Libertarianism versus Anarchism

Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

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I addressed it at the beginning of this thread. Anarchists are in favour of human rights and people have every right to decide what happens to their own body.
You're caught up in the idea of 'ownership'. You say that you believe people 'own' their own bodies, and they can 'sell their labour' for wages. Can they also sell their kidneys and their eyes?

Humans are not commodities anymore (though the ultra liberal founders of the U.S. were mostly slave owners) People have the right to self determination, but they can not sell themselves as nobody else has the right to own them.

I can't explain it any more clearly, I'll start to get annoyed if you ask me the same question again.

So you do believe in forcible confiscation of private property. How do you reconcile this with your stated belief in "democracy"? What about the owner who has probably spent the better part of his life building up his business—he just walks away empty-handed, "without compensation," while people who have been there for three months are fully fledged members of the "collective"?

How can i believe in enforcible confiscation of private property if I don't believe that there should be private property.
Obviously in the current system, I don't believe that someone should be able to confiscate someone else's property because that would just be someone stealing for his own private gain, but in anarchism, it's just robin hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor. If the property owner joined the collective, he wouldn't lose access to the property, merely the 'authority' to command others to work under his dictatorship.

So the workers sit around in the factory (of course, it's always a factory) and democratically decide what to produce, based on what they believe would be most beneficial to society? How do they know what is beneficial to society, and what is not? What happens to consumer demand in this instance?

it's not 'always a factory' it could be anything else, a school, a shop, a sports centre etc etc etc.

You speak contemptuously of Viagra, as if it were some kind of vanity drug. However, one could argue that it helps people maintain sexual relationships, which in turn creates pleasure and happiness and enhances intimacy between couples. Does sexual happiness not serve a "social" purpose?

To be honest, Given the fact that supply of pharmacuticals is restricted by patents and accountants seeking to maximise profits, it would probably be possible to manufacture enough viagra and chemotherapy to satisfy everyones needs and sexual desires. However. If you were at the meeting where there was a choice between ordering viagra, and chemotherapy drugs for a kid dying of cancer down the road, would you really feel that your 'right' to get it up was more important than your neighbours right to life.

In your new society, I presume the workers at Clinique and Gucci would immediately stop making make-up and designer shoes, and focus instead on producing canned beans and winter coats for orphaned children. Who needs such frivolous luxuries, after all? No self-respecting socialist would ever vote for producing such things.

Perhaps, but there would be fashion syndicates who would produce fashionable and artistic clothes. There is nothing wrong with art, but it is a little bit pathetic when this art is valued for its snob value and 'exclusivity' alone. Fashion would be much more accessible under anarchist society

Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

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There will be things that can be produced, and things that people want to have produced. There would be similarities with markets, but instead of demand being driven by currency, it would be driven by democratic decision making structures, and instead of supply being driven by profits, it will be driven by what the best allocation of resources is as decided independently based on needs and demands at each level of the syndicate

Kama

donegalfella wrote:

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As a libertarian socialist, I would say that the individuals rights to their body are close to absolute. No other body or individual may make claim to the body of another, bar with their consent. It would be incoherent to claim to be libertarian, then posit that the individuals body is owned by another.

And where do you get the idea that libertarians would put people in prison for trespass or for violating a contract? You do realise that libertarians are opposed to incarceration as a form of punishment?

In theory, perhaps. The question does arise though, if private property is offended against, and the offender has no means of restitution, then torts-style recompense is out.

The other point that has been made, is that liberal societies (in current penal trends) do have high incarceration rates. Nils Christie in Crime Control as Industry is a great read on this, and as a seminal text in Marxist criminology, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. Admittedly, liberal is not libertarian, nor is socialist (eg Nordics) anarchist, but they appear the nearest instantiated analogues I can find.

It's pretty indisputable that the profit motive drives innovation, creativity, and technological advance.

A motive, sure. The only possible motive? Unsubstantiated claim.

Buckminster Fuller did not create his inventions for the profit motive, but for altruistic reasons. As mentioned, Linux grew out of a diametrically-opposite mentality. And a fair argument can be made that the profit motive, in the case of IP, can seriously impair technological advance. Where do libertarians stand on IP, in your opinion?

And in the United States, the top 1 percent of taxpayers pay more than the bottom 95 percent put together.

True, but this can equally be interpreted as being due to their ownership of such a large percentage of the total economy. Reductio ad absurdum: I am King. I pay tax. I own everything. I pay all the tax. Therefore, my rule is just, as I am paying for all the services in the kingdom.

The current wealth distribution is closer to this fairytale than I am comfortable with. Which I guess puts me with the begrudging socialists, and for progressive taxation.

What are less dehumanizing and oppressive systems than free-market capitalism? Can you give some examples?

Any of the Nordic states would do fine. High taxation, high social expenditure, market-socialism. Universalist provision, high equality, high transparency, high democracy. Much like asdasd, I'm a 2-cheers-for-the-mixed-economy kind of guy. In outcomes, the Nordic model does very well tyvm, bracketing off whether it's exportable outside ethnically homogenous countries. If you prefer developing countries, compare outcomes in Kerala with Uttar Pradesh. Im with the Commies on that one.

