My doubts about anarchy

[MoonShadow]

FatherMcGruder,

I came across this post, I'm still reading it, but I'm curious about your thoughts: http://socialmemorycomplex.net/features/let-the-free-market-eat-the-rich.html

Enjoyed that post!  Indeed, most current aggregations of wealth would not be able to sustain themselves in a free market.

Amen. 

[1713587407]

1713587407

[deadlizard]

FatherMcGruder,

I came across this post, I'm still reading it, but I'm curious about your thoughts: http://socialmemorycomplex.net/features/let-the-free-market-eat-the-rich.html

Enjoyed that post!  Indeed, most current aggregations of wealth would not be able to sustain themselves in a free market.

Amen. 

Amen Ra 

[sortedmush]

FatherMcGruder,

I came across this post, I'm still reading it, but I'm curious about your thoughts: http://socialmemorycomplex.net/features/let-the-free-market-eat-the-rich.html

Enjoyed that post!  Indeed, most current aggregations of wealth would not be able to sustain themselves in a free market.

Amen. 

Amen Ra 

Awesome.

[FatherMcGruder]

FatherMcGruder,

I came across this post, I'm still reading it, but I'm curious about your thoughts: http://socialmemorycomplex.net/features/let-the-free-market-eat-the-rich.html

I read it. It's well written, but only a partial justification for anarchy because it only covers abandoning government. I agree that we ought to do so, as opposed to violently demolishing it, and that it would diminish the ability of capitalists to engage in super profitable enterprises. However, simply abolishing government isn't enough to preclude capitalists from consolidating their efforts and forming a new government to allow for super profitable enterprise again. Also, imagine that confused workers might take up arms to defend their employers in the absence of government. If these loyalties persist, or capitalists can generate new ones, after an old, large state disappears, we will simply have lots of mini-states which people could only ever inhabit at the mercy of the capitalist kings. Ultimately, anarchism will only work if, in a given society, capitalists exist in the minority if at all.

I do agree that markets will function better without government intervention, and that governments will always intervene despite the promises of their supporters. However, free markets will never exist in the presence of middlemen gatekeepers, employers, renters, usurers, people who collect more than their work entails, if they actually do any.

The other think that grates me about the article is its presumption that anarchy and natural law are one in the same.

In the midst of all this theorizing, it is easy to forget that anarchy is - anarchy becomes defined by - however humans naturally interact, not how we wish they would interact. In other words, true anarchy is an empirical reality, and we have only to discover it by removing privilege. Arguing over what it shall be and shall not be presumes we can dictate how humans interact, a positively authoritarian concept. Whatever human nature might be, any anarchism worth pursuing starts there, and the kernel of proportionality and balance that could inform this matter may be sought there as well. Given this approach to anarchism, what can human nature tell us about distributive justice?

According to the folks at NAMBLA, it's human nature for adult men to bugger little boys. I would think that if we somehow discovered that they were right, anarchists would still oppose pederasty because anarchists, first and foremost, oppose authoritarian relationships whether or not they naturally occur.

Certainly, many anarchists and capitalists believe that their philosophies describe natural law, but that does not make it so. If it should turn out that humans naturally behave capitalistically, anarchists will either continue to oppose that behavior or stop subscribing to anarchism.

[BCEmporium]

Ultimately Anarchists are the worse sort of... Capitalists.
"No rules" applies from rich to poor, the poor may try to rob the rich, but still the rich can hire muscle. You can't come with a "no rules" society and expect such to be even close to any sort of "utopia communism".
To the end, discuss anarchy is like discuss any other utopia, it's senseless and roundabout to a bunch of violent folks and spoiled kids in need of soccer (football if you're American) more often to play around with riot police. Nothing to take serious...

Discussing reliable alternatives to the current systems is however possible, one gaining force, is a semi or even direct Democracy. Removing the plain old and designed for societies with few to no communications at all, the "representative" (Representing who?!) party system.

