A rational debate- empahsis on econ - no c&p for fucks sake

[Som]

"you seem to assume everyone wants the same goals- you say not everyone considers betterign themselves a material issue, i say that not everyone WANTS to work together for the greater good. our greatest thinkers did not do so in committees or communes, they were individuals. ancap gives teh freedom to live as a hermit if one so desires, as well as the ability to live in a commune if that is your thing. "

As they have the oppurtunity in any sort of anarchist system.
Everyone has just as much the right to join a commune as they do to not.
As well as being in a commune does not somehow stop the greatest thinkers from anything.
Social anarchism and individualist anarchism are not exclusive to eachother.

"""They really take care of you here," said Samantha Budd, a British researcher who works for drug maker AstraZeneca in Soedertaelje, south of Stockholm. Her move to Sweden from the United States allowed her more time off, a slower work pace and ergonomic office furniture tailored to her body.
"If it has slipped in standards, what was there before? It's hard to imagine," "

Sounds quite nice really, that last quote didn't say anything supporting the implictation.

"sounds like they just realized that there is no real positive incentive to work when they dont feel like it; the group will take care of them anyway. right now, the problem is noticable, and grossly inefficeint, but wait till everyone catches on. "

In state socialism, there are still incentives and punishments and such, that does not sort of drop a need to lessen the quality of not work over work.
In communism work becomes more of a social issue instead of such a purely economic and necesary look to it. So the motivations to work and not work are quite different, and are more connected to social conditions than the usual greed of sorts.

"as for saying that 5) was an isolated incident, come on now, i was just using an example. look at a picture of a bazaar or something- how many people there selling look like they got their startup capital from taxes? with determination and hard work, nothing is impossible. thats right, hard work- theres no such thing as a free lunch, adn you know it as well as i. "

For the toiling masses of poor, anything but a rare chance to make a few dollars to help themselves in the most minor of things is rare.
No such thing as a free lunch, unfortunate though if you can't afford it, but of course i guess some do need those million lunches, because they rest are just starving because theyre lazy.
(sorry about the sarcasm, rare to get to that sort of thing, but was just rather fitting)

"i realized that once you get to communism, and if the people are idealists and dedicated and willing to supress their instinctive human nature"

Ah, playing the human nature card again. Nevermind all the other arguements, you again return to capitalisms assumption that greed is something beyond its society.

"the ***** is getting there"

Well the marxist idea is the socialist state, which is there to develop the right sort of society where the human condition works for it, those with a blank slate.

"democratic socialist states such as much of western europe only keep their industry functional by having very high tariffs on foreign goods and only trading with local partners."

Western europe? socialist? eh? Western europe is full of capitalist social-democratic welfare states.
Canada is quite similiar to these countries, and with NAFTA sure as hell doesn't fit your description.

[Socialist Pig]

Here's a situation I'd like an anarcho-capitalist to look at. In an anarcho-capitalistic society, lets assume a small business employs the police services of a very large and powerful corporation. What stops this company from simply sending in a team of police to murder the owners and taking control of the land. Because this company is very powerful they can easily conceal the crime(which is not a crime because there are no laws). The owner has no protection because the people employed to defend him/her are murdering them.

What stops the corporations?

[Umoja]

And the Corporations don't necessarilly have to be Democratic.

[antieverything]

Exactly, or if the capitalist wants to hire a group of thugs to kill organizing workers...no problem. What are the workers going to do? The boss owns the cops?

Kid Icarus, Noam Chomsky praised Smith because he wasn't the free market proponent that he is made out to be. He made astute observations about the inherent flaws of free markets and his sympathy for the workers, just scroll down to the bottom section of this page-- http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/Quotes-economics.htm . As Chomsky says, "You're supposed to worship [Adam Smith] but you aren't allowed to read him."

A good read for capitalists here would be this... http://www.wiu.edu/users/miecon/wiu/yunker...er/postlang.htm an essay on different theories of market socialist forms. RedStar2000 doesn't agree with it but, oh well. Socially (worker/locality) run companies would compete on a market where the uncompetitive, inefficient companies would appear before a court and possibly be put under some level of state control.

