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Take the Anarcho/Capitalist and Libertarian challenge

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psychopomp

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Jul 4, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/4/97

Please answer all of these questions fully. The goal is to answer each question fully,
and without contradicting previous answers. Answers must not assume, and must be backed
up with historical fact whenever possible( I'm reasonable, I don't expect exact dates or
names, unless it sounds rediculous ). Expect a rebutle to come by the following day.
Whom ever dares accept this challenge can create an Anarchist Libertarian Socialist
challenge that I will gladly answer. Please keep it down to 10 questions at a time.

1. Corporations presently have armed guards. In the event that democratic
government protection is removed, what would keep them from using these armed "guards"
against workers, and from buying mercenaries, both of wich they have done in the past
(See note #1)?

2. Are Corporations and Banks controled from the bottom up qualifying them as
democratic? If so, explain how?

3. Would Corporations be more democratic if the management and executives were
elected by the workers and could be voted out at anytime?

4. If Socialism means dictatorship or oligarchy no matter what, then explain why,
a) Soviet Bolsheviks faught a civil war(backed by western Banks) with, and
eventualy exterminated, Socialist Anarchists.
b) Stalin backed communists in Spain who assasinated and faught against
Socialist Anarchists.

5. During the 1950's East European workers went on strike for higher wages and
worker control as well as removal of the Red Army and the Soviet puppets, not, as
commonly believed, for Capitalism. When Hungery rebelled they set up NONcapitalist
workers councils before being crushed by the Red Army. How could this be, if according
to Anarcho/Capitalists and Libertarians, the only alternative to Capitalism is State
Socialism?

6. Define Capitalism.

7. Define Property.

8. What do capitalists do that organized workers can't?

9. Can you name 3 activists or intelectuals identifying themselves as Anarchists
who support capitalism? Here are 3 Socialist Anarchists: Emma Goldman, Noem Chomsky,
Albert Meltzer.

10. Can you give one example of an Anarcho/Capitalist society, even a small one,
that did not decompose into waring factions? Barter is not included as Capitalism.
Here are some Anarchist Socialist ones, Ukranian Anarchists after WWI, Spanish
Anarchists during the 30's, The Zitzer Spiritual Republic in Northern Serbia, all of
which were destroyed by overwelming outside forces(I'm not sure if the Zitzer Spiritual
Republic has been yet).

Note#1) During the great depression corporations hired klansman and fascist
sympethisers to harass, threaten, run out of town, beat up, and even assasinate, not
only union members, but anyone who complained openly about wages, hours, or safety
conditions. This was also a common practice before the Great Depression. During Shay's
rebelion, when thousands of armed farmers refused to leave the land they had faught for
because of forclosure, the creditors simply baught themselves a private army to crush
the farmers militia. Did the government have anything to do with this? Nope. This has
changed more recently as capitalists needed to conceal their actions as government
actions(that's not to say governments would not do it themselves).

Thank You and good luck, you'll need it.

--Pcykopomp has returned(early) and the anti-kingdom rejoices.

psychopomp

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Jul 4, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/4/97

6. Define Capitalism.

7. Define Property.

--Psychopomp has returned(early) and the anti-kingdom rejoices.

DonM

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Jul 4, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/4/97

OK, I'll bite.

psychopomp wrote:
>
> Please answer all of these questions fully. The goal is to answer each question fully,
> and without contradicting previous answers. Answers must not assume, and must be backed
> up with historical fact whenever possible( I'm reasonable, I don't expect exact dates or
> names, unless it sounds rediculous ). Expect a rebutle to come by the following day.
> Whom ever dares accept this challenge can create an Anarchist Libertarian Socialist
> challenge that I will gladly answer. Please keep it down to 10 questions at a time.
>
> 1. Corporations presently have armed guards. In the event that democratic
> government protection is removed, what would keep them from using these armed "guards"
> against workers, and from buying mercenaries, both of wich they have done in the past
> (See note #1)?

First, why should we accept your gratuitous assertion that "corporations
have armed guards"? I assume you are talking of something other than
the basic security guards/night watchmen. You seem to suggest there are
private armies within corporations. Please provide some names and
numbers to back this up.

Regardless, let's say for your sake that the corporations do have large
contingents of armed guards. OK, then, the answer to your question is:

Anything or nothing, depending on the people involved. Evil people have
used force against others for all of civilized existence. Certainly the
burden of a collapse of government protection will not fall exclusively
on 'the workers'.

>
> 2. Are Corporations and Banks controled from the bottom up qualifying them as
> democratic? If so, explain how?

No. Corporations and Banks are controlled by their owners. Democracy
is for governments, not businesses (or schools as another example). "OK
students, let vote... should we have a test today or go to the park?"
:-)

>
> 3. Would Corporations be more democratic if the management and executives were
> elected by the workers and could be voted out at anytime?

By definition, yes. Is this desirable? No. Consider this. Whether in
business or government, people are elected to serve the interest of
their constituencies. In business, managers and executives are elected
by a board of directors that are obligated to represent their
constituency, the owners of the company. Just like politicians, they
(company boards and executives) are prone to getting entrenched and
power-drunk. But do not fool yourself into thinking that company
leaders should be elected to serve the whims of the workers. That would
be folly; yet you seem to think it should be done.

>
> 4. If Socialism means dictatorship or oligarchy no matter what, then explain why,
> a) Soviet Bolsheviks faught a civil war(backed by western Banks) with, and
> eventualy exterminated, Socialist Anarchists.
> b) Stalin backed communists in Spain who assasinated and faught against
> Socialist Anarchists.

The way you have worded your question, I would be forced to argue a
hypothetical case.
"IF". I don't think socialism has to result in dictatorships. Just
look at any of several European countries. They are democratic
socialist states. Their people have chosen socialism. Of course, they
are falling behind because of it, but that's another chapter.

>
> 5. During the 1950's East European workers went on strike for higher wages and
> worker control as well as removal of the Red Army and the Soviet puppets, not, as
> commonly believed, for Capitalism. When Hungery rebelled they set up NONcapitalist
> workers councils before being crushed by the Red Army. How could this be, if according
> to Anarcho/Capitalists and Libertarians, the only alternative to Capitalism is State
> Socialism?

I don't understand how the Hungarian example runs counter to your
question. You are saying that they went from Soviet satellite socialism
to independent socialism. So what does that prove, with regard to your
question?

>
> 6. Define Capitalism.

"Working for the benefit of yourself, rather than for the benefit of
others."

>
> 7. Define Property.

Permit me to substitute the broader term "wealth" for "property",
because it is a more inclusive term, lending to analysis of what I think
you are getting at.

Wealth: That which you create as a result of your effort. Generally,
the more (or better) efforts invested, the more wealth created. This is
important. Without effort, there can be no wealth created. (Don't
confuse "created" with "consumed"). As such, there is not a fixed
finite amount of wealth in the world, waiting to be properly
distributed, as in socialist theories. That, in fact is the killer flaw
in socialism, why it has never worked for very long. If you take away
too much of the results of people's efforts, they won't make the
efforts, thus wealth will not be created.

> 8. What do capitalists do that organized workers can't?

Uh, freely contract their services and compensation?
Not have to pay for political activities they may not agree with?
Be able to progress according to their effort and ability?
Oh, heck, why don't you tell me?

>
> 9. Can you name 3 activists or intelectuals identifying themselves as Anarchists
> who support capitalism? Here are 3 Socialist Anarchists: Emma Goldman, Noem Chomsky,
> Albert Meltzer.

No.

>
> 10. Can you give one example of an Anarcho/Capitalist society, even a small one,
> that did not decompose into waring factions? Barter is not included as Capitalism.
> Here are some Anarchist Socialist ones, Ukranian Anarchists after WWI, Spanish
> Anarchists during the 30's, The Zitzer Spiritual Republic in Northern Serbia, all of
> which were destroyed by overwelming outside forces(I'm not sure if the Zitzer Spiritual
> Republic has been yet).

Got me there. I don't know of any anarcho/capitalist societies. Maybe
you should just state your case on this one, because it seems a little
far-fetched to me.

> Thank You and good luck, you'll need it.

You're welcome, and no thanks, I make my way in the world with efforts,
not luck.

;-)

Saulius Muliolis

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Jul 4, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/4/97

to psychopomp

I am not an anarchist, or quite a libertarian. However, I will try to
answer from
an Objectivist viewpoint.

>
> 1. Corporations presently have armed guards. In the event that democratic
> government protection is removed, what would keep them from using these armed "guards"
> against workers, and from buying mercenaries, both of wich they have done in the past
> (See note #1)?

If there is no government at all, then yes, corporations might be able
to use force
against their employees. However, this might not be to their advantage.
In an open job
market, it is usually the employer that takes best care of employees
that gets the
best work from them. This I admit, may not deter all employers from
using force
on employees that are kept as slaves.

However, a government free society is not what Objectivists, or most
libertarians
call for. A proper society would have a government restricted to only
one function:
To use its monopoly on the legal use of force to protect individuals'
rights against
those who would initiate the use of force. Use of force by employers
against employees
would be illegal.

>
> 2. Are Corporations and Banks controled from the bottom up qualifying them as
> democratic? If so, explain how?
>

No. They are controlled by their owners, who have every right to.
Ownership means
the right to control and use that which is owned.

> 3. Would Corporations be more democratic if the management and executives were
> elected by the workers and could be voted out at anytime?
>

You could say that that is democratic, but it would not be just, unless
the workers
were actually the owners. If the legal owner of the business had no
right to manage
his business himself, and was at the mercy of his employees, then it
could not be
said that he truly owned the business, but was in fact owned by the
employees. This
would be, in effect, a form of slavery - The enslavement of the few to
the many,
which is what happens when pure democracy rules.

> 4. If Socialism means dictatorship or oligarchy no matter what, then explain why,
> a) Soviet Bolsheviks faught a civil war(backed by western Banks) with, and
> eventualy exterminated, Socialist Anarchists.
> b) Stalin backed communists in Spain who assasinated and faught against
> Socialist Anarchists.

I am not sure who the Socialist Anarchists you are talking about were,
but they
obviously didn't last long. A centralized government will always be more
effective
in fighting a war than an anarchist mob. The problem with anarchy is
that it will
always be displaced by a stronger, more organized force. That is why
Objectivists
and many, if not most Libertarians call for a minarchy, which is a
government
restricted to only the minimum function of government, which I have
already explained.

Nature abhors a vaccume. If there is no governing body that uses force
for some
purpose, wether it be to safeguard people's rights or to excersize the
will of a
majority, one will either be formed by someone, or one will come in and
displace
it. This is why we need a strong government that is by law restricted to
only
using force against those who initiate the use of force.
>
> 6. Define Capitalism.

The "Lexicon Webster's Dictionary" defines capitalism as "Possession of
capital;
(pol. econ). a system under which the production of goods and services
are
privately managed; free enterprise"

The Objectivist definition, which I accept, is very close to this. From
the "Ayn Rand
Lexicon", "Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of
individual rights,
including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."
>
> 7. Define Property.
>
Property an individual right. It is the right to keep, control and
dispose of
that which one has earned by his own labors.

> 8. What do capitalists do that organized workers can't?
>

If the organized workers are capitalists themselves, then nothing. Most
of the
arguments I have heard of from Anarco Socialists sound kind of like
co-ops, which
would be allowed under capitalism. If a group of people get together to
form a
business, and are also the entire work force of that business, then they
are
the owners of that business, and the business is in their own private
hands.
This fits the definition of capitalism.

> 9. Can you name 3 activists or intelectuals identifying themselves as Anarchists
> who support capitalism? Here are 3 Socialist Anarchists: Emma Goldman, Noem Chomsky,
> Albert Meltzer.
>

I don't know any anarchist intellectuals at all. All those that I
respect support
capitalism and a minarchy.

> 10. Can you give one example of an Anarcho/Capitalist society, even a small one,
> that did not decompose into waring factions? Barter is not included as Capitalism.
> Here are some Anarchist Socialist ones, Ukranian Anarchists after WWI, Spanish
> Anarchists during the 30's, The Zitzer Spiritual Republic in Northern Serbia, all of
> which were destroyed by overwelming outside forces(I'm not sure if the Zitzer Spiritual
> Republic has been yet).

They will always be destroyed by outside forces.

>
> Note#1) During the great depression corporations hired klansman and fascist
> sympethisers to harass, threaten, run out of town, beat up, and even assasinate, not
> only union members, but anyone who complained openly about wages, hours, or safety
> conditions. This was also a common practice before the Great Depression. During Shay's
> rebelion, when thousands of armed farmers refused to leave the land they had faught for
> because of forclosure, the creditors simply baught themselves a private army to crush
> the farmers militia. Did the government have anything to do with this? Nope. This has
> changed more recently as capitalists needed to conceal their actions as government
> actions(that's not to say governments would not do it themselves).
>

These are all actions that would be illegal under a strong minarchy.

Saulius Muliolis
muli...@en.com

James A. Donald

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Jul 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/5/97

psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> 1. Corporations presently have armed guards. In the event that democratic
> government protection is removed, what would keep them from using these armed "guards"
> against workers, and from buying mercenaries, both of wich they have done in the past
> (See note #1)?

I can see you have never received calls from head hunters.

To get people to work for them, companies have to satisfy their
employees, or they will go elsewhere.

It is quite possible under anarcho capitalism, that if strikers sought
to forcibly prevent the company from employing scabs, the company
guards, or a militia supportive of property rights, would employ
machine gun fire, as has indeed happened in the past, but this would
not make the work place any less free or more free. Margaret Thatcher
forcefully protected scab labor, and the new british labor government
has no plans to change this law, and it does not seem to have turned
workplaces into tyrannies.

> 2. Are Corporations and Banks controled from the bottom up qualifying them as
> democratic? If so, explain how?

They are controlled from the bottom up by the customer, not the
employee, just as at present.

(Well at present for most corporations. Banks are at present a
government enforced cartel, and are therefore free to piss all over
the customer. Hence banking hours, banking holidays, several days
float on check clearances, charges on your check account that you
never consented to, etc.)

The purpose of production is consumption. People build cars so that
we may drive them. We do not drive cars so that they may have jobs.

So people in their role as producers must take orders, so that in
their role as consumers they may give orders. Thus the workplace is
inherently undemocratic.

Past attempts at real revolutionary democracy in the workplace
immediately ran afoul of the revolution's need for "revolutionary war
production". Supposedly the revolutionary coercion was only a
temporary war time expedient, but in fact it was not. You have the
same problem regardless of whether it is war time or peacetime. You
have to make the worker produce what some else wants. If we had true
workers democracy we might be well supplied with elegant hand carved
banjos, and amateur musical recordings, but we would be likely to
suffer a serious shortage of bread, and no one would remove the
garbage.

> 3. Would Corporations be more democratic if the management and executives were
> elected by the workers and could be voted out at anytime?

If the workers owned the company, and not otherwise. That is if the
workers provided the capital. Employee owned companies are common in
certain businesses where the employees commonly have business
management skills, for example legal firms, advertising firms,
stockbroking firms, and accountancy firms, but are uncommon in
industries where the employee business management skills are generally
less. Regrettably this includes the software industry. Employee
owned business firms have existed in our industry, but generally as a
result of the insolvency of the owners, shortly followed by the
insolvency of the employee owned company.

Same reason as the Stalin exterminated the most of the communist
party.

In any case it is far from clear that the Kronstadt rebels were
entirely *socialist* anarchists. Some of the rights listed in the
Kronstadt declaration were economic rights, freedom to travel, to
trade.

> b) Stalin backed communists in Spain who assasinated and faught against
> Socialist Anarchists.

They also assassinated and fought against fascists, so by your
argument the anarchists were fascists, right? Evil people kill both
good and evil people. Good people only kill evil people. Thus the
fact that an evil person set out to kill some political category, is
not evidence that people in that category were good. Indeed arguably
evil people are more highly motivated to kill other evil people than
to kill good people, because they are motivated by the same entirely
practical concerns as good people are.

> 5. During the 1950's East European workers went on strike for higher wages and
> worker control as well as removal of the Red Army and the Soviet puppets, not, as
> commonly believed, for Capitalism. When Hungery rebelled they set up NONcapitalist
> workers councils before being crushed by the Red Army. How could this be, if according
> to Anarcho/Capitalists and Libertarians, the only alternative to Capitalism is State
> Socialism?

Did these non capitalist councils actually work?

There are indeed today examples of democratic socialism, most notably
Ukraine, where the voters simply did not vote to restore capitalism,
yet for some curious reason I never see socialists point at these poor
and oppressive regimes in rapid economic decline, and say "Look, see,
democratic socialism really *is* possible"

> 6. Define Capitalism.

Capitalism is whatever happens when people's property is secure, and
they are free to use it in whatever they regard as their own best
interests, for example rent it out or use it to make a profit.

> 7. Define Property.

If I made it, found it when it was unowned, or someone freely gave it
to me, or freely exchanged it for something else I rightfully owned,
(such as wage payments) then it is rightfully mine.

>8. What do capitalists do that organized workers can't?

Nothing.

But if the organized workers do the same things as capitalists then
they will be capitalists.

If a worker owned firm is successful, the worker owners will soon
cease to be workers, and if it is unsuccessful, the worker owners will
soon cease to be owners.

To prevent this from happening you are going to have to "organization"
above the level of the individual workplace, a big central
organization that tells the workers what to do. Such an organization,
being a monopoly maintained by force, has little need to care what
either workers or consumers desire.

> 9. Can you name 3 activists or intelectuals identifying themselves as Anarchists
> who support capitalism? Here are 3 Socialist Anarchists: Emma Goldman, Noem Chomsky,
> Albert Meltzer.

David Friedman, Bruce Benson, and Morris Tannehill

> 10. Can you give one example of an Anarcho/Capitalist society, even a small one,
> that did not decompose into waring factions?

Saga period Iceland was pretty close to anarcho capitalism, (read the
sagas) and it lasted longer than the US has, and longer than the US
probably will.

The western frontier was arguably anarcho capitalist. Gold rush
California was anarcho capitalist, in that property rights and law
enforcement for gringos were sustained and protected in active
opposition to the power of the Mexican state. Property rights,
personal safety, and property law, existed in spite of the state, and
in active defiance of it.

Anarchy in the west only lasted a few decades, unlike saga period
iceland, but it showed no tendency to degenerate into warring
factions.

> Here are some Anarchist Socialist ones,

> Ukranian Anarchists after WWI,

Fiction: They failed. And they were not socialist. They appear to
me to be individualist anarchists of a Sadian, rather than Spoonerite
tendency.

> Spanish
> Anarchists during the 30's,

Socialist indeed, but certainly not anarchists. Hours after they
seized power in Barcelona they organized, in cooperation with other
parties, a monopoly police force with lawless and absolute powers, and
proceeded to impose socialism as usual with gun and baton. For a
detailed look at the Spanish "anarchists" see my web page
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/

Or Bryan Caplan's web page
http://www.princeton.edu/~bdcaplan/spain.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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 jam...@echeque.com

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/5/97

Thank you for answering this test. Unfortunately you did not answer all
of the questions so you do not qualify for the second round, or the
chance to test me. Anyway, I made a mistake in including Libertarians.
Many of the questions were made specificly to be answered by so called
"anarco capitalists". The whole point of making this test was to show
that a working anarchist society can only be socialist and that anarcho
capitalism was an oximoron.
As far as objectavism, well, we'll get into that later. ;,)

Thanx again, and please don't post a response to this letter. That goes
for the rest of you too.

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/5/97

Thank you for answering this test. Unfortunately you did not answer all

of the questions so you did not show the knowledge necesary to qualify
for the second round, or the chance to test me. Watch James, he knows
what he's talking about.

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/5/97

So far 3 people have responded to the test, and only you have answered
all of the questions. I'm a bit disapointed that you are the only anarco
capitalist who has actualy studied the socio economic theory he supports,
although it isn't surprising, it's also telling of the movement as a
whole. Please wait untill tomarrow before posting your test for
socialist anarchists. I want to see if anyone else answers the test
tonight. Hopefully yourside will get
something better than a 1 in 3 ratio.

DonM

unread,

Jul 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/5/97

to psychopomp

Psychodude:

I answered all ten. You just didn't like my answers.

It is true that if you are looking for some sort of debate on "anarcho
whatever" then you should have restricted your posting accordingly.

Since I put a fair amount of effort into answering your inanities, I'd
be interested in hearing YOUR answers, privately if you are afraid to
give out some special secrets.

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 5, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/5/97

James A. Donald wrote:
>
> psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> > 1. Corporations presently have armed guards. In the event that democratic
> > government protection is removed, what would keep them from using these armed "guards"
> > against workers, and from buying mercenaries, both of wich they have done in the past
> > (See note #1)?
>
> I can see you have never received calls from head hunters.

> Nope.

> To get people to work for them, companies have to satisfy their
> employees, or they will go elsewhere.

A delightful theory, but it does not hold up because it does not account for the ability
of corporate boards to interlock(as they have already) or create "Think Tanks", where
common policies toward workers, as well as society at large, are developed(as they have
already). In otherwords, they can agree NOT to compete in order to hold down wages and
cut benifits.

>
> It is quite possible under anarcho capitalism, that if strikers sought
> to forcibly prevent the company from employing scabs, the company
> guards, or a militia supportive of property rights, would employ
> machine gun fire, as has indeed happened in the past, but this would
> not make the work place any less free or more free. Margaret Thatcher
> forcefully protected scab labor, and the new british labor government
> has no plans to change this law, and it does not seem to have turned
> workplaces into tyrannies.

No, but give it time. It has already created the lowest standard of living among the
First World nations. Also, read my note#1 from the original post. I'd like to add that
the greatgrandfather of a friend of mine had his house burned down by the klan during
the depression, after he became a vocal member of the IWW.

> > 2. Are Corporations and Banks controled from the bottom up qualifying them as
> > democratic? If so, explain how?
>
> They are controlled from the bottom up by the customer, not the
> employee, just as at present.

What about a monopoly on a certain product, or a monopoly on the means of communication?
How many advertisements for solar powered cars have you seen lately? And a monopoly of
distribution as well. It is regular practice for corporations to buy up shelf space so
smaller producers can not market their products. And how easy is it to creat an
effective boycot when you have to communicate to fellow consumers through communication
networks owned by corporations that, if they are atleast not the foccus of the boycott,
have a common interest in discouraging boycotts in general? Which brings to mind the
internet. It has recently been becoming increasingly privatized. If it is alowed to be
completely privatized what would keep it from becoming like Network TV? After all,
companies that "own" the net will have the "right" to charge what ever they want, and
those who can afford a place on the net will have every "right" to restrict the
information available to the public. I'm sorry, your argument doesn't hold up.

> (Well at present for most corporations. Banks are at present a
> government enforced cartel, and are therefore free to piss all over
> the customer. Hence banking hours, banking holidays, several days
> float on check clearances, charges on your check account that you
> never consented to, etc.)

ha ha, Agreed. ;,)

>
> The purpose of production is consumption. People build cars so that
> we may drive them. We do not drive cars so that they may have jobs.

Anarchists have no responsability to give people work. If something is not needed there
will be low demand, so they will change what they produce, or join syndicates that
produce what has taken the place of the other product. Anyway, the concequences of
unemployment will be much less serious and easier to bare for longer periods when you
won't have to pay the rent or mortgage, food is cheap and plentiful, and people are open
and genorous, instead of consumers or capitalists looking for something to make it worth
their "genorosity" to help you.

> So people in their role as producers must take orders, so that in
> their role as consumers they may give orders. Thus the workplace is
> inherently undemocratic.

Then it is unanarchist. Anarchism and orders are two things that don't go together.
Anyway, the consumer control model doesn't hold up as the inevitable consolidation of
wealth, property, and communication, leads to monopolies. In the end the ones giving
orders are the stock holders and the Boards they elect. Where does that fit into
anarchism?

>
> Past attempts at real revolutionary democracy in the workplace
> immediately ran afoul of the revolution's need for "revolutionary war
> production". Supposedly the revolutionary coercion was only a
> temporary war time expedient, but in fact it was not. You have the
> same problem regardless of whether it is war time or peacetime. You
> have to make the worker produce what some else wants. If we had true
> workers democracy we might be well supplied with elegant hand carved
> banjos, and amateur musical recordings, but we would be likely to
> suffer a serious shortage of bread, and no one would remove the
> garbage.

This is completely rediculous! This assumes that a community would make it's goal
creating jobs instead of eating. In reality, if bread was needed there would be bread
makers ready to supply the demand, and if people did not want hand carved banjos and
amatuer music recordings they would not vote to distribute them, and the the people in
the syndicit making them would have to find another way to support themselves and the
community. A community would starve otherwise. That would be suicide.

>
> > 3. Would Corporations be more democratic if the management and executives were
> > elected by the workers and could be voted out at anytime?
>
> If the workers owned the company, and not otherwise. That is if the
> workers provided the capital.

The workers do provide the capital. It's called work. Note how there are no successful
businesses without workers.

Employee owned companies are common in
> certain businesses where the employees commonly have business
> management skills, for example legal firms, advertising firms,
> stockbroking firms, and accountancy firms, but are uncommon in
> industries where the employee business management skills are generally
> less. Regrettably this includes the software industry. Employee
> owned business firms have existed in our industry, but generally as a
> result of the insolvency of the owners, shortly followed by the
> insolvency of the employee owned company.

Those with skills to run a business, would do just as well as elected syndicate reps in
a syndicate confederation.

>
> >4. If Socialism means dictatorship or oligarchy no matter what, then explain why,
> > a) Soviet Bolsheviks faught a civil war(backed by western Banks) with, and
> > eventualy exterminated, Socialist Anarchists.
>
> Same reason as the Stalin exterminated the most of the communist
> party.

> Which was, according to you?

> In any case it is far from clear that the Kronstadt rebels were
> entirely *socialist* anarchists. Some of the rights listed in the
> Kronstadt declaration were economic rights, freedom to travel, to
> trade.

Again, and again, and again, free travel and trade are not prohibited by socialist
anarchists. If they prohibited it they wouldn't be anarchists now would they? People
will only organize into collectives if the work requires it. For example, one person
can repair shoes or create artwork. One person can not build a car. Workers must
organize collectively to build cars. And where the hell did you get the idea anarchist
socialists are against free travel? You have also forgotten the Makhnovit movement.

>
> > b) Stalin backed communists in Spain who assasinated and faught against
> > Socialist Anarchists.
>
> They also assassinated and fought against fascists, so by your
> argument the anarchists were fascists, right? Evil people kill both
> good and evil people. Good people only kill evil people. Thus the
> fact that an evil person set out to kill some political category, is
> not evidence that people in that category were good. Indeed arguably
> evil people are more highly motivated to kill other evil people than
> to kill good people, because they are motivated by the same entirely
> practical concerns as good people are.

I wasn't talikng about good and evil, I was talking about Capitalism, State
Socialism(more accurately state capitalism), and anarchist socialism. According to
"anarcho" capitalists, there is ONE kind of socialism, that is state socialism. But
Stalin arm twisted Spannish Socialist Anarchists into CHANGING their system, and killed
the Anarchist socialists who refused. The CNT & FAI were coopted by the Communists and
had there "representatives" elected by unelected commitees. If state socialism is the
only socialism, then the Communists wouldn't have had to change a thing, and they would
not need to kill real anarchists. Furthermore, SOME anarchists ceased to be anarchists
before communist cooption by forcing their will and controling food production "for the
people". Not all of the anarchists went along with this.

>
> > 5. During the 1950's East European workers went on strike for higher wages and
> > worker control as well as removal of the Red Army and the Soviet puppets, not, as
> > commonly believed, for Capitalism. When Hungery rebelled they set up NONcapitalist
> > workers councils before being crushed by the Red Army. How could this be, if according
> > to Anarcho/Capitalists and Libertarians, the only alternative to Capitalism is State
> > Socialism?
>
> Did these non capitalist councils actually work?

We don't know, they were destroyed early on.

>
> There are indeed today examples of democratic socialism, most notably
> Ukraine, where the voters simply did not vote to restore capitalism,
> yet for some curious reason I never see socialists point at these poor
> and oppressive regimes in rapid economic decline, and say "Look, see,
> democratic socialism really *is* possible"

The Ukrain, like the rest of the former Soviet Union, is democratic in name, but
a gangster republic in reality. Voter fraud is common, as are assassinations and
bribes, and anyway, who cares, not even you are arguing it is Anarchist socialism.

>
> > 6. Define Capitalism.
>
> Capitalism is whatever happens when people's property is secure, and
> they are free to use it in whatever they regard as their own best
> interests, for example rent it out or use it to make a profit.
>
> > 7. Define Property.
>
> If I made it, found it when it was unowned, or someone freely gave it
> to me, or freely exchanged it for something else I rightfully owned,
> (such as wage payments) then it is rightfully mine.

The land you are sitting on right now was very likely found when unowned, by Native
Americans. I'm sure they'll be pleased to hear you are giving them back their stolen
land.

>
> >8. What do capitalists do that organized workers can't?
>
> Nothing.
>
> But if the organized workers do the same things as capitalists then
> they will be capitalists.

Thank you for admitting that workers don't need bosses. What would capitalist workers
do different from socialist workers?

>
> If a worker owned firm is successful, the worker owners will soon
> cease to be workers, and if it is unsuccessful, the worker owners will
> soon cease to be owners.

What? Why can workers not be owners of their own work?

>
> To prevent this from happening you are going to have to "organization"
> above the level of the individual workplace, a big central
> organization that tells the workers what to do. Such an organization,
> being a monopoly maintained by force, has little need to care what
> either workers or consumers desire.

I see. Kind of like a corporate board of directors with armed mercenaries and a
monopoly of Food, Transportation, Land, or Communication. Kind of like a Capitalist
cabal which "legaly" controls all trade, distribution, and labor. Kind of like the East
India Corporation in southern Asia 200 years ago, kind of like the CFR, Club of Rome,
and others in our future.

>
> > 9. Can you name 3 activists or intelectuals identifying themselves as Anarchists
> > who support capitalism? Here are 3 Socialist Anarchists: Emma Goldman, Noem Chomsky,
> > Albert Meltzer.
>
> David Friedman, Bruce Benson, and Morris Tannehill

OK, at least I know you actualy study what you believe.

>
> > 10. Can you give one example of an Anarcho/Capitalist society, even a small one,
> > that did not decompose into waring factions?
>
> Saga period Iceland was pretty close to anarcho capitalism, (read the
> sagas) and it lasted longer than the US has, and longer than the US
> probably will.

> This is actualy a good argument AGAINST anarcho capitalism. Because the position of
Godi could be baught sold or inherited, power became concentrated in the hands of the
wealthy. Wealthy families would marry other wealthy families, further consolidating
wealth. Eventualy each Godi began competing and buying more and more soldiers while
demanding more and more from their wage slaves, until eventualy 6 families owned all of
the property and King Haakon of Norway invaded while they faught amongst themselves.

> The western frontier was arguably anarcho capitalist. Gold rush
> California was anarcho capitalist, in that property rights and law
> enforcement for gringos were sustained and protected in active
> opposition to the power of the Mexican state. Property rights,
> personal safety, and property law, existed in spite of the state, and
> in active defiance of it.
>
> Anarchy in the west only lasted a few decades, unlike saga period
> iceland, but it showed no tendency to degenerate into warring
> factions.

No, they were to busy fighting Natives(unjustly) or Mexicans(justly) to fight with
themselves.

>
> > Here are some Anarchist Socialist ones,
>
> > Ukranian Anarchists after WWI,
>
> Fiction: They failed.

So might makes right?

And they were not socialist. They appear to
> me to be individualist anarchists of a Sadian, rather than Spoonerite
> tendency.

> If we are both talking about the Makhnovists, they claimed to be anarchist communists.
All of their time and effort was absorbed in fighting multiple enemies, so they never
got a chance to prove themselves eitherway. It's hard to imagine that after their
incredible struggle they would decide to become capitalists.

> > Spanish
> > Anarchists during the 30's,
>
> Socialist indeed, but certainly not anarchists. Hours after they
> seized power in Barcelona they organized, in cooperation with other
> parties, a monopoly police force with lawless and absolute powers, and
> proceeded to impose socialism as usual with gun and baton. For a
> detailed look at the Spanish "anarchists" see my web page
> http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/

And at this point they ceased to be anarchists, socialist or otherwise. See my response
to your answer to question #4.
> Please note that I don't feel like spell checking. I'm sure it won't hurt my argument.
I'm glad to see you are actualy a somewhat challenging opponent. Quite a change.

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James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/6/97

James A. Donald wrote:
>> To get people to work for them, companies have to satisfy their
>> employees, or they will go elsewhere.

psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> A delightful theory, but it does not hold up because it does not account for the ability
> of corporate boards to interlock(as they have already) or create "Think Tanks", where
> common policies toward workers, as well as society at large, are developed(as they have
> already). In otherwords, they can agree NOT to compete in order to hold down wages and
> cut benifits.

Ah yes, the dreaded monopoly capitalism.

Funny we never actually see these monopolies and cartels exercising
any significant market power for any length of time without government
enforcement of cartel unity, or government enforcement of monopoly.

Why do you compare imaginary perfect socialism, despite the invariable
savage brutality of socialism everywhere, with a fantasized evil
monopoly capitalism, despite the obvious and genuine freedom of free
markets, wherever that freedom is not crushed at gunpoint.

psychopomp:

>> > 2. Are Corporations and Banks controled from the bottom up qualifying them as
>> > democratic? If so, explain how?

