[grassroots1]

The power of money in a free society is only to do good,

You are deluded.

So to combat that theoretical concentration of power (which never actually happened historically)

Again, you live in a society that is proof of the assertion you're claiming is false.

With political actors to influence, spending money to buy influence is a rational choice. Political actors (much more than private ones) are easily and routinely corrupted. How else do you explain sugar quotas and ethanol subsidies?

You get them from a democratic system that has been corrupted. The solution here isn't to abandon the democratic process and throw our society to the sharks of business, the solution is to reclaim our democratic process and make it genuinely representative. This is what we need to do. You are young, Secret_Squirrel, which means you're attracted to nice, tight, clean, simplistic ideologies that claim to have a solution for the ills of the world. Unfortunately the world is much more complicated than you imagine, and you've happened to subscribe to the one ideology that is threatening to destroy our nation at its very foundations.

You'll get over it.

[lubbockjoe]

the relation between employee and employer

The relation between employee and employer is that of authority to subordinate. It is a hierarchical structure.
A true anarchist could not be a capitalist because he/she would be opposed to the capitalist hierarchical structure.

You get them from a democratic system that has been corrupted. The solution here isn't to abandon the democratic process and throw our society to the sharks of business, the solution is to reclaim our democratic process and make it genuinely representative. This is what we need to do.
You are young, Secret_Squirrel, which means you're attracted to nice, tight, clean, simplistic ideologies that claim to have a solution for the ills of the world. Unfortunately the world is much more complicated than you imagine, and you've happened to subscribe to the one ideology that is threatening to destroy our nation at its very foundations.

Agreed.
The libertarian, anarcho-capitalist ideology is a cold ideology of bondage and death. A key aspect of this dangerous form of capitalism is extreme individualism in which other persons count for little. They justify themselves by believing that it is both natural and proper to exploit the weak. 'Greed is good' is their motto.

If that isn't putrid enough, they put perfume on the pig of their ideology of death as they try to sell it to others.

.

[ThePublicOpinions]

If anarchists must be opposed to hierarchies, then I am not an anarchist. On the other hand, since a world without hierarchies would be a world where we all scratched a subsistence living from the dirt and the world's population would be under 100 million, so called 'anarchists' would be wise to abandon these foolish notions and accept the proper definition of anarchism as 'opposite to the initiation of coercion and violence' or, less accurately, 'opposition to the state'.

[lubbockjoe]

a world without hierarchies would be a world where we all scratched a subsistence living from the dirt and the world's population would be under 100 million

Why must this be the logical outcome of a world without hierarchies?

so called 'anarchists' would be wise to abandon these foolish notions and accept the proper definition of anarchism as 'opposite to the initiation of coercion and violence' or, less accurately, 'opposition to the state'.

Aren't anarchists opposed to authoritarianism?

A true anarchist should reject capitalism since it is an authoritarian system.

[Rei Murasame]

Lots of anarcho-capitalists in this thread seem to have found an affinity with the Somali Xeer system, which is pretty interesting seeing as I frequently accuse the capitalist order of being in affinity with the logic of a Saharan desert patriarchy, and now here in this thread I see anarcho-capitalists literally expressing affinity with one such order directly.

So, questions:

• How do women fare under the Xeer system?
  
  
• What is it about anarcho-capitalism (if anything), that you guys suppose would prevent the gender relations that manifested in Xeer, from being reproduced in Western anarcho-capitalism?

[Happyhippo]

If anarchists must be opposed to hierarchies, then I am not an anarchist. On the other hand, since a world without hierarchies would be a world where we all scratched a subsistence living from the dirt and the world's population would be under 100 million

How do you know this?

so called 'anarchists' would be wise to abandon these foolish notions and accept the proper definition of anarchism as 'opposite to the initiation of coercion and violence' or, less accurately, 'opposition to the state'.

But anarchists actually agree with you here, except that we think force and violence is an act of authority or more accurately "a product of hierarchy". The state isn`t the only problem.

[SecretSquirrel]

As far as I know the only discrepancy between genders in Somali Xeer is that women cannot testify in open "court" session, which is due to the prevailing Sharia law in the region and not due to Xeer

[myrmeleo]

What is it about anarcho-capitalism (if anything), that you guys suppose would prevent the gender relations that manifested in Xeer, from being reproduced in Western anarcho-capitalism?

