[Someone5]

I've been following this conversation today and perhaps I've misunderstood, but this is one of the things that hangs me up about left-anarchy: planning. While it's described as "polycentric", it seems to me that it would still boil down to either a select board of 'deciders' or the tyranny of the majority.

In a society with very few restrictions on what people do, decisions are more a matter of consensus than voting. A left-anarchy would not organize itself in a customary top-down hierarchy. It would not be a case of everyone voting on what "the government" will do, it's a matter of everyone kind of doing their own thing--with the understanding that most of what a person does needs to be done in concert with other people. In practice, democracy of this sort is really just a matter of consensus-building, not a matter of everyone voting, then everyone being compelled to follow the plan the majority decided upon.

I mean, say there's a contentious choice between two plans; Plan A, and Plan B. Under normal capitalist representative democracies, the representatives that people elected get to choose between enacting Plan A, or enacting Plan B, but everyone will follow the plan the majority of representatives decide upon. Say 60% of those representatives vote for Plan B, and 40% vote for Plan A. Well, under customary capitalist governments that means the government is going to enforce Plan B on everyone. Under a left-anarchist socialist government, what would actually happen is that the government would propose both Plan A and Plan B as options; if 60% of the people think that Plan B makes more sense, than 60% of the population will work towards Plan B, and the other 40% will work towards their preferred alternatives. This is still planning in the sense that the government is popularizing and publishing certain plans that others can decide to follow--and if it's a good plan, it would probably get a lot of traction.

Granted, from a practical standpoint it's pretty hard to conceptualize a national "Plan A/Plan B" scenario, since in real life such things tend to be distributed a bit more than that. In practice that sort of decisionmaking usually takes place at the firm level under both systems. In a capitalist system, the shareholders elect a board, who then usually appoint leadership, who make decisions that everyone else has to follow. Under left-anarchist socialism, the usual firm organization would probably be along the lines of a cooperative, and people would have to decide for themselves what makes the most sense to pursue.

Obviously firms under a socialist system would do a lot more work on worker education and horizontal communication between workers. Rather than just saying "hey, the guys on top must be experts, so we'll follow their every command," it would really just be a matter of making everyone reasonably educated in matters pertaining to the business--at least to a level where they can understand the decisions they need to make. The goal in such organizations would be to achieve a sufficient level of communication that most people working in a firm understand not only what they need to be doing, but why they ought to do it, and why it ought to be done in a particular way. The important part--the democratic part--would be in attaining this consensus among the workforce.

Granted, larger firms might need to organize themselves in more of a federal manner than that.

This sort of workplace--and political--organization is utterly outside the norm we find in state-capitalist systems. People under capitalism just kind of assume that there needs to be one plan that everyone follows, when in fact it's entirely workable to have one big group of people pursuing one plan and another big group of people pursuing another plan. And you can have a much larger number of such plans than just two. That's what democracy means in the sense that left-anarchists are talking about democracy. It's a democracy in action, not just elections. Policies under a left-anarchist government would not be "enacted", they would be proposed and people would be free to follow them or not.

In neither case do I get the impression that the individual is free.

A left-anarchist government would be a government that makes recommendations that you are entirely free to ignore if you want.

In fact that's one of the beauties of capitalism, or at least a free market, the fact that nobody is trying to guess the plans of millions of individuals each with his own wants and needs.

Socialism deals with the wants and needs of small groups of people--maybe a few dozen--not with millions. State-capitalists try to deal with the wants and needs of millions.

It sounds like you've simply replaced government with just another bureaucracy.

That you can ignore if you want.

If I'm an artist and I don't want to create statues as has been "polycentrally planned" for me, but I want to paint portraits, what's my recourse?

Tell them to fuck off, go paint portraits. If for some reason you felt you needed more people involved in this portrait painting, go find or start a portrait painting collective with folks who you can work with.

I mean, it's not like a national "government" under a left-anarchist system would have very much power at all. It would really not be very much other than a method for smaller groups to communicate with other smaller groups.

Do I lobby politically for the permission of the planners to change my vocation?

No, you just go do whatever you feel you ought to do. If the planners could rationally explain a good reason--which you agreed with--that there was more of a need for statues than portraits, and that you were the person they thought best suited to carve those statues... would you really dismiss them out of hand? Because under a left-anarchist system, they would almost certainly not bother about things like this unless there was some overwhelming reason that dictated a need for statues rather than portraits.

