Libertarian Socialism
Libertarian
John Galt <jg...@thegulch.org> wrote:
>Your concept, and thus your message is an oxymoron.
THIS is a reply from an Objectivist? The hieght of rational thought?
Give me a break!
If you actualy read the article, you'd know that the term "libertarian
socialism" has been around for a long time, and represents socialism
without the structure of an opressive state.
Libertarian
Mark Roddy
wrote:
As our right-wing 'friends' can't imagine cooperation outside of
coercion, it is indeed, for them, an oxymoron.
Mark Roddy
_
abcd...@my-deja.com
liber...@nospam.org (Libertarian) wrote:
> In article <7qr8ib$1aj$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> John Galt <jg...@thegulch.org> wrote:
> >Your concept, and thus your message is an oxymoron.
>
> THIS is a reply from an Objectivist? The hieght of rational thought?
> Give me a break!
>
> If you actualy read the article, you'd know that the term "libertarian
> socialism" has been around for a long time, and represents socialism
> without the structure of an opressive state.
>
> --------------------------
>Is libertarian socialism based on democracy? Please, look at once the
>home page: http://www.angelfire.com/ga/chaok you could find the real
>socialism which is for all the people whether he is rich or poor.
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
James A. Donald
> "libertarian socialism" has been around for a long time,
It has been around for about as long as the phrase "dictatorship of
the proletariat".
I am not sure how long the phrase "dry water" has been around.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
XA0KfaPus+YzmszgG88Hu8lVGIydA4MfI2dhG4by
4npzkgZ+aYNt3xWQNiz2DdGyQnykJyS6WcPgng22A
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
Jorge Landivar
"James A. Donald" wrote:
>
> --
> On 8 Sep 1999 22:46:19 -0400, liber...@nospam.org (Libertarian)
> wrote:
> > If you actualy read the article, you'd know that the term
> > "libertarian socialism" has been around for a long time,
>
> It has been around for about as long as the phrase "dictatorship of
> the proletariat".
>
> I am not sure how long the phrase "dry water" has been around.
"Libertarian Socialism" is possible, but only in a "commune like" situation.
It won't work for governments.
David Graeber
It's not meant to. It's socialism without a government. JAD
however is a lunatic who believes that all libertarian socialists
are really just would be homicidal maniacs making believe so
as to be better able to kill him. If you actually try to debate
with him he'll decide you want to kill him too, so it's probably
best to just ignore his incessent hate-mongering.
DG
Matt
David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> In article <37DC642A...@tca.net>, land...@geocities.com wrote:
>
> > "James A. Donald" wrote:
> > >
> > > --
> > > On 8 Sep 1999 22:46:19 -0400, liber...@nospam.org (Libertarian)
> > > wrote:
> > > > If you actualy read the article, you'd know that the term
> > > > "libertarian socialism" has been around for a long time,
> > >
> > > It has been around for about as long as the phrase "dictatorship of
> > > the proletariat".
> > >
> > > I am not sure how long the phrase "dry water" has been around.
> >
> > "Libertarian Socialism" is possible, but only in a "commune like" situation.
> > It won't work for governments.
>
> It's not meant to.
Orwell and I think Einstein were libertarian socialists, yet they still
believed in government. Then there are a lot of people like Chomsky who
aren't sure if they want to eliminate government or not.
The earlier libertarian socialists thought the state was what needed
destruction first. That would cause capitalism to collapse and would
allow people to spontaneously form a society based on mutual cooperation.
Chomsky and his fans today argue the reverse: that the state should be
granted more power and can serve the interest of the people; then, once
private power is sufficiently crushed, the state should gradually be
decentralized and *possibly* eliminated. But that position sounds closer
to Marxism than anarchism.
I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist roots.
--
"the population of the world is gradually dividing into two
classes, Anarchists and criminals." -- Benjamin Tucker
Matt (djar...@usa.net)
James A. Donald
On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 09:23:51 GMT, abcd...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > If you actualy read the article, you'd know that the term "libertarian
> > socialism" has been around for a long time,
A little longer than the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat".
I am not sure how long the phrase "dry water" has been around.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
wjTJEnPjJkQW4mPjrXaLO2AfyXjdMJhxdjevAyDO
4LJyCzsmJo0fg2yODIhWRkayDnbHmyo2Kj7VQ93yn
Dan Clore
> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > In article <37DC642A...@tca.net>, land...@geocities.com wrote:
> Orwell and I think Einstein were libertarian socialists, yet they still
> believed in government. Then there are a lot of people like Chomsky who
> aren't sure if they want to eliminate government or not.
Depends what "libertarian socialist" means. If it's just a synonym for
anarchist, then obviously Orwell and Einstein were not libertarian
socialists. I think though it can be used in a little broader sense, to
include not just anarchists but folks like Fourier, Council Communists,
the Situationists, etc, and then Orwell and Einstein will obviously fit
in.
> The earlier libertarian socialists thought the state was what needed
> destruction first. That would cause capitalism to collapse and would
> allow people to spontaneously form a society based on mutual cooperation.
> Chomsky and his fans today argue the reverse: that the state should be
> granted more power and can serve the interest of the people; then, once
> private power is sufficiently crushed, the state should gradually be
> decentralized and *possibly* eliminated. But that position sounds closer
> to Marxism than anarchism.
As a matter of fact libertarian socialists like Proudhon and Bakunin
thought it was more important to start building anti-capitalist things
like cooperatives and collectives right away, regardless of the chance
to eliminate the state at the current time. (How does the line ago about
building the something of the new society in the shell of the old?)
Otherwise when the state was destroyed a new one would just reappear as
people wouldn't yet know any other way to go about things.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
David O'Bedlam
Hash: SHA1
On Sun, 12 Sep 1999, Matt wrote:
[...]
> I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist roots.
I agree.
TheDavid
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPfreeware 5.0i for non-commercial use
Charset: noconv
iQA/AwUBN9zWNBz40he1RakNEQLgswCeL0KhJaS3eC7x2838NJkbIfLQDaMAoOGU
oo6WjM6Ef5jrZ0p96EgVXNus
=gd80
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Jøn Duncan
'David O'Bedlam' <thed...@tsoft.com> wrote in message
news:Pine.BSF.4.10.990913...@shell.tsoft.com...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Sun, 12 Sep 1999, Matt wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist roots.
>
> I agree.
>
>
> TheDavid
Has it really gotten away from them? How?
Jøn Duncan
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:djarum98-120...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
>
> > In article <37DC642A...@tca.net>, land...@geocities.com wrote:
> >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > On 8 Sep 1999 22:46:19 -0400, liber...@nospam.org (Libertarian)
> > > > > If you actualy read the article, you'd know that the term
> > > > > "libertarian socialism" has been around for a long time,
> > > >
> > > > the proletariat".
> > > >
> > > > I am not sure how long the phrase "dry water" has been around.
> > >
situation.
> > > It won't work for governments.
> >
> > It's not meant to.
>
> believed in government. Then there are a lot of people like Chomsky who
> aren't sure if they want to eliminate government or not.
>
Chomsky says that gov't will eventually have to be eliminated unless proven
otherwise. There's nothing I've read about not being sure (though certain
statements could be misinterpreted). The difference between libertarian
socialists and authoritarians is that the latter try to achieve socialism by
seizing state power while the former work outside of it (though not against
everything that the state does 100% of the time).
> The earlier libertarian socialists thought the state was what needed
> destruction first. That would cause capitalism to collapse and would
> allow people to spontaneously form a society based on mutual cooperation.
That's not true. Bakunin thought that the "facts of the revolution" --
nonstate institutions needed to be established first. I think many if not
most would have no quarrel with pressure being put on the state to take
action X even though doing so would temporarily grant it more power.
> Chomsky and his fans today argue the reverse: that the state should be
> granted more power and can serve the interest of the people;
Maybe some of his "fans" do.
> then, once
> private power is sufficiently crushed, the state should gradually be
> decentralized and *possibly* eliminated.
No libertarian socialist would give such blanket approval to the state (the
opposite is true). The fact is that the state is closely associated with
private power. They don't propose that private power is to be crushed by the
state (not directly anyway) which you seem to be implying.
> But that position sounds closer to Marxism than anarchism.
It does, but you aren't describing libertarian socialism.
>
> I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist roots.
>
What does that mean? You do realize that the world is a different place now
and that we understand it differently, right?
Jon
David Graeber
djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
>
> > In article <37DC642A...@tca.net>, land...@geocities.com wrote:
> >
> > > "James A. Donald" wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > On 8 Sep 1999 22:46:19 -0400, liber...@nospam.org (Libertarian)
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > If you actualy read the article, you'd know that the term
> > > > > "libertarian socialism" has been around for a long time,
> > > >
> > > > It has been around for about as long as the phrase "dictatorship of
> > > > the proletariat".
> > > >
> > > > I am not sure how long the phrase "dry water" has been around.
> > >
> > > "Libertarian Socialism" is possible, but only in a "commune like"
situation.
> > > It won't work for governments.
> >
> > It's not meant to.
>
> Orwell and I think Einstein were libertarian socialists, yet they still
> believed in government. Then there are a lot of people like Chomsky who
> aren't sure if they want to eliminate government or not.
>
> The earlier libertarian socialists thought the state was what needed
> destruction first. That would cause capitalism to collapse and would
> allow people to spontaneously form a society based on mutual cooperation.
> Chomsky and his fans today argue the reverse: that the state should be
> granted more power and can serve the interest of the people; then, once
> private power is sufficiently crushed, the state should gradually be
> decentralized and *possibly* eliminated. But that position sounds closer
> to Marxism than anarchism.
>
> I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist roots.
Now, wait a minute, Matt. First of all, "believe in government"
is kind of vague - what you seem to mean by it is "were not for
to the immediate abolition of all government." Second of all, the
assertion that Chomsky (for example) believes the state should be
granted more power, then after capitalism is crushed, be gradually
decentralized and possibly eliminated... um, huh? This was not
my impression at all. Clearly, Chomsky doesn't believe it would
be possible to go directly to anarcho-syndicalism tommorrow, but
to say that he wants a centralized state "crushing" private power
- well, frankly, it sounds like you have once again been arguing
with right-wing fanatic bullshit artists so long you are accepting
their premises without realizing they has little to do with reality.
The only political program that Chomsky has endorsed which involves
using the state as far as I know is his support for Joel Rogers'
New Party. The New Party however is not focused on national-level
politics at all but thinks the left should be working on winning
control of local community school boards, city councils, and
whatnot and then gradually build up... but largely so as to
grant more autonomy to the grassroots political organizations they
feel should be the real focus of American democracy. The whole idea
is to _start_ by decentralizing power. Second of all, when it
comes to specific issues, aside from a few classic Liberal causes
like gun control that Chomsky is not against, it's hard to see anywhere
where he wishes to increase the power of the federal government and
many, many where he clearly wishes to limit or eliminate it.
I think the problem is you are once again buying into the
right-wing terms, whereby "private power" is supposed to exist
independently of the state. Chomsky believes that most of the
biggest capitalist enterprises are entirely state supported, and
that one cannot even make a clear distinction between where one
stops and the other starts in many instances. He has made it clear
that even if somehow a genuine "free market" policy was put into
force in America, it would have devastating effects on all the
centers of corporate power, and therefore would never be
allowed - in fact he frequently remarks on how many of the naive
freshman Republicans who swept into office along with Gingrich's
great revolution, who actually believed in their own "free
market" propaganda, almost immediately had to be taken aside
by the corporate interests who had paid for their campaigns and
told that of course you can't really _do_ that. So I think your
entire distinction makes very little sense.
In the short run, we are stuck with a state. Obviously, the
thing to do is to encourage decentralization, increasing grass-
roots democracy, and civil liberties, and to attack at all
fronts state support for corporate power. That is hardly a
program for "increasing state power", even though it might mean
doing so in a few areas in the short run - to me, this is no
big deal if it decreases the power of the central state even
more _simultaneously_ in other ways (ie, as opposed to "we'll
decentralize later".) At the moment, neither the capitalists
nor the anti-capitalists imagine one could eliminate the state
entirely; the point is the anti-capitalists want to work in
that direction, mostly, while the capitalists (aside from some
very naive fanatics you get on Usenet) don't really believe
their own propaganda at all and want to strengthen it, for
themselves, and simultaneously weaken it's protections for
others.
DG
Mark Roddy
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
[snip]
>
>> Chomsky and his fans today argue the reverse: that the state should be
>> granted more power and can serve the interest of the people;
>
>Maybe some of his "fans" do.
>
>> then, once
>> private power is sufficiently crushed, the state should gradually be
>> decentralized and *possibly* eliminated.
>
>No libertarian socialist would give such blanket approval to the state (the
>opposite is true). The fact is that the state is closely associated with
>private power. They don't propose that private power is to be crushed by the
>state (not directly anyway) which you seem to be implying.
>
>> But that position sounds closer to Marxism than anarchism.
>
Arghhh, just because an anarchist defends the limited social benefits
(i.e. social security, etc.) of the current system, doesn't imply
approval of the current system. The modest social democracy
institutued in the west since the rise of the Soviet Union, which
reached its apogee in the late 60's early 70's has been under siege
from the right since the early 80's, and since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, has been in full retreat. It appears that working people
were only given benefits temporarily to keep us from going communist.
Now that the 'red thread' is over our rulers want to take everything
back.
I can oppose sacking more social programs that benefit people, while
at the same time believeing that decentralization and democratization
of the system is the correct overall solution. One position is
tactical, the other is strategic. The alternative is what? Support the
continued impoverishment of working people in the hopes that their
lives will get so miserable that they will revolt? Sorry, I can't be
that twisted.
Mark Roddy
_
Matt
> > The earlier libertarian socialists thought the state was what needed
> > destruction first. That would cause capitalism to collapse and would
> > allow people to spontaneously form a society based on mutual cooperation.
> > Chomsky and his fans today argue the reverse: that the state should be
> > granted more power and can serve the interest of the people; then, once
> > private power is sufficiently crushed, the state should gradually be
> > decentralized and *possibly* eliminated. But that position sounds closer
> > to Marxism than anarchism.
>
> As a matter of fact libertarian socialists like Proudhon and Bakunin
> thought it was more important to start building anti-capitalist things
> like cooperatives and collectives right away, regardless of the chance
> to eliminate the state at the current time. (How does the line ago about
> building the something of the new society in the shell of the old?)
> Otherwise when the state was destroyed a new one would just reappear as
> people wouldn't yet know any other way to go about things.
That is a reasonable argument, but it is not what I interpret Bakunin as saying.
Consider this argument:
Free Organization to Follow Abolition of the State. Abolition
of the State and the Church should be the first and
indispensable condition of the real enfranchisement of
society. It will be only after this that society can and
should begin its own reorganization; that, however, should
take place not from the top down, not according to an ideal
plan mapped by a few sages or savants, and not by means of
decrees issued by some dictatorial power or even by a
National Assembly elected by universal suffrage. Such a
system, as I have already said, inevitably would lead to the
formation of a governmental aristocracy, that is, a class of
persons which has nothing in common with the masses of
people; and, to be sure, this class would again turn to
exploiting and enthralling the masses under the pretext of
common welfare or of the salvation of the State.
[...]
Before creating, or rather aiding the people to create, this
new organization, it is necessary to achieve a victory. It is
necessary to overthrow that which is, in order to be able to
establish that which should be...
-- "stateless socialism: anarchism"
I agree with you that building cooperatives and collectives is a worthy
goal, at least while the anarchist movement is weak. But our primary
goal, as Bakunin said, should be the abolition of the state. As long as
the state survives we will have a society of masters and slaves.
If the masters are hostile to anarchism (which they undoubtedly are),
clearly they will be able to crush the anarchist movement as long as they
have the power of the state at their disposal. If the masters are
friendly to our ideals, that is all the more reason to distrust them. For
they will inevitably see their own power as right and will use it to
co-opt our efforts for our own sake. But seeing how just and right their
power is, these socialist masters will come to despise the inferior
masses, and will create a new priviledged aristocracy.
That is one of Bakunin's major lesson's for us, a lesson Chomsky and his
fans seem to ignore.
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:djarum98-120...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> > Orwell and I think Einstein were libertarian socialists, yet they still
> > believed in government. Then there are a lot of people like Chomsky who
> > aren't sure if they want to eliminate government or not.
> Chomsky says that gov't will eventually have to be eliminated unless proven
> otherwise. There's nothing I've read about not being sure (though certain
> statements could be misinterpreted).
A few paragraphs down I give a quote from an AOL transcript where he says
he isn't sure. Possibly I am misinterpreting, as you say.
> The difference between libertarian
> socialists and authoritarians is that the latter try to achieve socialism by
> seizing state power while the former work outside of it (though not against
> everything that the state does 100% of the time).
If a government officer pulls a young child off a busy road, I do not
object. I do object to government bureaucracy imposing itself on the
lives of private individuals and assuming roles for itself (e.g. welfare)
that would be better handled by voluntary organizations.
> > The earlier libertarian socialists thought the state was what needed
> > destruction first. That would cause capitalism to collapse and would
> > allow people to spontaneously form a society based on mutual cooperation.
>
> That's not true. Bakunin thought that the "facts of the revolution" --
> nonstate institutions needed to be established first.
Perhaps my Bakunin is rusty, but as I showed to Dan Clore, a quick look at
"stateless socialism: anarchism" seems to say otherwise.
I don't think Bakunin would object to forming cooperatives and the like
within the capitalist/statist system. His major point was that the state
needs to be abolished before such socialist institutions could be
effective in reshaping society.
Bakunin's view seems to be directly opposite to Chomsky's.
> > Chomsky and his fans today argue the reverse: that the state should be
> > granted more power and can serve the interest of the people;
>
> Maybe some of his "fans" do.
Chomsky says the government "can become as benign as we
make it. "
How can an anarchist think government can be benign?
I realize many people get involved in silly sectarian squabbles about who
is a "true anarchist." But clearly, if the word anarchist means anything
at all, we have to draw the line somewhere.
A Nazi who calls himself an anarchist could be rightly dismissed as a
phony. Same thing with someone who thinks government can be benign. The
fundamental idea of anarchism is that government is harmful and
unnecessary. If you don't believe that... you're out of the loop.
I would contend that anyone who thinks government can be benign cannot
really be libertarian without also being hopelessly utopian.
> > then, once
> > private power is sufficiently crushed, the state should gradually be
> > decentralized and *possibly* eliminated.
>
> No libertarian socialist would give such blanket approval to the state (the
> opposite is true). The fact is that the state is closely associated with
> private power. They don't propose that private power is to be crushed by the
> state (not directly anyway) which you seem to be implying.
I'm getting what I said from an interview on AOL with Chomsky. Admittedly
this is not a good source--his published writings would be better. But it
is more concrete than anything else I've seen him write. Perhaps you can
suggest something better. Here is Chomsky's comment:
Question: Do you think that government is necessary? Do you
think we may progress beyond the tyranny of majority rule?
NoamChmsky: I would be happy if there was majority rule. So
the first thing is to progress to that. But what we have is
rule by narrow minority that have succeeded in getting small
amounts of power in their hands. As long as there are enormus
private tryannies, that are unaccountable to the general
public, a strong government that is at least accountable to
the public at will is necessary for the advancement of
fundamental rights. In a more free and democratic society in
which private is dissolved, then big government should be
broken down and decentralized, and possibly eliminated.
In that last sentence he presumably means "private power" (i.e. big
corporations); James will probably have a less charitable interpretation
(like "private life").
Nevertheless this appears to be a reiteration of the Communist Manifesto.
It is somewhat more libertarian and somewhat more populist, but the
institutions he proposes are about the same. And Chomsky's views are
similarly hazy such that any government, no matter how tyrannical, could
claim to be implementing them.
How does one "dissolve" private power without state police going around
confiscating property and beating people up?
The alternative method would be for populist groups to form their own
non-exploitative organizations, thus supplanting capitalist institutions.
But this course would make the state an adversary. Either the state would
crush such an attempt, or it would co-opt it and become another state
socialist tyranny. No matter what, the state is still the enemy--but not
according to Chomsky.
> > I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist roots.
> What does that mean? You do realize that the world is a different place now
> and that we understand it differently, right?
The same issues persist. The same lessons of history apply.
Matt
I'm sorry: do you mean Orwell and Einstein thought the government could be
gradually eliminated? If so I was unaware of that.
> Second of all, the
> assertion that Chomsky (for example) believes the state should be
> granted more power, then after capitalism is crushed, be gradually
> decentralized and possibly eliminated... um, huh? This was not
> my impression at all.
Well that's what he said, almost in those words. I gave a quote in my
response to Jon Duncan. It is from an interview on AOL in which he was no
doubt thinking and typing very fast, but it seems representative of other
stuff he has written (and also more explicit).
> Clearly, Chomsky doesn't believe it would
> be possible to go directly to anarcho-syndicalism tommorrow, but
> to say that he wants a centralized state "crushing" private power
Forgive me. He says "dissolve" rather than "crush." He also argues
against "states' rights," saying only the federal government is strong
enough to combat private power (the reason being that corporations can
easily move out of one state if they don't like its regulations). So for
that reason he does argue for a centralized state that can dissolve
private power.
> - well, frankly, it sounds like you have once again been arguing
> with right-wing fanatic bullshit artists so long you are accepting
> their premises without realizing they has little to do with reality.
Perhaps...
> The only political program that Chomsky has endorsed which involves
> using the state as far as I know is his support for Joel Rogers'
> New Party. The New Party however is not focused on national-level
> politics at all but thinks the left should be working on winning
> control of local community school boards, city councils, and
> whatnot and then gradually build up... but largely so as to
> grant more autonomy to the grassroots political organizations they
> feel should be the real focus of American democracy. The whole idea
> is to _start_ by decentralizing power. Second of all, when it
> comes to specific issues, aside from a few classic Liberal causes
> like gun control that Chomsky is not against, it's hard to see anywhere
> where he wishes to increase the power of the federal government
So aside from his desire to disarm the population, it's hard to see
anywhere where he wishes to increase the power of the federal
government??????
> and
> many, many where he clearly wishes to limit or eliminate it.
Like where?
> I think the problem is you are once again buying into the
> right-wing terms, whereby "private power" is supposed to exist
> independently of the state.
Or perhaps I have simply come into contact with reality.
> Chomsky believes that most of the
> biggest capitalist enterprises are entirely state supported,
I agree that they are often state supported. But they are not *entirely*
state supported. They do not depend on the state for their very existence
(legally they might, but in reality they don't).
Chomsky's arguments are against markets and property rights much more than
they are against corporate welfare and the like.
When people deal in markets, they act in their own interest and not in the
public interest. Individual liberty is at the heart of Chomsky's problem
with the current social order. He makes some great criticisms about how
corrupt the current "free market" system is. But at the heart of his
criticism is an objection to people acting in what they perceive as their
own interest rather than what he perceives as the public interest. In
_Deterring Democracy_ he says these private vices can no longer be
tolerated. In the quote I gave to Jon, he says "big government" is
necessary as long as this problem persists.
So his objection is not really to state supported capitalism, but to
private interest itself. That is why he says anarcho-capitalism would be
the worst tyranny ever--because there would be no one to act in the public
interest.
Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to be
imposing their own personal values on me.
[snip]
> In the short run, we are stuck with a state. Obviously, the
> thing to do is to encourage decentralization, increasing grass-
> roots democracy, and civil liberties, and to attack at all
> fronts state support for corporate power. That is hardly a
> program for "increasing state power", even though it might mean
> doing so in a few areas in the short run - to me, this is no
> big deal if it decreases the power of the central state even
> more _simultaneously_ in other ways (ie, as opposed to "we'll
> decentralize later".)
If you attack state support for corporate power, how can that be a way of
increasing state power? Eliminating corporate welfare and regulated
monopolies sounds like a decrease in state power.
> At the moment, neither the capitalists
> nor the anti-capitalists imagine one could eliminate the state
> entirely; the point is the anti-capitalists want to work in
> that direction, mostly, while the capitalists (aside from some
> very naive fanatics you get on Usenet) don't really believe
> their own propaganda at all and want to strengthen it, for
> themselves, and simultaneously weaken it's protections for
> others.
I'm not sure you can support that assertion. If you can say with
certainty what they believe, can't they say with certainty what you
believe?
David Graeber
djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
To be honest I was not aware that Orwell or Einstein were
libertarian socialists at all before you called them that;
I assumed that if you called them that, it was because they
were for the eventual elimination of government because
otherwise the term seems to lose its meaning.
>
> > Second of all, the
> > assertion that Chomsky (for example) believes the state should be
> > granted more power, then after capitalism is crushed, be gradually
> > decentralized and possibly eliminated... um, huh? This was not
> > my impression at all.
>
> Well that's what he said, almost in those words. I gave a quote in my
> response to Jon Duncan. It is from an interview on AOL in which he was no
> doubt thinking and typing very fast, but it seems representative of other
> stuff he has written (and also more explicit).
I'll have to a take a look at this, but if so it
runs very much against the grain of stuff he was saying
quite recently, not to mention the party he's chosen
to support.
>
> > Clearly, Chomsky doesn't believe it would
> > be possible to go directly to anarcho-syndicalism tommorrow, but
> > to say that he wants a centralized state "crushing" private power
>
> Forgive me. He says "dissolve" rather than "crush." He also argues
> against "states' rights," saying only the federal government is strong
> enough to combat private power (the reason being that corporations can
> easily move out of one state if they don't like its regulations). So for
> that reason he does argue for a centralized state that can dissolve
> private power.