Uncle Moneybags, or whatever your name is...Actually, Social Democracies had great success until the recent European recession, outgrowing the American economy and in some cases surpassing its standard of living. Besides, growth doesn't mean as much in a less capitalist society. Regulated markets have worked wonderfully in many occasions but I challenge you to produce any evidence of less government intervention resulting in greater prosperity for the majority of people. Let's try American history...the Gilded Age? Nope. Reagon years? Try again. In the rest of the world...Chile, the lab-test for the free market with an economy designed by a team of free-market economists? Failed miserably...but ironically it is still held to be a major success by America's media because they start the graph of economic growth at the very bottom of the recession that the free-market caused. Chile is now just pulling out of the hole left by the Chicago school of economics thanks only to their abandonment of it and adoption of Japanese style, ultra-regulated capitalism. Has the IMF/Worldbank's crazy policy of forcing privitization in loan seeking countries paid off? For the IMF and Worldbank it has...because they got to buy em up and drive up prices. It killed the economies of several second and third world countries.

...wow, this was easier than I thought.

Here are some more things to read about the lies you are told concerning free-markets.

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/GOVERNMEN...ESS_STORIES.htm

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/THE_GREAT..._DEPRESSION.htm

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/L-exploit.htm

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/L-homoeconomicus.htm

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/L-deregulation.htm

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/L-growth.htm

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/8Comparison.htm

(Edited by antieverything at 4:58 pm on Jan. 1, 2003)

[antieverything]

Here is a site dedicated to debunking the bullshit put forward by the anarcho-capitalists and libertarian right.

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

[peoplenotprofits]

Quote: from Socialist Pig on 7:49 am on Jan. 1, 2003
Here's a situation I'd like an anarcho-capitalist to look at. In an anarcho-capitalistic society, lets assume a small business employs the police services of a very large and powerful corporation. What stops this company from simply sending in a team of police to murder the owners and taking control of the land. Because this company is very powerful they can easily conceal the crime(which is not a crime because there are no laws). The owner has no protection because the people employed to defend him/her are murdering them.

What stops the corporations?

Without "laws" and "government" it would be complete chaos.Murder and theft would run rampant.

[antieverything]

Well, that is a matter for debate and is best left for another time...

The thing about Anarcho-Capitalism is that there IS a state, it just isn't democratic, it's plutocratic. There are still cops...authority that must be obeyed. Only in anarcho-capitalism, this authority is entirely and openly in the hands of capital.

[Som]

Without "laws" and "government" it would be complete chaos.Murder and theft would run rampant.

I wasn't really going to drag this off to that, but since your being quite repetitive, without any real arguements, I'll respond to it.

First let me mention i'll defend it from a anarchist position and not an anarcho-capitalist position. (anarcho-capitalists are not anarchists, as they support authority and hierarchy), as well as anarcho-capitalists do have more laws of sorts, just the law is whatever is profitable.

Are you and most of the people you know just cautious murderers? Thinking most people dont have anything wrong with murder at the least and the only thing keeping them from killing people is fear of getting caught.
As well as the fact that a large motivation of crime is based on the society that surrounds it. many murders are crimes of power in a sense, often a response to being subjugated constantly, as theres not an authority, this problem is quite reduced.
In the same sense of things, do you go and drive on the wrong side of the road when the police aren't around? No, if you do, you're bound to get hit eventually.

As well as the fact that murder is imposing your will on someone, and something thats not tolerated in any society.
On theft, well, in anarchist communism, simply there is no theft.

"You and your damn laws, the good people don't need em and the bad people dont obey them, so what good are they?" -

[Crusader 4 da truth]

My girlfriend is a libertarian (if you haven’t guessed I’m a conservative). While anarchist is a strong word, she does favor the abolishment of most government programs including the police department, public schools, public parks, public libraries, public highways ect. She’s a strict constitutionist the only legitimate function of government is to protect its citizens. Thus all you would need is a flat sales tax to fund the armed services. The difference between her views of limited government is that she (along with most libertarians) respects the rule of law and individual freedoms. With out property rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association any capitalist society (anarchist or not) is doomed to failure. In short she respects the political processes while most communist simply encourage mindless revolution with no real policy proposals.

