Confessions of an Ex-Commie

[Havet]

Confessions of an ex commie

By James A. Donald

When I was about 13, 14, 15, I felt very oppressed, and I read a lot of stuff about participatory democracy. I became very keen on participatory democracy. I realized that there would be a problem deciding who was to participate on what, but I figured that such trivial details could be taken care of after the revolution, and I joined a radical leftist group at the age of 15. They were Spartacists. Spartacists are a kind of Trotskyite, and Trotkyites are a kind of communist and there are innumerable obscure little trot factions. The communists have a saying. “Two trots, three factions.”
This particular faction of the trots was very keen on participatory democracy at that time, as were the left, and progressive forces generally at that time.

I soon saw that the sparts' MO was entryism. They would join much larger organizations, organizations whose goals, motivations, and members they despised, and then take over that organization and use its funds, assets, and membership list for their own purposes, rather than for the original purposes of the organization.

It rapidly became obvious to me that if a large organization was genuinely practicing participatory democracy it could easily be taken over by a small well organized minority, and the only participatory organizations that could resist the sparts were those that were already dominated by a small, well entrenched, minority. Usually a hostile, suspicious and somewhat paranoid minority, a minority that tended to go on witch hunts for sparts from time to time, and check under the bed for sparts before going to sleep at night.

I became disillusioned with the sparts, and disillusioned by participatory democracy — and none to keen on representative democracy either. But I still believed that it could be made to work, that one could run society and the economy and socialism in truly democratic fashion, but I realized that it might not be quite as easy, or quite as democratic, as I had hoped.

At the age of seventeen I joined both the anarcho socialists and the Maoists — mostly because these were the two groups most hated by the trots.

(Some years later I learnt that the main point of disagreement between Stalin and Trotsky was that Trotsky felt that Stalin was reluctant to murder enough people, and reluctant to stamp out freedom with the sort of savage vigor that Trotsky delighted in. This did not surprise me in the slightest.)

Mostly I was active with the Maoists. The leaders of the Maoists were full of faith, zeal, and certainty. Each ones strength was as the strength of ten, because his heart was pure.

The anarcho socialist leader suffered from uncertainty, doubt, complexity, and participatory democracy. I will tell you more of the anarcho socialists later, but first, the Maoists:

In my second year at university, the leadership group of the Maoists was taken by the Chinese government on a tour of China.

Now in those days "foreign friends" who toured China usually reported that they had a really great time and that China was full collectives full of happy, free and prosperous workers all equal, all working for pure love of the common good, and all filled with holy zeal for the glorious word of Chairman Mao.

Somehow my friends missed out on the Potemkin village tour and got the reality tour instead. Or perhaps it is merely that the foreign friends who write those glowing reports are those who are best at closing their eyes.
When they returned they were changed men. When someone asked them about their trip they would be vague and quiet, and when they finally got around to answering they would change the subject and would not look you in the eye.

They would still tell you that China was a glorious workers paradise, but they no longer appeared to be listening to their own words, as if perhaps they could not bear to hear the words that they recited.

Most of them continued to work full time for the revolution, but they were no longer strong and full of faith, but weak, guilty, furtive, and a little ashamed.

Gradually, most of the members of the Maoist group dropped out, as did I.

So now I engaged in most of my political activism with the chronically disorganized anarcho socialists. The leader of the anarcho socialists genuinely believed in participatory democracy, and as result nothing got done.

We would sometimes discuss how anarcho socialism would work, and I noticed that most of us had not the faintest idea, and those that did have an idea had ideas that sounded disturbingly like the ideas that my Maoist friends had before their trip to China.

My anarchist group had no literature on Catalonia. The leader, when discussing anarcho socialism, never mentioned Catalonia. Sometimes, when interacting with other anarcho socialist groups, I would see literature on the glorious anarcho socialist society created in Catalonia for a short time.

Our leader tended to treat such literature as if was either invisible or coated with radioactive waste. Not that he ever said anything that suggested that Catalonia had ever fallen short of being the perfect anarchist utopia and simultaneously the perfect socialist utopia, but he appeared somewhat uncomfortable with the word "Catalonia". Indeed he appeared incapable of speaking that word.

Reading the Catalonia literature, I noticed something that disturbed me a little. The consolidation into larger economic units seemed curiously uniform and swift. If it was voluntary, if people themselves decided where they would work and what work they would do, you would expect the small workshops to gradually merge one by one, each merger separately negotiated.

An even more disturbing feature was the total silence from the gloriously liberated workers of Catalonia, a silence strongly reminiscent of that which I had noticed earlier from the gloriously liberated workers of Mao's China. The glowing reports of how well the Anarchist communes worked and how free they were all came from foreigners, who had been given something that disturbingly resembled the official tours given to foreign friends in Mao's China, or they came from people who sounded suspiciously like rulers. How come an anarchist society was capable of giving people something that curiously resembles an official tour? How come free people were so utterly silent?

So I stopped reading stuff about Catalonia. In one part of my mind I believed that Catalonia showed that freedom and socialism went together like ham and eggs. In another part of my mind I suspected that if I read too much about Catalonia I would suffer the same sad transformation as my Maoist friends had suffered.

But this mental conflict disturbed me, and I started thinking about property rights.

Imagine a society where you were given everything you needed free of charge, and gold was worthless or of little use. Imagine a society where you worked for the common good without compensation for specific work.
Is this not the same thing as a society where someone else decides what you need, and someone else decides what you do?

And is such a society not the same thing as a slave state?

Obviously, freedom is the choice to do what you want to do, not doing what the group thinks is good for the group. Selfishness may not be a virtue, but if selfishness is forbidden, then you are not free. And in order be free to do what you want to do you need space to do it in, and things to do it with. Property is simply those things that one is free to use or misuse as one pleases, wisely or unwisely, without asking permission. Thus freedom and property rights are inseparable.