He argues against it in certain cases where it is used
in certain ways. But the overall political program he supports
involves devolution of powers rather than centralized. Opposing
bidding wars between states for corporate influence is hardly
the same as wanting to use centralized power to crush corporations.
>
> > - well, frankly, it sounds like you have once again been arguing
> > with right-wing fanatic bullshit artists so long you are accepting
> > their premises without realizing they has little to do with reality.
>
> Perhaps...
>
> > The only political program that Chomsky has endorsed which involves
> > using the state as far as I know is his support for Joel Rogers'
> > New Party. The New Party however is not focused on national-level
> > politics at all but thinks the left should be working on winning
> > control of local community school boards, city councils, and
> > whatnot and then gradually build up... but largely so as to
> > grant more autonomy to the grassroots political organizations they
> > feel should be the real focus of American democracy. The whole idea
> > is to _start_ by decentralizing power. Second of all, when it
> > comes to specific issues, aside from a few classic Liberal causes
> > like gun control that Chomsky is not against, it's hard to see anywhere
> > where he wishes to increase the power of the federal government
>
> So aside from his desire to disarm the population, it's hard to see
> anywhere where he wishes to increase the power of the federal
> government??????
Excuse me? I don't get this. You're saying that the
right to bear arms is just so incredibly important that
it makes a mockery of anything else or what?
>
> > and
> > many, many where he clearly wishes to limit or eliminate it.
>
> Like where?
Like where he says that most of what the federal
government does is to support corporate interests, that
huge amounts of tax money go directly to corporations,
or to projects that directly benefit corporations, and
that he wishes to stop that.
>
> > I think the problem is you are once again buying into the
> > right-wing terms, whereby "private power" is supposed to exist
> > independently of the state.
>
> Or perhaps I have simply come into contact with reality.
Do you really think Exxon could exist independently
of the state, and that this utterly hypothetical situation
corresponds to "reality"?
>
> > Chomsky believes that most of the
> > biggest capitalist enterprises are entirely state supported,
>
> I agree that they are often state supported. But they are not *entirely*
> state supported. They do not depend on the state for their very existence
> (legally they might, but in reality they don't).
Actually, as you yourself seem to realize, in fact they
do depend on the state for their very existence. Their legal
status comes from the state. They are based on forms of
property which are enforced by the state and have never been
known to exist without one. Again, you seem to be taking an
utterly hypothetical, imaginary system that you think
_could_ exist and insisting that's somehow the real reality.
But it's not.
> Chomsky's arguments are against markets and property rights much more than
> they are against corporate welfare and the like.
>
> When people deal in markets, they act in their own interest and not in the
> public interest. Individual liberty is at the heart of Chomsky's problem
> with the current social order. He makes some great criticisms about how
> corrupt the current "free market" system is. But at the heart of his
> criticism is an objection to people acting in what they perceive as their
> own interest rather than what he perceives as the public interest. In
> _Deterring Democracy_ he says these private vices can no longer be
> tolerated. In the quote I gave to Jon, he says "big government" is
> necessary as long as this problem persists.
>
> So his objection is not really to state supported capitalism, but to
> private interest itself. That is why he says anarcho-capitalism would be
> the worst tyranny ever--because there would be no one to act in the public
> interest.
>
> Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
> people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to be
> imposing their own personal values on me.
I notice that you pass over information which pretty much
contradicts this - as when Chomsky says that even Newt
Gringrich's followers would have undermined corporate power
if allowed to do what they said they wanted. Actually,
Chomsky's bottom line is always one of devolving power
onto ordinary people. He has even argued in favor of
supporting things like right-wing fundamentalists in
Latin America insofar as they create local self-help
groups and otherwise involve ordinary and small-scale
communities taking responsibilities previously taken by
the state or other elites.
Even apart from Chomsky, it basically comes down
to this. Any system in which people have to compete with
each other for their very survival is going to generate
severe conflicts which will necessitate the existence of
a state. Any system in which people are not forced to
compete for their very survival will necessarily involve
some form of conception of common interest - an interest
which does, objectively, exist because people are
(a) dependent on one another for everything, and (b) will
end up with violent conflict and the threat of force if
they do not behave this way. One thing which everyone
has to face at some point is the necessity to compromise
with others; it's what being a human is all about. Talking
about common (or if you like public) interests is just
a way of recognizing this - the crucial thing, though
(and I will admit most people who talk about "the public
interest" do not seem to be aware of this) is this
recognition, to be meaningful, has to be voluntary.
> [snip]
>
> > In the short run, we are stuck with a state. Obviously, the
> > thing to do is to encourage decentralization, increasing grass-
> > roots democracy, and civil liberties, and to attack at all
> > fronts state support for corporate power. That is hardly a
> > program for "increasing state power", even though it might mean
> > doing so in a few areas in the short run - to me, this is no
> > big deal if it decreases the power of the central state even
> > more _simultaneously_ in other ways (ie, as opposed to "we'll
> > decentralize later".)
>
> If you attack state support for corporate power, how can that be a way of
> increasing state power? Eliminating corporate welfare and regulated
> monopolies sounds like a decrease in state power.
It would be. I simply mean that the way to get there
might involve a kind of two steps forward one step back
kind of process: ie, in order to eliminate corporate
welfare you might have to organize a party on the national
level that you might have otherwise kept local, you might
have to seek out certain types of alliances, and so on.
I just figured a good rule of thumb would be: never,
under any conditions, end up in the situation where
everything you do leads to an overall cumulative increase,
with the assumption that you can decrease it again later,
because that's never going to work.
>
> > At the moment, neither the capitalists
> > nor the anti-capitalists imagine one could eliminate the state
> > entirely; the point is the anti-capitalists want to work in
> > that direction, mostly, while the capitalists (aside from some
> > very naive fanatics you get on Usenet) don't really believe
> > their own propaganda at all and want to strengthen it, for
> > themselves, and simultaneously weaken it's protections for
> > others.
>
> I'm not sure you can support that assertion. If you can say with
> certainty what they believe, can't they say with certainty what you
> believe?
You can observe what they do.
DG
Matt
David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> In article <djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
>
> > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> To be honest I was not aware that Orwell or Einstein were
> libertarian socialists at all before you called them that;
> I assumed that if you called them that, it was because they
> were for the eventual elimination of government because
> otherwise the term seems to lose its meaning.
Einstein was a socialist and from what I read I think he was somewhat
libertarian. Orwell was a socialist and was obviously devoted to
liberty. What would you call a socialist who is libertarian?
[snip]
> Second of all, when it
> > > comes to specific issues, aside from a few classic Liberal causes
> > > like gun control that Chomsky is not against, it's hard to see anywhere
> > > where he wishes to increase the power of the federal government
> >
> > So aside from his desire to disarm the population, it's hard to see
> > anywhere where he wishes to increase the power of the federal
> > government??????
>
> Excuse me? I don't get this. You're saying that the
> right to bear arms is just so incredibly important that
> it makes a mockery of anything else or what?
Disarming the population implies a vast increase in state power, yet you
addressed this this as a minor issue.
> > > I think the problem is you are once again buying into the
> > > right-wing terms, whereby "private power" is supposed to exist
> > > independently of the state.
> >
> > Or perhaps I have simply come into contact with reality.
>
> Do you really think Exxon could exist independently
> of the state, and that this utterly hypothetical situation
> corresponds to "reality"?
Of course Exxon could exist independently of the state. Perhaps many of
the details of its contracts would have to be revised, but there is no
reason it could not exist.
> > I agree that they are often state supported. But they are not *entirely*
> > state supported. They do not depend on the state for their very existence
> > (legally they might, but in reality they don't).
>
> Actually, as you yourself seem to realize, in fact they
> do depend on the state for their very existence. Their legal
> status comes from the state. They are based on forms of
> property which are enforced by the state and have never been
> known to exist without one.
If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
and responsibilities which they would continue with.
I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
should) be difficult to construct.
So while I agree that our view of property is heavily distorted by the
state, I am no longer convinced people would abandon all private property
arrangements if given the chance.
> Again, you seem to be taking an
> utterly hypothetical, imaginary system that you think
> _could_ exist and insisting that's somehow the real reality.
> But it's not.
Wait a minute: which one of us is the communist anarchist?
> > When people deal in markets, they act in their own interest and not in the
> > public interest. Individual liberty is at the heart of Chomsky's problem
> > with the current social order. He makes some great criticisms about how
> > corrupt the current "free market" system is. But at the heart of his
> > criticism is an objection to people acting in what they perceive as their
> > own interest rather than what he perceives as the public interest. In
> > _Deterring Democracy_ he says these private vices can no longer be
> > tolerated. In the quote I gave to Jon, he says "big government" is
> > necessary as long as this problem persists.
> >
> > So his objection is not really to state supported capitalism, but to
> > private interest itself. That is why he says anarcho-capitalism would be
> > the worst tyranny ever--because there would be no one to act in the public
> > interest.
> >
> > Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
> > people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to be
> > imposing their own personal values on me.
>
> I notice that you pass over information which pretty much
> contradicts this - as when Chomsky says that even Newt
> Gringrich's followers would have undermined corporate power
> if allowed to do what they said they wanted.
I snipped that, though I did give him credit above for pointing out how
corrupt the current "Free market" system is. But again, his primary
objection to the status quo is that people are permitted to act in their
own interest and not the public interest. He assumes it is just a cabal
of elite capitalists who do this, but it seems to me as though a very
substantial number of people actively participate in the system, and don't
think it is a bad thing at all.
[snip]
> Even apart from Chomsky, it basically comes down
> to this. Any system in which people have to compete with
> each other for their very survival is going to generate
> severe conflicts which will necessitate the existence of
> a state. Any system in which people are not forced to
> compete for their very survival will necessarily involve
> some form of conception of common interest - an interest
> which does, objectively, exist because people are
> (a) dependent on one another for everything, and (b) will
> end up with violent conflict and the threat of force if
> they do not behave this way....
I think interdependency only requires a "public interest" insofar as the
rules for maintaining the system are required. Yet most of the time when
people argue something is in the public interest, they mean some idea of
theirs should be imposed on everyone.
Furthermore, we are dependent on particular people and groups at
particular times (in ways that can become incredibly complex). We are not
dependent on everyone else all at once. If you accept the latter view, it
is easy to accept somewhat simplistic ideas about what is in the public
interest. If you accept the former view (which I think is closer to the
truth), you have to leave it up to the particular individuals involved to
figure out their best interest.
> One thing which everyone
> has to face at some point is the necessity to compromise
> with others; it's what being a human is all about. Talking
> about common (or if you like public) interests is just
> a way of recognizing this - the crucial thing, though
> (and I will admit most people who talk about "the public
> interest" do not seem to be aware of this) is this
> recognition, to be meaningful, has to be voluntary.
And that is frequently a big problem: the "public interest" is often used
to enforce some rule against someone else, a majority against a minority
or whatnot.
[snip]
> It would be. I simply mean that the way to get there
> might involve a kind of two steps forward one step back
> kind of process: ie, in order to eliminate corporate
> welfare you might have to organize a party on the national
> level that you might have otherwise kept local, you might
> have to seek out certain types of alliances, and so on.
> I just figured a good rule of thumb would be: never,
> under any conditions, end up in the situation where
> everything you do leads to an overall cumulative increase,
> with the assumption that you can decrease it again later,
> because that's never going to work.
I'm not sure if Chomsky follows that rule of thumb.
Jøn Duncan
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> In article <7rjedf$bpc$1...@oak.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
> <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> > news:djarum98-120...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
>
> I'm getting what I said from an interview on AOL with Chomsky. Admittedly
> this is not a good source--his published writings would be better. But it
> is more concrete than anything else I've seen him write. Perhaps you can
> suggest something better. Here is Chomsky's comment:
>
> Question: Do you think that government is necessary? Do you
> think we may progress beyond the tyranny of majority rule?
>
> NoamChmsky: I would be happy if there was majority rule. So
> the first thing is to progress to that. But what we have is
> rule by narrow minority that have succeeded in getting small
> amounts of power in their hands. As long as there are enormus
> private tryannies, that are unaccountable to the general
> public, a strong government that is at least accountable to
> the public at will is necessary for the advancement of
> fundamental rights. In a more free and democratic society in
> which private is dissolved, then big government should be
> broken down and decentralized, and possibly eliminated.
>
> In that last sentence he presumably means "private power" (i.e. big
> corporations); James will probably have a less charitable interpretation
> (like "private life").
>
> Nevertheless this appears to be a reiteration of the Communist Manifesto.
> It is somewhat more libertarian and somewhat more populist, but the
> institutions he proposes are about the same. And Chomsky's views are
> similarly hazy such that any government, no matter how tyrannical, could
> claim to be implementing them.
A quick comment (hopefully I can respond in more detail later): if you take
into account Chomsky's definition of anarchism (which you might not agree
with -- you might even oppose that version of anarchism even though I think
it's the only way anarchism makes much sense). Here it is even though I know
you must have come across it frequently:
[this isn't word-for-word] Anarchism isn't an ideology but a tendency in
history. It assumes that any form of authority must prove it is necessary --
otherwise it is illegitimate. The burden of proof is never on those under
authority. An anarchist believes we must seek out forms of authority and
seek to undermine them -- if it can't be proven that the authority is
necessary.
Naturally, in the real world, we are going to find ourselves with dilemmas.
The one we are dealing with here is whether government should ever be
strengthened. I think one can be perfectly consistent in claiming that the
state, however decentralized and/or democratic, is illegitimate, while at
the same time recognizing strengthening certain aspects of it in order to
weaken other forms of illegitimate authority (and to improve people's
lives). This is sometimes a simple matter of not being dogmatic and looking
at the consequences of taking various actions.
> How does one "dissolve" private power without state police going around
> confiscating property and beating people up?
By giving ordinary people at least an indirect means to effect things that
are important in their lives, the state can be a preferable alternative to
"private tyrannys". With the state there is at least the possibility that
there is accountabilty that isn't based on access to capital.
Also note that Chomsky is not implying that the dissolution of private power
be done by the state. There are other ways.
>
> The alternative method would be for populist groups to form their own
> non-exploitative organizations, thus supplanting capitalist institutions.
You can do both. Take radio for instance. Privatized control of the airwaves
amounts to the plunder of a resource that should belong to everyone. NPR is
preferable to a station owned by Rupert Murdoch because with the former
there is some accountability. Even better, populist groups can create their
own stations.
> But this course would make the state an adversary. Either the state would
> crush such an attempt, or it would co-opt it and become another state
> socialist tyranny. No matter what, the state is still the enemy--but not
> according to Chomsky.
"No matter what?" Please explain.
>
> > > I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist
roots.
>
> > What does that mean? You do realize that the world is a different place
now
> > and that we understand it differently, right?
>
> The same issues persist. The same lessons of history apply.
>
People today can recognize that the power we are up against is not simply
"state/capitalism" as one entity. Today we have corporations, institutions
that did not exist in the same form in Bakunin's day. Now those who fight to
increase corporate power aren't either as naive or dogmatic as you seem to
be -- they know that simply upholding the state all the time doesn't cut it.
They try to use it to their best advantage. When the state works at
cross-purposes (often in the aspects where ordinary people have the most
influence), they try to take away the state's power.
Jon
Jøn Duncan
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> > Second of all, the
> > assertion that Chomsky (for example) believes the state should be
> > granted more power, then after capitalism is crushed, be gradually
> > decentralized and possibly eliminated... um, huh? This was not
> > my impression at all.
>
> Well that's what he said, almost in those words. I gave a quote in my
> response to Jon Duncan. It is from an interview on AOL in which he was no
> doubt thinking and typing very fast, but it seems representative of other
> stuff he has written (and also more explicit).
>
Chomsky didn't say how capitalism would be crushed. I pretty certain he
doesn't think it can be (at least without resulting in a different sort of
problem for the masses) in the sense that you think he does.
> > Clearly, Chomsky doesn't believe it would
> > be possible to go directly to anarcho-syndicalism tommorrow, but
> > to say that he wants a centralized state "crushing" private power
>
> Forgive me. He says "dissolve" rather than "crush." He also argues
> against "states' rights," saying only the federal government is strong
> enough to combat private power (the reason being that corporations can
> easily move out of one state if they don't like its regulations). So for
> that reason he does argue for a centralized state that can dissolve
> private power.
>
He talks about how corporations prefer to work at the state level for the
reasons you mention. The important point here is that in the absence of a
population that can directly influence these sort of things, turning over
the federal gov'ts authority to the states in effect is giving the
corporations more power. Chomsky is against giving corporations more power,
you know?
That last sentence was a little facetious but I wonder whether you
understand why, forced to choose, we should prefer the authority of the
state to that of corporations.
> > - well, frankly, it sounds like you have once again been arguing
> > with right-wing fanatic bullshit artists so long you are accepting
> > their premises without realizing they has little to do with reality.
>
> Perhaps...
>
> > The only political program that Chomsky has endorsed which involves
> > using the state as far as I know is his support for Joel Rogers'
> > New Party. The New Party however is not focused on national-level
> > politics at all but thinks the left should be working on winning
> > control of local community school boards, city councils, and
> > whatnot and then gradually build up... but largely so as to
> > grant more autonomy to the grassroots political organizations they
> > feel should be the real focus of American democracy. The whole idea
> > is to _start_ by decentralizing power. Second of all, when it
> > comes to specific issues, aside from a few classic Liberal causes
> > like gun control that Chomsky is not against, it's hard to see anywhere
> > where he wishes to increase the power of the federal government
>
> So aside from his desire to disarm the population, it's hard to see
> anywhere where he wishes to increase the power of the federal
> government??????
>
Disarm the population? Meaning the population has the capability of opposing
the force of the state with the same sort of force? That doesn't just mean
guns -- it means armored vehicles, quasi-military police (i.e. Chicago's
"Tactical" officers), hi-tech surveillence, and god-knows-what-else. If I
say I'm against allowing 5-year-olds access to knives so they can combat
child-abuse, am I therefore in favor of increasing the power parents have
over their children?
> > and
> > many, many where he clearly wishes to limit or eliminate it.
>
> Like where?
>
The FBI. The Pentagon System. School Lunches (okay I made the last one up
but if you have to ask, you haven't been paying much attention, I think).
> > I think the problem is you are once again buying into the
> > right-wing terms, whereby "private power" is supposed to exist
> > independently of the state.
>
> Or perhaps I have simply come into contact with reality.
>
> > Chomsky believes that most of the
> > biggest capitalist enterprises are entirely state supported,
>
> I agree that they are often state supported. But they are not *entirely*
> state supported. They do not depend on the state for their very existence
> (legally they might, but in reality they don't).
>
> Chomsky's arguments are against markets and property rights much more than
> they are against corporate welfare and the like.
>
> When people deal in markets, they act in their own interest and not in the
> public interest. Individual liberty is at the heart of Chomsky's problem
> with the current social order. He makes some great criticisms about how
> corrupt the current "free market" system is. But at the heart of his
> criticism is an objection to people acting in what they perceive as their
> own interest rather than what he perceives as the public interest. In
> _Deterring Democracy_ he says these private vices can no longer be
> tolerated. In the quote I gave to Jon, he says "big government" is
> necessary as long as this problem persists.
>
> So his objection is not really to state supported capitalism, but to
> private interest itself. That is why he says anarcho-capitalism would be
> the worst tyranny ever--because there would be no one to act in the public
> interest.
I'm not sure what he meant by that -- it could be the above, I think it more
likely he means that anything resembling anarcho-capitalism would be so
unstable it would _result_ in the worst tyranny ever -- i.e. people would
follow the first savior who comes along promising to rescue them from the
wreckage of the world anarchocapitalism would produce.
>
> Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
> people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to be
> imposing their own personal values on me.
>
> [snip]
>
Yeah, living in society's a drag, isn't it?
Jon
Dan Clore
> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > In article <djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> > djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> > > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > To be honest I was not aware that Orwell or Einstein were
> > libertarian socialists at all before you called them that;
> > I assumed that if you called them that, it was because they
> > were for the eventual elimination of government because
> > otherwise the term seems to lose its meaning.
>
> Einstein was a socialist and from what I read I think he was somewhat
> libertarian. Orwell was a socialist and was obviously devoted to
> liberty. What would you call a socialist who is libertarian?
I have to agree with Matt here. The term "libertarian socialist" can
usefully be applied in a broader sense than as a simple synonym for
"anarchist".
constan...@my-deja.com
"Jøn Duncan" <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
> [this isn't word-for-word] Anarchism isn't an ideology but a tendency
in
> history. It assumes that any form of authority must prove it is
necessary --
> otherwise it is illegitimate. The burden of proof is never on those
under
> authority. An anarchist believes we must seek out forms of authority
and
> seek to undermine them -- if it can't be proven that the authority is
> necessary.
Who decides when it is "proven"? I do not consider it proven that
a strong government is necessary. You claim that the burden of
proof in this matter is on yourself. Okay, go ahead, let's hear
your argument. I will decide when it is proven - to claim that
the burden of proof is on one side is to admit that the ultimate
judge of proof is the other side. Thank you for making me judge
in this matter.
> Naturally, in the real world, we are going to find ourselves with
dilemmas.
> The one we are dealing with here is whether government should ever be
> strengthened. I think one can be perfectly consistent in claiming that
the
> state, however decentralized and/or democratic, is illegitimate, while
at
> the same time recognizing strengthening certain aspects of it in order
to
> weaken other forms of illegitimate authority (and to improve people's
> lives). This is sometimes a simple matter of not being dogmatic and
looking
> at the consequences of taking various actions.
Ah - not being dogmatic. A euphemism in this case for being a
hypocrite.
> > How does one "dissolve" private power without state police going
around
> > confiscating property and beating people up?
>
> By giving ordinary people at least an indirect means to effect things
that
> are important in their lives, the state can be a preferable
alternative to
> "private tyrannys". With the state there is at least the possibility
that
> there is accountabilty that isn't based on access to capital.
You have sidestepped the question, but the answer is clear: you
*do not* avoid the state police going around and confiscating
property and beating people up, you simply assert that these
police are accountable.
> Also note that Chomsky is not implying that the dissolution of private
power
> be done by the state. There are other ways.
And yet he wants to increase state power.
> >
> > The alternative method would be for populist groups to form their
own
> > non-exploitative organizations, thus supplanting capitalist
institutions.
>
> You can do both. Take radio for instance. Privatized control of the
airwaves
> amounts to the plunder of a resource that should belong to everyone.
NPR is
> preferable to a station owned by Rupert Murdoch because with the
former
> there is some accountability.
Accountability to whom? Private radio stations deliver what most
people want to hear. Public radio delivers what a very small
number of people want to hear. My friends like public radio, but
when I walk down the street when I hear a radio it is almost
invariably tuned to a private station, either music or talk
radio. This proves that private radio delivers what most people
want to hear better than public radio does. This proves that
private radio is more accountable to the vast public than public
radio. Private radio is truly "populist". Public radio is truly
elitist. Public radio is there - people can tune it in if they
want. They choose not to. The reason they choose not to is that
they do not like it. Leftists are not blind to this fact.
Leftists genuinely despise the common person, and do not want the
common person to be allowed to make his own choices. I cannot
understand how a leftist could be so deluded as to consider
himself populist and at the same time claim that public radio is
superior to private radio. Perhaps someone will explain this to
me.
Dan Clore
> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > In article <djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> > djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> > > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > Do you really think Exxon could exist independently
> > of the state, and that this utterly hypothetical situation
> > corresponds to "reality"?
This doesn't appear to be the correct question for the issue. That would
be something like "Could Exxon exist *as a corporation* (the way it does
now) independently of the state?" The answer is yes: it could do so by
acting as the state itself. Many corporations have done so in stateless
areas in the past. Their subjects are (predictably) not treated quite as
well as the subjects of liberal democracies.
> Of course Exxon could exist independently of the state. Perhaps many of
> the details of its contracts would have to be revised, but there is no
> reason it could not exist.
This seems evasive -- it would exist, but it would become quite
different than it is now. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to examine the
differences. For starters, I would suggest that companies would not be
able to grow to the enormous size so many corporations have achieved.
> > > I agree that they are often state supported. But they are not *entirely*
> > > state supported. They do not depend on the state for their very existence
> > > (legally they might, but in reality they don't).
> >
> > Actually, as you yourself seem to realize, in fact they
> > do depend on the state for their very existence. Their legal
> > status comes from the state. They are based on forms of
> > property which are enforced by the state and have never been
> > known to exist without one.
>
> If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
> Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
> managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
> dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
> corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
> and responsibilities which they would continue with.
>
> I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
> exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
> the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
> should) be difficult to construct.
If I understood you correctly you argue that in the absence of the state
(and presuming they do not act as the state themselves), corporations
would simply become traditional capitalist companies.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
David Graeber
> Matt wrote:
> > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > > In article <djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> > > djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> > > > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > > > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
>
> > > To be honest I was not aware that Orwell or Einstein were
> > > libertarian socialists at all before you called them that;
> > > I assumed that if you called them that, it was because they
> > > were for the eventual elimination of government because
> > > otherwise the term seems to lose its meaning.
