From: Alexander Sheppard (alexandersheppard@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 15:39:41 MDT
How can there be such a thing as "anarcho-capitalism"?
I mean, private property itself is the hugest state intervention in the
natural order of things around. The state exists to protect private
property... that's what it is, it is the thing which enforces the existance
of private property. It's a common organization formed by those whom people
are subservient to to protect thier wealth by force.
What is socialism? Well, one dictionary defines it as communal control of
the means of production. Another says that it is either communal or state
control of production. Now you can use the clause of 'state' in the latter
definition to declare that tyrannies like the USSR and the PRC are
socialistic, but I don't think that's in the spirit of socialism. I mean, if
you look at socialist literature, another thing they mention is,
classlessness. And you certainly can't have classlessness in the midst of
tyranny, that's about as massive a political oxymoron as you can have. So,
there is no really no such thing as 'authoritarian socialism', this is
something that was made up to scare people, it has no basis in reality.
The USSR wasn't socialistic, it was tyrannical, the means of production not
controlled communally but rather by an elite group, the Communist Party. Yet
in the United States, the means of production are also controlled by a
similar elite group, although here people have been able to win certain
rights which make it a more decent place to live. But if you want a
libertarian society, then what is needed is to get rid of these elites
entirely, and bring the means of production under a more decent kind of
operation, probably not "democratic" in the sense of "total" democracy with
no respect for the rights of the individual, but rather a sort of
individualistic pseudo-democracy. I know that sounds kind of strange, but it
isn't sharply defined ; we can't do that until we get there, and that's a
long way away.
If you look up "french libertarian" on Yahoo!, you'll find, not these
"capitalist libertarian" websites, or "anarcho-capitalist" websites, but
you'll find libertarian communist and libertarian socialist websites. That's
no coincidence ; in Europe, it is generally understood that you can't have a
society which is grouped into classes of wealth and power and still have it
be libertarian, that's a huge contradiction.
There are lots of names for libertarian socialism, and another popular one
is anarchism. If you read the anarchist FAQ, there's a lot more than I can
say here that's written there. It's pretty interesting stuff, so you might
consider skimming it before replying. The address is www.anarchistfaq.org.
Needless to say, anarchism is totally different than "anarcho"-capitalism in
character ; you can pretty much instantly sense that there is a large gulf
between the two once you start reading. That's because "anarcho"-capitalism
is not libertarian, it's an oxymoron which has been perpetuated by misguided
people who have accepted the propaganda line that private control equals
liberty (liberty is slavery, pretty much) and taken the absurdity to its
extreme.
_________________________________________________________________
Internet access plans that fit your lifestyle -- join MSN.
http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/default.asp
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:39 MST