I don’t think people are fundamentally moral, only that they have the capacity for it. I believe the moral conscience is latent in everyone, just not fully developed in everyone.

I posit that the communal resources can be managed sustainably because it is in their self-interest to do so. I believe it because I’ve seen it first hand in a local anarchist community. No rules, no management, no authority, no mechanism, just a community of people engaging in common enterprise on the land they loved. Their economy consisted of fishing and foraging, tourism, trading trinkets with other communities, and believe it or not, professional surfing. All of this occurred out of the prying eyes of state interference…or so they thought. As soon as the state caught wind of their dealings they were forced to leave and their dwellings were burned to the ground.

I don’t believe this goodwill extends to government because it is a fundamentally immoral and anti-social institution. Anyone who occupies a position in it, moral or not, will nonetheless be perpetuating immoral and anti-social behavior. They couldn’t do otherwise.

But what you wrote is a good argument, and I agree with it. It works both ways, though. If one rejects freedom on account of the capacity for evil and greed of man, one should repudiate government power for the same reason.

I think both are possible. Whether good or evil, I only wish that I could deal with them all on my own terms, and associate with whomever I choose. I neither need nor want any collective management to determine which actions I or others take in any given situation, and I don’t think others need it as well, no matter how dependant upon they may have become in the meantime.

Poverty, overconsumption, monopoly, wealth inequality, seem to me the common objections. Keynes said as much in his essay “The End of laissez-faire”. But all of the above are apparent in all systems, including in those in which Keynes was the architect: capitalism “wisely managed”.

But why should it be managed at all? Why should one serve the interests of the state instead of his own and his neighbors? — NOS4A2

Poverty itself is not the traditional criticism. It's that poverty of the kind created by laissez-faire in the 19th and early 20th Century created volatility that resulted in social upheaval and war all over the globe.

Calming the world down was the motive behind embedded liberalism. As memories of those times fade, we return to conditions that gave rise to that volatility once again.

There's no point in being all tense and nervous about leftism. There is none to contend with.

I'm nervous and tense about statism, which is both left and right.

It's no strange wonder that Roosevelt praised Mussolini, and Mussolini praised the New Deal. In a review of Roosevelt's book he said "Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices, having recognized the welfare of the economy is the welfare of the people". The Nazis also praised it. And it's no strange wonder that Mao Zedung and Lenin praised state capitalism.

There never was any laissez-faire. The state caused much of the poverty, and the state caused all of the wars. It was the Inclosure Acts in England that forced people into the hands of the factory owners, for example. Having their property taken from them by the State, it was either work in the factories or starve to death.

I think the problem is not the end goal, but the means. I'm on board with the whole individual freedom thing, perhaps more than most here. I raised both my children without any rules at all, they were not required to go to school, attend lessons, no bedtimes, nowhere out of bounds etc... I take individual freedom very seriously. But the fact is that we are where we are. Individuals have not been brought up with any idea of responsibility, repressed, beaten, and stupefied. We have a disgusting level of inequality, in both power and wealth, we have massive problems with pretty much all of our communal resources, most of which have been caused by the ones who are now rich getting themselves that way.

So if we want our anarchist utopia, how do we get there from here? Government backing out of economics seems like a terrible first step. It's just going to magnify the inequality and worsen the problems with communal resource management because nothing has been done about the system of power relations that exist as a result of living in a non-anarchist system for ten thousand years or so. You can't just undo that kind of damage by walking away. Certainly not by just walking away in one aspect (economy).

The state caused much of the poverty, and the state caused all of the wars. It was the Inclosure Acts in England that forced people into the hands of the factory owners, for example. Having their property taken from them by the State, it was either work in the factories or starve to death. — NOS4A2

The problem here is historicism. You agreed there never has been any properly state-free system, so all you can show is that when the state are the most powerful weapon around, the rich use them to further their goals. If the state were not around, the rich would simply use the next most powerful weapon available (private armies, monopolising essential goods, private taxation etc), which may well be worse.