> >
> > Einstein was a socialist and from what I read I think he was somewhat
> > libertarian. Orwell was a socialist and was obviously devoted to
> > liberty. What would you call a socialist who is libertarian?
>
> I have to agree with Matt here. The term "libertarian socialist" can
> usefully be applied in a broader sense than as a simple synonym for
> "anarchist".
I'd never heard it used that way, myself (I'd always
assumed that socialists who appreciate civil liberties and
personal freedom but don't oppose the state were usually
referred to as "democratic socialists".) But anyway I
don't understand the relevance of the point, unless it's
to say Chomsky is not an anarchist, which seems contradicted
by those passages in which Chomsky endorses anarchism.
DG
David Graeber
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
>
> > Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
> > people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to be
> > imposing their own personal values on me.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
>
> Yeah, living in society's a drag, isn't it?
But consider the alternatives...
DG
David Graeber
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> > How does one "dissolve" private power without state police going around
> > confiscating property and beating people up?
>
> By giving ordinary people at least an indirect means to effect things that
> are important in their lives, the state can be a preferable alternative to
> "private tyrannys". With the state there is at least the possibility that
> there is accountabilty that isn't based on access to capital.
>
> Also note that Chomsky is not implying that the dissolution of private power
> be done by the state. There are other ways.
The point is seems to me is that one cannot _maintain_ such
huge concentrations of private power without state police going
around beating people up. History has shown over and over and
over again that if one has large concentrations of property
in some hands, and masses of people with much much less,
especially, people struggling to survive at all, especially
especially, if some of them are actually responsible for helping
to produce some of that wealth they have no access to (both
of which are almost invariably the case when you have vast
disparities of wealth) then you need to have state police
beating people up. This is because it seems there is an almost
universal sense of justice people have which tells them such
situations are fundamentally wrong and they would not be committing
a terrible crime by trying to get their hands on some of said
property, and that their right to do so outweighs any formal
property rights that the society might put forth. That's just
what happens. If the state becomes weak, the owners of
concentrations of capital therefore have to either (a) compromise
with the public on the question of ownership and control, or
(b) create their own private armies or police - in other words,
they can no longer externalize their costs in this area.
Neither is considered preferable to the much smaller cost
of maintaining a state which charges other people too for
the cost of protecting the industrialist's capital so this
is what they almost invariably do. A nice illustration of
this is apparently going on in Russia right now where state
power is rapidly declining. As someone recently noted on
this group, last year Yeltsin had to pass a law _forbidding_
workers to take controlling interests in their workplaces,
even by buying majority shares, and those who try are often
confronted with private thugs hired by the former or would-be
corporate owners. As a result of the privatization of force
however, you end up with huge proportions of the economy
controlled by what is popularly referred to as "the Mafia" -
just such private thugs willing to use force to take hold
of productive property.
> >
> > The alternative method would be for populist groups to form their own
> > non-exploitative organizations, thus supplanting capitalist institutions.
>
> You can do both. Take radio for instance. Privatized control of the airwaves
> amounts to the plunder of a resource that should belong to everyone. NPR is
> preferable to a station owned by Rupert Murdoch because with the former
> there is some accountability. Even better, populist groups can create their
> own stations.
Neither, oddly, does private control equal greater freedom,
or less propaganda. Many have remarked how in Britain, for
example, the private news outlets owned by Murdoch etc are
heavily censored and controlled for ideological content,
while the BBC and other government-controlled outlets tend
to present a far more diverse range of opinions, and are far,
far more likely to air outright attacks on the government or
government policies than Murdoch would be willing to air
attacks on his corporation or corporate interests in general
- and of course their advocacy of certain political parties
over others is notorious. This is because these are not seen
as simply "state" outlets but as public goods, and the public
can and does put enormous pressure on the government not to
feed it propaganda.
DG
A. G. Phillbin
wrote:
^In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
^David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
^
^> In article <djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
^> djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
^>
^> > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
^> > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
^
^> To be honest I was not aware that Orwell or Einstein were
^> libertarian socialists at all before you called them that;
^> I assumed that if you called them that, it was because they
^> were for the eventual elimination of government because
^> otherwise the term seems to lose its meaning.
^
^Einstein was a socialist and from what I read I think he was somewhat
^libertarian. Orwell was a socialist and was obviously devoted to
^liberty. What would you call a socialist who is libertarian?
^
^[snip]
^
^> Second of all, when it
^> > > comes to specific issues, aside from a few classic Liberal causes
^> > > like gun control that Chomsky is not against, it's hard to see anywhere
^> > > where he wishes to increase the power of the federal government
^> >
^> > So aside from his desire to disarm the population, it's hard to see
^> > anywhere where he wishes to increase the power of the federal
^> > government??????
^>
^> Excuse me? I don't get this. You're saying that the
^> right to bear arms is just so incredibly important that
^> it makes a mockery of anything else or what?
^
^Disarming the population implies a vast increase in state power, yet you
^addressed this this as a minor issue.
^
^> > > I think the problem is you are once again buying into the
^> > > right-wing terms, whereby "private power" is supposed to exist
^> > > independently of the state.
^> >
^> > Or perhaps I have simply come into contact with reality.
^>
^> Do you really think Exxon could exist independently
^> of the state, and that this utterly hypothetical situation
^> corresponds to "reality"?
^
^Of course Exxon could exist independently of the state. Perhaps many of
^the details of its contracts would have to be revised, but there is no
^reason it could not exist.
^
^> > I agree that they are often state supported. But they are not *entirely*
^> > state supported. They do not depend on the state for their very existence
^> > (legally they might, but in reality they don't).
^>
^> Actually, as you yourself seem to realize, in fact they
^> do depend on the state for their very existence. Their legal
^> status comes from the state. They are based on forms of
^> property which are enforced by the state and have never been
^> known to exist without one.
^
^If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
^Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
^managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
^dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
^corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
^and responsibilities which they would continue with.
Without the state charter, why would they (Exxon or any other
corporation) bother paying dividends to stockholders, or recognize
their right of ownership, especially those who bought their stock
third, fourth, or hundredth hand, and thus contribute absolutely
nothing to the company? How much of Exxon's resources would go towards
private armed security, once the state has collapsed? How would they
deal with "employee theft?" Whippings by rent-a-cops? Who would
enforce the contracts in case of a dispute? Exxon would have to become
it's own embryonic state in order to survive. Who would security be
loyal to: the stockholders, the other employees, or the directors of
the company and their representatives, who are the only ones paying
them? Who would enforce legal claims against Exxon if no state
existed? How would you sue it for damages?
^
^I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
^exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
^the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
^should) be difficult to construct.
^
^So while I agree that our view of property is heavily distorted by the
^state, I am no longer convinced people would abandon all private property
^arrangements if given the chance.
They would abandon all those they couldn't protect, either by
themselves or people they could hire. Or they might band together to
patrol the territory encompassed by their property, in which case you
have the embryo of a new state.
^
^> Again, you seem to be taking an
^> utterly hypothetical, imaginary system that you think
^> _could_ exist and insisting that's somehow the real reality.
^> But it's not.
^
^Wait a minute: which one of us is the communist anarchist?
^
^> > When people deal in markets, they act in their own interest and not in the
^> > public interest. Individual liberty is at the heart of Chomsky's problem
^> > with the current social order. He makes some great criticisms about how
^> > corrupt the current "free market" system is. But at the heart of his
^> > criticism is an objection to people acting in what they perceive as their
^> > own interest rather than what he perceives as the public interest. In
^> > _Deterring Democracy_ he says these private vices can no longer be
^> > tolerated. In the quote I gave to Jon, he says "big government" is
^> > necessary as long as this problem persists.
^> >
^> > So his objection is not really to state supported capitalism, but to
^> > private interest itself. That is why he says anarcho-capitalism would be
^> > the worst tyranny ever--because there would be no one to act in the public
^> > interest.
^> >
^> > Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
^> > people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to be
^> > imposing their own personal values on me.
^>
^> I notice that you pass over information which pretty much
^> contradicts this - as when Chomsky says that even Newt
^> Gringrich's followers would have undermined corporate power
^> if allowed to do what they said they wanted.
^
^I snipped that, though I did give him credit above for pointing out how
^corrupt the current "Free market" system is. But again, his primary
^objection to the status quo is that people are permitted to act in their
^own interest and not the public interest. He assumes it is just a cabal
^of elite capitalists who do this, but it seems to me as though a very
^substantial number of people actively participate in the system, and don't
^think it is a bad thing at all.
^
^[snip]
^
^> Even apart from Chomsky, it basically comes down
^> to this. Any system in which people have to compete with
^> each other for their very survival is going to generate
^> severe conflicts which will necessitate the existence of
^> a state. Any system in which people are not forced to
^> compete for their very survival will necessarily involve
^> some form of conception of common interest - an interest
^> which does, objectively, exist because people are
^> (a) dependent on one another for everything, and (b) will
^> end up with violent conflict and the threat of force if
^> they do not behave this way....
^
^I think interdependency only requires a "public interest" insofar as the
^rules for maintaining the system are required. Yet most of the time when
^people argue something is in the public interest, they mean some idea of
^theirs should be imposed on everyone.
^
^Furthermore, we are dependent on particular people and groups at
^particular times (in ways that can become incredibly complex). We are not
^dependent on everyone else all at once. If you accept the latter view, it
^is easy to accept somewhat simplistic ideas about what is in the public
^interest. If you accept the former view (which I think is closer to the
^truth), you have to leave it up to the particular individuals involved to
^figure out their best interest.
^
^> One thing which everyone
^> has to face at some point is the necessity to compromise
^> with others; it's what being a human is all about. Talking
^> about common (or if you like public) interests is just
^> a way of recognizing this - the crucial thing, though
^> (and I will admit most people who talk about "the public
^> interest" do not seem to be aware of this) is this
^> recognition, to be meaningful, has to be voluntary.
^
^And that is frequently a big problem: the "public interest" is often used
^to enforce some rule against someone else, a majority against a minority
^or whatnot.
^
^[snip]
^
^> It would be. I simply mean that the way to get there
^> might involve a kind of two steps forward one step back
^> kind of process: ie, in order to eliminate corporate
^> welfare you might have to organize a party on the national
^> level that you might have otherwise kept local, you might
^> have to seek out certain types of alliances, and so on.
^> I just figured a good rule of thumb would be: never,
^> under any conditions, end up in the situation where
^> everything you do leads to an overall cumulative increase,
^> with the assumption that you can decrease it again later,
^> because that's never going to work.
^
^I'm not sure if Chomsky follows that rule of thumb.
^
^--
^"the population of the world is gradually dividing into two
^classes, Anarchists and criminals." -- Benjamin Tucker
^
^ Matt (djar...@usa.net)
Dan Clore
> > > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > > > In article <djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> > > > djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> > > > > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > > > > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > > > To be honest I was not aware that Orwell or Einstein were
> > > > libertarian socialists at all before you called them that;
> > > > I assumed that if you called them that, it was because they
> > > > were for the eventual elimination of government because
> > > > otherwise the term seems to lose its meaning.
> > >
> > > Einstein was a socialist and from what I read I think he was somewhat
> > > libertarian. Orwell was a socialist and was obviously devoted to
> > > liberty. What would you call a socialist who is libertarian?
> >
> > I have to agree with Matt here. The term "libertarian socialist" can
> > usefully be applied in a broader sense than as a simple synonym for
> > "anarchist".
>
> I'd never heard it used that way, myself (I'd always
> assumed that socialists who appreciate civil liberties and
> personal freedom but don't oppose the state were usually
> referred to as "democratic socialists".) But anyway I
> don't understand the relevance of the point, unless it's
> to say Chomsky is not an anarchist, which seems contradicted
> by those passages in which Chomsky endorses anarchism.
"Democratic socialist" is probably better for those like Einstein and
Orwell, but what of (say) Fourier (usually considered founder of the
libertarian wing of socialism, but not an anarchist), Council Communists
like Luxemburg or Pannekoek, the Situationists and Autonomists, etc?
Ruben
On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:18:41 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com wrote:
[snip]
>Accountability to whom? Private radio stations deliver what most
>people want to hear. Public radio delivers what a very small
>number of people want to hear. My friends like public radio, but
>when I walk down the street when I hear a radio it is almost
>invariably tuned to a private station, either music or talk
>radio. This proves that private radio delivers what most people
>want to hear better than public radio does. This proves that
>private radio is more accountable to the vast public than public
>radio. Private radio is truly "populist". Public radio is truly
>elitist. Public radio is there - people can tune it in if they
>want. They choose not to. The reason they choose not to is that
>they do not like it. Leftists are not blind to this fact.
>Leftists genuinely despise the common person, and do not want the
>common person to be allowed to make his own choices. I cannot
>understand how a leftist could be so deluded as to consider
>himself populist and at the same time claim that public radio is
>superior to private radio. Perhaps someone will explain this to
>me.
***********
Intellectuals on both the right and left are used to despise the
common person, to reject popular culture because it is not an
"enlightened" choice. My point is that it is being an intellectual,
not being a leftist, which makes you have a tendency to despise
choices made my the common person. Nobody would call Nietzche a
leftist, for example, no matter how much he rejected pop culture.
I am a leftist and I am quite comfortable with people choosing
whatever they like. I would like them to make different, more
enlightened choices, and especially to reject consumerism and the
worst manifestations of pop culture (in music, tv programs, newpapers,
magazines, etc) but i will try to do that by convincing and education.
And if a majority of people do not ever get convinced even with more
education, well, that's it, people should be free to choose just the
same.
People's choices shoud be respected, no matter what.
saludos/ruben
Jøn Duncan
Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
news:37DE4F...@columbia-center.org...
> Matt wrote:
> > In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > > In article <djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> > > djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> > > > In article
<David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> > > > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
>
> > > To be honest I was not aware that Orwell or Einstein were
> > > libertarian socialists at all before you called them that;
> > > I assumed that if you called them that, it was because they
> > > were for the eventual elimination of government because
> > > otherwise the term seems to lose its meaning.
> >
> > Einstein was a socialist and from what I read I think he was somewhat
> > libertarian. Orwell was a socialist and was obviously devoted to
> > liberty. What would you call a socialist who is libertarian?
>
> usefully be applied in a broader sense than as a simple synonym for
> "anarchist".
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Dan Clore
It's more of a subset of anarchism, I think.
Jøn Duncan
<constan...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:7rlsgo$oms$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <7rl4r4$d2t$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> "Jøn Duncan" <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >
>
> > [this isn't word-for-word] Anarchism isn't an ideology but a tendency
> in
> > history. It assumes that any form of authority must prove it is
> necessary --
> > otherwise it is illegitimate. The burden of proof is never on those
> under
> > authority. An anarchist believes we must seek out forms of authority
> and
> > seek to undermine them -- if it can't be proven that the authority is
> > necessary.
>
You do, if you are an anarchist. Of course one person declaring a certain
form of authority illegitimate can't accomplish much of anything on his/her
own so we have to find other people who already agree or convince other
people.
>I do not consider it proven that
> a strong government is necessary.
Chomsky doesn't either. It is very hard to prove such a thing and perhaps
impossible. Tough shit for strong gov't if that's the case.
> You claim that the burden of
> proof in this matter is on yourself.
Read what I wrote again. I said the burden is on those in authority. If they
don't or can't provide the proof than their authority is considered
illegitimate.
> Okay, go ahead, let's hear
> your argument. I will decide when it is proven - to claim that
> the burden of proof is on one side is to admit that the ultimate
> judge of proof is the other side.
Only one side has to judge.
> Thank you for making me judge
> in this matter.
Remember that Chomsky is a rationalist, and therefore believes that honest
people will eventually come to similar conclusions about these sorts of
things.
>
> > Naturally, in the real world, we are going to find ourselves with
> dilemmas.
> > The one we are dealing with here is whether government should ever be
> > strengthened. I think one can be perfectly consistent in claiming that
> the
> > state, however decentralized and/or democratic, is illegitimate, while
> at
> > the same time recognizing strengthening certain aspects of it in order
> to
> > weaken other forms of illegitimate authority (and to improve people's
> > lives). This is sometimes a simple matter of not being dogmatic and
> looking
> > at the consequences of taking various actions.
>
> Ah - not being dogmatic. A euphemism in this case for being a
> hypocrite.
>
Huh? "Smash the state" in every case is not being dogmatic? If I'm being a
hypocrite, kindly explain how.
> > > How does one "dissolve" private power without state police going
> around
> > > confiscating property and beating people up?
> >
> > By giving ordinary people at least an indirect means to effect things
> that
> > are important in their lives, the state can be a preferable
> alternative to
> > "private tyrannys". With the state there is at least the possibility
> that
> > there is accountabilty that isn't based on access to capital.
>
> You have sidestepped the question, but the answer is clear: you
> *do not* avoid the state police going around and confiscating
> property and beating people up, you simply assert that these
> police are accountable.
To some extent yes. Possibly less than other government functions. I am
opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly because
this limitted acountability virtually would disappear. This in no way
legitimizes their existence (they haven't proven they are necessary,
right?). Just because we recognize their illegitimacy doesn't mean we can
ignore the consequences of, say, eliminating police entirely tomorrow.
>
> > Also note that Chomsky is not implying that the dissolution of private
> power
> > be done by the state. There are other ways.
>
> And yet he wants to increase state power.
>
In some respects. So?
> > >
> > > The alternative method would be for populist groups to form their
> own
> > > non-exploitative organizations, thus supplanting capitalist
> institutions.
> >
> > You can do both. Take radio for instance. Privatized control of the
> airwaves
> > amounts to the plunder of a resource that should belong to everyone.
> NPR is
> > preferable to a station owned by Rupert Murdoch because with the
> former
> > there is some accountability.
>
> Accountability to whom? Private radio stations deliver what most
> people want to hear. Public radio delivers what a very small
> number of people want to hear. My friends like public radio, but
> when I walk down the street when I hear a radio it is almost
> invariably tuned to a private station, either music or talk
> radio. This proves that private radio delivers what most people
> want to hear better than public radio does. This proves that
> private radio is more accountable to the vast public than public
> radio. Private radio is truly "populist". Public radio is truly
> elitist. Public radio is there - people can tune it in if they
> want. They choose not to. The reason they choose not to is that
> they do not like it. Leftists are not blind to this fact.
People need to have choice not just in what they consume but what is
produced. I could say a lot more here but arguing about this with a
pro-capitalist is not likely to be worth the effort.
> Leftists genuinely despise the common person, and do not want the
> common person to be allowed to make his own choices.
Naw, people like you do. They assume that genuine control over their own
lives is impossible and adopt the fantasy that allowing people to have
consumption choices amounts to freedom.
> I cannot
> understand how a leftist could be so deluded as to consider
> himself populist and at the same time claim that public radio is
> superior to private radio. Perhaps someone will explain this to
> me.
You could actually listen to it, for one thing. I remember hearing a
right-wing columnist talking about this and conceding that public radio is
far superior but must still be abolished in favor of private radio.
A genuine populist would have to be willing to allow the population to be
actually involved in producing the content. This is not accomplished best by
things like NPR. Pacifica is better, but we need to have direct control by
people in their communities, as much as possible.
Jon
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
>
> > > Second of all, the
> > > assertion that Chomsky (for example) believes the state should be
> > > granted more power, then after capitalism is crushed, be gradually
> > > decentralized and possibly eliminated... um, huh? This was not
> > > my impression at all.
> >
> > Well that's what he said, almost in those words. I gave a quote in my
> > response to Jon Duncan. It is from an interview on AOL in which he was no
> > doubt thinking and typing very fast, but it seems representative of other
> > stuff he has written (and also more explicit).
>
> Chomsky didn't say how capitalism would be crushed. I pretty certain he
> doesn't think it can be (at least without resulting in a different sort of
> problem for the masses) in the sense that you think he does.
So despite the mountains of criticism Chomsky has produced, no one can say
for sure what he wants to do about it.
> He talks about how corporations prefer to work at the state level for the
> reasons you mention. The important point here is that in the absence of a
> population that can directly influence these sort of things, turning over
> the federal gov'ts authority to the states in effect is giving the
> corporations more power. Chomsky is against giving corporations more power,
> you know?
>
> That last sentence was a little facetious but I wonder whether you
> understand why, forced to choose, we should prefer the authority of the
> state to that of corporations.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. On the one hand you agree (I
think) with Chomsky that the state should be decentralized and broken down
so it is more responsive to ordinary people. That is at least what David
said Chomsky's position is. On the other hand you and Chomsky also seem
to assert that a strong federal government is necessary to keep
corporations in check. You cannot do both. You cannot centralize and
decentralize the state.
If the state has broad regulatory and enforcement power (which requires
expansive bureaucracies), it cannot be decentralized. You could do one
after the other, I suppose, but at the very top of this post David Graeber
questions whether that idea represents Chomsky's opinion.
> > > The only political program that Chomsky has endorsed which involves
> > > using the state as far as I know is his support for Joel Rogers'
> > > New Party. The New Party however is not focused on national-level
> > > politics at all but thinks the left should be working on winning
> > > control of local community school boards, city councils, and
> > > whatnot and then gradually build up... but largely so as to
> > > grant more autonomy to the grassroots political organizations they
> > > feel should be the real focus of American democracy. The whole idea
> > > is to _start_ by decentralizing power. Second of all, when it
> > > comes to specific issues, aside from a few classic Liberal causes
> > > like gun control that Chomsky is not against, it's hard to see anywhere
> > > where he wishes to increase the power of the federal government
> >
> > So aside from his desire to disarm the population, it's hard to see
> > anywhere where he wishes to increase the power of the federal
> > government??????
> >
>
> Disarm the population? Meaning the population has the capability of opposing
> the force of the state with the same sort of force?
I read that there are about 240 million guns in America. We need more, of
course, especially automatic ones. But yes, the population should be
capable of beating the state in a war. Do you think the reverse?
I am simply operating on the principle that the people have the right to
alter or abolish a government to which they did not consent, or if they
did consent, a government which becomes destructive of the rule of law.
Though I don't think the populace needs absolute military supremacy. A
state that goes to war against its own subjects will lose its legitmacy
rapidly enough, which it needs to maintain control (unless it's strong
enough to establish totalitarianism). The populace just needs to be armed
well enough to deter the state from aggression. And also, some factions
within the populance may need arms if they refuse consent and wish to
secede from the union.
> That doesn't just mean
> guns -- it means armored vehicles, quasi-military police (i.e. Chicago's
> "Tactical" officers), hi-tech surveillence, and god-knows-what-else.
Your point being?
> If I
> say I'm against allowing 5-year-olds access to knives so they can combat
> child-abuse, am I therefore in favor of increasing the power parents have
> over their children?
How very Trotskyite of you. You equate adult citizens with irresponsible
little five year olds. And the state, of course, is the benevolent
parent.
Ideally we would live in a peaceful happy world with no problems and no
need for guns. That is not reality. As long as we are the way we are,
isn't it better to have power dispersed? You seem to prefer it
concentrated in the hands of a priviledged elite.
> > > and
> > > many, many where he clearly wishes to limit or eliminate it.
> >
> > Like where?
> >
>
> The FBI. The Pentagon System. School Lunches (okay I made the last one up
> but if you have to ask, you haven't been paying much attention, I think).
Are you sure he wouldn't just have the FBI redirected to checking
corporate power? Or ensuring the polulace is adequately disarmed and is
complying with the state's firearms regulations?
Where is one place he says he wants to eliminate some power of the state?
I'm sure there are times when argues for this, but they are few and far
between.
> > When people deal in markets, they act in their own interest and not in the
> > public interest. Individual liberty is at the heart of Chomsky's problem
> > with the current social order. He makes some great criticisms about how
> > corrupt the current "free market" system is. But at the heart of his
> > criticism is an objection to people acting in what they perceive as their
> > own interest rather than what he perceives as the public interest. In
> > _Deterring Democracy_ he says these private vices can no longer be
> > tolerated. In the quote I gave to Jon, he says "big government" is
> > necessary as long as this problem persists.
> >
> > So his objection is not really to state supported capitalism, but to
> > private interest itself. That is why he says anarcho-capitalism would be
> > the worst tyranny ever--because there would be no one to act in the public
> > interest.
>
> I'm not sure what he meant by that -- it could be the above, I think it more
> likely he means that anything resembling anarcho-capitalism would be so
> unstable it would _result_ in the worst tyranny ever -- i.e. people would
> follow the first savior who comes along promising to rescue them from the
> wreckage of the world anarchocapitalism would produce.
I recommend sticking to blanket condemnations of anarcho-capitalism, as
Chomsky does. If you try a more specific argument, you may eventually
find out the theory is not as bad as you want it to be.
> > Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
> > people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to be
> > imposing their own personal values on me.
> Yeah, living in society's a drag, isn't it?
Living in society does entail compromises, but not necessarily in the name
of the public interest. Indeed what I said above implicitly referred to
politicians, and I am not at all surprised that you think politicians are
a necessary part of society.
All I want is to be secure in my life, liberty, and property. I might
support charity, I might do volunteer work, I might join a movement for
workers' cooperatives. But I don't want to be *required* to do any of
those things, and someone else (you) who wants to dictate to me how I must
live necessarily wants to commit crimes against me. All I want is to be
left alone--is that too much to ask of you?
Your rhetoric is left wing, but the substance of what you advocate is
hardly any different from any right wing absolutist.
