StylesGrant Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 What follows is a long, boringly read, but well written, though not wonderfully morally compelling video of a socialist anarchist essay by a guy by the name of anarchopac, and a great deal of debate over it. I included the debate because well, that's the sauage making. The part you really need to see. And yeah the video too obviously. What I will state about my opinion, is that I do ultimately see things in a consequentialist sense, but I differ sharply from anyone that claims most of the history of consequentialism ( a lot of violence obviously). There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous. The New York Times, April 19, 1992, "Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction" by Richard B. Woodward What I do advocate is as much deontological volunteerism as possible, with as much natural rights, natural law, and inalienable rights as possible. But I acknowledge as Michael Cain put it, some men want to watch the world burn. A polycentric, techo-feudalistic system will be just that, something that tries very hard and succeeds in a great way to ensure social justice, but ultimately becomes co-opted by power hungry plutocrats who will engage in all the same tricks that socialists, feudalist, imperialist, and in the contemporary sense regulatory captured corporatism and banking fraud has engaged in. They will do as much as they can to subvert it to their hegemony, and as much as they can to domineer the culture and inculcate obedience into poor irrational 'folks' so as to convince them to oblige to their attempts to consolidate and buy power, and ultimately corrupt contract law and legal systems even in a polycentric stateless contract market. And if people try to apply the philosophy of cryptography to it, they will simply co-opt the 'algorithmic regulation', subverting the inherent social justice of transparent mathematical objective arrangements with exploitative conditions that will be too poorly understood by the majority who wont see the increasing trend of an oligarchic class of men slowly pushing a crushing law of culturally derived Confederate style sharecropper mentality into the construction and very moral nature of the contracts themselves. So the danger really is a lack of informed individual prepared to resist cultural inculcation and prepared to resist the amoral ability to buy justice. formsMostBeautiful 6 months ago +anarchopac I want to show you that from your consequentialist moral framework, expropriation can never be justified. I'll be using the terms you've used in your video. 1) In order for a consequentialist to override the good of an individuals rights, they must be justified by a promotion of a greater good. 2) A socialist can attempt to stop the exploitation of workers through means other than overriding rights ie out competing the capitalist or spreading propaganda among the workers. 3) If out competing fails(the capitalists' firm grows), then the capitalist is providing a product that is of higher value to people than the socialists' equivalent. This means the capitalist is in fact promoting the greater good by adding value to peoples' lives. 4) If propaganda fails, then the capitalist is giving the workers more value(wages, benefits, ect) then they could get from socialists federations. This means the capitalist is in fact promoting the greater good by adding value to peoples' lives. 5) If the socialist has to resort to expropriation that means they are overriding not only the good of individual rights but the good provided by the capitalist(points 4 and 5). By doing this they are not promoting the greater good but decreasing good and as a consequentialist must avoid this route. 6) Point 5 will always hold true because if the socialist can't add value to peoples lives such that they make the capitalist obsolete, they would in fact decrease value in peoples lives by eliminating the capitalist(expropriating their capital) and thus decrease the net good they purport to promote. Now I don't accept consequentialism as a moral philosophy nor the premises behind socialism but that can be a discussion for another day. rffw Quote anarchopac 6 months ago (edited) Premise 3 is false since it's assuming that people have access to the required knowledge in order to make informed decisions as a consumer and in fact have such knowledge, but most consumers are not informed and lack access to the required information. Plus socialist products wouldn't have exciting advertising while capitalist one would which would persuade people to purchase capitalists products. Furthermore the value of the products doesn't negate the harm and un-freedom in their production e.g the value of products made in sweat shops versus the unfreedom and domination and exploitation in sweat ships. So yes consumers could be happy but that's not important compared to the welfare of the workers. Premise 4 is false, as the workers can not be aware of their un-freedom, be propagandaised by capitalists etc etc, which takes a lot of effort to break through. E.g try persuading someone socialised into a slave society to think that slavery is bad. It takes a lot of effort and time even with intelligent people e.g Aristotle thought slavery was good for slaves. Same with capitalism. In short you ignore false consciousness. Quote Tiago Ferreira 6 months ago +anarchopac The paradox is that participatory democracy is in itself an oxymoron. In a social system governed by the will of the majority, all non participatory members in the periphery will be subjugated