I think the problem is not the end goal, but the means. I'm on board with the whole individual freedom thing, perhaps more than most here. I raised both my children without any rules at all, they were not required to go to school, attend lessons, no bedtimes, nowhere out of bounds etc... I take individual freedom very seriously. But the fact is that we are where we are. Individuals have not been brought up with any idea of responsibility, repressed, beaten, and stupefied. We have a disgusting level of inequality, in both power and wealth, we have massive problems with pretty much all of our communal resources, most of which have been caused by the ones who are now rich getting themselves that way.

So if we want our anarchist utopia, how do we get there from here? Government backing out of economics seems like a terrible first step. It's just going to magnify the inequality and worsen the problems with communal resource management because nothing has been done about the system of power relations that exist as a result of living in a non-anarchist system for ten thousand years or so. You can't just undo that kind of damage by walking away. Certainly not by just walking away in one aspect (economy).

I'm with you on that. To destroy it or walk away from it would be cruel. The only way such a state could be achieved, I think, is if people simply stopped thinking in those terms, like the decline of Catholicism. That could take forever, for all I know. But in the meantime one needn't participate in it, and as you have done, lead by example.

The problem here is historicism. You agreed there never has been any properly state-free system, so all you can show is that when the state are the most powerful weapon around, the rich use them to further their goals. If the state were not around, the rich would simply use the next most powerful weapon available (private armies, monopolising essential goods, private taxation etc), which may well be worse.

You're right. They'd try to become a state. But I think it would take them a while to achieve the monopoly on violence, and a group like the Regional Defence Council of Aragon could hold them back.

I'm nervous and tense about statism, which is both left and right. — NOS4A2

Ok. So to limit state intervention, you'd have to restrict the ability of the people to vote for state intervention. That requires far reaching state power.

I don't think you can get there from here.

There never was any laissez-faire. The state caused much of the poverty, and the state caused all of the wars. — NOS4A2

Everybody has a narrative. Each one is self-serving.

90% of profits go back to shareholders, in the form of dividends and buybacks. Who decides this? The shareholders (through their boards of directors) -- who represent maybe .001% of the company.

Anyone who defends this system, directly or indirectly, doesn't give a damn about "liberty".

Ditto for anyone who is against democracy at work.

Anti-politics: hating government, while ignoring private power.

"The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. Therefore, you want to keep corporations invisible and focus all anger on the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500."

Laissez faire is just another form of this.

Ok. So to limit state intervention, you'd have to restrict the ability of the people to vote for state intervention. That requires far reaching state power.

I wouldn’t propose to restrict anything. It would be interesting to see what would happen in no one voted, though. Maybe we should start a “Don’t Vote” movement. But then they’d make it compulsory, no doubt.

I wouldn’t propose to restrict anything. — NOS4A2

Then what follows is going to be some state intervention. There's no way around it.

Ditto for anyone who is against democracy at work.

Anti-politics: hating government, while ignoring private power.

"The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. Therefore, you want to keep corporations invisible and focus all anger on the government. Not blame the guys in the Fortune 500, because you don't read the Fortune 500." — Xtrix

:clap:

The state is mostly controlled by Capital to moderate, or manage, the economic imbalances produced by Capital's exploitation of Labor and Nature. The larger the scale and more complex / dynamic the economic activity, the more dependent dominant economic actors are on "the evils of the state" for more (cyclical) periods of stability in markets and society than would occur without the state; thus, it's not only in their respective and collective class interest to capture state policy-making but also to perpetuate the state's 'Capital-facilitating' functions (e.g. corporate welfare, socializing costs/debts of private profiteering, etc).

In this current corporatocratic, post-mercantile era, NOS, advocating "separation of state and economy" – pure ideology (Žižek) – is no less delusional than the notion of "separation of structure and dynamics" in engineering (or no less incoherent than "separation of mind and body" in theology / metaphysics). No amount of rightist-libertarian sermonizing can change this political-economic fact (vide A. Smith, K. Marx ... J.M. Keynes ... D. Schweickart). — 180 Proof

:up:

I agree with your post since I couldn't put it better myself.

