Accueil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_T._Long
https://www.wikiberal.org/wiki/Roderick_T._Long
http://www.panarchy.org/rodericklong/libertyequality.html
"This form of equality goes well beyond mere equality before the law. If the rulers of a state require that everyone worship Shiva, then in some sense they are treating all the citizens equally (assuming they also worship Shiva themselves); but they are nevertheless not respecting equality in authority, because they are arrogating to themselves, and denying to others, the authority to decide whether Shiva will be worshipped. Rather than merely requiring the equal application of the laws, equality in the libertarian sense places restrictions on the content of those laws as well, ruling out forcible subordination of any kind. This point of view is entirely consistent with the legitimate defensive use of force; such force restores equality in authority rather than violating it. But any initiatory use of force involves treating other people as though they were “made for one another’s uses,” and so is forbidden as an affront to human equality. Those who see only two forms that equality can take—substantive socioeconomic equality and formal equality before the law—have neglected the possibility of libertarian equality, which is substantive but not socioeconomic."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_T._Long
https://atlassociety.org/sites/default/files/Reason_Value.pdf
http://charleswjohnson.name/essays/libertarian-feminism/
"The ideal of a woman’s willing surrender to a benevolent male protector both feeds and is fed by the ideal of the citizenry’s willing surrender to a benevolent governmental protector."
"The marriage vow, as a rape license, has its parallel in the electoral ballot, as a tyranny license."
"Many libertarians — libertarian feminists definitely included — seems surprisingly unsympathetic to most of what feminists have to say. (And vice versa, of course, but the vice versa is not our present topic.)."
"When radical feminists say that male supremacy rests in large part on the fact of rape—as when Susan Brownmiller characterizes rape as “a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” (Against Our Will, p. 15)—libertarians often dismiss this on the grounds that not all men are literal rapists and not all women are literally raped. But when their own Ludwig von Mises says that “government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action,” that it rests “in the last resort” on “the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen,” and that its “essential feature” is “the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning” [HA VI.27.2], libertarians applaud this as a welcome demystification of the state. Libertarians rightly recognize that legally enacted violence is the means by which all rulers keep all citizens in a state of fear, even though not all government functionaries personally beat, kill, or imprison anybody, and even though not all citizens are beaten, killed, or imprisoned; the same interpretive charity towards the radical feminist analysis of rape is not too much to ask."
"If no social evil can arise or be sustained except by the state, how does the state arise, and how is it sustained? As libertarians from La Boétie to Rothbard have rightly insisted, since rulers are generally outnumbered by those they rule, the state itself cannot survive except through popular acceptance which the state lacks the power to compel; hence state power is always part of an interlocking system of mutually reinforcing social practices and structures, not all of which are violations of the nonaggression axiom. There is nothing un-libertarian, then, in recognizing the existence of economic and/or cultural forms of oppression which, while they may draw sustenance from the state (and vice versa), are not reducible to state power. One can see statism and patriarchy as mutually reinforcing systems (thus ruling out both the option of fighting statism while leaving patriarchy intact, and the option of fighting patriarchy by means of statism) without being thereby committed to seeing either as a mere epiphenomenon of the other (thus ruling out the option of fighting patriarchy solely indirectly by fighting statism)."
"While the 19th-century libertarians’ social holism and attention to broader context have been shared by many 20th-century libertarians as well, 19th-century libertarians were far more likely than their 20th-century counterparts to recognize the subordination of women as a component in the constellation of interlocking structures maintaining and maintained by statism.13 Dunoyer and Spencer, for example, saw patriarchy as the original form of class oppression, the model for and origin of all subsequent forms of class rule.14 For Dunoyer, primitive patriarchy constituted a system in which a parasitic governmental élite, the men, made their living primarily by taxing, regulating, and conscripting a productive and industrious laboring class, the women."
