WEBVTT NOTE Tea Parties, Occupiers, and Libertarian Class Analysis 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.240 For a long time, of course, American conservatism has had at least an implicit class conflict 2 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:13.000 as part of the narrative, this idea of taxpayers, patriots, traditional culture, businessmen 3 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:22.000 in many cases, consumers versus big government, in many cases foreigners, liberal culture, 4 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.840 Hollywood and so forth. 5 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:30.060 With the Tea Parties, we've seen this class analysis made more explicit, especially in 6 00:00:30.060 --> 00:00:34.560 this very important work by Angela Cotavia. It was first this article in the American 7 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:39.700 Spectator on the ruling class versus the country class and it was made into a book. I recommend 8 00:00:39.700 --> 00:00:43.760 everyone read the book. There's a lot of important insight in there and it's very 9 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:49.100 interesting and it's about, you know, it's kind of a conservative with many libertarian 10 00:00:49.100 --> 00:00:55.800 leanings view of what's going on about how there's the country class, the common Americans, 11 00:00:55.800 --> 00:01:25.800 in the Middle America in many cases would be the cultural geographic proxy versus the ruling class represented most by Democrats but also by Republican politicians and of course big government is seen as the enemy although there are interesting exceptions made at least implicitly concerning say the military which becomes relevant. Meanwhile in our society the left has also had something of an implicit class analysis. They see it as 12 00:01:55.800 --> 00:02:06.800 is clearly about class conflict. It raises questions. Who are the 99%? Who are the 1%? 13 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:14.800 It can't be purely in terms of wealth because here we see these police are messing with these occupiers 14 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:17.800 and the police probably aren't in the top 1% in terms of wealth. 15 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:25.120 and it can't be purely in terms of wealth because so many fans of Occupy and so many 16 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:33.840 people that most occupiers probably see as comrades are in the top 1% economically themselves. 17 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:41.640 There's a group, the top 1% for the 99%, which underscores this interesting paradox. 18 00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:47.000 And then of course, what about this guy? I mean, he says he's all for the 99% movement, 19 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:52.720 at least now he does, and a good number of occupiers though, not all of them, maybe not 20 00:02:52.720 --> 00:02:57.280 even most of them, but a good number of them, not only kind of like him, but some of them 21 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:03.560 probably think that much of what their activism is about is defending elements of his agenda 22 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:09.000 against conservatives out of power. I mean this guy, not only is he the head of state, 23 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:13.960 which puts him I would think in the top 1% in some sense, but he's not a particularly 24 00:03:13.960 --> 00:03:20.120 the egalitarian one either in terms of who his big supporters are. 25 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:22.600 We see these contradictions in the Occupy movement. 26 00:03:22.600 --> 00:03:27.600 There was an informal poll in October which underscored this a little where about half 27 00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:29.480 of the occupiers polled. 28 00:03:29.480 --> 00:03:34.760 It's a small poll, it's not scientific, but about half of them said they'd reelect Obama. 29 00:03:34.760 --> 00:03:39.840 Surely three-fourths of them supported tax increases and things like that which are governmental 30 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:44.480 but which they could say is still consistent with their idea of class analysis, but on 31 00:03:44.480 --> 00:03:49.140 the other hand almost half of them thought that bailouts were necessary, which is kind 32 00:03:49.140 --> 00:03:51.200 of an interesting point. 33 00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:58.820 Not to be outdone, the Tea Party types are not devoid of contradictions themselves. 34 00:03:58.820 --> 00:04:03.320 One poll that was more extensive I should say than the last poll found 70% of them were 35 00:04:03.320 --> 00:04:07.240 opposed to cuts in Medicare or Social Security to balance the budget. 