Why left-anarchism is a pile of nonsense

[AynMisesLibertarian]

I have seen there are people here who claim to be "Libertarian Socialist" or "socialist anarchist"

obviously I believe that "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism." so non-capitalist anarchism/libertarianism is a oxymoron

Collective ownership of the means of production has been tried. And it still exists. And it's typically worse than the private alternatives.

And Catalonia?

In Catalonia, while the libertarian socialists had power, the entertainment industry was socialized, but for some time the collectives were left with substantial real power over their individual theaters, so that in practice this was closer to collectivization than socialization, which meant that at first there was a free market in entertainment -- at first the people went to see what they wanted to see, rather than what their masters decided would be good for them to see. Naturally they wanted to see certain singers and not others. The theater industry democratically and freely voted that everyone would have the same wage: 15 pesetas, long holidays, and lots of benefits. Blood of Spain, page 222:

As a demonstration of the efforts being made, let it be realized that the greatest of opera singers, like Hipolito Lazaro, and the most humble of workers are going to get the same daily wage.
Blood of Spain, page 224 then quotes Hipolito Lazaro as saying to the Tivoli theater collective:

We are all equal now, and to prove it we all get the same wage. Fine, since we are equal, today I am going to collect the tickets at the door, and one of you can come up here and sing.
After a spot of haggling, his pay went up to 750 pesetas. Someone else got 500 pesetas, and everyone else got the short end of the stick. So if you have liberty, you will not have equality. He was able to get 750 pesetas because he was free to leave or to refuse to work as directed, same reason as I get rather good pay today.

If the workers are free to organize as they choose and use capital as they choose, they will use it for profit, and you will have a free market system that will turn back into capitalism in two or three years -- indeed it only took two or three months for alarmingly powerful signs of capitalism to reappear in Catalonia.

If this problem is solved by "coordination" that forcibly prevents them from acting in the way most profitable to each particular person or small group, then you have a single all powerful monopoly state, and it is back to the killing fields, as also happened in Catalonia.

Some of the anarchists were sincere, and genuinely sought to find a middle course between capitalism on the one hand and killing fields on the other hand.

They did not find it, despite vast and varied experimentation both with free markets and with killing fields.

Capitalism in Catalonia

[AynMisesLibertarian]

How an Economy Grows, and Why It Doesn't - Imgur

[Vivisectus]

Yup. Collectivism is not the best system. And? Do you think that anyone who does not follow your system thinks that collectivism / stalinist communism is the best?

If not, then what the heck are you talking about?

[Watser?]

Look, we've been over this: get your own name for whatever the fuck you want to call the pile of garbage you are selling, anarchism is taken and has been for way over a century.

Also: weren't you leaving and wanting us to develop cancer?

[ChuckF]

I am almost convinced but I would like to see some more material pasted from elsewhere before making up my mind.

[davidm]

Didn't you steal some shit off the Internet and post it up under your own name, thereby violating someone else's property rights?

Also, how is your planned NYC Taxi Empire working out for you? Aside from the car and the yellow paint, have you saved up the $800,000 + that you'll need for the medallon?

[AynMisesLibertarian]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

If not, then what the heck are you talking about?

because there are here people (Nullifidian,The Man and other) who proclaimed that left-anarchism is a valid political theory and not just mental masturbation for the whitest 16years old

one of them pointed "anarchist catalonia" as a successful RL example to follow

[Vivisectus]

Ah ok then - I shall look forward to their response with keen interest!

[Kael]

Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian

How an Economy Grows, and Why It Doesn't - Imgur

I like how living off of other people's labor via tax-funded welfare (regardless of the reasons) for the rest of your days is terrible wasteful sloth - but living the rest of your days off other people's labor via monopolized capital assets (regardless of how you got them) rented out in perpetuity makes you the pillar of the community to whose entrepreneurial genius society owes all.

Also, consumption loans are bad, m'kay guys?

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian

I have seen there are people here who claim to be "Libertarian Socialist" or "socialist anarchist"

obviously I believe that "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism."

So that's a quote from Murray Rothbard. But that you "obviously believe" what Murray Rothbard says, doesn't explain as to Why left-anarchism is a pile of nonsense, supposedly.

I can quote Bakunin about collectivist anarchism, does that make other forms of anarchism piles of nonsense?

Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian

so non-capitalist anarchism/libertarianism is a oxymoron

If Anarchism was expressed in only one way, and that way was the one you advocated, sure. But it isn't. There are, unsurprisingly, various branches of Anarchism, of which Anarcho-capitalism is one.

Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian

Collective ownership of the means of production has been tried. And it still exists. And it's typically worse than the private alternatives.

