Or, I can live in an anarchist city, cut the state, associate with a guild/company where each member is an independent contractor with certain assurances and insurances we negotiate with one another. It is always sad when people resort to this sort of utilitarian argument. You use it to justify corporations. Others can use it to justify slavery or eugenics. You’re in good company.
Three words: Mercan til ism. “Merchant class” my ass. There are things, folks, that a stateless society can’t handle as efficiently as one with states. However, what is right and just is little effected by what is efficient. It was, of course, efficient for the factories of the industrial revolution to pack people who had been forcefully dispossessed of farmland into hot, windowless factories for 14 hours a day. There are many cases where treating humans as “human resources”, as cogs in your corporate machine, in other words, is efficient.
However, you’re really just speculating here, because we have not had a modern world with modern technology without corporations, and whether or not such government-enforced monopoly-producing lies would actually be the most efficient way of doing things (inasmuch as they were even possible) in a free society is still in question. I think we ought to at least try for what is just and true instead of discarding it because we’re afraid of what might happen.
The West enjoys high living standards because our government is not made of dictatorial bastards who simply claim to own all the land (and have the thugs to back that claim) and drain every resource for their personal profit until they’re ousted by some revolutionary who promptly starts to do the same thing.
You shouldn’t claim to own more than you can control.
This statement is nonsensical. There are no states in anarchism.
“risk-spreading mechanisms such as corporations, mutual insurers, trusts, etc”
You speak as if these are the only possibilities. You also speak as if this is all the natural result of a free market. In either case, I prefer risk to be internalized, not externalized. The degree of externalization you’re talking about is only possible with corporatist interventionism.
“enjoy the protection of their wealthy and well-armed merchant class patrons.”
Where does a “merchant class” come into anarchism?
“taxes are extortion,but if you must tax, tax corporations and not the people and never allow government the right to take your property without due compensation”
The only fair tax there is would be a poll tax, levied at the rate of your property.
They are the ones who will fund the private arbitration and mutual defense agencies. These agencies, in turn, will assure that angry philosophy students who try to pursue claims against individual shareholders are rebuffed.
I believe he is talking about an investor/entrepreneurial class. Their popularity will be relative to their ability to conduct commerce and produce profit.
I’m just filling in here. Byzantine might have had other thoughts in mind. These are my random blabberings on the topic.
They are the same class that get commerce done today while economics and philosophy students debate abstract models. Businesspeople like risk-spreading and investment income, so that’s what’s going to be done. And if there isn’t a government around to guarantee contract enforcement and limited liabilty, then they’ll hire Blackwater instead.
Stunning. Incredible. So, you are advocating we get rid of government to replace it with a “private” ruling class that forces people into accepting their preferred injustices with their private armies? Why not have their mercenaries enforce that they have no liability, at least not to the suckers that have to work for or buy from them? Why would I do business with such people? Why would anyone… unless you plan to have your Blackwater thugs enforce monopolies as well?
You seem to admire the rapacious business owners of today, the CEOs, the landlords. People who benefit from, and lobby to sustain, government restrictions on the market, effectively enforcing their monopolies. You are no anarchist. You are a corporatist. You would replace the corrupted politicians of today with the even more corrupt merchant princes of old. No doubt you think the East India Trading Company had a great business model, eh?
That’s not at all what he is advocating if I understand it correctly. Why are you being so melodramatic?
You won’t do business with firms who try to deal heavy handedly. No one is forcing you to. If they do force you to, that is immoral and wrong.
I think anarchists forget that in the absence of government, liberty still must be defended by everyone who wishes to attain and maintain it. There are still going to be thieves, liars, war mongers and other such dastardly characters. Government makes them stronger, it does not create greed, envy and evil exclusively.
Enforcing limited liability without a contract to that effect is an act of tyranny. It is one person saying to another, “If I wrong you, you may collect damages only to the degree I specify.” That is nonsense.
I really don’t understand your point. It’s like you’re arguing just to argue.
Limited liability is the choice of the shareholders/investors/entrepreneurs. If we believe in freedom and property rights, they are free to specify how liable they are willing to be to their suppliers, shareholders, consumers etc. If they will not be responsible to an acceptable level, the market will punish them either on the investment side, the consumptive side or both.
However, they are entitled to construct any sort of bad business model, and to pay for the enforcement of their contractual terms.
Anything which exceeds or diminishes the contract is clearly illegal, and arguing about such, seems circular. If they use force to push limited liability where none contractually exists, that is clearly wrong. Of course in the real world, the guy with the best PDA/Mercs and the most money will rule. It may be immoral and unethical, but that doesn’t mean it may not happen.
Have you given any serious thought to how anarchy will work in practice?
I’ll give you a hint: it’ll be a lot like feudalism, but technological advances will unhinge the feudal structure from geograpy to some extent.
For example, nobody is going to spend time haggling over an individualized contract with you when you walk into their place to order lunch. There will be a body of law that you will be presumed to have agreed to by virtue of residing or sojourning in the particular locality and doing business with the people there.
This is correct, and the common law’s premise was that if you clearly label yourself as a corporation to the rest of the world, then the rest of the world can either do business with you as a corporation or not. If you don’t like it, don’t do business with corporations. Of course, in that event your options as a consumer will be on a par with rural Guatemala but I assume all the principled anarchists out there are ready for that.
Feudalism is, surprise, surprise, NOT anarchy. So, you will merely be the next system of governance that true anarchists will war against in whatever method seems best, if you succeed. You probably won’t, though. Why hire a PDA when you can carry a gun? PDAs, like current police forces, can’t really protect you. They can’t be everywhere at once. If I intend to mug you, I’ll wait until the guard passes on his patrol. Not only that, but the investigative powers of a PDA would be very limited relative to the powers available to police today. And, having worked as a security guard, and knowing the history of mercenaries in general, I can tell you that people will rarely severely risk their lives for the sake of a paycheck. After all, you can’t spend it if you’re dead.
So, you’ve got a pack of polyester-uniformed security guards pretending to protect would-be merchant princes against an angry band of freedom fanatics who don’t want to accept your new enforcement of class structure, and a populace who has to decide between them. The merchant princes who say, “To do business with us or even live in OUR town you have to live by our rules and we can stomp on you and you’ll get $10 max for it” or the anarchists who say “If another wrongs you, you may seek compensation from him to the degree justice allows. Oh, yeah, and you can live in whatever damn town you want.”
What you propose is worse than the current system. Corporations already rule, but you would have them do it overtly rather than through their middle man of government. You are the enemies of liberty.
I used to be against the corporate structure for a business until I realized that it is a voluntary contract. If I do not take part in the management of the business activites then why should I be completely liable for what the manager does, especially if we worked that out in the contract I made with them. If I am liable then I must also be liable for what my bank does with it’s loans since I lent them money in a certificate of deposit and they give me an interest (just like a dividend for shareholders) in what they did with the money.
Also the common law does allow for owners of stock to be liable in scenarios where they did take part in the business activity and did not act like a creditor usually does. In the United States this common law doctrine is called “Piercing the Veil” and in England it is called “Lifting the Veil”.