community and anarchy - pt I

[latefordinner]

so I've been thinking about the best way to present anarcho-socialism in this forum - obviously if I start with an axiom that most of you disagree with, then it doesn't matter how the arguments follow from there since by rejecting the initial axiom you have rejected all the following arguments. I think that arguments can be made for roughly-egalitarian anarchy in a variety of ways - both from a variety of "moral" approaches and from a variety of "consequential" approaches. (Likewise I think arguments against AC can be made from a variety of approaches - eg I don't think the "original aquisition" objection or the "future generations" objection to property rights have ever been adequately dealt with) However, for the purpose of this conversation I shall try to make an argument that starts from the one thing I'm reasonably sure anarcho-socialists and anarcho-capitalists agree on, and draw it out from there.

A rough overview of the argument is:

axiom: a stateless society is better than a statist society for maximizing freedom and liberty

first point: the problem of maintaining a statist society without moving back towards a state or ("states by other names") is a problem of maintaining some sort of social cohesion/social order

second point: this is only possible through having a community (communities)

third point: a viable community requires a rough egalitarianism in terms of economic equality

corrolary: contrary to Nozick's claims against any form of patterned distribution, this rough equality can be maintained (and has been maintained for thousands of years) in stateless societies

conclusions: in the presence of gross inequality the shared norms and interdependence that form the backbone of a community begin to breakdown and a stateless society can not be maintained. inequality is not necessarily a result of individual liberty, but is always a predictable result of capitalism. capitalism and anarchism are mututally exclusive - one must pick what they would prefer - a capitalist state or anarchy - if you want to argue that free market capitalism is to the great benefit of all humans be my guest, but recognize that it is not compatible with a stateless society.

so in essence, I hope to show not that egalitarianism is good or meaningful or beneficial in and of itself, but that statelessness is good and beneficial in and of itself and that rough egalitarian distributions are necessary to maintaining that condition of statelessness. In essence that rough equality is not the antithesis of liberty, but rather one of its bedrocks.

It may take me a few days to flesh out the argument. I have no illusions that any ACers will see the light, it is more a rhetorical exercise in being able to present a premise that you agree with and draw it out logically to a conclusion that you don't, rather than simply starting with a premise you don't agree with.

While I personally think there is a good argument for looking at anarchism's relationship with the State in light of much post-structural work around capilliary power, hegemony, ideology, biopower, the production of knowledge, rationality, etc and set anarchism in opposition to a wide variety of these things, for this argument I will be sticking pretty closely to the Weberian definition of a state - "that which has a successful monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a geographic area" - perhaps expanding it to highly concentrated and inequal amounts of force/power in a given geographic area (I do not argue that a condition where power is perfectly equal has ever or will ever exist, merely that there is some tipping point where a gross concentration of power begins to congeal itself into statist tendencies)

[nietzreznor]

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axiom: a stateless society is better than a statist society for maximizing freedom and liberty

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agreed!

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first point: the problem of maintaining a statist society without moving back towards a state or ("states by other names") is a problem of maintaining some sort of social cohesion/social order

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True. Luckily, Liberty is the mother and not the daughter of order!

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second point: this is only possible through having a community (communities)

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What do you mean by "communities"? It seems to me that any sort of workable anarchist society is going to have something resembling a town/village/community/city... and any workable anarchist society is going to be HIGHLY decentralized, so I would think that there would likely be lots of small communities and fewer huge cities.

