Reaching out to 'Anarcho'-Communists.

[Dejavu]

No, don't send this to the trashcan.

I'll give the 'Anarcho'-Communists the benefit of the doubt and pretend like they're real Anarchists for the rest of this post so I'll now drop the ' '.

I take it that most of you at least think you believe in Anarchy and thats fine. I think the only common ground I can find with you guys is the Anarchy part of our ideologies at the very basic level and that being, abolition of the State.

Should a future overthrow of the State ( all States) ever occur I would welcome any Anarchists to join in the effort, even the Reds. Suppose Anarchists of all walks achieved that, I would then propose in our world of Anarchy that An-Commies live in one area and An-Capies live in another separate from eachother. I'd even concede the most industrialized areas to the Commies just because I'm sure their system would fail. :rolleyes:

But seriously, you guys can keep your ant heap and we can have our 'zone.' People that feel oppressed on one side or the other would have the option to move since two anarchic but different systems would be in place.

Lets face the facts, Statist-Communism failed(USSR+Warsaw Pact) or is becoming weaker with commercialization and capitalization of PR China. Statist-Capitalism(Neo-Mercantilism)(USA,Western Europe)is not really that great either no matter how much of the pro-state advocates try to BS and I think it will fall to laissez fair just like the old Mercantilism did.

The State(s) must be eliminated and we can have fair game to try our respective capitalist and communist societies without the coercive State(s) interference.

So what do you guys say? Would you be for an anarchic world divided into communist/socialist half and a free market capitalist half? Would you at least take it over the current system?

K, have fun with the thread. :D

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I'll enjoy watching your society get taken over by mercenaries.

Seriously, money is power. How can you be a consistent anarchist if you don't support the abolishment of the price system?

[Dejavu]

I'll enjoy watching your society get taken over by mercenaries.

Seriously, money is power. How can you be a consistent anarchist if you don't support the abolishment of the price system?

Cool, deal. I'll watch the ant heap starve at the same time. :D

Money does make the world go round , no doubt about it. If I supported the abolishment of a price system ( I think you're thinking money specifically)then I would have to pretend that we live in a world of post scarcity and that magical machines make everything I could possibly want or I would have to accept society being flung back a few dozen centuries to the great system known as barter. :laugh:

I actually want to see society prosper.

But if it makes you feel better, I'd like us to get rid of unbacked paper fiat money

Unbacked paper fiat = Tool of the State.:thumbdown::thumbdown:
Gold = Market money :thumbup:

:D

[RGacky3]

Dajavu,

I'm going to ask you again, do you support land ownership, and if so how would you enforce it, i.e. lets say he claims ownership to a strawberry farm for some reason, how would you stop other guys just comming and picking the strawberries? Also how could you, being an Anarchist justify land ownership.

[LSD]

The gold standard? Really? Wow, I didn't know your type even existed any more. And here I thought the Marxists were as bad as it got; but you could really give them a good run for the title of worst 19th century fetishist, couldn't you?

Seriously, didn't you learn anything from the past hundred years? Maybe something along the lines that mixed economies work better than Austrian laissez-faire bullshit. Not that the depression wasn't a fun old time for everyone, but are you really so eager to revisit it? 'Cause if you thought the market got out of control in the 20's, just wait until we replace lax legislation with none at all.

'Cause I notice you didn't actually address Noxion's point. You managed to write 9 lines in response to his 2, and use 6 smilies in the process, and yet completely ignored the incredibly simple question he asked you.

Maybe you missed it? I understand how easy it is to get distracted by all those shiny smilies, so allow me to boil it down to its central problem:

What happens when a rich person kills a poor one?

In your perfect "anarchic" capitalist society, explain to me how anything approaching objective justice is possible if absolutely everything is up for sale.

You want to get rid of the state 'cause you think it centralizes power in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians. And you're right. But what you're failing to recognize is that the market does the exact same thing. It's just a different group of old white men holding the reigns.

Same bullshit, just a different ideological justification.

And so as long as we need the market (and unfortunately we still do), we're going to need something to counterbalance its power. Someting to curb its excesses and soften its rougher edges.

I'm not saying that the state is "good", I'm just saying it's better than the alternative. I realize that that's not as "clean" an answer as that provided by libertarianism. But that should probably be your first hint that something's not right. 'Cause simple solutions, they don't work. They sound good, but they don't work.

You're a communist, Deja, you've just fiddled with the wording. But the arrogance, the certainty, the ideological faith that you can "fix" the world with your perfect set of instructions, it's all there.

I guess you really are on the right website after all.

[Sentinel]

Why don't you reply to redstar2000 in the other thread, LSD? ;)

[IcarusAngel]

You can't be an anarchist and a capitalist at the same time. The "corporation" or business acquires its power in the same way that the state does, through a powerful elite minority (worst case) or through just enough people, perhaps a majority, to ensure their monopolistic land grabs stay in place.

Corporations are even worse than the democratic government, or are tyrannical governments, because most people never agree to this consolidation of power, they merely are forced into their servitude as Marxists point out because they can either work for the companies or starve to death.

Dejavu isn't making any sense in the first place, because if we believe in capitalism then you have to agree that the only right way to 'justly' acquire private property is through market transactions, which would nullify any communist society.

It makes sense he wouldn't think of this though, as most right-wing "Libertarians" are idiots.

[Dystisis]

You're a communist, Deja, you've just fiddled with the wording. But the arrogance, the certainty, the ideological faith that you can "fix" the world with your perfect set of instructions, it's all there.

I guess you really are on the right website after all.
LSD your post made a lot of sense until I read this...

The people on this board (well, I can only speak for myself) don't take things as holy and do acknowledge there are pro's and con's to different things. I do not intend to "fix" the world, I see the history of society more as a gradual development that will develop into something not unlike marxism. Whether or not we will call it marxism when we are at that stage is besides the point. All we (,most people I've seen on this board,) are trying to do is discussing the characteristics of the development of society, and how or if we can change that or speed it up.

If communism has not been defined as "faith" or a perfect set of instructions in the past, it will not today and most certainly will not in the future. So you have no basis of making that claim.

[Demogorgon]

The gold standard? Really? Wow, I didn't know your type even existed any more. And here I thought the Marxists were as bad as it got; but you could really give them a good run for the title of worst 19th century fetishist, couldn't you?
The concept has been in some vogue again. Ron Paul for example made a big deal of it. Austrian economics tends to strongly support the Gold Standard after all.

It all comes down of course to idealising the nineteenth century. Deja Vu giving the Wild West as his example of the ideal society working says it all really.

[IcarusAngel]

Exactly. The infatuation right-wing Libertarian lunatics have with the gold standard is quite fascinating.

Other things they rant endlessly against are stuff like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Federal Reserve, the educational system, the EPA, the capital gains tax, etc.The CFR has published articles from a wide range of the American political spectrum (which is narrow, but it's not like they're complete ideologues).

How solving any of those "problems" will benefit the average working person is beyond me. Those things are on the bottom of my list of oppressive institutions in modern society.

[Raúl Duke]

I'll give the 'Anarcho'-Communists the benefit of the doubt and pretend like they're real Anarchists for the rest of this post so I'll now drop the ' '.

Umm...the majority of anarchists are of this type or syndicalist...

You on the other hand are in the minority unless you want to count the libertarians, economic minarchists, etc (and I still doubt it adds up...Economic Libertarianism is more of a English-speaking world's ideology. Libertarians in most other languages means anarchists).

While this is certainly an appeal to the bandwagon; I only wanted to point the fact and leave the debating to those comrades who like to debate in OI.

Sometimes it's the majority of people who take a label are the ones' that define what it is.

[Dean]

The State(s) must be eliminated and we can have fair game to try our respective capitalist and communist societies without the coercive State(s) interference.

The anarcho-capitalist society where you claim that under-the table jobs are bad, yet you don't suport taxes? Or in which your business model is applied, and since it hasn't truly been before (like communism) it will work, yet repeated tries at communism prove its inviability? The magical fairyland where people all compete and try to aquire each others assets - yet the private security forces objectively and universally apply your adherance to property rights, without even conceiving of using their militant power to steal, imprison and murder the competition in a competitive, completely unregulated society?

The difference between communists and capitalists is that the former promote a system where class antagonisms are eliminated, and competition is phased out as an archaic, unrealistic and highly unhumanist system. If class antagonisms and competition are gone, there is a chance that removing authority will work.

But you don't believe in any of that. To call yourself anarchist when you support rigid corporate and business structures is simply wrong. If you think you can promote a system where there is really no authority but private businesses who for some reason or another, despite their structure promoting competition and profit above all, have some aversion to using all the methods currently employed, you are insanely deluded. Capitalism in an anarchistic social structure is an anachronism; it cannot exist outside of distinct police or mercenary force enforcing martial law on the lines of whatever company might benefit. Competition would quickly be crushed by militant actions, and monopolies would grow quickly. They would establish power in territories and enforce their corporate law within their borders.

You talk about how communism wouldn't work because it "ignores economics" but your economic theories completely ignore their own consequences, and have no interest in human welfare, but simply the maintenance and capitalization of property rights. The concept that private companies will war with mercenary forces is ten times scarier to me than our current state systems, which, while fucked up, insure a certain level of stability and responsiveness. I really don't give a damn how "well a society prospers" from capitalism when the proposal is nothing short of violent plutocracy.

[Joby]

Exactly. The infatuation right-wing Libertarian lunatics have with the gold standard is quite fascinating.

Other things they rant endlessly against are stuff like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Federal Reserve, the educational system, the EPA, the capital gains tax, etc.The CFR has published articles from a wide range of the American political spectrum (which is narrow, but it's not like they're complete ideologues).

How solving any of those "problems" will benefit the average working person is beyond me. Those things are on the bottom of my list of oppressive institutions in modern society.

I don't defend the Gold Standard, nor do I (or Ron Paul, for that matter) want its return.

But you don't understand the value of sound monetary policy. Every time a nation used Fiat money, it's economy has collapsed. The money simply is not worth anything.

Therefore, the price of oil or any other commodity is not set to anything, it can go up any amount of dollars as possible on mere speulation alone. Oil hasn't gotten any scarcer, it simply looks that way because we measure it in dollars, which have lost perceived value. It's gone up over 350% over 10 years, in Euro's, only about 200%. In Gold, meanwhile, it has stayed at the exact same value over time.

Allowing competing currencies would be a great step.

The Council on Foreign relations, as Chomsky, for example, has pinted out, is the primary tool for private corporations to shape US foreign policy. Dick Cheney has run it, Condi Rice was a member.

The Federal Reserve deserves a thread in and of itself. I don't like the idea of a Private Corporation controlling the money supply/gold reserves; I don't see why a leftist doesn't either. :confused:

If you're going to defend our educational system as being anything other than a bankrupt money pit that is accomplishing a fraction of what it should, I'm going to laugh at you. Abolishing it at the Federal Level, as long as the States don't have to send the national government their money, might have some value to it.

I'm not going to argue against the Capital Gains Tax. I like the Capital Gains Tax--But only when there's Capital gains :D

What issues top the list for you?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Statist-Capitalism(Neo-Mercantilism)(USA,Western Europe)is not really that great either no matter how much of the pro-state advocates try to BS and I think it will fall to laissez fair just like the old Mercantilism did.

Laissez fair capitalism has never existed, nor can it when the reality of competition brings certain people and businesses to the top. Even during the earlier throes of American exceptionalism New England colonies were enacting tariffs to prevent the superior British industry from completely destroying their main source of economic activity. I'm also highly skeptical workers and consumers will become so disillusioned with private enterprise to the point where they would start privatizing regulatory measures like fire inspections.

It's also worth mentioning the welfare state saw the greatest expansion of growth for the average citizen.



So what do you guys say? Would you be for an anarchic world divided into communist/socialist half and a free market capitalist half? Would you at least take it over the current system?

No more than I would tolerate a divide between chattel slave society and anarcho-communism. The topic at hand is a silly one, anyway. If given the choice between the two only a handful of bemused gurus would choose to live under a regressive society of want. I'm sure there may be a few meritocratic feudalists around, too.


I'll give the 'Anarcho'-Communists the benefit of the doubt and pretend like they're real Anarchists for the rest of this post so I'll now drop the ' '.

Says the fraud who wants us to sell away our protection to a private protection agency under the guise of it being anarchy. :laugh:

[Schrödinger's Cat]

The Federal Reserve deserves a thread in and of itself. I don't like the idea of a Private Corporation controlling the money supply/gold reserves; I don't see why a leftist doesn't either. :confused:
I don't see any apparent implication of Leftists supporting the Fed beyond what is reasonable. It's amusing to watch Dejavu criticize past experiments with socialism and then turn around and throw his support behind a system of financing that was already tailored specifically towards the free marketeers - and failed. Calling the Federal Reserve a private bank is just an overt simplification for people infatuated with dichotomies.

The Fed is a charted organization of the government, just like NASA. At the top it's organized by the Congress, who have exclusive power over the chairman and his immediate co-chairs. The twelve subsequent branches run more like corporations.


If you're going to defend our educational system as being anything other than a bankrupt money pit that is accomplishing a fraction of what it should, I'm going to laugh at you. Abolishing it at the Federal Level, as long as the States don't have to send the national government their money, might have some value to it.
You think we don't realize the public school institution in America is only meant to produce an obedient workforce?


Allowing competing currencies would be a great step.Another product of the 19th century that was tried, and failed - for obvious reasons too. Private banks have trouble converting foreign currency. I can only imagine multiplying the effect by a thousand.

[Os Cangaceiros]

You do realize that, by putting the "anarcho" in quotations, you're just engaging in the same "gotcha" game that anarchists have played for many years in response to those who vary from their beliefs?

The bottom line is that you're either an anarchist or you're not an anarchist. All the hyphenation and quotation marks are bullshit. And I hope you're not defending capitalism, here, because capitalism as an economic arrangement if far, FAR from the voluntarist philosophy of anarchism. Not to mention that it is perpetuated by the state...but I suppose that's why some AnCaps have changed their title to the slightly more appealing phrase, "market anarchism".

[RedKnight]

I myself support "anarchism without adjectives"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_without_adjectives. I feel that we all have the same common enemy, which is the corporate welfare state. Also not all market anarchists are capitalist. Mutualists are market anarchists as well. I do not favour any socio-economic system over another. They are all good in theory at least. I'd personaly like to see corporations be replaced by worker guilds. But I do not believe in forcibly imposing my views upon others.

[Dejavu]

I'm going to ask you again, do you support land ownership,
Yes.





and if so how would you enforce it, i.e. lets say he claims ownership to a strawberry farm for some reason, how would you stop other guys just comming and picking the strawberries?
Many ways. But I wouldn't really have to if no aggression was committed to me or my property. But lets take your scenario and say a band of mean ugly thugs come and try to rob my strawberries ( big meanies.:crying:) Well, there are several ways of doing this.First of all I think reactionary force is justified, because using force on my property implies force against me, this point of view is held with most people even in statist societies. However, use of force isn't something only the state can provide and shouldn't monopolize. Well anyway , on to the point. There are several ways I can repel this:

1) Non Aggression Pacifism, I can tell them to stop or else. Now this seems silly if these guys are murderous thugs especially if they're robbing strawberries.:laugh: But it could be the case that maybe they're just hungry people that need strawberries that really don't intend me harm but just need some food. I do believe that obstruction of property rights is justified if it is an 'emergency' such as if a starving person absolutely needs food and has to get it on my property before obtaining my permission to do so. I believe the person's right to life exceeds my right to homestead my strawberries however I believe compensation is owed to me in that case when the trespassers have the ability to pay me back. The reason I would seek non aggression first is because if I go out there with a gun and start firing away then it wouldn't be justified if they were just people looking to get some food because they needed it. Of course, I have good reason to believe that general philanthropy would be more abundant in a stateless society. But lets say they're just people up to no good and tell me F U when I ask them to leave my property.

2) Aggression and threat. Well, I already own a gun so lets assume I also own a gun in this scenario. Now this can be effective but risky. If there are more of them they can always be armed ( even robbing strawberries) and out duel me in a gun fight. But I can also maybe have success and scare them off, but nothing is guaranteed for my own safety. If I decide to homestead strawberries in the first place I must be aware of the risk of bad situations arising too. But the mere fact that the would-be thieves know I have a right to be armed might be enough of a psychological threat to prevent it. In the State, many times even property owners have a hard time obtaining guns and often can be persecuted for using the weapons even in self defense. I believe the restrictions of the State give the criminals more of an incentive to prey on law abiding unarmed people. Gun laws usually only effect the law abiding citizens since it is in the criminals nature of action to just ignore the law.

3) Hire or become a member of a protection agency. This has benefits and costs too. Obviously the benefit would be that I have organized protection which would decrease the incentive for criminals to commit aggression against me. The costs of course would be that I would have to pay the agency periodic fees in order to enlist their services. This is a more viable option if the problem is endemic. But if endemic problems with certain individuals like this existed, theres nothing in anarcho-capitalism or market anarchy that would prevent individuals in society from collaborating. If these thieves were a known problem to the community then it would be in the interest of all to restrict their activity. Theres nothing contradictory to libertarian ethics about the community agreeing to incarcerate the criminals since aggression has been initiated on their part. When criminals intentionally initiate violence then they forgo their own rights to non aggression against them.

4) Boycott production. I can stop production of my strawberries so there are no more to steal. Obviously this involves costs because I'd be giving up any profit I could've had with strawberry production but if they're being stolen why waste the energy in making them? But this has some very positive effects too. For one, my strawberries must be of high value to consumers since they are sought after commodity even by criminal forces. The criminals are likely to be more interested in my strawberries rather than me personally or else they wouldn't be robbing the strawberries. I take that away from them, they don't have the commodity available to steal which can drive them away. Now think about the side effects of this. If the criminals are really intent on getting strawberries, and there are none left to plunder, then the only way they can obtain them is through trade or I simply won't make them. Well now you could say , well, they'd just go rob from someone else. But they can boycott production too and so on an so forth. And its likely that other growers would find out about the robbers as the sharp decline from my production of strawberries in the market shows plus through way of streamlining info with fellow merchants ( I'll talk about that next.) But this also has another effect, if we cut production of stuff, this hits the community hard and it provides the incentive for the community to do what it takes to get our production back online. This brings the community at large which desires to buy strawberries and other commodities into the framework and it becomes in their interest to participate in curbing criminal activity. What if there was something you liked getting a lot of and all this sudden it was cut in production or the prices went sky high because of the lower supply? And then you find it out its because of some idiot robbers making poor producers like me do this. It would be in your interest as well as the community's to become active 'watchmen' and ensure that everyone's prosperity isn't damaged. The mere fact that I produce things that the community desires gives them that incentive or my strawberries wouldn't have been valuable , hardly valuable enough to steal, in the first place.

5) Law of Merchant. This actually existed in the late middle ages. Its when mercantilism ( beginning of capitalism) started and grew. Merchants found business was really picking up with consumers demanding more stuff but one of the problems for merchants were that they couldn't have a uniform trade system simply because the governments of all the nations they traded in had their own ( mostly anti-market) laws. Since the merchants had no army or monopoly on force, they had to figure out a way that trade can prosper in any country regardless of their silly caveman laws. It was settled then , the merchants of various countries set up a Merchant's court that was independent of any State and required all involved in merchant trade to abide by it. So if they had no army? How did they enforce this without violence? Well, for one , the merchants adopted something very similar to boycott and it was actually very effective for some of the reasons specified in 4. Another way was credit reports. Not in the modern credit score sense but very similar in structure. If a bad dealer or known criminal was identified by merchants and the merchants would submit this information to the merchants court. Since the merchants were international, word spread around quickly , the streamlined information in commerce about certain questionable characters and let all traders know that this person or group does not abide by the merchant's court and thus merchants would not trade goods to these people. This actually had fantastic results as it forced ( without violence) many to comply to the basic laws of trade. This wasn't created by any State, this was international in character and a law that was observed by the majority because it was in their own best interests to trade fairly. I don't see why not in anarchy a similar Law of Merchant ( traders in the market) could not arise since the Law of Merchant was formulated without a State in the first place.

And there are other methods of course and a combination of methods can be used. I'm not saying its perfect but neither is the State or else we would all be free of crime. But what I am pointing out is that there are methods of enforcement.



Also how could you, being an Anarchist justify land ownership.I don't see how I can't when if I'm truly an Anarchist. The right to property is paramount to freedom and liberty and it rests on the axiom of self-ownership. If you believe in the right to not have aggression initiated against you I don't know how you can alienate property rights from this fundamental principle. I believe non aggression and property rights are inseparable because if you don't acknowledge property rights then I don't see how you can justify self ownership without stating a contradiction. Think about what we as humans are made of. Particles and matter which have existed long before us for millions of years so it doesn't stand to reason that we actually created the matter that our bodies are composed of. As we grow , we absorb more matter into our bodies. But where do we absorb this matter from? From the world external to us. We take things from the outside world and incorporate it into us through consumption. For example , can it be said that once I absorb the nutrients from an apple , that I own the matter I took from the apple or that I own any of the matter at all which makes up my body? I'm gonna say yes. By virtue of the fact that I can do what I want with my arm when I want so long as I'm not initiating force against someone else with it, I own it , its mine even though the matter that makes up my arm wasn't all mine at first and I took things from the world around me and appropriated it into my body. Well then someone can say but yeah , how can you relate that to land or things you don't biologically appropriate into your body? I'm gonna say its analogous and the same principle applies to objects. What if I had a fake arm because I lost my biological one in an accident? Well thats not part of my body and I can detach it, but can I still claim ownership over it? I'm gonna say I could because I appropriate this thing to advance my own life projects, it become part of me in a sense. How about the clothes I have? They are not biologically part of me but they pretty much function the same as fur on an animal. My clothes are external produced objects but the function to advance my life projects and welfare, I think its legitimate for me to claim ownership over my clothes. So how does this apply to land? Well, consider a turtle. A turtle has a shell that is biologically part of it, the turtle uses that shell for shelter from the elements. I'm gonna say that since I don't have a biological shell, I can make or compensate someone else ( through payment) to make me a house to shelter me from the elements. Houses need land to be built on so it would stand to reason that I own the land. I own the land because I have mixed my labor with that land transformed it into something to further my life projects and welfare. And this applies across the board. For instance , farms don't make themselves. A natural plot of land isn't going to have a farm already constructed on it. Someone must mix their labor with that land and transform it into a farm. The farm in turn becomes part of the laborer or person in th sense of being part of his life and prosperity. But one can charge, this is robbing society since most socialists assume that all the resources on earth are there for everyone and not just individuals to homestead. Well the this is true in a sense but I wouldn't call it robbery , in fact , I would call it the opposite of robbery, I think when individuals homestead land they make the land far more productive than before and in turn the plot of land gives more production to society in general. Now people can buy farm produce that wasn't previously there. The individual that mixed his labor with the land assumes ownership and responsibility over that land to maintain it and keep it productive. The individual can only prosper off the land if he grows enough to sustain himself , in which case he wouldn't bother with all that farm space, or its likely that he will produce a surplus and put the goods out in the open market so other people can have a chance to get them.

Heres the bottom line,consider the opposite. Lets suppose that in reality everyone ( all 6 billion humans on earth) owns the land. Well that would have to imply that all 6 billion own a quota portion of all the particles that make us up since the goods that add mass to our bodies are external and generally from the land. The only way to be fair to society is to ask all the other billions if its OK for me to grow this or even move my arm. If we were to live in truly collectivized society then that would have to be the case since private ownership would be considered oppression but obviously thats not feasible because not doing it that way concedes to the legitimacy of private ownership on any level. I believe once you concede that legitimacy then your argument against private ownership sinks with it. I don't see how its justifiable for communists to claim , OK, you have self-ownership and ownership of this and that but not of other things ( such as capital goods) without posing a contradiction. In an 'anarcho' communist society how would you enforce ownership and non ownership if everything is voluntary? Even worse , how do you define for the collective as a whole what is a capital good and what is not a capital good? There is nothing intrinsic in commodities that make them a capital or non capital good. Rather, that distinction rests in the individual's mind depending on how they decide to employ the commodity to achieve an ends. A tomato to some people might be a consumer good ( they eat it) and to others a capital good ( put tomatoes into production to make ketchup, etc). Plus, nearly all goods we use in the modern world are products of capital goods such as your clothes, most of your food, etc. Communists cannot logically deduct these distinctions for an entire collective, only individual actors can do this since if we have the right to self ownership, we then have the right to obtain our individual ends with whatever means we decide and we choose how we use them.

