LibertarianSocialist

Not going to argue about ideas in this thread, but would like to know more about how ancaps might transition to a stateless society. My questions are as follows: What is to be done with illegitimate property titles? Do they revert to non-ownership for homesteading, or do they continue on? How are illegitimate property titles divided if at all? If legitimate acquisitions are not expropriated, how would legitimacy be decided in a contemporary society on the brink of transition? Could general levelling be on the table? How is violent suppresion/resistance by conservative forces (state & it's beneficiaries) overcome? Do you consider resistance (violent or otherwise) by these bodies likely? If so, how would these power structures be overcome & dismantled? What specific sectors of society will likely be the motive force for change? Is there a set of intellectual or material preconditions for transition? Would transition be peaceful or might it entail a violent social revolution? Would a an-cap society utilize any transitional forms of organization before the conclusive implementation of pure laissez-faire organization? What is the likely outcome of a failed transition? Thanks.

"And so she has to go with a different bank that might give her a higher interest rate. oh the humanity!" Just one of many statements you made demonstrating you really don't give a damn about injustice. You go further to acknowledge injustice by stating that upbringing is of huge importance to overall life outcome. So she is discriminated against financially due to a low income, something you admit is influenced heavily by her upbringing. She is therefore being punished for the sins of her parents, as they were likely their parents. How is class not a thing? Social and economic class has a huge influence on parenting, as it does many things. You admit yourself that poorer people are more likely to be single parents and that single parent status is one of the most important factors in life success. So how is this not a class issue? Because it sounds like the poor staying poor through no fault of their own to me. Your point asserting that the fact people are poor is no one's fault, that they are subject to the same trials as everyone completely flies in the face of your parenting example. It is furthermore a stellar example of vulgar libertarianism. Maybe you weren't generalizing. Maybe you are just a fact-nazi who was in no way outraged by the GENERAL message of the work. Of course the piece was an isolated work not intended to demonstrate a broader issue, and likewise your post was not aimed at dismissing this. I actually know all about capitalism. Certainly enough to know that free-market capitalism is one of many variants of capitalism, freedom and non-coercion in no way being necessary for a capitalist society. If you admit the current society is coercive, why do you defend it so? "This is how the poor are liberated, when they realize the power is in their hands! That it's no one's "fault" that they're poor, they're not the victims of anything besides the randomness of life; which we are all victim to. Of course the government is making life miserable for everybody, especially the poor, so I do not dismiss their suffering, but it is an inherent problem with statism, not capitalism." -Because this is not a mouthful of contradictions. It's no one's fault people are poor, it is completely random, except it is all the states fault, who especially punish the poor.

Vulgar libertarianism is a term used to describe free market advocates who defend the very much unfree current state of capitalism. Your analysis reads a pretty clear: "Fuck poor people, they aren't really that disadvantaged, they just aren't trying hard enough." Even without knowing the families income or needs you automatically assume these would be adequate and thus dismiss their plight. You try to trivialize the very real disadvantage people face everyday in a classic attempt to blame the victim, and in doing so you defend the current system. You want evidence of inequality? Look outside. There is so much information about inequality and its negative effects, only the most blinded apologist would argue otherwise. By 100% social mobility I mean that their ought to be no correlation between where you started and where you ended up in the social scale. Assuming the classes are not based on demonstrable genetic superiority, we would expect to see the class of your parents having no bearing on your eventual class whatsoever. That this is not the case is all the evidence needed to demonstrate real disadvantage. Sorry for sounding harsh, but you have no idea of the ramifications for such a way of thinking, especially when representing a cultural trend. Justifying the oppression and misery of a whole class of people on the grounds that their failures must have been caused by some personal shortcomings can have truly horrific consequences.

What the hell man? I used to think an caps genuinely believed in justice and equality, that they really thought the free market would ensure liberty and equal opportunity to all. This sort of vulgar libertarianism is messed up. The whole works two jobs thing was to demonstrate that poor people aren't just 'lazy', they are genuinely disadvantaged. Maybe he couldn't work? Maybe he had to take a labouring job during his early years which left him a used up cripple? Maybe unemployment plays a very important function under capitalism so someone must be unemployed, no matter how capable? Government intervention is most certainly not the answer, but don't go around defending our messed up society as it stands. Here's a thought experiment for you: Social mobility is not 100%, do you believe in genetic superiority to the point of a master race?

I scored on the left libertarian side because I am a communist anarchist. It seems to be fairly accurate in depicting both libertarian leftists and rightist to me, I doubt it is some giant anarchist conspiracy, lol. If you read the page it says that right wing libertarians generally score only moderately in libertarianism because they are predominantly concerned with economic liberty more than social, which I think is a fair claim.