Recall the words of Emma Goldman,
The individual is the true reality in life. A cosmos in
himself, he does not exist for the State, nor for that
abstraction called "society," or the "nation," which is
only a collection of individuals. Man, the individual,
has always been and, necessarily is the sole source and
motive power of evolution and progress. Civilization has
been a continuous struggle of the individual or of
groups of individuals against the State and even against
"society," that is, against the majority subdued and
hypnotized by the State and State worship. Man's
greatest battles have been waged against man-made
obstacles and artificial handicaps imposed upon him to
paralyze his growth and development. Human thought has
always been falsified by tradition and custom, and
perverted false education in the interests of those who
held power and enjoyed privileges. In other words, by
the State and the ruling classes. This constant
incessant conflict has been the history of mankind.
Goldman was actually a communist, but as you can see she did not demand
that the individual person should capitulate to abstractions like
"society" or the "public interest." She was not subdued and hypnotized by
state worship, apparently unlike you.
Matt
djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> Or ensuring the polulace is adequately
Apparently I can't spell "populace" today. Twice in this post I
misspelled it. Sorry.
Matt
> This doesn't appear to be the correct question for the issue. That would
> be something like "Could Exxon exist *as a corporation* (the way it does
> now) independently of the state?" The answer is yes: it could do so by
> acting as the state itself. Many corporations have done so in stateless
> areas in the past. Their subjects are (predictably) not treated quite as
> well as the subjects of liberal democracies.
Do you mean joint stock companies like the East India company, which I
believe ruled harshly over India for some time? Or do you have modern
examples?
> > Of course Exxon could exist independently of the state. Perhaps many of
> > the details of its contracts would have to be revised, but there is no
> > reason it could not exist.
>
> This seems evasive -- it would exist, but it would become quite
> different than it is now.
I am not trying to be evasive. I am simply unsure as to what would
happen. I see no reason a company called Exxon could not sell gas to
people in an anarchist society. I agree that it would probably become
different than it is now, but at the moment I cannot say how different or
in what way.
> Perhaps it would be worthwhile to examine the
> differences. For starters, I would suggest that companies would not be
> able to grow to the enormous size so many corporations have achieved.
One possible reason corporations get so bloated has to do with taxes.
David Friedman suggests that since stockholders have to pay income tax on
their dividends, it pays for a corporation to re-invest its profits
internally. This makes the value of the stock goes up, which may allow
shareholders to avoid the tax. They might be stuck with a capital gains
tax, but the rate for those taxes is usually lower. So what happens is
corporations invest more money in themselves than would be efficient. The
result, according to this argument, is large and bloated corporations.
But I have a question for you: how do you intend to prevent corporations,
if they exist, from becoming too large? And where do you draw the line?
> > If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
> > Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
> > managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
> > dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
> > corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
> > and responsibilities which they would continue with.
> >
> > I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
> > exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
> > the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
> > should) be difficult to construct.
>
> If I understood you correctly you argue that in the absence of the state
> (and presuming they do not act as the state themselves), corporations
> would simply become traditional capitalist companies.
I'm only speculating. I can't say I know enough to predict what would happen.
I think people could work out limited liability contracts. The problem is
that *someone* has to have unlimited liability. There is no inherent
limit to my liability if I attack you. Regardless of whether I cost you
$50 or $500 in medical bills, I still have to pay you.
My internal structure (whether I am a real person or a corporation) should
not matter. If shareholders enjoy limited liability, I think that
necessitates the leadership of the corporation assuming unlimited
liability (so they better be well paid).
Dan Clore
> > This doesn't appear to be the correct question for the issue. That would
> > be something like "Could Exxon exist *as a corporation* (the way it does
> > now) independently of the state?" The answer is yes: it could do so by
> > acting as the state itself. Many corporations have done so in stateless
> > areas in the past. Their subjects are (predictably) not treated quite as
> > well as the subjects of liberal democracies.
>
> Do you mean joint stock companies like the East India company, which I
> believe ruled harshly over India for some time? Or do you have modern
> examples?
Modern examples are only partial, since a state exists at least
nominally practically everywhere. But in many countries in Africa and I
think in India as well corporations often have private "security" that
effectively rule the surrounding populace.
> > > Of course Exxon could exist independently of the state. Perhaps many of
> > > the details of its contracts would have to be revised, but there is no
> > > reason it could not exist.
> >
> > This seems evasive -- it would exist, but it would become quite
> > different than it is now.
>
> I am not trying to be evasive. I am simply unsure as to what would
> happen. I see no reason a company called Exxon could not sell gas to
> people in an anarchist society. I agree that it would probably become
> different than it is now, but at the moment I cannot say how different or
> in what way.
Okay. That does not appear to me to be the same claim as that the
corporation Exxon would still exist.
> > Perhaps it would be worthwhile to examine the
> > differences. For starters, I would suggest that companies would not be
> > able to grow to the enormous size so many corporations have achieved.
>
> One possible reason corporations get so bloated has to do with taxes.
> David Friedman suggests that since stockholders have to pay income tax on
> their dividends, it pays for a corporation to re-invest its profits
> internally. This makes the value of the stock goes up, which may allow
> shareholders to avoid the tax. They might be stuck with a capital gains
> tax, but the rate for those taxes is usually lower. So what happens is
> corporations invest more money in themselves than would be efficient. The
> result, according to this argument, is large and bloated corporations.
Nice.
> But I have a question for you: how do you intend to prevent corporations,
> if they exist, from becoming too large? And where do you draw the line?
I don't have any particular plan for doing so. I would prefer to abolish
them altogether. (In the short run that would mean they would become
regular companies.)
> > > If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
> > > Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
> > > managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
> > > dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
> > > corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
> > > and responsibilities which they would continue with.
> > >
> > > I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
> > > exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
> > > the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
> > > should) be difficult to construct.
> >
> > If I understood you correctly you argue that in the absence of the state
> > (and presuming they do not act as the state themselves), corporations
> > would simply become traditional capitalist companies.
>
> I'm only speculating. I can't say I know enough to predict what would happen.
>
> I think people could work out limited liability contracts. The problem is
> that *someone* has to have unlimited liability. There is no inherent
> limit to my liability if I attack you. Regardless of whether I cost you
> $50 or $500 in medical bills, I still have to pay you.
>
> My internal structure (whether I am a real person or a corporation) should
> not matter. If shareholders enjoy limited liability, I think that
> necessitates the leadership of the corporation assuming unlimited
> liability (so they better be well paid).
I would think that liability should be based on some formula that takes
into account the individual's contribution to the damage, the extent of
the damage, how much the individual knew and how much he should have
known, etc etc etc.
Matt
> Leftists genuinely despise the common person, and do not want the
> common person to be allowed to make his own choices.
Well I would say my views are still substantially left wing--the
difference is that I conclude liberty, free markets, and property rights
will yield more desirable results than a totalitarian state... er, I mean
"strong government that is at least partially accountable to the public."
In those places where the market fails, mutual aid anarchism can step in.
But I see what you are saying. There seems to be a widespread view that
the masses are ignorant trash whose opinions are entirely determined by
capitalist propaganda.
I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person. Jon
loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
child--a very paternalistic kind of love. For example, Jon thinks it
absurd for common people to own guns to defend themselves from government
in the same way that it would be absurd for five year olds to own knives
to defend themselves from parents. Jon wants the common person to be
free, but only after developing the way Jon wants.
Hence the support for public radio. Left to his own devices, the common
person will listen to trash like Howard Stern. That shallow consumerism
is not real freedom. Jon knows what real freedom is. Of course, you
can't ask him what it is, because it would be absurd to come up with a
blueprint for a future society.
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> Possibly less than other government functions. I am
> opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly because
> this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
No. Private police would be accountable to other protection firms with
which they have negotiated contracts, and to their customers.
Public police are accountable to politicians, who are supposedly (but not
really) accountable to the public. The public supposedly exerts its will
by majority voting. Thus in many cities you have great protection for the
rich white majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
resources on poor blacks is just not in the public interest.
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> A quick comment (hopefully I can respond in more detail later): if you take
> into account Chomsky's definition of anarchism (which you might not agree
> with -- you might even oppose that version of anarchism even though I think
> it's the only way anarchism makes much sense). Here it is even though I know
> you must have come across it frequently:
>
> [this isn't word-for-word] Anarchism isn't an ideology but a tendency in
> history. It assumes that any form of authority must prove it is necessary --
> otherwise it is illegitimate. The burden of proof is never on those under
> authority. An anarchist believes we must seek out forms of authority and
> seek to undermine them -- if it can't be proven that the authority is
> necessary.
I am not fussy about how one defines anarchism. As I said to David
Friedman, there seem to be two broad approaches today: political anarchism
and social anarchism. The former are concerned with abolishing the state;
the latter with challenging structures of authority and the like. I
sympathize with many social anarchist goals, but I think many social
problems today are actually attributable to the state or consequences of
state action.
> Naturally, in the real world, we are going to find ourselves with dilemmas.
> The one we are dealing with here is whether government should ever be
> strengthened. I think one can be perfectly consistent in claiming that the
> state, however decentralized and/or democratic, is illegitimate, while at
> the same time recognizing strengthening certain aspects of it in order to
> weaken other forms of illegitimate authority (and to improve people's
> lives). ...
The problem here is that you assume you know what will improve people's
lives, that they cannot be trusted to improve their own lives.
As in utilitarianism, your approach to anarchism implies there is some
unitary actor (the state, or perhaps a large scale social movement) who
has objective knowledge about how people should live, what they should
value, whether their relationships are legitimate. With that knowledge
this actor can decide whether a certain kind of authority is justified,
even disregarding the opinions of the people involved.
I think we can objectively know matters of law; for instance given the
facts we can tell a murder from a justifiable killing. I don't think we
can objectively know whether (for example) employment is wage slavery.
Some people feel like it is, others clearly do not. I think it really
depends on the circumstances.
> > How does one "dissolve" private power without state police going around
> > confiscating property and beating people up?
>
> By giving ordinary people at least an indirect means to effect things that
> are important in their lives, the state can be a preferable alternative to
> "private tyrannys". With the state there is at least the possibility that
> there is accountabilty that isn't based on access to capital.
I'm not sure what you just said. The question had to do with how to
dissolve private power, not why doing so is justifed.
> Also note that Chomsky is not implying that the dissolution of private power
> be done by the state. There are other ways.
Which are? I made a suggestion below, then you began a discussion of the
superiority of government funded radio.
> > The alternative method would be for populist groups to form their own
> > non-exploitative organizations, thus supplanting capitalist institutions.
>
> You can do both. Take radio for instance. Privatized control of the airwaves
> amounts to the plunder of a resource that should belong to everyone.
The airwaves are a scarce resource. If they belong to everyone, some
organization has to be responsible for allocating them. If it is the
government doing this, those people who can most strongly influence the
politicians will gain the most. If you think the public interest is what
most strongly influences politicians, you are seriously deranged. The
"public interest" does not even objectively exist. It exists subjectively
in the minds of many people with drastically different viewpoints.
> NPR is
> preferable to a station owned by Rupert Murdoch because with the former
> there is some accountability.
So do you think private citizens should be kicked off the airwaves, and
all stations should be government funded? I think the reverse of your
opinion: private stations transmit what people want to hear (e.g. Howard
Stern) whereas "public" stations transmit what government elites want you
to hear. Perhaps NPR sounds better to you because elites have more
sophisticated opinions than Howard Stern, but they are the opinions of
elites nevertheless.
> Even better, populist groups can create their
> own stations.
Populist groups can create their own stations now, though they are
severely restricted by the FCC. I read the FCC is finally considering
revising its rules to make it easier for low power stations to get
licensed.
Government control of the airwaves has led to the rich and priviledged
dominating. This is what always happens with government control. The
very purpose of government is to serve the rich and priviledged. The
solution is not more government, but privatization.
In the recent past microradio stations have been busted up by the FCC
because they were not rich and powerful enough to serve the "public"
interest.
> > But this course would make the state an adversary. Either the state would
> > crush such an attempt, or it would co-opt it and become another state
> > socialist tyranny. No matter what, the state is still the enemy--but not
> > according to Chomsky.
>
> "No matter what?" Please explain.
Read the previous sentence. I was discussing grass roots populist
organizations trying to supplant capitalist institutions. I contend the
state could take two different stances to this situtation:
1. It could crush these populist organizations to preserve the status
quo. In this case, the state is plainly an enemy.
2. It would tolerate these grass roots organizations. But if you know
anything about politicians, you know they are always looking for a new
role for themselves. Otherwise they might appear quite useless. I
contend that the state, in its wisdom and omnipotence, would decide it
could accomplish the same goals as your populist organizations. It would
co-opt them, subsuming them under its bureaucracy. It would no longer be
anarchism but state socialism.
I am arguing you cannot have a passive state that will simply hold the
fort against capitalism while you try to develop anarcho-syndicalist
institutions. Any anarchist movement must actively oppose the state, or
else it will be corrupted by the state.
> > > > I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist
> roots.
> >
> > > What does that mean? You do realize that the world is a different place
> now
> > > and that we understand it differently, right?
> >
> > The same issues persist. The same lessons of history apply.
> >
>
> People today can recognize that the power we are up against is not simply
> "state/capitalism" as one entity. Today we have corporations, institutions
> that did not exist in the same form in Bakunin's day.
Bakunin made pretty much the same complaints Chomsky does, yet Bakunin
concluded government should be abolished.
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> 'David O'Bedlam' <thed...@tsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:Pine.BSF.4.10.990913...@shell.tsoft.com...
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > On Sun, 12 Sep 1999, Matt wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist roots.
> >
> > I agree.
> >
> >
> > TheDavid
>
> Has it really gotten away from them? How?
Reading too much Chomsky, no doubt. ;)
Matt
Phillbin) wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 00:52:28 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
> wrote:
> ^If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
> ^Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
> ^managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
> ^dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
> ^corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
> ^and responsibilities which they would continue with.
>
> Without the state charter, why would they (Exxon or any other
> corporation) bother paying dividends to stockholders, or recognize
> their right of ownership, especially those who bought their stock
> third, fourth, or hundredth hand, and thus contribute absolutely
> nothing to the company?
As I am getting overwhelmed on this thread, I will just give a link to a
short description of free market anarchy:
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/anarcho-.htm
> How much of Exxon's resources would go towards
> private armed security, once the state has collapsed?
Their decision.
> How would they
> deal with "employee theft?" Whippings by rent-a-cops?
Employees have rights, too.
> Who would
> enforce the contracts in case of a dispute? Exxon would have to become
> it's own embryonic state in order to survive.
No it wouldn't. Why would it?
It might be an "embryonic state" in the sense that it rules its own
property, but just as a human embryo is not a human an embryonic state is
not a state. By your logic a guy who rules over his backyard is an
embryonic state.
> Who would security be
> loyal to: the stockholders, the other employees, or the directors of
> the company and their representatives, who are the only ones paying
> them? Who would enforce legal claims against Exxon if no state
> existed? How would you sue it for damages?
See the link I gave.
> ^I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
> ^exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
> ^the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
> ^should) be difficult to construct.
> ^
> ^So while I agree that our view of property is heavily distorted by the
> ^state, I am no longer convinced people would abandon all private property
> ^arrangements if given the chance.
>
> They would abandon all those they couldn't protect, either by
> themselves or people they could hire.
Exactly. I think, for example, intellectual property in an anarchist
society would be drastically altered if it continued to exist at all.
Much of it could not exist in the same way property rights in cars exist.
> Or they might band together to
> patrol the territory encompassed by their property, in which case you
> have the embryo of a new state.
There is no reason defense has to be territorial. Without coercion by a
central authority it will likely be non-territorial.
--
"the population of the world is gradually dividing into two
classes, Anarchists and criminals." -- Benjamin Tucker
Matt (djar...@usa.net)
Matt
> >Well I would say my views are still substantially left wing--the
> >difference is that I conclude liberty, free markets, and property rights
> >will yield more desirable results than a totalitarian state...
> ********
> I conclude the same but i am no anarcho-capitalist.
> The capitalistic twist of your anarchism should be based on additional
> principles, not yet specified (as far as i know).
I don't care much about "capitalism." I do care that people should be
able to own what they produce and do what they want with it. By some
definitions this is capitalism, by others it is probably socialism.
> Else i am an
> anarcho-capitalist despite being in favour of collective ownership of
> the means of production.
Interesting.
> >er, I mean
> >"strong government that is at least partially accountable to the public."
> >In those places where the market fails, mutual aid anarchism can step in.
> ********
> can you say in what places you envision that the market will fail in
> an anarchist society?
> ********
> >But I see what you are saying. There seems to be a widespread view that
> >the masses are ignorant trash whose opinions are entirely determined by
> >capitalist propaganda.
> ********
> in great part they are,...
I see. The problem I had with thinking like this is that I had to think
everyone around me was ignorant trash--my friends, family--everyone. Some
of them of course are ignorant trash. But most people want to pursue
their own goals, make money, and get the things they want in life. They
are not ignorant trash for failing to dream of socialist paradise; they
are normal self interested humans doing their own thing. (And note: self
interested doesn't necessarily mean greedy. It means pursuing those
things, material or not, that you value.)
When people don't act the way you want them to, you begin to despise
them. Not being a very hateful person, I had eventually had trouble with
this, so I decided if people are happy with capitalism, they have every
right to keep it. I can't accept the idea that they've been brainwashed
and folks like me have a right to speak for them.
But again, I do find many socialist anarchist ideas attractive. I would
like to try a worker managed coop, or a mutual bank of the kind Tucker and
Proudhon advocated. I'm just not going to put all my eggs in one basket
and say it HAS to work this way. Free market anarchism is voluntaryist
and tolerant, plus it can be explained to ordinary people.
Ruben
On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:49:51 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
wrote:
>In article <37DE50...@columbia-center.org>, cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
>
>> This doesn't appear to be the correct question for the issue. That would
>> be something like "Could Exxon exist *as a corporation* (the way it does
>> now) independently of the state?" The answer is yes: it could do so by
>> acting as the state itself. Many corporations have done so in stateless
>> areas in the past. Their subjects are (predictably) not treated quite as
>> well as the subjects of liberal democracies.
>
>Do you mean joint stock companies like the East India company, which I
>believe ruled harshly over India for some time? Or do you have modern
>examples?
>
>> > the details of its contracts would have to be revised, but there is no
>> > reason it could not exist.
>>
>> different than it is now.
>
>I am not trying to be evasive. I am simply unsure as to what would
>happen. I see no reason a company called Exxon could not sell gas to
>people in an anarchist society. I agree that it would probably become
>different than it is now, but at the moment I cannot say how different or
>in what way.
>
>> differences. For starters, I would suggest that companies would not be
>> able to grow to the enormous size so many corporations have achieved.
>
>One possible reason corporations get so bloated has to do with taxes.
>David Friedman suggests that since stockholders have to pay income tax on
>their dividends, it pays for a corporation to re-invest its profits
>internally. This makes the value of the stock goes up, which may allow
>shareholders to avoid the tax. They might be stuck with a capital gains
>tax, but the rate for those taxes is usually lower. So what happens is
>corporations invest more money in themselves than would be efficient. The
>result, according to this argument, is large and bloated corporations.
>
>if they exist, from becoming too large? And where do you draw the line?
>
what if inheritence were abolished, as proposed by Bakunin?
that might prevent the growth of corporations, since there would be
less incentive to become a CEO of a corporation.
what if all the wealth of a person were offered for public sale when
the person is dead?
the family may make an offer like everyone else.
what if the money from the sale were used to pay for public goods,
like health, education, and science?
thru depositing in a fund maintained by the community.
what if this quantity is large enough to eliminate the need for taxes
to pay for public goods?
essentially making dead people pay the taxes while alive people keep
all their income.
what if personal wealth is seen as the product of the interaction
between a person and the society in which the person lives, as
obviously is?
then there would moral justification to let the person enjoy the
wealth while alive but returning it to society when the person is
dead.
saludos/ruben
*********
>> > If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
>> > Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
>> > managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
>> > dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
>> > corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
>> > and responsibilities which they would continue with.
>> >
>> > I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
>> > exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
>> > the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
>> > should) be difficult to construct.
>>
>> If I understood you correctly you argue that in the absence of the state
>> (and presuming they do not act as the state themselves), corporations
>> would simply become traditional capitalist companies.
>
>I'm only speculating. I can't say I know enough to predict what would happen.
>
>I think people could work out limited liability contracts. The problem is
>that *someone* has to have unlimited liability. There is no inherent
>limit to my liability if I attack you. Regardless of whether I cost you
>$50 or $500 in medical bills, I still have to pay you.
>
>My internal structure (whether I am a real person or a corporation) should
>not matter. If shareholders enjoy limited liability, I think that
>necessitates the leadership of the corporation assuming unlimited
>liability (so they better be well paid).
>
Ruben
On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 20:01:50 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
wrote:
>In article <7rlsgo$oms$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, constan...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> Leftists genuinely despise the common person, and do not want the
>> common person to be allowed to make his own choices.
>
>difference is that I conclude liberty, free markets, and property rights
>will yield more desirable results than a totalitarian state...
********
I conclude the same but i am no anarcho-capitalist.
The capitalistic twist of your anarchism should be based on additional
anarcho-capitalist despite being in favour of collective ownership of
the means of production.
>er, I mean
>"strong government that is at least partially accountable to the public."
>In those places where the market fails, mutual aid anarchism can step in.
********
can you say in what places you envision that the market will fail in
an anarchist society?
********
>But I see what you are saying. There seems to be a widespread view that
>the masses are ignorant trash whose opinions are entirely determined by
>capitalist propaganda.
********
by offering a better culture. people should always be free to choose.
saludos/ruben
********
>I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person. Jon
>loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
>child--a very paternalistic kind of love. For example, Jon thinks it
>absurd for common people to own guns to defend themselves from government
>in the same way that it would be absurd for five year olds to own knives
>to defend themselves from parents. Jon wants the common person to be
>free, but only after developing the way Jon wants.
>
>Hence the support for public radio. Left to his own devices, the common
>person will listen to trash like Howard Stern. That shallow consumerism
>is not real freedom. Jon knows what real freedom is. Of course, you
>can't ask him what it is, because it would be absurd to come up with a
>blueprint for a future society.
>
Constantinople
<7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>:
>>
>> Accountability to whom? Private radio stations deliver what
>> most people want to hear. Public radio delivers what a very
>> small number of people want to hear. My friends like public
>> radio, but when I walk down the street when I hear a radio it
>> is almost invariably tuned to a private station, either music
>> or talk radio. This proves that private radio delivers what
>> most people want to hear better than public radio does. This
>> proves that private radio is more accountable to the vast
>> public than public radio. Private radio is truly "populist".
>> Public radio is truly elitist. Public radio is there - people
>> can tune it in if they want. They choose not to. The reason
>> they choose not to is that they do not like it. Leftists are
>> not blind to this fact.
>
>People need to have choice not just in what they consume but
>what is produced.
Just as an employer decides what will be done by employees by
paying them to do it, so do consumers decide what will be
produced by buying things, as do radio listeners by listening.
If you are right, if consumers have no say in what is produced by
private radio stations but that they have more of a say in what
is produced by NPR, then it is a miracle that private radio
producers happen to produce programs that a lot of people like,
while NPR somehow manages to produce programs that a lot of
people don't particularly care for.
I don't believe in miracles.
The movie "Private Parts" was shown on TV not too long ago. That
movie purports to tell us how Howard Stern managed to get
broadcast nationally, despite outraging his own bosses. He
succeeded for exactly one reason: people listened to him. If you
believe that is not a case in which the listeners exercised
choice in what was produced, then I understand you even less than
I thought.
>I could say a lot more here but arguing about
>this with a pro-capitalist is not likely to be worth the effort.
>
>> Leftists genuinely despise the common person, and do not want
>> the common person to be allowed to make his own choices.
>
>Naw, people like you do. They assume that genuine control over
>their own lives is impossible and adopt the fantasy that
>allowing people to have consumption choices amounts to freedom.
In this thread you've effectively defined "genuine control over
one's own life" as control by the state of everything. I don't
assume that this is impossible - we have North Korea and
Communist Vietnam to demonstrate that it is possible - but simply
that it is not desirable.
>> I cannot understand how a leftist could be so deluded as to
>> consider himself populist and at the same time claim that
>> public radio is superior to private radio. Perhaps someone
>> will explain this to me.
>
>You could actually listen to it, for one thing.
"National Public Radio's 'Delicious Dish'", the Saturday Night
Live parody, is more eloquent on the topic than I could be.
>I remember
>hearing a right-wing columnist talking about this and conceding
>that public radio is far superior but must still be abolished in
>favor of private radio.
I consider many right-wingers to be astonishingly similar to many
left-wingers in the basic ideas and arguments behind their
political thinking. As for taste in radio, I demur.
>A genuine populist would have to be willing to allow the
>population to be actually involved in producing the content.
>This is not accomplished best by things like NPR. Pacifica is
>better, but we need to have direct control by people in their
>communities, as much as possible.
As far as I can tell, Pacifica has nothing to do with the
government. I was responding to your argument for government
involvement in radio. Pacifica is as private as NBC. However, I
have no idea how good the network is.