PS: Private ownership is superior economically. :D

[apathy maybe]

I am interested in your definition of "anarchism" and "anarchy".

The definitions used invariably by all "correct" (read socialist/leftist) anarchists involves terms like 'non-hierarchy', 'opposition to coercion', 'voluntarism' and similar such terms.

That is, anarchism is against "states" because states are hierarchical coercive institutions. Anarchism is also against capitalism, because certain aspects of capitalism (profit, unlimited "right" to accumulate resources, interest, rent and others) create hierarchy (and other problems).
You might argue that capitalism only produces voluntary hierarchy, but you would be wrong. If I can work at my bread making shop and make bread without interfering with anyone else, and a massive company moves in next door and starts producing bread for far less then I can, then they created a hierarchy! My business is forced to go out of business, and now I have a choice. Wage slavery or starvation, that isn't a choice at all, it's a threat.

But, lets take that voluntary hierarchy argument a little further... You aren't forced to stay in a state or country, and by doing so you consent to the rules of that country! I'm sure you can see the problems with that argument, where else can one go? What if I'm a poor fucker who cannot go anywhere?


Within anarchism there has often been arguments between those of a more collectivist/communist, and those of a more individualist bent as to who is more anarchistic, and even if the other sort is even anarchistic at all. Personally, I'm an adjective-free anarchist, I think that both sorts are anarchistic. Why don't I also accept "anarcho"-capitalism as anarchistic also?

Because even the most individualist/mutualist anarchist does not believe in the unlimited accumulation of property (following the line of usage as "ownership"). They also oppose rent (because the "owner" is not using what is being rented), interest (both because of the 'use' idea, and the idea that if you don't work for something, then why should you get it?) and profit (profit creates hierarchies, and again you didn't work for that profit, why shouldn't you simply ask for what it cost you (in materials and labour)?).

An Anarchist FAQ http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA3.html#seca38 has some more information about anarchism without adjectives that might interest you as well.

[Forward Union]

Yes.

Right well let me break it down for you in simple terms,

Ownership is defined by ones ability to hold it by force. If you claim to own my house, that's meaningless, because I not only have the ability to defend it from you, but the state to back that up.

So when you say you support land ownership you mean you support the right of people to hold things from eachother by force. This becomes an exceptional problem when that thing is say, food/farm or a river that I need to survive. If I don't have the force to take it from you, then I am subject to your will, I must jump through whatever hoops you want me to, in return for a part of that water or food.

That is a power relationship which is an enevitable part of exclusive ownership. Only if we both managed these things can we eliminate power relations.

To begin with this was the case, that things were managed in common, but with the introduction of Enclosure acts over the 16 and 1700s land was then siezed by force and then placed on the market. So actually, all property to date was taken originally by force. As the True Levellers movement of 1649 pointed out;

"Those that Buy and Sell Land, and are landlords, have got it either by Oppression, or Murder, or Theft."

[Dejavu]

Right well let me break it down for you in simple terms,

Ownership is defined by ones ability to hold it by force. If you claim to own my house, that's meaningless, because I not only have the ability to defend it from you, but the state to back that up.

So when you say you support land ownership you mean you support the right of people to hold things from eachother by force. This becomes an exceptional problem when that thing is say, food/farm or a river that I need to survive. If I don't have the force to take it from you, then I am subject to your will, I must jump through whatever hoops you want me to, in return for a part of that water or food.

That is a power relationship which is an enevitable part of exclusive ownership. Only if we both managed these things can we eliminate power relations.

So how can you coherently support self-ownership?
So we can't give any room to private property rights because this would be oppression, then the only alternative is 100% collectivization because any give to any concept of private property including self-ownership means legitimizing private property rights.
I exist, I also borrow from the resources of the earth to exist. How can it be legitimate for me to have or do anything without the consent of every other human being on earth? By definition I'm cheating the people I don't ask permission from. Any alternative , as you know , to 100% collectivization is a case for private property.

So do you support 100% collectivization or do you give legitimacy to private ownership rights? You have to choose.

[Dejavu]

Btw, LSD, My reply to you is coming. Stay tuned. :D

[Dejavu]

The gold standard? Really? Wow, I didn't know your type even existed any more. And here I thought the Marxists were as bad as it got; but you could really give them a good run for the title of worst 19th century fetishist, couldn't you?LOL, Why would you automatically assume I have a fetish with gold? I don't even own much gold. Theres nothing special about gold that makes my eyes glee nor do I fancy swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck. My case for gold is much more pragmatic. The market chose gold as the preferred commodity of indirect exchange ( or at least a commodity representative of gold) for obvious reasons( Malleable, high weight to value ratio, easily divisible, SCARCITY and it cannot be DUPLICATED, costs less to extract than other valuable commodities, etc) In fact, gold has all the properties that unbacked paper fiat doesn't. Gold is just like any other commodity but the market ( without intervention from central banks and government) chose gold as the winner among other competing commodities ( silver got concessions too). Unbacked monopolized paper fiat was a creation external from the market and is largely responsible for many of the regular economic problems we face today.


Seriously, didn't you learn anything from the past hundred years? Maybe something along the lines that mixed economies work better than Austrian laissez-faire bullshit. Not that the depression wasn't a fun old time for everyone, but are you really so eager to revisit it? 'Cause if you thought the market got out of control in the 20's, just wait until we replace lax legislation with none at all.I've learned a lot in the past hundred years which makes me even a stronger advocate of sound money. Honest workers deserve honest money right? And I would disagree with you that mixed economies work better. I will concede that we have never really tried 100% laissez fair, that would be great but the very existence of the state comes into direct conflict with that. But there were times we leaned more toward laissez fair and actually did rather well. Guess what ? Germany after WW2 recovered largely because of more pro laissez fair economics and not the mystified Marshal Plan, this is testimony from some of West Germany's most notable economists. I'd say the greatest era for more pro laissez fair in the U.S. was the period after the 'Civil War' ( See War of Northern Aggression or War for Southern Independence for a more accurate description) between 1880-1896. We went back on the gold standard here, production increased greatly, the government kept its nose out of most industry ( certainly not all). Real growth reached over 30%, real wages were similar in growth. Production and trade increased greatly and prices dropped over 10% annually in that period. Another period more pro laissez fair economics actually saved us was in the early 1920s. You probably don't know , but we actually had a notable recession and even minor depression in 1920 shortly after WW1. The president at the time was Harding, not a real celebrated figure because he didn't come out with any grandiose spending plans for the state. Far from perfect, Harding was more pro laissez fair and decided to pretty much do nothing during the 1920-1921 deep recession and let the market handle it. The country was up on its feet after just a year despite all the calls by 'progressives' to enact huge government measures. The actions of both Harding and Coolidge during the 1920spretty much amounted to keep your nose out of the economy. We saw rapid growth here, part of it was artificial , part of it was real. What do I mean by artificial? Well at the same time the Federal Reserve was expanding the money supply and manipulating interest rates ( no surprise) which sent distorted signals to investors and at the same time inflating the money supply. Initially this would create or exaggerate a boom but it also sets up for a bust. The bust came in the Hoover Administration in October of 1929. Its PC to say Hoover was a 'do nothing' president until our Saint FDR came along. I wish that were the case , I wish Hoover was a do nothing president, but that certainly wasn't the case. The initial bust orchestrated by the Fed was actually just a recession that could be recovered much like 1920-1921. It was the Hoover administration and later FDR administration that transformed this recession into a depression and the prolonged it all the way to 1946. Interestingly, the Austrian economists were the only economists during that time that could foresee a deep recession on the horizon ( aside from the Fed naturally , since they planned it) and called it years before it actually happened and this was in the middle of the booming 20s where other 'expert economists' considered any talk of recession nonsense and not possible. What happened was that the Austrians stumbled upon the business cycle theory which proved to be correct. So sound was the theory that one of the great Austrians, Prof. Ludwig Von Mises, even accurately predicted the first bank that would collapse in the recession cum depression and that was the Austrian Vienna Credit Bank.



What happens when a rich person kills a poor one?The rich person gives up his right to not be aggressed against since he violated someone else's rights with intent and the act of aggression. Whats the problem? If anybody did this regardless of their wealth status they have no greater claim to jurisprudence and justice than someone else which makes anarchy more desirable than the state since the state gives a particular group of people monopoly power over making laws , jurisprudence, and enforcing the laws. If I'm not answering you're question please be more specific. Give me an example.

Why is it that anarcho capitalists ( market anarchists) are always called to defend the legitimacy of anarchy? Do you forget you also have communists promoting anarchy? How come they are never questioned about a legal system in their version of anarchy? As if in anarcho-communism we don't need to worry about that question since it will be utopia. I think thats the difference here. Market Anarchists are always called to defend anarchy's legitimacy because we actually foresee a more realistic workable anarchy than the communists and thus serious questions are not posed to the anarcho communists. Such as , if there is no central authority , who determines what is classified as capital and non capital goods?Who enforces 100% collectivization? Because if you give in even just a little bit to the concept of self-ownership then you are contradicting communism and making a case for private property rights.


In your perfect "anarchic" capitalist society, explain to me how anything approaching objective justice is possible if absolutely everything is up for sale.I never claimed anarchy would be perfect (I'm not an anarcho-communist). Far from it, we're human after all. lol. But I was pointing out that the state is far from perfect as well and really in bigger picture has a weak case against anarchy. I would argue that everything is up for sale in the state. How many congressmen, chief justices, and even presidents are bought out to serve special interests? The difference with anarchy, of course, is that , no particular select group of elite have monopoly power over the legislative, judicial , and executive functions of the legal system. For someone that seems to be strictly against monopolies of force, you seem ready to defend the state's monopoly.


You want to get rid of the state 'cause you think it centralizes power in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians. And you're right. But what you're failing to recognize is that the market does the exact same thing. It's just a different group of old white men holding the reigns.Not exactly because as I explained earlier, in anarchy; there is no official legal monopolized institution calling all the shots. In anarchy; jurisprudence , common law , and enforcement is spread to everyone, not just a select elite.




And so as long as we need the market (and unfortunately we still do), we're going to need something to counterbalance its power. Someting to curb its excesses and soften its rougher edges.Excesses of what, prosperity? Too much = no good? I am brave enough to say its always the case that when we talk about 'market failures' its always connected to the state. The state is the antithesis of the market because the state sets up perverse incentives. As I wrote in another thread , when a private enterprise is failing to provide a service, assuming there is no state intervention, the enterprise suffers losses as punishment. However , if the state program is failing to provide a service , it receives more funding.


I'm not saying that the state is "good", I'm just saying it's better than the alternative. I realize that that's not as "clean" an answer as that provided by libertarianism. But that should probably be your first hint that some thing's not right. 'Cause simple solutions, they don't work. They sound good, but they don't work.Actually common sense goes a long way. Less obstruction in the legal process ( the myriad of laws passed in congress that most don't even read and most people don't know even exist) and a clear uncompromising knowledge of natural rights of people accountable and enforceable by the people seems far less difficult to understand than the state apparatus.


You're a communist, Deja, you've just fiddled with the wording. But the arrogance, the certainty, the ideological faith that you can "fix" the world with your perfect set of instructions, it's all there.:laugh:






I guess you really are on the right website after all.:laugh:

[RGacky3]

Dajavu,

I appreciate you answering my question, but let me ask you this, what gives you right to the strawberry field over anyone elses right?

You talk about the right to property, but what gives one pwerson the right over another? I say its labor, in other words one has a right to his labor, which leaves no room for ownership, and ultimately leads to a cooperative society.


So how can you coherently support self-ownership?
So we can't give any room to private property rights because this would be oppression, then the only alternative is 100% collectivization because any give to any concept of private property including self-ownership means legitimizing private property rights.
I exist, I also borrow from the resources of the earth to exist. How can it be legitimate for me to have or do anything without the consent of every other human being on earth? By definition I'm cheating the people I don't ask permission from. Any alternative , as you know , to 100% collectivization is a case for private property.

Let me ask you do you need laws protecting your claim to land ownership? yes probably, because land ownership effects society, considering it grows food which may be needed by society, now then do you need laws for protecting your claim to toothbrush ownership? No because no one wants your toothbrush, now maybe if you claim ownership to a factory making toothbrushes, so really you don't need property laws.

The only reason you would need them is to make exploitation possible, so that other people can do your work, but since you have legal ownership you get the produce.

[Dejavu]

More on jurisprudence and why anarchy is superior to the state.

One abstract hypothetical example and one real life example.

Imagine theres three men on an desert island, lets call them Larry,Moe,and Curly ( or whatever you wish.) Well suppose the three men are going to be stuck on the island a while and it eventually comes about that they get into disputes with each other over certain issues ( perhaps Larry took Moe's fish or whatever.) Eventually some legal order , even if its non written but nevertheless objective, would have to arise or else the three men can never settle their disputes in a civilized manner.

Well suppose two scenarios evolving within the construction of a island legal order. The first construction necessitates a third party ( since one is available) to settle the dispute between the other two. This means if Larry and Moe have a dispute , Curly can settle it. Really any combination would work. Is it perfect? Nah, but its it the most fair for three fallible men? I'd say so.
Well, lets suppose another scenario. Lets say that the three decide to make Curly the final arbiter. Meaning , no matter what the dispute is, Curly will always be the final arbiter. Well this is no problem if Larry and Moe have a dispute, Emperor Curly can simply settle it. But what if Larry and/or Moe have a dispute with Curly? Is it right that Curly has a monopoly over the legal system and can always decide in his own favor in disputes against him? How is this any different than the state monopoly over the legal system?
OK, but one can say well Dejavu, we have three branches of government with divided powers and this provides a checks and balances. My response would be how does that diminish the fact that the state still holds a monopoly on the legal system? Think about all the things we can't sue government for. What if we want to sue the Supreme Court? Who is final arbiter? Doesn't sound very promising. Its like if you had a dispute with GM's marketing division and you can only settle the case in GM's legal division.

In the Not so Wild West, the American Frontier didn't have an established monopolistic legal order for quite a while. So how did people come to settle their disputes? Well there were some showdowns but no where near what Hollywood propagates. In fact there is plenty of evidence to show that most disputes in the semi-anarchic American Frontier were settled much like the first method Larry, Moe,and Curly would settle their problems the first way where any 'third guy' can act as arbiter and there is no 'Emperor.' But the Not so Wild West was actually more civilized than even the island example. Normally the two people and/or parties in dispute would pick someone they trusted to help solve the dispute. In turn, those two they picked would get together and find another guy they both trusted. Then the three would settle the dispute that way. Was it perfect? Nope. But neither is the state. Was it effective? I'd say so and I'd claim it was less coercive than the state as well.

[Dejavu]

I recommend taking a look at old Irish Celtic Law too.

[Dejavu]

I appreciate you answering my question, but let me ask you this, what gives you right to the strawberry field over anyone elses right?Well, you can read what I was writing earlier about the homesteading principle. When I 'mix' my labor with the land and transform an initially low productive plot of land into something productive ( which actually benefits society greater than its original untransformed form) then I incorporate the land into my ongoing life projects and welfare. I.e. the land becomes part of me( or my life) just as any house, car, article of clothing, particle of matter would.

I don't know what your asking exactly. I'm going to assume you mean how did it come to be that I got to appropriate the land over someone else. Well if thats the question, then there are several ways. Either the land was not being already homesteaded by someone in the first place and was just out in the commons and I happened to see it first. Or , It could've been abandoned and I decided to homestead it, or I could've bought it off someone else relieving them of their responsibility and costs of homesteading it and assumed the responsibility myself.

If we were to assume land couldn't be privatized , then what actually could be privatized? As I said in my last comment there are really only two ways to go about this, either you endorse 100% collectivization which includes abolishing people's rights to self-ownership or if you concede at least self ownership and of 'certain' things like homesteading a toothbrush but then that would mean you're automatically endorsing a case for private property rights. Ergo you would be setting a contradictory standard and you would have to figure out how to enforce collective property and private property at the same time while living in under anarchy ( if , indeed, you are an anarcho communist, other wise the natural conclusion is a communist state) Of course the problem with that is that the contradiction can't stand IF you believe in self-ownership right and there is nothing intrinsic about any object which makes it a collective or private good ( capital or consumer good), that distinction can only reside within each individual's mind depending on how they decide to employ a means to achieve desired ends.

Also , lets assume for a second that OK, I don't have the right to homestead anything. Well the likely hood of anyone transforming the land into something more productive is slim to none. This is for the simple fact that if you go through the trouble of homesteading something, first of all you can't , by yourself. In order to remain in line with collective ownership of land ( really its of all things because you can't sustain a contradiction like that and hope for society to prosper ,especially in anarchy) you have to ask permission of everyone else on earth since everyone has an equal claim to that land, remember , 6 billion in all.

On a side note , you could say, well thats ridiculous and it wouldn't be like that. The communes would be spread out all over the world and you only need to get permission from your commune to do it but then again your making a case for private property. Instead of individuals, you would just be making the case for communes to assume property in respective areas, it wouldn't be consistent with the no private ownership of land principle. Its really no different than a corporation of shareholders ( a business commune of sorts) owning stock and land when you really think about it.

But back to my claim, I say there is slim to no chance that any property would really be transformed into productive land under no private property. It hinges on the simple fact that an untransformed plot of land might yield a certain amount of strawberries but there would be utterly no incentive to homestead that land. First of all , anyone can come along and just take whatever they want. If strawberries are a highly desired commodity like in our scenario they would be sought after by society at large. Whats to prevent everyone from just raping the limited strawberry stock? Is there an incentive to conserve? Well no, because if you don't take what you can now, other people will just get it. What develops is a tragedy of the commons.

So how does a communist society without a state ensure that everyone just doesn't exercise their right to just come and grab as many strawberries as they want? The only way the 'workers guild' or whatever the popular notion is in communism can enforce that is by taking measures to limit peoples' access to strawberry patches so they actually have a chance to become more abundant to meet the demand of society. The limiting measures which would necessarily have to come about to ensure prosperity and a share for all would have to be enforced someway ( perhaps by some of the measures I suggested in my earlier post showing that enforcement and justice is possible in anarchy). Now apply this to the whole economy, not just strawberries, but food vital to peoples survival, can you see the problem now?
The necessary limiting measures would be, of course, making a case for private property rights be it an individual or a farming board of the commune simply because you would be limiting peoples' access to it.

I hope that answered your entire post since I went on for a bit. :)

PS: Theres some legal system stuff I already wrote about on this thread. Take a look. :)

[Publius]

More on jurisprudence and why anarchy is superior to the state.

One abstract hypothetical example and one real life example.

Imagine theres three men on an desert island, lets call them Larry,Moe,and Curly ( or whatever you wish.) Well suppose the three men are going to be stuck on the island a while and it eventually comes about that they get into disputes with each other over certain issues ( perhaps Larry took Moe's fish or whatever.) Eventually some legal order , even if its non written but nevertheless objective, would have to arise or else the three men can never settle their disputes in a civilized manner.

Well suppose two scenarios evolving within the construction of a island legal order. The first construction necessitates a third party ( since one is available) to settle the dispute between the other two. This means if Larry and Moe have a dispute , Curly can settle it. Really any combination would work. Is it perfect? Nah, but its it the most fair for three fallible men? I'd say so.
Well, lets suppose another scenario. Lets say that the three decide to make Curly the final arbiter. Meaning , no matter what the dispute is, Curly will always be the final arbiter. Well this is no problem if Larry and Moe have a dispute, Emperor Curly can simply settle it. But what if Larry and/or Moe have a dispute with Curly? Is it right that Curly has a monopoly over the legal system and can always decide in his own favor in disputes against him? How is this any different than the state monopoly over the legal system?

Better question: How is it anything like the state monopoly over the legal system? In a DEMOS-ocracy, the government is of, by, and for the people, and thus by extension, the government is the people, or are the people.

I don't know about where your from, but where I'm from we elect judges, DAs, and our elected officials appoint the rest. So really how things work in the REAL WORLD is absolutely nothing your ridiculous and trivial example.

What if instead all 3 people on the island vote and decide that Curly is a fairer, more qualified person to judge all disputes? Then what would you say, that is if Larry and Moe (or just one of them, even) wanted to fork over power to Larry?



OK, but one can say well Dejavu, we have three branches of government with divided powers and this provides a checks and balances. My response would be how does that diminish the fact that the state still holds a monopoly on the legal system?

In the case of modern day America, you're right, to an extent.

But since we're talking in theoreticals here, I'm supposing we have a true democratic government where powers really were divided AND that the people, the citizens, the voters, had ultimate say.


Think about all the things we can't sue government for. What if we want to sue the Supreme Court?

That doesn't even make sense. What could you possibly "sue" a court for? You could appeal its decision, but aside from that the court doesn't DO anything that you could even sue it over.

So really your question is, what if you want to appeal a Supreme Court decision. Well, you can wait a few years until the court changes. The court has overturned previous rulings.

See: Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education.



Who is final arbiter? Doesn't sound very promising.

Yeah, which explains why Plessy v. Ferguson is still precedent...

Oh wait, it isn't, thus demonstrating that you're wrong.



Its like if you had a dispute with GM's marketing division and you can only settle the case in GM's legal division.

Courts rule against the government ALL THE TIME. Probably not enough, as the government gets away with all kinds of shady things, but it's not as if the courts never rule against the government. It happens quite often that laws are overturned for being unconstitutional, for example.

So again, your ramblings have no bearing at all on what ACTUALLY HAPPENS, let alone on what would happen if we had a REAL government not a Fisher Price pretend-democracy.



In the Not so Wild West, the American Frontier didn't have an established monopolistic legal order for quite a while. So how did people come to settle their disputes?

By forming posses and hanging trouble makers. Or appointing a sheriff who,
within limits, did whatever he damn well pleased to keep law and order.



Well there were some showdowns but no where near what Hollywood propagates. In fact there is plenty of evidence to show that most disputes in the semi-anarchic American Frontier were settled much like the first method Larry, Moe,and Curly would settle their problems the first way where any 'third guy' can act as arbiter and there is no 'Emperor.' But the Not so Wild West was actually more civilized than even the island example.

Well yes, but the Wild West was also less hilarious.


Normally the two people and/or parties in dispute would pick someone they trusted to help solve the dispute. In turn, those two they picked would get together and find another guy they both trusted. Then the three would settle the dispute that way. Was it perfect? Nope. But neither is the state. Was it effective? I'd say so and I'd claim it was less coercive than the state as well.

Which is why people settle disputes by arbitration ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

It's not as if every time you have an issue with someone you file a claim in court (though it seems that way.) Unions and companies almost always go to arbitration. Just as a salient example, every time a football player has a salary dispute with his team, they take it to arbitration. People settle small issues outside of the courts all the time, when that's feasible, say in a small town where everyone knows each other.

Sure, getting a mutual acquaintance to settle the dispute can work well -- IF YOU HAVE ONE. If instead someone does a hit and run on your parked car, you can't exactly call around town to find him, you have to take it to court. If someone dumps trash on your property, and you know who it is but don't know them, there's no way in hell you're going to get them to arbitrate with you ESPECIALLY since they know full-well they'll be ruled against.

Here's a scenario to consider: I cut have a bunch of garbage to get rid of. I live across the street from you but we barely are aware of each other. I poor it on your property because I don't give a shit. You come over to my house and demand that we settle this dispute in arbitration. I laugh in your face.

What do you do?

You go some entity that has the power to compel me to show up in court.

As it stands now, since arbitration is voluntary, if I know I'm in the wrong, I just won't show up. What are you gonna do? Rule against me in my absence? Sheah right. That's the very definition of a clown court, not to mention it's illegal and immoral. Force me to show up, by using force? Then you contradict yourself. Just take from me what you think is proper? That's how they would do it in the wild west.

Or maybe we can establish some court system that has the power to compel me to show up, and can enforce its rulings.

See, your ideas could only possibly work in small towns where everyone knew each other and reputation was important. So really, they have no bearing at all, again, on how things actually work in the real world.

Please tell me these aren't your best ideas when it comes to running courts. They're laughable.

[Publius]

I recommend taking a look at old Irish Celtic Law too.

Yeah, because the practices of jurisprudence haven't changed a whit in the last 500 years, and the practices of a bunch of Dark Age nomadic peons are OBVIOUSLY relevant to today's urban, transnational culture.

Do any of their laws cover how to deal with witches, perchance? Or druids, I guess, since they're Celtic...

[Dejavu]

Better question: How is it anything like the state monopoly over the legal system? In a DEMOS-ocracy, the government is of, by, and for the people, and thus by extension, the government is the people, or are the people.