James A. Donald:

>> They are controlled from the bottom up by the customer, not the
>> employee, just as at present.

psychopomp:

> What about a monopoly on a certain product,

Again, you envisage a fantasy evil capitalism, that has never existed
anywhere at any time, and never could exist, and contrast it with a
fantasy good socialism which has never existed anywhere at any time,
and never could exist.

The "monopolist" cannot stop someone somewhere from competing.
Monopolies of manufactured goods are impossible, unless the monopolist
has a lead in technology, in which case he can only keep the lead by
continually advancing the technology. Monopolies of natural resources
are possibly but very difficult, and only a coalition of governments
is large enough to maintain a monopoly or cartel in such things. It
is a lot easier to maintain a cartel if you have only a few
governments conspiring to fix natural resource prices, than if you
have a great many companies attempting to conspire to fix prices.

When people point to the evils of socialism, they point to Pol Pot and
Stalin.

When people point to the evils of capitalism, they point to Standard
Oil. So what did the wicked Standard Oil do?

They obtained monopoly profits by rapidly improving oil refining
technology and steadily and rapidly cutting the price of petrol, thus
obtaining a monopoly of oil refining. Oh that evil capitalist
monopoly!

By the time the anti trust laws were passed it had already lost its
technological lead and thus its monopoly, and was merely the biggest
firm of many firms.

Somehow this does not sound quite the same as with Pol Pot.

According to legend, Standard Oil obtained a monopoly by business
mergers, and there is considerable truth in that. But such a monopoly
is worth very little if anyone can set up a refinery. What made the
monopoly valuable was rapid technological progress.

Perhaps progress would have been faster without the mergers, perhaps
slower, but either way the monopoly did not threaten peoples lives the
way socialism does.

> How many advertisements for solar powered cars have you seen lately?

Zero, because solar powered cars are almost useless.

If it was possible to build a solar powered car that had a top speed
faster than bicycle, no one will stop you from building one. That is
capitalism.

If you think such can be built, build it and sell it.

Do you think that the laws of physics only restrain you because evil
capitalists enforce them with guns?

In fact the car companies have built solar powered cars, for the fun
of it and for good publicity. They are one man ultralights that a
single person can carry easily, they go very slowly when moving
uphill, and they do not go at night, or when the sun is covered by
clouds.

> It is regular practice for corporations to buy up shelf space so
> smaller producers can not market their products.

The price of shelf space is pretty much the same for everyone, whether
you are a big business or a small business.

And if the price is too high, maybe you need to go into business as a
retailer, rather than as manufacturer of solar powered cars.

In countries with comparatively low levels of government intervention
in the economy, such as the US and the former Hong Kong, we see large
numbers of small businesses, and low levels of unemployment, and
businessmen begging for employees on the employees own terms.

In countries with high levels of government intervention, in the
economy such as Sweden and France we see a small number of giant
corporations, high levels of unemployment, and, particularly in French
workplace, great differences of power and powerlessness, arrogance and
servility.

> It has recently been becoming increasingly privatized. If it is alowed to be
> completely privatized what would keep it from becoming like Network TV?

You are out of date: It has already been completely privatized. That
is the reason it is not like Network TV, which is put out on
government owned air waves and hence transmits only government
approved drivel:

As of Halloween night 1994 (12:00am November 1, 1994), the US
officially privatized the Internet and turned major gateways over to
four major carriers: Long Island Metro, Sprint, US West, and
Ameritech.

According to Tony Rutkowski, executive director of the internet
society.

(Interview in "Internet World" January 1995 edition.)

Tony:
"The internet is subsidized by the government in such minute
portion as to be irrelevant in the overall scheme."
[...]
"

> After all,
> companies that "own" the net will have the "right" to charge what ever they want, and
> those who can afford a place on the net will have every "right" to restrict the
> information available to the public. I'm sorry, your argument doesn't hold up.

They already do have that right: And they exercise it frequently.
For example if you post spam, your network provider will can you. But
if your network provider cans you for posting subversive stuff, they
would lose all their customers to other network providers. (Recollect
the AOL furor.)

Remember the "appropriate use" rules. Privatization has made the net
more free. If it had been fully government owned, the "appropriate
use" rules would have strangled speech. (They also would have
prevented spam, but by some government employee deciding what was spam
and what was not)

> > The purpose of production is consumption. People build cars so that
> > we may drive them. We do not drive cars so that they may have jobs.

> This is completely rediculous! This assumes that a community would make it's goal

> creating jobs instead of eating.

Your totalitarianism is showing: You just anthropomorphized the
community as a conscious being that makes decisions for everyone. Of
course to manifest "community" decisions that are made for the
happiness of everyone, instead of mere individual decisions that are
made for the individuals own particular happiness, you need a
committee. And if that committee is too big, you will need a central
committee. And the central committee needs a chairman.

And the chairman has total power over everyone's life and subsistence,
making democracy and democratic accountability fairly worthless.

>> >4. If Socialism means dictatorship or oligarchy no matter what, then explain why,
>> > a) Soviet Bolsheviks faught a civil war(backed by western Banks) with, and
>> > eventualy exterminated, Socialist Anarchists.

>> Same reason as the Stalin exterminated the most of the communist
>> party.
>> Which was, according to you?

Because he could:

Power is fun. The more power you have, the more you want to exercise
it. The most extreme and complete power is to have power of life and
death, hence the goal is to kill a significant proportion of the
population in order to render those spared suitably grateful.

This is why socialism usually leads to enormous crimes, because it
concentrates vast power in the hands of a privileged few. Thus it is
easier to murder large numbers of people under socialism, so the
masters promptly proceed to do exactly that.

> Again, and again, and again, free travel and trade are not prohibited by socialist
> anarchists.

Socialism cannot work if free travel and trade are permitted, which is
why the "anarchists" of Catalonia overtly prohibited trade, and
covertly prevented unapproved travel.

> If they prohibited it they wouldn't be anarchists now would they?

Precisely.

Hence anarchism and socialism are necessarily incompatible.

> I wasn't talikng about good and evil, I was talking about Capitalism, State
> Socialism(more accurately state capitalism), and anarchist socialism. According to
> "anarcho" capitalists, there is ONE kind of socialism, that is state socialism. But
> Stalin arm twisted Spannish Socialist Anarchists into CHANGING their system

On the contrary:

The Stalinists did not change the "anarchist" economic system in
Barcelona, and in Aragon they changed it in the direction of greater
liberty. It was the "anarchists", not the Stalinists, who Stalinized
the economy.

>> > 6. Define Capitalism.
>>
>> Capitalism is whatever happens when people's property is secure, and
>> they are free to use it in whatever they regard as their own best
>> interests, for example rent it out or use it to make a profit.
>>
>> > 7. Define Property.
>>
>> If I made it, found it when it was unowned, or someone freely gave it
>> to me, or freely exchanged it for something else I rightfully owned,
>> (such as wage payments) then it is rightfully mine.

>The land you are sitting on right now was very likely found when unowned, by Native
>Americans. I'm sure they'll be pleased to hear you are giving them back their stolen
>land.

Your collectivism is showing:

Those who committed those crimes, and those who suffered from them,
are both long dead. Land belongs to individuals, not to races or
cultures. By the way, the doctrine of racial or cultural ownership
of land is a fascist doctrine. Observe the middle east.

Most libertarians support the doctrine of adverse possession, as do
most courts in the English common law tradition, such as American
courts. If someone squats on my lands for several years without my
agreement, usually five to ten years depending on the situation, but
some times as briefly as two years, and I fail to successfully evict
him, perhaps because I am not using the land and I fail to check on
the land from time to time, then he owns the land, and I no longer own
the land. I check some vacant lots I own in Hawaii every few years
for that reason.

If someone murders the owners and steals the land, this is a crime of
murder and theft, but subsequently inheriting or buying that land is
not a crime of theft.

>> If a worker owned firm is successful, the worker owners will soon
>> cease to be workers, and if it is unsuccessful, the worker owners will
>> soon cease to be owners.

> What? Why can workers not be owners of their own work?

They are owners of their own labor. That is the difference between
capitalism and socialism, in that under socialism you must be
compelled to work for the greater good with the gun and the baton, and
under capitalism you work where you choose. However if the
organization is unsuccessful, they will wind up choosing to sell
property rights in the equipment, customer lists, brand names, etc.

They will do this of their own will, because it pays better.

You would prevent people from making that choice, and to prevent them
you must apply the baton to the face and the gun to the head.

psychopomp:

>> > 10. Can you give one example of an Anarcho/Capitalist society, even a small one,
>> > that did not decompose into waring factions?

James:

>> Saga period Iceland was pretty close to anarcho capitalism, (read the
>> sagas) and it lasted longer than the US has, and longer than the US
>> probably will.

psychopomp:

> This is actualy a good argument AGAINST anarcho capitalism. Because the position of
> Godi could be baught sold or inherited, power became concentrated in the hands of the
> wealthy.

After four hundred years.

Even sympathetic accounts of anarcho socialism in Catalonia describe
the system as rapidly corrupting from within in a few months.
(Whereas in my account most of the leadership never took anarchism
seriously to start with, it was just another euphemism for socialism
as usual.)

>> > Here are some Anarchist Socialist ones,
>>
>> > Ukranian Anarchists after WWI,

>> Fiction: They failed.

>So might makes right?

It prevents the system from being tested.

psychopomp:

>> > Spanish
>> > Anarchists during the 30's,

James:

>> Socialist indeed, but certainly not anarchists. Hours after they

>> seized power in Barcelona they organized, [....]

psychopomp:

> And at this point they ceased to be anarchists, socialist or otherwise.

So in your version the wickedness of the anarchist leadership, plus
external attack, prevented your system from being fairly tested in
Catalonia, whereas in my version it was briefly and partially tested,
and instantly and obviously showed the conflict between socialism and
anarchism, in that the workers attempted to pursue their individual
good without regard to the good of the group to which they belonged,
and attempted to pursue the good of the small particular group to
which they belonged, without regard for the good of the community, and
had to be forcibly restrained by the "anarchists".

Either way, it is not evidence for the workability of anarcho
socialism.

If the wickedness of the leadership is capable of being a problem,
then obviously anarcho socialism cannot work. Any system that
requires virtuous leaders is necessarily doomed. You are never going
to get a leadership that does not aim at creating a world of murder,
fear, and abject servitude.

If capitalism gave him a way of achieving it, such a world would be as
much Bill Gate's ambition as it was Domenech's. But capitalism does
not provide a path to that goal, and socialism does.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/6/97

DonM <mclu...@matrix.uti.com> writes:
>No. Corporations and Banks are controlled by their owners. Democracy
>is for governments, not businesses (or schools as another example). "OK
>students, let vote... should we have a test today or go to the park?"
>:-)

any halfway mature college student would vote for the test (otherwise what
the hell are they doing in college?)

>But do not fool yourself into thinking that company
>leaders should be elected to serve the whims of the workers. That would
>be folly; yet you seem to think it should be done.

yes, it should be done. most people do actually enjoy working, producing
things, helping people, etc if they've got a good working environment and
they've found what they like to get out of a job. and most of them have
half the maturity not to support "whims" that would get in the way of
doing a good job.

>> 6. Define Capitalism.
>
>"Working for the benefit of yourself, rather than for the benefit of
>others."

and i'm still stunned that Libertarians think they're fighting for this.

>> 7. Define Property.
>
>Permit me to substitute the broader term "wealth" for "property",
>because it is a more inclusive term, lending to analysis of what I think
>you are getting at.
>
>Wealth: That which you create as a result of your effort. Generally,
>the more (or better) efforts invested, the more wealth created. This is
>important. Without effort, there can be no wealth created. (Don't
>confuse "created" with "consumed"). As such, there is not a fixed
>finite amount of wealth in the world, waiting to be properly
>distributed, as in socialist theories. That, in fact is the killer flaw
>in socialism, why it has never worked for very long. If you take away
>too much of the results of people's efforts, they won't make the
>efforts, thus wealth will not be created.

that isn't a "flaw" in socialism, because it isn't even an assumption in
socialism. it's a total straw man argument. socialists are against the
concentrated hoarding of wealth because that power can be and is used to
manipulate the system so that produced wealth (see?) is immediately acquired
by the wealthy, making them richer.

--
Lamont Granquist (lamontg at u dot washington dot edu) ->note spamfilter<-
"First consider a spherical chicken..." ICBM: 47 39'23"N 122 18'19"W
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/6/97

Here is where the fun begins.

You say that we don't see capitalist monopolies that aren't enforced by government.
This is indeed the case in mixed economies like the 3rd Riech, but in nations like the
US where governments are somewhat democratic(but unfortunately centralized), the
government has actualy had to BREAK UP monopolies because of public presure. For
instance, you mentioned Standard Oil as one example. Therefore, if there was no
organization accountable to the public, these monopolies would NOT have been stopped.
Of coarse now they have found a way around this, simply create a world gov't over all
national gov't that is unaccountable to the public. It is well documented that
capitalists have aided fascists. They've even aided communists when they have been
particularly desperate. Why? They saw an advantage and they took it. In other cases
they've actualy created oppresive movements themselves.

1. In "Anarcho" Capitalism monopolies would not be prevented from forming through
cornering of markets, interlocking Boards, or any other way. Monopolies would not be
prevented from using money, power, and influence to buy soldiers, spys, assassins,
torturers, and mob leaders to crush rebellions, as they've done in the past.
(the Icelandic Godar, the hired mercenaries that crushed Shays Rebelion[and others] and
helped exterminate the Native Americans, the private army of the East India
Corporation(one of several), the "missionary" agents that Nelson Rockafeller hired as
spys in south America, the death squads presently wiping out troublesome tribes on
Corporate resources and "property" in South America and Africa, the Brazilian death
squads hired to exterminate street children, the DuPont, Morgan, & GM armed Black Legion
which beat, firebombed, and assasssinated Union members and other leftists during the
depression(and not even to protect scabs), the Pinkerton Agency which was hired by
Corporations during the 30's to spy on workers, *gasp!*, would you like some more?)

2. You said monopolies of natural recources "are possible but very difficult". You
gave no reason why. Anyway, even if it IS difficult(which remains to be seen), you
admit it is possible.

You stated correctly that "the price of shelf space is pretty much the same whether you
are a big business or a small business". Duh. That's why big established corporations
can buy it all up and smaller businesses get squeezed out. Have you picked up any
Virgin Cola lately? Probably not, because last year when the eccentric owner of Virgin
Airlines ,and previously, Virgin Records, decided to market Virgin Cola, Coke and Pepsi
immediately baught up all of the shelf space by out bidding him.

3. The shelf space problem allows monopolization of what is baught and sold.
"Anarcho" capitalists could do nothing about this. This is a failure to stop
centralization of distribution.

James: "people in their role as producers must take *orders*, so that in their role as
consumers they may *give orders*. Thus *the workplace is inherently undemocratic*."
(My * *) As has been shown above, there is nothing to prevent monopolies from forming
in an "anarcho" capitalist society. Thus, consumers have increasingly less power as
production, distribution and communication is centralized, leaving the stock holders and
the Boards they elect with the real power. As you admitted, the work place is
undemocratic, but since the workers eventualy have no power as consumers, the workplace
is undemocraticly controled by stock holders and the Boards they elect.

If roads were privatized the only way to pay for them would be through tolls. This
would result in check points on every road. There would be nothing to stop private
police forces from searching your car without a warent, as you would be on their
property. They could also close the roads off to anyone.

I braught up the Native land issue to show that "property" is subjective, and not an
objective "right". One day it's mine, the next day it's yours because your ancestors
had more guns. The evil, socialist, native americans had not created this fantasy of
property, they were concerned with how the products of the land were used, not who
"owned" what, and seccuring boarder lines. Use rights on the other hand are practicle
and based on actual activity rather than pieces of paper that say who owns what. Use
rights also incorporate the honor system, which already exists to a degree. I live in a
raural Vermont town. People leave their car and house doors unlocked all the time, and
I could easily become a successful thief. Why don't I? Because of property rights?
No, out of respect, as well as the empathetic understanding that I would not want
someone doing that to me. Do I shop lift? You bet! I've worked at a grocery store,
and I know how much food is tossed out and wasted because it wasn't baught in time. Am
I going to let that food go to waste simply because a law says that it is the stores
"property" when I need to eat? Hell no!

2. If property is subjective, then when we get past all the talk of "property" and
use rights, we are just looking for a system that is beneficial to as many people as
possible. "Property" is based on subjective "rights", not needs, and is therefore
inefficient. "Property" can be cast on anything. A mad man can say the world is his
"property", but only a mad man with power(state or private) can enforce his "property
rights". Use rights are clear. If you use it or need it, it is your posession.

So then, let's mop this up, shall we?

Anarchism- is Antiauthoritarian

Un fettered capitalism leads to:
Workplaces which are, as you said, "inharently undemocratic", and
Monopolies that own military forces and control transportation- which is, Authoritarian
Therefore, "Anarcho" capitalism is deserving of it's quotes as it is an oximoron.
Checkmate. Any final words?

Now I am ready for your test. Perhapse Anarchist Socialism is wrong as well. Which
means all Anarchism is impossible. I seriously doubt that.

As far as Spain, I braught that up to see if you had any concept of history. I don't
realy need Spain to support Anarchism, although you have twisted the facts to suit
yourself. I won't go into it anymore. People can judge for themselves(and laugh their
arses off!) by visiting:
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html">What realy happened in
Spain</A>

Now onto the fantasies....

Psychopomp

--Baracading the path of least resistance,
handing out roses on the road less traveled.

If anyone has any thing positive or negative they'd like to say about my work on this
string(aside from my spelling ;,) please e-mail me. I will try to respond, but I am
very bussy so no promisses.

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/6/97

you envisage a fantasy evil capitalism / fantasy good socialism / a fantasized evil
monopoly capitalism /

Ooh, all this talk about my fantasies has realy turned me on. Now let's talk about your
fantasies.

WELcome, to Fantasy Island. What is todays fantasy?

James A. Donald wrote of his fantasies:

> It is a lot easier to maintain a cartel if you have only a few
> governments conspiring to fix natural resource prices, than if you
> have a great many companies attempting to conspire to fix prices.

Reality- what we are talking about are a FEW companies, or many with interlocking
boards and stock holders, which HAS happened, DESPITE the government, not because of it.

> When people point to the evils of capitalism, they point to Standard
> Oil. So what did the wicked Standard Oil do?
>

> According to legend, Standard Oil obtained a monopoly by business
> mergers, and there is considerable truth in that. But such a monopoly
> is worth very little if anyone can set up a refinery. What made the
> monopoly valuable was rapid technological progress.

Sarcastic Reality- Ah yes, I didn't like the price at the gas station so I went down to
the local coveniance store and picked up an oil refinery. It's so easy that everyone is
doing it. Like...like...aah...like....

>
> > How many advertisements for solar powered cars have you seen lately?
>
> Zero, because solar powered cars are almost useless.

Reality- A silent, clean running, vehicle supplied by FREE energy is anything BUT

useless.
>
> If it was possible to build a solar powered car that had a top speed
> faster than bicycle, no one will stop you from building one. That is
> capitalism.

Reality- Oh ho ho ho! REALY Donald, your fantasies get zanier and wilder with every
passing moment! How many Bicyclists do you know that have top sustained speeds of 60-70
mph?

> In fact the car companies have built solar powered cars, for the fun
> of it and for good publicity. They are one man ultralights that a
> single person can carry easily, they go very slowly when moving
> uphill, and they do not go at night, or when the sun is covered by
> clouds.

> Reality- Did you read this 30 years ago? News Flash! They have cars now, and they can
travel over 400 miles with sustained speeds of 60-70 mph. The FREE energy is suplied by
solar BATTERIES! Come on, do you think these are the same people who built the solar
powered flashlight or something?

> > After all,
> > companies that "own" the net will have the "right" to charge what ever they want, and
> > those who can afford a place on the net will have every "right" to restrict the
> > information available to the public. I'm sorry, your argument doesn't hold up.
>
> They already do have that right: And they exercise it frequently.
> For example if you post spam, your network provider will can you. But
> if your network provider cans you for posting subversive stuff, they
> would lose all their customers to other network providers. (Recollect
> the AOL furor.)

Reality- the internet is still young and the monolithic communications monopolies are
not yet formed. Just wait, and when they do form, they will create a governing body to
protect their "property", "anarcho" capitalism or no "anarcho" capitalism. Read my post
'the Takeover of Free Radio' in this news group.

>
> Remember the "appropriate use" rules. Privatization has made the net
> more free. If it had been fully government owned, the "appropriate
> use" rules would have strangled speech. (They also would have
> prevented spam, but by some government employee deciding what was spam
> and what was not)

Reality- I am not in support of government ownership either. But given the choice
between private ownership and somewhat democratic government ownership, I would choose
the latter. Again, read my post 'the Takeover of Free Radio'.

>
> > > The purpose of production is consumption. People build cars so that
> > > we may drive them. We do not drive cars so that they may have jobs.
>
> > This is completely rediculous! This assumes that a community would make it's goal
> > creating jobs instead of eating.
>
> Your totalitarianism is showing: You just anthropomorphized the
> community as a conscious being that makes decisions for everyone. Of
> course to manifest "community" decisions that are made for the
> happiness of everyone, instead of mere individual decisions that are
> made for the individuals own particular happiness, you need a
> committee. And if that committee is too big, you will need a central
> committee. And the central committee needs a chairman.
>
> And the chairman has total power over everyone's life and subsistence,
> making democracy and democratic accountability fairly worthless.

Reality- I subscribe to the Jungian view of the individual in society, that it does not
matter how many zeros you multiply, it will always be zero. Therefore a society that
ignores the individual(makes them a zero) is doomed to failure. All imagination,
production, thaught, emotions, etc. come from the individual, so mass decisions are
realy the collective outcome of individual decisions. So if individuals in a community
want bread, they will find a way to produce it, and if necesary will seek the help of
others, creating a freely associating network social interelation. I realy LOVE the way
you look for every opportunity to scream "COMMITTEE!" at anarchist socialists. :,D

>
> socialism usually leads to enormous crimes, because it
> concentrates vast power in the hands of a privileged few. Thus it is
> easier to murder large numbers of people under socialism, so the
> masters promptly proceed to do exactly that.

Reality- You are absolutely, %100 correct! State Socialism DOES concentrate vast power
in the hands of a few. Unfortunately this does not help your argument against Anarchist
Socialism. :,(

>
> > Again, and again, and again, free travel and trade are not prohibited by socialist
> > anarchists.
>
> Socialism cannot work if free travel and trade are permitted,

Reality- In the case of State Socialism, corectomundo, but as far as Anarchist Socialism
is concerned, that is yet another empty statement with nothing to back it up.

> which is
> why the "anarchists" of Catalonia overtly prohibited trade, and
> covertly prevented unapproved travel.

> The Stalinists did not change the "anarchist" economic system in
> Barcelona, and in Aragon they changed it in the direction of greater
> liberty. It was the "anarchists", not the Stalinists, who Stalinized
> the economy.

> Even sympathetic accounts of anarcho socialism in Catalonia describe
> the system as rapidly corrupting from within in a few months.
> (Whereas in my account most of the leadership never took anarchism
> seriously to start with, it was just another euphemism for socialism
> as usual.)

Reality- I suggest you go read the response to your half truths and capitalist
revisionism at:
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

>
> They are owners of their own labor. That is the difference between
> capitalism and socialism, in that under socialism you must be
> compelled to work for the greater good with the gun and the baton,

Reality- Ho Hum, yet another baseless assumption created out of prejudiced beliefs about
what socialism must be without even questioning why. Of coarse, just look around.
There's the Red Cross and the murdurous commie monsters who FORCE "with the gun and
baton" all those poor doctors to help victims of disaster and plague. And my skin
crawls at the thaught of the genocidal Red thugs that FORCE "with the gun and baton"
those teenagers and young adults into the Peace Corps as voluntary SLAVES to further the
evil socialist plans to build shelter, and bring clean water to the poor. You know
James, some of us, unlike you, don't need a "return on our investments" or a gun held to
our back, to help eachother.

> psychopomp:
> > This is actualy a good argument AGAINST anarcho capitalism. Because the position of
> > Godi could be baught sold or inherited, power became concentrated in the hands of the
> > wealthy.
>
> After four hundred years.

Reality- The metabolism of the world was far slower at that time because of the much
slower speed of travel and communication. Considering that it would take days for
messengers in Iceland to do what can be done instantly now, the economy would be far
slower without modern transport, and soldiers had to walk to battles, it would be
generous of me to say that their system would last 40 years by todays standards. And
besides, Rome lasted a thousand years, give or take a century. I don't think we should
revert to a slave economy.

>
> So in your version the wickedness of the anarchist leadership, plus
> external attack, prevented your system from being fairly tested in
> Catalonia, whereas in my version it was briefly and partially tested,
> and instantly and obviously showed the conflict between socialism and
> anarchism, in that the workers attempted to pursue their individual
> good without regard to the good of the group to which they belonged,
> and attempted to pursue the good of the small particular group to
> which they belonged, without regard for the good of the community, and
> had to be forcibly restrained by the "anarchists".

> I said nothing of the Anarchist leadership. It was certain vengeful marxist fanatics
who betrayed the Anarchists by becoming murderers and local despots. Later it was the
Communists who betrayed them by creating self appointed committees. At this point the
people lost the power they had in their elected representatives and all hope was lost.

> Either way, it is not evidence for the workability of anarcho
> socialism.
>
> If the wickedness of the leadership is capable of being a problem,
> then obviously anarcho socialism cannot work. Any system that
> requires virtuous leaders is necessarily doomed. You are never going
> to get a leadership that does not aim at creating a world of murder,
> fear, and abject servitude.

Reality- Duh squared, that's why Anarchist's don't want institutionalized leaders, just
representatives who can be recalled at any time. I learned just last night that the
Albanian rebels have set up workers committees. The commitees are made up of elected
representatives who can be, and aparently are often, recalled at anytime. Hopefuly
they'll be able to fend off the UN invasion.

This post was just another shovel full of earth into the grave of "anarcho" capitalism.

Psychopomp

--I liked dat fantasy. Eh Boss, de plane de plane!

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 6, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/6/97

psychopomp wrote:
Commercial Takeovers of Media
by Wally Bowen
22 February 95

Forwarded message:
From: C...@unca.edu
Sender: owner-me...@actwin.com
To: media...@actwin.com
Date: 95-02-22 10:43:19 EST

Following is the final draft of an op-ed on public broadcasting
originally posted in draft form on this list. This final draft
was published this past Sunday (Feb. 19) in the Raleigh (N.C.)
News & Observer. Many thanks to those on the list who gave me
feedback on the first draft. Please feel free to post this to
other relevant lists. I retain subsequent publication rights.
Copyright Wally Bowen, 1995. For re-print information, please
contact the author at <c...@unca.edu>. Thanks, Wally Bowen,
Citizens for Media Literacy, Asheville, N.C.

As the right continues its assault on public
broadcasting, history shows who wins and who loses if the
Public Broadcasting Service is privatized.

During World War One, the government poured money and
talent into perfecting a new technology called radio.
Returning veterans with radio training helped spawn hundreds of
small radio stations across America during the post-war years.
By 1925, there were 128 college and university radio stations
and a similar number of stations run by a variety of
non-profits, from farmer and labor organizations to religious
and civic groups.

But a problem arose when the frequencies of the
fast-growing commercial networks, led by NBC, began bumping
into non-profit frequencies. With commercial broadcasters
clamoring for government regulation of the airwaves, the
Federal Radio Commission was formed, which NBC and its allies
packed with sympathetic attorneys and engineers.

In 1928, the FRC designated the non-profits as
"propaganda" stations, while commercial broadcasters were given
the more benign label of "general service" stations.

Not surprisingly, the FRC favored "general service"
stations whenever frequency disputes arose. Drawn into lengthy
and expensive litigation, many non-profit stations were forced
to shut down. Most of those that survived ran head-on into the
Depression and died.

The final nail in the coffin of non-profit radio
occurred in 1934, when the networks and their lobbying arm, the
National Association of Broadcasters, defeated a move in
Congress to reserve 20 percent of the public airwaves for
non-commercial stations.

A crucial argument against the 20 percent set-aside
came from business elites who feared that non-profit radio
would be used to organize farmers and workers.

Indeed, Chicago's WCFL -- the "Voice of Farmer-Labor" --
provided news from the perspective of working people,
leading one Midwest business newsletter to issue this dire
warning:

"Think of the speeches that may go forth. Wild and
radical speeches listened to by hundreds of thousands. These
wild men in their wild talks regardless of consequences, may
reach the ear, possibly inadvertently, of your influential and
trusted employee, who may be detracted from paths favorable to
his employer's success."

Clearly, this first battle over "public" broadcasting
battle was about economic and political power, and free speech.
Both commercial and non-profit broadcasters understood that
radio could be used for social control and private profit as
well as for free speech and wider democratic participation.

The business elites had a simple and clear-cut
strategy: They argued that the marketplace is virtually
synonymous with democracy, and thus the market would fairly and
impartially determine whose voices get heard.

But the history of free speech in America contradicts
this simplistic belief. In a key Supreme Court decision in
1945, Justice Hugo Black wrote for the majority that "The First
Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible
dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic
sources is essential to the welfare of the public. ...
Freedom of the press from government interference under the
First Amendment," added Justice Black, "does not sanction
repression of that freedom from private interests."

Nevertheless, non-commercial broadcasting was silent
until the 1960s, when TV's "vast wasteland" brought
Congressional action.

Following a 1966 Carnegie Commission study, Congress
passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. But one key
element of the Carnegie study was missing: the insulation of
public broadcasting from political manipulation, by providing
an independent revenue stream from taxes on the sale of radios,
TVs, and broadcast licenses.

President Lyndon Johnson supported the independent
revenue stream idea, but the issue was tabled in order to get
legislation passed quickly. Johnson believed Congress could
amend the legislation the following year, but this was never
done.

By the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon and fellow
conservatives were disgruntled over PBS documentaries such as
"The Banks and the Poor", a critical look at how banks' lending
policies helped keep urban poor impoverished. To avoid charges
of censorship, Nixon accused public broadcasting of becoming
too "centralized."

On June 30, 1972, Nixon vetoed Congress' funding of
public broadcasting, which was then forced to turn to major
corporations -- mainly the oil companies -- for support.

The current attack on PBS is just the latest twist in
the noose in a 75-year effort to strangle the free speech
potential of public broadcasting. Those who would kill public
broadcasting today are direct descendants of the business
elites who saw public media as a threat to their dominance of
America's information order.

Now with a new information order being mapped out by
media barons like Rupert Murdoch and John Malone, the
Republican Congress presents another historic opportunity to
snuff out public-sector media and its free speech potential.

Protectors of free speech understand it's the nature of
he commercial marketplace to silence unpopular voices and
dissenting points of view. The cheerleading media coverage of
the Persian Gulf war is one of the more obvious and recent
examples of this reality.

Advocates for public broadcasting must find a credible
voice to tell the story of public broadcasting's 75-year
struggle for survival. Big Bird and Barney can't do it alone.

(Wally Bowen is founder and executive director of Citizens for
Media Literacy in Asheville, N.C.)

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>When people point to the evils of capitalism, they point to Standard
>Oil. So what did the wicked Standard Oil do?

well, texaco sent money to the facists in europe in the 30's. oil companies
in general have also killed several hundred thousand iraqis more recently.
shall i go into the slaughter involved in central american agribuisness?

>Somehow this does not sound quite the same as with Pol Pot.

somehow it seems worse. pol pot never extended his reach much out of the
borders of his country -- corporations have inflitrated the entire world,
with the third world getting the worst treatment.

>Remember the "appropriate use" rules. Privatization has made the net
>more free. If it had been fully government owned, the "appropriate
>use" rules would have strangled speech. (They also would have
>prevented spam, but by some government employee deciding what was spam
>and what was not)

i remember when the net wasn't privitized and there was no spam and plenty
of free speech.

>Power is fun. The more power you have, the more you want to exercise
>it. The most extreme and complete power is to have power of life and
>death, hence the goal is to kill a significant proportion of the
>population in order to render those spared suitably grateful.
>
>This is why socialism usually leads to enormous crimes, because it
>concentrates vast power in the hands of a privileged few. Thus it is
>easier to murder large numbers of people under socialism, so the
>masters promptly proceed to do exactly that.

which isn't socialism. it isn't socialist any more than those countries
were "democracies." why don't you say that:

"This is why democracy usually leads to enormous crimes, because it

concentrates vast power in the hands of a privileged few. Thus it is

easier to murder large numbers of people under democracy, so the

masters promptly proceed to do exactly that."

that statement has as much to do with reality as the one you just made.

Zeeberex

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

What about big tobacco and the pork industry illegally dumping its waste
through NC?

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

>> In fact the car companies have built solar powered cars, for the fun
>> of it and for good publicity. They are one man ultralights that a
>> single person can carry easily, they go very slowly when moving
>> uphill, and they do not go at night, or when the sun is covered by
>> clouds.

psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
>> Reality- Did you read this 30 years ago? News Flash! They have cars now, and they can
>travel over 400 miles with sustained speeds of 60-70 mph. The FREE energy is suplied by
>solar BATTERIES! Come on, do you think these are the same people who built the solar
>powered flashlight or something?

I have seen these cars on TV in the solar powered race around
Australia. Nobody in his right mind would buy one at any price for
normal uses like shopping or going to work, and if you think they
would, no one will stop you from making them and selling them.

Do you think the evil motor car monopolists will send around goons to
stop you?

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> You say that we don't see capitalist monopolies that aren't enforced by government.
> This is indeed the case in mixed economies like the 3rd Riech, but in nations like the
> US where governments are somewhat democratic(but unfortunately centralized), the
> government has actualy had to BREAK UP monopolies because of public presure.

