Anarcho-capitalism and coercion

[DrSammyD]

I happen to agree. That’s why I think the only thing that will stop statisim is a change in the incentives creating institutions. Making it ridiclulously cheap to move out of the jurisdiction of a state is probably the only thing that will lead to a permenant destruction of the state.

We libertarians like to talke about incentives a lot. We like to talk about what institutions will create those incentives. We need to start talking about what the incentives are to create those institutions, and how we can change those incentives.

[Autolykos]

@Chris_Bacon

Well, they don’t need to be threatened, they have a simple choice: either get a job, or starve to death.

Let me ask you this: what other choice(s) do you think they could (let alone should) have?

@Chris_Bacon

I meant by saying it only takes one party, that it only takes one party to form a dictatorship with everyone else being passive.

Right, so the issue turns into the likelihood of everyone else being passive in the face of such a party. Otherwise I don’t see what you’re getting at - that is, I don’t see what misunderstanding you think I have.

@Chris_Bacon

I don’t think it is hard-wired into all of us. If it were hard-wired into all of us, then how do you explain aggression in non-threatening, or non-dire survival circumstances; for instance, aggression over a game of cards?

What kind of aggression are we talking about here? Getting into a tumble over a game of cards, or trying to kill someone over it? Either way, I’d say that the mind can come to treat any given situation as if it were dire. When a person is “emotionally invested” in something, he’s placing extra emphasis on the importance of the outcome.

I guess I should clarify what I meant by “the NAP is essentially hard-wired in all of us”. I meant that nearly everyone seems to have an instinct that says anything interpreted as aggression is to be considered wrong. That hardly means everyone always follows the NAP. For one thing, what constitutes aggression is left to interpretation. For another, instincts can be (and are) overridden.

@Chris_Bacon

Well, to see how US companies shape US politics, consider a different case. Would the US government’s foreign policy be what it is if the majority of the US energy sector was solar powered and not oil focussed? I think both, government and corporations, are as bad as each other.

Trust me, I understand that case already. Then again, there’s a lot of sunlight in desert areas, isn’t there?

Let me ask you this: if the government didn’t exist, do you think we’d have the same corporations that we have today? Depending on how you define “corporation”, do you think they would even exist without government?

@Chris_Bacon

In using ‘seem’ I was just carrying on from what you said a little earlier, but I don’t think it is of much consequence since I’m sure you got what I meant. I would say that the government works in the interest of the corporations. An example of a clear instance of this is the Wisconsin bill that will effectively shatter the worker’s unions; if the workers can’t organise effectively then this will benefit the corporations. Or you could say that the government is one big corporation. My view is that in our current society government and corporation work hand in hand; if you remove government, then the corporations will come to govern. Generally, I’m using it to refer to big business, but it could refer to small as well.

If you’re saying that 1) the government generally does the bidding of the corporations, and 2) the corporations would come to govern if government were removed, then what’s the difference between 1 and 2? On another note, how do you think corporations would be able to get away with waging war or forcing people to do things at the point of a gun?

This may be off-topic, but I think you misunderstand the Wisconsin bill. It doesn’t prevent workers from organizing at all. What it does is eliminate much of the collective-bargaining rules*.* You know what collective bargaining is, right? It’s a stipulation that, if “enough” workers decide to form a union (i.e. “organize”), then the organization they work for is now legally obligated to negotiate with them. How is that fair?

[skylien]

@ Autolykos

Sorry, it seems I chased Chris off..

[Jack_Roberts]

@Chris_Bacon

If a corporation has 20bn at its disposal, one would have to be a fool to suppose that it wouldn’t use that money for its own purposes. Just think about how many people can be silenced with 20bn. There was one video I saw which argued that contracts would be kept, otherwise any party breaking the contract would be discredited; again, I think this is naive. In a society where money is the goal, and everyone wants it, money buys anything.

What you do not realize is that the government only offers a mechanism for control for the corporations with 20 billion.

