Murray Rothbard on the rise of William Jennings Bryan and Bryanism in the Democratic Party.
"Poor Grover Cleveland, a hard-money laissez-faire Democrat, was blamed for the panic of 1893, and many leading Cleveland Democrats lost their gubernatorial and senatorial posts in the 1894 elections. The Cleveland Democrats were temporarily weak, and the Southern-Mountain coalition was ready to hand. Seeing this opportunity, William Jennings Bryan and his pietist coalition seized control of the Democratic Party at the momentous convention of 1896. The Democratic Party was never to be the same again."
That may require some explanation. The notion of a "pietist coalition" is key to Rothbard's understanding of US political history. The pietists were and are a certain subset of Protestant groups -- generally from those denominations that see themselves as most fiercely anti-papist, anti-hierarchal, etc. -- and they believe Christians must prepare the way for the coming of the Lord by creating just social conditions first, i.e. Jesus' return shall be "postmillennial." Thus, the state (as Rothbard conveys the pietists' view of it) must be controlled by pious folks and so organized as to hasten that glorious day.
The era of Andrew Jackson -- the President that Rothbard sees as most embodying his own laissez-faire ideas -- was also the era of the Second Great Awakening -- the revivalist movement that brought pietism in this form to the US in a big way. Pietists wanted to control both people's personal lives (through the prohibition of alcohol and Sunday closing laws for example) and the counrtry's economic life, through control of the money supply and tariffs on foreign trade. The great political divide was then, between the Democrats, who were laissez-faire on both personal and economic matters, and the Whigs or later Republicans, who were statist on both sets of matters.
Cleveland is the last figure in US political history to whom Rothbard extends any sympathy. The rise of Bryan meant the pietists had taken over both parties, and everything has been pretty steadily downhill ever since.
Showing posts with label Murray Rothbard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Murray Rothbard. Show all posts
28 August 2011
11 March 2011
Atlas Shrugged
That title will boost my hits.
Next month the first movie in a projected trilogy, dramatizing Ayn Rand's notoriously ponderous novel, hits screens near you.
Since the movie is a 21st century event, it has its own webpage here.
Anyway, here is a link to a Slate review of that name.
The review is not especially enthusiastic. I like this line: "Anyone who's seen a SyFy Channel original movie in which a mutated insect battles a mutated amphibian will be comfortable with the production quality."
In general, regular readers will know what are my views on Objectivism. They are, roughly, the views that Murray Rothbard expressed even while Ayn Rand was still formulating this as a philosophy. Any recognition of the supposed need for any sovereign is too much of a concession to the myth of sovereignty.
Further (and this is a related point) the case for freedom is best made not through painfully abstract or conceptualist arguments but through practical demonstrations of how freedom works, and how central planning fails. Hence the title of this blog: Pragmatism Refreshed.
As for the novel, it is almost painfully bad. It was written by someone who could never say anything in a single sentence if a 20-page speech would do the job.
Finally, a guess about the movie: it might be better than a lot of what reaches theatres these days. The Fountainhead was a good movie, after all, and even made for a decent episode of Barney Miller.
Next month the first movie in a projected trilogy, dramatizing Ayn Rand's notoriously ponderous novel, hits screens near you.
Since the movie is a 21st century event, it has its own webpage here.
Anyway, here is a link to a Slate review of that name.
The review is not especially enthusiastic. I like this line: "Anyone who's seen a SyFy Channel original movie in which a mutated insect battles a mutated amphibian will be comfortable with the production quality."
In general, regular readers will know what are my views on Objectivism. They are, roughly, the views that Murray Rothbard expressed even while Ayn Rand was still formulating this as a philosophy. Any recognition of the supposed need for any sovereign is too much of a concession to the myth of sovereignty.
Further (and this is a related point) the case for freedom is best made not through painfully abstract or conceptualist arguments but through practical demonstrations of how freedom works, and how central planning fails. Hence the title of this blog: Pragmatism Refreshed.
As for the novel, it is almost painfully bad. It was written by someone who could never say anything in a single sentence if a 20-page speech would do the job.
Finally, a guess about the movie: it might be better than a lot of what reaches theatres these days. The Fountainhead was a good movie, after all, and even made for a decent episode of Barney Miller.
12 September 2009
Antwerp, Belgium
Something I wrote long ago seems to have found a reader in Antwerp.
I don't see any date on this document, but I'm delighted by it.
The writer is obviously an admirer of the anarcho-capitalist intellectual Murray Rothbard, writing on behalf of something called the "Rothbard Instituut," which was apparently founded (according to their "about us" or "over ons" page) in November 2007. So sometime in the last two years, someone in Antwerp discovered and sought to reply at length to an unsigned editorial I wrote in the 1990s when I was managing editor of a very niche-publishing mag called The Pragmatist. That editorial was headlines "The Necessity of Pragmatism."
My critic appears to admire the "delightful story" I passed along from James' writings about the metaphysical debate over a squirrel in the course of a camping trip. The immediate point of that story is about the pragmatic theory of meaning, not of truth: although later in the book, aptly itself called "Pragmatism," James generalizes the method to the meaning of truth. That is where my critic's views and that of my 1990s self part company.
I won't contend with his argument today. I'm too delighted that my own literary/philosophical effort was thought worth of this painstaking a response. It is one of only four English-language articles so far listed on the site which makes my inclusion that much more intriguing.
If my critic, Frank van Dun, reads this: Hi. And thanks for making my day. I'll compose something more substantively responsive in due course.
I don't see any date on this document, but I'm delighted by it.
The writer is obviously an admirer of the anarcho-capitalist intellectual Murray Rothbard, writing on behalf of something called the "Rothbard Instituut," which was apparently founded (according to their "about us" or "over ons" page) in November 2007. So sometime in the last two years, someone in Antwerp discovered and sought to reply at length to an unsigned editorial I wrote in the 1990s when I was managing editor of a very niche-publishing mag called The Pragmatist. That editorial was headlines "The Necessity of Pragmatism."
My critic appears to admire the "delightful story" I passed along from James' writings about the metaphysical debate over a squirrel in the course of a camping trip. The immediate point of that story is about the pragmatic theory of meaning, not of truth: although later in the book, aptly itself called "Pragmatism," James generalizes the method to the meaning of truth. That is where my critic's views and that of my 1990s self part company.
I won't contend with his argument today. I'm too delighted that my own literary/philosophical effort was thought worth of this painstaking a response. It is one of only four English-language articles so far listed on the site which makes my inclusion that much more intriguing.
If my critic, Frank van Dun, reads this: Hi. And thanks for making my day. I'll compose something more substantively responsive in due course.
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