And not only does my property make me more free, but other people's property also makes me more free, provided it is not all owned by a single entity. Freedom of the press is merely the property right of the guy who owns the press to print what he pleases, and my property right to buy what he prints, or not, as I please.

Any system where I am free to see or read what I please, and the publisher is free to publish what he pleases, is a system where someone like Stephen Spielberg will probably make a billion dollars. If I cannot choose who I pay or not pay, then the publisher has no reason to publish what I am interested in, or he else is not free to publish what he wishes. Any system where someone like Stephen Spielberg is free to make a billion dollars will necessarily be very similar to capitalism.

Imagine a society where all the printing presses and bulletin board systems were owned by the government and run by a single bureaucracy charged with ensuring that all views were given "fair" hearing, and all news was "fair" and "properly balanced". Clearly this would be most unfree, and it is also likely that in practice certain views would not given any hearing, and that certain true facts would be deemed to be inherently misleading and unbalanced.

And even if it was all perfectly fair and balanced, it would still deny me the opportunity to be unfair and unbalanced.

So I gradually came to realize that the failures of socialism were not accidents, but rather an inherent consequence of socialism. Without private property there is no room for any freedom whatsoever.

So I gradually dropped out from the anarcho socialists, but I continued to support the struggles of the oppressed peoples of the world against the evils of US imperialism.

It seemed to me then that there was a choice between liberty and equal economic outcomes, and that those that were poor and oppressed were right to prefer equal economic outcomes to liberty and an empty belly.

It was obvious to me that when multinational corporations sought to spread capitalism around the world, it was not because they wished the workers have more choices on how to make a living.

I had come to realize that you could not have equal economic outcomes and liberty both, but it is plain that you can have both slavery and gross inequality, and plain that in much of the world there was plenty of that.

Like all good progressive folk of that time (1976) I supported the heroic struggle of the Cambodian people under the leadership of Pol Pot against the evils of US imperialism.

But those Cambodian refugees just kept on coming, and their tales of horror continued. Eventually I woke up.

I saw the truth.

There is no conflict between liberty and equality: If you hope to obtain equality by redistribution of wealth, you will need masters to allocate the goodies, to avoid a free for all, and some will be masters, and the rest subjects. The more redistribution, the more inequality you have in favor of those managing the redistribution, and against those looked after by their betters. For example when the government intervenes to secure "Employee rights" you wind up with an empowered human resources department, not empowered employees.

Inequality cannot be remedied by concentrated and centralized power, the greater such power, the greater the injustice. And power can only be dispersed if many particular people have complete authority over many particular separate things, in other words, if everything is privately owned.

Liberty is property rights. Liberty is diminished in direct proportion as property rights are violated.Old article i had been looking for. My interest here is to provide some material that is thought provoking. So what are your opinions on this?



I am particularly interested in opinions regarding the bolded parts.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Imagine a society where you worked for the common good without compensation for specific work.
Is this not the same thing as a society where someone else decides what you need, and someone else decides what you do?

And is such a society not the same thing as a slave state?

Obviously, freedom is the choice to do what you want to do, not doing what the group thinks is good for the group.
News flash: In capitalism, your wage depends on the labour market, the labour market depends on supply and demand, and supply and demand depend on OTHER PEOPLE'S DECISIONS.

There is no such thing as the freedom to do whatever you want without regard for other people's decisions. Not in socialism, not in communism, not in capitalism, not in any kind of society.

I can't believe how many times I've heard individualists whine and complain about how horrible it is that other people can make decisions that impact your ability to get a certain job or earn a certain amount of wealth. It's beginning to get on my nerves. Living in society equals giving other people some degree of power over you. Grow up already.


Selfishness may not be a virtue, but if selfishness is forbidden, then you are not free.
No one proposes to forbid selfishness. Take your straw men elsewhere.


And in order be free to do what you want to do you need space to do it in, and things to do it with. Property is simply those things that one is free to use or misuse as one pleases, wisely or unwisely, without asking permission. Thus freedom and property rights are inseparable.
You fair at understanding the nature of property. The right to use and abuse certain objects is only part of property rights, and it is a part that socialists have no problem with.

The other parts of property are the right to buy and sell objects, and the right to charge a fee for other people's use of your property. This fee is called a rent or a profit, and this is the aspect of property that socialists and communists oppose.


And not only does my property make me more free, but other people's property also makes me more free, provided it is not all owned by a single entity.
How so? You don't even explain how that's supposed to work. What do you care who owns X and Y pieces of property, and how many different owners there are? As long as they're not YOUR property, it's all the same to you.


Any system where I am free to see or read what I please, and the publisher is free to publish what he pleases, is a system where someone like Stephen Spielberg will probably make a billion dollars.
You're assuming the existence of money and private economic transactions in a market. Those things do not have to exist. I can imagine a system where you are free to see or read what you like, and the publisher is free to publish what he pleases, but the publisher does not get his income from the amount of books he sells to you (and/or you do not have to pay for his books).


Imagine a society where all the printing presses and bulletin board systems were owned by the government and run by a single bureaucracy charged with ensuring that all views were given "fair" hearing, and all news was "fair" and "properly balanced". Clearly this would be most unfree, and it is also likely that in practice certain views would not given any hearing, and that certain true facts would be deemed to be inherently misleading and unbalanced.
Now imagine that same society, except with everyone having an internet connection and the freedom to publish their views online.

Problem solved. Next question?


If you hope to obtain equality by redistribution of wealth, you will need masters to allocate the goodies, to avoid a free for all, and some will be masters, and the rest subjects.
What kind of idiocy is this? "Redistribution of wealth" simply refers to a set of laws that determine who gets what. We have a little something called democracy that enables us to create laws without the need to have them dictated by any kind of "masters."

And furthermore, property rights are themselves a set of laws that determine who gets what. By your own logic, those who define and enforce property rights are masters, and the rest of us are subjects.


