Anarchism and the Industrial Revolution

[trivas7]

A video re the history of anarchy and the Industrial Revolution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSP3UITz_GM&feature=channel_page

[Bud Struggle]

Eh, the video misses the point when it comes to the real job of managers: innovation. Why should I be an innovative manager of a collective when I could manage my own business and with my inovative techniques run the collective out of business?

[danyboy27]

Eh, the video misses the point when it comes to the real job of managers: innovation. Why should I be an innovative manager of a collective when I could manage my own business and with my inovative techniques run the collective out of business?


that why i think some form of competition is healthy. i am not talking about compete for money but compete for the quality of a product in order to force innovation.

[Havet]

A video re the history of anarchy and the Industrial Revolution:

gSP3UITz_GM

ah seems you've met confederal socialist's videos. Check these out as well (they are from him as well):

ISSUES IN A STATELESS SOCIETY (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B777F4BC7B0DBCCC)

OWNERSHIP, RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS AND THE STATE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eShZ76P3jWc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2Fconfede ralsocialist&feature=player_embedded)

WHY WOULDN'T IT JUST RELAPSE INTO A STATE? (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0812AA4B51C3F5B8)

i particularly enjoy his video on ownership and the new definition of state he comes up with.

[Jack]

He reeks too much of "national anarchism" for me. Plus he's a dick if you challenge him.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Eh, the video misses the point when it comes to the real job of managers: innovation. Why should I be an innovative manager of a collective when I could manage my own business and with my inovative techniques run the collective out of business?

You as a single person are going to run a collective out of business? Interesting theory. I hope you have thirty genetically-similar arms to spare.

[Bud Struggle]

You as a single person are going to run a collective out of business? Interesting theory. One that no socialist would oppose, either, if you could actually do it by yourself.

Oh no, that's not what I meant. I meant that (and let's leave ME out of it) a really good innovative manager would be able to start a business pay the workers a higher wage than a collective and make more money for himself to boot--because the more innovative and creative managers wouldn't work for the collective. They would start their own businesses and hire people to work for them paying a higer wage based on the innovations of the owner/manager.

Basically this was already tried (imperfectly) in the 1960s 70s and 80s when Capitalist business in the USA out performed Communist business in the USSR.

All in all there's a REASON why there are very few operating collectives. The only way collectives can exist is if private owner/managers were not allowed to hire people. They can't compete on a one to one basis.

[Havet]

All in all there's a REASON why there are very few operating collectives. The only way collectives can exist is if private owner/managers were not allowed to hire people. They can't compete on a one to one basis.

don't forget the state grants benefits to businesses who decide to organize themselves hierarchically instead of a collective or cooperative.

[n0thing]

Confederalsocialist is an odd one. He has that incredibly annoying ancap tendency of being completely biased in his presumptions and conclusions. Everything just works out perfectly for no good reason in an ancap society doesn't it? I usually can't listen to people like him for very long before rage-quitting. Same goes for reading Rothbard and Mises.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

He's certainly no rationalist.


Oh no, that's not what I meant. I meant that (and let's leave ME out of it) a really good innovative manager would be able to start a business pay the workers a higher wage than a collective and make more money for himself to boot--because the more innovative and creative managers wouldn't work for the collective. They would start their own businesses and hire people to work for them paying a higer wage based on the innovations of the owner/manager.You're ignoring the problem of capital accumulation. Perhaps if collectives weren't adaptive, you could be on to a flaw that topples all incumbent competitors. However, most innovation comes from existing firms anyway - or, when a start up idea takes off, existing competition brings up its own version. If addressing either mutualism and libertarian collectivism, an innovator could still be paid more, replicating the very reason why Apple held/holds onto the mp3 market. If Friedman was correct about "people caring about their own money more than someone else's money," then an aggravated physiological demand exists in a democratic body that no hierarchy can replicate.


All in all there's a REASON why there are very few operating collectives.

The state and banking industry discourage collectives; not to mention, there doesn't exist the social awareness necessary to form widescale democratic organs of commerce.