For someone who calls himself an anarchist, you have remarkable
confidence in the benevolence and competence of our government.

In actual fact the anti trust decrees are generally used to enforce
cartels and restrain competition, as both Marxist and libertarian
economists, not to mention mainstream economists, have regularly
pointed out with some vigor, for example Armentano

In practice, antitrust laws are generally used to restrict competition
and intervene in favor of wealthy vested interests. For example Hong
Kong and Taiwan which have no anti trust laws have, more and smaller
businesses than the US. Let us look at how anti trust is administered
in practice:

When Microsoft attempted to squash Stac, through means that were not
only anti competitive, but were also immoral and arguably illegal,
where were the goons from anti trust?

But when Microsoft threatened to give the oligopolistic funds transfer
business a bit of *real* competition, the anti trust folks leapt upon
Microsoft with great ferocity. Even though Microsoft at present has
no presence in the funds transfer business, they declared that merely
by entering the business Microsoft threatened to create monopoly.
Mighty Microsoft endangers poor little Bank of America.

This is of course the way anti trust is invariably administered.

Attempts to deal with harmful effects of concentration of power by yet
greater concentration of power are obviously doomed to fail.

Now if the anti trust decrees (they are too vague and elastic to be
called laws) were administered by angels, by men vastly virtuous and
wise, they might well result in better products and more competition,
at the cost of violating the property rights of a small number of rich
people.

Since they are administered by self serving bureaucrats they end up
not only violating the rights of rich people, but reducing consumer
choice, raising prices, and transferring power and wealth to those
with good connections to the government.

Anti trust laws do not disperse power into the hands of the public,
they concentrate power into the hands of the government. This
unavoidably leads to concentration of wealth, reduced efficiency, and
reduced liberty.

The anti trust laws are a typical example of the socialist fallacy
"The evil capitalists have too much power. So let us put that power
into the hands of the state."

Brilliant solution.

> For
> instance, you mentioned Standard Oil as one example. Therefore, if there was no
> organization accountable to the public, these monopolies would NOT have been stopped.

But in many cases, in particular the case of Standard Oil, they WERE
stopped before these anti trust laws were passed. Standard oil had
lost its monopoly power when its technological lead declined, and soon
after that its proportion of the oil refining business declined due to
the growth of competitors.

Repeating: Standard Oil lost its monopoly position *before* the
antitrust laws were passed. Read D.T. Armentano's book: "Antitrust
and monopoly: Anatomy of a policy failure"

>Of coarse now they have found a way around this, simply create a world gov't over all
>national gov't that is unaccountable to the public. It is well documented that
>capitalists have aided fascists.

This is largely fantasy.

> 1. In "Anarcho" Capitalism monopolies would not be prevented from forming through
> cornering of markets, interlocking Boards, or any other way.

Even in countries like South Korea, where the government not merely
failed to stop monopolies, but regularly attempted to enforce them at
gunpoint, the rich and powerful would frequently defy the military
governments decrees, and compete in areas where the armed forces had
directly prohibited them from competing.

The South Korean governments anti competition, pro monopoly, decrees
were only effective against the middle classes and the moderately
wealthy. They conspicuously failed, or had only limited success, in
sustaining monopoly.

Under anarcho capitalism, there would not only be substantially less
monopoly than in South Korea, there would be substantially less than
in the US, since in the US we have extensive government intervention
to prevent competition.

> You stated correctly that "the price of shelf space is pretty much the same whether you
> are a big business or a small business". Duh. That's why big established corporations
> can buy it all up and smaller businesses get squeezed out.

If all shelf space was bought up, the price would rise until it was
purchasable once again: Basic economics. Price adjusts until supply
equals demand. Thus smaller businesses cannot be squeezed out by this
method, or any by other.

> 3. The shelf space problem allows monopolization of what is baught and sold.

Crap.

> If roads were privatized the only way to pay for them would be through tolls. This
> would result in check points on every road. There would be nothing to stop private
> police forces from searching your car without a warent, as you would be on their
> property. They could also close the roads off to anyone.

This reminds me of your explanation as to why a privately owned
internet would be oppressive. Observe we *already* have a privately
owned internet, it is not at all oppressive, and any oppressive action
by particular owners has little effect, and loses them customers.

That is the free market. In the free market the customer is king. In
a government provided service, the customer is a beggar, who should be
properly grateful to receive whatever his master capriciously decides
to give him, on whatever terms his master pleases.

Why do you assume that the dispersal of power into many hands will
always be more oppressive than the concentration of power in the hands
of the state? This seems inconsistent with your "anarchist" beliefs.

> The evil, socialist, native americans had not created this fantasy of
> property, they were concerned with how the products of the land were used, not who
> "owned" what, and seccuring boarder lines.

In fact the Iroquois, among others, were not at all socialist, and
were very concerned with who owned what. Most Indian societies had
rich and poor to some extent, some dramatically so.

DonM

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:

>
> DonM <mclu...@matrix.uti.com> writes:
> >No. Corporations and Banks are controlled by their owners. Democracy
> >is for governments, not businesses (or schools as another example). "OK
> >students, let vote... should we have a test today or go to the park?"
> >:-)
>

> any halfway mature college student would vote for the test (otherwise what
> the hell are they doing in college?)

Let's not get silly. I didn't even say college. You qualified what
kind of student would be needed, i.e. halfway mature. In this and other
answers you are putting faith in the good intentions of others. Such
faith is often enough not repaid with the desired results. To be put
into, or to put oneself into, the position of having to rely on the
goodness of others is not a desirable situation. I'm not saying that
one should treat everyone as being evil or whatever. Rather, I believe
from repeated observations of life and history that man tends to operate
according to his self-interests, not yours, not the company's, not the
government's, etc. You say it would be in the self interest of students
or workers to learn or produce. You are right. But can you count on
them realizing it and acting accordingly? I don't believe so.

>
> >But do not fool yourself into thinking that company
> >leaders should be elected to serve the whims of the workers. That would
> >be folly; yet you seem to think it should be done.
>

> yes, it should be done. most people do actually enjoy working, producing
> things, helping people, etc if they've got a good working environment and
> they've found what they like to get out of a job. and most of them have
> half the maturity not to support "whims" that would get in the way of
> doing a good job.

Just as most companies today have the maturity to see that treating
workers fairly is a good economic deal.

My opinion is that either workers or employers will, when given a long
enough time of absolute supremacy, ruin the other, even though it should
be in their interest not to do so. I personally concede that if all
controls on treatment of employees were lifted, companies would not stay
as relatively enlightened as they are today.

However, there is no doubt that the balance can be tipped in the other
direction. A company has many interests to balance; those of the
workers are not supreme. When those interests are made supreme, failure
usually follows. I know this does not always seem logical, but I think
you can find a lot of examples of it. It has to do with the basic
propensity of man to regress to his self-interest at the expense of
anyone else's that can be converted to his.

And anyway, this as a general dare, why don't any of the people who want
to own and control the company they work for just start one and do it?
(This isn't directed at you personally): Don't give me any of that
conspiracy crap. Companies are started every day, there cannot be any
argument about that. No, people who want worker control of companies
want it to be given freely to them, with no exchange of value. In other
words, as charity, because they "deserve" it. I guess this is the
fundamental sticking point, huh?

>
> >> 6. Define Capitalism.
> >
> >"Working for the benefit of yourself, rather than for the benefit of
> >others."
>

> and i'm still stunned that Libertarians think they're fighting for this.

I made that definition up myself. I believe in it. Tell me why you
don't like it, then I will defend it or whatever. Your rebuttal lacks
any meaning whatsoever.

>
> >> 7. Define Property.
> >
> >Permit me to substitute the broader term "wealth" for "property",
> >because it is a more inclusive term, lending to analysis of what I think
> >you are getting at.
> >
> >Wealth: That which you create as a result of your effort. Generally,
> >the more (or better) efforts invested, the more wealth created. This is
> >important. Without effort, there can be no wealth created. (Don't
> >confuse "created" with "consumed"). As such, there is not a fixed
> >finite amount of wealth in the world, waiting to be properly
> >distributed, as in socialist theories. That, in fact is the killer flaw
> >in socialism, why it has never worked for very long. If you take away
> >too much of the results of people's efforts, they won't make the
> >efforts, thus wealth will not be created.
>

> that isn't a "flaw" in socialism, because it isn't even an assumption in
> socialism. it's a total straw man argument. socialists are against the
> concentrated hoarding of wealth because that power can be and is used to
> manipulate the system so that produced wealth (see?) is immediately acquired
> by the wealthy, making them richer.

I think I could rebut your argument, but not today. I have to get to
work. :-)
I enjoyed your comments; I find it enlightening to try to understand how
people with opposite views have arrived at them.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> Sarcastic Reality- Ah yes, I didn't like the price at the gas station so I went down to
> the local coveniance store and picked up an oil refinery. It's so easy that everyone is
> doing it. Like...like...aah...like....

Like pretty much every refinery that gets built.

Refineries were built and are built by ordinary mortals, or at any
rate groups of ordinary mortals. Men like you: Well not actually men
like you. Men like me.

Thus a monopoly on oil refining capability is impossible. Unless of
course men like you get together to steal everything from men like me

You are apparently under the impression that oil refineries are a gift
of nature, that the evil capitalists somehow appropriated.

> Reality- I am not in support of government ownership either.
> But given the choice between private ownership and somewhat
> democratic government ownership,

Translation: You actually are a supporter of government ownership, as
demonstrated by your support for the Stalinist state the "anarchists"
swiftly erected in Catalonia.

> mass decisions are
> realy the collective outcome of individual decisions.

So democracy always works?

Why is it then that McDonalds treats you as if you are important, and
the Department of Motor Vehicles treats you like worthless scum? Why
is it that the San Francisco police beat up so many people, and quite
a few people die, supposedly of natural causes, while in San Francisco
police custody?

The evil capitalists made them do it?

There is an obvious relationship between the extreme stand on gun
control taken by the SF government, and the lawless character of its
police force.

And even when actually democracy works, that is frequently a bad
thing. Clearly the majority of residents of San Jose support their
city government's policies aimed at gentrifying San Jose with gun,
baton, and bulldozer.

> State Socialism DOES concentrate vast power
> in the hands of a few. Unfortunately this does not help your argument against Anarchist
> Socialism.

So what was the difference between the "anarcho" socialism implemented
in Barcelona, and standard Stalinism?

The economy and the workplace were mostly fully Stalinist by February
1937, yet the communists did not take over the streets until May/June
1937.

If your socialism is not just standard Stalinist terror with a new set
of euphemisms, what did the Stalinists do to change urban workplace
after May?

Yes, I am well aware that they did a lot that was different in the
countryside, but it appears to me that that was because the brutality
and tyranny of the "anarchist" rulers had forced the peasantry to the
brink of insurrection.

Despite Fraser's optimistic comment that:
"Peasant realism - the acceptance that war inevitably brought
controls and restrictions - suggested that communist
polarization in defense of the peasantry was unnecessarily sharp.
"
it looks very much to me as if the communist policy changes in the
countryside were a response to the imminent threat of insurrection by
the peasants, threatening to open up a two front war, as had happened
to Stalin during his civil war.

> > Socialism cannot work if free travel and trade are permitted,

> Reality- In the case of State Socialism, corectomundo, but as far as Anarchist Socialism
> is concerned, that is yet another empty statement with nothing to back it up.

Other than the basic laws of economics.

Consider for example United Airlines, a typical employee owned
company.

The difference between employee ownership and "capitalist" ownership
is insignificant, because the real masters are the consumers.

To "liberate" the workers from this oppression, what do you plan to
do?

Clearly it is the same things you guys did in the end last timer
around in Catalonia: A privileged caste of masters with power of
capricious life and death over a frightened mass of slaves.

>Reality- I suggest you go read the response to your half truths and capitalist
>revisionism at:
>http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

I have read it: It is a collection of vague and windy undocumented
assertions, which misrepresents and takes out of context the document
it pretends to respond to, whereas my document
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/
is a detailed history that mostly consists of lengthy quotes from
actual eyewitnesses to terror and tyranny.

And once again I ask you: If the anarchists, in the end, were not
slave masters crushing their victims will to resist by terror, what
then changed in the organization of the workplace and the economy when
the Stalinists took over?

Were the Stalinists a bunch of libertarians, or were the "anarchists"
a bunch of lying thieves mouthing pious slogans to cover theft and
murder?

Ron A. Zajac

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

James A. Donald wrote:
> <SNIP>

> psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> > The evil, socialist, native americans had not created this fantasy of
> > property, they were concerned with how the products of the land were
> > used, not who "owned" what, and seccuring boarder lines.
>
> In fact the Iroquois, among others, were not at all socialist, and
> were very concerned with who owned what. Most Indian societies had
> rich and poor to some extent, some dramatically so.

You're [sort of] both right. In fact, there are no simple lessons
whatsoever to be learned by the study of "primitive" societies; there's
a lot of variety, and probably no universal economic practices. Some
Pacific SW tribes had a ritual called the "potlatch". In it, your power
is demonstrated as proportionate to the quantity of valuable goods
(pemmican, furs, etc.) you're willing to consign to a bonfire. Does the
potlatch indicate property as a fundamental human need? Maybe yes; but
if property is power, why do they burn it? Maybe this demonstrates that
the _idea_ (and only the idea) of property is really the locus of power,
and the actual physical manifestations are merely accessory to that
power. On the other hand, maybe those indians were just fucking nuts,
and we can learn from their folly (tho it's perhaps a bit too late; the
Cold War is [presumably] over(!)).

I know that the Commanches (and no doubt many other tribes) valued the
ownership of horses; they were a kind of currency (eg, for buying
wives). On the other hand, land was unfenced and unowned among the
Commanches; and this is a natural arrangement in a hunting/gathering
society. If anything, a look at "primitive" societies only serves to
demonstrate that property--like most anything else on this planet--is
not an immutable ideal, but rather a human construct, and a tool. The
[erstwhile] Commanches wouldn't've applied a property model to land any
more than you or I would attempt to drive a screw with a hammer. But
for some reason, they saw it as a good model for the management of
horses.

--
Ron A. Zajac / NORTEL / 972-684-4887 esn444 / zajacATnortelDOTcom
These notions are mine, not NORTEL's!

Tim Starr

unread,

Jul 7, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/7/97

In article <5ppblq$15...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>,

<lam...@nospam.washington.edu> wrote:
>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>>When people point to the evils of capitalism, they point to Standard
>>Oil. So what did the wicked Standard Oil do?
>

>well, texaco sent money to the facists in europe in the 30's. oil companies
>in general have also killed several hundred thousand iraqis more recently.

Gee, that's funny, I thought it was an alliance of the military forces of
many governments under government command that did that. Silly me!

>shall i go into the slaughter involved in central american agribuisness?

Something tell me you will no matter what.

>>Somehow this does not sound quite the same as with Pol Pot.
>

>somehow it seems worse. pol pot never extended his reach much out of the
>borders of his country -- corporations have inflitrated the entire world,
>with the third world getting the worst treatment.

How many millions have been killed by corporations? Not by governments.

"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the
secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the govern-
ment--and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
--Edward Abbey (1927-1989), _Abbey's Road,_ p.39_(Plume, 1979)

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Think Universally, Act Selfishly

Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of The International
Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL), 836-B Southampton Road, #299, Benicia,
CA 94510; Phone: (707) 746-8796 * Fax: (707) 746-8797; is...@isil.org,
http://www.isil.org/

Liberty is the Best Policy - tims...@netcom.com

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

DonM <mclu...@matrix.uti.com> writes:
>> any halfway mature college student would vote for the test (otherwise what
>> the hell are they doing in college?)
>
>Let's not get silly. I didn't even say college.

most of those we consider to be of working age are college aged and above.
that's the only example which makes your comparison fit reality -- what
were you thinking of instead, preschoolers? that's a laughable comparison.

>You qualified what
>kind of student would be needed, i.e. halfway mature. In this and other
>answers you are putting faith in the good intentions of others. Such
>faith is often enough not repaid with the desired results. To be put
>into, or to put oneself into, the position of having to rely on the
>goodness of others is not a desirable situation. I'm not saying that
>one should treat everyone as being evil or whatever. Rather, I believe
>from repeated observations of life and history that man tends to operate
>according to his self-interests, not yours, not the company's, not the
>government's, etc. You say it would be in the self interest of students
>or workers to learn or produce. You are right. But can you count on
>them realizing it and acting accordingly? I don't believe so.

yes, people tend to act according to their self-interests. running the
company that they're working for into the ground doesn't usually tend to be
in the best self-interest of the workers. if the workers were the stockholders
of the company then they'd have even *more* self-interest in keeping it
afloat.

>> >But do not fool yourself into thinking that company
>> >leaders should be elected to serve the whims of the workers. That would
>> >be folly; yet you seem to think it should be done.
>>
>> yes, it should be done. most people do actually enjoy working, producing
>> things, helping people, etc if they've got a good working environment and
>> they've found what they like to get out of a job. and most of them have
>> half the maturity not to support "whims" that would get in the way of
>> doing a good job.
>
>Just as most companies today have the maturity to see that treating
>workers fairly is a good economic deal.

tell that to the people living out of cardboard boxes in the "free trade"
zones in mexico. tell that to the employees that went out on strike at
caterpillar.

>My opinion is that either workers or employers will, when given a long
>enough time of absolute supremacy, ruin the other, even though it should
>be in their interest not to do so. I personally concede that if all
>controls on treatment of employees were lifted, companies would not stay
>as relatively enlightened as they are today.

enlightened? don't make me completely nauseated. "enlightened" policies
are relatively rare -- only among readers of the internet are they going to
be halfway common. go to guatamala, honduras, el salvador, nicaragua, haiti,
etc, etc, etc and find some "enlightened" corporations.

>However, there is no doubt that the balance can be tipped in the other
>direction. A company has many interests to balance; those of the
>workers are not supreme. When those interests are made supreme, failure
>usually follows. I know this does not always seem logical, but I think
>you can find a lot of examples of it. It has to do with the basic
>propensity of man to regress to his self-interest at the expense of
>anyone else's that can be converted to his.

yeah, they suddenly decide they'd like a living wage and the plant picks
up and moves to central america -- that is the "failure" that usually follows
because the guiding principle of capitalism has been and always will be to
divide and conquer...

>And anyway, this as a general dare, why don't any of the people who want
>to own and control the company they work for just start one and do it?
>(This isn't directed at you personally): Don't give me any of that
>conspiracy crap. Companies are started every day, there cannot be any
>argument about that. No, people who want worker control of companies
>want it to be given freely to them, with no exchange of value. In other
>words, as charity, because they "deserve" it. I guess this is the
>fundamental sticking point, huh?

not necessarily. UAL has taken some steps towards this direction. i'd love
to see a popular anti-corporate DIY movement.

>> >> 6. Define Capitalism.
>> >"Working for the benefit of yourself, rather than for the benefit of
>> >others."
>> and i'm still stunned that Libertarians think they're fighting for this.
>I made that definition up myself. I believe in it. Tell me why you
>don't like it, then I will defend it or whatever. Your rebuttal lacks
>any meaning whatsoever.

under capitalism you're working for the CEO and the stockbrokers, not for
yourself. that's just entirely by definition. it should be obvious.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) writes:
>In article <5ppblq$15...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>,
> <lam...@nospam.washington.edu> wrote:
>>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>>>When people point to the evils of capitalism, they point to Standard
>>>Oil. So what did the wicked Standard Oil do?
>>

>>well, texaco sent money to the facists in europe in the 30's. oil companies
>>in general have also killed several hundred thousand iraqis more recently.
>
>Gee, that's funny, I thought it was an alliance of the military forces of
>many governments under government command that did that. Silly me!

governments that wouldn't have cared about the middle east if there wasn't
oil there and profits to be made.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>I have seen these cars on TV in the solar powered race around
>Australia. Nobody in his right mind would buy one at any price for
>normal uses like shopping or going to work, and if you think they
>would, no one will stop you from making them and selling them.
>
>Do you think the evil motor car monopolists will send around goons to
>stop you?

i'd like to know why we're not using alcohol powered cars instead of
fossil fuel powered cars. here there's no issue whatsoever involving
technology or usability. all you've got to do to convert a car over to
burning alcohol is retune the carb and probably replace some seals and
gaskets. the car will get more power while burning a cleaner fuel and the
CO2 emissions of the car will be balanced by the CO2 consumed while the
biomass was growing. we could take all those fields that we're paying
farmers not to grow corn on and actually make them grow corn for fuel.
it isn't completely perfect, since it doesn't do anything to clean up
concentrated pollutions around cities, but it's entirely feasable and
better than fossil fuels. the major problem would be getting gas stations
to carry alcohol rather than gasoline. for awhile in the late 70's they
were selling "gasahol", but this seemed to disappear soon after reagan got
elected...

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

>> If it was possible to build a solar powered car that had a top speed
>> faster than bicycle, no one will stop you from building one. That is
>> capitalism.

psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
>Reality- Oh ho ho ho! REALY Donald, your fantasies get zanier and wilder with every
>passing moment! How many Bicyclists do you know that have top sustained speeds of 60-70
>mph?

So what is stopping you from building solar powered cars and making
big money?

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

> > Nobody in his right mind would buy [a solar powered car] at any

> > price for normal uses like shopping or going to work, and if you

> > think they would, no one will stop you from making them and

> > selling them.
> >
> > Do you think the evil motor car monopolists will send around
> > goons to stop you?

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
> i'd like to know why we're not using alcohol powered cars instead of
> fossil fuel powered cars.

Because alcohol costs more.

When the oil really does start to run low, in forty or fifty years,
then the price of petrol will rise so that alcohol becomes
competitive.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) wrote:
> Despite Fraser's optimistic comment that:
> "Peasant realism - the acceptance that war inevitably brought
> controls and restrictions - suggested that communist
> polarization in defense of the peasantry was unnecessarily sharp.
> "
> it looks very much to me as if the communist policy changes in the
> countryside were a response to the imminent threat of insurrection by
> the peasants, threatening to open up a two front war, as had happened
> to Stalin during his civil war.

Oops, that should, of course, have read "As happened to Lenin, during
his civil war"

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

> > mass decisions are
> > realy the collective outcome of individual decisions.
>
> So democracy always works?
>
> Why is it then that McDonalds treats you as if you are important,

Perhaps I would take this statement seriously if McDonalds didn't sue people for
saying their food wasn't nutritious or if they did not focus the marketing for their
nutritionless artery cloggers on poor urban African American youth.

> and
> the Department of Motor Vehicles treats you like worthless scum?

The department of Motor Vehicles isn't democratic. It also has no right to exist.

Why
> is it that the San Francisco police beat up so many people, and quite
> a few people die, supposedly of natural causes, while in San Francisco
> police custody?

There are no police in a completely anarchist society. Anyway, even the election of
police officers and the threat of immediate removal(which would not exist with private
police) would dramaticly improve this.

>
> The evil capitalists made them do it?

Yes. See my post "Spacial Deconcentration". And while your at it, ponder this, how
many business owners, corporate executives, and stockholders are the people calling
for civilian police review boards. Funny, the activists all seem to be the poor urban
minorities who are actualy effected.

>
> And even when actually democracy works, that is frequently a bad
> thing. Clearly the majority of residents of San Jose support their
> city government's policies aimed at gentrifying San Jose with gun,
> baton, and bulldozer.

I don't know what you are refering to here, so I can't comment on it specificly. You
are now saying democracy doesn't work. At least you are being an honest capitalist.

>
> > State Socialism DOES concentrate vast power
> > in the hands of a few. Unfortunately this does not help your argument against Anarchist
> > Socialism.
>
> So what was the difference between the "anarcho" socialism implemented
> in Barcelona, and standard Stalinism?

> Oh boy, here we go again, blah blah blah blah Barcelona, blah blah blah blah,
Stalinism, blah blah blah blah terror, blah blah blah blah.........
Show some evidence of organized terror from above. Tell me of one document that
mentions anything like Hitlers documents for "the Final Solution" proving a top down
conspiracy of mass murder. After all, they lost to Franco, it seems to me that Franco
would have wanted everyone to have a copy of documents proving planned killing fields
and slave labor. It's also funny that the authors of the books you site said nothing
of this upper level, government conspired attempt at genocide. All the evidence you
have is based on a few "witnesses", one of whom was 13 at the time. People use
"witnesses" to PROVE that aliens are abducting us and that satanists run daycare
centers. Even worse, the "witnesses" THEMSELVES don't claim that the orders to kill
came from the top down, OR that the killings were nationwide, and their experiences
are said by you to represent the experiences of ALL of the people living in Anarchist
Socialism.
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

> The economy and the workplace were mostly fully Stalinist by February
> 1937, yet the communists did not take over the streets until May/June
> 1937.

> You don't mean "Stalinist", you mean collectivist. The people themselves chose to
collectivise. This is why the movement spread rapidly throughout Spain early on,
BEFORE there was even anything aproaching a united anarchist militia to "force" it on
them. Fraser, who you claim supports your views, said himself that out of 450
collectives, only 20, or 4.5%, were not voluntary!

> If your socialism is not just standard Stalinist terror with a new set
> of euphemisms, what did the Stalinists do to change urban workplace

Forced, collectivization, controled, top down, by communist selected
"representatives". Something which did not exist before the Anarchists caved in to
the communists(except in 4.5% of the collectives)

>
> Yes, I am well aware that they did a lot that was different in the
> countryside, but it appears to me that that was because the brutality
> and tyranny of the "anarchist" rulers had forced the peasantry to the
> brink of insurrection.
>
> Despite Fraser's optimistic comment that:
> "Peasant realism - the acceptance that war inevitably brought
> controls and restrictions - suggested that communist
> polarization in defense of the peasantry was unnecessarily sharp.
> "
> it looks very much to me as if the communist policy changes in the
> countryside were a response to the imminent threat of insurrection by
> the peasants, threatening to open up a two front war, as had happened
> to Stalin during his civil war.

> Yes, note that he is talking about the communists, not the Anarchists.
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

> > > Socialism cannot work if free travel and trade are permitted,
>
> > Reality- In the case of State Socialism, corectomundo, but as far as Anarchist Socialism
> > is concerned, that is yet another empty statement with nothing to back it up.
>
> Other than the basic laws of economics.

> Which are? Yet again another generalized, baseless, hollow statement presented as
dogmatic fact. You will not say HOW the basic laws of economics make free trade and
travel impossible in Socialism because they DON'T.

> Consider for example United Airlines, a typical employee owned
> company.
>
> The difference between employee ownership and "capitalist" ownership
> is insignificant, because the real masters are the consumers.

> BZZZZZZZ! Sorry. I already debunked this in the post where I destroyed "Anarcho"
capitalism.

> To "liberate" the workers from this oppression, what do you plan to
> do?
>
> Clearly it is the same things you guys did in the end last timer
> around in Catalonia:

Oh, you mean they will have to liberate themselves?

> A privileged caste of masters with power of
> capricious life and death over a frightened mass of slaves.

I'm sorry, I forgot this was the edited for capitalism version. Well, you are correct
as far as 4.5% of the collectives are concerned. But to use that to demonize all
Anarchism I'm afraid you'd have to ignore the remaining 95.5% of the collectives which
show that Anarchism DOES work.
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

> >Reality- I suggest you go read the response to your half truths and capitalist
> >revisionism at:
> >http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
>
> I have read it: It is a collection of vague and windy undocumented
> assertions, which misrepresents and takes out of context the document
> it pretends to respond to, whereas my document
> http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/
> is a detailed history that mostly consists of lengthy quotes from
> actual eyewitnesses to terror and tyranny.

You must not have read to closely, because they were not making new statements, they
were simply debunking YOUR "collection of vague and windy undocumented assertions".
I ask those of you out there reading this to decide for yourself. Read James's page,
and then read: http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

> And once again I ask you: If the anarchists, in the end, were not
> slave masters crushing their victims will to resist by terror, what
> then changed in the organization of the workplace and the economy when
> the Stalinists took over?
>
> Were the Stalinists a bunch of libertarians, or were the "anarchists"
> a bunch of lying thieves mouthing pious slogans to cover theft and

> murder?http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

I have already sunk "anarcho" capitalism. Now you continue to dredge up the
*aledged* Stalinism of Catalonian Anarchists as your only attack on Anarchism. I have
shown once and for all that "anarcho" capitalism is an oximoron, while you continue to
make empty statements about Anarchism leading to dictatorship, without saying how.
"Anarcho" capitalism is dead, and nothing you can say will bring it back to life. In
the end you are standing naked with no ideology of your own, slinging 60 year old mud
at Anarchism. Admit you are wrong, and join us.

Psychopomp

Iain McKay

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

For a detailed discussion on way "anarcho"-capitalism is just private
state capitalism and not a form of anarchism *plus* way capitalism
is not and can never be libertarian, check out the Anarchist FAQ at:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931

Also find out about *real* anarchism there!

also,

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secFcon.html

contains the critique of "anarcho"-capitalism and why it is not anarchist.

Iain

DonM

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>
> DonM <mclu...@matrix.uti.com> writes:

> > You say it would be in the self interest of students
> >or workers to learn or produce. You are right. But can you count on
> >them realizing it and acting accordingly? I don't believe so.
>
> yes, people tend to act according to their self-interests. running the
> company that they're working for into the ground doesn't usually tend to be
> in the best self-interest of the workers. if the workers were the stockholders
> of the company then they'd have even *more* self-interest in keeping it
> afloat.

Well, see, we CAN agree on some things. :-) I agree with everything you
said just there. However, tell me, should ownership of a company be
taken from the current owners and given to the workers, or should
employees buy or earn ownership in some way? United Airlines, for
example, was purchased by the employees.

> >
> >Just as most companies today have the maturity to see that treating
> >workers fairly is a good economic deal.
>
> tell that to the people living out of cardboard boxes in the "free trade"
> zones in mexico. tell that to the employees that went out on strike at
> caterpillar.

As to the first, I am too ignorant of the conditions of Mexico to
pretend to analyze them. Convenient? Maybe. But that's not the
reason. I guess I would say what I said previously, that I agree that
working conditions would not be as good as we have them here if there
was a complete lack of government protections. OTOH, maybe the free
trade zone workers came north to the zone because it was better than
what they had? If so, would they be better off if the FTZ jobs
disappeared?

As to the Cat strike, we could start a long discussion. Simply put,
that was two parties fighting for their self-interest, in opposition to
the self-interest of the other. Organizations work best when the
interests of the parties (e.g. owners, workers, customers) can be
aligned (without force or coercion I might add).

>
> >My opinion is that either workers or employers will, when given a long
> >enough time of absolute supremacy, ruin the other, even though it should
> >be in their interest not to do so. I personally concede that if all
> >controls on treatment of employees were lifted, companies would not stay
> >as relatively enlightened as they are today.
>
> enlightened? don't make me completely nauseated. "enlightened" policies
> are relatively rare -- only among readers of the internet are they going to
> be halfway common. go to guatamala, honduras, el salvador, nicaragua, haiti,
> etc, etc, etc and find some "enlightened" corporations.

Same answer as Mexico. However, do you lump typical late-model US
companies in with the group mentioned? I don't.

>
> >However, there is no doubt that the balance can be tipped in the other
> >direction. A company has many interests to balance; those of the
> >workers are not supreme. When those interests are made supreme, failure
> >usually follows. I know this does not always seem logical, but I think
> >you can find a lot of examples of it. It has to do with the basic
> >propensity of man to regress to his self-interest at the expense of
> >anyone else's that can be converted to his.
>

> not necessarily. UAL has taken some steps towards this direction. i'd love
> to see a popular anti-corporate DIY movement.

As would I. What's stopping it?? What's stopping you? (Seriously).

> >> >> 6. Define Capitalism.
> >> >"Working for the benefit of yourself, rather than for the benefit of
> >> >others."
> >> and i'm still stunned that Libertarians think they're fighting for this.
> >I made that definition up myself. I believe in it. Tell me why you
> >don't like it, then I will defend it or whatever. Your rebuttal lacks
> >any meaning whatsoever.
>
> under capitalism you're working for the CEO and the stockbrokers, not for
> yourself. that's just entirely by definition. it should be obvious.

So, you are saying that one does not work for his own benefit? At all?

It is obvious that whenever you work, your work produces some benefit to
others. Would you agree with that statement?

If your work benefitted no one else, who would pay you to do it?

In socialism, you are expected to produce (your personal) wealth to be
shared with others. In capitalism you are expected to produce your own
wealth, and the others are expected to produce their own. I think those
are basic. Before debating the pros and cons, would you agree that
those definitions are correct?

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> > > mass decisions are
> > > realy the collective outcome of individual decisions.

> > the Department of Motor Vehicles treats you like worthless scum?

> The department of Motor Vehicles isn't democratic.]

How come your system for deciding what jobs "the community" needs done
is going to be more democratic?

An how can "worker democracy" be worth a piece of stinking shit if
"the community" decides what work it needs done?

Why is the department of motor vehicles any less democratic than your
"community".

"The people" decided they needed the FBI, they needed BATF, they
needed to massacre the people at Move and Waco, "the people" decided
they needed the income tax and war on drugs and the 55 miler per hour
speed limit.

Your proposed system relies on work being done because "the community"
wants it to be done, not because some particular person wants it to be
done and is therefore willing to do it, or willing to pay someone to
do it.

Surely this is quite obviously totalitarian, and must necessarily
involve terror and killing fields, which are guaranteed to destroy
democracy no matter how democratically they are voted in.

> There are no police in a completely anarchist society. Anyway, even the election of
> police officers and the threat of immediate removal(which would not exist with private
> police) would dramaticly improve this.

