On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 04:22:59AM -0400, Kevin Gallagher wrote:
Here is where I start to have questions. To my understanding, anarchy is the rejection of heirarchies.
Assertions (such as this e.g.) are easy to throw out. The trick is to catch yourself using, speaking, or projecting any assertion, and so "to my understanding" was a -great- prefix which we don't often see used. *) On "the food chain" there is a natural hierarchy, e.g.: - water, air and soil -> microbiome -> plants -> animals/fish -> humans (Yes some humans stop lower on the food chain hierarchy than others - doesn't change the existence of the hierarchy.) Anarchists are typically fond of affirming self evident facts, at least where there might be any doubt :) *) Software hiearchies are abundant - the hiearchy of addressing page tables and a zillion (precise number) more such hierarchies. *) Every second level contract implies a hierarchy: E.g. you and I make a contract - you pay me in food, I create a website for you, then I go and sub-contract the website development out to a graphic artist, JS coder and DB admin. Here's probably what we could all agree on: Hierarchy's by fiat are almost always worthy of rejection. Even a so-called "benevolent dictatorship", if it is at all imposed, rather than entirely "by the free will of all involved" therefore has some element of coercion (since it's not entirely "by free will") and therefore such a hierarchy, --by definition-- can never be truly benevolent. (At least, some would say.)
Isn't anarcho-capitalism therefore an oxymoron?
If everything is entirely voluntary, everyone is well educated and therefore no one enters into fundamentally unfair/enslaving "free will contracts", then no, there is no oxymoron - but that's a lot of pre-conditions required to establish such an utopia :D
The existence of currency inherently creates a heirarchy based on the amount of currency one owns, does it not?
Yes. But only if the "right" to print/mint/coin/issue currency is a by-fiat right (e.g. punishable by statutory crime for "violation" of the rule). It might seem a sort of awkward conversation, but that's because it is, and it is because we are essentially uneducated in what anachism even means, and so we use old-world concepts, and easily get misunderstood (even IF we are "clear in our own mind") :) HTH and good luck,