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1

Hi,

Just wanted to run something by you guys to get your thoughts.

All of the criticisms I have read on socialism/communism have focused on state socialism (state capitalism?) where the state is 100% in control of the means of production, or the social democracies. I agree with everything I have read.

Recently I was quite surprised to discover (and I know I am late to the party on this one) while reading some threads on everybody’s favourite commie forum, Revleft, that most of the posters there seemed to actually believe in a stateless society, coming about either directly following the revolution or following a brief period in which some sort of care-taker government ensures elimination of private property and guards against any counter revolutions on behalf of the workers. Some of them even refer to themselves as Libertarians.

Call me crazy, but the idea did appeal to me. The system would eliminate the possibility of a privileged elite, and put everyone on an even footing with no state to impede on anybody’s freedom, doesn’t sound so bad to me.

So I must be missing something right? Somebody please tell me I am crazy. The only thing I can think of is that people don’t pay these ideas much attention because they are utopian and unrealistic, but then the same could be said about anarcho capitalism. Or maybe that the care-taker government would always be reluctant to relinquish power?

Any thoughts/common sense welcome. Please don’t ridicule me.

2

To me this is what it sounds like : “Lets set up a government to abolish the government! (or abolish the need for the government)”

Governments all increase in size and policy making over time, I cannot think of a government where they have said, " Oh wait! We have too much power. Less start reducing our authority."

3

Thanks for the reply. Yes I agree that’s one of the problems I saw. Which is probably why, as I said, many lefties suggest skipping this intermediate stage altogether and having no state from the beginning.

I must add that of course I am against the idea people’s property should be forcefully taken form them in the so-called revolution, and realise that some see this as necessary to achieve communism

4

As distinct from old-school socialism, the left-wing strains of ‘anarchism’ or even ‘libertarianism’ are perhaps a bit different. Perhaps they think the dictatorship of the proletariat should take a decentralised form, somehow, or even that it isn’t a necessary stage to bring about the communist utopia. I don’t know. They’re still just arguing for a suspension of the rule of law until their preferences are satisfied.

If you don’t derive ethics and the rule of law from a fundamental axiom such as self-ownership, giving rise to property rights and the non-aggression principle, then how exactly does one derive rational ethics? Is there such a thing as right and wrong, or is it just a matter of who is more powerful? If you accept the former, then you have to accept that majority preference is no sound basis for ethics or jurisprudence. If you accept the latter, then it’s just hypocrisy to dress up your aggression as politics, which is implicitly distinct from simple crime by virtue of moral legitimacy.

If you want to live in a community where all property is held jointly, go ahead and do so, but why aggress against people who don’t want to subsidise that way of living?

Welcome to Mises.org.

5

I do too, using force to take ones property should not be advocated. Even market-socialists know that this is such a horrid thing to do. From what I have read from your two posts, you seem like the person that would be interested in reading Lysander Spooner or Benjamin Tucker… While I do not agree with everything they have advocated, they have greatly influenced me.

6

I will have to think about this post for a while. Thanks for the welcome.

7

Thanks I will check them out, Spooner and Tucker I mean.

Not quite got my head round how to quote peoples posts on this forum.

8

[ quote user=“user name of person you want to quote” ] text [ /quote ]

No spaces in the brackets

Here is a forum thread about ‘how to quote’.

-edit-

9

Thanks for the quoting tutorial.

OK, so if I want to get my head around the concept that self-ownership gives rise to property rights and the non-aggression principle, what do you suggest I read? I think this is where my current confusion lies.

And of course when we talk about property we are not talking iPhones and laptops.

10

You should read The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard.

http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp

The way I see it, a “right” is a legal concept that’s distinct from a privilege. Unlike a privilege, a right is fundamentally inalienable and inherent by definition, while privileges are granted at somebody’s pleasure - somebody who holds a right over the dispensation of such a privilege. Rights are “God-given”, if you believe in God or enjoy the metaphor, and naturally emergent vis-a-vis the maximisation of utility if you don’t. I believe the distinction between utilitarian arguments for liberty and ‘natural rights’ arguments is unimportant and technical. I think the main reason Rothbard used the framework of a natural rights argument was to emphasise that whatever truly maximises utility would have to be naturally emergent, and not planned by someone on behalf of everyone else.

“Rights” which are written down in a constitution or bill of rights, for example, are really misnomers. They are privileges granted by the state authority that has the power to effect, interpret, change or repeal the constitution, thereby witholding the privilege it had granted to its subjects.

The only right which can truly be regarded as inherent and inalienable - and therefore properly named - is a property right. An ‘owner’ is the only legal entity that exercises unfettered discretion over the use and disposal of a thing. He can grant privileges to others to use the thing in certain ways - to lease or lend it - but he can set the terms of lease and revoke such a privilege more-or-less at his own discretion, perhaps subject to self-imposed procedural limitations.

If it is the state authority which grants us privileges in their constitutions and legislation, then it means that the secular state is presuming the ultimate natural right of ownership over us, and merely leasing us the more-or-less free use of ourselves in exchange for abiding by its terms.

