The Free Talk Live BBS
Free Talk Live => General => Topic started by: JosiahWarren on October 15, 2008, 10:59:33 PM
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http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secGint.html (http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secGint.html)
The short answer is, no, it is not. While a diverse tendency, the individualist anarchists were opposed to the exploitation of labour, all forms of non-labour income (such as profits, interest and rent) as well as capitalist property rights (particularly in land). While aiming for a free market system, they considered laissez-faire capitalism to be based on various kinds of state enforced class monopoly which ensured that labour was subjected to rule, domination and exploitation by capital. As such it is deeply anti-capitalist and many individualist anarchists, including its leading figure Benjamin Tucker, explicitly called themselves socialists (indeed, Tucker often referred to his theory as "Anarchistic-Socialism").
So, in this section of our anarchist FAQ we indicate why the individualist anarchists cannot be classified as "ancestors" of the bogus libertarians of the "anarcho"-capitalist school. Rather, they must be classified as libertarian socialists due to their opposition to exploitation, critique of capitalist property rights and concern for equality, albeit being on the liberal wing of anarchist thought. Moreover, while all wanted to have an economy in which all incomes were based on labour, many also opposed wage labour, i.e. the situation where one person sells their labour to another rather than the product of that labour (a position which, we argue, their ideas logically imply). So while some of their ideas do overlap with those of the "anarcho"-capitalist school they are not capitalistic, no more than the overlap between their ideas and anarcho-communism makes them communistic.
In this context, the creation of "anarcho"-capitalism may be regarded as yet another tactic by capitalists to reinforce the public's perception that there are no viable alternatives to capitalism, i.e. by claiming that "even anarchism implies capitalism." In order to justify this claim, they have searched the history of anarchism in an effort to find some thread in the movement that can be used for this purpose. They think that with the individualist anarchists they have found such a thread. However, such an appropriation requires the systematic ignoring or dismissal of key aspects of individualist-anarchism (which, of course, the right-"libertarian" does). Somewhat ironically, this attempt by right-"libertarians" to exclude individualist anarchism from socialism parallels an earlier attempt by state socialists to do the same. Tucker furiously refuted such attempts in an article entitled "Socialism and the Lexicographers", arguing that "the Anarchistic Socialists are not to be stripped of one half of their title by the mere dictum of the last lexicographer." [Instead of a Book, p. 365]
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(http://home.comcast.net/~archindividual/Nathyn_and_John_016.jpg)
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"I AM NOT A NUMBER I AM A MUTUALIST!!!!"
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The short answer is, yes.
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The answer is no. I think when we evolve we'll eventually become anarcho-syndicalists.
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Is "mutualism" simply socialism with a pretty name?
Yes.
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Is "mutualism" simply socialism with a pretty name?
Yes.
Ok, what is capitalism then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carson)
Unlike some other market anarchists, Carson defines capitalism in historical terms, emphasizing the history of state intervention in market economies. He says "it is state intervention that distinguishes capitalism from the free market." He does not define capitalism in the idealized sense, but says that when he talks about "capitalism" he is referring to what he calls "actually existing capitalism." He believes that "laissez-faire capitalism, historically speaking, is an oxymoron" but has no quarrel with anarcho-capitalists who use the term and distinguish it from "actually existing capitalism."
In response to claims that he uses the term "capitalism" incorrectly, Carson says he is deliberately chosing to resurrect what he claims to be an old definition of the term in order to "make a point." He claims that "the term “capitalism,” as it was originally used, did not refer to a free market, but to a type of statist class system in which capitalists controlled the state and the state intervened in the market on their behalf." Carson holds that "actually existing capitalism" is founded on "an act of robbery as massive as feudalism." Carson argues that in a truly laissez-faire system, the ability to extract a profit from labor and capital would be negligible.
Carson argues the centralization of wealth into a class hierarchy is due to state intervention to protect the ruling class, by using a money monopoly, granting patents and subsidies to corporations, imposing discriminatory taxation, and intervening militarily to gain access to international markets. Carson’s thesis is that under an authentic free market economy, the separation of labour from ownership and the subordination of labor to capital would be impossible, bringing a class-less society where people could easily choose between working as a freelancer, working for a fair wage, taking part of a cooperative, or being an entrepreneur (see The Iron Fist Behind The Invisible Hand).
Carson has written sympathetically about several anarcho-capitalists, arguing that they use the word "capitalism" in a different sense than he does and that they represent a legitimate strain of anarchism. He says "most people who call themselves individualist anarchists today are followers of Murray Rothbard's Austrian economics, and have abandoned the labor theory of value." However, with the release of his book, Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, he hopes to revive "mutualism." In his book he attempts to synthesize Austrian economics with the labor theory of value, or "Austrianize" it, by incorporating both subjectivism and time preference.
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The way I see it, is that Capitalism is a law of nature. No matter what you try to do you cannot escape it. The truth is that people will own or possess capital and use it for their own personal gain. That is a universal truth, even in the most ardent communist society. Yes mercantilism and communism are capitalistic as well, although they are not free market.
