…or Principled Libertarianism from a truly Principled Libertarian.
Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle
– The Three Stooges
Nations by Consent, by Murray Rothbard
I preface this essay: almost every time I read Rothbard I am struck by how he has resolved countless issues of libertarian theory and application decades ago, issues that I have only recently worked through. The man developed many concepts and applications associated with the non-aggression principle out of whole cloth; it is amazing how well his work stands up to time.
In this essay, Rothbard examines the idea of nation, collective security, secession, anarcho-capitalist open borders and a few other topics. I will focus on the topics of the nation and open borders. I have previously offered a minor examination of this paper. Today, for some reason, it seems like a good day to go into some detail.
Nation
Libertarians tend to focus on two important units of analysis: the individual and the state. And yet, one of the most dramatic and significant events of our time has been the reemergence-with a bang-in the last five years of a third and much neglected aspect of the real world, the “nation.”
Atomistic-individual-libertarians (i.e. left-libertarians) need such a lesson from Rothbard. For the rest of us…mmm, we get it already.
Rothbard is writing at the time of the decentralization of the Soviet Union; if ever a case study involving actual human beings might offer the value that actual human beings put on “nation,” this was the case study (for example).
But let’s not be confused by the term “nation”:
When the “nation” has been…