And power can only be dispersed if many particular people have complete authority over many particular separate things, in other words, if everything is privately owned.
There is one little glimmer of truth in there: Your power is directly proportional to the amount of property you own.

If everything was privately owned, and if everyone owned the same amount, then we would indeed have a nice decentralized dispersal of power and no one would have more power than anyone else. But such a system is utterly unsustainable. Capitalism concentrates property in a few hands, and thereby also concentrates power in those same few hands. You can disperse private property all you want - it will just centralize itself again, and very quickly. The only solution is to do away with private property entirely and make each person an equal "shareholder" in the collective property of society.


Liberty is property rights. Liberty is diminished in direct proportion as property rights are violated.
Fuck off and burn in hell.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Private property is the ability to own a computer. Anarchist property is the ability to use a computer.

Equality is necessarily protected, once established, because individuals protect "property" as a collective force. They necessarily have the means to defend their property because there is no opposition.

Liberty is simply the ability to do what is best for yourself. The idea is that a communist society promotes that. Individuals simply would be discouraged from acting against the system.

Look at game theory.

If I defect, I get an advantage. Clearly, we both realization that, given that everyone is self-interested to some degree, we should have a principle that forces compromise. Once this principle is already established, it's common sense. If society never has violence, and everyone has a gun, I know I could kill someone and take their stuff. What would that do? It would throw the structure and value of the system out the window. I'd need to protect the social climate that promotes the best results for me. Once enough people are already cooperating, it's no longer beneficial to defect if you're not a moron.

Game theory makes defection a reasonable choice because everyone already defects. Liberty being equated with individual property rights is a confusion because such rights don't exist. No one has a right to deny another person simply because it's convenient. A bear does not violate me if he tries to kill me. He is simply a bear. We resolve our dispute through conflict.

Free market capitalism is an inherent skepticism I sympathize with. Basically, if individuals won't or can't magically stop being morons, we should design society under the assumption they are idiots. This is both pragmatic and dangerous at the same time. I'm an idealist. If I was convinced leftist methodologies were all flawed, I would still seek new methodologies for communism.

The opposition to communist methodologies I understand. The resignation that communism is impossible, the stoppage of discussing possible means to get there, is what I can't comprehend.

[Havet]

I think he was actually referring with having a centralized government dictating what people can or cannot have, instead of (obviously) people always be subject to other people's decisions. However, one can still choose to ignore those decisions and live. You are free to not go by other people's decisions, but in case you want to deal with them and trade with their property, you have to accept their terms, just as they will have to accept yours.

And why would it be wrong for someone, who wished to use a product of another person, that other person contracting with her to let her use his product for a certain fee or profit? If its his property, shouldn't he decide what to do with it, if the other person agrees? of course, when there is enough people owning a certain thing, if someone manages to share that for free, those who try to charge a fee will get no customers.

Regarding other people's property making others freer, i think hes arguing that those people are free to decide what to do with it, therefore more easily convinced to trade with you if you wish to have their property, instead of one centralized institution just having everything and then distributing it.

On the system you envisioned, it is pretty much happening today. Due to the farce of copyright claims, many people now make money not by enforcing copyright claims over people, but by putting the information available and making an income on public talks or conferences about their books. however, i would not see nothing inherently legitimate with someone trying to charge for their book, although, with the internet, they are likely to get a lot less people buying from them.

i also think he was arguing that parlamentarism still has rulers, because it is the majority that rule on everyone, or at least elect a few to rule on everyone. So those who decided who gets what are now the dictators, because a minority will always be a slave of the decision of the majority.

Those who would enforce property rights, like someone over his car, or another person over his food, are masters of their property (assuming they obtained it legitimately)

about power and property, if that were the case, japan would be many times poorer than china, when in fact it is hundreds of times richer.

Japan is a few hundred kilometers squared and china is a few hundred thousand kilometres squared

if power is directly proportional to the amount of property owned, then japan should be much much poorer than china, which is not...

Luxembourg, quatar, switzerland, ireland all have low amounts of lands but are amongs the richest nations on earth. richness per person, that is.

Of coruse china has more total wealth than japan, because there are a billion people, and japan only have 100 million.

But in china most people have lots of land but little money, and in japan they have very little land and lots of money.

About fucking off and burning in hell, i think that is not a very rational and logical way of trying to get your point accross, but i'm guessing you had a bad day, so I won't throw it at you.

[Old Man Diogenes]

Private property is the ability to own a computer. Anarchist property is the ability to use a computer.

While I agree, I would say that a computer would be a private possession rather than private property.

[Havet]

Game theory makes defection a reasonable choice because everyone already defects. Liberty being equated with individual property rights is a confusion because such rights don't exist. No one has a right to deny another person simply because it's convenient. A bear does not violate me if he tries to kill me. He is simply a bear. We resolve our dispute through conflict.

Why would people produce things if they can't benefit from it?

You're arguing essentially that every steals from everyone else, but since there aren't any property rights, it's not stealing but "borrowing", or "using".

But why would someone make something if they could just use somebody else's ?

you seem to be arguing, for example, that in that society you would have a right to my pc.

Except i'm "old-fashioned" and i'll put a big lock in my door to my pc, and a password to protect it. So if you want to use my pc, i'm not going to give you the password, and you'll have to torture me to get it.

so i'm guessing you would be in favor of torture in that situation?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I think he was actually referring with having a centralized government dictating what people can or cannot have, instead of (obviously) people always be subject to other people's decisions.
A government is made of people. I don't see the difference between the government telling me what I can have and the market telling me what I can have.

Being subject to the decisions of other people organized in a government is not inherently more oppressive than being subject to the decisions of other people who are not organized in a government.


However, one can still choose to ignore those decisions and live.
Not really. Do you own enough land to grow your own food? Do you have enough money to buy land to grow your own food?

