[SolarCross]

Redbarn - The context is a mixed right and left anarchist society. My question was not what would mutualists do about my stolen taxi; I did not contract with them do anything about it. In this case I contracted with a an-cap style DRO, so I am not worried about my property getting stolen as I have that problem covered. My question was only would left-anarchists interfere with the job the DRO had been contracted to perform.

I like practical boots on the ground stuff, more than mere like, I am starving for some practical measures I can do NOW. Definitely I have time for mutualism, and there may be some stuff in syndicalism I could use.. Post-scarcity imaginings is fine for a daydream of better days, but the problems of now are artificial scarcities caused by government. In the UK housing is a glaring example of this. Land is limited, materials and labour are not free, so housing is always something that will have a cost, that is somewhat scarce. But the cost in the UK is orders of magnitude greater than it ought to be and the reason is an artificial scarcity created by the planning permission racket imposed by government, nothing else.

[Red Barn]

Redbarn - The context is a mixed right and left anarchist society.

I don't believe such a society could possibly exist, so I can't formulate a meaningful answer.

Post-scarcity imaginings is fine for a daydream of better days, but the problems of now are artificial scarcities caused by government. In the UK housing is a glaring example of this. Land is limited, materials and labour are not free, so housing is always something that will have a cost, that is somewhat scarce. But the cost in the UK is orders of magnitude greater than it ought to be and the reason is an artificial scarcity created by the planning permission racket imposed by government, nothing else.

And I could point to millions upon billions of examples of artificial scarcity created entirely by capitalism.

So?

Eliminate them both.

[SolarCross]

I don't believe such a society could possibly exist, so I can't formulate a meaningful answer.

But why? There is nothing in an-capism that forbids worker-coops and so on. Some like eran may be sceptical such organisations would be very productive, but that in no way prevents anyone from trying it out. There is nothing in mutualism that forbids an-capism. Some muties might be sceptical that anyone would want to sell their labour to a company in which some of the revenue went to passive investors, but that in no way forbids anyone "foolish" enough to do so. Syndicalists i am not sure of.. but I don't see how a consistent voluntaryist can exert authority over people wanting to sell their labour to a business in which by agreement capital investors were offered something in return for their investment. How would you prevent people taking wage type contracts? Create some legislation to make it a crime? How would it be enforced?

And I could point to millions upon billions of examples of artificial scarcity created entirely by capitalism.

So?

Eliminate them both.

I doubt you can find any that are purely capitalist; that don't involve government as the means of creating the artificial scarcity.

[Red Barn]

But why?

I dunno, Taxi. This point has been discussed to death, so I’m really at a loss as to why you still don’t get it.



A single society can’t simultaneously adopt and enforce two antithetical sets of laws governing property. It simply isn’t possible. Either resources are collectively owned or they’re privately owned. No single set of laws can conceivably uphold both forms of ownership at the same time.

Seriously. Think about it:

Farmer A believes that a given field is part of the commons, and sets his cows to graze on it. Farmer B believes this same field belongs to him alone, and goes ballistic. So who’s right? Obviously, that depends entirely on the laws governing property.

Can they both be right at one and the same time? Is there some magical way to facilitate a “mixed” outcome? Of course not. And no matter how this little skirmish shakes out, one of these guys will genuinely believe that his rights have been violated, and – according to his own ideological framework – he’ll be absolutely right.



No economic system can exist without a coherent, consistent and universal conception of property that supports its basic precepts. That’s as true of Left Anarchist systems as of capitalist or feudal ones.

What you’re suggesting is that capitalist laws and mores governing property continue to exist in exactly the form they do today, but that socialist anarchists somehow learn to be content with carving out isolated, microscopic islands of “anarchism” in an environment containing virtually none of the elements necessary for anarchism, as a system, to actually function.

I'm sure you mean well, but this whole line of reasoning just doesn't make any sense.

