Anarcho-capitalism

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Tue Sep 6 01:15:14 PDT 2022


Talk:Anarcho-capitalism/Archive 5
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Talk:Anarcho-capitalism
Jump to navigation Jump to search
	This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents
of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old
one, please do so on the current talk page.
Contents

    1 Intellectual Property
    2 Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles
    3 Feb 9
    4 syndicate anarchists never quite
    5 Feb 29
    6 Wikipedia:Truce
    7 VV
    8 Some thoughts on the revert war
    9 Geographical limitations of anarcho-capitalism
    10 Compromise
    11 Resolution
    12 Wording
    13 New intro

Intellectual Property

I noticed that the article makes no mention of IP (patent, copyright,
or trademark). The anarcho-caps who I have spoken with do not consider
IP to be legit. However, I'm not familiar with the ideas of big-shot
theorists. I think that this is important since the article
(incorrectly) implies that anarcho-caps approve of all types of
property. IP is a big deal these days, and clarifying the anarcho-cap
position on IP is important. I suspect that this would be best in the
"justifications of property" section (Natural law vs. utilitarian),
but I did not read the article carefully, so I can't really say.
AdamRetchless 19:40, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

    N.B.: I agree that a section on intellectual property would be
quite worthwhile. For what it's worth, the market anarchist /
anarcho-capitalist tradition, and its precursors, is divided on the
issue: Lysander Spooner and Hebert Spencer defended both copyright and
patents (indeed, argued that existing copyright and patent law was not
strong enough); Murray Rothbard defended copyright but denounced
patent; and Benjamin Tucker, "Tak Kak" (James L. Walker), Tom Palmer,
Roderick Long and others have argued against both copyright and patent
on libertarian grounds. I don't have much to contribute in the way of
the actual writing of the section at present, but mayhap someone else
will--or I will sometime in the not-too-distant future. For some
background, cf. Copyright and Patent in Liberty, Man, Economy, and
State ch. 10 § 7, The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property
Rights, etc. Radgeek 20:22, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles

Does anyone else want to take this? An anonymous user keeps putting in
dubious edits, and I've tried to accommodate them by adapting some,
but then s/he keeps putting in more, and I'm tiring of the process.
I'm not even very sympathetic to anarcho-capitalism (I just want it
fairly portrayed); maybe someone who is would be more motivated to
defend this page. There seem to be three separate issues, the first
being whether anarcho-capitalists should be called anarchists; but
this is discussed in the intro already, perhaps too much. The second,
more complex issue is the anon adding in words such as that ancaps
favor "supposed free markets" and "ostensibly voluntary contracts", to
imply that free markets are not what they are always defined as, and
so on. As part of this he argues defense of one's property is
aggression and therefore it cannot be considered a "negative right".
This seems to me like an anti-property POV, since that is not the
usual meaning. The third, related to the second, pertains to the claim
that there is no history of ancap violence to impose their view, which
is true (there have been so such violent revolutions attempted), but
is denied by the anon since these people might have used violence to
defend their property, which thus is to "impose their view". These
counterclaims are problematic because (a) just about any system, even
worker-owned farming, allows for self-defense of (perhaps collective)
property; (b) defending one's property in a non-ideal world does not
mean trying to impose a different system. Maybe this is a bad summary,
but hopefully it communicates the gist. -- VV 11:45, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

    I should add a fourth point. He keeps changing the reference to
the American Revolution from one of people fighting for their
liberties to one of wealthy people fighting for their property.
Besides being an obviously biased characterization, it doesn't make
sense in context when written like this. -- VV 22:07, 14 Nov 2003
(UTC)

        I would be happy to discuss this myself VV, and have been
trying to discuss it with you for some time on the dicussion page for
anarcho-capitalism. For the first point I'm not sure what to say,
making it clear that the claims that capitalism is a form of anarchism
are controversial seems like straight forward honesty to me. I'm not
trying to declare that one view or the other is superior in the
context of that page. One the second point, you say that your use of
free market is what it "always" means. But that is clearly false. A
reading of most any individualist anarchist (say Tucker or Spooner)
will tell you that by free market they themselves meant a market free
from usury in the case of the former and wage labor in the case of the
latter. Thus this meaning is not universal, and specifically referring
to capitalist support of a market free from state interferance would
clear up any misunderstanding. As for defense of "ones property," it
can in be viewed as aggression by many people, you probably often view
it as aggression yourself at times. For example, if some joe claims
the earth as his property, and shoots anyone who tresspasses on it, we
would generally view his act as aggression due to the fact that his
claim is not legitimate. Given that many people contest the legitimacy
of capitalist property claims (indeed, often capitalists contest the
legitimacy of claims made by other capitalists) it is biased to assume
that claims made by capitalists and enforced with violence will never
be aggression according to the people finding themselves starring down
the barrel of a gun. To assume that all anarcho-capitalist property
claims are legitimate to all people is to assert that either A) there
is no dissent (which is false) or B) any dissent is without merit
(which is heavily biased in favor of anarcho-capitalism and a
violation of NPOV). For your third point, you appear to be familiar
with anarcho-capitalist forums like ASC. Given that, you have probably
already seen posts where individuals give their experiences in
upholding their property claims by using violence. Whether you
consider that violence to be defensive or aggressive depends on your
view of the claim, as discussed above. As such, it is presumptive to
claim that there is no history of violence used to impose
anarcho-capitalist economics on others, unless you are trying to claim
that the capitalist position is universal and without worthy
objection. For your fourth point, as with the above, you never
discussed it. I'm happy to let that one go if it is so important to
you, I simply felt that it was important to clarify the business
interests of those who financially backed the revolution, and the
benefit that its success had for them. Kevin 11/16/03

    1. It is already made clear in the third paragraph that capitalism
as anarchism is disputed (it even says by most anarchists, which seems
pretty strong); it does not need to be stated again and again.

        Of course not, but no one is attempting to restate this, none
of the edits do restate it. All the edits have done is strive toward
neutral language that does not assume the dispute is already settled
in favor of the anarcho-capitalist interpretation. - Kev

2. I'm willing to add "(in the sense of free from state interference)"
to the "free market" phrase, but that term is an important one used by
capitalists and should be noted.

        Fine, as long as your define your terms to avoid confusion. - Kev

For the other points, your additions are generally redundant attempts
to repeatedly negatively portray the view.

        They are attempts to hold to a consistent standard of neutral
language, rather than to constantly revert back to the assumption that
capitalism is in fact compatible with anarchism regardless of views to
the contrary. Why you think consistency is "redundant" is beyond me.
-Kev

What's wrong with "They consider capitalist corporations based on
voluntary contracts as a legitimate..."? Does this really need to be
"ostensibly voluntary", or "They consider capitalist what they
consider corporations based on ostensibly voluntary what they consider
contracts as a what they consider legitimate..."? This is all what
they consider the case.

        Sure, but the relationships they are referring to are one and
the same as the relationships that others are. The only difference is
that one side views these relationships as voluntary, while the other
does not. Since this is the main point of contention, it is far more
appropriate to place the emphasis on the voluntary claim, rather than
the entire claim in general. -Kev

Finally, considering security in one's possessions a "negative right"
is not inconsistent with the existence of conflicts in property
claims, just as belief that murderers should be imprisoned is not
inconsistent with disputes over who committed a certain murder.