Your example was about some hypothetical idiot on an island who signs away his access to water. Nobody made him do such a thing.

Would you accept or deny that choice can be constrained by structural position? Would constraint ever qualify as coercion, under libertarian philosophy? Do informational and power asymmetries cause any problems to your view of consent? Again, to basics: what happens to idiots in your society? What are the qualifying lines to consent, if any?

Why should property rights be any less absolute "in this day and age"? What is so peculiar about "this day and age" that makes us want to revoke a system that has prevailed since the very earliest civilizations?

Cite? To claim liberal-individualist property relations have always prevailed requires some playing loose with either history, or the definition of individual property. Feudal property ownership, to start recent, was significantly different to liberal-individual; 'I own this land insofar as I pay a tithe of manpower and swear fealty', or had usufructuary relations etc, moreso the further back. Many early societies had forms of shared ownership or collectivism. Liberal exclusive individual property is a relatively recent phenomenon, for all it may appear naturalised.

Someone should create a name for this leftist logical fallacy. "Oooooh, so-and-so is funded by EXXON, therefore he's part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and everything he writes must be LIES!"

Well, in politics, it's called a conflict of interest. In general, someone's objectivity is felt to be suspect when his opinion has been paid for; he who pays the piper calls the tune, and in the market of ideas capital investment can create a good return Funding does seem to correlate to outcomes, even in scientific research.

It doesn't discredit any of his arguments, but it does make them appear weaker, due to being clearly and obviously interested. Edward Bernays, who coined the term Public Relations, originally thought it would be better to call it Propaganda; his book appears classic American political-wedge stuff...Liberals are lying, evil, people, conservatives are virtuous, honest people who hug their kids...Bookstores here are full of that sh1te, and the only thing differs is whether they say conservative or liberal, they're utterly fungible otherwise.

Frankly, this divisive stuff has lost bigtime to the transcendent universalist rhetoric of Obamania...

Permabear

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,8,1

Libertarianism and anarchism are the same thing. They have the same instincts and the same ends.

Kama

donegalfella wrote:

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I find that inconsistent. If I own my body, and am free to make contract, why is it justifiable to limit this in this manner? If I am truly free, as in the prostitution example (rent of my body to another), why am I not free to sell the produce of my body, whether blood, platelet, or organ?

I am allowed to donate said products already, this seems a manifest contraction in liberty. Equally, surely I should posess the right to sell myself into bonded servitude, for a limited period, on a contractual basis? Besides slavery being a 'bad word', what's the problem, as long as I'm not born into it and give free consent?

Even if the rich person has studied and worked hard and diligently to accumulate his wealth, and the poor person has never done a hand's turn in his life?

Counter-example: even if the rich person has their property due to inheritance, and their inheritance was based on a force-superiority?

The latifundia tradition of Latin America would be a concrete example. See also my earlier point on the origins of property being non-trivial.

The free market is perfectly capable of supplying drugs to address thousands of different medical problems, without creating some kind of zero-sum game where one more dose of Viagra entails one less dose of a chemotherapy drug. That's socialist logic, not free-market logic.

Compare the budgets for obesity, and tropical diseases. Or pet-food, and world hunger. A 'good' socialist logic stresses the non-zerosum advantages that are based on sharing and collective security, or the positive externalities of public goods.

In which case the offender would have to pay off the debt over time.

And if they can't? Then prisons return. Repeat offenders will (I assume) find their cumulative fines to be in excess of what they consider reasonable or rational to replay, at which point this approach breaks down. That being said., I regard restitutive justice, in either torts or service, as a key component of a sane penal policy, and incarceration as something should be if at all possible restricted to violent crime, on which I think we agree.

Largely due to the ridiculous War on Drugs, which libertarians have opposed from the outset.

Among other factors. Nevertheless, incarceration is closely linked to wealth; imprisonment for white-collar crime is the exception rather than the rule, and I see no evidence for the position that prisons will naturally fade away in the libertarian eutopia, I regard a Wackenhut-Privatopia scenario as more likely.

GNU/Linux is nothing but a free clone of Unix systems designed in the corporate and academic worlds. Ultimately, it is a grand exercise in reverse-engineering the intellectual property of others.

ALL human cultural, economic, or scientific developments involves reverse-engineering, combining, or building upon previous developments. I believe you are discounting the free labour that has been mixed into Linux systems, analagous to Chomsky's argument that the public investment has been 'stolen'.

My point would be that this platform, which has been invested in by collective labour, is a form of socialised capital, which is non-exclusive. What is the libertarian stance on open-source btw?

I believe in protecting intellectual property just as I believe in protecting tangible property. Leftists often are inconsistent on this one. The very people who don't want to see factory workers exploited are happy to argue that music, literature, and art should all be "free" and that its creators should have no vested interest in it.

