To answer your question 7000 words is a bit long for a chunk of libertarian history, but fwiw I enjoyed it. I think you did hit on one of the key conundrums of libertarianism. Libertarianisms call to be left alone is appealing to almost everyone, but not as appealing as the alluring offer of the existing order’s promise that you can screw with your neighbors, and it’s totally moral because DEMOCRACY.
I find this preference for power over peace bewildering as it’s both immoral and proving more and more to be practically unworkable. I imagine given our current trajectory we will hit a wall of disaster sooner or later. When monarchy failed we tried democracy. When democracy fails maybe we’ll try leaving each other alone
Although my money says the human race being what it is we will give monarchy another spin.
A ripping narrative with plenty of juicy tidbits, but the most interesting thing to me was Cato's wall of notables. Interesting how many of the 18th and 19th century figures (as a non-libertarian but also non-hater) I would put clearly on the side of the angels. A lot of these figures are enormously politically successful and popular too in a way that just isn't true of the folks later down the list. I'm sure some of this is Cato trying to appropriate figures who are less than ideologically pure, but in general the list strikes me as authentically liberal/libertarian.
There was definitely something in the air at the time, the 18th century especially, which let radical proto-liberalism/libertarianism make huge progress. At least partially I think this is a function of less publicly accountable and participatory (albeit smaller) states. Harder to be a populist libertarian now (in the welfare state) than then (the Ancien Regime). For instance, I would say a lot of the popularity of Tom Paine in his day came from how he appealed to the desire for political power among the mass of the people more than his principled critique of state power. He also drifts a bit more statist with age, as in Agrarian Justice. Paine is maybe a bit "paleo" in that way. It is what allows EP Thompson to plausibly claim Tom Paine as a Marxist antecedent. (Though EP also claims William Blake, so how much can we trust him?)
The expansion of political participation since the 18th century seems really crucial. The claim that "[the volk are] not the type of people who actually make decisions that affect the political world—that’s what the elites do" is only kind of correct. The big mass does actually have a lot of power but I think it is often exercised as a kind of veto. When it is coordinated for a substantial period (e.g. the New Deal order) it is obviously not ideologically principled.
In general I imagine that the participatory state saps some of the power out of all big ideological pushes. The ancient and 17th century philosophers who worried about the crowd and moblike democracy leading to huge destructive swings might have simply been wrong, and it seems possible the opposite is true. Not sure that elite political tinkering can solve that.
To answer your question 7000 words is a bit long for a chunk of libertarian history, but fwiw I enjoyed it. I think you did hit on one of the key conundrums of libertarianism. Libertarianisms call to be left alone is appealing to almost everyone, but not as appealing as the alluring offer of the existing order’s promise that you can screw with your neighbors, and it’s totally moral because DEMOCRACY.
I find this preference for power over peace bewildering as it’s both immoral and proving more and more to be practically unworkable. I imagine given our current trajectory we will hit a wall of disaster sooner or later. When monarchy failed we tried democracy. When democracy fails maybe we’ll try leaving each other alone
Although my money says the human race being what it is we will give monarchy another spin.
A ripping narrative with plenty of juicy tidbits, but the most interesting thing to me was Cato's wall of notables. Interesting how many of the 18th and 19th century figures (as a non-libertarian but also non-hater) I would put clearly on the side of the angels. A lot of these figures are enormously politically successful and popular too in a way that just isn't true of the folks later down the list. I'm sure some of this is Cato trying to appropriate figures who are less than ideologically pure, but in general the list strikes me as authentically liberal/libertarian.
There was definitely something in the air at the time, the 18th century especially, which let radical proto-liberalism/libertarianism make huge progress. At least partially I think this is a function of less publicly accountable and participatory (albeit smaller) states. Harder to be a populist libertarian now (in the welfare state) than then (the Ancien Regime). For instance, I would say a lot of the popularity of Tom Paine in his day came from how he appealed to the desire for political power among the mass of the people more than his principled critique of state power. He also drifts a bit more statist with age, as in Agrarian Justice. Paine is maybe a bit "paleo" in that way. It is what allows EP Thompson to plausibly claim Tom Paine as a Marxist antecedent. (Though EP also claims William Blake, so how much can we trust him?)
The expansion of political participation since the 18th century seems really crucial. The claim that "[the volk are] not the type of people who actually make decisions that affect the political world—that’s what the elites do" is only kind of correct. The big mass does actually have a lot of power but I think it is often exercised as a kind of veto. When it is coordinated for a substantial period (e.g. the New Deal order) it is obviously not ideologically principled.
In general I imagine that the participatory state saps some of the power out of all big ideological pushes. The ancient and 17th century philosophers who worried about the crowd and moblike democracy leading to huge destructive swings might have simply been wrong, and it seems possible the opposite is true. Not sure that elite political tinkering can solve that.
Now tell us how you went from volunteering for the Cato Institute to caring about Fish Sex.