social change? It surely was unthinkable for Lao-tzu, with no available historical or contemporary example of libertarian social change, to set forth any optimistic strategy, let alone contemplate forming a mass movement to overthrow the State. And so Lao-tzu took the only strategic way out that seemed open to him, counseling the familiar Taoist path of withdrawal from society and the world, of retreat and inner contemplation.

I submit that while contemporary Taoists advocate retreat from the world as a matter of religious or ideological principle, it is very possible that Lao-tzu called for retreat not as a principle, but as the only strategy that in his despair seemed open to him. If it was hopeless to try to disentangle society from the oppressive coils of the State, then he perhaps assumed that the proper course was to counsel withdrawal from society and the world as the only way to escape State tyranny.

That retreat from the State was a dominant Taoist objective may be seen in the views of the great Taoist Chuang-tzu (369 BC - 286 BC) who, two centuries after Lao-tzu, pushed the master's ideas of laissez faire to their logical conclusion: individualist anarchism.

The influential Chuang-tzu, a notable stylist who wrote in allegorical parables, was a highly learned man in the state of Meng, and also descended from the old aristocracy. A minor official in his native state, Chuang-tzu's fame as a writer spread far and wide throughout China, so much so that King Wei of the Ch'u kingdom sent an emissary to Chuang bearing great gifts and urging him to become Wei's chief minister of state. Chuang-tzu's scornful rejection of the king's offer is one of the great declarations in history on the evils underlying the glittering trappings of State power; it was a fitting declaration from the man who was perhaps the world's first anarchist:

A thousand ounces of gold is indeed a great reward, and the office of chief minister is truly an elevated position. But have you, sir, not seen the sacrificial ox awaiting the sacrifices at the royal shrine of state? It is well cared for and fed for a few years, caparisoned with rich brocades, so that it will be ready to be led into the Great Temple. At that moment, even though it would gladly change places with any solitary pig, can it do so? So, quick and be off with you! Don't sully me, I would rather roam and idle about in a muddy ditch, at my own amusement, than to be put under the restraints that the ruler would impose. I will never take any official service, and thereby I will satisfy my own purposes.

Chuang-tzu reiterated and embellished Lao-tzu's devotion to laissez faire and opposition to state rule: "There has been such a thing as letting mankind alone; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind [with success]." In fact, the world simply "does not need governing; in fact it should not be governed." Chuang-tzu was also the first to work out the idea of "spontaneous order," developed particularly by Proudhon in the nineteenth and by F. A. Hayek of the Austrian School in the twentieth Century: "Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone."

Chuang-tzu, moreover, was perhaps the first theorist to see the State as a brigand writ large: "A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a State." Thus the only difference between State rulers and out-and-out robber chieftains is the size of their depredations. This theme of ruler-as-robber was to be repeated, independently of course, by Cicero and then by St. Augustine and other Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was dean of the Austrian School. Posted on Mises.org December 5, 2005, the above was excerpted from Rothbard’s "Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire," The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol IX No. 2 (Fall 1990), 43-67. He delivered an ancestor of this paper in Poland in March 1986 (when, it doesn’t hurt to remind readers, that land was still Communist-ruled).