@Chris_Bacon

I would say by definition you can’t enforce socialism, otherwise it would be this so-called state-socialism; however, socialism is defined as, ‘the means of production being in the hands of the workers’, which excludes any state control, and so I don’t know how you could enforce it without the state.

Socialism is enforced through taxation, the only socialism that exist is state socialism, only through marxism can you come to the conclusion that socialism is actually to enpower the working class.

[Epicurus_Ibn_Kalhoun]

There are plenty of worker owend cooperatives, and corporations with a semblance of workplace democracy that are not enforced through taxation.

Let it be known that the welfare state is trying to save capitalism. It’s not a socialist invention. (Some socialists even think you should starve if you don’t work. They simply want the people who DO work to be compensated for the full value of their productivity.

[Chris_Bacon]

@Jack Roberts

Socialism is enforced through taxation, the only socialism that exist is state socialism, only through marxism can you come to the conclusion that socialism is actually to enpower the working class.

I disagree. Perhaps I need to restate my case, since we seem to be running round in circles.

The traditional political right-wing, left-wing spectrum isn’t sophisticated enough to take into account all the view points; for instance, how do we define Gandhi and Stalin, was Stalin more left than Gandhi? It doesn’t seem that simple. Instead of the one axis, I think, we need to introduce another in order to be able to make clear distinctions. On the one hand, we have the economic x-axis - you know, right wing policies referring to individual ownership; and left wing policies referring to common ownership. Now on the other hand, we also need to take into account social/political beliefs - so whether society should be run in an authoritarian structure or libertarian, that would be the y-axis. With this in mind we can now differentiate different forms of Socialism.

Socialism, by itself, is purely an economic ideology and so on our x-axis it is left-wing since it stresses common ownership. Marxism is a branch of Socialism which adds a political dimension to the ideology, namely the authoritarian nature society should take: the dictatorship of the proletariat. So in reference to our new politcal compass Marxism is authoritarian left.

My case against capitalism is this: that Capitalism isn’t just an economic ideology, but like Marxism it is a politico-economic ideology, and it rests on the authoritarian right. This is why. Economically, Capitalism is on the right because it stresses individual ownership; politically it is authoritarian because it demands a structure in which the workers, the subordinate class, have to sell their labour to the capitalist class; this supposes: power relations, property relations and class relations - in other words, an authoritarian heirachy - and this is regardless of whether there is a state or not. 'as long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who ar willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.'¹

In regards to our political compass, I would describe myself as libertarian left, or libertarian socialist, or anarcho-syndicalist. Like anarcho-capitalists I don’t agree with the existence of the government or state, but go further and argue against the existence of authority - whether that comes in the form of state Socialism or Capitalism.

@Jack Roberts said that ‘the only socialism that exist is state socialism’. I hope I have cleared up how that is not the case. Just incase i havn’t here’s how. ‘Socialism’ refers to an economic system of common ownership, but that doesn’t imply a political system of authority; although it might be the case that Socialism is used with an authoritarian structure, for example: Marxism.

Hopefully I will answer a whole bunch of questions in the next paragraphs. As I’ve already said, I think society should be run on anarchist and socialist principles. I think that there should be direct participation in self-management, economically and politically. And with this, differences of interests will be best expressed and cultivated. I think that people should do work for work’s sake and because they enjoy it, not for profits sake. I believe in free association, that people should be able to do what they want without social constraints, that people should be able to cultivate their own abilities and creativity. The best description I can think of for anarcho-syndicalism is: democracy and liberty taken to their extremes.

@Autolykos: ‘how do you think corporations would be able to get away with waging war or forcing people to do things at the point of a gun?’

They wouldn’t have to use a gun. If a worker has to sell their labour to earn their subsistance then that is enough. It would be interesting to see some statistics about the rate of army recruitment during a recession and during a relatively prosperous period. I would imagine that army recruitment takes a highjump during a recession - people have to survive somehow.

