Replies

Do you think there is something wrong with desiring to get rich?

Off the sweat of bound labor, yes I do. Are you being intellectually dishonest, or do you actually believe in slavery as a viable economic model?

You truly are showing signs of leftism.

Because I don't agree with you that the slave labor economy of the old south is a good example of capitalism? What a laugh.

I quote Adam Smith and you call me a leftist. You Lew Crockwell zombies really need to get some new material.

Off the sweat of bound labor, yes I do.

What about those who contribute their own sweat?

or do you actually believe in slavery as a viable economic model?

Considering that all economic indicators say that it is not, why would you even suggest anything of the sort?

Because I don't agree with you that the slave labor economy

Labor is an attribute of an economy, not the economy itself. Therefore your reduction is false.

I quote Adam Smith and you call me a leftist.<P. ...yeah, cause you were and are espousing the thoroughly marxian concept of labor reductionism. Stop spouting that nonsense, and I won't question your political leanings.

Revealing and typical. Ludwig von Mises, the tin god of the Rockwellites, was a positivist who did not believe in natural law or natural rights, and elevated economics above non-economic moral considerations. Rothbard, Rockwell's mentor, tried to wed Mises's economics to natural right philosophy. But it's a very unstable, philosophically inconsistent mix, as is the Rockwellites' more general mixture of laissez-faire economics and moral religious traditionalism. Mises's amoral, irreligious positivism peers through the foggy moral rhetoric.

So what it amounts to in this case is natural rights for me and slavery and economic laws untethered by legal rights for you. I demand my god-given freedom, and you have to struggle with economic laws and necessities and prove your economic efficiency. This inconsistency is a major reason why serious people don't take the Rockwellites seriously. Whatever one thinks of Lincoln or Harry Jaffa, they did go further in reconciling economics and morality than the Rockwellite Kool-Aid drinkers.

A recent issue of "Liberty" magazine had an article, I believe by R.W. Bradford on the Rockwellites' moral -- or amoral -- dilemma. Go here and here for more.