Dan Clore
This whole debate seems to make the assumption that there can only be
two kinds of radio:
(1) "public", i.e. government;
and
(2) "private", i.e. corporate.
What about the listener-supported radio stations that most communities
have? They play neither what government elites ("public" radio) nor
corporate elites (advertisers who control the contents of "private"
radio) want people to hear. Consequently, they play music that appeals
to smaller, more dedicated groups (punk etc) and include actual news and
opinions in their programming that neither "public" nor "private" radio
would include.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:
A. G. Phillbin
wrote:
^In article <37de84c3...@news.wenet.net>, agfi...@wenet.net (A. G.
^Phillbin) wrote:
^
^> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 00:52:28 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
^> wrote:
^
^> ^If the state disappeared tomorrow there would still be a company called
^> ^Exxon. Everything would be thrown into chaos for a while, but if Exxon
^> ^managed to protect its property it could continue to do business once the
^> ^dust settled down. Why couldn't it? The ships, the gas stations, the
^> ^corporate headquarters would all still be there. People would have jobs
^> ^and responsibilities which they would continue with.
^>
^> Without the state charter, why would they (Exxon or any other
^> corporation) bother paying dividends to stockholders, or recognize
^> their right of ownership, especially those who bought their stock
^> third, fourth, or hundredth hand, and thus contribute absolutely
^> nothing to the company?
^
^As I am getting overwhelmed on this thread, I will just give a link to a
^short description of free market anarchy:
^
^http://www.jim.com/jamesd/anarcho-.htm
I'll check it out when I get around to it.
^
^> How much of Exxon's resources would go towards
^> private armed security, once the state has collapsed?
^
^Their decision.
If it (Exxon) wanted to hang on to it's property, the investment would
have to be considerable. That was ther point of the question, not
whose decision it was. It would have to make up for the missing armed
state apparatus in every country where it exists, or lose it's
property.
^
^> How would they
^> deal with "employee theft?" Whippings by rent-a-cops?
^
^Employees have rights, too.
According to whom? Exxon? Themselves? Who will enforce those rights if
Exxon refuses to recognize them? That would certainly make trade
unionism an interesting proposition, to say the least! This has the
makings of some intersting fiction -- I don't know about an actual
society, though!
^
^> Who would
^> enforce the contracts in case of a dispute? Exxon would have to become
^> it's own embryonic state in order to survive.
^
^No it wouldn't. Why would it?
To protect it's property, from outside seizure, and from theft by
employees.
^
^It might be an "embryonic state" in the sense that it rules its own
^property, but just as a human embryo is not a human an embryonic state is
^not a state. By your logic a guy who rules over his backyard is an
^embryonic state.
Exxon is a corporation, not a person. It has no "backyard." It is an
impersonal entity, like the state, whose claim to existence is based
on a legal fiction, which would cease to exist as soon as the entity
(the state) which generated legality ceased to exist. There would
still be the board of directors, some real estate, a bunch of oil
wells, offices, etc. The board of directors would have to pay the
private security and the productive employees. Since the money in
their bank accounts would be "state money," it would be worthless
without the state. The board of directors would eventually have to
print certificates based on future oil sales (presumably bartered for
gold or other commodities) in order to pay people. They, or their
representatives, would become judge, jury, and possibly executioner
(who'd stop them) of the employees on their territory, as long as they
are on their territory. So you have an armed body of men (security),
an all-powerful central board of dorectors, their own justice system,
and currency. Sounds like a state to me.
^
^> Who would security be
^> loyal to: the stockholders, the other employees, or the directors of
^> the company and their representatives, who are the only ones paying
^> them? Who would enforce legal claims against Exxon if no state
^> existed? How would you sue it for damages?
^
^See the link I gave.
I will soon enough. Who would enforce damages ("you and what army")?
^
^> ^I am not totally sure limited liability corporations could continue to
^> ^exist in an anarchist society. I see no reason people could not work out
^> ^the appropriate contracts, but any kind of corporate veil would (and
^> ^should) be difficult to construct.
^> ^
^> ^So while I agree that our view of property is heavily distorted by the
^> ^state, I am no longer convinced people would abandon all private property
^> ^arrangements if given the chance.
^>
^> They would abandon all those they couldn't protect, either by
^> themselves or people they could hire.
^
^Exactly. I think, for example, intellectual property in an anarchist
^society would be drastically altered if it continued to exist at all.
^Much of it could not exist in the same way property rights in cars exist.
I was actually referring just to the real estate, but you're right
about the "intellectual property."
^
^> Or they might band together to
^> patrol the territory encompassed by their property, in which case you
^> have the embryo of a new state.
^
^There is no reason defense has to be territorial. Without coercion by a
^central authority it will likely be non-territorial.
How do you defend property without defending territory? I'm not
referring to cars and other movable property, which had better be kept
on your own (or at least a friend's) territory.
Jøn Duncan
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> In article <7rl6es$em3$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
> <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> > news:djarum98-130...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> >
> > > > Second of all, the
> > > > assertion that Chomsky (for example) believes the state should be
> > > > granted more power, then after capitalism is crushed, be gradually
> > > > decentralized and possibly eliminated... um, huh? This was not
> > > > my impression at all.
> > >
> > > Well that's what he said, almost in those words. I gave a quote in my
> > > response to Jon Duncan. It is from an interview on AOL in which he
was no
> > > doubt thinking and typing very fast, but it seems representative of
other
> > > stuff he has written (and also more explicit).
> >
> > Chomsky didn't say how capitalism would be crushed. I pretty certain he
> > doesn't think it can be (at least without resulting in a different sort
of
> > problem for the masses) in the sense that you think he does.
>
> So despite the mountains of criticism Chomsky has produced, no one can say
> for sure what he wants to do about it.
What do you want him to do, write a five-year plan? I read an interview
recently where he was talking about the sit-down strikes during the Great
Depression. He said that the reason the capitalists were so upset was that
those workers were "one gray cell away" from realizing that if they could
shut down a factory, they could also run it themselves. The possibilities
for achieving what we want are endless, but they always involve people
working together.
>
> > He talks about how corporations prefer to work at the state level for
the
> > reasons you mention. The important point here is that in the absence of
a
> > population that can directly influence these sort of things, turning
over
> > the federal gov'ts authority to the states in effect is giving the
> > corporations more power. Chomsky is against giving corporations more
power,
> > you know?
> >
> > That last sentence was a little facetious but I wonder whether you
> > understand why, forced to choose, we should prefer the authority of the
> > state to that of corporations.
>
> You seem to be contradicting yourself. On the one hand you agree (I
> think) with Chomsky that the state should be decentralized and broken down
> so it is more responsive to ordinary people. That is at least what David
> said Chomsky's position is. On the other hand you and Chomsky also seem
> to assert that a strong federal government is necessary to keep
> corporations in check. You cannot do both. You cannot centralize and
> decentralize the state.
I didn't say it was necessary. I'm saying we need to look at the human
consequences of corporations taking away power from government.
> If the state has broad regulatory and enforcement power (which requires
> expansive bureaucracies), it cannot be decentralized.
State is not a single "substance". Aspects of it can be localized without
effecting the rest. Likewise with centralization.
The population can't beat the state in force-on-force war, no. I suppose a
population unified against the state might be able to win but if we had that
we wouldn't need all those guns in the first place. From what I have seen,
the possession of guns gives the authorities the ability to kill people they
don't like without suffering any consequences.
> I am simply operating on the principle that the people have the right to
> alter or abolish a government to which they did not consent, or if they
> did consent, a government which becomes destructive of the rule of law.
I agree, but the abolishment is where things get complicated.
>
> Though I don't think the populace needs absolute military supremacy. A
> state that goes to war against its own subjects will lose its legitmacy
> rapidly enough, which it needs to maintain control (unless it's strong
> enough to establish totalitarianism).
If we can talk about "own subjects" as if the people are a united whole, the
problem disappears -- one way or another the state is finished. Talk about
that right now is pure fantasy. If you know anything about the history of
U.S. wars, you'd know that during wartime and its aftermath, the states
apparant legitimacy is as strong as it ever is. I can think of a notable
exception, but that one example only helps my case.
>The populace just needs to be armed
> well enough to deter the state from aggression.
The populace is not a unified whole. So if you advocate arming people now,
you are only encouraging aggression on the part of the state. Much of the
rest of the population could cheer them on if those armed revolutionaries
are seem threatening enough.
> And also, some factions
> within the populance may need arms if they refuse consent and wish to
> secede from the union.
If they want to commit suicide.
> > That doesn't just mean
> > guns -- it means armored vehicles, quasi-military police (i.e. Chicago's
> > "Tactical" officers), hi-tech surveillence, and god-knows-what-else.
>
> Your point being?
>
The people you are proposing to arm will lose.
> > If I
> > say I'm against allowing 5-year-olds access to knives so they can combat
> > child-abuse, am I therefore in favor of increasing the power parents
have
> > over their children?
>
> How very Trotskyite of you. You equate adult citizens with irresponsible
> little five year olds. And the state, of course, is the benevolent
> parent.
>
Fuck you. I said the parent was abusive.
I'm talking about relative levels of power here. It's an analogy.
> Ideally we would live in a peaceful happy world with no problems and no
> need for guns. That is not reality. As long as we are the way we are,
> isn't it better to have power dispersed? You seem to prefer it
> concentrated in the hands of a priviledged elite.
>
How very Maoist of you. Power isn't only what comes out of the barrel of a
gun.
I need to make one thing clear, I don't categorically rule out the use of
violence and/or guns in order to combat illegitimate authority. I just don't
see any good political use for them in American society today. That may or
may not change.
> > > > and
> > > > many, many where he clearly wishes to limit or eliminate it.
> > >
> > > Like where?
> > >
> >
> > The FBI. The Pentagon System. School Lunches (okay I made the last one
up
> > but if you have to ask, you haven't been paying much attention, I
think).
>
> Are you sure he wouldn't just have the FBI redirected to checking
> corporate power?
> Or ensuring the polulace is adequately disarmed and is
> complying with the state's firearms regulations?
>
> Where is one place he says he wants to eliminate some power of the state?
> I'm sure there are times when argues for this, but they are few and far
> between.
He's got other things to talk about but there are still plenty of examples.
It's not a theory. It's an ideological weapon.
> > > Frankly I am sick and tired of the public interest. In practice those
> > > people who implement what they call the public interest really seem to
be
> > > imposing their own personal values on me.
>
> > Yeah, living in society's a drag, isn't it?
>
> Living in society does entail compromises, but not necessarily in the name
> of the public interest. Indeed what I said above implicitly referred to
> politicians, and I am not at all surprised that you think politicians are
> a necessary part of society.
>
> All I want is to be secure in my life, liberty, and property. I might
> support charity, I might do volunteer work, I might join a movement for
> workers' cooperatives. But I don't want to be *required* to do any of
> those things, and someone else (you) who wants to dictate to me how I must
> live necessarily wants to commit crimes against me. All I want is to be
> left alone--is that too much to ask of you?
That's all you want? You don't ask for much. What do you want for other
people?
>
> Your rhetoric is left wing, but the substance of what you advocate is
> hardly any different from any right wing absolutist.
>
Huh? What is the substance of what I advocate?
> Recall the words of Emma Goldman,
>
> The individual is the true reality in life. A cosmos in
> himself, he does not exist for the State, nor for that
> abstraction called "society," or the "nation," which is
> only a collection of individuals. Man, the individual,
> has always been and, necessarily is the sole source and
> motive power of evolution and progress. Civilization has
> been a continuous struggle of the individual or of
> groups of individuals against the State and even against
> "society," that is, against the majority subdued and
> hypnotized by the State and State worship. Man's
> greatest battles have been waged against man-made
> obstacles and artificial handicaps imposed upon him to
> paralyze his growth and development. Human thought has
> always been falsified by tradition and custom, and
> perverted false education in the interests of those who
> held power and enjoyed privileges. In other words, by
> the State and the ruling classes. This constant
> incessant conflict has been the history of mankind.
>
> Goldman was actually a communist, but as you can see she did not demand
> that the individual person should capitulate to abstractions like
> "society" or the "public interest." She was not subdued and hypnotized by
> state worship, apparently unlike you.
I'm not demanding anyone give up their individuality. I think you are making
assumptions about what you think I mean regarding things I haven't said
anything about.
Jon
Jøn Duncan
> But I have a question for you: how do you intend to prevent corporations,
> if they exist, from becoming too large? And where do you draw the line?
Why should they exist at all?
Jøn Duncan
> I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person. Jon
> loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
> child--a very paternalistic kind of love.
Shut up right now.
Jøn Duncan
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:djarum98-140...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > Possibly less than other government functions. I am
> > opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly
because
> > this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
>
> which they have negotiated contracts, and to their customers.
>
In other words, people with resources and not necessarily the people at the
other end of the gun barrel.
> Public police are accountable to politicians, who are supposedly (but not
> really) accountable to the public.
Not really, but there you at least have a shot.
>The public supposedly exerts its will
> by majority voting.
That's one way. I don't thonk it's necessarily one of the more important or
effective. My personal favorite is humiliation of the public official.
> Thus in many cities you have great protection for the
> rich white majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
> resources on poor blacks is just not in the public interest.
Well they are part of the public. The state often does a poor job of
representing the public interest -- especially, I think, in police matters.
How privatization improves the situation I can't imagine.
Jon
Ruben
On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 23:10:29 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
wrote:
>> >difference is that I conclude liberty, free markets, and property rights
>> >will yield more desirable results than a totalitarian state...
>> ********
>> I conclude the same but i am no anarcho-capitalist.
>> The capitalistic twist of your anarchism should be based on additional
>> principles, not yet specified (as far as i know).
>
>able to own what they produce and do what they want with it. By some
>definitions this is capitalism, by others it is probably socialism.
>
>> anarcho-capitalist despite being in favour of collective ownership of
>> the means of production.
>
>
>> >er, I mean
>> >"strong government that is at least partially accountable to the public."
>> >In those places where the market fails, mutual aid anarchism can step in.
>> ********
>> can you say in what places you envision that the market will fail in
>> an anarchist society?
>> ********
>> >But I see what you are saying. There seems to be a widespread view that
>> >the masses are ignorant trash whose opinions are entirely determined by
>> >capitalist propaganda.
>> ********
**********
this was my idea when not mutilated:
"in great part they are, but if we don't like it let's convince people
by offering a better culture. people should always be free to choose".
so your snipping did not justice to my view. i respect people choices
even when i dont like many of the choices they make as average
persons.
capitalist propaganda is so effective that it has been turned into a
mega business, and it is trash in my opinion. it is more rational to
have access to full information about a producer and then choosing the
best one.
saludos/ruben
**********
>I see. The problem I had with thinking like this is that I had to think
>everyone around me was ignorant trash--my friends, family--everyone. Some
>of them of course are ignorant trash. But most people want to pursue
>their own goals, make money, and get the things they want in life. They
>are not ignorant trash for failing to dream of socialist paradise; they
>are normal self interested humans doing their own thing. (And note: self
>interested doesn't necessarily mean greedy. It means pursuing those
>things, material or not, that you value.)
>
>When people don't act the way you want them to, you begin to despise
>them. Not being a very hateful person, I had eventually had trouble with
>this, so I decided if people are happy with capitalism, they have every
>right to keep it. I can't accept the idea that they've been brainwashed
>and folks like me have a right to speak for them.
>
>But again, I do find many socialist anarchist ideas attractive. I would
>like to try a worker managed coop, or a mutual bank of the kind Tucker and
>Proudhon advocated. I'm just not going to put all my eggs in one basket
>and say it HAS to work this way. Free market anarchism is voluntaryist
>and tolerant, plus it can be explained to ordinary people.
>
>--
>"the population of the world is gradually dividing into two
>classes, Anarchists and criminals." -- Benjamin Tucker
>
> Matt (djar...@usa.net)
Jøn Duncan
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:djarum98-140...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
Your not interested much in challenging illegitimate authority unless it
happens to be "the state"?
>
> > Naturally, in the real world, we are going to find ourselves with
dilemmas.
> > The one we are dealing with here is whether government should ever be
> > strengthened. I think one can be perfectly consistent in claiming that
the
> > state, however decentralized and/or democratic, is illegitimate, while
at
> > the same time recognizing strengthening certain aspects of it in order
to
> > weaken other forms of illegitimate authority (and to improve people's
> > lives). ...
>
> The problem here is that you assume you know what will improve people's
> lives, that they cannot be trusted to improve their own lives.
>
Jesus Christ. Now you're sounding like Limbaugh. I'm not saying _I_ make the
decision about what improves peoples lives, I'm saying everyone should. In
specific cases, I'm just one guy with an opinion.
> As in utilitarianism, your approach to anarchism implies there is some
> unitary actor (the state, or perhaps a large scale social movement) who
> has objective knowledge about how people should live, what they should
> value, whether their relationships are legitimate.
Point out where the implication is so I can get rid of it. I think people
should identify structures of power and oppose them where proof of the
structures' necessity is nonexistent. Where's the need for the unitary
actor?
> With that knowledge
> this actor can decide whether a certain kind of authority is justified,
> even disregarding the opinions of the people involved.
Individual people can make these judgements.
>
> I think we can objectively know matters of law; for instance given the
> facts we can tell a murder from a justifiable killing. I don't think we
> can objectively know whether (for example) employment is wage slavery.
> Some people feel like it is, others clearly do not. I think it really
> depends on the circumstances.
>
Has the worker-boss relationship been proven necessary. It hasn't and I'm
sure you agree. This is an entirely different excercise than deciding
whether working under a boss for wages is a form of slavery.
I will say that if someone decides there is nothing objectionable in the
fact that some people have to work for bosses to get wages, then they have
allowed the bosses to avoid their responsibilty to provide proof of their
necessity. Again, this is an entirely different matter than deciding whether
wage labor is a good system or not.
> > > How does one "dissolve" private power without state police going
around
> > > confiscating property and beating people up?
> >
> > By giving ordinary people at least an indirect means to effect things
that
> > are important in their lives, the state can be a preferable alternative
to
> > "private tyrannys". With the state there is at least the possibility
that
> > there is accountabilty that isn't based on access to capital.
>
> I'm not sure what you just said. The question had to do with how to
> dissolve private power, not why doing so is justifed.
>
Hmm, it looks like I answered a question you weren't asking at that
particular time. Use this as the answer:
People can decide they don't want to cooperate with private power. They can
take actions seperately from the state.
> > Also note that Chomsky is not implying that the dissolution of private
power
> > be done by the state. There are other ways.
>
> Which are? I made a suggestion below, then you began a discussion of the
> superiority of government funded radio.
>
People can't take action except through the state? As long as we are talking
about radio -- I can imagine it's possible to oppose corporate radio
stations by using coordinated campaigns to operate "pirate" community radio
stations while opposing the efforts to shut down those stations.
That didn't take long. Do you not have any imagination?
> > > The alternative method would be for populist groups to form their own
> > > non-exploitative organizations, thus supplanting capitalist
institutions.
> >
> > You can do both. Take radio for instance. Privatized control of the
airwaves
> > amounts to the plunder of a resource that should belong to everyone.
>
> The airwaves are a scarce resource. If they belong to everyone, some
> organization has to be responsible for allocating them.
I don't know that that's true. The various stations can make agreements not
to broadcast on each others frequencies. If there are too many radio
stations in one area, local organizations can decide how to resolve the
problems (shutting certain stations down, consoladating stations, having
stations share frequencies, and so on).
> If it is the
> government doing this, those people who can most strongly influence the
> politicians will gain the most. If you think the public interest is what
> most strongly influences politicians, you are seriously deranged.
I'm not deranged and I don't think politicans are particualry influenced by
the public interest, even if they have an idea what it is (which I doubt).
> The
> "public interest" does not even objectively exist. It exists subjectively
> in the minds of many people with drastically different viewpoints.
>
> > NPR is
> > preferable to a station owned by Rupert Murdoch because with the former
> > there is some accountability.
>
> So do you think private citizens should be kicked off the airwaves, and
> all stations should be government funded?
No.
> I think the reverse of your opinion: private stations transmit what people
want to hear (e.g. Howard
> Stern) whereas "public" stations transmit what government elites want you
> to hear.
"Government" isn't the only type of elite.
> Perhaps NPR sounds better to you because elites have more
> sophisticated opinions than Howard Stern, but they are the opinions of
> elites nevertheless.
I said it was better. I didn't say it was particularly good.
>
> > Even better, populist groups can create their
> > own stations.
>
> Populist groups can create their own stations now, though they are
> severely restricted by the FCC. I read the FCC is finally considering
> revising its rules to make it easier for low power stations to get
> licensed.
That's nice. It'd be better if they didn't have to compete with private
capital.
>
> Government control of the airwaves has led to the rich and priviledged
> dominating.
The government granted that control.
> This is what always happens with government control. The
> very purpose of government is to serve the rich and priviledged.
The purpose of government is to serve the interest of those who control it.
> The
> solution is not more government, but privatization.
Why is privatization a solution?
>
> In the recent past microradio stations have been busted up by the FCC
> because they were not rich and powerful enough to serve the "public"
> interest.
>
So? Do you agree with the FCC?
> > > But this course would make the state an adversary. Either the state
would
> > > crush such an attempt, or it would co-opt it and become another state
> > > socialist tyranny. No matter what, the state is still the enemy--but
not
> > > according to Chomsky.
> >
> > "No matter what?" Please explain.
>
> Read the previous sentence. I was discussing grass roots populist
> organizations trying to supplant capitalist institutions. I contend the
> state could take two different stances to this situtation:
>
> 1. It could crush these populist organizations to preserve the status
> quo. In this case, the state is plainly an enemy.
>
> 2. It would tolerate these grass roots organizations. But if you know
> anything about politicians, you know they are always looking for a new
> role for themselves. Otherwise they might appear quite useless. I
> contend that the state, in its wisdom and omnipotence, would decide it
> could accomplish the same goals as your populist organizations. It would
> co-opt them, subsuming them under its bureaucracy. It would no longer be
> anarchism but state socialism.
>
You don't know much about grass-roots organizations.
> I am arguing you cannot have a passive state that will simply hold the
> fort against capitalism while you try to develop anarcho-syndicalist
> institutions. Any anarchist movement must actively oppose the state, or
> else it will be corrupted by the state.
>
I agree. But that can't be the only thing it does.
> > > > > I say libertarian socialism needs to get back to its anti-statist
> > roots.
> > >
> > > > What does that mean? You do realize that the world is a different
place
> > now
> > > > and that we understand it differently, right?
> > >
> > > The same issues persist. The same lessons of history apply.
> > >
> >
> > People today can recognize that the power we are up against is not
simply
> > "state/capitalism" as one entity. Today we have corporations,
institutions
> > that did not exist in the same form in Bakunin's day.
>
> Bakunin made pretty much the same complaints Chomsky does, yet Bakunin
> concluded government should be abolished.
>
So does Chomsky.
Jon
Jøn Duncan
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
[uninteresting stuff snipped]
> >I could say a lot more here but arguing about
> >this with a pro-capitalist is not likely to be worth the effort.
> >
> >> Leftists genuinely despise the common person, and do not want
> >> the common person to be allowed to make his own choices.
> >
> >Naw, people like you do. They assume that genuine control over
> >their own lives is impossible and adopt the fantasy that
> >allowing people to have consumption choices amounts to freedom.
>
> In this thread you've effectively defined "genuine control over
> one's own life" as control by the state of everything.
Bullshit.
> I don't
> assume that this is impossible - we have North Korea and
> Communist Vietnam to demonstrate that it is possible - but simply
> that it is not desirable.
No state has ever had control over everything.
>
> >> I cannot understand how a leftist could be so deluded as to
> >> consider himself populist and at the same time claim that
> >> public radio is superior to private radio. Perhaps someone
> >> will explain this to me.
> >
> >You could actually listen to it, for one thing.
>
> "National Public Radio's 'Delicious Dish'", the Saturday Night
> Live parody, is more eloquent on the topic than I could be.
>
> >I remember
> >hearing a right-wing columnist talking about this and conceding
> >that public radio is far superior but must still be abolished in
> >favor of private radio.
>
> I consider many right-wingers to be astonishingly similar to many
> left-wingers in the basic ideas and arguments behind their
> political thinking. As for taste in radio, I demur.
>
> >A genuine populist would have to be willing to allow the
> >population to be actually involved in producing the content.
> >This is not accomplished best by things like NPR. Pacifica is
> >better, but we need to have direct control by people in their
> >communities, as much as possible.
>
> As far as I can tell, Pacifica has nothing to do with the
> government. I was responding to your argument for government
> involvement in radio. Pacifica is as private as NBC. However, I
> have no idea how good the network is.
It's not a corporation. It doesn't exist to make a profit.
>
>
>
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
But that is just the analogy you used. I thought you would be pleased
James A. Donald
On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 19:27:50 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
wrote:
> I'm sorry: do you mean Orwell and Einstein thought the government could be
> gradually eliminated? If so I was unaware of that.
Orwell believed in conventional socialism, run by a conventional
democratic state, and continued to believe that until he died, though
he became progressively more cynical, and progressively more aware of
the great dangers of such a program.
