This seems like the kind of thing that I’ll probably get burned at the stake for but here goes…
Should be attempt to abandon the term “Captalism”?
Wasn’t the term “Capitalism” invented by socialists? Indeed I’ve heard before that Karl Marx was the first philosopher who used the term in a major work.
Doesn’t the term “Captalism”, temporarily forgetting the modern view of people with top hats and money bags walking by streets clustered with the homeless and poor, doesn’t the term mean that the only thing that people are motivated by is money.
If I’m operating free of government today, I’m technically a “capitalist” but what if I’m not motivated by money? Is it not vulgar do suggest that the only thing that people are motivated by is capital or money? Indeed it is of course true that especially in the buisness world people are interested in money, but that often isn’t the only thing that they are after and money is hardly ever the end goal. Also has we have stated a million times in our arguments financial markets are jus like all other walks of life, they are all VOLUNTARY and not necissarily based off of the will for money.
Therefore I suggest that we stop using the term “Capitalism” in favor of “Voluntarism”, not only as a political ideology but to replace the term capitalism with voluntarism, because people are motivated by their voluntary goals and wills and act as such, if this be through capital or monetary means then so be it.
By ending our use of the term capitalism we can avoid some very unpleasent preconcieved notions and indeed replace it with a more practicle term, furthermore we would have a furhter way to seperate mixed econonomy or state facism with what we truly mean by using the term voluntarism.
So finally I propose an economy of voluntarism, not of capitalism.
I hope I’m not just being foolish here but I do believe that using the term voluntarism as an economic term would help us greatly in terms of appeal and accuracy.
I am not afraid to call myself an Anarchist, or a Libertarian, or a Free Lover, or that I espouse Capitalist ideals. I am what I am. And if people have a problem with how I define what those terms mean, they probably need to get a stick out of their arses.
The arguments over semantics is pretty old and irritating, to be honest. It won’t matter what you call yourself, someone else will always step in and tell you your definition is wrong.
So I tend to not call myself any of those terms when debating. People will eventually pick up on it or they won’t. I just tell people the following things at the beginning of a debate, “I won’t argue with anyone who wants to point the gun at my head”, or “I’m all for the maxim of personal liberty in my life, my business; in anything that does not cause physical harm to someone’s person or property”.
We had a guy posting here last night convinced he was some kind of anarchist when, really, he was a Marxist-Communist. 3 pages of dialogue couldn’t persuade him otherwise.
While your idea of reshaping the perceptions of the word Capitalism is noble, Voluntarism could just as easily be construed as something quasi-Communist involving totally free labour. Who knows..
The economic invalids and the opponents of freedom will always find a way to brand our movement with smears and nonsense. I don’t believe it is something we should concern ourselves with.
Exactly, it doesn’t matter what they brand us with, merley as long as we can pick an accurate and noble term, it doesn’t matter what they call us, merley what we call ourselves.
Great thoughts. I agree, and I consider the primary value of libertarianism voluntarism, a principle more important than any proposed concrete legal order.
I think that branding, rebranding, PR, sales pitches, trying to appeal to stay-at-home-moms and that sort of thing only take you so far. At the end of the day, the folks who prevail are the folks who are determined and who know what they want.
Take the Bolsheviks in Russia. They did not win out by rebranding themselves into something nicer sounding. They won out by taking an extreme end of a position, sticking to their guns and knowing when to strike out.
It`s an analogy that is not perfect because the Bolsheviks aimed to take over the state, all we aim is to seceede from the state, but I think it applies nontheless. Strategically the base, the avant-garde is the most important. The name must be picked on basis of what uplifts our hearts, not on basis of what a good brand name to appeal to some home at stay mom might be.
Except that changing our name slightly doesn’t change our fight does it? Also the Bolsheviks had a fantastic name (majority) which didn’t have a negative preconception. I’m saying this as food for thought and advocating that people use the term voluntarist more than capitalist under the belief that this is more effective. It’s a slight change in tactics not saying that our fight is lowered in any way.
And I don’t know about you but I’m not satisfied with just seceding from the state, I want to dsiband the state altogether in whatever way I can.
Ehm, the name of the ideology of the Bolsheviks was Communism. And they were quite happy with that. They did not hold conferences trying to figure out if they could change the name of their ideology to try to give it a wider appeal and sell it better. That is what Menshevik`s were doing and they lost.
The term capitalism was used well before Marx and the socialists, it has always meant “owners of capital.” Which seems fine to me. Marx was famous for describing the capitalist mode of production as relying on the state…
An “economy of Voluntaryism” is a meaningless phrase, as it doesn’t describe an economic activity. Now, a voluntaryist society would be fantastic.
Ok what I’m saying is that this is a general peice of advice for the chagning of tactics, this is not a conference and this is not a series of conferences is it?
Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it imply that goods and services are provided for voluntary means? To say that capital is the only reason is to totally rule out things such as charity.
To me, this gets right to the heart of TLAR’s original post. According to your definition, if and when we advocate “captialism,” we advocate a system that has “always meant owners of capital.” I think this was exactly what TLAR was getting at.
If and when we advocate “voluntarism,” (whether in economic affairs, or in non-economic social relationships), we advocate a principle of association that TLAR is implying is the real essence of libertarianism, as opposed to a conception of libertarianism that refers only to “owners of capital.”
That doesn’t actually rule out charity, as the capitalists are still responsible for the production of the goods produced. But there is nothing within the term capitalism that implies that goods and services aren’t provided for by voluntary means. Voluntaryism seems like the perfect match for an economic system like capitalism.
No, I understand what we define capitalism as and I’m not proposing a NEW system, just a different name for it. The term “capitalism” can also be read in a literal sense as “moneyism” as in the only thing that motivates the individual is capital or money.
Who cares how others can interpret it? People can just as easily misinterpret voluntaryism as being for charity and volunteer work as opposed to profit.
If this is what people really think capitalism means then they are hopeless intellects. We should instead appeal to reason, not advertising, in order to sway people and whatever the word capitalism next becomes connoted with, will become the reason for people to accept it.