Capitalism.

[herzmeister]

lex mercatoria

the world does not consist of merchants alone.

in fact, they are mostly the middle-men which we often want to get rid off. :·>

[NewLiberty]

When i say "didn't work," i mean just that.  It failed so badly that it necessitated a whole new layer of laws, states,  etc. -- all the stuff you hate (and i'm not a fan of either).
In other words, it couldn't protect itself from being displaced by new, less attractive & more oppressive law, it failed to protect itself from impingement by governments, states, whatever you want to call "what is."
Edit:  And there's nothing to suggest that this time it'll be any different
Edit2:  Healthcare?  Not seeing the parallels.  If you were calling us to abandon antibiotics, give up on sterilization & go back to using herbs & spices, then the analogy becomes sound

I'm not the one saying it failed when it hasn't. (likewise with healthcare)  But nice try attempting to put those words in my mouth.
It still exists.  It still works.  That it was adopted by other bigger entities doesn't mean that it doesn't work.  It was and is the norm of human interaction in a marketplace.

Since you aren't seeing the parallels, I'll try another.
Math was adopted and used by folks to make catapults and hydrogen bombs.  Maybe I don't like those things, but that doesn't mean that the fault is math.

Lets flip it...
Maybe you like anarchy.  Then someone calling himself an anarchist throws a molotov cocktail and hits an innocent bystander burning her and her unborn child to death.  So anarchy as a philosophy is a failure, right?  It failed to protect them.

I like your iconoclasm, but you are missing the mark on this.

[wdmw]

Maybe some good points if you prefer a society similar to today, just without 'em damn gubbernment. Then the author explains why it's not possible from his perspective, as a conservative that he seems to be, praising corporations, intellectual property and strict private property.

The governmentisgood site looks more like arguments for how government has interfered with free trade and made it less effective. 
A list of how government has attacked free trade is not much of a requirement for government from free trade. 

Did you go to the site?  This guy is not a conservative or arguing how government is making trade less effective.  He is praising the state, and how it is necessary for society to function.

[crumbs]

When i say "didn't work," i mean just that.  It failed so badly that it necessitated a whole new layer of laws, states,  etc. -- all the stuff you hate (and i'm not a fan of either).
In other words, it couldn't protect itself from being displaced by new, less attractive & more oppressive law, it failed to protect itself from impingement by governments, states, whatever you want to call "what is."
Edit:  And there's nothing to suggest that this time it'll be any different
Edit2:  Healthcare?  Not seeing the parallels.  If you were calling us to abandon antibiotics, give up on sterilization & go back to using herbs & spices, then the analogy becomes sound

I'm not the one saying it failed when it hasn't. (likewise with healthcare)  But nice try attempting to put those words in my mouth.

Wait, what?  If that was the case, you'd be right & i wouldn't argue.  It's not.  You claim it worked, so i'm having a hard time seing where all the opressive new shitlaw came from?

It still exists.  It still works.  That it was adopted by other bigger entities doesn't mean that it doesn't work.  It was and is the norm of human interaction in a marketplace.

Yep.  So everything that's happening right now, according to you, is just peachy -- all's according to lex mercatoria, right?  So WTF is there to complain about?  I'm glad things worked out to your liking.  Enjoy.

Since you aren't seeing the parallels, I'll try another.
Math was adopted and used by folks to make catapults and hydrogen bombs.  Maybe I don't like those things, but that doesn't mean that the fault is math.

Sure thing.  Math still works, just like lex mercatoria still works.  But just like your lex mercatoria is no longer the only law, simple math is no longer the sufficient.  It has been expanded and built upon, just like today's oppressive laws were built on your lex mercatoria.  Sorry, the abacus is just not cutting it anymore, and even Crays are obsolete.  Dig what i'm sayin'?

Lets flip it...
Maybe you like anarchy.  Then someone calling himself an anarchist throws a molotov cocktail and hits an innocent bystander burning her and her unborn child to death.  So anarchy as a philosophy is a failure, right?  It failed to protect them.