Sounds like a great theory. We once practiced limited government set forth by our Constitution but no longer. And what is democracy? Majority rule? For the majority, by the majority, and of the majority? What about everyone else? Say 49% with a different opinion? This is why the framers formed a representative republic instead of centralized democracy. But even that hasn't done to well if you look at how many Constitutional restraints the Federal Govt has decided to ignore.


I don't know about where your from, but where I'm from we elect judges, DAs, and our elected officials appoint the rest. So really how things work in the REAL WORLD is absolutely nothing your ridiculous and trivial example.

Yeah but the Supreme Court Judges, the final arbiters, are elected by the government. In essence you have an elitist class with a monopoly on jurisprudence.


What if instead all 3 people on the island vote and decide that Curly is a fairer, more qualified person to judge all disputes? Then what would you say, that is if Larry and Moe (or just one of them, even) wanted to fork over power to Larry?

But whats to prevent Curly from abusing his power? A live example can be the growth of the Federal Government beyond its constitutional limitations since the inception of the United States. Eventually the logical conclusion would come to anarchy where no one is the benevolent or cruel dictator.
You're making a case for anarchy.:D



But since we're talking in theoreticals here, I'm supposing we have a true democratic government where powers really were divided AND that the people, the citizens, the voters, had ultimate say.

Yeah, yeah , many people considered their government righteous and it was states that caused the most bloody wars in human history. The framers had the same idea for the constitution, a 'fair government' but eventually the thirst for power by certain individuals would usurp the constitutional restraints and the power would become more centralized and concentrated in the hands of a few. Look at our government today. The fact that these individuals had monopolies on violence allowed them to accumulate this mass of power.


That doesn't even make sense. What could you possibly "sue" a court for? You could appeal its decision, but aside from that the court doesn't DO anything that you could even sue it over.

I was talking about suing the Federal Government. The case would go to the Supreme Court where the government would be its own final arbiter. Now thankfully some decisions were just because we had men that still practiced by the constitution but MANY were NOT just.


So really your question is, what if you want to appeal a Supreme Court decision. Well, you can wait a few years until the court changes. The court has overturned previous rulings.

Why should you have to do that in the first place? What gives a select group of men more rights to jurisprudence than you yourself? There are no visible marks on any men to make them more superior to others.


See: Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education.

Horrible decisions that they were implemented to begin with and shows how the government can overstep its limitations just depending on the men in power. Someone one said were a nation of laws , not of men. That principle has obviously been abandoned.



Courts rule against the government ALL THE TIME. Probably not enough, as the government gets away with all kinds of shady things, but it's not as if the courts never rule against the government. It happens quite often that laws are overturned for being unconstitutional, for example.

Certainly not enough. And checks and balances don't mean anything. The fact were in the Iraq War, the fact we have the IRS ,a Federal Reserve, all these welfare programs, Federal government making decisions for States, denial to the right of states' secession. These things have a huge impact on how the country is today compared with the way its supposed to be.



So again, your ramblings have no bearing at all on what ACTUALLY HAPPENS, let alone on what would happen if we had a REAL government not a Fisher Price pretend-democracy.

Again, the constitution was meant to a just government, that being THIS government was supposed to be just. Obviously governments become institutions of elitist men with special interests rather than representatives of the people. You're actually making a case for anarchy here. :laugh:


By forming posses and hanging trouble makers. Or appointing a sheriff who,
within limits, did whatever he damn well pleased to keep law and order.

The Sheriff merely enforced the law when he could. Often times the Sheriff and Deputies who were far outnumbered by armed non lawmen relied on people to take care of their own disputes. The Sheriff didn't have enough jail space for everyone. But you're making a case for anarchy here again. A legal system emerged without the direct influence of a state. Sheriffs were a tool of enforcement, not jurisprudence.


Which is why people settle disputes by arbitration ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

So whats the point of the state?


It's not as if every time you have an issue with someone you file a claim in court (though it seems that way.) Unions and companies almost always go to arbitration. Just as a salient example, every time a football player has a salary dispute with his team, they take it to arbitration. People settle small issues outside of the courts all the time, when that's feasible, say in a small town where everyone knows each other.

So if people can settle their own issues, which I claim and you're claiming here, whats the point of a state?


Sure, getting a mutual acquaintance to settle the dispute can work well -- IF YOU HAVE ONE. If instead someone does a hit and run on your parked car, you can't exactly call around town to find him, you have to take it to court. If someone dumps trash on your property, and you know who it is but don't know them, there's no way in hell you're going to get them to arbitrate with you ESPECIALLY since they know full-well they'll be ruled against.

But we already established with the Sheriff, that you can form a legal system without being under a state. And there are MANY ways I can enforce my property rights. The very fact that the dumper violated my property rights opens him up to payback.


Here's a scenario to consider: I cut have a bunch of garbage to get rid of. I live across the street from you but we barely are aware of each other. I poor it on your property because I don't give a shit. You come over to my house and demand that we settle this dispute in arbitration. I laugh in your face.

So I dump the garbage back on your yard. Or, I let the whole neighborhood know you're a garbage dumper and DO NOT respect other people's property. Who's gonna wanna do any business with you? I can convince everyone to keep on dumping trash on your yard since you clearly showed you don't respect other peoples' rights. Think about it this way , if just you and I kept on dumping trash on each others' yard, in reality, it wouldn't be good for either of us. Unless we both don't mind having trash on our yard. I think people are civil enough to come to a truce.




You go some entity that has the power to compel me to show up in court.

Big brother doesn't need to handle all my problems, maybe yours , not mine.


As it stands now, since arbitration is voluntary, if I know I'm in the wrong, I just won't show up. What are you gonna do? Rule against me in my absence? Sheah right. That's the very definition of a clown court, not to mention it's illegal and immoral. Force me to show up, by using force? Then you contradict yourself. Just take from me what you think is proper? That's how they would do it in the wild west.

Actually its very moral. You initiated violence against me first by invading my property. IN essence, you gave up your right to not be transgressed against simply by violating my right. You were the initiator. You wouldn't like that you're known as the guy that doesn't give a shit about other people's property and I wouldn't feel sorry for you if the community united against you. If you don't abide by common law and everyone else does, you'll be out casted and you'll be marked by people in the stores that refuse to sell to you, you'd have to travel far and wide to get anything of value. And if you don't show up , you're only proving your guilt. Who's gonna want to associate with someone that violates someone else's rights for no reason? If you had a reason, you'd naturally present your case. I highly recommend you read about the Law of Merchant since it can be applicable here in a sense.


Or maybe we can establish some court system that has the power to compel me to show up, and can enforce its rulings.

No need. Just when you go out in town, don't expect to be everyone's favorite joker.


See, your ideas could only possibly work in small towns where everyone knew each other and reputation was important. So really, they have no bearing at all, again, on how things actually work in the real world.

Actually they do. This happens everywhere. Remember we have a lot of technology and its easy to get your bad name across anywhere. I can back it up by the fact you refused to settle a dispute in a civil manner.



Please tell me these aren't your best ideas when it comes to running courts. They're laughable

You still haven't made a case for the state.

[Dejavu]

Yeah, because the practices of jurisprudence haven't changed a whit in the last 500 years, and the practices of a bunch of Dark Age nomadic peons are OBVIOUSLY relevant to today's urban, transnational culture.

Do any of their laws cover how to deal with witches, perchance? Or druids, I guess, since they're Celtic...


Irish Celtic Law (http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/1_2/1_2_1)

[Publius]

Sounds like a great theory. We once practiced limited government set forth by our Constitution but no longer.

I'm not talking about limited government as set forth in the Constitution, I'm talking about democracy.

Remember that canard libertarians and conservatives also spit? "We're a Republic, not a Democracy!."

So we are. And that's why I dislike our government. Or one of the reasons.



And what is democracy?

Rule by the people.


Majority rule?

No.


For the majority, by the majority, and of the majority? What about everyone els e? Say 49% with a different opinion?

What about them? They're part of the government too.



This is why the framers formed a representative republic instead of centralized democracy. But even that hasn't done to well if you look at how many Constitutional restraints the Federal Govt has decided toignore.

I don't really care too much what the framers wanted -- I want something else.



Yeah but the Supreme Court Judges, the final arbiters, are elected by the government. In essence you have an elitist class with a monopoly on jurisprudence.

How you could possibly arrive at that conclusion after what I just demonstrated to you is utterly beyond me.

Are you reading what I write?

How many cases go to the Supreme Court, per year? And what percentage of cases? Furthermore, they judges are appointed by elected officials. I for one would like them to be popularly elected, but there you go.



But whats to prevent Curly from abusing his power?

Larry and Moe, ie, everyone else, ie, the citizens.



A live example can be the growth of the Federal Government beyond its constitutional limitations since the inception of the United States.

A live example of what? The government abusing its power? How can the government abuse its power when the voters GIVE it that power?

A government's power to govern derives from the just consent of the governed, right? And if the governed want a welfare state, then in what sense is the government "abusing" its power in giving it them?

Idiocy.



Eventually the logical conclusion would come to anarchy where no one is the benevolent or cruel dictator.
You're making a case for anarchy.:D

America doesn't have a dictator.

And no, a snide comment about GW Bush doesn't make him a dictator, it just makes you look like a dumbass.



Yeah, yeah , many people considered their government righteous and it was states that caused the most bloody wars in human history.

Yes, and? All those wars were fought by humans too. Humans must be the problem.

All those wars were fought by beings who breathed air. Air breathers must be the problem!

Idiot.


The framers had the same idea for the constitution, a 'fair government' but eventually the thirst for power by certain individuals would usurp the constitutional restraints and the power would become more centralized and concentrated in the hands of a few. Look at our government today. The fact that these individuals had monopolies on violence allowed them to accumulate this mass of power.

No, the fact that they were POPULARLY ELECTED (with the possible exception of Bush) allowed them to accumulate power.

Only in the twisted and disturbed mind of a ranting libertarian could an election be regarded as an "usurpation" of power.



I was talking about suing the Federal Government.

It happens all the time.

Sometimes successfully.


The case would go to the Supreme Court where the government would be its own final arbiter.

Different branches.


Now thankfully some decisions were just because we had men that still practiced by the constitution but MANY were NOT just.

Such as?

I don't doubt you on this point, I just don't think you know what you're talking about.



Why should you have to do that in the first place? What gives a select group of men more rights to jurisprudence than you yourself?

That they're JUDGES.

Geeze he's dense.


There are no visible marks on any men to make them more superior to others.

Which is nice, because we don't in fact select our judges on the basis of their birth marks.

And nothing about being a judge says they are "superior" to other men. IN fact you could say quite the opposite: that judges SERVE the people.



Horrible decisions that they were implemented to begin with and shows how the government can overstep its limitations just depending on the men in power. Someone one said were a nation of laws , not of men. That principle has obviously been abandoned.

This is barely readable, but not that it matters -- there's no valid point there.

That the government was wrong 150 years ago on a point is some indictment of it now? Were you ever wrong? Can I use that as evidence that you're wrong now?



Certainly not enough.

So your problem isn't with government PERIOD, it's with how government is currently ran.

Uh-huh.

You can't even stay consistent.



And checks and balances don't mean anything.

Why do you expect me to defend the US government? I hate the US government.


The fact were in the Iraq War, the fact we have the IRS ,a Federal Reserve, all these welfare programs, Federal government making decisions for States,

First of all, I support a number of these things, all of them except the Iraq War.

Hint: don't pick things that I agree with as "problems". To me, they aren't.



denial to the right of states' secession.

Idiot southern apologist.


These things have a huge impact on how the country is today compared with the way its supposed to be.

Yeah, for example, the government's unwillingness to allow slavery stopped slavery.

Oh the humanity.



Again, the constitution was meant to a just government, that being THIS government was supposed to be just. Obviously governments become institutions of elitist men with special interests rather than representatives of the people. You're actually making a case for anarchy here. :laugh:

You possibly are the stupidest person on the internet.

I wish the entire US government were scrapped and we started again.

But that doesn't mean I'm an anarchist. That I don't like THIS government doesn't mean I dislike ALL government.

That you don't realize this is proof enough that you have no clue what I'm even saying.



The Sheriff merely enforced the law when he could. Often times the Sheriff and Deputies who were far outnumbered by armed non lawmen relied on people to take care of their own disputes. The Sheriff didn't have enough jail space for everyone. But you're making a case for anarchy here again. A legal system emerged without the direct influence of a state. Sheriffs were a tool of enforcement, not jurisprudence.

How could the sheriff enforce the law if everyone took care of their own disputes, ie, THERE WAS NO LAW?

Fucking moron. For there to be a sheriff to enforce the law, there had to be laws issued by a government of some sort.

Try again.



So whats the point of the state?

To deal with the cases where people don't arbitrate.

Good God, it's like talking to a fucking wall.



So if people can settle their own issues, which I claim and you're claiming here, whats the point of a state?

That some people arbitrate DNE that all people arbitrate.

Take a logic class.

"Some birds are sparrows" DNE "all birds are sparrows."



But we already established with the Sheriff, that you can form a legal system without being under a state.

No, we didn't establish anything like that, you made it up, in your head, because you are unable to properly interpret anything I say.

First of all, the Sheriff is hired by the citizens of the town, collectively, making him a de facto government himself. Furthermore, the fact that the Sheriff's job was to enforce laws, it follows that were laws, and thus there had to be a state to create laws.

What do you think a state even IS?



And there are MANY ways I can enforce my property rights.

Like what? Vigilante justice?

Please list these "many ways."


The very fact that the dumper violated my property rights opens him up to payback.

No it doesn't. First don't you have to PROVE that I committed the crime? If so, how the hell are you going to do that? If not, how does anyone know you aren't just framing me?

In the dark of night, I pour shit on your on your lawn. You don't see me. I win. End of story.



So I dump the garbage back on your yard.

And I shoot you for coming onto my property and just claim that you instigated this whole mess, since you never proved that I did anything.

I win.


Or, I let the whole neighborhood know you're a garbage dumper and DO NOT respect other people's property.

Too late, I've already told the neighborhood that YOU'RE a garbage dumper, even though it isn't true. That is, I slandered you. But now none in the community believes you, because I also told them that you were a compulsive liar.

What are you going to do, TAKE ME TO COURT FOR SLANDER?

I win.



Who's gonna wanna do any business with you?

Anyone, if I have the money.

"Your money's no good here, you dumped trash on some guy's lawn who I don't even know a few weeks ago."

Right. Likely scenario.

Anyway, you're the one with the bad reputation. Remember, I slandered you BEFORE I put shit on your lawn. And you never saw me do it, because I did it while you were sleeping.

I win.



I can convince everyone to keep on dumping trash on your yard since you clearly showed you don't respect other peoples' rights.

Didn't your parents ever teach you that two wrongs don't make a right?

Furthermore, what's to prevent you or anyone from just lying?

Here, I lie to the community and tell everyone that you dumped trash on MY lawn. The whole community teams up to dump trash on your lawn.

I laugh in your face.

I win.



Think about it this way , if just you and I kept on dumping trash on each others' yard, in reality, it wouldn't be good for either of us. Unless we both don't mind having trash on our yard.

Alternative: I dump trash on your yard and then threaten to kill you, and you don't do anything.

It basically now amounts to your word vs. mine. So if I'm more respected in the community (remember, I've already slandered you), I can bully you around without penalty.


I think people are civil enough to come to a truce.

Then people are civil enough to never need law OR arbitration in the first place.

But wait, that's obviously wrong.



Big brother doesn't need to handle all my problems, maybe yours , not mine.

Yeah, you solve your problems by slandering people and violating their rights.

Impressive.



Actually its very moral. You initiated violence against me first by invading my property.

You can't prove I invaded your property. Without proof, all you have is a claim.

If some guy walks up to you on the street and says "That guy took my wallet!", would help him beat up the person he pointed at?

I should hope not.



IN essence, you gave up your right to not be transgressed against simply by violating my right. You were the initiator.

Irrelevant.

Unless you can PROVE it was me, you're just talking out your ass.

All you've managed to prove is that whoever slanders the other person's reputation first wins.



You wouldn't like that you're known as the guy that doesn't give a shit about other people's property and I wouldn't feel sorry for you if the community united against you.

But that would never happen because you'd be known as "that asshole that always spreads lies about other people."

Maybe everyone in the community would get sick of hearing your whining and would all conspire to violate your rights, just for the hell of it.

That'd be hilarious, wouldn't it?



If you don't abide by common law and everyone else does, you'll be out casted and you'll be marked by people in the stores that refuse to sell to you, you'd have to travel far and wide to get anything of value.

No, I wouldn't.

Stores sell anyone anything for the money.



And if you don't show up , you're only proving your guilt.

Really?

So if me and my friends invent dozens of spurious charges against you, that you molest children, are a rapist, a murderer, a thief, etc., if you refuse to show up you just got labeled as guilty?



Who's gonna want to associate with someone that violates someone else's rights for no reason?

They'd never know.

All that would really matter is that I'm cleverer than you, that is, more able to make you look bad than you are able to make me look bad.

Since that isn't in doubt, I win.



If you had a reason, you'd naturally present your case.

Alright. I charge you with starting the Chicago fire.

I expect you be in court bright and early Monday morning, so I can waste your time.

See you there.



No need. Just when you go out in town, don't expect to be everyone's favorite joker.

Imagine you live in a city. Then what?



Actually they do. This happens everywhere. Remember we have a lot of technology and its easy to get your bad name across anywhere.

What does having "a lot of technology" have to do with anything? Child molestors have their pictures all on the internet. I bet they have no trouble going to the gas station to buy milk.



I can back it up by the fact you refused to settle a dispute in a civil manner.

No you can't. That's not a crime, to not show up for arbitration.

Furthermore, how could anyone know I didn't really show up and that you aren't just lying again, as everyone knows you are wont to do?



You still haven't made a case for the state.

I was too busy poling holes in your pretensions.

[RGacky3]

Well, you can read what I was writing earlier about the homesteading principle. When I 'mix' my labor with the land and transform an initially low productive plot of land into something productive ( which actually benefits society greater than its original untransformed form) then I incorporate the land into my ongoing life projects and welfare. I.e. the land becomes part of me( or my life) just as any house, car, article of clothing, particle of matter would.


So a person can own a piece of land, due to the fact that he works it, he has a right to it, then he can hire someone else, who has no land, to work 'his' land, and the person who works 'his' land has absolutely no right to it?

What is this guy never see's the land he 'owns' because he bought it, does that guy have more a right to it than the worker working it?


Also , lets assume for a second that OK, I don't have the right to homestead anything. Well the likely hood of anyone transforming the land into something more productive is slim to none. This is for the simple fact that if you go through the trouble of homesteading something, first of all you can't , by yourself. In order to remain in line with collective ownership of land ( really its of all things because you can't sustain a contradiction like that and hope for society to prosper ,especially in anarchy) you have to ask permission of everyone else on earth since everyone has an equal claim to that land, remember , 6 billion in all.

well not 6 billion people, because 6 billion people would'nt be directly effected with you coultivating the land, some people might me, probably the communiy around it, if you have an idea to cultivate it, you could maybe cultivate a part for yourself asuming the community does'nt object to it, you could coltivate it for the community on a large scale, in solidarity with others, theres many ways to go about it.


If we were to assume land couldn't be privatized , then what actually could be privatized? As I said in my last comment there are really only two ways to go about this, either you endorse 100% collectivization which includes abolishing people's rights to self-ownership or if you concede at least self ownership and of 'certain' things like homesteading a toothbrush but then that would mean you're automatically endorsing a case for private property rights. Ergo you would be setting a contradictory standard and you would have to figure out how to enforce collective property and private property at the same time while living in under anarchy ( if , indeed, you are an anarcho communist, other wise the natural conclusion is a communist state) Of course the problem with that is that the contradiction can't stand IF you believe in self-ownership right and there is nothing intrinsic about any object which makes it a collective or private good ( capital or consumer good), that distinction can only reside within each individual's mind depending on how they decide to employ a means to achieve desired ends.



You don't need to homestead a toothbrush, you don't need to put a mark on it and say "this is my toothbrush." No ones going to steal it, no one wants it, and there is something intrinsic that makes an object private or public, simply, does the object have to to with public interest? Like a farm producing food on a large scale or a factory? Or private, like a toothbrush? Simple, and for private things you don't need any laws or private property.


Instead of individuals, you would just be making the case for communes to assume property in respective areas, it wouldn't be consistent with the no private ownership of land principle. Its really no different than a corporation of shareholders ( a business commune of sorts) owning stock and land when you really think about it.


Its no property, at all, the communes are the only ones effected, they are hte ones with a direct relationship with the buisinesses and lands in their area so although they don't 'own it' and they have no claim about it, they have a right to use it, for their collective interest, and it has nothing to do with ownership, its use.


So how does a communist society without a state ensure that everyone just doesn't exercise their right to just come and grab as many strawberries as they want? The only way the 'workers guild' or whatever the popular notion is in communism can enforce that is by taking measures to limit peoples' access to strawberry patches so they actually have a chance to become more abundant to meet the demand of society. The limiting measures which would necessarily have to come about to ensure prosperity and a share for all would have to be enforced someway ( perhaps by some of the measures I suggested in my earlier post showing that enforcement and justice is possible in anarchy). Now apply this to the whole economy, not just strawberries, but food vital to peoples survival, can you see the problem now?
The necessary limiting measures would be, of course, making a case for private property rights be it an individual or a farming board of the commune simply because you would be limiting peoples' access to it.


Are you claiming that people would just hoard strawberries, more strawberries than they need? and hide them? even though by doing that there would be no power attached with that, and they have no fear or loosing things or the such because property is public? thats insane!!! First of all, if someone was so diabolical that he would do that, just to screw over other people, the people in that community would'nt let him.

Now when you have private property involved THEN you have an issue, hell what people do is actually hoard property, because its protected with the threat of violence, more property than they and their family needs, because along with that you get power, the power to control societies reasorces and thus control society, and then you end up "homesteading" property, getting the rights to it, and then hire people to work your property for you, then buying more property, and building an empire.

[Apollodorus]

The State(s) must be eliminated and we can have fair game to try our respective capitalist and communist societies without the coercive State(s) interference.

So what do you guys say? Would you be for an anarchic world divided into communist/socialist half and a free market capitalist half? Would you at least take it over the current system?

I have no qualms about working with anarcho-capitalists. It is not like your society would get anywhere anyway, and we need the numbers.

[Unicorn]

The gold standard? Really? Wow, I didn't know your type even existed any more. And here I thought the Marxists were as bad as it got; but you could really give them a good run for the title of worst 19th century fetishist, couldn't you?
What exactly is wrong with the gold standard? Orthodox Marxists are for stable currency.

[Dejavu]

So a person can own a piece of land, due to the fact that he works it, he has a right to it, then he can hire someone else, who has no land, to work 'his' land, and the person who works 'his' land has absolutely no right to it?No, the worker doesn't have a right to homestead the land if its already homesteaded by the owner. He must have the owner's consent.


What is this guy never see's the land he 'owns' because he bought it, does that guy have more a right to it than the worker working it?Yes he does because its his land. If he decides to hire someone more skilled than him to do something with the land its still the owners land. The owner is simply compensating the worker for the worker's services. It doesn't diminish the fact that the owner is still paying to cultivate his land. The owner that is paying someone else to do a task is merely trading with the laborer. The condition must exist that both parties benefit from the trade, both owner and hired worker or else the transaction would not be free and voluntary. This gets into the whole division of labor concept. Not every homesteader is going to be skilled at everything nor will he have the time to do every little task necessary. If the homesteader produces many things he himself may not have the time to do all the labor himself and thus it would be very inefficient. By hiring people that are skilled in farming (or whatever occupation) the homesteader is able to produce more which actually benefits society greater. Besides, owning land has its perks, obviously, but it also comes with a great deal of responsibility, and if the land is part of your prosperity, you have far greater responsibility than someone who may prefer not to have that responsibility and prefers straight compensation payment for his services (i.e. he doesn't have to worry about saving, investing,etc, that he in the capacity as an owner would have to worry about.)

I believe you're confusing work with serfdom here. Certainly in Feudalism the case would be that a noble 'owns' all this land but does nothing for it. Rather, the serfs would toil the land and receive virtually no compensation nor did they have the choice to work or not work. Disobeying their lord meant punishment. Thats why when Feudalism collapsed all the parcels of land worked and homesteaded by the serfs naturally became the land of those, now, former serfs.