We have already seen some of this ideas been carried out in the present administration. Michael Powel (head of the FCC) has become one the great deregulators of our time. Opening the telecom markets to multitude of competing commercial interests, to ensure that or fledgling telecommunications revolution takes hold in ways we never thought possible. We are already starting to see the results of this deregulations and it will be exciting to watch its progress as it transforms our world.

Christie Whitman announced a variety of bold new policy proposals including rolling back antiquated environmental regulations that where preventing power plants from modernizing to more fuel-efficient technologies. (of course this was widely decried by the left)

Bush appears like he is making some headway on private accounts for social security, ideally this program would be eliminated altogether, but if the government is going to force me to save at least it will be taxed exempt and I will be allowed to control where my money is allocated.

Finally Bush is likely to propose even more tax cuts and I suspect a complete overhaul of the whole system after the 2004 election.

Of course all of this change comes painfully to slowly for some libertarians who want instantaneous change. But more pragmatic thinkers realize that some slow change is better then none. For those that believe in limited government (conservatives and libertarians) the message is clear it’s a long fit but we are winning it.


(Edited by Crusader 4 da truth at 10:04 pm on Jan. 1, 2003)

[uncle moneybags]

Apparently some of you never took the time to read my posts before, and keep claiming murder, theft, and rape would continue with nothing to check them. since anarcho-capitalism relies on the market, we will examine the question with an eye towards profits. As my employer, is it profitable for one to senselessly murder your employees? no. You seem to beleive that without a strong government presence threatening people, everyone would simply go and put a bullet in their neighbor for shits and giggles. The flaw in your argument, as som pointed out, is that people are not intrstically evil and seek only to hurt each other. If this seems a somewhat shallow argument, there is still the fact that people are not defenseless to conted with. Throughout history, various weapons ahve given the common man a weapon against the ruling class- longbows, pikes, and now guns. a bullet will kill a rich capitalist just as well as a poor communist. the goal of these implements is to make it unprofitable for someone to hurt or steal from you. if you own a small house, you keep a gun for defense- a burglar is not going to risk death or injury for a few material posessions. If you own a massive company, you will need to keep a standing security force. While this may sound like a throwback to feudalism, it is quite different.feudal societies kept weapons out of the hands of peasants- ancap has no such restrictions. If my boss buys a tank with the intention of strikebreaking, harcore style, me and some coworkers go out and buy a bunch of cheap rocket launchers. The goal is to make peacful interaction and diplomacy much more palatable and profitable than conflict, which it invariably is. every person killed is one less customer, one less worker, one more nail in the coffin of the company(killing workers doesnt normally go over well with customers). In addition, if one doesnt wish to carry around a rifle and a bazooka and 40 lbs of body armor all the time (and who would?), there is the personal defense force to consider. essentially, it acts much like an insurance company, in that you pay a fee and the company is contractually obliged to protect you in any and all circumstances. there is little incentive for the compnay to take your money and run, as no one would buy personal protection that doesnt work.

"Western europe? socialist? eh? Western europe is full of capitalist social- democratic welfare states.
Canada is quite similiar to these countries, and with NAFTA sure as hell doesn't fit your description. "

thats why i didnt use canada as an example. also, what CAN i use as an example of socialism, everything ive said so far has been declared a capitalist cesspool. theres got to be at least one example? oneida commune? native american societies? anything?

i suggest you read the story of a member of the asc forums who spent several years in a commune. very eye-opening.

http://anti-state.com/forum/index.php?boar...did=106;start=0

make sure you have the ENTIRE url copied. Also, ancom will work in ancap, but not vice versa; ancap allows freedom to do whatever one pleases; ancom only truly allows for one possible lifestyle, as private property is not allowed. regardless, in either society, not everyone is goign to be happy; that is a simple fact of life. ideally, both of our groups could have a mutual agreement- it seems the state is a mutual enemy, and both systems of society work much better with idealistic members. i have no problem with ancom as long as it allows one to opt out; and i am not responsible for my neighbor and vice versa.

