Bookshot #21: Radicals For Capitalism

This book was something of a disappointment to me, but I think you had to kind of expect that. The Libertarian Movement- if there is such a thing that can encompass one, overarching label is so big, so wide, so varied that it would be next to impossible to do half of it justice, much less complete with author Brian Doherty labels a 'Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.'

Politically, this didn't do much for me. I think I'll flirt with Libertarians on certain issues, but I don't think I'll be persuaded to jump fully onboard. They're sort of like benign communists, some wanting to do away with the state entirely in the anarcho-capitalist vein while others want to minimize it as much as possible. And therein lies my biggest problem with this book: lack of concrete policies that have a hope in hell of being enacted in the real world. Libertarianism seems to long on theory and very short on practice.

But give Doherty credit: he builds a lengthy, complete history of all the major players in the modern Libertarian movement from Ayn Rand to Murray Rothbard to Milton Friedman, Hayek, Mises- there is no stone left unturned and Doherty takes pains to explain to the reader just how exactly each individual impacted the development of the modern movement. Unfortunately in the case of Hayek and Mises, this requires slogging through a seriously long Chapter on the Austrian School of Economics before you get back into more interesting things- but every person is important, even the economists.

If Doherty falls down occasionally in my book, it might be due to the fact that he's right smack dab in the thick of the movement he's trying to chronicle. There's a faint sheen of hagiography that sometimes pops out at you and occasional bouts of excited hero worship leap off the page all of which left me wondering just how on the level some of his descriptions and accounts were and if this really was a true, objective look at the Libertarian movement. That said, I can't imagine there'd be too many other scholars out there willing to take this on, so at the end of the day, more power to him. He did a damn fine job, if I do say so myself.

Some interesting tidbits I came away with: Ayn Rand is... well, I don't know if she's crazy, but damn is objectivism is weird as all git out. I tended to view Rand as a somewhat strange author- the worlds she created in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead struck me as cold, hard, selfish world's with no room for any trace of compassion- which turns out is exactly what she was getting at. The Libertarian movement at the time took the tack that if you just educated enough people to the benefits of free market, they'd get it and it'd all be hunky dory. Rand disagreed with that pointing out that as long as human beings were altruistic that could never happen, so people had to learn the virtues of being selfish.

Is that not completely crazy?

There's more- for instance, I didn't know Howard Stern ran on the Libertarian Ticket for Governor of New York back in the early 90s. I didn't know about people who retreated back to the land to escape the oppressive state- including living literally in the forest. Or people that were crazy about gold. Or people that think psychology is a crime because it deprives insane people of their basic right to liberty.

Or this, that or the other thing... no doubt, this was an incredibly informative book, packed to the gills with knowledge that I genuinely didn't know- so learning new things is always a delight, so I liked that aspect of it, but I still have my doubts about Libertarianism- this book didn't make me a convert. In a capitalist world where mass production devalues quality in the favor of quantity, consumers have less power to move the market. Wal-Mart won't care if people buy crap at Target. They make enough of it to absorb any loss... so I have serious questions. And the upshot of it is that I think I'll have to sit down and try and tackle Friedrich Hayek.

Economics. You bastards.

Overall: Good, informative, thought-provoking, this book ultimately didn't make a believer out of me. Maybe that wasn't its intention, but I remain unconvinced.