Political Theory

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Angurse — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:46:41 GMT

The point I was making was that most of them were mutualist or vaguely socialist leaning.I think those who were An-cap (if that at all) can be counted on one hand.

Fair enough. Is that a point you find favourable to modern mutualists?

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

dude6935 — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:47:36 GMT

It's true.An-caps cannot claim Tucker as one of their own.Tucker was one of the early left libertarians/libertarian socialists/ mutualists.

This illustrates my point. Tucker is an anarchist, an anti-statist, whatever. Whether or not he was a capitalist is irrelevant to me so long as he does not claim any authority over me. That is what anarchism opposes, authority. If you predict the abolishment of authority leads to communism and I think it leads to capitalism, so what? Lets abolish authority and see what happens!

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

AnonLLF — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:15:06 GMT

Angurse:

Tucker was a mutualist as were 99% of individualist anarchists throughout history.

Where did you get that number?

It's an estimate since I have no way to know exact numbers.The point I was making was that most of them were mutualist or vaguely socialist leaning.I think those who were An-cap (if that at all) can be counted on one hand.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

AnonLLF — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:11:31 GMT

It's true.An-caps cannot claim Tucker as one of their own.Tucker was one of the early left libertarians/libertarian socialists/ mutualists.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Ricky James Moore II — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 06:06:55 GMT

Nothing you said bears any resemblence to what he wrote, and it is contextually ridiculous. I am not going to bother arguing this point with you any longer, as it is irrelevant whether or not you want to call a dead guy a capitalist or not. Capitalists are correct, and that is all that matters.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Angurse — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:27:06 GMT

He didn't concede individual property as compatible with anarchism.

Property is a social convention, and may assume many forms. Only that form of property can endure, however, which is based on the principle of equal liberty. All other forms must result in misery, crime, and conflict. The Anarchistic form of property has already been defined... as that which secures each in the possession of his own products, or of such products of others as he may have obtained unconditionally without the use of fraud or force, and in the realization of all titles to such products which he may hold by virtue of free contract with others. It will be seen from this definition that Anarchistic property concerns only products. But anything is a product upon which human labor has been expended, whether it be a piece of iron or a piece of land.*

And from Liberty:

Regarding land, it has been steadily maintained in these columns that protection should be withdrawn from all land titles except those based on personal occupancy and use.

The fact that he makes exceptions for particular uses makes me doubt that he believed whatever customary law determined was anarchism, or acceptable.

* Noting my previous Tucker quote above.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Ricky James Moore II — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:18:27 GMT

(When did Walker argue about rights?)

Walker was a follower of Stirner (as was Tucker in his later years), so he didn't believe in natural or obligatory morality. Nonetheless his legal picture of the world was anarchic-capitalist; a less-leftist version of Stirner's 'Union of Egoists'.

Here is Tucker, responding to Hugo Bilgram's article 'The Right of Ownership'. Emphasis mine:

In discussing such a question as this, it is necessary at the start to put aside, as Mr. Bilgram doubtless does put aside, the intuitive idea of right, the conception of right as a standard which we are expected to observe from motives supposed to be superior to the consideration of our interests. When I speak of the "right of ownership," I do not use the word "right" in that sense at all. In the thought that I take to be fundamental in Mr. Bilgram's argument - namely, that there is no right, from the standpoint of a society, other than social expediency - I fully concur. But I am equally certain that the standard of social expediency - that is to say, the facts as to what really is socially expedient, and the generalizations from those facts which we may call the laws of social expediency - exists apart from the decree of any social power whatever. In accordance with this view, the Anarchistic definition of the right of ownership, while closely related to Mr. Bilgram's, is such a modification of his that it does not carry the implication which his carries and which he points out. From an Anarchistic standpoint, the right of ownership is that control of a thing by a person which will receive either social sanction, or else unanimous individual sanction, when the laws of social expediency shall have been finally discovered. (Of course I might go farther and explain that Anarchism considers the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty the fundamental law of social expediency, and that nearly all Anarchists consider labor to be the only basis of the right of ownership in harmony with that law; but this is not essential to the definition, or to the refutation of Mr. Bilgram's point against Anarchism.)

