A Letter to My Father

By Wendy McElroy

There is an attempt to change the ground rules of libertarianism through introducing left-leaning attitudes and concepts. Two distinct approaches are in play within this attempt. I applaud one. I will leave the movement if the other prevails.

My friend Chris Sciabarra exemplifies the first approach. He wants to analyze the movement through the intellectual lens and tool of dialectics, which is usually associated with Marxism. By the term "dialectics," Chris means "context setting" or "context holding." All ideas are influenced by other ideas, institutions and events. In turn, they influence everything else. For example, you should not examine an idea such as emergence of labor unions in isolation. You need to consider the dialectics from which it arose in order to grasp what happened. For example, you need to consider the impact of World War I upon labor relations in America. I think Chris is correct and he adds value, even though I am cautious about a few aspects of his approach.

The second approach is found in the absurd and manufactured debates about "thin" and "thick" libertarianism – the "humanitarians" versus the "brutalists." It is an attempt to introduce political correctness into libertarianism so that it is not enough to advocate nonviolence; you have to advocate it for the right reason, as defined by those who provide themselves as moral filters. They call me a brutalist. This means I will never violate your rights; your children, your property are safe in my presence because I respect your right to live in peace. But I don't protect your children for the right reasons. For this, I am to be excoriated. This is the second approach to a new definition of libertarianism:

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