Transkribering
Does libertarianism have something to learn from the alt-right?
[Speaker 1]
First of all, thank you all for an interesting discussion so far. My question is for Professor Bieland. Professor, in your opening remarks, you spoke of libertarianism descriptively, as I understood it, as a set of principles characterized by non-aggression, kind of tolerance, inclusion, or at least certainly pluralism. I'm just trying to square that. A colleague of yours at the Mises Institute in Sweden, Klaus Bernpainter.
has written in positive terms about the so-called alt-right movement. The alt-right movement, of course, a grassroots movement best known for its enthusiastic embrace of Donald Trump, not exactly an anarchist, not exactly a pluralistic or tolerant, rather an authoritarian politician, also known for their vicious anti-Semitic, aggressive, violent rhetoric and for constituting a new generation of Western white nationalists. So my question to you is... Do you agree with your colleague that libertarianism has something to learn from the alt-right? Are these two movements in any way aligned? And if so, how close? Thank you.
[Speaker 2]
Well, I can't speak for Klaus, and I haven't seen that particular piece. I can't really comment on it. In general, I would say, yeah, we can learn from everybody. Maybe something from the alt-right movement, I don't know. I don't know enough about them. Do we have a lot in common with them? I don't think libertarianism has all that much in common with any other movement. Because the opposite, or the non-libertarians, are primarily statists.
And they want to rely on force in enforcing the society of their dreams, whatever it may be. It's usually their individual preference. And they want to hit the wall. everybody over the head until they just conform to their views. And in that sense, no, we can't probably ally with any movement on a single issue. I don't think we have any brethren in the alt-right movement or the left movement or any other status movement.