It will be seen that the Anarchistic definition just given does not imply necessarily the existence of an organized or instituted social power to enforce the right of ownership. It contemplates a time when social sanction shall be superceded by a unanimous individual sanction, thus rendering enforcement needless. But in such an event, by Mr. Bilgram's definition, the right of ownership would cease to exist. In other words, he seems to think that, if all men were to agree upon a property standard and should voluntarily observe it, property would then have no existence simply because of the absence of any institution to protect it. Now, in the view of the Anarchists, property would then exist in its perfection.

So I would answer Mr. Bilgram's question, as put in his concluding paragraph, as follows: Anarchism does not repudiate the right of ownership, but it has a conception thereof sufficiently different from Mr. Bilgram's to include the possibility of an end of that social organization which will arise, not out of the ruins of government, but out of the transformation of government into voluntary association for defence.

Thus we can see that even Tucker the egoist conceded individual property, supported by customary law.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Angurse — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:10:54 GMT

Tucker - Check. Spooner - Check. Tak Kak - Check. Proudhon - Check.

(When did Walker argue about rights?)

Its has been a few years for Tucker and Proudhon though.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Ricky James Moore II — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:06:31 GMT

Evidence?

If you have ever read Tucker, this is obvious. Likewise Spooner, James L. Walker. Their entire system is based on a right to individual property, the strength of contract and Anglo-Germanic law tried by free individuals. Or Proudhon, for that matter, though he was less adamantly individualistic as these men. If you have not read any of them I see no point debating you. Get to it.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

mikachusetts — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:19:35 GMT

Tucker was a mutualist as were 99% of individualist anarchists throughout history.

Where did you get that number?

Clearly the correct percentage is 98.5%

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Angurse — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:57:56 GMT

Tucker was a mutualist as were 99% of individualist anarchists throughout history.

Where did you get that number?

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Angurse — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:52:18 GMT

Tucker was obviously a propertarian, and believed in customary law.

Evidence?

We can thus put Tucker in the class of a man who made strange predictions, but not an anti-capitalist.

I don't recall calling him an anti-capitalist, oreven a "true anti-capitalist anarchist", so this is beside the point. He was a great non-capitalist. But thats it.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

dude6935 — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:25:25 GMT

We can thus put Tucker in the class of a man who made strange predictions, but not an anti-capitalist.

Indeed. The the only substantive difference between voluntaryists is their predictions. Some predict that absence of the state will lead to capitalism; some predict mutualism; and others communism. That is why I see potential for alliance. Abolishment of the state gives us the environment for all our predictions to be tested, simultaneously.

For example, Proundhon didn't want to outlaw usury. He expected it to wither without the state.

Though Proudhon opposed this type of income, he expressed that he had never intended "...to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)

Also, I share Tucker's concerns on land. Not long ago, I considered myself a geolibertarian. After reflection, I have simply changed my predictions about land use. I no longer see a need for collection of ground rent, etc. I expect market forces to render a working outcome. Now I can reach out to a georgist and offer the possibility that the market will order land use, even while I share their concern over the issue.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

AnonLLF — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 21:43:30 GMT

Benjamin Tucker called himself a socialist before socialist was akin to state socialism or "collective ownership of the means of production". Tucker was a mutualist as were 99% of individualist anarchists throughout history.

Re: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Ricky James Moore II — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 19:07:06 GMT

If Tucker simply meant that customary law would determine what is abandoned, then he should have (and could have) said so. I'd like to think that he did, but classifying property ownership as a "great evil" makes me doubt it.

Tucker was obviously a propertarian, and believed in customary law. I think that, even if he disliked particular norms, he would recognize that people could acknowledge them voluntarily - just as he recognized the right (though not the good) to work for a wage and for the employer to keep the profits he earned thereby. He predicted profit and wage labor would vanish, but (unlike true anti-capitalist anarchists) he did not demand violent expropriation; even where it would be marginally justified he seemed to view it as a greater evil than simply letting peaceful market forces dissolve it. We can thus put Tucker in the class of a man who made strange predictions, but not an anti-capitalist.