[p2p-research] The difference between anarchism and libertarianism (Was: Re: Why Post-Capitalism is Rubbish)

[Michel Bauwens]

I think there is one issue with anarchist theory which is that property now
socially exists, and that you could only coercively abolish it, and the more
levels of property you want to abolish, down to the individual level, the
more opposition there will be.

I think that is the historical problem with anarchism.

Another way to conceive of the same issue is then to ask a different
question, can we 'outgrow' the need for property.

I think that this is really the historical task of the p2p movement and how
it differs from the historical tradition of anarchism. It sets out to
'prove' through really existing p2p production practice, that producing
without property is more productive than producing with property and it is
in the process of proving this in the immaterial field. It is now entering
the stage of doing with design of physical products, what it has done with
software and knowledge.

It is also proving, through social practice, that many things can be done
through sharing or post-monetary exchange (couchsurfing, etc...), in the
physical world itself.

Next step is physical production itself, and I think that this is what
people like Smari should be concentrating on,

Michel

2009/6/12 Nathan Cravens <knuggy at gmail.com>

> Thanks for sharing this rant, Smári.
>
> Keep in mind that this does not contradict the right to privacy. If you
>> are using a room it is not socially accepted that another barge in and
>> begin using it; rooms are rival, and rivalry transcends property.
>> Dropping the right to property would not mean that people could not have
>> private possessions either: people will always respect one another's
>> privacy to a sensible degree determined by the social context. Laws are
>> only needed to enforce injustice.
>
>
> Yes, but if people are unable or unwilling to create material autonomy
> personally within their communities, they will clamber for their property
> and insist that states enforce it. This challenge to anarchy must be better
> addressed or rivalry without property or ownership without property cannot
> effectively exist.
>
> After doing a search on "ownership without property" and "rivalry without
> property" I'm astounded no essay or volume has such a title. And the
> immediate results have little to do with this challenge. If there's an essay
> addressing how folk can create and how they have before created boundaries
> such as "home" without property, I'd like to read it. I've developed this
> argument internally, and have expressed these assumptions throughout the
> sketches found online, but have yet to illustrate it formally. If you would,
> address some readings on that topic, or better, in aggregate at the P2P
> Foundation that talks of the abolition of property. This argument must be
> better made, with some historical and present day examples, to overcome the
> hurdle anarchism has for major acceptance.
>
> Any political view which stems from the suspicion that people will
> inherently do ill toward others is only going to reinforce that which it
> views as a threat by creating a state or property for defense. This means as
> long as the wide spread belief that others will only have a toddler-like
> interest in themselves, this will only exaggerate toddler-like attitudes in
> others. This is a view held by many political views--including Left and
> Right. A majority of folk presently insist we must have a state or property
> for the sake of order or protection. Like you've addressed, a tremendous
> majority have bought into the Hobbsian fallacy that no one can manage
> without a broadcast medium directed from above to instruct and deem what is
> appropriate or not. Viewing others as 'others' instead of a 'friend of the
> community' - meaning - 'your friend', in addition to the social
> infrastructure to reinforce the friendship with those you do not know, can
> we ever hope to live in a manner an anarchist's moral superiority might
> approve of.
>
> Its important to note that these political ideologies you or anyone might
> state is an attempt to create material autonomy and personal kinship in some
> way. At least, if that's not the goal of politics, it has already failed.
> The reason I've stayed clear of political ideology is that it seems but a
> fuzzy reflection of what is happening. Its important to have simple models
> to understand the world, but politics as I've encountered it hardly
> addresses the issues or how to live well in any distinct way. This may be
> because politics in most cases are used to reinforce the state and property
> which prevent liberatory knowledge--as this would become a threat to needing
> YOU to prowl around like a bloody toddler! Of course, I'm giving to much
> credit in asserting this disposition as being self conscious. If those that
> behaved in such as way, knew so and its affects, they would be kinder
> folk!--?!
>
> Its the approach that matters. I've abandoned reason and approached
> 'strangers' as (rather than 'like') friends, and I've received the same