[Die Neue Zeit]

All in all there's a REASON why there are very few operating collectives. The only way collectives can exist is if private owner/managers were not allowed to hire people. They can't compete on a one to one basis.

Well, why not introduce another state role in terms of helping financially to form co-ops out of mass layoffs and what not?

[jake williams]

All in all there's a REASON why there are very few operating collectives. The only way collectives can exist is if private owner/managers were not allowed to hire people. They can't compete on a one to one basis.
In the short term of a capitalist market, I'm not sure who would very strongly disagree.

[trivas7]

Confederalsocialist is an odd one. He has that incredibly annoying ancap tendency of being completely biased in his presumptions and conclusions. Everything just works out perfectly for no good reason in an ancap society doesn't it? I usually can't listen to people like him for very long before rage-quitting. Same goes for reading Rothbard and Mises.
Too bad your rage overcomes your ability to think.

[Kronos]

Ah yes, if you take a society and divide the people so that some of them own factories and the others don't, and enforce civil law and ordinance so that those who don't own the factories can't steal property, you start brewing feelings of ressentiment among the working classes.

Calling themselves "anarchists", they stand for the abolition of government, because the government upholds the laws which prevent them from stealing.

Really, what they are against is the right to own property, not government, because it would requirement government to maintain a society in which no property would be owned, see.

So let's say they are successful. Fast forward a decade. The same inherent exploitative nature in human beings remains, and now, since the anarchists no longer have a common, mutual enemy, something which forces them to conspire together for power, they slowly start to turn on themselves. The better more efficient workers start to lose incentive to make great effort...since the lowest of them, who performs the least, are entitled to the same privileges. The morale that once gave them the energy (in war man is is his highest spirits) to unite is now waning. In addition, as the population increases....confusion increases. You will never see a more disorganized group of people than a large mass of anarchists who are trying to work together to run everything. They refuse to establish ranks, and their erroneous belief that "man is equal" serves to make matters worse. Just like the fact that it is always the ugly ones who say "beauty is on the inside", it is the weaklings who say "we are all equal".

Crime increases, because difference of opinion increases so rapidly it is impossible to come to an agreement on anything.

Finally they vote to establish a central government. They do....and now they are socialists.

Eventually, the government becomes corrupt, the people are outraged, and the process repeats.

This goes on for a few billion years until the sun runs out of fuel, explodes, and devours the entire solar system.

The End.

(for such a story that is as tedious as it is short and boring, you leftists sure spend a helluva lotta time on it, you know. When one of you comes up with something interesting to say, come get me. I'll be in my room.)

[Havet]

Ah yes, if you take a society and divide the people so that some of them own factories and the others don't, and enforce civil law and ordinance so that those who don't own the factories can't steal property, you start brewing feelings of ressentiment among the working classes.

Calling themselves "anarchists", they stand for the abolition of government, because the government upholds the laws which prevent them from stealing.

Really, what they are against is the right to own property, not government, because it would requirement government to maintain a society in which no property would be owned, see.

So let's say they are successful. Fast forward a decade. The same inherent exploitative nature in human beings remains, and now, since the anarchists no longer have a common, mutual enemy, something which forces them to conspire together for power, they slowly start to turn on themselves. The better more efficient workers start to lose incentive to make great effort...since the lowest of them, who performs the least, are entitled to the same privileges. The morale that once gave them the energy (in war man is is his highest spirits) to unite is now waning. In addition, as the population increases....confusion increases. You will never see a more disorganized group of people than a large mass of anarchists who are trying to work together to run everything. They refuse to establish ranks, and their erroneous belief that "man is equal" serves to make matters worse. Just like the fact that it is always the ugly ones who say "beauty is on the inside", it is the weaklings who say "we are all equal".

Crime increases, because difference of opinion increases so rapidly it is impossible to come to an agreement on anything.

Finally they vote to establish a central government. They do....and now they are socialists.

Eventually, the government becomes corrupt, the people are outraged, and the process repeats.