[anticlimacus]

You put it quite well, Red Barn. What is important to realize, it seems, is the real chasm between a system that allows private property, and a system that abolishes private property. What seems to be confusing ancaps like Tax is that he thinks private property relations will spontaneously develop. Well this doesn't happen for the exact same reason it doesn't happen under a system of private property: the system overcomes it, because those islands have to operate within the context of a fundamentally differently oriented socio-economic organization. This is why no form of socialism has been able to be sustained. It is also why no form of capitalism would develop or be able to sustain itself either. There does not need to be some statist force keeping capitalists down. The private ownership of property and the wage labor system itself becomes not only quite taboo, but systematically unable to function. It's by virtue of the system, not by "Big Brother". Once you realize this or begin to understand it, this whole idea of socialists oppressing capitalists or spontaneous capitalist development just becomes odd.

[SolarCross]

Redbarn - You are too pessimistic. An-caps have some pretty interesting ideas on how multiple law systems can interact. Anarchist or not, I think you are still somewhat infected with the statist paradigm that law has to be some monopolistic universal hegemony, that there should be only one idea and everyone must submit to it. A given resource may be commons or private (not both - with the qualification that there can be easements) but that does not mean all resources must be either common or private. Also a given property is not one or the other by magic there must be some rationale or history that determines whether it is commons or private, and that is something that can be discovered by a credible process of arbitration. Your farmer A is in effect making a claim on the field that it is commons as is farmer B making a claim that it is private. Sure they are in dispute but one or the other must have the more credible claim by some reason and proof.

Actually in feudal times there were very diverse systems of law and property operating in parallel. Ecclesiastical law, parliamentary legislation, common law, aristocratic tradition, commercial law, King's law... Some land was commons, some was private, some was feudal. Diverse systems of law has been the norm more often that not historically. It can be so again.

[anticlimacus]

Actually in feudal times there were very diverse systems of law and property operating in parallel. Ecclesiastical law, parliamentary legislation, common law, aristocratic tradition, commercial law, King's law... Some land was commons, some was private, some was feudal. Diverse systems of law has been the norm more often that not historically. It can be so again.

Feudal times--like any time in large complex societies--certainly had a variegated complexity. Indeed, there were chartered cities, guilds, and merchants. But this "diversity" should not allow us to overlook the fact that these systems functioned in a society where 90% of the population in Europe worked on Feudal manors. Consequentially these systems functioned primarily as subsystems. So too the Catholic church functioned as a Feudal organization as a large land proprietor and all operated under an ontological understanding of "the Great chain of being". The shift into capitalist organization was over several hundred years which involved a variety of historical transformations, both giving rise to what we know now as a market economy driven by the private ownership of the means of production and the modern state. Other systems, such as the religious systems and legal systems have also had to adjust to this major transformation, but they have also acquired a certain amount of autonomy as self-operational, which is quite distinct from the Feudal era. One major aspect, however, is that capitalist production replaced Feudal production, and socialist production would likewise do the same--even if there is diversity and nuance.

I don't think it's a matter of being pessimistic. We would be talking about a system of production that would be quite antithetical to wage labor, just as capitalist production was quite antithetical to manorial production and the Feudal exploitation of labor. And just like the "free" burghers sought to overcome Feudal constraints, so socialists view workers and the masses as seeking to overcome capitalist property relations.

[Red Barn]

So too the Catholic church functioned as a Feudal organization as a large land proprietor and all operated under an ontological understanding of "the Great chain of being".

Yes, exactly - thank you for pointing that out.

I think a lot of people (and, to be fair, this isn't just An-Caps) fail to realize that, in the the medieval world, nobody actually "owned" anything.

All things belonged, by rights, to God, and were temporarily loaned out, as it were, by a divinely inspired monarch, buttressed by the power of the Papacy. These mighty few could give and take great swaths of land, and all the living persons on that land, exactly as they saw fit. It was only much later - and, in fact, as the feudal system began to stagger towards collapse - that "private property" could be conceptualized as a concrete thing with real economic significance.

And that's just Europe.

In the New World, "private property" was a completely alien concept right up until the native populations began to be slaughtered. The idea that pale, weirdly dressed invaders could simply claim pieces of the world as "mine" just didn't compute, and it took the obliteration of whole cultures to drive the point home.



There's nothing eternal, or cosmic, or "natural" about the system of property law that currently governs our every breath and movement. Relative to the grand scheme of things, it's a flash in the pan.