I believe that the progress of the human race can be best assured by sharing information freely, and that the advent of IT-level copying technology makes distribution in this way not only rational, but inevitable.
I note today that Pirate Bay has shifted to a commercial position, much as Napster did before it, but I sincerely doubt that anything, even a China-level Golden Shield panopticon, will prevent torrwenting etc. I also believe lengthy IP terms to be highly inefficient, and prevent technological progress, but that's a different smelly-fish-kettle. Like said, a mixed economy: partial commodification, partial decommodification.

Do informational and power asymmetries cause any problems to your view of consent? No, no, and no

I am a child. Do I have full right of contract?

I am mentally challenged, and illiterate. Is my X sufficient to make a written contract legally binding?

Marxists like to peddle the myth of some originary collectivism. It's nonsense. We have records of private land ownership from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, Japan, and elsewhere.

Cite plz. Yes, dating from the shift from horticultural to agrarian civilization, we have clear records of some form of ownership. Worth bearing in mind, these usually have the name of a King on them, and are dating from...you guessed it, the rise of proto-states and organized warfare, with the accumulation of agricultural surplus. Conquest, coercion, and conscription.

Or rather...

'Capitalists like to peddle the myth of some originary individualism. It's nonsense. We have records of communal land ownership from Native American societies, through usufructuary relations in late feudalism, to the pre-Enclosure Commons'.

or again:

'Ideologues of all hues claim their system to have existed forever, whether they are Mormon, Communist, or Austrian. It's nonsense. We have records of human diversity in social, cultural and economic arrangements as far back as we can reliably know, and can reasonably assume to see more diversity in the future'.

Not to my mind. I think it's hilarious that Leftists worship Noam Chomsky, the multi-million-dollar "socialist" whose kids will inherit cushy trust funds.

I think it's hilarious that the principal attacks on Chomsky have been either 'hesa linguist kk?' or ad hominem. Whatever his flaws, he provides a longer historical view than most, and composes his writings with accepted, prominent establishment sources.

Like most successful ideologues, he's a skilled rhetoritician, who produces a cohesive grand narrative that gives people some good excuse to believe in what they wanted to anyway. He's also good at digging up quotes, that people might not have meant in the way he implies. But after a cursory look at Schweizers work, if I'm on a desert island, I know which I'd rather read...

Orwell quipped once that every intelligent boy of 16 is a socialist (hich cuts both ways). I reckon they amount for a fair fraction of his sales. I'd agree on Schweizers copyright issue, all the same, I'd much rather he dumped them off on Project Gutenberg...but he's free to do as he wills.

Kama

Libertarianism and anarchism are the same thing. They have the same instincts and the same ends.

I think so, but most of the libertarians and anarchists here don't seem to agree with me. The instinct is freedom, and the ends are the same; the argument seems to be diametric over means.

The libertarian posits the State-authority as the principal obstacle to freedom, while the anarchist views the markets dominance as the same. A libertarian market in it's ideal form is highly 'anarchic', and the anarchist polity (in any non-authoritarian form is libertarian. Hence why they are known as left and right libertarians, I guess. Authoritarian anarchy doesn't gel for me, theoretically anyway.

Apropos of Authoritarian anarchy, tracking back earlier, to the Fukitso Go-7950:

"Trust The Computer. The Computer is Your Friend!"

If I think anarchy and IT, my thought run more to systems like betfair and ebay or freecycle and craigslist, accessible, responsive, 'flat' (and crucially transparent) systems, mediating between supply and demand in a free and open voluntary economy, rather than a Cray supercomputer deciding how many toothbrushes we should all be using.

I can't gel anti-hierarchical politics with a centralized hierarchical allocation system, in my mind anyway. One of my issues with current market-capitalism is that the allocation mechanism has become too large in relation to the base economy, and is currently strangling it to death. Among other things, I can;t see how libertarianism would not go the same way. We currently have regulatory capture (imo) and I don't think this is solved by saying 'we'll get rid of regulation' any more than I think poverty could be eradicated by getting rid of money.

But if you can link me anything convincing on Brother Computer, I'll read it...

Permabear

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Kama

donegalfella wrote: »

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Lets say that, due to my sexual position, I wish to engage in amputee fetishism. I can deform or damage myself, or agree to allow another to do the same to me. If I cannot, or am punished in some way for doing so, my liberty is being coercively constrained. If your liberty does not include, in the ownership of the body, the right to dispose of it as I will, then my ownership is not complete, it is conditional on 'good behaviour' or not making choices you do not approve of...aka, not really my liberty.

If I wish to sell my blood, or a skin graft, or other renewable tissue, I am free to do so. Yet you say that if I wish to sell an eye or a kidney, I cannot? Neither deprives me of life, I fail to see the issue.

Equally, on my death, am I free to sell any and all organ produce of my cadaver? I assume your libertarian system permits the right to die? Am I free to end my life, and donate the proceeds of my organs to my favourite charity? Or to pay to keep my head in the proverbial cryogenic jar? If not, why?

As I've already explained, you, and only you, own yourself. Another person cannot own you. So selling yourself into slavery would be a manifest contradiction, wouldn't it?