"Anticipating contemporary feminist critiques of “chivalry,” Yarros responded:
Not denying that such “tyranny” exists, I assert that Mr. Bax entirely misunderstands its real nature. Man’s condescension he mistakes for submission; marks of woman’s degradation and slavery his obliquity of vision transforms into properties of sovereignty. Tchernychewsky takes the correct view upon this matter when he makes Vera Pavlovna say; “Men should not kiss women’s hands, since that ought to be offensive to women, for it means that men do not consider them as human beings like themselves, but believe that they can in no way lower their dignity before a woman, so inferior to them is she, and that no marks of affected respect for her can lessen their superiority.” What to Mr. Bax appears to be servility on the part of men is really but insult added to injury."
"Since this parting of ways, feminists have developed increasingly sophisticated analyses and demystifications of patriarchy, but their understanding of statism has grown correspondingly blurred; libertarians have developed increasingly sophisticated analyses and demystifications of statism, but their understanding of patriarchy has grown correspondingly blurred. A 19th-century libertarian feminist, if resurrected today, might thus have much to learn from today’s libertarians about how statism works, and from today’s feminists about how patriarchy works; but she or he would doubtless also see present-day feminists as, all too often, extraordinarily insensitive to the pervasive and inherently destructive effects of state hegemony per se, and present-day libertarians as, all too often, extraordinarily insensitive to the pervasive and inherently destructive effects of male hegemony per se."
"Libertarian feminist Joan Kennedy Taylor has written extensively on the need for a more libertarian feminism and a more feminist libertarianism. While her work has been admirable in highlighting the importance of synthesizing libertarian insights with feminist insights, and in her willingness to call fellow libertarians to task when it is needed, we worry that her attempt at a synthesis often recapitulates antifeminist themes, and hobbles her feminist program in the process.
Many of the most frustrating elements of Taylor’s attempt at libertarian feminism are connected with what you might call her dialectical strategy: throughout Taylor’s work she attempts to position herself, and her libertarian feminism, mainly by means of opposition—by her insistent efforts to ally it with “mainstream”, “liberal” feminism and thus to distance it from “extreme”, “radical” feminism. The positioning strategy—which we might call “Radical Menace” politics—comes uncomfortably close to classical anti-feminist divide-and-conquer politics, in which the feminist world is divided into the “reasonable” (that is, unthreatening) feminists and the feminists who are “hysterical” or “man-hating” (so, presumably, not worthy of rational response). In antifeminist hands the strategy comes uncomfortably close to a barely-intellectualized repetition of old antifeminist standbys such as the “hairy-legged man-hater” or the “hysterical lesbian.” Unfortunately, feminists aiming in good faith at the success of the movement have also responded to radical-baiting by falling into the trap of defining themselves primarily by opposition to the “extreme” positions of other feminists."
"Now it is certainly true that no libertarian feminist can consistently advocate the use of political force to combat forms of discrimination that don’t involve the use of violence. But how should we classify a feminist who seeks to alter not only political institutions but also pervasive private forms of discrimination — but combats the latter through non-violent means only ? What sort of feminist would she be? Suppose, moreover, that libertarian social theory tells us, as it arguably does, that governmental injustice is likely to reflect and draw sustenance from the prevailing economic and cultural conditions. Won’t it follow that libertarianism does have something to say, qua libertarian political theory, about those conditions ?
McElroy is certainly not blind to the existence of pervasive but non-governmental discrimination against women; she writes that “our culture heavily influences sex-based behavior” and “even so intimate a matter as how we view ourselves as individuals.”
Many of the societal cues aimed at women carry messages that, if taken to heart, naturally produce feelings of intellectual insecurity and inadequacy. The list is long. Women should not compete with men. Women become irrational when menstruating. Women do not argue fairly. Women — not men — must balance career and family. A wife should relocate to accommodate her husband’s job transfer. A clean house is the woman’s responsibility: a ‘good living’ is the man’s. A wife who earns more than her husband is looking for trouble. Women are bad at math. Girls take home economics while boys take car repair. If a man sexually strays, it’s because his wife is no longer savvy enough to keep him satisfied. Women gossip; men discuss. … Whenever they stand up for themselves, women risk being labeled everything from “cute” to “a bitch.” … Almost every woman I know feels some degree of intellectual inadequacy.