        I don't see how I have claimed otherwise. I am merely pointing
out that what you consider to be a "negative right" for "protection"
of property others would consider to be a "positive right" for
"imposition" of property claims. Neither side has a monopoly on truth
here, both are making their own assumptions. The language should
reflect this fact. -Kev

3. I've never heard of ASC, but the distinction remains. A history of
violence to impose their view refers to bombing city hall or some such
to bring about an ancap order.

        Then please make this claim explicit. "A history of violence
to impose ones views" could easily and coherently be interpreted as
acts to impose property restrictions on others, even on an individual
basis. -Kev

If one uses violence to subdue a car thief, one is probably doing it
to keep one's car, not as part of a long-term goal to bring about an
ancap order through enforcing the property rights that would exist in
such an order, especially since those rights already exist in the
current legal order. Under your interpretation, we could go around
Wikipedia adding phrases like "Greenpeace activists have a long
history of violence" (one even beat up a burglar!).

        This is a false analogy on your part. Anarcho-capitalism
proposes and supports the use of inter-personal violence to resolve
property disputes. It further legitimates that violence when it is
done by certain actors in certain cases. Thus, when all of these
conditions are filled, it makes sense to assume that those proclaiming
to be anarcho-capitalists are acting as anarcho-capitalists when they
act in full accordance with the behavior dictated by their philosophy.
When greenpeace starts making the same kinds of claims, then yes of
course their supporters can be held accountable for their actions in
accordance with these claims. -Kev

4. Interpretations of the American Revolution vary enormously; stating
yours as fact is clearly wrong.

        There is a double standard here. The interpretation of the
american revolution that was present before my edit was itself stated
as though fact. If you find problem with mine, you should equally find
problem with theirs. If, that is, you are claiming to be consistent.
-Kev

Anyway, I will make another series of edits to try to adapt these
ideas (including the puzzling objection to the synthesis claim). -- VV
00:05, 17 Nov 2003 (UTC)


The article is about a point-of-view. Of course it's going to contain
things that others disagree with. To avoid a POV problem, the
anarcho-capitalism article should clearly label anarcho-capitalism as
a viewpoint. The article should explain the viewpoint and leave
contradictory viewpoints or other disagreements to the reader's
intelligence or a separate section in the article. It is stupid to
have an article that can't say anything about a viewpoint without
being overladen with contradictory adjectives or phrases and it
insults the reader's intelligence. – Olathe December 12, 2003

    If you would like to propose that the article be prefaced with the
"NPOV dispute" warning indefinitely, and that a note be added to the
beginning along the lines of "This article does not attempt neutrality
but rather to explicate a given viewpoint. As such, all of the
statements contained therein are to be taken as claims on the part of
anarcho-capitalists rather than undisputed facts." then I would not
object. In fact, as an alternative to the current dispute I have
already suggested this myself twice. However, I am under the
impression that one or more individuals did not accept this
alternative. In addition, it also undermines the stated "neutral point
of view" intent of wikipedia articles. I have also suggested the
splitting of the article into two sections, both detailing different
perspectives on anarcho-capitalism, but was under the impression that
one of these would be pushed into a "criticism" sub-section rather
than detailed as a second alternate viewpoint and given its own place
as an equal part of the page. Anyway, either of these paths is a fine
way to go in my own opinion, but if they are not acceptable to others
then grinding to a neutral pov presentation in language at least -
that is, a presentation that does not automatically rule out
dissenting views - is the only alternative I can think of. - Kev
12/12/03

        This is still listed on Wikipedia:Current disputes over
articles, but the page was getting too long to keep all the above
discussion there. Angela. 01:20, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

            In the last month, no one seems to have contended the
above points any further, so I have now removed it from
Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles. Angela. 13:24, Feb 21, 2004
(UTC)

Feb 9

All the changes I made today are reflected in the ongoing discussions
above, most of the points have stood for over a month now. The
exceptions are the following:

(though only for defensive purposes)

The claim that anarcho-capitalists will use military power only for
defensive purposes is not a fact, it is an opinion based on their
position. I do think the fact that they believe they would only use
military power for defensive purposes should be stated in the text,
but it must be clear that this is their assertion and not a fact,
because many would view their proposed uses of power as offensive in
nature.

(They also reject these forms of coercive control whether they are
exercised by state officials or by private agents; they oppose them
because they are violations of rights, not because they are committed
by governments.)

This is simply not true. Anarcho-capitalists support the application
of rent and enforcement of it by police forces, this is qualitatively
identical in some instances (not all) to the practice of statist
taxation. Similarly, many anarcho-capitalists believe that they would
be justified in engaging in war for a number of reasons. Finally, the
determination for what counts as "coercive" regulation and "coercive"
monopoly is entirely subjective. These terms need to be define
precisely, because many anarchists would view the existence of any
monopoly coercive, rather than only those forms of monopoly that don't
fit capitalist standards for rights.

For example, Spooner rejected wage labor, Tucker argued against usury
and described his project as "voluntary socialism," and Stirner argued
against the very application of property. Anarcho-capitalists, on the
other hand, emphasize the individualists' critique of collectivist
politics, and point out that the individualists denounced the use of
violence to oppose the economic relationships that they considered
exploitative.

I didn't remove this passage, but I would like to point out that it is
problematic. As it stands, the argument of the anarcho-capitalist is
left without response, adding such a response will inevitably lead to
another anarcho-capitalist response, and the whole thing will drag out
in the middle of the article. It may be best to remove this passage
and just leave it as this: Anarcho-capitalists typically claim them as
intellectual forbearers; anti-capitalist anarchists often argue
against the claim by noting that each of these individuals rejected
essential aspects of the modern capitalist marketplace.

I also removed the last part of the last sentence which refered to
voluntary transactions and free markets, as these terms were used to
mean explicitly different things by anarcho-capitalists and
individualist anarchists, thus equating the two traditions in this
context is misleading to the point of bordering on dishonesty.

All the other edits have already been discussed above and stood
without further challenge for some time. - Kevin 02/09/04
syndicate anarchists never quite

Anyone who's visited the Infoshop.org FAQ on syndicate anarchism will
know, syndicate anarchists prefer to debate by droning on and on,
restating the same things over and over again, and including
unnecessarily long quotes. They also like to try to confuse the reader
by not clearly explaining what they're talking about.

Syndicate anarchists think that they can win a debate by out-talking
their opponents, but any outside observers see this as simply
bullying.

To clear up a few points of dispute, and make a few suggestions. You
should consider mentioning Murray N. Rothbard and David Friedman
(*not* Milton Friedman) when discussing anarcho-capitalists.

If it's just a matter of 'mentioning,' you could well mention MILTON
Friedman, too. For many anarcho-caps, he played a role in the
formation of their views, however much that fact may dismay him. That
isn't limited to his son's case.

Morally, the anarcho-capitalist must adhere to the non-aggression
axiom, which is something that you should mention in your discussion
of them (the non-aggression axiom states that the only things which
should be preventable by force are the initiation of violence against
a person or his propety). Thus, the anarcho-capitalist cannot possibly
support an offensive war. Granted, certain private individuals in an
anarcho-capitalistic society could engage in offensive warfare.
However, anarcho-capitalists would see the violent opposition to this
as justified, though not the socialization of a response.

