Comments on: Tom Paine and our pain: A critique of Rothbard’s reasoning on republics http://nouspraktikon.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/tom-paine-and-our-pain-a-critique-of-rothbards-reasoning-on-republics/ Mark Sunwall's blog on Rhetoric, Reason, and Freedom Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:34:03 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: nouspraktikon http://nouspraktikon.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/tom-paine-and-our-pain-a-critique-of-rothbards-reasoning-on-republics/#comment-90 nouspraktikon Fri, 02 May 2008 05:11:56 +0000 http://nouspraktikon.wordpress.com/?p=21#comment-90 Araglin, Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Regarding the engagement of Austrians with Vico etc., of course Hayek and Mises did that, but today's Austrians tend to specialize, like all other contemporary scholars, so grand theorizing has been on the downswing since the Methodenstreit. There are exceptions of course, and I was fortunate to be privy to some of these. As far as your observations on 18th century legal theory are concerned, I must admit that I am not an expert in that field, although as per above, I know in principle that Austrians should keep the economics-law synthesis alive. My general feeling is that the "physiocrats" were getting the upper hand, and the nomos of the kings was being more and more subsumed within a larger nomos which perhaps we could glorify with the term "natural law" although it would include what we call economics today. As many at the time (Burke etc.) noted, the French revolution of 1789 "should" have resulted in a constitutional monarchy, so you would have had two liberal "whig" powers in the West. Of course things didn't go that way. Until we can understand what really went on we can always blame Rousseau! --Nouspraktikon Araglin,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Regarding the engagement of Austrians with Vico etc., of course Hayek and Mises did that, but today’s Austrians tend to specialize, like all other contemporary scholars, so grand theorizing has been on the downswing since the Methodenstreit. There are exceptions of course, and I was fortunate to be privy to some of these. As far as your observations on 18th century legal theory are concerned, I must admit that I am not an expert in that field, although as per above, I know in principle that Austrians should keep the economics-law synthesis alive. My general feeling is that the “physiocrats” were getting the upper hand, and the nomos of the kings was being more and more subsumed within a larger nomos which perhaps we could glorify with the term “natural law” although it would include what we call economics today. As many at the time (Burke etc.) noted, the French revolution of 1789 “should” have resulted in a constitutional monarchy, so you would have had two liberal “whig” powers in the West. Of course things didn’t go that way. Until we can understand what really went on we can always blame Rousseau!
–Nouspraktikon

]]> By: Araglin http://nouspraktikon.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/tom-paine-and-our-pain-a-critique-of-rothbards-reasoning-on-republics/#comment-89 Araglin Thu, 01 May 2008 19:09:03 +0000 http://nouspraktikon.wordpress.com/?p=21#comment-89 Dear Mr. Sunwall, You said: "Sacred, realist thought was becoming restricted to theological objects, legal, nominalist thinking was starting to dominate the relations between royal houses and all the other legal persons in civil society." I would have to quibble with this point (or at least ask that you qualify it somewhat). I think that said nominalism may have been deliberately used by certain of the Legists (and others) who were interested in advancing the cause of plenary royal power by urging juridicial arguments which had the effect of dissolving all (non-state-sanctioned) associational forms into their constituent atoms (leaving only the naked individual). This had the ultimate effect of leaving only the state (represented at its earliest state by the late medieval kings) and the natural person (with the predictable result that the state should win nearly every time), where before there stood the family (as corporate body), the guild, the sworn brotherhoods of urban burghers, Cathedral chapters, choral and other foundations, monastic orders (cloistered, itinerant, and military), feudal bonds of fealty and homage, etc. It seems to me that, in addition to the proper juridical articulation of how these intermediate bodies come to exist (and what their respective rights and obligations are), these important bodies cannot long survive the corrosive effects of an overly-nominalist imagination. Cheers, Araglin Dear Mr. Sunwall,

You said:
“Sacred, realist thought was becoming restricted to theological objects, legal, nominalist thinking was starting to dominate the relations between royal houses and all the other legal persons in civil society.”

I would have to quibble with this point (or at least ask that you qualify it somewhat).