How exactly are worker's collectives typically worse than the private alternatives? What is the empirical basis for "worse"? Economic success? There are examples today that are successful- Kantega for one, the Mondragon Corporation for another; you claim to be living in Italy, and Italy has over 8,000 cooperatives in the Emilia-Romagna region- and has had numerous cooperatives for over 100 years. Indian Coffee House has 400 locations in India, and is a worker-owned collective, operating since the late 1950's.

To use facts and logic- which you claim are the hallmarks of your ilk- you have the burden to show how empirically worker's collectives do not succeed at the same rate privately-owned businesses do, are not as profitable, have less equitable working environments, etc. Do you have any empirical evidence that shows anything like that?

Do you have any examples of Anarcho-capitalist businesses currently or historically functioning? Has it been tried? Does it currently exist? How's that working out then?

And while we're here, how do Anarcho-capitalists distinguish between what they see as the inherent violence/ aggression of state control and regulation over property and markets, and then somehow believe that the private control over property and markets does not have inherent violence and aggression? If I am beaten by a servant of the state, do I bruise differently if I am beaten by a servant of a privately held business? If the government regulation regarding emissions negatively influences the profitability of my new Widget start-up, am I rightfully outraged, whereas if Widgets-R-Us sells at a loss for a year to drive me out of business, well that's just the market and I can only blame myself?

To me this seems to be a key component missing to Anarcho-capitalism; as well to ignore the history of Anarchism and its repeated rejection of capitalism and the profit motive in primacy- looks like you and Rothbard may have appropriated a term and then declared all past and current definitions other than your own as false. Hubris alert!

[livius drusus]

Emilia is super Red and has been since the war. They have some of the most innovative social programs in the world and, in a total coincidence I'm sure, one of the highest standards of living. We lived there until I was five.

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by AynMisesLibertarian

because there are here people (Nullifidian,The Man and other) who proclaimed that left-anarchism is a valid political theory

And nothing you've posted so far has addressed that. Just because you believe that "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism" doesn't make it so. For one thing, you have yet to establish that 'anarcho-capitalism' would even be functional given the problem of enforcing contracts. You will also have to deal with how to justify the concept of property if the State is to be abolished. "You made it, so you own it" is of limited use here, because many things exist as property which are not the result of manufacture, like land, water, and crops.

As far as your copypasta about Catalunya, neither TheMan nor I have mentioned it in any of your threads. The only person who has is Gooch's dad, who is not to my knowledge an anarchist.

Your choice of material is ironic, however, because it undermines your claims about the inevitability of anarcho-capitalism: to wit, "So if you have liberty, you will not have equality." Anarchism is a fundamentally egalitarian and anti-hierarchical political position. If you have hierarchies within your system, then the result is not anarchism, whether the existing government is abolished or not.

The best demonstration that anarcho-capitalism is incoherent is nicely laid out by the author of the article you linked to:

Entrepreneurs do not exercise power because they own capital. They mostly do not. They exercise power over other people's capital and other people's labor, because they made it pay better than others, so other people chose to put assets in their power, and other people chose to work for them.

Leaving aside the largely semantic distinction of owning capital and operating it for profit, and operating privately owned capital for profit on behalf of a third party, the central notion is that workers and owners get together and the workers voluntarily choose their employers. Is this so? Not hardly.

Because not only the capital but also the land, water, crops, and other things necessary to survival are privatized, and I'm not getting an annual stipend sufficient to keep me fed, clothed, and housed, I am not free to choose to work for an employer. I must work or starve and go homeless. There may be a choice of employers (though this is not in itself necessarily true, or meaningful), but fundamentally I must seek out employment. The owners know this, so our dealings with each other are fundamentally unequal. They need only pay me enough to keep me on my feet each day, whereas I cannot leverage anything except my acceptance of their terms to drive up the wage I earn. They make tens or hundreds of times more than I do. They will not starve. They make so much that they can prevent me from drawing a salary until I'm near starvation and my will is broken.

So how does that lead to anything else but the most egregious, oppressive entrenched hierarchies?

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by Kael

I like how living off of other people's labor via tax-funded welfare (regardless of the reasons) for the rest of your days is terrible wasteful sloth - but living the rest of your days off other people's labor via monopolized capital assets (regardless of how you got them) rented out in perpetuity makes you the pillar of the community to whose entrepreneurial genius society owes all.

Also, consumption loans are bad, m'kay guys?

That there lolbertarian Chick Tract (full credit to Watser?) would have be perfect had the illustrator given Baker and Charlie dark black skin, gleaming white eyeballs and teeth, ceremonial African head dresses and bones through their noses. Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell and Ron "I don't believe in evolution cuz it's just a theory" Paul would be badly disappointed.

