Make of it what you may.
Time and again, I have felt confronted with the impression that staunch anarcho-capitalists, like the gentleman in the below clip, are preoccupied
- by an urge to vent their unconditional hatred (of a million irritations collapsed into a herding category referred to as THE STATE),
- by the solipsistic enjoyment of being in possesion of absolute truth, and
- by a desperate delight in repelling and controlling the affront of dissent through half bitter, half ecstasised mockery and contempt.
To coin a term, I would call this attitude hedonistic dogmatism.
Where does liberty come into the equation? Well, I recently asked a leading scholar in the anarcho-capitalist tradition how he envisioned to promote liberty in the political field. Smirkingly he replied that there was a division of labour within which anarcho-capitalists deign to leave that task to minarchists.
The lynch-pin of absolute truth to which the Rothbardian anarcho-capitalists lay claim is praxeology, a kind of ariadne's thread that one follows to be led to incontestable insight. One of the many things I never understood about praxeology is how do I know when the thread has lost its power or where it ends. After all, there are irreconcilable disagreements and unresolved doubts and uncertainties among praxeologists.
Why is the father of praxeology, Ludwig von Mises, a radical opponent of anarchism, when other praxeologists, like the gentleman below, consider anarchism a compelling logical result of praxeology?
The truth is all in them, I suppose.
However, in predicting idiots (see clip), I fear, they will come up with widely diverging results.
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