[mikema63]

There is nothing natural about any human societal system.

I've basically given up at this point on designing or planning a future society that fails to take into account how all the rest of the people will change it.

[SolarCross]

Redbarn and anticlimacus - Erudite maybe, accurate not at all. The Catholic Church was not a feudal organisation, it did not run territorial protection rackets. It did business with feudal lords, selling divine rights to legitimise their rackets as well selling places in heaven to those with a guilty conscience but that does not mean they did business the same way feudal lords did. You are ignoring also the freemen: artisans, merchants and mercenaries. Private property certainly did exist in medieval times though it was always in danger of being "collectivised" by the feudalists (some things never change).
The meme "that everything belonged to god" was put about by the church for self-serving reasons, feudalists subscribed to it also (again for self-serving reasons) as long as the church recognised them as the God authorised administrators.

[Eran]

I don't see how what you are saying is really anything different from, say, the 20th century.

Sad that you don't.

The difference is that I am proposing that syndicates would win over capitalist-owned enterprises peacefully, by virtue of being more attractive to the workers without which the capitalist has nothing.

You instead gave me examples of how workers violently took over the property of capitalists.

The reason is, unlike your fantasy world, we are and never have been starting from ground zero, where we are all on equal footing with each other able to just decide on what kind of society we want.

We don't need to start at ground zero. Rather, starting from our own world and going forward, why aren't new businesses (which emerge all the time) not dominated by syndicates?

In other words, let's accept your point that existing capitalist-owned businesses have advantage by virtue of being already in existence and owning the required capital.

But how do new capitalist-owned enterprises manage to attract more workers than new worker-owned enterprises?

After all, a group of workers coming together and pooling their savings would surely have easier access to capital than a single entrepreneur using his personal savings. Yet the vast majority of new businesses created all around us seem to be owned by a single entrepreneur (typically one who has previously been a worker himself) rather than by a group of workers wishing to form a syndicate.

Why is that?

I'm still confused on where this question is coming from, but anyway: Monopoly Corporate and Finance Capital are in charge along with the state, which at times can work against them, but most of the time supports them and assists them. The army is a function of the modern state and is not independent from it, and neither are its generals, so there it does not operate on its own.

Why not? Who is to prevent them? Why aren't the generals taking over, given that they control all the guns?

You seem to be depending on the good-will of people through the NAP to prevent horrible atrocities.

Why aren't we seeing atrocities conducted by army generals and their soldiers? Clearly, neither the generals nor the soldiers are themselves capitalists. They aren't in control of government. They obey their civilian leaders. They do so despite, as mentioned, holding all the guns.

The only explanation is that disobeying civilian leaders would run contrary to the deepest political sensibilities of our society.

This illustrates the critical importance of such political sensibilities, an importance you seem to ignore.

Once you recognise the important of political sensibilities it becomes evident that in a society in which the NAP represents the deepest of those sensibilities (i.e. the society I am advocating), no such atrocities would be possible.

A corporate CEO or capitalist owner would no more be able to command his employees to violate the NAP than a President or a general is able to command his troupes to violate the Constitution today.

I'm not sure the former has occurred. People have come together on a number of different issues, however, and it has been a result of common interests--not abstract principles.

However it happened historically, there is no doubt that today, the vast majority of Americans do accept the Constitution as the fundamental justification for the use of force in their society.

I'm simply wondering why it, by itself, becomes the deterrent for those with absolute power of capital control--which is basically what we give them when we abandon the state and leave in place the private ownership of the means of production

In precisely the same way that the Constitution is a "deterrent" for those with absolute power of military control. Despite having full and complete control over the strongest army in the world, the President of the US invariably vacates his position of power upon losing an election. Why is that the case in the US, but not in many other countries? What is different?

I, in fact, see no reason why the NAP could not be used to rationalize horrible atrocities: allowing people to starve because they cannot pay for food, putting down revolts and strikes against capitalist rulers violently because it "violates our peaceful projects" etc.

With the NAP properly enforced, who would stop workers from forming their own syndicates? Who could stop them from helping starving people? And why would they even need to strike against "capitalist rulers" when they can simply walk away?

