17. My Path Toward Libertarianism

17

DAN CRISTIAN COMANESCU

MY PATH TOWARD LIBERTARIANISM

I HEARD, ALMOST BY ACCIDENT, of Murray Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty, back in 1993. I borrowed it from a political philosophy professor, who—perhaps influenced by a few discussions we had concerning the Austrians I had barely heard of—happened to bring a French translation of this book from abroad. Suddenly I found myself to be a self-aware, full-blown libertarian. That is why I subsequently became interested in people and institutions whom I perceived as sharing my appreciation for Rothbard’s Ethics and related topics, such as Walter Block, Hans Hoppe, Guido Hülsmann, and others at the Mises Institute.

However, the really important question for me, in retrospect, is why not every reader of the Ethics of Liberty immediately becomes a libertarian, or, at least, immediately becomes interested in For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, and now, in Hoppe’s book, Democracy—The God that Failed. How can anyone resist becoming a hard-core libertarian after having read these books?

My short answer is that libertarianism is, always was, and forever will be, ultimately predicated on a sort of backward mindedness, i.e., on a minimally selfless disposition, though rarely acknowledged. As William Hazlitt put it long ago: “The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.” More recently, I believe a related point has been made by Jeff Hummel, who wrote of the need for “ideological altruism.” But how does such a thing come about?

True, the more praxeologically enlightened one gets, the more the need for such a selfless disposition can be minimized; yet, I suppose some selflessness is already implied in caring an iota for praxeology and what it seems to suggest, almost from the outset. Praxeology can be reassuring, insofar as it suggests that non-aggression works, from a self-interested viewpoint, better than one might otherwise think. However, it fails to show that it works better than aggression no matter what. A professional libertarian is still likely to be materially worse off than an intellectual body-guard of the state in a government-permeated environment—as a governmental employee candidly pointed out, when invited to attend a debate on money, in our private Mises Seminar.

Ultimately, I find libertarianism ineluctably based on some sort of minimal Christian metaphysics, or a (still recognizable) byproduct of it, that can account for sacrificing some hedonistic self-gratification for the sake of personal virtue, or for finding the quest for discernment and rational, social harmony more appealing than nihilism and the absurd. As Horia Patapievici, a great writer-friend, put it, libertarianism banks on a pre-classical-liberal kind of liberality—that of a rapidly vanishing, fundamentally Christian man. A sort of man classical liberalism has failed to reproduce. In short, libertarianism banks on backwardness. In my case it was my upbringing, family values, environment, etc., that gave me a definitely pre-formatted impetus toward the harmony of non-aggression, in spite of my proverbial personal laziness.

But I would expect no favorable response to Rothbard in an Antichristic cultural void such as the U.S. seems to be rapidly turning the world into, nor within the confines of a merely naturalist, natural-law worldview, especially on a social scale and in the long run. For optimism concerning the latter seems to assume some minimal nicety in people, and I fear no niceness whatsoever can ultimately be assumed to survive by merely natural means. Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamzov saw this, and Eugene (later Fr. Seraphim) Rose beautifully elaborated a similar point in his classic essay on “Nihilism.” According to St. Maximus the Confessor, man has two wings: liberty and grace. Similarly, I believe, nature alone may not be enough to keep man turned toward the true and objective good, which includes libertarianism. In particular, reason, too, may need to be sustained, strengthened, and complemented by divine grace (with meaning and prudence among its corollaries).

This is what I see as essential in retrospect, when I think of how I became a libertarian. Among the many related, factual questions that may come to mind, I will only touch upon some. I first heard of Murray Rothbard’s philosophy while doing some unguided research in a French library associated with the French Embassy in Bucharest, as a student in a (rather uninspiring) Franco-Romanian department of political science. I believe Rothbard was briefly mentioned in Jean-Luc Chabot’s Histoire de la Pensée Politique, or some similar handbook I consulted.

My first copy of Human Action came—almost accidentally, again—from an otherwise largely unnoticed book-fair that Andrea Rich (who later became a very special friend), and her legendary Laissez Faire Books, had organized in the early nineties, here in Bucharest. My first personal Austrian debt is to Mrs. Bettina Bien Greaves, who greatly helped me, from 1994 onward, in connection with my interest in Mises, and who also drew my attention to the (old) Review of Austrian Economics, that Murray Rothbard and Walter Block edited. I was thus led to the Mises Institute, the unshaken Gibraltar Rock of living Austro-Libertarianism. However, by then I had already read Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty and become a libertarian.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute–Romania is our own little domestic, on-going adventure, that grew out of Austrian private seminars and a couple of translations posted on misesromania.org. Marius Spiridon, our vice-president, was already a thorough-going Misesian, and a theologically sophisticated Orthodox Christian by the time we met. He was also won over to libertarianism by the Ethics of Liberty that I had the pleasure of bringing to his attention. He typifies what I’d call a sound man’s reaction to Rothbard, and we have seen this also in others, younger and quite promising fellows, such as Vladimir Topan, who has recently started his own private seminar.

My father, a brilliant and incredibly hard-working construction engineer and mathematician, taught me to hate communism, and has always displayed a kind of staunch stoicism, that I could never duplicate, but have learned to appreciate in others. When I suggested that he read The Libertarian Manifesto, as a busy man in his late fifties, he, too, was immediately won over. My mother has a gracious and contagious joie de vivre and comes from a family of warm-hearted, undemonstratively pious people. She enlivens everything she touches, I might say, and actively helped my Rothbardian endeavors in innumerable ways, such as patiently typing many of my translations.

My paternal grandfather was a storekeeper, a smart gambler, and died deeply religious. My maternal grandfather was a construction engineer (as are both my parents), shrewd investor, great sportsman, fascinating storyteller, helped many people along, and was incredibly loved by many more. Both my grandfathers were successful entrepreneurs in the old days, having started from scratch, though the maternal one also enjoyed some small gentry descent (a church carries their family name, Zana or Zanescu, in his home village, Vladimir).

School was like prison to me, from the first day. I always objected to and ridiculed the dilatory practices encouraged in my young colleagues, from early elementary school on, under communism. My poor old school-master always called me an “anarchist,” but I never really understood why, until I came to read Rothbard. He was soft on me, after all, considering the times. Fortunately, I was good at mathematics, and this made them look the other way in other matters. Those were days of relatively backward, soviet-type socialism, when a fascination for mathematical truth, if no other, still lingered on.

Fortunately, I do not have to rely on my libertarianism to make ends meet, at least so far. Many, if not all, my libertarian-minded Romanian friends have to work for government, or governmentally controlled institutions, to make a living as professional economists or political scientists. Hopefully they make a positive difference there and do OK. But it is an extremely unfavorable environment for sound ideas to develop and spread. However, Tudor Smirna, a founder of the Mises Institute—Romania, has given away his governmental “academic” position, and successfully runs his own business—a teahouse, right in front of the Romanian Presidential Palace.

Dan Cristian Comanescu is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute—Romania.