On 07/11/2017 04:25 PM, juan wrote:
On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 11:31:23 -0400 Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> wrote:
On 07/11/2017 10:59 AM, Razer wrote:
CrimetInc Ex-Worker Podcast #18: "What Anarchism Isn’t, Pt 1: Libertarianism and Anarcho-Capitalism"
With transcript: https://crimethinc.com/podcast/18
No time to play the podcast right now (though I will later) - but here's my "elevator speech" on the AnCap Bullshit:
"Capitalism can not exist without armed State authorities to define and enforce the so-called rights of absentee landlords. Anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction in terms, just a super fashionable name for direct rule by gangs of billionaires who get to do literally anything they want."
The only reason to add the prefix an- or anarcho- to the name of a 19th century political theory or ideology is to make it sound hip and fashionable.
modern 'anarcho capitalists' are fucking idiots, fake libertarians, corporate apologists and the like.
However, the liberal tradition based on common sense morality, rights to life, liberty and property, and its obvious anarchist (no state) conclusion isn't just a '19th' century political theory'. Not sure what you want to accomplish with that label...
"Liberal" is such a broadly defined term that I don't think of it as a political or economic theory so much as a propaganda buzzword roughly meaning "socially permissive in a good sense." In propaganda advocating for Liberalism its connotations include generosity, fairness and tolerance. In propaganda advocating against Liberalism its connotations include naivety, larceny and evil. When I say "19th century" political and economic theory, I generally mean Capitalism, Communism and hybrid variants like Socialism - not because they were invented then, but because they became widely known and instances were implemented about then, as adaptations to the Industrial Revolution.
"A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society, and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. "
See? That's liberal anarchism. And that's not from the 19th century. That's paine's "Rights of Man" - 1791 - so it's 18th century.
That sounds like Anarchism to me.
And here's some more 18th century stuff
"... to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"
That sounds like Representative Democracy. In a society that consistently teaches and promotes Anarchism it might work, as long as the units of governance do not exceed a scale permitting "ordinary people" to observe and understand the activities of State and private power centers on a continuing basis, enabling effective feedback via both the ballot box /and/ direct action on the ground.
So, now, get this : no fucking CONSENT, no government. And of course the government created by the supreme scumabag(s) who wrote that was and is one the most corrupt and hypocritical tyrannys in history.
But regardless of the frauds involved with it, liberal/libertarian anarchism is a pretty solid 'theory'.
Oh, those bothersome buzzwords! Unless one explicitly defines them, they tend to mean whatever promoters and their audiences wants them to mean, in a self congratulatory context. In propaganda application as Identity Politics brand labels, "Liberal" and "Libertarian" often mean approximately opposite things in practical application: Liberal generally suggests a preference for a Nanny State that devotes itself to providing a comprehensive safety net to assure that nobody suffers poverty or persecution. This general idea gets a lot of support from people with a deep investment in social conformity and highly formalized status hierarchies i.e. academic degrees as a basis for employment discrimination. Libertarian generally suggests a minimalist State that only arbitrates disputes between members of an economic ruling class, leaving everything but tort law (and its enforcement at gunpoint) to the private sector. This general idea gets a lot of support from our "temporarily embarrassed millionaires": Me-first individualists who just know that if their inferiors stopped conspiring to keep them down, they would accomplish Great Things. I do not think of Anarchism as a form of government or economics. Rather, I consider it a body of theory and practice relevant to resisting the concentration and abuse of power in the hands of an elite minority. Humans do compete for dominance, some more than others, and once a specialized ruling class has acquired control of significant territory and its inhabitants, a feedback cycle sets in that continues to concentrate more power in fewer hands. This process does not end well, and restraining it by what some call "direct democracy" may delay or prevent the worst abuses of power. Among all these ideas, I really want to promote the a definition of Anarchism as a theory of politics and economics as a dynamic system of power relationships between and among competing groups, with emphasis on methods for redistributing power down the status hierarchy, preventing dominance by elite minorities to the fullest practicable extent. As such, Anarchism provides a general purpose tool kit for troubleshooting and attempting to repair Utopian political/economic regimes. :o)