Anarcho-Capitalism

feaven

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to start up a conversation on this philosophy, been reading up about it on wikipedia.
Does anyone know of any more sites worth having a look at on the topic?

Belfast

A-Team Stands for Anarcho-Capitalism
http://blog.mises.org/archives/005325.asp

A FATAL INSTABILITY IN ANARCHO-CAPITALISM
http://www.paulbirch.net/AnarchoCapitalism1.html

http://www.paulbirch.net/

Legal systems under Anarcho-Capitalism
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan018.pdf

Anarchy and the Law
http://www.mises.org/store/Anarchy-and-the-Law-P335C0.aspx

What Are You Calling 'Anarchy'?
http://www.mises.org/story/1778

The Production of Security
http://www.mises.org/web/2716

Murray Rothbard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard#Tactics

Free-market anarchism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_anarchism

Akrasia

Anarcho Capitalism is an oxymoron

Anarchism is totally incompatible with capitalism.

feaven

Thats not a fair interpretation.
Anarchism is a concept that can have so many different applications in regards to society models that when explained, anarcho-capatalism and anarcho-communism would both appear almost opposite ideas. But they do both draw from the basic ideas of anarchism, in that both propose a radically more libertarian societies than the one in which we live.

Akrasia

feaven wrote: »

Thats not a fair interpretation.
Anarchism is a concept that can have so many different applications in regards to society models that when explained, anarcho-capatalism and anarcho-communism would both appear almost opposite ideas. But they do both draw from the basic ideas of anarchism, in that both propose a radically more libertarian societies than the one in which we live.

except an extremist capitalist society would be one of totalitarian domination, ruled by plutocracy rather than monarchy (or so called representative democracy)

Anyone who's ever had a job knows that the workplace isn't a democracy. The only thing that gives the worker any real protection is collective bargaining and legislative protection (like minimum wages, maximum working hours, laws on child labour, holidays, maternity leave etc)

Anarcho capitalism proposes to remove all regulations on capital and replace them with 'voluntary contracts'. But this idea has already failed utterly. The reason we need minimum wages in the first place is because desperate people will 'voluntatily contract' to work for wages that are sub subsistence if their alternative is starvation, or if their motivation is to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their family.

Anarcho Capitalism has no welfare state. It's essentially 'work or die' as far as the duties of society are concerned. Individuals retain the option to 'voluntarily' donate some of their wealth to charitable concerns, but this will never ever be sufficient to provide for a just society.

Capitalism always leads to consolidation of wealth. Sometimes this is down to poor decisions made by others. Sometimes it's as a result of bad luck by some to the benefit of others, but one common factor in wealth accumulation is ruthlessness. There are very few people who made their fortune without consciously screwing other people over in the process. Sure, some of the wealthiest people in the world give away some of their money to charity after they already have more money than they could ever spend, but in the process of accumulating that money, nice guys finish last.

A capitalist driven society breeds individualism, corruption, greed, violence and isolation. The wealthy have a singular priority. To defend and expand their wealth. This makes them paranoid, and so they create systems to safeguard their interests against the people they have disenfranchised along the way.

There are millions of people in jails in America for selling mood altering drugs, while some of the richest 'legitimate' companies in the world make their profits selling mood altering drugs, many of which are based almost entirely on the exact same substances the 'drug dealers' are incarcerated for selling.


Anarcho Capitalists blame state interference for all the problems in society. If there was pure capitalism and no state, we'd be looking at the sopranos every night on the 9 o clock news. Gangster capitalism is the purest form of capitalism. Completely unregulated. Dictated by the markets and the ability to defend those markets.
Any 'night-watchman state' (as proposed by libertarians) would be bribed and coopted by the gangster capitalists immediately and the 'corrupt state' would be replaced by a criminal mafia.

If you don't believe me, look at what happened the moment Yeltsin privatised russia

bus77

Well I just have a simple view on money.

It used to confuse me when I'd see on English bank notes ''To pay the bearer'' I'd be thinking, how can anyone pay me when I hold it in my hand?

There's story behind how that came about but it's more than that. It's a hint, a shadow of what money really was and is naturally at it's base. On all levels. A credit note, convenience.

I'll ''try'' and explain why now. My simple thing get's a bit complicated. Apologies if it comes across as a school lesson.