[anticlimacus]

The difference is that I am proposing that syndicates would win over capitalist-owned enterprises peacefully, by virtue of being more attractive to the workers without which the capitalist has nothing.

You instead gave me examples of how workers violently took over the property of capitalists.

How is that much of a difference than what is expected today? "If you don't like working in the factory you can just get a job somewhere else..." or "You don't like working for a capitalist, go work in a syndicate or start a commune!"

The fact of the matter is that none of that is always realistic within a capitalist system. People take jobs where they can get them, coops are often bought out and must function within a capitalist world, and communes are simply naive unless they are done on a wide-scale, as in seeking societal transformation--and that, as you know, turns into social revolution.

We don't need to start at ground zero. Rather, starting from our own world and going forward, why aren't new businesses (which emerge all the time) not dominated by syndicates?

Because we live in a capitalist world. The idea of starting a new business is not typically done with the intent of having worker democratic participation. It's done with the intent on becoming a successful capitalist enterprise. Why is that so strange to comprehend within capitalism?

Worker coops not only face an uphill battle against capitalist industry as they have to compete with capitalist business, but, operating within a capitalist system, they are also simply not the norm. They do not get referenced in economic books, they are not discussed in the media at all, and they are simply not on the political radar. But where they do start up they are often successful.

Why aren't the generals taking over, given that they control all the guns?

Well, for one, Generals don't control all the guns in modern advanced democratic states. There is no single top down structure, and guns ammo etc. are all part of the funding of the government as a whole, which is also democratic with different bodies of governance. It's not like, in, say the Roman empire, where General X has an army (recruited in large part from a far off land) and the potential to march into Rome and so control the empire. The entire function of the army in modern democratic states is enmeshed with the government as a whole, as a functioning body, and the soldiers are typically taken from the geographical nation itself. The fact that General Allyn doesn't just take up arms to takeover the US government has much more to do with the socio-economic structure of the United States than it does morality or upholding the constitution. He would have to mount a massive collation that would involve not only big business (which would also require a turn to international support) and politicians, but the support of much of the American people--much like in the civil war, when the South rose up against the North.

In precisely the same way that the Constitution is a "deterrent" for those with absolute power of military control. Despite having full and complete control over the strongest army in the world, the President of the US invariably vacates his position of power upon losing an election. Why is that the case in the US, but not in many other countries? What is different?

I don't think the ideology of the Constitution has much to do with it all. It has to do with the function of military, its officers, and generals within advanced modern democratic states. Generals simply do not have the kind autonomy with entirely autonomous armies under the power of their fingers as you are suggesting. In fact a general will often resign, before he even thinks about a coup. But the constitution does not serve as a deterrent for the morality of our armies. Our armies are for the defense of our nation, but that does not stop us from invading other countries and engaging in all kinds of brutal behavior. Our armies are to protect a "democratic state", yet that does not stop them from serving the interests of Big Capital and supporting ruthless dictators across the globe, or from putting down labor strikes or civil rights movements at home. The constitution is for free speech and right to trial, but that doesn't prevent detaining prisoners without trial indefinitely, or persecuting those who speak out against the US during war time via the Espionage Act. We could go on and on with stuff like this. It's not morality that holds these people back or even structures what they do on a systemic level--but wait, can right wing libertarians think on a systemic level? Or is their thought process limited to thinking only in terms of individual and private interactions and motivations, i.e or what Hegel called "caprice"?

With the NAP properly enforced, who would stop workers from forming their own syndicates? Who could stop them from helping starving people? And why would they even need to strike against "capitalist rulers" when they can simply walk away?

Again, how is this any different from today? Part of my point is that you really, in practice, advocate nothing different from today's capitalism--except without the state. I see that as nothing but a shift to absolute private power within the hands of a few. It could be the worst thing the world has ever seen.

