The Metcalf Scam

Stephen Metcalf over at Slate writes an article called, The Liberty Scam. It is, you guessed, an attack on libertarianism, or at least he thinks it is. .

When I first read it, if I wasn't aware that the piece was written at Slate, I would have thought it was an Onion parody of an attack on libertarianism. I literally broke up laughing and slapping my thigh at many spots in the article.

Let's start right at the top, the subtitle to Metcalf's piece calls the late Harvard professor Robert Nozick "the philosophical father of libertarianism". And indeed if you read Metcalf's article that is exactly the impression you get. But what did libertarians think about Nozick's book on libertarianism at the time it was published? Well, they thought it was great that Nozick was carrying the libertarian banner into elitist Harvard, and had a good laugh over the fact that leftists were trying to figure out what was going on with a Harvard prof spouting somewhat libertarian positions, but that was about the beginning and end of Nozick in the serious libertarian movement.

In April 1975, in Libertarian Forum, Murray Rothbard, who could lay some claim to being the "father of libertarianism" called Nozick's book, Anarchy, State and Utopia, "quasi-libertarian".

In the December 1975 issue of Libertarian Forum, Rothbard wrote (bold in original):

While Nozick's book has aided the libertarian cause externally, it plays no such role within the movement...

Rothbard, who was editor of Libertarian Forum, then published critiques of Nozick's book by three different libertarians. In one of those critiques, Roy Childs wrote:

If they [those who uphold the doctrine of human liberty] have been cheered by the reception given the book, and to the new concern of portions of the intellectual establishment with Libertarianism, they have not been equally cheered by the content of the book itself.

In short, amongst libertarian thinkers of Nozick's time, Nozick was seen as something akin to a suicide bomber. He blew up a bomb inside the establishment, but his service began and ended with that bomb.

Nozick, philosophical father of the libertarian movement? I don't think so.
 
Metcalf does nothing more than pick up some of the shrapnel from the Nozick bomb and calls it the foundation of libertarianism. This is, of course, the main problem with Metcalf's hit piece. But I must point to another absurdity in his article. He writes:

...between them, Von Hayek and Von Mises never seem to have held a single academic appointment that didn't involve a corporate sponsor.

The implication being that Mises and Hayek were paid shills of corporate America. This is an outrageous implication. They didn't hold academic appointments precisely because they refused to sell out to Keynesian thinking, which back then, and now,  justifies central bank money pumping and bailouts of elitists bankers. Many of Mises students and acquaintances received prestigious appointments, such as Fritz Machlup, Gottfired Haberler, Oscar Morgenstern and Joseph Schumpeter. But they all, to one degree or another, sung at least one Keynesian note to gain their appointments. Only Hayek stood proudly next to his teacher and ended up in the same position, without a major appointment. (Hayek was even refused entry into the economics department at the University of Chicago and only found a position at U of C in the Committee on Social Thought. )

Mises and Hayek would have jumped at positions at Harvard or other major universities, if they were offered. Those positions were simply not available to them.  Does Metcalf seriously think that Mises wrote Human Action for the benefit of corporate elite, when the book calls for the elimination of all special priviliges from government to corporate elite?

In most of the rest of Metcalf's article, he critiques parts of Nozick that no libertarian would support in the first place and never did, even when the book first came out.

The real scam here is Metcalf associating Nozick with the beginning and end of libertarianism. At best, Nozick is a footnote in libertarian history that can be used to gingerly irritate the Metcalf's of the world. They are still obsessing over the guy, even though no serious libertarian thinks the guy's views are thorough or complete.