I have news for you: In most Southern towns the Sheriff was
democratically elected and could be removed after a reasonably brief
term. By and large, direct democratic control of the police force
made things worse, not better, because it enabled 51% of the people to
democratically eradicate those categories of people they decided they
did not like.

In addition the "anarchist" system of elections in Catalonia proved
completely worthless because of the absolute and terrible power those
elected held over those electing them. No incumbent ever lost an
election in Catalonia, no matter what monstrous things he did, no one
was ever democratically removed from office.

And without police to apply electric shocks to peoples genitals, how
is the "community" going to make people do the work that "the
community" has decided is necessary and desirable.

> > And even when actually democracy works, that is frequently a bad
> > thing. Clearly the majority of residents of San Jose support their
> > city government's policies aimed at gentrifying San Jose with gun,
> > baton, and bulldozer.

> I don't know what you are refering to here, so I can't comment on it specificly. You
> are now saying democracy doesn't work. At least you are being an honest capitalist.

Tell the Tutsis and the German jews about democracy working.

Democracy did not die in those countries because of some evil band of
military plotters. It died because the people freely and fairly
voted in a bunch of people who ran on a platform that necessarily
required the murder of vast numbers of people, just as your program
does.

> > So what was the difference between the "anarcho" socialism implemented
> > in Barcelona, and standard Stalinism?

> Oh boy, here we go again, blah blah blah blah Barcelona, blah blah blah blah,
> Stalinism, blah blah blah blah terror, blah blah blah blah.........

I keep asking the question, you keep dodging it.

I ask again: How did the urban workplace in Barcelona and the
organization differ under the Stalinists, after May 1937, from the way
it was under the "anarchists" after February 1937?

> Show some evidence of organized terror from above.

I have documented ample evidence, see my web page
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/terror.htm.

Even the "anarchist" leadership admitted it. They blamed the "worker
patrols", which they themselves had organized and appointed. This is
like a South American dictatorship blaming the police for death squad
murders, rather than those who appoint and supervise the police.

> Tell me of one document that
> mentions anything like Hitlers documents for "the Final Solution" proving a top down
> conspiracy of mass murder.

Well actually there are no "Hitler's documents" proving a top down
conspiracy for mass murder. In both Germany and Catalonia we merely
see a bunch of privileged and powerful people with the power to kill
at whim, and a frightened mass doing what they are told, from which we
infer a top down conspiracy to commit mass murder.

> After all, they lost to Franco, it seems to me that Franco
> would have wanted everyone to have a copy of documents proving planned killing fields
> and slave labor. It's also funny that the authors of the books you site said nothing
> of this upper level, government conspired attempt at genocide.

Read em.

Bolloten:

"The Council of Aragon, which will collaborate enthusiastically
with the legitimate government of the Republic, will increase
production in the rearguard, mobilize all the region's resources
for the war effort, arouse the antifascist spirit of the
masses... and undertake an intense purge in the liberated zones;

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
it will impose unrelenting order and hunt down hidden fascists,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
defeatists and speculators."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> All the evidence you
> have is based on a few "witnesses", one of whom was 13 at the time.

You sound like a fascist denying the holocaust. Eyewitness testimony
does not count?

In addition I have statements by the leadership, such as the above. I
just feel that statements by those terrorized captures the real
consequences of what you call "anarchism" in ways that you cannot deny
by spouting mealy mouthed pious euphemisms for terror, slavery, and
brutal inequality of power

> > The economy and the workplace were mostly fully Stalinist by February
> > 1937, yet the communists did not take over the streets until May/June
> > 1937.

> You don't mean "Stalinist", you mean collectivist.

I mean Stalinist: If they were not Stalinist, why did the Stalinists
not change anything in the urban workplace when they took power?

All the big undemocratic changes in the workplace that people complain
about are dated February 1937 or earlier.

Which brings me back to my question: How can worker democracy be
worth a piece of stinking shit if "the community" decides what it
needs done?

> The people themselves chose to
> collectivise.

This was true of the textile industry at first, and to some large
extent true for the entertainment industry at first, but it certainly
was not true of other industries, for example barbers, woodworkers,
and glass workers, which were collectivized from above by men with
guns.

How are we supposed to tell the difference between Joan Domenech,
instrument of the will of the people, taking over the glass industry
with a handful of gunmen and the overt threat of the killing fields he
claimed to control, and Joan Domenech, instrument of the "anarchist"
ruling class, taking over the glass works and enserfing the workers in
those glass works for himself and the ruling class?

What was actually done is not in dispute, yet you interpret one man
with gunmen behind him dropping dark hints about killing fields as the
will of people

Why then is the Department of Motor vehicles and the LAPD *not* the
will of the people?

>> If your socialism is not just standard Stalinist terror with a new set
>> of euphemisms, what did the Stalinists do to change urban workplace

> Forced, collectivization, controled, top down, by communist selected
> "representatives".

Provide some actual evidence that anything changed in the work place
when the communists took over:

(Other, of course, than in the telephone exchange where all the old
phone tappers were thrown out, and some of them very likely executed,
to be replaced by new phone tappers)

We have got lots of stories of dramatic events in the workplace when
the "anarchists" took charge.

Tell us some stories of dramatic events that happened when the
Stalinists took charge.

Tell us something as juicy as my tale of the collectivization of the
glass works by the "anarchists".

> > Consider for example United Airlines, a typical employee owned
> > company.
> >
> > The difference between employee ownership and "capitalist" ownership
> > is insignificant, because the real masters are the consumers.

> BZZZZZZZ! Sorry. I already debunked this in the post where I destroyed "Anarcho"
> capitalism.

Why then, is the difference between United airlines, and other
airlines, insignificant?

I keep asking questions, and you keep dodging them.

> You must not have read to closely, because they were not making new statements, they
> were simply debunking YOUR "collection of vague and windy undocumented assertions".
> I ask those of you out there reading this to decide for yourself. Read James's page,
> and then read: http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html

Let me give a typical example: The web page you quote, quotes my web
page as saying that power was originally dispersed in many committees,
but was rapidly concentrated in the center, making the lower level
committees meaningless. The paper you quote then lies that I provide
no evidence for claim. Here is some of the vast array of evidence
that I provide, from my web page:

http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/democ.htm

Burnett Bolloten The Grand Camouflage: The Spanish
Civil war and revolution. page 159

"The decision of the CNT and FAI to enter the
cabinet caused a profound stir in the libertarian
movement. Not only did it represent a complete
negation of the basic tenets of Anarchism,
shaking the whole structure of Libertarian theory
to the core, but, in violation of the democratic
principle, it had been taken without consulting
the rank and file. [See resolution approved by
the regional congress of the Catalan CNT in
April 1937, as given in article by P.Bernard
(Bernado Pou) in Universo, May 1, 1948, in
which this fact is mentioned]"

Ronald Fraser Blood of Spain, page 184

But more was evidently needed. The choice was
between working class and popular front
power. There were no alternatives.
The decision in favor of the latter was reached
at a secret meeting [...] The decision was kept
secret.
[...]
The Catalan CNT sprang its surprise: Three
CNT ministers were joining the new Generalitat
government: The militia committee was to be
dissolved, and with it all the local committees.

Ronald Fraser does not draw any conclusions from the fact
that these decisions were made in secret by an organization
that was supposedly functioning by participatory democracy.

Since this announcement was a surprise, I draw the inference
that the local committees were not consulted and therefore
that they were a mere pretense, like the workers Soviets of
the Soviet unions, powerless and impotent, mere window
dressing to maintain the charade of mass participation in the
affairs of the masters and mass support for whatever the
masters happened to will at that particular moment. Because
they were not functioning in accordance with their own theory
and constitution, I infer that they were not functioning in
accordance with any theory or constitution.

Iain McKay

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

In article <33C23D...@matrix.uti.com>, DonM <mclu...@matrix.uti.com> writes:

<snip>

> In socialism, you are expected to produce (your personal) wealth to be
> shared with others.

Thats communism, not socialism, and if the communism is voluntary (as
in anarchist communism) then no problem. And involuntary communism is
not communism (as Lenin proved).

In (libertarian/anarchist) socialism you produce wealth for yourself, you
keep the whole product of your labour. This is something all anarchists
are agreed upon, from Tucker to Bakunin.

> In capitalism you are expected to produce your own
> wealth, and the others are expected to produce their own.

In capitalism you are expected to produce wealth for the capitalist,
who returns to you only a fraction of what you produce. This all
anarchists are agreed is exploitation - thats why they called
themselves socialists (again, from Tucker to Bakunin).

> I think those
> are basic. Before debating the pros and cons, would you agree that
> those definitions are correct?

If they are so basic, then why did you get them wrong? probably years
of capitalist (and Leninist) propaganda and lies, I would imagine.

Capitalism is based upon workers not receiving the full product of
their labour and socialism is based upon them receiving the full
product of their labour. This is basic as can be seen from the
works of people like Proudhon, Warren, Bakunin, Tucker, Kropotkin,
and so on.

For more information on *real* anarchism, check out the anarchist
FAQ at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/

Iain

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

"Ron A. Zajac" <za...@Snortel.com> wrote:
> I know that the Commanches (and no doubt many other tribes) valued the
> ownership of horses; they were a kind of currency (eg, for buying
> wives). On the other hand, land was unfenced and unowned among the
> Commanches; and this is a natural arrangement in a hunting/gathering
> society. If anything, a look at "primitive" societies only serves to
> demonstrate that property--like most anything else on this planet--is
> not an immutable ideal, but rather a human construct, and a tool. The
> [erstwhile] Commanches wouldn't've applied a property model to land any
> more than you or I would attempt to drive a screw with a hammer. But
> for some reason, they saw it as a good model for the management of
> horses.

Labor mingling: Read Locke.

When you mingle your labor with the land, as in agriculture, the land
becomes rightly yours. With hunting and gathering, it does not.
Similarly for raising horses.

Paul Hager

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

"Ron A. Zajac" <za...@Snortel.com> writes:

>James A. Donald wrote:
>> <SNIP>
>> psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:

>> > The evil, socialist, native americans had not created this fantasy of
>> > property, they were concerned with how the products of the land were
>> > used, not who "owned" what, and seccuring boarder lines.
>>
>> In fact the Iroquois, among others, were not at all socialist, and
>> were very concerned with who owned what. Most Indian societies had
>> rich and poor to some extent, some dramatically so.

>You're [sort of] both right. In fact, there are no simple lessons

>whatsoever to be learned by the study of "primitive" societies; there's
>a lot of variety, and probably no universal economic practices. Some
>Pacific SW tribes had a ritual called the "potlatch". In it, your power
>is demonstrated as proportionate to the quantity of valuable goods
>(pemmican, furs, etc.) you're willing to consign to a bonfire. Does the
>potlatch indicate property as a fundamental human need? Maybe yes; but
>if property is power, why do they burn it?

My undergraduate degree is in sociology, which included dollops of
cultural anthropology. Although this goes back to the late 60s, my
recollection is that potlatch was associated with the Tlingit. In
any case, the purpose of a potlatch was dispute resolution. Instead
of fighting a war with a neighboring tribe with resulting death and
property loss, the solution was to hold a potlatch. Each disputant
would destroy his property until one was unable to match the other.

I was so intrigued by the basic wisdom of this approach that I
began talking about potlatch wars as an alternative to the standard
variety. My view was that the way to beat the Soviets was to start
sending transports into Soviet airspace and airdrop consumer goods
and luxury items. We could have even sent in MIRV's with microwave
ovens and other goodies like fine Kentucky Bourbon and American
cigarettes. I was only half joking when I talked about this.

Of course, what the U.S. actually did was sort of a slow potlatch
in which trillions of dollars were effectively torched by the
military industrial complex and the Soviets -- after Gorbachev --
didn't have the stomach, or rubles, to match us. Every now and
then a defense maven would state the "unstated" policy of the U.S.:
to spend the Soviets into bankruptcy. It apparently worked.

>Maybe this demonstrates that
>the _idea_ (and only the idea) of property is really the locus of power,
>and the actual physical manifestations are merely accessory to that
>power. On the other hand, maybe those indians were just fucking nuts,
>and we can learn from their folly (tho it's perhaps a bit too late; the
>Cold War is [presumably] over(!)).

See above. Those Indians were geniuses and the unwitting inspiration
for the winning Cold War strategy.

>I know that the Commanches (and no doubt many other tribes) valued the
>ownership of horses; they were a kind of currency (eg, for buying
>wives). On the other hand, land was unfenced and unowned among the
>Commanches; and this is a natural arrangement in a hunting/gathering
>society. If anything, a look at "primitive" societies only serves to
>demonstrate that property--like most anything else on this planet--is
>not an immutable ideal, but rather a human construct, and a tool. The
>[erstwhile] Commanches wouldn't've applied a property model to land any
>more than you or I would attempt to drive a screw with a hammer. But
>for some reason, they saw it as a good model for the management of
>horses.

Supposedly the "bushmen" of Southern Africa in their aboriginal state
had no real conception of private property. Obviously different cultures
have experimented with different ideas about economics, lifestyles,
government, and personal autonomy. It is only viewing how they do
in competition with one another that there is some empirical way of
arriving at what seems to work best. It would seem that the more
individual rights in the context of a free-market economic system are
prized by a culture, the more successful it is. It may turn out
that the "ultimate" human culture is rigid, eusocial, and cybernetic --
a human analogue to the social insects (or the Borg). But my money will
remain on libertarianism and the individual.

>--
> Ron A. Zajac / NORTEL / 972-684-4887 esn444 / zajacATnortelDOTcom
> These notions are mine, not NORTEL's!

--
paul hager hag...@cs.indiana.edu

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."
-- Thomas Paine, THE AGE OF REASON

Paul Hager

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

lam...@nospam.washington.edu writes:

>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>>I have seen these cars on TV in the solar powered race around

>>Australia. Nobody in his right mind would buy one at any price for

>>normal uses like shopping or going to work, and if you think they
>>would, no one will stop you from making them and selling them.
>>
>>Do you think the evil motor car monopolists will send around goons to
>>stop you?

>i'd like to know why we're not using alcohol powered cars instead of

>fossil fuel powered cars. here there's no issue whatsoever involving
>technology or usability. all you've got to do to convert a car over to
>burning alcohol is retune the carb and probably replace some seals and
>gaskets. the car will get more power while burning a cleaner fuel and the
>CO2 emissions of the car will be balanced by the CO2 consumed while the
>biomass was growing. we could take all those fields that we're paying
>farmers not to grow corn on and actually make them grow corn for fuel.

Biomass is generally terribly inefficient and alcohol is not particularly
clean, despite the green propaganda. Archer Danials Midland, the huge
agribusiness, has grown fat off of the alcohol/gasohol scam. Without
the government tax breaks it would have never been competitive with
conventional fuel. As it is, ADM used government largess to produce
fuel alcohol. It then used the CO2 byproduct to undersell and destroy
small CO2 and gas production companies as part of ADMs overall plan to
control supply of raw materials to the carbonated beverage industry.

Oh yes, "green" policies lead to small, appropriate technologies...

>it isn't completely perfect, since it doesn't do anything to clean up
>concentrated pollutions around cities, but it's entirely feasable and
>better than fossil fuels. the major problem would be getting gas stations
>to carry alcohol rather than gasoline. for awhile in the late 70's they
>were selling "gasahol", but this seemed to disappear soon after reagan got
>elected...

No, ADM made hundreds of millions, possibly billions off of the scam.
If you really want clean then go hydrogen/nuclear. I've studied
this extensively and we can discuss it off-line if you like.

Nuclear does pose a bit of a problem for a libertarian in that
some degree of government regulation is necessary when dealing with
SNM (special nuclear material -- a euphemism for fissile material).
I've given the matter considerable thought and think I have an
approach that would provide the necessary protection against
diversion without onerous regulations and big bureaucracies.
Ironically, nuclear power demonstrates that government can actually
be useful for introducing a new technology which merely requires
an engineering demo and "incentives" for industrialization. It also
demonstrates how government can stifle and thwart technology by
overregulation. Nuclear tech is really the ideal way to generate
power. Unfortunately, because of politics (foreign policy related
and DoD/Navy related) the technology that was promoted was non-optimal
(i.e., light water, LEU). Thus, instead of demonstrating feasibility,
goosing the system, and then letting the market select among competing
alternatives, the government pushed one technology above all others.
Thus high efficiency thorium fuel cycles never developed; once-through,
throw-away and wasteful fuel cycles with a "promise" of Pu recycle
became the norm.

It's a fascinating story and I wish someone with the appropriate
technical background who also happens to be a libertarian could
provide a scholary historical and economic analysis of commercial
nuclear power in the latter half of the 20th century.

>--
>Lamont Granquist (lamontg at u dot washington dot edu) ->note spamfilter<-
>"First consider a spherical chicken..." ICBM: 47 39'23"N 122 18'19"W
>unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>> > Nobody in his right mind would buy [a solar powered car] at any

>> > price for normal uses like shopping or going to work, and if you

>> > think they would, no one will stop you from making them and

>> > selling them.
>> >
>> > Do you think the evil motor car monopolists will send around
>> > goons to stop you?
>

>lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>> i'd like to know why we're not using alcohol powered cars instead of
>> fossil fuel powered cars.
>

>Because alcohol costs more.
>
>When the oil really does start to run low, in forty or fifty years,
>then the price of petrol will rise so that alcohol becomes
>competitive.

i wonder what the pricetag is on that ozone hole?

externalities.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

hag...@cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager) writes:
>higher wages. While I find that Americans who speak from the pro-union
>perspective always invoke the image of the poor exploited worker living
>in a cardboard box (largely a myth, BTW),

i have to split to German class right *now*, but you're wrong here. my mother
does research on this kind of stuff and she's visited the maquiladores (sp?)
and seen the cardboard boxes and their paychecks. this stuff really does
happen.

i'm late...

Iain McKay

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Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

In article <5ptin6$4aa$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

> Labor mingling: Read Locke.

>When you mingle your labor with the land, as in agriculture, the land
>becomes rightly yours. With hunting and gathering, it does not.
>Similarly for raising horses.

and here is a reply to this Lockean nonsense, from the anarchist FAQ at:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/

B.3.4 Can private property be justified?

No. Even though a few supporters of capitalism recognise that private
property, particularly in land, was created by the use of force, most
maintain that private property is just. One common defence of private
property is found in the work of Robert Nozick. For Nozick, the use of force
makes acquisition illegitimate and so any current title to the property
is illegitimate (in other words, theft and trading in stolen goods does
not make ownership of these goods legal). So, if the initial acquisition of
land was illegitimate then all current titles are also illegitimate. And
since private ownership of land is the basis of capitalism, capitalism itself
is rendered illegal.

To get round this problem, Nozick utilises the work of Locke ("The Lockean
Priviso") which can be summarised as:

1. People own themselves.
2. The world is initially owned in common (or unowned in Nozick's
case.)
3. You can acquire absolute rights over a larger than average
share if the world, if you do not worsen the condition of
others.
4. Once people have appropriated private property, a free market in
capital and labour is morally required.

Take for example, two individuals who share land in common. Nozick
allows for one individual to claim the land as their own as long
as the "process normally giving rise to a permanent bequeathable property
right in a previously unowned thing will not do so if the position
of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is therefore worsened"
[_Anarchy, State and Utopia_, p. 178]

But, if one person appropriated the land then the other cannot live off the
remaining land. However, if the new land owner offers the other a wage to
work their land and this exceeds what the new wage slave originally produced,
then this meets the "Lockean Priviso." Of course, the new wage slave has no
option but to work for another, but this is irrelevant for the Lockean
Priviso.

Interestingly, for a ideology that calls itself "libertarian" Nozick
defines "worse off" in terms purely of material welfare, compared to the
conditions that existed within the society based upon common use. In
other words, being "worse off" in terms of liberty (i.e. self-ownership
or self-government) is irrelevant for Nozick, a *very* telling position
to take.

Nozick places emphasis on self-ownership because we are separate individuals,
each with our own life to lead. It is strange, therefore, to see that Nozick
does not emphasise people's ability to act on their own conception of
themselves in his account of appropriation. Indeed, there is no objection
to an appropriation that puts someone in an unnecessary and undesirable
position of subordination and dependence on the will of others.

Notice that the fact that individuals are now subject to the decisions of
other individuals is not considered by Nozick in assessing the fairness
of the appropriation. The fact that the creation of private property
results in the denial of important freedoms for wage slaves (namely,
the wage slave has no say over the status of the land they had been
utilizing and no say over how their labour is used). Before the creation
of private property, all managed their own work, had self-government in
all aspect of their lives. After the appropriation, the new wage slave
has no such liberty and indeed must accept the conditions of employment
within which they relinquish control over how they spend much of their
time.

Considering Nozick's many claims in favour of self-ownership and why
it is important, you would think that the autonomy of the newly
dispossessed wage slaves would be important to him. However, no such
concern is to be found - the autonomy of wage slaves is treated as if
it were irrelevant. Nozick claims that a concern for people's freedom to
lead their own lives underlies his theory of unrestricted property-rights,
however, this apparently does not apply to wage slaves. His justification
for the creation of private property treats only the autonomy of the
land owner as relevant.

Indeed, under capitalism people are claimed to own themselves, but this
is purely formal as most people do not have independent access to resources.
And as they have to use other peoples' resources, they become under the
control of those who own the resources. In other words, private property
reduces the autonomy of the majority of the population, and creates a
regime of authority which has many similarities to enslavement. As John
Stuart Mill put it:

"No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority
are so by force of property; they are still chained to a place, to an
occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred
by the accident of birth to both the enjoyments, and from the mental and
moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently
of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against
which mankind have hitherto struggles, the poor are not wrong in
believing." ["Chapters on Socialism", _Collected Works_, p. 710]

Capitalism, even though claiming formal self-ownership, in fact not only
restricts the self-determination of working class people, it also makes
them a resource for others. Those who enter the market after others
have appropriated all the available property are limited to charity or
working for others. The latter, as we discuss in section C, results in
exploitation as the workers labour is used to enrich others. Working
people are compelled to cooperate with the current scheme of property
and are forced to benefit others. Self-determination requires resources
as well as rights over one's physical and mental being. Concern for
self-determination (i.e. meaningful self-ownership) leads us to common
property plus workers' control of production and so some form of libertarian
socialism.

And, of course, the appropriation of the land requires a state to
defend it against the dispossessed as well as continuous interference in
people's lives. Left to their own devices, people would freely use the
resources around them which they considered unjustly appropriated by others
and it is only continuous state intervention that prevents then from violating
Nozick's principles of justice (to use Nozick's own terminology, the "Lockean
Priviso" is a patterned theory, his claims otherwise not withstanding).

In addition, we should note that private ownership by one person presupposes
non-ownership by others and so the "free market" restricts as well as creates
liberties just as any other economic system. Hence the claim that capitalism
constitutes "economic liberty" is obviously false. In fact, it is *based*
upon denying liberty for the vast majority during work hours (as well as
having serious impacts on liberty outwith work hours due to the effects
of concentrations of wealth upon society).

Perhaps Nozick can claim that the increased material benefits of private
property makes the acquisition justified. However, it seems strange that
a theory supporting "liberty" should consider well off slaves to be better
than poor free men and women. As Nozick claims that the wage slaves consent
is not required for the initial acquisition, so perhaps he can claim that
the gain in material welfare outweighs the loss of autonomy and so allows
the initial act as an act of paternalism. But as Nozick opposes paternalism
when it restricts private property rights he can hardly invoke it when
it is required to generate these rights. And if we exclude paternalism
and emphasise autonomy (as Nozick claims he does elsewhere in his theory),
then justifying the initial creation of private property becomes much more
difficult, if not impossible.

And if each owner's title to their property includes the historical
shadow of the Lockean Proviso on appropriation, then such titles are
invalid. Any title people have over unequal resources will be qualified
by the fact that "Property is theft" and that property is oppression.
The claim that private property is economic liberty is obviously untrue,
as is the claim that private property can be justified in terms of
anything except "might is right."

Iain McKay

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

In article <5ptinb$4aa$3...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

<snip>

> In addition the "anarchist" system of elections in Catalonia proved
> completely worthless because of the absolute and terrible power those
> elected held over those electing them. No incumbent ever lost an
> election in Catalonia, no matter what monstrous things he did, no one
> was ever democratically removed from office.

What alot of bollocks. The anarchist system of elections in the
collectives did not give the managers "absolute and terrible power" -
this is the usual Donald nonsense. I would suggest reading the
following website for evidence:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374/blood.html

If the anarchists did have such power then why the mass uprising to
protect the revolution against the communists in may 1937? james
donald cannot provide any sort of reply to this fact (as can be
seen from the above webpage) - why would workers take to the
streets, go on strike, etc, in defence of a totalitarian system?

> And without police to apply electric shocks to peoples genitals, how
> is the "community" going to make people do the work that "the
> community" has decided is necessary and desirable.

And without the police to apply the electric shocks to peoples genitals
(and crush strikes, unions, etc.) then capitalism would never have
developed. And without the police then private property in land and
capital would not last long - the police are required to defend
capitalist power against strikes and occupations.

And, I may add, anarchism is not about working for "the community"
its about people working together cooperatively to meet their needs.

> > > And even when actually democracy works, that is frequently a bad
> > > thing. Clearly the majority of residents of San Jose support their
> > > city government's policies aimed at gentrifying San Jose with gun,
> > > baton, and bulldozer.
>
> > I don't know what you are refering to here, so I can't comment on it specificly. You
> > are now saying democracy doesn't work. At least you are being an honest capitalist.
>
> Tell the Tutsis and the German jews about democracy working.

Usual nonsense by James Donald about democracy - democracy is about convincing
a majority of the soundness of your ideas. If the majority eliminate the
minority or make it impossible for them to become a majority then the
system is no longer democratic.

And tell the strikers murdered by Pinkerton thugs about capitalist dictatorship
in the workplace.

<snip>

> I keep asking the question, you keep dodging it.
>
> I ask again: How did the urban workplace in Barcelona and the
> organization differ under the Stalinists, after May 1937, from the way
> it was under the "anarchists" after February 1937?

Before the defeat of may 1937, the collectives were still relatively
independant but state control of credit had increased state control
over them. After May 1937 this process accelerated as there was no
counter-power to it.

> > Show some evidence of organized terror from above.
>
> I have documented ample evidence, see my web page
> http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/terror.htm.

for a reply, see http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374/blood.html

> Even the "anarchist" leadership admitted it. They blamed the "worker
> patrols", which they themselves had organized and appointed.

The workers patrols were organised by all political parties and
trade unions, as James is well aware. And the anarchists also
condemned assassinations and indeed did shoot some of their own
found guility of crimes against the public.

> This is
> like a South American dictatorship blaming the police for death squad
> murders, rather than those who appoint and supervise the police.

You mean like Pinochet's terror regime? AI condemned government death
squads there in 1986, a full 13 years after the bloody coup that
ended democracy and introduced "free market" capitalism.

> > Tell me of one document that
> > mentions anything like Hitlers documents for "the Final Solution" proving a top down
> > conspiracy of mass murder.
>
> Well actually there are no "Hitler's documents" proving a top down
> conspiracy for mass murder. In both Germany and Catalonia we merely
> see a bunch of privileged and powerful people with the power to kill
> at whim, and a frightened mass doing what they are told, from which we
> infer a top down conspiracy to commit mass murder.

Again, lies. Its an interesting fact that the historians Bolloton and
Frazer do not mention this "top down conspiracy of mass murder." Nor
does James Donald provide an evidence for this (see the above
webpage).

> > After all, they lost to Franco, it seems to me that Franco
> > would have wanted everyone to have a copy of documents proving planned killing fields
> > and slave labor. It's also funny that the authors of the books you site said nothing
> > of this upper level, government conspired attempt at genocide.
>
> Read em.
>
> Bolloten:
>
> "The Council of Aragon, which will collaborate enthusiastically
> with the legitimate government of the Republic, will increase
> production in the rearguard, mobilize all the region's resources
> for the war effort, arouse the antifascist spirit of the
> masses... and undertake an intense purge in the liberated zones;
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> it will impose unrelenting order and hunt down hidden fascists,
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> defeatists and speculators."
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And probably arrest them, not murder them. I'm sure that similar comments
were made by British and American politicians and individuals during
the second world war. And, let me ask, does James really think that
people fighting against fascist mass murderers should not take steps
to defend themselves against those who are aiding their enemies?

Again, bar some rhectoric, does James provide evidence of "killing fields"?
No, he does not. No historian presents evidence of "killing fields"
in Aragon, funny that. What "evidence" James himself can muster up is
rubbish, as can be seen from

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374/blood.html

> > All the evidence you
> > have is based on a few "witnesses", one of whom was 13 at the time.
>
> You sound like a fascist denying the holocaust. Eyewitness testimony
> does not count?

Yes, it does, as does other evidence. As can be seen from the "evidence"
james presents, his case against the anarchists is rubbish. See

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374/blood.html

> In addition I have statements by the leadership, such as the above.

which does not mention murder - and so lets see what James "case"
amounts to, one quote from Aragon, *1937*, and a handful of eyewitnesses
from Catalonia and Aragon in *1936* (whose testimony indicates the
random nature of the assassinations). And no historian mentions
a system of "mass murder" in either Aragon or Catalonia in 1936 or
1937 - funny that!

> I
> just feel that statements by those terrorized captures the real
> consequences of what you call "anarchism" in ways that you cannot deny
> by spouting mealy mouthed pious euphemisms for terror, slavery, and
> brutal inequality of power

Funny how James does not mention the numerous other quotes by eyewitnesses
who talk about the realities of the collectives, how they were democratic,
voluntary and so on. The "terror, slavery, and brutal inequality of power"
james talks about did not exist - what terror did exist occured right
after the defeat of the fascist coup, while power "lay on the streets"

And talking of "terror" James does not mention the death squads organised
by catalan business men in the 1920s to murder union activists, funny
that.

> > > The economy and the workplace were mostly fully Stalinist by February
> > > 1937, yet the communists did not take over the streets until May/June
> > > 1937.
>
> > You don't mean "Stalinist", you mean collectivist.
>
> I mean Stalinist: If they were not Stalinist, why did the Stalinists
> not change anything in the urban workplace when they took power?

The Stalinists did change the workplace when they took power - they
centralised power in the hands of the state. According to Blood of
Spain, the Stalinist rise in power allowed them "to centralise the
collectives under Generalitit (or PSUC) control" [p. 578]

> All the big undemocratic changes in the workplace that people complain
> about are dated February 1937 or earlier.

Really? Evidence for this?

> Which brings me back to my question: How can worker democracy be
> worth a piece of stinking shit if "the community" decides what it
> needs done?

Workers democracy means that workers manage their work. Community
ownership means that workers can leave and join workplaces as
equal partners in the work process and that the local community
has a say if the collective pollutes, etc.

Which brings me back to my question: How can a worker's freedom be
worth a piece of stinking shit if the boss decides what it need
done?

Anarchism believes in "voice and exit", capitalism in "exit" -
James seriously seems to be arguing that dictatorship is more
libertarian than democracy!

> > The people themselves chose to
> > collectivise.
>
> This was true of the textile industry at first, and to some large
> extent true for the entertainment industry at first, but it certainly
> was not true of other industries, for example barbers, woodworkers,
> and glass workers, which were collectivized from above by men with
> guns.

It used to be only the textike industry, now James is increasing the
scope of the collectives. What about the other industries, lets look
at the woodworkers industry. Here we the woodworkers union having
a massive debate on the future of their industry and deciding to
socialise it. Then a "union delegate would go round the small shops,
point out to the workers that the conditions were unhealthy and
dangerous. . . and secure their agreement to close down and move to
the union-built" workplaces. [Blood of Spain, p. 222]

No mention of "collectivising from above by men with guns" here.
No mention of it by Frazer at all, who indicates the democratic
nature of the collectives and that "the pressure [to collectivise]
came from the base, from the mass of workers." [p. 349] he does not
say the "mass of workers bar those in the following industries..."

In other words, james donald is lying.

> How are we supposed to tell the difference between Joan Domenech,
> instrument of the will of the people, taking over the glass industry
> with a handful of gunmen and the overt threat of the killing fields he
> claimed to control, and Joan Domenech, instrument of the "anarchist"
> ruling class, taking over the glass works and enserfing the workers in
> those glass works for himself and the ruling class?

If anyone is actually interested in an accurate account of this story,
I would suggest reading _Blood of Spain_ by Ronald Frazer. If you
do you will soon see why James Donald did not cite it as his account
is so much nonsense that he only gets the names right.

AS for the "ruling class" in Catalonia, no such thing and the glass
works were placed under democratic workers control, as was the vast
majority of workplaces in Catalonia. Domenech did not "take over"
the glass industry.

> What was actually done is not in dispute, yet you interpret one man
> with gunmen behind him dropping dark hints about killing fields as the
> will of people

Actually what was actually done is in dispute, as james' "account"
has little to do with reflecting the facts of the effect. If in doubt,
read the book.

<snip>

> >> If your socialism is not just standard Stalinist terror with a new set
> >> of euphemisms, what did the Stalinists do to change urban workplace
>
> > Forced, collectivization, controled, top down, by communist selected
> > "representatives".
>
> Provide some actual evidence that anything changed in the work place
> when the communists took over:

As I noted above, the communist policies allowed them to "centralise the
collectives" under their control [Blood of Spain, p. 578] while before
it had been in the hands of workers and their elected managers.

> (Other, of course, than in the telephone exchange where all the old
> phone tappers were thrown out, and some of them very likely executed,
> to be replaced by new phone tappers)

Seems strange that an "anarchist" is against workers tapping the
governments phone lines.