I think the restricted questions are intentional? All those questions about state economic intervention made me uncomfortable to the extreme. I just had to answer that in the context of our current society, state intervention may be a lesser evil, all the while hoping the answers wouldn't make me end up on the authoritarian side of the spectrum, as I would never endorse state intervention/redistribution in an anarchist society.

I ended up on the far Libertarian Left, with an economic score of -8.5 and a social score of -8.46. Also, I would strongly recommend reading the body of text explaining how various political stances are placed, the person who made the page does an excellent job of explaining the various stances, at least superficially.

The problem with Google is it is so much more than just a search engine. It's success has allowed it to gain a considerable portion of the tech industry, (predominant search engine, YouTube, Android, Gmail etc). The problem with this is that it forms a reinforcing ecosystem which is in many ways cartel-like. If one dislikes a certain aspect of the service provided, it is much harder to reject it for a competitor, as the competitor will not have the level of integration allowed by the former. This gives incentive to stay with the old service as while its service may be less optimal than the competitor, the integrated nature makes up for this. This is a form of competitive advantage which allows Google to gain additional superprofits. One may argue that consumers are simply following market rationality as the service is still better than the competitors, and so the logical choice. The problem with this is Google's advantages are not gained by any technical superiority, but solely through their position of power. It is desirable because it is desired by many, and there is advantages in scale. It is like Apples claim to its OS being better than its competitors on the grounds of having more apps.

You were making assertions about the use of violence as if the fact somehow invalidates my arguments. Unless you genuinely believe ALL forms of violence are unjustified, a truly absurd claim, such attempts at discrediting my arguments make little sense unless you can demonstrate why such violence is not legitimate.

I have already argued the exclusivity of the two conceptions of property rights in a previous post. The belief that either system can accommodate the other is false. All I am arguing is the fact that individuals should not be legally bound to acknowledge a coercive state of affairs in which they never had the ability to consent to. Propertarians use violence too, the question is, is this legitimate? Violence is completely justified in defence against non-consensual impositions. There is no forcing of socialism on people, there is just no preventing late comers to what is morally theirs. If those late comers believed in capitalism they could agree to the continuance of the current state of affairs, but they should in no way be deprived of the opportunity to reject them. Instead of making baseless assertions about violence and voluntarism, how about refuting my claims?

We will violently defend the right of individuals to reject the imposition of capitalism upon them. Why do capitalists have the right to claim absolute ownership over property, at the expense of others and without the possibility of their consent? Perhaps you want to debunk the lockean proviso. Tell me, if you and your friends begin a game of monopoly, knowing full well others must come to play at a later time, should those late comers be obliged to acknowledge the acquisitions made before their ability to give consent? Is it just for the earlier players to take every square of board and build hotels on each, and so deprive the late comers to a means of existence, to create barriers to opportunity, and so force him to comply to the coercive demands of the owners? Can a man reject this state of affairs under capitalism? You and those who likewise believe in private property can of course practice capitalism, but you cannot expect others to honour your impositions. It is unlikely others will recognize your right to create the conditions of artificial scarcity through absentee property rights necessary for a capitalist society.

Probably the most fundamental divergence is how we formulate our beliefs. Propertarians largely follow the Austrian school, whose principles are largely axiom led. They posit: as humans behave like this, then we ought to expect this outcome. The problem is where this diverges from reality. If an assumption is slightly incorrect, or the scenario slightly imperfect, outcomes can differ, quite drastically, from what is expected.Socialists tend to view society by what has happened. Basing our assumptions off of empirically observable facts. This is why propertarians here often tell me that I am straw-manning, criticizing instead what they call 'corporatism', rather than a true free market society. This is only because I reject the possibility of anything but imperfect markets, especially if under capitalism. Austrian economics is an attempt to create create a fantasy scenario, an unobtainable ideal of "pure capitalism". It is an attempt to justify the current system, to say, capitalism isn't bad! It's just what we have now that needs improving. If you lay down and let us walk all over you, do whatever we say, we can put in place a perfect system, where everyone is better off. That day never comes. Never has, never can. It makes too many false assumptions about man. It is the pie in the sky, the carrot on the stick. The reason I used the example of the Roman Empire was because it has very similar parallels to the USA. I am concerning myself with the real world, and probable real world outcomes. You think Gina Rinehart cares about the free market? Free market rhetoric is to help them sleep at night, to make the masses think the boot stomping on their face forever is for their own benefit, good for them! On a generalized level, people if given the opportunity to further themselves at the expense of others will. You can't expect the whole world to accept an-cap morality, when it is clearly against their personal interest, just because they had a 'good upbringing'. Power corrupts, the iron law of oligarchy is inevitable. The only means of ensuring no one takes power, is to give others the power to resist them, to ensure everyone holds power in (at least near) equal measure. Creating an asymmetric society, as capitalist inequality allows, directly facilitates the rise of the powerful and powerless, and so exploitation based on this. How exactly can I be charitable and survive on the market? If my charity actually creates greater profits, that is not charity, it is marketing, of which the consumer is actually the charitable one. For a boss to 'take value' is not important, only the bottom line, profit, is. All other values are externalities. He can externalise these because of his coercive position of power. How does the boss not exploit? His only incentive is exploitation. If he couldn't find people willing to work for a wage less than their productivity, he would never have become a boss, would he? He knows however that there will be people born into poor conditions who are willing to accept such a crap deal, because it's the best opportunity they have. They couldn't choose their life, It was thrust upon them. It then follows nothing past this point can be truly consensual, they are forced to make do with what they are given. They can choose a boss, yes, but they cannot choose to reject the concept of a boss without expecting to suffer as as result. When you guys talk of capitalism, you talk of a specific type. Hell, farming Helots was a former of capitalism. Invest in capital (weapons) coerce workers (helots) into providing surplus labour. Reinvest profit into capital, repeat, accumulate.