by that democracy whenever the ideals of the minority conflict with those of the majority. Also, and following your line of reasoning, we need to reconcile the idea that all coercion is inherently authoritarian, but not all authority is in itself coercive. I would therefore argue that Anarcho Individualism acknowledges a deeper principle that Anarcho Socialists are either unwilling or unable to recognize. Show less Reply · anarchopac 6 months ago +Tiago Ferreira Anarchists are well aware of the problem of the tyranny of the majority, hence why we advocate consensus decision making and discussion and free association such that individuals who feel dominated by a majority have the right and the means to leave for another association or a form a whole new one. I disagree that all coercion is authoritarian in the sense that 'anti-authoritarian' uses the term, whereby one is against illegitimate authority rather than all authority, which would include being against experts or delegation, which anarchists aren't. Just as some authority is legitimate, so is some coercion e.g coercing a person to attend a fair murder trial or expropriating private property. Quote Tiago Ferreira 6 months ago +anarchopac I believe that this dialectic is mostly a matter of semantics and misinterpretation of definitions and concepts. With this said, I stand by the notion that the legitimacy of any authority can only be objectively measured by the integrity of the consent of the individual subjected to said authority, it can never be measured as a cultural or social standard, and it is by deriving this principle that I claim that all coercion is authoritarian, for anything that is consensual by the individual can never be defined as coercive. I also believe that we should clarify that none of us can be oppressed by nature, it is only by the actions of other agents that we can derive the ontological definition of oppression, or in other words, only direct positive action can be labeled and defined as oppressive. This is not to say that we should not weigh the consequences of our actions, but legitimacy to be universal cannot be consequentialist, I would therefore argue that the only way by which we can universalize legitimacy is by the deontological position that all positive action that neglects the absolute consent of the individual is the archetype of illegitimacy. Another misconception here is the idea that freedom is something that can be attained by human action or organization, freedom is the natural state by which man's only limitation are the constraints of his body and the range of his cognition, any form of social organization, specially one based in entitlements is therefore a limitation of this natural freedom and not an edification of its foundations, I would argue that society can only ever restrict natural freedoms, never attain them, and this is core rebuttal of the Individualists, that for a society to maintain the natural freedom of men, the society can only work in a framework of absolute voluntary agreement by all individuals for all individuals. Quote A very articulate elucidation. I'm interested how this exploitation is determined and enforced, and by whom (in social anarchy). What are the standards for determining the existence of exploitation? Consider the following: Scenario: Anarchism has been established in Catalonia (a make-believe fairytale place that doesn't exist in the real world). The factories, private properties and farms are expropriated and everyone is given a job that they work for 7.5 hours a day. They are also given a place to live. (1)Some people, after knocking off work, produce extra things in their spare time, like furniture, paintings, etc. Others train and develop performance or service skills like singing, dancing, or massage. These people (we'll call them the producers) realise the extra value they would get from trading these things one for the other, so they do. They don't want to be limited to direct trade so they adopt a readily available medium of exchange, like bitcoins. (2)Some people have no such creative or productive tendencies, however they really like furniture. They try building furniture and they are rubbish at it. The furniture artisan explains to them that he is spending a lot of time he could spend making more furniture, cutting down timber which isn't really a hard job, it just takes a day to drive to the forest, cut the trees, load them up and bring them back. He offers some furniture to the person with a high affinity for furniture (we'll call them the worker), in return for a day's labour cutting down wood. The worker agrees, and gets some extra furniture in return for timber. (3)The furniture artisan quickly needs more wood, but the worker has as much furniture as he would like. So the worker offers to do more labour for bitcoins, which the worker can then exchange for other extra goods and services from the other producers. Which of 1,2 or 3 would be permitted under social anarchy? Who decides and who enforces any bans on these actions? If people object to the bans, how is this resolved? If it is decided that 1,2 or 3 are not permitted, how permanent is this decision? Can it be reversed or appealed? To whom or which body? Quote anarchopac 6 months ago (edited) 1. is permitted. Anarchists aren't against the use of money or markets. It's more that anarcho-communists think the better society is one without either but they think people should be free to live in a market society. 