> We have got lots of stories of dramatic events in the workplace when
> the "anarchists" took charge.

If James Donald's webpage is anything to go by, "lots" means "two" and
are refuted at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374/blood.html

> Tell us some stories of dramatic events that happened when the
> Stalinists took charge.

Like the murder of anarchists and POUM members, the increased powers
of the police and government, the centralisation of economic power
into the hands of the state, the communist secret police, that sort
of thing?

> Tell us something as juicy as my tale of the collectivization of the
> glass works by the "anarchists".

No, I would prefer not to tell made-up stories thank you very much!

<snip>

> Why then, is the difference between United airlines, and other
> airlines, insignificant?

The difference between worker controled firms and capitalist ones
is that workers control their own work and own the full product of
their labour. In capitalist ones, the boss is the master and profits
from the labour of others. In worker controlled firms, the worker
is a citizen, in a capitalist one he is a subject. Hence anarchism
supports workers control because it stands for liberty. Hence
"anarcho"-capitalism supports capitalist control because it stands
for authority.

> I keep asking questions, and you keep dodging them.
>
> > You must not have read to closely, because they were not making new statements, they
> > were simply debunking YOUR "collection of vague and windy undocumented assertions".
> > I ask those of you out there reading this to decide for yourself. Read James's page,
> > and then read: http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2374/blood.html
>
> Let me give a typical example: The web page you quote, quotes my web
> page as saying that power was originally dispersed in many committees,
> but was rapidly concentrated in the center, making the lower level
> committees meaningless. The paper you quote then lies that I provide
> no evidence for claim.

This is a downright lie in itself. Here is the relevent part of James
Donald's page (from http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/govern.htm):

Often one such committee had desires that conflicted with another such
committee. Such matters were resolved by higher committees, which led to the
rapid consolidation of power in fewer and fewer committees, with greater and
greater power.

Modern collectivist anarchist propose exactly that solution to the use of
force, that force be used as "the people" direct, despite the disastrous
outcome of this procedure in Catalonia.

Thats it - notice, *no evidence* for his claims. Trying to get round
this he writes:

> Here is some of the vast array of evidence
> that I provide, from my web page:
>
> http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/democ.htm

Notice, *different* webpage! Usually, when making statements you present
the backing evidence next to it, not in another article or webpage.
Yet again James Donald is exposed for the liar he is!

Now, here is the reply to his statement and the "evidence" he
used to back it up (from a different document than the original):

from http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374/govern.html

Donald then goes on to claim that "often one such committee had desires that
conflicted with another such committee. Such matters were resolved by higher
committees, which led to the rapid consolidation of power in fewer and fewer
committees, with greater and greater power", but he provides no evidence to
back this claim up. As Bolloten points out, the local committees that did
exist in each community were supported by the CNT, which opposed attempts to
get rid of them in favour of state bodies. As he notes, "it was a far cry
from the promulgation of the decrees to their actual implementation, and in
a large number of localities, where the Anarchosyndicalists were in
undisputed ascendency, and even in some where the less radical UGT was
dominant, the committees subsisted in the teeth of government opposition."
[The Civil War in Spain, p. 215] This non-CNT attack on the committees took
place once the CNT had joined the government as a minority, and so can
hardly be blamed on the CNT.

from http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2374/demo.html

He then goes on to quote Burnett Bolloten's The Grand Camouflage, page 159,
that the decision to join the government was made "in violation of the

democratic principle, it had been taken without consulting the rank and
file."

This is true. However, Donald does not raise the important question of why,
if the rank and file opposed the move, did they not resist it. Many
anarchists opposed the collaboration and argued against it in their
newspapers. For example, both the Libertarian Youth and Friends of Durruti
published papers in which they opposed the compromises and collaboration of
the CNT, arguing their case many times openly and in public. Here is an
eyewitness account of a Libertarian Youth conference:

"And then I saw a Libertarian Youth conference which was prepared to vote
almost unanimously to condemn without debate the policy of government
collaboration. However, the chairman insisted that supporters of
collaboration be given a chance to speak and be heard. I saw six young men
go to the platform and argue earnestly and eloquently for their viewpoint.
There were no interruptions, no booing. The vote remained almost unanimous
in favour of opposing collaboration." [Abe Bluestein, introduction to
Anarchist Organisation:The History of the F.A.I.]

In addition, we have noted many times the democratic nature of the
industrial and rural collectives, in which people could discuss issues in
mass assemblies. This means that a democratic means existed to express
opinions all across Catalonia and Aragon. In addition, all non-fascist
political parties and unions had their own press and used them to put
forward their ideas.

In addition, there were numerous CNT conferences and plenums during the
revolution. In September 1936, for example, there were National and Regional
CNT plenums where the decision to join the government was made. On September
24th, 1936, a Regional Plenum of Syndicates was held in Barcelona at which
505 delegates representing 327 syndicates which agreed that the CNT should
join the Government in Catalonia. It should be pointed out that the CNT was
a minority in this government, which was made up of the following numbers -
3 CNT, 5 republicans, 2 PSUC and 1 POUM.

This figure clearly shows that James Donald's claim that the CNT "created"
the state is a lie. If the CNT was as powerful as he claimed, would they
have "created" a state in which they were in a minority? Of course not.

Donald then quotes Fraser's Blood of Spain, page 184 :

"But more was evidently needed. The choice was between working class and
popular front power. There were no alternatives.

The decision in favor of the latter was reached at a secret meeting [...]
The decision was kept secret.
[...]

The Catalan CNT sprang its surprise: Three CNT ministers were joining the
new Generalitat government: The militia committee was to be dissolved, and
with it all the local committees. "

It should be pointed out that the last quote ends with "all the local
committees were to be replaced by new town councils" in which all Popular
Front and unions were to be represented.

Donald then states that "Ronald Frazer does not draw any conclusions from

the fact that these decisions were made in secret by an organization that

was supposedly functioning by participatory democracy." However, Fraser does
mention the following:

"The CNT would determine its own decisions. At the end of August, it did so.
. .Again the majority opted for 'collaboration' -- but with a difference;
this time it was to accept the invitation, repeatedly made by President
Companys, to participate in the Generalitat government" [p. 184]

This "secret meeting" referred to by Fraser is thus this August meeting and
that decision was confirmed by the September one. These were plenums of CNT
unions' "shop stewards" and so were "secret" to outsiders. These CNT shop
stewards were not full-timers but militants from the shop-floor and so were
aware of the feelings of the CNT membership. Again, these plenums had heated
discussions before the decision to collaborate was decided.

The reasoning behind this decision was far from the James Donald seems to be
suggesting. Basically, unless they collaborated, the CNT would have been
denied arms and resources and so marginalised -- "The war made the decision
inevitable; the CNT couldn't allow itself to betrampled on by the political
parties, it had to join the government" [p.186]

As for the local committees being replaced, this was the idea of the
Republicans and Communists. As Bolloten points out, they "hoped that this
participation, by enchancing the government's authority among the rank and
file of the CNT and FAI, would facilitate the reconstruction of the
shattered machinery of the state. . .they further hoped that the CNT's
entry. . .would hasten the supplanting of these committees. . .by regular
organs of administration that had either been thrust into the shade or has
ceased to function from the first day of the Revolution" [Op. Cit., p. 212]
We have already noted that these committees were not replaced without a
struggle. Therefore, in practice, the powers of the state were pretty weak.
It did not attempt to crush the revolution until May 1937, months after the
CNT had joined the government as a minority.

James Donald then states the following: "Since this announcement was a

surprise, I draw the inference that the local committees were not consulted
and therefore that they were a mere pretense, like the workers Soviets of
the Soviet unions, powerless and impotent, mere window dressing to maintain
the charade of mass participation in the affairs of the masters and mass
support for whatever the masters happened to will at that particular
moment."

However, as noted, what Donald does not quote is the reference to the CNT
regional plenum of August in which the decision was made. This meeting was
made up of members of local CNT union committees. As indicated from
Bolloten, Fraser, and many other sources, CNT plenums were held and
decisions reached by the debate in these meetings. In other words, his
inference is false. This can be seen from some quotes from Frazer which
Donald strangely does not provide:

"The decision in favour of the latter [collaboration] was reached at a
secret meeting [the Catalan CNT plenum of unions in August] and was taken .
. .by the Catalan libertarians alone; only they could decide a matter which
affected their region - though its impact was national. The decision was
kept secret" [p. 184-5] and "While heated discussions continued in Madrid,
the Catalan CNT sprang its surprise." [p. 186] In other words, the local
committees were consulted and the decision was made locally.

He then continues, "Because they were not functioning in accordance with

their own theory and constitution, I infer that they were not functioning in

accordance with any theory or constitution." This is partly true, the CNT
had made so many compromises that a leadership had developed and had become
increasingly separated from its base. However, it is false to suggest that
"they" were functioning as tyrants. Taking an example from May 1937:

"At a conference of local unions in Barcelona, the leadership sought and
obtained the support of the unions to continue to collaborate with the
government of Catalonia after the May Days. However, the unions refused to
withhold financial support for the Libertarian Youth, who opposed the policy
of collaboration vigorously in their publications. And the unions also
refused to call upon the transit workers not to distribute these opposition
publications in the public transit system, or the milk drivers to stop
distributing the Libertarian Youth papers together with the daily milk."
[Abe Bluestein, introduction to Anarchist Organisation: The History of the
F.A.I.]

Hence it can be seen that, while not as it should be, the internal democracy
of the CNT was working to some degree. As is evident from Bolloten's account
and, in passing, from Fraser's, the decision to join the government was made
by a CNT plenum, not a CNT committee acting alone, as James Donald suggests
in his diatribe. This is not to say that everything was "ideal," just to
point out it was not as bad as Donald makes out.

Iain

Paul Hager

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

lam...@nospam.washington.edu writes:

>tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) writes:
>>In article <5ppblq$15...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>,
>> <lam...@nospam.washington.edu> wrote:

>>>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>>>>When people point to the evils of capitalism, they point to Standard
>>>>Oil. So what did the wicked Standard Oil do?
>>>
>>>well, texaco sent money to the facists in europe in the 30's. oil companies
>>>in general have also killed several hundred thousand iraqis more recently.
>>
>>Gee, that's funny, I thought it was an alliance of the military forces of
>>many governments under government command that did that. Silly me!

>governments that wouldn't have cared about the middle east if there wasn't
>oil there and profits to be made.

Lamont, nice to encounter you on the net -- it's been awhile...

I agree that the Gulf War was about oil -- actually the unholy alliance
between governments and multinational oil companies. I don't know of
any libertarians who supported the Gulf War or the system that spawned it.
Bear in mind that the Western national governments are are normally
either providing substantial corporate welfare to multinationals or
are part owners.

One issue that keeps coming up in these sorts of discussions is that
multinationals will relocate manufacturing from high labor cost areas
to low labor cost areas and "exploit" the locals. There are countervailing
arguments that are typically offered that relate to a relative improvement
in the standard of living in the low labor cost areas. However, one
argument that I never hear is that it is really up to the native workers
to form a sodality or union and collectively bargain if they want

higher wages. While I find that Americans who speak from the pro-union
perspective always invoke the image of the poor exploited worker living

in a cardboard box (largely a myth, BTW), there is a strong element of
self-interest at work. Union labor costs more than non-union labor
by-and-large, and by casting the economics of international labor markets
in purely emotional terms, maybe people won't look too closely at the
fact that union workers might be overpaid -- perhaps grossly overpaid --
for what they do.

Returning to the idea of it being the responsibility of the supposedly
exploited workers to cut their own deal with their employer, it seems
that the issue comes down to the local governments providing corporate
welfare in the form of outlawing union activities or rigidly controlling
them. In other words, it is a government problem -- as in too much of
it. Multinationals can and will take advantage of this. What I fail
to see is any institutional attempt on the part of the American labor
movement to be true to their rhetoric and reach out to their brothers
and sisters. No, much better to shed crocodile tears over their
exploited brethren and then try to prevent a company from relocating
at all.

As a libertarian, I fully support the right of workers to negotiate
collectively with large corporate entities. If the government has
chosen sides then I support the right of the workers to change that
government even if it requires armed revolution. I think I would
take the union apologists more seriously if they were actively
organizing workers and/or smuggling M-16s to them.

Tim Starr

unread,

Jul 8, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/8/97

In article <5ptvec$k...@sheepskin.cs.indiana.edu>,
Paul Hager <hag...@cs.indiana.edu> wrote:

>lam...@nospam.washington.edu writes:
>
>>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>>>I have seen these cars on TV in the solar powered race around

>>>Australia. Nobody in his right mind would buy one at any price for

>>>normal uses like shopping or going to work, and if you think they
>>>would, no one will stop you from making them and selling them.
>>>
>>>Do you think the evil motor car monopolists will send around goons to
>>>stop you?
>

>>i'd like to know why we're not using alcohol powered cars instead of

>>fossil fuel powered cars. here there's no issue whatsoever involving
>>technology or usability. all you've got to do to convert a car over to
>>burning alcohol is retune the carb and probably replace some seals and
>>gaskets. the car will get more power while burning a cleaner fuel and the
>>CO2 emissions of the car will be balanced by the CO2 consumed while the
>>biomass was growing. we could take all those fields that we're paying
>>farmers not to grow corn on and actually make them grow corn for fuel.
>
>Biomass is generally terribly inefficient and alcohol is not particularly
>clean, despite the green propaganda.

Doesn't burning methanol produce benzene? Or am I confusing it with something
else entirely?

Alexander J Russell

unread,

Jul 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/9/97

In article <5ptofg$6q5$1...@rockall.cc.strath.ac.uk>, cll...@ccsun.strath.ac.uk
says...

>
>In article <5ptin6$4aa$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A.
Donald
>) writes:
>
>> Labor mingling: Read Locke.
>
>>When you mingle your labor with the land, as in agriculture, the land
>>becomes rightly yours. With hunting and gathering, it does not.
>>Similarly for raising horses.
>
>and here is a reply to this Lockean nonsense, from the anarchist FAQ at:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/
>
>B.3.4 Can private property be justified?
>

>No. [snip]

> So, if the initial acquisition of
>land was illegitimate then all current titles are also illegitimate. And
>since private ownership of land is the basis of capitalism, capitalism itself
>is rendered illegal.

This is an interesting theoretical question, but a more pratical question is
what would be fair given that pretty much everything has already been claimed.

>
>To get round this problem, Nozick utilises the work of Locke ("The Lockean
>Priviso") which can be summarised as:
>
> 1. People own themselves.
> 2. The world is initially owned in common (or unowned in Nozick's
> case.)
> 3. You can acquire absolute rights over a larger than average
> share if the world, if you do not worsen the condition of
> others.
> 4. Once people have appropriated private property, a free market in
> capital and labour is morally required.
>
>Take for example, two individuals who share land in common. Nozick
>allows for one individual to claim the land as their own as long
>as the "process normally giving rise to a permanent bequeathable property
>right in a previously unowned thing will not do so if the position
>of others no longer at liberty to use the thing is therefore worsened"
>[_Anarchy, State and Utopia_, p. 178]

>
>But, if one person appropriated the land then the other cannot live off the
>remaining land.

If that was so, then it would harm the second person and it would fail the 'no
harm test'.

>However, if the new land owner offers the other a wage to
>work their land and this exceeds what the new wage slave originally produced,
>then this meets the "Lockean Priviso." Of course, the new wage slave has no
>option but to work for another, but this is irrelevant for the Lockean
>Priviso.

There is no such thing as a wage slave. A slave is a person FORCED to work for
another. Someone earning wages in a voluntary contract is not a slave.

But if the second person agrees that he will be better off if he lets the first
'own' the land and takes a wage paying job, shouldn't he be free to do that?

>
>Interestingly, for a ideology that calls itself "libertarian" Nozick
>defines "worse off" in terms purely of material welfare, compared to the
>conditions that existed within the society based upon common use. In
>other words, being "worse off" in terms of liberty (i.e. self-ownership
>or self-government) is irrelevant for Nozick, a *very* telling position
>to take.

Nozick does not say that only material wealth is to be counted. You are putting
words in his mouth. It is up to the people involved how they wish to weight
material vs. immaterial (e.g. personal freedom) in a transaction. For his
example Nozic assumes that the second person finds the wage, and associated
benefits outweighs the benefits of joint ownership. If it was YOU involved you
may not have accepted the trade, but others should be free to make these
choices as they wish.

>
>Nozick places emphasis on self-ownership because we are separate individuals,
>each with our own life to lead. It is strange, therefore, to see that Nozick
>does not emphasise people's ability to act on their own conception of
>themselves in his account of appropriation. Indeed, there is no objection
>to an appropriation that puts someone in an unnecessary and undesirable
>position of subordination and dependence on the will of others.

It is because the individual is paramount that property rights are required to
safeguard the individuals rights. Appropriate means "to claim exclusive rights
to use something" but generally with the implication that it wasn't fair
(government sponsered generally). Nozic in his example of 'assuming original
ownership' is NOT promoting appropriation. You can only assume ownership if no
one is harmed, and everyone involved agrees that they are not being harmed.

Agreeing on what is harm is the big question.

But this question is MOOT now and today.

>
>Notice that the fact that individuals are now subject to the decisions of
>other individuals is not considered by Nozick in assessing the fairness
>of the appropriation. The fact that the creation of private property
>results in the denial of important freedoms for wage slaves (namely,
>the wage slave has no say over the status of the land they had been
>utilizing and no say over how their labour is used).

Once the land is owned, then others have no say. The time to protest is when
the land is un-owned.

Once owned, and improved, then the owner has property rights. Why should
someone who is not being harmed by already owned property have a say in how an
other's work is to be used?

>Before the creation
>of private property, all managed their own work, had self-government in
>all aspect of their lives. After the appropriation, the new wage slave
>has no such liberty and indeed must accept the conditions of employment
>within which they relinquish control over how they spend much of their
>time.

The people who do not own one parcel of land do not automatically become wage
earners. All this 'initial' ownership is assumed to take place when there is
alot of land around for the taking.

>
>Considering Nozick's many claims in favour of self-ownership and why
>it is important, you would think that the autonomy of the newly
>dispossessed wage slaves would be important to him. However, no such
>concern is to be found - the autonomy of wage slaves is treated as if
>it were irrelevant.

You are discussing things under two very different situations as if they were
the same.

1] the inital allocation of unclaimed resources.
not everyone who was sharing one parcel of land automatically became
a wage earner when land initially became owned.

2] now - everything is owned.
the current owner does have property rights.

>Nozick claims that a concern for people's freedom to
>lead their own lives underlies his theory of unrestricted property-rights,
>however, this apparently does not apply to wage slaves. His justification
>for the creation of private property treats only the autonomy of the
>land owner as relevant.

As it should be once the owner has worked to improve the land. If he can't own
the land he improves, he can't own his work.

>
>Indeed, under capitalism people are claimed to own themselves, but this
>is purely formal as most people do not have independent access to resources.

Everyone has the opportuninty to earn the resources required to own enough
resources to become self-employed. You are assuming that everyone values their
complete personal freedom the same way as you do.

>And as they have to use other peoples' resources, they become under the

They do not HAVE to use others resources. It is a freely made choice.

>control of those who own the resources. In other words, private property
>reduces the autonomy of the majority of the population, and creates a
>regime of authority which has many similarities to enslavement. As John
>Stuart Mill put it:
>
>"No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority
>are so by force of property; they are still chained to a place, to an
>occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred
>by the accident of birth to both the enjoyments, and from the mental and
>moral advantages, which others inherit without exertion and independently
>of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those against
>which mankind have hitherto struggles, the poor are not wrong in
>believing." ["Chapters on Socialism", _Collected Works_, p. 710]

This is only true when you have a government enforcing unreasonable laws that
benefit corporations.

>
>Capitalism, even though claiming formal self-ownership, in fact not only
>restricts the self-determination of working class people, it also makes
>them a resource for others.

If one does not want to be a 'working class' person, then one must only start
their own business.

>Those who enter the market after others
>have appropriated all the available property are limited to charity or
>working for others. The latter, as we discuss in section C, results in
>exploitation as the workers labour is used to enrich others.

You cannot be exploited by a voluntary contract to work for wages. If you are
forced to work at the point of a gun - then you are being exploited.

While most people would have to earn wages for a while to earn the capital to
strike out on their own, this does not mean everyone is FORCED to work for
wages.

>Working
>people are compelled to cooperate with the current scheme of property
>and are forced to benefit others. Self-determination requires resources
>as well as rights over one's physical and mental being. Concern for
>self-determination (i.e. meaningful self-ownership) leads us to common
>property plus workers' control of production and so some form of libertarian
>socialism.

Then when I work, others who work less hard, or not at all also benefit.
If this is not so, how do you decide who gets what, if things are owned in
common?

How can I have self-determination if everything is owned commonly? I have NO
self-determination - some commitee determines everything.

>
>And, of course, the appropriation of the land requires a state to
>defend it against the dispossessed as well as continuous interference in
>people's lives. Left to their own devices, people would freely use the
>resources around them which they considered unjustly appropriated by others
>and it is only continuous state intervention that prevents then from violating
>Nozick's principles of justice (to use Nozick's own terminology, the "Lockean
>Priviso" is a patterned theory, his claims otherwise not withstanding).

A you point out it is government, not property owners, that is interfering.

>
>In addition, we should note that private ownership by one person presupposes
>non-ownership by others and so the "free market" restricts as well as creates
>liberties just as any other economic system. Hence the claim that capitalism
>constitutes "economic liberty" is obviously false.

It is not obvious. It is obvious to me that any form of socialism is stealing
my work to benefit people who do less work than me.

Your point about tending to concetrate ownership is valid. Property rights
should not be absolute, but include some form of 'rightful use' provision.
eg Use it or lose it.

>In fact, it is *based*
>upon denying liberty for the vast majority during work hours (as well as
>having serious impacts on liberty outwith work hours due to the effects
>of concentrations of wealth upon society).

You seem intent on deny people the liberty to freely choose the security of a
wage earning job.

It is rare to see a capitalist argue that socialism should be outlawed, but
common for the socialist to want to outlaw capitalism. I wonder who belives
their system works better in the real world.

>
>Perhaps Nozick can claim that the increased material benefits of private
>property makes the acquisition justified. However, it seems strange that
>a theory supporting "liberty" should consider well off slaves to be better
>than poor free men and women.

Wage earners are not slaves. For people who value their freedom above a good
wage, self-employment is an option, and many jobs exist that require little
capital to get started.

>As Nozick claims that the wage slaves consent
>is not required for the initial acquisition, so perhaps he can claim that
>the gain in material welfare outweighs the loss of autonomy and so allows
>the initial act as an act of paternalism.

He does not argue this.

>But as Nozick opposes paternalism
>when it restricts private property rights he can hardly invoke it when
>it is required to generate these rights. And if we exclude paternalism
>and emphasise autonomy (as Nozick claims he does elsewhere in his theory),
>then justifying the initial creation of private property becomes much more
>difficult, if not impossible.

I will grant that fairly claiming the inital ownership is very hard now, and it
was not done fairly in past in most places. But common ownership means no
ownership at all.

>
>And if each owner's title to their property includes the historical
>shadow of the Lockean Proviso on appropriation, then such titles are
>invalid. Any title people have over unequal resources will be qualified
>by the fact that "Property is theft" and that property is oppression.

Property is freedom from the oppression of well meaning commitees.
Property is not theft - it safeguards one's labour.

>The claim that private property is economic liberty is obviously untrue,
>as is the claim that private property can be justified in terms of
>anything except "might is right."
>

Private property is the only way to ensure that people benefit from their own
work. If the work I do to improve a parcel of land does not benefit myself then
my labour is being stolen. If the work I do includes building a factory then I
have every right to offer others a chance to also benefit from my work via a
wage earning job. they also have the right to decline my offer of employment.

You socialist scheme forces everyone to contribute to the common pool, even if
they do not want to.

>
>

Please explain to me how I have full self determination if everything is
commonly owned? It would seem I have very little contol over resources under
this situation.

Explain to me why people should NOT have the freedom to voluntarily choose a
wage earning job?

If people want to pool their resources, I say let them. But people who wish to
keep their work for themselves should also have that option.

While I will grant that much property today was originally gained by less then
optimally just means, taking everything away from everyone would be an even
larger crime.

Just what set of 'rights' do you believe justifies socializing all property?

--
The AnArChIsT! Anarchy! Not Chaos!
aka
Alex Russell
ale...@uniserve.com

James A. Donald

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Jul 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/9/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

> > When the oil really does start to run low, in forty or fifty years,
> > then the price of petrol will rise so that alcohol becomes
> > competitive.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
> i wonder what the pricetag is on that ozone hole?

The ozone hole will have considerable less effect on humans UV
exposure than the fashion for hats in Australia..

Therefore the pricetag on the ozone hole is comparable to the pricetag
for hats for all Australians.

If you are working yourself into a lather about the ozone hole, you
are seriously hard up for crises.

Hardy Macia

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Jul 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/9/97

In article <5ptinb$4aa$3...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A.

Donald) wrote:

> psychopomp <cyko...@mail.sover.net> wrote:
> > There are no police in a completely anarchist society. Anyway, even
the election of
> > police officers and the threat of immediate removal(which would not
exist with private
> > police) would dramaticly improve this.
>
> I have news for you: In most Southern towns the Sheriff was
> democratically elected and could be removed after a reasonably brief
> term. By and large, direct democratic control of the police force
> made things worse, not better, because it enabled 51% of the people to
> democratically eradicate those categories of people they decided they
> did not like.

In Vermont we elect an high baliff. The high baliff's main responsibility
is to arrest the sherrif if the sherrif starts violating citizen's
constitutions right. The high baliff can be called on whenever a citizen
has a run in with the law enforcement of our state when the citizen
believes their rights will be infringed upon.

Most Vermonters do not know what a high baliff's job is in Vermont and most
high baliff's don't either. The Grand Isle County high baliff, Brian Pearl,
has been doing a lot of research on the responsibilities of high baliff and
he has been educating the citizens of the county through our local
newspaper.

--
Hardy Macia * Catamount Software * Newton Software Development
(802) 372-9512 * ha...@catamount.com * <http://www.catamount.com/>
"That government is best which governs least" - Henry David Thoreau
Vermont Libertarian Party <http://www.catamount.com/VTLP/>

Paul Hager

unread,

Jul 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/9/97

tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) writes:

>In article <5ptvec$k...@sheepskin.cs.indiana.edu>,
>Paul Hager <hag...@cs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>>lam...@nospam.washington.edu writes:
>>

>>>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>>>>I have seen these cars on TV in the solar powered race around
>>>>Australia. Nobody in his right mind would buy one at any price for
>>>>normal uses like shopping or going to work, and if you think they
>>>>would, no one will stop you from making them and selling them.
>>>>
>>>>Do you think the evil motor car monopolists will send around goons to
>>>>stop you?
>>
>>>i'd like to know why we're not using alcohol powered cars instead of
>>>fossil fuel powered cars. here there's no issue whatsoever involving
>>>technology or usability. all you've got to do to convert a car over to
>>>burning alcohol is retune the carb and probably replace some seals and
>>>gaskets. the car will get more power while burning a cleaner fuel and the
>>>CO2 emissions of the car will be balanced by the CO2 consumed while the
>>>biomass was growing. we could take all those fields that we're paying
>>>farmers not to grow corn on and actually make them grow corn for fuel.
>>
>>Biomass is generally terribly inefficient and alcohol is not particularly
>>clean, despite the green propaganda.

>Doesn't burning methanol produce benzene? Or am I confusing it with something
>else entirely?

I believe that formaldehyde is a combustion byproduct from ethyl but
it's been awhile since I've studied this in detail. I do remember that
a number of byproducts are cyclic hydrocarbons which are noted for
their carcinogenicity.

What I observed in my dealings with the enviro groups back in the 70s
was a boundless enthusiasm for unproven technologies that appeared to
be "green". There was also a total unwillingness to objectively
look at associated risks -- so-called renewable energy doesn't have
risks, or so they said. When they talked about photovoltaics (PVs), I
had fun asking them about pollution and disposal problems. I pointed
out that dopants and other chemicals used in the manufacture of PVs
were highly toxic and carcinogenic. This usually discombobulated them
terribly -- can you say, "cognitive dissonance"?

I'm a total pragmatist when it comes to energy production. If biomass
really would work for industrial society, then it wouldn't take much
for it to carve out a market for itself. However, where it is used
one sees either a lack of industrialization or heavy government subsidy.
In the case of Brazil, which some years ago mandated 50% of autos had
to be alcohol burners, you have the ludicrous situation of environmentalists
talking about saving the rainforest even as Brazilians cut it down in
order to grow crops for alcohol.

In order to be fair, I think I should point out that when I talk about
energy and enviromental matters, I have some criticisms to level at
conservatives and some of my fellow libertarians. The eco-types are
generally very ideological and rely heavily on junk science or
an exaggeration of miniscule theoretical risks. However, I've also
seen ideology replace science and reason on the other side. I'm sure
that part of the reason for this is a tendency to assume that people
who are usually wrong -- like the eco-types -- are ALWAYS wrong. This
is a serious error. For example, I believe that there is ample evidence
that an increase in CO2 will cause an increase in average global temp,
and there is also ample evidence that CO2 is increasing. While the
full import of this is speculative, the assumption that sometime next
century average global temp will increase is actually the intellectually
conservative view. How much the temperature will increase or what
effect it might have on global climate is where the guessing game comes
in. Environmentalists have a fetishistic attachment to doom and gloom
scenarios -- eco-types appear to be the secular equivalent of religious
millenarians. However, they may not be wrong in selecting the most
pessimistic of the global warming scenarios as part of their catechism
of enviro-evils.

The physical universe has no interest in political categories. As
a libertarian, my concern is that if some sort of world-wide, cooperative
strategy is required to deal with something like global warming, that
it be approached in a way that relies on market forces as much as
possible and that any bureaucracies that may be set up to deal with
the exigent problem will go away when the problem goes away. I think it
is pretty obvious that environmentalism as a political movement has
been coopted by the worst of the big government folks who see it as
providing a justification for global government and global bureaucracies.
As we fight against the known evil of big government, let's consider
that there may, from time to time, be real problems that have to be
dealt with and be prepared to offer libertarian alternatives.

Greg Alt

unread,

Jul 9, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/9/97

In article <timstarrE...@netcom.com> tims...@netcom.com (Tim Starr) writes:
>How many millions have been killed by corporations? Not by governments.

How many millions have been killed by soldiers? Not by guns or bombs.

Greg

psychopomp

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Jul 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/10/97

Greg Alt wrote:

> >How many millions have been killed by corporations? Not by governments.
>
> How many millions have been killed by soldiers? Not by guns or bombs.
>
> Greg

HEAR HEAR!