If the answer is no, then you can't actually choose to ignore other people's decisions and live. If you can't grow your own food, you must buy food in order to live. And to do that, you need money, which is provided by other people.


You are free to not go by other people's decisions, but in case you want to deal with them and trade with their property, you have to accept their terms, just as they will have to accept yours.
"You are free to accept our terms if you want to live - or you can refuse to accept our terms and die."

Some freedom...


And why would it be wrong for someone, who wished to use a product of another person, that other person contracting with her to let her use his product for a certain fee or profit? If its his property, shouldn't he decide what to do with it, if the other person agrees?
Oh no you don't. You are trying to take the existence of private property as a given. You are assuming that private property is legitimate as the premise to your argument, when in fact the legitimacy of private property is precisely the issue under debate. You are begging the question.

The existence of private property is not a given. Your property is not yours by magic. It is yours because society decided to establish and enforce property rights. Property is a social construct: You can do with your property what society decides you can do with your property - that and no more.

To answer your question, you should not be allowed to charge a fee for the use of your property because the only legitimate source of income is work. If you are allowed to charge a fee for the use of your property, you are getting money for nothing - you are getting money without working, without lifting a finger. That is illegitimate.


Regarding other people's property making others freer, i think hes arguing that those people are free to decide what to do with it, therefore more easily convinced to trade with you if you wish to have their property, instead of one centralized institution just having everything and then distributing it.
You are forgetting that the "centralized institution" can be under the democratic control of society.

And if you think that the democratic control of society is an impediment to freedom, that brings us to the next point:


i also think he was arguing that parlamentarism still has rulers, because it is the majority that rule on everyone, or at least elect a few to rule on everyone. So those who decided who gets what are now the dictators, because a minority will always be a slave of the decision of the majority.
When Alex and John disagree about a political issue, and neither of them will be persuaded by the other, there is no way around the fact that the wishes of one of them will have to be denied. Since you cannot please everyone, someone will have to be displeased.

If the majority and the minority disagree, then you must other enforce the wishes of the majority or those of the minority. There is no third option. And I prefer to be on the side of the majority.

You can have majority rule or you can have minority rule. There is no other alternative.


Those who would enforce property rights, like someone over his car, or another person over his food, are masters of their property (assuming they obtained it legitimately)
Um, what? Property rights are enforced by governments (through the use of police forces), not by property owners themselves.


about power and property, if that were the case, japan would be many times poorer than china, when in fact it is hundreds of times richer.
I was talking about the relative power of individuals. If all of China was owned by one individual, and all of Japan was owned by one individual, then yes, of course the person who owned China would be more powerful.

But China is currently divided between more individuals than Japan.


Luxembourg, quatar, switzerland, ireland all have low amounts of lands but are amongs the richest nations on earth. richness per person, that is.
Property is not the same as land. There are many other kinds of property besides land. And countries are not individuals.

[Qayin]

But why would someone make something if they could just use somebody else's ?

you seem to be arguing, for example, that in that society you would have a right to my pc.

Except i'm "old-fashioned" and i'll put a big lock in my door to my pc, and a password to protect it. So if you want to use my pc, i'm not going to give you the password, and you'll have to torture me to get it.

lmao:laugh:

Torture you for your computer password? wtf

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Why would people produce things if they can't benefit from it?
Today, there are millions of workers in the car industry all over the world. These people make cars, but they do not sell those cars - that's someone else's job. They do not earn any money from the sale of cars. Instead, the various car companies pay them wages in exchange for their labour. The cars are not the property of the car workers.

So you see, it is perfectly possible to earn money working to produce something that is not your property.


you seem to be arguing, for example, that in that society you would have a right to my pc.
Um, no. If a person - or society as a whole - has agreed to let you use a certain piece of property (like a PC), there will be very specific terms defining how you can use it, for what time, and under what conditions it may be taken from you.

Just because you're using someone else's property doesn't mean that person has the right to come in and take it from you whenever they want. Property doesn't work that way in capitalism, socialism, communism, or any kind of society.


Except i'm "old-fashioned" and i'll put a big lock in my door to my pc, and a password to protect it. So if you want to use my pc, i'm not going to give you the password, and you'll have to torture me to get it.

so i'm guessing you would be in favor of torture in that situation?
You show a distinct lack of imagination. If I were an oppressive government and wanted to take your PC, I would have no need to torture you or even send anyone to your house. I'd just turn off your electricity and politely inform you that you'll get it back after you come bring me your PC and tell me the password.

[trivas7]

Imagine a society where you were given everything you needed free of charge, and gold was worthless or of little use. Imagine a society where you worked for the common good without compensation for specific work.
Is this not the same thing as a society where someone else decides what you need, and someone else decides what you do?

This is a caricature of socialism and thus a strawman. Socialism is posited on the idea that society decides its needs and produces accordingly, no one is "given everything...free of charge". The individual works b/c it fulfills her selfish need to work for the common good.

[Havet]

A government is made of people. I don't see the difference between the government telling me what I can have and the market telling me what I can have.

Being subject to the decisions of other people organized in a government is not inherently more oppressive than being subject to the decisions of other people who are not organized in a government.

A computer company can't force me to buy their computer. A government forces me to pay taxes. Got it?



Not really. Do you own enough land to grow your own food? Do you have enough money to buy land to grow your own food? Like i said, in China, and in africa as well, people own a lot of land, so they have that choice.



The existence of private property is not a given. Your property is not yours by magic. It is yours because society decided to establish and enforce property rights. Property is a social construct: You can do with your property what society decides you can do with your property - that and no more

To answer your question, you should not be allowed to charge a fee for the use of your property because the only legitimate source of income is work. If you are allowed to charge a fee for the use of your property, you are getting money for nothing - you are getting money without working, without lifting a finger. That is illegitimate.

so if your property is not yours by magic, can i come over to your house and stay forever?

you seem to deny property rights while taking advantage of them.

