[SolarCross]

"When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use." - Joseph Stalin

Capitalists view land as just another asset to be bought, used and sold for perceived profit and advantage. I think we would have more luck buying from a capitalist state than any other kind of state. Ideology doesn't come into it much for them. Think US capitalists cheerfully handed over almost the entirety of their industrial capability to Communist China in return for short term profits off the back of cheap chinese labour... Truly the capitalists sold the 'rope' the chinese will use to hang the US empire. Nationalistic governments and monarchic governments would be the least interested in this kind of trade because land and people are the only asset they really value and they always prefer to have more than less (for reasons of prestige and security), also ideology matters more to them as it is a primary support for their control.

Can an anarchist collective ever be organised enough to authorise a large scale project like this kind of land purchase? I believe so; it is a matter of technically managing a direct democracy where each concerned individual can review the proposal and vote for or against. If it is the case that anarchists can never organise anykind of large scale project then anarchism is not viable in the real world.

Anyway I throw in the idea for a land purchase as means of gaining a sovereign patch of land to work with but in the end let direct democracy decide.

[mikema63]

I will point out that China seems to be communist in name only, more of a plutocracy now from what I see.

One method that has been attempted in the US is called the free state project, the idea is to move everyone who has a libertarian ideology into New Hampshire and make it into a libertarian wonderland. Its not much of a tweak to make it anarchists moving in and have the state secede from the US, how the US would react could be troublesome though.

[SolarCross]

I will point out that it may be that the chinese just want you to think that they are capitalist plutocrats. I think that the core are as maoist as ever they are simply 'using the enemies own weapons to defeat them' as any wise strategist should. They may allow for profit banking and commerce but they keep their capitalists on a tight leash; if they get caught robbing excessively, embezzeling from state companies or some other kind of corruption they are tried and executed. They also do that to the governments own officials caught taking bribes or similar.

I think they are rather masterfully playing a deep game of strategics and they are playing to win. They are doing a much better job than the soviets did certainly. The chinese offered the capitalists what they could not refuse, an inexhaustible supply of cheap labour for them to parisitise. In so doing the capitalist class who call the shots in the US have prevented US nationalists of undertaking military rivalry with China therby allowing the Chinese the time and the peace to develop the industrial and technological capability to support a rival and superior military hegemony. The capitalist with their lust for a quick buck have also handed the chinese the US industrial capablility (which is the US's real wealth not the paper shit they play with) and put the US into debt to the chinese.

But the story of how communist china is using capitalism to defeat capitalism is for another thread.

This New Hampshire freestate project is interesting but what about the already existing population of New Hampshire presumably not too many are libertarian?

I understand that a number of Texans are somewhat of the opinion that Texas should secede from the union perhaps there are some other states with secessionists too. It would likely mean war, at least the last time states tried to leave the union there was war and quite a big one at that. Under the right circumstances it might achievable without a fight.

I was wondering today about how feasible it might be to buy a small chunk of russia. Considering the sheer size of russia and the fact that the majority of that land is barely inhabited you'd think the russians might not mind a relatively small chunk going autonomous if it was done through a diplomatic trade rather than armed conquest or insurrection. Russia sold Alaska and after WW2 they offered world jewery their own autonomous state inside russia (they refused the offer prefering to steal land from the palestinians). The current russian government is cash rich and rather nationalistic so perhaps it is not a good time to make a deal with them but in the future who knows?

[mikema63]

They might give us Siberia I guess, its the traditional end point of political dissidents.

I don't know what China's end goals are of course, but from what I see its going to be very hard for them to undo the economic co-dependence with the US and the rest of the capitalist world. They may have bitten off more than they could chew with that strategy.

[SolarCross]

"us"? Are you interested in joining this venture? I thought you were an-cap? I'm not saying an-caps are not welcome to join but I expect internally our economy would be a some variation of a gift economy; could you get your head around that? I suppose an-caps could be put in charge of external trade, which would involve currency transactions, but could we trust you not to run off with the money?

[KlassWar]

They might give us Siberia I guess, its the traditional end point of political dissidents.

There's natural resources in Siberia: Russia wouldn't give it away.

Why a land purchase, at any rate? If the movement is rich enough to outright buy a country for themselves, ain't it strong enough to just [s]grab[/s] one?

Invading a 'failed State', eradicating the authorities and proclaiming the place Liberated Territory looks more practical.

[SolarCross]

Yeah we could do that. I mean its an option. A purchase however ruffles fewer feathers, creates fewer enemies and less opposition. Besides I am assuming the movement, if it ever comes into being, will be substantially populated by comparatively well off but effete westerners; people with little or no ability, experience or appetite for armed struggle but who are well trained in the arts of buying and investing.

[mikema63]

There aren't enough people who consider them anarchists, I'm afraid if you would want this to work at this stage and not some far flung future then I'm afraid you will just have to compromise and let us have a portion as well.

