Hayek & Pinochet

Max Sawicky sawicky at epinet.org
Fri Nov 12 05:35:42 PST 1999



> > Buchanan and Tullock are anti-state, hence
> > pinning upon them the growth of an authoritarian
> > state is problematic.
>
> Max, I thought the point of the article was that antistate did not
> necessarily mean what it seems. Antistate types can be perfectly
> content to call in the state to put down unions. Antistate rhetoric
> usually means opposition to anything that interferes with capital.
> Michael Perelman

As I said, I don't know what those fellows did in a political sense, what compromises they might have made w/respect to their ideas. And apparently the author didn't know either. Instead there is mostly guilt by association.

Now it could be that in practice anti-state always devolves to state authoritarianism, an interesting and clearly fatal flaw in the idea. But the article is superficial respecting the ideas and lacks any more specific political information than the fact that a Chilean economic institute invited some big names down and published them. For all we know Buchanan (who's one of the least arrogant, big-shot economists I've met) wrote in an effort to moderate the machinations of the emerging Chilean authoritarian state. The public choice lit is pretty ecumenical in its condemnation of private sector combinations' use of the state.

You can criticize anarchists for having ideas that lead to the negation of anarchism, but you can't criticize anarchists for not being anarchists.

mbs



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