The link to panarchism is well-put. It follows from the non-aggression
axiom that anarcho-capitalists would permit any set of individuals to
live in their own societal arrangement, so long as they do not aggress
against the anarcho-capitalists. That means anarcho socialists could
live in Ingsoc right next to ancapville.
Feb 29

First of all, I pulled the neutrality header. It's been there for
months, surviving long periods of inactivity, and at this point after
all that's been hashed out serves no purpose.

    Until you came along and inserted a huge number of biased reverts
just now, sure. But now the header needs to go right back up, because
you are obssessed with ensuring that this article is strictly POV. -
Kev

Furthermore, I made more edits,

    You mean you made a huge slew of reverts, again, that is what
almost all of them were. - Kev

undoing some anti-ancap wording and deletion, but mostly doing things
long talked about. E.g., I've restored a version of the "synthesis"
claim, giving it a Radgeekian formulation, following his (and my)
argument that it is a fairly indisputable claim;

    I've addressed this argument to Rad Geek, feel free to respond
anytime. - Kev

I've left in the redundant "discards" caveat just to be sure. Another
area worthy of comment is in the "monopoly" section: I removed this
other argument because so far as I know it is not "[o]ne of the most
common criticisms...", but rather a criticism from a specific
viewpoint. -- VV 14:34, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

    This criticism is common in anarchist literature. Should it
surprise me that you don't know this? You also removed a part of the
article that further explicated the difference between individualism
and "anarcho-capitalism", feel like explaining that one? - Kev
03/01/04

I believe the synthesis claim is NPOV, and have not heard an argument
otherwise. I will not stand for you reverting everything I write. Your
criticism may be common in (left-)anarchist literature, but that does
not mean it is common. The other criticism is one common among
minarchists/libertarians/common guy/etc. As for removing the
individualist criticism, that is because this is not an article about
what ind-an's think, and insofar as this is the case the sentence is
redundant, as the difference is already noted in the previous
sentence. This view can be explained in an article on this subject.
Maybe you can tell me why you erased the opposition to private
violence, not merely state violence, which clarifies the ancap
philosophy. -- VV 22:15, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

    I already addressed the reasons why the synthesis claim is
unacceptable in my discussions with Rad Geek. I also addressed, in
detail, why the claim of being opposed to private violence is not
valid concerning a philosophy that justifies private violence in a
number of circumstances. If you can't be bothered to go back and read
the discussions that list all the reasons for the edits you have
summarily deleted/reverted then I'm hardly going to take the time to
stamp them out once again for your personal benefit.

    The criticism of anarcho-capitalism amounting to a de facto
monopoly exists in all sectors of anarchism other than ac, I think
that is quite common in this context. Just because the only criticisms
you hear come from the crowd you have repeatedly stated that you are
"sympathetic" to does not make them more common in general, just in
your experience. Nor does it make you some kind of expert on what the
common criticisms are. The individualist reply is necessary because
individualism is being contrasted with anarcho-capitalism, it is not
redundant to a previous sentence because of the need to clarify that
the term "free market" is being used in two different senses here. -
Kev 03/01/04

        I will not take you seriously if you call my efforts
"propaganda". The synthesis claim is so weak and caveated I can't
imagine you could oppose it on any non-ideological grounds. Your
objection can go in the objections section, I just don't think it's
the most common one; I'd do it myself but whatever edits I'd make
you'd just revert claiming they're biased. I added a note about the
free market terminology issue, not that it's helpful. -- VV 22:53, 1
Mar 2004 (UTC)

            You haven't taken me seriously in a long time VV. Just a
couple hours ago you reverted one of my edits, your SOLE justification
being that I was the one who called for it. "My" objection happens to
be shared by most anarchists, and it should go exactly where it is
with the other relevant objection. - Kev 03/01/04

                VV "Sole reason" - obviously untrue.

                    Okay, try sole stated reason, "but restoring this
sentence since absolutely no counter other than kev's accusations" -
Kev 03/01/04

                And what other anarchists think is less important than
you seem to realize, as this position stands against many views, not
just left-anarchism.

                    I'm not talking about left-anarchists in
particular, and what other anarchists think is very important in the
context of anarchism, which happens to be the context of this
conversation.

        And notions of "violence" vary enormously; some may claim that
me withholding my kidney from you would be "violence", but I might
still claim to be a pacifist. Ancaps' known strong opposition to
violence is important and central and should be noted. -- VV 22:55, 1
Mar 2004 (UTC)

            Of course. And when we note it, lets note exactly which
kinds of violence they are opposed to in order to ensure we don't
produce the kinds of misunderstandings you seem to be aware might
exist. They obviously don't oppose all private violence, so lets not
claim that they do. - Kev 03/01/04

                VV Again, read what I wrote. Conceptions of what
private violence is vary. Anyway, one can oppose violence and still
believe it is occasionally justified.

                    I read what you wrote the first time, my original
response applies. - Kev 03/01/04

                VV Your behavior is again proving to be very poor.
Completely removing the anti-violence stance of ancaps is not kosher.

                    Ancaps don't have an anti-violence stance. They
have a stance against some violence. You constantly criticise my
behavior, but apparently can't be bothered to hold a mirror to your
own. - Kev 03/01/04

                However, I am respecting Wikipedia's "three-revert per
day" rule (which you have broken as of now), so congratulations your
biased version gets to stay around for a bit. -- VV 23:58, 1 Mar 2004
(UTC)

                    Don't even get on a high horse with me. I have
voluntarily ceased to edit this page for weeks at a time on multiple
occasions just to deal with your constant barrage of edits even while
you continued your revert sprees in my absence. In the past you've
reverted this page as much as a dozen times in a single day, sometimes
without even attempting to discuss the issue while I have asked you to
please take a moment and talk. If you want to suddenly play nice and
be constructive for a change, I'd be happy to play along. You want to
suddenly start respecting wikipedia and its customs? Fine then, I
would be HAPPY to oblige. But you can take your holier than though
attitude and stick it where it belongs. - Kev 03/01/04

                        I'm not interested in your creative
interpretations of the edit history; since I was there, I'm not going
to be fooled. It is true you took voluntary leaves, but far from
"revert sprees" I attempted to find agreeable text in the interim.
However, since no matter what you accuse me variously of having an
agenda, creating propaganda, and harboring a grudge, my efforts were
unsurprisingly not appreciated. Ancaps do have an anti-violence
stance; deny that and you demonstrate your own, well..., this is
coming from someone who says left-anarchists oppose coercion. -- VV
02:17, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

                            Right, now merely denying what you assert
is coercion! I'm sorry, oh great VV, for ever having offended you.
Ancaps are not against all forms of violence, this is a fact, thus
denying that they are anti-violent perfectly valid, and certainly
doesn't count as me coercing anyone to do or not do anything. They are
against certain forms of violence, this is also a fact, and thus it
should be stated in the article. To say that they are against all
private violence is simply false. To say that they are against all
private violence that they view as illegitimate is true, but it is
also meaningless. So again, I implore you to detail what forms of
violence they are against if you are so keen on including their
alleged anti-violence in the article, rather than waste anymore of our
time coming up with excuses as to why I should just sit back and watch
as you misrepresent them. - Kev 03/02/04

You are not paying attention to what I said, given your gross
misinterpretation above, so I don't know why I bother. Do not simply
revert everything I do.