[FatherMcGruder]

Ultimately Anarchists are the worse sort of... Capitalists.
"No rules" applies from rich to poor, the poor may try to rob the rich, but still the rich can hire muscle. You can't come with a "no rules" society and expect such to be even close to any sort of "utopia communism".
To the end, discuss anarchy is like discuss any other utopia, it's senseless and roundabout to a bunch of violent folks and spoiled kids in need of soccer (football if you're American) more often to play around with riot police. Nothing to take serious...

You have not described anarchy here. For a better understanding, I recommend you start here.

[NghtRppr]

You can't come with a "no rules" society...

That's chaos, not anarchy. Anarchy means that there are no arbitrary rulers.

There are actually two very important rules in anarchy.

1. Don't use aggression against other people or their property. (self-defense is fine, we aren't pacifists)

2. The only legitimate way of obtaining property is by homesteading unowned property or legitimate title transfer i.e. trading, gifting, gambling, etc. (no stealing or fraud)

That's it. If you stick to these two rules, you cannot have any form of state since states collect taxes which is theft. By the way, these aren't rules that anarchists idealistically expect everyone to follow. On the contrary, we acknowledge that there will always be people that violate these rules. In response to these rule breakers, we each will use force to protect ourselves and our property.

[NghtRppr]

Ultimately Anarchists are the worse sort of... Capitalists.
"No rules" applies from rich to poor, the poor may try to rob the rich, but still the rich can hire muscle. You can't come with a "no rules" society and expect such to be even close to any sort of "utopia communism".
To the end, discuss anarchy is like discuss any other utopia, it's senseless and roundabout to a bunch of violent folks and spoiled kids in need of soccer (football if you're American) more often to play around with riot police. Nothing to take serious...

You have not described anarchy here. For a better understanding, I recommend you start here.

That link makes my head want to explode! Socialism is fine as long as it's voluntary. You're free to go live in a monastery, hippie commune or what have you, but as soon as you start redistributing property by force, you're being immoral. I also find it hard to fathom how anyone could think that voluntary trade is ever exploitative. If I trade you a loaf of bread for a fish, obviously you value the bread more than the fish and I value the fish more than the bread. If not, why would we voluntarily trade? By trading, we each come away with something we find more valuable than we had originally. We are both better off. How is that exploitative? It's not.

[kiba]

That link makes my head want to explode! Socialism is fine as long as it's voluntary. You're free to go live in a monastery, hippie commune or what have you, but as soon as you start redistributing property by force, you're being immoral. I also find it hard to fathom how anyone could think that voluntary trade is ever exploitative. If I trade you a loaf of bread for a fish, obviously you value the bread more than the fish and I value the fish more than the bread. If not, why would we voluntarily trade? By trading, we each come away with something we find more valuable than we had originally. We are both better off. How is that exploitative? It's not.

I asked the same question of FatherMcGruder. Still don't understand it to this day.

[BCEmporium]

Ultimately Anarchists are the worse sort of... Capitalists.
"No rules" applies from rich to poor, the poor may try to rob the rich, but still the rich can hire muscle. You can't come with a "no rules" society and expect such to be even close to any sort of "utopia communism".
To the end, discuss anarchy is like discuss any other utopia, it's senseless and roundabout to a bunch of violent folks and spoiled kids in need of soccer (football if you're American) more often to play around with riot police. Nothing to take serious...

You have not described anarchy here. For a better understanding, I recommend you start here.

Actually I did, in practical terms. That site is yet another bogus pseudo-anarchist utopia bs.

which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. -> Is it? And what if they don't want to co-op? Will call the cops on them?

As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control -> Yeah! Everybody does the same... and everybody does nothing.

For all of the anarchist BS you end up always with the same; A HUGE LOAD OF RULES, even worse than the "archists" (with government). And to very bottom a nobody understands how lack of ways to enforce such rules.
Sorry... anarchism is plain non-sense. There's nothing to understand because other than break public stuff and join protests to unleash violence, anarchists themselves can't understand or even conceive in practice their own theories. Are just a sort of political hooligans...

[kiba]

Sorry... anarchism is plain non-sense. There's nothing to understand because other than break public stuff and join protests to unleash violence, anarchists themselves can't understand or even conceive in practice their own theories. Are just a sort of political hooligans...