If you're going to say no one should charge for the use of land, then you have to have some institution forcing people who do wish to rent others, which is denying any decision you may have on your former house, which means everyone can come over to your house.

Which means, i could just put an ad in craiglist saying Free Place to Stay, indicating your house.


When Alex and John disagree about a political issue, and neither of them will be persuaded by the other, there is no way around the fact that the wishes of one of them will have to be denied. Since you cannot please everyone, someone will have to be displeased.

If the majority and the minority disagree, then you must other enforce the wishes of the majority or those of the minority. There is no third option. And I prefer to be on the side of the majority.

You can have majority rule or you can have minority rule. There is no other alternative.

So you think the only way to deal with men is to rule them or be ruled by them? Men of integrity would do neither.

You are also assuming just because more people support an idea it means they are more likely to be right, which is wrong, as history has countlessly shown. What if, due to religious beliefs, a majority would decide, under communism, that those who practiced gay sex should be stoned to death? Would that be rational, because many people support it?



Um, what? Property rights are enforced by governments (through the use of police forces), not by property owners themselves.

the first line of defense of property are not governments, but people who have the possession or are in the property and face theft. Only after they usually call a protection service, which can be a government or a private protection service.



Property is not the same as land. There are many other kinds of property besides land. And countries are not individuals.

Then your point is even more redundant, since the only property there is is stuff made by people.

and free markets are the only way of extremely poor people becoming rich without stealing.

[Havet]

Today, there are millions of workers in the car industry all over the world. These people make cars, but they do not sell those cars - that's someone else's job. They do not earn any money from the sale of cars. Instead, the various car companies pay them wages in exchange for their labour. The cars are not the property of the car workers.

So you see, it is perfectly possible to earn money working to produce something that is not your property.

nope, you are saying they are producing something and they do not keep the exact thing they produce

whereas i said: "Why would people produce things if they can't benefit from it? "

and they do benefit from it: wages.



Um, no. If a person - or society as a whole - has agreed to let you use a certain piece of property (like a PC), there will be very specific terms defining how you can use it, for what time, and under what conditions it may be taken from you.

Just because you're using someone else's property doesn't mean that person has the right to come in and take it from you whenever they want. Property doesn't work that way in capitalism, socialism, communism, or any kind of society.

So i can go to your house, use your pc, and you can't take the pc away from me whenever you want.



You show a distinct lack of imagination. If I were an oppressive government and wanted to take your PC, I would have no need to torture you or even send anyone to your house. I'd just turn off your electricity and politely inform you that you'll get it back after you come bring me your PC and tell me the password.

so who said shit about governments?

i was just taking your scenario of "anyone can do anything" and how it wouldn't work if i used a password to lock my computer, and you could only try and access it by torturing me, or try and stop me by doing something assholey like removing me electricity or steal my pc.

but then i could do the same to any else...great system...

remmember, you said governments, I didn't.

[Jack]

I quit reading when I got to the "slave state" part. With good reason.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

A computer company can't force me to buy their computer. A government forces me to pay taxes. Got it?
A government doesn't force you to pay taxes. You could always move to another country. And there are places in the world where you can disappear without a trace and no government will bother you with taxes (some remote parts of Siberia, some parts of the Amazon basin, northern Canada, Antarctica, Somalia).


Like i said, in China, and in africa as well, people own a lot of land, so they have that choice.
Over 50% of the world's population lives in cities.


so if your property is not yours by magic, can i come over to your house and stay forever?
I don't own the house I live in. Talk to my landlord.


If you're going to say no one should charge for the use of land, then you have to have some institution forcing people who do wish to rent others, which is denying any decision you may have on your former house, which means everyone can come over to your house.
You're not even making any sense. I said there should be no rent. I did not say anyone should be able to go live in a house already occupied by someone else. What does lack of rent have to do with who gets to live in your house?

If I give you free chocolate, that doesn't mean I'm inviting everyone else to come eat the same chocolate.


So you think the only way to deal with men is to rule them or be ruled by them? Men of integrity would do neither.
It is not possible to do neither. Society needs rules. Someone must decide those rules. That someone can be either a majority or a minority.


You are also assuming just because more people support an idea it means they are more likely to be right, which is wrong, as history has countlessly shown.
Who gets to decide which idea is right? You?

The majority may be wrong, but unless you have a way of determining right and wrong that does not rely on asking people their opinions, we face the inescapable fact that someone - some person or group of people - must make political decisions. And if not the majority, then who?


What if, due to religious beliefs, a majority would decide, under communism, that those who practiced gay sex should be stoned to death? Would that be rational, because many people support it?
There is a name we use for the thing that happens when one group of people decides another group of people should die:

War.

If group X decides that group Y should die - regardless which is the majority - then there will be war between them. And the winners will impose their will on the losers. It doesn't matter which side is rational. It is a matter of survival. The only thing that matters is who wins.

See, in your scenario, the majority would be wrong. But how are you going to stop them from doing what they want to do? By force. A minority will have to fight them and impose its will on them. So it's like I said: Majority rule or minority rule. There is no third option.

And majorities are far less likely to be oppressive than minorities. You can come up with imaginary scenarios all you want, but in reality no majority ever voted to kill a minority.


and free markets are the only way of extremely poor people becoming rich without stealing.
Yeah, right. Good luck getting rich, imbecile.

The free market is organized theft.


and they do benefit from it: wages.
Yes, and in socialism they would also benefit from it. They would get a material compensation that can be seen as the equivalent of wages. Any other questions?


So i can go to your house, use your pc, and you can't take the pc away from me whenever you want.
Let's learn reading today! Here's what I said:

If a person - or society as a whole - has agreed to let you use a certain piece of property (like a PC), there will be very specific terms defining how you can use it, for what time, and under what conditions it may be taken from you.