If Anarchy was widespread, and got displaced by other social/economic/power systems, than hell yeah, no matter if children got killed by molotovs or not!  It failed to survive -- it's provably falsifiable, it failed & thus may fail again.  *If nothing else, it is not fail-proof.*

I like your iconoclasm, but you are missing the mark on this.

 

Edit: typo.

[NewLiberty]

Did you go to the site?  This guy is not a conservative or arguing how government is making trade less effective.  He is praising the state, and how it is necessary for society to function.

I did.  Had a hard time taking it seriously though.  Seemed more like it should be on Onion for all the sense it made.

[ktttn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.[

If free trade means no restrictions on trade then clearly that's not what we have.  (certain types of drugs are deemed illegal as one example).
Wage slavery?  What does that mean exactly?  Workers work voluntarily and are paid a wage.
Clearly not exclusively either statist or anarchist. 

And it isn't growth for the sake of growth.  Goods are created to serve humans wants and needs.  If they didn't they wouldn't be produced. 

Unless of course the government says they should in order to keep people in jobs.  Then you have production for the sake of production and huge waste of resources.

http://c4ss.org/content/5295

Wage Slavery: The Short Version Brad Spangler | December 8th, 2010 Reconciling free market libertarianism and libertarian socialism should never be a matter of ignoring differences. Instead, such reconciliation ought to be understood as building a synthesis. Intelligent argument is an essential part of that process. What’s not productive is straying outside logical discourse, and that happens on both sides. Let’s take the bitterly-disputed concept of wage slavery as an example of where an opportunity for synthesis can be shown. We can distinguish between wage labor and wage slavery. The state acts to involuntarily transfer wealth from the productive class to a political class elite, thereby monopolizing/cartelizing capital. Additionally, the state forcibly cuts off opportunities for economic self-sufficiency. The result is that people are forcibly denied any alternative but to sell labor artificially cheaply in a buyer’s market, where the buyers are a political class plutocracy gorged on stolen loot and enjoying economic influence they are not rightly due. Unfortunately, in the debates among anarchists, we’ve got two sides exhibiting roughly equal degrees of obstinant closed-mindedness… 1) Those who rightly oppose wage slavery and wrongly blame exchange. 2) Those who rightly defend exchange and wrongly fail to recognize wage slavery. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

Or, more radically, wage slavery is nothing but the evolution of chattel slavery into something more affluent. It's using humanity where machines should be.

[crumbs]

[...]
Or, more radically, wage slavery is nothing but the evolution of chattel slavery into something more affluent. It's using humanity where machines should be.

If chattel slavery is buying, wage slavery is rent-to-own.   

[ktttn]

unlike what most US Libertarians want to believe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

private or corporate ownership of capital goods
[...]
private decision

that's why you need a state in capitalism, because you need an entity that tells you what's private and what's public.

true anarchism does not need property rights. 

Proudhon may have been a bit of a douchebag:
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/socfrombel/sfb_3.htm
But his thoughts about property hold up rather well.

Rights are only as strong as those willing to violate them are weak.

Also:

[...]
Or, more radically, wage slavery is nothing but the evolution of chattel slavery into something more affluent. It's using humanity where machines should be.

If chattel slavery is buying, wage slavery is rent-to-own.   

THIS.

[NewLiberty]

When i say "didn't work," i mean just that.  It failed so badly that it necessitated a whole new layer of laws, states,  etc. -- all the stuff you hate (and i'm not a fan of either).
In other words, it couldn't protect itself from being displaced by new, less attractive & more oppressive law, it failed to protect itself from impingement by governments, states, whatever you want to call "what is."
Edit:  And there's nothing to suggest that this time it'll be any different
Edit2:  Healthcare?  Not seeing the parallels.  If you were calling us to abandon antibiotics, give up on sterilization & go back to using herbs & spices, then the analogy becomes sound

I'm not the one saying it failed when it hasn't. (likewise with healthcare)  But nice try attempting to put those words in my mouth.

