The "A" Was for "Anarcho-Capitalist"

Brian Doherty | July 19, 2006

From Mateusz Machaj at the Mises Blog comes an amusing (to cognescenti of obscure radical politics or popular '80s TV, at least) analysis of why the "A Team" were avatars of anarcho-capitalism. It starts like this:

"The A-team" supports the idea of natural law, rejects the nominalist tradition, rejects relativism both on ethical and epistemological grounds, supports entrepreneurship and free market, praises division of labor and monetary economy, builds it.s morality on the nonaggression axiom, rejects the necessity for economic regulation, undermines the government itself by demonstration of its failures, and shows how society is shaped by human action.

It then proves its thesis in 10 detailed points.

[Link thanks to Thomas D. Walls III]

Comments

|7.19.06 @ 11:22AM|#

OK, how do anarchists get off drugging an unwilling person in every episode?

|7.19.06 @ 11:59AM|#

I had a feeling that Mr. T supported the Gold Standard.

|7.19.06 @ 12:36PM|#

During the Vietnam War these soldiers were ordered by their colonel to rob a bank. After they finished their job, they found out that their headquarters were destroyed.

They were only following orders...so much for natural law...

|7.19.06 @ 1:03PM|#

In its initial drafts it was called the "A is A Team".

|7.19.06 @ 1:07PM|#

I pity da fool who got time fo dis jibba jabba

|7.19.06 @ 1:10PM|#

So they did rob the bank, but it wasn't a crime because they were only following orders?

So much for natural law...

|7.19.06 @ 1:21PM|#

I read this article yesterday, linked from some other blog. I'm now suing the writer to get that time back. Sorry; the A-team was just the dumbest show on television since My Mother the Car, which was at least sporadically funny. Anybody trying to pull deep philosophical parallels from it really needs to widen his horizons.

VM|7.19.06 @ 1:32PM|#

... Don't forget the A-Team where the team was pro union...

|7.19.06 @ 2:32PM|#

I love it when a spontaneous order comes together!

|7.19.06 @ 9:13PM|#

Yo, Stevo Darkly.

One brother's order is another's complexity.
Was Mr. T as peaceful as am I?

|7.19.06 @ 11:21PM|#

RE: Don't forget the A-Team where the team was pro union.. by VM

In defense of my all-time favorite Television program, in this episode(entitled "Labor Pains" ), the team was merely enforcing the contract that Jarrett(the owner of the plantations where the union was formed) had established with the workers. He had promised them decent wages, schools for the children, etc. Yet when they got there , there were none of these things. So, the A-Team gathered the growers into a union in order to force Jarrett to live up to his bargain.

VM|7.20.06 @ 2:39PM|#

(And they handed out flyers during breaks with the request, "read this on your own time")

grin.

The opening to the first season was really cool. :)

Didja know it's still on cable?

enjoy!

VM