This goes on for a few billion years until the sun runs out of fuel, explodes, and devours the entire solar system.

The End.

(for such a story that is as tedious as it is short and boring, you leftists sure spend a helluva lotta time on it, you know. When one of you comes up with something interesting to say, come get me. I'll be in my room.)

interesting tale. Many people don't actually understand that there doesn't need to exist a government or a state for property rights to appear...



Another popular argument, also used often by the Randians, is that market exchanges presuppose a background of property law. You and I can’t be making exchanges of goods for services, or money for services, or whatever, unless there’s already a stable background of property law that ensures us the property titles that we have. And because the market, in order to function, presupposes existing background property law, therefore, that property law cannot itself be the product of the market. The property law must emerge – they must really think it must emerge out of an infallible robot or something – but I don’t know exactly what it emerges from, but somehow it can’t emerge from the market.



But their thinking this is sort of like: first, there’s this property law, and it’s all put in place, and no market transactions are happening – everyone is just waiting for the whole legal structure to be put in place. And then it’s in place – and now we can finally start trading back and forth. It certainly is true that you can’t have functioning markets without a functioning legal system; that’s true. But it’s not as though first the legal system is in place, and then on the last day they finally finish putting the legal system together – then people begin their trading. These things arise together. Legal institutions and economic trade arise together in one and the same place, at one and the same time. The legal system is not something independent of the activity it constrains. After all, a legal system again is not a robot or a god or something separate from us. The existence of a legal system consists in people obeying it. If everyone ignored the legal system, it would have no power at all. So it’s only because people generally go along with it that it survives. The legal system, too, depends on voluntary support.



I think that a lot of people – one reason that they’re scared of anarchy is they think that under government it’s as though there’s some kind of guarantee that’s taken away under anarchy. That somehow there’s this firm background we can always fall back on that under anarchy is just gone. But the firm background is just the product of people interacting with the incentives that they have. Likewise, when anarchists say people under anarchy would probably have the incentive to do this or that, and people say, "Well, that’s not good enough! I don’t just want it to be likely that they’ll have the incentive to do this. I want the government to absolutely guarantee that they’ll do it!" But the government is just people. And depending on what the constitutional structure of that government is, it’s likely that they’ll do this or that. You can’t design a constitution that will guarantee that the people in the government will behave in any particular way. You can structure it in such a way so that they’re more likely to do this or less likely to do this. And you can see anarchy as just an extension of checks-and-balances to a broader level.



For example, people say, "What guarantees that the different agencies will resolve things in any particular way?" Well, the U.S. Constitution says nothing about what happens if different branches of the government disagree about how to resolve things. It doesn’t say what happens if the Supreme Court thinks something is unconstitutional but Congress thinks it doesn’t, and wants to go ahead and do it anyway. Famously, it doesn’t say what happens if there’s a dispute between the states and the federal government. The current system where once the Supreme Court declares something unconstitutional, then the Congress and the President don’t try to do it anymore (or at least not quite so much) – that didn’t always exist. Remember when the Court declared what Andrew Jackson was doing unconstitutional, when he was President, he just said, "Well, they’ve made their decision, let them enforce it." The Constitution doesn’t say whether the way Jackson did it was the right way. The way we do it now is the way that’s emerged through custom. Maybe you’re for it, maybe you’re against it – whatever it is, it was never codified in law.

Anyway, you sure forecasted revleft's future!

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Really, what they are against is the right to own property, not government, because it would requirement government to maintain a society in which no property would be owned, see.Good thing anarchists don't oppose all property ownership then - only those cases where non-mutual relationships have developed. Like indentured servitude, for one. But virtual slavery is perfectly compatible with capitalism, so long as it's done via contract.

[trivas7]

Good thing anarchists don't oppose all property ownership then - only those cases where non-mutual relationships have developed. [...]
Libertarians/ancaps agree w/ you.


But virtual slavery is perfectly compatible with capitalism, so long as it's done via contract.
What do you mean by virtual slavery? How does one contract to it?