So yeah, if I agreed to let you use my computer, then I can't take it from you whenever I want. When I agreed to let you use it, I told you under what conditions I would take it away. Likewise, if society has agreed to let you use a house, it can't take it from you whenever it wants.

[revolution inaction]

Private property is the ability to own a computer. Anarchist property is the ability to use a computer.


I don't agree, private property is the right to own a factory that makes computers, personal property is the right to own a computer. Private property not personal property is what i object to.

[Robert]

Socialism is posited on the idea that society decides its needs and produces accordingly, no one is "given everything...free of charge".

Sounds good. Now ... I want a new guitar and a pony. What do I have to do to get them? I'm willing to work.

To whom do I present my petition?

[DarkKnight25]

The free market is organized theft.
Free market? If im smart enough to make my own money, why should the government tell me how to use it? Communism is mob rule. If i get straight A's in high school and end up with in the same college as a failure, why would i be motivated to pursue a higher education? At first Robert the Greats' guitar and pony might be made, but after other requests factory workers won't want to make them anymore because they dont get anything back. Industrial output and manufacturing will decrease unless you give the workers extra which defeats the purpose of true communism. Even Lenin had to use free market reforms in the early days the USSR. He saw that Marx's ideology wasn't working as planned. Communism and socialism doesn't work. Capitalism isn't perfect but works better than communism.

[Nwoye]

Obviously, freedom is the choice to do what you want to do, not doing what the group thinks is good for the group. Selfishness may not be a virtue, but if selfishness is forbidden, then you are not free. And in order be free to do what you want to do you need space to do it in, and things to do it with. Property is simply those things that one is free to use or misuse as one pleases, wisely or unwisely, without asking permission. Thus freedom and property rights are inseparable.
I think this paragraph and the bolded line specifically recognizes the (intelligent) socialists main conviction - that one should have the choice to do what they want to do. I mean considering that that line eerily resembles the very definition of a positive liberty (or positive freedom), I think it quite clearly points to equal access to property as the means to achieving freedom.

[Nwoye]

Free market? If im smart enough to make my own money, why should the government tell me how to use it? Communism is mob rule. If i get straight A's in high school and end up with in the same college as a failure, why would i be motivated to pursue a higher education? At first Robert the Greats' guitar and pony might be made, but after other requests factory workers won't want to make them anymore because they dont get anything back. Industrial output and manufacturing will decrease unless you give the workers extra which defeats the purpose of true communism. Even Lenin had to use free market reforms in the early days the USSR. He saw that Marx's ideology wasn't working as planned. Communism and socialism doesn't work. Capitalism isn't perfect but works better than communism.
I think it would behoove you to spend a little bit more time on this site or time actually researching what leftist believe before you make statements like this.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I don't agree, private property is the right to own a factory that makes computers, personal property is the right to own a computer. Private property not personal property is what i object to.

I would agree. However, I would suggest the same rule might apply if the individual was incapable of using the machine.

I wouldn't torture someone to the password for a computer. If you can get something "without" stealing, you would do it because the precedent or upholding of the moral norm is worth more than stealing is.

I can easily go on the bus without paying the fair. I'm suggesting people can recognize a "metaphysical self-interest" that you might call "morality," of sorts, and use this for the basis of certain actions.

Here is the idea from a pessimistic standpoint that assumes a sort of Randian morality:

1. Everyone is egoist.
2. If everyone is egoist, they want the best for themselves.
3. Realistically, you can't have everyone be altruistic except you since, by factual observation, everyone is egoist.
4. If no one steals, the most beneficial "realistic" result will be achieved.
5. As soon as you steal, everyone will object to that behavior because it encourages an unethical precedent.
6. As long as a significant percentage of people already engage in a game theory maximizing activity, it's easier to punish individual defectors for self-benefit than have everyone steal.

In other words, we can conceptualize morality as self-interest (although I don't entirely) without rejecting the possibility of alternative political theories.

Some might go further. We can kill people to save others (it would probably need to be random) if it minimizes harm. I'm sympathetic to a basic set of rules, but I've yet to formulate a decent argument for this idea. Language doesn't necessarily satisfy our ability to communicate - or my mind doesn't, more likely.

[RGacky3]

My anarchist group had no literature on Catalonia. The leader, when discussing anarcho socialism, never mentioned Catalonia. Sometimes, when interacting with other anarcho socialist groups, I would see literature on the glorious anarcho socialist society created in Catalonia for a short time.

Our leader tended to treat such literature as if was either invisible or coated with radioactive waste. Not that he ever said anything that suggested that Catalonia had ever fallen short of being the perfect anarchist utopia and simultaneously the perfect socialist utopia, but he appeared somewhat uncomfortable with the word "Catalonia". Indeed he appeared incapable of speaking that word.

Reading the Catalonia literature, I noticed something that disturbed me a little. The consolidation into larger economic units seemed curiously uniform and swift. If it was voluntary, if people themselves decided where they would work and what work they would do, you would expect the small workshops to gradually merge one by one, each merger separately negotiated.

An even more disturbing feature was the total silence from the gloriously liberated workers of Catalonia, a silence strongly reminiscent of that which I had noticed earlier from the gloriously liberated workers of Mao's China. The glowing reports of how well the Anarchist communes worked and how free they were all came from foreigners, who had been given something that disturbingly resembled the official tours given to foreign friends in Mao's China, or they came from people who sounded suspiciously like rulers. How come an anarchist society was capable of giving people something that curiously resembles an official tour? How come free people were so utterly silent?

So I stopped reading stuff about Catalonia. In one part of my mind I believed that Catalonia showed that freedom and socialism went together like ham and eggs. In another part of my mind I suspected that if I read too much about Catalonia I would suffer the same sad transformation as my Maoist friends had suffered.

I dont' know what he's talking about here.