However, the situation here is different. At least four conditions must exist that didn't exist in serfdom. One, the worker must have free will and voluntarily agree to work. He can refuse to work at anytime and quit the job without punishment from the owner. Two, the worker is free to attempt to work for anyone he wants. Three, he is free to attempt to conserve his wealth and attempt to try to purchase land for himself if he desires ( He may also homestead land that is not homesteaded or is abandoned if he incorporates the land in his own ongoing life projects and welfare.) Four, the worker must be compensated for his services through some kind of payment he voluntarily agrees to. And this all implies one vital difference that past systems did not acknowledge, the right to self-ownership for everyone in society.



well not 6 billion people, because 6 billion people would'nt be directly effected with you coultivating the land, some people might me, probably the communiy around it, if you have an idea to cultivate it, you could maybe cultivate a part for yourself asuming the community does'nt object to it, you could coltivate it for the community on a large scale, in solidarity with others, theres many ways to go about it.The land belongs to everyone on earth, no commune can be more equal or have more rights to a plot of land than anyone else. Land as a whole, is finite and in the long run , effects everyone on earth. This would be consistent with 100% collectivization of land. Any deviation from 100% collectivization automatically makes a case for private property. What your basically saying is that private property owners can't be individuals but the scale can be changed, the communes can own their own property in relation to other communes. Either way, your making a case for private property, just on a different scale. Private property doesn't have to imply an individual, it can imply a family , group, organization, but the fact is that the property is still limited to others at some point.
Or else you'd have no objection to people of a commune somewhere else that isn't as sprawling as your commune , taking part of your wheat harvest without permission because they need it, and taking it back to their commune to harvest wheat for themselves. Other communes not as good as yours would have the same right.
Of course, if you insist they must have permission and come to agreed upon terms with your commune then you are simply making the case for private property because you are setting rules, requirements, and limitations about the land and its produce. The same thing would apply if you took action to prevent just anyone from coming on the land and taking what they want and how much they want without permission.
And your last sentence I actually agree with but you're merely complicating the issue more than it needs to be and you're still making a case for private property. I have an idea to cultivate the land, I do it. So how do I know if the community objects or not? Well if I'm producing stuff on that land and then putting them out on the open market and it turns out to be the case that society likes the stuff I produce and I know this because I'm making a profit then thats a pretty damn good indicator that society likes my idea. On the flip side, if I'm taking a loss , that means society doesn't really like my idea and doesn't really benefit from what I'm doing with the land. When I take losses , I loose things that benefit my life. I simply won't be able to afford the property I homesteaded without having the other vital things I need. Either I'd have to sell the property to someone or some organization that can possibly do something better with it ( the land losses value if I'm not doing anything real good with it) , I'd have to try something better with the land that actually benefits people, or I just abandon it. Its all nice having a plot of land but if I can't afford it because I make no revenue then its simply not worth the expenses especially if I need something more important. What I'm saying is that the market finds way to handle these problems that doesn't require any stringent communal planning.



You don't need to homestead a toothbrush, you don't need to put a mark on it and say "this is my toothbrush." No ones going to steal it, no one wants it, and there is something intrinsic that makes an object private or public, simply, does the object have to to with public interest? Like a farm producing food on a large scale or a factory? Or private, like a toothbrush? Simple, and for private things you don't need any laws or private property.But you do need to homestead a toothbrush just as you need to homestead a car or your house. I agree, the likelihood of a toothbrush being stolen is not that great ( unless some guy came up with an invention that did something so great but required toothbrushes for some reason , but yeah ...:glare:) But wouldn't you think theres good reason to homestead your car or homestead your house? Unless anybody can just take your car when they please and anybody can go in your house when they please and sleep there and eat there when they please. You're upholding a contradiction if you make a case for individual homesteading of your house but forbid homesteading land , but in reality you support homesteading land also so long its a group and not an individual or 6 billion. Nevertheless ,its making a case for private property.
And what exactly makes something a public good? The way I see a public or society is not one meshed together collective who's interests can be measured objectively ( oh and by whom, who knows?). Rather, I see society , especially in Anarchy, as a mesh of individuals that freely associate with each other, it doesn't diminish the fact they are individuals and I think this is more based on reality anyways. Not all individuals in society have the same ends or preferences so its impossible to engage exactly what the collective wants . But we can determine if there is something that at least most of society values and this is most easily and fairly done through market processes. Lets say we have good reason to think that most of society places high value on strawberries. ( how you exactly determine this without a market baffles me but anyway...) so since it is a good valued by the public, the strawberry patches should be collectivized, right? But theres a problem , of course, if that happens. Actually there are many problems but I'll only touch on a couple for now. Well if we follow the concept of true collectivization then we totally terminate any property rights. Nobody has property rights over the strawberry patches, not any individual , not any group, technically not even the commune. So if strawberries are a highly valued commodity and they are technically not homesteaded , there is incentive for society to get as much as they want, what exactly prevents them from just taking as much as they want from the existing strawberry patches?
But assuming the communal council ( or whatever) does homestead the strawberry patches I don't know how this is contrary to property rights because they are going to set restrictions and limitations on the strawberry patches to prevent everyone from raiding the existing ones. We still have another problem besides that obvious contradiction and thats how many strawberries does everyone get? And this is my problem with attempting to measure collective happiness and then making some ridiculous case for collectivization on the bases of a public good. Thats assuming you know how many strawberries each individual in society wants or you're going to produce exactly 3.11g of strawberries per person in society. But that doesn't answer the question what if one person wants 4g , another person 6g , and another person 24g? Well there are two ways of handling that. Either you let people do it this way and find yourself with a strawberry shortage or too many strawberries ( wasted production). Or, you mandate rules on how many strawberries each person can have which means your taking away their free will and determining for them how much of things they are mandated to have. I just thought , you're probably going to say well the community would vote on how much everyone can have and I'll say this is stupid because its so inferior to the market which can actually supply people with how much they want and gives more individual freedom. If community decided on how much of everything everyone can have then you'd have a static economy , little to no growth, and a planned life from cradle to grave. Not exactly my idea of freedom.


.


Are you claiming that people would just hoard strawberries, more strawberries than they need? and hide them?If strawberries were as highly valued in society as we are talking about, lack of property rights and enforcement of those rights, would give way to many in society chasing after the available stock of strawberries until they are exhausted. Lets think of a commodity like elephant ivory and how many elephants were killed for their ivory. What happened to the population of the elephant with the desired ivory? It decreased dramatically. What this amounts to with these strawberries is leaving a diamond store wide open with nobody in there , just take what you want and leave. Were assuming diamonds are still highly valued and in our example strawberries would be.


even though by doing that there would be no power attached with that, and they have no fear or loosing things or the such because property is public? thats insane!!! First of all, if someone was so diabolical that he would do that, just to screw over other people, the people in that community would'nt let him.Your missing the point. If there are no property rights , how do you prevent people , or even have grounds for preventing people , from going to the available stock of strawberries and taking what they want? If strawberries are highly valued people would be scrambling after them simply because they want to make sure they get some now before everyone else takes them. Pretty soon you'll be out of strawberries. What incentive is there to preserve and grow strawberries if everyone will just come on the plot of land and take them as soon as they're done growing. The only way you prevent that is by setting rules and limitations about the land and when you do that your making a case for property rights or else you wouldn't have a right to set up rules or limitations in the first place, not as an individual , not as a group.



Now when you have private property involved THEN you have an issue, hell what people do is actually hoard property, because its protected with the threat of violence, more property than they and their family needs, because along with that you get power, the power to control societies reasorces and thus control society, and then you end up "homesteading" property, getting the rights to it, and then hire people to work your property for you, then buying more property, and building an empire.Thats a childish way of looking at it. The only entity thats ever existed in history with that kind of monopolizing power was the STATE, not free individuals. This has happened many times in history with or without capitalism , with or without socialism. I believe you can pose a better argument than that.:glare:
How is it possible in a free society for a property owner to just keep on growing richer and richer without benefiting and improving society around himself?
The state can do this obviously, but the free market simply wouldn't allow it. This is just the typical Anti-Capitalist Mentality.

[RGacky3]

No, the worker doesn't have a right to homestead the land if its already homesteaded by the owner. He must have the owner's consent.

Your claim is that mixing labor with land makes gives the person a right to it,your contradicting yourself, just because another guy claims ownership to the land, even if he never worked it, the law does'nt apply to the worker? But it does apply to someone who claims it but may have never worked it? If the basis per a persons right to a land has to do with mixing the labor with it, it must be universal.

The concept of ownership especially of land does'nt hold.

When you talk about feudalism your confusing things, peasents did get compensation, they got a parcel of the land to use for themselves, the lord got most of it, the difference between Capitalism and Feudalism is rather than a portion of the land, the worker gets cash, not complete compensation for what he produces, not even a percentage, but enough to keep him working. Now Its not a free trade, because the owner controls the reasorces the worker only can rent himself.


This would be consistent with 100% collectivization of land. Any deviation from 100% collectivization automatically makes a case for private property. What your basically saying is that private property owners can't be individuals but the scale can be changed, the communes can own their own property in relation to other communes. Either way, your making a case for private property, just on a different scale. Private property doesn't have to imply an individual, it can imply a family , group, organization, but the fact is that the property is still limited to others at some point.


Theres a difference between Private Property and consentual use, in other words if there is general consent of a right to use the land, then its there for you, thats not property, its collective.

Its not the idea that they MUST have the consent, its just simply the fact that if someones use goes against the general insterest, the community, those involved would intervene, the're would be rules, but those rules would'nt be made by one guy, it would be made by all those involved.

Also a lot of your arguments have to do with making profits and use of money, in an Anarchist Society profits don't exist nither does money because property does'nt exist.


And what exactly makes something a public good? The way I see a public or society is not one meshed together collective who's interests can be measured objectively ( oh and by whom, who knows?)

Thats pretty much common sense, whatever is generally agreed apon, main aspects of production and distribution are pretty clear, things used or needed by the general public.


If community decided on how much of everything everyone can have then you'd have a static economy , little to no growth, and a planned life from cradle to grave. Not exactly my idea of freedom.


The community does'nt decide on how much of everything anyone can have, it just controls things that effect the community as a whole, not a planned life at all, you just cant screw anyone over.
Now if your idea of freedom is the majority of people having to rent themselves to live, while a minority controls the vast majority of the reasorces and thus the society, then I think you have to rethink your idea of freedom.


? Unless anybody can just take your car when they please and anybody can go in your house when they please and sleep there and eat there when they please. You're upholding a contradiction if you make a case for individual homesteading of your house but forbid homesteading land , but in reality you support homesteading land also so long its a group and not an individual or 6 billion. Nevertheless ,its making a case for private property.


Your making a claim that those not desperate, those that have what they need and have satisfied work, will go out of their way, to take other peoples personal items, which is a very hard claim to defend considering the nature and history of crime. Also its pretty clear that a society as a whole would defend ones right to privacy, because having your own house, does'nt really effect other people negatively.


Rather, I see society , especially in Anarchy, as a mesh of individuals that freely associate with each other, it doesn't diminish the fact they are individuals and I think this is more based on reality anyways. Not all individuals in society have the same ends or preferences so its impossible to engage exactly what the collective wants .

Free association is impossbile when a minority owns most everything and a majority owns nothing. Also your overstating the collectives authority, like I said before, the collective would decide on things that directly effect the collective as a whole.


If strawberries were as highly valued in society as we are talking about, lack of property rights and enforcement of those rights, would give way to many in society chasing after the available stock of strawberries until they are exhausted.

Strawberries are valuble only in the sense that people want to eat them, you forget in Anarchism there is'nt money, value is simply equal to what people need, or desire, people use Strawberries to eat, thats it.


How is it possible in a free society for a property owner to just keep on growing richer and richer without benefiting and improving society around himself?
The state can do this obviously, but the free market simply wouldn't allow it. This is just the typical Anti-Capitalist Mentality.

Easy, it happens all the time, look around the world.

BTW: Not that this is nessesarily proof, but forms of Anarcho-Communism has worked in the past without all the rediculous predictions that Capitalists have given, and the only reason they were dismantled was because out outside military force.

Now every time State power has been significantly diminished and Capitalist institutions have stayed in place, the predictions of intense concentration of power and huge class divisions have happend.

[Dejavu]

Your claim is that mixing labor with land makes gives the person a right to it,your contradicting yourself, just because another guy claims ownership to the land, even if he never worked it, the law does'nt apply to the worker? But it does apply to someone who claims it but may have never worked it? If the basis per a persons right to a land has to do with mixing the labor with it, it must be universal.

Actually its not a contradiction its merely a trade of ownership. There is a difference if someone homesteads land without payment and one that does. I recommend you study on trade a little bit and see what it actually means. The owner can have many things to do and doesn't have time to make all his own things such as clothes , food, shoes, etc. This would be autarky which does not create a division of labor and if the world practiced this most of the world's population would die because they cannot get their basic necessities in life. When a worker is paid ( compensated) to work on someone's land the worker is making a trade with the owner. There also exist here an inter temporal trade which benefits both parties because of differing time preferences. I hate to ALWAYS have to explain this simple concept but communists just seem to deny time preferences altogether.

It works like this. What the owner ( lets call him employer) and worker(employee) are doing , by virtue of the fact that they agree to a working arrangement, they are demonstrating an opposite preference of saving-investing, spending,and profit which is sequenced in time. Here's an example:

Subject Party Time preference
Saving-Investment Employer or Capitalist Past preference in Saving. Present preference in Investing into production(incl. paying employees)
Saving-Investment Employee or Labor No past preference of saving. No present preference into Investing in production.

Spending Employer or Capitalist Future preference of Spending for future goods and future Investment.
Spending Employee or Labor Present preference of Spending on present goods.

Profit Employer of Capitalist Future preference in Profit of future goods and interest.
Profit Employee or Labor Present preference in profit by advanced payment by Employer in exchange for future interest for the Employer.

Basically put, the employee desires to consume present goods with present profit from work. The employee has no interest in waiting to get paid until after production is done. He couldn't then consume present goods. Since production takes time, and no profits have come in for anyone from production ( because its not done yet) and the employee does not want to wait , the employer or capitalist is willing to wait for future profits and advances the employee payment to the present in exchange the employee trades his Interest on future goods ( after production) to the capitalist so the employee can spend money in the present even though his labor for total production isn't finished yet.
Both parties benefit from their time preference. If you have a high time preference you're more likely to be a laborer or worker ( i.e. rent your labor for advanced payment) and if you have a low time preference then you're likely to be a capitalist or investor willing to advance payment in the present in exchange for interest in the future.

Yes, there are advantages for the laborer that the capitalist doesn't have !

-The by demonstrating his high time preference also averts risk in production loss. Suppose a product didn't sell very well and the costs of production exceeded the revenue brought in by the product. This is a loss. When the high time preference labor exchanges his interest with the capitalist for advanced payment ( wages) he also frees himself from any revenue lost from a poor selling product. The capitalist takes the full responsibility for loss and is actually hit in the pocketbook and not the laborer.

-The high time preference shown by the laborer also indicates that he doesn't have to cut his consumption down in the present but the capitalist would have to do this. In order to make a future investment, the capitalist must consume less in the present so he can have savings for investment in the future. There is NO GUARANTEE that any future investment of the capitalist will churn out profit.

In our scenario, if I'm willing to work on your property for pay then we are demonstrating a difference in time preference. I want to profit sooner than later , you want to profit later than sooner. The only way we can work this out is if your willing to advance me payment to the present even though I didn't produce the final product yet for you and in exchange I'm giving you my future interest in the future goods of our production. As long as I get paid sooner than later, you may collect revenue from any future produce with interest ( inter-temporal exchange). This isn't exploitation, because if there was no interest for you, you wouldn't advance me payment now, when I want it.

Not taking into account time preference means that everyone involved in production will have to wait until the goods they are producing are finished and sold, there are no wages(advanced payment), nobody doesn't get anything until all the work is completed. There are no capitalists and there are no employees so to speak. This means that investment must be done by everyone working which means they have to cut consumption in the present in order to save and invest into future goods. And then they can't earn any returns again until the product is finished. Suppose they finish production ( without starving I don't know , they have to constantly save, in order to produce things, this would create a sick case of over investment and mass underconsumption- a negative time preference which isn't realistic) and now they have to cross their fingers and hope other people want the stuff but its likely that the rest of the people can't buy the stuff because they are too busy saving in order to invest into production lol. The end result would be that everyone would starve because of no consumption OR no production, its unrealistic. The only way the economy can grow is with the capitalist who brings balance to mass growth.

But of course in the communist ant heap, everyone would be rationed fixed quotas of what they get, there would be no innovation since the economy would be static. Produce just enough to consume, bla bla bla , same old cycle which isn't realistic to a constantly changing and active world. Its human nature to be spontaneous and individualistic in my opinion ( this doesn't mean non cooperative since I believe its in our nature to be a team as well).


The concept of ownership especially of land does'nt hold.

Then I don't know how the concept of even self-ownership would hold. In fact it does hold, because of time preference and inter-temporal exchange, the actions of the owner and worker are justified with the owners right to keep his land still in tact. Now if the owner DIDN'T PAY THE WORKER, then the worker has a right to the land he labored ( or at least full compensation, present and future, of the goods produced by his labor) This means that the owner cheated the exchange.


When you talk about feudalism your confusing things, peasants did get compensation, they got a parcel of the land to use for themselves, the lord got most of it, the difference between Capitalism and Feudalism is rather than a portion of the land, the worker gets cash, not complete compensation for what he produces, not even a percentage, but enough to keep him working. Now Its not a free trade, because the owner controls the reasorces the worker only can rent himself.

Thats not exactly accurate. At best the serf got to lease his land from his lord which was very small anyways. By law, the land still belonged to the lord and since the serf was bound to the land, he was by law bound to the the lord as the lord's property. The lord can demand at anytime any extra tax he desired, he can enroll the serf into military service to protect the lord, he was merely a subject of the lord. The lord can also boot the serf anytime he wanted or even in some cases, exchange with another lord for other serfs, if that serf basically had slave peasantry status. The lord didn't do anything with the land, it was the serfs that had to invest everything into the land, labor on it, and then give whatever amount their lord demanded. In essence , the serf got paid whatever ration of food the lord felt necessary and he got to stay alive, and have a shoddy bed to sleep on, thats it. Its really no different than slavery with only minor bonuses. A worker in capitalism may quit work anytime he wants, he has self ownership , he can attempt work different occupations in the division of labor, he has the ability to save and purchase property later and then himself become an investor if he so desires.


Theres a difference between Private Property and consentual use, in other words if there is general consent of a right to use the land, then its there for you, thats not property, its collective.

Well thats the difference. Market Anarchists believe that land is land, its not inherently owned by everyone. The ownership is acquired through homesteading ( mixing your labor with that land and making it more productive then it otherwise would have been). We can't create natural land, only God or mother nature can do that. We can merely transform natural land into more productive uses. There is no 100% collective property. Like I said , anything less than a 100% collective argument is making a case for private property rights.


Its not the idea that they MUST have the consent, its just simply the fact that if someones use goes against the general insterest, the community, those involved would intervene, the're would be rules, but those rules would'nt be made by one guy, it would be made by all those involved.

But see if everyone is born as a collective it seems that since you imply collective ownership then the consent must derive against every single human being on earth. Any exclusion would be making a case for private property rights.


Also a lot of your arguments have to do with making profits and use of money, in an Anarchist Society profits don't exist nither does money because property does'nt exist.

Thats ridiculous. Anarchy doesn't imply no market. Anarchy simply implies no State. Communism implies no profit-loss and no money which is why its a retarded system.


Thats pretty much common sense, whatever is generally agreed apon, main aspects of production and distribution are pretty clear, things used or needed by the general public.

I agree, but I don't see how the market can't handle this? On top of that I believe the market can handle it far better than communal or central planning because people could choose for themselves how much of everything they want as opposed to being rationed in a distributive manner. And it doesn't kill incentive for growth that would be lacking in a static economy. But a static economy is unrealistic anyways.


Now if your idea of freedom is the majority of people having to rent themselves to live, while a minority controls the vast majority of the reasorces and thus the society, then I think you have to rethink your idea of freedom.

The minority ( landowners I guess your talking about) couldn't sustain their hold unless they produced things that benefit the majority of society. This would be certainly true in a free market but a minority of rulers can sustain without benefiting the people in a the State. I'll give you that.


Your making a claim that those not desperate, those that have what they need and have satisfied work, will go out of their way, to take other peoples personal items, which is a very hard claim to defend considering the nature and history of crime. Also its pretty clear that a society as a whole would defend ones right to privacy, because having your own house, does'nt really effect other people negatively.

Who decides what they need? Some central or communal authority? The majority of others? That kinda just destroys the concept of self-determination and does imply that peoples' lives would be already planned for them so they would have no incentive to steal. I'm saying in communism without authority ( anarchy) production couldn't even get off the ground because the land provides the goods and nobody will cultivate the land freely without some authority keeping other would-be strawberry-likers off the land so it can grow. And if I cultivate a piece of land that is 100x more productive than if it wasn't transformed , how is this impacting society negatively? I'm actually giving to society by making more goods and services for it. I must have an incentive to do so and the market provides that.


Free association is impossbile when a minority owns most everything and a majority owns nothing. Also your overstating the collectives authority, like I said before, the collective would decide on things that directly effect the collective as a whole.

False assumption. Like I said , in Market Anarchy , the minority couldn't possibly hold on to the majority of everything without benefiting society through the market. They'd loose their land by either force or going broke. Community decisions are certainly possible in Market Anarchy but the individual rights of all in society must be respected first and this starts with self ownership from which property rights could not be divided. THAT is how you achieve free association.


Strawberries are valuble only in the sense that people want to eat them, you forget in Anarchism there is'nt money, value is simply equal to what people need, or desire, people use Strawberries to eat, thats it.

Again, you confuse communism with anarchism. lol. Strawberries are valuable if the majority of society assigns value to them. Strawberries can be used in many different and innovative ways. Syrup , Ice cream, scents, etc. But only individuals who subjectively value strawberries can think of these things. Not all people like strawberries, I don't lol. Communal planning can't assign value for people , only individuals can do that for themselves.


BTW: Not that this is nessesarily proof, but forms of Anarcho-Communism has worked in the past without all the rediculous predictions that Capitalists have given, and the only reason they were dismantled was because out outside military force.

Oh I agree. Some communes still exist in the United States that are pretty much self-ruling. Some old communities in the northern US is a good example. But you'll notice something with these communes , they are very basic, very simple, and the people residing in them don't practice modern culture. In fact, the majority of living communes I still know about , or ones that existed in the past, are religious and I know that religious bond plays a huge role in keeping them together. So I never denied that a very low populated commune in a very simplistic economy couldn't function. I claim, however, that communism in a modern industrial economy with billions of actors and millions of markets wouldn't function without destroying the majority of the world's population and setting progress back many centuries.


Now every time State power has been significantly diminished and Capitalist institutions have stayed in place, the predictions of intense concentration of power and huge class divisions have happend.

When a State exists with capitalism I agree it creates a contradiction. Because there is always a struggle between free market and state control over the economy. You'll notice countries in the past with little government have more liberal market policies. This countries tend to have a good rate of growth but along with the growth the State can grow as well by simply taxing the increased wealth. I think of the United States which started off as the world's experiment with basically the world's smallest government and most liberal market polices. ( smaller the government, the freer the market - and people- as the saying goes) But it was destined that the state grew with it because it was able to tax the economic growth of the U.S. Now, the U.S. has the biggest government the world has ever seen with 700 military bases in foreign countries and enough nukes to destroy the planet many times over. Did the market create nukes or even the bases? No, that was the State. People will often use an example like this to show why the free market is no good. But I think it is evidence to show that the market creates the greatest prosperity known to mankind but the State corrupts it.

[apathy maybe]

I don't love you 'cause you don't respond to my post as to what your "anarchism" actually is.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Then I don't know how the concept of even self-ownership would hold.

Self-ownership is a quack libertarian argument to begin with. Individuals don't own themselves - they are themselves. A woman stuck in the rot of poverty can never sell herself into slavery unless the authoritative body (protection agencies, private courts, states, whatever) upholds the principle of self-ownership. Leftists don't care if the ink on the contract is dry. We believe the moment said woman no longer rejoices in serving her master, she can get up and leave with no consequences.


A worker in capitalism may quit work anytime he wants

And find another lording, yes. I suppose that is an improvement.


he has self ownership

Self-ownership is a case for slavery, as I pointed out above.


he has the ability to save and purchase property later and then himself become an investor if he so desires.

