Libertarian Leninism Part I

Learning from our Enemies

Something that Libertarians often fail to do is to learn from our enemies. It is unquestionable that many different ideologies have had much greater success in the 20th century than libertarianism or classical liberalism. No matter how repressive these ideologies may be, it’s worth studying their strategies for getting into power. Libertarians love to talk about ideas but when it comes to making a plan for their implementation well… let’s be honest guys: As a movement we suffer from a chronic passivity or in some cases an outright disinterest in victory. At some point we’re going to have to decide if we want to keep arguing about whether beekeeping violates the NAP for the rest of our lives or we want to actually win. Murray Rothbard, one of the founders of modern libertarian thought saw this problem even in his time and addressed it. Rothbard had a name for the unfortunate tendency a lot of us have to focus solely on spreading the good word: Educationism.

There’s nothing wrong with making arguments, in fact it’s an essential part of winning, but not all arguments are created equal, and not everyone is worth the argument. Our enemies understand this, as did Rothbard. He called on Libertarians to be “Ideological Entrepreneurs” in the vein of Vladimir Lenin, that is, political activists willing to mold their tactics to the situation at hand. Just as entrepreneurship is ultimately an art and not a science that can be learned by rote, so ideological tactics, the findings of the right path at the right time, is an entrepreneurial art at which some people will be better than others. Ludwig von Mises’ insight that timing is the essence of entrepreneurship, and that some people are more able at such timing and insight than others, applies to ideological as well as economic entrepreneurship.

For Lenin, political activities often fell into one of two opposite but equally dangerous extremes. On one side you have Adventurism, which is characterized by rash and immediate direct action, as well as complete refusal of established political channels. On the other hand we have Opportunism, a tendency towards halfway measures and compromise without a strong commitment to longer term goals. Rothbard saw that this was a  useful set of terms to define differences in political strategy in the Libertarian movement as well.

  Lenin’s strategic flexibility between these two extremes allowed him to weather the events  following the failed 1905 Revolution in Russia. While radical tactics were proper during the Revolution, the later years of revolutionary collapse and reaction were times for caution and retreat. Lenin then had to battle against the ultra-adventurism of Alexander Bogdanov and others…who called for a futile armed uprising. To quote Lenin himself on the necessary political strategy after 1905. “During the Revolution we learned to ‘speak french’, i.e to…raise the energy of the direct struggle of the masses and extend its scope. Now, in this time of stagnation, reaction and disintegration, we must learn to ‘speak German’, i.e. to work slowly until things revive, systematically, steadily…winning inch by inch”.

After  resisting the Bogdanov Adventurism that would most likely have destroyed the Bolshevik movement in its cradle, Lenin also avoided the pitfall of Opportunism in 1917 when the Bolsheviks were part of the big tent February Government which had deposed the Czar. Lenin’s Bolsheviks had gained a substantial amount of power by this point but they were still a minority in the centrist liberal dominated government, which was led by Alexander Kerensky. Before long, forces loyal to the conservative General Kornilov attempted to overthrow the February government and restore the monarchy.

This pivotal moment presented both danger and opportunity for the Bolsheviks. The Adventurist Bolsheviks were tempted to continue their previous tactics of all-out opposition to Kerensky’s Liberal regime and to stand aloof from the battle– but this would probably have meant victory for Kornilov and the probable end of the chances for revolution. In contrast the Opportunist Bolsheviks were tempted to fight unconditionally, but that unprincipled action might well have demoralized the Bolshevik militants, and undercut the larger strategic goal of a Bolshevik revolution.Lenin’s solution managed to avoid both fatal errors. He chose to to come to the aid of Kerensky against Kornilov’s forces, but not for free. Lenin demanded radical and painful concessions from Kerensky, which included arming the workers, bringing Bolshevik troops to the fore, and legalizing peasant takeovers of landed estates. From his weakened position, there was little Kerensky could do about this, and this led to the Bolsheviks  being accepted as the de facto leaders of the forces opposed to Kornilov, despite not being a majority. This kind of strategic thinking could serve libertarians well, not  in the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat but in the struggle for a free society.

But how can this kind of thinking be applied to the current situation of Libertarians in the United States? Right now the US has two major political parties which are increasingly polarized along an axis orthogonal to freedom, leftism vs conservatism. As I mentioned in my video on the political spectrum, it seems clear that of the two, the conservative faction, the Republicans are more aligned with the Libertarians on account of their vestigial association with the classical liberal ideology of the American Revolution.

There is an active clique of ideologically libertarian politicians who are members or former members of the Republican party among them Rand and Ron Paul, Thomas Massey and Justin Amash. However, when it comes to the Democrats one struggles to find an equivalent. Mike Gravel is probably the closest, with our foreign policy fellow traveler Tulsi Gabbard in second. But both of these politicians have become extremely peripheral and even maligned figures within the Democratic party, in contrast with Rand Paul for example, who despite openly acknowledging Rothbardian Anarcho-Capitalism as a great influence on his thought, and is still  generally accepted by Republicans.

This is not a perfect analogy, but if you had to compare the two situations, We’re the Bolshiviks, The Republicans are Kerensky, and the Democrats are with a few honorable exceptions, Kornilov. It’s not 1917, but this is how we should be thinking.

So, should Libertarians pursue a strategy of uncritically voting Republican and hoping for the best? Certainly not, anyone advocating that would be gravely guilty of what Rothbard borrowed Lenin’s terminology to describe as Opportunism. Too often we’ve seen Libertarians fall into the trap of becoming Republican because they want to be “taken seriously” by the enemy. When has the GOP winning an election *ever* resulted in a net decrease in government spending? How about a net decrease in the amount of federal laws on the books?

Essentially never. Even in the 1980s, the height of the Libertarian movement’s influence over the GOP, when Milton Friedman was an official advisor to Reagan, as soon as Reagan took power he almost instantly abandoned Libertarian ideals in all but rhetoric. His presidency failed abysmally by any reasonable metric at reducing the size and scope of government. Rothbard observed that despite his social democratic rhetoric, Jimmy Carter was probably slightly better than Reagan in terms of the overall policies he implemented, if only by accident. 

Despite its Libertarian adjacency, the right is inherently structured towards losing by way of many slow concessions. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, their intellectual posture has long been a pleading, self abasing whine of apology. Or to quote Michael Malice, conservatism is progressivism driving the speed limit.

Every election cycle the Republicans and their opportunist enablers tell us that this is the most important election of our lifetimes, and we can’t afford to let the Democrats win! At this point it’s becoming almost comical. Then on the other hand you have the adventurists: Libertarians who won’t vote for anyone with an R in their name, or even reject voting all together. This latter position is usually taken because of a moral position that by voting one is consenting to the state as it exists. I think  the problem with this argument can be demonstrated by a thought experiment. Suppose that you and your family were kidnapped by a lunatic who threatened your children and demanded you pick only one whose life he should spare. Obviously this is a terrible situation, but if you were to choose, this would certainly not mean that you consented to having any of them murdered, or that you were morally responsible for his action. So it is with the state. We didn’t consent to the state’s violence or its elections, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use them against it.

So its not immoral to use the system against itself, but is it practical? And if so, what’s the best way to do this? And what can we do outside of the system? Well, I have some ideas on these subjects that I’d like to share with you all, but this video would be pretty long if I got into all of that here. The main point I want to make right now is that politics is not a theoretical exercise, our actions have real implications for real people who are really suffering. So, if you really care about freedom, you should be willing to fight for it, and when you fight, the goal should be to win. That means having the discipline to use the most effective tactics available, which can be harder than it sounds.