My friend and colleague, Winton Bates, has been engaged in an ongoing examination of my work, as I’ve discussed here, here, and here. Today, in The Savvy Street, Winton examines “Chris Sciabarra’s Trilogy on the Dialectics of Liberty.” Winton writes: “In writing this review my goal is to assess the strength of the arguments that Sciabarra presents in support of his view that dialectical thinking might help us to escape from quagmires in libertarian thought.” Here’s the highlight reel of Winton’s essay:
Sciabarra suggests that Marx’s attitude towards utopianism was similar to that of Friedrich Hayek. … ‘Marx, Hayek, and Utopia‘ offered a novel perspective on Friedrich Hayek’s contribution to libertarian thinking. … The new and interesting perspective offered by Chris Sciabarra is the suggestion that Hayek adopted a profoundly radical, dialectical method of social inquiry. …
‘Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical‘ is a monumental intellectual history of Ayn Rand, discussing her education in Russia and her novels, as well as her philosophical contributions. … Rand envisaged that the Objectivist movement would seek to overturn the dynamics of power by sparking a revolution on each of three levels in which power is manifested: the personal level; the cultural level; and the structural level, where it would end the domination of statist brutality.
[I]n ‘Total Freedom’, … his goal is to reveal the tensions that exist within Rothbard’s system. … Sciabarra argues that Rothbard’s most dialectical insights have to do with interconnections between market and state. … [Nevertheless] Rothbard stresses the dualism of market and state … [Sciabarra] goes on to discuss the context in which Rothbard came to believe that the paleoconservative movement required a “paleolibertarian” turn within libertarianism. He argues that Rothbard’s paleo turn was problematic …
My conclusion is that [Sciabarra] has presented a strong case that context-dropping has led some libertarian thinkers into quagmires. He has also made a strong case that libertarian thinkers should take account of interactions between existing political and legal frameworks, culture and cultural change, and the aspirations of individuals. …
As well, Chris Sciabarra’s trilogy of books has made an outstanding contribution by helping readers to come to terms with the social philosophies of Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard, three of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century.
As I said, that’s the highlight reel. The whole review is worth reading! Check it out here.
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