36 00:04:07.240 --> 00:04:12.360 These are the largest elements of the entitlement state, the largest elements of the state, 37 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:17.040 the federal government, other than the military, which they're not really that much into cutting 38 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:18.320 either. 39 00:04:18.320 --> 00:04:23.000 In many of these states, though I don't want to get into too many specifics, many of these 40 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:28.600 state elections, tea party types, are less likely to support Ron Paul than people who 41 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:31.120 hate the tea parties. 42 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:36.640 A couple of polls over a period of a year said that they like guys like Newt Gingrich. 43 00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:45.040 It's hard to get more establishment than that. 57% like George W. Bush. I don't think even 44 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:51.360 George W. Bush likes George W. Bush at this point. And they tend to favor war. Coda Via 45 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:56.520 argues that the country class likes the military, but they think we can't have these endless 46 00:04:56.520 --> 00:05:01.000 wars and nation building. I think that's just wishful thinking, because the polls still 47 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:14.000 They'll show that self-described Tea Party types are more against cutting and running than, say, the Obama voters, because you can't just go into Afghanistan and leave a mere 11 years later, that would be irresponsible. 48 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:22.000 Now, of course, there's some overlap, which is interesting, because these groups don't tend to like each other, even though I stole this, too, I don't believe in IP. 49 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:31.000 They overlap in theoretically resenting the bailouts, even if they disagree on what to do about it. 50 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:40.000 This guy, David Graeber, was one of the key planners early on in Occupy Wall Street. 51 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:45.000 And though I don't agree with his economics, to his credit, he at least doesn't like the state. 52 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:51.000 He doesn't think the answer is more government demanding national health care, stuff like that even. 53 00:05:51.000 --> 00:06:00.000 He argues that the history of inequality and social oppression couldn't have existed if it weren't for the state, armies, prisons and police. 54 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.000 And interestingly, Cotavia makes the same point more or less. 55 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:09.000 In his book, whatever else government may be, it is inherently a factory of privilege and inequality. 56 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:14.000 And yet these two people on the two opposite sides of the spectrum are seen as opposites. 57 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:26.000 and even though one of them, one side says they claim to stand for 99%, the others say they claim to stand for the great majority, well if everyone hates the system then why do we still have it, you know? 58 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Well, I agree with the occupiers and many of the Tea Party is in fact that the corporate state is real, that the average American is in many cases being shafted for big businesses and league with the state. 59 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:46.520 This is certainly true with finance and certainly the military industrial complex as Rothbard's 60 00:06:46.520 --> 00:06:55.360 great book with a new introduction by Anthony Gregory, which I recommend you all read, as 61 00:06:55.360 --> 00:07:02.280 he has demonstrated better than almost any new leftist. 62 00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:06.840 And I think part of the confusion comes in the fact that the class analysis is there 63 00:07:06.840 --> 00:07:13.840 on Left and Right, but they get it wrong. Marx was right that ideas shape institutions, 64 00:07:14.600 --> 00:07:20.720 that oppression, however defined, requires some sort of ideological superstructure, and 65 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:27.720 he was right that all history involves class struggles, and at its best he identified the 66 00:07:28.640 --> 00:07:34.080 state itself as the oppressor. He had some great things to say about the state, but then 67 00:07:34.080 --> 00:07:38.440 On the other hand, he thought the state was simply the tool of the capitalists. I think 68 00:07:38.440 --> 00:07:44.100 he wasn't always consistent. At one point he says, no credit is due to me, which I just 69 00:07:44.100 --> 00:07:48.840 love taking out of context, but there's a context. He's saying no credit is due to me 70 00:07:48.840 --> 00:07:55.280 for the basics of class theory. He says it goes back to bourgeois economists and scholars. 