Galambosianism
From RationalWiki
This topic may or may not be bullshit, and is either nonsensical or idiotic.
May damage the mind and lead to drinking of the Kool-Aid.
Galambosianism is an early precursor to libertarian philosophy promoted by an aerospace engineer named Andrew J. Galambos (1924-1997) during the 1960s. He gave a series of for-pay classes starting with "V-50", "The Theory of Volition".
Unlike other precursors to libertarianism (such as the ideas of Ayn Rand, Robert LeFevre, Albert Jay Nock, and Ludwig von Mises), Galambos' ideas have largely been thrown on the dustbin of history, even among libertarians.
He called himself a liberal but in reality was philosophically somewhat closer to anarcho-capitalism. The main sticking point was his belief in absolute intellectual property rights, meaning the inventor or originator of an idea should have absolute, lifelong control over that idea and all the profits derived from it. His term for this was "primary property rights." Needless to say, Galambosianism would view wikis, the GNU license, free software, peer-to-peer file sharing, and so on as unacceptable things which should not be allowed in a free society.
Other libertarians quickly found Galambosians to be obstinate cranks. Reportedly, Andrew Galambos and Ayn Rand once met and within five minutes each had declared the other insane. Also reportedly, Galambos would keep a jar or coffee can next to him when speaking in public, into which he would drop a nickel or dime any time he mentioned the name of another person, or mentioned an idea or phrase attributed to another person, to symbolize he was paying "royalties" to them for his use of their intellectual property. He went so far as to drop a nickel in "royalties" to the long-dead Thomas Paine every time he used the word "liberty", on the mistaken belief that word was invented by Paine. Also reportedly, he was born Joseph Andrew Galambos, Jr. but legally changed his name to Andrew Joseph Galambos so he wouldn't infringe on his father's intellectual property rights. Jerome Tuccille's humorous history of the early libertarians, It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand, includes several such anecdotes of interactions with the Galambosians.
Galambosians themselves were not allowed to discuss any of Galambos' ideas with others. This, you see, would be a violation of Andrew Galambos' intellectual property rights. Any attempt to discuss Galambos or his ideas with a follower would get a response of silence, an answer like "yes I'm a Galambosian, but I'm not allowed to say what that means", or the question "have you taken V-50?" A couple of Galambos' works have been published in book form posthumously, but if you try selling your used copy on Amazon.com or eBay, it is almost inevitable that a Galambosian will contact you to chastise you for violating Galambos' primary property rights by selling one of his books on the used market. Of course, you can always answer with tongue in cheek that you dropped a nickel into a royalty jar for the deceased Galambos when you sold one of his books used. That should shut them up.
Needless to say, a wiki article discussing Galambosianism should not be allowed in a free society, but it is okay only if you drop a nickel in the jar after reading this article.
[edit] Further weird connections
Harry Browne, the 1996 and 2000 Libertarian Party candidate for President, was a close associate of Galambos a few decades earlier.
According to Brian Doherty in his book Radicals for Capitalism, the origins of the survivalism movement was among followers and/or graduates of Galambos' lectures in southern California, via Innovator magazine (1964-1969), and the gold bugs of the 1970s grouped around Inflation Survival Letter, among them Harry Browne, who promoted storing food and precious metals and buying rural land as a hedge against currency collapse and hyper-inflation.
[edit] Way really far out there weird connections
Innovator's editor was briefly Kerry Thornley, who was not only also the author of the Principia Discordia, but also Lee Harvey Oswald's best friend in the Marines when they were in the same unit in 1959.