> approach in kind in most cases. The problem, however, is the pervasive
> infrastructure of property and the state to reinforce alienation, ignorance,
> and the belief that everyone is stupid, however--you--yes--ONLY YOU--are
> special-- superior! Descartes' silliness supposition that "ONLY I EXIST"
> persists to this day. This means being kind is difficult to maintain under
> our present Industrial conditions. So most folk, even in my small town,
> present themselves as unapproachable--austere--at least to those they do not
> know. This may be done as a simple protective mechanism, but this method
> usually only reinforces alienation and more reason to take defensive action.
> This approach is so profoundly destructive, but these assumptions we call
> culture are hardly questioned. One reason is because folk are just too busy
> to think much at all!
>
> The infrastructures are theoretically more mailable than ever. Transaction
> costs for communications are free after that one time purchase many do not
> pay at all, or at least, externalise. Tax payers, parent's of students and
> students, and businesses--among the other abstract methods to producing and
> maintaining stuff--have paid for my privilege to deliver this massage: it is
> written from a university using Google, which holds the data using equipment
> and energy paid for by business advertisement. So though I do not pay a fee
> to use a computer or the web, we still have work to do in order to make--or
> because it existed before--re-make community in a way that continues the use
> of lovely environments created in air conditioned space and computer
> networks--that is to say--continuing present comforts of living.
>
> With your experience Smári, you can share with the world how to make a
> better fabrication workshop. I hope to see a document of this sort from you
> and your folk within the MIT fab lab network, one that insights the
> collaboration and equality we strive for. That document must be a wiki and
> its contents must apply and instill a change of behavior in a way that
> empowers self and creates or enriches community so to come alive and expand
> to reflect how its used in each unique community setting.
>
> How might we create a better world? That's too general in itself, of
> course, but we can apply this question to areas of interest and the
> organizations that nurture them--like CSAs. So, how might we make a CSA work
> without money while maintaining our comforts? The answer to that question I
> believe is in 'networked computing power'. Now how might we use social
> networking tools to create an understandable and replicable collaberative
> design that represent physical activities, beginning with the CSA organism
> itself? This design can show a CSA's operations elegantly, request needed
> materials to members known to have them, and select volunteers to work when
> they wish to work. It looks as if Google Wave just might have the potential
> to aid in this coordination even moreso than social network sites and wiki
> pages alone. I've already described 'waves' beyond the present scope of
> Google Wave's project. I hope people can imagine for themselves how wave as
> collaborative design might look, beyond the scope of written text and
> images--rather--in text and images that represent existing activities,
> express needs, with a community network to meet them in freeconomic fashion
> at best, the food itself money-free at least. Because the community can see
> who contributes and who does not, the free rider problem is alleviated and
> "competitive collaboration" is encouraged.
>
> So your interest, Smári, might be in creating a collaborative design for a
> commons environment for open source fab labs and the hackerspaces and other
> community spaces that build and use them. Once the tool designs are
> available and physically established, how might we retrieve these materials
> as without monetary metrics, while simultaneously forming a community fund
> to decrease costs for individuals while fab functions subsists on producers
> that use finance? These are just some of the many questions to ask for the
> design to answer. If folk are faced with paying more for less and seeing in
> the other: better with less: the feedback loop is on in our favor.
>
> Here are a few collaborative design stubs we can work on:
>
> http://www.appropedia.org/The_Triple_Alliance
> http://www.appropedia.org/Open_Systems_Design_for_Peer_Producing_Anything
>
> What do you have in mind? What's known to work or what's working so that we
> can apply this in practice?
>
> We need a collaborative design (like Google Wave) and web aggregator (like
> Wolfram Alpha) to better address our physical surroundings to make better
> use of them.
>
>
>
> --
> Nathan Cravens
> Effortless Economy
>
> OPEN SOURCE >> AGGREGATE >> INTEREST >> DISCUSSION >> DESIGN OUTLINE >>
> DESIGN >> MATERIALS REQUEST >> FABRICATE PROTOTYPE >> OPTIMIZE
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> Forgive the length of this rant, and please refrain from drawing
> conclusions before the end of it:
