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Mises Economics Blog

Property, and all else follows from that

May 25, 2007 8:36 AM by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. (Archive)

Johnsson: Do you consider yourself a libertarian?

Rockwell: Most certainly. What are the choices? Conservative is obviously out, even though the media describe us this way. The term's heritage dates to the Tory party in Britain, the very mercantilist-landowners who resisted change in the Corn Laws. This group opposed capitalism as socially destabilizing. They didn't like the merchant class to making more money than the old families meaning that they didn't want to lose their privileges. In the US, the term conservative came about after World War II. It had no meaning, really, other than to refer to the general desire to be prudent in public affairs, in contrast to the revolutionary tendencies on the left. The problem is that it amounted to a defense of the status quo, and, after Buckley, it was irretrievably wrapped up with the Cold War cause.

FULL INTERVIEW

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Comments (3)

  • nick gray

    How about a new term altogether? Agorophilist means market-lover in Greek, which is what libertarians are.
    Or you could relabel Anarcho-Capitalism as something like Pan-Secessionism. Frankly, to an outsider, anarchocapitalist sounds like a capitalist who sells explosives to anarchists! The main goal of this blog seems more along the lines of absolute property rights- we can each be monarchs of our own estates! Pan-Secessionism has that in its' name. Each person should be free to secede from the surrounding society, and do what they want on their land. It's not just about trade, but privacy.

    Published: May 27, 2007 8:45 PM

  • Keith Preston

    Another good term is "Micro-Nationalism".

    Published: May 28, 2007 8:28 PM

  • nick gray

    For those who want smaller governments with smaller powers, I coin the word "Microcratism". Let's make government powers as small as possible, and let's make the size of political units small. Microcracies would be like Swiss Cantons, but weaker. Any takers?

    Published: May 31, 2007 7:58 PM

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