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third point: a viable community requires a rough egalitarianism in terms of economic equality

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What do you mean by "rough egalitarianism" and "economic equality"? It seems to me that throughout history there are plenty of examples of 'communities' that have been quite inegalitarian. These, of course, have generally existed within statist frameworks, and aren't necessarily the 'ideal' that anarchists should work toward.
But it seems to me that any free society is going to have some reasonable amount of economic inequality, because a free society allows individuals to control their own lives and people have different abilities/habits/luck and make different choices.
So I think you need to be more clear on what you mean here, and on what you think might be 'acceptable' levels of inequality. Certainly the inequality we have today would be inconducive to liberty and to a stateless society, but our current inequalities are primarily a result of the statism we aim to eliminate.
So I guess my initial reaction is to say that a) there will some fair amount of inequality in a stateless society, b) that it will be far far less than the inequality today, c) that such inequality will pose some danger to a free society (but that the danger will be drastically reduced without the presence of a centralized and coercive State), and d) that any aggressive attempts to eliminate economic inequalities in a stateless society should be opposed.

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In essence that rough equality is not the antithesis of liberty, but rather one of its bedrocks.

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Well, most libertarians and ACists already agree with this, except that the 'equality' they mean is one of authority and not of property.
But I would agree that substantial economic inequality is also bad, and that any society ('free" or otherwise) that attempted to exist within a framework of massive economic inequality would be unworkable.

[AlexM]

You seem to be trying to make something very complicated out of something that's actually very simple. ACers believe that by making use of land, a person gains ownership of it and ASers disagree and call trying to own land "theft". As far as I can tell, that's the only real difference between the two beliefs. All the other differences are rooted in this one.

[hmkpoker]

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third point: a viable community requires a rough egalitarianism in terms of economic equality

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It's called a town.

[pokerbobo]

The one question I have is "why do you think equality in outcome is so important? (wouldn't this create a bunch of robotic type cardboard cutout people?)A truly free society would have very different outcomes for different people. Opportunity and outcome will not follow the same line on a graph. If you choose to provide a service you enjoy providing...ie ice cream shop owner and you make a average income, that is your choice. Perhaps you could make three times as much being a IT manager at a large company...but would not enjoy it as much. (the option is available but you decide hapiness is worth more than the money)

Your previous posts on AS lead me to believe that some commitee is going to decide how ones personel skills are best utilized for the benefit of the commune. You or I could get stuck doing labor we truly hate...for the benefit of others. I do not consider that freedom. In AC everything is voluntary because your purpose is for yourself and not to benefit others or the "greater good" (a term I detest...because the greater good in my opinion may not be the greater good in your opinion) Many things today are said to be for the greater good that I do not agree with....I do not see how this would change in AS....I do see it changing in AC.

[latefordinner]

geez hold on folks, i haven't even made the argument yet [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[latefordinner]

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You seem to be trying to make something very complicated out of something that's actually very simple. ACers believe that by making use of land, a person gains ownership of it and ASers disagree and call trying to own land "theft". As far as I can tell, that's the only real difference between the two beliefs. All the other differences are rooted in this one.

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Well I would say it's bigger than that. Capitalism doesn't just function on land ownership, it functions on profit.

[LinusKS]

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first point: the problem of maintaining a statist society without moving back towards a state or ("states by other names") is a problem of maintaining some sort of social cohesion/social order

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According to the Anarchocapitalist definition of the state - "that which has a successful monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a geographic area" - isn't Anarchocapitalism the replacement of one kind of government (democracy) for another?

[valtaherra]

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Well I would say it's bigger than that. Capitalism doesn't just function on land ownership, it functions on profit.

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Every voluntary exchange "functions on profit." A person only seeks an exchange if he or she believes to be getting more than that which he or she gives up.

In anarchy, or a society without rulers, involuntary exchange is no longer institutionalized and conducted on a mass scale. It becomes explicitly criminal, and voluntary exchange, exchanges that seek profit, become the norm.

Therefore any anarchist society functions on profit.

[nietzreznor]

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According to the Anarchocapitalist definition of the state - "that which has a successful monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a geographic area" - isn't Anarchocapitalism the replacement of one kind of government (democracy) for another?

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No?

You'll have to elaborate on what you mean, since most 'anarchocapitalists' recognize that monpolies would not exist without statist coercion. So it's hard to see why any monopolies (let alone those on the legitimate use of force) would exist in a statless society.