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Classical liberalism. The individual before the state, non-interventionist, free-market based society.
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#14970656
We ordinarily think of a libertarian society as one of maximum freedom and maximum privacy: a society where you can do whatever you like (so long as it's peaceful) and no one else can pry into your personal affairs.

Rich suggests otherwise. A libertarian society, he argues, is one in which public space — both physical space and decision space — has been privatized as far as possible. This is desirable, he says, because it is easier to police irresponsible behavior in private space than in public space. Since no one can be excluded from public space, no one has any incentive to maintain it properly, and so a "tragedy of the commons" is generated. By contrast, in a world where everything is privately owned, we must abide, wherever we go, by the rules laid down by the owners. Rich envisions a society in which no one is allowed access to the means of cooperation with others unless he submits to a multitude of restrictions: bonding, disarmament, full disclosure of finances, and so forth. Those who do not comply with these rules will find themselves cut off from food, drink, communication, transportation, even the use of restroom facilities.

Rich's arguments are a useful corrective to the popular notion that a libertarian society would be a hopeless chaos. But we may feel some discomfort at how far Rich's vision goes in the direction of the opposite extreme. In a famous quote, the 19th-century anarchist Proudhon wrote:


"To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, ...noted, registered, ... taxed, stamped, measured, ... assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished."


[The Columbia Encyclopedia defines government as "a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society".]

But if to be free is also to be inspected, licensed, numbered, stamped, authorized, and so forth, we might wonder whether building a Free Nation is worth the effort.

But is this world of hyper-regulated anarchy the only possible model for a libertarian society? I don't think so. But to see why it is not, I suggest we need to rethink our assumption that a libertarian society must be a society without public space.
http://freenation.org/a/f33l2.html
#14977000
Sivad wrote:"To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, ...noted, registered, ... taxed, stamped, measured, ... assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished."


[The Columbia Encyclopedia defines government as "a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society".]

But if to be free is also to be inspected, licensed, numbered, stamped, authorized, and so forth, we might wonder whether building a Free Nation is worth the effort.


I think the fundamental difference between being "Governed" and what is described as possibly ensuing under an Ancap system, is that in the ancap system its still by voluntary consent at the individual level.

That is, if to be under a government means for a person to be: kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, ...noted, registered, ... taxed, stamped, measured, ... assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished."

Then freedom is to be: kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, ...noted, registered, ... taxed, stamped, measured, ... assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished." ONLY IF YOU AGREE TO BE SO VOLUNTARILY.


Thats still a huge difference, and is in fact all the difference you need.

The problem is, that public space eventually overrules private space and voluntarism of any kind, and then you are right back to statism unless we speak of voluntarily communalism; however, voluntary communes can exist within an ancap society and seem to have been most popular in historical conditions that most closely resembled ancap social forms.


ALSO

I don't think that big corporations would exist under ancap conditions. This is a common remark I hear and its a bit baffling to me. Most corporations only exist today because of subsidies, loop-holes, lobbyists, corporate-welfare, fiat-currency, fractional-reserve lending, and monopoly protections from the state. These sorts of things can't exist in a state of nature and so I don't think mega corporations would exist either. There is no reason to believe that they would survive.

Hell, even the commies believe that the state came into existence to protect the industrialists from the workers; I agree with this as well; the state was a convenient way to protect the super-rich from both the peasantry and the landed gentry; both of which would reemerge in different forms with the fall of such a state.

Once a government collapses entirely, the corporations will become almost instantly insolvent fiscally, and whatever wealth or persons of power that remained would be pillaged in the initial chaos of social-collapse prior to the re-stabilizing of society.

This is also why, crazy amounts of land will rarely exist under a sole proprietorship, for it would require for them to have the means of securing it (armed persons); however, if a proprietor has enough land to support armed persons; that probably also means that this land is being used to support these armed persons and the farmers making the food etc.