Shevek

unread,

Jul 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/10/97

This discussion of anarcho-capitalism highlights a contradiction - you
cannot in my humble view have anarchism and capitalism at the same time.
Anarchism by definition means no ruler. Capitalism by definition means the
rule of capital, or a world of owners and nonowners, of capitalists and of
workers. It is not the business of workers to decide what kind of
capitalism to have. Ultimately it makes little difference in their lives
whether their bosses are governments or corporations - they are still wage
slaves denied ownership of the means of production. I am not of course
stating that living in a highly bureaucratic form of capitalism such as the
state capitalism of the old Soviet Union or China is no difference
qualitatively than the freer form we have in the States from the point of
view of freedom of press and organization, and the like. Obviously I value
those freedoms. However, I mean that from the point of view of being a
worker, a wage slave is still a wage slave whether Uncle Sam or the
corporation is the boss. It is still a world with all the tensions of
capitalism - the pressures to survive, the armed conflicts between nations
over markets, the production of dangerous products when profit is the
motive - pesticides, toxic drugs, poor living conditions for masses of
people. We are a society with the technological know-how to produce
relative abundance in our whole world (and technology is only part of the
equation - organization and responsible production by a community caring
about its environment and people are others). Anarchism is an action by
working people aiming to overthrow all class society for once and for all.
Classes, money, wages, banks, armies, courts - and establish a free
federated society of common ownership. All this talk of anarcho-capitalism
is not in the interests of working people, although working people
certainly are taking part in this discussion. We should really leave such
talks to the bosses. However, in truth,
it is the bosses who want some modicum of state control (even while
desiring a free market in which to operate). They enjoy armies to protect
their interests, and police forces to enforce laws against theft of their
properties (while they are legally thieving
surplus value from the population and making huge population off the toils
of others which they call the right to property and to profit, such are the
"rights" in this society). They enjoy not having to pay directly for roads
which carry their goods. And if a certain amount of public services serve
the poor moderately, that keeps discontent from brewing. After all, in the
more naked capitalism of the 18th and 19th centuries, strikes and
discontent were annoying to the profit-makers. Better to have a government
appear to protect their wages and basic conditions (better than have them
highly organized in democratic unions, anyway, which could actually turn
too radical for their taste). It is insulting to ask workers to organize
a more
libertarian form of capitalism when they are not going to be enjoying the
fruits of
all this profit-making anyway. And most workers have a higher IQ than the
libertarian capitalist ideologues would assume - enough to know that
exploitation is still
exploitation. We won't be free until we abolish wages and money and start
owning the world ourselves.

danny (mp...@msn.com)

hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com wrote in article
<hacksaw.14...@interlog.spam_me_not.com>...
> (Sorry for screwing up the threading, but the article that I wish
> respond to still hasn't shown up on this server)
>
> In article <33BF22...@mail.sover.net> psychopomp
<cyko...@mail.sover.net>
> writes:
> [snip]
> >1. In "Anarcho" Capitalism monopolies would not be prevented from
forming through
> >cornering of markets, interlocking Boards, or any other way. Monopolies
would not be
>
> Might I suggest that organizations of consumers could boycott
> monopolies or other businesses suspected of engaging in
> anti-competitive practices and thereby compel them (through
> these and other non-violent tactics) to voluntarily lower their
> prices or submit to some form of binding arrangement with an
> oversight board that monitors the firms' behavior and forces
> them to change anti-competitive policies.
>
> If this happens often enough, having contracts with one or more
> widely respected "competition review boards" might become a
> defacto standard for all reputable businesses, and the threat of
> a boycott against businesses which don't do this might keep
> their behavior in line. These boards would in turn be held
> accountable by explicit contracts with the individual consumers
> which formed them. Board members who are found to have been
> influenced by bribes and such from the companies which they
> monitor could be punished according to the terms of the
> contracts.
>
> Organizing these boycotts and forming such organizations would
> certainly not be a trivial undertaking, but if the problem is
> serious enough, there is nothing stopping consumers from doing
> so. Admittedly, it is a public goods problem to get consumers
> to voluntarily restrict their consumption of something in order
> to get it at a cheaper price in the future when they know that
> their individual decision to do this will probably not be
> pivotal to the outcome, but the only alternative that I see,
> assuming for the moment that we must prevent monopolies and
> cartels at all costs, is getting people to vote for some "ideal"
> economic allocation or having some dictator(s) to do it for
> them. Since voting, especially making informed votes, is also a
> public goods problem, along with all the other failings of
> democracy, this leaves us with only dictatorship as a potential
> solution.
>
> >[Monopolies would not be ]
> >prevented from using money, power, and influence to buy soldiers, spys,
assassins,
> >torturers, and mob leaders to crush rebellions, as they've done in the
past.
>
> Sure they would be: a population of armed folks who want
> meaningful freedom, possibly along with the more than
> enthusiastic help of would-be competitors, or optionally with
> the respective paid security agencies of either of these groups,
> could swiftly execute all who are found responsible for doing
> such things.
>
> >(the Icelandic Godar, the hired mercenaries that crushed Shays
Rebelion[and others] and
> >helped exterminate the Native Americans, the private army of the East
India
> >Corporation(one of several), the "missionary" agents that Nelson
Rockafeller hired as
> >spys in south America, the death squads presently wiping out troublesome
tribes on
> >Corporate resources and "property" in South America and Africa, the
Brazilian death
> >squads hired to exterminate street children, the DuPont, Morgan, & GM
armed Black Legion
> >which beat, firebombed, and assasssinated Union members and other
leftists during the
> >depression(and not even to protect scabs), the Pinkerton Agency which
was hired by
> >Corporations during the 30's to spy on workers, *gasp!*, would you like
some more?)
>
> I suspect that in most of these cases, public retribution
> against the offending firms was prohibited by the extant local
> governments. It would not be so under propertarian anarchism.
>
> [snip]
> >3. The shelf space problem allows monopolization of what is baught
and sold.
> >"Anarcho" capitalists could do nothing about this. This is a failure to
stop
> >centralization of distribution.
>
> The problem here is not necessarily centralization of
> distribution, but the anti-competitive practices which sometimes
> result from it. This may be resolvable, as per my suggestions
> above. Centralization of distribution, depending on the nature
> of the industry, can lead to higher efficiency and lower costs,
> thus benefiting the consumer. So in deciding whether or not to
> try to decentralize a natural monopoly by collective action,
> consumers will have to figure out what the trade-offs are
> between the efficiency gains that centralization sometimes
> offers and the benefits of competition.
>
> >James: "people in their role as producers must take *orders*, so that in
their role as
> >consumers they may *give orders*. Thus *the workplace is inherently
undemocratic*."
> >(My * *) As has been shown above, there is nothing to prevent
monopolies from forming
> >in an "anarcho" capitalist society. Thus, consumers have increasingly
less power as
> >production, distribution and communication is centralized, leaving the
stock holders and
> >the Boards they elect with the real power. As you admitted, the work
place is
> >undemocratic, but since the workers eventually have no power as
consumers, the workplace
> >is undemocraticly controled by stock holders and the Boards they elect.
>
> You're assuming that centralization will inevitably increase --
> which I don't believe is necessarily the case. The degree of
> centralization in a free or quasi-free market depends mostly on
> the current state of technology. It may well happen that under
> propertarian anarchism, centralization is marginally lessened by
> lack of government intervention in the short term, and
> significantly lessened by the rapid increases in individual
> productivity and other technological and structural changes
> which take place thereafter. Of course, there is always the
> possibility of the opposite happening.
>
> Remember, too, that monopolies are ultimately constrained by
> consumer demand just as all other types of firms are. Only ones
> which sell "necessities" are immune, in the short term, from
> seeing demand for their product sink to zero, and even these
> will lose profit if consumers are sufficiently displeased with
> them to decide to purchase as little of their product as
> possible. The longer such a monopoly continues to behave
> contrary to its customers' wishes, the longer these customers
> and others have to think of ingenious substitutes for its
> product.
>
> >If roads were privatized the only way to pay for them would be through
tolls. This
> >would result in check points on every road. There would be nothing to
stop private
> >police forces from searching your car without a warent, as you would be
on their
>
> Companies who conducted random searches on their customers would
> probably soon find that they had none to search.
>
> >property. They could also close the roads off to anyone.
>
> Most "anarcho-capitalists", that I have heard, support a Common
> Law concept called "right of passage" or some such. Road owners
> could prevent people from driving on their roads (but why would
> they want to?), but they could not prevent people getting from
> point A to point B by some means or another.
>
> [snip]
> >2. If property is subjective, then when we get past all the talk of
"property" and
> >use rights, we are just looking for a system that is beneficial to as
many people as
> >possible. "Property" is based on subjective "rights", not needs, and is
therefore
> >inefficient. "Property" can be cast on anything. A mad man can say the
world is his
> >"property", but only a mad man with power(state or private) can enforce
his "property
> >rights". Use rights are clear. If you use it or need it, it is your
posession.
>
> Use rights seem quite subjective to me. If I claim 10 acres of
> arable land in order to practice a hypothetical new art form
> which I invented, "naked interpretive ballet", and I dance
> around the entire property every day in order to prove that I'm
> using it, who gets to decide whether my claim is frivolous or
> legitimate?
>
> >Anarchism- is Antiauthoritarian
>
> >Un fettered capitalism leads to:
> >Workplaces which are, as you said, "inharently undemocratic", and
>
> James has claimed that both anarcho-capitalist *and*
> anarcho-socialist workplaces are inherently undemocratic
> (although the latter claim may have come in a post subsequent to
> the one you are responding to). I agree with him, and would add
> that if a person has no other option than to join one or the
> other of these institutions, then such a system would be
> un-anarchistic as well. Perhaps the solution is to get rid of
> workplaces :-). (see below)
>
> Incidentally, anarchism has nothing to do with democracy. If
> anyone claims that democracy (even a "grassroots",
> "decentralized", "participatory" one with "instantly recallable
> delegates") is anarchism, they are completely mistaken. This
> would apply to Kropotkin, Proudhon, Bakunin ect. (That is, if
> they held such a position. I don't know for sure whether or not
> they did, as I have not read a complete work on anarchism by any
> of them, although I have read some books by the contemporary
> socialist "anarchists" Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, and George
> Woodcock, who, if I remember correctly, were all forever
> alluding to its merits)
>
> >Monopolies that own military forces and control transportation- which
is, Authoritarian
>
> If they use these military forces to violate anarchist
> principles then all who are found guilty of conspiring or acting
> towards this end will be and should be promptly slaughtered.
> (This will only happen, of course, if it occurs within a society
> which assigns sufficient value to said principles - this is a
> fundamental prerequisite of anarchy, IMO.)
>
> >Therefore, "Anarcho" capitalism is deserving of it's quotes as it is an
oximoron.
>
> >Now I am ready for your test. Perhapse Anarchist Socialism is wrong as
well. Which
>
> OK -- since the socialist conception of anarchism is ultimately
> a system of quasi-direct democracy along with the typical
> socialist baggage about ownership of property, it is totally
> contradictory to the anarchist dictum of "no rulers", because
> obviously in a system where the majority rules the minority
> (democracy), someone is ruling. Therefore it cannot be
> anarchism, in which no one rules.
>
> "Therefore, 'Anarcho' [socialism] is deserving of it's quotes as
> it is an oximoron."
>
> >means all Anarchism is impossible. I seriously doubt that.
>
> I don't think it is either. You've neglected the possibility
> that despite the freedom of market producers being constrained
> by the demands of consumers, no one needs to be a market (or
> cooperative) producer. A subsistence farmer need not conform to
> the will consumers, co-workers, or bosses, since she requires
> none of these relationships in order to maintain her life. If a
> system could somehow be set-up whereby anyone -- who didn't want
> to be a slave of the majority in a co-op or the boss in a
> capitalist workplace -- had the option of owning a small plot of
> land from which to farm sufficient amounts of food necessary to
> sustain themselves, along with access to clean water and
> materials with which to build a shelter and fire where needed,
> they would then have complete economic freedom. They could, of
> course, voluntarily choose to sacrifice some or all this freedom
> for economic gain by working for a capitalist or collective,
> while still maintaining the option to quit at any time and
> simply produce all they need independently. (Unless they are
> certain that they will never need or want to exercise this land
> right, in which case they could permanently sell it).
>
> To sum up, I think that the solution to wage-slavery by private
> owners is not slavery by the majority in one's workplace (or, in
> reality, since "anarcho" socialists would require "community"
> based "coordination" in order to prevent competition, a worker
> would be the slave of this "community"), but lies in some system
> of land distribution.
>
> -Kevin
>
> Btw, may I suggest that you adjust the line-length in your posts
> to something substantially under 80 characters, since your
> current one makes viewing your posts quite difficult for some
> people, particularly those using DOS readers/editors. (RFC 1855
> recommends < 65 characters.)
>
> --
> "The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone
> seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
> Frederic Bastiat
>
> To reply by E-mail, please remove the ".spam_me_not" from my
> address.
>

hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com

unread,

Jul 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/10/97

hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com

unread,

Jul 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/11/97

In article <01bc8d79$692198e0$8e7b2399@default> "Shevek" <mp...@msn.com> writes:
>This discussion of anarcho-capitalism highlights a contradiction - you
>cannot in my humble view have anarchism and capitalism at the same time.
>Anarchism by definition means no ruler. Capitalism by definition means the
>rule of capital, or a world of owners and nonowners, of capitalists and of
>workers. It is not the business of workers to decide what kind of
>capitalism to have. Ultimately it makes little difference in their lives

Most anarcho-capitalists don't define capitalism this way. They
see it simply as a system with private property rights and free
exchange. A society where everyone owned a small business would
be consistent with this, as would a society where everyone
voluntarily chose to pool their property with others and then
work and manage it democratically. There need not be any bosses
or "workers", according to this view of capitalism.

In spite of this, I think that your definition might be closer
to the historically accurate one -- which is why I usually use
the term "propertarian anarchism" instead of anarcho-capitalism.

[snip]

>those freedoms. However, I mean that from the point of view of being a
>worker, a wage slave is still a wage slave whether Uncle Sam or the

>corporation is the boss. [snip]

Or an "anarchist" collective, for that matter.

>Anarchism is an action by
>working people aiming to overthrow all class society for once and for all.
>Classes, money, wages, banks, armies, courts - and establish a free
>federated society of common ownership.

The problem with anything other than private ownership, though,
is that some mechanism must be devised to resolve disputes about
how things are to be used. Traditional anarchists, after
dancing around the issue for a while, usually suggest democracy
as the solution. Unfortunately, as these anarchists rightly
point out, control of property can sometimes mean control over
life and death. If the democratic majority has this control, it
has the power over life and death, and can use it to rule those
who's actions it disapproves of. Thus, traditional anarchism is
fatally self-contradictory.

However, if people for some reason or other thought that they
would be better off living in a collectivist, democratic
community, no real anarchist would ever object to them pooling
their property and submitting to such a system, so long as
everyone in this community is there of their own volition.

[snip]

>properties (while they are legally thieving
>surplus value from the population and making huge population off the toils
>of others which they call the right to property and to profit, such are the
>"rights" in this society). They enjoy not having to pay directly for roads

What if these others had the option of working in an employee
owned workplace, but instead choose to work for a capitalist who
was able to offer them a higher wage and better working
conditions, while still managing to pocket some of the profit
for herself? Perhaps she is able to do this because of
excellent managerial skills or through knowledge of a more
efficient production process which she somehow manages to keep
secret from her employees, but in any case, would you consider
her to be thieving "surplus value" from her workers?

[snippage]

>libertarian form of capitalism when they are not going to be enjoying the
>fruits of

>all this profit-making anyway. [snip]

Well, it's possible that they will at least be better off then
they are now -- that is, once we eliminate the governments who
steal a significant portion of the wealth produced in an
economy, pocket a good portion of this, and then dole the crumbs
back out to those who they deem "worthy", the increased general
prosperity and lack of stupid government regulations may allow
workers to have more opportunities to form their own businesses,
cooperative enterprises, effective unions, ect.

-Kevin

Iain McKay

unread,

Jul 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/11/97

In article <hacksaw.15...@interlog.spam_me_not.com>, hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com writes:

> In article <01bc8d79$692198e0$8e7b2399@default> "Shevek" <mp...@msn.com> writes:
> >This discussion of anarcho-capitalism highlights a contradiction - you
> >cannot in my humble view have anarchism and capitalism at the same time.
> >Anarchism by definition means no ruler. Capitalism by definition means the
> >rule of capital, or a world of owners and nonowners, of capitalists and of
> >workers. It is not the business of workers to decide what kind of
> >capitalism to have. Ultimately it makes little difference in their lives
>
> Most anarcho-capitalists don't define capitalism this way. They
> see it simply as a system with private property rights and free
> exchange. A society where everyone owned a small business would
> be consistent with this, as would a society where everyone
> voluntarily chose to pool their property with others and then
> work and manage it democratically. There need not be any bosses
> or "workers", according to this view of capitalism.

In other words, "anarcho"-capitalism does not know what capitalism
actually is! Interesting, but not surprising - history was never
a capitalist strong point. Interesting though that a socialist
society would be considered "capitalist" under this definition,
which indicates its uselessness.

<snip>

> [snip]
> >those freedoms. However, I mean that from the point of view of being a
> >worker, a wage slave is still a wage slave whether Uncle Sam or the
> >corporation is the boss. [snip]
>
> Or an "anarchist" collective, for that matter.

Unlike a boss, an anarchist collective (ie an association of workers)
is based upon self-government - workers are their own "boss" and
power is not in the hands of an elite. There are thress options for
collective work - be an order taker (ie a wage worker), be a order
giver (ie a boss) or be an associate. Anarchism picks the last one.

> >Anarchism is an action by
> >working people aiming to overthrow all class society for once and for all.
> >Classes, money, wages, banks, armies, courts - and establish a free
> >federated society of common ownership.
>
> The problem with anything other than private ownership, though,
> is that some mechanism must be devised to resolve disputes about
> how things are to be used.

And the problem of private ownership is that also needs some
mechanism to be devised to resolve disputes about how things
are used and, indeed, owned. For example, workers may dispute
with their boss on how their factory is used. Or two people may
dispute who owns want. Every society has disputes.

> Traditional anarchists, after
> dancing around the issue for a while, usually suggest democracy
> as the solution. Unfortunately, as these anarchists rightly
> point out, control of property can sometimes mean control over
> life and death. If the democratic majority has this control, it
> has the power over life and death, and can use it to rule those
> who's actions it disapproves of. Thus, traditional anarchism is
> fatally self-contradictory.

Nope, its is "anarcho"-capitalism which is fatally self-contradictory.
Firstly, it has rulers (the boss rules the worker). Secondly, it has
"absolute" property rights (i.e. if workers cannot get a job, then
they can die of starvation, or, a more common example, in famine areas
rich farmers can sell crops to other places while their neighbours
starve). Of course, "anarcho"-capitalists claim that their utopia
will have full employment, but if that was the case then the power
of labour would be so strong as to make profits decrease to zero!

Now, anarchists think that property like land should be collectively
owned. The minority is part of that group and have a right to
use that land as they so desire. Every anarchist writer has
stated that minorities must have access to resources (thats why
they are opposed to capitalism in the first place!).

And the silliness of this "objection" must be noted. Why would a
majority decide to do this? Yes, it is possible (and if it did
then the minority have the right of protest and insurrection)
but highly unlikely. Of course, you could say that "what would
happen if no-one would employ you in "anarcho"-capitalism" is
just as silly, but considering that "anarcho"-capitalism will
have the business cycle in it, I don't think it is.

<snip>

For more information on anarchism, and why "anarcho"-capitalism
is not a form of anarchism, check out the anarchist FAQ at:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931

Iain

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/11/97

"Shevek" <mp...@msn.com> wrote:

>This discussion of anarcho-capitalism highlights a contradiction - you
>cannot in my humble view have anarchism and capitalism at the same time.
>Anarchism by definition means no ruler. Capitalism by definition means the
>rule of capital, or a world of owners and nonowners,

The owners do not remain owners very long, unless they serve the will
of the customers. Observe the very rapid turnover in the Forbes 400,
and the modest social origins of the average north american
millionaire.

We only see capitalism working like a caste system in countries with
heavy state intervention in the economy, such as France, where no one
can hope to run a business unless he is born part of narrow elite,

In such countries it may appear that owners can act like lords, but in
reality this is government oppression, not capitalist oppression.

Iain McKay

unread,

Jul 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/11/97

In article <5q5fcm$976$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
> "Shevek" <mp...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> >This discussion of anarcho-capitalism highlights a contradiction - you
> >cannot in my humble view have anarchism and capitalism at the same time.
> >Anarchism by definition means no ruler. Capitalism by definition means the
> >rule of capital, or a world of owners and nonowners,
>
> The owners do not remain owners very long, unless they serve the will
> of the customers.

Actually, they do not remain owners very long unless they make a profit.
This profit can be made by introducing terrible working conditions,
polluting the environment, crushing unions, buying in products made
in dictatorships, etc., etc., etc. And what is more, the company
that does do this sort of thing has a competitive advantage over
the companies that don't - in others, the customers, in their role
as producers, get the short end of the stick...

Oh, of course, if the capitalist cannot make a profit, then the
customers can whistle - for example, the local big lander owner
will happily sell food outwith the local market even while
his neighbours are starving because profits may be higher.
Every famine has this sight, the big capitalist landlord
exporting food while the locals starve.

> Observe the very rapid turnover in the Forbes 400,
> and the modest social origins of the average north american
> millionaire.

actually, according to Paul Krugman, only around 5% of families
rise from the bottom to the top (and vice versa) in the USA. In
fact he states that "much of the movement up and down represents
fluctuations around a fairly fixed long term distribution"
Peddling Prosperity, p. 143]

In 1992, the richest 1% of households owned 39% of stock owned
by individuals, the top 10% over 81%.

(perhaps the USA, even though James uses it as an example, is not
"free market" enough? Looking at Chile under Pinochet we find
that workers wages did not reach 1970 levels until after he
left power (thats after nearly 15 years of "free market" capitalism!),
there was high unemployment, and according to one expert, the
elite "had become massively wealthy under Pinochet" [Duncan Green,
The Silent Revolution, p. 216] In the last years of Pinochet's
dictatorship, the richest 10 percent of the rural population saw
their income rise by 90 per cent between 1987 and 1990. The share
of the poorest 25 per cent fell from 11 per cent to 7 per cent.
[Duncan Green, Op. Cit., p. 108])

> We only see capitalism working like a caste system in countries with
> heavy state intervention in the economy, such as France, where no one
> can hope to run a business unless he is born part of narrow elite,

Actually, income modility is not that great in the USA - and anarchists
object to a class system (as well as caste systems) as a class system is
marked by differences in power. While it is possible to become a boss
under capitalism, it does not make the power associated with that
position any less offensive to anarchists.

> In such countries it may appear that owners can act like lords, but in
> reality this is government oppression, not capitalist oppression.

Like the USA, where workers undoubtably will be fired for joining a
union, exercising free speach on the job, and where the capitalists
nowadays offer workers the option of being fired, seeing their
jobs sent to Mexico, or accepting stagnating pay, longer hours
and worse working conditions.

yet again James Donald indicates his grasp on reality is somewhat
shakey.

Iain

James A. Donald

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Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

Why socialism needs killing fields:

Throughout the twentieth century the introduction of socialism has
always involved killing fields, facilities for the mass production of
murder by specialized labor.

Although this institution has been widely used throughout the
twentieth century, we did not create a word for it until close to the
end of the twentieth century, when Pol Pot organized approximately 20
000 separate killing fields, a world record, thanks to his firm
commitment to decentralized government.

Though the word is new, the system is as old as socialism.

The basic problem of socialism is the relationship between production
and consumption. It is likely that the number seven widget collective
might want to produce fewer widgets, or a different kind of widget, to
that which certain users of widgets desire. Furthermore some users of
widgets will want widgets for one purpose, and others for a different
purpose, and there probably will not be as many widgets as they all
desire, or the varieties that each diverse user of widgets desires.

Now under capitalism, no problem. You want widgets? You pay for
widgets. You get the widgets you want or you refuse to buy widgets.
And if you do not want to pay, then you probably do not need the
widgets as much as the guy who is willing to pay. And if the price is
high, then making widgets must be hard, and if it is not hard, you go
into business making widgets, and you do not have to ask anyone's
permission to do that.

But under socialism, the number seven widget collective is producing
widgets for free, or at a "socially desirable price", which usually
might as well be free, since when goods are produced at "socially
desirable" prices money rapidly becomes unspendable. So who gets to
decide what widgets to produce? Those who produce them, or those who
consume them?

Well obviously "the community" must decide.

And then "the community" must impose its decision on the producers and
consumers of widgets.

Whereas in capitalism, the community can go jump in the lake. It is
nobody's business but that of a willing seller and a willing buyer.

This means that under socialism, issues of production and consumption
have to be dealt with in the same way that capitalists deal with
issues such as a stolen handbag.

Under capitalism there is a positive incentive to produce, since if
you produce something you own it, until you trade if for something you
want more, and you cannot consume, except you have produced something
that someone else values more than what you consume.

This of course makes it possible in capitalism for one person to wind
up owning vastly more than another due to the accidents of luck,
opportunity, ability, and ambition.

Under socialism it is necessary to use negative incentives, to punish
people for "parasitism" "hoarding", "black marketeering", and suchlike
"crimes", "crimes" which are unknown in capitalism, or rather
uniformly honored as virtues.

A socialist economy must employ negative incentives, the kind of
incentives that law abiding people apply only to muggers and the like,
in order to get light bulbs in the light sockets and toilet paper in
the toilets. Thus the entire socialist country must be run as a
prison, and all the citizens are lifers, and the nomenclatura are
merely trusties.

Needless to say, when this system is introduced, a great many people
misbehave. You cannot send them to prison, they already are in
prison.

You have to murder them.

Hence the need for efficient methods for the mass production of
murder.

Grdn

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Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| ...

| The basic problem of socialism is the relationship between production

| and consumption. ...

The basic problem of socialism is that when it reaches a
certain scale, it is attacked by liberal capitalist nations
and organizations, as well as more traditional and
conservative forces on its home grounds. Consequently
socialism can be brought forth only by military organizations
and warfare, with the usual descent into atrocity and
massacre.

What seems more remarkable (especially in view of their
professions and assumptions) is the record of the liberal
capitalist nations and organizations: civil war at home;
almost total genocide in North and South America; wholesale
slaughter and slavery in Africa and Asia; imperialism
throughout.

Socialism appears as a criticism of capitalism; but in
the realm of aggression and war, it appears to be more of an
emulator than a critic.
--
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
-----------------------------------------------
NOTE: if your ISP permits junkmailing, you will
probably not be able to reach me by email.

hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com

unread,

Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

In article <5q5eg1$pt3$1...@rockall.cc.strath.ac.uk> cll...@ccsun.strath.ac.uk (Iain McKay) writes:
>In article <hacksaw.15...@interlog.spam_me_not.com>,
>hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com writes:

>> In article <01bc8d79$692198e0$8e7b2399@default> "Shevek" <mp...@msn.com> writes:

>> >This discussion of anarcho-capitalism highlights a contradiction - you
>> >cannot in my humble view have anarchism and capitalism at the same time.
>> >Anarchism by definition means no ruler. Capitalism by definition means the

>> >rule of capital, or a world of owners and nonowners, of capitalists and of
>> >workers. It is not the business of workers to decide what kind of
>> >capitalism to have. Ultimately it makes little difference in their lives
>>
>> Most anarcho-capitalists don't define capitalism this way. They
>> see it simply as a system with private property rights and free
>> exchange. A society where everyone owned a small business would
>> be consistent with this, as would a society where everyone
>> voluntarily chose to pool their property with others and then
>> work and manage it democratically. There need not be any bosses
>> or "workers", according to this view of capitalism.

>In other words, "anarcho"-capitalism does not know what capitalism
>actually is! Interesting, but not surprising - history was never

You might be right here, but as swif...@geocities.com has
recently pointed out so astutely, what's important is the ideas,
not the label. You may rightly mock the anarcho-capitalists for
using an inappropriate name for their philosophy, and perhaps
even be suspicious of why they would do so, but this, in and of
itself, does nothing to discredit the ideas described by the
term "anarcho-capitalism" from being a legitimate form of
anarchism.

>a capitalist strong point. Interesting though that a socialist
>society would be considered "capitalist" under this definition,
>which indicates its uselessness.

Not quite. The reason that anarcho-capitalists would consider
it to be capitalist is that any of these organizations could
"choose" to dissolve at any time, by whatever methods for
collective decision making were agreed upon when the association
was formed, and revert to private ownership, and from there,
possibly boss/worker type relationships. On the other hand, if
the encompassing society was willing and able to use the threat
of violence or appropriation to prevent this, then
anarcho-capitalists would not consider such a society to be
capitalist. So the definition is not entirely useless.
However, as I pointed out in the part you snipped, I think that
they would be wise to use a different term, given the confusion
that this creates.

Now, according to the traditional anarchists, people voluntarily
choosing private ownership would never happen. They state this
with such confidence that it concerns me as to what they would
do about it if it actually did occur.

><snip>

>> [snip]
>> >those freedoms. However, I mean that from the point of view of being a
>> >worker, a wage slave is still a wage slave whether Uncle Sam or the
>> >corporation is the boss. [snip]
>>
>> Or an "anarchist" collective, for that matter.

>Unlike a boss, an anarchist collective (ie an association of workers)
>is based upon self-government - workers are their own "boss" and
>power is not in the hands of an elite. There are thress options for

Your error here, as James would say, is that your
anthropomorphizing a collective. The aggregate "workers" cannot
be "their" own boss, because collectives don't make decisions,
only individuals do. What you actually mean is that the
majority, or more precisely, the process, and those who
administer the process, by which the will of the majority is
determined, are the bosses. To those who don't agree with the
majority or who are not favored by the process, they are no
better off than under statism. Note that there can never be a
"perfect" process by which the will of the majority is
determined. Things as seemingly trivial as the time when voting
takes place, in what order the issues are presented, how the
questions are phrased, ect., can all influence the outcome.

>collective work - be an order taker (ie a wage worker), be a order
>giver (ie a boss) or be an associate. Anarchism picks the last one.

But since one is still ultimately ruled by others (the majority
in the association), anarchism (meaning without rulers), is a
misnomer for this set of ideas. I will submit tentatively that
this may be subjectively better than being ruled by a boss in
the same way that democracy may be subjectively better than
being ruled by a dictator, but its still just democracy, just
tyranny of the majority rather than the minority. Why don't you
call it for what it is?

Furthermore, since resources are held "in common" by "the
community", this community is what actually gets final say about
what happens in any individual workplace. It's either that or,
if free-markets are allowed, consumers are the final boss. In
either case, "worker's control of their workplace" is a sham.

>> >Anarchism is an action by
>> >working people aiming to overthrow all class society for once and for all.
>> >Classes, money, wages, banks, armies, courts - and establish a free
>> >federated society of common ownership.
>>
>> The problem with anything other than private ownership, though,
>> is that some mechanism must be devised to resolve disputes about
>> how things are to be used.

>And the problem of private ownership is that also needs some
>mechanism to be devised to resolve disputes about how things
>are used and, indeed, owned. For example, workers may dispute
>with their boss on how their factory is used. Or two people may
>dispute who owns want. Every society has disputes.

And property is an attempt to permanently resolve these
disputes. If the workers have other options by which they may
perpetuate their lives than to work for someone else (a boss),
or they had such an option at one time and gave it up
voluntarily, then they should have no dispute with the factory
owner so long as she acquired it without violence or fraud.

I put forth this position because I cannot fathom any other
system by which people may be at free from arbitrary rule of
other human beings. Perhaps I'm just not very creative, or my
biases are preventing me from seeing another obvious
alternative, but this is where you'll have to prove to me that
I'm mistaken.

>> Traditional anarchists, after
>> dancing around the issue for a while, usually suggest democracy
>> as the solution. Unfortunately, as these anarchists rightly
>> point out, control of property can sometimes mean control over
>> life and death. If the democratic majority has this control, it
>> has the power over life and death, and can use it to rule those
>> who's actions it disapproves of. Thus, traditional anarchism is
>> fatally self-contradictory.

>Nope, its is "anarcho"-capitalism which is fatally self-contradictory.
>Firstly, it has rulers (the boss rules the worker). Secondly, it has

And, as you probably know, I agree, provided that the workers
truly have no other option, anarcho-capitalism is in this case
self-contradictory. I think that its advocates are wrong when
they try to deny this. But, as you seem to have already
forgotten, anarcho-capitalism, unlike traditional anarchism,
doesn't require the existence of bosses, so at least the door is
left open for the theoretical possibility of freedom.

>"absolute" property rights (i.e. if workers cannot get a job, then
>they can die of starvation, or, a more common example, in famine areas
>rich farmers can sell crops to other places while their neighbours
>starve).

Assuming that anarcho-socialists actually live up to their own
rhetoric, the same thing could happen under their system: if
communities are truly autonomous, and can freely choose whether
or not to participate in higher levels of federation, a starving
community should not be able to force a less-starving one to
share its produce. After all, according to the these
"anarchists", workers are entitled to the fruits of their labor,
right? They're entitled to keep it for themselves or sell it to
the highest bidder. Why are collectives assumed to be
magnanimous and unselfish, while only individuals can be cruel
and uncaring assholes that hoard food as others starve?

In any case, one would think that, given a society with
political stability and where contracts and property rights are
expected to be honored, geographically disperse, famine prone
areas should be able to set up some sort of mutual insurance
scheme amongst one another to prevent this from ever being a
problem.

>Of course, "anarcho"-capitalists claim that their utopia
>will have full employment, but if that was the case then the power
>of labour would be so strong as to make profits decrease to zero!

I think you're oversimplifying here, but if this did happen, no
anarcho-capitalist could rightly object to it.

>Now, anarchists think that property like land should be collectively
>owned. The minority is part of that group and have a right to
>use that land as they so desire. Every anarchist writer has
>stated that minorities must have access to resources (thats why
>they are opposed to capitalism in the first place!).

If individuals (not just minority groups) are guaranteed access
to resources, to use as they see fit, then resource are not
"collectively owned". "Guaranteed private ownership" might
better describe such a system. My own ideas are somewhere along
these lines. The main problem that I see with it, as expressed
here, is that it does nothing to ensure that the amount of
resources one has access to will be enough to enable one to live
independently.

>And the silliness of this "objection" must be noted. Why would a
>majority decide to do this? Yes, it is possible (and if it did

I don't think that it's silly at all. Majorities often vote for
freedom violating laws. What if an evil wannabe capitalist
(evil, but who has established a reputation for keeping her word
and for having great business skills and intuition) tries to
hire away the best workers in a community by promising them
better wages and working conditions if they help her build and
run, say, a casino? If "the people" own all the resources in
common, they could "decide" that this use of resources is
"wasteful" and "inefficient", and demand that the would-be
capitalist and her would-be "wage-slaves" build a more
"appropriate" facility (or in other words, one sufficiently
unprofitable as to not allow these workers to get a better wage,
thus destroying the incentive leave their current masters).

>then the minority have the right of protest and insurrection)

And get slaughtered by the majority in the attempt. But why
should the majority having this power be considered legitimate
in the first place? Either the majority controls the use of
resources, and therefore must have the means to enforce this
control against the minority, or there is not truly common
ownership. As I see it, there are only four possible outcomes
to common ownership (majority rule over all property):

1) The minority takes what property (or access rights) that the
majority gives it, and does what work the majority says must be
done, since otherwise they will get no property at all, and will
eventually starve. In this scenario, the minority are slaves.

2) Same as 1, but instead, the minority chooses the starve to
death rather than be slaves. In this scenario, the minority are
dead.

3) The minority rejects the majority's decision, and attempts to
take whatever they believe they are entitled to have. The
majority crushes them, by one means or another. In this
scenario, the minority are either dead, imprisoned, or slaves.

4) Same as 3, but instead, the minority wins, thus common
ownership is terminated and replaced by something else. In this
scenario, the minority either become dictators (if they take
control of enough property that whoever's left of the majority
must come begging to be spared), or simply private owners (if
they leave enough property for others to be able to live
independently).

In the three situations where common ownership is retained, the
minority are ruled by threat of murder, torture, starvation, or
imprisonment. Thus, imposed common ownership is the antithesis
of anarchism. Only if all participants in such a system chose
to enslave themselves voluntarily could it be considered
"anarchistic".

