Rothbard’s anti-statist theory of revolution, 60 years on

“All-Negro Comics” (1947), the first such book “to be drawn by Negro artists and peopled entirely by Negro characters” (Time Magazine).

I republish this December 11, 2020 post not only for its intrinsic historical and theoretical interest (not to mention its subject matter’s timeliness), but also its bearing on my current project of understanding the attraction of revolutionary Marxism. (Note his concise exposure of two common non sequiturs, one “racist,” the other “anti-racist.”) Marxists have avoided grappling with Rothbard’s praxeological and natural law approach to history and economics (to their detriment, in my opinion). Unlike Rothbard, it is they who are today’s conservatives: they champion oppressive statist social orders as well as or better than hired “prizefighters for the bourgeoisie” whom their rhetoric holds up to ridicule. Those who, like the present writer, lived through the 1960s, will recognize antecedents of today’s newsmakers.—A.G.F.

Election integrity, or rather the lack thereof, is the topic of the day. Some Americans are now reflecting on how we might avoid social conflagration, even secession.

Fifty-seven years ago my late friend Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), the great economist, political philosopher, and author of Conceived in Liberty (a five-volume history of the American republic’s founding) pursued the logic of revolutionary resistance to oppression in the essay appended below.

Its relevance to our time should be clear. There is no better example of Rothbard’s historical insight, politically incorrect frankness (which would get him “canceled” today), adherence to principle, and polemical adroitness. It should go without saying that this anticommunist’s citations of communists implies no endorsement of their illiberal program (but I can’t take any chances these days).

Some readers may need to be reminded, or told for the first time, that those who identify as “African Americans” are descendants of those who once preferred “Black,” “Afro-American,” “Negro,” and “Colored.” (See this post’s initial illustration above.)

“The Negro Revolution” appeared in the Summer 1963 issue of The New Individualist Review, a classical liberal-libertarian scholarly journal edited by John P. McCarthy (another friend), Robert Schuettinger, and John Weicher; its book review editor was Ronald Hamowy. Besides Rothbard, NIR’s distinguished contributors included Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Russell Kirk, Ludwig von Mises, Richard Weaver, and Henry Hazlitt (a far from exhaustive list).

On the 28th of August in the summer of ’63, millions of Americans heard and saw Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his memorable “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I’m happy to promote Rothbard’s essay on the eve of another march in that city, one that portends another revolution. [That would be January 6, 2021, which (as I wrote about at the time) predictably provoked a counterrevolutionary reaction that reverberates to this day.—A.G.F.]

—Anthony Flood

The Negro Revolution

Murray N. Rothbard

In his thirties; he wrote this article when he was 37.

DESPITE INCREASING USE of the term, it is doubtful that most Americans have come to recognize the Negro crisis as a revolution, possessed of all the typical characteristics and stigmata of a revolutionary movement and a revolutionary situation. Undoubtedly, Americans, when they think of “revolution,” only visualize some single dramatic act, as if they would wake up one day to find an armed mob storming the Capitol. Yet this is rarely the way revolutions occur. Revolution does not mean that some sinister little group sits around plotting “overthrow of the government by force and violence,” and then one day take up their machine guns and make the attempt. This kind of romantic adventurism has little to do with genuine revolution.

Revolution, in the first place, is not a single, isolated event, to be looked at as a static phenomenon. It is a dynamic, open-ended process. One of its chief characteristics, indeed, is the rapidity and acceleration of social change. Ordinarily, the tempo of social and political change is slow, meandering, inconsequential: in short, the typical orderly America of the political science textbooks. But, in a revolution, the tempo of change suddenly speeds up enormously; and this means change in all relevant variables: in the ideas governing the revolutionary movement, in its growth and in the character of its leadership, and in its impact on the rest of society.

Another crucial aspect of Revolution is its sudden stress on mass action. In America, social and political action has taken place for a long while in smoke-filled rooms of political parties, in quiet behind-the-scenes talks of lobbyists, Congressmen, and executive officials, and in the sober, drawn-out processes of the courts. Outside of football games, the very concept of mass action has been virtually unknown in the United States. But all this has been changed with the onset, this year, of the Negro Revolution. Continue reading “Rothbard’s anti-statist theory of revolution, 60 years on”

Murray Rothbard’s libertarian reflections on “The Negro Revolution” (1963)

Election integrity, or rather the lack thereof, is the topic of the day. Some Americans are now reflecting on how we might avoid social conflagration, even secession.

—Anthony Flood

The Negro Revolution

Murray N. Rothbard

DESPITE INCREASING USE of the term, it is doubtful that most Americans have come to recognize the Negro crisis as a revolution, possessed of all the typical characteristics and stigmata of a revolutionary movement and a revolutionary situation. Undoubtedly, Americans, when they think of “revolution,” only visualize some single dramatic act, as if they would wake up one day to find an armed mob storming the Capitol. Yet this is rarely the way revolutions occur. Revolution does not mean that some sinister little group sit around plotting “overthrow of the government by force and violence,” and then one day take up their machine guns and make the attempt. This kind of romantic adventurism has little to do with genuine revolution.

Continue reading “Murray Rothbard’s libertarian reflections on “The Negro Revolution” (1963)”

When fascists were frank: Another look at “We were the first fascists”

Talk of fascism is in the air; fascist violence, masquerading as opposition thereto, in the streets. Its appeal crosses racial lines, and it isn’t the first time. It seems opportune to republish “‘We were the first fascists’: from Garvey to Farrakhan.” — Anthony Flood

“We were the first fascists”: from Garvey to Farrakhan

First published February 21, 2019

On August 13, 1920 Marcus Garvey presided at the convention of the United Negro Improvement Association held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. There he promulgated the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World. Its 54 points comprise the farthest thing from a fascist manifesto.

