[Rothbardian]

You get labeled right wing because the very thing that made traditional anarchists radical--rejection of capitalism and the state--you disagree with. Instead, you want to simply dismantle the state, which, within capitalism, is the only possible voice workers and the poor have to mitigate the effects of capitalism. You effectively create a society with privitized tyrannies. You of course make this sound nice by saying you would allow syndicates etc. But how is this any different than the current situation? Aren't workers, as you say, "free" to do as they wish in relation to capital now--to form syndicates, to leave their job and find another, etc?

An anarchist that wants to dismantle the state and not replace it with another state? How shocking!

[anticlimacus]

An anarchist that wants to dismantle the state and not replace it with another state? How shocking!

This is something that most the ancaps seem confused about. How is it that anarchists, up until the 1950s when ancaps came along, theorized and worked, practically, in forming a stateless society without capitalism, if socializing the means of production creates a state as you keep charging? Are the ancaps really that perceptive that they could see what a century and a half of anarchist thought couldn't? Or are ancaps just confused?

What ancaps seem to miss is that libertarian socialists begin from the ground up, from those who live in communities and work in the shops and the factories and the fields and those are the one's who gradually fight--through strikes, sit ins, direct action, and political defiance--against both the state and big capital to democratize political and economic life. This is a social process that is worked out by people on the ground, not some abstract idea of individuals making free transactions. The ancap seems to imagine the latter: Don't think of historical context, think of the world as if it had absolutely no history, think of a Rawlsian "original position" and then imagine these contextless individuals coming to agreements about what kind of society they should form. Again, this seems to be another major difference between the ancaps and socialists anarchists: the ancaps reliance on abstractions, and the socialists reliance on history.

[Eran]

"Democratizing" government made sense in the 19th century.

Today, government is already democratic, and we all can agree that such "democratization" is no guarantee against tyranny.

What makes you think that the democratisation (whether of government or of workplaces) you advocate would do any better?

As for your last point, ancaps are perfectly capable of identifying and promoting social processes that lead gradually from today's society to the one we are advocating.

There is no need to ignore historical context or start from an original position.

A common mistake is making the perfect the enemy of the good. In other words, criticising a solution that significantly improves over current conditions because that solution isn't perfect.

Given history, nobody can devise a perfectly just solution to structuring society. If nothing else, we simply lack the knowledge of detailed historical events required to do so.

Realistic ancaps recognise that, and adapt their solutions accordingly.

[Rothbardian]

This is something that most the ancaps seem confused about. How is it that anarchists, up until the 1950s when ancaps came along, theorized and worked, practically, in forming a stateless society without capitalism, if socializing the means of production creates a state as you keep charging? Are the ancaps really that perceptive that they could see what a century and a half of anarchist thought couldn't? Or are ancaps just confused?

What ancaps seem to miss is that libertarian socialists begin from the ground up, from those who live in communities and work in the shops and the factories and the fields and those are the one's who gradually fight--through strikes, sit ins, direct action, and political defiance--against both the state and big capital to democratize political and economic life. This is a social process that is worked out by people on the ground, not some abstract idea of individuals making free transactions. The ancap seems to imagine the latter: Don't think of historical context, think of the world as if it had absolutely no history, think of a Rawlsian "original position" and then imagine these contextless individuals coming to agreements about what kind of society they should form. Again, this seems to be another major difference between the ancaps and socialists anarchists: the ancaps reliance on abstractions, and the socialists reliance on history.

I'm not interested in labels, that's something you're fixated on. Probably to distract you from the utter stupidity of claiming to be an anarchist with the ultimate goal of creating a government.

[anticlimacus]

"Democratizing" government made sense in the 19th century.

Today, government is already democratic, and we all can agree that such "democratization" is no guarantee against tyranny.

What makes you think that the democratisation (whether of government or of workplaces) you advocate would do any better?

As for your last point, ancaps are perfectly capable of identifying and promoting social processes that lead gradually from today's society to the one we are advocating.

There is no need to ignore historical context or start from an original position.

A common mistake is making the perfect the enemy of the good. In other words, criticising a solution that significantly improves over current conditions because that solution isn't perfect.

Given history, nobody can devise a perfectly just solution to structuring society. If nothing else, we simply lack the knowledge of detailed historical events required to do so.

Realistic ancaps recognise that, and adapt their solutions accordingly.