Why would they even bother to try to get portrait painters to carve statues? It would be kind of pointless. Obviously if you need a statue made, you find people who want to make statues to do it.

What if there's already a portrait painter in our group but I think I'm better than he is?

Continue to make portraits as you believe you ought to do.

Who gets to decide which one of us is polycentrally planned to be the portrait painter and which one has to sculpt?

That would be up to the two of you to decide, though I'm kind of confused where you're coming up with this "forced to sculpt sculptures" scenario. I mean, since we're kind of assuming that you're being forced out of a sense of civic duty to do as the government asked you to do, maybe you could just explain the (apparently persuasive) argument the government made to your co-worker and the two of you could decide to split the overall sculpting workload between you. Since just about the only power a left-anarchist government would have is the ability to make a compelling argument in favor of certain policies, obviously there would have to be some pressing reason that convinced you that sculptures needed to be made despite your preference for making portraits.

Who digs the ditches if nobody wants to dig them? What's the incentive, altruism?

Why dig ditches if no one feels they need to be dug? If there really aren't enough people who think the ditches need to be dug in order to find the labor needed to dig them... then obviously the ditches aren't very important, and you should probably be questioning why there is a ditch-digging request in the first place.

I'll qualify this again by saying it's possible I've misunderstood things, but those answers are not clear to me.

You're misunderstanding the left-anarchist use of the word democracy, which refers to more than simply voting.

[Red Barn]

I have read extensively for decades now the writings of Left-Anarchists past and present.

If (by some chance slim enough to be virtually invisible) this is actually true, than you have clearly wasted years of your no doubt precious time.

Red Barn is not saying I must trudge around cap in hand with a petition on a clipboard until I get the signature of every single inhabitant of a city of half a million people located within driving distance of a ginormous deposit of clay, she is talking about me getting the agreement of the local Resource Allocation Council that they won't stop me from scooping up a few truckloads of what is - when you get right down to it - mud that no one else has an interest in.

Nonsense. Red Barn carefully and patiently described the way in which the use of commonly held public resources is determined right now, in the real world:

. . . collective ownership of a resource doesn’t require a tyrannical cabal to enforce some crazy system of "rationing," as your friend the Cold Warrior supposes.

For example, if somebody in my town wants to make use of the river somehow – if a bunch of guys want to put in a new boat launch, for instance, as happened just last year – they simply call a Town Meeting on the subject, and their proposition is debated and voted upon by anybody who feels like showing up. If people like the idea, the cost is manageable, and nobody comes forward with objections, the project goes forward - perhaps with volunteer labor, perhaps with public funds, perhaps with a mixture of both, as happened in the case of the boat launch. So we now have a brand new, entirely unrestricted public utility with very little ado; nothing was "seized" or "confiscated," nothing was "socialized" that wasn't socialized already, and not one single citizen was sent to the gulags in the process.

See? No "Resource Allocation Council." Plenty of democratic citizen involvement. A time-honored process as ordinary as the day is long.

I'm describing a Town Meeting, for God's sake. You, know - Pilgrims! Apple pie! Founding Fathers! What the hell is it about this that you don't get?

According to Red Barn . . . blah, blah, blah . . . physically preventing him from taking the clay to the ceramics works. . . blah, blah, blah. . . that no one else in the city can even be bothered to glance at, much less be bothered to do anything with it.

Well, of course you can't just take what doesn't belong to you, Big Silly. Why should you? Can I just drive into a privately owned gravel pit and make off with a truckload of sand on the grounds that nobody's "doing anything with it"? Of course not.

We advocate a different system of ownership, that's all. This doesn't mean the stuff is unowned.

"Phred, you may think you have constructed a textbook example of the capitalist mode of production, but the fact that in your example, the people aren't able to take, purchase, steal or otherwise privatize common resources makes it not Capitalist at all, therefore Left-Anarchists have no reason to interfere with what those people are doing."

There. Happy?

(How many times has this been explained to you now? Fourteen times? Fifteen? I've totally lost count.)

[anticlimacus]

From my perspective, your society relies on fundamental changes to human nature. I agree that if, somehow, the vast majority of society's members became selfless altruists your vision of society could work.