And yet, as my friend Hugh Murray noted a quarter-century ago, Garvey “admired . . . leading anti-communists, such as Mussolini. Indeed, in 1937 Garvey proudly proclaimed of his Universal Negro Improvement Association, ‘We were the first fascists.'”[1]

Here’s the full quote:

We were the first Fascists, when we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown. Mussolini copied our Fascism.[2]

He said this in 1937, after Mussolini consolidated his rape of Ethiopia.

While many liberals [Murray continues] are the first to hurl the word “fascist” at those with whom they disagree, they usually ignore the fascism of blacks, even when publicly advocated.[3]

A few years after Hugh wrote those words, King’s College Professor of American and English Literature Paul Gilroy came out with “Black Fascism” (Transition, Indiana UPress, 2000, 70-91), a scholarly monograph on Garvey’s boast, the first instance of Black public advocacy of fascism. I recommend it to students of this overlooked chapter of Black American history.

On June 25, 1961 American Nazi Party Commander George Lincoln Rockwell sat in the Uline Arena, Washington, DC (where the Beatles would give their first US concert a few years later). He was there at the invitation of Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. Thousands were in attendance. During the collection, Rockwell shouted:

George Lincoln Rockwell gives $20!

Continue reading “When fascists were frank: Another look at “We were the first fascists””

“By any means necessary” revisited

That linguistic barbarism continues to spoil America’s discursive landscape. Once a mere hint of violence sporting the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability, it has evolved into a preferential option for “direct action” exercised by wide swaths of the populace, with its predictable vandalism, firebombing, assault on person and property, and usurpation of legitimate authority.

Below is this blog’s first post, dated October 3, 2018. Reference to the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh dates it only slightly (in my opinion; you may disagree). The logic of the deranged behavior that was on display two autumns ago is now being played out to its dystopian conclusion. I continue to hope that a majority of Americans will pull the country back from the brink this coming November 3rd—indeed, that they will be permitted to pull it back—but events have not allayed my fear that “we are probably living through the run-up to a civil war.”—Anthony Flood

“By any means necessary”: pragmatism on stilts

First published October 3, 2018

Malcolm X’s contribution to the erosion of American political rhetorical standards lives on, most recently in President Trump’s speech at a rally in Tennessee. But at least he was characterizing the expediency of his enemies.

In 1963 Communist-sympathizer Jean-Paul Sartre penned the words that in English become “by any means necessary.”

Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre, Ernesto Che Guevara, 1960, Cuba

Their African-American popularizer employed it to everlasting effect the following year. (He was assassinated the next.)

Conflating the necessary with the sufficient, it’s literally nonsense. “Any” doesn’t go with “necessary.”

There is, for example, more than one way to get to Times Square from Grand Central. One can walk a few blocks; or hop on the westbound M42 bus; or take the subway, either the shuttle (one stop) or the No. 7 (two). Each of them will do, but none is necessary.

The seductive power of the phrase overrides logic. “By the one means necessary” or “by any means sufficient” lacks punch. What the hackneyed phrase’s users mean is: “What I want is imperative, and whatever achieves it is permissible.” “Whatever it takes,” or “The end justifies the means,” which evacuates “justifies” of meaning.

Continue reading ““By any means necessary” revisited”

Kaepernick’s Cachet

Colin Kaepernick’s back in the news (assuming he ever left). Known more for his anti-police protests than gridiron prowess, he’s aligned himself with history’s worst police states (and never notices the irony). On October 11, 2018, he was the recipient of the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, about which I blogged at the time. (I’ve appended the post below.) Once in power, the type of political creature he admires would demand absolute submission to their agenda on pain of incarceration or execution. Until then, they’ll find him useful. (I’m charitably assuming, until there’s contrary evidence, that he’d be a victim rather than victimizer.) Given the totalitarian urge inspiring so much political activism today, I thought my old post worth dusting off. For a study of a major instance of communist hypocrisy on race, see my Herbert Aptheker: Studies in Willful Blindness. —Anthony Flood

Kaepernick’s Du Bois Medal: How Fitting

(First published October 11, 2018)

I don’t know whether any recipients of this year’s W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, to be awarded tonight at Harvard’s Sanders Theater, care to qualify their admiration of the medal’s namesake. Probably not. And that’s understandable, given his many notable accomplishments over the course of 95 years.

The least likely to demur, I’ll bet, is “athlete and activist” Colin Kaepernick. A man who has a tee shirt adorned with photos of Fidel Castro chatting with Malcolm (“By any means necessary”) X probably has no reservations about getting a Du Bois Medal, certainly not any more than that “Un-American” scholar and civil rights activist had about his 1959 International Lenin Prize.

The Castro regime may have been responsible for murdering anywhere from 35,000 to 141,000 souls (with a median of 73,000), but the enormity of Joseph Stalin’s reign exceeded Fidel’s by orders of magnitude: its unit of measure is “tens of millions.”

The breadth of Stalin’s mass murder, rivaled in the last century only by Hitler’s and Mao’s, could have been ascertained in 1953 by any competent researcher like Du Bois. Yet that was the year Du Bois penned a defense of Stalinism in the form of a eulogy upon the passing of Koba the Dread.

“Joseph Stalin,” Du Bois wrote, “was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature.”

Continue reading “Kaepernick’s Cachet”