My hope is that, if such a anarcho-syndicalist society were realised, then extra effort would be put into developing technology to take care of the onerous jobs such as street cleaning and so forth. If not, then the streets would be cleaned collectively. One question my ninja senses sense, is that of how such a task would be enforced. And how any enforcement is contray to the type of society I have just laid out. Well, I think there would be more people willing to clean the streets than we think if it meant a better society. If not, then incentives can be used to encourage people to clean the streets. If that fails, then we will have dirty streets, but no force would be used.

^{1 Chomsky, N., Chomsky on Anarchism}

[Autolykos]

@Chris_Bacon

@Autolykos: ‘how do you think corporations would be able to get away with waging war or forcing people to do things at the point of a gun?’

They wouldn’t have to use a gun. If a worker has to sell their labour to earn their subsistance then that is enough. It would be interesting to see some statistics about the rate of army recruitment during a recession and during a relatively prosperous period. I would imagine that army recruitment takes a highjump during a recession - people have to survive somehow.

I don’t think you ever really answered my question about what alternatives there could be to someone selling his labor to earn his subsistence.

That being said, I’ll again note that we still seem to be using different definitions for the word “force”. While you seem to think that a person who somehow cannot generate his own subsistence (i.e. grow his own food, etc.) is therefore “forced” to sell his labor, my response to that is, who’s preventing him from generating his own subsistence, and therefore forcing him to sell his labor?

Regardless, I don’t think you really answered my question above either. As far as I can tell, you haven’t explained to me how corporations would be able to get away with waging war or forcing people to do things at the point of a gun.

@Chris_Bacon

My hope is that, if such a anarcho-syndicalist society were realised, then extra effort would be put into developing technology to take care of the onerous jobs such as street cleaning and so forth. If not, then the streets would be cleaned collectively. One question my ninja senses sense, is that of how such a task would be enforced. And how any enforcement is contray to the type of society I have just laid out. Well, I think there would be more people willing to clean the streets than we think if it meant a better society. If not, then incentives can be used to encourage people to clean the streets. If that fails, then we will have dirty streets, but no force would be used.

First off, what leads you to believe that extra effort would be put into developing such technology? Second, I have no idea what you mean by “better society”, and I challenge the perhaps-implicit notion that such a thing exists objectively. Third, I’d like to hear what kind of incentives you have in mind for encouraging people to do things like cleaning the streets.

[Epicurus_Ibn_Kalhoun]

That being said, I’ll again note that we still seem to be using different definitions for the word “force”. While you seem to think that a person who somehow cannot generate his own subsistence (i.e. grow his own food, etc.) is therefore “forced” to sell his labor, my response to that is, who’s preventing him from generating his own subsistence, and therefore forcing him to sell his labor?

That’s easy. The people who “own” all the land are. Thomas Paine put it like this:

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

[11] But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that parable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.

Agrarian Justice - Wikisource, the free online library

[Autolykos]

Epicurus Laotzu, as I think I’ve told you before, in order for you to consider the owners of land to be keeping others from generating their own subsistence, you must consider the latter to be prima facie entitled to subsistence. Do you have any factual basis in that? In other words, do you have any objective evidence that there exists a law of the universe such that all living human beings must receive certain things?

[Epicurus_Ibn_Kalhoun]

Malthusianism

Malthus’ work showed that, in its’ natural state, the earth will support a population equilibrium. In a natural state, everyone is prima facie entitled to whatever subsistence he can provide himself or his/her family. In a system of landed property, this is no longer the case. He is only entitled to beg for a job from those who own all the property.

There is no law that they must be entitled to subsistence. But basic ecology will tell that they would be.

[Autolykos]

You’re contradicting yourself. Either one is ever prima facie entitled to anything, as a cosmic law, or he isn’t. As far as I can tell, no one is ever prima facie entitled to anything, in this sense - not in a natural state and not in a system of landed property. Ecology is irrelevant here. So is the fact that people will die without subsistence.

[Epicurus_Ibn_Kalhoun]

You misunderstand the meaning of Prima facie, me thinks.

