[Rothbardian]

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

If someone presents you with a logically consistent argument with empirical validation, the conclusion is not a matter of opinion no matter how much you dislike it.

A pro government anarchist is an oxymoron. This is not opinion, that's just the way it is.

[SolarCross]

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

That is a gross mischaracterisation. Look contexts shift and change but certain things are always true. Neither a rich man nor a beggar likes to be robbed, neither an ugly nor a beauty likes to have their face punched in, and neither a genius nor a dolt likes to be bullied into submitting to doctrine. Whether people are hunter-gatherers, or hive dwelling cyber-punks relations can either be by voluntary agreement or by coercion.

But you have avoided responding to my suggestion about how to rehabilitate into civilised society the property and services currently captured by the state.

I think we might distinguish between what we might call passive state assets and active state assets. By passive state assets I am thinking of dumb property such as roads, public parks, air space and the radio wave spectrum. By active state assets I am thinking of state assets that are primarily human driven services such as: police, fire service, medical care, schools, courts, military and so on. Passive state assets can easily be commons with the human supplied services needed to maintain them being performed privately by voluntary action (trade or gift). But you can't make human beings into common property so human driven services, which I am calling active state assets, should be privatised. That is not to say these active state assets necessarily should be "profit" seeking; they could be reformed as something like Figlio's credit unions or worker coops or consumer coops. What do we think of that?

Is there anything interesting in this for you? Do you have any specific policy recommendations?

[anticlimacus]

That is a gross mischaracterisation. Look contexts shift and change but certain things are always true. Neither a rich man nor a beggar likes to be robbed, neither an ugly nor a beauty likes to have their face punched in, and neither a genius nor a dolt likes to be bullied into submitting to doctrine. Whether people are hunter-gatherers, or hive dwelling cyber-punks relations can either be by voluntary agreement or by coercion.

Sure, but you don't see, for instance, property as robbery. You don't see labor strikes being brutally put down as the equivalent to a punch in the face, and you don't seem to see being socially atomized and forced to decide between starving or renting yourself out and do what ever your buyer wishes as being forced to submit to doctrine. You see all of this on a mere individual one-to-one basis, damn the social contexts that create those one-to-one situations. As long as there is a contract, you seem to be fine with the most brutal forms of social control and domination.

Is there anything interesting in this for you? Do you have any specific policy recommendations?

Not any more interesting than, say, a welfare state within a capitalist government.

I'm not sure you've said anything all that substantial, either.

So government parks and roads and airwaves can be commons, government services are privitized.

Presumably other means of production privately owned, major factories, resources, land, etc. those will remain as they were?

Why not just say everything should be voluntary and if we want something to work, then we have to come together to make it happen?

Why should any single person be able to have the rights over things that we all need in order to survive? If we can socialize "passive" government property, why can we just not make all things controlled by the people?
As Proudhon said, why not just go equality in means inequality in comfort? Why not just go all the way and say all human action is voluntary, but we share all the means--and not just some of the means, so that some of it is privitized and some not, but all of it? Why not just socialize all the means of production and make the human action on it voluntary?

[Eran]

We view democracy as something that people actual participate in, not just cast shallow votes for this or that corporate, capitalist, or statist leader.

How do you suggest accomplishing that?

The problem is difficult. In a democracy, each person's participation makes very little (if any) difference to the well-being of that person, either directly or indirectly through the well-being of the group.

The reason is obvious - our vote makes little difference in any but the smallest of forums, and the voice of the average person makes similarly small difference.

Expecting that the average person will dedicate time and energy towards participatory democracy (at any level) is, it seems, as utopian as
the other aspects of your program.

And while in your system those to which votes are cast won't be corporate, capitalist or statist, human nature is such that some people will naturally emerge as leaders (or aspiring leaders) and will do what it takes to get a majority (or plurality) to vote for them. These people will be (by definition) politicians. I see no reason why they will be any more answerable to the majority than are today's congressmen.

As to your point about history, all I ask is for you to explain how those with exceedingly great corporate and economic power are not going to become even more powerful under your call for "No government!