The story behind how the ''pay the bearer'' came into being is to do with gold transfer. Paper money, the credit note was a tool of convenience to save time and energy actually moving the gold, the worth, around the place.

Gold isn't as immediately practical as a cow really. With a cow you get food drink and clothes. A stock exchange all in one. If half of all war is logistics you'd have half war won with a cow.

Anyway, I digress..

Back to the Gold! You can transfer what happened with the gold and the resulting origins of the credit notes right down to the labor level.

Take it down to an imaginary place. A little town and there's two guy's with set skills. One does, haircuts. The other does windows. Their skills are worth something to each other because the haircut guy cuts the window guys hair a few times a year and the window guy does yer mans windows once a year.

But one get's sick, or maybe he just got really lazy. So the he says, hang on a minute, I'll write you a credit note.

I suppose what I'm just saying is I don't have a problem with money because I know exactly where it comes from. Pure and utter convenience and lazyness.
An electric kettle!

Put the cow in the kettle, I'm hungry.

Goosewad

What normative basis does anarcho-capitalism have? Please tell me. Given a choice between anarcho-communism (or any kind of left-libertarianism) and anarcho-capitalism, I cannot see why someone would favour the latter over the former.

Akrasia

Goosewad wrote: »

What normative basis does anarcho-capitalism have? Please tell me. Given a choice between anarcho-communism (or any kind of left-libertarianism) and anarcho-capitalism, I cannot see why someone would favour the latter over the former.

They are opposed to all kinds of coersion or restrictions on their individual liberty. They see capitalism as the way to give everyone freedom over their own lives.

'Libertarians' view collectivism as subjugation to the whim of a mob and are generally very hostile to socialism.

They are very hostile to the state because they believe it interferes in the free market and the government's collection of taxation is based on coersion and is basically a form of theft.

Goosewad

Thanks. I actually meant that to be rhetorical. Oops. I guess it did not come across that way. I cannot understand why people would really favour anarcho-capitalism or any kind of classical libertarianism (over anarcho communism or what have you) as it promotes only greed, selfishness etc.

feaven

Goosewad wrote: »

Thanks. I actually meant that to be rhetorical. Oops. I guess it did not come across that way. I cannot understand why people would really favour anarcho-capitalism or any kind of classical libertarianism (over anarcho communism or what have you) as it promotes only greed, selfishness etc.

Then communism or socialism promotes laziness and over reliance on the state or community to provide for you.

To say that a completely free market would result in everybody becoming greedy and corrupt because all their economic actions are now completely voluntary, is as easy as saying that in a socialist system, everybody would become selfish and only contribute as little as possible because the system will support them regardless.

feaven

Akrasia wrote: »

If you don't believe me, look at what happened the moment Yeltsin privatised russia

Yes but Yeltsin privatised Russia's economy under an incredibly corrupt government. The power was passed from those who ran the state under a socialist economic system to essentially the same people who took the reigns in newly formed corporations and cartels.

Russia today is not an example of Libertarianism gone wrong at all, an elite class of men who own the government still exists to protect its interests. Its more an example of the failure of socialism, but that wouldn't be entirely fair to say.

Goosewad

feaven wrote: »

Then communism or socialism promotes laziness and over reliance on the state or community to provide for you.

To say that a completely free market would result in everybody becoming greedy and corrupt because all their economic actions are now completely voluntary, is as easy as saying that in a socialist system, everybody would become selfish and only contribute as little as possible because the system will support them regardless.

I’m not talking about communism or socialism per se. I’m talking about the left strand of libertarianism. There is no centralised government in this case. So, your claim first claim is irrelevant I feel. The moral ideal implicit in left-libertarianism is that the all people are equal. Classical libertarianism emphasises ‘personal liberty’ alone, whether you do well in life is dependent on certain contingencies between persons (some are more talented, luckier, etc…). So anyone who does not have the means to further themselves in a libertarian capitalist society is pretty much ****ed. Any thoughts on that then?

feaven

You are being very general. This person who does not have the means to further themselves in this libertarian capitalist society, are they sick or disabled? I'll take it as a yes on this point. Then my thoughts are you're not seeing the main principles of a libertarian-capitalist society, the idea that things become voluntary. I will try and give a decent rebuttal, but it might a bit fragmented as I'm still trying to adjust to argueing on boards.