Why would equality have to come from economic theory? If it is saharan culture that creates such a division, then surely a western culture based on gender equality wouldn't have that problem...

[ThePublicOpinions]

Modern society is made possible only through capitalism and the division of labour. Without free trade, private property and hiearchical organizations such as companies and corporations it would be impossible to get anything important done. No cars, no houses, just little huts we built ourselves and fields we tended with rudimentary tools. In order to make even a ham sandwhich you require first the labour of tens of thousands of others, organized through the creative chaos of the free market.
Capitalism is not authoritarian. It is voluntary.

[Happyhippo]

As far as I know the only discrepancy between genders in Somali Xeer is that women cannot testify in open "court" session, which is due to the prevailing Sharia law in the region and not due to Xeer

That seems like a reasonable explanation to me. Hopefully we both agree that Sharia law is garbage.

Modern society is made possible only through capitalism and the division of labour. Without free trade, private property and hiearchical organizations such as companies and corporations it would be impossible to get anything important done. No cars, no houses, just little huts we built ourselves and fields we tended with rudimentary tools. In order to make even a ham sandwhich you require first the labour of tens of thousands of others, organized through the creative chaos of the free market.
Capitalism is not authoritarian. It is voluntary.

Why? Your post looks more like a rant than an argument.

[lubbockjoe]

Capitalism is not authoritarian.

How do you explain this?

[ThePublicOpinions]

That is a hierarchy, to be sure, but not an authoritarian structure. No one is forced to participate, all of those individuals are free to leave that organization. It is voluntary and not coercive.

[lubbockjoe]

^Authority - the power to enforce rules, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.

Does an employer or an employee have authority?

[grassroots1]

No one is forced to participate,

Unless there is a lack of choice. It is the idea of being forced by your circumstances.

[ThePublicOpinions]

There is no economic system where everyone can lie on the beach all day, so I fail to see how that criticism is at all valid, grassroots.


And yes, by that overly broad definition, everything is authoritarian. There is no value in language if you muddy it so. When I hear 'authoritarian' I imagine jack booted thugs, people being sent to slave labour camps, state control over everything, wealth redistribution on a massive scale... not someone getting paid to do a job that they are free to quit at any time.

[grassroots1]

There is no economic system where everyone can lie on the beach all day, so I fail to see how that criticism is at all valid, grassroots.

I don't understand what those two things have to do with each other. The point is that if you rely on employment for survival, then you realistically don't have very much choice in whether or not you can be employed, and therefore the employer wields control over you. This was the case much more in the past when there were not basic standards, regulations, and social services. This is why those regulations exist. You ideologues continually fail to realize this because many of you are ignorant of history.

And yes, by that overly broad definition, everything is authoritarian. There is no value in language if you muddy it so.

Man, you remind me of another poster, RonPaulAlways. You can tell he was just as ideological and dogmatic as you are, just by his name...

But all of this is really beside the point that a business IS a tyrannical institution. Many times people can't leave authoritarian nations because other countries won't or can't take them. In other words, lack of choice. And there have businesses in history that have forced people to work. I'm sure examples of this still exist in other nations. So the question of force here is not as clearcut as you might think.

[lubbockjoe]

And yes, by that overly broad definition, everything is authoritarian.

If everything was authoritarian the answer to the question would apply equally to the employer as to the employee. A distinction would not be discernable. Obviously this is not the case. The question has only one right answer.

Does an employer or an employee have authority?

Authority - the power to enforce rules, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.

[myrmeleo]

Does an employer or an employee have authority?

An employer has the authority. Yet the employee can leave the relationship at any time, or even become an employer themselves, which at least to me sets it apart from other hierarchical situations.

[Dagoth Ur]

Most employees cannot leave the relationship at any time (responsibly) and by definition cannot all become employers. Capitalism is about centralization not about making a million employers with just a few employees.

[ThePublicOpinions]

Authority - the power to enforce rules, exact obedience, command, determine, or judge.

Do you think there would be no power to enforce rules or exact obedience in a syndicalist society? If I just ran around murdering people I would not be stopped? No one would judge me or determine my fate?