With my libertarian hat on, I can't understand why you wish to restrict my liberty. If I own my body, and can contract use-rights to it, why can I not enter into a consensual agreement, which deprives me of that liberty for a set period? Assume the contract to be similar to apprenticeship in the old days, or an internship now. I sell all products of the period of indenture, and am provided in return with the basics of life (food, housing, healthcare), much as during slavery.

To me, ownership without the right to sell is the contradiction. If I told you you couldnt sell your house or car, would you consider that you own them? I think not.

Is combatting obesity somehow detracting from our ability to fight tropical disease? Is manufacturing pet food taking away from our ability to address world hunger?

If the resources could be reallocated towards these 'bads', and neutralise them, then yes, inarguably. If we have a loaf of bread, and you possess the money, then your ownership of the loaf of bread means I either starve, or subsist on your charity (which is I believe the libertarian eutopia).

I see no reason to imprison someone for white-collar crime. Libertarians would incarcerate a dangerous criminal to protect others, but not otherwise.

I regard white-collar crime as dangerous. If an employer is found to have negligently endangered their workers, this is (imo) more dangerous than a drunk with a knife, in terms of harm done. If a Madoff (and his compatriots) defraud for millions, I regard this as a greater harm than a McTard shoplifting for pennies. With a Marxist hat on, your system of punishment seems to be to allow any (higher-income) crime to be de-legislated out of existence, while retaining the billyclub of the Night Watchmen against the less well-endowed.

I am a child....

No.

Why not? Surely we require a less stringent form of contract, to teach children the virtues of the libertarian system through their failures? At what point does a child become contractually capable, and why?
Is there a test, or is it purely arbitrary, such as reaching the age of majority, which tells us nothing about capability or rationality?

I am mentally challenged....

If you are not compos mentis, then no.

How can we determine whether I am compos or compost mentis? And why can I not contract if I am deemed not to be compos mentis? Is this not an infringement on my liberty?

Either we accept an arbitrary dualist-exclusive standard of competence, or we accept a analogue sliding-scale of competence. There are distinct problems for either position, but the second is the more challenging, as it conflicts with your previous no, no, and no.

If there are gradations, lets say someone barely-capable, do they not deserve protection against the more capable? If not, why?

Permabear

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Kama

With all due respect, Kama, I think this line of discussion is just getting silly at this point.

It's not silly in the slightest. You are advocating a philosophy, and I am providing examples or thought experiments which (imo) problematize aspects of your philosophy, specifically the limits to contract, and the role of informed rationality in constituting subjects capable of contract.

These are core considerations in a libertarian theory of ethics, to my mind. Since there are no fully instantiated examples of either system, thought experiments are a perfectly valid way to explore the issue, with a long tradition in philosophical inquiry.
Declaring it to be 'silly' is a refusal to engage.

I won't speak for Akrasia, but in your closing remarks, if you substitute coercive or authoritarian anarchism, I'd fully agree. But forceful implementation of a plan, by force, is anathematic to any libertarian socialist, or to my mind they ain't one, and you do a disservice to the theory and beliefs of those you claim to tolerate. As I might read Mises, perhaps you might have a look at Proudhon?

The tolerance your benevolent libertarian seems to extend is 'of course I'll play if I can keep all the toys'. If a revolution on those lines happened, or even asdasd's milder, meliorist form of class warfare, it would be due to inequalities growing too severe and manifestly injust for the majority of a polity to accept. The libertarian profited by the economic superstructure that he did not create, and the groups claim on 'his' resources may be just and valid, or not. As I said, initial distribution and equity is (imho) a non-trivial problem. History does not tell a tale of free contract, but of theft and force, among them the imposition of liberal property concepts over the wilderness...Ayn Rand's quote about the Native Americans having no right to their land would be the reference here.

I've sought in this thread to show commonalities between the discourses, arguing throughout that a coercive anarchism is as illegitimate as a coercive capitalism (see Silverharps video link from the Mises Institute), and this is what unites libertarians of all ideologies; the pre-eminent value of human freedom.

But if you really feel the need to 'run to the hills' with the threat of guns and the Mob, well...I'm writing this in Texas, and there's a looong history of that kind of libertarianism, and it's pretty intolerant stuff.

I'll leave you to it.

Permabear

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Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

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it's already been said, but what is the point of 'ownership' if you are can not sell or give your property away?

You insist on declaring that the individual 'owns' his own body, but you do not afford the individual the same property rights as he has with his other 'property'

Anarchists are much more consistant, the individual has human rights, and under the principle of subsidiary, the individual is the only one who can make decisions about his own body/life (with exceptions for the very young, and people who have become severely incapacitated, then the decision making powers are delegated to their guardians.

I see no reason to imprison someone for white-collar crime. Libertarians would incarcerate a dangerous criminal to protect others, but not otherwise.

Because of corruption in banking, sick children will be denied operations, people have lost thier livelyhoods, their houses, their families etc

White collar crime is very serious in capitalism.

