How do you feel about next November?

[Obdurate]

I would just like to point out to you, LiberalVichy, that anarcho-capitalism doesn't "exist."
Infoshop.org - An Anarchist FAQ - Section F - Is "anarcho"-capitalism a type of anarchism?

 

[LiberalVichy]

Obdurate: I've read enough of that stuff, and enough econ and philosophy, to have absolutely no interest in it. It's nonsensical and irrational to bitch about private property because the right to private property is presumed in the act of argument. Hans Hoppe's 'Argumentation Ethics' is a pretty good antidote to faux-anarchism. http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/Soc&Cap7.pdf

 

[Minor Axis]

I don't think you're going to see eye-to-eye with Minor's Pro-Union Views!!!

I have to chuckle Fox. For certain types of jobs, unions are the only power employees have over their destiny whether you like it or not. As a sole proprietor, she has no need of a union.

 

[Minor Axis]

I usually don't get along well with people who promote robbery and murder in order to ensure higher salaries for special interest groups.

Now that is a low blow... Don't be so quick to paint every union member with the same brush.

 

[LiberalVichy]

Now that is a low blow... Don't be so quick to paint every union member with the same brush.

If you promote the government infraction or imposition of any union rules, work legislation etc, or really the government doing anything, any resistance to these infringments of private property and free association (including, but not limited to, taxation) is only possible because of the threat of state violence, first robbery, then kidnapping (imprisonment) and if that is resisted, murder.
There's no way to get around it, you can't understand what the State is if you refuse to see the gun in the room.

 

[Obdurate]

LiberalVichy: So... you didn't read that? That's funny because it comments on your precious Hans Hoppe quite a bit.

Okay I need to ask some questions.
What do you say to the idea that anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron (since anarchy opposes capitalism, simply put)?
What is your experience with other anarchists? And I don't mean anarcho-capitalists.
What made you become an anarcho-capitalist, instead of any other kind of anarchist?

 

[LiberalVichy]

The only possible and coherent kind of liberty is individual liberty, and that is only possible if one has private property. Without private property there is no private life.
Capitalism, ignoring the often statist connotations many people give it (which is really Mercantalism) is nothing more than voluntary exchange and use of property and is in fact responsible for pretty much everything which constitutes 'civilization'.
My experience with most 'anarchists' is that they are incredibly confused, which is understandable, given the amount of propaganda and nonsense in this world.
I am an anarcho capitalist because it is rational and coherent, to put it more properly I am an anarcho-capitalist because I believe the initiation of force is evil and that leads inevitably to private property anarchism. Politics are born from philosophies, and have no significance or coherence divorced from philosophy. The lack of any real philosophy, in fact, is a prime reason why many people cannot form a coherent and correct view of politics even if they have divorced themselves from the 'main stream' of statist propaganda.

 

[Minor Axis]

If you promote the government infraction or imposition of any union rules, work legislation etc, or really the government doing anything, any resistance to these infringments of private property and free association (including, but not limited to, taxation) is only possible because of the threat of state violence, first robbery, then kidnapping (imprisonment) and if that is resisted, murder.
There's no way to get around it, you can't understand what the State is if you refuse to see the gun in the room.

Your inference intended or not is that Corporations have the right to walk all over employees, ship their jobs out of the country, provide a rotten work environment, and provide no benefits, all in the name of self enrichment of corporate executives.

Workers are part of the system and they have a right to a say. Unions give them some say.

 

[LiberalVichy]

And employees have the right to quit.

 

[Minor Axis]

And employees have the right to quit.

Yeah, or they could jump off a tall building, but instead they choose to exert some group power instead of conceding to the power brokers.

 

[LiberalVichy]

You know, this kind of notion you have of the free market is common but it is really irrational. Furthermore, since I believe initiation of violence is unequivically evil and refuse to compromise on this matter your utilitarian back and forth is pretty much irrelevant even if it were true. One cannot use evil to create good, the government is an institution beget of violence and perpetuated by violence and I will support nothing less than its annihilation, root and branch, no matter how many special interest groups and people with delusions of entitlement want to keep their corrupt money-train going.

 

[Minor Axis]

You know, this kind of notion you have of the free market is common but it is really irrational. Furthermore, since I believe initiation of violence is unequivically evil and refuse to compromise on this matter your utilitarian back and forth is pretty much irrelevant even if it were true. One cannot use evil to create good, the government is an institution beget of violence and perpetuated by violence and I will support nothing less than its annihilation, root and branch, no matter how many special interest groups and people with delusions of entitlement want to keep their corrupt money-train going.