Wait, what?  If that was the case, you'd be right & i wouldn't argue.  It's not.  You claim it worked, so i'm having a hard time seing where all the opressive new shitlaw came from?

It still exists.  It still works.  That it was adopted by other bigger entities doesn't mean that it doesn't work.  It was and is the norm of human interaction in a marketplace.

Yep.  So everything that's happening right now, according to you, is just peachy -- all's according to lex mercatoria, right?  So WTF is there to complain about?  I'm glad things worked out to your liking.  Enjoy.

Since you aren't seeing the parallels, I'll try another.
Math was adopted and used by folks to make catapults and hydrogen bombs.  Maybe I don't like those things, but that doesn't mean that the fault is math.

Sure thing.  Math still works, just like lex mercatoria still works.  But just like your lex mercatoria is no longer the only law, simple math is no longer the sufficient.  It has been expanded and built upon, just like today's oppressive laws were built on your lex mercatoria.  Sorry, the abacus is just not cutting it anymore, and even Crays are obsolete.  Dig what i'm sayin'?

Lets flip it...
Maybe you like anarchy.  Then someone calling himself an anarchist throws a molotov cocktail and hits an innocent bystander burning her and her unborn child to death.  So anarchy as a philosophy is a failure, right?  It failed to protect them.

If Anarchy was widespread, and got displaced by other social/economic/power systems, than hell yeah, no matter if children got killed by molotovs or not!  It failed to survive -- it's provably falsifiable, it failed & thus may fail again.  *If nothing else, it is not fail-proof.*

I like your iconoclasm, but you are missing the mark on this.

 

Edit: typo.

OK, so you have less iconoclasm and more "willful misunderstanding". 
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

[wdmw]

Did you go to the site?  This guy is not a conservative or arguing how government is making trade less effective.  He is praising the state, and how it is necessary for society to function.

I did.  Had a hard time taking it seriously though.  Seemed more like it should be on Onion for all the sense it made.

Poe's Law in effect.  He actually, truly believes this stuff.

[wdmw]

The state acts to involuntarily transfer wealth from the productive class to a political class elite, thereby monopolizing/cartelizing capital. Additionally, the state forcibly cuts off opportunities for economic self-sufficiency. The result is that people are forcibly denied any alternative but to sell labor artificially cheaply in a buyer’s market, where the buyers are a political class plutocracy gorged on stolen loot and enjoying economic influence they are not rightly due. Unfortunately, in the debates among anarchists, we’ve got two sides exhibiting roughly equal degrees of obstinant closed-mindedness… 1) Those who rightly oppose wage slavery and wrongly blame exchange. 2) Those who rightly defend exchange and wrongly fail to recognize wage slavery.

I agree that the State helps enable the conditions above.  It's easy to see where there is mis-definition of capitalism between the anarchist camps.

[NewLiberty]

Did you go to the site?  This guy is not a conservative or arguing how government is making trade less effective.  He is praising the state, and how it is necessary for society to function.

I did.  Had a hard time taking it seriously though.  Seemed more like it should be on Onion for all the sense it made.

Poe's Law in effect.  He actually, truly believes this stuff.

It bizarrely assumes that because a government does something, that it could not be done without it (even things that were done quite well before they were monopolized by government).  It is sort of a mix between Candide and "learned helplessness".

[Rassah]

it's possible to do this in a communistic way, e.g., trading my good for your good

Small correction: communistic way would be everyone dumping goods into a pile, and whoever needs something coming to take out whatever they need. Also, if the pile starts to rot, no one cares, because everyone knows someone else will come fix it.

[Rassah]

Limited Liability Laws - Without limited liability laws, the economy would not have access to the capital it needs to grow and prosper.

You can still limit responsibility of the investors, if the directors of the company take the blame for screwing up. E.g. If someone gave a business money, and the person running that business went and did something extremely immoral, I wouldn't hold the investor responsible, and don't need the state to tell me that. In short, Limited Liability doesn't need government, just society agreeing that it's fair this way.

Property Rights - Corporate property rights – one of the main legal instruments that insulate business from government power – can be created and maintained only by government.