So isn’t this sort of thing a problem that feminists need to combat ? McElroy’s answer is puzzling here. She writes: “Although discrimination may always occur on an individual level, it is only through the political means that such discrimination can be institutionalized and maintained by force.” (p. 23) This statement can be read as saying that sexual discrimination becomes a systematic problem, rather than an occasional nuisance, only as a result of state action. Yet she does not, strictly speaking, say that only through state action can discrimination be institutionalized (though the phrase “on an individual level” certainly invites that interpretation). What she says is that only through the political means can discrimination be institutionalized by force. Since, on the authoritarian theory that McElroy employs, the “political means” just is force, the statement is a tautology. But it leaves unanswered the questions: (a) can discrimination be institutionalized and maintained by means other than force? and (b) can discrimination be institutionalized and maintained by force but not by the state? Systematic non-governmental male violence would be an instance of institutionalizing patriarchy through means that are political, in McElroy’s sense, but not governmental; various non-violent forms of social pressure would be a means of institutionalizing patriarchy through non-political means. McElroy is right to say that, for libertarians, discrimination that does not violate rights cannot be a “political” issue (in her sense of “political”); but it does not follow that feminism must be no more than “a response to the legal discrimination women have suffered from the state.”."
"McElroy’s definitions seem to leave no room for any version of feminism that agrees that women are oppressed by men not only through the state but through non-political means, but is also pro-market."
"McElroy distinguishes between “liberal feminist” and “gender feminist” responses to the problem. According to McElroy, liberal feminists favour “a sociocultural approach that examines the reasons why aggression against women is tolerated by our society,” as well as “a psychological approach that examines the emotional reasons why men are abusive and why women accept it.” Gender feminists, by contrast, are said to take “an entirely political view” in favouring “a class analysis approach, by which men are said to beat women to retain their place in the patriarchal power structure” [Sexual Correctness, p. 110]. But this false dichotomy is puzzling; surely those who favour the “political” approach are not offering it as an alternative to “psychological” and “sociocultural” approaches. Does McElroy assume that any political problem must have a governmental solution ?"
"Now the distinction between literal compulsion and other forms of external pressure is absolutely central to libertarianism, and so a libertarian feminist, to be a libertarian, must arguably resist the literal effacing of these differences. But it does not follow that libertarian feminists need to deny the broader radical feminist points that (a) patriarchal power structures, even when not coercive in the strict libertarian sense, are relevantly and disturbingly like literal coercion in certain ways, or that (b) the influence of such patriarchal power structures partly rests on and partly bolsters literally violent expressions of male dominance. Libertarians have never had any problem saying these things about statist ideology; such ideology, libertarians often complain, is socially pervasive and difficult to resist, it both serves to legitimate state coercion and receives patronage from state coercion, and it functions to render the state’s exploitative nature invisible and its critics inaudible. In saying these things, libertarians do not efface the distinction between coercion and ideological advocacy; hence no libertarian favors the compulsory suppression of statist ideology.
Why not follow the 19th-century libertarians, who neither denied the existence and importance of private discrimination, nor assimilated it to legal compulsion ? There is nothing inconsistent or un-libertarian in holding that women’s choices under patriarchal social structures can be sufficiently “voluntary,” in the libertarian sense, to be entitled to immunity from coercive legislative interference, while at the same time being sufficiently “involuntary,” in a broader sense, to be recognized as morally problematic and as a legitimate target of social activism. Inferring broad voluntariness from strict voluntariness, as many libertarians seem tempted to do, is no obvious improvement over inferring strict involuntariness from broad involuntariness, as many feminists seem tempted to do; and libertarians are ill-placed to accuse feminists of blurring distinctions if they themselves are blurring the same distinctions, albeit in the opposite direction."