I get a similar feeling about statists. Since there are ways to care for others that do not involve state authority, I lean to the belief that those who are dependent on the state to care for others don’t really care for others. It’s just that they’d much rather have someone else do it for them. This isn't a liberal or objectivist critique of statist charity, as far as I know, but a Marxist one. As I mentioned earlier, the absence of a state would lay bare your compassion for what it really amounts to, and so far it’s not looking pretty. — NOS4A2

From what I'm reading from your post you are saying isn't doesn't help against why we shouldn't have the state have control or regulate anything but seems more to support it. If the people who have money/power to make sure that are adequate resources for those who either work for them and/or beneath them then it is a given that a third party needs to be created in order for that issue to be taken care of.

If you know a bit about history you would know before the industrial age it was a given that the aristocrats (or their equivalent) in any given area where not only in charge of the lands and businesses they controlled but also the wellbeing of the towns or whatever the presided over. Therefore it was in their best interest to try and do something about poverty, homelessness, etc. in the areas they had influence over. In a way it isn't really that different then a farm taking care of his land in that if they overtax the earth they are growing crops (ie growing crops that use to much nutrients and/or water) that they will likely have trouble growing more crops in the future.

However, during the industrial age things changed in that those with money and power no longer really had to care about the towns, factories, or people that were used to make money for them. Instead of people like a aristocrats managing the people working for the the people investing in things like factories or railroads instead hired supervisors who's main task was to pay as little as possible for work done or maintaining whatever resources they where in charge of and/or extract as much money/profit as possible. And because more often than not those that invested in such businesses had little to no concern for the communities their businesses resided in, it became more important for some government agency to do this instead since it was a given that the idle rich had no desire to do this themselves.

In a nutshell since it is a given that may wealthy individuals have no interest in trying to help communities that their businesses or corporations operate out of, it has becomes a responsibility of the city, state, or government. If there are places where a large business or corporation actually is responsible for helping their local community then it is a given that the state doesn't have to interfere with what they are doing. However when they don't, that is when someone has to step in and of course that is some government agency since it is a given that no other party has the resources to do so.

And if you are someone who is "unhappy" about the state interfering with how either people and/or businesses want to do things than I guess that is just too bad. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that people with wealth more often abuse their power than the people in some state or federal agency abuse whatever power they have. You may not believe this because of some propaganda you have read but the reality is in the US and much of the western world live in a plutocracy, and in a plutocracy the people with wealth and power have even more power than those running government (and/or the two are basically the same).

Democracies require checks and balances which often come in the form of some kind of government oversight. In a way it isn't much different than a community requiring police to watch over a community. While in many communities the people are civilized enough to not require the police to have constantly be involved in anything/everything, it is a given that when something does happen a community requires at least some kind of arbitrator to help deal with an issue. People that think a communities or society doesn't require things like cops to watch over it from criminals (and/or other people misbehaving) or other people to also act as arbitrators for when a corporation/business chooses to misbehave are either naive or foolish or both.

As the old saying goes "power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely". One only has to see what is going on in Ukraine/Russia right now in order to understand this issue.

Why do we fear "laissez-faire"? We fear laissez-faire, as the name suggests, let it be bone without intervention. And what should we let be done freely? It refers to producing goods and services. What would the world look like? Pretty much as it looks today. The possessing class is allowed to laissez-faire freely. Entrepreneurial enterprise has considerable esteem and free entrepreneurship is considered a high good. Of course, you should treat the employees with dignity and decent wages. And you should be conscious of environmental issues. Do these interests collide? Most of the time, yes. It's time new economics kicks in.

The wealthy don’t posses the monopoly on violence. The state does. The state, not the wealthy, can murder you in the street with impunity, throw you in jail, or confiscate your wealth. Slavery is still legal in the United States constitution, for example, so long the slave is the property of the American justice system. But if you’re fine with being controlled by politicians and bureaucrats, and those politicians and bureaucrats turn out to operate in the service of the wealthy, I guess that’s just too bad.

I’m not sure why any community requires the wealthy or the state to help them. It’s not “a given” that this should be so. But I can go to any large city in North America, wherever the state is at its most powerful, and look around to see what your state help amounts to. Not a whole lot.