It may be a different story if what you're advocating is
actually what I referred to as "guaranteed private ownership".
In this case, I think that this "entitlement" would be
compatible with anarchism so long as:

1) it entails no positive obligations towards other human beings

2) it is sufficient for individuals to permanently live off

3) it cannot be arbitrarily revoked and exchanged for some other
bundle of access rights, even if this other bundle met all these
criteria

4) it can be traded, rented, leased, sold, or given to anyone
whom the "owner" pleases at any time

5) surplus output in excess of what is necessary to survive is
possible, and can't be appropriated no matter how much it
exceeds the original calculation of how much output those access
rights could produce

6) granting this entitlement doesn't require forcing anyone else
to give up a similar entitlement

As one final note, I don't see how the concept of "common
ownership" is compatible with "use rights". In the former,
actual ownership (control) is imposed by the whim of the
majority. In the latter, ownership determined by whoever grabs
the most things first and exhibits the most convincing charade
that they're "using" them, or more precisely, by whatever group
gets to decide who's charade is the most convincing.

[snip]

James A. Donald

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Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
>| ...
>| The basic problem of socialism is the relationship between production
>| and consumption. ...

g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>The basic problem of socialism is that when it reaches a
>certain scale, it is attacked by liberal capitalist nations
>and organizations,

Marxist fantasy: Read Bryan Caplan's debunking of the alleged foriegn
intervention in the Russian revolution.
http://www.princeton.edu/~bdcaplan/museum/muchado.htm

> Consequently
> socialism can be brought forth only by military organizations
> and warfare, with the usual descent into atrocity and
> massacre.

Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
liberty.

C. Petersen

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Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

>
>Now under capitalism, no problem. You want widgets? You pay for
>widgets. You get the widgets you want or you refuse to buy widgets.
>And if you do not want to pay, then you probably do not need the
>widgets as much as the guy who is willing to pay. And if the price is
>high, then making widgets must be hard, and if it is not hard, you go
>into business making widgets, and you do not have to ask anyone's
>permission to do that.
>
>But under socialism, the number seven widget collective is producing
>widgets for free, or at a "socially desirable price", which usually
>might as well be free, since when goods are produced at "socially
>desirable" prices money rapidly becomes unspendable. So who gets to
>decide what widgets to produce? Those who produce them, or those who
>consume them?
>
>Well obviously "the community" must decide.
>
>And then "the community" must impose its decision on the producers and
>consumers of widgets.
>
>Whereas in capitalism, the community can go jump in the lake. It is
>nobody's business but that of a willing seller and a willing buyer.
>
>This means that under socialism, issues of production and consumption
>have to be dealt with in the same way that capitalists deal with
>issues such as a stolen handbag.
>

Well, the USA, not a 'socialist' country, is pretty effective in leading
the world in incarceration of its population. We have a greater % of
people in jail than the third world, the social democracies of europe,
than the old USSR. that puts a hole in your simplified theory of only
communist countries have excess population that they have to deal with.

furthermore, I wish you self described libertarian types would get beyond
these oversimplified economics 101 models involving 'widgets'. What is a
widget? If it is something innocuous like doilies that people are
crocheting to sell, then the concept of 'harmful externalities' would
never arise. However, in the real world, many products do have very
harmful side effects upon this community that you say can just jump in a
lake. Supposedly it's perfectly acceptable for competing widget makers to
start smelters in their backyards and poison everyone in the neighborhood,
to dig oil and have it spill into the waterway and poison songbirds which
people value but which just refuse to stay on their own private property,
or if a widget is a vegetable, competing producers can cut corners by
using cheaply produced fertilizer containing dioxin and then not label
their product as such or the guy upstream can suck out all the water from
the aquifer or river and the people downstream would have to pay to get
water.

You treat economics as though it is a science such a physics with
'laws' but economics is a social science which is more reliant on
psychology than natural laws, and the whole field does not have to be
accountable with using the scientific process with peer review and the use
of controls and double-blind data collection. Economists sit in closed
rooms with each other speculating about game theory and don't have to
venture outside, and like other social sciences, it is driven by
personalities. Marx or Milton friedman or Keynes or etc. say such and such
is true, therefore it must be true.

--
Christine Petersen

C. Petersen

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Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

>>| ...
>>| The basic problem of socialism is the relationship between production
>>| and consumption. ...
>
>g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>>The basic problem of socialism is that when it reaches a
>>certain scale, it is attacked by liberal capitalist nations
>>and organizations,
>
>

>Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
>for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
>democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
>completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
>liberty.

It would be very difficult to term South Korea or Chile as democracies. I
suppose you would call Singapore a 'very democracy society' as well?

Denmark, Sweden and Holland are the leading examples of socialist
countries today. Propose some of the institutions that they enjoy in the
united states such as one payer health care, support for single parents,
state paid college education etc. and watch the right wingers squeal about
how the 'marxists' are taking over etc. These countries also enjoy almost
the highest levels of protection of individuals rights. Why aren't they
falling apart at the seams.

--
Christine Petersen

Keith Johnson

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Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

> The basic problem of socialism is that when it reaches a
> certain scale, it is attacked by liberal capitalist nations

> and organizations, as well as more traditional and

> conservative forces on its home grounds. Consequently

> socialism can be brought forth only by military organizations
> and warfare, with the usual descent into atrocity and
> massacre.
>

> What seems more remarkable (especially in view of their
> professions and assumptions) is the record of the liberal
> capitalist nations and organizations: civil war at home;
> almost total genocide in North and South America; wholesale
> slaughter and slavery in Africa and Asia; imperialism
> throughout.
>
> Socialism appears as a criticism of capitalism; but in
> the realm of aggression and war, it appears to be more of an
> emulator than a critic.

That's why socialism will have to develope evolutionarily. At its heart,
socialism just means that people should be liberated from the tyranny of
the economy; markets won't have to be abolished, but they will have to
serve US instead of us serving them. The attempt to create socialism out
of whole cloth is doomed to failure; the task requires trial and error,
advance and retreat. The question is this: is it possible to create a
society where everyone will have an equal chance to realize their
humanity, in contrast to our capitalist society where your life chances
are circumscribed by your economic status. We might not ever reach the
ideal, but we are morally bound to get as close as we can.

your friend
Keith

DonM

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Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

Iain McKay wrote:
>
> In article <33C23D...@matrix.uti.com>, DonM <mclu...@matrix.uti.com> writes:

> > In socialism, you are expected to produce (your personal) wealth to be
> > shared with others.
...
> > In capitalism you are expected to produce your own
> > wealth, and the others are expected to produce their own.
>
> In capitalism you are expected to produce wealth for the capitalist,
> who returns to you only a fraction of what you produce. This all
> anarchists are agreed is exploitation - thats why they called
> themselves socialists (again, from Tucker to Bakunin).
...
> Capitalism is based upon workers not receiving the full product of
> their labour and socialism is based upon them receiving the full
> product of their labour. This is basic as can be seen from the
> works of people like Proudhon, Warren, Bakunin, Tucker, Kropotkin,
> and so on.
>
> For more information on *real* anarchism, check out the anarchist
> FAQ at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/
>
> Iain

Iain,

Thanks, I did. That's quite a religion you've got there. It sounds
like a great way to grow vegetables for your own consumption.

Try as I might, I couldn't find answers to some basic questions. I know
you and I are not going to change each other's minds, but I would like
to see your position a little more clearly. Here are the relevant
topics of your FAQ, with my questions:

BEGIN
"I.3.6 What about competition between syndicates?

....

"Before continuing, we would like to point out that individuals trying
to improve their lot in life is not against anarchist principles. How
could it be? What is against anarchist principles is centralized power,
oppression, and exploitation, all of which flow from large inequalities
of income. This is the source of anarchist concern about equality --
concern that is not based on some sort of "politics of envy." Anarchists
oppose inequality because it soon leads to the few oppressing the many
(a relationship which distorts the individuality and liberty of all
involved as well as the health and very lives of the oppressed).

"Anarchists desire to create a society in which such relationships are
impossible, believing that the most effective way to do this is by
empowering all, by creating an egoistic concern for liberty and equality
among the oppressed,

[Creating how, exactly?]

and by developing social organisations which encourage self-management.
As for individuals' trying to improve their lot, anarchists maintain
that cooperation
is the best means to do so, not competition.

Robert Axelrod, in his book, The Evolution of Cooperation agrees and
presents abundant
evidence that cooperation is in our long term interests (i.e. it
provides better results than short term competition). This suggests
that, as Kropotkin argued, mutual aid, not mutual struggle, will be in
an individual's self-interest and so competition in a free, sane,
society would be minimalised and reduced to sports and other individual
past-times. "

[So since cooperation is in our long-term interests, we will cooperate?
Just as we don't smoke, take crack cocaine, gamble compulsively, have
unprotected sex, eat fatty foods, or any of the other practices that are
not in our long-term interests? On what basis do you make this
preposterous claim that we (the whole world or any significant part)
will put our long-term interests ahead of our short-term desires and
needs?]

"Now to the "competition" objection, which we'll begin to answer by
noting that it ignores a few key points. Firstly, the assumption that
libertarian socialism would "become capitalist" in the absence of a
state is obviously false. If competition did occur between collectives
and did lead to massive wealth inequalities, then the newly rich would
have to create a state to protect their private property (means
of production) against the dispossessed. "

[And why wouldn't they, if it was in their long-term interest? Further,
if they did create a state, who would stop them?]

....

"In other words, these problems will exist, but there are a number of
things that anarchists can do to minimise their impact. Primarily there
must be a "gestation period" before the birth of an anarchist society,
in which social struggle, new forms of education and child-rearing, and
other methods of consciousness-raising increase the number of anarchists
and decrease the number of authoritarians. "

[Are you saying that an authoritartian regime of some sort is a
necessary part of the gestation of anarchism?]

"The most important element in this gestation period is social struggle.
Such self-activity will have a major impact on those involved in it (see
section J.2). By direct action

[What kind of action?]

and solidarity, those involved develop bounds of friendship and support
with others, develop new forms of ethics and new ideas and ideal. This
radicalisation process will help to ensure that any differences in
education and skill do not develop into differences in power in an
anarchist society. "

....

"So, while recognising that competition for skilled workers could exist,
anarchists think there are plenty of reasons not to worry about massive
economic inequality being created, which in turn would re-create the
state. The apologists for capitalism who put forward this argument
forget that the pursuit of self-interest is universal, meaning that
everyone would be interesting in maximising his or her liberty, and so
would be unlikely to allow inequalities to develop which threatened that
liberty."

[I don't think the apologists 'forget' that the pursuit of self-interest
in universal; quite the contrary. It is in fact the central reason that
anarchism is likely never to be more than a dream. Again, you are
basing this thought on the incredible belief that obtaining more
comforts or pleasures of some type or another is not in the
self-interest of most people? And what would happen to people who
insist on pursuing the 'wrong' self-interests?]

....

"As anarchism will never come about unless people desire it and start to
organise their own lives, it's clear that an anarchist society would be
inhabited by individuals who followed that ethical principle. "

[Yes, that is clear.]

....

"There is far more to life than the size of one's pay packet,

[ABSOLUTELY AGREED!!!!]

and anarchism exists in order to ensure that life is far more than the
weekly grind of boring work and the few hours of hectic consumption in
which people attempt to fill the "spiritual hole" created by a way of
life which places profits above people."

[Do you see the similarities between anarchism and a religion? I'm not
knocking religion, BTW.]

Well, thanks for pointing me to the web page. It cleared up a lot for
me. If you or someone else can answer the questions that I had, I'll be
grateful. No, I'm not being sarcastic.

psychopomp

unread,

Jul 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/12/97

C. Petersen wrote:
> Denmark, Sweden and Holland are the leading examples of socialist
> countries today. Propose some of the institutions that they enjoy in the
> united states such as one payer health care, support for single parents,
> state paid college education etc. and watch the right wingers squeal about
> how the 'marxists' are taking over etc. These countries also enjoy almost
> the highest levels of protection of individuals rights. Why aren't they
> falling apart at the seams.

That's obviously because of the evil Socialist conspiracy to keep the Swedish, Danish,
and Dutch, killing fields out of the news. Shhhhhh, keep it a secret, don't let anybody
know.
Say, aren't those the same evil socialist dictatorships that have a higher life
expectancy and 2/3rds our infant mortality? Those sick bastards!

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

> > Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
> > for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
> > democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
> > completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
> > liberty.

ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
>It would be very difficult to term South Korea or Chile as democracies.

There is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of
association, they hold free and fair elections, and presidents and
political parties in both countries lose elections for the usual
trivial reasons from time to time, and leave without bloodshed.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

Keith Johnson <co...@pe.net> wrote:
> At its heart,
> socialism just means that people should be liberated from the tyranny of
> the economy; markets won't have to be abolished, but they will have to
> serve US instead of us serving them.

But markets are just people doing what they individually wish to do.
To make the market serve "us" means you must subordinate the
individual to the will of "the people", a process that necessarily
involves the extensive use of guns, truncheons, beatings, and midnight
raids.

When you say "make the market serve us", you necessarily mean "make
James Donald serve us". Try it on me, and very likely I will kill
you, unless you kill me first.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
> Well, the USA, not a 'socialist' country, is pretty effective in leading
> the world in incarceration of its population.

North Korea is one big prison, and if we made our prisons as
uncongenial as Japanese prisons, I expect our prison population would
diminish radically.

For example in Japanese prisons, prisoners are required to be polite
and respectful to warders.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>Why socialism needs killing fields:
>
>Throughout the twentieth century the introduction of socialism has
>always involved killing fields, facilities for the mass production of
>murder by specialized labor.

yeah, those sweedish killing fields are the worst...

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
>for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
>democracy, and capitalism continues just fine,

Chile is still a military dictatorship in fact and only a democracy
on paper. It stands as a good example of what the original poster was
refering to.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

lam...@washington.edu wrote:
> Chile is still a military dictatorship in fact and only a democracy
> on paper.

Chileans can speak freely, and the *elected* government has recently
implemented policies than Pinochet would have strongly opposed.

Some time ago, when Pinochet was *still* dictator, he conducted a
referendum. People opposed him, and nothing bad happened to those
that opposed him, and he lost the referendum.

Even when Pinochet actually *was* a military dictator his crimes were
much smaller than those of the least evil of those workers paradises
that you are so keen on.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>North Korea is one big prison, and if we made our prisons as
>uncongenial as Japanese prisons, I expect our prison population would
>diminish radically.
>
>For example in Japanese prisons, prisoners are required to be polite
>and respectful to warders.

the amount of brutatility and rape which occurs in american prisons places
them well within "uncongenial." the citizens of north korea are much
better off than the inhabitants of our prisons.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
> he citizens of north korea are much
> better off than the inhabitants of our prisons.

In North Korea they do not use handcuffs. They run a piece of fencing
wire *through* the captives hand, and then bend the wire so it cannot
be pulled out.

In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone ceases
to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an injured horse.
Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>Chileans can speak freely, and the *elected* government has recently
>implemented policies than Pinochet would have strongly opposed.
>
>Some time ago, when Pinochet was *still* dictator, he conducted a
>referendum. People opposed him, and nothing bad happened to those
>that opposed him, and he lost the referendum.

other people opposed him on more substantial issues and were never
seen again. i'm not surprised even Pinochet allowed dissent, but it
was dissent within the allowable margins. there were (and are) punishments
for stepping outside of those margins.

>Even when Pinochet actually *was* a military dictator his crimes were
>much smaller than those of the least evil of those workers paradises
>that you are so keen on.

yeah, but it doesn't compare to the slaughter in indonesia, in east timor
and around the world that you're so keen on. those hundreds of thousands
dead in iraq to keep your oil flowing. and the slaughter in cambodia
can largely be left on your doorstep since it wouldn't have happened without
the large-scale bombing of cambodia and laos that nixon carried out.

and after *how* many years of being on the net are you going to get it
through your think skull that the fringe of the left which actually approved
of shit like china and stalinist russia is long gone?

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>> he citizens of north korea are much
>> better off than the inhabitants of our prisons.
>
>In North Korea they do not use handcuffs. They run a piece of fencing
>wire *through* the captives hand, and then bend the wire so it cannot
>be pulled out.

usual bullshit scare tactics. the right wing propaganda gets very old
after awhile. i don't doubt that N. Korea does crap like that to their
political prisoners, but i never argued that their nation was run by
saints -- i said that the average citizen there is better off than the
average occupant of an american prison. reading comprehension.

>In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone ceases
>to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an injured horse.
>Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.

more bullshit propaganda...

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
> and after *how* many years of being on the net are you going to get it
> through your think skull that the fringe of the left which actually approved
> of shit like china and stalinist russia is long gone?

In the post immediately preceding this you lied about Cambodia and
North Korea.

It looks to me as if the vast majority of the radical left which
hungers for the power to destroy, enslave, and terrorize, is with us
right now.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>In the post immediately preceding this you lied about Cambodia and
>North Korea.

interesting statement. completely pulled out of your ass. where do you
get these?

>It looks to me as if the vast majority of the radical left which
>hungers for the power to destroy, enslave, and terrorize, is with us
>right now.

you know, i could probably write a perl script which exhibited more
intelligence and was less repetitive than you are...

you seem to believe that by asserting repeatedly that socialists in this
country are in favor of brutal totalitarian dictatorships that it will
come true. are you getting paid to do this repeatedly over and over again
and never think?

Grdn

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| >| ...

| >| The basic problem of socialism is the relationship between production
| >| and consumption. ...

g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| >The basic problem of socialism is that when it reaches a
| >certain scale, it is attacked by liberal capitalist nations
| >and organizations,

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):

| Marxist fantasy: Read Bryan Caplan's debunking of the alleged foriegn
| intervention in the Russian revolution.
| http://www.princeton.edu/~bdcaplan/museum/muchado.htm

As it happens, I learned about this intervention as a teen-
ager, not from books -- it wasn't in the books -- but from
a man I encountered in the Adirondack mountains who had
been to Vladivostok in his youth (1919 or 1920) as soldier.
Since this fellow otherwise had never gone anywhere -- I
don't think he visited Montreal or Albany on his own in his
life, and maybe not even Massena -- it was quite a curious
tale.

By going to the library and looking through old newspapers
and forgotten histories, I was able to uncover some of the
story. There was plenty of foreign intervention in the
Russian revolution(s) and civil war(s) which followed, but
the Russian Empire was a big place and those left standing
after World War I were unwilling to devote the resources
necessary to bring it to heel.

Alleged, indeed. The British ruling class managed to cover
up their genocidal role in the Irish potato famine for 150
years, so it's not surprising that lesser adventures can be
concealed.

g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > Consequently
| > socialism can be brought forth only by military organizations
| > and warfare, with the usual descent into atrocity and
| > massacre.

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald):

| Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
| for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and

| democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
| completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
| liberty.

I believe the current deal available to all states is that
liberty and democracy will be permitted, should they by
some chance arise, if the purposes of international capital
are unhindered; but the latter will by no means do anything
on its own to bring them about, as witness capitalist
support for dictatorial regimes in Asia, Africa, and
elsewhere. Should liberty and democracy transgress upon
capitalist privilege, as in Guatemala or Nicaragua, economic
war, terrorism and possibly direct intervention will ensue.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
> > In the post immediately preceding this you lied about Cambodia and
> > North Korea.

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
> interesting statement. completely pulled out of your ass. where do you
> get these?

You denied some of the more famous crimes of North Korea and Pol Pot's
Cambodia, from which I inferred a desire to commit those crimes all
over again.

dckom

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

On Sun, 13 Jul 1997 16:35:43 GMT c.e., jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald)
wrote :

>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
>> > In the post immediately preceding this you lied about Cambodia and
>> > North Korea.
>
>lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>> interesting statement. completely pulled out of your ass. where do you
>> get these?
>
>You denied some of the more famous crimes of North Korea and Pol Pot's
>Cambodia, from which I inferred a desire to commit those crimes all
>over again.

Having just done a quick run-through of the entire thread, concentrating of
the posts of Mr. Lamont, that is a completely bogus charge.

David

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Free thought, neccessarily involving freedom of
speech and press, I may tersely define thus:no
opinion a law-no opinion a crime.
Alexander Berkman

Ron A. Zajac

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

James A. Donald wrote:
>
> > > Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
> > > for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
> > > democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
> > > completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
> > > liberty.
>

> ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
> >It would be very difficult to term South Korea or Chile as democracies.
>
> There is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of
> association, they hold free and fair elections, and presidents and
> political parties in both countries lose elections for the usual
> trivial reasons from time to time, and leave without bloodshed.

Y'know, James; I don't believe I've _ever_ seen you _not_ snip out those
knotty little references to arguably successful socialist economies (eg,
"Denmark, Sweden and Holland..." from Mr. Petersen's post). (Tho I
haven't read all your responses). Am I detecting a pattern? Throwing
out data that doesn't confirm yr hypothosis, mayhaps? Nothing degrading
about admitting that life isn't all black and white--"killing fields or
darwinian markets; take yr pick". Or are you just tired of arguing that
the aforementioned economies don't represent _real_ socialism (heaps of
human skulls not high enough for you?).

--
Ron A. Zajac / NORTEL / 972-684-4887 esn444 / zajacATnortelDOTcom
These notions are mine, not NORTEL's!

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

"Ron A. Zajac" <za...@Snortel.com> wrote:
> Y'know, James; I don't believe I've _ever_ seen you _not_ snip out those
> knotty little references to arguably successful socialist economies (eg,
> "Denmark, Sweden and Holland..."

In those countries the means of production are privately owned, and
the economy is run by the market place.

In the article in which I started this thread I argued that public
ownership or control of the means of production and distribution
necessarily leads to terror.

Theory predicts, and observation of innumerable countries confirms, a
simple and direct correlation between social ownership or control of
the means of production, and terror.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

James A. Donald writes:
> > > > In the post immediately preceding this you lied about
> > > > Cambodia and North Korea.

lam...@washington.edu wrote:
> > > interesting statement. completely pulled out of your ass.
> > > where do you get these?

James A. Donald:

> > You denied some of the more famous crimes of North Korea and Pol
> > Pot's Cambodia, from which I inferred a desire to commit those
> > crimes all over again.

dc...@atlcom.net (dckom) wrote:
> Having just done a quick run-through of the entire thread, concentrating of
> the posts of Mr. Lamont, that is a completely bogus charge.

Here is the post to which I refer:

I wrote:
> In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone
> ceases to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an
> injured horse.
> Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.

To which Lamont replied:
more bullshit propaganda...

C. Petersen

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

>>
>> > > Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
>> > > for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
>> > > democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
>> > > completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
>> > > liberty.
>>

>> >It would be very difficult to term South Korea or Chile as democracies.
>>
>> There is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of
>> association, they hold free and fair elections, and presidents and
>> political parties in both countries lose elections for the usual
>> trivial reasons from time to time, and leave without bloodshed.

Lots of dissidents thrown in jail, police violently breaking up rallies of
students, no freedom of the press to say really controversial things which
is essentially what we refer to when we talk of freedom of the press. But
I suppose lots of Americans think that the first amendments 'goes too
far', so maybe we're heading in that direction too. God knows we don't
take the fourth amendment very seriously
--
Christine Petersen

C. Petersen

unread,

Jul 13, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/13/97

In article <5q9l9b$3fb$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>,

James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
>> he citizens of north korea are much
>> better off than the inhabitants of our prisons.
>
>In North Korea they do not use handcuffs. They run a piece of fencing
>wire *through* the captives hand, and then bend the wire so it cannot
>be pulled out.
>

>In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone ceases
>to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an injured horse.
>Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.

I give North Korea about a month more, or so. They can all starve to death
or they can attack South Korea (I think Il Jong actually thinks that they
could carry this out) and then lose a few people, but more people would
actually end up surviving. It's amazing that there haven't been more
escape attempts, at least by people with some means, like the army border
patrol. The people in the most famished regions are just staying at home
and dying. I guess it's a lesson in human nature. I'm a german and my
mother grew up in the third reich and there are a lot of similar stories.
The 10% of people who strongly opposed left the country or were killed off
early, and the regular poor people who didn't even vote quickly learned to
not say anything. My grandparents were deaf and everyone treated them like
they were retarded, and in some sense, my grandfather probably got away
with a higher level of dissent than anyone else, because everyone just
ignored him. He refused to 'heil'. If germany had lasted another few years
they would have sterilized my mother for having 'weak' deafness genes, and
my uncle definitely would have been killed. They put him in the army when
he was only 12. But for the large part of the regular population, it was
only about 1944 or so that people started to have second thoughts enter
into their heads.
--
Christine Petersen

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:
> Lots of dissidents thrown in jail, police violently breaking up rallies of
> students, no freedom of the press to say really controversial things which
> is essentially what we refer to when we talk of freedom of the press.

According to the Freedom house survey for Korea:

http://www.freedomhouse.org/survey.htm:
****************************************************************
Korea, South

Political Rights: 2

Civil Liberties: 2

Status: Free

Polity: Presidential-parliamentary democracy

Economy: Capitalist-statist

Population: 44,851,000

PPP: $9,250

Life Expectancy: 71.1

Ethnic Groups: Korean

Capital: Seoul
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overview:

South Korean President Kim Young Sam's administration initiated
criminal proceedings in late 1995 against two former presidents,
offering the possibility of reforming a governing system characterized
by corrupt links between business and politics.

[...]

At the March 1992 parliamentary elections the DLP won 149 seats; Kim
Dae Jung's opposition Democratic Party, 97; the conservative United
National Party, 31; the Party for New Political Reform, 1;

[...]

Political Rights and Civil Liberties:

South Koreans can change their government democratically. The
judiciary is independent. Corruption investigations carried out by the
executive branch frequently appear to be politically motivated.

The continued application of the broadly-drawn National Security Law
(NSL) remains the country's key human rights issue. Since President
Kim took office scores of people have been arrested under the NSL for
allegedly pro-North Korean, nonviolent expression. NSL and ordinary
detainees are frequently beaten to extract confessions, and suspects
are generally not allowed access to attorneys during interrogation.

The broadcast media are state-supported but generally offer
pluralistic views, while the largely private print media practice some
self-censorship. Civic institutions are strong and local human rights
groups operate openly.

[...]

*******************************************************************

According to the freedom house survey for Chile:

*******************************************************************
Chile

Political Rights: 2

Civil Liberties: 2

Status: Free

Polity: Presidential-legislative democracy

Economy: Capitalist

Population: 14,251,000

PPP: $8,410

Life Expectancy: 73.8

Ethnic Groups: Mestizo, Spanish, other European, Indian

Capital: Santiago
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overview:

An extended confrontation between President Eduardo Frei's government
and the military under former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet made
clear the limitations on elected civilian rule in Chile.

The Republic of Chile was founded after independence from Spain in
1818. Democratic governance predominated in this century until the
1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende by the military under Pinochet.

The 1980 constitution Pinochet installed provided for a plebiscite in
which voters could reject another presidential term for Pinochet. In
1988, 55 percent of voters said "no" to eight more years of military
rule, and competitive presidential and legislative elections were
scheduled for 1989.

Following 1989 and 1994 constitutional reform, presidents are elected
for six years. There is a bicameral Congress with a 120-member Chamber
of Deputies elected for four years and a Senate with thirty-eight
senators elected for eight years, and eight appointed by the
government for eight years.

In 1989 Patricio Aylwin, the candidate of the center-left Concertacion
for Democracy, was elected president over two right-wing candidates
and the Concertacion won a majority in the Chamber. But with eight
senators appointed by the outgoing military government, it fell short
of a Senate majority.

[...]

Political Rights and Civil Liberties:

Citizens can change their government democratically. Democratic
institutions are better established than in any other Latin American
country outside of Costa Rica.

However, while reformed in some aspects, the 1980 constitution
installed under Pinochet still limits civilian authority over the
armed forces. The president cannot change armed forces commanders
until 1997 or reduce the military budget. The constitution also
allowed the former Pinochet regime to appoint eight senators to
eight-year terms in 1989.

In 1990 a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed to
investigate rights violations committed under military rule. The
Commission's report implicated the military and secret police at the
highest levels in the deaths or disappearances of 2,279 people between
September 1973 and March 1990. However, in 1978 the Pinochet regime
had issued an amnesty for all political crimes, and the Supreme Court,
packed by Pinochet before leaving office, has blocked all government
efforts to lift it.

The amnesty has not stopped civilian governments from investigating
rights cases. Hundreds of cases involving incidents after 1978 have
been brought to civilian courts, resulting in a handful of
convictions. In late 1995, however, the Supreme Court, possibly under
pressure from the military, began dismissing dozens of cases with
increasing speed and without the depth of investigation it had
exhibited previously.

In 1991 the Court made a dramatic turnaround in the special case of
the 1976 murder in Washington of former Chilean ambassador to the
U.S., Orlando Letelier. The Court ruled that the alleged authors of
the crimeformer secret police chief and retired Gen. Manuel Contreras
and Col. Pedro Espinosabe tried in civilian courts. Both were
convicted in November 1993, the first time a civil court had convicted
ranking officers for crimes committed under military rule. They were
sentenced to seven and six years in prison, respectively, and were
jailed in 1995 as described in the Overview.

Most laws limiting political expression and civil liberties were
eliminated by constitutional reforms in 1989. Media freedom was almost
fully restored. Scores of publications represent all points of view.
Radio is both private and public. The national television network is
state-run, but open to all political voices. Universities run three
noncommercial television stations.

However, a journalists' licensing law remains in place, and a number
of restrictive laws remain in effect, including one granting military
courts power to convict journalists or others for sedition or libeling
members of the military.

The draconian 1978 labor code has undergone significant reform.
Strikes are legal, but organizational and collective bargaining
provisions remain weak. The Frei administration has proposed reforms
to strengthen labor rights guarantees, but in 1995 the right-wing bloc
in Congress was still able to block legislation.

Sporadic actions by remnants of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front
(FPMR), the former armed wing of the Communist Party, continue. Human
rights groups remain concerned about anti-terrorist legislation that
broadened police powers. There are still frequent reports of police
abuses, including torture and use of excessive force against political
demonstrators, but there are also signs of greater accountability.

Implementation of a 1993 indigenous rights law has been slow because
of a lack of resources, according to the government.

Mark Roddy

unread,

Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:

>jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

>>Why socialism needs killing fields:
>>
>>Throughout the twentieth century the introduction of socialism has
>>always involved killing fields, facilities for the mass production of
>>murder by specialized labor.
>
>yeah, those sweedish killing fields are the worst...
>
>--

You have to understand donaldism. You start from the conclusion and
work backwards. Only socialist systems that engaged in totalitarianism
are allowed as truly "socialist" in the donald universe. All of the
perfectly nice places to live that happen to have some sort of
socialist system are disallowed because they DONT HAVE KILLING FIELDS.

So you have to toss the scandinavians, all the various flavors of
western european democratic socialism, etc. See they don't fit the
data so toss them out.

psychopomp

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

James A. Donald wrote:
>
> "Shevek" <mp...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> >This discussion of anarcho-capitalism highlights a contradiction - you
> >cannot in my humble view have anarchism and capitalism at the same time.
> >Anarchism by definition means no ruler. Capitalism by definition means the
> >rule of capital, or a world of owners and nonowners,
>
> The owners do not remain owners very long, unless they serve the will
> of the customers. Observe the very rapid turnover in the Forbes 400,
> and the modest social origins of the average north american
> millionaire.
>
> We only see capitalism working like a caste system in countries with
> heavy state intervention in the economy, such as France, where no one
> can hope to run a business unless he is born part of narrow elite,
>
> In such countries it may appear that owners can act like lords, but in
> reality this is government oppression, not capitalist oppression.
> Yes, but who wants those governments to oppress? The capitalists, obviously
since they are the ones who prosper from it. So in the event that their
security blanket is taken away they will seek to make another, only the new one
would be privately owned and run without any input from those outside the
Capitalist class. Here lies the fault of so called "Anarcho" Capitalism. Se my
post, "Anarco" Capitalism In Action.

Rich Johnson

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

C. Petersen (ott...@u.washington.edu) wrote:

: >>| ...

: >>| The basic problem of socialism is the relationship between production
: >>| and consumption. ...
: >
: >g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
: >>The basic problem of socialism is that when it reaches a
: >>certain scale, it is attacked by liberal capitalist nations
: >>and organizations,

: >
: >
: >Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,

: >for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
: >democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
: >completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
: >liberty.

: It would be very difficult to term South Korea or Chile as democracies. I
: suppose you would call Singapore a 'very democracy society' as well?
:
: Denmark, Sweden and Holland are the leading examples of socialist

: countries today. Propose some of the institutions that they enjoy in the
: united states such as one payer health care, support for single parents,
: state paid college education etc. and watch the right wingers squeal about
: how the 'marxists' are taking over etc. These countries also enjoy almost
: the highest levels of protection of individuals rights. Why aren't they
: falling apart at the seams.

Sweden's population is much smaller than that of the US. They are almost all
Swedish and almost all Lutheran. By almost all I mean > 90%. Assuming that
government services that work there will work here is foolish. We have ~270
million people here from all over the globe.

Rich

Iain McKay

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

In article <5q9en5$d2$4...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
> lam...@washington.edu wrote:
> > Chile is still a military dictatorship in fact and only a democracy
> > on paper.
>

> Chileans can speak freely, and the *elected* government has recently
> implemented policies than Pinochet would have strongly opposed.

Yes, because "free market" capitalism had resulted in a society with a
wealthy elite and impoverished majority. Workers real wages did
not reach 1970 levels until *after* Pinochet was kicked out. The
elite got very wealthy, unsurprisingly, under Pinochet.