No need to be a greedy socialist.

[SolarCross]

As I said I don't say an-caps are not welcome. But could an-caps cope with a gift economy? Wouldn't they need to play with paper counters in order to do anything for anyone? If so I suppose an-caps would gravitate towards managing external trade - import and export as that would involve playing money games and their money addiction might even make them very capable at it but could we trust an-caps not run-off to the bahamas with all the money?

As to there not being enough people in the world who consider themselves anarchist enough to participate that remains to be seen. The initial phase of the project should be focused on one finding existing anarchists and making new ones. At this time it is anyone's guess how many people we might get in a given time frame but there are a couple of factors that are somewhat favourble to the cause.

1. We have the internet - the internet can be used to cost-effectively reach a pretty substantial number of people almost anywhere in the world.

2. The economic crisis - has finally demolished people's faith in capitalism, these people are actively looking for something else.

3. Anarchism, unlike communism, as an alternative hasn't really been tried yet in any sustantial way so it remains un-discredited by practical example.

[mikema63]

We would probably have to separate the two communities and agree to a set of rules for interactions between people from different groups and accept the different rules each group operates on internally.
I do think its possible to live in the same group all together but its taken me a bit of work figuring it out.

Now the problem isn't that ancaps require money, its just that ancaps believe that money would develop naturally without any intervention. Its not about my hating the idea of a gift economy, its more that I think some form of money would naturally develop.

[SolarCross]

I must admit I have very little idea how an-caps want to operate. Do they want to play the game of employer and employee? I suppose they all want to play at being the employer because that means they get to be important, get more cool stuff than everyone else and not even have to do any of that boring work thing. But in that case who will play employee? I can't see any anarchists volunteering to be kicked around and exploited by a bunch of flabby windbags with delusions of granduer. So you'll have to import your employees like they do in the emirates. But how long will it be before the imported workers see how the other anarchists live and decide they want to be anarchists too?

[mikema63]

My belief is that if any employment is not mutually beneficial absent coercion then it wouldn't and shouldn't occur, I don't believe that mutually beneficial employment can't exist but I certainly would prefer working for myself rather than being an employee all other things being equal. Things not being equal there are probably things I would agree to be employed to get, more money then otherwise or higher job security and what have you.

If my version of capitalism collapsed in favor of what you guys have in mind then I'm fine with that outcome, that I think my version of capitalism would exist doesn't mean I would force my version of capitalism into existence if it couldn't stand on its own.

[SolarCross]

Okay fair enough. We'll just see which works the best when it comes to trying them out.

[Someone5]

Capitalists view land as just another asset to be bought, used and sold for perceived profit and advantage.

You underestimate the aggression and coercion inherent in capitalism. Capitalists are not consistent with their own ideological claims when adherence to such claims would threaten their own individual power. An anarchist state's mere existence would be a threat to their power; it would provide their workers with an escape from their capitalist nightmare. It would sap their labor resources, and diminish their ability to exploit their workers--an anarchist state would provide a minimum standard that everyone else would need to follow or else lose their labor force.

Moreover, we now exist in a "global" economy--meaning that capitalists have laid claim to every square meter of ground and every ounce of resources, and any anarchist state that does exist would have to lay claim to some of that land and some of those resources, and the capitalists would see that as a direct threat. No matter how much the anarchists were willing to pay. Because capitalism isn't really about money or efficiency, it's just about power and domination.

I think we would have more luck buying from a capitalist state than any other kind of state. Ideology doesn't come into it much for them.

Ideology is vital for capitalist states; it just isn't adhered to by leaders. A happy and successful anarchist state would be an immense threat to their power. It would put a lie to their claim that all of the problems with capitalism must be tolerable "because the alternatives are worse." It would put a lie to their implied dichotomy between capitalism and feudalism.

Think US capitalists cheerfully handed over almost the entirety of their industrial capability to Communist China in return for short term profits off the back of cheap chinese labour...

Only once the Chinese adopted the capitalist assumptions and proved servile to the demands of capital. Capitalists have become transnational--they do not care about borders anymore either.

Truly the capitalists sold the 'rope' the chinese will use to hang the US empire. Nationalistic governments and monarchic governments would be the least interested in this kind of trade because land and people are the only asset they really value and they always prefer to have more than less (for reasons of prestige and security), also ideology matters more to them as it is a primary support for their control.

My point was that no sort of government would be willing to sell for ideological reasons; not capitalists, not monarchies, not authoritarian dictatorships.

Can an anarchist collective ever be organised enough to authorise a large scale project like this kind of land purchase? I believe so; it is a matter of technically managing a direct democracy where each concerned individual can review the proposal and vote for or against. If it is the case that anarchists can never organise anykind of large scale project then anarchism is not viable in the real world.