Not quite sure how this is better that non-corporate, plain old business or personal property ownership, which doesn't need government, just enough people agreeing that you own what you say you own.

Law and Order - Without the rule of law, our economy would resemble the “mafia capitalism” that Russia has suffered from in its transition to capitalism.

Mafia still charges way less for protection than government (15% compared to 45%), and understands that going to war is bad for business. Russia suffers from mafia in the government, not from mafia. Besides, "Extortion, bribery, kidnapping, and murder," aka "taxation, bribery, arrests, and capital punishment (or war)," is something we have under government already. So the other system can't really be worse in this regard.

Bankruptcy Protection - Bankruptcy laws protected otherwise healthy businesses that were temporarily short of funds.

Why can't orderly, private agreements on debt restructuring between a debtor and borrowers exist without government? What does government enforce that private parties can't agree on on their own? Surely private investors understand that they can get more money from a business that ran into temporary trouble by allowing it to restructure their debt agreement, than from liquidation? And in some cases, investors that actually study the market can recognize a business that should be liquidated better than someone who is emotionally attached to it and in denial.

A Stable Money Supply - Widespread commerce and a stable economy both require a stable and dependable money system – one in which consumers and merchants have faith. This can only be provided and maintained by the federal government.

Well I guess we're proper fucked then (See "Bitcoin")

Patents and Copyrights - Bill Gates likes to think of himself as a self-made man, but he would not be one of the richest men in the world if the government did not make it illegal for anyone but Microsoft to copy and sell Windows.

And yet, Microsoft is making billions in China, where it has no copyright protections at all. It just charges a much smaller fee ($1 to $3 for a Windows CD), people buy it because they know their copy isn't full of viruses and is more convenient to get, and Microsoft makes their money on volume and providing follow-up service. And Microsoft isn't the only company doing this. Services like iTunes and Netflix are also surviving in the age of extremely easy music and movie downloads, by charging for the service instead of the copyrighted content. Plus you have trade secrets, first-mover advantages, expertise in a subject you invented, etc.

Banking Regulation and Insurance - Banks cannot survive runs because they have loaned out most of the money deposited with them and therefore cannot pay it out to a large number of depositors at once...government was there to guarantee those deposits

If there was no one to guarantee deposits, perhaps banks would revert to using savings for risky investments, and keeping checking deposits safely in the bank? Sounds like this is a problem with the banks that government let's them get away with. Regardless, see "Bitcoin."

Corporate Charters - Capitalism today is corporate capitalism. But the corporation itself is a creation of government. Corporations can come into being only through charters: the legal instruments by which state governments allow businesses to incorporate.

See reply to Limited Liability Law (no reason people can't pool money with a private agreement, with corporate charters being only between the corporation and its investors). There are examples of corporation-like entities, complete with stock markets, that existed without government intervention out there. Also, see "Bitcoin" and "Colored Coin" and possibly OpenTransactions.

Commercial Transaction Laws - Who would sell goods if they couldn’t be sure they would be paid, and who would buy goods if they couldn’t be sure they would receive them?

Everyone who is currently buying and selling on eBay? The Uniform Commercial Code doesn't need a government or legislature to be created or amended, just an agreement between business owners. Nor does it need a government enforce it, any more than an eBay member with a bad rating needs eBay to intervene to stop the member from selling.

[Rassah]

My viewpoint is quite from the opposite direction and more akin to this:

http://c4ss.org/content/4043

Anarcho-”Capitalism” is impossible

...

Interesting read, though it fails right on the first premise, where it claims that "large accumulation of capital would be impossible, because it would cost too much to secure it." To understand why, you must only ask the question, "Who is paying for all that protection now?"

I think the main reason for the anarcho-socialist (or is it anarcho-communist?) and anarcho-capitalist distinctions is to protect the anarcho-socialists from getting killed. Specifically, so that the socialist anarchists will know not to wander onto the capitalist anarchist's properties and start taking stuff, thinking "it belongs to everyone," because they will get shot.

