Mutualist Francois Tremblay wants my head on a pike for supporting capitalism. Perhaps I touched a nerve?
I read this in the comments on this youtube video in response to Matt Damon telling the camera operator "mayber you're a shitty camera guy, I don't know." Guy in youtube comments quoted him and said: "You mad, bro?"
I don't know why but that just tickles me. Probably what I would have said in your situation.
Is this the same guy who condemned Carson's Center for a Stateless Society as "perpetrating the teacher-student hierarchy"?
Anarchist should be able to get along with each other.
Do you think statelessness is the only thing that matters, FascistSoup? Do you think any stateless legal order is as good as the next?
What do you expect? You're making insulin and health insurance too expensive, Daniel. Stop it.
Explain how I am much poorer and less secure than I am right now if the heads of the people who are exploiting my labor, or support the exploitation of my labor, are put on a pike.
Wow... I guess we've been wrong to criticize counter-terrorism policy too. The death penalty's not a big deal either.
@Daniel: No, but in a stateless territory there will be other societies that form that won't be Ancap, I don't see how anyone can stop that.
Imho all societies derive from Ancap and even if they seem to move away and call themselves something else they still have ancap with a whole bunch of contractual layers on top. Please correct me if I'm wrong and provide examples :)
Wow. That thread couldn't go one page without someone cursing.
Pedro E.: "In particular, I'm curious why to invest capital you would have to necessaririly HIRE people? Can't you pay for efficient machines to help you do your OWN work, for example?"
Oh, come on. This is like asking why Bud Fox didn't use an iPad 2 to execute his trades on E*trade.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
To be fair that dude is a psychopath who is best left ignored. From the little I know of him he is apathetic to the fact that his ideas could be extremely catastrophic, I could be wrong on that - as I just ignore him. I mean there simply isn't anything to discuss with him nor does he seem willing to discuss anything. Fringe political groups (including Market Anarchism) attract fringe people, that's just the nature of the game - best not to focus o them..
I was thinking about throwing some arguments in there, but I think it is best to just have one or two people really drive home the economic point instead of a "too many cooks" thing. Plus my head is already mixed up and rusty now with basic Misean (and 101 micro and macro for that matter) econ as is; add to the fact that any of my my econ thought is more customed on the "economics as process", inter subjective Lachmann/ Lavoie/ post Keynesian stuff that I have been fiddling around with would only add to the confusion.
Also, the fact that over half of your points are not "Misean" but accepted basic economic thought that Krugman or whoever would 100% agree with. I mean the LL's thoughts really are fringe. At least a Marxist actually says something. Austrians may be hetrodox, but they still are considered to varying degrees in academia - whatever LL's offer is discredited or never was in academic thought or simple practicle living in society at large. All they have are a couple anti-concept "continental philosophers" who are nothing more than literary hacks trying to backdoor their peculiar brand of humanism back on top of the prestige line in academia - they essentially act like priests...that is they stay stuff that people shake their head to, because it is polite and customary to do so, but no one really believes it or takes it too seriously minus a few insignificants.
The only reason their ideas are tolerated is because they still "speak the language of the left" (as opposed to us) but are over all harmless when it comes to the application of their ideas, as it simply will never happen due to the maddness of them - even if their language is "more polite" within polite society circles than extreme capitalism. The division of labor is a cornorstone to any sociological thought, without it we have no social sciences to speak of, to argue that is essential putting up an argument as valid as creationism.
Also, we obviously do not turn a metaphor like "progress", "growth", into what they seem to be implying as some "objective value" they seem to be pointing to - nor is it really any concern as to what "collectivism" and "individualism" "really mean" - we are speaking the language of social science so we are obviously by definition speaking in sociological terms which deals with massive amounts of people.
My 2 cent stream of conscience musing on that.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Also, I think someone brought up that syndicalism and/or mutalism wasn't an economic theory. If it isn't what is it, and how does one expect to discuss it. If it is some legal or ethical thing it is no more or less valid than the NAP or any other screwy political nonsense thought going around.
Legal and ethical positivism is the only honest and productive way to really start talking about things in relations to society at large and to get rid of empty crazy rationalisms and worthless speculations, assuming all we have is this "intellectualism in a void" format. And what I am saying is not controversial, by a long shot.