Hence, the idea of people starving because they don't have access to all the monopolized land seems to be poorly thought out.
#14979042
Victoribus Spolia wrote:I think the fundamental difference between being "Governed" and what is described as possibly ensuing under an Ancap system, is that in the ancap system its still by voluntary consent at the individual level.


It's voluntary now at the individual level, you don't have to submit to government laws and regulations it's just the costs of noncompliance are extremely prohibitive. The same will be true in Ancapistan, there will be unequal bargaining power, the people who have the gold will make the rules and they'll use various methods of coercion like banning and exclusion to enforce compliance.


Thats still a huge difference, and is in fact all the difference you need.


How so? Seems like a distinction without a difference to me. The real difference is in Ancapistan there won't be any government putting limits on all the ways power has to tax you and track you.

voluntary communes can exist within an ancap society and seem to have been most popular in historical conditions that most closely resembled ancap social forms


On an ancap property regime voluntary communes would be squeezed out pretty quick. Everything would be controlled by rapidly consolidating corporate fiefdoms in no time at all. That's pretty much the history of feudalism, and if it can't culminate in a state it will culminate in a corporate conglomerate.


I don't think that big corporations would exist under ancap conditions. This is a common remark I hear and its a bit baffling to me. Most corporations only exist today because of subsidies, loop-holes, lobbyists, corporate-welfare, fiat-currency, fractional-reserve lending, and monopoly protections from the state. These sorts of things can't exist in a state of nature and so I don't think mega corporations would exist either. There is no reason to believe that they would survive.


I don't disagree that the state has been used as muscle to enforce crony capitalism or even that it's the most efficient vehicle for achieving and maintaining corporate dominance of society but there's always more than one way to skin a cat. The reason the ruling class is the ruling class is they have firmly grasped and fully embraced one very simple concept:

[center-img]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51qTn5uOPJL._SX425_.jpg[/center-img]

That's why they set up the state in the first place. If they can't do it through the state because people no longer view the state as a legitimate institution well then they'll establish their cartels and combines through private contract. The only system that prevents the elites from banding together and dominating society is left libertarianism. Every other system just hands the reins to a different set of elites, left libertarianism is the only system that keeps elitism of every stripe in check.
#14979071
Sivad wrote:It's voluntary now at the individual level, you don't have to submit to government laws and regulations it's just the costs of noncompliance are extremely prohibitive.


Under that reasoning a person who is held at gun point and gives up his wallet did so voluntarily; because the cost of not complying to the burglar's demands would have been "extremely prohibitive."


:eh:

That's clearly not what is to be regarded as voluntary; you seem to be confusing voluntary acts with volitional acts. Giving an armed burglar your wallet is volitional, but its not voluntary. The latter does not exist under a state of coercion and for that reason, my having to pay taxes to uncle sam may be volitional, but it certainly is not voluntary.

Sivad wrote:The same will be true in Ancapistan, there will be unequal bargaining power, the people who have the gold will make the rules and they'll use various methods of coercion like banning and exclusion to enforce compliance.


So are you saying someone shouldn't be allowed to have more gold than someone else? Unequal bargaining power is a fact of nature. People are different and what they would naturally acquire is likewise different.

However, unequal bargaining power does not have to imply a monopoly on coercion; nor has it historically. That only came with the invention of the state.....or bandits (pretty similar actually).

Sivad wrote:How so? Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.


Really; you see no difference between being FORCED into slavery against your will to the contrary and becoming a slave by your own voluntary choice?

They are about as different as east is from the west. :lol:

Sivad wrote:On an ancap property regime voluntary communes would be squeezed out pretty quick.


Nonsense. Monastic communities; both Christian and Buddhist, saw no greater times of expansive operation than during European and Japanese Feudalism; respectively.

Sivad wrote:Everything would be controlled by rapidly consolidating corporate fiefdoms in no time at all. That's pretty much the history of feudalism


Not true; after the fall of the Carolingians (a non-taxing land-based system of decentralized rule); a mass process of even greater decentralization and local autonomy occurred which is sometimes called the "Feudal Revolution" in the 11th century.

The age of monarchal absolutism (and eventually republics which have only become more bloated over time); all emerged in light of the social contract theory of governance and at the expense of private property.

Sivad wrote:and if it can't culminate in a state it will culminate in a corporate conglomerate.


It did end up in a state, but only because of a new moral justification in renaissance thought stemming from a naturalistic theory of anthropology (Hobbes, Machiavelli); and the Social Contract Theory (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau).

It didn't have to though; and nor does this historical fact have anything to do with whether such developments were rational, moral, or self-perpetuating.

Sivad wrote:I don't disagree that the state has been used as muscle to enforce crony capitalism or even that it's the most efficient vehicle for achieving and maintaining corporate dominance of society....


Agreed.

Sivad wrote:That's why they set up the state in the first place. If they can't do it through the state because people no longer view the state as a legitimate institution well then they'll establish their cartels and combines through private contract.


I think you have too high an estimation of these peoples and too low a view of yourself. The reason they wanted a state was because they FEARED rival "cartels" by private contract. You act like the elites who rule are superior; this is false; they are actually inferior and nature would've shown them as such had it not been for them hiding behind a state; which they manipulate to their own ends.

Sivad wrote:The only system that prevents the elites from banding together and dominating society is left libertarianism.


Left-Libertarianism is kinda ambiguous so you would have to explain a bit (I am assuming you are some sort of Georgist or Geo-Libertarian), but you might just mean that you are a socially liberal minarchist libertarian.

Please explain. I want to hear your "solution" out.

Though I would like to also preface by saying, that I have no problem with natural elitism; something demonstrated and acquired naturally through responsibility, prudence, and inherent capability. I do have a problem with those who are not actually elite playgaming as such because the state protects them from the failure they deserve.

Sivad wrote: left libertarianism is the only system that keeps elitism of every stripe in check.


I'm all ears.
#14979083
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Under that reasoning a person who is held at gun point and gives up his wallet did so voluntarily; because the cost of not complying to the burglar's demands would have been "extremely prohibitive."


:eh:

That's clearly not what is to be regarded as voluntary; you seem to be confusing voluntary acts with volitional acts. Giving an armed burglar your wallet is volitional, but its not voluntary. The latter does not exist under a state of coercion and for that reason, my having to pay taxes to uncle sam may be volitional, but it certainly is not voluntary.


What's the difference between paying a government tax or an ancap corporate surcharge? It's just semantics. The government will put you in prison and the corporation will ban you from receiving essential services and vital necessities, it's all just extortion in the end.

I'm not confusing anything, I'm just looking past words and labels and getting to the reality of what the thing is.

So are you saying someone shouldn't be allowed to have more gold than someone else? Unequal bargaining power is a fact of nature. People are different and what they would naturally acquire is likewise different.


No, I'm saying those with more gold shouldn't be allowed to make the rules.

However, unequal bargaining power does not have to imply a monopoly on coercion; nor has it historically. That only came with the invention of the state.....or bandits (pretty similar actually).


It came much earlier than that. It came when a group of ape men realized that if they banded together they could dominate society and dictate terms to everyone else.


Really; you see no difference between being FORCED into slavery against your will to the contrary and becoming a slave by your own voluntary choice?

They are about as different as east is from the west. :lol:


How can you voluntarily become a slave? If you have to become a slave then they already got you over a barrel, it's never voluntary.


Nonsense. Monastic communities; both Christian and Buddhist, saw no greater times of expansive operation than during European and Japanese Feudalism; respectively.



I don't know much about that other than it was short lived. The reality of the world is if you don't actively work to prevent power from consolidating the vast bulk of people will end up as subjects rather than sovereigns. And the only means of preventing power from consolidating is mutual democratic solidarity.


The age of monarchal absolutism (and eventually republics which have only become more bloated over time); all emerged in light of the social contract theory of governance and at the expense of private property.

It did end up in a state, but only because of a new moral justification in renaissance thought stemming from a naturalistic theory of anthropology (Hobbes, Machiavelli); and the Social Contract Theory (Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau).


The moral justification was just that, a justification, not a cause. The causes were the material factors of social evolution that allowed power to consolidate and expand.


It didn't have to though; and nor does this historical fact have anything to do with whether such developments were rational, moral, or self-perpetuating.


It didn't have to turn out exactly as it did but it did have to go in that general direction.


I think you have too high an estimation of these peoples and too low a view of yourself. The reason they wanted a state was because they FEARED rival "cartels" by private contract. You act like the elites who rule are superior; this is false; they are actually inferior and nature would've shown them as such had it not been for them hiding behind a state; which they manipulate to their own ends.


Say what you will about that class, they understand power and they know how to make the world work for them. I don't see any reason why that same superrational strategy wouldn't be effective in an ancap system? It may be a little more difficult to pull off but ultimately it's still doable. As long as there are courts and militaries enforcing a capitalist property regime it's still possible for the few to dominate the many.


Left-Libertarianism is kinda ambiguous so you would have to explain a bit (I am assuming you are some sort of Georgist or Geo-Libertarian), but you might just mean that you are a socially liberal minarchist libertarian.



It's ambiguous because I don't know what works and what doesn't. I would start from social democracy because that's a well proven system that has provided the most liberty and prosperity of any system in human history and from there begin to remove the scaffolding of the state by turning the various public industries and social programs into autonomous voluntary cooperatives and mutual benefit associations. I think the geolibs get a lot right by taxing land and getting rid of copyrights and patents but they don't go far enough. All wealth that has been generated through social cooperation needs to be reclaimed by society and distributed back to individuals in the form of voting shares and stock in market enterprises. I don't want the state or the capitalists to own and control the world, I want individuals to own and control the world they live in as true sovereigns.
#14979992
Sivad wrote:What's the difference between paying a government tax or an ancap corporate surcharge? It's just semantics.


Taxation is made in ransom against your life; a private fee is actually owed based on a service or good rendered to you that you voluntarily consented to.

You are basically saying that me being born in the U.S. and being required to pay taxes to a state under threat of force, for services I never asked for, is the same as a cashier requesting me to pay for the burger I just ordered.

If you imagine that these "corporate fees" are something else, then please explain.

Because in Ancapistan, there are no involuntary fees and surcharges. NONE.

Sivad wrote:The government will put you in prison and the corporation will ban you from receiving essential services and vital necessities, it's all just extortion in the end.


Ban you from "essential services and vital necessities?"

:eh:

First of all, monoplies cannot exist without a state (as I will explain further below); hence, you concern over a bunch of Microsoft and Enron conglomorates ruling the world in the abscence of the state is irrational fantasy, some sci-fi nerd's dystopian wet-dream, not a rational possibility.

Secondly, are you suggesting that if I have something you need at a given time, that I am obligated to give it you?

Let us have a thought experiment on this:

Lets say I owned an oasis in the middle of the desert and lets say you decided to see if you were man enough to cross this desert in only one day in order to break the world-record of crossing it in three days and lets also say tht you packed accordingly.

Now, after crossing this desert as far as you could you ran out of water and you decided to come to my Oasis.

Once you get to my oasis, you demand that I give you water because its a "vital necessity."

Why am I obligated to give you my water?

I do think it would be charitable for me to do so, and as a Christian I may give it you freely in spite of your stupidity; however, as to disincentivize other people being likewise stupid and thinking my family's oasis with its limited water resources is a free public rest-stop, I could also charge you the full $1,000.00 that you happened to by carrying on your person.

How would i be wrong to do this? I don't see how.