Prima facie is often confused with res ipsa loquitur (“the thing speaks for itself”), the common law doctrine that when the facts make it self-evident that negligence or other responsibility lies with a party, it is not necessary to provide extraneous details, since any reasonable person would immediately find the facts of the case.

The difference between the two is that prima facie is a term meaning there is enough evidence for there to be a case to answer. Res ipsa loquitur means that because the facts are so obvious, a party need explain no more

It is self-evident that in the earth’s natural state everyone is entitlted to what they can provide for themselves. This is not true in a system of (landed) property. They are only entitltled to what the owners of property can provide for them.

Prima facie does not, nor ever has meant an “iron clad law.”

[Autolykos]

In Latin, prima facie means “on first appearance”, and that’s how I was using it. So the phrase “prima facie entitled” means “entitled without any prior justification”, which can only mean one of two things - either an objective entitlement (i.e. one for which a factual basis exists, and thus no other justification is needed) or a fundamental entitlement (i.e. one that is simply presumed for everyone to begin with). I see no factual evidence for people being prima facie entitled (in the above sense) to any form of sustenance, nor do I feel any obligation to go along with such a prima facie entitlement if it’s simply presumed by you.

So no, I most certainly do not see how it’s self-evident that, in the earths’ natural state, everyone is entitled to what he can provide for himself.

[Epicurus_Ibn_Kalhoun]

n Latin, prima facie means “on first appearance”, and that’s how I was using it. So the phrase “prima facie entitled” means “entitled without any prior justification”, which can only mean one of two things - either an objective entitlement (i.e. one for which a factual basis exists, and thus no other justification is needed) or a fundamental entitlement (i.e. one that is simply presumed for everyone to begin with). I see no factual evidence for people being prima facie entitled (in the above sense) to any form of sustenance, nor do I feel any obligation to go along with such a prima facie entitlement if it’s simply presumed by you. So no, I most certainly do not see how it’s self-evident that, in the earths’ natural state, everyone is entitled to what he can provide for himself

There is land. Land holds food. Ecology maintains a natural equilibrium. In a non-landed property system one is free to roam the land and gather food as he sees fit.

Seems pretty self-evident to me.

[Johnny_Doe]

The same as the last time around, absolutely nothing. I have more faith in minarchism, where there would be a continious focus on non-aggression, individual sovereignty/liberty etc.

[Autolykos]

@Laotzu del Zinn

There is land. Land holds food. Ecology maintains a natural equilibrium. In a non-landed property system one is free to roam the land and gather food as he sees fit.

Seems pretty self-evident to me.

Then you’re equivocating over the word “entitled”. Being free to obtain sustenance is not the same thing (to me) as being entitled to sustenance.

[Autolykos]

@Johnny Doe

The same as the last time around, absolutely nothing. I have more faith in minarchism, where there would be a continious focus on non-aggression, individual sovereignty/liberty etc.

What are you talking about?

Regarding minarchism, maintaining a monopoly over the legitimate settling of disputes ultimately requires aggression, which of course contradicts the Non-Aggression Principle.

[Dondoolee]

What would stop a successful organisation in an anarcho-capitalist society from becoming a coercive organisation, the equivalent of our current state?

Definition. The minute something became a state it would no longer be anarcho-capitalistic. That isn’t a cop out answer either it is something that describes function and consequences of action.

If you are asking “how would you stop…”, the answer is wait until such a thing exists before you should care. Otherwise, what are you concerning yourself with?

[Epicurus_Ibn_Kalhoun]

That’s like when Rothbard said (paraphrasing) “we shouldn’t be building political/legal theories off the fringes” or something to that effect.

I think that’s a terrible way to approach things. Honestly I think it is bass ackwards. We should leave the regular things to custom, and build legal theories around the fringes specifically.

[Dondoolee]

Can you rephrase? I am not able to make sense of what you said for what ever reason. I don’t think I know what point you are referring to.

If I read you correct at all, I am saying it is all custom. So we are in agreement.