But something interesting is that the social situation of Catolinia is not even disputed by Capitalist historians, right wingers and statists. No one argues about it. Also when you talk about free people bein gutterly silent? How many historys of the American revolution were written by "workers" or regular people? Its rediculous, there was a war, and a revolution.

Catolina did'nt all come together so quickly, before the revolution years of worker and community organizing was taking place.

I'm not going to go over every point he brings up because there are some good responces here. Also heres some points to where this guy could be considered someone who was never a real revolutionary.


When I was about 13, 14, 15, I felt very oppressed


At the age of seventeen I joined both the anarcho socialists and the Maoists — mostly because these were the two groups most hated by the trots.


clearly this guy was'nt acting on principles, he's just a guy in need of something to believe in, without actually thinking about it and analyzing it.

[MikeSC]

Free market? If im smart enough to make my own money, why should the government tell me how to use it? Communism is mob rule. If i get straight A's in high school and end up with in the same college as a failure, why would i be motivated to pursue a higher education? At first Robert the Greats' guitar and pony might be made, but after other requests factory workers won't want to make them anymore because they dont get anything back. Industrial output and manufacturing will decrease unless you give the workers extra which defeats the purpose of true communism. Even Lenin had to use free market reforms in the early days the USSR. He saw that Marx's ideology wasn't working as planned. Communism and socialism doesn't work. Capitalism isn't perfect but works better than communism.

Christ, clueless. Doesn't it seem like every thread in this forum is the same?

Are you smart enough to magic material things out of nothing? No. You will need to use the resources that occur naturally, in order to make something man-made. To produce anything or to interact with anything you will need to use natural resources.

If you go by the capitalists argument of "finders keepers", I'm here first so this land is mine- you get communism, because we now know the earliest societies held land and resources in common. No one had the right to sell it or disown on behalf of the whole of society. Only forceful seizure made things private.

Communism is democratic use of natural resources, not being a worker ant or something.

[RGacky3]

Doesn't it seem like every thread in this forum is the same?

The messed up part is that they are started by the same people who just ignore answers and bring up the same crap again and again.

[Dimentio]

[B]Old article i had been looking for. My interest here is to provide some material that is thought provoking. So what are your opinions on this?



I am particularly interested in opinions regarding the bolded parts.

Sadly, it is quite true regarding the nature of the varieties of marxist-leninists. But that some socialist organisations are confused, dishonest, insane or led by insane people, does not disqualify socialism as a future.

Neither those that fact verify libertarianism, which is an even more insane philosophy.

[Hiero]

All I got from it was that he was a confused teenager that became even more confused when he joined other confused anarchist and a maoist groups at the same time. That amount of confusion would lead anyone to run the opposite way and justify it again with more half backed analysis of society based on idealist notions of how society works.

[Il Medico]

Liberty is property rights. Liberty is diminished in direct proportion as property rights are violated.
Property is theft from the community, property is ownership of something that belongs to society. Theft diminishes liberty the victim, property thus diminishes the liberty of the many. Violations of property right diminishes greed, a punishment for the crime.
Just my thoughts on that subject.
Cheers and with much love,
Captain Jack!

[Havet]

Property is theft from the community, property is ownership of something that belongs to society. Theft diminishes liberty the victim, property thus diminishes the liberty of the many. Violations of property right diminishes greed, a punishment for the crime.
Just my thoughts on that subject.
Cheers and with much love,
Captain Jack!

"when Arthur Dent asks who the actual owner of a spaceship is, Zaphod Beeblebrox, who stole the ship, responds, "look, property is theft, right? Therefore theft is property. Therefore this ship is mine, OK?"

[Kwisatz Haderach]

"Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it." - G.K. Chesterton

[Robert]

Property is theft from the community

Even if the community doesn't see it that way?

[RGacky3]

Even if the community doesn't see it that way?

No then its not theft, but you don't need property laws for that.

[Demogorgon]

All I got from it was that he was a confused teenager that became even more confused when he joined other confused anarchist and a maoist groups at the same time. That amount of confusion would lead anyone to run the opposite way and justify it again with more half backed analysis of society based on idealist notions of how society works.
That's true, it is written by someone who needed to associate with extreme groups in order to satisfy a need for rebellion or similar. Libertarianism is just the latest in his run of such groups. In another year he will be a fascist or a primitivist or a religious fundamentalist or whatever and the year after that, another group again.

Some people are just like that and certainly aren't the ones I would go to first for reliable information on politics.

[Random Precision]

Ugh. To quote one of my favorite films, reading that made me throw up in my mouth a little. Since KH has already dealt with the salient economic points, I will take on the historical ones.


When I was about 13, 14, 15, I felt very oppressed, and I read a lot of stuff about participatory democracy. I became very keen on participatory democracy. I realized that there would be a problem deciding who was to participate on what, but I figured that such trivial details could be taken care of after the revolution, and I joined a radical leftist group at the age of 15. They were Spartacists. Spartacists are a kind of Trotskyite, and Trotkyites are a kind of communist and there are innumerable obscure little trot factions. The communists have a saying. “Two trots, three factions.”

If he calls Trotskyists "Trotskyites", I very much doubt he ever was one considering that it is widely regarded as a term of abuse. I have never seen the Sparts say anything about "participatory democracy", which is a term bandied around mostly by various anarchists and social-democrats. Furthermore, the Spartacist League is into strict membership controls and I very much doubt they would let a 15 year old who showed a passing interest in "participatory democracy" join right up. And of course, the Spartacists are not a typical Trotskyist group, as anyone even slightly familiar with the organized left would know.


I soon saw that the sparts' MO was entryism. They would join much larger organizations, organizations whose goals, motivations, and members they despised, and then take over that organization and use its funds, assets, and membership list for their own purposes, rather than for the original purposes of the organization.

What sort of organizations are these? If someone can show that the Sparts ever took over a large organization "whose objectives they despised" (Sparts are well known for ranting from the sidelines rather than engaging with mass movements) and gained control of its funds, I'll eat my hat.


