i recently had a debate on another board with an ‘anarchist.’ his posts revolved around destroying private property. i’d like to hear some of your debating responses for these talking points:
“So a young woman who has almost no money left to feed her child, who is only offered work by private power that basically pays her almost nothing and forces her to conditions beyond what is even considered unsafe is voluntary???”
“Mega-Corporations only have coercer power when they decide to buy up a militia in the absence of Government. It isn’t necessarily bad. If they all had their militia it isn’t as if there would be bloody wars between walmart and savingsmart because one is selling below cost and causing the other distress. Without Government there would be a real market causing much better prices for all. But if your land was the best location for a new store location, who would be able to afford the better militia?”
i’d like to hear your responses to these and i’ll weigh them against mine and see how i did. for the record im more or less a ron paul type libertarian with obviously strong ideological ties to rothbard, mises, etc.
Acontextual. There is a great sparsity of information here. Is this her only option? Why is she in this situation in the first place? And what, pray tell, is a “private power”? The proper term is “private individual or organisation”. If it is her best or her only option and if this “private power” had no hand in forcing this situation to come about, then yes, it is voluntary, and she certainly has no right to a given (an anyways arbitrary) rate of remuneration or a job, nor is she being “forced” by this “power”. But until he gives further information, the hypothetical is too skeletal to be worthy of serious consideration.
What is a “mega-corporation”? Why would a “mega-corporation” exist under anarchism without devolving into calculational chaos? Why would you not be able to afford protection from either a firm such as an insurance firm or mutual aid protection and why would this firm/organisation actively and blatantly discriminate against its customers in the face of competitive pressure? One wonders… Right now, the government will strip you of your land whether you like it or not, in the “public interest” (read: the selfish interests of its own members), and it is the final arbiter on the matter.
Again no context, severe lack of information. Besides, how could a company that has a track record of paying its employees ‘almost nothing’, even survive, how could it even exist? If a ‘mega corporation’ were to exist, it would need to be ultra productive and achieve huge levels of output-- Then an entrepeneur or small competing firms can look at this mega corporation and say, “Gee, this company pays their employees far below equilibrium, but also achieves huge output, profit, and production…We can take all their employees by offering higher wages, just to gain all that production”. Thats how the market works. If private employers are paying wages far below the equilibrium, competing market forces will drive up wages for that single mother.
obviously the woman doesnt suffer because of the ‘capitalist’. she would suffer somewhat less accepting the meagre wages he offers. your opponents critique is as good as, X person could be more charitable, and the correct response, is so what? ( or maybe even better show us how its done, and dont spend a penny on your own consumption above rice and water, and 3rd hand clothes, until poverty goes bye-bye).
most everyone you and your opponent know owe their very lives to the benevolence of capitalism.
Clearly charity would cater for this woman. All anti-free marketers seem to ignore private charity, friendly societies etc.
But in general AnComs can be viewed as allies. Obviously this comes with provisos - some believe in the initiation of aggression, and forcing people to be anarcho-communist (contradictory?). Those which live and let live are generally allies. Of course, it is our duty to explain to them the folly of their opposition to the free market.
Yes, because no force is used. In any case, this is a form of a false dilemma: “you can support free markets OR you can save poor children from death.” The fact of the matter is that without government intervention, there’d be more jobs, higher wages, and less barriers to entry. Consequently, there’d be less poor.
Big businesses would have less power in anarchy than under a government. Under government, a business can convince government to do something that would be very costly if the business would want to do it itself. Take, for example, eminent domain. If a business wanted to take over your property in free market, it would have to hire private soldiers at a very high cost because they’d be risking their lives fighting you and your security company. It could cost millions to carry out this operation. It could cost much, much more as neighbors and their security companies would want to intervene on your part in order to protect their own interests from a tyrannical blood-thirsty business (lol). After the millions of dollars spent fighting, the business then has to face with dramatically reduced demand as people boycott it for driving people off of their land. But what happens under government? Well, through a hundred thousand dollars here for lobbying and a hundred thousand dollars there for “cost compensation” and government will forcefully take some property and hand it over to you.
Why doesn’t she just “form a state” and effortlessly plunders everyone of their belongings “legally”? Like gasing any jew she sees and then pulling the gold teeth out of their gaping mouths. That’s just as anarchistic as simply starving to death, isn’t it?
Anarchism (non-legal violence) versus statism (legal violence) is the most irrelevant of all subjects conceivable (as is the entire concept of “law” and “legality”).
The market exerts downward pressure on prices as well as salaries. A world where people are paid “almost nothing” is a world where goods cost “almost nothing” as well.
Why do the commies only have emotive pleas? Is there something about them which causes them to create scenarios which can only happen because of government interference in the market, and then proclaim that this is how life really would be?
thanks yall… a few points were brought up that i didnt think of.
the conversation basically ended with my defense of ‘anarcho capitalism’ being to much to handle and they simply resorted to ‘all this doesnt matter, its simply up to the will of the majority. what ever they want, that is the way it is to be.’