I think the proper role of government is to protect human rights and civil liberties. I just don’t think the proper role for government is to meddle in the economy — NOS4A2

This is hopelessly naive. Human rights are (obviously) deeply interlinked with economic dynamics.


What are human rights and civil liberties, to your view?

Obviously? Then it should be easy to say how this is the case.

Then it should be easy to say how this is the case. — NOS4A2

It is.





You must have missed the word "hopelessly," above.

It is

Because?

The wealthy don’t posses the monopoly on violence. The state does. — NOS4A2

For the hundredth time: they OWN THE STATE.

They also ARE the state. More than half of those in congress are millionaires. The rest have to go through the wealthy to be in congress in the first place. There are very, very few exceptions.

But keep trying to separate the two. Good compartmentalization -- anything to avoid reality, I suppose. Impressive.

I’ve seen it first hand in a local anarchist community — NOS4A2

How many people are we talking here?

(I guess Michael Poole's make-shift sheds on the West coast, and the A-Zone in Winnipeg, have some folk, sometimes fewer, sometimes more; nothing to go all "Eureka" about though.)

Because? — NOS4A2

1. Human rights include the right to life.
2. Life requires food.
3...





You love to play the fool. But you only fool yourself.


Remember the Enlightenment?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...."

For the hundredth time: they OWN THE STATE. — Xtrix

:up:

Those who whine about the state without having anything to say about who controls the state - who will remain when it is abolished - simply want direct, unmediated, overlordship by capitalist rulers. Which not even capitalists want. The state doing their dirty work is good for them. Which is why dupes like NOS are nothing more than tools employed to abolish just those parts of the state the wealthy find most inconvenient, and nothing more. Hence his hilarious dick sucking for alleged billionares like Trump even as he pretends to be anti-statist.

hilarious dick sucking for alleged billionares like Trump — Streetlight

Nah, I don't think it's Trumpism. It's idealised anarchist socialism and I'm glad it's still alive even if only as a dream. The roots are not in industrial capitalism but in rural protest, people like the Diggers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrard_Winstanley.

No rules, no management, no authority, no mechanism, just a community of people engaging in common enterprise on the land they loved. — NOS4A2

Amen. Now let's get back to paying our taxes and keeping the gas pipes open. Or not.

....selfish imaginations taking possession of the Five Sences, and ruling as King in the room of Reason therein, and working with Covetousnesse, did set up one man to teach and rule over another; and thereby the Spirit was killed, and man was brought into bondage, and became a greater Slave to such of his own kind, then the Beasts of the field were to him — Winstanley

I might have it wrong but I think this is the spirit of the OP and subsequent debate.

no mechanism — NOS4A2

Herein lies the problem. NOS appears to want to retain some mechanisms - the one's by which he's recompensed for his labour, the ones by which he continues to own his property, the ones by which he can continue to make free use of communal resources like the air and water... whilst doing away with others. That's not "idealised" anything, it's just bog-standard right-wing politics wrapped up in new bow.

@Isaac Hmm, yes, there is always that problem with anarchism. It can be self-defeating. Perhaps it always is. I'm sympathetic because I think NOS is exploring an area where bog-standard right wing politics meets radical anarcho-socialism. If we are free, then we are free to exploit and enslave and also free to share and support one another without coercion. So it's philosophy and it's worth a discussion.

If we are free, then we are free to exploit and enslave and also free to share and support one another without coercion. — Cuthbert

Absolutely. So any meritorious discussion of the topic must begin with the matter of how to prevent the former and encourage the latter.

Any discussion which begins with "I don't want to pay taxes" (paraphrasing) is deeply suspect in its integrity.

Nah, I don't think it's Trumpism — Cuthbert

NOS is a die-hard Trumpist. He exists to apologize for him and people like him and nothing more.

I believe it because I’ve seen it first hand in a local anarchist community. — NOS4A2

Funny place for a rabid right-winger to be hanging out.

It was the Inclosure Acts in England that forced people into the hands of the factory owners, for example. — NOS4A2

Strange example for a 'let me profit from your disadvantage' capitalist to choose.

I think you noticed it too @Isaac:

So if we want our anarchist utopia, how do we get there from here? — Isaac