I'm not sure of too many real "democratizing" projects in either the 19th, 20th, or 21st centuries. To be sure, the "vote for this wealthy man or that wealthy man who will make every decision for you" is not at all what real democracy is all about, and it certainly is not what socialists have in mind. We view democracy as something that people actual participate in, not just cast shallow votes for this or that corporate, capitalist, or statist leader. There may be a need for delegates who bid the wishes of the people they represent and nothing more, always subject to recall. But not some foreign government of "elected" leaders that make all "our" decesions for us.

And God help us if the US is our chief example of "democracy". From it's very inception it has been nothing but rich, wealthy white property owning men making laws and decisions that have interests for, first and foremost, rich, white, property owning men! The truth is that we have seen very little of democracy, where the people (including the poor, the propertyless, the marginalized--slaves, women, etc.) are actually put in power just as much as the rich and powerful. In reality the farce of modern democracy has been nothing but the drive of capitalist profit seeking, where those who have the means can and will take what they want. The only thing that is "modern" about it is that now they take what they want all under the guise of "public consent".

As to your point about history, all I ask is for you to explain how those with exceedingly great corporate and economic power are not going to become even more powerful under your call for "No government!--but everything else can stay...". So there is no government--what of that exceedingly small group of private citizens who actually control the government with their tremendous amount of capital? All I see you ancaps pointing to are these abstract free individuals who, without any real social context whatsoever, will make free contracts with each other. How is that nothing but a denial of history and context? How is that not an appeal to some abstract Rawlsian "original position" where context is nothing but a barrier to "free and equal" decisions?

[SolarCross]

Anticlimacus - Okay so my take is this: an-caps look forward to a society based on free contract, an-lefties look back on a society filled with injustice. This is a way we can help each other: an-lefties can help an-caps remain mindful of historical context and an-caps can help an-lefties with discovering a path to a better society.

[Someone5]

Anticlimacus - Okay so my take is this: an-caps look forward to a society based on free contract, an-lefties look back on a society filled with injustice. This is a way we can help each other: an-lefties can help an-caps remain mindful of historical context and an-caps can help an-lefties with discovering a path to a better society.

If only you were promoting a better society; the problem is that you propose something worse than what we have.

[SolarCross]

If only you were promoting a better society; the problem is that you propose something worse than what we have.

You don't think human interaction should be consensual? If not what else is there but coercion? How is coercion better than contract?

[anticlimacus]

You don't think human interaction should be consensual? If not what else is there but coercion? How is coercion better than contract?

Of course human interaction should be consensual. But consensus takes place within communities and on communal basis, not just private one-to-one interactions. The latter occurs only on the back of an already established social system. What we are trying to get at is that working social system, and how we talk and make decisions about our political and economic life should come through public discourse where all are able to participate, where elected boards and councils are there to enact the will of the people, where elected delegates can represent the interests of different groups and convey their wishes only. This all depends on a much more communal and public life--that is how we become free as individuals.

Okay so my take is this: an-caps look forward to a society based on free contract, an-lefties look back on a society filled with injustice. This is a way we can help each other: an-lefties can help an-caps remain mindful of historical context and an-caps can help an-lefties with discovering a path to a better society.

I agree that socialists have a much better eye on history, but not that they are backwards looking. History is not something that is just in the past. The reason history interests us is because it shapes who we are, including our social divisions, today. We are forward looking based on history.

The other thing that I've tried to point out is that libertarian socialists are not trying to create a society from the top down--from some formal system thrust upon people as if they are all the same with united interests. When we talk about the idea of ideal contract relations, those are the abstractions that come from the top down and have little to nothing to do with concrete reality that everyday people face on the ground. Social transformation occurs by those who are dominated, uniting to make a better society--from the ground up gradually making their economic and political life more democratic. This will not be an easy task. It will have huge push back from both the state and big capital. Most importantly, those fighting from the ground up are going to already have worked out what a democratic life is like. They are not fighting for some abstract idea of "free contracts" in economic exchange between private individuals. They are fighting for things that actually concern them and their life together: substantive economic equality and control over their own lives, including their production. How this production gets used and operated, how equality works out, those will be the things they come together to continually discuss together.

[SolarCross]

anticlimacus - community vs individual is a false dichotomy because communities are made of individuals and it is the interactions between individuals that makes a community. An-caps don't deny community we just want to see the interactions between individuals that makes communities to be if possible 100% consensual. Nor are an-caps trying a top-down approach to end coercive relations; if we were we would all be running for public office.

[anticlimacus]

anticlimacus - community vs individual is a false dichotomy because communities are made of individuals and it is the interactions between individuals that makes a community. An-caps don't deny community we just want to see the interactions between individuals that makes communities to be if possible 100% consensual. Nor are an-caps trying a top-down approach to end coercive relations; if we were we would all be running for public office.