    I don't revert everything you do, and you have reverted at least
as many of my edits, so this is just more pandering on your part.

The counterargument you provided is a separate one, and should be seen
as such. Ancaps do oppose violence; conceding it is sometimes
necessary for defense does not change that.

    According to you and the ancaps, NOT according to everyone given
their extremely broad definition of "self" which happens to include
inanimate objects and items a person has never even seen in their
life. - Kev 03/02/04

        VV Most conceptions of non-violence include provisions for
self-defense; what this means obviously varies from person to person,
but it is still accurate to state that opposition to violence is a
central part of ancaps' belief system.

Their views on these matters are explained already in the article. The
analogy I made was the wording you so treasured as to insta-revert
every rewrite where the anarchy page says anarchists oppose coercive
control, when arguably they do not, depending on what you think of
coercion.

    WTF? I already replied that you might as well make the same
argument with government, it was a specious argument on your part. -
Kev 03/02/04

        VV No, it was a different argument. Yes, one could do the same
with government; that is another reason why your anti-violence
argument fails.

But to say that misses the point I've made a hundred times. I am aware
of your discussion with Radgeek, you did not refute the synthesis
claim,

    Of course I didn't refute it, I have a standing argument against
it which has yet to be put to rest. Until you do put it to rest, the
synthesis claim is bogus. - Kev 03/02/04

which has the advantage of not making the causal assumption you scream
so screechingly about. -- VV 21:53, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

    Scream screechingly... lol... Keep on working toward that
constructive dialogue VV, someday you will get there. - Kev 03/02/04

        VV Of course, I'm not going to bother responding to this. Nor
will I stand for your massive reverting of my contributions, whatever
you choose to call them. -- VV 23:54, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

            You mean my "massive" reverting of your own reverts? Of
course, when you revert it is a "contribution" or a "restoration".
This despite the fact that you initiated this latest series of
reverts. Whatever. - Kev 03/02/04


VeryVerily should be ashamed of himself for starting edit wars like
this. It is clear to me, as a neutral observer, that Kevehs is
absolutely right and VeryVerily is acting just abysmally. --
Richardchilton 20:59, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

VV I am continuing to restore my edits. Kev claims falsely they are
simply reverts of his work,

    I have not. I claimed that most of them were reverts, and the
history clearly shows that most of the times you changed this page you
changed it in order to revert a number of things, the fact that you
made one or two other edits in addition should hardly seem
consequential to you given that you completely write me off when I do
the same thing. - Kev 23:15, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

but in fact of the seven changes I made, only two were reverts to old versions,

    You seem to think that once you make an edit it doesn't matter
what happens, whether I edit it or not, you simply consider it a
revert once it has changed. But you have done a number of reverts,
even by your own admission, and the history page shows this clearly.
Further, every time I reverted I was very careful to keep every edit
you made that I had not already addressed on this page. Kev 23:15, 3
Mar 2004 (UTC)

in one case the restoration of deleted useful text

    That "useful text" happens to be explicitly false, and I have a
standing argument against it that you have not put to rest Kev 23:15,
3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

(the other the word state -> government). Kev did the same to my work
on the anarchism page,

    lol, once again, the history clearly shows that YOU were the one
who reverted my work repeatedly. The intro that you changed was
originally to an exact copy of a version previous to my edits. That is
called a revert VV, no matter how you try to make it look otherwise.
Kev 23:15, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

and it took another user intervening (working with my text)

    lol, that user worked with text I introduced as well, which is now
incorporated into the intro paragraph alongside "yours". But your
tunnel vision only sees what you do, you consistently ignore all my
edits, all my pleas, and all my attempts at addressing the issues
rather than getting bogged down in this tireless personal grudge you
have against me. Kev 23:15, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

to stop his repeated destruction of my proposed more neutral intro.

    Right. Lets see if Miguel backs up this bullshit claim that his
reason for intervening was to stop my "repeated destruction" of a more
neutral intro. You are so totally full of yourself VV, he intervened
to stop a revert war in the making, something you have a tendency to
get into very often regardless of the subject matter or the other
people involved.

He continues to incorrectly characterize himself as working hard and
me as merely reverting

    I did not say that you merely reverted, I said that you are mostly
reverting, and the page history backs me up on that. As for my own
edits, inbetween your reverts it just so happens that the page history
backs me up on that as well.

and seemingly is "counting" my reverts, even though he's had four per
day (in violation of the three-per-day guideline) two days in a row:
[1] [2] [3] [4] (yes, one letter uncapitalized, that's as much of a
non-revert it is), and similarly before.

    Once again, the page history clearly shows that as of the very
moment you declared you would start following the three-per-day
guideline I agree to do the same and have. Look for yourself. The fact
that I didn't follow that guideline previously, or expect you to, has
everything to do with your past behavior on this page. You never spoke
of or followed that guideline up until this most recent series of
events, and in fact in the past have reverted this page as many as a
dozen times in a single day. But the very MOMENT you agreed to follow
the guideline I said I would be happy to follow suit, and I have. But
go ahead VV, continue with your own propaganda of how you have done no
wrong. Kev 23:15, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It is clear it is not possible to work with him; I have been trying
different wording [5] (edits at bottom not mine) [6] [7], but he just
reverts everything. So, I have no choice but to revert to my version.

    You have the same choice now that you have always had. Account for
my objections. Don't simply move the words around so that they entail
the exact same problems that I'm objecting to, but actually read what
I have repeatedly written in great detail on this talk page and A)
discuss it, and B) account for it. But that is apparently beyond you,
so I will feel no guilt in continuing to revert your reverts. Kev
23:15, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

VV Also, for people who don't know, Richardchilton above is almost
certainly a sock puppet for HectorRodriguez and Lancemurdoch, who has
a well-known agenda against me. -- VV 22:02, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Truce

I highly reccomend this page. Sam Spade 03:29, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I feel I've been doing all I can. I left this article alone for a long
time when other users were on it, and came back and found he had put
his same-old biases into it, presumably outlasting the other users'
patience. I keep offering wording to address Kev's concerns, but he
just reverts and tells me what I'm putting in is "propaganda" (he
clearly does not AssumeGoodFaith), and I'm really starting to lose
patience. He consistently misrepresents the edit history, and it's
pretty clear at this point he has a personal bias to push: oddly, he
seems to despise anarcho-capitalism, but is obsessed with editing the
page about it to his liking (presumably to discredit it). I'm fairly
neutral on the politics, yet he claims I have an agenda. And he
attacks me and my motives personally repeatedly. How do you deal with
someone like that? As a measure, I've been restricting myself to the
three reverts per day; that has meant in practice he reverts four
times and it sits thus until the next day. -- VV 06:06, 4 Mar 2004
(UTC)

    Well, I have an opinion too, but the truth is following policy (as
it appears you are doing) is the only real soloution. Generally what
happens is one or more well meaning editors assume bad faith, and/or
disobeys policy, and everything goes to heck. I also dislike reverts,
and maybe its time for a Wikipedia:Requests for comment (or whatever
the next Wikipedia:Dispute resolution step is). Sam Spade 06:32, 4 Mar
2004 (UTC)

        Have you discussed this on Kev's user pages? Sam Spade 06:53,
4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Kevehs, VeryVerily, please knock off the revert war. Please discuss
your major points of disagreement in the talk page. -- Infrogmation
17:03, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

