Marxists are problematic, and have many inconsistencies and variations among them, to say the least. The left-anarchists, who I think are becoming more common than Marxists, are better at realizing that, whatever your terminology, the state only makes the economic sphere more unjust, corrupt and unsavory.
Of course, these are generalizations. But I have managed to explain libertarianism to a good number of leftists in Berkeley, moving many of them toward, sometimes completely toward, economic libertarianism. It takes time, patience, and an understanding of the left. Not all libertarians are perfectly suited for the task, but the left simply has not gotten the attention they deserve as targets for conversion.
I think the key is not to think of leftists as at the opposite end on the spectrum, to not think of them as worse than conservatives and to not think of conservatives as simply libertarians who are hung up on a couple issues.
I see in leftists a basic contradiction. They want to destroy central authority and enhance it, smash the state and yet take it over. There's an antiauthoritarianism mixed with a paternalism. What I like to do is gently accuse them of being right wingers on economics. ; ) I tell them Bismarck invented the modern welfare state, big business gave us the Progressive Era and Nixon created the EPA. Then I explain why the propensity of anti-egalitarian elements to successfuly grab power and expand the state is a virtual certainty. I think the hardest sell is on environmental issues (though, even here, I think sometimes the left is more perceptive than the right or some libertarians, if not more rational). One of the deceptively easier sells, one that is often not attempted much at all, and one that strikes a fatal blow to the foundations of many problems with leftist economic analysis, is the fascist nature of public education.
by Anthony Gregory on January 29, 2005 at 9:46 PM