Lately I have been curious to know about libertarian socialism. The two terms seem to contradict each other, as I have absolutely no clue how a socialist society could exist without government coercion. The same goes for libertarian communism.
Could someone give me a simple breakdown of how this could possibly work?
The reality is that Capitalism is more successful than Socialism, even impure capitalism like we have today is far better than whatever society you have in mind. That depends on what you mean by socialism and how you measure success. Do you say that knowing (roughly at least) what I have in mind or do you think that capitalism is the pinnacle of human achievement and we needn’t look further?
The reality is that Capitalism is more successful than Socialism, even impure capitalism like we have today is far better than whatever society you have in mind.
Most libertarians do not accept the ability of an individual to actually sell himselfWell, for me, renting is right next to it on the list.
Most libertarians do not accept the ability of an individual to actually sell himself
In a world of general scarcity this is the closest thing to freedom that you can get. ... What?I beg to differ. Being free to arm Saddam Hussein is light-years away from the notion of Freedom.
In a world of general scarcity this is the closest thing to freedom that you can get. ... What?
...
What?
If you live in a commune and the workers decide that they don't want to distribute goods to non-workers then you're out of luck... Guess communists are slave owners.I would not be told what to do, I could work on my own terms and if I wished to use this planet in some way to feed myself, I could. In a commune it would not matter what my abilities are, I would still get what I need, right? So they are not really slave owners. Of course, this presupposes a functioning commune which is not something that is formed overnight.
If you live in a commune and the workers decide that they don't want to distribute goods to non-workers then you're out of luck... Guess communists are slave owners.
Most importantly, however, is the fact that in the case of "wage slavery" I have done nothing to you, I have left you alone and now you are dead, no force was used, nothing of yours was infringed upon.Except perhaps putting a large fence and armed people around an area of land that I could work on to feed myself.
Most importantly, however, is the fact that in the case of "wage slavery" I have done nothing to you, I have left you alone and now you are dead, no force was used, nothing of yours was infringed upon.
This isn't an argument.These things happen. So either you think they are OK, or you think free capitalism would get rid of them somehow or you think that is the best possible world. Please convince me of any of those.
This isn't an argument.
Please direct me to a Socialist/Communist experiment that survived for more than a decade and didn't create a monstrous state apparatusWhen capitalists stop trying to destroy them, it might happen.
Please direct me to a Socialist/Communist experiment that survived for more than a decade and didn't create a monstrous state apparatus
That depends on what you mean by socialism and how you measure success. Do you say that knowing (roughly at least) what I have in mind or do you think that capitalism is the pinnacle of human achievement and we needn’t look further?
Do you think that socialism is the pinnacle of human achievement and there is no need to look further?
Well, for me, renting is right next to it on the list.
Technically, the reasons for why it's impossible to sell oneself makes it impossible to rent oneself as well.
I beg to differ. Being free to arm Saddam Hussein is light-years away from the notion of Freedom.
Relevance to freedom or capitalism? What about arming Lenin or Stalin or Pol Pot? Is that freedom? What about arming yourself?
I would not be told what to do, I could work on my own terms and if I wished to use this planet in some way to feed myself, I could. In a commune it would not matter what my abilities are, I would still get what I need, right? So they are not really slave owners. Of course, this presupposes a functioning commune which is not something that is formed overnight.
So if you have no abilities and can't or won't do anything you'll get what you need? So now you're the slave-owner. I'm beginning to see the appeal of these communes. Sounds like a sweet gig.
Except perhaps putting a large fence and armed people around an area of land that I could work on to feed myself.
So socialism means that everyone gets out of your way so you can have what you want? Give up your wives, give up your daughters, give up your food! Anonymous121393 has a hankering for some 'socialism'...
These things happen. So either you think they are OK, or you think free capitalism would get rid of them somehow or you think that is the best possible world. Please convince me of any of those.
Source? (Specifically on how capitalism causes them to happen, as that is the gist of your argument.)
When capitalists stop trying to destroy them, it might happen.
Source?
z1235
The arguments completely destroying your inconsistent theory of justice and your utter inability to respond to them
I don't remember even using word "justice" once, let alone putting a "theory of justice".