When I talk of coercion I mean all those ulterior factors which influence a person's decisions. Property is certainly coercive. If I own own a oasis in the desert and refuse water to the man dying of thirst unless he agrees to be my life-long slave, has he been coerced? True, it was not me, but his own physical needs which compel him to accept, but have I not played a significant role in the deprivation of that man in meeting his own needs? Surely any just society would recognize the invalidity of such such a coercive contract. I don't think everyone is evil and exploitative, I think man has as much capacity for altruism. My quarrel is with a system which punishes altruism. How many times have you heard 'I would love to raise wages, but then we would lose profits and no longer be competitive'. If a man chooses to support the needy, he takes on a competitive disadvantage, he loses the competition and becomes swallowed up by the victor. This is true between capitalists, workers and classes. The problem with such self-help under capitalism goes back to my posts several back about workers coops. Men are not static entities, they are constantly shaped by their environment. Men always try to rationalize, to justify, what they do. Pol Pot in his own twisted way thought himself a man of great personal virtue, sent to uplift the people of Cambodia. It is such rationalization which allows men to believe that their governance is just, that they are a positive force, a necessary element to the smooth functioning of society. The boss and the dictator differ little in this. My point to all this is that men seek to justify their privilege, and where given the opportunity to dominate, will, usually in the name of some paternalistic altruism. State intervention has a distorting effect on other forms of capitalism, but it is not the sole reason for the existence of capital accumulation and wealth inequality. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, we do not see an end to capitalist inequality and extortion, though it did change significantly. Following the collapse of international trade after a period of Inflation, the Roman tax base was severely reduced. This led to a reduction in the ability of the Empire to maintain an army sufficient to maintain authority in the region. The collapse of state power structures and reduced international trade resulted in a mass exodus to the remaining structures of power, the privately owned latifundia. These agricultural estates remained the new centers of power through the entire period of feudalism, embracing all those features of a state, albeit on a localized scale. It is the feudal holding, the company town, which is the inevitable state of decentralized capitalism.

Yes socialists would use violence, in the same way one uses violence against the highwayman. Perhaps you want to show why I am mistaken in opposing such exploitative capitalist acts? Is capital accumulation past what one can personally use (that is, capital only kept for exploitative purposes) valid? What if latter generations could not consent to those original accumulations, but were nevertheless detrimentally effected by them? Are exploitative labour contracts agreed to under coercive conditions valid? Is any sort of profit derived from coercion valid? No reception out here. I could use the neighbour's phone but her kids would be noisy, and would be awkward.

I never denied that certain types of capitalist actions will be opposed by anarchists. Maybe you want to explain why these actions are justified? Because I have given pretty clear reasons why we oppose certain "liberties" and the ethical reasons for doing so, namely that exceptional liberty for a few at the expense of the many is privilege, and certainly not freedom. How you could equate freedom with the right to keep slaves is beyond me. Violence is completely justified in self defence.

