An Infantile Disorder

Jesse Walker | November 24, 2004

As Christmas approaches, what do you get the baby communist who has everything? La La Ling has an idea.

[Via Liberty & Power.]

Comments

|11.24.04 @ 11:59AM|#

Why stop with Che? I can envision a whole line of clothing with Adolf Eichmann, Pol Pot, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, et al. Call it the "Totalitarian Masters" series. We'll get Madonna to wear it on her concert tour. Perhaps Lenin was right when he said "The Capitalist will sell us the rope from which they will hang."

|11.24.04 @ 11:59AM|#

You need a libertarian equivalent.

Rothbard?

Nozick?

Spooner?

Gillespie?

|11.24.04 @ 12:08PM|#

You need a libertarian equivalent.

Rand.

|11.24.04 @ 12:13PM|#

Did you take a look at their "Shop All Brands" link?

They sell some ugly shit.

|11.24.04 @ 12:24PM|#

One could always just get a Baby Lenin pin.

Kevin

|11.24.04 @ 12:27PM|#

Are there *any* libertarian icons that look as cool as Che? We want to attract new members, not scare them away...

Warren|11.24.04 @ 12:38PM|#

I had thought that after 9/11 they'd put this terrorist back in the closet.

Madog,
I don't find anything 'cool' looking in neglected grooming, but I'm middle-aged so what do I know.

|11.24.04 @ 12:40PM|#

As for the above so-called "libertarians" (besides Lysander Spooner who was an anti-capitalist ----""In process of time, the robber, or slaveholding, class -- who had seized all the lands, and held all the means of creating wealth -- began to discover that the easiest mode of managing their slaves, and making them profitable, was not for each slaveholder to hold his specified number of slaves, as he had done before, and as he would hold so many cattle, but to give them so much liberty as would throw upon themselves (the slaves) the responsibility of their own subsistence, and yet compel them to sell their labour to the land-holding class -- their former owners -- for just what the latter might choose to give them." {natural law}

"Of course, these liberated slaves, as some have erroneously called them, having no lands, or other property, and no means of obtaining an independent subsistence, had no alternative -- to save themselves from starvation -- but to sell their labour to the landholders, in exchange only for the coarsest necessaries of life; not always for so much even as that." {natural law}

"These liberated slaves, as they were called, were now scarcely less slaves than they were before. Their means of subsistence were perhaps even more precarious than when each had his own owner, who had an interest to preserve his life." {natural law}

""The purpose and effect of these laws have been to maintain, in the hands of robber, or slave holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as far as possible, of all other means of creating wealth; and thus to keep the great body of labourers in such a state of poverty and dependence, as would compel them to sell their labour to their tyrants for the lowest prices at which life could be sustained." {natural law}

And let's see what Nozick has to say about liberty and freedom....

"a free system would allow [the individual] to sell himself into slavery.....I believe that it would." [Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 371]

And what does Rothbar have to say?

A person...."cannot, in nature, sell himself into slavery and have this sale enforced - for this would mean that his future will over his own body was being surrendered in advance" and that if a "labourer remains totally subservient to his master's will voluntarily, he is not yet a slave since his submission is voluntary." [p. 40 The Ethics of Liberty]

Of course one would wonder how a philosphy that calls itself by it's suppossed highest interest---liberty----would think people would just go around volunteering to be a slave? Unless of course the conditions with which their phisolophy creates causes some to "volunteer" to be slave for their survival. Yet, it would seem that such a system that had people clamoring to volnteer as a slave was hardly "libertarian", but something else entirely.

Anyways let us move on.....since I have the time and boredom to do so...

"contractual slavery [is] . . . [an] extension of the employer-employee contract." He than goes on to say that "any thorough and decisive critique of voluntary slavery. . . would carry over to the employment contract. . . Such a critique would thus be a reductio ad absurdum." [J. Philmore, "The Libertarian Case for Slavery", p. 55]

So we see as to how and why right-libertarians would even bother to concern themselves with the very Orwellian idea of the "right to be a slave" theories.

Any philosophy which states something so ridiculous as this is really a philosophy to justify enslaving people in whatever way that may be.

It is not freedom to allow yourself not to be free. You would no longer be free.

"[t]here is a nice historical irony here. In the American South, slaves were emancipated and turned into wage labourers, and now American contractarians argue that all workers should have the opportunity to turn themselves into civil slaves." [Carol Pateman, The Sexual Contract., p. 63]).

So a such shirt with a right-libertarian name on it would not be about rebellion of any kind. It would be a shirt about conformity, at least to those who would have the privilege of being "free to be slaves".

As is the case with the Che shirt. A shirt being sold by capitalists, to sell the abstract idea of rebellion, which in turn empowers the powers that be....

With both the Che shirt and the right-libertarian philosphy, the capitalist would truly be trying sell us (not all of us) the rope which to hang ourselves with.