[Someone5]

But if you're talking about a 100% post-ownership, post-scarcity society, then the whole question would be moot, since taxicabs would, I assume, simply be standing about, ready to be used by anyone who happened to need one. In that case, the idea that one particular taxi was "yours" would doubtless seem a bit odd to people - rather like claiming that this or that cubic foot of air was "yours." So, yeah: if you were to drag in some armed stranger to apprehend a person "stealing" "your" taxi, you might well be taken for a dangerous lunatic - just as you'd now be taken for a lunatic if you tried to arrest somebody for "stealing" "your" air.

Exactly where I was going with that.

To me, ideological constructs like Mutualism and Anarcho-Syndicalism are practical, realistic, boots-on-the-ground kinds of ideas that can be hashed out in real world terms. They were conceived specifically to be implemented within capitalist structures to begin with, and to overthrow capitalism in the process of coming into being, and that gives them a distinctly transitional, or strategic quality, if you know what I mean.

On the other hand, the arrangements possible in a true post-scarcity society exist only in in the realm of theory - although technological advancements make them seem less far fetched every day. For many of us, this is the ideal and ultimate goal, even if we know full well that we'll never live to see such a world.

Post-scarcity in the first world is, for many sorts of goods, possible today. Not everything mind you, but for quite a lot of things it's achievable. After all, it doesn't require infinite supply, just more than people will use.

It's a little hard to conceptualize what taxizen is talking about though, since he seems rather indefinite about how exactly a "mixed society" of left-anarchists and Unicorn Capitalists would work. I mean, from my way of looking at things, there is a fundamental incompatibility (such as the "your taxi" issue) that could not be resolved. It's like asking questions about the biology of a human-rock hybrid--the question doesn't have any basis for speculation.

Certainly in a left-anarchist society, taxis would not be owned individually. Someone coming along trying to claim exclusive ownership over one would have no legal basis for their claim. Someone else coming along and stealing that taxi would deserve no repercussions because the person "taking" the taxi would not be doing anything wrong. And, as you note, anyone objecting to that--I.E. by hiring some armed thug to come and punish the "thief--would certainly be taken for some kind of dangerous individual.

There doesn't seem to be any sort of method of reconciling this problem other than for one group to resolve itself to live under the terms of the other group. Which is indeed where something like anarcho-syndicalism or mutualism comes into play. As you note, though I doubt taxizen will be willing to try to comprehend that, since he would rather just try to insult people.

I've noticed that people (including me) often forget to make this distinction - that is, between the practical and the ideal - when debating all this stuff. I suppose we just assume that everybody will know which is which, and fill in the blanks accordingly. I can see how that might be confusing, though - especially if some or all of it is new to you.

Right, I mean, I'm under no illusions that an ideal socialist society could or would ever exist. Obviously reality will work out as something of a practical compromise. I do not, however, think that it will involve any significant element of the Unicorn Capitalist vision.

[Someone5]

Redbarn - The context is a mixed right and left anarchist society.

Which means... what? How would that even work? There's some fairly basic and irreconcilable differences there--such as the Unicorn Capitalist insistence on property and the left-anarchist goal of abolishing property. You never explained what that meant. I mean, let's say you're a Unicorn Capitalist in Theoretical Socialist Utopia #1. You claim you've got a taxi. Well, in Theoretical Socialist Utopia #1, there is no government to protect your claim of ownership. So you hire some like-minded folks with guns to "protect your property." Well, what the hell are the socialists supposed to think or do about that? I mean, some random taxi driver comes along, thinks "oh, well, here's a taxi, no one is using it right now, maybe I'd better start working today," and takes 'your' taxi. Well, from his left-anarchist perspective, he's not doing a damned thing wrong--just using his little bit of the means of production to drive people around town. Well, you call up your security goons to go track this "thief" down and bring him to some rough justice. What's everyone else supposed to think about that? From their perspective, you and your gang of thugs just went and tracked down a man so you can kidnap him and rough him up in whatever way your sham of a court claims is just. Obviously the left-anarchists aren't going to put up with having your goons go around kidnapping and punishing everyone who you think is stealing from you (which would be a fairly common occurrence, considering the left-anarchist view on property).