We're not talking about organizing a few hundred or even a few thousand people; you would need to organize hundreds of thousands or millions of people. No other economic system has met that kind of barrier--even the largest corporations aren't millions of people strong, why should we expect anarchism--which by its nature rejects such hierarchies--to do so?

I mean, you can't even get a dozen people to agree on where to eat, and you would expect a million people to decide on what contiguous territory they would like to buy to create a state in? That kind of organizational barrier hasn't been crossed by any existing organization, why set that as a requirement for anarchism?

Anyway I throw in the idea for a land purchase as means of gaining a sovereign patch of land to work with but in the end let direct democracy decide.

States do not cede control of territory in such a way. They do not sell the sovereign rights to territory except through treaty negotiations. When you "buy" land, you are not buying the sovereign rights to it.

There's natural resources in Siberia: Russia wouldn't give it away.

Why a land purchase, at any rate? If the movement is rich enough to outright buy a country for themselves, ain't it strong enough to just [s]grab[/s] one?

Invading a 'failed State', eradicating the authorities and proclaiming the place Liberated Territory looks more practical.

Probably. There are quite a few failed states that could prove vulnerable to a sufficiently well funded anarchist movement--assuming the anarchists were willing to be brutal enough to actually win a fight in the jaded third world. But it would require tens of thousands of volunteers and far more in the background supplying the material to fight a war, and a large amount of preparation and training that would probably prove extremely threatening to authorities in the states they're organizing within. States tend to take a poor view of armed militant groups training within their borders with the goal of kick-starting an anarchist revolution "in the provinces."

[Someone5]

Double Post

[SolarCross]

I do recognise we will face aggression from other states perhaps especially from states that are wholly given over to the interests of capitalists such as the US empire. In fact the US empire would be our biggest worry, the sheer firepower at the command of US capitalists through the US state is hard to ignore.

I doubt though they would worry very much about their workers escaping to our anarchy, some will make the escape I expect, but the capitalists have a world of cheap labour to exploit. These days they are not short of labour. In fact it looks like the capitalist elite of the west now have a depopulation agenda because they think the world has too many people for them to comfortably control.

The threat they would see in our anarchist state would be the 'threat of a good example' they would worry that our anarchy would become a model that will inspire other anarchies to emerge. The other reason they may go after us would be just if we happened to have some resource they wanted to exploit such as oil. I agree with you on that point.

As to China, I think my analysis is correct, the chinese are using capitalism to defeat capitalism. The servility you see in them is a disguise to deflect direct hostility while they grow in strength. I should start another thread on this subject, it is interesting what the chinese are doing but it isn't very relevant to this thread.

It may be no one would sell for ideological reasons; I submitted the idea but I am not a slave to it. I suggest that if we want to make a viable, sovereign anarchy, we first concentrate on finding sufficient numbers of others willing to participate and then see what method we can take. I think a minimum of 10,000 or so for a micro-state but really 100,000 or more would be better.

There is a lot of land in the world and much of it isn't that interesting to anyone or guarded by the kind of massively funded high tech militaries such as that of the great powers like the US, Russia and China.

I do think for the big collective decisions a direct democracy is viable especially in this age where we have at our disposal IT network technologies. Essentially we are talking a referundum. Referendums are technically viable even for hundreds of millions. It isn't done very often because most states don't like involving the masses in direct democracy if they can help it. Direct democracy doesn't mean hierarchies. Most collective decisions the anarchy make will be local and small scale anyway.

Ordinarily buying land within a state in no way implies a loss of control of the that land from the state. Perhaps I was not very clear. When I mean buy land, I mean explicitly purchase sovereignty over a territory, just as the US government did when they purchased alaska from the russians. It doesn't happen very often but it does happen.

We don't know yet what opportunites may arise. Capitalism and statism in the west are facing some pretty serious crisises. It is quite possible that at least a partial collapse of the state may occur in a number of capitalist countries as a result of the self-defeating greed of the capitalists. That will present an opportunity for us if we ready for it.

[mikema63]

Such pessimism, at this stage the only thing you can really do is educate people and recruit, whats the point in being all doom and gloom about it in the meantime? Its not good for your health so just smile a little.

[SolarCross]

Such pessimism, at this stage the only thing you can really do is educate people and recruit, whats the point in being all doom and gloom about it in the meantime? Its not good for your health so just smile a little.

I agree entirely.

I have begun work on creating some internet based means for helping with the education and recruiting. The first component I offer will be a magazine for disseminating information and recruitment. After that I will make a virtual venue in which we can organise ourselves, a sort of virtual parliament.

Some volunteers to help with writing articles for the magazine would be appreaciated.

[mikema63]

I'm not the best writer, I'm also probably not the type you want on your e-magazine.

[SolarCross]

An-caps are okay, I think in an anarchy there is room for all sorts. I think for the sake of being comprehensive the magazine should include some an-cap material and it would be better if an an-cap wrote it. You don't want to leave it to me to articulate the an-cap aspirations!