In contrast, I believe the society I envision, while certainly allowing for selfless altruism and hopefully containing a descent amount of compassion and help for others, doesn't require such fundamental shift in human nature. It accommodates greed by forcing it to work for the benefit of others, rather than hoping that greed is somehow eradicated from our hearts.

I don't think we require a fundamental change in human nature. In fact, I don't agree that human nature is geared to be selfish, in the sense of "I am always only looking first to my own gain" and neither do I think it is altruistic in the sense of "I am always first looking to the benefit of others". Both of those, it seems to me, or mere social constructs. Humans operate out of interests, whether conscious or unconcious. There is no doubt about this. But having an interest is not the same thing as being "self-seeking", either as a power driven self-seeking Hobbesian or a competative self-seeking Spencerian or even a self-seeking utilitarian. "Self" interest requires first a social understanding of what it means to be a "self". Interests are always operative within a network of social practices, if these practices gear us towards individualism and self-seeking aggrandizment, betterment, or whatever the individualist narrative is at the time then that is because they are engaged in institutions that structure them that way. One can be acting on one's own interests just as well if that interest is towards being a part of a community, particularly a community one believes in. In that sense, Durkheim was certainly correct in pointing towards solidarity as the locus of society, not individualist "self-interest".

We, on the right, are advocating the kind of anarchy that clearly, unambiguously, allows people to form syndicates, consumer councils, and other communal bodies at will.

Of course you do--but this claim is about as empty as the claim that you also advocate for "liberty". Although its sound pretty, it's all purely formal and is meaningless unless we understand the conditions within which free self-determination is possible. Simply seeking to abolish the government, and leave standing the private tyrannies that exist is simply ceding more power to the powers that be. Your gesture of, "but you can do what you want" does not become any more substantive--just insulting to those who really cannot and are beholden to those with economic conditions to make most of the decisions as they see fit.

that when you say "capitalist" you implicitly mean a relation of domination and exploitation.

I don't think this is merely semantic. I do think we obviously have a genuine different understanding of capitalism.

Would your society, in principle, allow production in the form of privately-owned enterprises employing willing workers for wages, or will it prohibit such production? If it is the latter, how can you still call yourself anarchists?

Now this we have already gone through. I'm simply not convinced that Billy's employing Joe to help with a fence becomes a capitalist enterprise, and I see no logical reason to assume that it necessarily will.

I don't just desire a one-off. I like living in a large house, which is expensive to build/buy and maintain.

Your money is no good here. What are you going to do for me if I help you build your pool? And then your sunroof? Etc. BTW--that whole 200 acres of farm land is not for sale for you to settle a private home that fits "your" strange personal desires.

From my perspective, the circuit is definitely C-M-C.

Then you either have an obsessive horder of some commodity, or somebody who has a compulsive problem of never being satisfied. But you don't have capitalism or capitalist production.

Emerging tyranny can legitimately be countered using force. Do you feel the same about capitalist production?

I believe capitalist production emerges only with force and even requires force for it to continue. My feeling is that, however, the people themselves will have to decide what they feel has become a tyrranical situation and to expell it how they feel necessary.

As a syndicate worker, I don't really own (or part own) the syndicate, do I? I cannot, for example, sell my ownership to a non-syndicate-worker. I have a vote in the running of the syndicate, and perhaps a share in its revenues (dare I say "profit"?). But only as long as I remain a worker.

The way I see it is if you work in a syndicate you have particular say in the production process that somebody who doesn't work in the syndicate. But that factory is in my town. Certainly I have some say over what happens with that factory even though I work in the school. Same with the syndicate worker and the school and so on.

Capitalism, on the other hand, doesn't necessitate any forceful compulsion, coercion or initiation of force. Capitalism can (even if you claim it hasn't historically) evolve exclusively through voluntary choices.

And capitalism can, theoretically, exist in a pure laissez-faire world. And capitalism, in pure theory, affords us all freedom and liberty.

And my oft-repeated question remains unanswered - what essential element of my ceramics operation is missing that enables you to claim it is a non-Capitalist enterprise? Stop dodging and give a brief, specific answer - something like -

"Phred, you may think you have constructed a textbook example of the capitalist mode of production, but the fact that in your example, the people don't do __________________ and _________________ makes it not Capitalist at all, therefore Left-Anarchists have no reason to interfere with what those people are doing."