Einstein had no coherent political beliefs, and his various somewhat
pro socialist and pro Soviet statements were made at a time when he
was receiving a very considerable benefit from Stalin, a Russian
mistress young enough to be his daughter.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
4HSG9/ocHwyWRlcUYU8fQ+TCovLuOiIz7nhnjUG0
4IS6HqZzY0BtHkpHHYwLyOB+zZRUriKuJuHXp1IJh
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
John Rappe
>In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
><jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Possibly less than other government functions. I am
>> opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly because
>> this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
>
>which they have negotiated contracts, and to their customers.
>
>by majority voting. Thus in many cities you have great protection for the
>rich white majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
>resources on poor blacks is just not in the public interest.
And private "protection firms" would provide better "protection" for
the poor?
--
-john Finally the day came when I did desperately want a job.
I needed it. Not having another minute to lose,
I decided that I would take the last job on earth,
that of messenger boy. -- Henry Miller
Jøn Duncan
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> In article <7rn66n$nvm$1...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
> <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > > I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person.
Jon
> > > loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
> > > child--a very paternalistic kind of love.
> >
> > Shut up right now.
>
> But that is just the analogy you used. I thought you would be pleased
>
>
Asshole.
max_l...@my-deja.com
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 19:27:50 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
> wrote:
>
> > I'm sorry: do you mean Orwell and Einstein thought the government
> > could be gradually eliminated? If so I was unaware of that.
>
> Orwell believed in conventional socialism, run by a conventional
> democratic state, and continued to believe that until he died, though
> he became progressively more cynical, and progressively more aware of
> the great dangers of such a program.
>
> Einstein had no coherent political beliefs, and his various somewhat
> pro socialist and pro Soviet statements were made at a time when he
> was receiving a very considerable benefit from Stalin, a Russian
> mistress young enough to be his daughter.
Orwell was a Stalinist - he described himself as a "Tory anarchist".
Einstein could have had his pick of young daughters (haven't you seen
Nic Roeg's 'Insignificance'?) and is only described by you as
incoherent, Stalinist, lecherous and corrupt because he's popularly
believed to be the most intelligent, powerful and insightful thinker of
the 20th century, and throughout his life argued for the abolition of
capitalism. By comparison, the handful of mediocre authoritarians and
irrationalists thrown up by the best of the bourgeois tradition in the
20th century (ie. Popper and Hayek) are not even in the same ballpark.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
constan...@my-deja.com
"Jøn Duncan" <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> > In this thread you've effectively defined "genuine control over
> > one's own life" as control by the state of everything.
>
> Bullshit.
I criticized state control. You responded by saying I don't
believe in "genuine control over one's life".
> > I don't
> > assume that this is impossible - we have North Korea and
> > Communist Vietnam to demonstrate that it is possible - but simply
> > that it is not desirable.
>
> No state has ever had control over everything.
My condolences.
> > As far as I can tell, Pacifica has nothing to do with the
> > government. I was responding to your argument for government
> > involvement in radio. Pacifica is as private as NBC. However, I
> > have no idea how good the network is.
>
> It's not a corporation. It doesn't exist to make a profit.
It doesn't exist to make a profit - so what? Is this what we were
talking about? No. We were talking about the state and whether
it should be involved in things like radio. I responded to the
following statement and to the use of NPR as evidence of its
validity:
"By giving ordinary people at least an indirect means to
effect things that are important in their lives, the state can
be a preferable alternative to "private tyrannys". With the
state there is at least the possibility that there is
accountabilty that isn't based on access to capital."
By the way, Pacifica Foundation (the parent of the network) is a
corporation, contrary to your assertion. Apparently you've
never heard of a nonprofit corporation.
constan...@my-deja.com
y...@aqui.com (Ruben) wrote:
> "in great part they are, but if we don't like it let's convince people
> by offering a better culture. people should always be free to choose".
>
> so your snipping did not justice to my view. i respect people choices
> even when i dont like many of the choices they make as average
> persons.
>
> capitalist propaganda is so effective that it has been turned into a
> mega business, and it is trash in my opinion. it is more rational to
> have access to full information about a producer and then choosing the
> best one.
Perhaps you would give some cases in which we are unable to
discover which product is best and therefore to make an informed
decision. Do you want to choose the best ice cream? I've bought a
little of this and a little of that - I prefer Haagen Dasz
vanilla to most other vanillas. Do you want to know what is the
best razor? Again, you are free to buy different disposables and
decide which one you like best - or you can ask a friend. Or you
can check magazines that review products, such as Consumer
Reports. And there are other ways to find out which is best. Go
to a grocery store and you'll see, I estimate, thirty different
kinds of cereal. Which one to buy? You are free to buy one, and
if you don't like it you can buy another. Among the Raisin Brans,
I've tried a few and I prefer Kellogg's. Want to buy a house?
Visit different houses and see which you like. Want to buy a car?
Consumer Reports and other magazines provide very detailed and
useful information on different kinds of car.
Individuals already have the resources to make informed choices.
But that is not all you want. Your position involves a
contradiction. You think that you ought to try to convince people
to make the choices you want them to make, but you attack people
who do exactly that which you think that you ought to do. One
immediately infers that you desire a monopoly on persuasion.
constan...@my-deja.com
y...@aqui.com (Ruben) wrote:
> what if inheritence were abolished, as proposed by Bakunin?
Inheritance is a gift. If you abolish inheritance, then you'd
better abolish Christmas and birthdays. Who will abolish
inheritance? If inheritance is to be abolished, someone has to do
the abolishing. A state, no doubt.
No, I can't explain what Bakunin, an anarchist, was thinking, but
the Britannica has this to say about Bakunin: "Bakunin formulated
no coherent body of doctrine. His voluminous and vigorous
writings were often left incomplete." So it is possible that he
did not fully think through this proposal.
> that might prevent the growth of corporations, since there would be
> less incentive to become a CEO of a corporation.
> what if all the wealth of a person were offered for public sale when
> the person is dead?
Offered by whom? Who would receive the payment from the sale?
Statists have an obvious answer: the government.
> the family may make an offer like everyone else.
> what if the money from the sale were used to pay for public goods,
> like health, education, and science?
Used by whom to pay for these things? The state, I guess.
> thru depositing in a fund maintained by the community.
We already have a "fund maintained by the community". That's where
our taxes go.
> what if this quantity is large enough to eliminate the need for taxes
> to pay for public goods?
What taxes? You are obviously assuming a state. This proves that
by "the community" you mean a state.
> essentially making dead people pay the taxes while alive people keep
> all their income.
> what if personal wealth is seen as the product of the interaction
> between a person and the society in which the person lives, as
> obviously is?
> then there would moral justification to let the person enjoy the
> wealth while alive but returning it to society when the person is
> dead.
That moral argument makes no sense. If he does not have the right
to give any part of it to his children upon his death (because it
is not sufficiently his for him to have that right), then for the
same reason he does not have any right to give away any part of
it during his life time, and so Christmas and birthdays need to
be abolished. If he has the right to give away some part of it
during his life, then how much? Who will decide? If he does not
have the right to give it away then he also does not have the
right to sell it, since a sale is a double transfer, and two
wrongs do not make a right. If he has the right to sell it then
why can't he sell all of it to his child in exchange for a kiss?
If he has a right to sell it but only when the "society" gives
him permission, then he has no economic freedom.
mikel evins
Jøn Duncan <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote in message
news:7rng1u$dig$1...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
>
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> > <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > > I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person.
> Jon
> > > > loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
> > > > child--a very paternalistic kind of love.
> > >
> > > Shut up right now.
> >
> > But that is just the analogy you used. I thought you would be pleased
> >
> >
>
> Asshole.
This exchange renews my faith in the quality of Jon's arguments.
--
---------------
mikel evins
mev...@best.com
constan...@my-deja.com
> what if personal wealth is seen as the product of the interaction
> between a person and the society in which the person lives, as
> obviously is?
> then there would moral justification to let the person enjoy the
> wealth while alive but returning it to society when the person is
> dead.
I did not really address this argument in my other post, I only
pointed out general problems with abolishing inheritance.
When the person interacts with "society", then his income is not
the only thing that is produced. His product is also produced,
and that product goes to "society". His income is therefore not
owned partly by him and partly by "society" - it is owned
entirely by him, because he and "society" have already agreed on
who will get what. His product went to "society", and that
belongs entirely to "society" and is no longer his, and meanwhile
his income belongs entirely to him and is no longer in any way
"society's". This is the agreement that existed between him and
"society".
There is another problem with your argument. Interactions are not
between the individual and an entity called "society". He is in
fact himself a part of society, and so society is not an entity
separate from him. The interaction occurred not between a person
and society, but between one person and another (or between one
person and an organization, etc.). The interaction occurred
*within* society, between particular members of society. If that
wealth is the joint product of two parties, then the two parties
are the two individuals or organizations, not an individual and
"society". Those two parties are certain to have made the
agreement described above, i.e., that one party receives this and
owns it wholly, and the other party receives that and owns it
completely, so that neither party any longer has any claim to the
other party's part.
Finally, you justify the theft (for that is what it is) of the
man's wealth on the basis that it is only partly his, and partly
belongs to the thief. But if your argument is true, then much
more than simple confiscation of the man's property at death is
justified. If the property really does belong the thief jointly
with the man then the thief has the right at any point to come to
the man and take control of some part of it. Why not? It is
arbitrary to suppose that the thief's right is limited to the
right to take the man's property at his death. In fact, your
assumption has to be much stronger than this. Since you claim
that the thief should be able to take control of *all* of the
wealth at the man's death, and not just half of it (say), then
you must mean that the property belonged entirely to the thief
all along. For if it did not, if, say, the thief owned half the
property, and half was the man's, then the man would have the
right to pass half of it on to his son, if that were what he
wanted. But if the thief is the true owner of all the man's
wealth, and the man is only using it with the thief's permission,
and nothing the man produces can ever be his, neither his product
nor his income, no matter how hard he tries to escape the thief,
then the thief in effect owns the man.
David Graeber
djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> In article <7rn66n$nvm$1...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
> <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > > I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person. Jon
> > > loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
> > > child--a very paternalistic kind of love.
> >
> > Shut up right now.
>
> But that is just the analogy you used. I thought you would be pleased
This kind of exchange, with anarchists accusing
each other of condescension to the masses, is
IMHO deeply silly and pointless. The fact is that
the overwhelming majority of people think that a
state is necessary and desirable. Therefore all anarchists
by definition think they know better than most "ordinary
people" what's good for them. Otherwise they wouldn't
be anarchists. There's nothing to be ashamed of here:
most ordinary people think a state is neccessary because
they think most _other_ ordinary people are immature,
selfish, unruly, and so on. Everybody involved is open
to the same accusations.
DG
David Graeber
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> > >A genuine populist would have to be willing to allow the
> > >population to be actually involved in producing the content.
> > >This is not accomplished best by things like NPR. Pacifica is
> > >better, but we need to have direct control by people in their
> > >communities, as much as possible.
> >
> > As far as I can tell, Pacifica has nothing to do with the
> > government. I was responding to your argument for government
> > involvement in radio. Pacifica is as private as NBC. However, I
> > have no idea how good the network is.
>
> It's not a corporation. It doesn't exist to make a profit.
>
Why actually brings up what's so obviously missing
in free market ideology: the fact that even amidst a
capitalist system where everyone is _expected_ to be
competing with one another, there are huge numbers of
non-profit institutions. They exist in the market because
they have to but they are not operating on capitalist
principles. This is what strikes me as so odd about
people who assume that it's natural and inevitable that
all enterprises have to be in competition with each
other: it's not even true under present conditions.
Neither does a for-profit hospital tend to provide
better care than a non-profit one (etc), etc...
DG
David Graeber
> >But again, I do find many socialist anarchist ideas attractive. I would
> >like to try a worker managed coop, or a mutual bank of the kind Tucker and
> >Proudhon advocated. I'm just not going to put all my eggs in one basket
> >and say it HAS to work this way. Free market anarchism is voluntaryist
> >and tolerant, plus it can be explained to ordinary people.
So can socialist anarchism, in my experience. Most
people love the idea of coops, and hate their bosses,
and loathe large corporations. Indeed, it is this which makes
anarchism potentially appealing, not just opposition to the
state, which is in itself of limited appeal except to
potential militia types and those who believe the
federal government is controlled by Jews and others
who you probably wouldn't care to associate with.
However, there are two enormous problems with free
market anarchism:
(1) it is absurd to believe that you can have a system
in which everyone is supposed to compete with each other
even for basic survival needs, in which therefore the
point of life is competition, but in which everyone will
respect each other's property and never use force and
violence as their mode of competition. It's never happened.
Never will. This is an area where evidence exists. One
can observe what happens in places either without states
or when state authority breaks down, both throughout
history, or in the present day. It always works out pretty
much the same way. Either people create cooperative networks
that do not work on competitive market principles, or else
you get groups of armed thugs who grab whatever they can.
Nothing remotely resembling the anarcho-capitalist fantasy
of private "protection agencies" has ever emerged in such
situations. It might look good on paper, but history
shows clearly that what you end up with is mafias or
similar gangs; then, under modern conditions, the gangsters
usually start mobilizing political constituencies on
ethno-nationalist lines and you get some kind of
fascism, or "warlords", or the like, and in time, extremely
nasty little states.
(2) there is no constituency for anarcho-capitalism.
No group would ever have any interest in bringing it
about. Socialist anarchists can mobilize the dispossessed,
who are growing in numbers every day, against the rule
of corporations and their government flunkies. They have
almost unimaginable amounts of work to do creating
alternative institutions, it'll probably take generations,
but there is a huge potential constituency. Anarcho-capitalists
can't mobilize such people because they wish to maintain the
institutions of existing capitalism, for the most part, and
we have seen over and over again in elections around the
world that given the choice between reducing state power
and raising that of corporations, and maintaining welfare
state policies as a check against corporations, the majority,
and overwhelming majority of the poor, always chose the latter.
Anyway, so
(a) the people who are marginalized by or against those
institutions are never going to buy in, and
(b) those who are well esconced in those institutions or
running them, who actually have the power to bring about anarcho-
capitalism, don't have the slightest intention. This is what I
mentioned earlier when I said capitalists don't really want the state
to go away; whereon Matt seemed to think I was talking about
people like James Donald and accusing him of having a secret
agenda. But of course James Donald is not, in fact, a
capitalist, ie, is not the head of a capitalist enterprise,
but is simply a fanatic ideologist. The numbers of such people
are miniscule, except on the internet, and they have no
chance of mobilizing either the ins or the outs in the
present system. The head of Exxon in fact does not want the
state to vanish and never will; unlike Matt, he knows that
his corporation could not exist in anything like its present
form without it; anyway, he does not want to be bothered
creating a vast private army (etc) which is obviously the
first thing Exxon would have to do in the absence of states
because like any capitalist enterprise they know enough
economics to know they have to externalize costs. Also, he's
probably smart enough to at least suspect that the breakdown
of the state would lead to the scenario described in (1), or
something very much like it.
Anarcho-capitalism is a parlor game. It might make some
engineers happy to fantasize, but nothing remotely like
it has ever existed or ever could. This is far more true
than for anarcho-socialism, where there are at least
distant analogies in past stateless societies. The process of
working out precisely how it would work is difficult, but
then, no one in favor of capitalistic arrangements in
1450 and supported the abolition of feudalism would exactly
have been able to provide a blueprint of how a capitalist
economy would have worked either, they would not have been
able to have imagined stock exchanges and credit cards and
whatnot: you don't work out the details until you start doing it.
DG
John Rappe
>
> This kind of exchange, with anarchists accusing
>each other of condescension to the masses, is
>IMHO deeply silly and pointless. The fact is that
>the overwhelming majority of people think that a
>state is necessary and desirable. Therefore all anarchists
>by definition think they know better than most "ordinary
>people" what's good for them. Otherwise they wouldn't
>be anarchists. There's nothing to be ashamed of here:
>most ordinary people think a state is neccessary because
>they think most _other_ ordinary people are immature,
>selfish, unruly, and so on. Everybody involved is open
>to the same accusations.
Also, few people have seriously considered alternatives. You
can't be in favor of something you've never really thought about.
David Graeber
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> > > Disarm the population? Meaning the population has the capability of
> opposing
> > > the force of the state with the same sort of force?
> >
> > I read that there are about 240 million guns in America. We need more, of
> > course, especially automatic ones. But yes, the population should be
> > capable of beating the state in a war. Do you think the reverse?
> >
>
> The population can't beat the state in force-on-force war, no. I suppose a
> population unified against the state might be able to win but if we had that
> we wouldn't need all those guns in the first place. From what I have seen,
> the possession of guns gives the authorities the ability to kill people they
> don't like without suffering any consequences.
Actually, I think this is quite true. It is much more
difficult for the state to simply assassinate people in
countries where no one is armed. It might seem the opposite
is true, but it's not: in fact, since the state is under
a fair degree of democratic control in, say, Western
Europe, they are often very limited in their ability to
suppress dissident groups. Compare for example the treatment
of the squatters' movement in Western Europe with the way
US cops deal with similar groups: the European cops ended
up putting up with anarchist communities flagrantly defying
the law for years, because the anarchists were clearly
unarmed and it would have looked extremely bad to rush in
there with guns and start shooting them. When they did
take them on (and eventually, in most cases, they did) they
had to use very limited weaponry themselves and sometimes they
were defeated. It's impossible to imagine the same thing
happening in America: the cops would simply declare, as
in Waco, that the anarchists were armed and probably molesting
children and send the swat teams. They would certainly, under
no circumstances, go in without guns like the German cops
and even accept defeat if fended off successfully. Another
good case in point was the peasant uprising against the
expansion of the Japanese airport: the peasants won, though
they had no guns (no one in Japan has guns), because the police,
under public scrutiny, were thus forced to use only limited
force against them.
In Italy, apparently, the government has never been
able to crack down on the squatter's movement which is
strongly organized in most Italian cities. Again, this
is inconceivable in the United States, where the widespread
presence of arms would give the state an instant excuse
for intervention.
I strongly suspect that the spread of weaponry throughout
American society is something _encouraged_ by statist elements
(though not obviously by the police themselves, at least
the street cops) because it provides a constant feeling of
threat and, hence, people willing to vote for "law and order"
policies. Facists are not opposed to an armed populace. If
you look at the parts of Europe where guns and heavy weaponry
is readily available to large sectors of the population,
it is precisely there you will find the fascists are doing
well: ie, the former Yugoslavia, where in some areas everyone
has machine guns if not rocket-propelled grenades, or
increasingly, parts of Russia.
Another fascinating case is that of Albania. When the
very foundations of the state seemed threatened - with
massive popular protests against state-supported pyramid
schemes that had deprived much of the population of their
life savings - the government, about to be kicked out of
power, reacted by ordering all the arsenals in the country
opened and the weapons distributed to the public. The idea
seemed to be to encourage a complete breakdown of law and
order and the rise of armed gangs and chaos, so that people
would be repelled by such "anarchy" and wish to have a strong
state back again as soon as possible.
DG
John Rappe
>
>Jøn Duncan <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote in message
>news:7rng1u$dig$1...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
>>
>> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
>> news:djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
>> > <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > > > I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person.
>> Jon
>> > > > loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
>> > > > child--a very paternalistic kind of love.
>> > >
>> > > Shut up right now.
>> >
>> > But that is just the analogy you used. I thought you would be pleased
>> >
>> >
>>
>
>This exchange renews my faith in the quality of Jon's arguments.
For some reason reason right-wing pseudo-intellectuals think this
kind of stuff makes them look pretty smart. It really doesn't.
Jøn Duncan
David Graeber <David....@yale.edu> wrote in message
news:David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu...
> > <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > > I don't think Jon (or Chomsky) actually despises the common person.
Jon
> > > > loves the common person in the way a father loves his five year old
> > > > child--a very paternalistic kind of love.
> > >
> > > Shut up right now.
> >
> > But that is just the analogy you used. I thought you would be pleased
>
> each other of condescension to the masses, is
> IMHO deeply silly and pointless. The fact is that
> the overwhelming majority of people think that a
> state is necessary and desirable. Therefore all anarchists
> by definition think they know better than most "ordinary
> people" what's good for them. Otherwise they wouldn't
> be anarchists. There's nothing to be ashamed of here:
> most ordinary people think a state is neccessary because
> they think most _other_ ordinary people are immature,
> selfish, unruly, and so on. Everybody involved is open
> to the same accusations.
He can claim I'm not anti-state enough all he wants. That's his perogative
and he may even be right. Matt was being an asshole for pulling a
Tim-Starr-esque manuever by using something I wrote in a way I obviously
didn't intend -- instead of taking seriously the analogy-- which I'll
repeat:
Advocating that people arm themselves with guns for self-defense against the
state at this point is like suggesting that five-year-olds be armed with
knives for self-defense against abusive parents.
I think it goes without saying that self-defense in both cases is
legitimate, but it can take unwise forms.
Jon
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
They have certain advantages, such as the ability to raise capital quickly
and to limit the liability of investors. These, of course, can be seen as
disadvantages, but from a business standpoint they are great advantages.
I see no reason a group of people should be forbidden from forming a
corporation if they want to. They would have to negotiate the limited
liabilty themselves, and would have to be accepted by anarchist legal
institutions for the corporation to be treated as a person. I don't think
that would be an insuperable problem--unless, of course, you think people
would choose communism instead, in which case any kind of business at all
would not be accepted. But if people act the way they do today, I don't
think they would object to corporations, business, or private property.
You can always try to convince them otherwise, but you've got a lot of
work to do.
Matt
jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
> >In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
> ><jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Possibly less than other government functions. I am
> >> opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly because
> >> this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
> >
> >No. Private police would be accountable to other protection firms with
> >which they have negotiated contracts, and to their customers.
> >
> >Public police are accountable to politicians, who are supposedly (but not
> >really) accountable to the public. The public supposedly exerts its will
> >by majority voting. Thus in many cities you have great protection for the
> >rich white majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
> >resources on poor blacks is just not in the public interest.
>
> And private "protection firms" would provide better "protection" for
> the poor?
Very likely, as long as the market for protection is reasonably competitive.
David Graeber
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> David Graeber <David....@yale.edu> wrote in message
> news:David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu...
> > In article <djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> > djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> >
> > > In article <7rn66n$nvm$1...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
Matt is rather given to taking cheap shots. Perhaps
it's a lesson for us all - I mainly ignored it (though
I wasn't entirely unaware) when he was arguing against
people like Starr and Donald themselves. Now, I guess
we pay the price.
DG
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:djarum98-140...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> > In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
> > <jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Possibly less than other government functions. I am
> > > opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly
> because
> > > this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
> >
> > No. Private police would be accountable to other protection firms with
> > which they have negotiated contracts, and to their customers.
> >
>
> In other words, people with resources and not necessarily the people at the
> other end of the gun barrel.
This was something I was concerned about, but I don't think it poses a
serious problem. The poor today still have to pay taxes, some of which do
not account for their economic status. For example, they pay sales taxes
and higher prices for tarriffed goods. The poor can afford
protection--not as much as the rich, but then again they don't have as
much to defend. They can afford protection of their lives and what
property they have. Or, they can simply buy guns and defend themselves
for free. Guns aren't too expensive.
They could also form their own militias for mutual defense, sort of like
the neighborhood watch groups we have today. That way they could avoid
paying a company for defense; the drawback to that is that they have to
find enough people with the time to participate.
> > Public police are accountable to politicians, who are supposedly (but not
> > really) accountable to the public.
>
> Not really, but there you at least have a shot.
The reverse is true. With the government, you have to grovel before your
masters and pray they have enough morality to hold someone accountable.
You can't hold them accountable. They have to hold themselves
accountable. You may get lucky if they care about offending popular
sentiment, but there is no mechanism for holding them accoubtable. The
government police are priviledged to do things that would be considered
crimes if done by private citizens. In anarchism, no one is exclusively
priviledged to use force; no one has that special authority.
Under government, a policeman who murders might be scolded or suspended
for use of excessive force. Under anarchism, the policeman who murders is
treated like any other common criminal.
> >The public supposedly exerts its will
> > by majority voting.
>
> That's one way. I don't thonk it's necessarily one of the more important or
> effective. My personal favorite is humiliation of the public official.
>
> > Thus in many cities you have great protection for the
> > rich white majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
> > resources on poor blacks is just not in the public interest.
>
> Well they are part of the public. The state often does a poor job of
> representing the public interest -- especially, I think, in police matters.
> How privatization improves the situation I can't imagine.
And you chastised me for having no imagination. Privatization of police
means the police are responsible for defending their customers. Public
police don't defend people, but territory. Everyone in that territory is
subject to them, no matter how incompetent or downright evil they are.
David Graeber
djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> In article <slrn7tuft1....@localhost.localdomain>,
> jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
>
> > Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
> > >In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
> > ><jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Possibly less than other government functions. I am
> > >> opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly
because
> > >> this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
> > >
> > >No. Private police would be accountable to other protection firms with
> > >which they have negotiated contracts, and to their customers.
> > >
> > >Public police are accountable to politicians, who are supposedly (but not
> > >really) accountable to the public. The public supposedly exerts its will
> > >by majority voting. Thus in many cities you have great protection for the
> > >rich white majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
> > >resources on poor blacks is just not in the public interest.
> >
> > And private "protection firms" would provide better "protection" for
> > the poor?
>
> Very likely, as long as the market for protection is reasonably competitive.
If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything.
