[The Clockwork Rat]

I am not an anarchist.

[SolarCross]

I think most anarchists would disagree with Someone5 on a number of points, so I wouldn't bank on that.

Okay so most anarchists believe that compliance with the syndicates' dictat is mandatory? If so then what is the basis for the syndicates' authority? Is it "right of might" (they make the rules because they have a force superiority and are not squeamish about using this force on dissenters.) or is "right by contract" (they make the rules because the ruled consented to the syndicates rule making)?
If it is the former Phred and his schlepper would do well to move somewhere else if they want to be free to do business in the manner they like. If it is the latter then Phred and his schlepper could simply not consent to be a member of the syndicate and then they could do as they please except for where property is concerned that does not belong to them.
If they are a member of the syndicate they can use the clay deposits owned by the syndicate but they have to use it under the direction of the syndicate which would mean by contract they are unable to sell the product utilising the clay or freely exchange by contract labour for money.
On the other hand if they are not members then they do not need the syndicates permission to do business contrary to the terms of the syndicate but they do need permission from the syndicate to use the clay which the syndicate claims to own. Phred is no doubt willing to trade with the syndicate for the clay but would the syndicate be willing to trade with Phred? Is it not possible for the syndicate to sell some clay to Phred?

[Phred]

I am not an anarchist.

So you don't feel qualified to answer the questions I directed at Left-Anarchists? Fair enough. Let's wait for anticlimacus or Red Barn's answers, then.




Phred

[The Clockwork Rat]

As a communist I would suggest that attempting to remove communal resources on the sly would be illegal. You would be re-educated.

[Red Barn]

Now you exhibit the Left-Libertarian inability to distinguish between a different pair of concepts: specific vs general.

No.

You exhibit the Right Libertarian inability to pay attention to what's said to you.

There are a limited number of oak trees located in parks of cities. There are an essentially unlimited number of generic trees located in the vast forests of Canada and Siberia (for example) that are being unused by anyone and will remain unused by anyone until they are consumed in a forest fire or die of old age or insect infestation and are eaten by fungus.

So what? I might as well say that McDonalds owns "an unlimited number of french fries," or Exxon Mobile owns "an unlimited number of drops of oil."

If something is owned, its owned. Your opinion on the size, type, quality or quantity of that object is completely and totally irrelevant.

I ask of you - knowing full well I will never get direct answers - the same questions I asked of The Clockwork Rat:

- what justification would you as a Left-Anarchist give for forcibly preventing me from carrying away from one of the thousands of practically limitless clay deposits of the world an infinitesimal fraction of my proportional share of it?

You don't have a "share." You have a vote. If you want clay, you discuss it with the people who share ownership with you - exactly as in my boat launch example.

- once that justification has been rendered by whichever council or co-op or soviet or committee deems itself to have the authority to pass that judgment, who would take it upon themselves to forcibly prevent my clay schlepper from carrying away that tiny fraction of my share of an essentially unlimited resource?

I will prevent him, Phred.

I, personally, will rip the clay from his hands and fling it to the ground with a smile of joy on my lips and a song of triumph in my heart.

[Decky]

And then he could have a long holiday in Siberia to think about what he had done.

[Red Barn]

There are times when I really, really like you guys.

[Decky]

It is never to late Red Barn. Come over to the real left. We built a shit ton of tractor factories you know.

[Red Barn]

I dunno, Decky.

The advantages of a kick-ass attitude are definitely being brought home to me in this thread.

I mean, the idea that I might actually have to try and reason with people like Phred - possibly for fucking years - before finally smacking them upside the head is pretty sobering.

We built a shit ton of tractor factories you know.

And there's that . . . oh dear.

[Phred]

If something is owned, its owned. Your opinion on the size, type, quality or quantity of that object is completely and totally irrelevant.

When something is "owned" by all, it is in fact "owned" by none. Resources qua resources are of no use to a human's continuing struggle to maintain her existence, goods and services are. Those resources must be transformed through human effort into goods. The humans who of their own free will produce useful goods at my ceramics works in my example are doing just that. Similarly, the humans who of their own free will produce useful goods at the People's Terra Cotta Roof Tile Production Facility D-48 and the People's Terra Cotta Jug Production Facility C-35 are doing just that. So what justification do you have for taking it upon yourself to forcibly deprive my humans of clay while cheerfully allowing the humans at the PTCRTPF D-48 and the PTCJPF C-35 to extract orders and orders of magnitude more clay?