[Vivisectus]

How would anarcho-capitalism work anyway? Anarchism as I understand it rejects authority of institutions over individuals as oppressive and unnecessary. Personally, I think a lot of these institutions are here for a reason - they allow us to buy relative security in exchange for reduced freedom.

But how can you have capitalism and anarchy at the same time? Capitalism requires some institution to enforce property rights. It needs a framework to exist in. If it is not contained in a legal framework, then the underlying golden rule - get as much as you can in exchange for as little as possible - will quickly lead to violence, because armed young men are relatively cheap.

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

That there lolbertarian Chick Tract (full credit to Watser?) would have be perfect had the illustrator given Baker and Charlie dark black skin, gleaming white eyeballs and teeth, ceremonial African head dresses and bones through their noses. Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell and Ron "I don't believe in evolution cuz it's just a theory" Paul would be badly disappointed.

I like that the loan of fish while the other fishermen make their own nets is at 100% interest. I also like the "greed is a force for social good" message, which postulates that in capitalism, to gain wealth the greedy have to provide more income for everyone. Magically! I guess that's how the labor movement started- everyone was having their income increase, and they had a lot of free time to get pissed about how great things were in CompanyTown . Now I know so much more.

[Kael]

The most bemusing thing, for me, that comes out of pro-Capitalist propaganda in general and lolbertarians in particular is the completely back-assward idea that investment capital is what drives a free-market economy. Investment is like the fancy corner penthouse of Capitalism, not the foundation. Consumption is the foundation, as is so clearly evinced by every recession and depression in the history of any market anywhere ever that it strains credibility to imagine that most peddlers of this nonsense don't know any better. Without a solid foundation of consumption, nobody's going to invest. It's just that simple. Sure, investment can help an already strong economy grow bigger, but it's the icing, not the cake, if I might be permitted to torture another metaphor. Consumers = buyers, and no one's going to invest in a market that has no buyers, nor is trying to encourage people to make such a bone-headed move going to magically produce consumers for their new investment.

So, I can only assume that the reason this canard gets kicked around so much is some combination of ignorance, deliberate misinformation, and pure gullible idiocy.

[Cliche Guevara]

Ahh, yes, communism... man exploiting man in the worst possible way. At least with capitalism it's the other way around...

[Cliche Guevara]

John Cleese explains extremism: http://youtu.be/HLNhPMQnWu4

[Sauron]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

But how can you have capitalism and anarchy at the same time? Capitalism requires some institution to enforce property rights. It needs a framework to exist in. If it is not contained in a legal framework, then the underlying golden rule - get as much as you can in exchange for as little as possible - will quickly lead to violence, because armed young men are relatively cheap.

Exactly this. I don't think it's been phrased so succintly before. Well done.

Anarcho-capitalism is what Somalia has.* I wonder if our little randbot knows the old adage "Be careful what you wish for: you may get it."



*And of course, this was pointed out to AML before, on yet another thread where he made some claims about Somalia and then ran like a scared rabbit when he was confronted with actual data.

[LadyShea]

Anarcho-capitalism is what Somalia has

We have a pretty good model of it in Mexico too. The cartels can buy a lot more guns and people to use them than the government or any citizens' opposition can. They are operating as freely as I imagine is possible.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

cartels

That's the magic word for anarcho-capitalism, even if by some happy accident it doesn't devolve into full-blown Hobbesian chaos. Lolbertarians are quick to tout the virtues of unregulated competition despite the fact that competition is the last thing on earth anyone in the real world actually wants. Larger players will band together to destroy or consume smaller ones. Given sufficient time in a wholly unregulated environment, each and every market ends up either single-seller or the exclusive possession of a small cartel.

Christ, didn't these dumbasses ever see Rollerball?

[Vivisectus]

Actually, I think Libertarianism can only end in Empire. The small independent communities would encounter a predatory game-changer sooner or later, in the form of a community that specializes in violence to cheaply acquire the riches created by the rest.

In the great game of grab-what-you-can the person with the biggest stick wins, not the hardest worker or the greatest innovator.

[LadyShea]

In the great game of grab-what-you-can the person with the biggest stick wins, not the hardest worker or the greatest innovator.

Yep, when might makes right only might continues to matter.

[Escapegoat]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

Christ, didn't these dumbasses ever see Rollerball?

I think the markiemark remake may have missed the whole "corporate government" angle.


When I was a kid, I wanted to run "Luxury." they told me that it was the future, and I was planning to have a job in the future. I figured that would be a good one.