stop using our words for your capitalist pig theories!

[ojc02]

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I've just never seen so many people in one place that reconcile anarchist thought and capitalist economics as sympatico rather than strongly opposed.

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The 2+2 community is of higher than average intelligence. One can expect a higher than average adoption of correct theory, particularly if there are vocal posters advocating that theory.

I have argued before that the steady rate of conversion of intelligent posters to free market anarchism (anarcho-capitalism if you prefer) constitutes prima facie evidence of its theoretical veracity, without reference to the theory itself.

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Welcome back! Are you feeling refreshed? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[AlexM]

People are naturally capitalistic. Without government, of course they'll practice capitalism. Yes, there are some who would go all socialist, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.

[ojc02]

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People are naturally capitalistic. Without government, of course they'll practice capitalism. Yes, there are some who would go all socialist, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.

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This is the reason that there really shouldn't be any contention here. In an anarchic situation there would be ASists and ACists and they would do their thing separately (most likely). Whichever system is more successful would attract more people and grow. Nobody would be forcing or "implementing" AC (as Chomsky put it).

The better system will be the one that is more widely adopted in the long run. We can argue about which would be more likely to succeed but I really don't see why it should be such a vitriolic argument. ACists and ASists should at least be able to agree that statists are the enemy, not each other [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[LinusKS]

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The way to make sense of "anarcho-capitalism" is to translate it as anarchy-of-capital-ism, meaning a system in which capital (i.e. wealth) is without restraint by the rule of law.

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Dictatorship of the rich. Or, right-wingers without morality.

The problem is, without government, private property would be the first to go.

Property is theft, after all.

_________

"The peasant who hires land, the manufacturer who borrows capital, the tax-payer who pays tolls, duties, patent and license fees, personal and property taxes, &c., and the deputy who votes for them, — all act neither intelligently nor freely. Their enemies are the proprietors, the capitalists, the government."

--Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

[Borodog]

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I've just never seen so many people in one place that reconcile anarchist thought and capitalist economics as sympatico rather than strongly opposed.

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The 2+2 community is of higher than average intelligence. One can expect a higher than average adoption of correct theory, particularly if there are vocal posters advocating that theory.

I have argued before that the steady rate of conversion of intelligent posters to free market anarchism (anarcho-capitalism if you prefer) constitutes prima facie evidence of its theoretical veracity, without reference to the theory itself.

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Welcome back! Are you feeling refreshed? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Good to be me again. I couldn't last the whole 2 weeks, so I made a gimmick account (FreeMarketeer) and made a few posts. I successfully kept it to less than 10 posts though. A little crack is ok, right? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Also, I'd like to publicly announce that I have turned over a new leaf, and will be changing my style of interaction in unspecified ways. I have also purged my ignore list.

[John Kilduff]

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Well, now I'm curious: in Classical Anarchism, how does Socialism fit in without a government? I thought Socialism requires a government for implementation purposes? (except maybe on very small scale, such a a family unit or perhaps a commune).

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that's what the running pig dog lasseiz-faire crazies would have you believe (we would argue on the other hand that the massive theft and exploitation that characterizes global capitalism has always been made possible through violence and that in Statist societies the "legitimate" use of this violence is of course monopolized by the State so that capitalism has only been possible through the massive and continual use of State violence [insert 5000 AC rebuttal examples of thriving capitalist microeconomies that exist without the violence of the state and lots of theorizing about why a true capitalist society would all but eliminate large-scale violence here]

Enclosure (read: property, read: theft) is at the core of capitalism and while we can argue that maybe it is possible to go forward into our Great Capitalist Future without violence, it remains a historical fact that the original process of this enclosure was always violent in nature

(and of course I haven't touched on the inherent structural violence of a capitalist system, which resorts in death in so many ways - from starvation to the gradual and slow draining of life from being forced to be a 12 hour a day wage slave in a demeaning and boring job just so that you can pay rent (to the capitalist landlord) and buy food (from the elite that own the farms and so generously pay people to grow food on them so they can sell it)

but with that brief anti-capitalist aside -- tell me what what aspects of socialism that you think would require a centralized State to function and I can provide my thoughts on why that isn't so...otherwise, if you are in an open minded kinda browsing mood any google search for anarchism will reveal hundreds of pages that explore how various anarchist thinkers have theorized about what libertarian socialism looks like in practice

(though i would agree with you in terms of scale - but I would hope that any ACer would not be thinking about the nation-state as the most useful boundary for a socioeconomic system to function within either)

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Just this evening, I am really not feeling up for searching hundreds of pages on the internet in attempt to find the answer to my question. Actually, I was rather hoping you might be so kind as to provide a brief or summary answer.