At the moment in this country, you are taxed i think 20% on everything you purchase. So lets say you buy a dvd for €20. Ignoring all the probable import taxes, VAT on fuel to transport and import duties the state will take €2 of your money on this sale. This €2 then goes into the system. Since we're talking about a person who can't further themselves we'll say all that €2 goes towards a welfare payment for this fella. But before the €2 gets to helping him further himself, it has to first pay for the support of the state itself. TD's expenses, civil servents wages, the defense forces, maintaining the roads, organising diplomatic confrences. Obviously I have never fully audited where €2 of tax would go, but its fair to say that the fella looking to further himself would only recieve €1 out of the €2 you gave to the state.
The idea of a libertarian-capitalist society would be that you have the choice in where to put your money. If you are a decent human being and still want to help those less fortunate, then you can donate money to a charity. If you want to ensure that you have protection for yourself or family in case of sickness or injury, then you get health insurance. If you want to use the motorway, pay the company that maintains the road.

Basically, I'm trying to say that people will come through and help each other, so the only real casualities in libertarian society would be the government!

Black Swan

Is this neo-Adam Smith LFC with a modern day anarchist word spin? Further, this concept, without all the attempts at trying to differentiate it from LFC, is more than likely someone's attempt to resurrect an old concept, make a name for themselves, "publish or perish," sell books for royalties, do the lecture circuit, and get on talk shows? LFC worked only in theory, justified the elitist agenda, and has been shot-through empirically with so many exception holes that, with its age, could make for nice historical context conceptual Swiss cheese? Could I have my anarcho-capitalism on "wry" dialectical bread with fetish (corny beef) capitalism, please? Oh, hold the C.W. Mills mustard, its too rich for my taste buds, and may conflict with digestion (of this topic).

Ahhhh, now I can watch the news while I munch on my sandwich. Oh, goodie! Creative destruction in Iraq!

Red Hand

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Is this neo-Adam Smith LFC with a modern day anarchist word spin? Further, this concept, without all the attempts at trying to differentiate it from LFC, is more than likely someone's attempt to resurrect an old concept, make a name for themselves, "publish or perish," sell books for royalties, do the lecture circuit, and get on talk shows? LFC worked only in theory, justified the elitist agenda, and has been shot-through empirically with so many exception holes that, with its age, could make for nice historical context conceptual Swiss cheese? Could I have my anarcho-capitalism on "wry" dialectical bread with fetish (corny beef) capitalism, please? Oh, hold the C.W. Mills mustard, its too rich for my taste buds, and may conflict with digestion (of this topic).

Ahhhh, now I can watch the news while I munch on my sandwich. Oh, goodie! Creative destruction in Iraq!

Would you like some Nazism with that?:P

Black Swan

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

Would you like some Nazism with that?:P

Oh no, I don't look good in brown shirts, and would rather improv with a tango than march in unison to a tune!

Red Hand

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Oh no, I don't look good in brown shirts, and would rather improv with a tango than march in unison to a tune!

I admire this forum and all the people that post in it.:)

Ostrom

Brilliant! CW Mills sauce.....

God I hate sociology. Fúck practice, perfecting the idea is quite enough

Black Swan

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

How about a black SS Deathhead's hat, eyepatch a la Angelina Jolie, black uniform, complete with mini and boots?

Methinks you should revise your attempts at erotic imagery and free expression (in making your "point"), before someone is forced to exercise their Weberian bureaucratic responsibilities...?

Back on topic... My read on anarcho-capitalism is very different from highly defined norms of national socialist behaviour, but rather the lack of norms erroneously suggested my LFC; i.e. free sex LFC rather than strict Church doctrine, to use your analogy?




(Not very uniform am I... but I do have a black mini and boots...:cool:)

snkys

Milton Friedman's son David's quite the anarcho-capitalist. He's got a blog. He also has some sort of video documentary about the subject, if I remember correctly... if he didnt make it, someone did anyways

Akrasia

feaven wrote: »

You are being very general. This person who does not have the means to further themselves in this libertarian capitalist society, are they sick or disabled? I'll take it as a yes on this point. Then my thoughts are you're not seeing the main principles of a libertarian-capitalist society, the idea that things become voluntary. I will try and give a decent rebuttal, but it might a bit fragmented as I'm still trying to adjust to argueing on boards.