2. Anarchists aren't against hiring people e.g I hire someone to look after my garden. Their against wage labour, in which one profits off the productive labour of others by owning what they produce because one owns the means of production. 3 is also permitted given the comments about 2. Exploitation is for most anarchists about wage labour not about hiring people to do certain things with money or things like furniture. A concrete example of wage labour would be as follows. I hire people to cut wood from a forest that I own, I own the wood they cut because I own the forest, and pay the workers a wage in exchange for their labour power. This is different from your examples because in your examples someone is being paid for something they own, wood, which they've extracted from a forest which is owned in common. In the wage labour example the person is profiting off the labour of others while in the non-wage labour example they are buying something from someone who themselves owns it. Is that clear? . In instances of wage labour who would make the decision? well this sort of thing would be worked out in detail by a federation when it is formed and be contained in its constitution. A sketch of how it may happen is as follows. I would imagine that a local collective, say the collective next to the private factory, would vote on whether or not to take action against said property at a local meeting. If they decide to take action then they would make it an issue for the next meeting of the federation. All the collectives in the federation would then themselves vote on whether or not to take action and the total number of votes would determine whether or not the federation would or would not take action. If it is decided that the federation will take action, say in the event of 85% votes in favour, then meetings will happen on what sort of action should take place. After said meetings the action which is taken by the federation will happen e.g the federation launches a propaganda program or decides to expropriate. If the decision to expropriate is made then a warning will be issued to the workplace listing the demands of the federation and what will happen if the workplace does not comply. If it does not comply then the federation will take action e.g representatives of the federation will be sent to expropriate e.g kick the capitalist out of the workplace and put in place worker control. Quote Jebediah Cole 6 months ago +anarchopac They said 2 & 3 were capitalistic modes of production, another said it was the "opposite of anarchism". I interpreted this as meaning such actions would be banned. On the substantive point, it is clear that, given they would need to be agencies of force, the federations would have formal bureacratic rules, use violence and have some sort of geographical designation. This federation would govern use of (own) all productive property, although it may in practice delegate the use to local collectives, it would still stand ready to intervene if that productive property was "misused". This is a property owning institution that claims a monopoly of force. To the extent it is successful at achieving it's aims, it is a state. But that is just a label anyway. The important thing, is not what we call this federation, but whether it would have the same sorts of problems that states have. I think it will. The federation of collectives (Supreme Soviet?) will necessarily need many, many, many bureacratic rules in order to deal with the myriad of conflicts around the ins and outs of productive property use. As such, it will require specialists to do its work efficiently and will fall into Michel's oligarchic trap. Anyone who does successfully manipulate the federation will have enormous power, because even slight changes to the rules would effect massive amounts of property, work conditions etc. And of course those in power in the federation will have strong incentives to stop collectives from leaving, to increase their own power and material conditions etc. etc. Quote anarchopac 6 months ago +Jebediah Cole The first user said that the material conditions which would give rise to your scenario would represent the return of the capitalist class i.e nothing to sell but your labour power and long work days. So he said this sort of scenerio wouldn't happen under anarchism. The second user said "as for 1, 2, and 3, i don't think any of those things would be frowned upon." and that what to do in those scenarios would have to be decided by the people themselves in that situation. The third user they're basically capitalist modes of production, for the same reason as the first user. I ignored the question of the material conditions surrounding it, which if in place would usually mean capitalism and so not anarchism, and thought about whether or not they were wage labour. I don't think they are instances of wage labour, since you aren't owning what workers produce in virtue of your relation to the means of production as capitalist. Anarchists believe in worker-self-management, so the only people who decide how a collective is going to be run is the workers themselves. The federation as I said before is just an association of collectives for the purpose of communication and planning between collectives like an international association of unions for the unions who are members of it. Nor does the federation own any property, the collectives themselves own it and then decide to be part of a federation which is just an association of different collectives. The federation would intervene officially i.e it would be the official position of the so and so federation to take x action. But the federation itself doesn't