Jackie Danicki

I guess Hayek probably did know about these other, “bottom-up” forms of socialism, but as he, and his mentors like Ludwig von Mises pointed out, such “libertarian socialism” is an oxymoron since it ignores whether a member of a “voluntary” commune would be allowed, in practice, to leave with his or her share of accumulated capital and strike out on their own. If the answer to that is yes, then you would quickly find quite a lot of ex-commune dwellers reverting to old-fashioned entrepreneurial capitalism. If these “bottom-up” socialists prevent this, or demand that the profits of the break-aways be wholly or partially confiscated, it is hard to avoid the conclusion of the late libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick that socialism involves the preventing of capitalist acts between consenting adults.

-Johnathan Pearce

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