At the moment in this country, you are taxed i think 20% on everything you purchase. So lets say you buy a dvd for €20. Ignoring all the probable import taxes, VAT on fuel to transport and import duties the state will take €2 of your money on this sale. This €2 then goes into the system. Since we're talking about a person who can't further themselves we'll say all that €2 goes towards a welfare payment for this fella. But before the €2 gets to helping him further himself, it has to first pay for the support of the state itself. TD's expenses, civil servents wages, the defense forces, maintaining the roads, organising diplomatic confrences. Obviously I have never fully audited where €2 of tax would go, but its fair to say that the fella looking to further himself would only recieve €1 out of the €2 you gave to the state.
The idea of a libertarian-capitalist society would be that you have the choice in where to put your money. If you are a decent human being and still want to help those less fortunate, then you can donate money to a charity. If you want to ensure that you have protection for yourself or family in case of sickness or injury, then you get health insurance. If you want to use the motorway, pay the company that maintains the road.

Basically, I'm trying to say that people will come through and help each other, so the only real casualities in libertarian society would be the government!

yeah right.

Anarcho capitalism will be dominated by corporations. Corporations have one single goal. To maximise profits for their shareholders. Those corporations that make the most profits become dominant and take or out compete the weaker competition.
Corporations would never voluntarily donate a significant proportion of their profits to charitable causes if it put them at a competitive disadvantage. They might support certain fashionable causes as part of their PR budget, but they will only do so if such expenditure leads to greater profits in the future.

Secondly, corporations absolutely love it when workers are desperate. (that's why they're rushing to set up operations in places like china and india) They love it when there are more workers than jobs and when people have no choice but to work for a subsistence wage or starve. It is not in their interests to donate money to causes that help unemployed people to survive because doing so would drive up the cost of labour in their factories.

Thirdly, in your libertarian world, where everything is privatised, it will cost an awful lot more to be poor than it does now. Currently the poor and disadvantaged are exempt from income tax and they get subsidies for the essentials to survive. In a libertarian world, the poor would have to pay for their education, pay for their healthcare, pay for their transport, pay for water, waste collection, to use roads, to use public parks and amenities.....

Intergenerational poverty would be a massive problem in your dystopia. At least the current system guarantees the right to free education. Your system means only those who can afford it will learn how to read, and worse, only the children of well off parents will get the opportunity to be educated. Your system would produce millions of street children (like in Sao Paulo) who will be forced into crime or prostitution to survive. (if they're not lucky enough to find employment in a sweat shop)

feaven

I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, I was just trying to start a discussion on its ideas, and I seem to have succeeded. Well, nearly, it just seems there isn't anyone willing to defend.

Out of interest, what do you sort of system do you prefer?

bus77

Akrasia wrote: »

yeah right.

Anarcho capitalism will be dominated by corporations. Corporations have one single goal. To maximise profits for their shareholders. Those corporations that make the most profits become dominant and take or out compete the weaker competition.

I don't think they advocate corporations. A quick scan over their literature didn't reveal that.

Akrasia

bus77 wrote: »

I don't think they advocate corporations. A quick scan over their literature didn't reveal that.

They don't like talking about it, but thats what will happen. Without effective government regulations the small fish will get eaten by the big fish, the most ruthless will prosper.

In the early 1900s america went through a long stint of laissez faire capitalism (basically the same as libertarianism) and the conditions for workers were absolutely appalling.

Read "The jungle" by Upton Sinclair. It was written in 1906 about immigrant workers in a U.S. meat processing factory. (it's available for free on google books)

It gives a very clear picture of what life is like when you live in wage slavery with no social services or workers rights (exactly what would happen in libertarianism)

Belfast

snkys wrote: »

Milton Friedman's son David's quite the anarcho-capitalist. He's got a blog. He also has some sort of video documentary about the subject, if I remember correctly... if he didnt make it, someone did anyways

David Friedman's blog
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/

David D. Friedman on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_D._Friedman

Belfast

Akrasia wrote: »

In the early 1900s america went through a long stint of laissez faire capitalism (basically the same as libertarianism) and the conditions for workers were absolutely appalling.

America went through a long stint of laissez faire capitalism from the late 1700s.

it has move further away from it from the 1860s.