Individuals indeed make up a community, but that does not mean that the community does not first shape who those individuals are. Individuals are born into a world of language, social norms, social organization and as such are socialized as individuals. Our very individuality is inescapably social. The fact that individuals embody and actualize that socialization does not mean the socialization does not exist. The very idea that society can be built up of private individuals with private interactions and private interests is also a socially created idea that becomes enforced by social institutions, which both predate and outlive our private individuals.

Now I don't think ancaps deny community, but I think there is a tendency to ignore socialization and those communal aspects (institutions, norms, language, etc.) all of which predate and outlast individuals. What ancaps tend to do is just focus on individuals and try to figure out the nature of individuals and based on that they think they can figure out society. This seems quite backwards and misguided. Individuals, as social beings, are what they are as they participate in society and are socialized within social systems.

As far as communities being consensual, I again stress that the one-on-one private contract only makes sense within a wider social background where contracts are defined and enforced, either legally or as social norms. It is within a wider social structure that our individual transactions take place and make sense. We therefore must concentrate on making that social structure democratic--and that's exactly what socialists who fight on the ground are seeking to do: to democratize their communities and work places so that they can actually live freely as individuals. It is the base assumption that individual freedom depends on some basis of social solidarity.

I still fail to see how ancaps are not top down. The abstract contractual relation between isolated individuals seems to be the basis of your whole analysis. There is no sense of context, of differences of power in society. There is only this abstract individual making a free contract. Who is going to fight for such an abstraction? Certainly not those who feel dominated. I fail to see how this abstract idea of "contract" becomes anything more than it is today: a coercive law that enforces the system of power and control, regardless of what people want or where different groups fit into such a contract--e.g. those with the unified power of capital at their dispense certainly have a greater position to bargain "free contracts" than isolated individuals who have nothing but their labor power.

[SolarCross]

Anitclimacus - society is the creation of individuals not the other way around. To say the that society influences individuals is just an abstract way of saying individuals influence individuals and this influence is called society.

"Democracy" by itself is no panacea; contractual democracy is ok, tedious but ok, however non-contractual democracy is just a bureaucratic kind of slavery. I'm perfectly fine with people voluntarily choosing to be subservient to some political process, democratic or otherwise, but it is plainly evil to force people to be under such an arrangement. An-caps understand this so I stand with them but it is not clear at all if an-lefties understand this and they seem to be very intent on keeping that unclear which I find to be suspicious.

[anticlimacus]

Social institutions and social systems are sustained and practiced by individuals. But individuals do not just begin as blank slates and start interacting. They begin within social systems and as parts of those systems, which predate and outlive them. Take, for example, a contract: indeed a contract is enacted by two individuals, but it's binding force comes from society, and the background institutions and background norms that structure and enforce those contracts is what makes possible that individual interaction we call "contractual". Those two individuals come together to make a contract because of an already existing social system and that contract becomes binding because of the reality of that system. Another example would be language. We are born into a language system, which is social through and through. Yet we actualize it through our individual linguistic practice and in that practice we also reproduce that social thing we call "language". Individuals do indeed influence other individuals but that occurs within networks of patterned practices and belief systems, institutions, and linguistic practices all of which we would call, within a particular geographical area, a particular "society".

I disagree with you about democratic practice, and I think democratic practice is really and truly anarchist. Anarchism, I think we would both agree, does not mean no organization. Anarchism is about voluntary organization, and voluntary organization must be thoroughly democratic. So in that sense, organization is decentralized.

I think the confusion here is that you keep viewing private individuals by themselves interacting with other private individuals. But on what basis does this take place? It seems to me that it takes place under a larger social organization, whatever that may be. What libertarian socialists want to ensure is that that larger social organization is actually something that everybody contributes and can control. And not any one person or group should have control over the vital institutions and resources of society, it should be controlled by all. Hence we talk about socializing the means of production and radically democratizing political participation.

[SolarCross]

anticlimacus - voluntary organisation should be voluntary; it needn't be democratic. If a bunch of people choose to follow your word as law, then that is a voluntary organisation though it is not democratic, likewise if a bunch of people are captured by goons and then told to vote on who gets a beating then that is not a voluntary organisation though it is democratic. See?

Individuals interact with each other by contract or by coercion there is nothing else. Do you want to coerce people into your idea of society? Please just answer the question with a yes or a no.