I mean, the only way you've ever managed to describe a "mixed society" between left-anarchists and Unicorn Capitalists is for the left-anarchists to live entirely on the terms of the Unicorn Capitalists, meaning only that you're willing to allow them to do their own thing so long as they form a cooperative to own all their stuff, own property, follow your laws, accept the judgments of your "security companies," etc. Which isn't really much of a "mixed" society at all, it's just theorizing that left-anarchists could probably figure out a way to achieve something sort of kind of like the socialism they want within the confines of your propertarian regime.

Well, to the left-anarchists, that would just be a furtherance of the dual power approach they've taken with capitalists for ages now--as part of an attempt to establish a separate society. It would not be a "mixed society", it would just be a group of oppressed left-anarchists trying to make the best of a bad situation.

My question was not what would mutualists do about my stolen taxi; I did not contract with them do anything about it. In this case I contracted with a an-cap style DRO, so I am not worried about my property getting stolen as I have that problem covered. My question was only would left-anarchists interfere with the job the DRO had been contracted to perform.

Why would you think they wouldn't? From their perspective, you would be hiring your security goons to hassle and possibly imprison or kill an innocent man. I agree that this has little to do with mutualism.

I like practical boots on the ground stuff, more than mere like, I am starving for some practical measures I can do NOW.

You can have all the capitalism you want right now.

Definitely I have time for mutualism, and there may be some stuff in syndicalism I could use.. Post-scarcity imaginings is fine for a daydream of better days, but the problems of now are artificial scarcities caused by government.

Caused by capitalism.

In the UK housing is a glaring example of this. Land is limited, materials and labour are not free, so housing is always something that will have a cost, that is somewhat scarce.

Land is fundamentally scarce, but housing need not be, because it is possible to build vertically, and housing-construction labor is only expensive because markets exist to establish a price.

But the cost in the UK is orders of magnitude greater than it ought to be and the reason is an artificial scarcity created by the planning permission racket imposed by government, nothing else.

Right, that's a fundamental part of capitalism.

[Red Barn]

There is nothing natural about any human societal system.

Well, If you want to get all literal and tedious about it, then sure. You're absolutely right.

But some systems are more blatantly unnatural than others, and a science-minded kinda guy should be right on top of that.



You'll never see a herd of zebra in which 2% of the total is fat and sassy, while the other 98% is starving. You'll never see a school of fish, or a flock of crows, or a pack of wolves in which the majority goes hungry so a tiny minority can have a hundred million times more than the rest.

From the very simplest, most strictly evolutionary point of view, capitalism is an absolute disaster. In fact, if you studied a coral reef that manifested the kind of insanely unbalanced development regularly produced by global capitalism, you'd wonder what the hell went wrong with it, wouldn't you?

(You know you would, so don't even try to weasel out of it.)

[SolarCross]

Someone5 - Okay you win, socialist utopia, aka the zombie apocalypse, it is. We'll all just take what we want. If someone wants my taxi they can take it, I mean its not like I actually want to earn a living anyway. So I'll just start a new career writing bad poetry, at least as long as there is paper and pens to steal and when all the pen and paper runs out I'll just do nothing, like everyone else.

[Rich]

What are the common interests based on which today's American society has come together to virtually universally accept the Constitution as the fundamental principle based on which force may legitimately be used?

It hasn't. Americans accept democracy and the democratic framework as legitimate. The Constitution is widely taken as a sacred text. That's a completely different matter. The people who wrote the Constitution wouldn't have known a principle if it smacked them in the face. Its not just that they included the fugitive slave clause which American Libertarians breeze away as some minor breech of the NAP and self ownership, but that the Constitution was deliberately designed to for example allow individual states to ban abolitionist literature. The point being that the even the freedom of the individual slaver plutocrats could be sacrificed for the collective needs of the slaver plutocrats as a whole. The Constitution was in effect replaced by civil war in the 1860s. The Constitution is like the Bible you can find justification for just about anything you want. Soviet style Communism could easily have been justified as a perfection of the Constitution. From King to Gentry to Capitalists to Proletariat. We see this pathetic, puerile process with gay marriage, where one of the supreme court justices has already flagged up that he will discover a right to gay marriage within the Constitution, but he just don't doesn't think support in the Popularis is strong enough yet for its discovery. Soon after that happens opposition to gay marriage will become legal in name only.