I don't know why I'm still bothering with this, but I already answered this:

The simple glaring fact that this sharp division you imagine exists between "you and you alone" and the labor you employ does not exist. This is why I talked about Weber (who was not anti-capitalist, by the way), who also had similar real examples of what you are talking about, but they were still not capitalism. None of your labor is alienated from the means of production--they may not control your kiln, but they certainly control the water supply, the metal working factory, etc. A key ingredient you are missing is capital on one side, privately controlled, and "free labor" on the other side with nothing to sell but their own labor power (hence why I quoted Marx--but you will most certainly scoff...

[Red Barn]

And there you have it: Poor Phred's silly question has now been answered sixteen times.



But you know, Comrade, I'm getting the distinct impression these guys have completely forgotten that anarchism, like communism, arose in response to capitalism in the first place. How could it possibly fail to include very conscious, very intentional features specifically designed to preclude all the stuff they hated about that system?

I mean, capitalism has built-in mechanisms that preclude, say, ownership based on divine authority as existed under feudalism, right? So why wouldn't anarchists think along the very same lines when designing a system to supersede capitalism? Kind of seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it?

[Phred]

I don't know why I'm still bothering with this, but I already answered this:

You may sincerely believe you have answered the question, but you haven't. There is absolutely zero difference between the scenarios Eran and I describe and countless textbook examples of the "Capitalist Mode of Production". All elements are there. Not a single element is missing. An observer from Mars scrutinizing my ceramics works and scrutinizing a ceramics works operating in Twentieth Century Canada (for example) would detect not a single difference. That's because there isn't a single difference, other than - if I understand you correctly - how the various humans involved in the endeavor feel about it (alienation).

As for the workers "controlling the water supply", WTF? How do they control the water supply any more than I do? It's not like there's any shortage of it.

As Eran keeps patiently pointing out, the only substantive difference between an An-Cap ceramics works and a Left-Anarchist ceramics works is that the Left-Anarchist one operates under the Damoclean Sword of threats by the Left-Anarchist Councils to shut down the operation whenever they choose by forcibly preventing the operation from peacefully acquiring clay and water. But until the Council carries out this threat, there is absolutely no difference whatsoever in what the various actors are doing. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.

How could it possibly fail to include very conscious, very intentional features specifically designed to preclude all the stuff they hated about that system?

As Eran points out, the "feature" that counts is the forcible prevention of peaceful individuals from carrying out productive work which harms no one.

The only reason the Left-Anarchist rulers (and there's the rub - Anarchy by definition lacks rulers) would forcibly prevent my clay schlepper from scooping up an infinitesimal fraction of vast deposits of mud and delivering it to my ceramics works is because it pisses them off that I am doing what they can't. No one is being harmed in any way - everyone involved is acting as they do of their own free will and depriving no other citizen of anything in the process. Again, we aren't talking about mining diamonds or platinum here, we're talking about freaking mud (as you so contemptuously label it - "pebbles and mud", as I recall). Mud that no one else is using, that no one else would miss, that no one else gives a good god damn about. If your argument is that it might change the shape of the shoreline, fine - revise the scenario slightly so that the clay deposit is not at the edge of a riverbank. There is no shortage of vast clay deposits located nowhere near water.

Let's say my clay schlepper gets the clay from the same deposit that the People's Terra Cotta Roof Tile Production Facility D-48 gets theirs. If I live in the same Sector of half a million souls that houses the People's Terra Cotta Roof Tile Production Facility D-48, and resources are collectively owned, why am I not entitled to one half-millionth the amount of clay in that deposit (not that I would ever in my lifetime use anywhere close to one half millionth of the deposit)? Whose rights would be violated by me claiming my proportional share? What gives your Council's bully boys the right to stop me from claiming a tiny miniscule fraction of my proportional share?


Phred

[Red Barn]

Once upon a time Little Poor Phred and his Long Suffering Mom paid a visit to the FAO Schwartz Company, a large and wonderful toy store in New York City.


LPPhred: “Look, mother, look! A beautiful Ayn Rand play house – complete with miniature copies of Anthem and everything! Can I take it home with me? Please? I could turn it into a theme park and make a fortune!”

LSMom : “No dear, I’m afraid you can’t. The play house isn’t for sale.”

LPPhred: “What do you mean? Why not?”

LSMom: “It belongs to the FAO Schwartz Company. It’s a display for children to play in while their parents shop.”

