From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Oct 21 2002 - 11:54:32 MDT
--- "Dickey, Michael F" <michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com> wrote:
> >From the Anarchism FAQ
>
> www.anarchistfaq.org
>
> A.1.4 Are anarchists socialists?
>
> "Yes. All branches of anarchism are opposed to capitalism. This is
> because capitalism is based upon oppression and exploitation"
>
> "And since individuals do not exist in a social vacuum, it also means
> that freedom must take on a collective aspect"
>
> Arent 'freedom' and 'collective aspect' an oxymoron? Isnt
'collective
> aspect' a polite way of saying 'forced to behave as part of a
> particular group' ?
I've disproved these statements before. The first fallacy is that
capitalism is based on oppression and exploitation. Since capitalism is
based on a chaotic free market, there are no mechanisms inherent in
capitalism that mandate oppression or exploitation. Any social
phenomena that evolve such characteristics are also present in
socialist societies to far greater degrees than is found in capitalist
societies, primarily because the ability of the individual in a free
market to choose their 'tyrant', be it themselves, or one of many
millions of possible for profit or non profit employers, induces a
competetive market that is not present in socialist societies, where
the state/commune is the only customer for the individual's labor, and
as such exerts monopoly pressure on the individuals ability to survive.
The second fallacy is the untrue assumption that individuals cannot
exist in a social vacuum. Individuals have proven time and again
throughout history that it is entirely possible for individuals to
exist in a social vaccum. Furthermore, society cannot exist without the
presence of two or more individuals, ergo society is the dependent
entity, while the individual is the independent and sovereign entity.
>
> "Are these conditions of freedom met in the capitalist system?
> Obviously not. Despite all their rhetoric about "democracy," most
> of the "advanced" capitalist states remain only superficially
> democratic -- and this because
> the majority of their citizens are employees who spend about half
> their waking hours under the thumb of capitalist dictators (bosses)
> who allow them
> no voice in the crucial economic decisions that affect their lives
> most profoundly and require them to work under conditions inimical to
> independent thinking"
>
> Its hardly reasonable to compare the despotic regimies of evil
> dictators such as Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler to 'spending
> half of your waking hours under the thumb of a capitalist dictator'
> Especially when you can choose to not work, or to work for yourself.
They must demonstrate one example of an individual, living in a
communal setting, where "freedom takes on a communal aspect", where
their independent thinking is permitted to fully express itself, free
of the peer pressure of consensual dictation, in any way other than
within the bounds prescribed by the commune's established code of
political correctness.
>
> They quote Chomsky on this topic...
>
> "The capitalist workplace is profoundly undemocratic. Indeed, as Noam
> Chomsky points out, the oppressive authority relations in the typical
> corporate hierarchy would be called fascist or totalitarian if we
> were referring to a political system. In his words :
>
> "There's nothing individualistic about corporations. These are big
> conglomerate institutions, essentially totalitarian in character, but
> hardly individualistic. There are few institutions in human society
> that have such strict hierarchy and top-down control as a business
> organisation. Nothing
> there about 'don't tread on me`. You're being tread on all the time."
> [Keeping the Rabble in Line, p. 280] "
As I've said before, left wingers such as Chomsky, et al, tend to
conflate the concepts of capitalism with corporations. Since
corporations are legal entities that only exist with the consent of the
state, it is rather obvious that the free market, which existed before
the state was even a concept in Nature (i.e. evolution via natural
selection is a capitalist free market, while hive and pack animals
first invented the concept of the state), can exist independent of
state protection.
Indeed, as an example within modern history, we see that international
and global trade in capitalist free markets existed in great abundance
long before there was even a concept of a world government.
>
> Except in a corporation you can (gasp) quit your job if you dont like
> it.
snip...
>
> They comment on the 'but you can quit' counter argument here...
>
snip quoting Milton Friedman...
> ... "A moments thought, however, shows
> that capitalism is not based on "strictly voluntary" transactions as
> Friedman claims. This is because the proviso that is required to make
> every transaction "strictly voluntary" is not freedom not to enter
any
> particular
> exchange, but freedom not to enter into any exchange at all."..."Some
> people giving orders and others obeying them: this is the essence of
> servitude. Of course, as [right-Libertarians] smugly [observe],
> 'one can at least change jobs,' but you can't avoid having a job
> -- just as under statism one can at
> least change nationalities but you can't avoid subjection to one
> nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to
> change masters" [Bob Black, The Libertarian as Conservative].
Ah, so the ability to avoid work to earn a living is seen as a natural
right. This cuts right to the heart of the socialist fallacy: that the
individual is for some reason entitled to have their needs met without
having a responsibility to work for it. This is inherently a looter
mentality, and inherently fallacious.
Name one higher mammal in nature that does not have to work for its
living, not just in gathering food, but in seeking out water, shelter,
reproductive opportunities, as well as avoiding predatory
victimization. You can't.
Freedom isn't free, and as Andrew Johnson once said, "Freedom means
having the right to choose between working or starving." The right to
not work is no right at all, unless it falls as a subset of the right
to choose to not live as a corollary to the right to life. As such, a
left anarchist is quite free to not work in a capitalist system, they
simply are not permitted to obligate (and thus oppress and exploit)
others to prevent them from choosing to not live via starvation.
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