The Bible is so similar: Supply side Jesus, Family Jesus, communist Jesus, Third world nationalist Jesus, ascetic Jesus, English country village Jesus, Gay Jesus, Tantric Jesus, illuminati reptilian Jesus, Princess Di bloodline Jesus. Take your pick.

I've even heard Libertarian claim the lack of a world government as evidence for their system. There was no world government before 1945 and bloody crap it was too. but particularly since the nineteen eighties America has emerged more and more as the de-facto world government. More and more America will determine what we can say. It will determine our banking laws, our intellectual property laws and soon to be our tax laws. Libertarianism doesn't abolish government. It abolishes democracy.

Genuine Libertarian are useful idiots for the most corrupt sections of the corporate - political elite. All across the world rich peoples taxes have been driven down: Capital, corporation, Big Property and Inheritance. They're very happy to push up taxes on working class and Middle class people even pay roll taxes. Regulation never really gets tackled. Note that micro states have been very useful for the rich people of the major states in their vast theft. However there is change in the wind. The powers that be have decided that the erosion of the tax base has gone too far and the party may be over for some of the micro states. Note the way they dealt with Cyprus.

[mikema63]

Well, If you want to get all literal and tedious about it, then sure. You're absolutely right.

But some systems are more blatantly unnatural than others, and a science-minded kinda guy should be right on top of that.



You'll never see a herd of zebra in which 2% of the total is fat and sassy, while the other 98% is starving. You'll never see a school of fish, or a flock of crows, or a pack of wolves in which the majority goes hungry so a tiny minority can have a hundred million times more than the rest.

From the very simplest, most strictly evolutionary point of view, capitalism is an absolute disaster. In fact, if you studied a coral reef that manifested the kind of insanely unbalanced development regularly produced by global capitalism, you'd wonder what the hell went wrong with it, wouldn't you?

(You know you would, so don't even try to weasel out of it.)

Though I would love to see a sassy coral reef.

[Rich]

North America was full of worker coops. They federated but tended not to have centralised governments. The Lakota, Dakota, Huron, Iroquois were some of the names for these federations of worker co-ops. But I learnt from the genius Ayn Rand that most Socialists are stupid to understand, that American Libertarians were duty bound to exterminate them under the Non Aggression Principle, because they were so moral.

[Eran]

Because we live in a capitalist world. The idea of starting a new business is not typically done with the intent of having worker democratic participation. It's done with the intent on becoming a successful capitalist enterprise. Why is that so strange to comprehend within capitalism?

Fair enough. Capitalism, to paraphrase, is a state of mind. Our society is inculcated with profit-making through ownership-of-means-of-production as a dominant paradigm of success.

But doesn't that suggest that you need to focus on that "state of mind", rather than property laws? In other words, if the public's state-of-mind was to shift (a prerequisite of your campaign), syndicates would easily be able to compete with capitalist entrepreneurs for workers, banishing the latter to a minor role within your society, without the need to legislate against private ownership of means of production.

Further, the ability of (capitalist) entrepreneurs to start businesses (despite what we can both agree are substantial legal biases favouring existing big businesses) is surely an indication that, given the change in the sentiments of workers, they too would be able to start businesses (in syndicalist form)?

Well, for one, Generals don't control all the guns in modern advanced democratic states. There is no single top down structure, and guns ammo etc. are all part of the funding of the government as a whole, which is also democratic with different bodies of governance.

At any one time, control over military hardware and its use is more concentrated (in the hands of generals) than is, for example, economic power in the hands of corporate CEOs. Further, the question can be extended by including the President in the question. The President is the sole Commander in Chief of all the armed forces of the United States.

It's not like, in, say the Roman empire, where General X has an army (recruited in large part from a far off land) and the potential to march into Rome and so control the empire.

Who would stop the President if he commanded the Marines to storm Congress? Who would stop him if he merely ordered the executive agencies to ignore inconvenient Congressional and Judicial decrees?

I don't think the ideology of the Constitution has much to do with it all. It has to do with the function of military, its officers, and generals within advanced modern democratic states. Generals simply do not have the kind autonomy with entirely autonomous armies under the power of their fingers as you are suggesting.