>
>
>
> I have frequently been asked what the difference is between
> libertarianism and anarchism, in light of the fact that anarchists have
> adopted the moral that libertarians have claimed ownership of, that
> individual freedom is only limited by the equal freedom of others.
> Because of this, both libertarians and anarchists reject the authority
> of others, especially the authority of governments.
>
>  “The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or
> painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have
> never come from centralized government” - Milton Friedman
>
> So what is the difference? The answer is simple. There is only one
> difference between anarchism and that which has been called
> libertarianism, but that single difference has a number of very
> important consequences.
>
> The difference is this: Anarchists do not recognize the concept of
> property.
>
> Anarchism is first and foremost about freedom, but anarchists do not
> accept that their freedom is limited by physical or imaginary property.
> Therefore it may be more correct to speak of propertarianism than
> liberalism.
>
> The consequences start to become apparent when we appreciate the need to
> protect property, since the concept of property cannot be assumed to be
> universally accepted, simply by virtue of the existence of anarchists.
> The protection of property can be done in a number of ways. The threat
> of violence and whichever form of making good on that threat was common,
> but another method is the creation of a legislation or agreement which
> grants some organization the authority to punish in some way for
> infringement of property rights
>
>  “Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of
> property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against
> the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none
> at all.” - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)
>
> That propertarians take care of their own property rights by way of
> violence or other means is the method many of the more liberal
> propertarians have advocated, and the most radical amongst them have
> styled themselves anarcho-capitalists. However, the managing of ones own
> affairs is an uncommon approach, seeing as how few wish to shit where
> they eat, let alone murder where they live.
>
> It is simpler for the conscience to let others take care of the
> violence. For this and many other reasons, most propertarians accept
> that although an authorative government is a bad thing, it is important
> to have laws to maintain property rights.
>
> “Corruption is government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form
> of regulations.” - Milton Friedman
>
> Hence the legislative authority, the first part of government. They
> accept that although it goes against their ideals, there must be a
> government, but then it shall be a minimal government. The minimal
> government should not offer social services, as this would intrude on
> market efficiencies. Rather, it should only maintain property rights on
> everything, whether it is objects, resources or ideas, and enforce those
> rights with punishments of some kind.
>
> Now the propertarians are faced with a liberal dilemma: how do we ensure
> fairness? Can we guarantee the liberty of those who infringe on our
> property rights? Well, we can't, but we may be able to ensure justice by
> way of some arbitrative authority which use the rules to punish
> everybody equally.
>
>  “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
> poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
> - - Anatole France, The Red Lily (1894)
>
> And now that the punishment has been delved out, action must be taken to
> enforce it. There must also be some way to bring infringers – criminals
> – to justice. Hence the executive authority, with its ability to execute
> all of the above, including the criminals if need be.
>
> Let's remember that here we speak only of the most pure form of
> libertarianism: in a perfect libert... – sorry, in a perfect
> propertarian society the government would neither operate schools nor
> hospitals, these would be privately owned. The government would not
> provide social benefits or physical security, as all of these functions
> would be functions of the market. The only purpose of government is to
> enforce property rights. Anything else is simply communism, isn't it?
>
>  “Once wide coercive powers are given to governmental agencies for
> particular purposes, such powers cannot be effectively controlled by
> democratic assemblies.” - Friedrich von Hayek, The Constitution of
> Liberty (1960)
>
> This tiny detail, property, is enough to have the propertarian unravel
> all her beliefs and build around herself a powerful system of coercion
> which is very easy to use for oligarchical purposes. Taxation, trade
> barriers and an unfree market are natural consequences of having such
> power hanging over us. But this they accept anyway, because in the world
> of the propertarians, property is more important than freedom.
>