I think that said nominalism may have been deliberately used by certain of the Legists (and others) who were interested in advancing the cause of plenary royal power by urging juridicial arguments which had the effect of dissolving all (non-state-sanctioned) associational forms into their constituent atoms (leaving only the naked individual).

This had the ultimate effect of leaving only the state (represented at its earliest state by the late medieval kings) and the natural person (with the predictable result that the state should win nearly every time), where before there stood the family (as corporate body), the guild, the sworn brotherhoods of urban burghers, Cathedral chapters, choral and other foundations, monastic orders (cloistered, itinerant, and military), feudal bonds of fealty and homage, etc.

It seems to me that, in addition to the proper juridical articulation of how these intermediate bodies come to exist (and what their respective rights and obligations are), these important bodies cannot long survive the corrosive effects of an overly-nominalist imagination.

Cheers,
Araglin

]]> By: Araglin http://nouspraktikon.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/tom-paine-and-our-pain-a-critique-of-rothbards-reasoning-on-republics/#comment-88 Araglin Thu, 01 May 2008 18:48:12 +0000 http://nouspraktikon.wordpress.com/?p=21#comment-88 Dear Mr. Sunwall, I thoroughly enjoyed the above-post and hope you will continue to flesh out the insights contained therein in the future. Could you recommend any particular sources relating to what you have in this post called "collective representations," and elsewhere group-level noematic objects? I know that the latter may have some place within the literature of the early phenomenologists, but would appreciate any particular sources you can point me to. Has there been any exploration of the relation between the foregoing concepts and the work of Giambattista Vico (the idea of the sociological primacy of various tropes in different historical periods - metaphor, metonymy/synedoche, and irony)? I think this is an area where Austr0-libertarians have tended to be somewhat weak, but where I think if more work were done, economic methodological individualism and Durkheimian sociology could be found to complement one another (perhaps symbolic transactionalism and Giddensian structuration have hinted in this direction? I confess ignorance of much of the important literature). I think also that Dame Mary Douglas has probably done great work in this area... Perhaps this is a bit off topic, but I thought I would alert you to a the comment thread attached to a recent post by Joshua Snyder at the Western Confucian (dealing with Catholicism and the market economy) which implicates some of the same issues. The post can be found at: http://orientem.blogspot.com/2008/05/catholicism-and-free-markets.html In that comment thread, in response to a very suggestive comment by Joshua Snyder, I left an extended three-part comment regarding the reconciliation of Austro-libertarianianism with Distributivism, Radical Orthodoxy, etc., and certain other issues which may be of interest to you and about which I would love to hear any feedback you may have. My comments are somewhat disorganized and chock-full of typos, but I think some sort of meaning shines through nonetheless. Thanks, Araglin Dear Mr. Sunwall,

I thoroughly enjoyed the above-post and hope you will continue to flesh out the insights contained therein in the future.

Could you recommend any particular sources relating to what you have in this post called “collective representations,” and elsewhere group-level noematic objects? I know that the latter may have some place within the literature of the early phenomenologists, but would appreciate any particular sources you can point me to.

Has there been any exploration of the relation between the foregoing concepts and the work of Giambattista Vico (the idea of the sociological primacy of various tropes in different historical periods – metaphor, metonymy/synedoche, and irony)?

I think this is an area where Austr0-libertarians have tended to be somewhat weak, but where I think if more work were done, economic methodological individualism and Durkheimian sociology could be found to complement one another (perhaps symbolic transactionalism and Giddensian structuration have hinted in this direction? I confess ignorance of much of the important literature). I think also that Dame Mary Douglas has probably done great work in this area…

Perhaps this is a bit off topic, but I thought I would alert you to a the comment thread attached to a recent post by Joshua Snyder at the Western Confucian (dealing with Catholicism and the market economy) which implicates some of the same issues.

The post can be found at:
http://orientem.blogspot.com/2008/05/catholicism-and-free-markets.html

In that comment thread, in response to a very suggestive comment by Joshua Snyder, I left an extended three-part comment regarding the reconciliation of Austro-libertarianianism with Distributivism, Radical Orthodoxy, etc., and certain other issues which may be of interest to you and about which I would love to hear any feedback you may have.

My comments are somewhat disorganized and chock-full of typos, but I think some sort of meaning shines through nonetheless.

Thanks,
Araglin

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