LPPhred: “Nobody’s playing in it now! Nobody’s even glancing at it!”

LSMom: “I know dear, but that doesn’t make it yours.”

LPPhred: “Can I take part of it home with me then?”

LSMom: “No.”

LPPhred: “Can I take a tiny miniscule fraction of it home with me?”

LSMom: “No.”

LPPhred: “If I give Timmy and Alice my allowance, can they take it home for me?”

LSMom: “NO!”

LPPhred: “Well, how can I get it home then?”

LSMom: “I’m afraid you can’t, Phred. The FAO Schwartz Company wants to keep it.”

LPPhred: “Keep it? KEEP IT?! But it’s just cardboard! We’re not talking about diamonds or platinum here, Mother – they wouldn’t even miss it! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze!”

LSMom (getting a bit peeved here): “It doesn’t matter what it’s made of, and it doesn’t matter if they’d miss it. You can’t take it, and that’s final! Now please stop sniveling.”

LPPhred: “You’re horrible! No one is being harmed in any way! I’m going to take it, and you can’t stop me!”

LSMom (throwing up her hands in annoyance): “Those guards in the blue uniforms will stop you! Now let’s get out of here - all that shrieking is disturbing the other customers.”

LPPhred (kicking and scratching as he’s dragged from the store): “Oh, so now it's THREATS, is it? You're going to call the bully boys, are you? Nooooo! STOP! Help! Police! These thugs are forcibly preventing me from peacefully acquiring an Ayn Rand play house! Help! Heeeeeeeeelp!



THE END.

[anticlimacus]

An observer from Mars

An observer from Mars would observe the social system as a whole, and would see your "capitalist" only being able to be as such by first being a socialist, and the same with his/her workers. An observer from Mars would see simply another voluntary organization within what we would all (your "capitalist" included) describe as a anarcho-syndicalist society.

As for the workers "controlling the water supply", WTF? How do they control the water supply any more than I do?

They don't. You control the water supply too--in fact we all do (kind of like we all own the public library...). Hence it is shared. Go back and read Red Barn's post on the use of the water, she explained nicely with a good example.

But you know, Comrade, I'm getting the distinct impression these guys have completely forgotten that anarchism, like communism, arose in response to capitalism in the first place. How could it possibly fail to include very conscious, very intentional features specifically designed to preclude all the stuff they hated about that system?

I mean, capitalism has built-in mechanisms that preclude, say, ownership based on divine authority as existed under feudalism, right? So why wouldn't anarchists think along the very same lines when designing a system to supersede capitalism? Kind of seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it?

Yes, I don't know why that is so hard to get across--and it is not authoritarianism if we intentionally make such institutional designs to preclude capitalist production from gaining any foothold (just like feudalism hasn't gained any serious foothold in advanced capitalist countries). But alas, feudalism took centuries to break down, however, and I assume capitalism will the same, and so will its ideology.

And yes, I liked the story

[Rothbardian]

And there you have it: Poor Phred's silly question has now been answered sixteen times.

That's because apparently the left wing handbook states that the proper response to any criticism is to start mumbling about 'capitalism' in an attempt to change the subject rather than address the matter at hand.

Yes, I don't know why that is so hard to get across--and it is not authoritarianism if we intentionally make such institutional designs to preclude capitalist production from gaining any foothold (just like feudalism hasn't gained any serious foothold in advanced capitalist countries). But alas, feudalism took centuries to break down, however, and I assume capitalism will the same, and so will its ideology.

And yes, I liked the story

I don't know about others, but I've asked many times whether or not your intention would be to use force to prevent your neighbors from living as capitalists if they do not want to sign on from you, and you, collectively, are oddly reluctant to answer.

[The Clockwork Rat]

A better question would be whether your intention would be to use force to steal the communal property so that you can start living as capitalists.

[Red Barn]

Yes, exactly. But how is it that they fail to see this?

After all, for most of human history, their conception of property was nonexistent. In the grand scheme of things, it's not we who have a radical point of view.

Do you have any insights on this point, Clockwork Rat? I'm quite serious when I say I'm baffled.

[The Clockwork Rat]

I can only suggest a neurotic, blind dogmatism.

Or trolling.

[SolarCross]

A left-anarchist government would be a government that makes recommendations that you are entirely free to ignore if you want.