That's easy. What makes those great corporate and economic powers powerful is nothing but their access to government.

Without government (legitimising the use of force), corporate behemoths are at the mercy of their consumers. Satisfy the consumers and flourish. Cease to satisfy consumers, and all the wealth and "power" in the world won't help stop your decay and disappearance.

All I see you ancaps pointing to are these abstract free individuals who, without any real social context whatsoever, will make free contracts with each other. How is that nothing but a denial of history and context? How is that not an appeal to some abstract Rawlsian "original position" where context is nothing but a barrier to "free and equal" decisions?

We do not deny context. Context is obviously important and relevant. But "context" isn't justification for aggression. In their social context, people will help each other, choose whom to work for and whom to buy from, what to buy and what to sell.

Their priorities, both within the market context and in their interactions with others more generally, will depend on personal experience and shared cultural values. In other words, on context.

Of course human interaction should be consensual. But consensus takes place within communities and on communal basis, not just private one-to-one interactions.

Does that mean a consent from the community can legitimize a coercive act from the perspective of an individual member of that community?

As usual, your opinion isn't clear.

We on the right would be perfectly happy with a society in which most if not all people voluntarily associate themselves with one or more communities, and (again, on a voluntary basis) delegate many decisions to those communities. In many contexts, that makes perfect sense.

Is that what you have in mind?

I still fail to see how ancaps are not top down. The abstract contractual relation between isolated individuals seems to be the basis of your whole analysis.

Where are you getting your ideas about ancaps?

What all of us keep repeating, seemingly falling on deaf ears, is that we both recognise and welcome the wealth of relationships between people. Some relations are contractual (but concrete, not "abstract") while others are based on shared values and goals, family or friendship relations, or just common decency, charity or good-will.

Libertarians have thought and written a lot about civic society, with its myriad of groups and organisations, movements and communities.

I don't see how your ideal society is anything different than what we already have, minus the state.

There is no such thing as "our ideal society" (my answer to a very similar question notwithstanding).

Unlike virtually any other ideology, ancaps do not have a prescriptive vision of society. We may have some guesses as to how a free society would evolve, but none of us claims to know, much less use force to influence the nature of that society.

Societies tend to evolve organically, responding to changing circumstances, values and experiences. Government tends to distort the organic evolution of societies by imposing the will of vocal and politically-powerful minorities. But even with governments, societies obviously evolve and diverge.

"Our" society could go in any number of directions, and, being heterogeneous and free, will probably include a range of communities representing different sub-cultures, shared interests, common bonds and pure chance.

I don't see how your idea is anything but a top down abstraction that has nothing to do with everyday life.

We have but one principle - the NAP. That principle is abstract, but becomes concrete in the form of a range of laws associated with property and personal rights. These laws allow humans to peacefully interact, but are otherwise minimally limiting.

Beyond that basic principle essential for peaceful co-existence, ancaps wish to allow society to take any form that its members choose.

It is advocates of other ideologies (including left-anarchists) who seem to have a much more specific and prescriptive requirements imposed on society.

Sure, but you don't see, for instance, property as robbery.

Nobody does.

We all agree that some property relations are necessary - for otherwise no person or group could ever be secure in their projects and endeavours.

We all agree that merely because a resource has been decreed to be a person's property doesn't mean it isn't a manifestation of robbery.

The only question, then, is this: what are the legitimate (non-robbery-like) ways of associating resources as the property of humans.

you don't seem to see being socially atomized and forced to decide between starving or renting yourself out and do what ever your buyer wishes as being forced to submit to doctrine.

All humans throughout history have been forced to do things to avoid starvation. That is an essential part of the human condition in which we need to work to obtain food.

Absent government coercion there are virtually no examples of people being forced to do anything for others to avoid starvation. The natural state of all primitive agricultural societies is that of subsistence farming, with people naturally owning (in the moral, if not always legislative sense) land from which they eke a living.