Your thesis that humans selling their labor services to each other for thousands of years and across continents (separated by long unnavigable oceans) have all been exploited morons until an enlightened
It is the contemporary propaganda that makes my oppossition to wage labor a minory view. The USA and USSR propaganda machineries that both instited that USSR was a socialist country, USA to discredit it, USSR to leach on the popular appeal that real socialism had among the working masses in Europe, which was very real.
And the idea of wage labor being bad far from being a modern invention.
Pre-civil war republicans were also of that view, seeing wage labor as degrading, confining and resulting in a non-free man that are not free voters. That was the view of Lincoln, Jefferson, much of the republicans of the North accepted that, seeing wage labor at best as a prefigure of self-employment, being that the ideal was the yeoman, who was in control of his own life, without any boss.
Lowell Mill Girls, who without any knowledge of Proudhon, Dejacque, or any similar European philosopher coined the term "wage slavery" were also aware of that fact.
The Enlightenment espused the idea, the very Adam Smith that starts his work with the notion of division of labor later in the same work says that if left unchecked, it will make people as stupid and ignorant as possible, and Humbouldt wrote that when we see a worker doing a good job but under orders "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is" because he doesn't work as a human, but as a tool, as machine, being that "what is the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness", and according to Enlightement values, humans are defined by their freedom and creativity, and being turned into a machine is contrary to human nature.
The notion is so far from being of modern origin that even Cireco wrote that "whoever gives his labor for money sells himself and puts himself in the rank of slaves" in On Duty.
Simon Linguet wrote in 1763
The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him. They were worth at least as much as they could be sold for in the market. It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him. What effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him? He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune. These men have the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is, need. They must therefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger. Is that to be free?
Of cource, propertarians would say yes, being that you define freedom as your existing property (in person and external things) not being aggressed against, and of course, every socialist and anarchist will disagree.
Anenome
has ignored entire posts of mine that contain one question
What question I have not answered?
Malachi
Is it a priori justifiable that people who are determined to assert, in the face of superior argument, that employment is illegitimate, have never had a job in management or a supervisory capacity?
When in fact I have worker as a manager.
Theres power disparity in customer/service provider relations too, if you look hard enough.
If you try hard enough to image that there exists something that it doesn't, sure, you're be able to see, you just have to look "hard enough".
Willy Truth
f we "ban" it, it will exist nevermore because it'll be banned!
eliotn
a society where hiearchy doesn't exist is impossible.
Talking in extremes, neither is a society where murder and theft don't exist. Which has nothing to with whether if they should be banned or not.
DemiProphet
grasp the psychological source of their mindset in order to effectively shatter it into pieces
So you are trying to find the most effective way to use appeal to motive logical fallacy? I don't see what good does that do.
Socialism spread so far because people believed it was morally superior to the ruling classes using aggression to maintain their privileges at the expense of ordinary people.
Socialist established itself in Europe only in two instatnces, both of which were destroyed pretty quick.
Our best wedge is the non-aggression principle.
Which is a slim substitute for an ethical principle. It is a very narrow version of the harm principle (which is more justifiable as being an a priori norm of discourse) and allows for brutalities, like locking people up and starving them, or killing babies by exposing them to the elements, and also when intepreted as source of voluntaryist society it is an exuse for tolerating slavery, and torture, rape, and murder as legitimate action of owner toward his chattel slave.
SkeptikalMetal
and that Chomsky is pretty much a statist.
Wow, and you "understand now".
Rugger Free-Marketeer
By socialism, I take it you mean the abstract utopia (where everyone will be equal, blah, blah) in your mind, and not the socialism that existed in the USSR, its satellites
By socialism I mean a non hieararchial economy, in it's form of (Proudhonian) mutualism, (Bakuninist) collectivism, or (Kropotkinist) communism. Such societies were the Free Territory in what is today Ukraine, Revolutionary Catalonia and Andalusia, and one exists in Zapatista Chiapas in Mexico.
USSR, it's satellites, and similar countries were not socialist societies, but state capitalist ones.
It's very fashionable for far-left true believers to claim that the 20th centuries social experiments (i.e. the USSR, etc.), which massacred millions, weren't Socialist/Communist because these societies didn't fit the abstract utopia they had envisioned in their minds.