Is it too late to still hold out that hope?

(in Classical Anarchism, how does Socialism fit in without a government? )

[AlexM]

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Enclosure (read: property, read: theft) is at the core of capitalism and while we can argue that maybe it is possible to go forward into our Great Capitalist Future without violence, it remains a historical fact that the original process of this enclosure was always violent in nature

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This is incorrect. To quote myself from the AC FAQ:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...age=0&vc=1

Under ACism, property comes about as an effort of labor. If you take a branch from a tree and work it into a bow, that bow is your property. You might trade your bow for something else and then that something else would be your property. You might also go out hunting and kill a deer. Now, through your effort, the deer meat and the deer skin is your property. This is pretty obvious to most people. It's the land property part where people get confused, but it's not that much different.

Let's say a person goes out into the wilderness by themselves and builds something. They take 5 acres of land, and on that land they build themselves a home and turn the rest into farmland and grow crops, which they use to trade to other people for other stuff, for the benefit of all. By what we've established, the crops are obviously their property, but is the land itself? How can it not be? The land is much improved from its natural state due to this person's labor. If this person died and someone else took over, that person would have a *much* easier time with the house already built, the trees already cleared and the soil ripe for farming. Thus, by this person's labor, the land has significantly gained in value. Certainly they have more of a right to reap the rewards of this value than anyone else, and this translates into ownership.

To take it one step further, if this person decided to move on to something else and they pay someone else to take care of this land, they are still contributing to the upkeep of the land. If, on the other hand, instead of paying someone to take care of it they instead neglect it, they start to lose the right to the land. A person maintains a right to own land only so long as they care for that land. By neglecting it, they can lose that right and leave someone else with an opportunity to claim it for their own.

[latefordinner]

AlexM: The "human nature" argument is tautalogical at best and has been used to support libertarian socialism by many theorists as well.

Borodog: I apologize, I'm horrible at typing in a little window. For future longer posts trying to address substantive things I'll cut and paste from a word processor where I can see more than 5 lines at a time.

my short definition of (anarcho)capitalism:

A socioeconomic system where all means of production are privately held by individuals and firms and the resulting products are bought and sold by other individuals, groups of individuals, or firms** within a free market (as we would differ to what degree these transactions are voluntary, I will merely note that according to free-market theory all exchanges are entered into by individuals voluntarily for perceived mutual benefit)

**Many ACers would argue about what a corporation might look like

Most ACers would also argue that social institutions themselves such as laws can also be transformed into commodities traded within a free market and therefore the institutions that maximize the welfare of the most people will, through market forces, continue functioning while less useful institutions will simply fade away in the same way that an obselete product is replaced by a better version.

AC assert two things:

1) free market capitalism is the only economic system in which individuals are able to enter into any exchange completely voluntarily and is thus the most compatible with freedom (or vice-versa - any group of free individuals engaging in voluntary exchange is free market capitalism) -

2) Both the tragedy of the commons and Arrow's impossibility theorem point to the impossibility of any form of planned economic system, public goods, or "representative" government as making choices that maximize the welfare of all humans and that we have luckily discovered that free markets are the best way of aggregating individual preferences and determining the optimal outcomes

Some ACers lean more towards the utilitarian view (ie; a pure free market is the only way to guarantee the maximum good for the maximum number of people) while others lean more towards a liberal individual-rights based view that says maximum welfare be damned, AC is the only way to maximize individual liberty and that individual liberty and the ultimate right of individuals to freely choose to enter or leave any sort-of contractual arrangement is the "highest good" of a socioeconomic system

Is that a fair, albeit very brief and undetailed, summary of capitalism?

[AlexM]

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The way to make sense of "anarcho-capitalism" is to translate it as anarchy-of-capital-ism, meaning a system in which capital (i.e. wealth) is without restraint by the rule of law.

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Dictatorship of the rich. Or, right-wingers without morality.

The problem is, without government, private property would be the first to go.

Property is theft, after all.

_________

"The peasant who hires land, the manufacturer who borrows capital, the tax-payer who pays tolls, duties, patent and license fees, personal and property taxes, &c., and the deputy who votes for them, — all act neither intelligently nor freely. Their enemies are the proprietors, the capitalists, the government."

--Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

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You need to learn not to respond to people other than the person you're quoting with what you're quoting. It's like telling the forum that I said what you just quoted when I didn't.

BTW - Not allowing property is theft, not the other way around.

[latefordinner]

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Dictatorship of the rich. Or, right-wingers without morality.

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I prefer "capitalists that smoke pot and buy prosititutes" myself