From: Carol Low (kira@pobox.com)
Date: Sat Sep 27 1997 - 09:30:33 MDT
Remi Sussan wrote:
>
> Hi this is my first post to the extropian list !
(big snip)
> >Otherwise you'd be throwing, say, European left-anarchist values at
> American
> >right-anarchist values, and making a mess.
>
> It's true that the two trends of anarchism have difficulties to cohabit. I
> was accustomed to left anarchist values when I first meet the extropians
> more than one year ago (through the transhuman list), and it was a real
> "cultural shock!". Only now I begin to understand the values of these
> strange animals (I continue to disagree, but, at least, I understand).
> This kind of debate always remind me "Illuminatus" this card with two
> faces one saying "property is theft" the other "property is liberty". This
> depends, says Wilson, of the meaning of "property" One is property of the
> means of production; the second is property of personal objects.
> Right-winged anarchism goes too far (IMHO) when it suggest the
> privatization of all (such as for instance, oxygen supply in an O'Neill
> cylinder), and left anarchism is wong when it contests the property of
> personal goods (for instance, Emmet Grogan, leader of the
> anarcho-socialists Diggers, telling Allen Ginsberg he was an ugly
> capitalist, only because he wanted to retire in a house with a garden!).
> Are right and left anarchism really opposite ideologies ? sometimes, there
> can be a fruitful collaboration. The best example, IMO, is the GNU project,
> a pure anarcho-socialist project (no property of information!) which gave
> birth to successful companies such as Cygnus.
(snip ditto)
Remi: Absolutely, these are diametrically opposed and incompatible
ideologies: this is a purely ethical issue: by what right would the
state or your "brothers" own the means of production or any part of what
you had worked for? While it is the belief of many
objectivist-libertarian types that the mixed economy is inherently
unstable, it is the case that the mixed economy is unethical because
individuals are entitled to maintain the rights to and distribute as
they see fit, the fruits of their productive behavior. How does who
decide who is more entitled to own and distribute what I produce than I
myself? If anarchy is freedom from statism, then what structure do you
propose to cooperatively steal my goods and redistribute? And how do you
intend to keep me producing under this situation? Read <i>Atlas
Shrugged</i>!
-- Carol B. Low, Psy.D. http://pobox.com/~center-for-conscious-living/
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