How humorous that pro-capitalists would not see the irony (and benefits to themselves) of capitalists selling Che shirts, made by workers, then sold back to the "masses"...HA

"Liberty is inviolable. I can neither sell nor alienate my liberty; every contract, every condition of a contract, which has in view the alienation or suspension of liberty, is null: the slave, when he plants his foot upon the soil of liberty, at that moment becomes a free man. . . Liberty is the original condition of man; to renounce liberty is to renounce the nature of man: after that, how could we perform the acts of man?" [P.J. Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 67]

Jesse Walker|11.24.04 @ 12:55PM|#

How humorous that pro-capitalists would not see the irony!

|11.24.04 @ 1:05PM|#

wait a minute...why can't you sell yourself into slavery?

Kevin Carson|11.24.04 @ 1:36PM|#

hhmmmm,

Excellent quotes from Spooner's "Natural Law."

You wouldn't be Iain McKay by any chance, would you?

|11.24.04 @ 1:47PM|#

I have struggled for a few minutes, but, alas, I can't decipher any point in hmmmmmm's comments.

|11.24.04 @ 1:50PM|#

i'd wear a Robert Nozick t-shirt

as for Rand--maybe the shirt could say: "Ugly, libertarian, and still getting laid"

|11.24.04 @ 1:54PM|#

Damn. Talk about your Red-diaper baby.

I like Francisco D's idea, but of course you left out the most obvious, Adolph H. (Are we now so cowed by Godwin's Law that we're afraid to mention him on the Internet?)

I like this version much, much better:

http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/bureau/000175.html

(Disney's reaction was interesting, speaking of irony.)

Kevin Carson|11.24.04 @ 2:13PM|#

dhex,

According to Rothbard, because you can't permanently alienate your own free will.

|11.24.04 @ 2:20PM|#

You know the funny thing about the 1960 Korda photo of Che (probably the most reproduced in history)? The newspaper Korda was working for (*Revolucion*) wouldn't run it! They were more interested in the photos Korda took the same day of Fidel with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

I always cite this as proof that editors (and not just commie ones) just have no idea of what will sell...

|11.24.04 @ 2:36PM|#

"According to Rothbard, because you can't permanently alienate your own free will."

i'm assuming he was not familiar with the BDSM scene?

not that i'm drawing a direct paralell, but if you can't violate yourself, what's the point of free will?

Jesse Walker|11.24.04 @ 2:42PM|#

He says you can't permanently alienate your free will. BDSM is OK, but you have to have a safe word.

Warren|11.24.04 @ 3:51PM|#

Jesse,
Safe words are for posers.

|11.24.04 @ 4:05PM|#

"He says you can't permanently alienate your free will. BDSM is OK, but you have to have a safe word."

that's very weird. "hey you, don't fuck with your free will!"

so indentured servitude would be ok, assuming it has a time limit?

what the fuck was wrong with this guy?

safe words are for people who would like to live to a decent age without permanent damage.

|11.24.04 @ 4:10PM|#

Yes, it is quite ironic that the Che T shirts are made available to us via the dynamics of capitalism (voluntary economic activity with out government coercion), a liberty that Che and thugs of his ilk would forbid.

There is another T-shirt or poster or download from Bureaucrash: http://bureaucrash.com/
that features Che with the "No" sign superimposed on him and underneath, there is the caption:

Real Rebels Don't Support Centralized State Authority

Kevin Carson, because I see no reason to eschew the word "capitalism", does not mean that I don't find your site delightful.

|11.24.04 @ 4:48PM|#

Don't forget baby's first book.

|11.24.04 @ 4:57PM|#

Pavel,

I picked up one of those for a quarter once.

Ever read Mao's poetry? *blech*

Rick Barton,

I like the "Capitalism" T-shirt.

Jesse Walker|11.24.04 @ 5:05PM|#

Don't forget baby's first book.

Do they make it in a waterproof bathtime edition?

|11.24.04 @ 5:25PM|#

Jason Bourne,

Yeah, me too. Here it is:

http://bureaucrash.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=376

This one really point out the irony of the Che shirt:

http://www.curefornudity.com/shirtview.cfm/id/58

|11.24.04 @ 7:33PM|#

Wasn't there one that had the Che picture on the front, with "Che" underneath, and "Still A Dead Commie" on the back?

|11.24.04 @ 7:43PM|#

JD,

Oh, I want that one. The "Capitalism" T-Shirt already pisses off some of my classmates; maybe I can make them riot. :)

|11.24.04 @ 7:50PM|#

But why doesn't the "onesie" come in red?

Larry A|11.24.04 @ 7:52PM|#

Why would you want someone's picture on a capitalism T-shirt? The whole point is that no one person makes the decisions.