I think Someone5 has given the capitalists a loophole here. If Phred and his clay schlepper want to ignore the syndicates' property claims on the clay and its property claims on the time of phred and the schlepper, they can. Presumably they can also ignore the syndicates' prohibition on monetary exchange and wage contracts too.

[The Clockwork Rat]

So, resort to stealing.

[Red Barn]

Or trolling.

Yeah. That's kind of what I was thinking.

It's been funny and entertaining and all that, but it's starting to seem a little too thick to be true.




Edited to add:

I think Someone5 has given the capitalists a loophole here.

I think most anarchists would disagree with Someone5 on a number of points, so I wouldn't bank on that.

[Phred]

LPPhred: “Look, mother, look! A beautiful Ayn Rand play house – complete with miniature copies of Anthem and everything! Can I take it home with me? Please? I could turn it into a theme park and make a fortune!”

A textbook example of the Left-Anarchist inability to distinguish between an unowned resource and an owned finished good. This inability explains why they regard "the means of production" as something found in nature in limited supply rather than something produced by humans in essentially unlimited quantities.

Of course the playhouse isn't just lying there for the taking. But the raw materials of which it is composed initially were there for the taking by anyone who wanted to expend the effort to convert them into a playhouse, especially in a society in which all the resources in the world are owned equally by everyone in the world. The above analogy, which you and your fellow travellers see as devastatingly clever, is in fact fatally flawed, as any middle school student being taught the first rules of basic logic would point out. Why did your analogy center on a playhouse? Why not an exquisitely-shaped and glazed ceramic piece?

You earlier scoffed that I wouldn't load up a dump truck with gravel from a privately-owned pit, and that is true, I wouldn't dream of doing so. But if I had a productive use for a truckload of gravel and I was a part owner of all the thousands of gravel pits all over the world, each of which holds billions of truckloads of gravel, then of course I could take out a tiny fraction of my rightful share with no objection from even a single one of the other rational part owners. Key word - rational.

Go back and read Red Barn's post on the use of the water, she explained nicely with a good example.

Again, Left-Anarchists demonstrate their inability to distinguish between radically different concepts. She wasn't justifying joint control of water qua water, she was justifying joint control of a navigable waterway that passes through numerous privately-held (and some publicly-held) parcels of land. I don't need to do anything to the river to get the small amount of water I need for my ceramics works. Any water will do, acquired from any source. It doesn't have to be potable water, it doesn't even have to be particularly clean, and it certainly doesn't need to come from the river. It can come from a well or be collected in rain barrels or even recycled from the septic tank in my back yard. In the context of its use as a wetting agent for clay, water is fungible.


Phred

[Red Barn]

A textbook example of the Left-Anarchist inability to distinguish between an unowned resource and an owned finished good.

No.

A textbook example of the Right Anarchist inability to understand that a collectively owned resource is still owned.

[Phred]

A better question would be whether your intention would be to use force to steal the communal property so that you can start living as capitalists.

Are the many cubic miles of clay deposits found throughout the world communal property? You all seem to be claiming that in your preferred society, they would be. My question (which will almost certainly remain unanswered) is in two parts -

- what justification would you as a Left-Anarchist give for forcibly preventing me from carrying away from one of those thousands of deposits an infinitesimal fraction of my proportional share of it?

- once that judgment had been pronounced (or justification presented, if you prefer), who would take it upon themselves to forcibly prevent my clay schlepper from carrying away that tiny fraction of my share of an essentially unlimited resource?



Phred

[Phred]

No.

A textbook example of the Right Anarchist inability to understand that a collectively owned resource is still owned.

But your example had nothing to do with a resource, collectively owned or otherwise. Your example had to do with a finished good. An exquisite and complex finished good at that, not something that any randomly-chosen individual could whip up.

I think most anarchists would disagree with Someone5 on a number of points, so I wouldn't bank on that.

Let me guess. One of those points would be his naive assumption that all the decisions emanating from all these various co-ops and councils and tribunals and co-ordinating committees are mere suggestions.


Phred

[Red Barn]

But your example had nothing to do with a resource, collectively owned or otherwise. Your example had to do with a finished good. An exquisite and complex finished good at that, not something that any randomly-chosen individual could whip up.

My example was a joke, meant to show how silly your objections to anarchist views on property would look if transposed into a capitalist framework.

If you honestly don't get that, fine:

Once upon a time Little Poor Phred and his Long Suffering Mom paid a visit to Central Park.