    This is the third time that a third party has asked VV and I to
cease this revert war. As such, I will, for the third time, cease to
edit or revert or in any way change this page for a single week. I
SINCERELY HOPE that VV takes the opportunity to actually discuss these
issues this time rather than simply reinstating his own edits and
letting the time go to waste. As always I am open to discussion of
each any every one of these issues. All my concerns are already on
this page or archived, but I will focus on repeating myself on any
issue that VV doesn't have the time or energy to read the talk page to
learn about. Kev 17:23, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

VV

VV is clearly holding some kind of personal grudge here. He REFUSES to
address the issues, and instead only comes to this talk page now in an
attempt to further discredit me. The page history demonstrates that
after months of discussion my edits remained unchallenged for 20 days.
VV then returned and reverted most of those edits, while editing a
few, without addressing any of my concerns. After a series of reverts
on both our parts I tried a complete edit once more (as I have done
many times in the past). VV kept a small number of these edits (he has
stated they are temporary) and reverted all the rest without ANY
discussion or a single edit on his part. Because all of my edits have
already been introduced on the talk page and are standing objections
that he refuses to attempt to address, I feel that his
reverting/deleting of most of them without even attempting to modify
the text or talk about the issue is totally uncalled for, so I
reverted it back. He then goes ape and accuses me of reverting this
page even as he subsequently reverts it himself several times. I'm
begining to think this page it going to have to be locked if things
continue like this, but I'm afraid he will just come back and continue
his personal crusade against what he calls "bad edits" the moment the
lock is over. Kev 17:14, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As I said above, I will cease to revert or edit this page for another
week in order to facilitate discussion. I have done this two times
before, I hope this time it does some good. I implore you VV, please
discuss these issues this time. You can say whatever you want about
me, but you KNOW that I've always been open to further discussion,
that I've always replied to any point you have brought up, and that
many times I have put some or all of my edits on hold pending
resolution of these issues. All I want is for this page to accurately
represent the theories it is contrasted with, and that requires
neutral language throughout. PLEASE make good use of this time, do not
merely use it to reinstate your edits again. Kev 17:23, 4 Mar 2004
(UTC)

    The page is protected, so no one is going to be editing it at the
moment. I have been addressing your points over and over again, and
you just say the same thing back to me. Further, you have also
repeatedly misinterpreted/misrepresented what I write, which gives me
the impression that you don't really pay attention to what I say
anyway. Your accusation that I am here to make propaganda, that I have
an agenda, and that I hold a grudge also belies any claim you have to
be listening to me. -- VV 19:50, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

        As you can see, I volunteered to cease editing before it was
protected, I had no idea it was going to be protected. You have not
addressed my points, that is why I "say the same thing" back to you. I
have not intentionally misrepresented a single thing that you have
written, and there has been misunderstanding on both sides. I did not
say that you are here to make propaganda, I said that you make
propaganda in regards to yourself. And you do, you constantly repeat
the same things over again concerning our conflict no matter how many
times I correct you, and you make gross generalizations that even you
know do not represent what is going on here. As I said before, your
agenda is clear from your history of user contributions, and if you
have no grudge against me then I have no idea why you focus on my
edits and call me out on the talk page so often. I'm sure from your
perspective it is just because I'm the only one doing bad edits or
something, but very often you have accepted the EXACT SAME EDITS from
other people. I think you should take a moment and note just how many
edit wars you have been in. Because the ONLY person I've ever been in
an edit war with is you, and only on the anarchism pages. You seem to
routinely involve yourself in these petty disputes all over wikipedia,
yet you paint me as some time of trouble maker. When are you going to
be ready to get off these BS personal attacks and actually talk about
the edits for once? Kev 20:22, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think you guys need mediation. Just my 2 cents. Sam Spade 02:51, 5
Mar 2004 (UTC)

    Okay, so what's going on with this? Have there been any
developments that are reflected on this talk page? Shouldn't we at
least list this page on "requests for comment"? - NYK 08:07, 15 Mar
2004 (UTC)

    So I gather that some sort of developments have occurred. Okay,
then, carry on. - NYK 04:15, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If this article is ever unfrozen, I submit that it might benefit by a
discussion of the means/end question. How do anarcho-caps propose that
their system be implemented? Do they vote or otherwise contribute to
political campaigns in the here and now to try to elect the least
restrictive govt., or do they consider any such participation a form
of selling out? If they don't vote, what DO they do to try to move the
world closer to their heart's desire? Look for uninhabited islands?


You are AMAZING VV. I volunteer not to edit the page, pleading with
you once again to take this opportunity to discuss this. The page is
then protected to prevent a continued revert war. And what is the
FIRST thing you do when it is unprotected? Did you even ATTEMPT
discussion in the mean time? Do you even try to edit the page?

No, and no. All you do is revert it the first opportunity you get.
Well I said I would wait a week, but since it was protected after I
said that I will give you another week. I will ask you AGAIN, for the
fourth time now, to work through this issues and stop with the
reverts. I implore you, AGAIN, to use this opportunity and not
squander it. Kev 04:21, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

    Apparently you are not satisfied that your version (which
consisted of reverting me) was up for twelve days. Anyway, I have been
discussing it on this page, for months upon months, offering various
compromising and attempting to answer your objections, and you simply
declare my objections irrelevant, do not really even pay attention to
what I say, and accuse me of pushing an agenda and writing propaganda
while you mischaracterize the edit and talk history. Excuse me if I do
find this process rewarding. Nevertheless, I will post yet again my
objections when I have more time later, if only for the benefit of
observers who might wonder what the fuss is. -- VV 07:29, 17 Mar 2004
(UTC)

        I was the first to object when this page was protected, and I
was the only person to ask that the protection be removed. I don't
give a damn how long your mangled version is up, as long as you are
willing to put forth even the smallest of effort in working toward a
resolution rather than enforcing your will. You could have taken any
of those twelve days, or the preceeded two months before it, to
actually address my arguments. But instead you focused time and again
on me personally, making clear what your real problem is.
        Of course maybe you forgot already the previous 2 times that I
had already volunteered to stop editing this article for a week and
allow your version to stand pending discussion, or the fact that I had
again volunteered to stop for yet another week before it was
protected, which would have again allowed your version to stand
another 7 days. Or maybe you are looking past the fact that yet again
I have ceased to edit it and allowed your version to stand. Maybe you
are looking past the fact that the reason it is no longer protected
atm is because I volunteered not to edit it (something you sure as
hell never bothered to do). You really want to ignore all of that,
pushing only the evidence that supports your personal take on things,
and tell me that you are not engaging in propaganda? Next time, just a
suggestion, why don't you actually consider detailing your arguments
BEFORE you engage in a revert right after the page has been protected
in order to STOP THOSE VERY REVERTS! Kev 09:07, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Some thoughts on the revert war

I just got done looking at the last version of the article that Kev
posted, and the differences that it had with respect to VV's edit. And
I was wondering if I was the only one who thought the most differences
between the two were almost insignificant? They amounted to nothing
more than how forcefully one stated the opinion of the
anarcho-capitalists. Maybe it would be better for all if we made it
clear when something being stated in the article is only the opinion
of the anarcho-capitalists.