intervene. The relevant local collective would with support of the wider federations collectives. Nor would the federation settle local property disputes the local collectives themselves would, and the procedure would be in their constitution. Although it could be a membership requirement of being in a federation to have a certain procedure in place. Show less Reply Jebediah Cole 6 months ago +anarchopac But you have already stated that a collective that allowed private ownership of the means of production would not be permitted to exist. I assume that means that a collective that enacted rules for free markets and private property in it's constitution would be forcibly dissolved? And if they resisted, how would the federation deal with that? And if they insisted they belonged to a different federation, a voluntaryist federation, how would the anarcho-pac federation deal with that? At the very least you are a minarchist, not an anarchist. I might add, that given a situation in which one community is being run along left-anarchist lines and one community is being run along voluntaryist lines, (let's explicitly state that people in the voluntaryist community could leave at any time and join the left-anarchist one), a forcible intervention to "free" the wage workers in the voluntaryist community seems... totalitarian? Controlling? Can't we accept legal pluralism? Show less Reply anarchopac 6 months ago +Jebediah Cole Been thinking about this some more. Basically the workers themselves in the factory would expropriate due to the anarchist position that workers should emancipate themselves. If coercion isn't used then economic warfare e.g refusing to provide resources to the ancap zone. Reply Jebediah Cole 6 months ago +anarchopac What if the workers have previously, in order to join the community explicitly disavowed expropriation. They can of course leave at any time, but they have made a contract not to expropriate. Is the worker's decision to expropriate in this instance justified? Reply · anarchopac 6 months ago +Jebediah Cole One always has the right to expropriate in instances of wage labour, regardless of prior contracts. Reply · Mark Barbour 5 months ago (edited) +anarchopac >under the authority...oh I see. Reply · Jebediah Cole 5 months ago +Mark Barbour +anarchopac Are there any other voluntary contracts that third parties will stand ready to interfere in? Just so I know HOW MUCH perpetual war and conflict I will need to be engaging in. Quote crapObear2323 5 months ago +Daniel Thompson Capitalism is inherently exploitative. Reply Daniel Thompson 5 months ago (edited) +crapObear2323 Elaborate. Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago The definition of economic exploitation is the act of using another person's labor without offering them an adequate compensation in the market field. In a free market, wage labors for service-based jobs would be lower without regulations and stipulations to protect the worker. The worker's output is built on the division of labor, his compensation is reflected through this. If I'm working 3 low-paying jobs overtime to support my family and I don't make above 20k that's exploitation. Reply Daniel Thompson 5 months ago (edited) +crapObear2323 I do not disagree that exploitation can occur; I reject the view that capitalism is inherently exploitative. If an employer tried to exploit his or her employees, many of them would probably abandon their employer and seek employment elsewhere. With fewer employees, an exploitative employer has less to offer consumers and thus by attempting to exploit people they put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago Exploitation deals with treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work (as the employee/employer). This is only natural in a system built on greed and individual competitiveness. Capitalism is inherently exploitative because it has the employee, the omnibus private entity focus on profit first - everything is about profit at the expense of the consumer or worker utility. It doesn't matter how much you sugarcoat it, and how much innovation it brings as a byproduct of investment. Simply abandoning one job over another to seek lesser exploitation isn't that simple. Some people are constrained to the whims of the employer and the company. They can't get another job for X or Y reason or else it'll damage their expense further. This isn't just about consumers, but about the worker/laborer as well. Read more Reply · Daniel Thompson 5 months ago +crapObear2323 I understand that "exploitation" concerns labour, which is what I had been talking about. If workers feel exploited, what mechanisms prevent them from working elsewhere? Exploitative companies will most likely have less labour than ethical companies and thus the ethical companies will enjoy a greater market share than the exploitative ones. This should deter employers from trying to exploit workers. Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago "If workers feel exploited, what mechanisms prevent them from working elsewhere?" Barriers to entry (through vertical monopolies), lack of market information for the worker to incentive and take action on, personal obligation cross-cutting financial arrangement. "Exploitative companies will most likely have less labour than ethical companies and thus the ethical companies will enjoy a greater market share than the exploitative ones" The huge flaw in this line of reasoning is that you're speaking under the dogmatic assumption that most people are rational agents (which plenty of studies show this to be completely false, but that's another story). And that most people are aware of being exploited. Not everyone would have knowledge-based intel on which X job is better for labor utility, or which job is better for Y Wage set, etc. The company would falsely persuade and advertise the consumer to work for them on faulty, game-changing pretenses. Kind of like Advertisements on T.V. An example of this would be Sweatshops which are also limited to the burden of labor. The prime fact is that businesses will pay the workers as lowest of a wage as possible to gain higher net income; even Adam Smith admitted this in his book Wealth of Nations. It's just the jungle of the market. Show less Reply Daniel Thompson 5 months ago (edited) +crapObear2323 If one is not aware of their being exploited, that implies that they are most likely happy with their lot and have very willingly made the decision to work for Employer X. It cannot be objectively proven that exploitation is occurring. Reply crapObear2323 5 months ago Replace the word 'happy' with 'stupid' and I agree. Although the latter is far more likely as they have no positive choice. May I ask how are you going to deal with criminals in an anarcho-capitalist system? Or individuals committing insider trading, fraud, extortion, Corporate Raiding, investment sabotage, etc? Reply · Daniel Thompson 5 months ago The Market will decide their fate. Reply crapObear2323 5 months ago The market will decide their fate? What does that even mean? The market isn't synonymous with law and order. Reply · Daniel Thompson 5 months ago It was a joke, substituting "Market" for "Commune". Under anarcho-capitalism, private legal agencies are hired by the victims of crime. Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago And what if these private legal agencies are bought off by extremely rich and powerful individuals? Paralleling off of Feudal times? After all, money can buy pretty much anything - being the root of all corruption as it always has been since the dawn of time... You really think a Gordon Gekko type in an anarcho-capitalist world is going behind bars with that amount of wealth/power? Hopefully the criminal is small-fry for the victim's sake. Show less Reply · formsMostBeautiful 5 months ago +crapObear2323 No individual could buy all the private legal agencies. Also, if an agency started engaging in this practice, they would lose business to more consistent competition(would you pay an agency that could turn on you for a little more money?). Power doesn't exist without the initiation of force. If you can't use violence to enforce your will, you must convince somebody else that your way adds value to their life. If you can, you both benefit. If you can't then you try with somebody else or improve the value of whatever your selling. Show less Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago (edited) I never said the individual would buy up said legal agencies (although they would try if they were corrupt billionaires and would absorb any legal firm that sprouts up to suppress legal compensation). I'm saying, depending on the amount of wealth/power of the individual or entity they can easily weasel their way out of a crime by paying off said agencies as a form of bribery. You can see a clear-cut example of this with Corporate loons in the judicial system that get away with so much crap, I need not to elaborate on that. They wouldn't lose revenue because the powerful entities would pay a higher sum than the victims' families. It's a win-win business. There's no way the individuals with that amount of money would go behind bars. "Power doesn't exist without the initiation of force." Demonstratively false. You don't need to coerce people with violence or force. Money can influence people and voluntarily sway them to their bidding, that's power. Show less Reply Daniel Thompson 5 months ago (edited) +crapObear2323 Any institution, private or state, is corruptible, however given the monopolistic nature of the state I believe that a market judicial system is preferable. Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago You haven't addressed my wealth conundrums to private defense agencies and criminality. And making the claim 'I believe market judicial system is preferable' is totally blanket without any shred of verifiable, empirical evidence. It just sounds you're adhering to your philosophy even if you realize how flawed it may be. As I said prior, the market is not synonymous with law and order. Laws and moral phenomena should be mandated by justice not profit. If I can see the holes in the market judicial system that you so fancy, why do you even bother adhering to it as a philosophy? Show less Reply · Daniel Thompson 5 months ago +crapObear2323 I never said that a market judicial system didn't have flaws, I said that a market judicial system is preferable to a state judicial system. One may well recognise flaws in ones philosophy and accept them on the basis that such flaws cannot be eradicated. I support a market system because of its plurality, by which I mean that in a free market social influence is not concentrated in single authorities but instead can be given to a variety of competing agencies by contract. Wealthy people may try to control these systems through bribery, but they are less likely to be able to control the entire system because that would involve stomping out all competition. Could all legal agencies really be controlled by a small group of individuals if the state did not exist? Could you be more specific about what your concerns are so that I can more