By purchase property you of course mean (if he's lucky enough) he will grudgingly accept a leech from the bank in the form of a mortgage so that the bank barons can become evermore rich.

It's highly ironic you champion property-rights when indeed socialism would guarantee everyone their own plot of land and, practically speaking, an equal say over the means of production. Currently 35% of American adults do not have a home (or owned apartments). Most of the rest are still paying for their mortgages.


Anarchy doesn't imply no market. Anarchy simply implies no State. Communism implies no profit-loss and no money which is why its a retarded system.

You sure jumped to some conclusion. I don't get how you can translate "no profit" and "no property" into no market. Indeed anarcho-socialism has its own variant to markets: mutualism.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Deaju, you need only explain one thing:

Why was Germany's industrialization process so much more successful than Britain's? Germany was, essentially, the world's first social democracy due to political stability and the mix of liberal and socialist ideals - it introduced workman's compensation, universal health care, and (limited) labor rights. By 1914 it was capable of holding off the forces of France and Britain.

Hell, for that matter, all great "growth" periods can be attributed to social democracies: Japan, China, Germany, France, South Korea. The only exception I hear of is Hong Kong, but it would be incorrect to attribute their success to the market when they apply a Georgist principle of government-leased land, and use a large of portion of their revenue on social projects.

[RGacky3]

But it was destined that the state grew with it because it was able to tax the economic growth of the U.S. Now, the U.S. has the biggest government the world has ever seen with 700 military bases in foreign countries and enough nukes to destroy the planet many times over. Did the market create nukes or even the bases? No, that was the State.

If you look at the reasons for all those military bases and the United States militarism, the number 1 reason for all of that stuff is making the world 'safe' for American economic interests, much the same way, streetgangs control their terrotories through violence and intimidation so they can extort and deal. This is the natural out come of Capitalism, it creates power which wants to expand, how does this power expand? Historically through violence, when a guy gets economic power, he wants more of it.


Oh I agree. Some communes still exist in the United States that are pretty much self-ruling. Some old communities in the northern US is a good example. But you'll notice something with these communes , they are very basic, very simple, and the people residing in them don't practice modern culture. In fact, the majority of living communes I still know about , or ones that existed in the past, are religious and I know that religious bond plays a huge role in keeping them together. So I never denied that a very low populated commune in a very simplistic economy couldn't function. I claim, however, that communism in a modern industrial economy with billions of actors and millions of markets wouldn't function without destroying the majority of the world's population and setting progress back many centuries.


I was'nt refering too planned hippie communes, I was refering to more what happend during the Spanish revolution, whats happend in Chiapas, what happend in Argentina during 2001 when workers took over their factories (and its still going on), what happend during the Hungarian revolt against the USSR, the Paris Commune, and there are many other examples.


Again, you confuse communism with anarchism. lol. Strawberries are valuable if the majority of society assigns value to them. Strawberries can be used in many different and innovative ways. Syrup , Ice cream, scents, etc. But only individuals who subjectively value strawberries can think of these things. Not all people like strawberries, I don't lol. Communal planning can't assign value for people , only individuals can do that for themselves.


exactly, like I said, its just a matter of who wants them, so how does that proove anything? people who like strawberries will consume them, and probably farm them as well.


They'd loose their land by either force or going broke. Community decisions are certainly possible in Market Anarchy but the individual rights of all in society must be respected first and this starts with self ownership from which property rights could not be divided. THAT is how you achieve free association.


They'd loose their land by force or going broke? How is that possible if property rights need to be respected, self ownership rights are just as important in Communist Anarchism than in your type, but self-ownership rights are really contradictory to property rights, because it forces people who do not have any property to give up their self-ownership, now then, labor rights, meaning the right to the fruit of ones labor, is a different matter.


I agree, but I don't see how the market can't handle this? On top of that I believe the market can handle it far better than communal or central planning because people could choose for themselves how much of everything they want as opposed to being rationed in a distributive manner. And it doesn't kill incentive for growth that would be lacking in a static economy. But a static economy is unrealistic anyways.


Its not communal or central planning, I never talked about things being rationed, it would'nt need to be, because everything produced would be for those who need it, that does'nt kill incentive either, because people are always looking for ways to make life better, its human nature. Anarchy is about total freedom and solidarity, and although I'm not totally opposed to a form of the market, I don't see its true use in an Anarchist Society, where money has no real place, and where coercion through wage slavery is impossible.


Thats ridiculous. Anarchy doesn't imply no market. Anarchy simply implies no State. Communism implies no profit-loss and no money which is why its a retarded system.

Wrong, Anarchy implies no innate Authority. I never said it does'nt imply no Market, what I said is it implies no capital or land property, because with that comes authority over other people which cannot really be justified, and because it impllies no capital or land property its hard to see any place for money, thus the concept of profit is thrown out the window, because profit is gone that does'nt mean surplus and innovation is gone.


But see if everyone is born as a collective it seems that since you imply collective ownership then the consent must derive against every single human being on earth. Any exclusion would be making a case for private property rights.

I never said everyone is born as a collective, infact when you talk about ownership its kind of irrelivent to an Anarchist Society, the proper word would be control, or use, if I pick a strawberry and no one cares, it does'nt bother anyone, I'm not making a case for private property, if a community starts up a factory, and no one around is bothered by it (Why would they be unless its crealing polutoin.) Its not private property, its simply consent, its not about communal 'ownership,' in a Capitalist sense of the word.


Well thats the difference. Market Anarchists believe that land is land, its not inherently owned by everyone. The ownership is acquired through homesteading ( mixing your labor with that land and making it more productive then it otherwise would have been). We can't create natural land, only God or mother nature can do that. We can merely transform natural land into more productive uses. There is no 100% collective property. Like I said , anything less than a 100% collective argument is making a case for private property rights.


Your homesteading theory is a huge contradiction if you also add in wage slavery, I've talked about this before. I'm not saying that the land is inherently owned by everyone, I'm saying the concept of ownership is abserd.

Now then if someone homesteads a piece of land, because he tills it for one season, then for the rest of his life hires other people to till it for him, and they are compelled to do it for less than what they are producing, because they don't own anything, can you honestly say that he has more a right to the the fruits of the land than they do? Its rediculous.

Now then if a guy tills his own land for himself, and no one has a problem with it, the community around does'nt see his land as something vital to the community, theres no problem with that, but thats not ownership, its concentual use, mutual agreements, Anarchism, no force or authority is needed.


Thats not exactly accurate. At best the serf got to lease his land from his lord which was very small anyways. By law, the land still belonged to the lord and since the serf was bound to the land, he was by law bound to the the lord as the lord's property. The lord can demand at anytime any extra tax he desired, he can enroll the serf into military service to protect the lord, he was merely a subject of the lord. The lord can also boot the serf anytime he wanted or even in some cases, exchange with another lord for other serfs, if that serf basically had slave peasantry status. The lord didn't do anything with the land, it was the serfs that had to invest everything into the land, labor on it, and then give whatever amount their lord demanded. In essence , the serf got paid whatever ration of food the lord felt necessary and he got to stay alive, and have a shoddy bed to sleep on, thats it. Its really no different than slavery with only minor bonuses. A worker in capitalism may quit work anytime he wants, he has self ownership , he can attempt work different occupations in the division of labor, he has the ability to save and purchase property later and then himself become an investor if he so desires.


Depends on what type of feaudalism your talking about, feaudalism was different in france than in england, as well as china, and in many cases the peasent, had legal rights that had to be respected.

YOu say the lord pays as much to keep the peasent alive, thats also pretty much the history of Capitalism, which is why it needs Minimum wage laws to the such to keep it from going extreamly out of hand, which it does generally anyway.


Then I don't know how the concept of even self-ownership would hold. In fact it does hold, because of time preference and inter-temporal exchange, the actions of the owner and worker are justified with the owners right to keep his land still in tact. Now if the owner DIDN'T PAY THE WORKER, then the worker has a right to the land he labored ( or at least full compensation, present and future, of the goods produced by his labor) This means that the owner cheated the exchange.

The only way it woulld be justified, would be if the 'owner' gave the worker full market compensation for what he produced, which would be impossible because then there would be no profit, and those no wage slavery, which means that if you have ownership, wage slavery neccessarily comes out of it.

Self-Ownership has noting to do with property ownership.



I'll have to finish the rest of your post later, you think this stuff through a lot and give honest responces, which is good.

[Forward Union]

So how can you coherently support self-ownership? So we can't give any room to private property rights because this would be oppression, then the only alternative is 100% collectivization because any give to any concept of private property including self-ownership means legitimizing private property rights.

Glad you grasped it.


I exist, I also borrow from the resources of the earth to exist. How can it be legitimate for me to have or do anything without the consent of every other human being on earth?

Because if it doesn't effect me I don't care. You can dance naked, talk to people, get into relationships, watch tv, whatever. I couldn't care less. You don't need my permission to do these things and I don't need yours. In fact, you can do anything you want, so long as it doesn't directly or deliberately limit the freedoms of other people. In the rare instance of scarcity*, we must democratically discuss the distribution of food and organise it between us.

As for things we need, say apples, you should be allowed whatever you need, and they become your apples. But you can't own the tree because that creates a power relationship.

*Scarcity shouldn't be a massive problem as we currently have the capacity to feed a population of 6.5 billion 3 times over. And that's while tons of grain are dumped into the sea to make the remaining gran more valuable, and while farmers are paid not to produce milk while millions starve...



So do you support 100% collectivization or do you give legitimacy to private ownership rights? You have to choose


100% collectivisation of the means of production. I am a communist.

Anyway, you haven't adressed the fact that owning a factory or a farm creates a coercive power relationsip. It pretty much destroys the synthasis of capitalism and Anarchism doesnt it?

[Xiao Banfa]

If you do not believe in the collectivist tradition of the founders of Anarchism; Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin; then you are not an Anarchist.

That's what Anarchism is. :D

It's as simple as that. If you think or say otherwise you are fucking idiot or a liar.

[Dejavu]

Deaju, you need only explain one thing:

Why was Germany's industrialization process so much more successful than Britain's? Germany was, essentially, the world's first social democracy due to political stability and the mix of liberal and socialist ideals - it introduced workman's compensation, universal health care, and (limited) labor rights. By 1914 it was capable of holding off the forces of France and Britain.

You must keep in mind when Germany industrialized it was far from any kind of democracy. Rather, Germany in the late 19th century was under the authoritarian regime of the Prussians. The social democratic push in Germany first started after WW1 with Otto Bauer but failed miserably and gave way to the nationalist socialist agenda of Hitler. Curiously, Hitler took an anti-capitalist approach in practice by blaming the rich and wealthy Jews on all the woes of the poor German economy. Not much different than your typical Communist, Hitler sought to drive out the wealthy Jews and take their wealth and redistribute it how he saw fit. Hitler's hate for the Jews wasn't only because of racial reasons, it was also because he cast the eye of envy on a people that became relatively wealthy and cried oppression and inequality for the German people. ( Read Mein Kampf and see for yourself.) Hitler believed the spread of internationalist capitalism was the work of evil Jews and the wealthy seeking to exploit the poor. Also, I wouldn't call a superior military a great measure of a country's prosperity. Sure, the German State focused productive capitalism in construction of U-boats which played a decisive roll in Germany military superiority but thats not a measure of true prosperity. True prosperity is actually destroyed because of war because it is merely the state redirecting production and the true cost is prosperity because those factors of production used for war could've had better alternative uses for real growth.




Hell, for that matter, all great "growth" periods can be attributed to social democracies: Japan, China, Germany, France, South Korea. The only exception I hear of is Hong Kong, but it would be incorrect to attribute their success to the market when they apply a Georgist principle of government-leased land, and use a large of portion of their revenue on social projects.

Actually this isn't entirely accurate. The Marshall Plan only achieved more wasted money for the U.S. and wasn't the key factor in post WW2 reconstruction. The countries that received the most Marshall Plan money (allies Britain, Sweden, and Greece) grew the slowest between 1947 and 1955, while those that received the least money (axis powers Germany, Austria, and Italy) grew the most. In terms of post-war prosperity, then, it eventually paid to be a political enemy of the U.S. instead of a "beneficiary" of international charity. The real upshot of the Marshall Plan was a political maneuver to loot American taxpayers to keep influential American corporations on the government dole. The Plan's legacy was the egregious and perpetual use of foreign aid for domestic political and economic purposes.

Hong Kong rebuilt with minimal governmental interference . This resulted in rapid economic development and a steadily rising standard of living for the people of Hong Kong. This progress benefited not only highly skilled upper income workers, but also low paid unskilled workers.

This success came to the people of Hong Kong because of low taxes, minimal tariffs and regulations, and without the redistribution schemes of democratic welfare states or large-scale foreign aid. The key source of foreign aid came from English authorities who provided security to Hong Kong, but left the people of this place to sort out their own personal affairs in private markets.

West Germany rebuilt itself in a similar fashion. Marshall Plan aid consisted of only a tiny percentage of German GDP. Also, the money that West Germany paid in reparations offset Marshall Plan aid. West Germany received military defense from the U.S. and England, but paid substantial fees for this service. The German Economic Miracle began with a radical program of privatization and deregulation, beginning in 1948. This ended the regulatory controls and elaborate tax system imposed by Hitler and his National Socialists.

Foreign aid had, at best, minimal influence on the West German revival. A free and nondemocratic Germany experienced a strong recovery. If there was anything wrong with the German approach, it is that it allowed for future extensions by the government into private markets.

Japan also experienced great success due to a relative lack of governmental interference. Low taxes and high savings rates translated into strong economic growth in postwar Japan. Once again, foreign aid and intervention were too small to have accounted for this success. Japan did not need massive intervention to recover, even though it lacked the natural resources that Iraq possesses in its oil fields.

[Dejavu]

If you look at the reasons for all those military bases and the United States militarism, the number 1 reason for all of that stuff is making the world 'safe' for American economic interests,


Right, but who's directing those economic interests? The free market or the state-government? I think you realize how much money goes into maintaining a large empire and if the state was subject to loss like a market economy then it couldn't sustain the empire. As I said in another post, the state is a predatory institution that merely extracts capital and wealth coercively from the industrial class and redistributes that money without penalty of loss. A private enterprise, without the back up of the state, would be subject to all true costs of building nukes ( 500 mil a peace) and maintaining a trillion dollar Empire world wide. Its only possible for the state to extract this much revenue without going broke but rather making life tougher for the industrial-productive class.




exactly, like I said, its just a matter of who wants them, so how does that proove anything? people who like strawberries will consume them, and probably farm them as well.

But depending on how individuals value the strawberries as a means to achieve their individual ends, not everyone will want the same amount of strawberries. Theres nothing in communism that can , without force, regulate the distribution of strawberries without there being a shortage or junk surplus.


How is that possible if property rights need to be respected, self ownership rights are just as important in Communist Anarchism than in your type, but self-ownership rights are really contradictory to property rights, because it forces people who do not have any property to give up their self-ownership, now then, labor rights, meaning the right to the fruit of ones labor, is a different matter.

Thats a fallacy. Because self-ownership implies free will to do with yourself as you will, its entirely individualistic and is only compatible with society on a free association basis. Its in no way contradictory with property rights because individuals must appropriate things from the external will to further their life projects and welfare. Whether it be appropriating particles from nature into your own body or a home as a shelter. These things require ownership over something external to yourself. No realistic system, not even communism , since it denies property altogether, can ensure property in terms of land to everyone but what it can do is ensure that it is possible for people to accumulate capital based on their own work and not have it forcibly extracted from them by some higher authority.



Its not communal or central planning, I never talked about things being rationed, it would'nt need to be, because everything produced would be for those who need it, that does'nt kill incentive either, because people are always looking for ways to make life better, its human nature. Anarchy is about total freedom and solidarity, and although I'm not totally opposed to a form of the market, I don't see its true use in an Anarchist Society, where money has no real place, and where coercion through wage slavery is impossible.

How do you determine need in relation to production and consumption? What if family A needs 3x more strawberries than family B simply because they have a higher valued use for the strawberries? How do you control shortages and surpluses of junk without redistribution. There is always someone that is going to cry that family A has more strawberries than family B. Incentive is killed when homesteading is out of the question. Because what prevents people from consuming all available strawberries when there are no rules to the land? Making rules for the land makes a case for property rights. Anarchy means having no arbitrary ruler (An = No , Arch=ruler). In simplistic terms, it means absence of a State which allows individuals to freely associate with each other if they wish to do so.
Communism is the absence of money and property, not Anarchy. Absence of money and property is a recipe for destruction of civilization.




Wrong, Anarchy implies no innate Authority. I never said it does'nt imply no Market, what I said is it implies no capital or land property, because with that comes authority over other people which cannot really be justified, and because it impllies no capital or land property its hard to see any place for money, thus the concept of profit is thrown out the window, because profit is gone that does'nt mean surplus and innovation is gone.


Again, Anarchy isn't communism , anarchy separate from communism has its own core definition and that simply means absence of state (ruler). Communism is really an economic system and within communism no market can exist. Because market means trade and trade means change of title of ownership. If there is no ownership , there cannot be legitimate trade. Trade without money means barter which is terribly ineffecient and would set civilization back to the stone age ( not that you communists don't mind I guess). All innovation is gone without profit-loss test because without profit-loss you have absence of competition and a static economy. Everyone is qued a certain amount of production of X and there would be no way of achieving production of Y if Y is better simply because you couldn't know the true costs of X which is Y. Is economics 101.



I never said everyone is born as a collective, infact when you talk about ownership its kind of irrelivent to an Anarchist Society, the proper word would be control, or use, if I pick a strawberry and no one cares, it does'nt bother anyone, I'm not making a case for private property, if a community starts up a factory, and no one around is bothered by it (Why would they be unless its crealing polutoin.) Its not private property, its simply consent, its not about communal 'ownership,' in a Capitalist sense of the word.

Ok, if you pick a strawberry no one cares. True. You and everyone else in society can pick as many strawberries as you want until there are no more strawberries. Its like a bunch of kittens drinking milk out of single bowl , they are going to race until its all gone because if they don't grab it now, there will be none for the future. And if you reject communal ownership and deny everyone is part of the collective from birth , then what grounds do you have on preventing someone from homesteading property? Why is consent required in this sense when there is no collective ownership in the first place?




Your homesteading theory is a huge contradiction if you also add in wage slavery, I've talked about this before. I'm not saying that the land is inherently owned by everyone, I'm saying the concept of ownership is abserd.

You are saying land is collectively owned by everyone because there would be no other way to make a case against private homesteading. Person A homesteads a plot of land but person B is envious and crys foul. Person A doesn't have a right to the land because he didn't achieve consent from the collective that theoretically doesn't own the land in the first place? How do you make a case for collective consent and claim the collective doesn't own the land? THis is a contradiction and I believe it makes a case showing that communists cannot believe in self-ownership either.


Now then if someone homesteads a piece of land, because he tills it for one season, then for the rest of his life hires other people to till it for him, and they are compelled to do it for less than what they are producing, because they don't own anything, can you honestly say that he has more a right to the the fruits of the land than they do? Its rediculous.

Well the owner is still paying for the land. He is exchanging with the people he hired. The full production of their labor in exchange for his ownership over money ( or something else) that he acquired with his own work in the first place. When communists use this argument, they totally neglect the realistic concept of time. Why don't we just make all our own clothes and shoes as well? Why do we pay other people to make them that specialize in that?



Now then if a guy tills his own land for himself, and no one has a problem with it, the community around does'nt see his land as something vital to the community, theres no problem with that, but thats not ownership, its concentual use, mutual agreements, Anarchism, no force or authority is needed.

Yeah but anarchy doesn't mean utopia and someone will always be envious. The market can judge whether the guys homesteading of the land is beneficial to the majority simply by profit-loss test. It doesn't require communal planning. Again, if you claim the collective doesn't own the land, what are the grounds for collective consent?


Depends on what type of feaudalism your talking about, feaudalism was different in france than in england, as well as china, and in many cases the peasent, had legal rights that had to be respected.

Fuedalism faired better in Europe than other places but it was still basically 'enlightened slavery.'


YOu say the lord pays as much to keep the peasent alive, thats also pretty much the history of Capitalism, which is why it needs Minimum wage laws to the such to keep it from going extreamly out of hand, which it does generally anyway.

Minimum wage actually creates more unemployment. Basic economics.


The only way it woulld be justified, would be if the 'owner' gave the worker full market compensation for what he produced, which would be impossible because then there would be no profit, and those no wage slavery, which means that if you have ownership, wage slavery neccessarily comes out of it.

Again, its a typical fallacy to deny the concept of time which your doing here. This is why economics is communism is very absurd.



Self-Ownership has noting to do with property ownership.

It has everything to do with it.







I have to go for now. I'll respond to the other comments later.

[Joby]

How do you determine need in relation to production and consumption? What if family A needs 3x more strawberries than family B simply because they have a higher valued use for the strawberries? How do you control shortages and surpluses of junk without redistribution. There is always someone that is going to cry that family A has more strawberries than family B. Incentive is killed when homesteading is out of the question. Because what prevents people from consuming all available strawberries when there are no rules to the land?


You're missing the point, deja.

Without government, every man will love his neighbor and we will all become one big, happy family.

And if anyone steps out of line, the mob beats them to death and eats their brains :D

[Bud Struggle]

You're missing the point, deja.

Without government, every man will love his neighbor and we will all become one big, happy family.

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:


And if anyone steps out of line, the mob beats them to death and eats their brains :D
:(

Nailed it, Joby.

[Forward Union]

Without government, every man will love his neighbor and we will all become one big, happy family.

No. But what will happen, without centralised power, is that any fights, or personal hatreds will only exist on a local or decentral scale. If two people have a falling out and get into the odd fistfight in a bar, whatever. If two people have a falling out and are in command of the two largest armies in the world, there's a problem. So abolition of government would pretty much render War with a capital 'w' obsolete in the long term.

But not everyone will get along and be one big family. That's never been a part of the Anarchist political programe. You've invented it. If anything that's a pillar of the religious right.


And if anyone steps out of line, the mob beats them to death and eats their brains :D

If by step out of line we take something like Peadophilia (which im sure we can both agree is out of line) then it's not the "mob" that beats them to death, but a court. The difference being that the laws this court operates on will be democratically decided by the people in each community, and laws will be localised, or federalised much more.

The government is just the biggest mafia racket and so laws today, and "stepping out of line" today is not much different from upsetting the local mafia or "mob"

[Kropotesta]

jeez anarcho capitalism's rejected.

Also Tomk, your 'critque' isn't funny and is a ridculous attack on anarchism. I trust that, even, you should know better

[Schrödinger's Cat]

You must keep in mind when Germany industrialized it was far from any kind of democracy. Rather, Germany in the late 19th century was under the authoritarian regime of the Prussians. The social democratic push in Germany first started after WW1 with Otto Bauer but failed miserably and gave way to the nationalist socialist agenda of Hitler. Curiously, Hitler took an anti-capitalist approach in practice by blaming the rich and wealthy Jews on all the woes of the poor German economy. Not much different than your typical Communist, Hitler sought to drive out the wealthy Jews and take their wealth and redistribute it how he saw fit. Hitler's hate for the Jews wasn't only because of racial reasons, it was also because he cast the eye of envy on a people that became relatively wealthy and cried oppression and inequality for the German people. ( Read Mein Kampf and see for yourself.) Hitler believed the spread of internationalist capitalism was the work of evil Jews and the wealthy seeking to exploit the poor. Also, I wouldn't call a superior military a great measure of a country's prosperity. Sure, the German State focused productive capitalism in construction of U-boats which played a decisive roll in Germany military superiority but thats not a measure of true prosperity. True prosperity is actually destroyed because of war because it is merely the state redirecting production and the true cost is prosperity because those factors of production used for war could've had better alternative uses for real growth.You avoided my question. Germany prior to World War 1 was arguably the world's first social democracy, and the living conditions in industrial factories and cities often outperformed the British counterprojects because government intrusion sustained decent conditions for the work force. Germany, like France, enjoys a rich history of liberal and socialist influence. Charles Dickens often wrote about the poor living conditions average Englishmen had to put up, which were common in Britain, but not Germany.

Hitler and the second wave of Nazi leadership saw capitalism and socialism as Zionist conspiracies. I'm really tired of your failed attempts to relate fascism with socialism. They're not the same, and you'll never be able to make a legitimate argument that says otherwise.

