Why use a "case" when you can use a frame? http://darwinmachine.com/products.htmJust drill and tap some holes in a piece of aluminum to mount the motherboard. You don't even have to decorate it like in the example I linked to. |
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Markets like Silk Road cannot exist without law abiding Bitcoin users. Without them, there's no cover and exchangers would be accessories. Just an observation.
I'm okay with the likes of Silk Road sharing their announcing themselves in the Marketplace as long as they don't do any soliciting. I think that rule should apply to all vendors.
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...creationism... Do not want. |
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You would have entered into a contract voluntarily with the land lord to live on his property. I would expect that such a contract would require that you move out if you did not pay. If you refuse to leave when you are in breach of contract the land lord is within his rights to remove you. A point not to be glossed over is the fact that you would have been made aware of, and explicitly agreed to the rules in advance. The landlord does have a use for the land/house/room, and that is the renting of it to another person who's willing and able to pay the fee. Contract or not, landlords cannot exist without the violence to remove people from their homes. I think the above response fits this situation too. Ditto. What I oppose is the providing of goods and services at the barrel of a gun. I oppose governments because they will use violence to stop you from competing with the services they provide. Many businesses also presently rely on the violence a state can provide to limit competition. What I'm for, is an environment in which no entity can rely on the cost of hampering competition being outsourced to society as a whole. What's to stop business owners from violently eliminating competition to increase their profits themselves? Criminal enterprises, who do not enjoy protection from the traditional state, do so all the time. I think I've finally figured out what's wrong here. It doesn't seem that FatherMcGruder respects property rights. That's quite unfortunate.
I just don't think anyone has the right to use, or not use, their property to exploit or otherwise harm others. Yeah, I don't see how you can respect one kind of property rights ("personal" property), but not another ("capital" property). How do you draw that line? It's almost certain that more people could live in your home than currently does. Can you (McGruder) give an argument against this individual using your home that doesn't also fit for a landlord and his property? My home? I can have guests, but the decision of allowing additional people to live her belongs to my landlord. If I did own my home though, and if I thought a portion of it would be most useful housing someone, I would sell that portion as a share. It's kind of funny with you think about it, that people regularly do not own their own homes. I would say socialists or communists moreso than anarchists
The problem there is that the socialists and communists CALL themselves anarchists, and the press quotes it as if it were true. Remember, the people who subscribe to this philosophy have no qualms about throwing a bomb at you if you are making a "profit" at someone else's "expense" -- in their eyes. I think it makes more sense for the anarcho-socialists and communists to call themselves An hierarchists. As long as a socialist or a communist hates and wishes to get rid of authority, he is an anarchist. If he tolerates authority, even in the form of a state that he expects to wither away, he is not an anarchist. Do you feel that it's possible to reject rulers but accept hierarchies? No, but it's what anti-government capitalists try to do, not seeing, or perhaps ignoring, the contradiction. I've been in a meeting with anarcho-socialists and communists and what happened blew me away, it was fantastic. Nobody interupts, everyone listens and the whole thing goes swimmingly. However, there was a hierarchical structure that spontaneously emerged, served it's purpose and disappeared. That's not hierarchy, because the apparent leaders don't have any rank over anyone else. They are partners. It happens when we communicate, I talk, you listen and vice versa. There is lasting power to be had in maintaining a hierarchy for longer than it's natural life. This is achieved with violence and I am opposed to this. Governments talk, people listen, it's unilateral and perpetual. Employers talk, employees listen, landlords talk, tenants listen, all unilaterally. These are authoritarian relationships. |
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If there were no other greater state that also had claim to the same 'turf', then I would agree, but a cartel is not a state so long as it remains in contention for that same 'turf'. An official state can claim that it owns the land that a cartel controls, but that doesn't matter to the people living there. If the cartel is in charge, it's the state. No, a phyle. Like a tribe, but more politically structured.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyle"Phyle (Greek φυλή phulē, "clan, race, people", derived from ancient Greek φύεσθαι "to descend, to originate") is an ancient Greek term for clan or tribe. They were usually ruled by a basileus. Some of them can be classified by their geographic location" In the modern sense, they are used to describe a type of mostly voluntary city-states from the fiction of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age#Phyles"The world is divided into many phyles, also known as tribes, distinguishable by either ethnic, religious, political or other emerging cultural markers.... Most societies depicted in the novel have become globalized, and maintain enclaves throughout the world.... The phyles coexist much like historical nation-states under a system of justice and mutual protection, the Common Economic Protocol." Interesting. To the extent that a given phyle is authoritarian though, it isn't anarchistic. |
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With your example of B taking the product of A's labor there are only two cases.
