Or do you mean to say that I owe thousands of dollars for the education I’m receiving from these forums?
Formal education may require debt, but formal eduction is completely overrated. You can get educated online for free (not formally, but it is education). Imagine if, instead of compulsory public schooling, you could enroll a kid on an online class. How much cheaper would that be with the competition online? The Prussian Model is a dinosaur.
PB:
Either explain what version of socialism you support or get out of this thread. That is the root of the matter, and unless you explain what you think, we’re left guessing and having you feel aggressed against because we’re allegedly arguing against a straw man.
So don’t become a drama king/queen and refuse to say what you actually believe.
“Or do you mean to say that I owe thousands of dollars for the education I’m receiving from these forums?”
Try putting that on your CV and see how many interviews you get.
Well the question comes down to, “are you going to cage me or kill me for choosing to live a different, peaceful lifestyle?” If the answer is, “no,” then we don’t have any problem. If the answer is, “yes,” then we will have a problem.
If you answer no, go join voluntary collectivist arrangements and co-ops and we don’t care. You can even argue for a paradigm shift in our social habits. Fine.
“Formal education may require debt, but formal eduction is completely overrated. You can get educated online for free (not formally, but it is education). Imagine if, instead of compulsory public schooling, you could enroll a kid on an online class. How much cheaper would that be with the competition online? The Prussian Model is a dinosaur.”
I think there is certainly some truth to this, unfortunately the standard opinion of most employers is that you need a certificate to even get throught the door for an interview.
Also, I wouldn’t disregard the benefit that a formal education can offer. To paraphrase someone - I can’t remember who - “self-taught people have wide knowledge, but formal education gives you deep knowledge.”
I took a couple of classes at a nearby community college while I was getting my bachelor’s degree. The classes were World Literature II and Physical Science (think meteorology, geology, and astronomy). What amazed me was that the quality of the teaching at the community college was at least roughly on par with the quality of the teaching I received at the four-year state university.
I think this blog post echoes the same thoughts:
http://fringeelements.info/post/3231962003/paul-bloom-is-an-idiot
Oh, you weren’t referring to anything that anyone decided to call “education”? Then how about you spell out for us what exactly you mean by the word. We aren’t mind-readers, you know.
Well, then let’s stick to discussing the technical problems with socialism as a theory of human nature and human social order. Socialism = statism is certainly a canard but so what? The Internet is full of canards everywhere but I’m more than happy to debate the technical merits of socialism as a theory.
Clayton -
@Wheylous, if you seriously think I haven’t done that, then you just haven’t been paying attention.
@Clayton, I’m really uninterested at having a discussion like that here, and it’s not as if I haven’t tried. Whatever mental roadblock keeps the posters here from understanding anti-authoritarian socialism is something they’ll have to over come themselves. I am completely uninterested in being a part of that conversation as it usually ends with insulting me, and that’s a shame. I have no doubt that there are people who are genuinely interested in understanding a position they don’t agree with. And it’s too bad that the few folks who can’t seem to grasp what are nuanced, but pretty simple ideas feel the need to totally miscategorize an idea they know nothing about, which in turn makes me want to have that discussion less and less.
If you’re really interested, go look up an Anarchsit FAQ. It’s more comprehensive than I can ever be and while I don’t agree with all of it, I’d rather you read that and then came up with questions than have me say what I’ve already said a thousand times.
What if the posters here do understand it - better than you, even? Furthermore, what if they realize that anti-authoritarian socialism is, in the end, a contradiction (i.e. either it will become authoritarian or will stop being socialism)? Have you ever really considered that possibility?
Of course, there’s also that pesky issue of how you’re defining “socialism” vs. how “the posters here” are defining it. Indeed, one could say that anarcho-capitalists are “socialists” in the sense of advocating the provision of all goods and services by society and not the state.
One could say a lot of things.
While my take on anarcho-capitalism is that it has little to nothing to offer as far as a really substantial criticism of the state or state like entities go, I at the same time realize that it is not necessarily a pro-state doctrine. My criticism isn’t that I disagree with ancaps because they’re statists and promote the state. I could argue all day long that they actually do support a state in that any agency committed to protecting defined property with boundaries, even if they are scattered and could be given to any other agency or individual at a time, is a state, but I realize that it wouldn’t be what most people here recognize as a state, and it might not even be what I necessarily recognize as a state. Hell, I could change the way I use every word in the English language to support my ideology all day long, but we’ve got an entirely different thread about why I think that would be dishonest and a childish way of making myself always right.
Your point? Or is this just a trite attempt at a cop-out?
Does your body have boundaries?
Surely you don’t think that anarcho-capitalists are the only ones using unconventional definitions!
“Your point? Or is this just a trite attempt at a cop-out?”
My point is that it is a cop-out!
“Does your body have boundaries?”
Am I making the argument I used as an example above, or was it an example of the type of argument I wouldn’t make?
“Surely you don’t think that anarcho-capitalists are the only ones using unconventional definitions!”
I don’t. You know I don’t. And if you still don’t get it then I’m willing to accept that I’m not capable of explaining why.
How in the hell is it? Please, thrall me with your acumen.
What? I don’t even know how to make sense of this. So let me ask you again: does your body have boundaries?
What I see is you accusing us and only us of using unconventional definitions in order to be “always right”, as though you and those like you have a lock on the conventional ones (and therefore we’re actually “always wrong”). That’s completely ridiculous IMHO and I won’t abide it.
For the most part, I agree with Birthday Pony here… I think most here forget the market-socialistic/mutualistic influence that anarcho-capitalism has (tucker, Spooner). While personal debt is the individual’s responsibility, there is still a much bigger picture here, and that is that the system as a whole is screwed up and needs to change.
The main problem i have with the riots is that it does not see the system as the problem. They are merely asking for government aid, which is not changing the system at all. In fact, this is only going to encourage the expansion of the system, if the demands are met, which the State, as a whole, would love this since they would now have more influence on specific policies.
in other words, they are indirectly advocating the expansion of the system they supposedly hate.
I’m not sure the entire group is Anarchist, and we can only expect so much. I still think this is the beginning of something promising though.
BP,
I think that is where we differ because as I stated, they are merely doing what the current system wants them to do, beg for help via government aid.
Also, one does not have to be anarchist to see that the current system is crap. The problem with these protestors though is that even though they generally advocate anti-coporatism, crony capitalism, etc. they are indirectly advocating the very system they hate because they are basically feeding the system.
I agree. But I feel like the system will inevitably be inadequate. The state cannot really solve the root of these people’s problems. This is the time when Anarchists can have an influence and when people are listening. It’s a time to start a dialogue.
I thought that article did a great job analyzing the whole thing. I didn’t find it using a broad brush at all. In fact Gregory seemed to take great care to point out there is no single voice:
“Although there is no single ideology uniting the movement…”
“…the website does not represent all of the protesters…”
“To be fair, some of the protesters would probably not sign on to this kind of wish list. But there are also many among them who would go even further in the state-socialist direction. In any event, any movement filled with people who want this much out of government is bound to fail in addressing what is wrong with today’s system.”
“Despite their ideological problems, however, most of these protesters have been peaceful, which brings us to the next party to the drama that we certainly cannot cheer: the police.”
Sounds pretty accurate to me. But even still, I thought it was obvious criticisms here were directed to those that subscribe to those economically illiterate demands and utopian fallacies.