For instance, one place that I agree with Kev is his change to the paragraph:

VV's version:

    Thus, anarcho-capitalism is a variety of anarchism, in the sense
that it rejects the state. They reject all forms of state control —
including taxation, coercive regulation, war, and coercive monopoly on
the use of defensive force — as violations of essential individual
rights. They also reject these forms of coercive control whether they
are exercised by state officials or by private agents; they oppose
them because they are violations of rights, not because they are
committed by governments.

Kev's version:

    Thus, anarcho-capitalists hold their position to be a form of
anarchism in the sense of a rejection of statism. They reject all
forms of state control — including taxation, coercive regulation, war,
and coercive monopoly on the use of defensive force — as violations of
essential individual rights.

Who say's that anarcho-capitalism is a version of anarchism? IMO
that's nothing more than the POV of the anarcho-capitalist, since the
libertarian socialist believes anarchism to be more than just a
society without a state-government. So it should be clear in the
paragraph, that this is only what the anarcho-capitalists believe.

I don't like how Kev removed the last sentance completely, but in its
current state, it also is not a NPOV. Maybe we can change it so that
it is more neutral:

    Anarcho-capitalists argue that they also reject these forms of
coercive control whether they are exercised by state officials or by
private agents. In the opinion of the anarcho-capitalist they are
violations of rights, regardless of if they are committed by state
governments.

I can't see why anyone would object to pointing out that these things
are the opinion of the anarcho-capitalist, unless someone were simply
trying to turn this wikipedia article into a propaganda campain for
anarcho-capitalism. millerc 20:45, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

        I agree with a lot of what you say, millerc. I was trying to
get my brain around the source of the edit war a while back, but I was
surprised at how few substantial points are being argued over.
Personally, I don't see the problem with starting a paragraph
"anarcho-capitalists hold their position to be ..." but it gets a
little ridiculous to restate that multiple times through the course of
the paragraph. I don't see the problem with VV's final sentence here.
- NYK 01:17, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Geographical limitations of anarcho-capitalism

It should though be noted that anarcho-capitalism is pretty much an
American social phenomenon. It has little to no support on a sizable
level in Europe or elsewhere. This is not a value judgement of the
philosophy but I beleive it to be true. It would be helpful to the
page to list such a fact.-GrazingshipIV 20:51, Mar 22, 2004 (UTC)

        I can't agree with stating it that way. I'm pretty sure that
no form of anarchism has support on a sizeable level anywhere in the
world right now. It would be misleading to say something that implies
this is not the case. - NYK 01:17, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

    I agree. This is also why some Americans get confused when they
hear the term libertarian socialism, since the term libertarian is
used quite differently in the USA. Since wikipedia is availible to
people in other nations, we American's shouldn't state American
political labels as if they were representative of the rest of the
world. millerc 20:59, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

        I think you're conflating two issues here. It is true that the
term libertarian is used differently in America than it is in
continental Europe (although they don't speak English there, but I'll
leave that aside). This is why the article on libertarianism has a
disambiguator right at the beginning. It's true that most of the
proponents of "anarcho-capitalism" are Americans (I think, it's
sometimes hard to know what's going on abroad), but the term itself is
not ambiguous. There's nothing about "anarcho-capitalism" that is in
particular an "American political label". - NYK 01:17, 23 Mar 2004
(UTC)

    It's good that the libertarianism page has a disamgiuation, but
this doesn't stop the confusion. Look at the libertarian socialism
talk page if you need an example. Sam Spade tried to get the page
deleted with the excuse that he didn't understand the label
libertarian socilism. Also I didn't mean that anarcho-capitalism was
an ambiguous term, what I meant was that it should be clear that it is
a political term mostly used by Americans. By following the convention
that we clarefy the usage of these terms on all
political/ideological/philosophical pages, we would help any confusion
that may arise. I don't know why anyone would be against usage
clarefications. I also think it quite ignorant to say that people in
other countries don't speak English, since the most common second
language of Europeans, and the most common internet language is
English. millerc 05:45, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

        The only reason that I might be against such a usage
clarification are that I don't know how we would verify its accuracy,
and I'm not sure what purpose it would serve. What I mean is a) how do
we know for sure that "anarcho-capitalism" is primarily in American
usage? I suspect it's true and you suspect it's true, but do we have
any real evidence? And b) it is not the case that American
"anarcho-capitalism" is referred to by some other name elsewhere in
the world (in English), nor is the case that "anarcho-capitalism" is
used by some other people to mean anything other than what Americans
use it to mean. Therefore, I don't know what confusion it is that we
would be clearing up. I do also worry that a usage clarification,
depending on how it was phrased, might be seen as another shot across
the bow in the recent edit war.

        As for your other point, I consider myself very fortunate to
live in a world where so many people use my native language as a
second language or on the internet. But, fortunate or no, I still
would not normally take advice on word usage from people who are not
native speakers. However, this is a special case, in which presumably
they are referring to a word in their own native language which is
obviously cognate to "libertarian" (i.e. libertario in Spanish, etc.),
which is why I decided to set the issue aside above. - Nat Krause
05:25, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That was not my suggestion. The beleif system of anarcho-capitalism is
authentically American. Such groups have little to no popular support
and social/political existence outside America. This is not a bad or
good fact but it is true. It is distinctly American. I am not saying
anarcho-capitalists do not exist abroad just not enough to have
relevance to the social and political processes of their respective
native land. There are real and powerful organizations in the U.S.A
that have anarcho-capitalism as a platform or call themselves as such
and they play a significant role in American politics. This is not
true elsewhere which is why I think it bears noting in this article.--
GrazingshipIV 01:28, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)

        GrazingshipIV, I really don't mean to seem combative, but I'm
not sure if you're right. Historically, the first modern anti-state
right-libertarian was, as you may know, Molinari, who was Belgian. I
will agree that the center of gravity of this movement is in America.
But are there no other countries where the A-C movement is at least
comparable (on a per capita basis)? There might not be, but I don't
think I would know if there were. It would be nice if there were
indeed "real and powerful organizations in the U.S.A." that are A-C,
and I guess it's subjective, but I wouldn't have made that assertion
myself. What organizations are you thinking of? - NYK 04:34, 23 Mar
2004 (UTC)

Dude no problem, What I was refering to was the power of
anarcho-capitalist ideals in America as opposed to the rest of the
world which henceforth leads to organizations to play to those ideals.
Even though many politicans in America are not anarcho-capitalists in
action (by a long shot) they play to the ideals of anarch-capitalism
often. Ronald Regan is a well-known but weak example (he also was very
smpathetic to Ayn Rand objectivism) for making "government the enemy"
by claiming it was the greatest threat to average americans. Ron Paul
a congressman from texas, also being a strong example as he supports
many anarch-capitalist ideals (abolishing the central bank and public
education etc.). There are also many powerful organizations that back
anarcho-capitalist ideals such as the CATO institute (although used by
conservatives and claiming to be libertarian- many scholars are
anarch-capitalists), The US Libertarian party (which adopts
anarcho-capitalists the way democrats adopt leftists) as well as a
myriad of other lobbying and think tanks groups who put pressure on
the government to pursue policies that anarch-capitalists would. This
phenomenon does not really exist anywhere else in the world, if it
would be anywhere it would be Europe but many europeans "vote with
their feet" and move to America (particularly from England) to join
anarcho-capitalist movements rather than work on creating them were
they are (one might call this voter outsourcing). Eitherway America is
the place to be if you are an anarcho-capitalist which is why
anarcho-capitalism has geographical limitations. GrazingshipIV 02:27,
Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