On the other hand, in a libertarian scenario, you say you would only use violence against violent people. Well, what happens when the homeless and the poor and disenfranchised get sick and tired of being bullied by the private security, and unable to afford their own private security, decide to form a defence militia (gang) and arm themselves? Do you not agree that these 'unofficial' gangs would be labeled as criminal or terrorist organisations and the 'legitimate' security companies would claim justification in arresting them, and even murdering them if they claim that their own lives were at risk.

please answer the above point, it is a very serious objection

Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

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I would not be in favour of violence, but I also think that property owners would defend their assets if there was an attempt to socialise them.

Someone already said "what would the employees of BMW do if you went up to them in the morning and offered them anarchism" Well, at the moment, they would probably laugh, but if I went up to the employees of Dell, or Waterford Crystal who have all been laid off work, and told them that under our system, they could keep the factory, all the plant and continue to produce for themselves, and not the dell corporation, I would imagine that there would be a much better response.

If a number of workplaces collectivised and if that was successful, I believe the Idea would spread quite quickly, especially in an economic depression or when factories are being closed down and work outsourced to tax havens and countries with few labour rights laws.

In this instance there would still be conflict, the owners of the 'property' would still fight to retain control even of the land that they have foresaken and the workers they have abandoned. There would be conflict, but If there was violence, I think it is safe to assume, the first shots would be fired by the capitalists or the police as they imprison and batton the disobedient citizens, at which stage, even libertarians ought to accept the right of the workers to defend themselves?

Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

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But there are always going to be extraordinary circumstances, people with disabilities, people who have special needs, people with unique personalities and tastes. Libertarian theory only (barely) works if everyone is of average intellgence, capable of making good decisions all of the time, from a good family with a good education, and with enough self control to manage all their assets for their long term best interests.

In your society, one bad decision can wipe out the individual for life, and you are opposed to any safety net because of the 'moral hazard'

When I challenged you on this, instead of explaining how it would not lead to poverty and crime, you just asserted the opposite and provided no evidence.

(I know you are but what am i)

Permabear

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asdasd

Factories close in times of depression because people have less income, and thus there is less demand for goods. So simply producing things does not make an economy; you also need a market for what you're producing.

hush, now. Dont burst a bubble.

and work outsourced to tax havens and countries with few labour rights laws

That can be outlawed by the existing State structures. That said the "outsourcing" of work is - even though I am opposed to it - a zero sum game in terms of the number of people employed in the entire world economy.

I am opposed to from a selfish worker in the West point of view. For anarchists to complain about how we [ Western Workers] are "expoliting" the developing world poor, and then oppose outsourcing, is a bit rich.

turgon

Interesting discussion, although it getting to be a bit of a merry go round at this stage. Kudos to asdasd for his cutting criticisms of the modern anarchists! At least it provided a bit of humour, if nothing else.

Of course a few of us here have done the silly thing of asking how things are made. Silly because it appears with communists/anarcho-socialists one never gets the answer. So just a few simple questions about anarchism:

1. How is an aeroplane made in anarchism?
2. Why would the communities bother innovating? As DF said when the focus of producers becomes themselves and not the consumer there is no need to innovate.
3. How do we know how many spoons to make? Apparently all the economy is planned, and I assume ye must try and gauge what is needed.
4. Apparently we all get to work at what we want. So who in the name of god would want to become a cleaner?

Also a point to note: the more theoretical an anarchist posts here the more thanks that post gets. Does this tell us something of the disposition of anarchists?

Im not even going to bother responding to Synd, who seems to think that the Ukrainian Famine was justifiable.

Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

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It is self evident, what is not self evident is the difference sacrificing your autonomy by selling yourself into bonded labour, or sacrificing your autonomy and sovergnity by selling your 'labour' by the hour.

While you are under contract to another person, you are not free to make your own decisions. If someone works in a job 6 days a week for 8 hours a day, they will spend more than half their waking life following orders from another person, and even their 'free time' is constrained by their contracts to a great extent.

Correct. That's because the body is inextricable from the self, unlike "other" property. That much, too, should be self-evident.

So you're calling it property, but that's just a label that fits in wiith your philosophy with no real meaning.

I don't see how private security guards would "bully" anyone unless he was attempting to infringe on the private property that they are hired to protect. This is entirely legitimate. Why don't you try breaking into a bank in the middle of the night, and see how long it takes before the security forces arrive to "bully" you?

So property is limited to banks?

Of course not. In libertarianland, everything is owned by someone. It could be a neighbourhood or or a private shopping centre. Have you ever been to a private shopping centre? have you seen the security harrass young people and force them to move along or to leave if they're not buying anything?
I have, and in a libertarianland, there would be no public space where these people could go without fear of harassment. Especially people who are homeless, are you going to suggest that these people would be left alone by the private security guards if they tried to sleep in a doorway or on a private street?

If people obey the law and respect other people's property rights, I can't see the problem.

And that's the problem, you don't see any problem.

I agree. In fact, I think it would provoke a civil war.

In which the violence of the property owners would be fully justified in your opinion against the illegitimate struggle by the landless to 'steal' their property?