At the age of seventeen I joined both the anarcho socialists and the Maoists — mostly because these were the two groups most hated by the trots.

Of course. "The trots" being a homogenous group that unanimously despise leftists of other tendencies. :rolleyes:

I'm pretty sure any anarchist organization and any Maoist organization, especially the latter, would have a problem with someone being enrolled in both organizations. And it is interesting that he does not bother to name either of those groups. Furthermore I know of no group that has ever explicitly described itself as "anarcho (missing a hypen here) socialists".


(Some years later I learnt that the main point of disagreement between Stalin and Trotsky was that Trotsky felt that Stalin was reluctant to murder enough people, and reluctant to stamp out freedom with the sort of savage vigor that Trotsky delighted in. This did not surprise me in the slightest.)

I can discuss with people who have serious criticisms of Trotsky from a political perspective, including anarchists who believe that he took away power from the working class. But this is not one of them, he's just making shit up here. And if this guy was a Maoist at one point, well, that would certainly be a strange criticism of Trotsky for a Maoist.


Somehow my friends missed out on the Potemkin village tour and got the reality tour instead. Or perhaps it is merely that the foreign friends who write those glowing reports are those who are best at closing their eyes.
When they returned they were changed men. When someone asked them about their trip they would be vague and quiet, and when they finally got around to answering they would change the subject and would not look you in the eye.

How does this guy know that his friends got the "reality tour" of China if they never described what happened to them there? Also, I am far from a Maoist, but I'll bet my life's savings that no Maoist group ever used the term "workers' paradise" to describe China. In fact, most foreign visitors to the PRC recall being urged to criticize the society there- Maoists have a fetish about self-criticism. The term "workers' paradise" is only used by anti-communists to caricature those communists who see something to admire in the USSR, China, etc.


Our leader tended to treat such literature as if was either invisible or coated with radioactive waste. Not that he ever said anything that suggested that Catalonia had ever fallen short of being the perfect anarchist utopia and simultaneously the perfect socialist utopia, but he appeared somewhat uncomfortable with the word "Catalonia". Indeed he appeared incapable of speaking that word.

Once again, my life's savings to anyone who can find an anarchist group referring to Catalonia as "the perfect anarchist utopia and the perfect socialist utopia" or anything like that.


Reading the Catalonia literature, I noticed something that disturbed me a little. The consolidation into larger economic units seemed curiously uniform and swift. If it was voluntary, if people themselves decided where they would work and what work they would do, you would expect the small workshops to gradually merge one by one, each merger separately negotiated.

As someone who has done quite a bit of research on the economy of Catalonia during the brief period of anarchist dominance (roughly July 1936 to September 1937), I can say that this guy is talking out his ass. In fact there was never any sort of consolidation into "larger economic units" (what the hell are those supposed to be?) but the economy remained a mixture of large to medium factories and small shops in many industries, and there were great disagreements on whether to follow the course of socialization (complete merger of the process and management of production) or cooperativization (maintain the organization of factories and workshops under workers' control, in competition with each other). To be sure, some industries were socialized, in which case it was done by the workers in that industry, but some actively resisted that course and there was never a real consensus despite attempts to hammer out a workable system. I posted an essay here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/working-class-saddle-t104674/index.html?t=104674) that goes into many of the particulars.


An even more disturbing feature was the total silence from the gloriously liberated workers of Catalonia, a silence strongly reminiscent of that which I had noticed earlier from the gloriously liberated workers of Mao's China. The glowing reports of how well the Anarchist communes worked and how free they were all came from foreigners, who had been given something that disturbingly resembled the official tours given to foreign friends in Mao's China, or they came from people who sounded suspiciously like rulers. How come an anarchist society was capable of giving people something that curiously resembles an official tour? How come free people were so utterly silent?

I doubt this guy ever read any book or first hand account of economic management in Catalonia from '36 to '37. Many of the first-hand accounts that were published early did come from foreign anarchists or sympathizers, but I fail to see what is wrong with that. In fact most of them, like Gaston Leval's Collectives in the Spanish Revolution make a huge deal about the enthusiasm Spanish workers had for collectivization. In any case, many Spanish anarchists went on to publish their account of economic management. A good one is José Péirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution. There is also a good documentary that you can find on Youtube entitled "Vivir la utopia" (Living Utopia) that interviewed many surviving participants in workers' control in Catalonia. There is also Ronald Fraser's The Blood of Spain, which includes many firsthand accounts of collectivization, as well as Robert Alexander's The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, which does the same. I cite all these works in the essay I linked to above, and most of them probably would have been readily available to any anarchist group wanting to learn about Catalonia as early as the mid-seventies or so.

As for the thing about an "official tour", I don't understand why it's objectionable for workers in a factory to give a tour to a visitor who wants to know about what they're doing and the changes taking place.


Like all good progressive folk of that time (1976) I supported the heroic struggle of the Cambodian people under the leadership of Pol Pot against the evils of US imperialism.

But those Cambodian refugees just kept on coming, and their tales of horror continued. Eventually I woke up.

I don't believe there was ever any presence on the organized left, at least in the United States or any western nation, that supported the Khmer Rouge, especially after the first revelations on Democratic Kampuchea began to come out. Perhaps a handful of Maoists held onto a mirage about it for a brief period of time, but if I'm reading this guy right, he was an anarchist at that point. I don't think there were anarchists who supported the Khmer Rouge to any extent, even against US imperialism during the bombing campaigns.

So in conclusion, I very much doubt this guy was ever a member of any leftist group. His piece is incredibly sloppy and is missing many details that anyone familiar with the organized left would catch onto. More likely he's an anti-communist who spent a few days reading Wikipedia articles on random leftist organizations, theories and tendencies then decided to write a crank piece on them to "persuade" wayward commies.