        I'm afraid I have to quibble with most of your examples.
Because the USA was founded by libertarians (they talked a good game
anyway) you see lots of echoes of that kind of talk in modern
political discourse, but those people were explicitly not anarchists.
Reagan, if nothing else, said some very nice libertarian-sounding
things back in 1960's, long before he was president, when he was
working on Barry Goldwater's campaign. Goldwater said some nice things
too, but, in my opinion, his allegiance to the state was higher than
his allegiance to human liberty, so he could be described in some
sense perhaps as a (right-)libertarian but in no sense as an
anarchist. The same was proven true in spades by Reagan when he was in
office. I don't know of anyone at Cato who is an A-C, there probably
are a few, but I think Cato as a group would go to lengths to distance
themselves from such opinions. The Libertarian Party has a lot of
radical minarchist tendencies but, given that they are full of plans
to take control of the government and descriptions of what they will
use it for afterward, so I don't think they can really be described as
A-C, either. I would argue that what we see here is a whole range of
opinions favoring limited government, from the moderate to the
radical, but very few influential ones favoring its elimination. Ron
Paul is an interesting case, who may or not be an exception, but if so
he isn't saying it in public. In any event, he is a unique anomaly in
Congress and is generally ignored by the media.

        If your point is that America is a hotbed of sentiments that
may be somewhat closer to A-C, then I would agree. If your point is
that America currently has an active A-C political movement, then I
haven't noticed it. I would describe what we seen (if we're right) as
a "geographical concentration". - Nat Krause 05:25, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I am forced to take Krause's point of "geographic concentration" as
fair as well as the critique of my examples. But I would respond to
say that many people in the libertarian party would call themselves
"anarcho-capitalists" and many people who work on projects do not see
much of a difference between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism.
Take the free state project (freestateproject.org) this is run
primarily by anarcho-capitalists but named a libertarian project. It
involved a mass movement of people who want to establish a state that
at least is anarch-capitalistic. I do not think that because people
are working through the governmental system they are nesasarily
disqualified from being called anarchists. My underlying point is that
the only real significant place where anarcho-capitalism has a foot to
stand on is America.GrazingshipIV 05:36, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

        Well, in the above, I have been trying to draw a distinction
between anarcho-capitalism and minarchism, but I guess this is not a
distinction that you agree with. The Free State Project people may in
their hearts be A-Cists, but their means are clearly minarchist at
best and "anarcho-capitalistic state" is an oxy-moron. Anyway, this
important only as an aside. I still don't quite understand the context
in which this information would be incorporated into the article. I
think we might be better off discussing it further in regard to a
specific proposed change. - Nat Krause 09:45, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You are correct I do not draw that distinction. I do not propose an
alteration to the page but rather an addition. I think a "Geographic
contrection" section to the page would be appropriate but I would like
some sort of consensus before making the edit. This new section would
merely note the fact that anarcho-capitalism in today's politics is
mostly an American phenomenon with little influence in Europe and
virtually none elsewhere. GrazingshipIV 16:13, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

        Well, you're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I think
it will be problematic for you to hold work on this article if you
won't make that distinction. It's important. Why, suppose you write up
a passage, how will you know whether to put it in the
anarcho-capitalism article, the minarchism one, or just under
libertarianism? Anyway, I must still object to this plan on about the
same grounds as before. To summarize:

    I don't really have any hard information on whether or not it is
correct that A-C has little or no influence in Europe or the rest of
the world, although I think it's true.
    Phrasing it this way might give the impression that A-C is more
influential than it is. Really, I'm pretty sure that it's political
influence in America is pretty similar to its influence in the rest of
the world, that is, sadly, close to zero.
    Do other similar articles have a section for that kind of information?
    Depending on how its phrased, people might think it is intended to
give the impression that other forms of anarchism are considerably
more influential outside the world, which I don't think is true. Now,
I don't think this is a controlling factor by itself (its not the
wikipedia's fault what people read into it), but it exacerbates the
other problems. - Nat Krause 17:14, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I do not know that much about politics in other countries, but I just
looked it up and saw that there is a party called,
"Anarkokapitalistisk Front (AKF)" in the Sweden that is basically the
same as our Libertarian Party, in both ideas espoused and power. As
well, I found "The Libertarian Alliance" in the UK, which is not a
political party, and a few other things. I found a lot more stuff in
the US and Canada (Canada has the Libertarian Party of Canada), but
perhaps that is because I know how to search for stuff in the US and
Canada better better...--Thorn969 06:05, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Compromise

No apology nesesary just make sure you create this break so people
don't get confused. thanks. GrazingshipIV 02:11, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for placing this at the bottom of the page since it belongs with
the thread right above this one, but I wanted to ensure feedback. As a
comprimise to what I have stated above in the Some thoughts on the
revert war section, I think it would be best to go with Kev's version,
of the initial sentance to make it clear that this is the POV of the
anarcho-capitalists, but I would leave the second sentance alone, as
was deemed appropriate by NYK. So the paragraph will be changed to:

    Thus, anarcho-capitalists hold their position to be a form of
anarchism in the sense of a rejection of statism. They reject all
forms of state control — including taxation, coercive regulation, war,
and coercive monopoly on the use of defensive force — as violations of
essential individual rights. They also reject these forms of coercive
control whether they are exercised by state officials or by private
agents; they oppose them because they are violations of rights, not
because they are committed by governments.

I hope this compromise is sutable to all who were involved in the
previous discussions. If anyone has any problems they should speak out
about it now, before I place the new paragraph into the article.
millerc 01:59, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

    Sounds good to me. - Nat Krause 05:31, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

        Just to let you know, this is not really a compromise. The
whole point of having "in the sense" was to distinguish anarchism in
reference to what may be dubbed the "anarchist movement"
(left-anarchism) from a more general use of the term to describe
statelessness, and thus make it unnecessary to have the words "hold
their position" (or related qualifiers); by having both it's way
watered down. Also, the "rejection of statism" language favored by the
anti-ancaps is terrible; ancaps do not reject statism, they reject the
state. Classical liberals would not say they are statists, either, but
as minarchists they'd accept a state, though they would dislike and
distrust it. Anyway, though I see where you're coming from, it may be
hard to find compromise, because there's been a lot of give to the
anti-ancaps already, but they seem insatiable. -- VV 23:37, 28 Mar
2004 (UTC)

            I think that "hold their position to be" is more effective
for this purpose than "in the sense". As I understand it, the ansocs
disagree on the meaning of the word "state", so they do not agree that
A-C would reject it. So, I would propose: Thus, anarcho-capitalists
hold their position to be a form of anarchism: a rejection of the
state. How does that sound? - Nat Krause 09:39, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

                Is that really an argument they use? I hadn't heard
that one. The only one I was getting was that anarchism means one and
only one thing, what the ansocs say it does. Thus, I had "in the sense
of", to allow for maybe-a-little-bit the "literal" definition. I was
hearing that government included any property (some said by
"definition"!), but state was perhaps okay. (If you'll humor me, the
double standard is remarkable, in that on anarchism partisans insisted
coercion means only what they say it does by defining anarchism as
opposition to it, and undid every edit I made to qualify this, while
here when I put in that ancaps oppose "coercive control", it created
this huge conflict. Sorry, lingering frustration there.) So, I would
still prefer the existing version, although you may be on to
something. -- VV 09:55, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