accurately address the issue? Show less Reply · formsMostBeautiful 5 months ago +crapObear2323 "They wouldn't lose revenue because the powerful entities would pay a higher sum than the victims' families." What if this "powerful" entity(do you mean individual. We are talking about people right?) is the victim? They would want a defense agency that won't accept a bribe but would administer justice fairly. This is why any agency that made it a habit to let money render its verdicts would be out competed by one that doesn't. "You can see a clear-cut example of this with Corporate loons in the judicial system that get away with so much crap, I need not to elaborate on that." But that's not an example because the judicial system is not private and is therefore a state enforced monopoly! The reason private agencies would remain fair is because they have to compete. "You don't need to coerce people with violence or force. Money can influence people and voluntarily sway them to their bidding, that's power. " Power is the ability to make others act without regard to their preferences. If somebody is swayed voluntarily it means their preferences aligned with the swayer's. They could have chosen not to act and are therefore not under the others power. Show less Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago (edited) "What if this "powerful" entity(do you mean individual. We are talking about people right?) is the victim? They would want a defense agency that won't accept a bribe but would administer justice fairly. This is why any agency that made it a habit to let money render its verdicts would be out competed by one that doesn't." I was using a hypothetical of a typical big corporation trying to suppress white collar crimes while family seeks compensation. (Think Erin Brockovich scenario, sort of) Of course, no one would be naive enough to think that every single legal defense agency would be corruptible to money. But the fact of the matter is, ultimately, for a powerful entity (think conglomerate, company, or an individual shareholder or civilian) could weasel their way out of the private judicial system. Everything would be reverted back to quasi-Feudal times. The one's with enormous wealth would have the influence to buy their way out of the criminal system that isn't monopolized on the state; no matter how hard a maverick private defense attorney or agency tries. The state doesn't monopolize on the powerful individual because the individual isn't rendered under any legal jurisdiction - even if he infringes on said persons life by means of murder. "But that's not an example because the judicial system is not private and is therefore a state enforced monopoly! The reason private agencies would remain fair is because they have to compete." Fairness =/= competition. There are plenty of studies showing that human cooperation without competition is actually more healthy on a social scale than competition. But that's also another story and I'm totally digressing. Anyway: It's an example because it's sound in premise; Corporate Loons can weasel their way out of the state-sanctioned judicial system. The same way Corporate Loons can weasel their way out of a privatized one built on profit. "Power is the ability to make others act without regard to their preferences. If somebody is swayed voluntarily it means their preferences aligned with the swayer's. They could have chosen not to act and are therefore not under the others power." The sociological ramifications for Power is about influencing people using whatever means necessary to do so. Whether it would be through monetary gain, coercion/force, oratory, etc. What you said is technically correct. However, as I said prior; it doesn't matter how many private defense agencies are morally incorruptible and make choices preferable and in line with the family/consumer. The fact is, for the big top men there's no way they'll be punished if you live in a world simply built on Greed/Profit. I'm moreso arguing the outcome of the system rather than the competitive nature of the defense agencies. Show less Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago +Daniel Thompson "I support a market system because of its plurality, by which I mean that in a free market social influence is not concentrated in single authorities but instead can be given to a variety of competing agencies by contract." Again, how is competing contracts superior to a state monopolized system? Without regurgitating the premise and claim that it is superior because it is competitive. "Wealthy people may try to control these systems through bribery, but they are less likely to be able to control the entire system because that would involve stomping out all competition." Exactly, you're speaking under the technical, Market pretense that these wealthy people (in this hypothetical) would think twice in realizing how much competition they would stifle just to control private entities. That's not how human nature works. If all competition is stifled it's because these wealthy individuals are forcefully trying to suppress legal compensation for their criminality by buying their way out. You can even see this happen in real life in the State. "Could all legal agencies really be controlled by a small group of individuals if the state did not exist?" No, not all of them. And I doubt it's possible considering you would have plenty of legal agencies that are not corruptible to money and therefore wouldn't be bought for. (as I said in my other post) Show less Reply · Daniel Thompson 5 months ago +crapObear2323 What