[Crusader 4 da truth]

“i have no problem with ancom as long as it allows one to opt out; and i am not responsible for my neighbor and vice versa.”

Moneybags the problem with communism is that it become incoherent with out a massive government bureaucracy. Yeah a commune might work with a few dedicated followers, but that’s not what the people in this forum want. They want to over through the worlds governments and impose this system on every one. They aren’t happy to live simply in a commune, they want to have high tech medical care and automobiles, PC’s, and all the other things capitalism produces. How is that possible in commune?


(Edited by Crusader 4 da truth at 10:23 pm on Jan. 1, 2003)

[antieverything]

Um, Uncle Moneybags, do you really think that you and your coworkers are going to be able to do shit? The boss owns the police that means he makes the laws. Do you think that huge corporation that makes rocket launchers will sell them to workers? Do you think that if they did, you would be able to win? There would be millions of impoverished unemployed drooling at the chance to take your place...fuck, while you were working at below subsistance wages where do you think you would get money to buy heavy arms? Face it, unregulated greed will eventually destroy liberty. Revolution would be inevitable and the revolution would focus around wealth redistribution.

Wake up, my friend. Welcome to reality.

Crusader, you realize that the internet was produced by THE GOVERNMENT. Without the HUGE expenditures that the government used to fund NASA, we wouldn't have satelite communications. No corporation could fund that sort of thing. The government is spearheading the genome project because no corporation will. Our technology isn't advanced enough to take advantage of the knowledge so it isn't profitable...but we will be able to use it and millions of lives will be saved. No thanks to your magical market.

In democratic socialism, consumer goods would be the most important focus of industry...democracy would put the focus of advancement on the people, not on the military or other such waste. I believe in private enterprise but not exploitation of labor. If you want to make computers, go ahead. I've stated before how the future's high tech medical care will be coming from government-funded research, not pharmacutical mega-corps.

Moneybags, you want an example of socialism in practice? Look at the thousands of worker-run cooperatives in the United States. Many of them are outperforming their capitalist counterparts. Look at Mondragon Corp in Spain...it is one of the largest and most successful corporations in Spain but it is a worker-controlled collective, the living dream of an anarchist priest. Look at Israeli Kabbutzes (Kabbutzi? whatever.) where people are learning advanced tech skills but living communaly at the same time.

Both of you are sadly diluted. I can tell from Moneybag's belief in the equal power of workers when all power rests with capital. I can tell from Crusader's blind following of all things privitized and deregulated. Just look at the problems deregulation has caused in the cable industry...remember when you could choose exactly what channels you wanted? You can't anymore because it isn't as profitable and the government isn't regulating them anymore. In your case, there is hope. You are at least a thinker and I respect that. Moneybags, on the other hand, needs to deconstruct everything he believes and start over...I had to do this myself when I was an Anarchist. When you engage in self-criticism, everything changes.

Happy new year...

[antieverything]

By the way, did either of you read any of the links I posted?

[Socialist Pig]

Corporations buying tanks? People buying rockets? Thats disgusting. Just another example of how anrcho capitalism perpetuates violence and hatred. If this is your idea of a utopia....I feel sorry for you.

Also, the corporations will always be able to afford more tanks than the people can buy rockets.

(Edited by Socialist Pig at 8:55 pm on Jan. 2, 2003)

[Som]

"thats why i didnt use canada as an example. also, what CAN i use as an example of socialism, everything ive said so far has been declared a capitalist cesspool. theres got to be at least one example? oneida commune? native american societies? anything?"

Well, western europe is social-democratic, Quasi-socialist oligarchys are just that, and can be used only to a slight extent.

There have only been little spots of modern history of real socialism and communism.
The best example of socialism, and anarcho-socialism was spain during the spanish civil war in the 30s. Barcelona and areas in that region ran under the principles of anarcho-syndicalism for nearly two years.
As well as some other areas had similiar, though statist systems implemented.
Except for the stuff done by the stalinists.

