Rhetoric of freedom and tyranny

Abstract

David S. I~ his essay, where the stated intention is provocation, eter Augustine Lawler has met his goal. The sweep of his claims is striking, the challenge direct, the prognosis sharp and devastating--yet something is not quite right. The desire to provoke has obscured the clarity of the argument. The dare generated by Lawler's writing is that he positions anyone who disagrees with him as a proponent of indifferent non-judgmentalism, Viagra, and tyranny. Yet, there are good reasons for critically responding to Lawler's argument--of which I will mention only three. First, and most obviously perhaps, is the characterization of communism in this essay. I take Lawler's discussion of communism to be largely rhetorical, the intention being to "alarm" rather than to illuminate. The effort to make a circle out of the political spectrum by collapsing communism and libertarianism is the political equivalent of saying that really all religions are at bottom the same because they each teach the importance of love. If nothing else, the argument about the basic commonalities of communism and libertarianism runs aground on the fundamental shoal of private property--and this, as I will discuss in a moment, is no idle point. Lawler argues that one thing communism and libertarianism share is a utopian sentimentality. The early Marx did indeed wax rhapsodic about conditions where the state has entirely withered way. However, to reduce Marx and Communism to this sentiment is to ignore the long process of social and historical development in which the citizens and the state evolve towards this utopian dream. Marx did not argue that one could flick a switch and create conditions in which one could fish in the afternoon and philosophize at night. During this process of historical development one thing that would occur is that individuals would be less identified with their work. People would no longer think of themselves as simply being a "coal miner," "teacher," or "engineer"--they would be citizens who performed jobs. "As individuals express their life, so they are" wrote Marx, Gutterman