Libertarian Movement Is Dying

This rich man's propaganda wont infect the majority of American intelligentsia. Much like a very virulent flesh eating bacteria, this cognitive infection burns through adherents too quickly to infect many.





It may not feel this way but the libertarian fad is on its way out. Sure it dominates the English speaking Internet at the moment. Sure the absolute number of adherents is rapidly increasing by the day. However, as this oligarch funded movement is about to reach its moment of triumph, the engines will stall and it'll nosedive very rapidly (at least in its current form). This is primarily due to realization of early members that they are fighting for a hideous neo-feudal future that they will most likely not benefit from.

To visualize the state of the movement, picture a fire that begins in the middle of the forest. As it spreads and rages in all directions, the original center is no longer on fire. People on the outside get an impression of an endless advance.

Most of the intelligentsia (NTs) gets into libertarianism because they mean well. Due to their physiology they may not be fighting out of emotional empathic care for fellow humans but they genuinely do want a far less "stupid" socioeconomic system. Now that the field of economics has been discredited in this country, the libertarian ideology can't hide under a pseudo-scientific mask any longer. Thus even acquiring new NT members will become more and more difficult since the statement "self educate and become less stupid" now rings hollow. As libertarian thought becomes more mainstream and more adopted by elderly rural people, it also will lose its edgy rebellious attraction among the high schoolers. The alexa.com stats on viewer demographics of marxists.org provide a hint of the future.

The movement will continue expanding for some time among non-intelligentsia due to:

1) seeming lack of alternative ideological ways to express dissent (major dissident groups crushed in the 1940s-1970s period along with FDRism itself in the 80s period)
2) continuous backing for it among an older mentally dimmer faction of the oligarchy (who don't understand that the political apparatus they control actually does them a service by buying off the bottom 20% of population to not rebel)
3) continuous backing for it among the comfortable well paid white collar proletariat (out of cynical self interest since they think they'll be able to make it in a new neofeudal order)
4) some geographic "heartland" regions having to resort to neofeudal survivalism by default (throughout our time of troubles transition period when the federal center of force is receding and not providing services any longer)

However it'll be like a plane without engines, moving by inertia or crude hated necessity. The human engines of the movement will no longer have their heart in it if they have any intellectual honesty.

Previous articles covered how the libertarian movement is striving towards removing checks and balances within the elite population (making elites in government totally structurally subservient to private ones rather than at least co-equal. This is inexcusable to do if human motivation is power based rather than happiness based) and how easy it is to co-opt such a movement (which has already occurred with Ron Paul's efforts to a large degree). This realization is dawning on former libertarians throughout the English speaking world.

What to expect within the movement?

Expect a lot more "libertarian socialists", "liberaltarians", "libertarian technocrats", etc. To save face, maintain the ego, and to preserve some power, many prominent libertarian thinkers and leaders will now preserve "the best" (some much needed political decentralization and social freedoms to do consensual acts) and dump "the worst" (giving even more power to rich entrenched mafia families). We've seen such tactical transformations happen among communist movements throughout the world after the soviet demise. We should also see more emphasis on the "welfare" wording within US constitution and calls to expand the bill of rights as FDR wanted. Many can possibly still remain "libertarian" if they expand/modify the definition of what coercion means. A simple tweak away from present medieval/feudal definition does wonders.

One interesting comparison can be made to dissidents in the Soviet Union. Majority of them used Marxist theory to criticize the Soviet government (even if some secretly wished for it to end or to emulate capitalist societies). It was a lot safer and saner for critics to say that USSR was not real communism at all and not what the founding fathers intended. Many American libertarians similarly found themselves resorting to attacking the state's official ideology by saying it doesn't adhere to some mythical vision of "true" capitalism.


How to deal with them by non-libertarians?

Other dissident groups should realize that infighting among them is not helping against the ruling regime. Libertarians are still the most numerous dissident faction and can be a great ally, a sort of shock troops on the ground (especially the blue collar rural people). Attacking and slandering them only hardens them and keeps the engineless plane from hitting the ground a little longer. In the meantime, there is much common ground to be had in formulating a socioeconomic platform acceptable to every faction.

In dictionary next to false consciousness

A possibility cannot be discounted that the movement may actually produce some interesting theoretical contributions as it tries to conceptualize what to replace the current corporate shareholder rule by (and thus compete with other dissidents such as the technocrats). Sure some current attempts at conceptualizing a "voluntaryst stateless" society are comical, clumsy, and too blatantly neo-feudal. However given time the movement's thought (originally funded by the rich to defeat FDRism) may even produce something interesting and tangible.

Even as we are bombarded with all manner of absurdities and outrages, even as the ranks of youth seem to be joining a movement whose mission is to make these absurdities and outrages much worse, don't lose heart friends. Behind the forest fire things are much different and even the fire itself may help take down a rotten house. We will settle differences of opinion about how to build a new house afterwards.