>  “Property is theft.” - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property? Or, an
> Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government (1840)
>
> Unfortunately, very few are anarchists. Very few people have considered
> property in this light and very few have considered the consequences of
> eliminating the concept of property. So it may not be unreasonable to
> consider some of the implications of doing so.
>
> Imagine owning nothing. This is different from not having anything: when
> you sit in a cinema you do not own the seat you are sitting in, but yet
> you have it. You are using it and nobody is likely to take it from you.
> If anybody were likely to do so it would be the owner of the cinema,
> which he can do simply because it is his property.
>
> Laws do differentiate between having and owning. When discussing
> resource rights there is an understandable difference between usage
> rights and property rights. Usage rights can be temporary or more
> permanent, and they don't necessarily need protecting with laws. Few
> people would consider using another persons toothbrush or bed without
> permission.
>
> What if a house stands vacant? If property exists then the house shall
> stand vacant if that is the will of the owner; it is his prerogative as
> owner to have the house fall into disrepair. But if no property rights
> exist, then it is clear that usage rights do not apply if the house is
> not being used, so another could use, lest the resource be squandered.
>
>  “The idea of property, or permanent empire, in those things which ought
> to be applied to our personal use, and still more in the produce of our
> industry, unavoidably suggests the idea of some species of law or
> practice by which it is guaranteed. Without this, property could not
> exist.” - William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and
> its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1793)
>
> Keep in mind that this does not contradict the right to privacy. If you
> are using a room it is not socially accepted that another barge in and
> begin using it; rooms are rival, and rivalry transcends property.
> Dropping the right to property would not mean that people could not have
> private possessions either: people will always respect one another's
> privacy to a sensible degree determined by the social context. Laws are
> only needed to enforce injustice.
>
> In economics things are considered to be either scarce or abundant,
> meaning that with sensible use of these things can be depleted, or else
> there will be enough to fulfill any sensible demand for the resource. An
> example of a scarce object is the Eiffel tower. There is only one Eiffel
> tower, and there never be more than one Eiffel tower, because copies
> will only be copies – what makes the Eiffel tower what it is is not its
> shape or chemical composition, but rather its cultural significance.
> However, there is an abundance of oxygen on Earth, and it would be
> unreasonable to intend to deplete it.
>
> On the other hand there are rival goods, and social goods. This refers
> to whether or not the usage of one individual of the resource precludes
> the use of others of the same resource. A carrot used by one man cannot
> be used by another. A chair cannot be used, under normal circumstances,
> by more than one at a time. However many can sit in the same cinema, and
> many can use the same garden.
>
> (It's worth noting that most economists don't see any difference between
> rivalry and scarcity, which may explain some of their mistakes.)
>
>  “Since neither property nor capital produces anything when not
> fertilized by labor–that means the power and the right to live by
> exploiting the works of someone else, the right to exploit the work of
> those who possess neither property nor capital and who thus are forced
> to sell their productive power to the lucky owners of both.” - Michael
> Bakunin, Selected Writings
>
> Labor is of course on of those things for which there is both
> competition and rivalry: each individual only has a fixed number of
> hours in the day, and the propertarian model has established a culture
> of the owners of the means of production having others work on their
> behalf in exchange for a small portion of the produce, and this is
> generally not provided in the form of the produce itself, but rather in
> the form of a currency.
>
> In light of recent events it is dilligent to ask of currency: is it
> scarce? Yes. Is it rival? Yes. Need this be the case?
>
> This last question is important not least because it is so rarely asked.
> The monetary system has been constructed around the belief that all
> things are scarce and that all things are rival. Because of this, the
> monetary system is incapable of properly estimating the value of things
> that are abundant or social.
>
>  “Money is a sign of poverty.” - Iain M. Banks, The State of the Art (1989)
>
> The concept of property has been used to justify scarcity for many
> centuries. Many centuries ago, in England, many large forests were
> considered to be commons – a concept all but exterminated from our