The industrial revolution (which is still ongoing in some parts of the world, and is still to come to yet others, the most unfortunate parts) represents, again, absent government coercion, merely an expansion of the range of possibilities open to subsistence farmers.

They can always stay on their ancestral land, work hard and risk the occasional crop failure and famine.

Or they can move to cities and collaborate with others in much more efficient productive enterprises.

[anticlimacus]

How do you suggest accomplishing that?

First and foremost the deliberative democratic practice is not primarily about voting. It's about public deliberation. And so having meetings where communities come together to discuss matters that concern them is essential, more essential than necessarily coming to a final resolution. Where people need to be represented they elect delegates who take with them the will of their constituents and make no decisions without permission from their constituents. The same would be with any elected boards. All of this is thoroughly different from being presented with two options from a bureaucratic system that we all must choose from. Creating institutions and a culture of public discourse is what is fundamental here, not an atmosphere of private atomized politics and then cast your private vote.

What makes those great corporate and economic powers powerful is nothing but their access to government.

And, on the flip side, what protects consumers from those great corporate powers is the government, e.g. food safety regulations. Also what protects workers from those great corporate economic powers is the government--government protects the fair right of unions to form, government puts in place a minimum wage, etc. This is why I have mentioned that government is janus-faced for workers in a capitalist system.

Without a government, I would imagine that the great corporate enterprises would be forced into even tighter collusion. They would basically form their own quasi-government, only now without any access from the public.

We do not deny context. Context is obviously important and relevant. But "context" isn't justification for aggression. In their social context, people will help each other, choose whom to work for and whom to buy from, what to buy and what to sell.

You define aggression solely in terms of the NAP--which pays no attention to context. So long as we have contracts, any kind of agreement is OK. It does not matter if one side has all the power of capital and the other side has nothing but their labor power.

Does that mean a consent from the community can legitimize a coercive act from the perspective of an individual member of that community?

As usual, your opinion isn't clear.

We on the right would be perfectly happy with a society in which most if not all people voluntarily associate themselves with one or more communities, and (again, on a voluntary basis) delegate many decisions to those communities. In many contexts, that makes perfect sense.

Is that what you have in mind?

You on the right believe in a community where everybody has a voluntary right to appropriate what they want personally to the exclusion of others, so long as it is as it does not violate the NAP. Under those conditions people are "free" to make agreements. On the left we believe the means of production, the resources, the land, the factories, technology, etc. we all have an equal right to and so are shared. How we operate these means is voluntary and all our actual work is voluntary.

Where are you getting your ideas about ancaps?

What all of us keep repeating, seemingly falling on deaf ears, is that we both recognise and welcome the wealth of relationships between people. Some relations are contractual (but concrete, not "abstract") while others are based on shared values and goals, family or friendship relations, or just common decency, charity or good-will.

Libertarians have thought and written a lot about civic society, with its myriad of groups and organisations, movements and communities.

I have heard basically two views here on PoFo:

1) The abstract model: you want people to create whatever kind of society they want so long as they voluntarily agree to that.
2) The current system without government--which seems to be nothing but the greatest power grab by private corporations than ever before seen, and entirely negates any realistic attempt for #1. Instead #1 just becomes empty lip service to "freedom".

We have but one principle - the NAP. That principle is abstract, but becomes concrete in the form of a range of laws associated with property and personal rights. These laws allow humans to peacefully interact, but are otherwise minimally limiting.

The NAP, as far as I can tell, simply allows the grossest forms of inequality to exist and thrive by virtue of it being contractual. And it is typically nothing more than a moralized defense of private property rights and as such it allows any individual to be able to justify interactions, even over things that are social like the means of production, without having to engage in discourse with others. And while the NAP strictly prohibits physical violence it has absolutely nothing to do with the material and economic violence. So I can be aggressive all I want with my property--even though the decisions made about that property may have more of a direct physical effect on you and your community--without even gaining the opinion of those to whom it directly effects. So my decisions about the resources you need, but I own, may cause you to go into a life of poverty, but at least I didn't punch you the face...

Nobody does.