Social democracies and even Leninist states outperformed free-market oriented economies. Your anarcho-capitalist utopianism would drive the entire earth into poverty.


The Marshall Plan only achieved more wasted money for the U.S. and wasn't the key factor in post WW2 reconstruction. The countries that received the most Marshall Plan money (allies Britain, Sweden, and Greece) grew the slowest between 1947 and 1955, while those that received the least money (axis powers Germany, Austria, and Italy) grew the most.You have a perverted understanding of history. Germany was the only country that had not returned to its pre-war economic level by the mid-50s. Germany, Austria, and Italy performed the best in terms of annual growth due to the fact they sustained the largest decimation of infrastructure. After depletion in the economy is complete, there is almost always a period of high growth.


The real upshot of the Marshall Plan was a political maneuver to loot American taxpayers to keep influential American corporations on the government dole. The Plan's legacy was the egregious and perpetual use of foreign aid for domestic political and economic purposes.The plan was meant to prevent communist influence from spreading into West Europe, the likelihood of which in the immediate years following World War 2 being very strong. Communists were nearly elected into office in Italy and France, and socialist/social democratic alliances were having sizable representation in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and England. To put it mildly, capitalists were shaking in their boots.

The Marshal Plan is one of the most under appreciated moves of grandstanding in human history. The United States was the only economy that emerged from WW2 with a boom in industry - the Soviet Union, through collectivization, managed to boost itself back up as the second largest economy, but it didn't have the funds necessary to help West Europe purely for geographical reasons - the Nazi war machine had destroyed its infrastructure to the point that even appropriating funds to all of East Europe was a hassle.


Hong Kong rebuilt with minimal governmental interference . This resulted in rapid economic development and a steadily rising standard of living for the people of Hong Kong. This progress benefited not only highly skilled upper income workers, but also low paid unskilled workers.You obviously have no understanding of Hong Kong's economic system. The government works from a quasi-Georgist platform where the government leases out land based on specific guidelines that are meant to keep property values arbitrarily high. Furthermore, Hong Kong doesn't abstain from government intervention.


Japan also experienced great success due to a relative lack of governmental interference.Holy fuck - I don't mean to patronizing - but you know shit about history. Japan played an active role in heavy industry allocation, like South Korea, and labor rights were strictly enforced. Japan had one of the most protectionist trade policies in the history of capitalism. The only method with which the government allowed the market to prosper was through allowing monopolies to naturally rise up and take control of individual industries - which, according to capitalists, isn't supposed to happen.

[Bud Struggle]

jeez anarcho capitalism's rejected.

Also Tomk, your 'critque' isn't funny and is a ridculous attack on anarchism. I trust that, even, you should know better

EXCELLENT post, Conflicting Interests!!!

Everybody knows the best way to get reinstated in the RevLeft is to come over to OI and attack a Capitalist. That's what we're here for. :lol:

[Schrödinger's Cat]

You're missing the point, deja.

Without government, every man will love his neighbor and we will all become one big, happy family.

And if anyone steps out of line, the mob beats them to death and eats their brains :D

You realize, of course, that you're talking to an anarcho-capitalist? Left-anarchists still adhere to democracy and social organization like any liberal or conservative - while rejecting a state; pseudo-anarchist "free marketeers" believe that private companies reinforced with hired guns will create the best (lack of) system in human history.

Get serious, Joby.

[Dejavu]

You avoided my question. Germany prior to World War 1 was arguably the world's first social democracy, and the living conditions in industrial factories and cities often outperformed the British counterprojects simply because of government intrusion. Charles Dickens often wrote about the poor living conditions average Englishmen had to put up, which were common in Britain, but not Germany.

I'll concede that point. Bismarck was a strong centralist but he was just as much as a warmonger as a welfare champion. Sound familiar? Oh yeah, modern U.S. politics. If you look to Bismarck as someone to be admired you're probably in the same camp as the right-wing socialists-nationalists and conservatives. Interestingly, Bismarck's Welfare State only served as an incubator to win over the people for his war intentions. Actually government intrusion inhibited further German growth. Germany was punctuated with recessions after 1871. And you want me to accept me to accept a critique by Dickens who was clearly an anti-capitalist? lol. Suppose you're going to tell me factual realities about Scrooge now. lol.




Hitler and the second wave of Nazi leaders saw capitalism and socialism as Zionist conspiracies. Stop trying to connect fascism with socialism. They're not the same, and you'll never be able to make a legitimate argument that says otherwise.

Actually, I'll let a well-known fascist say it. Benito Mussolini:

Fascism … believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace…. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it…. It may be expected that this will be a century of authority, a century of the Left, a century of Fascism. For the nineteenth century was a century of individualism…., it may be expected that this will be a century of collectivism, and hence the century of the State…. For Fascism, the growth of Empire, that is to say, the expansion of the nation, is the essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite is a sign of decay and death




Social democracies and even Leninist states outperformed free-market oriented economies. Your anarcho-capitalism would drive the entire earth into poverty.

Enemies of the market argue that the only reason people put up with market economies is because they are forced to. The evidence on 20th century immigration doesn't support the hypothesis. Thousands died trying to cross into free West Germany and South Korea, and there was very little traffic in the opposite direction. Similarly, thousands of Cubans have risked life and limb to come to America. Few—if any—have braved the ocean on a homemade raft to seek a better way of life in Cuba. Though we are talking about hampered markets in the capitalist countries it is clear that more market orientated countries ensured greater prosperity.



You have a perverted understanding of history. Germany was the only country that had not returned to its pre-war economic might by the mid-50s. Germany, Austria, and Italy grew the most because they sustained the largest decimation of infrastructure. After depletion in the economy is complete, there is almost always a period of high growth.

How do you explain the real growth of W.Germany (growth after war damage) exceeding the countries that received more Marshal aid? In March 1948, Ludwig Erhard had been appointed the director of the economic administration of the British-American occupation zone. Three months after his appointment, he made two bold decisions. Against the intentions of the British military government, he (1) abolished virtually all price controls and (2) introduced a new currency: the Deutschmark.

The next day the stores and shops were filled with merchandise. Businessmen had cut back production during the postwar years, and retailers held back commodities, reserving them for sales on the black market, where higher prices could be obtained. This state of affairs had resulted, of course, from the Nazi system of price controls, which had made profitable production impossible and turned the open market into a black market. The allied occupation forces had maintained this senseless system at the behest of a small group of influential left-wing economic advisers, for whom central planning and government controls was the state of the art. Erhard overthrew this system, thus creating the economic foundations of West Germany, which came to be established in the fall of 1949. More than that, he had put into practice a classical-liberal alternative to the Marshall Plan for postwar reconstruction.

While Erhard's economics was far from the libertarian ideal, it still faired better than the Marshal Plan i.e. the scapegoat for welfare state supporters which is a propagated myth. Germany would've received much more money from U.S. taxpayers had it not been for Erhard and would've experience the sluggish growth of social engineering on the level of GB.

Of course the welfare economics would come back to bite modern Germany in the ass as the country experiences virtually zero growth due to its tremendous welfare costs.





The plan was meant to prevent communism from spreading into West Europe, which appeared very likely in the immediate years following World War 2. Communists were nearly elected into office in Italy and France, and socialist/social democratic alliances were having sizable representation in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and England.


Ok, I'll give you that. That was the true intent of the Marshal Plan. A ponzi scheme at the expense of American taxpayers to buy out the loyalty of governments while the plans weren't too effective in actually benefiting the people of those nations.


The Marshal Plan is one of the most under appreciated moves of grandstanding in human history. The United States was the only economy that emerged from WW2 with large benefits - the Soviet Union, through collectivization, managed to boost itself back up as the second largest economy, but it didn't have the funds to help West Europe purely for geographical reasons - the Nazi war machine had destroyed its infrastructure.

Ok, first you suggest the Marshal Plan was there to prevent Communism, something you support , and now you give praise to the ponzi scheme. lol.
As you stated earlier , the rapid growth in the USSR must have also been due to war reconstruction, however, real growth is more elusive. The Soviets did compete with America in the arms race but neglected many other markets within the Soviet economy and thats why it was rare to find a supermarket in the Soviet Union with all the commodities available in a typical American supermarket. Aside from the ridiculous price controls on gas in the 1970s U.S. , lines and rations were not commonplace like in the U.S.S.R. Of course here comes your charging defense of the totalitarian regime, I await the response.


You obviously have no understanding of Hong Kong's economic system. The government works from a quasi-Georgist platform where the government leases out land based on specific guidelines that are meant to keep property values arbitrarily high. Furthermore, Hong Kong doesn't abstain from government intervention.

I never said Hong Kong was totally free of intervention, but what I did say was that it was relatively free, freer than most other places, especially when compared to other British colonies that adopted a more socialist platform. Yes government did make stipulation on property but it wasn't outright owned by the government as contractual agreements about property were sacred in Hong Kong. Its not a case for public ownership on your part because investors would be drawn away without contractual affirmation of property rights which existed in Hong Kong. The value of the property wasn't only 'boosted' by government but rather because of the commerce of Hong Kong's port that existed before the government in question.

After the Second World War Hon Kong had no minimum wage, low and simple taxes, zero tariffs, zero capital controls, and a stable legal environment. The government in Hong Kong invested in its seaport and public education, but public spending ranged from 13-19% of GDP. Hong Kong has also avoided accumulation of public debt. Hong Kong actually ran budget surpluses in 32 years between 1948 and 1985. Hong Kong is an excellent example of a free market-limited government society,

At the end of the Second World War per capita income was 180$. BY 1982 the per capital income of Hong Kong was 6,000$. Even the lowest 20% of Hong Kong households reached 1300$ per capita income by 1976- seven times the average income just after the war. From the mid fifties to the 1970’s Real wages in Hong Kong more than doubled, and unemployment fell below 3%.

From 1948 to 1960 Hong Kong’s GDP grew at a rate of 7% per year. From 1961 to 1980 Hong Kong’s GDP grew 9% per year. From 1979 to 1984 Hong Kong’s GDP grew 7.6%, despite a worldwide recession. All of this happened without foreign direct aid of any kind.



Holy fuck - I don't mean to sound rude - but you know shit about history. Japan played an active role in heavy industry allocation, like South Korea, and labor rights were strictly enforced.

Well, in 1953 labor unions were weakened in Japan but more government control was instituted. Japan, unfortunately had a lot of planned growth that would eventually bust later. Japan was forced to adopt the Keynesian model of ridiculous credit expansion, state regulation in cooperation with the National Bank, and literally a sorry attempt to turn 'stone into bread,' as Keynes would say. While this created initial booms the busts really hit Japan hard and effected it negatively in the long run to this very day as Japan is trapped between stagflation and recession or at best zero growth because of all the state manipulation of the yen. ( not much different than the U.S. btw) The only thing that had nominal success was land reform in the less populated areas which the govt left alone more.

For example Japan had 9 stimulus packages totaling $888 billion since 1990 to today and even comparable inflation before hand which stagflated Japan's economy. This is the wrong move for an already shaky yen.

International trade went counter to the prewar lines of comparative advantage with America becoming Japan's leading trading partner both in exports and imports. Stripped of its place in the inter-regional division of labor, Japan began a program of artificial expansion of domestic production. The Japanese government subsidized production of costly synthetic substitutes for cheaper imported raw materials formerly obtained from Manchuria. Imports of low-priced food declined while the artificially built-up agricultural sector expanded high-priced output. Capacity in steel production, electrical equipment, automobiles, and shipbuilding was heavily subsidized.

What you see in Japan's economy today is a artificial growth(credit expansion) doomed to come crashing down with the emergence of real growth in other parts of Asia like China and India. The U.S. is in a similar situation as Japan. South Korea isn't as bad as Japan but not far off from the same camp. Stagflation is endemic in countries like Japan.

[Dejavu]

Left-anarchists still adhere to democracy and social organization like any liberal or conservative

Sure but they treat economics as unimportant. They believe it a pseudo-science that deserves no real serious attention. The socialist call for Anarchy is simply a utopia fixated in an imaginary world of post scarcity. :laugh:

[Bright Banana Beard]

Sure but they treat economics as unimportant. They believe it a pseudo-science that deserves no real serious attention. The socialist call for Anarchy is simply a utopia fixated in an imaginary world of post scarcity. :laugh:


For fucking sake, stop calling us Utopian otherwise get the fuck out of here and take your "Oh I so smart, they too dumb!" pride to place where we don't need to see it again. Your pride is annoying and name-calling is again, a fallacy to your debate argument you made. :glare:

[Joby]

No. But what will happen, without centralised power, is that any fights, or personal hatreds will only exist on a local or decentral scale. If two people have a falling out and get into the odd fistfight in a bar, whatever. If two people have a falling out and are in command of the two largest armies in the world, there's a problem. So abolition of government would pretty much render War with a capital 'w' obsolete in the long term.

And what happens when I get into a fight at the bar, leave, come back with a 12-gauge, and blow his brains out?


But not everyone will get along and be one big family. That's never been a part of the Anarchist political programe. You've invented it. If anything that's a pillar of the religious right.

Possibly; but wouldn't you want an independent party to be able to settle disputes?


If by step out of line we take something like Peadophilia (which im sure we can both agree is out of line) then it's not the "mob" that beats them to death, but a court. The difference being that the laws this court operates on will be democratically decided by the people in each community, and laws will be localised, or federalised much more.

So there's no guarantee of my Rights as guaranteed under the Constitution?

If South Carolina decides to stop allowing "niggers" into schools, and the popular vote goes that way....It should be allowed?


The government is just the biggest mafia racket and so laws today, and "stepping out of line" today is not much different from upsetting the local mafia or "mob"

The government is certainly not perfect, nor close to it.

However, they serve as an indepent party to settle disputes. Once anarchism is here, how will these disputes be settled?

Also, what do you consider the "State?"

[Joby]

Sure but they treat economics as unimportant. They believe it a pseudo-science that deserves no real serious attention. The socialist call for Anarchy is simply a utopia fixated in an imaginary world of post scarcity.

I think I disagree with you here; we already live in a potentially post-scarcituy world. At least as far as many, many important commidities go.

[Dejavu]

I think I disagree with you here; we already live in a potentially post-scarcituy world. At least as far as many, many important commidities go.

Oh I'd love you to elaborate. :D

[Kropotesta]

And what happens when I get into a fight at the bar, leave, come back with a 12-gauge, and blow his brains out?



Possibly; but wouldn't you want an independent party to be able to settle disputes?



So there's no guarantee of my Rights as guaranteed under the Constitution?

If South Carolina decides to stop allowing "niggers" into schools, and the popular vote goes that way....It should be allowed?



The government is certainly not perfect, nor close to it.

However, they serve as an indepent party to settle disputes. Once anarchism is here, how will these disputes be settled?

Also, what do you consider the "State?"

well if you shot someone you would be dealt with by the collective. what makes you think that someone, under anarchism, could get away with shooting people?
independent bodies? collective courts would be run to try people for various injustices. however with the abolishment of hierarchy and the money system, i think it is save to say that crime would decrease.

Constitution? who would write it? who would decide on what goes in it? is it needed? via direct democarcy? I don't see a constitution being needed under anarchist communism as injustice should be pretty easy to point out. Also racism is stirred up via economic inequalities.

The collective/community would resolve any disputes on a basis of equality and legitmacy, aswell as being the will of the people affected.
also State- a political association with sovereignity over a geographic area.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Sure but they treat economics as unimportant. They believe it a pseudo-science that deserves no real serious attention. The socialist call for Anarchy is simply a utopia fixated in an imaginary world of post scarcity. :laugh:

I would imagine that energy accounting, labor time vouchers, workers' councils, syndicalism, and other pretty terms put into the dictionary by socialist thinkers constitutes something more than just throwing away all proceedings works and starting anew. Gradualist leftists even contributed to some faces of contemporary capitalism: unions, minimum wage, labor rights, workman's compensation, social security, government-provided health care provisions. As I pointed at in this thread, and you conceded, these institutions helped alleviate Germany to become a world player in less than forty years. Marx and most socialists acknowledge Adam Smith as being a progressive force in history - despite libertarians reconstructing his position to make him appear entirely in love with market allocation. We merely treat your economic system as outdated, much like you would not take into consideration much attributes associated with feudalism.


And what happens when I get into a fight at the bar, leave, come back with a 12-gauge, and blow his brains out?

You're taken to court, much like now. I think you're confusing anarchism with chaos, or the commonly-held misconception about what anarchism entails. It's not "everyone for himself" with the hope that all disputes will solve themselves. Well - not unless you identify as an anarcho-capitalist.


So there's no guarantee of my Rights as guaranteed under the Constitution?
A piece of parchment inked with iron gill fluids guarantees nothing beyond the legal framework. All rights outside of the wild derive from the community's accepted standards. If the constitution said you had the right to enslave your younger siblings until the age of 41, would that suddenly constitute a right? No. Since you're obviously an American liberal, you have no problem mixing the concepts of negative and positive liberty - if someone's neighbor kept their music so loud that it annoyed the rest of the street, you would see no problem constructing a law which prohibits such excess regardless if it's through/on their property or not. This is because you view property only as instrumental when it does not negatively affect another person's own livelihood. We uphold the very same principle.

Constitutions and communism/anarchism are not diametrically opposed concepts, as long as it's understood the constitution is not infallible. Many communities may differ on how their democratic procedure occurs. Brownstown could elect to have a strong majority of 65% for anything to become "legalized."


If South Carolina decides to stop allowing "niggers" into schools, and the popular vote goes that way....It should be allowed?Of course not. We're socialists, not decentralists. The regional community would probably intervene if they heard of racial discrimination - either by cutting off all goods to that community, or if need be - engage in physical combat. It's likely the former action of culling their dependent economy would answer most small-scale abuses since an economic and political structure heavily dependent on small-scale operations would mean that any external power struggle would be quelled immediately. Federations would break ties with South Carolina's industry and the people would gradually, if not immediately, choose to change their opinion.

I would argue, however, that such a situation of racial discrimination would be more likely with a state structure since racism, historically, benefits the top class.


However, they serve as an indepent party to settle disputes. Once anarchism is here, how will these disputes be settled?Ask dejavu that. He's the one advocating private courts, police, investigators, etc. In the case of real anarchism (nice touch?), disputes would be settled by the collective. Think of it like this: government and the state are separate terms. The government is simply social organization. We have no problem with that. The state, however, is a forced hierarchal social organization over a geographical area. We want to rid the world of all states - all forced hierarchies.

[Forward Union]

And what happens when I get into a fight at the bar, leave, come back with a 12-gauge, and blow his brains out?

You'd probably get shot by one of the other people in the Bar, as I'd hope everyone was armed. But if they didn't kill you, you'd be arrested, and probably imprisoned.


So there's no guarantee of my Rights as guaranteed under the Constitution?

Well each region should decide it's own constitution and legal system. Anarchist organisation will still exist pushing for Anarchist models which would include universalisation of certain structures, and rights. But, that's not immediately realistic, and as the zapatistas put it we'll have "A world in which many worlds are possible"


If South Carolina decides to stop allowing "niggers" into schools, and the popular vote goes that way....It should be allowed?

Well, they'd be counter-revolutionaries on the grounds that they are excluding people from access to social organs such as schools. They are in fact privatising them and creating class, and it's up to us to combat it.


However, they serve as an indepent party to settle disputes. Once anarchism is here, how will these disputes be settled?

By courts. But laws will be pre-written, and not decided on the spot which would create mob rule. They would however be democratically decided, and localised "laws" and subject to change by democratic discussion


Also, what do you consider the "State?"

A centralised decision making body, seperate to society, which controls the mechanisms of state; Police, Courts, Military. It's structure varies from country to country. In the UK, it would be the House of Commons, House of Lords, Monarchy and other government departments.

[Dejavu]

I would imagine that energy accounting, labor time vouchers, workers' councils, syndicalism, and other pretty terms put into the dictionary by socialist thinkers constitutes something more than just throwing away all proceedings works and starting anew. Gradualist leftists even contributed to some faces of contemporary capitalism: unions, minimum wage, labor rights, workman's compensation, social security, government-provided health care provisions. As I pointed at in this thread, and you conceded, these institutions helped alleviate Germany to become a world player in less than forty years. Marx and most socialists acknowledge Adam Smith as being a progressive force in history - despite libertarians reconstructing his position to make him appear entirely in love with market allocation. We merely treat your economic system as outdated, much like you would not take into consideration much attributes associated with feudalism.

Energy accounting? It seems that you're assuming energy would be super abundent and require hardly any production inputs. AnCaps don't believe in post scarcity, no as long as we're still mortal human beings, and everything requires input factors which couldn't be calculated by socialists in a modern economy of billions of actors. Worker's councils and labor vouchers are really a retardation of what the market solves already and much quicker and efficiently as well. This amounts to trying to 'play market,' but scorning the real thing. The 'contributions' to capitalism by the socialists or quasi-socialists have actually made things worse off. Social security is a ponzi scheme and another tax which is funded through no savings and increased inflation. Minimum wage is price fixing and labor unions target non union labor creating unemployment, and government healthcare is terribly inefficient and puts your very health in the hands of bureaucrats. The social programs of Bismarck's Germany put the population in the hands of the State and marched them into war. Production was redirected to manufacturing arms instead of something contributing to real growth. However, I don't believe pre-WW1 Germany was totally guilty for the war and the British played even more dirty than the Germans. Smith was basically a British economic school father. We don't dismiss everything from the classical economists but we obviously reject their value theories which Marxist still hold on to. We believe better and more sound economic though existed before Smith and started with the University of Salmanaca and some of the medieval scholastics. There are plenty of old French , English, and Spanish liberals that had better insight than Smith.






You're taken to court, much like now. I think you're confusing anarchism with chaos, or the commonly-held misconception about what anarchism entails. It's not "everyone for himself" with the hope that all disputes will solve themselves. Well - not unless you identify as an anarcho-capitalist.

Indeed, anarchism is not chaos but this is the prevailing conception of it. But you also carry a misconception about Market Anarchy. When did AnCaps ever refute social cooperation? How is a market able to function without social cooperation?


A piece of parchment inked with iron gill fluids guarantees nothing beyond the legal framework. All rights outside of the wild derive from the community's accepted standards. If the constitution said you had the right to enslave your younger siblings until the age of 41, would that suddenly constitute a right? No. Since you're obviously an American liberal, you have no problem mixing the concepts of negative and positive liberty - if someone's neighbor kept their music so loud that it annoyed the rest of the street, you would see no problem constructing a law which prohibits such excess regardless if it's through/on their property or not. This is because you view property only as instrumental when it does not negatively affect another person's own livelihood. We uphold the very same principle.

I think natural law ( or common law) is something already recognized by the majority of people. Common law predates written constitutions that merely were used to affirm common law ( see Magna Carta.) There is no reason in anarchy that a community of people can't agree upon a constitution. Government is not the same as a state when you really break it down.


Constitutions and communism/anarchism are not diametrically opposed concepts, as long as it's understood the constitution is not infallible. Many communities may differ on how their democratic procedure occurs. Brownstown could elect to have a strong majority of 65% for anything to become "legalized."

We don't oppose mutual and contractual agreement either which a constitution basically is.


Of course not. We're socialists, not decentralists. The regional community would probably intervene if they heard of racial discrimination - either by cutting off all goods to that community, or if need be - engage in physical combat. It's likely the former action of culling their dependent economy would answer most small-scale abuses since an economic and political structure heavily dependent on small-scale operations would mean that any external power struggle would be quelled immediately. Federations would break ties with South Carolina's industry and the people would gradually, if not immediately, choose to change their opinion.

We wouldn't oppress people wanting to discriminate in their own schools nor would we force schools to comply with a mob's opinion. We would simply uphold common law and assert that the discriminatory school has not right in preventing other establishments to compete with it. We cannot forcefully integrate just as surely as we can't forcefully separate just by the whims of the mob. We look at it this way, if the school , like any business, wants to discriminate they are only eliminating a potential source of revenue which damages them in the long run. Some other 'greedy' person would then snatch up all the rejected customers as well as not discriminate against any other customers in such a way and make the discriminatory school pay loosing $$$$ for its preference to discriminate.




I would argue, however, that such a situation of racial discrimination would be more likely with a state structure since racism, historically, benefits the top class.

Racism is sanctioned by the state so its likely to become weaker without the state. It reminds me of Holland after it repelled the Spanish Habsburgs. Amsterdam was a heterogeneous town that adopted free market policies which created the incentives to tolerate others because you were dependent on their cooperation. Racism is a collectivist trait and is mocked by promoters of individualism You can see how bad racism can get with a society focused on treating people as aggregates instead of individuals.