We've seen what "private protection firms" tend to produce,
in any occasion when something even remotely resembling them
has actually occurred. They tend to be ethnically based and
extremely violent towards people not of their self-declared
ethnic or racial affinities.
DG
Ruben
>In article <37df1e23...@news.alt.net>, y...@aqui.com (Ruben) wrote:
>
>> >But again, I do find many socialist anarchist ideas attractive. I would
>> >like to try a worker managed coop, or a mutual bank of the kind Tucker and
>> >Proudhon advocated. I'm just not going to put all my eggs in one basket
>> >and say it HAS to work this way. Free market anarchism is voluntaryist
>> >and tolerant, plus it can be explained to ordinary people.
>
**********
David: i did not post the paragraph above as it appears from the
snipping you did. It was Matt, who is only a step away from abandoning
anarcho-capitalism and becoming one of us, socialist anarchists.
**********
> So can socialist anarchism, in my experience. Most
>people love the idea of coops, and hate their bosses,
>and loathe large corporations. Indeed, it is this which makes
>anarchism potentially appealing, not just opposition to the
>state, which is in itself of limited appeal except to
>potential militia types and those who believe the
>federal government is controlled by Jews and others
>who you probably wouldn't care to associate with.
> However, there are two enormous problems with free
>market anarchism:
> (1) it is absurd to believe that you can have a system
>in which everyone is supposed to compete with each other
>even for basic survival needs,
********
i think that competition for *basic survival needs* is not only
inmoral but it is also counter-productive. we need everybody,
especially young people, to have their basic needs supported by the
community (anarcho-capitalists will ask how without taxing and the
state, and i already have the answer, look below), so we can get
equality of opportunity and optimize the harvest of talent (this idea
was stated by Isaac Asymov in his essay The Harvest of Talent)
********
>in which therefore the
>point of life is competition, but in which everyone will
>respect each other's property and never use force and
>violence as their mode of competition. It's never happened.
>Never will. This is an area where evidence exists. One
>can observe what happens in places either without states
>or when state authority breaks down, both throughout
>history, or in the present day. It always works out pretty
>much the same way. Either people create cooperative networks
>that do not work on competitive market principles, or else
>you get groups of armed thugs who grab whatever they can.
>Nothing remotely resembling the anarcho-capitalist fantasy
>of private "protection agencies" has ever emerged in such
>situations. It might look good on paper, but history
>shows clearly that what you end up with is mafias or
>similar gangs; then, under modern conditions, the gangsters
>usually start mobilizing political constituencies on
>ethno-nationalist lines and you get some kind of
>fascism, or "warlords", or the like, and in time, extremely
>nasty little states.
**********
I think the same about anarcho-capitalism: this fantasy can only lead
to a new and modern feudalism, with masters and slaves. They think
they are rational because they deny existence to everything above the
individual. Their theory is incomplete because of its reductionism, a
philosophical stance that is being rapidly abandoned by students of
complex systems, those made by many interacting particles in dynamical
evolution. To be fully rational in proposing the principles and
mechanisms of the anarchist society, consideration of the population
perspective is fundamental. Societies are more than an agregate of
individuals. They should be looked from both, the individual and the
population perspective, because these two levels of reality affect
each other and result in dialectical evolution.
**********
> (2) there is no constituency for anarcho-capitalism.
>No group would ever have any interest in bringing it
>about. Socialist anarchists can mobilize the dispossessed,
>who are growing in numbers every day, against the rule
>of corporations and their government flunkies. They have
>almost unimaginable amounts of work to do creating
>alternative institutions, it'll probably take generations,
>but there is a huge potential constituency. Anarcho-capitalists
>can't mobilize such people because they wish to maintain the
>institutions of existing capitalism, for the most part, and
>we have seen over and over again in elections around the
>world that given the choice between reducing state power
>and raising that of corporations, and maintaining welfare
>state policies as a check against corporations, the majority,
>and overwhelming majority of the poor, always chose the latter.
**********
agreed
**********
> Anyway, so
> (a) the people who are marginalized by or against those
>institutions are never going to buy in, and
> (b) those who are well esconced in those institutions or
>running them, who actually have the power to bring about anarcho-
>capitalism, don't have the slightest intention. This is what I
>mentioned earlier when I said capitalists don't really want the state
>to go away; whereon Matt seemed to think I was talking about
>people like James Donald and accusing him of having a secret
>agenda. But of course James Donald is not, in fact, a
>capitalist, ie, is not the head of a capitalist enterprise,
>but is simply a fanatic ideologist.
**********
He is a happy servant. He has a master above him, to whom he should
pay obedience, not thru direct orders i guess, but thru increasing the
wealth of his master. For this task to be accomplished, the happy
servant has a corp of bosses, accountable to the master, and all of
them make more money than the servant. There is nothing inmoral about
that however, it is only a matter of personal choice.
**********
>The numbers of such people
>are miniscule, except on the internet, and they have no
>chance of mobilizing either the ins or the outs in the
>present system. The head of Exxon in fact does not want the
>state to vanish and never will; unlike Matt, he knows that
>his corporation could not exist in anything like its present
>form without it; anyway, he does not want to be bothered
>creating a vast private army (etc) which is obviously the
>first thing Exxon would have to do in the absence of states
>because like any capitalist enterprise they know enough
>economics to know they have to externalize costs. Also, he's
>probably smart enough to at least suspect that the breakdown
>of the state would lead to the scenario described in (1), or
>something very much like it.
> Anarcho-capitalism is a parlor game. It might make some
>engineers happy to fantasize, but nothing remotely like
>it has ever existed or ever could. This is far more true
>than for anarcho-socialism, where there are at least
>distant analogies in past stateless societies.
*********
I think we should not look too much to the past (except by reading the
founders of anarchism) to find support to our theories. You do that
because of your profession. But everything is changing so fast that we
have to extrapolate to the future more than look to the past to find
examples.
*********
>The process of
>working out precisely how it would work is difficult, but
>then, no one in favor of capitalistic arrangements in
>1450 and supported the abolition of feudalism would exactly
>have been able to provide a blueprint of how a capitalist
>economy would have worked either, they would not have been
>able to have imagined stock exchanges and credit cards and
>whatnot: you don't work out the details until you start doing it.
> DG
*********
Very correct. But let's extrapolate just the same. Give a look at my
theory posted yesterday about the moral basis and the consequences of
abolishing inheritence laws, as proposed by Bakunin, and tell us what
you think:
"what if inheritence were abolished, as proposed by Bakunin?
that might prevent the growth of corporations, since there would be
less incentive to become a CEO of a corporation.
what if all the wealth of a person were offered for public sale when
the person is dead?
the family may make an offer like everyone else.
what if the money from the sale were used to pay for public goods,
like health, education, and science?
thru depositing in a fund maintained by the community.
what if this quantity is large enough to eliminate the need for taxes
to pay for public goods?
essentially making dead people pay the taxes while alive people keep
all their income.
what if personal wealth is seen as the product of the interaction
between a person and the society in which the person lives, as
obviously is?
then there would moral justification to let the person enjoy the
wealth while alive but returning it to society when the person is
dead".
saludos/ruben
Matt
David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > > And private "protection firms" would provide better "protection" for
> > > the poor?
> >
> > Very likely, as long as the market for protection is reasonably competitive.
>
> If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything.
> We've seen what "private protection firms" tend to produce,
> in any occasion when something even remotely resembling them
> has actually occurred. They tend to be ethnically based and
> extremely violent towards people not of their self-declared
> ethnic or racial affinities.
Well, I am not advocating an ethnically conscious social order. If you
have a society in which there is ethnic hatred, bad things are going to
happen no matter what institutions you have, be they public or private. I
think, however, that an ethnically biased state is going to be a lot worse
than a decentralized set of ethnically biased defense firms. With the
former you get genocide; with the latter you get a lot of chaos, violence,
and disruption, but no genocide.
The solution is not to oppose decentralization, but ethnic hatred.
John Rappe
>In article <slrn7tuft1....@localhost.localdomain>,
>jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
>
>> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
>> >In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Jøn Duncan"
>> ><jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Possibly less than other government functions. I am
>> >> opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people -- partly because
>> >> this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
>> >
>> >No. Private police would be accountable to other protection firms with
>> >which they have negotiated contracts, and to their customers.
>> >
>> >Public police are accountable to politicians, who are supposedly (but not
>> >really) accountable to the public. The public supposedly exerts its will
>> >by majority voting. Thus in many cities you have great protection for the
>> >rich white majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
>> >resources on poor blacks is just not in the public interest.
>>
>> the poor?
>
>Very likely, as long as the market for protection is reasonably competitive.
Why on earth do you think so-called "protection firms" will protect those
that can't pay them. You might be able to make a case that they would
be less abusive, but that's something else.
Matt
> **********
> On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:30:17 -0500, David....@yale.edu (David
> Graeber) wrote:
>
> >In article <37df1e23...@news.alt.net>, y...@aqui.com (Ruben) wrote:
> >
> >> >But again, I do find many socialist anarchist ideas attractive. I would
> >> >like to try a worker managed coop, or a mutual bank of the kind Tucker and
> >> >Proudhon advocated. I'm just not going to put all my eggs in one basket
> >> >and say it HAS to work this way. Free market anarchism is voluntaryist
> >> >and tolerant, plus it can be explained to ordinary people.
> >
> **********
> David: i did not post the paragraph above as it appears from the
> snipping you did. It was Matt, who is only a step away from abandoning
> anarcho-capitalism and becoming one of us, socialist anarchists.
Well actually, for the last year and a half I sided with socialist
anarchism. Eventually I decided some of the underlying assumptions of
anarcho-socialism are not practical, whereas those of anarcho-capitalism
probably are.
I think it is also necessary to describe what kinds of institutions an
anarchist society (or at least a better society) should have. Socialist
anarchism seems hopelessly confused on this matter. Anarcho-capitalism is
at least clear enough that you can discuss its advantages and its
faults--and I think the advantages are strong enough to warrant supporting
it.
Where the market fails, or at least where it doesn't serve people well
enough, I think there is room for mutual aid anarchism. The description
of communist anarchy given by Malatesta sounds attractive to me, but I
think he is mistaken in thinking non-market institutions will allocate
resources better than market ones. The means of production should be
owned by individuals. Most important, though, communist anarchism largely
ignores the need for justice, for courts and laws. It is nice to assume
crime would disappear in an anarchist society, but now I think this
assumption is naive.
One final note: the trend seems to be moving from anarcho-socialism to
anarcho-capitalism. On these newsgroups there are now three people who
explicitly claim to have made that transition--James, Mikel, and myself.
And I know for a fact that there are other "right wing libertarians" who
are sympathetic to libertarian socialist ideas, but don't think they are
workable.
I think they might be workable, but we can't know for sure. We do know
something about how market economies work, and how private systems of
justice have worked in the past. Hence free market anarchism, perhaps
slowly developing into socialist anarchism, perhaps not.
Matt
David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> Matt is rather given to taking cheap shots. Perhaps
> it's a lesson for us all - I mainly ignored it (though
> I wasn't entirely unaware) when he was arguing against
> people like Starr and Donald themselves. Now, I guess
> we pay the price.
And pay you will....
What's ironic about this is that I felt your incessant abuse of David
Friedman was an embarassment to my side.
Ruben
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 17:28:54 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com wrote:
>In article <37df1e23...@news.alt.net>,
> y...@aqui.com (Ruben) wrote:
>
>> by offering a better culture. people should always be free to choose".
>>
>> so your snipping did not justice to my view. i respect people choices
>> even when i dont like many of the choices they make as average
>> persons.
>>
>> capitalist propaganda is so effective that it has been turned into a
>> mega business, and it is trash in my opinion. it is more rational to
>> have access to full information about a producer and then choosing the
>> best one.
[good examples of present day rational choices snipped]
>Individuals already have the resources to make informed choices.
*******
Yes. Our society is evolving towards a more rational stance in
consumer decision despite the efforts of corporation on the contrary.
I welcome that trend.
*******
>But that is not all you want. Your position involves a
>contradiction. You think that you ought to try to convince people
>to make the choices you want them to make,
*******
I want people to make rational choices, to see thru the cloud of
capitalist propaganda, and i see that people is evolving towards that,
at least in the more advanced societies.
*******
>but you attack people
>who do exactly that which you think that you ought to do.
*******
I attack anarcho-capitalists (a-c) not because they favour rational
consumer decisions in a free market, a point in wich I agree with a-c,
but because a-c set themselves to defend corporate masters, which runs
against my anarchist principles.
*******
>One
>immediately infers that you desire a monopoly on persuasion.
*******
Your inference is incorrect for two reasons:
1) I don't desire any kind of monopoly,
2) A monopoly of persuasion is a contradiction in terms
saludos/ruben
Ruben
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 06:39:10 GMT, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
wrote:
> --
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 19:27:50 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
>wrote:
>> I'm sorry: do you mean Orwell and Einstein thought the government could be
>> gradually eliminated? If so I was unaware of that.
>
>Orwell believed in conventional socialism, run by a conventional
>democratic state, and continued to believe that until he died, though
>he became progressively more cynical, and progressively more aware of
>the great dangers of such a program.
>
>Einstein had no coherent political beliefs, and his various somewhat
>pro socialist and pro Soviet statements were made at a time when he
>was receiving a very considerable benefit from Stalin, a Russian
>mistress young enough to be his daughter.
>
What a silly and envious commentary from a shameful little man
directed towards Albert Einstein, one of the greatest thinkers of this
century.
Amazing!!
saludos/ruben
Matt
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> news:djarum98-140...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu...
> > I am not fussy about how one defines anarchism. As I said to David
> > Friedman, there seem to be two broad approaches today: political anarchism
> > and social anarchism. The former are concerned with abolishing the state;
> > the latter with challenging structures of authority and the like. I
> > sympathize with many social anarchist goals, but I think many social
> > problems today are actually attributable to the state or consequences of
> > state action.
>
> Your not interested much in challenging illegitimate authority unless it
> happens to be "the state"?
I am, but the primary obstacle is the state. Many of the ills of
"capitalism" would (I think) be ameliorated by eliminating the state.
[snip]
> > The problem here is that you assume you know what will improve people's
> > lives, that they cannot be trusted to improve their own lives.
> >
>
> Jesus Christ. Now you're sounding like Limbaugh. I'm not saying _I_ make the
> decision about what improves peoples lives, I'm saying everyone should. In
> specific cases, I'm just one guy with an opinion.
Here is my problem. When you say "everyone should," do you mean "each
person should for each person," or "a majority should make the decision
for what will improve the lives of everyone"?
> > As in utilitarianism, your approach to anarchism implies there is some
> > unitary actor (the state, or perhaps a large scale social movement) who
> > has objective knowledge about how people should live, what they should
> > value, whether their relationships are legitimate.
>
> Point out where the implication is so I can get rid of it. I think people
> should identify structures of power and oppose them where proof of the
> structures' necessity is nonexistent. Where's the need for the unitary
> actor?
Your use of "people" is the unitary actor. If you really mean people, as
in "many individuals," then you will not come to a single conclusion about
what structures of power are necessay; instead, you will get many
conflicting views about what's necessary and justified. Yet you seem to
think "the people" will all come to the same conclusions, leading me to
think you intend some apparatus that represents the will of the people.
[snip]
> > I think we can objectively know matters of law; for instance given the
> > facts we can tell a murder from a justifiable killing. I don't think we
> > can objectively know whether (for example) employment is wage slavery.
> > Some people feel like it is, others clearly do not. I think it really
> > depends on the circumstances.
> >
>
> Has the worker-boss relationship been proven necessary. It hasn't and I'm
> sure you agree. This is an entirely different excercise than deciding
> whether working under a boss for wages is a form of slavery.
>
> I will say that if someone decides there is nothing objectionable in the
> fact that some people have to work for bosses to get wages, then they have
> allowed the bosses to avoid their responsibilty to provide proof of their
> necessity. ...
To whom is the boss obligated to prove his necessity? Everyone else? The
majority? Or his employee? Isn't the employee's working there evidence
that he agrees the boss is necessary? If the employee doesn't agree, why
is he working there?
You can point out that the broad set of institutions we have forces people
to submit to authority, even if there is no overt force on the part of the
capitalists, but it is unclear whether this is an evil of capitalism or
simply a part of life, or perhaps a mix of the two. In any case, your
approach to anarchism allows you to make only vague generalizations about
the ills of society.
Clearly there are many workers who enjoy what they do, who work not to
avoid starvation but to gain more for themselves and fulfill their career
goals. And clearly there are other workers who hate what they do and feel
oppressed by their bosses. Thus I don't think you can make any broad
generalizations about whether the authority of bosses has been justifed.
For some it is, for others it isn't.
The best approach to this problem is simply to respect voluntary
agreements, while simultaneously encouraging a cooperative movement for
worker ownership (if you conclude the authority of bosses hasn't been
justifed). This approach is totally compatible with free market
anarchism.
[snip]
> > > Also note that Chomsky is not implying that the dissolution of private
> power
> > > be done by the state. There are other ways.
> >
> > Which are? I made a suggestion below, then you began a discussion of the
> > superiority of government funded radio.
> >
>
> People can't take action except through the state? As long as we are talking
> about radio -- I can imagine it's possible to oppose corporate radio
> stations by using coordinated campaigns to operate "pirate" community radio
> stations while opposing the efforts to shut down those stations.
Very good.
[snip]
> > The airwaves are a scarce resource. If they belong to everyone, some
> > organization has to be responsible for allocating them.
>
> I don't know that that's true. The various stations can make agreements not
> to broadcast on each others frequencies. If there are too many radio
> stations in one area, local organizations can decide how to resolve the
> problems (shutting certain stations down, consoladating stations, having
> stations share frequencies, and so on).
This is just the problem with socialist anarchism. You want to say one
thing, but need to use different words to describe it.
[snip]
> > > Even better, populist groups can create their
> > > own stations.
> >
> > Populist groups can create their own stations now, though they are
> > severely restricted by the FCC. I read the FCC is finally considering
> > revising its rules to make it easier for low power stations to get
> > licensed.
>
> That's nice. It'd be better if they didn't have to compete with private
> capital.
So it goes.
> > Government control of the airwaves has led to the rich and priviledged
> > dominating.
>
> The government granted that control.
Of course it did. See below:
> > This is what always happens with government control. The
> > very purpose of government is to serve the rich and priviledged.
>
> The purpose of government is to serve the interest of those who control it.
Who are always the rich and priviledged. Controlling government is a
public good, meaning it can only be done by those with enormous resources
to spare, i.e. the rich and priviledged.
> > The
> > solution is not more government, but privatization.
>
> Why is privatization a solution?
It's non coercive, decentralized.
> > In the recent past microradio stations have been busted up by the FCC
> > because they were not rich and powerful enough to serve the "public"
> > interest.
> >
>
> So? Do you agree with the FCC?
Of course not. They should not have been busted up, because the
government has no right to the airwaves in the first place.
[snip]
> > Read the previous sentence. I was discussing grass roots populist
> > organizations trying to supplant capitalist institutions. I contend the
> > state could take two different stances to this situtation:
> >
> > 1. It could crush these populist organizations to preserve the status
> > quo. In this case, the state is plainly an enemy.
> >
> > 2. It would tolerate these grass roots organizations. But if you know
> > anything about politicians, you know they are always looking for a new
> > role for themselves. Otherwise they might appear quite useless. I
> > contend that the state, in its wisdom and omnipotence, would decide it
> > could accomplish the same goals as your populist organizations. It would
> > co-opt them, subsuming them under its bureaucracy. It would no longer be
> > anarchism but state socialism.
> >
>
> You don't know much about grass-roots organizations.
I worked for one, and thought it weak and ineffectual. Seeing that you
didn't make an argument, I will assume my point stands.
> > I am arguing you cannot have a passive state that will simply hold the
> > fort against capitalism while you try to develop anarcho-syndicalist
> > institutions. Any anarchist movement must actively oppose the state, or
> > else it will be corrupted by the state.
> >
>
> I agree. But that can't be the only thing it does.
True.
> > Bakunin made pretty much the same complaints Chomsky does, yet Bakunin
> > concluded government should be abolished.
> >
>
> So does Chomsky.
Chomsky's desire to abolish the government is more like Marx's than Bakunin's.
David Graeber
djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
>
> > Matt is rather given to taking cheap shots. Perhaps
> > it's a lesson for us all - I mainly ignored it (though
> > I wasn't entirely unaware) when he was arguing against
> > people like Starr and Donald themselves. Now, I guess
> > we pay the price.
>
> And pay you will....
>
> What's ironic about this is that I felt your incessant abuse of David
> Friedman was an embarassment to my side.
Yeah, but I didn't take cheap shots. You on
the other hand have just admitted you are
prepared to be unfair and dishonest - or anyway
it's hard to interpret your statement any other
way.
DG
David Graeber
djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
>
> > > > And private "protection firms" would provide better "protection" for
> > > > the poor?
> > >
> > > Very likely, as long as the market for protection is reasonably
competitive.
> >
> > If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything.
> > We've seen what "private protection firms" tend to produce,
> > in any occasion when something even remotely resembling them
> > has actually occurred. They tend to be ethnically based and
> > extremely violent towards people not of their self-declared
> > ethnic or racial affinities.
>
> Well, I am not advocating an ethnically conscious social order. If you
> have a society in which there is ethnic hatred, bad things are going to
> happen no matter what institutions you have, be they public or private. I
> think, however, that an ethnically biased state is going to be a lot worse
> than a decentralized set of ethnically biased defense firms. With the
> former you get genocide; with the latter you get a lot of chaos, violence,
> and disruption, but no genocide.
Actually you'd get repeated minor genocide and
occasional major genocide, because rarely are the
forces even remotely equally matched.
>
> The solution is not to oppose decentralization, but ethnic hatred.
But you want all your cookies now. That's your
problem. Immediate gratification. An anarchism that
you could imagine could happen tommorrow. But if the
state disappeared tommorrow the result would be
gangster capitalism and ethnofascism. That's what
would actually happen if by some horrible chance
people like James Donald had their way. As I've remarked,
there's no chance in hell this will happen: because
neither the powerful minorities nor powerless majorities
would ever want it. So if you want to hand people a
blueprint for exactly how they should run their society,
while at the same time calling everyone else
arrogant and patronizing even though they won't
do so, so you could imagine a world of immediate
gratification where you wouldn't have to collaborate
with anyone else... well, fine, go ahead. I'll leave
you to your little games for however many months
it takes for you to come around to another position
- which'll probably be that anarchism itself is
silly and impossible. But then, c'est la vie.
DG
David Graeber
constan...@my-deja.com (Constantinople) wrote:
> David Graeber David....@yale.edu wrote in <David.Graeber
> -15099917...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>:
>
> >In article <djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> >djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> >
> >> In article <slrn7tuft1....@localhost.localdomain>,
> >> jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
> >>
> >> > Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
> >> > >In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> >> > >"Jøn Duncan"
> >> > ><jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > >> Possibly less than other government functions. I am
> >> > >> opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people
> >> > >> -- partly
> >because
> >> > >> this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
> >> > >
> >> > >No. Private police would be accountable to other
> >> > >protection firms with which they have negotiated contracts,
> >> > >and to their customers.
> >> > >
> >> > >Public police are accountable to politicians, who are
> >> > >supposedly (but not really) accountable to the public. The
> >> > >public supposedly exerts its will by majority voting. Thus
> >> > >in many cities you have great protection for the rich white
> >> > >majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
> >> > >resources on poor blacks is just not in the public
> >> > >interest.
> >> >
> >> > And private "protection firms" would provide better
> >> > "protection" for the poor?
> >>
> >> Very likely, as long as the market for protection is
> >> reasonably competitive.
> >
> > If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything. We've seen
> > what "private protection firms" tend to produce,
> >in any occasion when something even remotely resembling them has
> >actually occurred. They tend to be ethnically based and
> >extremely violent towards people not of their self-declared
> >ethnic or racial affinities.
>
> I don't think you know what you're talking about. You may be
> referring to the KKK. But they're a nonprofit organization. The
> Pinkertons are for-profit. I don't recall reading about any
> Pinkerton lynchings.
Well, not of black people, anyway... But the main
examples of private, for-profit protection agencies
that have been known are usually labelled "street gangs"
or "mafias", and they tend to extract the protection
money from people whether they like it or not. They
are almost invariably ethnically based. In the
parts of the world where states are dissolving now
these are also the sorts of organizations which tend
to take their place: as in many parts of Africa,
East Europe, and the former USSR, though here sometimes
they are called "militias", "warlords", "rebel armies"
and so on. Still, their mode of operation is usually
much the same: as indeed it was for groups that arose
in the past in places where the state broke down
temporarily like Lebanon. They usually quickly start
acting like micro-states, at least in the areas of
trying to monopolize force and provide "protection",
and extracting money, though of course they rarely
provide much in the way of social services. It is
quite uncanny the degree to which they almost invariably
become ethnically based, and maintain ongoing hostility
to other ethnic groups in order to mobilize support.
Massacres, "ethnic cleansing", and every sort of
systematic abuse across ethnic lines almost invariably
follow. Your premise is that this whole history is
somehow irrelevant to what will happen in the future
if central states disappear and nothing of the kind
will
>
> Regarding your comment about nonprofits being an embarrassment to
> "free market ideology", you are wrong when you write:
>
> "This is what strikes me as so odd about people who assume
> that it's natural and inevitable that all enterprises have to
> be in competition with each other: it's not even true under
> present conditions."
