Gabb on Carson

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Sean Gabb offers a very thoughtful review of Kevin Carson's Organization Theory on the Libertarian Alliance blog. I am inclined to disagree with Gabb about copyright and “vulgar libertarianism” alike, and a number of those posting to the comments section seem overly confident that transportation subsidies don't really distort patterns of commercial activity or promote otherwise inefficient organizational sizes. But whatever disagreements I might have with Gabb (and especially with a number of his readers, for whose views he obviously isn’t responsible), this is a great review.



What makes it so powerful is its capacity to convey a sense of just how eye-opening Carson's work really is. Gabb has surely read more social, political, and organizational theory than most people, and yet it's clear that engaging with Carson led to a genuine “aha!” moment for him, as it did for me. I encourage readers of this blog to devour, digest, repost, and respond to Gabb's review (both at his own site and on LiberaLaw).

Comments

Sean Gabb said…
Thanks. So far as these terms have any meaning, I am a man of the right. There is much in the cluster of left libertarian traditions that I do not share and am not likely to share. Even so, I accept that the intellectual traditions in which I have grown up are themselves imperfect. There is a hardness in these traditions, and a lack of sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, that I have never found attractive. There is also the frequent assumption - I never accepted it, but never wholly rejected it - that actually existing capitalism is a dirty approximation to a free market order. I have found Kevin Carson's work to some extent a liberation, and to some extent a challenge. As said, I do not agree with all he says. And I will, once my current writing commitments are out of the way, sit down and try to explain the grounds of my disagreement.
July 2, 2009 at 7:26 AM
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