Over the course of the last few weeks, we've been talking a lot about Ron Paul and his odd notions about women's reproductive freedom. And we've also talking about the Catholic Bishops and the Religious Industrial Complex and their more conventional objections on the same subject. Coalitions are one thing, but this one, on this subject, doesn't make a lot of sense. Except, it actually does, which I learned from talking to Corey Robin about his book last night on
Virtually Speaking.
He sent me here for a smart take on it from Mike Konczal:
I see the religious conservatives getting ready for this battle, but where are the libertarians? Perhaps we need a refresher course on the libertarian case against female sexual autonomy and birth control. For this, let’s go to our man Ludwig von Mises and his 1922 book Socialism. The book is a full-frontal assault on all things socialist; one of the many cases he brings is against “free love” and for the traditional family.
Why? He starts the case like this: “Proposals to transform the relations between the sexes have long gone hand in hand with plans for the socialization of the means of production. Marriage is to disappear along with private property… Socialism promises not only welfare—wealth for all—but universal happiness in love as well.”
Corey Robin suggested I check out this book, and it is great. I love this part, as it is very relevant for the Right today: “The arguments, sometimes unctuous and sometimes venomous, which are put forward by theologians and other moral teachers, are entirely inadequate as a reply to this programme.” The socialists are coming with a plan to equalize gender relationships – and by making the wife an equal of the husband it is only a matter of time until the worker seeks to be the equal of the boss, and with sex itself freely shared among consenting equals how can we even maintain the idea of “private property”? The theologians in charge of sex and the family are both (a) inadequate to stopping them and (b) kinda creepy about the whole sex thing to boot (Mises goes on at length about this). The libertarians are going to need to man up on this.
So, when Ron Paul and the boys are going on about the Austrians, they aren't just talking about monetary policy are they? It turns out that the father of modern libertarianism has more in common with Catholic Bishops than is readily apparent. Here's Mises again: