Material conditions most amenable to anarchy. - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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The 'no government' movement.
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#14427909
Eran wrote:Full automation will not eliminate the need and desire for private property. Freedom doesn't require (or is even allowed by) socialism. If you do reach nirvana whereby all human wants can be provided by technology, why would you want or need socialism? Why not allow people to own the (abundant) resources made available through technology?


I think you're confused about the version of socialism I'm suggesting. I'm not referring to Marxist socialism which desires to abolish private property and make all productive property owned by society as a whole, but simply to local community ownership of some important resource procuring for that community, hence municipal.

I mean I am partly a distributist, so I consider private property the ground institution of society. People will be able to own humanoid robots in the future, and these are means of production. A 3D printer is a secondary production device, so private ownership of these and their successors is important.

However, as automation progresses, monopoly capital ownership will no longer be able to support itself while automating, so governments should begin to set up local food facilities to serve each community and endeavor to automate these to bring the long term costs down. These can operate without actually removing private facilities, it is just that the private capitalism cannot easily bridge the gap.

The long run result is that what used to require extreme coercion to run, is fulfilled with less and less. If government services like welfare become more and more automated, their cost will fall towards zero (no labor cost = no public wages = no tax collection = no coercion), making government services less coercive. Eventually, they may cease to be considered part of "governance", and simply be socially owned facilities, disconnected from the legal-political apparatus. This isn't socialism as anarcho-capitalists think of it.

One way for capitalism to continue in a new form is for each person to own enough robot labor capacity, that they can send a robot off to be employed for a wage (if they want to do more than just live off essential facilities). I don't imagine that this can happen until we are far advanced enough to have such things, and given that current automative technology is under monopoly capital ownership, sufficient advances in existing automation eventually lead to the employment>income>profit problem that can't allow this form of capitalism to continue. In other words, the existing form of capitalism cannot survive progress, so if some new capitalism emerges it can only be on the back of technological distributism and municipal socialism.

So I imagine a society of municipal socialism (so all can survive) + distributism (so it is possible to survive apart from dependence on central systems if you need to) + techno-capitalism (so there is enterprise and a means of accumulation), but I see the first two as coming first and buttressing society against the limits of human labor based capitalism with monopolized ownership of the means of production.
#14427924
Technology wrote:If people's net voluntary eugenic actions over time resulted in a less aggressive and fearful populace, then day to day living would be more peaceful.

I wonder how many parents would like their child to be more submissive and unable to resort to self-defense, and how many would like them to be the perfect lil' alpha.

Indeed, but given that mass capitalism cannot pass through the automation barrier (automation ultimately means full unemployment means no disposable income means no profits).

Good point: if remunerated work disappears, so do those domination opportunities. But the desire still remain: without opportunities it will occur less but it will still have to occur. Where will it be channeled? I guess it is related to the question of social interactions in a society without labor: when will they occur? You mentioned municipal socialism, I am largely ignorant about that and how proeminent it could be without labor.


Eran wrote:There is no 'Domination' associated with voluntary financial transactions, unless it is voluntary domination. Being voluntary, it is generally morally unexceptional (this is a slight over-statement).

The relationship between employee and employer is mutually advantageous. Both sides gain, as is the case with every transaction.

Spare me this corporate enthusiasm catechism, especially as it is wrong: if you engage a prostitute for SM games there is obviously domination and it is still a "mutually advantageous relationship" in a capitalist perspective(*). So is the employer-employee relationship: many people hate their bosses but they prefer to lick his ass rather than renouncing their wages. So it may be "mutually advantageous", yet is it s a domination relation. But maybe you will prefer the term of "subordination", used by the law in my country (and probably others) to describe employment contracts.


(*) If you think it is absolute, aways mutually advantageous, I remember you that things like self-esteem are not accounted. When an employee suicides himself or falls into depression, was the relationship mutually advantageous?
#14428149
Harmattan wrote:(*) If you think it is absolute, aways mutually advantageous, I remember you that things like self-esteem are not accounted. When an employee suicides himself or falls into depression, was the relationship mutually advantageous?

Things like self esteem are accounted. It is the employee who decides to take a job or not. Because the employee makes his own decisions, he is likely to take into account all expected monetary, social and psychological effects of taking the job. So if the job is very stressful or demeaning, the employee will take this into account. Yet he may still take the job, because it is the best alternative available to him.

And that is the main idea behind mutually beneficial agreements: it is the best alternative available to the worker. He expects that would he have chosen another alternative, he would be worse off. By taking the job, you expect to be better off than when you would have not taken the job. So you expect it to be beneficial.

After the fact, it can of course be that the employee made the wrong decision. That's because we cannot predict the future and this is unavoidable. We can only respect the decisions that people make about their own lives and hope that they learn from their mistakes.
#14428223
Technology wrote:However, as automation progresses, monopoly capital ownership will no longer be able to support itself while automating, so governments should begin to set up local food facilities to serve each community and endeavor to automate these to bring the long term costs down. These can operate without actually removing private facilities, it is just that the private capitalism cannot easily bridge the gap.

Why would automation make it difficult for private capital ownership to be self-supporting? Why are you referring to private capital ownership as "monopoly" when the alternative you are suggesting (municipal capital ownership) is much more of a monopoly?

The long run result is that what used to require extreme coercion to run, is fulfilled with less and less. If government services like welfare become more and more automated, their cost will fall towards zero (no labor cost = no public wages = no tax collection = no coercion), making government services less coercive. Eventually, they may cease to be considered part of "governance", and simply be socially owned facilities, disconnected from the legal-political apparatus. This isn't socialism as anarcho-capitalists think of it.

But if costs keep going down, why assume you need government (at any level) to own and operate those services? On the Internet, for example, we see a steeply declining price for many services. Some (like this forum or Wikipedia) are privately-controlled yet offer free services. Others (like web hosting) aren't free, but are very very inexpensive.

I must stress, of course, that an-caps do not have any issues with communal ownership of resources, provided only that the resources being communally owned have been donated to the community by its legitimate owners, rather than being confiscated (as municipal governments tend to do today).

and given that current automative technology is under monopoly capital ownership...

There you go again. What "monopoly" capital ownership? Capital is owned by literally millions of individuals and firms. There is hardly any good that is less monopoly controlled than capital.

So I imagine a society of municipal socialism (so all can survive) + distributism (so it is possible to survive apart from dependence on central systems if you need to) + techno-capitalism (so there is enterprise and a means of accumulation), but I see the first two as coming first and buttressing society against the limits of human labor based capitalism with monopolized ownership of the means of production.

From an an-cap perspective, the most critical question is one you don't refer to, namely the role of aggression (the initiation of force) within your society. For an-caps, as long as no aggression is involved, communities can organise themselves however their members see fit, allowing for a very wide range of possible "solutions" (this is Nozick's famous "Utopia"). Yours may well be one of those.
#14428420
Eran wrote:Why would automation make it difficult for private capital ownership to be self-supporting? Why are you referring to private capital ownership as "monopoly" when the alternative you are suggesting (municipal capital ownership) is much more of a monopoly?

...

There you go again. What "monopoly" capital ownership? Capital is owned by literally millions of individuals and firms. There is hardly any good that is less monopoly controlled than capital.


I should more say oligopoly rather than monopoly if I'm being technical rather than just meaning "monopolized", due to it being excluded from so many. For many of the most vital markets like food production, much of the production comes from just a few big firms who have most of the market share.

At any rate, most people are dispossessed of the means of their own survival due to capital ownership not being wide enough or not having low enough economies of scale yet to successfully spread it out to begin with.

Automation is good for big companies at first, due to reduced cost, but eventually it must necessarily lead to unemployment as providing we are physicalists, we must recognize AI as a rising tide which eventually submerges all human abilities. As it does so, it leaves no frontier left for humans, and therefore destroys the human labor force. Eventually this process would make automation bad for companies, because it leads to the full unemployment = no disposable income = no consumption = no profits problem. This suggests companies would stop short of progressing production technology as far as they could.

However, on the other side lies a potential utopia in which robots do all labor humans wouldn't freely do, thereby ending poverty. This is only possible, of course, if the benefits of this progress can be accessed by all. As noted, for profit companies, the big drivers of productivity today have no incentive to do so, and non-profits would never have the resources needed to develop AI fast enough (to head off any destabilizing effects of reduced disposable incomes), and they also have to still compete on the market even if they are non-profit, so the only one left is government. It's sort of like an "uncanny valley" type problem.

Municipal socialism wouldn't exclude private ownership, it would just ensure that there exists co-operatively owned automated facilities sufficient to meet everyone's basic food needs. Goodbye poverty. Any market which can emerge on top of that is more good and just than it ever was before (providing the property acquisition remains consistent with the "Lockean proviso", a concept Nozick - who you mention below - termed from a passage of Locke's; a passage which inherently requires at least some governmental arbitration about what counts as "enough and as good, left in commons for others"...).


Eran wrote:From an an-cap perspective, the most critical question is one you don't refer to, namely the role of aggression (the initiation of force) within your society. For an-caps, as long as no aggression is involved, communities can organise themselves however their members see fit, allowing for a very wide range of possible "solutions" (this is Nozick's famous "Utopia"). Yours may well be one of those.


The government initiates force when it confiscates wealth. However, the government needn't initiate any more force to engage in new programs, since budget restructuring can occur instead (I've before created possible new budgets for the UK refocused on computing and robotics development), possibly joined by tax restructuring. The government we have is aggressive now, but the need the mass of the populace have for its services isn't going to go away any soon. Given that welfare and research programs are not themselves initiatory of aggression, but only their source of revenue, the key solution which allows everyone across the mainstream political spectrum and also libertarians to win is for government to require less and less and eventually zero taxation to do the good stuff it does. If there is a state which exists which you can't just wish away, and it taxes so much, then it should use the taxes it already collects each year to create the technical means of taxing less for the same value over time. At the same time, the all round bad stuff, such as war and misuse of technology to treat citizens as units of production for its purposes will have to be tackled politically.

I don't however believe that complete non-initiatory administration can ever be achieved, so I'm a "small stater" libertarian. Monocentric law is necessary for some basic things to provide a framework we all exist within in. It's necessary in one example for the practical reason of not having to take account of totally different road laws once you enter a new administration of road, or perhaps in another example to ensure that we don't get municipal authoritarianism through overly restrictive local laws. Certain things can't be decentralized. Instead a centralized framework must provide the simplest and sharpest rules it can for decentralized institutions to organically interact within. Another reason for monocentric law is a bit paradoxical, but again, unavoidably practical; the very fact that people have monocentric ideologies in general, means that a lack of some relatively liberal and non-interventionist central authority allows those people an easy path to imposing their own central authority of a non-libertarian spectrum type. This is pure game theory stuff.
#14428595
Technology wrote:I should more say oligopoly rather than monopoly if I'm being technical rather than just meaning "monopolized", due to it being excluded from so many. For many of the most vital markets like food production, much of the production comes from just a few big firms who have most of the market share.

This is factually untrue. According to the European Commission:
"Europe has 13.7 million farmers and an average farm size of about 12 hectares (by way of comparison, the US has 2 million farmers and an average size of 180 hectares).". Once there's over a million firms, its hard to talk about monopolies.

At any rate, most people are dispossessed of the means of their own survival due to capital ownership not being wide enough or not having low enough economies of scale yet to successfully spread it out to begin with.
For many industries you just don't need scale. As I have said before: the economy is more than coal mines and steal mills. The services sector is the most important sector in the economy. You can compete in that sector with very limited capital.

Automation is good for big companies at first, due to reduced cost, but eventually it must necessarily lead to unemployment

Who says this should cause unemployment? History is not at your side here. In pre-industrial times, 97% of the population worked in agriculture. Due to the massive technological advancements, today only 3-5% are working in agriculture. At the same time, the population has expanded exponentially. Yet what we did not see was an ever increasing unemployment. 90% of the population lost their jobsdue to automatization, but unemployment did not increase. The largest process of automatization is already behind us and still people need to work.

Why is this? As we replace a worker with a machine, we find something for that worker that machines can't economically do.

as providing we are physicalists, we must recognize AI as a rising tide which eventually submerges all human abilities. As it does so, it leaves no frontier left for humans, and therefore destroys the human labor force. Eventually this process would make automation bad for companies, because it leads to the full unemployment = no disposable income = no consumption = no profits problem. This suggests companies would stop short of progressing production technology as far as they could.
This scenario is so far into the future that it is not worth considering. Jobs are lost in some industries and new jobs are created in other industries. There is no net job loss over time. And the technology to build creative AI machines that can build, maintain, design and innovate themselves may happen one day in the future. But that isn't a problem of today.

Anyway, even if those robots exist, this does not mean they will have no cost. There won't be an infinite amount of robots and the production of those robots won't be infinite either. If there is scarcity, there will prices. If machines have a positive cost, then a laborer can provide the same product at a lower cost. If the machinized cost of a product is $1, then you could pay a worker $0.1 to make this product and then the worker will outcompete the machine. So there will still be full employment. Only the wages may be low. But this doesn't have to be a problem. Full automatization will also drive down prices. So even with very low wages, purchasing power may still be high.

As long as there is scarcity, full employment at a market clearing wage is possible no matter how high the automatization is.

Finally, even if machines can make everything better than humans can, there is still a role for human labor. This is explained by Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage Just replace Brittain and Portugal in the example by machines and workers.

The only situation in which there would be no employment is in a post scarcity society where everyone's needs and desires are being fulfilled from an infinite pool of resources. This is not a situation that I am currently worried about.

I don't however believe that complete non-initiatory administration can ever be achieved, so I'm a "small stater" libertarian. Monocentric law is necessary for some basic things to provide a framework we all exist within in. It's necessary in one example for the practical reason of not having to take account of totally different road laws once you enter a new administration of road,

You don't need a central administration to plan that one road can connect to another. As you say it is highly unpractical to have different road laws for connecting roads. Connecting road owners will have the incentive to standardize their road laws. This is not something hypothetical. Today's road owners are governments. Many roads connect one government's roads to that of another government. There is no UN road authority that centralizes road laws. But still you can drive to your neighbouring countries without having to face vastly different road laws.

or perhaps in another example to ensure that we don't get municipal authoritarianism through overly restrictive local laws.

This is a contradiction. You want to create a central authoritarianism to combat the possibility that local groups don't become authoritarian. Your cure is worse than the disease. You don't need a central authority to combat municipal authoritarianism. If the municipality steps out of its bounds and commits aggression, then the solution would be the right to organized self defence by those who face the aggression and their supporters.

Instead a centralized framework must provide the simplest and sharpest rules it can for decentralized institutions to organically interact within.
This is what the NAP provides. A simple guideline that everyone must follow. If you break it that people are allowed to use force in self defence. As long as the NAP is followed,


allows those people an easy path to imposing their own central authority of a non-libertarian spectrum type. This is pure game theory stuff.


Why would it be easy? By imposing your authority, you violate their rights and they can use force to stop you. You don't need a central authority that initiates force to do that. In fact, that is the thing we want to prevent. Your cure is worse than the disease. You assume that people can't keep their local authoritarians in check. So you want to impose a central authoritarian in check. But your central authoritarian is assumed to be good and kind and never abuse or enlarge its powers. Well, why would your central authority not be prone to the same dangers that you see in the local authorities? The central authority is much better positioned to be authoritarian. It has the scope, power and legitimation that you have given it. A local authoritarian would have a much more difficult time. His scale is small, his behavior is not legitimized. I'd rather organize a defence against a local community than against a nationstate.
#14428932
Nunt wrote:This is factually untrue. According to the European Commission:
"Europe has 13.7 million farmers and an average farm size of about 12 hectares (by way of comparison, the US has 2 million farmers and an average size of 180 hectares).". Once there's over a million firms, its hard to talk about monopolies.


Monopoly in economics doesn't actually mean one guy owns everything, it just means that they have a market share bigger than a certain very large percentage. Countries use a certain percentage to dictate monopoly rules, such as 25% being considered the line of legal monopoly in some markets for some countries. I'm pretty sure that agriculture is at least an oligopoly, with many large conglomerates owning most of the market share to sell to supermarkets. At the very least, few people can produce their own food, and the point is that they must rely on supermarkets and others down the chain, so are very vulnerable to unstable markets.


Nunt wrote:Anyway, even if those robots exist, this does not mean they will have no cost. There won't be an infinite amount of robots and the production of those robots won't be infinite either. If there is scarcity, there will prices. If machines have a positive cost, then a laborer can provide the same product at a lower cost. If the machinized cost of a product is $1, then you could pay a worker $0.1 to make this product and then the worker will outcompete the machine. So there will still be full employment. Only the wages may be low. But this doesn't have to be a problem. Full automatization will also drive down prices. So even with very low wages, purchasing power may still be high.


It will when the robot assembly line is itself run by robots, and all the human control can be boiled down to the minority willing to do oversight for free. There will still be an energy and resource cost, but since you can use robots to get these things too, it's not monetary. With a tireless labor force, we could create more geothermal energy that would be not accessible profit wise. All the resources on the sea bed or deep underground would be much more easily accessed.

Also this: "Fusion power commonly proposes the use of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, as fuel and in many current designs also use lithium. Assuming a fusion energy output equal to the 1995 global power output of about 100 EJ/yr (= 1 × 1020 J/yr) and that this does not increase in the future, then the known current lithium reserves would last 3000 years, lithium from sea water would last 60 million years, and a more complicated fusion process using only deuterium from sea water would have fuel for 150 billion years.[149] To put this in context, 150 billion years is close to 30 times the remaining lifespan of the sun,[150] and more than 10 times the estimated age of the universe."

In the near future, energy won't be a problem for a long time, and a robotic labor force is basically a modern slave economy without the suffering.


Nunt wrote:The only situation in which there would be no employment is in a post scarcity society where everyone's needs and desires are being fulfilled from an infinite pool of resources. This is not a situation that I am currently worried about.


I don't think it's so far off. Neuroscience is closing in on the bit-rate of the brain. One estimate is 10^15 bits per second. Moore's Law (continued in some new architecture) suggests we can reach this for $1000 by 2030. Even if the brain is actually way faster than this, because computing process follows a near term curve close to an exponential, it doesn't put it as proportionately off as far off as you'd think, since its a doubling process (ultimate limits due to physics exist, but these necessarily encompass the human brain's capability, unless the brain is magic).

Also, we'll get there a lot faster if we increase spending on the necessary research in neuroscience and robotics. Decreasing spending in other areas at the same time would not require any more taxation.


Nunt wrote:You don't need a central administration to plan that one road can connect to another. As you say it is highly unpractical to have different road laws for connecting roads. Connecting road owners will have the incentive to standardize their road laws. This is not something hypothetical. Today's road owners are governments. Many roads connect one government's roads to that of another government. There is no UN road authority that centralizes road laws. But still you can drive to your neighbouring countries without having to face vastly different road laws.

...

This is a contradiction. You want to create a central authoritarianism to combat the possibility that local groups don't become authoritarian. Your cure is worse than the disease. You don't need a central authority to combat municipal authoritarianism. If the municipality steps out of its bounds and commits aggression, then the solution would be the right to organized self defence by those who face the aggression and their supporters.

...


Why would it be easy? By imposing your authority, you violate their rights and they can use force to stop you. You don't need a central authority that initiates force to do that. In fact, that is the thing we want to prevent. Your cure is worse than the disease. You assume that people can't keep their local authoritarians in check. So you want to impose a central authoritarian in check. But your central authoritarian is assumed to be good and kind and never abuse or enlarge its powers. Well, why would your central authority not be prone to the same dangers that you see in the local authorities? The central authority is much better positioned to be authoritarian. It has the scope, power and legitimation that you have given it. A local authoritarian would have a much more difficult time. His scale is small, his behavior is not legitimized. I'd rather organize a defence against a local community than against a nationstate.


You may be right about all this. Maybe people can just cast off the weak central authority, but the entire point is to get down to that stage in the first place. The imposition of authority here is simply a minimized continuation of an authority that already exists.

The only way I can see though that we can have polycentric law and thus anarchy is for each community to keep its laws to itself and not try to prosecute other communities under its law. If they did, then you'd have conflicts between differing law agencies trying to prosecute each other for having "illegal laws". If they did keep to themselves, then you'd just have isolated city-states and smaller communities who would have difficulty making transfers between each other without some common enforced agreement, so it seems like you are back to square one.

Centralized authority is more dangerous than more decentralized authority, but it allows a common framework whereby people are kept within those bounds. The key thing is to provide the widest common framework possible without different ground framework conceptions trying to eat each other.

Nunt wrote:This is what the NAP provides. A simple guideline that everyone must follow. If you break it that people are allowed to use force in self defence. As long as the NAP is followed


The NAP can only be a guideline, and not a principle, because what counts as "initiation" is very clear for obvious cases, but has more blurry ones that mess up the works. Even stuff like pre-emptively initiating an attack against a strange person in your house can be interesting for the NAP. The NAP is first built from self-ownership and then extends from there to property external to the body, but given that there are so many cases where we would harm self-ownership, the more foundational factor, to defend property, the NAP has breaking points that make it only worthy as a general guideline.
For example, some may consider a sit-in in a factory which harms no equipment to be aggression which justifies the violent expulsion of the workers, whereas I would argue that their self-ownership is more important than the property of the factory up to some point where they start damaging his ongoing projects (the limit of absentee property therefore being the agreement to it of those encapsulated by it; the workers in a firm). The NAP isn't a razor sharp principle that always leads straight to ancapism. It's more of a general good idea that has breaking points like any moral formula which can't stretch infinitely to encompass all of reality.

If there are areas where the NAP gives no right answer to what is moral or even totally immoral, then areas with violent contention can only be harmonized, unfortunately, by a larger power stepping in and saying it's going to be this way. For local issues, local government can set some rules, but a central government should be needed to set general inter-community rules within a given territory to avoid constant warfare between NAP version 1'ers, version 2'ers, version 3'ers and so on.
#14430217
Monopoly in economics doesn't actually mean one guy owns everything, it just means that they have a market share bigger than a certain very large percentage. Countries use a certain percentage to dictate monopoly rules, such as 25% being considered the line of legal monopoly in some markets for some countries. I'm pretty sure that agriculture is at least an oligopoly, with many large conglomerates owning most of the market share to sell to supermarkets. At the very least, few people can produce their own food, and the point is that they must rely on supermarkets and others down the chain, so are very vulnerable to unstable markets.

Monopoly in economics is a bit like anarchy in politics. A conveniently vague term with both technical definition and non-technical implications. In one sense the strict definition of "monopoly" is when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity (this is the first definition in Wikipedia. Legally, "monopoly" can extend to cover situations in which a particular business entity enjoys significant "market power", that is, the power to charge high prices. In practice, monopolies are never legally identified as they exercise that supposed power to charge higher prices. Instead, it is assumed that a firm with market share exceeding certain threshold does possess that power. It is further assumed, again without either justification in theory or history, that such entity is likely to (or is already) abusing the power it is supposed to have to charge those higher prices.

In practice, the only situations in which dominant market position and practised ability to harm consumers coincide is when the monopoly is granted by government. No other example exists in the history of economics of a firm which both (1) obtained a dominant position within a given market, and (2) used that position to increase prices or restrict production (thereby harming customers).

It is certainly not the case that an effective monopoly (or oligarchy) exists in the markets for capital, land or food.

It will when the robot assembly line is itself run by robots, and all the human control can be boiled down to the minority willing to do oversight for free. There will still be an energy and resource cost, but since you can use robots to get these things too, it's not monetary. With a tireless labor force, we could create more geothermal energy that would be not accessible profit wise. All the resources on the sea bed or deep underground would be much more easily accessed.

Even then, you still have real-estate, historic artefacts and personal services (from sex to psychological counselling ) that will always be scarce. Further, I don't think it is possible that computers will be able to completely replace human creativity without crossing the threshold to true intelligence. At that point, all bets are off.

The only way I can see though that we can have polycentric law and thus anarchy is for each community to keep its laws to itself and not try to prosecute other communities under its law. If they did, then you'd have conflicts between differing law agencies trying to prosecute each other for having "illegal laws". If they did keep to themselves, then you'd just have isolated city-states and smaller communities who would have difficulty making transfers between each other without some common enforced agreement, so it seems like you are back to square one.

You are confusing several different meanings of "law". As long as society at large shares a common understanding on how disputes are to be peacefully resolved, having different legal procedures or even substantive rules isn't a problem.

The NAP can only be a guideline, and not a principle, because what counts as "initiation" is very clear for obvious cases, but has more blurry ones that mess up the works.

That's true. Over time, probably following a process similar to that of the evolution of Common Law, legal principles and rules will emerge. Blurry situations always exist. Under any legal system. That's fine, as long as dispute resolution methods are available and agreed.

For example, some may consider a sit-in in a factory which harms no equipment to be aggression which justifies the violent expulsion of the workers, whereas I would argue that their self-ownership is more important than the property of the factory up to some point where they start damaging his ongoing projects (the limit of absentee property therefore being the agreement to it of those encapsulated by it; the workers in a firm).

A sit-in, in this case, is probably trespass. Moreover, the very intention of the workers is to disrupt the operation of the factory, especially if strike-breakers are brought in. That makes the act self-evidently aggressive. The self-ownership of the workers is not an excuse for initiating force against the peaceful project or running a factory with voluntary labour.

Where I see the potential for blurry lines is over what behaviour constitutes a project which is no longer deemed "peaceful" because of the risk it imposes on others. Building a stockpile of explosive in the midst of a crowded residential neighbourhood, for example.

The NAP isn't a razor sharp principle that always leads straight to ancapism. It's more of a general good idea that has breaking points like any moral formula which can't stretch infinitely to encompass all of reality.

The NAP isn't a razor-sharp principle, but it does always lead to anarcho-capitalism in the broad sense. By that I mean that the society that accepts the NAP as a guiding principle could never have government in the normal sense, nor prohibit the private ownership of means of production. However, if members of society are so inclined, the economy could well be dominated by syndicates and socialist communes, making the "capitalism" part of anarcho-capitalism an empty word.

Nor does the NAP need to be a universal moral principle. It is only a universal political principle. It covers how force may be legitimately used within society, but is silent over the question of how people ought to behave when no force (or, to be precise, no initiation of force) is involved. That means that an NAP-based society can have a huge scope for variety on virtually any interesting facet of human existence, from form of economic organisation (see my previous reference to syndicates) to the role of religion vs. science, nationality, race and the family.

If there are areas where the NAP gives no right answer to what is moral or even totally immoral, then areas with violent contention can only be harmonized, unfortunately, by a larger power stepping in and saying it's going to be this way. For local issues, local government can set some rules, but a central government should be needed to set general inter-community rules within a given territory to avoid constant warfare between NAP version 1'ers, version 2'ers, version 3'ers and so on.

Again, there is no more need for that than for a World Government to resolve inter-governmental disputes. As long as peaceful dispute resolution is the norm, any conflicts between understandings of the NAP will be resolved peacefully and, over time, will become part of the emerging legal order.
#14430807
Actual material conditions of the vast majority would need to be transformed in terms of equality and cooperation. Cooperative enterprises would need to increase as would solidarity, leading to mutual aid and mutual ownership. The stronger this grows from the ground up, the more superfluous both state and private capital becomes. Anarchism simply will not work if it is not based on strong social foundations, where people expect, by and large, to be involved in producing and sharing in social wealth and the shaping of social organization.

I think it's also important to keep in mind that beginning with ironclad abstract principles, like the NAP (which is thoroughly based on principles of private property and thus private control) dooms us from the beginning.
Last edited by anticlimacus on 01 Jul 2014 17:43, edited 1 time in total.
#14430815
Actual material conditions of the vast majority would need to be transformed in terms of equality and cooperation. Cooperative enterprises would need to increase as would solidarity, leading to mutual aid and mutual ownership. The stronger this grows from the ground up, the more superfluous both state and private capital becomes. Ideas of human solidarity could naturally grow out of these cooperative relationships. To begin with ironclad abstract principles, like the NAP (which is thoroughly based on principles of private property and thus private control) dooms us from the beginning.

Is that statement not an articulation of a principle? Is it not, in fact, an abstract principle? Is it "ironclad" or flexible?

Why do you feel that a society based on the NAP as a constitutional principle is "doomed from the beginning"?
#14430819
Is that statement not an articulation of a principle? Is it not, in fact, an abstract principle? Is it "ironclad" or flexible?

Why do you feel that a society based on the NAP as a constitutional principle is "doomed from the beginning"?


Not nearly of the same order as NAP. The NAP is fundamentally a principle based on the institution of private property. It is an ideology that gears society towards a very particular mode of production, viewed as timeless and fundamental in and of itself for a "more perfect capitalism". I don't think it allows for much experimentation at all developing out of the actual material conditions that people experience in concrete reality.

I suppose what I meant by "Beginning with abstract principles...dooms us from the start" was more so to stress that the ideas of anarchism would be shaped out of practice and the experience of working together. In other words, anarchism develops out of the experience of domination and then the mutual cooperative enterprise to overcome it. The NAP, to me, seems like doing the reverse. It says that no matter which system we encounter, we envision an society that is based fundamentally on the private ownership of capital and protecting that institution, and this idea is timeless. This as opposed to actually addressing a concrete authoritarian system and seeking to overcome it through cooperative means, and an anarchist system developing out of that mutual solidarity.
#14431178
In just the same way that the ironclad abstract principle of democracy gave rise to such diverse polities as 19th Century United States and modern-day Sweden, so the NAP is perfectly consistent with a very wide range of forms of society and economy.

The NAP allows but doesn't require private ownership of the means of production. The only thing it mandates is peaceful interaction between people. Are you really opposed to that?

Yes, the NAP is consistent with traditional Anarcho-Capitalism. It is equally consistent with various market socialism models, including societies dominated by (voluntary) neighbourhood associations, community organisations, co-ops and employee-run syndicates, independent and/or federated.

The NAP is also consistent with more primitive economies, including those based on self-sufficiency, small-scale manufacturing, gift-based economies, etc.

At the individual level, NAP is consistent with the arch-typical "rational", profit/wealth maximising, individualistic person. It is equally consistent with a culture of sharing and cooperation, mutual aid and aid of others in need. Of atheism or deep religiosity. Of cutting-edge modern technology and of life close to nature. Of individuals, small and large communities, local, national and international organisations.

Moreover, all these models can co-exist, allowing individuals to pick the community they are most comfortable with. You could live in a socialist commune, work within a syndicate, cooperate with other communes and syndicates and only occasionally venture into a "capitalist" town or trade with a capitalist enterprise.
#14431285
Regardless of whether or not the NAP requires the ownership of private property, it is a fundamental defense of the ownership of private property which therefore benefits the wealthiest and most powerful in the current institution of capitalism. I really don't see how a revolution gets off the ground based on this idea, which basically says that the super rich and the owners of multinational corporations and financial institutions are now going to exist without the checks even of a state and as justified under the NAP.

People who are living with more economic insecurity or living in ghettos thinking to themselves--if only we lived by the NAP! They are thinking of direct grievances in their lives that only social solidarity and cooperative enterprises can overcome. The ideas of such a revolution develop naturally out of these circumstances, even with a sense of the need for equality, social responsibility, and fairness. The NAP does not seem to address the fundamental problems of the most vulnerable in society--those who would actually want to transform the material conditions of society. Instead, the NAP is a principle that the most powerful in society would easily adopt and employ as a justification for their their own socio-economic power, albeit without a state.
#14431337
Regardless of whether or not the NAP requires the ownership of private property, it is a fundamental defence of the ownership of private property which therefore benefits the wealthiest and most powerful in the current institution of capitalism.

I don't think so. The most powerful people today aren't particularly wealthy - they are politicians or otherwise senior government decision-makers. They will clearly lose power under an NAP-based legal system.

As for the wealthiest, here we have a more complex situation. There is no doubt that much wealth had been legitimately produced, acquired and held by individuals and firms, while much wealth was acquired through illegitimate collaboration with governments. While conceptually the two are distinct, in practice they may be hard to differentiate in the case of specific people.

Those people who benefit most from their association with government would not benefit from a strict application of the NAP, as their mode of operations and lifestyles fundamentally depend on its violations.


The dynamic nature of the modern economy is such that the relative value of static wealth quickly diminishes. Freeing markets from the shackles of government intervention, restriction, over-regulation and outright confiscation will trigger a giant wave of wealth creation which, once cronyism is abolished, will be far more fairly and evenly distributed.

People who are living with more economic insecurity or living in ghettos thinking to themselves--if only we lived by the NAP!

Actually, taking a global perspective, those with least economic security and worst living conditions often (and correctly) blame their own governments for their situation. Their attempts to improve their lots (e.g. through participation in informal markets) are often thwarted by tariffs, confiscation, over-regulation and corruption, all contrary to the NAP. The best viable option for many is immigration to more developed countries, an option which is also blocked (in violation of NAP) by governments.

They are thinking of direct grievances in their lives that only social solidarity and cooperative enterprises can overcome. The ideas of such a revolution develop naturally out of these circumstances, even with a sense of the need for equality, social responsibility, and fairness. The NAP does not seem to address the fundamental problems of the most vulnerable in society--those who would actually want to transform the material conditions of society. Instead, the NAP is a principle that the most powerful in society would easily adopt and employ as a justification for their their own socio-economic power, albeit without a state.

Do you believe that the best solution for the problems of those people requires a violation of the NAP? Before answering this question, keep in mind that the NAP does not mean protection of all existing property titles.

In other words, do you believe that the best solution requires initiation of force against the peaceful projects of others?
#14431417
I don't think so. The most powerful people today aren't particularly wealthy - they are politicians or otherwise senior government decision-makers. They will clearly lose power under an NAP-based legal system.

As for the wealthiest, here we have a more complex situation. There is no doubt that much wealth had been legitimately produced, acquired and held by individuals and firms, while much wealth was acquired through illegitimate collaboration with governments. While conceptually the two are distinct, in practice they may be hard to differentiate in the case of specific people.

Those people who benefit most from their association with government would not benefit from a strict application of the NAP, as their mode of operations and lifestyles fundamentally depend on its violations.


The dynamic nature of the modern economy is such that the relative value of static wealth quickly diminishes. Freeing markets from the shackles of government intervention, restriction, over-regulation and outright confiscation will trigger a giant wave of wealth creation which, once cronyism is abolished, will be far more fairly and evenly distributed.


The most powerful people today are particularly wealthy--for instance, most members in the US congress are millionaires. But even with that aside these politicians make policies by based on who funds their campaigns, which are largely supported by big business. Corporate capital and major financial institutions are the major influences on government today and the policies of, particularly the US government, bare this out (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/1 ... 54879.html). I'm really not sure, in fact, when this has not been the case in some shape or another during the existence of capitalism. What you seem to call "cronyism" is basically capitalism existing with government, assuming that it can and would exist without some form of institutionalized force to ensure both expanding markets and the protection of the interests of those who control most of the capital.
Actually, taking a global perspective, those with least economic security and worst living conditions often (and correctly) blame their own governments for their situation. Their attempts to improve their lots (e.g. through participation in informal markets) are often thwarted by tariffs, confiscation, over-regulation and corruption, all contrary to the NAP. The best viable option for many is immigration to more developed countries, an option which is also blocked (in violation of NAP) by governments.


The leaders of the capitalist world, such as US and England and the major global financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF are also not that popular among the poorest countries. Quite often immigration is the most viable option precisely because of neoliberal policies, like NAFTA.
Do you believe that the best solution for the problems of those people requires a violation of the NAP? Before answering this question, keep in mind that the NAP does not mean protection of all existing property titles.

In other words, do you believe that the best solution requires initiation of force against the peaceful projects of others?

What I think is that the NAP does absolutely nothing to address the absurd amount of power by the world's transnational corporations and major financial institutions. As I have mentioned before, regardless of what the NAP might allow for, it does not really challenge the existing order of power.
#14431685
The most powerful people today are particularly wealthy--for instance, most members in the US congress are millionaires. But even with that aside these politicians make policies by based on who funds their campaigns, which are largely supported by big business. Corporate capital and major financial institutions are the major influences on government today and the policies of, particularly the US government, bare this out (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/1 ... 54879.html). I'm really not sure, in fact, when this has not been the case in some shape or another during the existence of capitalism. What you seem to call "cronyism" is basically capitalism existing with government, assuming that it can and would exist without some form of institutionalized force to ensure both expanding markets and the protection of the interests of those who control most of the capital.

I agree. And we have already agreed that governments are inherently in contradiction to the NAP.

The leaders of the capitalist world, such as US and England and the major global financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF are also not that popular among the poorest countries. Quite often immigration is the most viable option precisely because of neoliberal policies, like NAFTA.

Not sure what you have in mind. Do you think NAFTA makes Mexicans more likely to emigrate to the US?

What I think is that the NAP does absolutely nothing to address the absurd amount of power by the world's transnational corporations and major financial institutions. As I have mentioned before, regardless of what the NAP might allow for, it does not really challenge the existing order of power.

I'm confused. You just correctly identified how intricately the capitalist world of today is interwoven with government institutions which rely in massive, institutionalised NAP violations. Clearly such arrangement cannot exist in an NAP-respecting society.

You also didn't answer my question. If you oppose the NAP, it must mean that addressing the problems of poverty and lack of power requires, in your mind, violating the NAP. Is that so? If so, in what ways do you think the NAP ought to be violated?
#14431810
Eran wrote:And we have already agreed that governments are inherently in contradiction to the NAP.


To the extent that Governments gain there legitimacy to protect property rights, they are not inherently in contradiction to the NAP.

Do you think NAFTA makes Mexicans more likely to emigrate to the US?

Absolutely--neoliberalism has not exactly been the most popular or consistent ideological expansion across the globe.

I'm confused. You just correctly identified how intricately the capitalist world of today is interwoven with government institutions which rely in massive, institutionalised NAP violations. Clearly such arrangement cannot exist in an NAP-respecting society.

You also didn't answer my question. If you oppose the NAP, it must mean that addressing the problems of poverty and lack of power requires, in your mind, violating the NAP. Is that so? If so, in what ways do you think the NAP ought to be violated?


To the point about governments, particularly the US, they would contend that they are being compliant with the NAP to the extent that wars have been for the protection and safety of Americans, as the rhetoric goes--even though they are in reality for the purposes of spreading American geopolitical power and expanding markets. The massive incarceration system, which holds Americas poor and underprivileged, is similarly justified because all these prisoners are "thiefs" "killers" "drug dealers" etc. under the current regime. I don't necessarily see any of this changing in an NAP society. I think all kinds of atrocities could be justified.

However, my point here touches on the fact that going by the NAP alone we are doing nothing to address the massive wealth inequality and corporate control of capital. I see no reason as to why these major institutions of financial and corporate power would not collude even more in order to create both a stable market place for their accumulation and for the protection of their capital. The only difference would be as opposed to this being under the guise of a public democratic state, it would not be under the realm of privatized corporations--and this world of privatized tyrannies would entirely be acceptable under an NAP society.
#14431868
To the extent that Governments gain there legitimacy to protect property rights, they are not inherently in contradiction to the NAP.

They still are. Government, by definition, uses force to maintain a monopoly over certain activities in a given geographical area. If an organisation doesn't use force to maintain its monopoly, it isn't "government" in the normal sense. If the activity in question is illegitimate (i.e. NAP-violating), the government actors are obviously in NAP violation. If the activity is legitimate (e.g. protecting property rights) then other organisations can equally engage in it. The force government uses to prohibit "competition" is in violation to NAP.

Absolutely--neoliberalism has not exactly been the most popular or consistent ideological expansion across the globe.

How is that relevant to the question of NAFTA? If anything, I would expect the ability to more freely sell into the US to encourage more Mexico-based production, and thus increase domestic opportunities (and make Mexicans less likely to want to emigrate). What am I missing?

To the point about governments, particularly the US, they would contend that they are being compliant with the NAP to the extent that wars have been for the protection and safety of Americans, as the rhetoric goes--even though they are in reality for the purposes of spreading American geopolitical power and expanding markets. The massive incarceration system, which holds Americas poor and underprivileged, is similarly justified because all these prisoners are "thiefs" "killers" "drug dealers" etc. under the current regime. I don't necessarily see any of this changing in an NAP society. I think all kinds of atrocities could be justified.

In an NAP society, there is no government, no drug prohibition, no foreign wars (theoretically, you could have a foreign war if you limit your assault to the defence of others; in practice, no wars). I don't see how anybody can claim in good faith that such activities are consistent with the NAP. Libertarians consistently reject both mass incarceration and foreign wars.

However, my point here touches on the fact that going by the NAP alone we are doing nothing to address the massive wealth inequality and corporate control of capital.

First, I'm not sure what you mean by "NAP alone". The NAP is a prohibition on certain actions (those that initiate force against another person's peaceful projects). It is far from a comprehensive ethical theory. For example, the NAP is silent on charity. You could legitimately advocate (and I would join you) both a call for wealthy people to contribute generously and for ordinary people to group together and help each other and their less fortunate neighbours. As long as you are advocating voluntary aid and cooperation, you are perfectly consistent with the NAP. Similarly, consumer boycott of the products of certain corporations, or worker boycott of certain employers (including non-contract-violating strikes) are also consistent with the NAP.

Thus no society is ever based on "NAP alone". Just as American society isn't based on the Constitution alone.

I see no reason as to why these major institutions of financial and corporate power would not collude even more in order to create both a stable market place for their accumulation and for the protection of their capital. The only difference would be as opposed to this being under the guise of a public democratic state, it would not be under the realm of privatized corporations--and this world of privatized tyrannies would entirely be acceptable under an NAP society.

Major institutions of financial and corporate power use government to legitimize NAP-violating means for maintaining and enhancing their wealth. Respect for NAP means that the benefits of cronyism are no longer available.

Finally, I think it would be very difficult in practice to have an effective tyranny, corporate or otherwise, while still respecting the NAP.

Again, let me ask you. If you are not happy with the NAP, it must mean that there are certain NAP-violating actions you would advocate. What are those?
#14431895
Eran wrote:How is that relevant to the question of NAFTA? If anything, I would expect the ability to more freely sell into the US to encourage more Mexico-based production, and thus increase domestic opportunities (and make Mexicans less likely to want to emigrate). What am I missing?

First, I'm not sure what you mean by "NAP alone"

I mean that the basic ideological core of the an-cap social organization is guided by the NAP.


Thus US support of American agribusiness in Mexico, through NAFTA, ended up putting millions of indigenous producers out of work, who where not then left with more opportunities, but few options but to immigrate.
http://economyincrisis.org/content/ille ... -and-nafta

Again, let me ask you. If you are not happy with the NAP, it must mean that there are certain NAP-violating actions you would advocate. What are those?

I would reject the whole idea of the NAP. It is entirely negative, and reduces aggression to the question of property rights. If we are seeking a society that promotes self-determination and self-managment, then anything that reduces our capacity to be free to how much property we own ought to be rejected outright as purely authoritarian. I mean, is not the sheer fact that an anarchist society would not be based on property rights fundamentally a transgression of the NAP?
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