They could certainly try to continue "producing." But they could not continue branding their products as "Dell" computers or "Waterford Crystal," since those names are the trademarked property of the respective corporations. They would not have recourse to Dell's/Waterford's supply chains or advertising/marketing efforts. They would have to compete with factories in lower-cost countries that can produce generic PCs and generic cut glass at a fraction of the cost. And they would fail.

I thought everyone could set up their own business and be self employed and live the libertarian lifestyle? now you're saying that a group of experienced workers building products that they are experts in with a well equipped plant are guaranteed to fail?

Factories close in times of depression because people have less income, and thus there is less demand for goods. So simply producing things does not make an economy; you also need a market for what you're producing.

An anarchist society would not be victim to the ebb and flow of the capitalist money supply (another bonus)

Look at the actions of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and tell me again that the capitalists always shoot first.

There was already a massive capitalist/imperialist war at that time which in no small part precipitated the 1917 revolution as millions of russian peasants were sent to fight for the tzar in WW1.
Are you suggesting that the russian tzars were freedom loving libertarians who had their rights trampled by the left wing revolkutionaries?

And for people who are stupid, capricious, uneducated, and foolish, we need cradle-to-grave socialism, yes?

We need to build in accommodations for people who make bad decisions because in reality that will always always happen, and if we don't prepare for this, we're going to end up with an awful lot of misery and suffering, and this will spill over and begin to disturb the cosy utopian lives of the capitalists (who will then instruct their private security firms and private judges to deal with the menace)

I don't believe people are stupid. I believe they take calculated risks when they think they can get away with it. If they don't believe they can get away with it, they'll make different choices.

Regardless of what you believe, some people are stupid, some people miscalculate in the risks they take (actually, make that everyone does at some point in their lives), People can be unlucky, they can lose out due to outside circumstances beyond their control, they can be victims of fraud or theft etc etc etc.

Your ideological opposition to 'moral hazard' because 'it's the only way they'll learn' would lead to a truly heartless society, and not one that most people would feel comfortable (or secure)

Akrasia

asdasd wrote: »

I am opposed to from a selfish worker in the West point of view. For anarchists to complain about how we [ Western Workers] are "expoliting" the developing world poor, and then oppose outsourcing, is a bit rich.

Not really, the workers in the outsourced factories are being exploited just as much as the workers in the closed western factories were, and they are in just as precarious a position, especially where labour rights are not established and the workers can be summarily fired or expected to extremely unsocial hours.

Permabear

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asdasd

It is self evident, what is not self evident is the difference sacrificing your autonomy by selling yourself into bonded labour, or sacrificing your autonomy and sovergnity by selling your 'labour' by the hour.

Selling your labour by the hour is not exactly bonded, now is it, since we can move on? Anyway most of us sell our labour by the week, or month.

What is never really mentioned in discussion of Marxist texts is what they mean by " from each according to his ability". This seems forced to me. No lazing about. "Full employment" - the mechanism for that is never explained - will get the bums working alright, according to their ability. Which is sorta Daily Telegraph.

And the reward? "From each according to his need". So work hard, and get less than the guy with the 10 sprogs. Its a bit like welfare now. Now, it's a supposedly equal society , but need is not ever explained exactly. Clearly some people - the needy - would get more than the needless; making need an asset and ability a liability. Need is never equal, anyway, but this system would produce an arms race of need.

There are clear transfers of income from hard workers to the needy, and expropriation of surplus value by the needy from the able. In this system very few people wouldn't lame themselves.

this isnt the same as equality, as I said, but they've never noticed.

Akrasia

turgon wrote: »

Interesting discussion, although it getting to be a bit of a merry go round at this stage. Kudos to asdasd for his cutting criticisms of the modern anarchists! At least it provided a bit of humour, if nothing else.

Of course a few of us here have done the silly thing of asking how things are made. Silly because it appears with communists/anarcho-socialists one never gets the answer. So just a few simple questions about anarchism:

1. How is an aeroplane made in anarchism?

That question has already been answered.

The manufacturing process is not much different, to make something, you require raw materials, land, labour knowledge and 'enterprise', In capitalism the 'enterprise' is rewarded because it brings the other factors of production together, in anarchism, the enterprise would be when people and communities come together to cooperate to produce a good or a service.

Once we have the will to produce we just need the means and the materials. I have already explained how syndicates can be used to provide both raw materials, and an outlet for finished goods. If you want further elaboration, you can try reading the relevant section on the anarchist FAQ
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secI3.html#seci31

[*]Why would the communities bother innovating? As DF said when the focus of producers becomes themselves and not the consumer there is no need to innovate.

People would innovate in order to make their lives easier and more comfortable.

This question is always being, but there is simply no basis for the assumption that workers under self management would prefer to plod along and do the bare minimum to get by.

[*]How do we know how many spoons to make? Apparently all the economy is planned, and I assume ye must try and gauge what is needed.

Who said all the economy is planned? This is not 'democratic centralism' as operated in the USSR where the party decided all the levels of production and distributed through the party system, its pretty much the opposite, decentralised planning, where each syndicate gets its orders directly from the members who can relay their demands and needs upwards through the production chain.