system do you advocate, may I ask? Reply · formsMostBeautiful 5 months ago +crapObear2323 You haven't provided any reason why competition would not work to keep private agencies honest. You're just asserting that "powerful" individuals could corrupt it. You mentioned cooperation and seem to be against profit motives. In an ancap society you could if you wanted set up a non profit judicial agency. You could set up whatever you imagine to be the best. All I ask is that you don't force me to use it because I won't force you to use a private one. Show less Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago "You haven't provided any reason why competition would not work to keep private agencies honest. You're just asserting that "powerful" individuals could corrupt it." I'm asserting based on incidents occurring in our world. There's absolutely no reason to assume highly powerful, corrupt billionaires wouldn't buy their way out of these private defense agencies to not go behind bars. I'm not even talking about the Market, here. There is no law, they aren't a staple of the law of the land. How are these private defense agencies going to lock this guy behind bars when he has all of the money/power and financial resources? Even if some of these defense agencies were honest and integral to healthy competition, the individual could just buy his way out of any ethical anecdote in the white collar realm. You can see this happen in the real world. It's just common sense. "You mentioned cooperation and seem to be against profit motives. In an ancap society you could if you wanted set up a non profit judicial agency. You could set up whatever you imagine to be the best. All I ask is that you don't force me to use it because I won't force you to use a private one." I am against profit motives because they're overrated and maximize product utility over safety concerns. You can easily set up a non-profit Judicial agency in a anarcho-Libertarian or any left-wing anarchist system. In fact, since a Communistic or Socialistic System wouldn't be about Profit (Greed), the judicial system would be cooperatively managed by the people and not industry or some company. Your final statement about 'force' is also oozing with generic Libertarian mantra. Force can be used as a means to a (good) end. But I'm digressing, and that's a completely different story for the time being. Show less Reply · crapObear2323 5 months ago +Daniel Thompson "What system do you advocate, may I ask? " Since I find Capitalism morally repugnant and inherently unjust, I would probably say I'm in the lines between Anarcho-Communism and Libertarian Socialism. Show less Reply · formsMostBeautiful 5 months ago (edited) +crapObear2323 "I'm asserting based on incidents occurring in our world." Give me an incident where the state wasn't involved. "How are these private defense agencies going to lock this guy behind bars when he has all of the money/power and financial resources?" Who is this mystical being that has "all of the money/power and financial resources"? In an anarchist society there is NO centralized power. Rich cannot take over the system because there is no centralized system. The best they can do is try to bribe one or some defense agencies but that will fail because it would be the death knell to the agency. Nobody(including the rich) will want a defense agency that can be bribed because it can turn against them. Don't you see? Remove the monopoly and defense agencies have to convince you to hire them. Nobody would pay for defense that can turn against them. "You can easily set up a non-profit Judicial agency in a anarcho-Libertarian or any left-wing anarchist system." Great! Just don't force me into it. Why is this so hard to accept? Don't initiate force against anyone. If you can't convince them through peaceful means, it says more about your philosophy then I ever could. "Force can be used as a means to a (good) end." Of course it can. That doesn't justify it. If a population is malnourished, killing half of them will be good for the other half. Doesn't stop it from being evil. I'd suggest getting out of this consequentialist mindset. After all, there's no stopping the collective from going after you, if it servers a "greater good." Individual rights are the only way to guarantee morality. Once you start trying to plug peoples' needs into a formula, you'll inevitably lead to centralized authority. The initiation of force is never the answer. "Since I find Capitalism morally repugnant and inherently unjust" Do you understand what capitalism is? Its what happens when you remove force from social interactions. Non profits would not only exist in an ancap society, they would flourish. And as for for profit, all that means is you're taking in more revenue than your costs. Do you ever have extra money/resources after your costs? Well that's profit. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. The initiation of force, however, is inherently evil. Show less Reply crapObear2323 4 months ago +formsMostBeautiful "Give me an incident where the state wasn't involved." I am not discussing incidents absent of the State. Examples of the human condition can easily be included without abiding to a hypothetical, fantasy economic world. The dogmatic belief that people would not pillage and coerce (structurally and subtly) when suddenly the state ceases to exist is as flawed as it is fundamentally impossible. "Who is this mystical being that has "all of the money/power and financial resources"? In an anarchist society there is NO centralized power. Rich cannot take over the system because there is no centralized system. The best they can do is try to bribe one or some defense agencies but that will fail because it would be the death knell to the agency. Nobody(including the rich) will want a defense agency that can be bribed because it can turn against them. Don't you see? Remove the monopoly and defense agencies have to convince you to hire them. Nobody would pay for defense that can turn against them." There is no mystical being. If society transitioned into an Anarcho-Capitalist system, billionaires would still survive their wealth. Therefore, they still have the money and power. Anyways, I am not arguing AGAINST the defense agencies if you even read what I said before. I openly admit that there will be agencies that promote healthy competition and moral integrity to lay consumer demand. What I am arguing is that these private defense agencies CANNOT initiate force onto the corrupt billionaire because he/she can simply pay his way out of Prison or Jail. Or weasel his way out of the polycentric Judicial system through means of bribery and force. There is no way he can pay penalties if he is not a product of the State and just of his individual sovereign self. "Great! Just don't force me into it. Why is this so hard to accept? Don't initiate force against anyone. If you can't convince them through peaceful means, it says more about your philosophy then I ever could." And here lies the great irony, you don't want to be forced into a economic model built on cooperation and not Profit [greed]. But the fact of the matter is, the people would have to voluntarily consent to YOUR particular anarcho-capitalist system to come into fruition. "Of course it can. That doesn't justify it. If a population is malnourished, killing half of them will be good for the other half. Doesn't stop it from being evil. I'd suggest getting out of this consequentialist mindset. After all, there's no stopping the collective from going after you, if it servers a "greater good."" Utalitarianism is dead as dirt. The end does justify the means as long as the means of action isn't too extreme. The usage of Force to coerce people to wear special biochemical suits to prevent a dangerous contagion from wiping out the rest of humanity IS morally viable and justified. And NOT evil. The whole 'I will voluntarily not wear a special suit because it is my individual sovereign right' goes out the window in moral logic. The greater good is just as important as individual sovereignty, to deny this is as Evolutionarily flawed as it is historically inaccurate. "Individual rights are the only way to guarantee morality. Once you start trying to plug peoples' needs into a formula, you'll inevitably lead to centralized authority. The initiation of force is never the answer." No, they're not. This is evolutionarily inaccurate as well as a species. There's nothing wrong with aiding peoples needs as a collective whole. The initiation of force can always be an answer. "Do you understand what capitalism is? Its what happens when you remove force from social interactions. Non profits would not only exist in an ancap society, they would flourish. And as for for profit, all that means is you're taking in more revenue than your costs. Do you ever have extra money/resources after your costs? Well that's profit. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. The initiation of force, however, is inherently evil. " Capitalism is simply is an economic system in which trade, industry and the means of production are controlled by private owners with the goal of making profits in a market economy. It has nothing to do with the absence of force. Force and coercion will always exist in a capitalist system even if said system tries to suppress it. "Non profits would not only exist in an ancap society, they would flourish." Explain. ". Do you ever have extra money/resources after your costs? Well that's profit. There's nothing inherently wrong with that." You're looking at it from a top-down view rather than a bottom-down view. And that is another reason why I find Capitalism ethically wrong. "The initiation of force, however, is inherently evil. " Explain. Show less Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew79 Posted August 15, 2014 Share Posted August 15, 2014 What follows is a long, boringly read, but well written, though not wonderfully morally compelling video of a socialist anarchist essay by a guy by the name of anarchopac, and a great deal of debate over it. I included the debate because well, that's the sauage making. The part you really need to see. And yeah the video too obviously.Not sure what we're supposed to get out of this...It seems like just another capitalism vs. socialism thing.And as far as I'm concerned it's already been comprehensively played out over the 20th century, in both theory and practice.Am I missing something? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreedomPhilosophy Posted August 28, 2014 Share Posted August 28, 2014 A tedious exchange I suspect! Clearly an objective definition of "exploitation" is required, because this is what the socialist argument seems to hinge upon. Yet apparently exploitation is something ordinary people are too stupid or ignorant to comprehend? How do socialist know they have not been exploited, what special knowledge about reality or abilities do they have that the ordinary person has not? I think we are seeing a difference of opinions, not a factual discourse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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