Jump !
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The people protesting the power of corporations were not protesting against monopolies; they were smashing the windows of Starbucks because they disagree with what they do as a corporate entity, in impunity.
[/ QUOTE ] We weren't talking about their motivation, just a goal - in this case, the removal of legal protections corporations enjoy. I'm all for getting rid of that.
[/ QUOTE ]Like I said, we agree on this, as in most things in your OP which I commented upon. The rest is your usual and unfortunate flights of fancy.
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Not all corporations are monopolies; most corporations, if not every one of 'em, are hated by anti-capitalists, i.e. people who will stone you if you start going on about yer "free market"!..
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Whatever. There are people who oppose US action in Iraq because they like peace, and there are those who oppose US action in Iraq because they're pulling for the other side. But they both oppose US action in Iraq.
[/ QUOTE ] Oh the fact that there are people railing against corporations for being corporations has been established many posts ago. If you thought I claimed such people don't exist, I should have made it clearer, earlier: They do exist. I didn't expect such obstinacy on your part, so I didn't.
Intentions matter, pal. People who protest against Starbucks because they prefer the other coffee brand are not to be viewed the same way as the Genoa crowd. Liberals protesting an Israeli policy for being brutal are not to be treated the same as neo-Nazis protesting that policy on account of being a a policy of Jews. Your Iraq "example" sucks, can you see why?
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Are you going to make a point, or are you just riffing?
[/ QUOTE ]It's understandable that you wouldn't notice, what with all the mental acrobatics. The point is this: You are a capitalist - of the anarchist kind. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] You are, at the same time, trying to pretend you are sharing some values with the people that protest the power of corporations and monopolies - and capitalism itself. Well, this is hypocrisy - or self-deception.
Either you are a capitalist or an anti-capitalist.
Labelling yourself, as those Austrian charlatans would have it, an anarcho-capitalist does not make you both.
Choose your circus act.
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I have a monopoly on my labor. I am not incorporated.
[/ QUOTE ]That is not a monopoly - and you (should) know it.
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What is it, then? I have exclusive control over that resource. What is a monopoly?
[/ QUOTE ] A monopoly is an entity that has exclusive control over a resource. Your personal, individual labor is a resource only in the most strict meaning of the term. Someone who has usurped the power over the individual labor of a thousand women cleaning ladies, cannot seriously be said to lord over a thousand monopolies.
Perhaps whimsically or in a poetic mood. Which is it, with you? (I'd say too that a trickster would try to do this, but I trust your good intentions in this thread... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])
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Plenty of people can imagine a free market. Your textbooks are full of examples. Most of them are not written by Austrians.
[/ QUOTE ]I beg to differ. I'd go as far as to claim that the vast majority of capitalists in the world would proclaim quite readily that we have free market capitalism in the United States and in most western democracies. I'm not arguing in favor or against capitalism here; I'm just copying down what the capitalists themselves are saying about their favorite system of political economy. You wanna wax forth about a capitalism without corporations and state laws [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] -- you are quite entitled to. It's a free country.
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Yes, without the state, people will have to rediscover fire every morning. They will have to invent a telephone from scratch before every phone call. They will have to grown their own wheat, mill their own flour, bake their own bread.
[/ QUOTE ]Forget the "state"; try the community of men. Without the law-making, self-regulating community of men (that is laws common for all, to you), yes.
Cry "mob rule" as loud as you can; it impresses the young, libertarian capitalists around here no end. Cite the Austrian pseudo-philosophers to your heart's content; no matter. The fact remains that Man is not an island and the history of Man shows this, from the get-go. You want to re-cast Man as a stand-alone entity, without restraints from the will of others, without the need for co-habitation, an entity without necessary restraint of individual will on account of communal living; well, happy trails and be sure to drop bread crumbs behind you.
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I did not vote for [having corporations around], but I tacitly agreed to it. Moreover, I did NOT impose it on anyone else.
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I didn't say YOU imposed it. I asked if you thought it was OK for it to be imposed.
[/ QUOTE ] Yes, this is the agreement we enter into when we agree to live in a democracy. And you would be correct to start a side discussion about when did you agree to live in one! But this is where we circle all the way back to the old and sturdy "Do something about it, then!"
"Or GTF out".
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We've already established that you were being untruthful when you said people elect this stuff.
[/ QUOTE ]You are being inaccurate, but perhaps unintentionally. (See? I can be kind.) I did not say "elect" in the sense that people explicitly asked to be abused. But I stand fully by my contention that people who do not want something, either do something about it, or they can be assumed to have no objection to it, yes. And you can take this to the bank -- or your shrink. (I'm serious.)
So I don't know what the hell you think you have "established" there. Must be some fancy new establishment.
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Those living under Saddam's rule were tacitly accepting. Slaves in the Confederacy were tacitly accepting.
[/ QUOTE ] Hey, do not get too silly, or I lose interest.
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I don't see smashing stuff and throwing rocks as very effective techniques. Since you're pre-emptively limited "doing something" to physical, violent revolt, then the answer is no.
[/ QUOTE ]Alright. What is the answer then??
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My proposal is the ultimate opposite to authoritarianism. If some party is telling you what to do, and using force to coerce you to do it, what difference does it make if it is one person or 50,000 people?
[/ QUOTE ]A difference of an order of 50,000. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
But I am curious about your "ultimate opposite to authoritarianism". So, ultimate question coming up! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Are you ever gonna answer it straightforwardly, or will we have another round of evasion ?
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<font color="blue"> If you're gonna "do something about it", please explain the non-authoritarian, non-coercive way you will achieve your aims.</font>
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My primary goal is to expose you for the clumsy intellectual con-artist you are.
[/ QUOTE ]Cut the phoney bragging and answer the question. I submit that you cannot answer it without contradicting yourself.
Come on, jump.
Mickey Brausch
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