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The way I see it, is that Capitalism is a law of nature. No matter what you try to do you cannot escape it. The truth is that people will own or possess capital and use it for their own personal gain. That is a universal truth, even in the most ardent communist society. Yes mercantilism and communism are capitalistic as well, although they are not free market.
Aren't you confusing a physical "law" like gravity, which operate independently of human intentions and therfore can not possibly describe human behavior as we have infinite choices that don't lend itself to statistical (mathematics) predictions?
http://distributism.blogspot.com/2008/06/chapteri-whats-in-name.html (http://distributism.blogspot.com/2008/06/chapteri-whats-in-name.html)
There are certain tendencies in human beings that allow us to make law-like statements. People do tend to buy more of a product when it is cheaper, and they tend to make more of that product when it is dearer; between these two tendencies, we really can posit supply and demand curves, and we can, at least in the abstract, discover the equilibrium point between these tendencies. And while the result of our calculations will not be a “law” in the sense that gravity is a law, in that it cannot be violated, it will be law-like: that is, useful enough for us to give useful descriptions of a particular economy.
All of this is true. But the real difficulties in human thought come not so much as an argument between truth and error (pure error is too easy to spot), but between greater truths and lesser truths. Correct thought is a matter of arranging truths in their proper hierarchies, of not allowing a lesser truth to displace a greater, or of not reducing all truths to one truth. This last error is the besetting sin of economists, because to make economics work as physics works, guided by physical measurement and ruled by pure mathematics, they had to reduce man to a physical object in a world of physical objects. They had to reduce man’s labor to a mere commodity, purchased at the lowest value like any commodity; they had to reduce man to an economic calculator, the mythical homo śconomicus.
Mostly, they had to divorce the economic question from any question of ethics. But one cannot found a science on a myth. Nor can one reduce man to something he clearly is not, or at least not completely. Man occupies a moral universe as well as a physical one, and to ignore the place he occupies is to lose the man and hence lose the science. Man, in his relations with other men, is guided by whatever notions of justice he has. Even the man who claims to divorce the questions of morals from the economy will always be attempting to give a moral justification for his actions; the plutocrat who exploits his workers will rationalize it by claiming that in the end the exploitation adds to the commonweal, or that he is just acting under the forces of “economic” nature. But if there is no question of justice, why bother to justify it?
Without understanding the nature of man, we cannot hope to understand the nature of his economic relations. The new “scientists” hoped to trade good justice for better science, but it was a bad bargain; in losing one they lost them both. In losing the ability to properly describe their subject (the human person) they lost the ability to properly describe anything about him, and most especially his economic systems. They ended up not with a science, which could serve as an arbiter of questions disputed under the terms of the science, but as a series of warring ideologies among which there can be no arbitration, indeed no communication, because they have no common terms among them, no common understandings.
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The way I see it, is that Capitalism is a law of nature. No matter what you try to do you cannot escape it. The truth is that people will own or possess capital and use it for their own personal gain. That is a universal truth, even in the most ardent communist society. Yes mercantilism and communism are capitalistic as well, although they are not free market.
Aren't you confusing a physical "law" like gravity, which operate independently of human intentions and therfore can not possibly describe human behavior as we have infinite choices that don't lend itself to statistical (mathematics) predictions?
http://distributism.blogspot.com/2008/06/chapteri-whats-in-name.html (http://distributism.blogspot.com/2008/06/chapteri-whats-in-name.html)
There are certain tendencies in human beings that allow us to make law-like statements. People do tend to buy more of a product when it is cheaper, and they tend to make more of that product when it is dearer; between these two tendencies, we really can posit supply and demand curves, and we can, at least in the abstract, discover the equilibrium point between these tendencies. And while the result of our calculations will not be a “law” in the sense that gravity is a law, in that it cannot be violated, it will be law-like: that is, useful enough for us to give useful descriptions of a particular economy.
All of this is true. But the real difficulties in human thought come not so much as an argument between truth and error (pure error is too easy to spot), but between greater truths and lesser truths. Correct thought is a matter of arranging truths in their proper hierarchies, of not allowing a lesser truth to displace a greater, or of not reducing all truths to one truth. This last error is the besetting sin of economists, because to make economics work as physics works, guided by physical measurement and ruled by pure mathematics, they had to reduce man to a physical object in a world of physical objects. They had to reduce man’s labor to a mere commodity, purchased at the lowest value like any commodity; they had to reduce man to an economic calculator, the mythical homo śconomicus.
Mostly, they had to divorce the economic question from any question of ethics. But one cannot found a science on a myth. Nor can one reduce man to something he clearly is not, or at least not completely. Man occupies a moral universe as well as a physical one, and to ignore the place he occupies is to lose the man and hence lose the science. Man, in his relations with other men, is guided by whatever notions of justice he has. Even the man who claims to divorce the questions of morals from the economy will always be attempting to give a moral justification for his actions; the plutocrat who exploits his workers will rationalize it by claiming that in the end the exploitation adds to the commonweal, or that he is just acting under the forces of “economic” nature. But if there is no question of justice, why bother to justify it?