Its not the ideology of the Constitution, but the ideology of constitutionalism itself. Generals (or even the President himself) have just as much autonomy in the US as do their equivalent office holders in countries which underwent successful military coups.

In fact a general will often resign, before he even thinks about a coup. But the constitution does not serve as a deterrent for the morality of our armies. Our armies are for the defence of our nation, but that does not stop us from invading other countries and engaging in all kinds of brutal behaviour.

I agree. But why? Why would soldiers happily engage in brutal behaviour abroad, but the mere idea of being part of an anti-constitutional coup (even if relatively bloodless) is unthinkable?

Our armies are to protect a "democratic state", yet that does not stop them from serving the interests of Big Capital and supporting ruthless dictators across the globe, or from putting down labor strikes or civil rights movements at home. The constitution is for free speech and right to trial, but that doesn't prevent detaining prisoners without trial indefinitely, or persecuting those who speak out against the US during war time via the Espionage Act. We could go on and on with stuff like this.

Agreed. Which is why my point isn't that the military forces respect the specific principles which are supposed to underlie the Constitution (such as effective democracy, free speech, procedural rights, etc.), but rather only the over-arching principle of constitutionalism, coupled with a concrete mechanism (USSC decrees) for resolving disputes.

Soldiers will happily obey commands to kill thousands of innocent people, imprison others indefinitely, shoot on demonstrators, etc.
However, they will not obey commands they understand to run afoul of the constitutional mechanisms they believe in.

The weight of society (of which the soldiers are just the tip of the blade) is behind this political consensus. That is the point I am trying to convey through these questions.

This isn't about who has the guns, but rather about what fundamental political principles are accepted by those who do.

but wait, can right wing libertarians think on a systemic level? Or is their thought process limited to thinking only in terms of individual and private interactions and motivations, i.e or what Hegel called "caprice"?

Of course we can. What I keep saying is that a proper libertarian society can only come about and remain stable when the NAP is systemically accepted as the foundation of political legitimacy.

Libertarians support the widest possible scope of individual freedom and diversity of values and opinions. However, for any society to function, there must be a core of agreement between its members.

Today, that core of agreement is over constitutionalism.

In a libertarian society, this core would be the NAP.

Again, how is this any different from today? Part of my point is that you really, in practice, advocate nothing different from today's capitalism--except without the state. I see that as nothing but a shift to absolute private power within the hands of a few. It could be the worst thing the world has ever seen.

What you don't see is that contemporary domination of corporate power is dependent upon government support, both direct and indirect.

I don't understand you. On the one hand, you agree with me that government is captured by Big Business and serve their interest. On the other hand, you don't see the inevitable simple conclusion that without government as an aid, the domination of Big Business would fall away.

If government helps Big Business, wouldn't Big Business be weaker without it?



Rich,
The Constitution certainly represents a principle, namely that of Constitutional Democracy. I am not talking about the specific principles that animate the specific constitution as adopted and/or interpreted (e.g. individual freedoms), but rather the over-arching principle that government, to be legitimate, must operate subject to some constraints.

To be clear, there as as many views on what those constraints ought to be as there are thinking Americans. There is great diversity of opinions here.

But there is a virtual consensus over both this over-arching principle and the legitimate mechanism for resolving disputes over the exact boundaries of legitimate government action, namely the opinions of the USSC.

The over-arching principle of constitutional democracy, and the commonly-accepted mechanism for resolving disputes over its implementation are common to virtually all Americans.

The Constitution is like the Bible you can find justification for just about anything you want.

I agree. Which is why the secondary agreement over a dispute-resolution mechanism is very important.

since the nineteen eighties America has emerged more and more as the de-facto world government.

Not quite. America may be a de-facto enforcer of certain international norms, but it isn't a world government. In particular, America is itself greatly constrained in what it can do internationally.

Libertarianism doesn't abolish government. It abolishes democracy.

Some libertarians (such as myself) do advocate abolishing government. I know of no libertarians who support government but not democracy. I know of no libertarians (and very few non-libertarians) who don't advocate some limits on majoritarian rule.