> culture – areas which all had equal usage rights to and nobody had
> formal property rights for. At some point the lords realized that these
> commons were quite valuable, and suddenly realized that which has come
> to be known as the tragedy of the commons.
>
> The farmers made use of the forests, cutting small branches off the
> trees in the autumn to use as firewood during the winter. This helped
> the trees conserve energy during the winter months and start growing
> earlier in the spring, and the farmers had enough to keep them warm.
>
> When the lords suddenly realized that this was a scarce resource,
> despite this having been the way of life since time immemorial, they had
> no other choice than to demand that farmers pay for the right to collect
> these branches.
>
> The farmers, of course, had to pay, or else not have firewood. The use
> of the forests did not change. Property did not solve a problem that
> didn't exist to begin with.
>
>  “No complaint…is more common than that of a scarcity of money.” - Adam
> Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776)
>
> Money as such are not as large a problem as the way people think about
> money. The properties of money come from the needs that property – and
> the power structure that maintains property – has created to maintain
> scarcity.
>
> In the last century money has been created out of nothing. They are
> created when banks lend each other money. This is a type of
> centralization, enacted to ensure that only a limited amount of money
> exists. A central bank, the regulator of the currency, decides how much
> of the currency exists at any given time. Most people do not have
> freedom to create money.
>
> The banks that have the right to create money have, just as the owners
> who oppress the workers, used their situation to increase their property
> value by enacting usury.
>
>  “If he has exacted usury Or taken increase — Shall he then live? He
> shall not live! If he has done any of these abominations, He shall
> surely die; His blood shall be upon him.” - Biblían, Ezekiel 18:13 (King
> James version)
>
> Usury, or interest, creates an interesting situation in the monetary
> system. There is a constant demand for more money than has been created.
> This, along with the centralization of the means of production of money,
> create a game, which has a few rules:
>
> Everybody must participate, they cannot quit, they cannot win, they
> cannot break even. The goal of the game is to be the last person to
> loose. The best strategy? Own more. Avoid bankruptcy. Lie, cheat,
> decieve. Drive others to bankruptcy. The worse you are as a person, the
> better you are at the game.
>
> So what is the solution? How do we change the game?
>
> Simple: We stop assuming that everything is scarce, and that all things
> are rival. This tiny change unravels the current failures in the
> monetary system. Then we can build a new monetary system and a new
> market economy which does not rely on the concept of property.
>
> First, we stop accepting centralization of the means of production, and
> allow everybody to create credit, the value of which is determined by
> their merit. By using computers we can make this fast, simple and safe.
>
>  “Abundant cheap credit would drastically alter the balance of power
> between capital and labor, and returns on labor would replace returns on
> capital as the dominant form of economic activity.” - Kevin Carson,
> Mutualist Political Economy
>
> The monetary system would be constructed thus: business transactions
> between individuals, where items of value are exchanged – irrespective
> of ownership thereof – based on statements of gratitude from the “buyer”
> to the “seller”. The computer system can collate the enumerated
> gratitude at a moment's notice, throughout the entire society. With
> strong encryption these statements will be nigh impossible to forge.
> What's more, the contradictory nature of capitalism gets put to good
> use. The capitalist model assumes that the only motivation for human
> activity is profit, while at the same time neoliberal economics point
> out that in a perfect free market competition will eliminate profit.
> This would mean, in the case of loans, that due to the availability of
> cheap credit, no interest would need to be payed, nor loan fees, any
> more than you pay the attendant at the supermarket a handling fee for
> accepting your money.
>
> The technological basis for this exists, but they are outside the scope
> of this short rant. The point is this:
>
> Property is weaker now than often before, as it goes against the
> morality of those who have nothing.
>
> The monetary system is weak now, because it was designed around
> assumptions that no longer apply.
>
> Centralization is not the future, scarcity is not the future, property
> is not the future. Anarchism is the future: freedom for all to live in
> equality and cooperation.
>
>
>
>  - Smári
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-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
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