It is not fasihonable, but correct, it USSR has been dismissed as not socialist or communist, not only by all anarchist of the time and the Esers (who conducted the February Revolution was to establish socialism in Russia) but also by orthodox marxists, such as Kautsky, Pannekoek, SPGB, and many other orthodox marxist groups - as soon as Leninists abolished the worker councils in 1918.
Bakunin, who died in 1876 (and Bolsheviks came into being in 1903, and into power in 1917), very cleary said that any attempt by the state to institute socialism is nothings except state capitalism.
Every attempt at reaching the Communist utopia has ended in precisely the opposite direction of its stated goals.
Bolshevik never attempted it. They were vary at first explicit that they want nationalization of property as opposed to socialization (for which the Eser fought), and they inacted it when they came into power. The strugles for socialism happened in Ukraine and in Spain and they were successful, and they did establish socialism.
It's natural for hierarchies to form in nearly all, if not all, aspects of human activity primarily because of variation in human ability
Except for in argumentation, where if hierachical organization among people becomes manifest, it invalidates argumentation and turns it into giving and taking orders. Which is to say that absense of hierachy is an a priori norm of doscourse, which means it an a priori ethical axiom.
Some people are more intelligent, some are stronger, some are faster, and so on.
Which can legitimately have as consequence only that being more intelligent, stornger, faster, and so on. You being stronger doesn't give you the right to beat me, likewise being more intelligent doesn't give you the right to be my boss.
I'm an ex-marxist that was influenced by left-communism, libertarian socialism, and anarcho-communism.
I'm having pretty hard time believing that seeing your lack of understanding of what socialism is.
Im not trying to use apeal or logical fallacys I hardly understand what you mean by that. I would simply like to convince people like you (or much worst) to have a proper vision, so I dont know why you need to get all those fancy words. Its quite simple what I want, and I dont want to impose nothing neither I need to, I just think would be better for everyone (including me) to stop socialist rhetoric, as you think the opposite, nothing wrong with that and its quite simple.
Since I respect democracy and individual freedom the only way I can see a change is by convincing people (willing to listen), never by forcing others to live as I think they should or forcing them to listen even.
Anyway no doubts you have your lesson very well studied, and you seem to have coherence, unfortunatelly 95% of lefthists are not like you. Nevertheless I find your ideas far from convincing.
By the way a note for everyone : sorry for my english Im not a native english speaker.
"Well, for me, renting is right next to it on the list."
Well for everyone here it isn't. There's a difference between saying "own my body which I cannot actually give a way" and "here, I understand that if I bake you cakes for an hour you'll pay me money". One is performing a simple, laid out service while retaining ownership, the other is seceeding ownership when you cannot. They are two very different things and more importantly renting will not and cannot stop in any society which wishes to continue to exist, even in a socialist anarchist society this would be the case.
"I beg to differ. Being free to arm Saddam Hussein is light-years away from the notion of Freedom."
What are you talking about?
"I would not be told what to do, I could work on my own terms and if I wished to use this planet in some way to feed myself, I could. In a commune it would not matter what my abilities are, I would still get what I need, right?."
You are not told what to do under capitalism, you can do whatever you want that doesn't infringe on other people's property when they don't want to do. You would be told that you had to do something or you WOULD starve if you couldn't find another way to feed yourself. If you could find another way to feed yourself you would be more than happy to do so under capitalism, no one would stop you. You are right that it would not matter what your abilities were if the commune decided to fund you, but this is the same thing as it would be in the capitalist society. If the working people decided to fund you, you'd be funded, if they didn't, you wouldn't be. The same thing would happen in communism, period, because what I've never seen a socialist communist acknowledge is the fact that their system is a METHOD, not an ENDS. That is to say that their system of direct democracy doesn't predicate any other result, there could still be inequality, there could still even be wages, all that direct democracy means, is just that. DIRECT DEMOCRACY.
At any rate, you acknowledge that the communists would still be slave owners. If you couldn't find any other way to attain food then you would have to work for them or you would starve and die, which is the same as if they had been whipping you and had killed you if you hadn't done their work. Stop being selective about what you're saying, you just argued the same thing that a capitalist would have said in response to your accusation. Apply your own claim to your own words.
"Except perhaps putting a large fence and armed people around an area of land that I could work on to feed myself."