Mechanisation is a doubled edged sword. Employee conditions largely depend on how much power he has. Where labour is cheap and unorganised, poor conditions result. Mechanisation can lead to the dispensation of the worker, who having to still buy the goods he formerly made, must seek new employment as a servant for his boss, at largely reduced pay, or even face unemployment where even such a job is unavailable, generally resulting in lower consumption of goods. Where the workers own the technology, the profits can be realised by them in full and results in increased consumption and material well-being, lower working hours and increased leisure. Propertarians seem to ignore the fact that capital can be used as a weapon, as leverage against those without. They seem to think that the child born into the world with nothing only has to "work hard" if he wants to compete with the wall-mart heir. If you were to join a game of monopoly late, you wouldn't think 'Gee, what a prosperous world I live in with all these hotels everywhere!', you would be indignant that you were birthed into such a coercive reality. Thomasio was not arguing against technology, but rather the misuse of technology for short term individual gain at the expense of the long term prosperity of society at large.

Sorry, I don't own a phone or a computer, and I don't have Skype. My internet is also shared via WiFi with my neighbours and is really intermittent and prone to dropouts. Besides, I'm not yet familiar enough with right-wing terminology and concepts to debate in real time. One day for sure.

There may be instances where such wage labour is minimally coercive. The problem is the precedent this sets. It makes sense that an individual if given the option of receiving his full product of labour or a fraction of it will always choose the former. Thus the only way one can receive any less is to remove that option (coercive). This is not to say the coercion is done by the employer or even any person, coercion has many causes, many impossible to ever control. Biology is coercive. If a man decides even with the option to receive his full product, to only receive a fraction, surely he is an altruist. But could not the same altruism be achieved by giving him his full product and having him see to its distribution? It is not the ability to agree to work for or help others, or even the acceptance of a wage, that anarchists oppose but the condoning of a system that permits one party to exploit another through coercion. As coercion cannot be removed, profiting off it must be. Any allowance of one man to buy another person and so by extension what he produces during this time sets a dangerous precedent. Don't confuse consent with absence of coercion. One can consent to a coercive situation (although I would although argue one cannot truly consent if coercion is involved). Your, accepting a wage because it is the best available option, is an example of consenting to a coercive situation.

We don't recognize such rights because they are unjustifiable, as explained above and elsewhere. Under anarchism, the limits of one's rights and freedoms are the equal rights and freedoms of others. A propertarian society by virtue of its greater "freedom", permits individuals to sell themselves into slavery, to sell their children into prostitution, even if such consent is acquired through the worst coercion. This is not a system of liberty, it is a system of privilege. All forms of society are involuntary to a degree, propertarianism included. The question is, is this justified? That's a fair enough statement if we are considering only those who embraced government as a means of transition. But it should be noted that the second largest strain of socialism was anarchism. Anarchists have always rejected any form of government, accurately predicting such a transitional period would revert to state capitalism. We even have several examples of functioning anarchist societies, they have not all been statist. Personally I think state socialism (particularly bolshevism) was really a wolf in sheeps clothing, an intentional counter-revolutionary movement undertaken with full knowledge of its likely outcome, much in the same way fascists pretended to be socialists. Purely opportunistic. Lenin's "dictatorship of the proletariat" was far removed from Marx's original meaning, even if he himself was somewhat authoritarian at times too.

The problem with workers cooperatives under capitalism is that they transform back to a capitalist style of operation given any success. Workers cooperatives, and socialist style community development are incredibly effective at developing a fragile and nascent infrastructure. This is analogous to the nation-scale idea of protectionism which all first world countries employed during early development. Such protectionism is only of interest if you are the weaker party. For those stronger market players, protectionism is of little interest personally, and limiting when employed by others. Free markets are great if you are going to win. Like nations, individual cooperatives transform back into predatory advocates of the market, once they, or those who have managed to wrest control of them, are in favourable positions. The Israeli Kibbutz are (perhaps, don't know them in any detail) good examples of (partially socialist) workers cooperatives reverting to predatory capitalism once developed, representing today a disproportionate amount of agricultural and industrial production per capita. This sort of corruption is an indictment of capitalism or at least partial-socialism, as it allows the ownership of private property, and so facilitates the creation of a class society of owners and non-owners, and so all the ills related to such a condition. This is why socialists advocate that all individuals should have equal access to the means of production, and to all social and natural wealth.