Ask dejavu that. He's the one advocating private courts, police, investigators, etc. In the case of real anarchism (nice touch?), disputes would be settled by the collective. Think of it like this: government and the state are separate terms. The government is simply social organization. We have no problem with that. The state, however, is a forced hierarchal social organization over a geographical area. We want to rid the world of all states - all forced hierarchies.

No, its not that at all. PDAs and such would only arise if there is a need, they wouldn't be preplanned. If you have a dispute with someone else then that dispute is a private matter to be handled privately and not by the mob. We claim that no one has special rights over the law since we believe everyone is bound by common law. No one person can have say-so without the consent of his peers. I agree that government and state are two different concepts when broken down but its really absurd to think market anarchists would be individualist hermits that didn't care about anyone else. The market cannot function without cooperation. We merely claim that we are not bound to the collective and the whims of the mob from birth. We claim we first and foremost own ourselves and we have the choice to cooperate with society. Only by understanding individual freedom can you have free association and a free society. Property rights protect individual freedom, destruction of property rights destroy individual freedom.

[pusher robot]

By courts. But laws will be pre-written, and not decided on the spot which would create mob rule. They would however be democratically decided, and localised "laws" and subject to change by democratic discussion.

OK, I really have to object to the bastardization of a perfectly good word here.

The greek suffix -archy denotes "rule" and the -cracy suffix denotes "power." Therefore Anarchy has a straightforward literal meaning from its greek bases: without rule. Likewise monarchy: rule of one, matriarchy: rule by women, oligarchy: rule of a few. Democracy literally means "people power."

So, what is my complaint? If you have an anarchy, that is literally, no ruler, then the power of any democratic organization is zero. No rule means no government, no law, no authority with power. An anarchy cannot, by definition, have institutions like courts and laws that exert rules on people!

[Dejavu]

So, what is my complaint? If you have an anarchy, that is literally, no ruler, then the power of any democratic organization is zero. No rule means no government, no law, no authority with power. An anarchy cannot, by definition, have institutions like courts and laws that exert rules on people!

But ask yourself the question, did some kind of legal order exist before written law and emergence of states? Are they not based of customary or common law? I use the market as my example. Did the market predate a legal order or vise versa? I think its neither since I believe the two emerged together. How could you have legal order for the market before the market? Obviously people were providing goods and services ( no matter how ancient) and trading before the concept of an actual legal order emerged, it was already practiced. How did the market predate a legal order? When market processes already involve general understanding about trade.

An and archy certainly mean no ruler. So what is the logical conclusion from that. If there is no actual ruler then by default people rule themselves and only themselves. Hence they are free and free to choose a mutually agreed upon legal order. One can argue this then obsoletes Anarchy but I don't think so. The general understanding is like the market, people are bounded by certain customary law but no one has a monopoly on jurisprudence, this is still consistent with Anarchy in my opinion.

[pusher robot]

An and archy certainly mean no ruler. So what is the logical conclusion from that. If there is no actual ruler then by default people rule themselves and only themselves. Hence they are free and free to choose a mutually agreed upon legal order. One can argue this then obsoletes Anarchy but I don't think so. The general understanding is like the market, people are bounded by certain customary law but no one has a monopoly on jurisprudence, this is still consistent with Anarchy in my opinion.

Yes, I quite specifically did not claim that "anarchy" means no rules. It means, though, that all rules are adhered to voluntarily - there are no institutions that can coerce compliance. Once you place yourself under the jurisdiction of an agency that can force your compliance to rules regardless of whether you want them to or not, you are no longer living in an anarchy. That's why it's nonsense to speak of anarchist democracy, for example. If the majority is ruling over you, it is not an anarchy. If the majority has no power over you, it is not a democracy.

Now, you might object that one can voluntarily bind oneself to abide by rules, even those made by others, under pain of enforcement -the classic social contract theory - and that since this is all still voluntary, it is still anarchy. But I think this makes nonsense of the distinctions. It's only anarchy so long as there is nobody with power over you, regardless of whether that power is aceded to voluntarily or not.

[Dejavu]

Yes, I quite specifically did not claim that "anarchy" means no rules. It means, though, that all rules are adhered to voluntarily - there are no institutions that can coerce compliance. Once you place yourself under the jurisdiction of an agency that can force your compliance to rules regardless of whether you want them to or not, you are no longer living in an anarchy. That's why it's nonsense to speak of anarchist democracy, for example. If the majority is ruling over you, it is not an anarchy. If the majority has no power over you, it is not a democracy.

Now, you might object that one can voluntarily bind oneself to abide by rules, even those made by others, under pain of enforcement -the classic social contract theory - and that since this is all still voluntary, it is still anarchy. But I think this makes nonsense of the distinctions. It's only anarchy so long as there is nobody with power over you, regardless of whether that power is aceded to voluntarily or not.

Well I never made any pretenses about linking Anarchy to socialism or some said democracy. Anarchy can only function in a society of free individuals rather than an aggregate at the mercy of a mob. I think your statements are a good reason why 'anarcho-communism' or any offshoot of it will fall flat on its face. That doesn't mean Market Anarchy is free of criticism of course but I think it shows why its more workable.

[Forward Union]

The greek suffix -archy denotes "rule" and the -cracy suffix denotes "power." Therefore Anarchy has a straightforward literal meaning from its greek bases: without rule. Likewise monarchy: rule of one, matriarchy: rule by women, oligarchy: rule of a few. Democracy literally means "people power."

So, what is my complaint? If you have an anarchy, that is literally, no ruler, then the power of any democratic organization is zero. No rule means no government, no law, no authority with power. An anarchy cannot, by definition, have institutions like courts and laws that exert rules on people!

I am not in favour of "Anarchy". I am in favour of Anarchist-Communism or "Libertarian Communism". In which all decision making power is left to democratic workers councils and assemblies.

Anarchy has been a buzzword for a chaotic situation, even used to describe the actions of certain states. So it's fairly meaningless. Anarchism however is a political philosophy that believes that society can operate without a state. In Market anarchism, the land/factory owners hold tyranical rule over those that need the resources. And in Anarchist-Communism the workplace and community councils have power.

[Bud Struggle]

I am not in favour of "Anarchy". I am in favour of Anarchist-Communism or "Libertarian Communism". In which all decision making power is left to democratic workers councils and assemblies.


And if in a Communist society I can't control my own business: then I will have to make do with controlling Democratic workers councils and assemblies.

It's one of the charms of being a Capitalist--like cream, we alway rise to the top. :laugh:

[Forward Union]

And if in a Communist society I can't control my own business:

You can't run your own bussiness because a bussiness is an inherantly hierachical institution. It can only exist if there are property rights, and if there are property rights there are those that hold what we all need by force, and those that are slaved to work for them to earn some of it back.

The freedom to own a bussiness is the freedom to own the right and the means to opress. It's not a freedom but a privelage taken and held by murder.


then I will have to make do with controlling Democratic workers councils and assemblies.

Well you can propose to be in charge but I suspect people don't very much like being told what to do. I mean we don't nominate leaders in our friendship groups to tell us which films we go and see at the weekend. It physically wouldn't be possible for you to take over, power would just be so decentral.

It's one of the charms of being a Capitalist--like cream, we alway rise to the top. :laugh:

Cream also goes off pretty quickly. Obviosuly I don't know how old you are, I bet you're probably a student. But I very much suspect that like me you're no where near the top at the moment, and do infact work for a wage. Pretty Shit isnt it?

[Dejavu]

You can't run your own bussiness because a bussiness is an inherantly hierachical institution. It can only exist if there are property rights, and if there are property rights there are those that hold what we all need by force, and those that are slaved to work for them to earn some of it back.

Well thank God people would enforce their property rights. If blatant force is necessary, more power to the owner. :D
When a resource in nature becomes valuable to mankind for production, I.e. the natural use of something in nature ( such as animals, metals, etc) becomes coveted by humans for production it becomes capital. Now, these resources are limited and need to be preserved. You're description is accurate. Here you have the property owner holding of the mob because the mob wants all of it now. If the long term survival is not tied to anyone's prosperity by property rights then the resource automatically looses all long term capital value and is over extracted by the mob in the present until none of it is left and now you have a more than one crisis. Not only did the resource become unavailable any longer to mankind but you also created an enviornmental issue. Great job. :thumbup:

Property owners do mankind a tremendous service by economizing limited resources and making the capital more productive so everyone can have access to it. On top of that ,they provide work for people. They are truly heroes.:D

And if you don't believe in ownership how is it that everyone somehow owns everything in nature as a collective? How can it be theft from anyone if there is no considered owner in the first place? :D

[Bud Struggle]

You can't run your own bussiness because a bussiness is an inherantly hierachical institution. It can only exist if there are property rights, and if there are property rights there are those that hold what we all need by force, and those that are slaved to work for them to earn some of it back.

Nope. A business is an intellectual property. Nothing more nothingless. I can fire all my employees and start up again down the road in a heart beat any time I want. I own it it's mine, workers are interchangable. It's just the way it is.


The freedom to own a bussiness is the freedom to own the right and the means to opress. It's not a freedom but a privelage taken and held by murder.

I guess you aren't the "go to" guy for a better mousetrap. :(


Well you can propose to be in charge but I suspect people don't very much like being told what to do. I mean we don't nominate leaders in our friendship groups to tell us which films we go and see at the weekend. It physically wouldn't be possible for you to take over, power would just be so decentral.

You miss the point. I mean you REALLY MISS THE POINT. When the revolution come--I'll be running the show. Me and the other Capitalists. We'll adapt, we'll change, and we'll be the the guys that make things happen in Communist society. We'll be charming, we'll be sweet. Your wives will fall in love with us. You'll see us on posters with red flags behind us, we'll promise our support to people's rights and individual freedoms and all that crap. I'll be the head friend in your friendship groups. I'll be the guy that solves your problems within the group. We'll all be equal, of course, it's just that some of us will be more equal than others. :) I'll be a GREAT Communist. Really. You'll have issues about truth and justice and Marx and Lennin. I won't be bothered with all of that. I'll make sure the people get what they want, I'll make them happy. One's freedom is a small price to pay for happiness, isn't it?

And in the end I, and those like me, will take control.

Wat, I promise.



Cream also goes off pretty quickly. Obviosuly I don't know how old you are, I bet you're probably a student. But I very much suspect that like me you're no where near the top at the moment, and do infact work for a wage. Pretty Shit isnt it?

Read my bio on the OI intro page. I'm the real thing--a business owning, employee bossing, stock buying and selling capitalist. When the Revolution comes.....I will own you. :lol:

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Well thank God people would enforce their property rights. If blatant force is necessary, more power to the owner. :D
When a resource in nature becomes valuable to mankind for production, I.e. the natural use of something in nature ( such as animals, metals, etc) becomes coveted by humans for production it becomes capital. Now, these resources are limited and need to be preserved. You're description is accurate. Here you have the property owner holding of the mob because the mob wants all of it now. If the long term survival is not tied to anyone's prosperity by property rights then the resource automatically looses all long term capital value and is over extracted by the mob in the present until none of it is left and now you have a more than one crisis. Not only did the resource become unavailable any longer to mankind but you also created an enviornmental issue. Great job. :thumbup:

Property owners do mankind a tremendous service by economizing limited resources and making the capital more productive so everyone can have access to it. On top of that ,they provide work for people. They are truly heroes.:D

And if you don't believe in ownership how is it that everyone somehow owns everything in nature as a collective? How can it be theft from anyone if there is no considered owner in the first place? :D

You're approaching the argument from the perspective of a capitalist in an attempt to one up Wat Tyler, which is truly a case of intellectual dishonesty. Land is communally owned; this is not the same as property rights. Capitalists are the ones who believe land is unowned and that you have every right to take fifteen acres of lush wilderness and mineral deposits for yourself so long as you meet whatever criteria of the day by anarcho-capitalists is most acceptable - which is quite remarkable considering Pusher Robert attempted to discredit the socialist movement with sweeping generalizations about religion. If capitalists can't even agree on the core subject of their system - what makes property rights? - their movement is indeed stuck in the lesser waves. I constantly bring up this point but you dodge it: under anarcho-capitalism how do acquire backyards? By mowing grass? Is that mixing labor with the land?


Well thank God people would enforce their property rights. If blatant force is necessary, more power to the owner. :D

[...] Looks as if Pusher Robot should have charged capitalists with being overly obsessed with violence rather than communists.


When a resource in nature becomes valuable to mankind for production, I.e. the natural use of something in nature ( such as animals, metals, etc) becomes coveted by humans for production it becomes capital. Now, these resources are limited and need to be preserved. You're description is accurate. Here you have the property owner holding of the mob because the mob wants all of it now. If the long term survival is not tied to anyone's prosperity by property rights then the resource automatically looses all long term capital value and is over extracted by the mob in the present until none of it is left and now you have a more than one crisis. Not only did the resource become unavailable any longer to mankind but you also created an enviornmental issue.

Superficial grandstanding. Your case study is unproven by reality and blatantly ignores the very real concern populations have for their environment over direct owners of capital. If your descriptions were true, native tribes wouldn't have approached the Brazilian government demanding for some regulation on the logging patterns used by private firms. Replenishing resources is cost and time consuming in the short and medium-terms of business, and the extent of most company's environmental programs is an advertising campaign that likes to fudge the facts.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

OK, I really have to object to the bastardization of a perfectly good word here.

The greek suffix -archy denotes "rule" and the -cracy suffix denotes "power." Therefore Anarchy has a straightforward literal meaning from its greek bases: without rule. Likewise monarchy: rule of one, matriarchy: rule by women, oligarchy: rule of a few. Democracy literally means "people power."

So, what is my complaint? If you have an anarchy, that is literally, no ruler, then the power of any democratic organization is zero. No rule means no government, no law, no authority with power. An anarchy cannot, by definition, have institutions like courts and laws that exert rules on people!

You're spinning an entirely new definition. According to Proudhon, anarchism is a combination of an, which means without/the lack of, and archos, which means ruler. I don't mean to sound rude, but I believe he has more credibility than you on account of his penning the term anarchist. Regardless, -archy is often substituted for a specific type of government with rulers: plutocracy, oligarchy, andrarchy - rule of the rich, few, and men. Anarchy would thus mean rule of nobody. Power and rule are not the same specifications. If two people choose to associate, they form a mutual institution that can only be broken by force. Democracy grants two individuals equal power, and if the mutual balance is ever imbalanced the system can no longer be called democracy since a leader has usurped the people's power. You can pretend to have a vassal/lord relation in bed, but if the other person wants to stop and you refuse it is not against anarchist principles to forcefully remove you. That's because autonomy and democracy can co-exist. Someone like dejavu who busts his jollies over individualism can live in the wild and never associate just to leave all restraints behind.

The ancient Greeks never hypothesized about theoretical anarchism - they used the word anarchy to mean disorder much like the images one conjures when they imagine Somalia in the early 90s.

If you really want to nitpick your way through Greek, anarchy - literally translated - would be an oxymoron. Everyone rules over some part of land or geographical area without the presence of government. You wouldn't occupy the space I'm currently residing in, after all.

Anarchism is quite much rooted in democracy. The only exceptions I'm aware of are market/capitalist "anarchists" who relieve the burden onto private protection agencies since democratic organization would go against their belief that land is unowned. Of course it's questionable whether this is even a real part of theoretical anarchism since the private agencies are essentially microcosms to existing states.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

And if in a Communist society I can't control my own business: then I will have to make do with controlling Democratic workers councils and assemblies.

It's one of the charms of being a Capitalist--like cream, we alway rise to the top. :laugh:

How would you go about that when at any moment the workers' council could simply shuffle you back within its rank? Imagine you're at a party with some mates and all of a sudden your best friend stands up and declares that everyone has to rape the person to their left. Maybe your friend organized the party at the shop he owns - that doesn't mean you have to comply to his wishes.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

AnCaps don't believe in post scarcityOf course. Capitalism's system of distribution is built on the principle of scarcity. For that reason "AnCaps" are behind in the times. We had the means to feed over 12 billion people until they were fat in the 1970s. Most consumer goods and services can be provided to everyone without a price system. The only noticeable exceptions I'm aware of are houses, vehichles, and a very select few commodities introduced into the consumption pool - the former two issues could be resolved by a limited price system managed democratically until far into the future when automation resolves the problem; the few commodities whose demand outperforms the supply can go on a first-come basis - until production reaches the point where it's largely irrelevant - which, with today's machinery, is no time at all.


Energy accounting? It seems that you're assuming energy would be super abundent and require hardly any production inputs.Not at all. Read up on technocracy.


long as we're still mortal human beings, and everything requires input factors which couldn't be calculated by socialists in a modern economy of billions of actors.Wrong. I recommended technocracy just a few inches above, but I'll give a brief outline of how a communist economy could handle supply and demand simultaneously. In the late 1980s corporations adopted a system that interrogated computer software with purchases. WalMart in particular has an elaborate system where, whenever X amount of Y item leaves the store, the computer automatically calls for new equipment. This technology was actually built on the Chilean "Opsroom," where socialist planners started work on integrating the whole system so that all problems would be culled out to the planners real-time in a single room. A decentralized model that follows the corporate structure is very manageable. One would pick up their items at a store, go over and check out their items, swipe their personal energy credit, and have the system track what was purchased. The computers could then follow the consumption patterns and conduct orders without human involvement, leaving democratically-elected planners (either through direct election or qualified demarchy) with a fairly easy job at hand. Scientists and mechanics could be allocated to work on an overhead machine that would simply scan your cart all at once as you leave, since it would be pointless to have a job market of one and half million cashiers like we currently do.


The 'contributions' to capitalism by the socialists or quasi-socialists have actually made things worse off.You think that. You also think the gold standard is a superior alternative to fiat, which honestly makes me very skeptical of where your economic beliefs stem from.


Social security is a ponzi scheme and another tax which is funded through no savings and increased inflation.
Social security allows millions of adults to not worry about their livelihood after their muscles make them weak in the job market. Maybe once you're older you'll better understand.

Social security was originally just a piggy bank that recycled back to the people. Blame the conservatives in America for taking it to fund war expenses. Al Gore's "lock box" mantra was ridiculed in the 2000 debate - guess people are now slapping their foreheads.

Inflation is a negligible matter for most people. Only capitalists care about their profit shares not growing at the maximal capability; that's why they throw a fit whenever the numbers come in, but unemployment and sinking wage statistics are brushed off. Up until the 70s wages kept up with inflation to the point that it didn't really matter. Now people are having to resort to debt to such a degree that most of the growth in the past 30 years is debt.


Minimum wage is price fixing and labor unions target non union labor creating unemployment, and government healthcare is terribly inefficient and puts your very health in the hands of bureaucrats.1.) Certain levels of price fixing work. Minimum wage is one such example. As soon as the government started neglecting its use in the 70s, wages fell behind inflation.
2.) Labor unions strengthen employment and wage rates- this is non-debatable. The states with the highest unemployment figures are the deep South, and the South-East.
3.) Universal health care has consecutively proven itself to be a better alternative than market-oriented alternatives. Cuba is ranked one beneath America in terms of health care provisions. Even Americans are coming to realize just how big of a scam market health coverage is.


The social programs of Bismarck's Germany put the population in the hands of the State and marched them into war.
No correlation. Just baseless claims. Germany didn't go to war because it had workman's compensation. This is complete nonsense and anyone worth their weight in fecal matter can see that.


Production was redirected to manufacturing arms instead of something contributing to real growth.All countries directed production towards arms: Germany, France, Britain - even the United States. It's profitable to go to war - for private firms. Social democracies =/= necessary war production. Look at Norway and Sweden.

You may want to change history, but the fact remains inscribed forever: Germany industrialized in less time than Britain, with better living conditions, and it was the world's first social democracy.


There is no reason in anarchy that a community of people can't agree upon a constitution. Government is not the same as a state when you really break it down.
I agree. Government and the state are different organization structures. However, I recommend you visit "Anti-state.com" and tell the market anarchists there you're an AnCap who believes in "common law." They'll blow a lid for your apparent contradiction. By inviting social order into the equation (outside of tight controls by private firms), you're susceptible to arguing in favor of left-libertarian/Georgist market involvement.

[apathy maybe]

OK, I really have to object to the bastardization of a perfectly good word here.

The greek suffix -archy denotes "rule" and the -cracy suffix denotes "power." Therefore Anarchy has a straightforward literal meaning from its greek bases: without rule. Likewise monarchy: rule of one, matriarchy: rule by women, oligarchy: rule of a few. Democracy literally means "people power."

So, what is my complaint? If you have an anarchy, that is literally, no ruler, then the power of any democratic organization is zero. No rule means no government, no law, no authority with power. An anarchy cannot, by definition, have institutions like courts and laws that exert rules on people!

A lot of anarchists don't actually think that what Wat proposes is actually anarchistic at all. Very much for the reason you mention.


Anyway, Dejavu, I still haven't noticed you giving a definition of anarchism yet... You claim to be an anarchist, but haven't given your definition. I would appreciate your answer to a my previous post which asks this question.

[Kropotesta]

Nope. A business is an intellectual property. Nothing more nothingless. I can fire all my employees and start up again down the road in a heart beat any time I want. I own it it's mine, workers are interchangable. It's just the way it is.



I guess you aren't the "go to" guy for a better mousetrap. :(



You miss the point. I mean you REALLY MISS THE POINT. When the revolution come--I'll be running the show. Me and the other Capitalists. We'll adapt, we'll change, and we'll be the the guys that make things happen in Communist society. We'll be charming, we'll be sweet. Your wives will fall in love with us. You'll see us on posters with red flags behind us, we'll promise our support to people's rights and individual freedoms and all that crap. I'll be the head friend in your friendship groups. I'll be the guy that solves your problems within the group. We'll all be equal, of course, it's just that some of us will be more equal than others. :) I'll be a GREAT Communist. Really. You'll have issues about truth and justice and Marx and Lennin. I won't be bothered with all of that. I'll make sure the people get what they want, I'll make them happy. One's freedom is a small price to pay for happiness, isn't it?

And in the end I, and those like me, will take control.

Wat, I promise.




Read my bio on the OI intro page. I'm the real thing--a business owning, employee bossing, stock buying and selling capitalist. When the Revolution comes.....I will own you. :lol:
I'm sorry TomK but what makes you think that you'd be able to keep hold of business after collectivisation and a revolution that abolishes capitalism? I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't last long in an anarchist communist revolution/society with that attitude towards business and most likely be kicked out of the community.

[Dejavu]

Just reading for now. There was a lot of criticism tossed my way by GeneCosta and I'll reply later on when I have the time. I just wanted to say I'm almost beside myself. Never on any forum have I met someone so diametrically opposed to my own views as GeneCosta and I've been on some forums before where people regularly disagree with me.
There is virtually nothing we agree on, not only that , we are polar opposites, think antithesis. I'm almost inclined to call Gene the Anti-Dejavu. :laugh:

Individualist Anarchist vs Collectivist Anarchist
Gold(sound money)vs Fiat(unsound money)
Capitalist vs Communist
Market vs Technocracy
Scarcity vs Post Scarcity
Laissez fair vs Heavy Regulation
Historical analysis of human action vs Historical materialism
Private ownership vs Collective ownership
Social Security is a scam vs Social security is a blessing
Private healthcare vs Universal or state healthcare
Inflation is critical vs Inflation is negligible
MW and Labor Unions create unemployment vs MW and LU create employment
State bureaucrats trigger war vs Private-independent businessmen trigger war

And many other issues I won't bother to list right now. I think it all boils down to the understanding of Economics. Philosophy and historical understanding are certainly important and they are major contributing factors but I think our diametrically opposed views on econ plays the most critical role.

Well, I'll write more later to respond to Gene. Gene is dead wrong on everything but I appreciate his challenges to me and I will certainly respond. I also appreciate the civil debate. Be back later.

[Forward Union]

Nope. A business is an intellectual property. Nothing more nothingless. I can fire all my employees and start up again down the road in a heart beat any time I want. I own it it's mine, workers are interchangable. It's just the way it is.

Urm no it's not. Well. It can be, it depends on the bussiness.

Most bussiness is based on the ownership of physical property, otherwise it's fairly meaningless. So, that could be farms, or factories, or even offices. Something of practical use.

Some bussinesses are based on intellectual property, such as the rights to music recordings or books.


I guess you aren't the "go to" guy for a better mousetrap. :(

I don't understand.