How could it possibly be that an alien and fundamentally fictional entity like the state has a superior claim to initial acquisition of ownership over a person than the person themself? Is it the state that learns how to walk and talk and work on behalf of a person? Essentially, self-ownership is taken as axiomatic, because it is absurd for a person to lease himself from an absentee, fictional alien entity from the moment he comes into the universe.

The non-aggression principle is thereby deduced as the appropriate ethical starting-point, if all persons are equal insofar, and no further, than they have equally valid claims of absolute sovereign ownership over themselves.

The acquisition of property beyond one’s self is, therefore, ethically appropriate insofar as it does not violate the non-aggression principle. Initial acquisition of ownership is only possible where something was genuinely unowned or abandoned, and transfer of ownership is only possible if it is voluntary.

11

Wow, that was well put. I am 100% with you up to and including the non-aggression principal.

When you say that the acquisition of private property is appropriate as it does not violate the non-aggression principal, you are saying that anything is appropriate which does not violate the non-aggression principal right? I see the logic of course but man it scares me.

Would a company which pollutes the air making it unhealthy to breath be violating the non-aggression principal? Do you think there can be situations where the unrestrained accumulation of property by individuals can have an effect on the quality of life of other individuals? Would that be in keeping with the non-aggression principal?

Please know I am not here to argue or debate, I am sure my average (at best) intelligence would not get me far against the learned members of the Mises forum, I am trying to broaden my understanding.

Also, I myself own a house (well I have a mortgage on a house I hope to one day own) so I am in no place to argue against ownership of private property, I just think about things too much.

I will get a copy of the Rothbard book.

12

Assuming you can show damages to property you have ownership of, yes the company would be aggressing against you. This is the difference between “He emits CO2 and is destroying the earth! Throw him in jail!” and “The pig farm you just built makes my existing home unlivable.”

For the second part, it is important to understand the difference between quality of life and actual rights. My quality of life would improve greatly if I could go anywhere, do anything, have anything, demand any service, etc. But I have no legitimate claim to these things; they are not my property to use as I wish. Others have no duty to ensure my quality of life, only to not violate my property. So, yes it is possible to accumulate property in a way that reduces the quality of life of others; but so what?

13

Well, I guess the so what is that you may get into a situation where you have a minority who have managed to accumulate a lot of property, and a majority who have very little property and very little hope of accumulating property. This majority will then start marching around claiming they are wage slaves and threatening forcefully take the property of the minority, and eventually will actually go through with it, with gruesome consequences.

I am sure that you will say that just because it’s the majority, doesn’t make it right, and especially as you have property rights which are inherent and inalienable, but I don’t think I would feel comfortable in such a situation myself. Must be my inner hippy speaking.

14

Can you explain what you mean by “I don’t think I would feel comfortable in such a situation myself”?

15

Well, I think I would have feeling of guilt seeing people who are struggling to survive everyday while I enjoy my inherent property rights. I grew up in South Africa as part of the priveledged white minority and remember feeling that way when I lived there.

But maybe I am talking out my ass and a Libertarian society would see an end to poverty, but I have my doubts.

What do you think? Thanks for the replies.

16

I think situations like the South African apartheid can only exist under a state. That’s because a state allows a minority to effectively hold higher claim of property ostensibly owned by those outside of the minority.

In both apartheid and the “Jim Crow” laws of the American South, white people were restricted by the state in what they could do with and for black people. A stateless society would have no such laws, and if it did have such traditions, they wouldn’t be enforceable. The idea is that rights trump privileges, every time.

Furthermore, it’s the non-rich majority that’s affected the most by state interventions in the economy. Higher taxation, inflation, and regulation inevitably raise the cost of living, either directly through higher monetary prices for goods, or indirectly through shortages and capital consumption.

17

To respond to your OP, China Diapers, keep in mind that all ownership is private ownership - in the sense that all ownership necessarily entails the right to exclude others from possession and use of what’s owned. Even the Soviets had private ownership, although ownership of most things was restricted to the Soviet state. For ownership to no longer exist, no one could be excluded from possessing and using anything. This would lead to either total chaos - a true Hobbesian “war of all against all” - or the de facto re-establishment of some system of ownership.

18

OK yes, I know South Africa was a specific situation, I am just using my experience there to illustrate am not the kind of person (I don’t think anybody really is) who can sleep at night surrounded by poverty.

But yes, I do think along the lines you do regarding the state creating poverty and the wealth of the elite being maintained through preferencial treatment from the government, but I am not yet 100% convinced.

I will keep reading those books.

19

That makes a lot of sense, thank you.

20

In a Libertarian society there would be nothing stopping you from giving some of your property to those struggling to survive, if you found value in that, or trying to convince others to do the same.

Poverty would need to be defined better before I could say whether or not I think a Libertarian society would end it. Look at the “poverty” in the US versus “poverty” in a random 3rd world country. These are not even close to the same thing. I do think that whatever qualifies as “poor” will continually be richer and richer at a greater rate in a Libertarian society than it would otherwise.