You don't understand mutualism?

[Zangelbert_Bingledac]

by the way, calling subjective mental experience “folk psychology” as i just did is tactically unwise; it buys into one of the eliminative materialists’ central tenets: the silly trope that a person’s subjective experiences are “a theory”.

if anyone says this, you might just poke them with a needle until they implore you to stop. ask them why. if they say it hurts, say “that’s just a theory”. then they go “oh yeah,uh, i meant my neural net is stimulated in pattern xyz”. then you ask how they know that. “there’s no such thing as knowing, man”. yeah, run away forever like that.

they claim people are getting confused by words into thinking that they believe and desire stuff, but they themselves are even more caught in verbal confusion. what they are missing is a complete understanding of what communication really is. something needs to be eliminated, but they are eliminating the wrong thing. eliminate subjective experience and you have no basis for gaining any purported scientific or empirical knowledge. empirical knowledge cannot but be subjectively apprehended.

[Dondoolee]

It does sort of seem like “behaviorism gone bonkers”, or almost a outlandish parody of “modernism” doesn’t it?

[Dondoolee]

it is clear that most commenters probably don’t understand mutualism (but neither do most mutualists)

What is it? Is it a legal theory, a political position, an economic science, what is it?

[Zangelbert_Bingledac]

@William

It does sort of seem like “behaviorism gone bonkers”, or almost a outlandish parody of “modernism” doesn’t it?

yep the image i had while i was reading the article was that of a gaggle of behaviorists running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

[Dondoolee]

What are they? (You already said plenty about what they are not.)

And we’re supposed to be the nihilists. Oh well, I guess that curious term getting thrown at “right” libertarians is a bit more flattering than most other insulting buzz words.

[AnonLLF]

Pretty much all I see hear is the typical an-cap preaching to the choir vulgarism.I continue to worry about this site given it’s intellectual restrictions and limits. I should make clear my comment was not intended to be a full defense of mutualism(since i do not completely agree with it enough to be a mutualist) nor was it intended as an explanation of it.It was just a passing remark.I will response to other comments at a later date.I will not be defending mutualism as a package since it’s not something I advocate as a package.I remain as before a left-Rothbardian with sympathies for agorism and mutualism.

[AnonLLF]

@Zangelbert Bingledack

perhaps you could start a thread detailing the issues you see with the capitalism vs. communism dichotomy?

1. Definitions of these terms.

2. Idea that the concepts are on such opposite ends of the spectrum.

3. Conflation of range of concepts under both of the terms.

4. An-cap and general libertarian opposition to any deviation towards communistesque terms/concepts…

That seems a good start.

[AnonLLF]

@William

Mutualism is a bit hard to nail down but I’ve been finding more and more respect for it.It’s damn radical.It’s a complete upside down flip of the whole capitalism VS communism thing most believe in-even ancaps.

"All I get from “left libertariansm” is square circles, "

Have you even read any of it’s writings? Have you read Roderick Long, Sam Konkin,Kevin Carson,Gary Chartier, Charles Johnson(radgeek) Etc? If so,you’d know we at least say things which need to be answered by an-caps.

"At least Marx, for all of his kookiness, tried very hard to get rid of all that nonsense (though he failed in a spectacular manner, he was still a moralist with a bad economic theory). "

A growing issue I have with an-caps is inability to seperate the truth/value in marxist thought from it’s bunk/his followers bunk.

“Proudhon was nothing but an ultra conservative religous whacko who supported LTV and called usury a bad thing.”

I don’t necessarily agree with Proudhon on everything-I admit I haven’t read all of his works yet- but what I do know of him is the former claim is a misrepresentation and this brief dismissal betrays his complexities.

[AnonLLF]

@Nielsio

@Scott F

Mutualism is a bit hard to nail down but I’ve been finding more and more respect for it.It’s damn radical.It’s a complete upside down flip of the whole capitalism VS communism thing most believe in-even ancaps.

“It’s still the same old anti-capitalist message.”

Depends what you mean by “Capitalism” which is a confusing package deal of concepts.

But in essence I guess it is.However it’s a re-understanding of that.It shows you can be pro-market,pro trade and anti ‘capitalist’.

“You can’t trade money now for more money later (interest), you can’t trade your labor for goods (‘bosses’, ‘authority’), and you can’t gain use rights in land by making valuable use out of it.”

That’s closest to the mutualist position.Not all left-libs believe these things.

I ,for one, am not opposed to interests,not opposed inherently to wage labour and not opposed to land ownership.There’s a spectrum of views with very blurry lines between them.

“There’s a reason “it’s hard to nail down”, because their message is as undefendable as other anti- property rights schemes.”

Someone doesn’t know their literature.As Stephan Kinsella says no one is truly anti-property merely anti-X conception of property. Mutualists oppose a specific kind of property concept(absentee ownership etc) not property per se.Furthermore not all left-libs oppose absentee ownership and once again there is a variety of views including Neo-lockean property common to an-cap with some differences.

[AnonLLF]

@John Ess

“I don’t think that mutualism is against property or markets.”

It believes in both.

“The message is that without the state, things become more “natural.” Hence the shared terminolgy with biology.”

Now I’m not expert but I believe it’s about mutually beneficial relations.Would that be correct BP? the mutuality principle? insofar as it is ,I support that principle.

" Ergo, people become more cooperative – even in the sense of ownership – because it is the most efficient use of resources and the most desirable way to do things in the absence of coercion which manipulates the market. At the same time, one cannot destroy trade or ownership of resources all together, because this probably entails a state."

Sounds a somewhat reasonable vague summary.

[AnonLLF]

@William

“separate themselves from “right” libertarians,”

Even I do that now too.To be charitable to you guys here I don’t class you as ‘right’ but ‘center’.

