Petition to stop being an anarchist

[hayekianxyz]

@Brainpolice

My point was that the concept of a “natural elite” can be and has been used as legitimacy for a state, on the basis that those in control of the state are more fit to govern than others. But in the sense of people being fit to rule others, I proclaim that noone is fit to do so. I’m not denying that different people are good at different things. I’m saying that noone is “superior” to the point of being fit to be a ruler.

Private property has been used to justify slavery, equality has been used to justify mass murder and the idea of prosperity has been used to justify government intervention in the economy. What’s your point, that the state is evil and coopts perfectly acceptable and desirable ideas to justify its own actions? That’s hardly groundbreaking, nor does it constitute a case against any of these ideas.

Actually, democracy and even monarchy work against natural elites. Both of them have to suppress the role of natural elites and pander to the egalitarianism of the common man in order to gain support. Whilst monarchies may have originally been an outgrowth of this natural institution, the moment they began to suppress other natural elites they promoted egalitarianism. This is funnily enough, what led to their downfall at the hands of democracy.

@Brainpolice

I never stated otherwise. And actually Austrian economics has nothing to say about that.

Did you really just say that Austrian economics has nothing to say about the division of labour? Funny that you should level the same criticism againt Hoppe actually.

@Brainpolice

I never made any statement about Nitro’s character. I think some of you have a tendency to see straw men where they don’t exist, when people are making general statements.

No you posted some strawman about anybody who disagrees with you not being an anarchist. Which, I suppose was correct in regards to me, but not to Nitroaddict.

@Brainpolice

I’m sorry to repeat this again, but I believe you’ve grossly misinterpreted La Boetie as confirmation bias with respect to your elitist hatred for the commoner. Nothing about La Boetie’s writting implies that people inherently violate property rights or that their political systems are actually voluntary.

I’ll repeat myself since you don’t really seem capable of hearing me the first time, tell me where you disagree:

1. the state derives its legitimacy from the illusion that it is either necessary or desirable,
2. voting implies that one has bought into this illusion,
3. a large number of the poor voted for Barack Obama (or other candidates) in the last election.

As such, it follows that legitimacy is derived from the claim that the government can help the poor. The poor buy into this as a result of moral and intellectual weakness. If the poor rejected the state, and rejected welfare others would see the emporer without his clothes.

@Brainpolice

I’m sorry, you’ve apparently yet to understand my actual points. You’re attacking a strawman.

I have. Property rights are flexible and depend on the way in which one inteprets them. Accordingly many different ideologies may coincide and live next to one another. Actually, property rights would fail in their very meaning: to stop conflict and would be meaningless.

@Brainpolice

That goes against the most obvious of economic principles. Mutual benefit is the normn in a free market.

And this somehow proves that one person may be very apt in putting scarce resources to benefit the many? Granted, it’s unlikely. But if I recall correctly I said exactly that.

@Brainpolice

No, they aren’t. They can be used for egalitarian purposes and egalitarian forms of organization can exist within them. Free market /= your organizational preferance per se.

But yes they are. Private property clearly implies people are not equal. They are disctinct from one another, some will excell others will be mediocre. In any case all will be different, even in the rights they possess. How can private property be put to egalitarian uses?

@Brainpolice

Once again, you completely fail to understand the point. When I say “egalitarian”, I refer to a general tendency towards positive outcomes for people. That’s it. Not pure equality of wealth or talent or whatever. As for equal rights, libertarianism inherently supports equal negative rights and is incoherant otherwise. As for state-imposed mediocrity, yes, this does occur. However, the outcome is not in fact egalitarian, it’s net harmful to the masses.

At first I thought you might want to keep anarchism on account of using words according to their correct meaning. Obviously not. I don’t really understand how equality can mean good results. Perhaps you mean equality is double plus good? No, libertarian doesn’t support equal negative rights, a child does not have the same rights as an adult. But as you believe babies debate one another in the maternity section this discussion isn’t going to be very fruitful, so let’s not bother.

@Brainpolice

I never said that there is no relation, I said there is no absolute relation. Desiring egalitarianism outcomes does not inherently make someone a statist per se, and it is impossible for the state to actually be egalitarian in nature, as it inherently is a power heirarchy.

You’re just being pedantic now. And posting strawmen. Yes it is possible for one to be an anti statist egalitarian. We all live in the context of the state (unless you live in some anarchist colony you’re not sharing with the rest of us, or you’re MaxLiberty who believes wishing you were free makes it so) and my point was the state encourages egalitarianism.

And no, the state, the abolition of property rights (including self ownership) is the only way to establish some semblance of equaltiy amongst men, who would otherwise be disctinct and unequal.

@Brainpolice

The total abolition of all private property is an impossibility to begin with. Even communist states rely on some degree of private property in terms of the production within society necessary for it to leech off of.

Of course it is. Which is why the definitions of communism/ socialism and capitalism are not helpful. I’d say that state communism is just private ownership of the means of production, albeit by the state. My point was simply that there is no completely private property anywhere.

@Brainpolice

The state does not, in its net effects, distribute wealth from the rich to the poor. The welfare state has in fact had the effect of increasing poverty - on top of the more corporatist measures which have the same effect.

You’re attacking a strawman. The state doesn’t in its net effect distribute from the rich to the poor no. But it does distribute from some of the rich to the poor. And it does encourage egalitarianism in other way. Most of all it just encourages mediocrity.

@Brainpolice

No, I think you use the word as a stigmatizing reference to anyone who isn’t a cultural conservative.

So go ahead and think that, you’d be wrong. But then when do you give a damn about the definition of words when it doesn’t suit you to?

@Brainpolice

People aren’t “savages” just because they aren’t cultural conservatives.

You’re evading the point and nit picking. But, anyway, they are.

@Brainpolice

You dehumanize people.

No I don’t, they do it to themselves.