When the revolution come--I'll be running the show. Me and the other Capitalists. We'll adapt, we'll change, and we'll be the the guys that make things happen in Communist society. We'll be charming, we'll be sweet. Your wives will fall in love with us. You'll see us on posters with red flags behind us, we'll promise our support to people's rights and individual freedoms and all that crap.

Well. All decision making in the revolution will be made by decentral workers assemblies. So the furtherst your charm will get you is in passing proposals in your locale. The only way you could get decision making power over the collective is if you fought against the revolution to achieve it. I am not a Leninist, I do not propose the structures that would allow you to get power.

Furthermore you'd only manage that if you pretended to be a communist, so let's say the revolution is sucessful and property is abolsihed...then what will you do? Ask for it back? :lol:


We'll all be equal, of course, it's just that some of us will be more equal than others.

Onyl equal in our oppertunities. "Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the case of boots I refer to the authority of the bootmaker" - Bakunin


Read my bio on the OI intro page. I'm the real thing--a business owning, employee bossing, stock buying and selling capitalist. When the Revolution comes.....I will own you.

I'm going to unionsie your workers.

[pusher robot]

You're spinning an entirely new definition. According to Proudhon, anarchism is a combination of an, which means without/the lack of, and archos, which means ruler. I don't mean to sound rude, but I believe he has more credibility than you on account of his penning the term anarchist.
I don't see how you are contradicting what I said in any way. In your rush to prove me wrong, did you even read what I wrote?
[QUOTE]Regardless, -archy is often substituted for a specific type of government with rulers: plutocracy, oligarchy, andrarchy - rule of the rich, few, and men. Anarchy would thus mean rule of nobody.Congratulations, you just restated my post.

Power and rule are not the same specifications. If two people choose to associate, they form a mutual institution that can only be broken by force. Democracy grants two individuals equal power, and if the mutual balance is ever imbalanced the system can no longer be called democracy since a leader has usurped the people's power.You're right, I really should have distinguished between the suffixes for rule and power - oh wait, I did. Despite all your sound and fury, you have yet to disagree with me here.
You can pretend to have a vassal/lord relation in bed, but if the other person wants to stop and you refuse it is not against anarchist principles to forcefully remove you.Wonderful use of the passive voice, to make it impossible to either agree or disagree.

That's because autonomy and democracy can co-exist.Why are we talking about autonomy all of a sudden? Autonomy != anarchy, just in case you missed that subtlety.


The ancient Greeks never hypothesized about theoretical anarchism - they used the word anarchy to mean disorder much like the images one conjures when they imagine Somalia in the early 90s.
That remains the common connotation of the word, for good reason.


If you really want to nitpick your way through Greek, anarchy - literally translated - would be an oxymoron. Everyone rules over some part of land or geographical area without the presence of government. You wouldn't occupy the space I'm currently residing in, after all.

That's a silly example, though. All your doing is proving your point by gratuitously using a word out of its context. -archy and -cracy words are for describing social poltical organization, not physics.

Anarchism is quite much rooted in democracy.
No. The Greeks, who are the "root" of the term "anarchy," clearly did not see it as being connected to democracy, as even you acknowledge. That is a purely modern invention, and one I take exception to. It's merely propaganda. It's an oxymoron, too, as I pointed out. Power is meaningless without authority to rule. Authority to rule is meaningless without power. Anarchy means no ruler. So even if the power is with the people - a democracy - there is nothing that can be done with it, other than to act in an unruly manner, which completely precludes things that require rules, like law, courts, deliberative bodies, economic coordination, and criminal justice. The best a democracy can do without rules - that is, in anarchy - is to act as a large mob. The Greeks understood this, even some two millenia ago.

[Demogorgon]

You'd probably get shot by one of the other people in the Bar, as I'd hope everyone was armed.
You would hope that everyone in a drinking establishment was armed?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

It's merely propaganda.No more than a capitalist using the word "free market" to denote a system of plunder from the collective. :lol:


I don't see how you are contradicting what I said in any way. In your rush to prove me wrong, did you even read what I wrote?Yes, I did. You went on some grammatical crusade that overlooked "anarchists" being adherents of anarchism.


Congratulations, you just restated my post.Actually, I was refuting your misrepresentation of Greek. You took my post out of context by cutting the paragraph into two different quotes.


Wonderful use of the passive voice, to make it impossible to either agree or disagree.
Wonderful way to contribute nothing worthwhile to the discussion - only empty attacks.


Why are we talking about autonomy all of a sudden? Autonomy != anarchy, just in case you missed that subtlety.Because in the back of your mind you wrongly assumed anarchists are proponents of democracy who neglect the subject of individual autonomy in the process. If two people interact to form a democracy on mutual agreements they are not creating a rule - thus democracy is not opposed to the literal definition as you tried to claim.

That's a silly example, though. All your doing is proving your point by gratuitously using a word out of its context. -archy and -cracy words are for describing social poltical organization, not physics.Super.


The Greeks, who are the "root" of the term "anarchy," clearly did not see it as being connected to democracy, as even you acknowledge.However, the term, when translated to English, does not contradict the definition we give it.

I'm greatly enjoying the fact you're going on about something so trivial as word correlation. I'm sure you're not so hostile towards libertarians who use the word to describe market enthusiasts when it was originally a reference to communists, or conservatives who use the word to describe a philosophy that does not take into consideration monarchies.

[Dejavu]

You're approaching the argument from the perspective of a capitalist in an attempt to one up Wat Tyler, which is truly a case of intellectual dishonesty. Land is communally owned; this is not the same as property rights. Capitalists are the ones who believe land is unowned and that you have every right to take fifteen acres of lush wilderness and mineral deposits for yourself so long as you meet whatever criteria of the day by anarcho-capitalists is most acceptable - which is quite remarkable considering Pusher Robert attempted to discredit the socialist movement with sweeping generalizations about religion. If capitalists can't even agree on the core subject of their system - what makes property rights? - their movement is indeed stuck in the lesser waves. I constantly bring up this point but you dodge it: under anarcho-capitalism how do acquire backyards? By mowing grass? Is that mixing labor with the land? Most capitalists ( particularly anarchos and libertarians) believe that just about everything on earth can be considered property available for ownership. I believe the treating of everything on earth as property ( owned or unowned) is consistent with the collectivist position as well. Collectivist merely uphold that everything is collectively owned instead of privately owned but if something can be owned it is property.
As far as this 'criteria' goes, its not like we believe that something has to be written in stone or reflective of some statutory decree specifically stating how much parcels of land can someone own. Actually its much simpler than that. Its really based on logic and common sense. Its not as if you can own swaths of land and do absolutely nothing with it, particularly if that land yields some particular resource in which it would benefit to transform the land to become more productive so you can put more of that resource out on the market. This way theres more of X resource to go around for society and its mutually beneficial. Its different if you owned miles of desert that really yielded no particular resource to benefit society, actually, the likelihood of you even appropriating the land is low ( but still feasible) since it won't yield you any gain in the marketplace. Your accusation amounts to declaring potential owners will do something purposefully against their own prosperity. What good is a gold mine in my backyard if I don't do anything with it? I profit from the gold mine by trading it out to society and from that point on, the gold mine is a limited resource. The market already handles a lot of the incentive issues you bring up. (i.e. what If I'm a stingy bastard and don't want to share the resources on my property?)
What do you care if I have a backyard with my house or not? What is this on your part besides envy or ignorance? My backyard has little value anyone besides me since its just a plot of grass that , at best, has aesthetic value. Even the aesthetic value can be reflective on the community by contributing its small part into making the neighborhood more beautiful as a whole. Now, say I had a garden back there and it wasn't just a piece of grass plot. Well, either the garden will produce enough food to sustain me which gives my yard some capital value or I'll grow a surplus of food which will become available to society ( i.e. things from MY garden are available to THEM) which gives my garden(former yard) even more capital value. I mean I suppose I could listen to what your saying and see how my backyard is robbing the community. In that case I should dig out the grass and dirt in my backyard and put it out on the market , nay, I just give it away to people and see if they want it. I'll take a wagon full of grass and dirt from my plain backyard and dump it on all my neighbors' doorsteps just to make sure the collective is enjoying my yard. Do you see how ridiculous your argument is now?





Your case study is unproven by reality and blatantly ignores the very real concern populations have for their environment over direct owners of capital. If your descriptions were true, native tribes wouldn't have approached the Brazilian government demanding for some regulation on the logging patterns used by private firms. Replenishing resources is cost and time consuming in the short and medium-terms of business, and the extent of most company's environmental programs is an advertising campaign that likes to fudge the facts.Somebody might want to explain why we don't have a shortage of cows or why cows are not endangered species? I mean humans populated the earth in the last couple centuries much faster than cows and the cow beef to human body ratio is actually quite dramatic. Most people I know of , save Hindus, value cow beef. But then we can look at this from another perspective; we seem to have a shortage of bison ( buffalo) today... I mean back in the day bison and and cows were valued for pretty much similar uses, in fact , cows were valued a bit more, and we somehow end up with a shortage of bison. Anyone want to take a stab at why? As far as the Brazillian government goes, its real simple, if that government would have just done its job and recognized the property rights of the native tribes with the actual trees they used for their own prosperity, we wouldn't have a problem. Furthermore the government technically claims ownership over the forests and jungles like it does here. What happens is the exact same thing that happens here. The government leases out land with trees to loggers and they go to work. It creates perverse incentives for the loggers and they don't want to conserve or even replant since there is no long term capital value in the trees. Thats what happens when government assumes ownership or control of natural resources valuable to production (capital). The capital loses its long term value because no investor has long term gain in it, nobody's own own future prosperity is tied to that of the resource/land. Loggers are going to want to take out as many trees as possible right now. Say a tree will go for 100$ a pop, why cut down only 10 trees for $1,000 when you can cut down 20 because you know your profitability from those trees is only limited to the present and not future. And don't even think about replanting because if you take down the general stock of trees the price of lumber will go up. So next time you get a logging contract from the govt trees might then be $110 a pop and so on. Perverse incentives.
The private owner of the plot of trees would be careful with how much he extracts from the resource and will be sure to plant more trees because its a long term capital investment for him. His prosperity is tied to that of the trees. Think about why a cow farmer doesn't slaughter all his cows at once.




The only exceptions I'm aware of are market/capitalist "anarchists" who relieve the burden onto private protection agencies since democratic organization would go against their belief that land is unowned. Of course it's questionable whether this is even a real part of theoretical anarchism since the private agencies are essentially microcosms to existing states. All land that has use for production is property, owned or unowned, in private or in common. I don't understand how you can have real democracy in anarchism. All you're doing is conferring power onto the majority over the minority. Thats it. And the PDA arguments are getting really old because you still haven't presented a good argument of how or why they could be possibly worse than the state army. You seem to be very fearful of PDAs gaining a monopoly status which is understandable. Whats not understandable is why you feel more comfortable with the state which already has the feared monopoly and forces you to pay for its services.

By the very nature of PDAs being private they have different incentives than the state army actually prevent it from growing unrestricted like the state army. A politician merely has to sell a lie to you and you're going to applaud military expansion and if you don't applaud it, you still have to pay for it and deal with it.




Of course. Capitalism's system of distribution is built on the principle of scarcity. For that reason "AnCaps" are behind in the times. We had the means to feed over 12 billion people until they were fat in the 1970s. Most consumer goods and services can be provided to everyone without a price system. The only noticeable exceptions I'm aware of are houses, vehichles, and a very select few commodities introduced into the consumption pool - the former two issues could be resolved by a limited price system managed democratically until far into the future when automation resolves the problem; the few commodities whose demand outperforms the supply can go on a first-come basis - until production reaches the point where it's largely irrelevant - which, with today's machinery, is no time at all.Well, If I were to extract all the world's food resources at this very moment and not worry about economizing then I could probably feed the world for a few years. But what happens when those few years are over? I mean if we take all the wheat, use none for re-seed, that gives us more wheat in the present but really ignores the future. So lets throw out the price system:

Sorry but you asked for it. Imagine I wanted to restructure grocery stores in America. My goal is to have stores open to everyone with all items at zero price so people can take what they want for 'free.' Since we hate economics , were gonna do a great service for the public. Well first I need to make sure that everyone goes to their nearest store. Somehow, the production required to bring the food to the shelves needs funding. I decide we can just hike up taxes about $3,000/yr for people that can pay it, we don't want the poor to have to pay after all, and thats how we do that. Well now we need people to run the store, we still need a butcher , someone to keep the store clean, and we decide that we will pay everyone equally based on seniority. No matter where you work in the store you're going to get paid the same as another person working the same amount of time as you. So this is our situation.

Well whats likely to happen? Well suppose the butcher has some rotten meat and we don't have as much meat as projected. Naturally, you're going to have to raise taxes for funding to cover for the bad meat. Say our grocery store gets public funding up to 1 billion a year and the appropriations are controlled by some 'democratically elected' selfless people's servant. Well, since we don't have profit-loss anymore we have budgets now. If I manage to have a budget surplus at the end of the year meaning I managed the funds well what good is that going to do me? Certainly I'm not going to get more funding because the appropriations committee will ask why do I need more money when I'm doing fine with my current budget? However, if another grocery store is failing with the its current budget its going to argue that it needs more to sustain operations ' for the good of the people.' Furthermore, our 'democratically elected public servant' is going to want to have as many people under him as possible. Thats the only way to move up. If you can show you can run an operation with many people then you're more likely to get some higher position of greater authority. Oh and another thing, you're free to go out of a store in your community but you're going to have to pay so its like paying double, pay the taxes for our 'free' store and plus some out of community store. So the incentives would actually be all messed up wouldn't they? THe public would reward failure while the private sector punishes failure.

Then you're going to say, well Dejavu your example means nothing, its just theoretical and you don't have any examples... Really? As absurd as our hypothetical store here sounds, it runs exactly like the public school system and most other publically funded and centrally managed programs but especially the public schools.

Ok, so we can price fix right? Just like Genecosta said, a 'democratically' managed price system until we get our magic machines that will eliminate scarcity and this annoying fact of economics forever ! Well, what does that do? Well suppose we say everything in our store is 50 cents then. Its not much different than what would happen in a zero price store. Why feed your dog dog food when you can feed him a gourmet steak every night?Its not like its hurting your pockets. You'd end up with shortages and surpluses but you couldn't balance out the stock of course. If consumers liked X instead of Y better then consumers would take all of X until its scarce in the store but you'd have an overstock of Y. Why would consumers think twice about buying X and/or Y when they cost the same. Its throwing the law of supply and demand out the window as well as reality in general.

Ok Dejavu, did this really happen in real life or are you just theorizing again? Well the theory proved correct before and after experience. Our experiences being many but one particular one to note is the gasoline lines of the 1970s. Ever the price fixers, the government decided that it wasn't fair for these greedy capitalists to charge consumers more for a more limited supply on gas. Remember , big brother was looking out for you. Well what happened? We got lines , lots of em. In fact , we even started rationing gas on certain days. People waiting in line would even get into fist fights. People with more money would bribe their way into the front of the lines and the poor people were just out of luck. But wait ... price controls were lifted, gas was able to sell at its current market price, the lines vanished quickly, and it was business as usual.





Wrong. I recommended technocracy just a few inches above, but I'll give a brief outline of how a communist economy could handle supply and demand simultaneously. In the late 1980s corporations adopted a system that interrogated computer software with purchases. WalMart in particular has an elaborate system where, whenever X amount of Y item leaves the store, the computer automatically calls for new equipment. This technology was actually built on the Chilean "Opsroom," where socialist planners started work on integrating the whole system so that all problems would be culled out to the planners real-time in a single room. A decentralized model that follows the corporate structure is very manageable. One would pick up their items at a store, go over and check out their items, swipe their personal energy credit, and have the system track what was purchased. The computers could then follow the consumption patterns and conduct orders without human involvement, leaving democratically-elected planners (either through direct election or qualified demarchy) with a fairly easy job at hand. Scientists and mechanics could be allocated to work on an overhead machine that would simply scan your cart all at once as you leave, since it would be pointless to have a job market of one and half million cashiers like we currently do.
Well interesting you would promote a WalMart innovation... but All I can say to the calculator is so what? How is this an argument against the market? The computer requires inputs to do calculations, where do you think it gets the input from if not by consumer preferences and evaluations? Since its impossible to measure consumer utility with cardinal numbers you do it through pricing in monetary terms which actually can be mathematically calculated. Without prices, the computer couldn't do the calculations, duh! How do you figure outputs with no inputs? I don't see what you're trying to prove with this argument since I agree with most of it. I don't see how you can't see that the market does this more efficiently. You're making a case for profit-loss and pricing ( see market) here because your proposed central planners wouldn't have anything to work with if they didn't have the inputs for the calculator. But the central planners are really unnecessary and really obstruct what the market can already do better. If its up to the planners instead of the decentralized market to decide ( I suppose 'democratically') what to allocate where for all the millions of markets in the economy then it would be utterly sluggish. The decentralized ( see free) market would be able to calculate these things instantly since the consumers already voted in the first place. Central planners are subject to many non economic influences ( politics) and are just plain retarded because they retard what the market can do much better anyway.






You think that. You also think the gold standard is a superior alternative to fiat, which honestly makes me very skeptical of where your economic beliefs stem from.It stems from common sense. Defense of unsound money against sound money is just as absurd as it sounds saying it.



Social security allows millions of adults to not worry about their livelihood after their muscles make them weak in the job market. Maybe once you're older you'll better understand. As if people couldn't plan their own retirements? No, everyone in society is coerced to pay for someone else . The SS fund is bankrupt and funded only through payers NOW instead of money actually being saved by the people that paid into it in the first place. The government assumed management of peoples' retirement , stole from their paychecks for years , and now has nothing to show for it besides stealing from other peoples' paychecks.


Social security was originally just a piggy bank that recycled back to the people. Blame the conservatives in America for taking it to fund war expenses. Al Gore's "lock box" mantra was ridiculed in the 2000 debate - guess people are now slapping their foreheads.Huh? Blame virtually ALL the politicians. Aside from the two Bushes, just about every other war we found ourselves in was done by a Democrat. LBJ, the guy that really got SS rolling also ran us off a cliff with debt with Vietnam. Here you have 'democratically elected public servants' addicted to spending, including busting open the piggy bank, and now they can do it as much as they want because they made unbacked paper legal tender.
Al Gore's lock box is stupid anyway and shows he doesn't understand economics ( no surprise) . What Gore doesn't understand is that the incentive is to spend the money now. Why? Because if you throw paper in a vault that keeps on loosing value from inflation for 50 years then its not gonna be worth a damn anyway. Consider how much the dollar has lost value in the last 50 years. It used to be you could purchase a gallon of gas for around thirty cents. Times change and inflation grows. People are slapping their foreheads because they are wondering why its happening. And then you have nerve to speak against gold...


Inflation is a negligible matter for most people. Only capitalists care about their profit shares not growing at the maximal capability; that's why they throw a fit whenever the numbers come in, but unemployment and sinking wage statistics are brushed off. Up until the 70s wages kept up with inflation to the point that it didn't really matter. Now people are having to resort to debt to such a degree that most of the growth in the past 30 years is debt. I think you would be the ideal student to showcase what a government education can get you. You said inflation is negligible and you blamed the inflation on greed. I mean you're perfect to showcase man. Its so ignorant it doesn't deserve a response.



1.) Certain levels of price fixing work. Minimum wage is one such example. As soon as the government started neglecting its use in the 70s, wages fell behind inflation.But its the same government causing the inflation. Price fixing in the 70s amounted to long lines at the pump if you don't remember. The answer is not increase wage and fix the price of labor ABOVE productive value ( thats like charging $20 for a piece of gum) but to decrease inflation. When inflation doesn't happen and the economy grows, the purchasing power of the currency goes up. Also, inflation isn't aggregate and neither are wages, certain parts of the economy are hit unevenly and pretty awfully. The price of living is going up because of inflation not because you're not throwing more dollars at labor. The inflation makes the purchasing power of the wages earned by labor LESS and this reflects in the economy. Get it?



2.) Labor unions strengthen employment and wage rates- this is non-debatable. The states with the highest unemployment figures are the deep South, and the South-East.Don't forget the old industrial belt of America ( upper midwest and east). Unions actually do the exact opposite. Unions benefit some labor but really hurt most labor. Unions don't target 'greedy companies,' they target non-Union labor. Trust me, I used to be in the second largest Union in America ( not by choice) and we actually went on strike. Imagine raising the price of X 2x above what its actually worth. What happens to X? Well the X that is bought is safe and made that handsome profit but the X that didn't sell at the artificially fixed price didn't make a dime. What happens to the prices of Y, Z , and so on? They go down because X is being overpriced and they can't do nothing about it. So like at my job, we were machinists. The Union wanted to give us an outrageously high wage. Not that I can complain but heres the effects... First, the company said , no , you're out of your mind and I think anyone would've came to the same conclusion. So then the Union said, ok company , lets talk. So then they came out with this brilliant scam , we'll pay seniority double what we pay non seniority but they'll do the same job. There were two offers on the table. A middle of the road wage which the company offered with some better fringe benefits and the two tier wage which the Union pushed since the majority of the Union were seniority and they 'democratically' decided on it. So here it was, you had seniority making double and non seniors making shit wage with less fringe benefits. We wanted the company deal, the Union wanted to buy off the mob. So happens is that only a few workers get higher wages ( often too high) and the rest of the working force gets lower wages. The industries of the companies that are unionized often hire least and non Union usually get booted. If wages are the answer, I say we pass a law to pay everyone $1000/hr and see where that takes us.


3.) Universal health care has consecutively proven itself to be a better alternative than market-oriented alternatives. Cuba is ranked one beneath America in terms of health care provisions. Even Americans are coming to realize just how big of a scam market health coverage isUHC isn't anything really special and its false hope. We're already half way to UHC since what we have now really isn't the market solution. Insurance companies get subsidies from government with price fixing plus just about anyone that applies to most insurance companies can get in because insurance isn't allowed to discriminate and actually insurance companies prefer it that way because all they have to do is lobby for more price mangling from govt and everything is all good, the government actually protects many of them from market punishment. Then you have big pharma. Free market error? I think not. Big pharma is also subsidized and competition is regulated by govt. FDA is all over it f*ing up and they are protected by Drug Re-Importation Act. Pharma gets to charge American consumers an arm and a leg because we can't import drugs , not even our own, from other countries and they have a field day ripping us off. Of course , insurance companies love this because they can lobby for more price mangling. Whats perhaps the most absurd thing is that we have these welfare states in Europe pointing to us laughing saying ' see , we do it much better.' But little do the pompous jackasses realize that they receive most of the medicine from us. Most R&D is subsidized by the taxpayer, Big Pharma can sell it at only the production ( minus R&D cost and sometimes less than production cost) to the welfare states for a great rate. Welfare states buy the stuff , make their own generic brands and try to sell us our stuff back but then our government says no-no and we can only buy FDA overcharged American BS. So the Welfare states that are less populated, don't spend too much in R&D, and buy our stuff cheap ( thank inflation and the falling dollar) basically have a considerable portion of their healthcare paid for by the American taxpayer as well and then they're going to brag to us just to add insult to injury. And they still can't get it right when it comes to urgent emergency healthcare compared to the half-UHC here.


All countries directed production towards arms: Germany, France, Britain - even the United States. It's profitable to go to war - for private firms. Social democracies =/= necessary war production. Look at Norway and Sweden.Norway and Sweden were far less touched by war than some of the other nations. I'll write about Sweden in particular later and I will show that Sweden over the last 50 years has been on the brink but it was always conservative more pro-market types that got it back , handled the currency , and then the welfare spenders took over again. Sweden is real excellent and free market about trade for example. Life for the British commoner in the first half of the 19th century amounted to little more than poop. Britain lagged entering the full stages of the Ind. Revolution because it basically bankrolled the Napoleonic wars shortly after the American war and then had the dreaded Corn Tax placed on it until the liberals finally opened up England to more laissez fair principles in the mid 19th century. Notice, it was Engels that wrote about the downturn in England because of mostly the Corn Tax by this time but like the conservative Tories which started the crusade against the Ind. Revolution, he placed the blame in the wrong place but thats not surprising considering his source was the Tories.





I agree. Government and the state are different organization structures. However, I recommend you visit "Anti-state.com" and tell the market anarchists there you're an AnCap who believes in "common law." They'll blow a lid for your apparent contradiction. By inviting social order into the equation (outside of tight controls by private firms), you're susceptible to arguing in favor of left-libertarian/Georgist market involvement.This is just funny.