The socialist anarchists would do that too if they wanted to use that land because it belonged to the community.
"These things happen. So either you think they are OK, or you think free capitalism would get rid of them somehow or you think that is the best possible world. Please convince me of any of those."
The food market is too massive for capitalists to effectively influence it in the modern world with any degree of success. As for basic law enforcement it wouldn't be a problem, why do you think that protecting people from violence would be hard?
excel:Do you think that socialism is the pinnacle of human achievement and there is no need to look further?
excel:Relevance to freedom or capitalism? What about arming Lenin or Stalin or Pol Pot? Is that freedom? What about arming yourself?
excel:So if you have no abilities and can't or won't do anything you'll get what you need? So now you're the slave-owner.
excel:So socialism means that everyone gets out of your way so you can have what you want? Give up your wives, give up your daughters, give up your food!
excel:Source? (Specifically on how capitalism causes them to happen, as that is the gist of your argument.)
excel:Source?
Neodoxy:Well for everyone here it isn't. There's a difference.
Neodoxy:You are not told what to do under capitalism, you can do whatever you want that doesn't infringe on other people's property when they don't want to do.
Neodoxy:At any rate, you acknowledge that the communists would still be slave owners. If you couldn't find any other way to attain food then you would have to work for them or you would starve and die, which is the same as if they had been whipping you and had killed you if you hadn't done their work.
Neodoxy:The socialist anarchists would do that too if they wanted to use that land because it belonged to the community.
Neodoxy:The food market is too massive for capitalists to effectively influence it in the modern world with any degree of success. As for basic law enforcement it wouldn't be a problem, why do you think that protecting people from violence would be hard?
Anonymous121393:And pedophilia means "child friendly".
I know you meant that as a reductio ad absurdum, but it actually isn't one. Definitions are inherently arbitrary.
Anonymous121393:You own the hammer. If you choose to sell it, you get compensated for the work you put into making it and no more than that. I think he already explained this concept.
What do you mean by "own"?
That aside, how do you think the work I put into making the hammer can be objectively measured?
Anonymous121393:Suppose you have a sister dying of cancer and I am the only person with the cure. I will provide it if she becomes my sex slave for the rest of her life. She agrees and we sign a contract. By your standards, she is not a victim but a free human who can do with her body as she wants and I am a free human who can do with his justly acquired sex slave as I want. When I read some of the arguments here I can't help but imagine someone like Jefferson Davis defending slavery.
It sounds to me like you think my sister would be entitled to the cure, so you'd be robbing her (if not worse) by refusing to give it to her freely. Am I right?
If so, then basically you think a person who discovers or creates something that can benefit others is obligated to give it to them freely.
Anonymous121393:Employment demands that you waive your basic rights. If a person cannot obtain by contract a right to kill, rape and torture its other signatories, then they shouldn't be able to obtain the right to collect the fruits of their labour by the same principle.
What do you consider to be "basic rights"?
To be honest, I think a person can obtain by contract a right to kill, rape, and/or torture its other signatories. After all, by signing the contract, they're each essentially saying "I'm okay with you doing this to me". What do you think is wrong with that?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
A slave is by definition (at least my definition) someone that has no guaranteed rights, therefore the right of the sister to being cured or treated couldnt exist.
Plus slaves didnt make a contract under the condition of free man, but under direct coercion of the master and threat to their lifes, actually they didnt make any contract at all and there was no consent at all. You (as a doctor) are not directly threatning the health of the sister and you didnt cause her disease, and she is doing a contract as a free women and giving her consent, therefore the contract is not comparable. And that settles it.
Now ask me if its moral? No (from the doctor side) ask me if its valid? According to law no because you cant choose to loose your rights permanently and become a non-person, but according to logic Yes its a valid contract (eventhou is very hard to decide). Ask me if any "sister" would acept those terms? I doubt, for sure not a very wise one, most would rather die or pray for a miracle.
And by the way thats a SELLER BUYER contract not a employer employee, so that kind of situation can happen in any life or economical relation.
And whats a "sexual slave"? You mean a prostitute? Either you slave or you not, if you a slave you loose all your rights on everything not just on your "sex", you cant be a sexual slave, a farming slave, a intelectual slave, a dentist slave, either you a slave or you not. At least thats how I look at it.