I disapprove of joining protests to unleash violence for the sake of "smashing capitalism".

[NghtRppr]

There's nothing to understand because other than break public stuff and join protests to unleash violence, anarchists themselves can't understand or even conceive in practice their own theories.

So because a minority of black people steal, all black people steal? Because a minority of Christians blow up abortion clinics, all Christians are terrorists? That's just absurd. Read my 2 rules above. Smashing the property of others violates rule number 1. They aren't very good anarchists if they are doing that.

I think you just have an axe to grind and don't want to learn why you're wrong.

[BCEmporium]

That's just absurd. Read my 2 rules above. Smashing the property of others violates rule number 1. They aren't very good anarchists if they are doing that.

Sorry, if you've even one rule that's already no anarchism at all.
Anarchy has no statement against(or for) scam, fraud, violence/non-violence, etc... that's what makes Anarchists (or the ones we normally call them as so) nothing but dreamers unable to be taken seriously. You always need ONE rule. It doesn't matter which actually, but it's needed.

Take for an instance why most of the World drives by the right whereas English, Asians, Australians and South-Africans by the left. Does it makes difference whether you drive by left or right? No, it's a matter of habit. However it makes difference if you try to port your habits to somewhere else, like an English driving by the left on USA or an American by the right on UK.
Anarchy is just being erratic - without government or rules or anyone to enforce them -, "YOUR Anarchy" (the only place where your two rules exists) doesn't prevail over "OTHERS' Anarchy". And despite you don't like robbers, scammers, violence and so on, it doesn't mean at all that some "OTHERS'" don't either.

Furthermore on the fallacy of Anarchy comes the "me as others" and irrational belief on some sort of "objective or supreme morality". What YOU do and what YOU think is not or may not be what OTHERS do or think. So you can't say that just because you wouldn't go stealing, robbing and murdering, others won't either... specially because by practice we know some will and you will need someway to make them stop (that's what police is for).
Also by the practice of the closest thing to Anarchy to be presented as a State ever, Communism, they had to deal with those refusing to accept a rule that makes non sense at all, in such case the wack job theories of Marx with the wacker ones of Lenin, in the most violent of ways, being the Ukrainian genocide a fair example and the to the sum 70 million assassinations by the state in USSR and currently 90 million at China.

Anarchy is also the ultimate statement of individualism and as such the worse of Capitalism - unregulated one.

But it's pointless to discuss it as any reliable source of anything, Anarchy is too unorganized to ever be able to present itself as any sort of state.

EDIT: to the end it makes as much sense as the Jehovah Witnesses' heaven...
 

[NghtRppr]

Sorry, if you've even one rule that's already no anarchism at all.

Then you don't understand anarchism. If you want to know what anarchism is about, ask an anarchist. Here comes one now...

To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It's quite simple, really. It's an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians.

Accordingly, anyone who is not an anarchist must maintain either: (a) aggression is justified; or (b) states (in particular, minimal states) do not necessarily employ aggression.

Try attacking anarchism as we actually define it instead of your straw man version. As long as you persist in denying our definition, your not really attacking anarchism. The choice is yours.

Anarchy is too unorganized to ever be able to present itself as any sort of state.

*facepalm*

[The Script]

I do agree that markets will function better without government intervention, and that governments will always intervene despite the promises of their supporters. However, free markets will never exist in the presence of middlemen gatekeepers, employers, renters, usurers, people who collect more than their work entails, if they actually do any.

Can you tell me what your definition of "work" is, and how it is decided how much one person should rightfully collect?  This will help me understand your position better.

[mjsbuddha]

Here's my two cents on anarchy. Regardless of whether its a good idea or not, its impossible, and I'll explain why.

Its a basic human desire to poses. To own bitcoins, dollars, a house and wife with 2.4 kids and a car in the garage, what have you. We all have the desire to acquire something. In an anarchic system those items, once acquired, have no security. There's nothing stopping anyone from just coming up and taking anything you have. So the general population would inevitably seek to secure their assets by hiring someone to protect them; to enforce the concept of ownership. Like an old west sheriff. The seed of governance. Humanity can not abide anarchy as it directly violates our instincts as beings that acquire and consume.