                    Oh, I don't know, maybe they wouldn't really use
that argument -- I'm attempting the old "write from the other guy's
perspective" trick. I tend to use "government" and "state"
interchangeably, but I know some other people don't, so maybe I'm
confusing their arguments about the one with their arguments about the
other. Personally, I prefer my proposed wording either way, I just
think it flows a little better as prose. I understand your frustration
with regard to some of the editors -- the only solution I can suggest
is that, as necessary, we can go line by line on this article to make
sure it says things are true as clearly as possible. - Nat Krause
15:56, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

                        Hey, thanks for the understanding. But, I
should say the "line by line" approach has the potential to falter, as
the cumulative effect of edits good on their own can be to provide a
certain biased impression. Anyway, as for this matter, at this point I
could go either way. I do feel the sentence as written is better, but
the version you propose might be valuable in pre-empting endless edit
wars (negotiating with edit warrers?), even if it's not ideal. In any
case I'm too weary of this to concern myself with such a small
difference. So, I definitely won't object if you still prefer it and
drop it in. -- VV 20:47, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

                            Just comming from a different
perspective...I agree with the statement by Nat Krause that "hold
their position to be" is more effective for this purpose than "in the
sense". Since I didn't quite get that "in the sense" was a qualifier
when I first read it, which is why I thought that there might need to
be more. But, I think you also have to point out that the
Anarcho-capitalists are using the word anarchism to specifically mean
rejection of a state (I will agree with the differentiation between
statism and a state). Left anarchists use the word "state" in the same
way that Anarcho-capitalists use the word, but the problem arises when
left anarchists mean much more than simply rejection of the state by
the word anarchism. They use the word for rejection of any form of
hierarchical governance (including heirarchical buisness structures).
So IMO saying that they use the term "government" in a different way
than the Anarcho-capitalist would be more accurate. I also don't mean
to water down the article (I will remember this on any future
suggestions). I understand that you have fought with people over this
before, which can be quite aggravating , but I thought the compromise
might fend off future conflicts. You don't have to accept my
suggestions. millerc 03:36, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Resolution

I move that the conflict be declared over for this page and that
disputed neutrality header be removed. Are there any objections?
--Thorn969 07:56, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Wording

VV insists that this is a compromise that betters the page, he changed
this: Thus, anarcho-capitalists hold their position to be a form
anarchism in the sense that it rejects the state.

to this Thus, anarcho-capitalists hold their position to be a form of
anarchism: a rejection of the state.

I'm wondering why a version that implies a stripped down definition of
anarchism is considered better? Certainly anarchism is thought by
meany to mean merely the rejection of the state, but it often means
-more- than this, so making it clear that anarcho-capitalists consider
themselves anarchists -only- insofar as they reject the state is to
better describe the capitalist position. It certainly doesn't water
down anything, it only clarifies the ac position. How is this
offensive to you VV? Or perhaps there is something more than the edit
itself you are objecting to, like how you recently objected to a
nomination based not on the person who is being nominated or their
merits, but based on the person who nominated them. Kev 00:24, 31 May
2004 (UTC)[reply]

    You stated in the edit summary that four users supported an
alternate version, but the alternative actually gaining support (well,
it was a while ago) was that given by Nat Krause above. So I put his
in instead. My objection to your wording is the same as before, that
it doubly qualifies what at best needs to be qualified once. And I
have no idea in hell what you're talking about re this nomination or
whatever irrelevant thing you're trying to beat me over the head with.
VV 00:47, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

    To clarify: My objection is foremost procedural; you installed
your favored language while claiming support that is actually for
another version. I wanted to avoid just reverting you, so I put in the
actually supported version as, as I said, a "stop-gap compromise". You
make a valid point above; it's one reason I prefer the older language.
And please stay on topic if you want this conversation to be more
productive than our previous ones. VV 01:09, 31 May 2004 (UTC) (Added
after edit conflict with below.)[reply]

        I casually mention something and suddenly I'm beating you over
the head? I'm begining to see what people mean when they say you have
a matyr complex. I was talking about snowspinner's nomination for
admin, which you questioned based partly on the person nominating him.
Furthermore, I never claimed support for any particular version, only
a particular wording which others repeated here "hold their position
to be". But this and your tendency to focus on the person rather than
the edit aside - I think you are prefering a version which detracts
from the understanding of anarcho-capitalism. Given that all the
anarcho-capitalists I know what it to be -more- clear that when they
call themselves anarchists they mean it only in regards to rejection
of the state, I think the article should make this clear as well. But
I will let it go for the time being, as apparently you are ready to
jump at any edit I make and have learned nothing in the time I've been
away. Kev 01:03, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

            I did not oppose Snowspinner; I voted "neutral". It was
not because of who nominated him, but because of his duration here. If
you're going to go paging around in my edits, at least look to see
what's there. And, yes, I don't feel this "casual mention" was meant
to be so innocuous but was to attack me. Show me any evidence at all
that I'm focusing on the person rather than the edit, when you're the
one bringing in these irrelevancies. Who has learned nothing? I was
actually making yet another effort to work with you but I see you have
an agenda of your own. (By the way, I'm not unaware of your activities
on the other anarchism pages.) VV 01:14, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

                You've got a persecution complex VV, which is ironic
given the witch hunt you are currently engaged in. I did not page
around in your edit history VV, I could care less about your
obssessions. I only noticed your comments because I had been watching
snowspinner. It is rather interesting that you are now claiming that
the person doing the nomination played no part in your comment, since
you specifically mentioned that it did in the comment itself.

                As for "evidence" that you focus on the person rather
than the edit, what would suffice for you? Regardless of how many
individuals I dig up whom you follow about (myself included in the
past) reverting most if not all of their edits that didn't agree with
your politics you could, and would, just claim it was the "poor
quality" of their edits which motivated you. It is hilarious that your
attempt to "work with me" began with, yet again, no discussion and no
attempt at an original edit, just a revert back to a previous edit. Ah
well, I'll let you spew out a bit more vitriol in the face of the fact
that I'm letting your edit stand. And why am I letting it stand?
Because regardless of what I do, how much we discuss this, how many
times other people have to protect this page or I have to walk away to
give you time to collect yourself, you will just continue with the
reverts once we start again. And I don't feel like playing your game
anymore. Kev 01:29, 31 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

                    I did not say the nominator was relevant to my
vote and did not oppose. I see my urgings that you stay on topic went
unheeded, as you want to bring in other disputes you clearly don't
understand, and furthermore seek to diagnose my psychology. I did not
revert this page, I proffered a new compromise, and I explained in the
edit summary why. In fact, it was you who put in a previous version
I'd objected to in the past. Whatever, you're obviously not
interested. Why do I bother trying to talk to you? VV 01:42, 31 May
2004 (UTC)[reply]

New intro

I think this - Anarcho-capitalism is a view which is best described by
the saying "other people are not your property". - is a very
inadequate definition. Besides the slogan being uninformative, it
implies that ancapism is the "only" view in which people are not
property, which is nuts. VV 09:08, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)


More information about the cypherpunks mailing list