Welcome To Anarchast!

Kurt Buff kurt.buff at gmail.com
Wed Jul 12 12:08:00 PDT 2017


On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 7:13 AM, Kevin Gallagher
<kevin.gallagher at nyu.edu> wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for your replies!
>
> On Jul 11, 2017 9:16 PM, "Kurt Buff" <kurt.buff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 1:22 AM, Kevin Gallagher
> <kevin.gallagher at nyu.edu> wrote:
>> Here is where I start to have questions. To my understanding, anarchy is
>> the
>> rejection of heirarchies. Isn't anarcho-capitalism therefore an oxymoron?
>
> No, anarcho-capitalism is grounded in the understanding that free
> trade among free people is a the only road to peace and prosperity.
> People arrange themselves in hierarchies all the time, and it's no
> crime if they do so freely.
>
>
> For the life of me I can't think of any heirarchies that aren't, at least in
> part, founded on deceit or force (or both). Can you please give an example
> of one?

Go into almost any small business with a few employees. By small, I
mean under 500 employees. If the employees are happy, you have your
answer.

> It's often a benefit. This is as opposed
> to anarcho-syndicalism or various other flavors of anarchism, which
> are grounded in the belief that money and trade are evil and that love
> and unicorn farts are sufficient to sustain life.
>
>
> I do not know these schools of anarchism, but that doesn't seem like a fair
> assessment.

It is fair.

>> The existence of currency inherently creates a heirarchy based on the
>> amount
>> of currency one owns, does it not?
>
> No, it does not. There are lots of things to unpack in that
> statemen/questiont, but I'll just mention two:
>      - Currency isn't money, as such
>      - Fiat currency creation is used by anti-capitalist forces to
> enrich the few at the expense of the rest of us, destroying capital in
> the process.
>
>
> Reading some Murray Rothbard or Ludwig von Mises for starters, would
> be an eye opener for you.
>
>
> Fair enough. I will give some of this a read. If I have any questions, can I
> reach out to you after I have read some?


Sure. If you're really going to read, I'd start with
https://www.mises.org. In particular, if you're looking for a quick
start, you could do worse than these, which are all free, and
available in several formats:
     The Anatomy of the State:
     https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state
     Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays
     https://mises.org/library/egalitarianism-revolt-against-nature-and-other-essays
     For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto:
     https://mises.org/library/new-liberty-libertarian-manifesto
    What Has Government Done to Our Money?
     https://mises.org/library/what-has-government-done-our-money

If you want the master works, then these are the place to dive in - again, free:
     Human Action:
     https://mises.org/library/human-action-0
     Man, Economy and State, with Power and Market
     https://mises.org/library/man-economy-and-state-power-and-market



Kurt



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