Anarchism (including communism) preaches that personal property & usage rights are the only legitimate forms of possession (lockean proviso). A man has a right to assert his ownership of property so long as it can be shown to be entirely his (produced by his labour only [absolute ownership]), or falls under his right to lay claim to a part of the social wealth in proportion to others (usufruct only). Some forms of anarchism alternately state one can have absolute rights to products involving goods of social origin if everyone has equal access. The trading of labour for a wage has no justification. It requires coercion and is therefore theft. Coercion MUST be involved to ever agree to receive any less than the full fruits of one own labour. Under an anarchist system a person can pay another a wage, but the labour, and so the fruits of his labour cannot be owned by the buyer. These fruits must stay the inalienable property of the producer or else transfer to a form of social ownership, of which the buyer only gets preferential usage right. The buyer can therefore never own another person and so the fruits of his toil. Capital accumulation is fine, so long as it is used directly by the owner. The consolidation of capital today serves to create a coercive imbalance of power between owner and worker, so as to extract surplus labour from the latter. All capital accumulation that is not used by the owner is really a WEAPON for the oppression of others, and morally unjustifiable. The defense of property is legitimate only if the property is legitimate. Absentee ownership, owning those things one will never use, that is, things only kept to exploit others, is illegitimate under a system of usage rights. Anarchism (which communism is a type) is a social system that seeks to maximize liberty. That is the liberty of all, with the liberty of individuals only limited by the equal rights of others to their own freedom. We reject all rights and liberties which are had at the detriment of others. The right to keep slaves, to even keep workers, is an affront to liberty and can only come about through a coercive society. Sort of. Those are some ways of creating social wealth. Social wealth is the cumulative wealth of mankind, past and present, which has its origins in social collaboration. Perhaps the individuals were remunerated justly during the original period of accumulation. The problem is those who come after. This train of thought largely parallels that of the lockean proviso, in that those whom made the initial acquisitions are justified only if their decisions would not have harmed any newcomers (who could not consent to decisions in the past) more than had there been no property rights. Examples include barriers to entry, greater economies of scale, brand familiarity etc. all serve as examples of generalized accumulation of capital as a weapon against competition. As stated above, anything less than the full product of labour requires coercive exploitation. Perhaps such a degree of exploitation would be tolerable In a society which had an "inequality pressure release valve", but under capitalism private property allows the opposite, it has a "ratcheting" effect, which ensures coercion increases cumulatively.

I wasn't referring exclusively to mental constructs, but of constructs in a general sense. A theory of value ought to try to explain true value. Your theory is essentially one where A (inherent properties of good) is a value on its own but is also dependent on B (consumers value), but B is unknowable and highly variable. Then add factor C (coercive market distortions) which B is a subset, and you have a pretty useless formula. I would gladly accept it as a theory of price formation under an imperfect variable price market, but not as as theory of true value, as it sheds no light on any fundamental truths of man. So a tornado that destroys your factory and allows your competitor to get a monopoly hold is just the free market? The market is just an artificial construct superimposed over the natural world. Governance can come from many areas. The parent governs, the boss governs, society governs the individual. The fact is, markets will never be completely free, only more or less free. If we concede a market is not completely free, their must be a degree of coercion from this. To endorse a system in which coercion is allowed to play a role in price and value formation is unjust and invalid, and in no way reflects any "true value".

So really you just want to demonstrate how value is formed under the specific conditions of an imperfect market system. You make no real attempt at explaining value outside those artificial constructs, or in alternative constructs, nor any attempt at pinning down a "real theoretical value" under perfect market conditions, but are seemingly satisfied with a wildly distorted price, just because that's how things are. You essentially lump a shit load of variables under "consumers personal value" and expect it to mean something. Unless you elaborate on this you will find some truly absurd and highly variable results. A seller with a gun to my head significantly increases the utility of my purchase. Much more than government can distort markets. The environment can, society can, memes can, pretty much any contingency can.

This is not how occupancy and use works or did work in the real world, I don't feel like elaborating, plenty of information elsewhere. So what is local scarcity and how is it addressed by private property in a way personal property cannot? Is it that the productive cash crops of the much esteemed entrepreneur must be defended from the rapaciousness of the starving masses? This is not a picture of the theft of scarce resources, it is a picture of systematic deprivation, of artificial scarcity. Again, we have examples of real communism, which despite the context of their birth, proved to be highly successful and stable systems, look at the Spanish Revolution of 1936. Those "communist states" were state capitalist, just ask Makhno.

Commissar? Depends on the situation. Property is controlled by those it effects. Your house will come under occupancy and use, and is solely managed by you as it does not involve or harm others. Private property creates artificial scarcity. Look at the enclosures. One can hardly claim the land was consolidated on the ground that the peasantry would have enacted a nation-wide tragedy of the commons. The enclosures were an attempt at primitive accumulation, with the direct intent of creating artificial scarcity. Such private property enabled artificial scarcity is a mandatory precursor to surplus labour extraction under capitalism. State communism (and socialism) is an oxymoron. You have only seen Leninism et al. because they are state capitalist. We do however have examples, as stated in previous posts, of communist communities such as found in the Spanish Revolution of 1936.