Without understanding the nature of man, we cannot hope to understand the nature of his economic relations. The new “scientists” hoped to trade good justice for better science, but it was a bad bargain; in losing one they lost them both. In losing the ability to properly describe their subject (the human person) they lost the ability to properly describe anything about him, and most especially his economic systems. They ended up not with a science, which could serve as an arbiter of questions disputed under the terms of the science, but as a series of warring ideologies among which there can be no arbitration, indeed no communication, because they have no common terms among them, no common understandings.
tl;dr
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Let's find out.
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looter
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NIGGER THREAD
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As long as it's anarchism, I don't see why anyone has to worry about it.
If you ask them enough questions you find out that mutualists do want some kind of state to enforce their "commonly owned" land so definitely not anarchism.
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As long as it's anarchism, I don't see why anyone has to worry about it.
If you ask them enough questions you find out that mutualists do want some kind of state to enforce their "commonly owned" land so definitely not anarchism.
exactly
thank you
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As long as it's anarchism, I don't see why anyone has to worry about it.
Exactly, since it's never going to happen anyway. It's all just theory.
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As long as it's anarchism, I don't see why anyone has to worry about it.
If you ask them enough questions you find out that mutualists do want some kind of state to enforce their "commonly owned" land so definitely not anarchism.
Individualist anarchism is not the same as mutalism.
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As long as it's anarchism, I don't see why anyone has to worry about it.
If you ask them enough questions you find out that mutualists do want some kind of state to enforce their "commonly owned" land so definitely not anarchism.
Individualist anarchism is not the same as mutalism.
Who were you replying to? I said it's not.
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As long as it's anarchism, I don't see why anyone has to worry about it.
If you ask them enough questions you find out that mutualists do want some kind of state to enforce their "commonly owned" land so definitely not anarchism.
Individualist anarchism is not the same as mutalism.
Who were you replying to? I said it's not.
reggin
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Capitalism rocks. JohiashBabbletwos is a fucking retard.
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Essentially, if you think the current standard Western business model is natural and free, and are a market anarchist, you're likely to easily accept the anarcho-capatilist label. If, however, you believe (or even just suspect) that the prevalence of that model is a product of state intervention, you're likely to reject the anarcho-capitalist label.
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I'm a libertarian and an anarchist. The way things are right now is from government involvement in business and is not a free market in any sense, no.
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The key is to learn how to get the most out of your insanity on a given day.
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I blame the uncircumcised Jews.
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Nah, the circumcised ones are the sketchy ones.
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Nah, the circumcised ones are the sketchy ones.
Having jealousy issues again are we?
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Nah, the circumcised ones are the sketchy ones.
Having jealousy issues again are we?
<hick>Don't make me whip my dick out and knock your little fag ass into next week, son.</hick>
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Agorism > Mutualism. 'Nuff said.
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I blame the uncircumcised Jews.
Lucky bastards! They aren't missing most of their sensory/tactile nerve endings.
Oh....this was not a thread on abolishing Infant Male Circumcision? :D
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Nah, the circumcised ones are the sketchy ones.
Having jealousy issues again are we?
<hick>Don't make me whip my dick out and knock your little fag ass into next week, son.</hick>
It's not your fault I last longer with my women.
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It's not your fault I last longer with my "women".
FTFY
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It's not your fault I last longer with my "women".
FTFY
Funny.
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It sounds like mutalism is being straw manned in this thread. I lurk in a lot of anarchist forums and contemporary mutalists do not stress the "common" land right that they are often straw manned for holding. Most just hold a more broad definition of abandonment of land and capital, while most AnCaps hold a 100% absolutist position on land and capital. Yes you will have a few Proudhonoids, not much unlike the Randroid, that call for the abolition of property and and only 'possession' ownership is legitimate but they are the minority. (I have seen one in a board that is 50% mutalist.) The vast majority of mutalists read Kevin Carson and Benjamin Tucker and put less emphasis on Proudhon.
Also just like how Austrian economics are different from state capitalism, socialism in the libertarian sense is different from state socialism. Its definition is worker ownership and operation of the means of production, and there are historical and present day examples of this being every successful.
Also many contemporary mutalists are ex. AnCaps who were tired of Austrian idealism and defending what historically is a corrupted and coercive system.
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I have a crazy idea for you people.
When somebody proposes a new idea using words you already know in ways that do not make sense, your first line of thought should not be "LOL THIS PERSON IS DUMB AND I AM RIGHT SO I WILL SHOW THEM WHY", it should be "What concept could best fit in the place of [known-word] where [known-word] clearly does not fit here?"
Most of you already know how to substitute the state for religion and vice versa, apply the same technique to something new in a way that enhances your understanding and not your appearance of being an obnoxious pedantic bastard.
I mean, what's the worst that can come of this approach? You have to use your brain a little bit more than normal?
EDIT: Because most of you will misunderstand this, the word I'm talking about is "capitalism"