71 00:07:55.280 --> 00:08:02.280 In fact, in the classical liberal tradition, we have a class analysis. Say, Jean-Baptiste 72 00:08:02.280 --> 00:08:08.920 He's Say, who loved commerce, nevertheless thought nothing was worse than merchants using 73 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:14.920 the state to gain privilege at the expense of the little guy. 74 00:08:14.920 --> 00:08:19.820 One of his followers, Blanqui, as Ralph Reiko mentions in his very important work on class 75 00:08:19.820 --> 00:08:25.040 analysis, Reiko calls this probably the first economic history, or the first history of 76 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:32.240 economic thought rather, that there's always been class conflict, and this is 1837. 77 00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:38.320 And of course in England, the Manchester School, Cobden and Bright, one of the three or four 78 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:44.560 victories of liberalism in the last millennium when we got something repealed that was important. 79 00:08:44.560 --> 00:08:52.440 John Bright termed this in terms of classes, war of classes was the Corn Law struggle. 80 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:57.640 Classical liberals from Bastiat who saw the state as creating a plundering class and victims 81 00:08:57.640 --> 00:09:02.840 of Plunder, John Calhoun who saw things in terms of tax eaters and taxpayers, William 82 00:09:02.840 --> 00:09:09.440 Leggett the American poet who in the 1830s not only identified something akin to class 83 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:15.160 struggle but said if you doubt we have classes in America and he was a classical liberal 84 00:09:15.160 --> 00:09:19.980 his view was we need a separation of economics and state, he said if you deny we have classes 85 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:26.360 like they do in feudalism just go to Wall Street, he said 180 years ago. And this goes 86 00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:32.120 It goes back to the fact that, you know, long ago liberalism was against the state, which 87 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:37.360 as Rothbard identified in the 60s, was something that we could call conservative. 88 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:44.160 And over time the class struggle or class analysis became kind of like screwed up and 89 00:09:44.160 --> 00:09:50.280 turned into progressivism in some countries and even worse, communism, state communism 90 00:09:50.280 --> 00:09:52.440 and others, nothing worse than that. 91 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:56.940 The corruption of Western liberalism I think dovetails with the corruption of class analysis, 92 00:09:56.940 --> 00:10:03.800 the confusion of the state as the tool of economic oppression and maybe we can capture 93 00:10:03.800 --> 00:10:09.040 the state and use it against the plutocracy, which is the stupidest idea ever. 94 00:10:09.040 --> 00:10:16.600 And then in rebellion against this kind of warped liberalism we had American conservatism 95 00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:21.040 which explains their class analysis which is kind of like a mirror image and it's also 96 00:10:21.040 --> 00:10:27.040 The relevance of this isn't exactly clear to me, but I like this picture because it's 97 00:10:27.040 --> 00:10:33.760 just very, it's very, I mean it's real, this is how they did it before Hitler in America. 98 00:10:33.760 --> 00:10:39.920 Of course Rothbard is the anatomy of the state, he gets it right like usual, you all know 99 00:10:39.920 --> 00:10:46.840 that. But Hoppe, and Hoppe, speaking of taking things out of context, Hoppe says Marx is 100 00:10:46.840 --> 00:11:04.480 Marx's argument about the state as the tool of the economic privileged elite to steal 101 00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:09.220 from the rest of us, including workers and so forth, is legitimate. It's just that his 102 00:11:09.220 --> 00:11:16.160 whole concept of production and profit is so messed up because the labor theory of value 103 00:11:16.160 --> 00:11:21.840 He doesn't understand time preference, so Hoppe identifies confusion in economics being the 104 00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:28.200 core confusion with Marxism. So we could say, of course, the real answer for the Tea Parties 105 00:11:28.200 --> 00:11:34.720 and the occupiers is just to focus on what's good, the market defend that against the state, 106 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:40.240 but class analysis of our own kind, I think, needs some refining or at least we need to 107 00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:46.800 We keep talking about it because I think that there are kind of problems raised or some 108 00:11:46.800 --> 00:11:52.320 