Buckley Revealed
Today's featured article, "National Review and the Triumph of the New Right," was written in the early 1970s, when the Vietnam War and a Nixon White House had already convinced many libertarians that Buckleyite conservatism was as or more dangerous than the Establishment Left.
But 20 years earlier, many individualists embraced young William F. Buckley, Jr. as a future leader of the resistance and a fellow enemy of the State.
Twenty-six-year-old Murray Rothbard was one the very few able to congratulate himself "for treating the Buckley Boom on the intellectual Right with considerable skepticism."
Rather than "a welcome newcomer to the libertarian ranks," wrote Rothbard, "Buckley is really, in 1952 terms, a totalitarian socialist, and what is more, admits it." FULL ARTICLE
Comments (16)
8
How does libertarianism deal with what happened in the 1980's when the Soviet Union tried to blackmail the West Germans into meeting their economic demands? Reagan put nuclear weapons in West Germany and the Soviets collapsed a few years later. It was the turning point in the Cold War, but somehow I doubt Rothbard approved.
Published: November 29, 2007 3:17 PM
George Gaskell
Reagan put nuclear weapons in West Germany and the Soviets collapsed a few years later.
Must one assume that the former caused the latter?
Published: November 29, 2007 3:59 PM
Stranger
Putting nuclear weapons in Turkey certainly did not achieve anything.
Published: November 29, 2007 4:09 PM
Junker
Indeed. How was it ever possible that Rothbard didn't support the reigning world order of ignorance, theft, slavery, and murder?
Didn't he ever go to school?
Published: November 29, 2007 4:41 PM
Mrhuh
Let's not forget that the U.S. dolled out billions of dollars in foreign aid to the Soviet Union throughout much of its reign, thus allowing it to survive longer than it had. And let's also not forget the fact that WWII effectively handed much of Eastern Europe over to the Soviets as well.
Published: November 29, 2007 10:52 PM
Brent
Well, in the spirit of the "8", I would like to point out that the U.S. Government subsidized the Soviet Union so it didn't fall apart and cause chaos... lol... at the same time as the U.S. Government was supposed to be doing its best to undermine it - because we wanted it to fail... but not really because it was important the Soviet government stayed strong... even though it had to be destroyed... which would be bad because...
Published: November 29, 2007 11:19 PM
Anthony
...because it is impossible to have a Manichean world view without some evil enemy to wage crusades against.
Published: November 29, 2007 11:21 PM
8
The Soviets wanted to use the German economy to extend the life of the Soviet state. Had the U.S. ignored the situation, the Soviets would have likely expanded their plan into all of Western Europe.
I don't understand how one can advocate non-intervention as a foreign policy and then sit back as other nations use military force to control other states.
Published: November 30, 2007 7:46 AM
8
Must one assume that the former caused the latter?
According to the Soviets, yes, it did. They needed the economic efficiency of West Germany. Then Reagan undertook a massive military build-up. It was a one-two combination punch that ended the Soviet Union.
Published: November 30, 2007 7:50 AM
Vedran Vuk
If one truly understand Communism, then one knows no bullets or missiles were needed to stop the Soviet Union. Further, no assistance from West Germany was going to stop the downfall. It was destined for failure; it's downfall was written in stone on the day of its conception. The whole fuss during the Cold War was a general misunderstanding of Communism and economics. Mainstream economists wrongly believed the Soviet Union to be much more powerful and efficient than it was since at the time Keynes was all the rage and central planning didn't seem impossible. Just look at the Cold War predictions of the Soviet Economy by legitimate economists. They thought things were going good. Wrong assumptions will lead to sub-optimal decisions to say the least.
Also, I'm not understanding the use of "they needed the economic efficiency of West Germany." The Soviet Union cannot capture anyone's economic efficiency! It would have to stop being the Soviet Union to do this. All it could do is capture the capital of a country and put its use to none profit maximizing goals and productions run inefficiently in turn devaluing the very things that they could have captured.
The Soviet Union couldn't take West Germany's efficiency. However, it could have taken West Germany and made it inefficient.
Published: November 30, 2007 9:06 AM
Vedran Vuk
One more thing.....
Russia is a very resource rich country. Communism made it impossible to properly utilize this natural wealth. So, it is ridiculous to suggest the Soviet Union needed someone else's wealth to continue. They already had all the wealth they would ever need in their own country. The whole point is that they couldn't centrally plan in order to utilize their own resources and they certainly couldn't centrally plan any better with Western Germany or all of Western Europe.
Published: November 30, 2007 9:11 AM
8
In the long run Communism would fail, but if it can expand its borders or its sphere of influence fast enough in the short-run, it can remove the competition. The Soviets were well aware of their economic shortcomings and for that reason sought to expand militarily. The deal with Germany was blackmail: sell to us/buy from us at below market/above market prices, and we won't conquer you. They weren't going to centrally plan Europe, they were going to behave the same way the mafia offers "protection".
The other side of the coin is that the Russians couldn't compete with the U.S. militarily, economics was just a means to an end for them. If the U.S. cut the military, the Soviets would have a military advantage and expand further. The Soviets didn't care about competing with the U.S. per se (if we didn't oppose them they might ignore us), they cared about maintaining power, which required military expansion or at least the threat of military force to obtain the goods they required.
Published: November 30, 2007 9:55 AM
Robert M.
Perhaps, but why this concerned the American government is what I don't understand. We were giving western europe the benefits of being a part of the US without making them pay taxes. Perhaps they could give us some of their over-valued euros as payment.
Published: November 30, 2007 11:57 AM
Vedran Vuk
Also, after seeing Soviet failures in Afghanistan was there any REAL danger? Or more recently Russia's inability to subdue the tiniest country of Chechnya. And yet we are to believe that they could have easily swept over Europe
Published: November 30, 2007 1:40 PM
Brent
The Soviet Union may have wished to expand in order to stay solvent in the short-run, but the short-comings of communism would become larger as it expanded. Indeed, the larger the Soviet Union got, the more impossible it became to keep it from falling apart.
Published: December 1, 2007 12:10 AM
Juan
"We were giving western europe the benefits of being a part of the US "
I wonder if that's meant as a joke ?
Published: December 1, 2007 2:18 PM