Sivad wrote:No, I'm saying those with more gold shouldn't be allowed to make the rules.


How would they make the "rules?"

What a nebulous thing to say anyway.

In Ancapistan; the only rules are ones property owner set over their own land that they retain by their own means; otherwise, rules between different land owners are voluntary pacts/contracts made between them.

If you don't like one land owner's rules over the village he has proprietorship over, move somewhere else.

its really quite simple. You literally have an open market for what sort of rules you want to live under and if you ever happen to buy land or find some that is unclaimed, you can make your own rules.

Sivad wrote:It came much earlier than that. It came when a group of ape men realized that if they banded together they could dominate society and dictate terms to everyone else.


Yes, those who violate the NAP act like a state and vice-versa.

Sivad wrote:How can you voluntarily become a slave?


Lets say I got a car from a friend of mine, a 1970 Dodge Challegner RT with a 440 V8. In exchange, I promised him monthly payments so that he could finish paying off his student debt.

Now, lets say I wrecked the Challenger and lost my job because I missed work for six months cause I got addicted to pain killers and defaulted on the debt I owed my friend who now can't afford his school payments.

In this situation, my friend happens to have a spare room at his place and a bunch of necessary repair costs that have been whats put him in the hole regarding his student debt.

If we were to make a deal that I be given a place to stay and to work my debt off by doing his home repairs; that would be a case of voluntary slavery. Debtor's slavery, or indentured servitutde.

Sivad wrote:If you have to become a slave then they already got you over a barrel, it's never voluntary.


I don't understand this phrase, who is the mysterious and all-powerful "they" you speak of?

You sound like the Alt.Right talking about the Jews.

But yes, people who fall on hard times would often consider voluntarily selling themselves into slavery to guarantee a warm place to stay and three square meals. I think such things should exist on the market as such would often be better than starving in the cold streets.

Sivad wrote:I don't know much about that other than it was short lived.


1,000 years is short lived? :lol:

Sivad wrote:the only means of preventing power from consolidating is mutual democratic solidarity.


Absurd, democracy has been the means by which the greatest tyrannies the world has ever seen have come into power. In every way democracies have been worse for the freedom of individuals than the monarchies they replaced.

Sivad wrote:The moral justification was just that, a justification, not a cause. The causes were the material factors of social evolution that allowed power to consolidate and expand.


Marxist nonsense. ideology precedes economics.

Sivad wrote:I don't see any reason why that same superrational strategy wouldn't be effective in an ancap system? It may be a little more difficult to pull off but ultimately it's still doable.


No, without a state; it would be impossible to have big corporations and monopolies of any kind.

Every monopoly and major corporation you can think of, required a state for its becoming so big.

Copyright and patent laws alone (which do not exist in Ancapistan) account for probably 90% of these.

Another 9% are tax loop-holes, subsidies, and federal protections (like the Monsanto Protection Act), etc.

The remaining 1% is buying out competitors; however, if there are no copyright or patent protections, attempting to buy out all competitors would be impossible without going bankrupt (ask if you want to know why)

Sivad wrote: As long as there are courts and militaries enforcing a capitalist property regime it's still possible for the few to dominate the many.


Well that might be part of your problem right there; there is nothing enforcing the private property regimes except property owners and those whom they hire.

Sivad wrote: I would start from social democracy because that's a well proven system that has provided the most liberty and prosperity of any system in human history


:eh:

Sivad wrote:and from there begin to remove the scaffolding of the state by turning the various public industries and social programs into autonomous voluntary cooperatives and mutual benefit associations.


Yeah, that wouldn't happen. The state does not allow for itself to be massively scaled back, there is too much money in overreach.

Sivad wrote:All wealth that has been generated through social cooperation needs to be reclaimed by society and distributed back to individuals in the form of voting shares and stock in market enterprises. I don't want the state or the capitalists to own and control the world, I want individuals to own and control the world they live in as true sovereigns.


Weird.

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