LPPhred: “Look, mother, look! An oak tree – complete with leaves and everything! Can I take it home with me? Please? I could chop it up into a mountain of tooth picks and make a fortune!”

LSMom : “No dear, I’m afraid you can’t. The oak tree isn’t for sale.”

LPPhred: “What do you mean? Why not?”

LSMom: “It belongs to the City of New York. It’s a place for people to relax and unwind.”

LPPhred: “Nobody’s relaxing in that tree! Nobody’s even glancing at it!”

LSMom: “I know dear, but that doesn’t make it yours.”

LPPhred: “Can I take part of it home with me then?”

LSMom: “No.”

LPPhred: “Can I take a tiny miniscule fraction of it home with me?”

LSMom: “No.”

LPPhred: “If I give Timmy and Alice my allowance, can they take it home for me?”

LSMom: “NO!”

LPPhred: “Well, how can I get it home then?”

LSMom: “I’m afraid you can’t, Phred. The City of New York wants to keep it.”

LPPhred: “Keep it? KEEP IT?! But it’s just an unimproved resource! We’re not talking about an exquisite Ayn Rand playhouse here, mother – they wouldn’t even miss it! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze!”

LSMom (getting a bit peeved here): “It doesn’t matter whether its unimproved, and it doesn’t matter if they’d miss it. You can’t take it, and that’s final! Now please stop sniveling.”

LPPhred: “You’re horrible! No one is being harmed in any way! I’m going to take it, and you can’t stop me!”

LSMom (throwing up her hands in annoyance): “Those cops in the blue uniforms will stop you! Now let’s get out of here - all that shrieking is disturbing the other people trying to relax and unwind.”

LPPhred (kicking and scratching as he’s dragged from the park): “Oh, so now it's THREATS, is it? You're going to call the bully boys, are you? Nooooo! STOP! Help! Police! These thugs are forcibly preventing me from peacefully acquiring an unimproved resource! Help! Heeeeeeeeelp!



THE END.

I think most anarchists would disagree with Someone5 on a number of points, so I wouldn't bank on that.

Let me guess. One of those points would be his naive assumption that all the decisions emanating from all these various co-ops and councils and tribunals and co-ordinating committees are mere suggestions.

Right in one.

[Phred]

My example was a joke, meant to show how silly your objections to anarchist views on property would look if transposed into a capitalist framework.

Sure it was.

LPPhred: “Look, mother, look! An oak tree – complete with leaves and everything! Can I take it home with me? Please? I could chop it up into a mountain of tooth picks and make a fortune!”

LSMom : “No dear, I’m afraid you can’t. The oak tree isn’t for sale.”

LPPhred: “What do you mean? Why not?”

LSMom: “It belongs to the City of New York. It’s a place for people to relax and unwind.”

Now you exhibit the Left-Libertarian inability to distinguish between a different pair of concepts: specific vs general. There are a limited number of oak trees located in parks of cities. There are an essentially unlimited number of generic trees located in the vast forests of Canada and Siberia (for example) that are being unused by anyone and will remain unused by anyone until they are consumed in a forest fire or die of old age or insect infestation and are eaten by fungus.

You are not forcibly preventing my clay schlepper from taking away mud because the mud is used and cherished by people who are relaxing and unwinding. You are doing so because you disapprove of people voluntarily co-operating to transform a negligible fraction of that unused, unwanted, unappreciated and downright pesky (if tracked onto the living room carpet on the soles of a four year old child) mud into beautiful and utilitarian goods. If vastly greater quantities of that same mud were to be taken from that same deposit and transported to The People's Terra Cotta Jug Production Facility C-35 to be turned into hideous and poorly-formed garden planters and wall sconces of the quality of the shoes produced in the former Soviet Union and East Germany, you wouldn't make a peep.

I ask of you - knowing full well I will never get direct answers - the same questions I asked of The Clockwork Rat:

- what justification would you as a Left-Anarchist give for forcibly preventing me from carrying away from one of the thousands of practically limitless clay deposits of the world an infinitesimal fraction of my proportional share of it?

- once that justification has been rendered by whichever council or co-op or soviet or committee deems itself to have the authority to pass that judgment, who would take it upon themselves to forcibly prevent my clay schlepper from carrying away that tiny fraction of my share of an essentially unlimited resource?


Phred