From: Alexander Sheppard (alexandersheppard@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 13:33:27 MDT
I can't speak for Steve (nobody can), but anarcho-capitalism's status
as an oxymoron or not is immaterial to the original posters
demonstrated lack of ability to comprehend commonly accepted defintions
of commonly used words.
Well, I'm the original poster, my name is Alex. Anyway, I think you are
right, actually-- I have demonstrated a lack of ability, or at least a lack
of will, to use commonly accepted definitions of commonly used words.
Actually, I have done this intentionally-- why? Because I do not believe
that the commonly accepted definitions of, say, socialism, actually are self
consistent. So you can see in one of my messages, you can talk about a word
that means a Christian Athiest, but that may not make any sense, you have to
examine the usage of the word in various circles to understand what it
means, if indeed it does mean anything. And I think that yes, you can say
that socialism means something, but only if you drop certain contradictory
ideas which have been attached to the word over the decades by various
people, especially people in the upper echelons of the currently existing
hierarchy who would have quite a lot to loose if the masses decided that
socialism was a good thing.
So, what is the commonly accepted definition of socialism? Well, when most
people talk about socialism today, they seem to be talking about societies
which are reminiscent of, say, Stalinist USSR, or Maoist China, or North
Korea today, or Cuba. In short, when talking about socialism, people seem to
choose the most brutal sort of tyrannies ever to exist, and then label that
socialism. This is unfortunate because these horrible social systems bear no
resemblance to the type of socialism that was advocated (and is advocated)
before the word became what is, as far as I can see, a tool of propaganda.
Now, some people do try to attach some selective meaning to the word, and I
think one person here mentioned that China was simply a continuation of the
old imperial system, not anything new. And that, I think, is a positive
development, it is certainly better than the other, but still unfortunately
it assumes that it is possible to have such a thing as a socialist
dictatorship. I don't think that makes any sense, I think that is a bit like
talking about a Christian Atheist.
Economic and political hierarchies are always, without exception, related
and intertwined. Why? Because politics affects economics. You couldn't have
a Congress without having a Congressional ability to influence the economy,
it wouldn't have any meaning. You couldn't have a corporate hierarchy
without having some other organization to enforce the dictates of that
hierarchy. If that particular enforcing organization was merely a subset of
the corporation, the corporation would effectively be a government in
itself, complete with military and civil wings. In our current system,
however, all the economic hierarchies have merged their military wings into
one enforcer organization, which is called the State. Note that if the State
was dissolved and replaced with individual military wings in the
corporations or whatever economic organizations then existed, you would
essentially have not gotten rid of the idea of State, but rather you would
only have succeeded in creating many little states. And, because of the
tyrannical nature of the corporate hierarchy, they would all be tyrannical.
As far as I can see, what would probably then happen is that they would all
begin warring amoung themselves, bringing down industrial civilization in
the process, until one or more triumped and the situation was stable. Thus,
the result would simply be total destruction and a subsequent emergence of
Stalinism in many places. As far as I can see, that is the likely result of
any serious attempt to institute "anarcho"-capitalism by way of
corporations. There are other ways, to be sure... but I think that the
results will probably be similiar, or even worse.
Of course, the possibility of this result becomes increasing evident, I
think, when the process of any move toward "anarcho"-capitalism proceeds.
That is why I do not believe it has any serious chance of happening.
What does this have to do with socialism? Well, if economic and political
hierarchies are intertwined, then it doesn't make any sense to talk about an
economically classless society in the midst of a complete political tyranny:
that's just self contradictory as far as I can see. Rather you must
eliminate both. You've got to get rid of political tyranny and economic
tyranny, you can't get rid of one or the other, and in fact if you attempt
to do so, it seems like pretty nasty stuff can emerge (war, Stalinism, etc).
So, if we want to retain any definition to this word 'socialism' at all, the
only way to do so, that I have been able to recognize anyway, is to make it
synonymous with anarcho-socialism, or anarchism.
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