[*]Apparently we all get to work at what we want. So who in the name of god would want to become a cleaner?

very few people I would Imagine, so the work that nobody wants to do would be divided out amongst the available workers. (It might even teach people to pick up after themselves instead of expecting others to do it for them)

After all the pointless administrative jobs involved in capitalism (the millions of over paid, self important people who work in processing taxes, processing welfare, insurance and banking, sales and marketing, lawyers pencil pushers and supervisors are freed up to engage in actually productive activity, there should be no shortage of workers to produce and to share the tasks that are currently left to people on the lowest social class

Also a point to note: the more theoretical an anarchist posts here the more thanks that post gets. Does this tell us something of the disposition of anarchists?

of course it's going to be theoretical, anarchism does not yet exist, so we can not point to current working examples and show that is how it works, also, we can not assert how things would definitely be in a future society because no one person would be entrusted to write the blueprint of all societies, that would totally betray the point of direct democracy and self management

Im not even going to bother responding to Synd, who seems to think that the Ukrainian Famine was justifiable.

He doesn't say that, Your problem is that you are trying to see everything in terms of black or white. You are just being obtuse now. Do you think the potato famine was justified? It happened when there was enough food for people to eat, but the liberals in the U.K. didnt want to interfere in the 'market' by providing aid to the hungry.

Joycey

Kama wrote: »

If I think anarchy and IT, my thought run more to systems like betfair and ebay or freecycle and craigslist, accessible, responsive, 'flat' (and crucially transparent) systems, mediating between supply and demand in a free and open voluntary economy, rather than a Cray supercomputer deciding how many toothbrushes we should all be using.

I can't gel anti-hierarchical politics with a centralized hierarchical allocation system, in my mind anyway. One of my issues with current market-capitalism is that the allocation mechanism has become too large in relation to the base economy, and is currently strangling it to death. Among other things, I can;t see how libertarianism would not go the same way. We currently have regulatory capture (imo) and I don't think this is solved by saying 'we'll get rid of regulation' any more than I think poverty could be eradicated by getting rid of money

Interesting post. Certainly making me think twice about the possibility of centralised distribution mechanisms. However the crucial thing about ebay and the rest you mentioned is that they must be transparent. How can you enforce transparency of something as large as a multinational corporation without a massive overarching force with power to legislate and regulate?

The whole thing of "if consumers want their corporations to be transparent they will use their buying power" is complete and utter BS, so how can we bring it about through non-heirarchical means?

Also, if one of these transparent, voluntary systems of allocating resources according to information given regarding supply and demand by the consumer decides to start marketing their stuff, doesnt this constitute a violation of my freedom? I know you have a less simpleminded view of human psychology then most of the right libertarians who are posting in the thread, and that you accept that our behaviour is influenced sometimes imperceptibly by the structures in place in society, so surely you recognise the manipulation and creation of harmful desire which is brought about by the freedom which corporations currently have to saturate us with advertising. How would you combat this without recourse to a heirarchical structure but with one of these corporation-like entities in operation?

Akrasia

asdasd wrote: »

Selling your labour by the hour is not exactly bonded, now is it, since we can move on? Anyway most of us sell our labour by the week, or month.

For whatever length of time you sell or rent yourself out for, you are forgoing your supposedly inalienable rights to own yourself and of self determination.

Permabear

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Joycey

donegalfella wrote: »

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Im sorry but that is just such a cop out.

What you, and all other libertarians ive come across are attempting to do, is to justify a particular view of how society should be ordered which is derived from absolute first principles.

It has become blatently clear that you, far and away the most philosophically inclined of those posting in the thread on the libertarian side, have not only never so much as questioned the assumptions which are taken to be axiomatic in libertarian ideology, but dismiss outright any attempt to illuminate what your justifications (if any) are for holding them as axiomatic. You actually said that a line of questioning which went deeper then the implimentation of your unquestioned ideology "silly". Im sorry, but there is evidently absolutely no point engaging with any of you until you open up to the idea that your worldview might not be accurate.

Turgon and Silverharp actually thanked you when you posted that you had no interest in examining the foundations of your belief system, how can we ever convince you of anything if you simply evade real discourse and revert back to the same tired responses to what (I will believe until proven otherwise) are legitimate critiques?

Kama has demonstrated that this is the case in a way which I tried to do earlier when questioning about rights, but allowed you to just dodge the critique, through a greater degree of insight and persistence. I would suggest you actually go and try to think through and respond to every one of the questions that Kama put to you, there is absolutely no way your belief system will remain unchanged having answered all those questions.

Kama

donegalfella wrote:

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So, you don't want to answer any questions you find awkward, but expect others to answer yours? Perhaps Akarasia can now respond to any questions with:

'When you get into the minutiae of property rights ad contract, you're ultimately raising finer points of law which are irrelevant to this discussion. I'm more interested in thinking about practical political solutions that work for ordinary people'

A dodge is a dodge.