>
> It's not assumed that it is inevitable that all organizations
> will be for-profit. What is going on is that (1) there are an
> awful lot of for-profits, a lot of human activity takes the form
> of people trying to make a good living, and (2) the economics
> easily applies to those, because the pursuit of profit makes it
> easier to predict what these organizations are going to do. It
> hardly matters to the conclusion that your precious nonprofits
> like the KKK and the American Nazis are also running around. The
> for-profits like people with guns defending their homes and
> families (a for-profit activity if I ever saw one) will keep the
> nonprofits in check, if the government lets them, if the
> government does not disarm them.
Observe the fascist in action. (Of course, it's possible
he doesn't know he's a fascist.) Actually, defending one's
home is not a for-profit activity. It simply maintains an
existing status quo. Taking over someone else's home and selling
the contents would be profit-oriented. Your assumption of course
is that this is not what profit-driven individuals would do in the
absence of a state and the presence of lots of weapons, though
personally, I find that rather naive. Ironically, as I pointed
out previously in this thread, equivalents to the KKK and Nazis
tend to thrive precisely in those parts of the world where
the population is most generally armed: compare Western Europe,
where no one has a gun to "defend their home" and fascism is
quite quiescent, with the Balkans, where all sorts of armaments
are freely available everywhere and ethno-fascists of one
sort or another seem in the ascendancy almost everywhere. And, of
course, lots of people do systematically drive their neighbors out of
their homes and sell off all their possessions for a profit -
using ethnicity or racial theories as an excuse - but this is
precisely what the Nazis and KKK would do here if they had
half a chance, because they are not "non-profit" in any sense
of the term. They're just trying to maximize power first and
then they'll get the money.
In fact, a glance at the c1995 Bosnian Serb regime might give
us the best hint of what anarcho-capitalism might look like
in practice we have today: there is no state regulation,
almost anything of value is bought and sold on the black
(ie free) market, most of the officials are private capitalists
of one sort or another, protection is provided by gangs of armed
thugs recruited on ethnic lines, who protect members of their
own groups and seek profit by killing off other ones and
selling off their possessions, kidnapping their women and
selling them into prostitution, etc etc... The perfect meeting
of anarcho-capitalist principles and fascism.
DG
Constantinople
<slrn7u05lj....@localhost.localdomain>:
>Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
>>In article <slrn7tuft1....@localhost.localdomain>,
>>jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
>>
>>> And private "protection firms" would provide better
>>> "protection" for the poor?
>>
>>Very likely, as long as the market for protection is reasonably
>>competitive.
>
>Why on earth do you think so-called "protection firms" will
>protect those that can't pay them. You might be able to make a
>case that they would be less abusive, but that's something else.
Why on earth would anyone think so-called "grocery stores" will
provide food to those who can't pay for it. Here's a great, knock
-down argument against grocery stores if I ever saw one. Why on
earth would anyone think so-called "television makers" will
provide televisions to those who can't pay for them. Clearly we
need government provision of televisions.
Constantinople
>In article <djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
>djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
>
>> In article <slrn7tuft1....@localhost.localdomain>,
>> jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
>>
>> > Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
>> > >In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>> > >"Jøn Duncan"
>> > ><jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> Possibly less than other government functions. I am
>> > >> opposed to privatizing police as are most sensible people
>> > >> -- partly
>because
>> > >> this limitted acountability virtually would disappear.
>> > >
>> > >No. Private police would be accountable to other
>> > >protection firms with which they have negotiated contracts,
>> > >and to their customers.
>> > >
>> > >Public police are accountable to politicians, who are
>> > >supposedly (but not really) accountable to the public. The
>> > >public supposedly exerts its will by majority voting. Thus
>> > >in many cities you have great protection for the rich white
>> > >majority, and shitty protection for poor blacks. Spending
>> > >resources on poor blacks is just not in the public
>> > >interest.
>> >
>> > And private "protection firms" would provide better
>> > "protection" for the poor?
>>
>> Very likely, as long as the market for protection is
>> reasonably competitive.
>
> If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything. We've seen
> what "private protection firms" tend to produce,
>in any occasion when something even remotely resembling them has
>actually occurred. They tend to be ethnically based and
>extremely violent towards people not of their self-declared
>ethnic or racial affinities.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. You may be
referring to the KKK. But they're a nonprofit organization. The
Pinkertons are for-profit. I don't recall reading about any
Pinkerton lynchings.
Regarding your comment about nonprofits being an embarrassment to
Constantinople
>mikel evins <mev...@best.com> wrote:
>>This exchange renews my faith in the quality of Jon's
>>arguments.
>
>For some reason reason right-wing pseudo-intellectuals think
>this kind of stuff makes them look pretty smart. It really
>doesn't.
Mommy, he called me a NAME! Ha, ha, ha, ha, is this the best
you've got?
Ruben
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 18:18:48 -0400, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt)
wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:30:17 -0500, David....@yale.edu (David
>> Graeber) wrote:
>>
>> >In article <37df1e23...@news.alt.net>, y...@aqui.com (Ruben) wrote:
>> >
>> >> >But again, I do find many socialist anarchist ideas attractive. I would
>> >> >like to try a worker managed coop, or a mutual bank of the kind Tucker and
>> >> >Proudhon advocated. I'm just not going to put all my eggs in one basket
>> >> >and say it HAS to work this way. Free market anarchism is voluntaryist
>> >> >and tolerant, plus it can be explained to ordinary people.
>> >
>> **********
>> David: i did not post the paragraph above as it appears from the
>> snipping you did. It was Matt, who is only a step away from abandoning
>> anarcho-capitalism and becoming one of us, socialist anarchists.
>
>anarchism. Eventually I decided some of the underlying assumptions of
>anarcho-socialism are not practical, whereas those of anarcho-capitalism
>probably are.
I stand corrected. you are just one step away after abandoning
socialist anarchism and going into anarcho-capitalism.
********
>I think it is also necessary to describe what kinds of institutions an
>anarchist society (or at least a better society) should have. Socialist
>anarchism seems hopelessly confused on this matter. Anarcho-capitalism is
>at least clear enough that you can discuss its advantages and its
>faults--and I think the advantages are strong enough to warrant supporting
>it.
You resemble the guy that lost a jewel in the dark side of a street,
then he crossed to the other side because there was light in it.
The jewel was on the dark side just the same.
Anarcho-capitalism (a-c) is a simple theory because everything can be
understood and extrapolated from the point of view of the individual.
That is the basis of its appeal, as you know very well. Unfortunately,
systems made of many interacting particles (a mathematical metaphor of
society) are much more complex, and their functioning and evolution
cannot be explained by simply studying the individual particles. This
is known in scientific circles (see for example the Special Section of
the journal Science entitled Beyond Reductionism, 2 April 1999). So in
effect you moved to the a-c side because it provided simple answers
based on individualist reductionism even when those simple answers are
wrong. On the other hand, some socialist anarchists i have read here
appreciate the complexity of the world and the very material way in
which particles (individuals) and wholes (society) affect each other,
and then are much more confused about the future anarchistic society.
We have to jump from the individual to the society and back to figure
out well functioning institutions. We cannot arrogantly devise
simplistic theories, as a-c do, because we see a much more complex
world. We have a humbler stance vis-a-vis nature and human societies.
********
>Where the market fails, or at least where it doesn't serve people well
>enough, I think there is room for mutual aid anarchism. The description
>of communist anarchy given by Malatesta sounds attractive to me, but I
>think he is mistaken in thinking non-market institutions will allocate
>resources better than market ones.
********
agreed
********
>The means of production should be
>owned by individuals.
*******
Yes, the means of production should be owned by *all* individuals
forming part of a productive association. To me collective ownership
of the means of production means collective ownership of private
businesses. In this I way i reconcile both the collective and the
individual perspective. In capitalism private businesses are owned by
a few or a single individual and he hires non-owners as employees.
This results in a fundamental difference between members of the same
collective of workers, despite the business being the product of the
collective of workers. This reductionism is *morally* justified by
assuming that capital generates work, while the opposite is true.
********
>Most important, though, communist anarchism largely
>ignores the need for justice, for courts and laws. It is nice to assume
>crime would disappear in an anarchist society, but now I think this
>assumption is naive.
********
Agreed. I see the need for justice and courts and law. Unless
otherwise demonstrated, these courts should be private and compete in
the market. Regarding law, i think it should evolve towards an ever
changing computer algorithm, to be applied in specific cases by
technical courts.
********
>One final note: the trend seems to be moving from anarcho-socialism to
>anarcho-capitalism. On these newsgroups there are now three people who
>explicitly claim to have made that transition--James, Mikel, and myself.
********
Get back to the dark side of the street,
the jewel is here
********
>And I know for a fact that there are other "right wing libertarians" who
>are sympathetic to libertarian socialist ideas, but don't think they are
>workable.
********
do you think this is workable?:
"what if inheritence were abolished, as proposed by Bakunin?
that might prevent the growth of corporations, since there would be
less incentive to become a CEO of a corporation.
what if all the wealth of a person were offered for public sale when
the person is dead?
the family may make an offer like everyone else.
what if the money from the sale were used to pay for public goods,
like health, education, and science?
thru depositing in a fund maintained by the community.
what if this quantity is large enough to eliminate the need for taxes
to pay for public goods?
essentially making dead people pay the taxes while alive people keep
all their income.
what if personal wealth is seen as the product of the interaction
between a person and the society in which the person lives, as
obviously is?
then there would moral justification to let the person enjoy the
wealth while alive but returning it to society when the person is
dead."
*********
>I think they might be workable, but we can't know for sure. We do know
>something about how market economies work, and how private systems of
>justice have worked in the past.
********
The private-ness of businesses is not in conflict with socialist
anarchism, at least i think so. Not even markets are, although David
Graeber has his reservations. It is in the internal structure of
private business that we oppose capitalism. I am also in opposition to
inheritance of capital and material means of production, as can be
seen from my ideas above.
********
>Hence free market anarchism, perhaps
>slowly developing into socialist anarchism, perhaps not.
********
The same as above: free markets and socialism are not in opposition.
If you implement anarcho-capitalism, we are going to need another
revolution to implement true anarchism. Woud you like to see yourself
on the reactionary camp?
saludos/ruben
Ruben
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20:10:55 GMT, constan...@my-deja.com wrote:
>In article <37def4c6...@news.alt.net>,
> y...@aqui.com (Ruben) wrote:
>
>> what if inheritence were abolished, as proposed by Bakunin?
>
>Inheritance is a gift. If you abolish inheritance, then you'd
>better abolish Christmas and birthdays. Who will abolish
>inheritance? If inheritance is to be abolished, someone has to do
>the abolishing. A state, no doubt.
********
or a revolution
********
>No, I can't explain what Bakunin, an anarchist, was thinking, but
>the Britannica has this to say about Bakunin: "Bakunin formulated
>no coherent body of doctrine. His voluminous and vigorous
>writings were often left incomplete." So it is possible that he
>did not fully think through this proposal.
********
these were Bakunin exact words:
"[W]hat is it that separates property and capital from labor? What
distinguishes the classes economically and politically from one
another, what destroys equality and perpetuates inequality, the
privilege of the few and the slavery of the many? It is the right of
inheritance."
Cutler, Robert M. (Ed.); From Out of the Dustbin: Bakunin's Basic
Writings 1869-1871, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1985, p. 126.
do you have any further doubts???
********
>> that might prevent the growth of corporations, since there would be
>> less incentive to become a CEO of a corporation.
>> what if all the wealth of a person were offered for public sale when
>> the person is dead?
>
>Offered by whom? Who would receive the payment from the sale?
>Statists have an obvious answer: the government.
********
i have another answer: a bank account maintained by a computer
algorithm
********
>> the family may make an offer like everyone else.
>> what if the money from the sale were used to pay for public goods,
>> like health, education, and science?
>
>Used by whom to pay for these things? The state, I guess.
********
Wrong. Used by individual people.
********
>> thru depositing in a fund maintained by the community.
>
>We already have a "fund maintained by the community". That's where
>our taxes go.
********
let's make it impersonal
********
>> what if this quantity is large enough to eliminate the need for taxes
>> to pay for public goods?
>
>What taxes? You are obviously assuming a state. This proves that
>by "the community" you mean a state.
********
wrong. see above
********
>> essentially making dead people pay the taxes while alive people keep
>> all their income.
>> what if personal wealth is seen as the product of the interaction
>> between a person and the society in which the person lives, as
>> obviously is?
>> then there would moral justification to let the person enjoy the
>> wealth while alive but returning it to society when the person is
>> dead.
>
>That moral argument makes no sense. If he does not have the right
>to give any part of it to his children upon his death
*********
What is the average age in which people die? i guess you know.
70-75 years. So what children are you talking about???
*********
>(because it
>is not sufficiently his for him to have that right), then for the
>same reason he does not have any right to give away any part of
>it during his life time, and so Christmas and birthdays need to
>be abolished. If he has the right to give away some part of it
>during his life, then how much?
*********
As much as he wants (assuming a man).
*********
>Who will decide?
*********
himself
*********
>If he does not
>have the right to give it away then he also does not have the
>right to sell it, since a sale is a double transfer, and two
>wrongs do not make a right. If he has the right to sell it then
>why can't he sell all of it to his child in exchange for a kiss?
********
again. what child are you talking about?? we are talking about old
people inheriting their wealth to old people.
If a man exchanged all his fortune for a kiss before he dies, then
there would be nothing to deposit in the fund.
********
>If he has a right to sell it but only when the "society" gives
>him permission, then he has no economic freedom.
********
he has full economic freedom
You also posted in a subsequent post:
Ruben:
> what if personal wealth is seen as the product of the interaction
> between a person and the society in which the person lives, as
> obviously is?
> then there would moral justification to let the person enjoy the
> wealth while alive but returning it to society when the person is
> dead.
Constantinople:
I did not really address this argument in my other post, I only
pointed out general problems with abolishing inheritance.
When the person interacts with "society", then his income is not
the only thing that is produced. His product is also produced,
and that product goes to "society". His income is therefore not
owned partly by him and partly by "society" - it is owned
entirely by him, because he and "society" have already agreed on
who will get what. His product went to "society", and that
belongs entirely to "society" and is no longer his, and meanwhile
his income belongs entirely to him and is no longer in any way
"society's". This is the agreement that existed between him and
"society".
********
Ruben:
The cost of the product is lower than the price of the product. The
exchange between the person and society (other individuals or
ensembles of individuals) is not equitative. The accumulated
difference in cost and price of a lifelong production is the wealth of
a person. Therefore, the situation is not balanced.
*********
Constantinople:
There is another problem with your argument. Interactions are not
between the individual and an entity called "society". He is in
fact himself a part of society, and so society is not an entity
separate from him. The interaction occurred not between a person
and society, but between one person and another (or between one
person and an organization, etc.). The interaction occurred
*within* society, between particular members of society. If that
wealth is the joint product of two parties, then the two parties
are the two individuals or organizations, not an individual and
"society". Those two parties are certain to have made the
agreement described above, i.e., that one party receives this and
owns it wholly, and the other party receives that and owns it
completely, so that neither party any longer has any claim to the
other party's part.
**********
Ruben:
That is no problem. The price of the product is almost always greater
than the cost of the product, so in a 2-party interaction one party
gets a rent, while the other party expect to make a rent in another
2-way interaction, and so on with a myriad 2-way party interactions.
All the differences between price and cost take place in this web of
economic interactions, which we call society. So both the individual
and society are active parts in the generation of *the difference*
between price and cost.
**********
Constantinople:
Finally, you justify the theft (for that is what it is) of the
man's wealth on the basis that it is only partly his, and partly
belongs to the thief. But if your argument is true, then much
more than simple confiscation of the man's property at death is
justified. If the property really does belong the thief jointly
with the man then the thief has the right at any point to come to
the man and take control of some part of it. Why not?
**********
Ruben:
Because the man is alive. Don't you find it a good reason?
**********
Constantinople:
It is arbitrary to suppose that the thief's right is limited to the
right to take the man's property at his death.
**********
Ruben (skipping commenting on the ugly word):
it is not. life and death are two states of a person which can be
distinguished without arbitrareness (catalepsia nothwithstanding)
**********
Constantinople:
In fact, your assumption has to be much stronger than this. Since you
claim that the thief should be able to take control of *all* of the
wealth at the man's death, and not just half of it (say), then
you must mean that the property belonged entirely to the thief
all along.
**********
Ruben:
Property can have two owners at the same time, you and society. When
you ceases to exist the next real entity owning the property is
society.
*********
Constantinople:
For if it did not, if, say, the thief owned half the
property, and half was the man's, then the man would have the
right to pass half of it on to his son, if that were what he
wanted. But if the thief is the true owner of all the man's
wealth, and the man is only using it with the thief's permission,
and nothing the man produces can ever be his, neither his product
nor his income, no matter how hard he tries to escape the thief,
then the thief in effect owns the man.
*********
Ruben:
this final remarks have been addressed above.
saludos/ruben
Dan Clore
> One final note: the trend seems to be moving from anarcho-socialism to
> anarcho-capitalism. On these newsgroups there are now three people who
> explicitly claim to have made that transition--James, Mikel, and myself.
> And I know for a fact that there are other "right wing libertarians" who
> are sympathetic to libertarian socialist ideas, but don't think they are
> workable.
Well that's nice, but you forget a few things:
(1) I am a former anarcho-capitalist.
(2) James is demonstrably lying when he claims to have been an
anarcho-syndicalist (he claims that his former comrades hung their heads
in shame due to the actions of the Spanish anarchists when he mentioned
Catalonia, yet here on Usenet, long after this alleged event, he denied
that anarchists were involved in the Spanish Civil War). His claim to
have been a Trotskyist and a Maoist, on the other hand, are quite
believable.
(3) In your own case you had begun by describing yourself as closest to
a right-libertarian.
At best I give you 1.5 vs 1 on this trend -- not a strong movement
either way.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
David Graeber
constan...@my-deja.com (Constantinople) wrote:
Yeah, John, I see what you mean.
DG
Dan Clore
> David Graeber David....@yale.edu wrote in <David.Graeber
> -15099917...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>:
> >In article <djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> >> In article <slrn7tuft1....@localhost.localdomain>,
> >> jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
> >> > Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
> >> > >In article <7rm786$1ss$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
> >> > >"Jøn Duncan"
> >> > ><jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> >> > And private "protection firms" would provide better
> >> > "protection" for the poor?
> >>
> >> Very likely, as long as the market for protection is
> >> reasonably competitive.
> >
> > If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything. We've seen
> > what "private protection firms" tend to produce,
> >in any occasion when something even remotely resembling them has
> >actually occurred. They tend to be ethnically based and
> >extremely violent towards people not of their self-declared
> >ethnic or racial affinities.
>
> I don't think you know what you're talking about. You may be
> referring to the KKK. But they're a nonprofit organization. The
> Pinkertons are for-profit. I don't recall reading about any
> Pinkerton lynchings.
Of course not: Pinkertons prefer to shoot their victims. Look at a
little labor history -- the Pinkerton pigs are notorious for the many
times they've murdered workers for crimes like wanting to be paid for
their work. (Cue James Donald to argue this was justified because some
of these workers actually had the gall to try to defend themselves.)
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe:
Dan Clore
> In article <djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
> djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
> > David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
> > > Matt is rather given to taking cheap shots. Perhaps
> > > it's a lesson for us all - I mainly ignored it (though
> > > I wasn't entirely unaware) when he was arguing against
> > > people like Starr and Donald themselves. Now, I guess
> > > we pay the price.
> >
> > And pay you will....
> >
> > What's ironic about this is that I felt your incessant abuse of David
> > Friedman was an embarassment to my side.
>
> Yeah, but I didn't take cheap shots. You on
> the other hand have just admitted you are
> prepared to be unfair and dishonest - or anyway
> it's hard to interpret your statement any other
> way.
You guys are such a pair of bitches.
--
---------------------------------------------------
Dan Clore
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe:
Ruben
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 21:59:01 -0500, David....@yale.edu (David
Graeber) wrote:
>In article <djarum98-150...@beac610-0b01-034.bu.edu>,
>djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
>
>> In article <David.Graeber-1...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>,
>> David....@yale.edu (David Graeber) wrote:
>>
>> > Matt is rather given to taking cheap shots. Perhaps
>> > it's a lesson for us all - I mainly ignored it (though
>> > I wasn't entirely unaware) when he was arguing against
>> > people like Starr and Donald themselves. Now, I guess
>> > we pay the price.
>>
>> And pay you will....
>>
>> What's ironic about this is that I felt your incessant abuse of David
>> Friedman was an embarassment to my side.
>
> Yeah, but I didn't take cheap shots. You on
>the other hand have just admitted you are
>prepared to be unfair and dishonest - or anyway
>it's hard to interpret your statement any other
>way.
**********
interesting. i mean, the concept of cheap shots.
saludos/ruben
James A. Donald
Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote in message
> > can say for sure what he wants to do about it.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 00:03:48 -0400, "Jøn Duncan"
<jo...@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
> What do you want him to do, write a five-year plan?
I want him to speak plain english rather than lying evasive
doubletalk.
I want him to stop fabricating citations.
I want him to stop loudly announcing "I am saying X" when he
vehemently argues the exact opposite of X at great length.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
K/FeLxQeZrAv8Decc+xtVGAohrJaJJdkC42cLrh0
42Ji8y/XXqgWjYHjhVUD7qGq05a+sJlGGeRrHPf5M
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
Constantinople
<37E077...@columbia-center.org>:
>Constantinople wrote:
>> David Graeber David....@yale.edu wrote in <David.Graeber
>> -15099917...@drg9.anthropology.yale.edu>:
>> >In article <djarum98-1509991658480001@beac610-0b01
>> >-034.bu.edu>, djar...@usa.net.invalid (Matt) wrote:
The claim I was replying to was about ethnicity and race.
Let's consider your new claim. Here's an example of what the
Pinkertons did to workers (James McParlan worked for Pinkerton):
Molly Maguires
secret organization of coal miners supposedly responsible for
terrorism in the anthracite coalfields of Pennsylvania and
West Virginia, U.S., in the period from 1862 to 1876. The
group named itself after a widow who led a group of Irish
antilandlord agitators in the 1840s. When poor working
conditions and employment discrimination led to acts of
sabotage and terrorist assassinations by Irish-American
workers in Pennsylvania 20 years later, the "Mollies" were
blamed. The Ancient Order of Hibernians, a local Irish
fraternal association, was thought to be a front for the
terrorists, and mine owners hired James McParlan, a detective,
to infiltrate the group. In a series of sensational trials in
1875-77, McParlan's testimony resulted in the conviction and
hanging of 10 men for murder. The court convictions, adverse
publicity, and more prosperous times effected a subsequent
decline of violence in the coalfields.
"Molly Maguires" Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
<http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?idxref=31972>
[Accessed 16 September 1999].
If you want to believe that any organization of workers must be
good and any action done against them must be evil, then I
suppose this is just evidence against the Pinkertons. Otherwise
it looks like the Pinkertons uncovered the facts and events
followed.
Then of course there is the Homestead incident, which has been
described at length in the following article.
http://x33.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=507392420
The article in turn references the following web page:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/carnegie/horrors.html
In this incident the Pinkertons' job was to protect lives against
would-be murderers. You may consider it evil to protect human life,
when it is the life of a "scab". Apparently Rob McFarlin does. I
post his curious reply to the above-referenced Usenet article.
From: ka...@snowcrest.net (Karen McFarlin)
Subject: Re: Duopoly, Re: the world's billionaires
Date: 01 Aug 1999 00:00:00 GMT
In article <37a43ca1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> In fact even that is untrue, for barges were to transport
> workers, not pinkertons. The union was trying to kill workers,
> not pinkertons, and the union was trying to kill them all. It
> refused to accept surrender four times.
Correction - the steel worker's union was firing on "scabs" hired
by the mill owners.
Rob McFarlin
Constantinople
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>>John Rappe jmr...@excite.com wrote in
>><slrn7u05lj....@localhost.localdomain>:
>>
>>>Matt <djar...@usa.net.invalid> wrote:
>>>>In article <slrn7tuft1....@localhost.localdomain>,
>>>>jmr...@excite.com (John Rappe) wrote:
>>>>
>>
>>>>> And private "protection firms" would provide better
>>>>> "protection" for the poor?
>>>>
>>>>Very likely, as long as the market for protection is
>>>>reasonably competitive.
>>>
>>>Why on earth do you think so-called "protection firms" will
>>>protect those that can't pay them. You might be able to make
>>>a case that they would be less abusive, but that's something
>>>else.
>>
>>Why on earth would anyone think so-called "grocery stores" will
>>provide food to those who can't pay for it. Here's a great,
>>knock -down argument against grocery stores if I ever saw one.
>>Why on earth would anyone think so-called "television makers"
>>will provide televisions to those who can't pay for them.
>>Clearly we need government provision of televisions.
>
>This is remarkably bizzare non-sequiter, even for you.
"Even for you", that's clever, a put-down to cover for absence of
argument. By the way you might use a spell checker before
posting. Just a suggestion.
Shall I bother to explain? No, I don't think you'll make it worth
my while.