https://www.wikiberal.org/wiki/Roderick_T._Long
http://www.panarchy.org/rodericklong/libertyequality.html
"This form of equality goes well beyond mere equality before the law. If the rulers of a state require that everyone worship Shiva, then in some sense they are treating all the citizens equally (assuming they also worship Shiva themselves); but they are nevertheless not respecting equality in authority, because they are arrogating to themselves, and denying to others, the authority to decide whether Shiva will be worshipped. Rather than merely requiring the equal application of the laws, equality in the libertarian sense places restrictions on the content of those laws as well, ruling out forcible subordination of any kind. This point of view is entirely consistent with the legitimate defensive use of force; such force restores equality in authority rather than violating it. But any initiatory use of force involves treating other people as though they were “made for one another’s uses,” and so is forbidden as an affront to human equality. Those who see only two forms that equality can take—substantive socioeconomic equality and formal equality before the law—have neglected the possibility of libertarian equality, which is substantive but not socioeconomic."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_T._Long
https://atlassociety.org/sites/default/files/Reason_Value.pdf
http://charleswjohnson.name/essays/libertarian-feminism/
"The ideal of a woman’s willing surrender to a benevolent male protector both feeds and is fed by the ideal of the citizenry’s willing surrender to a benevolent governmental protector."
"The marriage vow, as a rape license, has its parallel in the electoral ballot, as a tyranny license."
"Many libertarians — libertarian feminists definitely included — seems surprisingly unsympathetic to most of what feminists have to say. (And vice versa, of course, but the vice versa is not our present topic.)."
"When radical feminists say that male supremacy rests in large part on the fact of rape—as when Susan Brownmiller characterizes rape as “a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” (Against Our Will, p. 15)—libertarians often dismiss this on the grounds that not all men are literal rapists and not all women are literally raped. But when their own Ludwig von Mises says that “government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action,” that it rests “in the last resort” on “the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen,” and that its “essential feature” is “the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning” [HA VI.27.2], libertarians applaud this as a welcome demystification of the state. Libertarians rightly recognize that legally enacted violence is the means by which all rulers keep all citizens in a state of fear, even though not all government functionaries personally beat, kill, or imprison anybody, and even though not all citizens are beaten, killed, or imprisoned; the same interpretive charity towards the radical feminist analysis of rape is not too much to ask."
"If no social evil can arise or be sustained except by the state, how does the state arise, and how is it sustained? As libertarians from La Boétie to Rothbard have rightly insisted, since rulers are generally outnumbered by those they rule, the state itself cannot survive except through popular acceptance which the state lacks the power to compel; hence state power is always part of an interlocking system of mutually reinforcing social practices and structures, not all of which are violations of the nonaggression axiom. There is nothing un-libertarian, then, in recognizing the existence of economic and/or cultural forms of oppression which, while they may draw sustenance from the state (and vice versa), are not reducible to state power. One can see statism and patriarchy as mutually reinforcing systems (thus ruling out both the option of fighting statism while leaving patriarchy intact, and the option of fighting patriarchy by means of statism) without being thereby committed to seeing either as a mere epiphenomenon of the other (thus ruling out the option of fighting patriarchy solely indirectly by fighting statism)."
"While the 19th-century libertarians’ social holism and attention to broader context have been shared by many 20th-century libertarians as well, 19th-century libertarians were far more likely than their 20th-century counterparts to recognize the subordination of women as a component in the constellation of interlocking structures maintaining and maintained by statism.13 Dunoyer and Spencer, for example, saw patriarchy as the original form of class oppression, the model for and origin of all subsequent forms of class rule.14 For Dunoyer, primitive patriarchy constituted a system in which a parasitic governmental élite, the men, made their living primarily by taxing, regulating, and conscripting a productive and industrious laboring class, the women."
