From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Mon Sep 29 1997 - 18:10:01 MDT
Remi Sussan wrote:
>
> Hi Shaun !
> > I have always disliked the whole idea of "left" and "right" in
> >politics (or non-politics, as it may be.) By saying that one is "left
> >wing" it gives the impression that the person in question has *only* left
> >wing tendencies when they may possess many "right wing" qualities as well.
>
> Of course, left-right is very reductionnist way of thinking. I personnaly
> don't share most of the philosophical or artistical values of my
> "left-winged" friends. I always found Sartre, Foucault or Derrida boring to
> the utmost! But people think with packages. for instance, most
> "free-market" people hate abortion, women's lib, drug use, and are
> (frequently) christian fundamentalists and creationists. Our first attempt
> must be to go behind these "packages". I think the core "socialist values"
> can be freed from their depressive thinking, as the core "capitalist
> values" can be freed from social and political conservatisms. In this post
> , for the clarity of discussion,( and avoiding flames!) I'll continue to
> use the terms "left" and "right" to design the "core" values.
Sorry, free-market people tend to be rather hands off with many of the
issues you claim they they espouse. Pat Buchanan vs. Bob Dole & Jesse
Helms vs. Bill Weld shows that there is a rather serious rift among so
called right wingers between free-marketers and social fundamentalists.
>
> >If one says that they think that government should be abolished, obviously
> >they are anarchists; if their reason is because the government has done
> >virtually nothing to feed the starving and homeless, then their position
> is
> >pretty obvious.
>
> I'd prefer to ask: since the governement exists, and we cannot destroy it
> next sunday after lunch, how to use it ? I prefer to see it feed the
> homeless rather than using my money for army or making gifts to big
> corporations....
I'd much rather invest my money in a corporation that will give me back
my money with a handsome return while growing the economy than having it
confiscated by politicians who think they know so much better than I how
to spend my money on people who havent got the guts to get off their
asses and get to work. If I invest my money in a corporation, that
corporation will be able to expand production, increasing employment, so
mobody has to starve or be homeless.
>
> The "Free marketer" wrote :
> >Hitler was an outstanding example of a "left wing extremist" even
> >though he's portrayed by the "left" today as a "right wing
> >extremist". Such cult-like dichotomies do nothing to further
> >progress.
> Uh, really ? don't you do the same cult-like dichotomy by saying Hitler was
> a left-wing extremist ? I lurk this list since several weeks, and I thought
> that since a clever post by Hagbard/Keith, nobody here would dare to put
> the Hitler card on the desk, especially so quickly....
National SOcialism was the marriage of mercantile socialsm with the
nationalism movement that originated from a little science fiction book
published in the 1880's by an American by the name of Bellamy. The book
was "Looking Backward". If you think 1984 or Brave New World was
precient, read this book.
>
> Damien Sullivan wrote :
>
> >This, of course, begs the question. The anarcho-(socialist,
> >syndicalist, communist) claim is that property, such as owning a car
> >which isn't used 90% of the time, or land you've never even visited when
> >there are landless peasants starving in megacity slums, is theft and
> >coercion. So they would say "the 'right' wouldn't survive without
> >utilizing coercion (oxymoron!), or adapting socialist techniques."
>
> Exactly. Every act of privatization begins by an enclosure act ("this is
> mine: I will kill anybody who enter here") which is an act of cercion.
> The main difference between (sorry for the crude terms) left anarchy and
> right anarchy is that the second see "The state" and "the Market" as
> opposing entities, and that the first sees the State as simple
> superstructure used by the wealthies to protect their rights against the
> "have-not". They are therefore allies, more: state is just the
> institutional representation of the property system.
> An other difference is more semantic. I suspect right-anarchist to use the
> term "market" as a model of any kind of free interaction, as the left
> anarchists see in "market" only one kind of interaction. "Free markets",
> according to this definition, is therefore, to use Bateson's terms, a
> "maximisation of one variable", which can be disastrous to the whole
> system, built on many variables.
Sorry. Private property comes about in two ways: citizens purchase title
to or grant of property (if we are merely talking about real estate)
from a sovreign power, or "discovers" abandoned or unimproved unclaimed
land and claims sovreign right to that land. The loophole that leftists
use to brush all examples with are incidences where "civilized" peoples
encounter indigenous primitive peoples, and simply kill off the
primitives. This does not apply to situations where indigenous peoples
engage in treaties with other peoples but do not have the capacity or
the will to enforce the terms of the treaties. Note the word "enforce".
That all real estate property rights typically derive from those granted
by the sovereign government justifies government imposing property taxes
on owners of real estate.
The second way that private property comes about is through work. This
is the area that market anarchists typically are completely correct in
stating that government is comitting theft to expropriate any portion of
the added value that an individual produces in the economy through their
work, or through the investment of the value of surplus work value.
What is so hypocritical and unethical about leftist statism is their
argument that since they are in charge of the government, and they are
the representatives of the people, that they rightfully are responsible
for all property, disposition of labor and distribution of the fruits of
labor.
The only difference between left statists (communists or socialists) and
right statists (mercantilists) is that right statists are unabashed in
acknowldging that they are in control, while leftists con the people
into thinking that they are in control because the leftist merely
"represents the people". It was this kind of logic that Lenin used to
end multiparty elections in Russia.
>
> We all use everyday an anarcho-socialist system which works quite well: the
> internet. Here, most of the informations are given for free, and everybody
> understand that for the system to work, they must give information as much
> as they take. When you go to a site where there is some valuable
> information that you must pay (I grant you an exclusive license, blah,
> blah, etc), do you immediately give your Visa Card number, or do you go
> back to Alta vista or Excite to see if somebody doesn't offer you the same
> information for free?
Really, who "gave" you your internet address? It costs money to get such
an address, as well as to maintain it. Your claims of "all info being
free" is also disingenuous, as most sites that provide free information
typically only give out a small portion of such information. The rest
must be accessed via the purchase of a subscription. Those sites that
are free to access are paid for via advertising, or are funded by
government or non-profit institutions (and most government sites also
charge for much information).
> Anarcho-socialism works pretty well like the iterated prisonner's dilemna.
> I will share my goods if i know that, on the long run, I will beneficiate
> of the others goods.Of course the benefit must be higher than the "price"
> of my contribution, otherwise the system would not work (And this implies,
> IMO, a high technological level, such as the Culture's). In the realm of
> Internet we see that most companies such as Microsoft or Sun found
> necessary to give for free a big amount of their products simply to be able
> to sell some.(See internet Explorer or the JDK). To save the capitalist
> system, they are therefore compelled to cope with a "socialist" way of
> exchange. Here we see that things are never completely opposites, like in
> a chess game. We are here in a very complex game of Go.
Sorry, capitalists invented the "loss leader" centuries before socialism
was a twinkle in a madman's eye. My freind Tomima Edmark, the inventor
of the topsy tail (that annoying plastic dohickey for making cool
ponytails that is sold on TV) makes more money than ever by giving away
all sorts of other junk along with the purchase to give the buyer more
"value".
>
> >>"Left" anarchy is nothing more than intellectual masturbation for
> > >socialist and communist ideological refugees, particulary in the
>
> >Ideological refugees? Anarcho-communism is at least as old as Marxism.
>
> Of course. Bakounin participated with Marx at the 1st Internationale, and
> he was the fist to predict that Marxist ideas would be dangerous to
> freedom. Since, communists killed enough anarchists (especially during the
> Spain war, where they were officially allies) to demonstrate their
> ideological differences..
>
> Bye
> Remi
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?
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