We all agree that some property relations are necessary - for otherwise no person or group could ever be secure in their projects and endeavours.

We all agree that merely because a resource has been decreed to be a person's property doesn't mean it isn't a manifestation of robbery.

The only question, then, is this: what are the legitimate (non-robbery-like) ways of associating resources as the property of humans.

Property relations do not have to be the basis of society, and that seems to be what you have in mind. It is only when property relations become the basis of society that what is yours and what is mine becomes of such grave concern. Property is robbery, when social production is privately controlled and social wealth is privately appropriated, even if based on your utterly abstract "contracts".

All humans throughout history have been forced to do things to avoid starvation. That is an essential part of the human condition in which we need to work to obtain food.

Absent government coercion there are virtually no examples of people being forced to do anything for others to avoid starvation. The natural state of all primitive agricultural societies is that of subsistence farming, with people naturally owning (in the moral, if not always legislative sense) land from which they eke a living.

The industrial revolution (which is still ongoing in some parts of the world, and is still to come to yet others, the most unfortunate parts) represents, again, absent government coercion, merely an expansion of the range of possibilities open to subsistence farmers.

They can always stay on their ancestral land, work hard and risk the occasional crop failure and famine.

Or they can move to cities and collaborate with others in much more efficient productive enterprises.

This is inaccurate. The rise of capitalism has been nothing but the creation of pools of cheap labor to work for those who will appropriate the social wealth that is produced. What we have now, for the first time in history, is the material and technological ability to adequately supply more than the basic needs for everybody in the world, but the social inability to actually make that happen--and worse, the social creation of poverty for over half the world. Now capitalism alone has not been the sole reason for this increase in technology and inequality, but capitalism is a major cause of this very odd circumstance within which we exist. This very odd circumstance is what we on the left wish to overcome.

[SolarCross]

Sure, but you don't see, for instance, property as robbery. You don't see labor strikes being brutally put down as the equivalent to a punch in the face, and you don't seem to see being socially atomized and forced to decide between starving or renting yourself out and do what ever your buyer wishes as being forced to submit to doctrine. You see all of this on a mere individual one-to-one basis, damn the social contexts that create those one-to-one situations. As long as there is a contract, you seem to be fine with the most brutal forms of social control and domination.

property is just stuff and property rights is authority over stuff. It seems you think everyone should have (equal?) authority over all stuff and if some one disagrees then they are robbers, this is a radical conception indeed but it is also a stupid and impractical one. Your worker coop works hard creating product x, travellers from out of town drive a van up and in broad daylight load up all your products, tools, packed lunches and everything else and drive off. Who is the thief? According to you no one or if any workers decide to try and intervene then the workers would be thieves, for trying to exclude the travellers from rightfully taking their stuff.
Contracts are agreements and it has been long established by the common law process that an agreement is not valid if the terms were not understood and / or the "agreement" was obtained under duress (by force or intimidation). So "brutal forms of social control" doesn't sound very contractual to me. Socialists are generally pretty keen on brutal forms of social control which is probably why they hate the whole voluntary contract thing. If you do not like voluntary contract then the only alternative is coercion. So it seems lefties want everything to be decided by a fight. Okay fine I am ready. So you lazy scroungers want to claim ownership over my stuff for your gang and in your crazed religion you do not see me as having any rights unless I can fight for them. I am ready, bring it on, I'll fight you if that is what you loonies want, jeez you think i am going to go "quietly into the night", that I won't defend myself? The streets will run red with your blood before I submit to comrade dimwit.

[Joe Liberty]

Property is robbery, when social production is privately controlled and social wealth is privately appropriated...

Circular logic. The only way you can call property "robbery" is to presuppose that it belongs to everyone in the first place, but it doesn't. Just because I have the skills to work a winch doesn't automatically bestow ownership of all winches to me. "Social production" isn't even a thing. "Social wealth" isn't either. These are, ironically, euphamisms to rationalize real robbery, since what I hear (and what is usually meant) when people say "everyone" in this context is "a select few" or at best "a majority". And then there's the whole "we'll force everybody to abide by it" thing.