“hate “right” libertarians,”

Some Left-libertarian hate others don’t.Roderick Long is of course a member of LVMI, Kevin Carson understands the an-cap use of capitalism but makes clear his use is different and Gary Chartier is friends with a number of LVMI fellows and non left-libertarians.

I can make this simple.Here’s my understanding.

Left Libertarianism is a ‘leftist’ kind of libertarianism.It melds leftist economic/cultural concerns(e.g. workers,bosses,co-ops etc) with libertarian concern for property,liberty ,markets and rights.It views the cause of traditional leftist concerns('bargaining power, bloated corporations etc) as the state and it’s influence and the solution to be free market anarchy.It is ethical political and likely though not necessarily cultural position.It’s a means of moving beyonf restrictive labels such as ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ to find the truth and confusion in all of these concepts and those in between.In the term capitalism we find a range of potentially distinct concepts lumped together. Left-Libertarianism offers the way for a kind of leftism like what an-caps know today but devoid of statism - a leftism which is pro market and anarchist.It’s such a simple beautiful idea.

No longer do we need the false capitalism = pro market vs leftistm/socialism =anti market.Left-libertarianism transcends these limited options and conflations and weirdly enough much of the seeds for this philosophy are already in classical liberalism, in libertarianism ,in the works of Mises Rothbard etc.

That’s my attempt to explain it.

[AnonLLF]

@John Ess

"It is odd that they are different. "

Not really.Left-libs trace the status quo back to statism while others whitewash or assume.It’s rather simple epistemology.

" Yet make few radical conclusions from this assesment."

Both at very least assumption corporations would exist still.Neither talks of mutual aid,co-ops,worker owned businesses etc.Both have implicit ideas of how it would be.

“, it seems that I wouldn’t have a problem with how things emerge. Whether it is communal or market or whatever.”

Sounds more like anarchy without adjectives than an-cap.

" As well, I think people who think in terms of decentralization have about the same ideas anyway."

An-caps tend to think in terms of top down professional hierarchical organizations much like the status quo.Left-libs think in more egalitarian informal grassroots structures.

[AnonLLF]

@William

It’s damn radical.It’s a complete upside down flip of the whole capitalism VS communism thing most believe in-even ancaps

This is important: this is nothing more than political sloganing. I can easily say I will “change the paradigms of squares and circles”, but it is really not making much of a truth statement as much as it is a social hook. Nothing is really being stated clearly, and that which can not be stated clearly should not be stated at all.

What I mean is the implied opposition to some extent does not exist.Too much here is conflated as if it is either ALL of one or ALL of the other.It skirts too close to the knee jerk randian response to anti-war sentiment whereas in this case it is in terms of criticism of corporations,existing economic structures/organization, worker-boss relations etc.All we’re saying is consider the alternatives much much more closely.There’s a whole host of ideas an-caps have never considered or touched upon because of these ideological dichotomy blinders.

[EternalSanction]

@Scott F

No longer do we need the false capitalism = pro market vs leftistm/socialism =anti market.Left-libertarianism transcends these limited options and conflations and weirdly enough much of the seeds for this philosophy are already in classical liberalism, in libertarianism ,in the works of Mises Rothbard etc.

I get very skeptical any time I hear of something “transcending” a dichotomy. Can you perhaps define what capitalism means to you?

[Zangelbert_Bingledac]

@Scott F

@Zangelbert Bingledack

perhaps you could start a thread detailing the issues you see with the capitalism vs. communism dichotomy?

1. Definitions of these terms.

2. Idea that the concepts are on such opposite ends of the spectrum.

3. Conflation of range of concepts under both of the terms.

4. An-cap and general libertarian opposition to any deviation towards communistesque terms/concepts…

i and i think many on here would agree that 1-3 are problems. 4 is rather broad. how do you define communism? or just any communisteque term of your choosing.

[Libertyandlife]

This “left libertarianism” is just sugar coated free market anarchism. It has no differences in reality, only in context and wording.

[Zangelbert_Bingledac]

Scott F: what you’re describing, free-market anarchy, sounds pretty appealing from an ancap perspective. i don’t get what you mean about bosses, workers and co-ops, but perhaps it all boils down to a prediction that, absent the state, there wouldn’t really be many companies in their present form. that they would tend to form in more co-operative ways. no one knows here; you could be right, and it wouldn’t take anything away from the most deeply held tenets of ancap.

could it perhaps all come down to a difference in predictions of what would happen without a state? the rightists saying hierarchically organized companies would be the main providers and the leftists saying grassroots co-ops and the like would be the main providers.

not so much a disagreement about what to aim for, but about whose crystal ball is better?

[liberty_student]

@Scott F

There’s a whole host of ideas an-caps have never considered or touched upon because of these ideological dichotomy blinders.

How do you know what ideas ancaps have and have not considered? Are you omniscient?

[Stephen_Forde]

What’s wrong with absentee ownership? Just how absent does an owner have to be to lose legal title to his property?

[Stephen_Forde]

BP:

“Territorial authority is incompatible with my notion of freedom, which is why I’m a land skeptic. Propertarian freedom isn’t “robust” enough because in such a framework freedom is completely relative to what is allowed by territorial authority. I consider it a mere reformation of everything it has the pretense of being against, re-legitimized by nothing more than property aquisition norms.”

How can freedom be defined as anything other than a private property rights system? We live in a world of scarcity. Economic goods are limited in supply and one party’s use excludes another party’s. Whenever one person uses a good, another person cannot, thereby limiting their freedom, and vice versa. Nor can anything other than the use of a good limit anybody’s freedom. Whatever system is produced will define what freedoms each person has.