DemiProphet:A slave is by definition (at least my definition) someone that has no guaranteed rights, therefore the right of the sister to being cured or treated couldnt exist.
What's your definition of "right"? I ask because a right without a guarantee isn't a right at all IMO.
DemiProphet:Plus slaves didnt make a contract under the condition of free man, but under direct coercion of the master and threat to their lifes, actually they didnt make any contract at all and there was no consent at all. You (as a doctor) are not directly threatning the health of the sister and you didnt cause her disease, and she is doing a contract as a free women and giving her consent, therefore the contract is not comparable. And that settles it.
Unlike most libertarians, I've come to see all rights as alienable (i.e. abandonable). So I think it's legitimate for a person to abandon his self-ownership and thus become a slave. However, I wouldn't want him to do that, and I wouldn't think it would be good for him to do it.
As I see it, Anonymous121393's problem with the dying-sister scenario is that he doesn't think she should "have to" become a sex slave in order to be cured of her otherwise terminal cancer. That can only mean that he thinks she's entitled to different conditions in order to be cured, conditions that he presumably thinks are better. It also means he doesn't think she has the right to become someone else's sex slave, or for the sole person that can cure her to demand such of her. Presumably, then, he'd be willing to violently interpose himself between them in order to prevent such an arrangement from happening.
My definition of right is strictly the right that comes from that contract in particular, in other words, Im going to be a "sexual slave" and get a right in exchange. Being that right the right to be cured. Thats all I was saying, but I understand your confusion, im not talking about abstract rights.
The slaves didnt have a GUARANTEED return on their non-existent contract. Of course the master would feed them (if they wanted) or not, there was no guarantee. If the doctor didnt cure her, she didnt need to be sexual slave (acepting the contract was valid).
"There is also a similarity."
There's also a similarity between renting yourself out to a commune, but of course you won't talk about that.
"Well, what exactly makes it their property? The fact that their ancestor was Alan Rufus? The fact that banks took people's money and gave it to them?"
If their ancestor did indeed own the property, then yes because it was a peaceful, rightful, and voluntary transfer of property. Banks have no power to take anyone's money under capitalism. I'm glad that we agree that theft is wrong.
"Having to work to get food is a law of thermodynamics, not slavery. Being ordered when and how to work is slavery."
Really? I thought that scarcity was something created by the capitalist system and something which is avoidable. Anyway, so are you saying that the commune won't tell me what to do, I just show up and do "work" and they'll pay me?
"If they really did not want me there, they would most likely not force me out but boycott trading with me. (Assuming I did not use force first)."
Most likely? So somehow human nature is changed and the same people would, in a capitalist society, suddenly care and expunge you from the property?
"They wouldn't have to collapse the entire economy to harm a small group of people. Because it may be profitable to not protect them from violence."
Maybe not, but it would be a violation of the law to use force against them, so they could sue for a huge amount of money. At any rate, I can't see law keeping authorities as being at all happy that this is going on in the first place, nor the people in the community accepting of the fact that force is being used by a corporation for this sort of work.
Actually Autolykos I think what I was basically saying (having a deeper look at my own words) was that you cant make a contract choosing to be a slave because from the moment you become a slave you loose any rights therefore you cant make a contract, therefore nothing can force the "doctor" to cure you, you lost the right to break the contract, and you lost the right to demand his part of the contract, therefore, I take my word back it is not valid contract because it cant be a contract.
I said it was "hard to decide" ;) but my main point is that it cant be compared with a "traditional slave situation".
But still....who would violently intervene to stop that situation? ITS HARD! lol I guess the women could just walk away, after getting what she wanted and claim she is not a person she is a slave therefore she cant be a part in a contract, she is property, and....since people cant be property she was ilegal property and therefore would have to confiscate herself.....something like that :D
Autolykos:Unlike most libertarians, I've come to see all rights as alienable (i.e. abandonable). So I think it's legitimate for a person to abandon his self-ownership and thus become a slave. However, I wouldn't want him to do that, and I wouldn't think it would be good for him to do it.
Disgree. Rights in one's self are inalienable. Maybe your right to a piece of property outside yourself is abandonable. But when it comes to rights in yourself you can only ever license that right to another, never abandon it.