There have been a few little blips here and there otherwise, the paris commune, the shanghai commune, brief parts during october revolution, a south american year or two before the rightwing coup.

"Also, ancom will work in ancap, but not vice versa; ancap allows freedom to do whatever one pleases; ancom only truly allows for one possible lifestyle, as private property is not allowed."

I don't see much room for anarcho-communism pulling out of a predominatly anarcho-capitalist society. The anarcho-capitalist society is meant to be reached by basically having the state privatize everything before its discarded.
If everything is private property, and those who claim such a trivial thing as ownership use force to enforce these claims, how are we going to make the property public again?

And its not so much that private property is not allowed, its that its trivial and coercive, so that such a claim of property is simply not recognized. "property is theft" and so on. The concept of property is more on a use and consent basis.
When it comes down to it, I suppose theres not much stopping people from choosing to be subject to a economic dictator of a boss instead of democratically run company, but I don't really see why.

"i have no problem with ancom as long as it allows one to opt out; and i am not responsible for my neighbor and vice versa. "

Of course you can opt out, no ones going to force you into joining a commune. Individualists and Socialist anarchist coexist easily.

[Crusader 4 da truth]

“Crusader, you realize that the internet was produced by THE GOVERNMENT. Without the HUGE expenditures that the government used to fund NASA, we wouldn't have satellite communications. No corporation could fund that sort of thing. The government is spearheading the genome project because no corporation will. Our technology isn't advanced enough to take advantage of the knowledge so it isn't profitable...but we will be able to use it and millions of lives will be saved. No thanks to your magical market.”

Antieverything as a conservative I’m for limited government not no government. I understand that governments will have to make massive investments in defense to ensure the safety and survival of its citizens, and as a consequence abuse and fraud will occur. But this is a price that free citizens must pay to ensure they can stop the next Hitler, or Stalin.

The Arpanet (precursor to today’s modern internet) was indeed a government program designed to ensure communications could continue in the event that the Soviets nuked Washington. If they took out one node the systems built in redundancy would still be able to carry communications and we could launch our counter attack. But the rapid growth in the Internet only occurred in the 90’s after the government put it out on the public domain. The milestone event that really changed the world wide web was a browser called Netscape. That corporation launched the application that would lead to Internet being adopted by millions of people world wide, as opposed to a couple thousand dorks like me.

Again satellites development was heavily funded by the government because their was a specific need by the military to insure redundancy in the communication network and to conduct intelligence gathering without the possibilities of spy plane being shoot down. Now most of the satellites are privately owned not owned by any government. My TV signal is the result of a private cooperation placing that satellite up there.

There are dozens of military technologies that have been successfully adapted for commercial use. Again I’m not against this. So I’m unclear what your are advocating. Do you want the government to take back the Internet and have it regulated, or shoot down all commercial satellites so that all communications travels across government owned and monitored ones?

As a conservative I would oppose both of those things because I am highly suspicious of concentrated power. Moving these technologies into the public domain where they can be commercialized ensures that no one government will achieve hegemony rather their will always be a variety of corporations vying to provide that service and thus a diffusion of power.

[antieverything]

What I'm saying is that a free market isn't going to produce what is needed...only what is profitable. If satelite communications were never invented, the capitalists would be making just as much money. The thing is that it was government that often plays a hand in things that improve our lives. Markets won't do the human genome project...it is necessary but not profitable.

It is ironic that most of the things that I mentioned were military creations...but it doesn't have to be that way. If you have Kazaa, look for a Noam Chomsky clip called "Automation". It's about how computer automation was produced by the government because the market couldn't do such a monumental task and how automation was used as a weapon against workers instead of using it to put more power in the hands of skilled machinists and get rid of management. Instead, automation was designed specifically to make things less efficient than it could have been but in a way that created more levels of managment and fewer workers...a useful tool in a class war, no doubt. If the people were in control of government the technology that couldn't be developed on the market would be developed by the state FOR the people and not against them.

