In the Wednesday link round-up, I mentioned Roderick’s fantastic contribution to the recent Cato Unbound roundtable on Ayn Rand. One of the things he talks about is Rand’s embrace of capitalism not only in the sense of a free market, but also in the sense of something like the actually-existing system of class power over production (bosses, employees, the pyramid of ability, etc.; for the yada yada, see Roderick’s article, and perhaps also my What’s in a name?, which Roderick kindly took notice of in the footnotes).

Anyway. Bryan Caplan takes notice of Roderick’s article and offers (what I take to be) a rather ill-thought-out critique of the economic stuff in it over at EconLog. (Search down for Roderick’s spot-on reply in the comments.) Meanwhile, Brian Doherty takes notice of the article over at Hit & Run, where the comments thread is its usual fascinating self.

While it can’t top that thread in which the very first entry consisted entirely of Fuck you Roderick Long, I have to say that my current favorite is this one:

¢ | 1.20.10 @ 9:12PM | #

I haven’t kept up with Long’s quest to be the David Brooks of (increasingly nominal) libertarianism lately. His establishment-toadying got too embarrassing to watch a couple years back. Looks like it’s even worse now.

Let us know when he gives up the pose and busts his McGovern gear out of storage.

— Re: Ayn Rand: Radical for Something Other Than Capitalism

You may not have known that there was an establishment that could be toadied by arguments for unfettered laissez-faire, open borders, cooperativism, radical feminism, anti-electoralist strategies based on deliberate criminality to advance the cause of individualist anarchism.

But^[1] I, for one, welcome our new radical Left market anarchist overlords.