[ktttn]

My viewpoint is quite from the opposite direction and more akin to this:

http://c4ss.org/content/4043

Anarcho-”Capitalism” is impossible

...

Interesting read, though it fails right on the first premise, where it claims that "large accumulation of capital would be impossible, because it would cost too much to secure it." To understand why, you must only ask the question, "Who is paying for all that protection now?"

I think the main reason for the anarcho-socialist (or is it anarcho-communist?) and anarcho-capitalist distinctions is to protect the anarcho-socialists from getting killed. Specifically, so that the socialist anarchists will know not to wander onto the capitalist anarchist's properties and start taking stuff, thinking "it belongs to everyone," because they will get shot.

It seems we agree that Capitalism is impossible without borders and violence.

Insecure and unprotected can also mean:

[...]
 if the pile starts to rot, no one cares, because everyone knows someone else will come fix it.

How would you criticize the slogan "All is for All"?

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Never ask what a word "is" - this is one of the worst intellectual habits you can possibly cultivate - because words aren't anything. They are merely communication tools that can refer to things. Asking what some controversial word "is" is a recipe for a protracted (sometimes centuries-long), hopelessly confused debate.

The question to ask is what each person is trying to get at when they use the word. This is the ONLY way to ever reach clear thinking about a term or (verbalized) concept.

Minarchists define capitalism as free trade, voluntarists define it as a condition of inviolable property rights or lack of central authority, and leftists define it as what libertarians would call corporatism (if they define it at all). These meanings are obviously incompatible; these people speak different languages, so it is a complete mistake and wild-goose chase to ask what the word "really means." It means different things to different people, as different as the word "Gift" means to an American and a German (Gift means poison in German).

Figure out what each person you talk to means by the term before engaging in a debate with them, or else it will just devolve into semantics. And if you are just thinking in your own mind, be sure to figure out what you are trying to get at when you use a key term, rather than pondering about what it "is" like some muddle-headed Platonist. Doing this with everything (even the word "Bitcoin") is one of the best habits you can cultivate for lucid understanding of things.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Good discussion of "capitalism" from a libertarian/anarchist point of view: http://mises.org/community/forums/t/22196.aspx

[ktttn]

Never ask what a word "is" - this is one of the worst intellectual habits you can possibly cultivate - because words aren't anything. They are merely communication tools that can refer to things. Asking what some controversial word "is" is a recipe for a protracted (sometimes centuries-long), hopelessly confused debate.

The question to ask is what each person is trying to get at when they use the word. This is the ONLY way to ever reach clear thinking about a term or (verbalized) concept.

Minarchists define capitalism as free trade, voluntarists define it as a condition of inviolable property rights or lack of central authority, and leftists define it as what libertarians would call corporatism (if they define it at all). These meanings are obviously incompatible; these people speak different languages, so it is a complete mistake and wild-goose chase to ask what the word "really means." It means different things to different people, as different as the word "Gift" means to an American and a German (Gift means poison in German).

Figure out what each person you talk to means by the term before engaging in a debate with them, or else it will just devolve into semantics. And if you are just thinking in your own mind, be sure to figure out what you are trying to get at when you use a key term, rather than pondering about what it "is" like some muddle-headed Platonist.

I learned something today. Thank you.

EDIT: Final results for "Capitalism is"
Free trade13,
Wage Slavery 7,
Exclusively Statist 4,
Exclusively Anarchist 5

Let's see if I can come up with something worth asking.

[ktttn]

Good discussion of "capitalism" from a libertarian/anarchist point of view: http://mises.org/community/forums/t/22196.aspx

Excerpt from user mouser98

my question is "why capitalism"? why continue to use a word that has many different meanings for different people, some quite the opposite of what is intended, and why use an -ism word that implies a system, when what is being advocated is the lack of any system? laissez-faire seems to me to be infinitely preferable to the word capitalism. it means "let it be" which precisely defines the free market, it's a word that hasn't been vilified, and its new to most people, it doesn't have unwanted or unearned connotations. why "Capitalism" indeed!