> Some time ago, when Pinochet was *still* dictator, he conducted a
> referendum. People opposed him, and nothing bad happened to those
> that opposed him, and he lost the referendum.

Lets not forget the many protesters murdered in 1983 (over 100, if
I remember correctly) or the government death squads that were
denounced by AI in 1986 (existing 13 years after the bloody military
coup)

"Bad" things did happen to opponents of Pinochet, the military's human
rights record was denounced across the world as barbaric. Torture,
death squads, suppression of free speach, association (when the rulers
did not approve), etc. That James denies this says alot about his
grasp on reality.

> Even when Pinochet actually *was* a military dictator his crimes were
> much smaller than those of the least evil of those workers paradises
> that you are so keen on.

So, Pinochet was okay because he murdered *less* people? Yes, very good.

And notice the logic, James assumes that everyone who disagrees with
him supports the "workers paradises" of the soviet union, china,
whatever. This is usually not the case, but since when were facts
of interest to him?

Iain

Keith Johnson

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

Dear James

> I wrote:
> > In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone
> > ceases to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an
> > injured horse.
> > Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.
>

> To which Lamont replied:
> more bullshit propaganda...

Dear James
So that's your proof that Lamont lied? You wrote that PRESUMABLY The
North Koreans kill people when are no longer useful. Thus PRESUMABLY
you have no evidence that this kind of nazi-like murder occurs. Lamont
is quite justified to consider such an outrageous claim, made without
supporting evidence, to be propaganda. Calling him a liar because he
questions the truth of your outrageous claims is just dumb. Such murders
DID occur in Cambodia; I don't see that Lamont denied this fact.

Keith

James A. Donald

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

> > > > > Yet curiously, capitalist states born by similarly unpleasant means,
> > > > > for example Chile and South Korea, rapidly develop liberty and
> > > > > democracy, and capitalism continues just fine, whereas socialism
> > > > > completely falls apart at the seams at the first light breeze of
> > > > > liberty.

> > > >It would be very difficult to term South Korea or Chile as democracies.

> > > There is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of

> > > association, they hold free and fair elections, and presidents and
> > > political parties in both countries lose elections for the usual
> > > trivial reasons from time to time, and leave without bloodshed.

ott...@u.washington.edu (C. Petersen) wrote:

> Lots of dissidents thrown in jail,

Bullshit:

Name one Korean or Chilean dissident in jail today. (Other than
people who "dissented" by killing and destroying)

> police violently breaking up rallies of
> students, no freedom of the press to say really controversial things which
> is essentially what we refer to when we talk of freedom of the press.

Bunkum.

Where do you get this crap? Pravda?

Iain McKay

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

In article <hacksaw.15...@interlog.spam_me_not.com>, hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com writes:

<snip>

> >In other words, "anarcho"-capitalism does not know what capitalism
> >actually is! Interesting, but not surprising - history was never
>
> You might be right here, but as swif...@geocities.com has
> recently pointed out so astutely, what's important is the ideas,
> not the label.

In that case why do they call themselves "anarchists"? The anarchist
movement has always been opposed to capitalism (eg Tucker called
himself an anarchistic-socialist) - so, as a political theory,
anarchism has specific social, political and economic ideas.
Capitalism not being one of them.

> You may rightly mock the anarcho-capitalists for
> using an inappropriate name for their philosophy, and perhaps
> even be suspicious of why they would do so, but this, in and of
> itself, does nothing to discredit the ideas described by the
> term "anarcho-capitalism" from being a legitimate form of
> anarchism.

Yes it does - if the ideas associated with a political theory are
unimportant for using that name then why don't the
"anarcho"-capitalists call themselves fascists? A legitimate form
of anarchism is one that shares the basic ideas of anarchism,
namely opposition to both state and capitalism. A person who
called themselves a marxist and did not oppose capitalism would
not be a marxist, for example.

<snip>

> Now, according to the traditional anarchists, people voluntarily
> choosing private ownership would never happen. They state this
> with such confidence that it concerns me as to what they would
> do about it if it actually did occur.

Just as we argue that an anarchist society would not recreate the
state and representative government - yes it might happen, and
if it did then those who opposed the move have the right and
duty to defend their own freedom. So, yes, an anarchist society
*may* decide to privatise the means of production - if they do
so, then the minority can and must keep their own means of
production collectively owned.

<snip>

> >Unlike a boss, an anarchist collective (ie an association of workers)
> >is based upon self-government - workers are their own "boss" and
> >power is not in the hands of an elite. There are thress options for
>
> Your error here, as James would say, is that your
> anthropomorphizing a collective. The aggregate "workers" cannot
> be "their" own boss, because collectives don't make decisions,
> only individuals do.

And collectives are made up of individuals. That is obvious.

> What you actually mean is that the
> majority, or more precisely, the process, and those who
> administer the process, by which the will of the majority is
> determined, are the bosses. To those who don't agree with the
> majority or who are not favored by the process, they are no
> better off than under statism.

Or under the capitalist boss.

> Note that there can never be a
> "perfect" process by which the will of the majority is
> determined. Things as seemingly trivial as the time when voting
> takes place, in what order the issues are presented, how the
> questions are phrased, ect., can all influence the outcome.

Yes, and the alternative to democracy is dictatorship. Yes, a
minority is "governed" by a majority but unlike under capitalism
the minority have the option of trying to argue their case,
convince the majority of the errors of their ways. Voice and
exit, in other words.

Personally, I would prefer to be in a minority once in a while
than subject to the boss all the time.

> >collective work - be an order taker (ie a wage worker), be a order
> >giver (ie a boss) or be an associate. Anarchism picks the last one.
>
> But since one is still ultimately ruled by others (the majority
> in the association), anarchism (meaning without rulers), is a
> misnomer for this set of ideas. I will submit tentatively that
> this may be subjectively better than being ruled by a boss in
> the same way that democracy may be subjectively better than
> being ruled by a dictator, but its still just democracy, just
> tyranny of the majority rather than the minority. Why don't you
> call it for what it is?

In other words, anarchism is impossible. But I think that self-government
in free associations is a close enough approximation to warrent the
name anarchism.

> Furthermore, since resources are held "in common" by "the
> community", this community is what actually gets final say about
> what happens in any individual workplace.

Yes, that is an option. And why would the community (ie the workers
and their neighbours) decide to intervene in the workplace? if that
workplace was acting in ways that were harmful to those in the
community - i.e. polluting, oppressing minorities, whatever.

> It's either that or,
> if free-markets are allowed, consumers are the final boss.

Actually, consumers would not be the final boss. Profit would
be the final boss, and that may result in the workers having to
introduce longer hours, bad working conditions, polluting, etc.
in order to survive in the market. In other words, in a situation
of "free-markets" the workers may be *worse off* in terms of
individual freedom than under a system of community ownership
and workers control.

And, of course, the community would be the consumers and under
capitalism, workers would be subject to the rules and law of
their bosses and who owns the capital.

> In
> either case, "worker's control of their workplace" is a sham.

No, not really, as workers control would exist for the day to
day running of the workplace, deciding which orders to take, how
to do them,. etc. Community input would be in terms of pollution
levels, and so on.

Under capitalism, workers control does not exist.

<snip>

> >And the problem of private ownership is that also needs some
> >mechanism to be devised to resolve disputes about how things
> >are used and, indeed, owned. For example, workers may dispute
> >with their boss on how their factory is used. Or two people may
> >dispute who owns want. Every society has disputes.
>
> And property is an attempt to permanently resolve these
> disputes.

Private property is a constant source of disputes, it has and never
will "permanently" resolve them.

> If the workers have other options by which they may
> perpetuate their lives than to work for someone else (a boss),
> or they had such an option at one time and gave it up
> voluntarily, then they should have no dispute with the factory
> owner so long as she acquired it without violence or fraud.

Ah, yes, some decisions *cannot* be changed. So, lets think
about this. If such a society resulted in workers having to
sell themselves into slave contracts then this would be a "free"
and "just" situation? The workers would have no "dispute"
with their new owners? No, I don't think so.

In other words, just because a given set of distributions may
come about "without violence of fraud" does not mean that
those subject to them are free - we can easily imagine a
society that resulted in the majority being "civilised"
slaves because a minority own the means of life. As such,
as a viewpoint of what is free or just, it is saddly lacking.

> I put forth this position because I cannot fathom any other
> system by which people may be at free from arbitrary rule of
> other human beings.

But, as indicated, such a system is based upon the arbitrary
rule of other human beings - indeed such a system could result
in slavery. As such this system is deeply flawed and does
not get to the real issues, how to make self-government the
norm in human interaction. Capitalism results in the worker
only being free when signing the contract, after that they
are subject to a form of rulership which can be termed
dictatorship.

> Perhaps I'm just not very creative, or my
> biases are preventing me from seeing another obvious
> alternative, but this is where you'll have to prove to me that
> I'm mistaken.

Yes, a system based upon self-management in free associations,
with a system of community ownership to ensure that workplaces
remain cooperatives. Individuals would freely join communes
and cooperatives, and have a say in what happens within them.

<snip>

> >Nope, its is "anarcho"-capitalism which is fatally self-contradictory.
> >Firstly, it has rulers (the boss rules the worker). Secondly, it has
>
> And, as you probably know, I agree, provided that the workers
> truly have no other option, anarcho-capitalism is in this case
> self-contradictory. I think that its advocates are wrong when
> they try to deny this.

And as can be seen from "actually existing" capitalism, this is indeed
the case.

> But, as you seem to have already
> forgotten, anarcho-capitalism, unlike traditional anarchism,
> doesn't require the existence of bosses, so at least the door is
> left open for the theoretical possibility of freedom.

What does this mean? Traditional anarchism requires the existance of
bosses? The majority in a free association is hardly the same as
the boss of a capitalist firm. Now, if we think about the workplace
in "anarcho"-capitalism it too is faced with the same problem as
"traditional" anarchism - how do they make decisions. Either its
democracy (and so not capitalism) or its dictatorship, in which
case its a boss.

Or, perhaps, its a reference to community ownership? But as indicated
community ownership (which, btw, is the case in most, but not all,
forms of anarchism) does not concern itself with bossing workers,
it is a means of ensuring that cooperatives stay democratic and
live in harmony with the community. In practice I think that
community ownership would be less restrictive than private ownership
of workplaces (ie the community would intervene far less than
shareholders or bosses).

> >"absolute" property rights (i.e. if workers cannot get a job, then
> >they can die of starvation, or, a more common example, in famine areas
> >rich farmers can sell crops to other places while their neighbours
> >starve).
>
> Assuming that anarcho-socialists actually live up to their own
> rhetoric, the same thing could happen under their system: if
> communities are truly autonomous, and can freely choose whether
> or not to participate in higher levels of federation, a starving
> community should not be able to force a less-starving one to
> share its produce.

Yes, that is a possibility. But any community
which did would have such a bad name, few people would desire to
work with them.

> After all, according to the these
> "anarchists", workers are entitled to the fruits of their labor,
> right? They're entitled to keep it for themselves or sell it to
> the highest bidder.

Yes, indeed, they can do that, if they so desire.

> Why are collectives assumed to be
> magnanimous and unselfish, while only individuals can be cruel
> and uncaring assholes that hoard food as others starve?

Why? Because within association individuals discuss what they
aim to do and so have to take into account the arguments of
those who desire to share. In a discussion, the humanity of
all individuals is placed into the decision making process and
they will have to justify their actions - the ethical standards
of a society and of an individual are factored into the
decision making process.

So, collectives are not assumed to be "unselfish" - but the
decision making process itself is a means of raising ethical
issues, which can help make a decision more in line with the
principle "do to others as you would have them do to you"

And so a collective would be as "selfish" and as "unselfish"
as those within them and as the level of ethics produced by
social interactive creates.

> In any case, one would think that, given a society with
> political stability and where contracts and property rights are
> expected to be honored, geographically disperse, famine prone
> areas should be able to set up some sort of mutual insurance
> scheme amongst one another to prevent this from ever being a
> problem.

Yes, perhaps. But unfortunately, this has never happened and
probably never will. A small landowner and a day labourer
would be at a competitive disadvantage paying for such schemes
(and would not famine be classed as "an act of god")? And I
should note, its not the big landowner who starves in a famine
- they usually export food to markets where they can make
money, which they use to buy more land and make the situation
whose for the dispossessed.

> >Of course, "anarcho"-capitalists claim that their utopia
> >will have full employment, but if that was the case then the power
> >of labour would be so strong as to make profits decrease to zero!
>
> I think you're oversimplifying here, but if this did happen, no
> anarcho-capitalist could rightly object to it.

So, if "anarcho"-capitalism *does* have unemployment, then workers
would be in a difficult position when going on strike, so making
the power of the employers that much stronger. This would lead to
the "industrial feudalism" which marked the free market capitalist
age of late 19th century USA. If there is full unemployment,
capitalism would implode as profits declinded to zero.

In other words, *not* a stable system.

> >Now, anarchists think that property like land should be collectively
> >owned. The minority is part of that group and have a right to
> >use that land as they so desire. Every anarchist writer has
> >stated that minorities must have access to resources (thats why
> >they are opposed to capitalism in the first place!).
>
> If individuals (not just minority groups) are guaranteed access
> to resources, to use as they see fit, then resource are not
> "collectively owned".

Yes they are as once the individual stopped using them they would
revert back to common ownership. Possession replaces property.

> "Guaranteed private ownership" might
> better describe such a system.

Guaranteed by who? or what? The community and so communal ownership.

> My own ideas are somewhere along
> these lines. The main problem that I see with it, as expressed
> here, is that it does nothing to ensure that the amount of
> resources one has access to will be enough to enable one to live
> independently.

The amount of resources would be based upon what you need to
survive working independently. Enough land, tools, etc., for
someone to work alone. If you cannot survive by your own labour
then you have options, either re-join a commune or try to get
others to work for you or convince your neighbours that the
resources are not enough.

> >And the silliness of this "objection" must be noted. Why would a
> >majority decide to do this? Yes, it is possible (and if it did
>
> I don't think that it's silly at all. Majorities often vote for
> freedom violating laws.

Yes, majorities who have been subject to hierarchy all their lives,
subject to the capitalist media, etc. Yes, majorities can and do
vote for freedom violating laws (just as they can and do vote for
freedom protecting laws) but in a society where individuals have
not been free and so we cannot say how an anarchist society would
react.

And, out of interest, how are the laws governing private property
to be decided upon in "anarcho"-capitalism? By the majority? Then
the same problem? By social custom? Thats the majority again.
By a minority? In which case, how are they imposed?

Every society has its customs, "laws", so this problem affects
"anarcho"-capitalism.

> What if an evil wannabe capitalist
> (evil, but who has established a reputation for keeping her word
> and for having great business skills and intuition) tries to
> hire away the best workers in a community by promising them
> better wages and working conditions if they help her build and
> run, say, a casino?

Evil by who's standards? By the members of the community? By
the people she is trying to hire?

Lets see, "better wages" - but wages are useless unless you
can buy stuff with it. Better working conditions? Being told
what to do by another is "better" working conditions? I
don't think so. Will the workers be able to vote on their
working conditions? No, so "better working conditions" suggests
that the wannabe capitalist is so paternalistic that she can
provide better conditions than the workers themselves can!
And, a casino? Well, where would the customers come from?
If people in an anarchist society wanted to have a casino
then they would have created one - when an individual or
group decide to create one.

> If "the people" own all the resources in
> common, they could "decide" that this use of resources is
> "wasteful" and "inefficient", and demand that the would-be
> capitalist and her would-be "wage-slaves" build a more
> "appropriate" facility (or in other words, one sufficiently
> unprofitable as to not allow these workers to get a better wage,
> thus destroying the incentive leave their current masters).

Lets see, the community (i.e. the individuals who live in a given
area) would be happy for the wannabe capitalist to set up a
casino by their own labour and try to attract workers to it.
The capitalist would have to promise the would-be wage-workers
alot for them to sell their freedom for 8 + hours aday - would
she be able to make a profit in that case? if she could not
make a profit, she would not be a good capitalist.

So, I think that in an anarchist society there would be no
need to ban wannabe capitalists, the social environment would
be enough to ensure they did not prosper.

> >then the minority have the right of protest and insurrection)
>
> And get slaughtered by the majority in the attempt.

Why? Yes, under capitalism strikers have been slaughtered by the
minority, but why would a free society do likewise? Why is it
assumed that the majority are evil while the capitalist minority
good?

> But why
> should the majority having this power be considered legitimate
> in the first place?

Why should the minority having the power to dispossess the majority
be considered legitimate in the first place?

And, btw, I did not consider the right of the majority to have
the power to vote the minority to death as "legitimate" - hence
my support for social protest and insurrection.

> Either the majority controls the use of
> resources, and therefore must have the means to enforce this
> control against the minority, or there is not truly common
> ownership.

As the minority are part of the community, then a majority would
recognise that the minority has access to them. In other words,
there is common ownership because the minority cannot be barred
from access to them. If a minority *was* barred access to them
then the system was no long based on common ownership.

Why would an anarchist society reverse the capitalist system
of minority dispossessing the majority so that the majority
dispossess the minority?

> As I see it, there are only four possible outcomes
> to common ownership (majority rule over all property):

<snip>

> 4) Same as 3, but instead, the minority wins, thus common
> ownership is terminated and replaced by something else. In this
> scenario, the minority either become dictators (if they take
> control of enough property that whoever's left of the majority
> must come begging to be spared), or simply private owners (if
> they leave enough property for others to be able to live
> independently).

So, the minority seizes all the resources, and decides to give the
majority "enough" to survive on? (and how would they be in a
position to know that?) The majority are dispossessed
and so are turned into the slaves of the minority? Wow, sounds
great. So, common ownership either results in minority slavery or
it is overturned by the minority in favour of minority ownership,
and so majority slavery?

Private ownership dispossesses the majority - before, I could
have access to common land, now I do not. Such a system was
imposed in most countries by minorities. Common land was
indeed privatised, not because of majority rule (in fact,
the local community developed rules managing these resources,
rules that evolved over time and so were organic unlike the
laws that replaced them) but because it made minority run
difficult - the commons gave the bosses problems as they
allowed the majority to be relatively independent and so
the workers stood up to their bosses!

> In the three situations where common ownership is retained, the
> minority are ruled by threat of murder, torture, starvation, or
> imprisonment.

And when private property is retained, the majority are ruled
by threat of murder, torture, starvation, or imprisonment. This
process can be seen from the history of "actually existing"
capitalism.

> Thus, imposed common ownership is the antithesis
> of anarchism.

Thus, imposed private ownership is the antithesis of anarchism,
as the history of capitalism proves.

> Only if all participants in such a system chose
> to enslave themselves voluntarily could it be considered
> "anarchistic".

Under capitalism, the dispossessed chose to enslave themselves
voluntarily simply because they have no option because of
private property. Under "anarcho"-capitalism, there would be
slave contracts, so workers could indeed become actual slaves
as opposed to wage slaves.

Interesting, though, but private property does not exist in a
social vacuum. There are various "laws" that determine what is
and is not property, etc. Therefore, above the bi-lateral
exchanges there is a system of common customs/laws. The
question remains, why are the laws of the property owners
be considered as binding on the property-less. Locke
argued that the working class did not count and so the
property-owners could make laws as they saw fit (within
god's law, of course). So, the question is, in "anarcho"
capitalism, who decides what these laws are? Locke was
pretty clear, but are "anarcho"-capitalists?

> It may be a different story if what you're advocating is
> actually what I referred to as "guaranteed private ownership".

You mean that the community agrees that common ownership actually
means that, and so minorities can and must have access to the
means of life. That *is* common ownership, as defined by all
the social anarchists and practiced in the commons.

> In this case, I think that this "entitlement" would be
> compatible with anarchism so long as:

<snip>

> 4) it can be traded, rented, leased, sold, or given to anyone
> whom the "owner" pleases at any time

<snip>

> 6) granting this entitlement doesn't require forcing anyone else
> to give up a similar entitlement

And here we face the inherent contradiction of private property.
Lets assume that this is the case, as the "owner" *can* sell
it and be so going, a minority gains control of more and more
land. Over time, this results in the land available to the
majority becoming less and less. What has happened? The
original entitlement has resulted in it being impossible to
grant others a similar entitlement. So, in other words, the
appropriation of land by individuals has resulting in a
situation where the interests of others being harmed.

This contradicts the original proviso, others have been forced
to give up a similar entitlement, making the previous entitlements
null and void.

In other words, this "entitlement" theory is contradictory and
would result in a society where the majority are dispossessed
and have to pick masters in order to survive.

> As one final note, I don't see how the concept of "common
> ownership" is compatible with "use rights". In the former,
> actual ownership (control) is imposed by the whim of the
> majority.

The local community does not determine how an individual
uses a given resource, unless it conflicts with another
individuals or groups use of it. For example, an individual
could not appropriate part of a public park, for example,
but could appropriate part of ground not being used and
turn it into an allotment. Similarly, an individual when
they joined a cooperative would have full and equal rights
in the decision making process as those already there.

> In the latter, ownership determined by whoever grabs
> the most things first and exhibits the most convincing charade
> that they're "using" them, or more precisely, by whatever group
> gets to decide who's charade is the most convincing.

And under capitalism, who determines what is actually owned
by who. someone could steal a car, and claim it was their
own. What rules are there to determine whose claims are
just? What about unowned resources - that would be a
case of whoever grabs the most things first...

So, are these rules created by custom (i.e. by the majority)
or are they imposed by a minority?

Iain

Ron A. Zajac

unread,

Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

James A. Donald wrote:
>
> "Ron A. Zajac" <za...@Snortel.com> wrote:
> > Y'know, James; I don't believe I've _ever_ seen you _not_ snip out those
> > knotty little references to arguably successful socialist economies (eg,
> > "Denmark, Sweden and Holland..."
>
> In those countries the means of production are privately owned, and
> the economy is run by the market place.
>
> In the article in which I started this thread I argued that public
> ownership or control of the means of production and distribution
> necessarily leads to terror.
>
> Theory predicts, and observation of innumerable countries confirms, a
> simple and direct correlation between social ownership or control of
> the means of production, and terror.

OK, I get yr point, and I think you're right, tho with qualifications:

1) What about the relationship between capital and terror (eg, U.S.
in Vietnam (2.6(?) million dead; Guatemala; Western arms market in
general, and so forth)? Doesn't this point toward the issue of
centralized control, be it centralized in the state vs. "private"
(but highly concentrated) sectors, with access to state-controlled
(and public-funded) coercive power? Doesn't the Chomsky/Herman
model of "worthy vs. unworthy victims" account for the perceived
discrepancy betwixt "socialist" vs. "capitalist" use of terror?
And don't merely dismiss this with accusations that Chomsky and/or
Herman have their own favorites. What _about_ capitalist mass
murder?

2) I still beg to restate the original observation; you can't dismiss
the "successful" socialist countries. I understand you
distinquish
between "strong" socialism vs. the socialist/liberal(?) model of
Scandanavia, et.al. But while it'd be asking a lot of you to
provide
that qualification in the scant space of a Usenet Subject Line, it
doesn't negate the fact that the Subject "Why socialism needs
killing
fields" looks a little silly.

Keith Johnson

unread,

Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

>
> But markets are just people doing what they individually wish to do.
> To make the market serve "us" means you must subordinate the
> individual to the will of "the people", a process that necessarily
> involves the extensive use of guns, truncheons, beatings, and midnight
> raids.

Dear James

It's not the market, per se, that's the problem. It's the extreme
inequality of property and wealth. The capitalist system ratifies the
present unequal distribution of wealth, which ultimately affects the
deal which workers "freely" agree to. The question boils down to: who is
the rightful owner of any piece of property. I maintain that sometimes
it is the society as a whole that owns something, and that society has a
right to democratically decide how to administer it's wealth.

your friend
Keith

Iain McKay

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

In article <5qbgvg$qh3$2...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

<snip>

> James A. Donald:
> > > You denied some of the more famous crimes of North Korea and Pol
> > > Pot's Cambodia, from which I inferred a desire to commit those
> > > crimes all over again.
>
> dc...@atlcom.net (dckom) wrote:
> > Having just done a quick run-through of the entire thread, concentrating of
> > the posts of Mr. Lamont, that is a completely bogus charge.
>
>
> Here is the post to which I refer:
>

> I wrote:
> > In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone
> > ceases to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an
> > injured horse.
> > Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.
>
> To which Lamont replied:
> more bullshit propaganda...

And here is the full posting, from which James Donald so dishonestly
selectively quotes from:

>In North Korea they do not use handcuffs. They run a piece of fencing
>wire *through* the captives hand, and then bend the wire so it cannot
>be pulled out.

usual bullshit scare tactics. the right wing propaganda gets very old

after awhile. i don't doubt that N. Korea does crap like that to their
political prisoners, but i never argued that their nation was run by
saints -- i said that the average citizen there is better off than the
average occupant of an american prison. reading comprehension.

>In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone ceases

>to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an injured horse.
>Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.

more bullshit propaganda...

Funny what a edit button can achieve. But then again, James Donald
knows the power of selective quoting to achieve dishonest ends. he
does it all the time.

Iain

Iain McKay

unread,

Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

In article <5qb0ac$j14$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com>, jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:
> jam...@echeque.com (James A. Donald) writes:

> > > In the post immediately preceding this you lied about Cambodia and
> > > North Korea.
>

> lam...@nospam.washington.edu wrote:
> > interesting statement. completely pulled out of your ass. where do you
> > get these?
>

> You denied some of the more famous crimes of North Korea and Pol Pot's
> Cambodia, from which I inferred a desire to commit those crimes all
> over again.

Or, perhaps, we could also write:

"James Donald denied some of the more famous crimes of Pinochet, from which
we can infer a desire to commit those crimes all over again."?

Iain

hac...@interlog.spam_me_not.com

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Jul 14, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/14/97

In article <5qcua9$8p1$1...@rockall.cc.strath.ac.uk> cll...@ccsun.strath.ac.uk (Iain McKay) writes:
>Interesting, though, but private property does not exist in a
>social vacuum. There are various "laws" that determine what is
>and is not property, etc. Therefore, above the bi-lateral
>exchanges there is a system of common customs/laws. The
>question remains, why are the laws of the property owners
>be considered as binding on the property-less. Locke
>argued that the working class did not count and so the
>property-owners could make laws as they saw fit (within
>god's law, of course). So, the question is, in "anarcho"
>capitalism, who decides what these laws are? Locke was
>pretty clear, but are "anarcho"-capitalists?

I see the justification for private property lying in the fact
that it is necessary for freedom, because the ability to freely
maintain and improve ones life without imposing on others is
contingent on unimpeaded and predictable access to chunks of the
material world. Property laws, for the most part, should follow
from this quite easily. Anything can theoretically be property,
but taking something which is not customarily regarded as
property requires either universal consent or an act of war. An
act of war to acquire a property right is justified if it is
necessary for freedom. An act of war is also justified to
revoke property rights gained by a past unjust act of war, but
it is not necessarily a good idea to try, for practical reasons.

>> It may be a different story if what you're advocating is
>> actually what I referred to as "guaranteed private ownership".

>You mean that the community agrees that common ownership actually
>means that, and so minorities can and must have access to the
>means of life. That *is* common ownership, as defined by all
>the social anarchists and practiced in the commons.

>> In this case, I think that this "entitlement" would be
>> compatible with anarchism so long as:

><snip>

>> 4) it can be traded, rented, leased, sold, or given to anyone
>> whom the "owner" pleases at any time

><snip>

>> 6) granting this entitlement doesn't require forcing anyone else
>> to give up a similar entitlement

>And here we face the inherent contradiction of private property.
>Lets assume that this is the case, as the "owner" *can* sell
>it and be so going, a minority gains control of more and more
>land. Over time, this results in the land available to the
>majority becoming less and less. What has happened? The
>original entitlement has resulted in it being impossible to
>grant others a similar entitlement. So, in other words, the

But this might be the case right from the outset. Resources are
finite, after all. When this becomes case, it would be a good
time to stop creating "others", no?

>appropriation of land by individuals has resulting in a
>situation where the interests of others being harmed.

>This contradicts the original proviso, others have been forced
>to give up a similar entitlement, making the previous entitlements
>null and void.

Nope, because when it was granted, it didn't rob anyone else of
their freedom. And the 3rd requirement, that access rights once
granted cannot be revoked, exists because a person cannot be
free if they are in constant fear of having the fruits of all
the effort which they've expended to improve upon their material
conditions and plan for their future being arbitrarily destroyed
at the whim of others. This perhaps is my own subjective
interpretation of freedom, but I think that most people, even
you, probably feel the same way.

>In other words, this "entitlement" theory is contradictory and
>would result in a society where the majority are dispossessed
>and have to pick masters in order to survive.

You have said nothing to prove this assertation.

>> As one final note, I don't see how the concept of "common
>> ownership" is compatible with "use rights". In the former,
>> actual ownership (control) is imposed by the whim of the
>> majority.

>The local community does not determine how an individual
>uses a given resource, unless it conflicts with another
>individuals or groups use of it. For example, an individual

And if it awards access rights arbitrarily in resolving these
conflicts, then property allocation is imposed by the majority.
If it does so according to the principle of "whoever started
using it first" the it's a system of use rights. But if the
majority asserts the right to be the final judge, I guess it
amounts to being the same thing.

[snip]

>> In the latter, ownership determined by whoever grabs
>> the most things first and exhibits the most convincing charade
>> that they're "using" them, or more precisely, by whatever group
>> gets to decide who's charade is the most convincing.

>And under capitalism, who determines what is actually owned
>by who. someone could steal a car, and claim it was their
>own. What rules are there to determine whose claims are
>just?

It should be relatively easy to determine whether or not
something was stolen or taken by fraud, and whether or not there
are any living victims to be compensated.

> What about unowned resources - that would be a
>case of whoever grabs the most things first...

See above.

>So, are these rules created by custom (i.e. by the majority)
>or are they imposed by a minority?

They're imposed by people who reason that a society in which
there are no rulers is in their best interests, and act
accordingly, preferably with some moderation, thoughtfulness,
humbleness, and compassion, 'cause hey -- we might be wrong.

-Kevin

--
"The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone
seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
Frederic Bastiat

To reply by E-mail, please remove the ".spam_me_not" from my
address.

James A. Donald

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Jul 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/15/97

cll...@ccsun.strath.ac.uk (Iain McKay) wrote:
> "James Donald denied some of the more famous crimes of Pinochet, from which
> we can infer a desire to commit those crimes all over again."?

Liar:

What crimes of Pinochet have I denied?

Indeed I always wrote "3000 murdered" to be on the safe side, while
Amnesty, safe in it's impeccable left wing credentials, wrote "2000
murdered"

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/15/97

James A. Donald.

>> > In North Korea there are no cripples. Presumably when someone
>> > ceases to be useful they just kill him as one would kill an
>> > injured horse.
>> > Same thing in Pol Pot's cambodia.

>> To which Lamont replied:
>> more bullshit propaganda...
>

Keith Johnson <co...@pe.net> wrote:
> So that's your proof that Lamont lied? You wrote that PRESUMABLY The
> North Koreans kill people when are no longer useful.

We know with certainty that Pol Pot killed people who were no longer
useful.

The reason we have no clear evidence as to the crimes of the North
Korean government is because it is a totally closed society.

James A. Donald

unread,

Jul 15, 1997, 3:00:00 AM7/15/97

cll...@ccsun.strath.ac.uk (Iain McKay) wrote:
> In that case why do they call themselves "anarchists"? The anarchist
> movement has always been opposed to capitalism

Until 1937, the anarchist movement was primarily opposed to
*government*

In the world of the twentieth century, government is the chief and
greatest enemy of capitalism.

After their unfortunate experiment with anarcho socialism in 1936, the
"anarcho" socialist movement had an abrupt and dramatic change of
heart in its attitude towards government. For example it is
impossible to imagine any of the traditional anarchists defending and
endorsing governments the way that psychopomp has in this debate.

As I write in my web page http://www.jim.com/jamesd/cat/blood.htm

Before the revolution in Catalonia the Italian anarchist Malatesta
predicted:

The anarchists [...] could never [...] form a government
without contradicting themselves and repudiating their
entire doctrine, and, should they do so, it would be no
different from any other government, perhaps even worse.

Before the revolution in Catalonia The Russian anarchist Bakunin
predicted:

[...] as soon as they become rulers and representatives of
the people they would cease to be workers and would
look down upon all workers from their political summit.
They would no longer represent the people, they would
represent only themselves. [...] He who doubts this must
be absolutely ignorant of human nature.

After the revolution in Catalonia the leading Anarcho Syndicalist
newspaper, Solidaridad Obrera November 4, 1936, cited by Burnett
Bolloten in The Grand Camouflage p160, wrote:

At the present time the government, as the instrument that
controls the organs of the state, has ceased to be force of
oppression against the working classes, just as the state no
longer represents a body that divides society into classes.

As Bryan Caplan writes in his web page
http://www.princeton.edu/~bdcaplan/spain.htm

In spite of this fervent belief, the Anarchists either formed or
joined governments whenever they had the power to do so. The
reason is that the Spanish Anarchists were completely wrong to
assume that capitalism would disappear as soon as the capitalists
had been "displaced." Displacing the capitalists simply meant
that the workers were transformed into worker-capitalists. The
result was anarchist, but not socialist. To regulate the urban
collectives or collectivize the rural farmers, displacement of
the capitalists was not enough; only a state could do the job.

In short, after the debacle of 1936, "traditional" anarchists largely
ceased to exist.

They either became statists with new euphemisms for totalitarian
tyranny, or they ceased to be socialist.

Bryan has documented this radical reversal in ideology in considerable
detail in his web page. I merely contemptuously ridicule it in my web
page.

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