All in all, the internet wouldn't have happened...the government research ALLOWED Netscape to get big. Government research ALLOWED for private satellites.

What I'm saying is that markets are good but cannot stand on their own. We need a government that takes advantage of market forms but will work for the people in places where the market can't (or assist the market when the market won't).

[antieverything]

Celera is using government funds for the project, but the genome project has been going on for some time.

http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/publicat/hgn/v9n...3/01venter.html

[uncle moneybags]

yes, antieverything i read several of those articles, and found them to be filled with condescending liberal doublespeak, if not outright lies.

condescending:
"We must worship the Horatio Alger fantasy that the meritorious few will just happen to have the lucky breaks that make them rich. Libertarians happen to be the meritorious few by ideological correctness. The rest can go hang."
condescending
Isn't that "love it or leave it"?
Nope. This is a distinction that seems too subtle for a lot of libertarians: the difference between having a choice and having to leave.

condescending, doublespeak, and lies
We can't emigrate because there is no libertarian nation.

Yes, you can emigrate, just as you could buy a different car even though your favorite company doesn't produce cars which let you travel at the speed of sound and get 2000 mpg. Even if nobody produces EXACTLY what you want, you can choose any car the market produces or you create yourself.

There are roughly 200 nations to which you could emigrate. They are the product of an anarcho-capitalist free market: there is no over-government dictating to those sovereign nations. Indeed, the only difference between the anarchy of nations and libertopia is that anarcho-capitalists are wishing for a smaller granularity. These nations have found that it is most cost-efficient to defend themselves territorially.

you get the idea- your arguments are thick on criticisms, but your own suggestions are unrealistic at best, and ridiculous at worst.

"If everything is private property, and those who claim such a trivial thing as ownership use force to enforce these claims, how are we going to make the property public again?"
simple- buy it and do what you please with it. there is nothing to say you cant share the land with anyone you want to.

as to you saying there are 1000's of co-ops outperforming their capitalist counterparts, lets see some facts.
co-op defined as
1)the work force owns the company
2)decisions regarding significant matters, such as choosing a manager, are made democratically on a one-person one-vote basis
3)the labor involved in running the enterprise, and the wages and other benefits that result, are shared on a democratic basis.

sounds remarkably like a normal corporation, except the workers are in place of the stockholders. in fact, i know of a certain prominent worker-owned company that was in the news lately- perhaps you have heard of it? does United Air ring a bell with anyone? the company was 55% owned by workers, and they had a number of seats among other stockholders. this sterling example of worker ownership of the means of production had its pilots vote themselves a pay package of over $350,000/yr (over 3 times the industry average), while lower employees such as stewardresses and mechanics got shafted with some of the lowest pay in the industry. In addition, despite being a recipient of a substantial part of the post-9/11 gov't 10bil. corporate welfare handout, it is now filing for bankruptcy. While i am sure that you are going to denounce this example on some point or another, the point remains the same- worker owned companies sound like a good idea, but the reality is harsh.

as to you saying that the market cannot stand on its own, i think you have your roles reversed; the government is a parasite that needs a healthy host to feed upon; americas gov't is an almost ideal parasite, as it has allowed its host to grow and give ever more sustenance. and stop acting as though the govt develops new technologies(your only example so far) for the public good- they are all originally to benefit the gov't itself. Why dont you talk about the great works of an organization such as the NSA or DARPA? How about LBJ's great society movement that turned thousands of middle class homes into public housing/minority storage facilities? there is a reason that the govt can afford to spend huge amounts of resources towards a potentially worthless thing, and that is the lack of accountability. Also, saying that capitalists would be making the same amount without satellites, etc MIGHT be disputed by comapnies such as AT&T, MCI, and DirectTV. If there is sufficient demand for something, it will be created, profit is a very strong motive. You might not like having to wait to get a new tech, but other people might not like having to pay for something they will never see the benefit of. Hate to break it to you, but the govt isnt some divine oracle who decides to bless us with gifts from on high- it steals from us, violates our rights, and its gifts are entirely self-serving