Oh. Actually there is one that would fit. George Washington. The engraving that comes on the dollar bill.

|11.24.04 @ 9:21PM|#

Jason: I don't know Chinese, so I can't really evaluate Mao's poetry. However, Arthur Waley, who certainly did know Chinese, characterized it as "a little bit worse than Churchill's paintings, though beter than Hitler's."

|11.24.04 @ 9:56PM|#

Personally, I'd like to see one with a crosshairs right between Che's beady little eyes.

|11.24.04 @ 11:04PM|#

"Are there *any* libertarian icons that look as cool as Che? We want to attract new members, not scare them away..." -Madog

Hayek is H-O-T...You know the chick that wrote "The Road To Serfdom" and was in that Robert Rodriguez movie with Antonio Banderas...She'd look cool on t-shirt...

|11.25.04 @ 1:28AM|#

David T.,

Ha ha ha!!!! :)

|11.25.04 @ 5:01AM|#

One thing you know, no matter who's on the shirt, the kid is just going to puke all over it eventually.

|11.25.04 @ 9:19PM|#

Will Andy Warhol's estate (I don't know that he left one) be compensated for stealing his prank?

|11.25.04 @ 9:24PM|#

Way the heck off there: that would be "the theft of his prank".

|11.26.04 @ 1:51PM|#

Will Andy Warhol's estate (I don't know that he left one)* be compensated for stealing his prank?

Is it not justice to steal from a master thief?

Kevin

* Oh, he left one alright.

|11.26.04 @ 3:54PM|#

MayDay72:

You should check out the "Salma Hayek vs. Friedrich Hayek" comparison page:

http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/dgwhayek.html

Are they related?

http://www.friesian.com/hayek.htm

Kevin Carson|11.26.04 @ 6:00PM|#

Thanks, Rick.

I don't quibble over terminology, so feel free to use the c-word all you want.

|11.26.04 @ 6:41PM|#

"One thing you know, no matter who's on the shirt, the kid is just going to puke all over it eventually."

With Che on the shirt, that seems fitting.

|11.26.04 @ 11:34PM|#

Aha, it does exist! Not exactly as I'd remembered it, but pretty close - googling for "still a dead commie" returns the "still a dead commie" t-shirt. I think I've seen it elsewhere, too, but that site is the only one with the relevant text on the page. With some luck, Jason Bourne will check this thread again. :-)

|11.26.04 @ 11:58PM|#

Also, the "Che is gay" shirt. I guarantee you could wear this in New York City and have at least 50% of the population take it seriously.

Or perhaps your taste runs to the "Che trooper", or perhaps Comrade Cho. And then there's "this shirt brought to you by capitalism" Che...

|11.27.04 @ 11:53AM|#

Man, Stevo! Why'd you have to ruin the illusion for me? It would not be appropriate here to list all of the dirty pictures that ran through my head when I read "The Fatal Conceit". And all because I thought that those books were written by a hot latina actress. And now that I know that those books were wtitten by some old european dude I feel kinda...Ummmmmmm...Dirty. Ewwwwww! I'm gonna go take a shower now...

|11.28.04 @ 2:32AM|#

Concerning the quotations observed by hhhmmmm and his inferences from them at November 24, 12:40 PM:

In process of time,... slaveholding, class --...began to discover that the easiest mode of managing their slaves, ...was to give them so much liberty (for)their own subsistence, ...and yet compel them to sell their labour to the land-holding class ...for just what the latter might choose to give them." (from Spooner's "Natural Law"}

But in fact, a market for labor is what obtained, and this hardly manifested itself in the owners paying "just what they might choose to give them." It takes government intervention to harm the laborers, to the advantage of the owners. And, liberation from various semi-slavery situations, into the economic freedom of capitalism, has allowed workers to become owners as well. Taxation can be a way of reinstating slavery.

Then, hhhmmmm goes on to quote Nozick and Rothbard concerning the possibility in a free society of one to sell away his/her future freedom to the extent of slavery in that future. As if, these quotes somehow buttress the plausibility of the dynamic in Spooner's scenario, and the relationship that hhhmmmm posits is inherent in a wage payer/payee situation, which they do not. They aren't even connected.

Also, what Rothbard is saying, is that by *definition*, the selling off of one's future freedom cannot be considered "slavery" because it was done voluntarily.

hhhmmmm:

"So a such shirt with a right-libertarian name on it would not be about rebellion of any kind. It would be a shirt about conformity, at least to those who would have the privilege of being "free to be slaves"."

A shirt "with a right-libertarian name on it" is exactly about rebellion, because it opposes the entity that forces conformity, the state!

|11.29.04 @ 2:18PM|#

MayDay72:

I'm so sorry. But you're hardly the first one to be shocked by the ending of The Road to the Crying Game by Friedrich "Salma" Hayek.