[anticlimacus]

voluntary organisation should be voluntary; it needn't be democratic. If a bunch of people choose to follow your word as law, then that is a voluntary organisation though it is not democratic, likewise if a bunch of people are captured by goons and then told to vote on who gets a beating then that is not a voluntary organisation though it is democratic. See?

I'm actually thoroughly confused at what your side wants, and I think it goes back to the sheer fact that you are working with abstractions of isolated individuals. As far as I understand anarchism has never been about creating, say, a "voluntary state"--i.e. a state where people simply give themselves over, voluntarily, to an absolute power. Why hasn't anarchism been about that? Well because anarchism has always focused on real concrete people living in society, with interests and concerns. Anarchism has never--at least until ancaps came along--been centered upon abstract individuals who are free in and of themselves who make contextless decisions. That's just a classical liberal twist on anarchism, classical liberalism without the state.

The first and foremost concern has traditionally been overcoming the power of private property, because anarchists--workers and theorists alike--saw this as a form of domination in their lives. The next move was overcoming the state, because this too was a form of domination in their lives. However, anarchism is not simply about negating the powers that be. It has a constructive component, which has looked differently depending on the theorists, admittedly. But generally speaking--except for ancaps--all anarchists have viewed community as essential to the project. And not community as a force to keep individuals in line. Rather community as a precondition for freeing individuals. It's the basic simple idea, which we learn in kindergarten, that we need to work together in order to succeed. I don't see how this working together does not happen without some form of radical democratic practice.

Individuals interact with each other by contract or by coercion there is nothing else. Do you want to coerce people into your idea of society? Please just answer the question with a yes or a no.

No, and in fact the only way I could have "my idea of society" as a real voice, depends on the fact that we have established a true anarchist society. This means that your idea of society cannot dominate all of us. You're private property, your capital, cannot be the de facto deciding principle. In a true anarchist society, where we are equal in means and able to make our own decisions based off that equality, my ideas are just one among many that would need to be communally debated and discussed. In an ancap society, my ideas are simply a matter of how much capital I have to bring them into reality, regardless of what anybody else thinks.

But if you are going to live in an anarchist society (yes it is a society, with institutions, norms, and organizations), then you will have to accept that it is anarchist. Therefore that the means of production are socialized. Therefore that there is not centralized state that decides everything for us. Therefore that communities will need to take responsibility and work together to ensure their well-being, or parish. But much of this will already be decided upon already in the fight to create an anarchist society--that is the key distinction between me and you. You seem to have an idea and want it to just fall from the sky: isolated individuals making one-to-one contracts. Although in reality, what you are calling for is the exact same world we have now, only without hte government, which would be the grossest kind of tyranny--and I have yet to hear how the ancap dream does not amount to much more than this. At any rate, what I am talking about is a concerted effort by united workers, the poor, the marginalized who have particular interests in socializing the means of production and democratizing both communal and economic life for the well-being of all individuals. I do not have in mind abstract thinkers who want to conjure some "original position" where we make contextless decisions.

[SolarCross]

anticlimacus -

brevity is the soul of wit

Long passages that say nothing you couldn't say with a few words.
Here's what you said:
Society is real, individuals are not.
We will take your stuff and pretend society did it.

[anticlimacus]

Society is real, individuals are not.

Where?

We will take your stuff and pretend society did it.

Where?

I'm sorry I could not whittle my answers down to a simple yes/no like you wanted. Although I will admit I am often long-winded, the plain truth of the matter is that there's a lot to explain because...unfortunately, it seems that there is a lot your side simply doesn't get. Maybe it's just hopeless and I'm trying too hard.

Let me try and be utterly simple with what I said:

Free individuals depends on social solidarity
Free community is decentralized and democratic in both economics and political life
I don't see how your ideal society is anything different than what we already have, minus the state.
I don't see how your idea is anything but a top down abstraction that has nothing to do with everyday life.

[Someone5]

I'm sorry I could not whittle my answers down to a simple yes/no like you wanted. Although I will admit I am often long-winded, the plain truth of the matter is that there's a lot to explain because...unfortunately, it seems that there is a lot your side simply doesn't get. Maybe it's just hopeless and I'm trying too hard.

The only reason to "debate" an-caps is when you feel like insulting someone. Because there is not a chance in the world that they will ever be able to wrap their heads around what you're talking about.

[anticlimacus]

@Someone5--yes, because according to an ancap, you are either a strict contextless individualist or a tyrant.

[Figlio di Moros]

To be fair to the AnCaps, they did discuss compromises to establish commons over essential infrastructure.