[BCEmporium]

It's not me who's denying "anarchism rules", it's you who are creating them in an (poor) attempt to make it look nicer. Call it "Minimalistic State" or something else, because as long as you call your "thing" Anarchy and at the very same time you try to sell rules for it, it's a bogus Anarchy.

You forget the subjectivity or morality; you kill a passing-by guy and get arrested / you kill an enemy at war you get yourself a medal; to the practical terms you would be doing the same; killing someone. That's how the World is, this is what morality sums up to be.
Other than subjective, morality is also subject to the time and circumstances factors, at certain age certain circumstances would justify something, at other age the changes on those circumstances may make the very same action immoral.

Violence and coercion are the only effective ways to deal with indigents; it wasn't "invented yesterday" nor "the unjustified violence of the state", it has been as so since it evolved from tribes to complex societies; where people not family related have to deal with each others, with degrees on empathy to be very lower towards general society than family and friends for obvious reasons and as eventually people will have collision of interests some ruling is needed and ways to enforce it. What really (and only) matters is to set a fair or as fair as possible rules to determine what is or isn't an indigent - as this is relative to the morality being applied.

[Alex Beckenham]

If I trade you a loaf of bread for a fish, obviously you value the bread more than the fish and I value the fish more than the bread. If not, why would we voluntarily trade? By trading, we each come away with something we find more valuable than we had originally. We are both better off. How is that exploitative? It's not.

0.62

I agree. It reminds me of when people go to the store to buy something and the price is much higher than they expect but they buy it anyway, and then complain about the transaction.

Well if you didn't think the can of beans was worth $12, then why did you trade for it? Because you were hungry?

That voluntary trade by it's very definition means you deem the beans more valuable than the cash (at that moment).

[BCEmporium]

If I trade you a loaf of bread for a fish, obviously you value the bread more than the fish and I value the fish more than the bread. If not, why would we voluntarily trade? By trading, we each come away with something we find more valuable than we had originally. We are both better off. How is that exploitative? It's not.

0.62

I agree. It reminds me of when people go to the store to buy something and the price is much higher than they expect but they buy it anyway, and then complain about the transaction.

Well if you didn't think the can of beans was worth $12, then why did you trade for it? Because you were hungry?

That voluntary trade by it's very definition means you deem the beans more valuable than the cash (at that moment).

Dooood, "cash" has no value whatsoever, it's just a way to set a "neutral value" which can be traded for anything you need. On the bitcoin2cash example, what if I've the bread but don't like fish? We wouldn't be trading... if no "neutral value" can be set - like cash - than either I wouldn't be giving my bread over your stinky fish or your will riot over the need of bread and try to rip it off from me.
Put "cash" as neutral, you trade your fish with anyone up to it, I receive the "cash" and go buy meat from somebody else.

To the end, anything basically is more valuable then than cash, cash is a mean not an end - unless you're a coin collector or something.

Also you do trade for need, not quite voluntarily. You need one thing and have something that person having the thing you need needs... All around one word: NEED.

As for people complaint on prices... don't bother, you could give it for free and they would still complaint. Complaint is an odd feature of the human nature, 90% of it you forget right away. Like in couples, most of weddings they spent the time complaining of each other and still keep together the whole life.

[NghtRppr]

Also you do trade for need, not quite voluntarily.

There is no such thing as need vs. want. All human desires are wants. I want to live. I want to eat. I want to be happy. Etc. There is no need to live or anything else. Needs are just fudge words used in an attempt to make certain desires seem more important.

If you are alone on this Earth, you have to hunt, fish, farm or forage to survive. If you don't, you will die. Is nature somehow forcing you to do any of that stuff against your will? No, that's absurd, you want to live so therefore you do what it takes to survive.

So why is it that when we add other people to this equation, suddenly you start making demands on them? They don't owe you anything. If they offer you some food to do some work, they are only increasing the number of opportunities you have. You could still go hunt, fish, farm or forage to survive, or just lay down and die. The choice is yours and it's all completely voluntary. The world does not owe you a living.