You don't have a "share." You have a vote. If you want clay, you discuss it with the people who share ownership with you - exactly as in my boat launch example.

So, as predicted, you won't answer the question.

I, personally, will rip the clay from his hands and fling it to the ground with a smile of joy on my lips and a song of triumph in my heart.

So, despite your initial protestations to the contrary, not only will you employ force, you will do so gleefully. Eran and I have had you pegged from the get-go.


Phred

[Red Barn]

Yes, I will, Phred. Gleefully. Then I'll run over your battered body with one of Decky's awesome tractors and drive off into the sunset.



So much for those ugly clay pots. I never liked them anyway.

[The Clockwork Rat]

what justification would you as a Left-Anarchist give for forcibly preventing me from carrying away from one of the thousands of practically limitless clay deposits of the world an infinitesimal fraction of my proportional share of it?

You don't have a "share." You have a vote. If you want clay, you discuss it with the people who share ownership with you - exactly as in my boat launch example.

So, as predicted, you won't answer the question.

This is a beautiful example of not being able to see something that's standing in front of you. :B

So, despite your initial protestations to the contrary, not only will you employ force, you will do so gleefully. Eran and I have had you pegged from the get-go.

It's like a little child constantly prodding their mother then crying when her nerves finally fray and she clips the child round the ear.

Or smashing a clay pot over the kid's head.

[Decky]

I dunno, Decky.

The advantages of a kick-ass attitude are definitely being brought home to me in this thread.

I mean, the idea that I might actually have to try and reason with people like Phred - possibly for fucking years - before finally smacking them upside the head is pretty sobering.

We have better ways of dealing with his ilk (no offense Pherd).

One of my fave anecdotes about the Russian evolution involves factory owners being beaten up, put into wheelbarrows and being wheeled out of their own factories and being dumped in the street to the jeering of their former employees.

And there's that . . . oh dear.

You know it makes sense.

So, despite your initial protestations to the contrary, not only will you employ force, you will do so gleefully. Eran and I have had you pegged from the get-go.

She is starting to wake up. The only way the working class will take back our stuff from the exploiter (and keep it) is by force. Anarchism is just mental masturbation, socialism is the route to a bright new future.

[Phred]

Yes, I will, Phred. Gleefully. Then I'll run over your battered body with one of Decky's awesome tractors and drive off into the sunset.

So, as Eran and I noted, in order to prevent humans from acting in ways those same humans have determined to be of harm to no one and of benefit to at least themselves and those with whom they associate in their enterprise, ways that violate not a single right of any other human, Left-Anarchists will take it upon themselves to use force against other humans.

So much for :

Jesus Fucking Christ.

They won't be stopped from doing anything.

So much for:

No force is required here; this is a simple, straightforward function of collective ownership.

So much for:

What Anticlimacus is describing is a society in which nobody is holding either a pipe or a stick, so this "right" has become meaningless.

Yet when I ask if I will be allowed to keep my wheel and kiln, I am assured no one gives a damn about my wheel and kiln. When Eran asks;

Every carving and spreading knife is already owned?

Every computer with which one can write software is already owned?

Every machine that hasn't yet been produced is already owned?

Every square mile of untouched wilderness is already owned?

He is assured that the first three are his, nothing to worry about until he uses them in ways unapproved of by The Borg. But the last... ah, that is a different story! Yes, Eran, every square mile of untouched wilderness and all the trees growing out of the clay soil in that wilderness may not be used by you, not even a tiny tiny fraction of it, unless you get unanimous approval of every other person in society. Because when everything is owned by everyone, nothing can be done without the consent of everyone.

If you try to take even a single tree branch without that unanimous consent, the pipes and sticks that have been there all along are revealed, and swung gleefully and enthusiastically.

