Albert Jay Nock

Living a Life of Excellence and Liberty

by on December 5, 2011 @ 12:33 pm · 0 comments

in Anti-Statism, Education, The Basics

My fellow TLS blogger Norman Horn’s recent speech, What you can do to promote liberty, called to mind some things I’ve blogged about before. In Nock and Leonard Read on “One Improved Unit” and the Power of Attraction, blogged previously here, I discussed the idea advocated by Albert Jay Nock and Leonard Read, that your primary task is to improve yourself–to strive for excellence in yourself. Then you become a bright light that attracts people; they see you are good, and successful, and worth emlating or listening to–so you win people over by the power of attraction. They come to you, and then you have more success spreading the ideas of liberty than if you go around being a boor. More detail, including excerpts from Nock and Read, are in that post.

The other post, previousyl blogged elsewhere, is reproduced in full here:

 Career Advice by North

Gary North delivered a wonderful lecture last month during Mises University 2009 (the same day I gave my own speech), “Calling and Career as an Austrian School Scholar” (a shorter version of this was in the LRC podcast 127. Gary North: Making a Difference, Making a Living, which is also excellent).  North talks calling and occupation. Calling is “the most important thing you can do with your life in which you are most difficult to replace.” Occupation is “how you put food on the table.” Occasionally they are the same, but often not; but there is no reason not to arrange your life so as to have both. He talks about how to combine them or at least have both in your life, and centers his talk around some examples, notably Burt Blumert and William Volker.

Also see Paul Graham’s “What You’ll Wish You’d Known (“I wrote this talk for a high school. I never actually gave it, because the school authorities vetoed the plan to invite me.”)

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Nock and Leonard Read on “One Improved Unit” and the Power of Attraction

by on January 8, 2011 @ 10:06 am · 6 comments

in Anti-Statism, Education

I’ve always liked the idea–which I’ve heard from Albert Jay Nock and Leonard Read–that your primary task is to improve yourself–to strive for excellence in yourself. Then you become a bright light that attracts people; they see you are good, and successful, and worth emlating or listening to–so you win people over by the power of attraction. They come to you, and then you have more success spreading the ideas of liberty than if you go around being a boor. See the following excerpts from Nock and Read:

From A stroll with Albert Jay Nock by Robert M. Thornton:

Albert Jay Nock was not a reformer and found offensive any society with a “monstrous itch for changing people.” He had “a great horror of every attempt to change anybody; or I should rather say, every wish to change anybody; for that is the important thing.” Whenever one “wishes to change anybody, one becomes like the socialists, vegetarians, prohibitionists; and this, as Rabelais says, ‘is a terrible thing to think upon.’” The only thing we can do to improve society, he declared, “is to present society with one improved unit.” Let each person direct his efforts at himself or herself, not others; or as Voltaire put it, “Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

From Frederick A. Manchester, Apropos of the Presidency:

The Remnant that Saves

It would appear, then, that if we want to have leaders of high quality, Presidents among them, we, the American people, shall have to increase our understand­ing in politics and related fields. It is fortunately not necessary that all of us should become thus edu­cated, but only a sizable minority—the remnant that saves. But how are we to build up this sizable minority?

Begin, says Mr. Read in the document I quoted at the begin­ning of these remarks, by genu­inely enlightening ourselves, as in­dividuals—morally as well as so­cially, economically, and politi­cally. Thereafter, if I understand him correctly, he would have us trust mainly to the power of ex­ample. “The power of attraction—of attracting others follows all self-improvement,” he says, “as faithfully as does one’s shadow.” In thus asserting this power he undoubtedly has behind him tradi­tional wisdom. “Example,” says Burke, comprehensively, “is the school of mankind; it will learn at no other.”

The Manchester article, from a 1959 issue of The Freeman,  is apparently quoting “Wake Up—It’s Tomorrow” by Leonard E. Read, Notes from FEE, January 1959, which I cannot find; similar thoughts appear to be in Read’s How To Advance Liberty: A Learning, Not a Selling, Problem, which is available in text here and in audio and video here (and below):

[Keep reading…]

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Since When Does the Livestock Ask the Farmer to Improve the Fence?

by on May 17, 2010 @ 10:46 pm · 13 comments

in Immigration, Nanny Statism, Police Statism, Protectionism, Taxation

“It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn.” ~ Albert Jay Nock

My recent post on the GM-loan-gate has, thus far, generated some interesting feedback and at least one or more epic discussions on various social networking sites.  Aside from enjoying my joke, several people commented on the paragraphs which highlighted several talking points which have troubled me over the last few years.  This one in particular, on immigration, seemed to generate the most feedback:

“Illegal immigration represents a danger to the future of the U.S.”  (The U.S. didn’t even have a comprehensive set of regulations on immigration until 1952.  The Constitution doesn’t even mention immigration in those terms.  Hell, damned-near everyone in the U.S. except for the people who were already here when America was “discovered” is an immigrant or descended from one anyway.  Here’s my question:  When does an immigrant become a visitor or a guest?)

It might be that since Arizona—and Arizona’s governor is currently in the news—that the issue is particularly hot, which therefore made the discussions far-ranging.  Immigration policy generally seems to be a hot-button.  Having written several pieces on immigration, I admit that the subject fascinates me, but something about these recent debates, particularly among libertarians, has intrigued me even more.

One is often tempted to attack the objections to open borders directly, as did I and a number of guests on a recent radio show.  And certainly many of these objections seem ripe for attacking.  By the way, are bumper stickers with “every Mexican who comes to the U.S. illegally is only 15 minutes from welfare” being passed out?  I would hate to miss out on my chances to get one.  Just as popular, but new to me is this one:  “In Los Angeles, 98% of convicted murderers are illegal aliens.”  Uh-oh!  Better raise the fence!  It strikes me that anyone who thinks welfare is an enticement for immigration must have never visited their local department of social services.  Take the worst parts of the DMV and add in ample portions of emasculation and denigration and you’re starting to get close, but it’s still worse than that, on good days.

It occurs to me—finally—that one needs to take a step back to even begin to understand this issue.  For example, of what value is a border?  Specifically, why does the United States have a border and why is it so necessary to maintain it?  Hopefully examining this more general issue will yield insight into the specific issue—and current political hot-button—illegal immigration of Mexicans.  Let us explore a couple of examples, one simple and one a little more complex.

[Keep reading…]

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The Nature of the State and Why Libertarians Hate It

by May 3, 2010

Rothbard described Mencken as “The Joyous Libertarian,” a label that could also be applied to Rothbard himself, called by Justin Raimondo “the happy scholar-warrior of liberty.” Yet Rothbard also famously said “hatred is my muse”. By this he meant, I think, hatred of the state and all manifestations of statism. Anti-statism is an essential aspect [...]

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