1) A agrees to the trade with B
2) A does not agree and is coerced by B
1) is capitalism.
2) is theft.
Thoughts? There are three cases: 1) A agrees freely to trade with B. 2) A agrees but not freely to trade with B. 3) A does not agree and B takes A's product anyway. The first case is a cooperative exchange. If A has some weakness that might compel him to accept an unfair deal (lack of access to a market, an addiction, hunger, sickness, a lack of access to the means of production, blackmail etc.) and B takes advantage of that weakness, we have capitalism, and subtle theft, in the second case. The third case represents straight-up theft, but it is also capitalism because B took advantage of A's weakness in his inability to prevent the theft. Are they of equal value, the exchange had a built in profit. "The Margin". What does the Wheel Maker do with 10 Spears? He is only one guy.
He doesn't need 10, he is saving his profit for later. (His profit margin).
Under your argument he would only exchange what he needs. If the ten spears covers the cost of building a wheel and its bill of materials, neither caveman takes a profit. If the wheel was actually worth five spears, the wheel maker would have taken a five spear profit from the buyer. You really need to stop and think about what you mean to say, before you type. Okay, Mom. Capitalism is simply a concept that pulls together several economic laws under one word. Laws in the "natural" and "God created them" kind. As I've stated before, I get suspicious when people try to justify something with natural law or God. Lost Cause apologists do the same thing. The first being, the individual has a right to the fruits of his labor. (i.e. the capital) and he also has a right to trade it freely without coercion. The value of the two items being traded don't have a set value, the value of each thing is subjective to the perspectives of he who trades. The law of supply and demand also comes into play; as these two could be trading things on the (original) Silk Road, one trading silk from China and the other trading whatever it is that Europe made that Chinese people wanted. Each item is moving from a region that has more of it, and therefore it's market value is lower, to a region where there is less of it, and therefore it's market value is higher. That's called 'arbitridge'. Another law that you don't know is comparative advantage. Go google "the island trading game". I agree that individuals have the right to the products of their labor and that they have the right to trade without coercion. However, an exchange between an employer and his employee is inherently coercive because the employer is in charge of his employee. I agree, for the most part anyway, that we can only subjectively value the products of our labor. I happen to agree that markets are useful for determining value, but acknowledge that there are other useful ways, but the producer of a given product deserves the entirety of that value. For doing no work, a middleman deserves nothing. Now, when a merchant transports products to foreign markets by his own labor, he deserves compensation for that expense. But he has no right to take advantage of the products' builders for their lack of access to foreign markets. What you think is capitalism, is corporatism, and a far cry from capitalism. No, I'm not. Capitalism consists of authoritarian relationships. Whether these relationships involve two people or a multitude, it's capitalism. A free market, by definition, is capitalist in nature; but that does not mean that capitalism only exists in a free market. As has been noted by another, capitalism exists always and everywhere, it's just illegal under certain political conditions. Capitalism is a choice (although some might find themselves coerced into behaving capitalistically). You have to choose to take advantage of others. Capitalists depend on domination to profit. As such, states will exist in any capitalist society. |
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A simple exchange between two parties of things of equal value isn't capitalism. Both parties gain as much as they lose and therefore do not experience profit.
However, if party B takes the product of A's labor without giving back something of equal value, we have capitalism in the exchange and a state in the reason behind B's privilege. Perhaps it's B's perceived strength or holiness. Perhaps B has the backing of a more powerful authority. Without such a reason, there is no state and A won't consent to such a deal.
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I depend on violence to defend the right to my life. And so you should. If someone gets in between you and the means of production, or you and your home, he is infringing on your life. |
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Capitalism as an economic model cannot function without a government of some kind.