And somehow you think that when the government is destroyed, we'll all be one big happy family? You are dreaming a fantasy. Until humans can improve their outlook on life, government represents order. You call that evil. I call that a potential for a better life, far from perfect, but a start and always better than anarchy.

I can only speak for my union. We don't use violence and IMO are not evil. But I don't expect you'll agree. Can you admit corporate greed is evil?

 

[Obdurate]

I would just like to comment on the "always better than anarchy."

Anarchy is the best system overall because it offers complete freedom, but as I said earlier in the thread, in which people seemed to ignore, it's not an overnight process. If it happened overnight then we'd have "chaos," which is the criticism people like to throw at anarchy. Getting rid of just the government won't change the world. We do need to "improve their outlook on life," for sure, before we can make any sustainable change.

And we won't be one big happy family, but like I tell people all the time when they use that criticism, we won't just lose our problem solving abilities. Capitalism/the government/corporations/police etc don't teach us how to problem solve. Will problems come up that are difficult to solve? Of course! But we'll solve them.

Anarchy is definitely not a means to complete happiness without sadness! But it is definitely a way to eliminate poverty forever, among other things, like getting rid of jobs -- not work, that's different -- or ending war, lessening/ending greed. To name but a few.


LiberalVichy is, as she said, an "extremist" though and since she's an anarcho-capitalist, she only has some things in common with the general -- for lack of a better term -- anarchist community, which is a wide range of people with some common goals but different ways to go about it. She strikes me as the type of person who'd blow up a Wal-Mart without any consideration for the people who would be put out of work. Could be wrong, hope I'm wrong.

And I hope this post wasn't seen as aggressive or anything because I'm in the business of healthy discussion, not angry arguments.

 

[LiberalVichy]

And somehow you think that when the government is destroyed, we'll all be one big happy family? You are dreaming a fantasy.

Not at all, but it's still morally indefensible to advocate theft and murder. Just because some or all people might be thugs does not make thuggery acceptable. All I'm doing is adopting a consistent moral approach, as I have tried to explain the utilitarian arguments are totally, utterly and entirely irrelevant as regards my opposition to the government.

 

[Minor Axis]

Not at all, but it's still morally indefensible to advocate theft and murder.[/B]

Remind me again is it unions who do that, corporations, or both?

 

[LiberalVichy]

Some corporations engage in aggression, as they are tied up in the State or personally corrupt. But it is also important to understand that I view private property as the only rational standard of freedom and rights and, contrariwise, the violation of private property the only rational standard of aggression (and thus evil). I am opposed to all aggression at all times under all circumstances, committed by anyone and for any purpose. In most peoples actual daily lives they and I have 99%+ correlation on an understanding of this morality, that you should not steal from people or hit them except in defense etc. The thing about me is I'm kind of 'fanatical' about this, I apply it to everybody, and I do not think that it is any more just for the State to steal than it is for you or I to do so. What consequences this may or may not have are totally irrelevant and secondary. I refuse to advocate or support evil, and give only what they take by threat or force, and if it were true that without the State all men would be rapacious and deceitful then the condemnation would lie not upon me for opposing the State but upon mankind for being thugs.

 

[Minor Axis]

I refuse to advocate or support evil, and give only what they take by threat or force, and if it were true that without the State all men would be rapacious and deceitful then the condemnation would lie not upon me for opposing the State but upon mankind for being thugs.

So who are you voting for in November? :ninja

 

[LiberalVichy]

I don't vote. I refuse to support or legitamize the State in any way, and only pay taxes because they threaten me or give me no option (sales tax, wherein they are threatening the seller etc.). If you understand my view of private property, anything done under the force or threat of force cannot be considered voluntary (though a person threatened still has no right to initiate force against innocent third parties, ie you can't kill someone because otherwise someone else will kill you. You can kill the people that threaten you, though).

 

[Tim]

Hey LiberalVichy I would like to know more about your way of thinking/your philosophy. Is there any good reading on it on the net?

I have a lot of questions as to how it could actually work with no government... I just don't see how that's possible, so I need to do a little research.

 

[Obdurate]

I'm sure LiberalVichy will give her links to anarcho-capitalist websites/sources/whatever, and that's fine.
Here's a website run by anarchists and their Anarchy FAQ:
Infoshop.org - An Anarchist FAQ - Version 12.1


Keep in mind though, that when it gets to the anarcho-capitalism section, they are harsh on it. So read what LV has to say and read what that site has to say as well.