Below is a snapshot of a conversation with some “mutualists” (not the best out the collective, so to speak). It’s based off this picture. The snapshot starts off with my comment, since it’s what set the other two off.
EDIT: I don’t know why the right side of the snapshots are being cut off when I post it. Just copy/paste/open image url.
It cuts off. Here is the link:
Yeah, the picture isn’t show right, but either way this gives an idea of your run of the mill socialist/mutualist. I really like how they simply stopped responding when I ask them to elaborate on what they are talking about.
The idea that land cannot be owned isnt absurd on its face…one has to demonstrate that other species modify land and exhibit territorial behavior to rebut it. But the idea that land cannot be owned is incompatible (superficially…ficially? Facially? Immediately) with a society that employs roundabout production processes, or capital goods. So georgists use the lvt as a workaround.
I find it hard to imagine how humans could live without some sort of privately owned goods, like a spear. I dont want somebody else using my spear, cracking the shaft and chipping the tip so that it breaks when I have to kill a boar. Likewise, I dont want to use someone elses, what if they used uncured sinew to fasten it? Now in observed human history, there are all sorts of ways of dividing the animal protein produced by me using my spear. But I am not aware of an aboriginal society where one was forced to give the protein to someone he did not know on a personal/familial level. In any event, tribal societies did not have the calories necessary to have division of labor and were therefore unable to compel behavior the way we are familiar with.
Mutualism is collectivism just like all other forms of socialism. Mutualists can’t understand basic economics. They are idiots.
Anyone else got anything smart to say?
I think you handled it well Bert. You brought it down to the question of valuation and ultimately I think both parties in that debate will be forever talking past eachother.
Once Comrade said he doesn’t believe in value, which is akin to saying you don’t really have a foundation to work off of, that was it for him (obviously). Seperating capitalist, socialist, and anarchist econ into different varieties could have worked if he actually knew what he was talking about. His non-value policy of some vague notion of economics is again that of not having a foundation, except explicitly on something against everything else, and “each according to his need.” What if a man’s needs are greater than another? Well, I guess that question won’t be asked in the commune.
There were mutualist anarcho-socialists at Liberty Forum this year. They had a table with “anti-boss” books and “zines” calling for class war. Their just crypto-marxists.
Again, I must differentiate for you there is a difference between Marxists and mutualists, but there’s a reason I titled the thread “mutualists” and not otherwise. If you look into people like Proudhon and Kropotkin you’ll see they did not care for Marx very much. There is a difference.
Again, I must differentiate for you there is a difference between Marxists and mutualists, but there’s a reason I titled the thread “mutualists” and not otherwise. If you look into people like Proudhon and Kropotkin you’ll see they did not care for Marx very much. There is a difference.
OK theres a difference. But how big is that difference? If you saw the stuff the mutualists at Liberty Forum had on their table youd probably call them marxist. And didn’t Proudhon inspire Marx to become a socialist?
Good stuff -
Though it looks like this thread has turned into a “Conversation with Rothbardians”. I love the internet
Nice discussion. Though I just had asked them where those capital goods come from that those evil capitalists own, and why not all poor exploited workers just don’t make them for themselves. I had asked them how to ration scarce goods. Of course you could ask them the Austrian’s favourite question of how to know what to produce out of which materials and in what quantity/quality. Finally I had told them a good start is to read Carl Menger.
More conversations I get into I’ll post them. Maybe I can initiate one with someone who’s more of a challenge (generally, the ones who have read Austrian material as well).
The best I’ve seen willing to discuss things is Brainpolice, and if you look at what he does - all he’ll do is bitch, moan, and “deconstruct” a couple of yor aesthetic statements and than never say anything for himself.
After that, you’ll get a few fringe nutters (maybe like Francois Trembly) who may even agree with what yor saying in their own weird way, gleefully insert the “big idea” nonsense deus ex machina of some kind of leftism for leftism’s sake, and not mind that it will depopulate 90% of the earths population - which is I guess a somewhat respectable position.
Oh, and than there are people who talk of continual revolution and/or “deconstruction” - which to me is just an abstraction and a fixed idea and only slightly better than a typical conservative scheme - The science of the market process is the REAL concreate continual revolution / creative destructive force which deconstrcts all abstractions. Or perhaps better said the market is “contiunal insurrection” not revolution.
Left wingers are confusing to me.
Ha, I used to not like Brainpolice because of his debate style, but now it’s just amusing.
The one above is sort of low-level, but it’s not like others where someone’s try to “figure me out” and put a label to what I’m saying. Best argument with any stripe of leftist is to deconstruct their argument and never give your position. Eventually they unravel it themselves, and realize once they get to the foundation they don’t actually have one. Accept whatever insults they give as compliments (aristocrat, bourgeoisie, egoist), that seems to bug them.
“OK theres a difference. But how big is that difference? If you saw the stuff the mutualists at Liberty Forum had on their table youd probably call them marxist. And didn’t Proudhon inspire Marx to become a socialist?”
There are a number of differences. Namely, mutualists reject the state or dictatorship of proletariat, and they support markets, money, and private property.
They only agree in that they are opposed to capitalists controlling the means of production. Instead advocating workers controlling it together, but still allowing them to sell goods in the market, own private property, and do other things that exist in a market economy. Mutualists also might advocate rebellion against the state and other institutions, whereas Marxists see communism as an inevitable fact of history. The marxists see rebellion as childish and unscientific.
Mutualism debunked in few sentences:
Woman (or at least her womb) is means of production: man is a worker who does all the job to produce a baby and a woman can just lay still and do nothing. So clearly, she is “means of production”. Now question: does men OWN women by this logic? Just because they worked hard and planted a seed? Seriously, dear mutualists? Seriously?
To be fair, it’s not really true that women do nothing. Since a few minutes of sex is the least of the work of producing and taking care of a baby. During pregnancy, it is actually the man who can sit back and do nothing. Or as is the case today: take off for some other woman.
I think the better analogy might be if one said that the mother and father co-own the baby equally, and democratically make decisions over what is best for it. Since both of their labor is necessary in the whole process of child-rearing from conception, to pregnancy, to kindergarten, until they go away to college. But, while this is sensible in some degree, it presents the problem of carrying over the metaphor of physical production to the production of human beings. And owning things, versus owning other people. the latter of which i think ancaps and mutualists would agree is wrong.