You brought up the right of ownership of the body, and the centrality of competence to the legitimacy of contract in libertarian ethics is blatant and obvious. You repeatedly have referred to anyone who gets the worse of contracts as 'idiots', so I'm ultimately left to conclude that the foundation of your ethics is the right to cheat others; for their own good, of course, and pour encourager les autres; Social Darwinism in action? I also conclude that your property system, both historically, and by your sideways 'threat', is based, finally, on what you condemn: coercion and violence.

As is clear from your comment below, whether in relation to the homeless on your door, or 'the Mob', violence is acceptable and necessary...so long as you are the one practicing it.

The axiomatic foundation of 'Force' seems to mean whatever suits; if a nation peacefully, constitutionally, democratically passed an abolition of property, the libertarian would resist by force, with the aforementioned guns, and by your lights the 'true violence' has been initiated by the anarchosocialists? Of course, it is 'in defence' of your property...States also claim to be 'in defence' as they invade.

You claim the anarchist 'appropriation' is unjustified, since the libertarian would rightfully need to resist, but that the latter libertarian violence is justifiable, for the same reason? This is inconsistent. It can only be made consistent if and only if you naturalize the origin of property, with a 'just-so story' or a weak claim to mythic history. Property rights are not pre-existent to law and legitimacy, but emergent from it. The central question of the legitimacy of property rights remains untouched.

asdasd wrote:

Clearly some people - the needy - would get more than the needless; making need an asset and ability a liability. Need is never equal, anyway, but this system would produce an arms race of need.

If and only if humans beings are purely selfish actors. A libertarian ontology claims them to be, the socialist ontologies claim that peoples natures are more altruistic, the truth is more than likely between the two poles. Hence the need for a socioeconomy which encourages the healthy forms of both traits. Of course, such a position cannot be accepted by libertarian theology, as their vestal-virgin purity would be contaminated, and the slippery slope begun. As an article of faith, the State *must*, necessarily and completely, be incompetent in economic matters.

The counter, as in a well-functioning welfare state, is that all put in, all take out, as collective insurance. It is a social model based on solidarity. Again, note the high democracy and low inequality of Nordic regime-types. Note the international competitiveness of Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. How can we account for this? Do they somehow succeeed despite having developed welfare states on a universal model?

Ireland has the worst of both worlds; entrenched crony capitalism, and a residual welfare state. So there is a libertarianism for the super-rich, and a rump of socialism for the dregs, with a taxed-to-fvck PAYE in the middle.

donegalfella wrote:

But "society" has no right to compel me to support those who make dumb choices....I agree. But that doesn't give you the right to force me to assist them.

You move to a country, you accept its laws. You gain certain benefits, you bear certain responsibilities. If you don't like it, you exercise your right to Exit, and gtfo, to a more liberal regime. You chose freely to live here, fully cognizant and of sound mind and body. Think of it as a (social) contract. Your use of the amenities of this country is reciprocated by your support of its people. You get, you give.

And if you're Realist, think of Bismarcks reasons for creating the welfare state in the first place; it's better to buy the mob off than have them steal your house...

Akrasia

donegalfella wrote: »

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You've been saying this over and over again but you refuse to back it up with even the semblence of any argument.

Yes, it would.

You've heard it here first. Violence by the landowners against the poorest people in society is perfectly justifiable in libertarianism. Oh I shield my eyes from the glorious light of freedom

I'm saying that workers who previously profited from the Dell/Waterford Crystal branding, supply chains, advertising efforts, etc., couldn't just assume that they could carry on by themselves, even if they did seize control of the factory.

but you simply stated categorically that they would fail.
Your whole political philosophy is supposed to be based on small businesses, but here you say that to be successful, you need the backing of billion dollar corporations.
That's just plain dishonest.

Yes, because you'd have no money, and thus no way to engage in trade. Your factory would just produce computers and cut-glass vases and distribute them to all and sundry.

If you're just going to ignore the well the posts where I outlined how syndicate structure would trade amongst themselves, then there's not much point in this discussion.
I always took you to be honest, please engage with the actual theory rather than straw men

I'm saying that you can't assume that capitalists are violent oppressors and that socialists are peaceful humanitarians.

I wouldn't claim that, however, If there were factory occupations, going by history, it is almost always the police (on behalf of the landowners) that start attacking the occupiers (although the media will blame the victims)

I'm not going to donate my time and money to solving other people's self-inflicted problems. If I feel a particular need to do so, I can volunteer, or contribute to charity. But "society" has no right to compel me to support those who make dumb choices. If a teenager gets pregnant after a drunken one-night-stand, why should I have to help raise her child?

Because if you and all the other 'i'm grand me' types ignore the growing social unrest (or deny that it could ever happen) you're going to wake up one morning with a coke crazed maniac standing over you looking for drug money, and that would be a direct result of your short sighted refusal to help provide for other opportunities for the child of that drunken teenager.

I agree. But that doesn't give you the right to force me to assist them.

This is kind of ironic, you don't think you should be forced to help people who have suffered from bad judgement or bad luck, when this way of thinking itself is an example of an extraordinary lack of forward planning. The collapse of social order is so predictable and inevitable if you had your way, that I wouldn't wish you the misfortune of having your philosophy successfully implemented.

Permabear

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