things to consider. One, this might seem like I'm straw manning, but I think it raises 109 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:58.000 an issue that simple enough at first, but it brings up other issues. I mean, who's 110 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:03.080 the ruling class? I guess there's a distinction to be made between the ruling class who actually 111 00:12:03.080 --> 00:12:06.900 makes decisions and controls everything and then the parasitic class, which is more implied 112 00:12:06.900 --> 00:12:15.660 by Calhoun's idea of tax eaters. But some people have argued that those on welfare are 113 00:12:15.660 --> 00:12:20.820 somehow the enemy because they're net tax consumers. Well, I don't think this is the 114 00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:27.600 best way to determine who's good and who's bad. Bill Kristol, I'm sure, is a net taxpayer. 115 00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:33.820 He makes his money in the private sector calling for mass murder. That's his job. He writes 116 00:12:33.820 --> 00:12:48.820 and he writes articles saying, let's go murder more people and so he doesn't commit aggression making his money but I think he's more part of the ruling class, at least more of a bad guy 117 00:12:48.820 --> 00:13:01.820 and then the one confusion comes in seeing the middle class, it's very tempting to see it as the middle class are the victims, the super rich, we don't like them anyway because they got, even us libertarians want more money and they got all the money 118 00:13:01.820 --> 00:13:05.860 they're probably stealing from us, the poor people, well they're not working 119 00:13:05.860 --> 00:13:09.560 but the middle class, we're the victims except 120 00:13:09.560 --> 00:13:13.180 as this Tea Party slogan, keep government out of my Medicare 121 00:13:13.180 --> 00:13:17.820 underscores, not really, I mean so much of the entitlement state is at least 122 00:13:17.820 --> 00:13:22.480 pays toward the middle class, Medicare, Social Security, 123 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:26.580 public education, unemployment insurance, most of welfare 124 00:13:26.580 --> 00:13:30.900 perhaps goes to the middle class. Now there's this really crazy 125 00:13:30.900 --> 00:13:41.300 Scholar, this Walter Black, or Walter Block I think, who's come up, he's come up in his 126 00:13:41.300 --> 00:13:46.080 piece on punishment for a statism, the crime of statism, he talks about class analysis, 127 00:13:46.080 --> 00:13:51.340 and he makes a very controversial point that politicians and the Fed chief are bad guys, 128 00:13:51.340 --> 00:13:57.460 which thanks for that, but he also argues that private criminals are part of the ruling 129 00:13:57.460 --> 00:14:12.460 I don't think they're part of the ruling class. I think they're obviously predatory. If they're part of the ruling class, I think police certainly would be, because they commit aggression, almost as a matter of course enforcing unjust laws. 130 00:14:12.460 --> 00:14:42.460 And then there are other questions, are teachers part of the victim class, the ruling class, how much of what government officials whose jobs are not purely non-coercive, but somewhere in the middle, like what's going on, this left libertarian, Kevin Carson says that public teachers would basically be the same in a free market, but I have my doubts, maybe I'm more leftward on children, and then there's this Roderick Lange guy, 131 00:14:42.460 --> 00:14:56.460 He explains how, on economics, a lot of confusion comes from left to right, depending on who we blame most, the state or the plutocracy, 132 00:14:56.460 --> 00:15:02.460 and he comes up with five possibilities, and of course he doesn't even pick one of them, he picks one in the middle of two and three. 133 00:15:02.460 --> 00:15:08.460 I think that the very notion of deciding who would be better off or worse off in the free market 134 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:11.880 is kind of difficult to know because we don't know what the free market would look like. 135 00:15:11.880 --> 00:15:16.300 So it's not a rigorous point but it's almost like a calculation problem. Some people are 136 00:15:16.300 --> 00:15:24.020 obviously bad. These guys are probably bad. I don't like him. That guy is being a jerk. 137 00:15:24.020 --> 00:15:29.060 I think that we should go with what Lew Rockwell says, the enemy is always the state. And one 138 00:15:29.060 --> 00:15:33.300 important point is there's no proxy for liberty. The whole attempt at class analysis shouldn't 139 00:15:33.300 --> 00:15:38.620 be turned into like a class consciousness at the expense of looking at statism itself. 140 00:15:38.620 --> 00:15:44.220 So it's hard to know which groups are most likely to be libertarians. We just got to 141 00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:48.100 hate the government and hope for a free market where all interests will be harmonized. Thank 142 00:15:48.100 --> 00:15:48.500 you very much.