Libertarianism is not just an economic Philosophy.

it is also about personal liberty.

Abraham Lincoln did much to damage liberty.
During the Civil War, Lincoln appropriated powers no previous President had wielded: he used his war powers to proclaim a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, spent money without congressional authorization, and imprisoned 18,000 suspected Confederate sympathizers without trial.

Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914( banning Narcotics) or Volstead Act (Prohibition) introduced in 1920 was not Libertarian

Akrasia

Belfast wrote: »

America went through a long stint of laissez faire capitalism from the late 1700s.

it has move further away from it from the 1860s.

Libertarianism is not just an economic Philosophy.

it is also about personal liberty.

But they promote an economic system that would systematically destroy personal liberty.

It's a bit like designing the rules of a sport similar to soccer. You invent the rules with the intention of having an exciting and competitive spectator event, but the rules say that one team always gets the ball, and the other team are shackled to concrete blocks.

Abraham Lincoln did much to damage liberty.
During the Civil War, Lincoln appropriated powers no previous President had wielded: he used his war powers to proclaim a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, spent money without congressional authorization, and imprisoned 18,000 suspected Confederate sympathizers without trial.

Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914( banning Narcotics) or Volstead Act (Prohibition) introduced in 1920 was not Libertarian

so what. None of those things have any relevance to the status of unregulated capitalism of the time.

The government is an asshole, but that doesn't mean you should run into the arms of a psychopath (free market capitalism)

Belfast

Akrasia wrote: »

But they promote an economic system that would systematically destroy personal liberty.

How does Libertarian economics destroy personal liberty ?

Belfast

Akrasia wrote: »

They don't like talking about it, but thats what will happen. Without effective government regulations the small fish will get eaten by the big fish, the most ruthless will prosper.

The big fish do better under Big government as they have more political influence on big government and can make the regulations help them.

A true free market does not help the Big fish.

Akrasia

Belfast wrote: »

The big fish do better under Big government as they have more political influence on big government and can make the regulations help them.

A true free market does not help the Big fish.

there is no such thing as a 'true free market'.

It would not survive for very long without collapsing in on itself. The economy needs rules and stability in order to function. Self regulation (as advocated by libertarian theory) is no regulation when there are profits to be made. Private enforcement of rules and regulations would quickly become corrupted and would be no better than the governments they are supposed to replace.

The current economic crisis affecting the western world is a direct result in governments acting according to a laissez faire ideology refusing to regulate international financial corporations properly. Without the necessary strict regulations, the banks and venture capitalists lied cheated and stole to an extent that we have not even scraped the surface of yet. Similarly, media consolidation is becoming an enormous problem with a small number of conglomerates controlling more and more of the media market, and this problem gets worse the more deregulation occurs.

Regarding the inevitability of consolidation of capital, there are reams of academic texts that discuss this issue, but we don't need to go to that extent to see that it is a truism.

bus77

Akrasia wrote: »

They don't like talking about it, but thats what will happen. Without effective government regulations the small fish will get eaten by the big fish, the most ruthless will prosper.

In the early 1900s america went through a long stint of laissez faire capitalism (basically the same as libertarianism) and the conditions for workers were absolutely appalling.

Read "The jungle" by Upton Sinclair. It was written in 1906 about immigrant workers in a U.S. meat processing factory. (it's available for free on google books)

It gives a very clear picture of what life is like when you live in wage slavery with no social services or workers rights (exactly what would happen in libertarianism)

I'm sorry Akrasia, you've rolled this up into one big ball.

When you talk about what happened to that large group of immigrants and corporations your talking about the same thing, but it's deeper than capitalism, free or otherwise.

You have to look at the origin of the corporation. I wasn't sure how the ''Corporation'' came about. Who in their right mind would create such a voracious unthinking monster? Turns out nobody would, not in their own society.
The first corporations were colonial in origin.
So in both case's you've got large groups of 'Aliens'. One group imposed upon a society, another group imposed upon.

People sometimes help people who are on their own, but are always hesitant to lift up large groups. Who knows why things are like that, it's deep. In any event the question becomes ''Well, what can we do with them?''

It's not even 'materialism' of just pursuit of wealth alone that forms that. Or even racism. It's a type of 'social-lock' that's the starting point.

From that springs two simple rules.

1. Don't colonize

2. Spread out large groups of new people