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A cartel isn't a state as normally would be defined, as they tend not to have geographical bounderies. Sure they do. It's called turf. A drug cartel could be considered a phyle. Phylum? Inevitable is a good word for it. Not desirable, nor irresistable; but certainly inevitable. That's a different discussion though. |
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If you aquire your resources through violence, peaceful people will not want to trade with you. So the idea of volunteerism is to boycott the products of those who make their gains by violence. A landlord must use violence, or the threat of violence, to make a living. If you do not pay his tithe, the rent, or follow his rules, he will violently remove you from or keep you out of the territory he controls for which he has no actual use himself. An employer must use violence, or the threat of violence, to make a living. If you do not pay his tithe, the difference in value between your wage and that which you produce with your labor, or follow his rules, he will violently remove you from or keep you out of the workplace he controls, for which he has no actual use himself. A usurer does the same thing, except with any capital in addition to territory and the means of production. For the most part, landlords, employers, and usurers depend on the state to provide the violence. In the absence of a conventional government though, they'll have to procure it some other way. Keep in mind that violence isn't necessarily bloody and gory. So, if one opposes government for gaining by violence, or threat of violence, he should also oppose landlords, employers, and usurers. |
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We'd all enjoy less confusion if anti-government capitalist didn't try to misappropriate anti-capitalist labels.
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What if initiating violence is profitable?
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Case in point.
Capitalism has nothing to do with authority or influence over other people. It is entirely about authority and influence over resources. It's the 'anarcho' part that deals with human relationships. Like any capitalist, monarchs have authority and influence over the resources in their kingdom. How can a monarch become an anarchist, yet remain a monarch? |
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No they don't. At least not without the aid of a state, and they do still exist in the absence of state support.
Just look at the drug cartels in Mexico. Do they need state support for an employee structure? Do they need state support for financing? Ah, but the Mexican cartels are states. People don't normally use that word for them because it gets confusing, but it's true. Businesses pay taxes to the cartels in exchange for protection. In a lot of cases, one can't even do business without permission from a cartel, similar to registering a business with an official state. Perhaps it’s better to think of government as organized crime, an entirely capitalistic organization.[/quote] I never said anything about tolerating them. I said that they exist. Just because you (or I) might not agree that human societies should function this way, it's an objective fact that they are and arrived this way in a straight forward (and probably entirely natural) way. If you believe that then must also believe that government is inevitable. |
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You still are, you just don't really understand what the term means. Well, if I do not have authority over anyone else, and I no longer aspire for such status, how am I still a capitalist? |
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I have a monopoly over the cells that make my body. What are you going to do about it? I'm coercing you. I'm denying you my body. I am in no need of your cells, so no, you aren't coercing me. If I did and you used that fact to take advantage of me, that'd be coercion. Cry some more. You must be referring to Kiba.  Landlords and employers can both exist sans a state, and have historicly. I'm not sure what you mean by usurers, but if you mean money-lenders, then they have existed without state support as well.
Regardless, this thread highlights the problems with debates among lay thinkers using technical jargon. Your defintion of capitalism is too broad to even have a conversation about the merits or faults of such an idea.
In the absence of a larger state, landlords would have to establish a monopoly of force over territory to evict tenants who don't pay up. Employers and usurers would have to do the same with capital. If you don't like the state for maintaining monopolies of force over territory (and capital), you shouldn't tolerate employers, landlords, and usurers. |
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Both fascism and communism as political ideologies would qualify as capitalist under such a definition. Both societies are capitalist. It's probably hardest to see the capitalism under communism, but it's easy when you realize that the state is the only legal capitalist in such a society. This is in line with the political defintion of "capitalism", but not the economic one, which is notablely different. Is it? A landlord has whatever monopoly of force the state allows him over his land. Without this larger state, he must establish the monopoly, and therefore create a state, himself. This arrangement seems nice until the landlords start hiring mercenaries, and then we have the beginnings of a larger state. Basically, landlords cannot exist without states. The same goes for employers and usurers. |
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Wait, so we are encouraging this ten-year-old to disobey his parents and go behind their back to use bitcoin? Are we that desperate for more bitcoin members? What's going to happen when they discover what's going on and come on this forum to find admins and hero members encouraging their kid to disobey them and download "questionable" (in their mind) software?
I can hear the child porn accusations already: "Bitcoin, a nefarious online pseudo-currency that is used to lure in young children, going behind their parents' back." You mean that's not what the Internet is for? ...have one of the admins (like Gavin) send them an email explaining what bitcoin is. Right, not creepy at all. |
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