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| Tom Woods |
This is the best news I have heard coming out of the LP in ages.
Tom, of course, is a super-solid libertarian, isn't going to be pushed around, is a brilliant marketer and is just plain smart.
This is very good news.
-RW
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Tom Woods Has Joined the Board of the Mises Caucus of the Libertarian Party
This is the best news I have heard coming out of the LP in ages.
Tom, of course, is a super-solid libertarian, isn't going to be pushed around, is a brilliant marketer and is just plain smart.
This is very good news.
-RW
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I can't believe this hadn't already happened.
ReplyDeleteDavid
David, In addition Walter Block is not on the Executive Board. I recommend all Block-Wenzel-Woods fans email Tom requesting the LPMC include Walter on the Board. Michael, http/:TheREBT.life
DeleteTom needs to be on Trump's advisory team
ReplyDeleteTom's the best.
ReplyDeleteBut Mises, while a great champion of free markets and free society, adopted a strategic view of merely putting the truth out there rather than chasing and eradicating error. To my knowledge he never had any significant advice for a political party. He is known primarily as an Austrian economist, and while economics is important, it can never be the basis for a moral stand taken in the political arena.
Murray Rothbard, on the other hand, did it all. He promoted value-free economics, plus a radical libertarian political view, based on the morality of liberty. And he became heavily involved in the Libertarian Party after early misgivings that it was formed "too early" (he may have returned to that point of view after he left the party, or perhaps more accurately, the party left him). The original platform is mostly, maybe all Rothbard. He emphasized that only a radical vision will attract people to the movement. "Who, in contrast," Rothbard asked, "will go to the barricades for a two percent tax reduction?"
Additionally, Rothbard studied the strategies of other successful political movements and distilled their principles into an insightful document that the LP has ignored for decades.
The person you want on the banner of your radical caucus is Rothbard, not Mises.
In 2003, when I was still a member of the LP, I formed the Rothbard Caucus (lprc.org) after reading of a prominent candidate who favored legalizing marijuana, but also promoted taxing it for government revenue. At the same time someone on the Platform Committee claimed that "...Murray Rothbard opposed advocating a tax break because it means you approve of taxes", which couldn't be further from the truth. Rothbard himself had been tossed down the memory hole by the LP!
I borrowed heavily from the LP Radical Caucus that broke up the 80's, of which I was a member of the Central Committee. I added the 'Rothbard Pledge' (lprc.org/pledge/) for candidates and activists as a way to guide thinking on questions about how to approach the public. I investigated the question of "Who is a Libertarian?" from Rothbard's strategic point of view. I invited anyone who thought of himself or herself as a member to consider that they were.
The Rothbard Caucus name and website is available if the Mises Caucus were to decide that it wants to have Rothbard as their guiding light, and it comes with what their caucus needs: a coherent, strategic point of view about what the Party and its candidates should and shouldn't do. That seems to be lacking on the Mises Caucus website. Whether it wants the Rothbard name or not the Mises Caucus should not start from scratch on these questions, it should start with Rothbard's ideas. I see articles by Rothbard and others on the Mises Caucus site, which helps accomplish what the LP needs: a program of internal education. But I see nothing on strategy.
Contact me at rothbard.caucus@gmail.com if interested.
Scott