From: Alexander Sheppard (alexandersheppard@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Oct 21 2002 - 11:06:34 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.
"A private property owner needs no state to protect their property, they
only need their natural right, recognised all the way back to
Aristotle, to keep and bear arms."
To keep and bear arms. I suppose that would imply the right to use them to
defend againist infringements upon their property-- infringements upon their
right to hoard an arbitrarily large amount of resources compared to other
people and keep it from them by force. But if you want to do that on a large
basis, you're going to need organization. If you don't want to do it on an
organized basis, then you're just going to get warlordism and a violent
chaos, sort of like the stereotype of anarchy which has been impressed by
the powerful over the years. On an organized basis, you'll have tyranny, but
at least some sort of organization will survive.
"The state's only interest is in
perpetuating itself by confiscating the private property of private
individuals"
Well, what do we mean by the private property of individuals? Does the
private property of individuals even have any objective meaning outside what
the state tells people it does? Because, if someone goes and steals my car,
the state says that the person can't have my car, and attempts to find them
and stop them. I mean, we can talk about what 'the state' means, and I'm
sure one can define it to mean many things, but I think it's pretty clear
that control of resources means power over other people. And any
organization which concentrates control of resources under an elite will
necessarily elevate that elite to great power in society. So, the state in
the USSR elevated the ruling elite there to great power, and the state here
elevates the ruling elite here to great power, in the form of the rich, who
have great control of the resources here. So it seem sensible to me to
simply define the state as the organization-- however formed-- which
concentrates resources in the hands of an elite, or people who have a large
excess of resources under thier control compared to other people, who need
those resources. So, under that definition, it doesn't really matter how you
defend private property-- any way you defend it is by way of forming a
state, whether it be many small states in the form of armed individuals who
are each defending thier property alone (which is likely to lead to complete
chaos and utter devestation) or on an organized basis (say, the Communist
Party in the USSR or corporate power in the US).
"and being used by leftists like yourself to tell
individuals what they are allowed to do with what property they
magnanimously allowed to keep in their posession."
Well, I certainly don't advocate any sort of centralized power which tells
people how much resources they have-- that would obviously be a complete
tyranny. And, I think, the degree of organization that you have in a society
which does that-- I mean, which centralizes control of resources under an
elite-- is roughly the degree of misery and tyranny that you're going to
find in that society.
>
>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. If you
>look at socialist literature, another thing they mention is classlessness.
>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.
"Another display of left wing cluelessness. ANY sort of socialism is
anti-anarchy, specifically because the act of communal ownership of
property mandates STRUCTURE to manage that property for everyone."
Well, what kind of structure? Look, I mean, there can't be anything wrong
with structure, if you didn't have structure you'd be back to the level of
early primates or something. It's what kind of structure that matters-- if
it is a tyrannical structure, where people are being coerced and exploited
and enslaved, that's undesirable, but I don't see how communal ownership
could possibly do that, because in the past, it is non-communal ownership,
that is, the control of resources under a centralized power such as a
dictator or a state (perhaps concentrated into sectors of power like
corporations or bureaucratic departments which are in the end backed up by
the state). Communal ownership means, I think, that generally resources are
able to travel freely and without centralized control. As far as I can see
that's pretty inherent to the definition of communal ownership. The USSR
wasn't communal ownership, by the way, it was actually very centralized
ownership, under the Party. The US is different, but still similiar in many
ways.
"Since
'an-archy' means 'without structure', any system that requires
structure to mediate between the natural needs and demands of
individuals, rather than purely chaotic market mechanisms."
Well, something that I see right away is that you've created a tautology of
sorts here-- you're trying to prove that capitalism is anarchistic, and then
you go on to say that anarchy requires 'purely chaotic market mechanisms',
implying that you already assumed what you were about to prove... now, I
don't think that's necessarily too relevant here, but it probably is to some
degree.
"Where left wingers get confused is by conflating the concept of
corporations with the concept of capitalism".
Well, I think you're right to say that corporate capitalism is different
from just capitalism, and I think there might be better ways of organizing
capitalism, if you insist on sticking with it, than organizing into
corporations in an advanced society. However, if you want to keep your
society advanced, and a large sector of the population from simply dying of
starvation, you are going to find some method of large scale organization,
you can't just rely on "chaotic market mechanisms" (if I'm interpreted what
that means correctly, which is easily not so). That doesn't mean involuntary
organization, I mean, I certainly don't agree that anybody should be coerced
into doing anything they don't want to (as they are in our society, because
if you don't find a way to get money you generally can't have basic things
that a human needs, like a small house, even if one is just sitting right in
front of you, unused, the property of a wealthy individual...and generally
the only way to get money is to do what the people who have money tell you,
thus, coercion) but it does mean organization, because if you don't have
some kind of organization you're going to have a huge humanitarian disaster.
_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:41 MST