"Anticipating contemporary feminist critiques of “chivalry,” Yarros responded:
Not denying that such “tyranny” exists, I assert that Mr. Bax entirely misunderstands its real nature. Man’s condescension he mistakes for submission; marks of woman’s degradation and slavery his obliquity of vision transforms into properties of sovereignty. Tchernychewsky takes the correct view upon this matter when he makes Vera Pavlovna say; “Men should not kiss women’s hands, since that ought to be offensive to women, for it means that men do not consider them as human beings like themselves, but believe that they can in no way lower their dignity before a woman, so inferior to them is she, and that no marks of affected respect for her can lessen their superiority.” What to Mr. Bax appears to be servility on the part of men is really but insult added to injury."
"Since this parting of ways, feminists have developed increasingly sophisticated analyses and demystifications of patriarchy, but their understanding of statism has grown correspondingly blurred; libertarians have developed increasingly sophisticated analyses and demystifications of statism, but their understanding of patriarchy has grown correspondingly blurred. A 19th-century libertarian feminist, if resurrected today, might thus have much to learn from today’s libertarians about how statism works, and from today’s feminists about how patriarchy works; but she or he would doubtless also see present-day feminists as, all too often, extraordinarily insensitive to the pervasive and inherently destructive effects of state hegemony per se, and present-day libertarians as, all too often, extraordinarily insensitive to the pervasive and inherently destructive effects of male hegemony per se."
"Libertarian feminist Joan Kennedy Taylor has written extensively on the need for a more libertarian feminism and a more feminist libertarianism. While her work has been admirable in highlighting the importance of synthesizing libertarian insights with feminist insights, and in her willingness to call fellow libertarians to task when it is needed, we worry that her attempt at a synthesis often recapitulates antifeminist themes, and hobbles her feminist program in the process.
Many of the most frustrating elements of Taylor’s attempt at libertarian feminism are connected with what you might call her dialectical strategy: throughout Taylor’s work she attempts to position herself, and her libertarian feminism, mainly by means of opposition—by her insistent efforts to ally it with “mainstream”, “liberal” feminism and thus to distance it from “extreme”, “radical” feminism. The positioning strategy—which we might call “Radical Menace” politics—comes uncomfortably close to classical anti-feminist divide-and-conquer politics, in which the feminist world is divided into the “reasonable” (that is, unthreatening) feminists and the feminists who are “hysterical” or “man-hating” (so, presumably, not worthy of rational response). In antifeminist hands the strategy comes uncomfortably close to a barely-intellectualized repetition of old antifeminist standbys such as the “hairy-legged man-hater” or the “hysterical lesbian.” Unfortunately, feminists aiming in good faith at the success of the movement have also responded to radical-baiting by falling into the trap of defining themselves primarily by opposition to the “extreme” positions of other feminists."
"Now it is certainly true that no libertarian feminist can consistently advocate the use of political force to combat forms of discrimination that don’t involve the use of violence. But how should we classify a feminist who seeks to alter not only political institutions but also pervasive private forms of discrimination — but combats the latter through non-violent means only ? What sort of feminist would she be? Suppose, moreover, that libertarian social theory tells us, as it arguably does, that governmental injustice is likely to reflect and draw sustenance from the prevailing economic and cultural conditions. Won’t it follow that libertarianism does have something to say, qua libertarian political theory, about those conditions ?
McElroy is certainly not blind to the existence of pervasive but non-governmental discrimination against women; she writes that “our culture heavily influences sex-based behavior” and “even so intimate a matter as how we view ourselves as individuals.”
Many of the societal cues aimed at women carry messages that, if taken to heart, naturally produce feelings of intellectual insecurity and inadequacy. The list is long. Women should not compete with men. Women become irrational when menstruating. Women do not argue fairly. Women — not men — must balance career and family. A wife should relocate to accommodate her husband’s job transfer. A clean house is the woman’s responsibility: a ‘good living’ is the man’s. A wife who earns more than her husband is looking for trouble. Women are bad at math. Girls take home economics while boys take car repair. If a man sexually strays, it’s because his wife is no longer savvy enough to keep him satisfied. Women gossip; men discuss. … Whenever they stand up for themselves, women risk being labeled everything from “cute” to “a bitch.” … Almost every woman I know feels some degree of intellectual inadequacy.
