Re-Imagining Marketopia: A Reply to Terence Ball

Drug Policy, Libertarian Theory, Private Security & Law, The Basics
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A decade ago Terence Ball wrote a critique of some Frankenstein-like creature meant to represent free market ideology. He robbed the graves of men and women as diverse as Murray Rothbard, Margaret Thatcher, Robert Nozick and Ayn Rand to put it together and came up with something that no libertarian would endorse, I suspect, but which nevertheless is recognizable as libertarian(ish). It may not be the same species, but it is in the same genus. Or at least the same family.

He imagined a country called Marketopia and described how life would be there, with the purpose of showing us that while markets are good for some things, there are areas where they are inappropriate. As he wrote, “why do some (or perhaps all) Marketopian practices make many – perhaps most – of us uneasy or queasy, or worse?” The great problem with his essay is that he never demonstrates to the reader’s satisfaction that he understands what his own argument is. He claims to be interested in three questions: Why do people get queasy at the practices of Marketopia, what distortions of the language would Marketopia produce and are we already headed towards Marketopia.

About the second question I care nothing at all, and about the third… well, watching a statist fretting over how close we are to a Free Market is a bit like listening to a neocon quaking that Iran presents a military threat to the United States. It would be less embarrassing to watch a grown man sleep with a night light to protect him from the Bogey Man in his closet. The first question bears some scrutiny, however, but I wish I could do it knowing what exactly Dr. Ball had in mind.

Is this Marketopia supposed to be what would always happen if libertarianism ever won the day, or is he just demonstrating how market activity is inappropriate for some relationships? If the latter is his point, I would say he came up with a handful of examples where I agree with him, but what does he propose to do about it? If the former, it should be pointed out that many of these activities are legal now but do not occur.

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It’s 2011: Do You Know Where Your Uppity Negroes Are?

Humor, Pop Culture, Racism
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Uppity Negro: N.—a Black person who is committed to reversing the crimes of self-refusal, self-denial, and self-hatred that are endemic to the Black community and detrimental to the Black psyche. Syn.—UNAPOLOGETIC. VAINGLORIOUS. MULTIFARIOUS. JUST AUDACIOUS. ~ The Urban Dictionary

Having written on both LeBron and Kobe it should be pretty clear that I like sports. What I find particularly fascinating is how a combination of selective logic and the availability heuristic drive almost all sports discussions, be they on “sports talk radio” or during the ostensibly more journalistic major network coverage. In the case of Kobe, I was amazed that something as innocuous as a video game could draw so much discussion, but then again, the discussion of irrelevant crap even remotely involving sports has spawned an entire profitable network. Just ask Disney. (FTR, I openly admit to watching way too much of this particular network.)

Recently, I found myself Tweeting about LeBron James quite a bit. (Yes, I obviously have time to kill.) I have also found myself responding to several negative posts about him among my Facebook friends. Over the last few days, people I don’t even know have exchanged barbs with me about James. Ironically, this is despite the fact that I was fiercely hoping for a Dallas victory. How did this author—a staunch supporter of Dirk, J-Kidd, and the Mavs—morph into a protector of LeBron’s image? Truthfully, I do not know. Well, I did not know, until I watched a particularly interesting telecast on “The LeBron Network,” which is occasionally also referred to as ESPN.

During the episode, amid ample dissection of the game itself, much was made of a statement James made during the post-game press conference. At some point during the presser, after he had been asked a breathtaking variety of insipid questions ranging from “Did you choke?” to “Why do you think you perform so poorly during the clutch?” James was asked, “What do you think about the people who hate you?” (or words to that effect). No, I am not making this up. Whatever happened to asking sports figures about, well, sports—Xs and Os and the like?

LeBron responded with some variant of, “Tomorrow those people will wake up with the same life they have, and so will I.” I was proud of him. The reporters on ESPN were aghast! Surely, he will regret saying that later, they opined. My question is simply, “Why?” What LeBron said was accurate. Maybe he should have been more sheepish in his response. Sheepish always plays well for the cameras. Maybe he should have continued to respond politely to even more insulting, vapid, and frankly, silly questions. Good for him that he did not. After some consideration I now realize that LeBron’s biggest offense that night was the same as his biggest offense throughout this whole saga, dating back to The Decision.

LeBron James is an uppity Negro!

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Amusing Rejoinder to the Communitarian Charge of Atomism

Anti-Statism, Humor, Libertarian Theory, Statism
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Atoms form bonds of varying strengths with other atoms to form molecules. The bonds they form naturally are generally stable, whereas the ones that are forced by men decay rapidly — and give you cancer.

(Embrace it! Own it! :o)

[Cross-posted at Is-Ought GAP; HT fellow TLS blogger Robert Wicks for suggesting the second sentence.]

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Death Comes for the Philosopher

History, Vulgar Politics
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Though John Hospers was never my hero, he came close. Now he’s dead, like most of the other philosophical writers I admire.

He died yesterday, a few days into his 94th year.

Since I grew up in one of the two states of the union in which his name appeared on the ballot for the U.S. Presidency, I must’ve come across his name in that year of 1972. But it didn’t stick. The renegade electoral college voter, Roger MacBride, who cast his ballot for the Hospers/Nathan Libertarian Party ticket, did leave an impression four years later, with his direct-to-the-camera spiel following the Democratic Nominating Convention.

That was probably my first notice of the word “libertarian” alone and naked, not prefixed by “civil.”

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