Wheylous-
I agree with you completely. The reality is we are always in anarchy it's just that people have to believe in the legitimacy of this or that institution.
vive la insurrection-
Mutualism is a political theory.
Francois Trembley makes mutualists look bad. He was an cap at some point, his posts should still be on this forum.
Also Grayson > Trembley anyday.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
@ Phaedoros
I get that it is political theory, I was being hyperbolic. But I have been having a very hard time figuring out what the hell "political theory" is worth lately - and what it can and can not actually communicate. More over Mutualism and syndicalisms theories so much as I can tell is "you are misrepresenting my position". It has no worthwhile foundation..it has no effective ways to speak of reality or put itself forth in any universal language.
Marxists and AnCaps seem to have at least a very well defined framework they are working in, for what that is worth (and probably not much). And at least when a Republican or Democrat says "I will cut the budget" I know what the hell they are talking about because it is a real action and a real mechanism of power taking place in extant reality..so that at least means something to me. LL's, not so much it seems like speculative babble with mixed up languages going one way or the other.
If I had to take a guess as to where I am at: a "political position" should be nothing more than a lukewarm recognition of how one conducts themselves within the existing confines and power structures of reality in relation to how they see the actual factual mechanisms of the world . It is kind of a by-product and consequence of ones actual operations, not a "thing in itself". I wouldn't be surprised if any other phrasing would be mostly to all gibberish.
Here , for your amusment, watch this "debate" and see Chomsky ramble on about nothing, and Foucault (who is honestly the best they got) start to actual talk about things and than meander off into nothingness conclusions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WveI_vgmPz8
Political theory is how one attempts to filter and understand information about politics and government. I believe that the reason that Marxists and AnCaps have such a seemingly highly developed system is that they are extensions and revisions of long existing theories, ideas, and history. It takes time for new ideas to filter down into society at large and it can become modified along the way to adoption. Theory, then, is a kind of way of looking ahead while also looking at the past.
(As an aside legal and ethical postivism are completely bankrupt theories.)
Actually, I've seen those videos tons of times. The basic premise is good though. Chomsky starts out with the idea that society should be ordered so as to maximize human potential and flourishing. He's just wrong about what such a society would look like. (In my opinion at least.)
To a degree, I very much agree with what Foucault says as well. He says that he cannot even begin to propose what such a society would look like because to do so would be to impose an arbitrary model on a future society that they somehow must adhere to. He also points out something that many ancaps point out as well. That is, that government institutions mete out coercion and power over people and this is supported by some ideology and propaganda that sustains that state or government. I think that the problem between mutualists or marxists or left-libertarians and ancaps is that they disagree on the nature and causes of the concentration of power and of the nature of the current system(s) of coercion. This paper, I think, http://gaplauche.com/docs/plauchedissertation.pdf really helps to explain the ideas behind political theory and behind liberal political theory (that is classical liberalism). It helps to understand what the goals are why certain types of "institutions" such as the free market help to accomplish those goals.
It is so funny that Chomsky, in the second part, mentions the coming era of multi-national corporations with no mention of "multi-national" governments and "multi-national" governmental institutions while in the first part he talks about decentralization.
The reality is we are always in anarchy it's just that people have to believe in the legitimacy of this or that institution.
Just so I know we are on the same page. I argue that socialism could exist, but would be ancap with contractual giving up of property to a society. Then it could be judicially enforced. But sorta sad, like legalizing slavery XD
FascistSoup: @Daniel: No, but in a stateless territory there will be other societies that form that won't be Ancap, I don't see how anyone can stop that.
Do you think a mutualist society would live peaceably beside an ancap one if everyone in the former thought all the capitalists in the latter were exploitative tyrants lording it over their neighboring working comrades? Especially if some thought such tyrants deserved to have their heads impaled on pikes?
Putting aside the intellectual, I find it pointless to argue with people who have deep-seated anger and revenge fantasies. Particular ones that seem to be random and outside of any rational point or objective. It is unlikely that they are listening to what you're saying.
It's as if he thinks that one can be scared into either 'aw shucks! I'm a failure, you say?' or 'oh no! someone wants my head on a pike'. As if they get the last word, they get to 'win' at the internet.
As if they get the last word, they get to 'win' at the internet.
Wait, what? That's not how it works?
Clayton -