Review the last dozen posts or so and note the universal attitude held by Lefties towards employing violence. The glee they express at the prospect they might get to smash people and stuff. Contrast that with the attitude of An-Caps, who quail at the thought of even imprisoning someone who quite clearly has shown themselves to be a violent serial offender and violator of the rights of others.

If nobody wants pots and sandwiches produced on a scale that requires collective resources and effort, or if you demand some goofy capitalist form of "private ownership," you are simply shit out of luck.

What is the People's Terra Cotta Jug Production Facility C-35 if not a tool for producing pots on a scale that requires collective effort? Yet the humans who work at the PTCJPF C-35 are allowed to take clay from the vast deposits. Why are other people attempting to take a far smaller amount of clay from the same deposit to be subjected to head smashing?


Phred

[Red Barn]

"People" are subjected to anything. It's just you, Phred. You personally, and you alone.

Everybody else is fine.

[Decky]

That's how it starts Red Barn and before you know it you are sitting in a nice office in the Kremlin purging that workers paradise of thousands of enemies of the people.

[Phred]

"People" are subjected to anything. It's just you, Phred. You personally, and you alone.

Everybody else is fine.

Not my clay schlepper, according to you.

This is why arguing with a Left-Anarchist is pointless. They blithely contradict the arguments they make just hours previously, or pretend those arguments were just "jokes". They ignore substantive points and instead dive deep into the weeds while tossing over their shoulder tangential but verbose screeds. Anything to avoid having a principled discussion.

The fact of the matter is your personal disapproval of the way certain humans voluntarily and of their own free will choose to bring into existence goods of value to humans is used as justification to exert whatever level of violence is required to stop those humans from bringing those goods into existence. This is why - without exception - every single attempt to establish a society based on the precepts of Marxian ideology has devolved into an authoritarian and totalitarian slave pit. The protest that "These societies aren't/weren't real examples of Marxism/Leninism/Communism/Left-Anarchism at all. They were doing it wrong. But when we seize the reigns of power, we'll do it right!" is heard over and over again because those chanting it can't grasp that the only way to prevent humans from acting in the way Eran and I and taxizen and others describe is by forcibly preventing them from doing so. And so the next Collectivist slave pen is established. And the next. And the next.

***edit***

That's how it starts Red Barn and before you know it you are sitting in a nice office in the Kremlin purging that workers paradise of thousands of enemies of the people.

See - Decky at least has the guts to be honest about it.


Phred

[Red Barn]

That's how it starts Red Barn and before you know it you are sitting in a nice office in the Kremlin purging that workers paradise of thousands of enemies of the people.

Actually, Decky, I'm not planning to kill Phred in any sort of official capacity. I plan to act entirely alone, and off him in a momentary fit of uncontrollable irritation.

Of course, the whole nightmarish episode will win me masses of sympathy once all the facts are revealed, and I'll then be packed off for a couple of weeks at one of those very nice Norway-style summer camp/prisons, where I can eat lots of potato pancakes and catch up on my correspondence.



You see? Care Bear Leftism has its upside too.

[Decky]

*Scribbles something down in a notebook*

Yes comrade, yes I do.

[anticlimacus]

This is why arguing with a Left-Anarchist is pointless.

I think what has happened here is that you thought you had a stellar argument to completely deconstruct the libertarian socialist tradition, which has been longstanding for nearly 200 years. After being repeatedly shown the fallacy of your conclusions and being answered at every step of the way, you have resorted to simply repeating yourself and saying we cannot argue, etc. It's a classic diversion: if you have no point or your point has been diffused, simply talk about the one you are arguing with and call them names and just say that have not really answered your question. I think everybody here recognizes that all your points have been addressed numerous times. It is pointless to keep addressing them because you will just once again find another way to ask the same question and then wonder why it hasn't yet been answered. This is like arguing with a black hole.

every single attempt to establish a society based on the precepts of Marxian ideology

Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin etc. (the classic anarchists) were not Marxists. I have even provided a key 20th century example of anarcho-syndicalism (anarchist Spain), but for some reason you ignore all this. This is just revealing the straw man that you are trying to compose and then swat down. But I will say this, being influenced by Marx (who was a brilliant thinker), as I am, does not mean you ascribe to everything Marx said or that you don't read Marx critically.