Dear Jeffrey Tucker,
I’m very sorry that you live in a society where notions like “productivity” and “mutual service” cannot be rationally advanced on a masturbatory social media outlet like facebook.
Let me begin by stating that I believe everyone reading this article will at least share my desire for a more orderly and prosperous society than what currently exists in the West today. With that said, my criticisms and considerations are mainly directed at libertarians.
I should preface that I myself have been a libertarian since 2007 or so. I supported Ron Paul in 2008 and would have liked to have seen him get the GOP nomination at least in 2012. Besides that I have read, watched and studied libertarian ideology since then, so don’t believe a return criticism that can be leveled at me is, “he just doesn’t understand libertarianism!” In fact, it is my understanding of the subject that informs these criticisms.
Libertarians desire a society that has more personal liberty, economic freedom and less “nanny state” molestation of the individual. These are indeed admirable goals, but their ways of achieving these are mistaken. Many think this can be done through either nonviolence and the non-aggression principle, or a sort of Fabian philosophical drift.
Seeing nothing new under the sun, I’ve come to think, as The Joker put it, “that is the one rule you’ll have to break to know the truth.” To paraphrase him, the only sensible way to live in this world and achieve your goals is not through the absence of rules(ers), but by not allowing everyone to decide on the rules.
Among my supposed “fellow travelers,” one finds a recurrent theme: the 
cultural/economic system known as “Capitalism” is almost universally considered an ideal means toward achieving true human progress.
Some theorists venerate Capitalism as a culmination of human action, the apotheosis of society; others regard it as an amiable, though sometimes amoral and conflicting, system for achieving social ends; but almost all regard it as a necessary means for achieving the goals of mankind, a means to be ranged against the dopey and/or murderous “public sector” and often succeeding in competitions of wits with their peers (and little else).
With the rise of Democracy, the identification of Capitalism with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense, such as “Everything you love you owe to capitalism.” The useful collective term “individual” has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the Capitalistic realities of a Postmodern West, a Geist without a Zeit.
Drive through most any town in the United States, and you will notice a recurrent theme, our societal leitmotif: at least one street (usually several) blighted by, sacrificed to, consumptive postmodernism.
Large and gaudy signs, unimaginative architecture, mass-produced imagery, welfare disguised as diversionary hourly make-work (Now hiring 4th assistant manager!). All of this designed for the singular, mechanical, amoral purpose of pandering already obsolescent shit to an ever lower common denominator.
You say “Capitalism,” I say “autophagy.”
Capitalism or socialism? What do? It is a strange feature of current western society that this debate continues to rage with such ferocity. It seems that all political divisions in Western nations today come down to this question, and both sides have their fervent adherents. Indeed, commitment to either side has taken on the flavor of religious devotion in some circles. How to explain this?
It has been argued by some scholars, accurately in my opinion, that hardcore Marxist socialism is a sort of secular, atheistic revamping of millennial Christianity. There is the myth of the golden age, followed by the fall, the judgement and redemption and finally the Kingdom of God and Heaven on Earth. We can track analogous phases in Marxist ideology to the pre-industrial era, the industrial revolution, the inevitable socialist revolution, with grandfather Marx playing the part of Christ (or Santa Claus), and then the socialist state and its final withering away to a perfect society as the Kingdom of God on Earth.