So isn’t this sort of thing a problem that feminists need to combat ? McElroy’s answer is puzzling here. She writes: “Although discrimination may always occur on an individual level, it is only through the political means that such discrimination can be institutionalized and maintained by force.” (p. 23) This statement can be read as saying that sexual discrimination becomes a systematic problem, rather than an occasional nuisance, only as a result of state action. Yet she does not, strictly speaking, say that only through state action can discrimination be institutionalized (though the phrase “on an individual level” certainly invites that interpretation). What she says is that only through the political means can discrimination be institutionalized by force. Since, on the authoritarian theory that McElroy employs, the “political means” just is force, the statement is a tautology. But it leaves unanswered the questions: (a) can discrimination be institutionalized and maintained by means other than force? and (b) can discrimination be institutionalized and maintained by force but not by the state? Systematic non-governmental male violence would be an instance of institutionalizing patriarchy through means that are political, in McElroy’s sense, but not governmental; various non-violent forms of social pressure would be a means of institutionalizing patriarchy through non-political means. McElroy is right to say that, for libertarians, discrimination that does not violate rights cannot be a “political” issue (in her sense of “political”); but it does not follow that feminism must be no more than “a response to the legal discrimination women have suffered from the state.”."
"McElroy’s definitions seem to leave no room for any version of feminism that agrees that women are oppressed by men not only through the state but through non-political means, but is also pro-market."
"McElroy distinguishes between “liberal feminist” and “gender feminist” responses to the problem. According to McElroy, liberal feminists favour “a sociocultural approach that examines the reasons why aggression against women is tolerated by our society,” as well as “a psychological approach that examines the emotional reasons why men are abusive and why women accept it.” Gender feminists, by contrast, are said to take “an entirely political view” in favouring “a class analysis approach, by which men are said to beat women to retain their place in the patriarchal power structure” [Sexual Correctness, p. 110]. But this false dichotomy is puzzling; surely those who favour the “political” approach are not offering it as an alternative to “psychological” and “sociocultural” approaches. Does McElroy assume that any political problem must have a governmental solution ?"
"Now the distinction between literal compulsion and other forms of external pressure is absolutely central to libertarianism, and so a libertarian feminist, to be a libertarian, must arguably resist the literal effacing of these differences. But it does not follow that libertarian feminists need to deny the broader radical feminist points that (a) patriarchal power structures, even when not coercive in the strict libertarian sense, are relevantly and disturbingly like literal coercion in certain ways, or that (b) the influence of such patriarchal power structures partly rests on and partly bolsters literally violent expressions of male dominance. Libertarians have never had any problem saying these things about statist ideology; such ideology, libertarians often complain, is socially pervasive and difficult to resist, it both serves to legitimate state coercion and receives patronage from state coercion, and it functions to render the state’s exploitative nature invisible and its critics inaudible. In saying these things, libertarians do not efface the distinction between coercion and ideological advocacy; hence no libertarian favors the compulsory suppression of statist ideology.
Why not follow the 19th-century libertarians, who neither denied the existence and importance of private discrimination, nor assimilated it to legal compulsion ? There is nothing inconsistent or un-libertarian in holding that women’s choices under patriarchal social structures can be sufficiently “voluntary,” in the libertarian sense, to be entitled to immunity from coercive legislative interference, while at the same time being sufficiently “involuntary,” in a broader sense, to be recognized as morally problematic and as a legitimate target of social activism. Inferring broad voluntariness from strict voluntariness, as many libertarians seem tempted to do, is no obvious improvement over inferring strict involuntariness from broad involuntariness, as many feminists seem tempted to do; and libertarians are ill-placed to accuse feminists of blurring distinctions if they themselves are blurring the same distinctions, albeit in the opposite direction."