[Rothbardian]

Circular logic.

Well, what do you expect from someone that's claiming a moral highground while arguing that the exclusive control of property is evil...while exclusively controlling property?

For the record, there are legitimate left wing anarchists out there. There just don't seem to be any on this forum for some reason. My guess would be that these walls of inane text babbling about why creating a government is okay as long as it's a marxist government scared them all off. No one likes guilt by association.

[Eran]

First and foremost the deliberative democratic practice is not primarily about voting. It's about public deliberation. And so having meetings where communities come together to discuss matters that concern them is essential, more essential than necessarily coming to a final resolution.

That makes my problem even bigger.

Here is the issue.

When a collection of people goes beyond a certain size (perhaps a few dozens), the impact that an average person can make, either through voting or through participating in deliberation) is very small. Consequently, most people will not be willing to invest much time or effort in such efforts. Voting, at least, has the advantage of being quick and cheap. Your deliberative institutions seem very time-consuming. Why would you expect people to bother?

And, on the flip side, what protects consumers from those great corporate powers is the government, e.g. food safety regulations.

Not so.

Consumers don't need regulatory protection when they are free to choose what they want to consume. If consumers decline to purchase unsafe food (or, to be precise, food of unknown level of safety), corporations will have no reason to offer it.

What government regulations do, always, is to reduce the range of options open to consumers. When product X is prohibited, this is of no help to consumers who were never obliged to purchase product X to begin with. It is detrimental in those cases in which a particular consumer, for his or her own reasons, may wish to purchase a product disapproved by regulators.

Exactly the same holds with respect to the labour market. No worker is required to take any particular job offer. At market-clearing wages, employers are precisely as eager to secure the employment of the best available workers as those workers are to obtain employment.

Without a government, I would imagine that the great corporate enterprises would be forced into even tighter collusion. They would basically form their own quasi-government, only now without any access from the public.

That never successfully happened. There are always "cheats" that take advantage of opportunities to work outside the cartel.

Other than government itself, it is labour unions that represent the greatest cartelization risk.

You define aggression solely in terms of the NAP--which pays no attention to context. So long as we have contracts, any kind of agreement is OK. It does not matter if one side has all the power of capital and the other side has nothing but their labor power.

Actually, the less equal the power of the sides, the more important the NAP is.

Amongst equals, people can easily protect their property.

It is precisely when one side is (potentially) much more powerful that norms protecting people's property become so important.

You seem to labour under the illusion that government is more likely to help the poor over the strong. In fact, it is invariably the other way around. A revolution might change the identity of the weak and the strong, but not the universal fact that governments tend to help the latter take advantage of the former.

You on the right believe in a community where everybody has a voluntary right to appropriate what they want personally to the exclusion of others, so long as it is as it does not violate the NAP.

Sure. Where "appropriate" means making use of those resources that nobody before bothered using. Typically, those are resources of only marginal value. Alternatively, you could mean "appropriate" as in "accept other people's property willingly given". What's wrong with that?

On the left we believe the means of production, the resources, the land, the factories, technology, etc. we all have an equal right to and so are shared. How we operate these means is voluntary and all our actual work is voluntary.

The two sentences are contradictory. If I own a resource (and you don't dispute people's right to own some things), the first sentence suggests that others have a right to take that resource from me, against my will, if they believe that it is used in certain (peaceful) ways.

That makes this "sharing" involuntary, in contradiction to your second sentence.

I have heard basically two views here on PoFo:

1) The abstract model: you want people to create whatever kind of society they want so long as they voluntarily agree to that.
2) The current system without government--which seems to be nothing but the greatest power grab by private corporations than ever before seen, and entirely negates any realistic attempt for #1. Instead #1 just becomes empty lip service to "freedom".

Then you must have missed my answer to "Describe your perfect nation" (here).

The model we are proposing is actually fairly radical, and it would be a grave mistake to simplistically assume that it would amount to the current system with government merely disappearing. If I understand correctly, your model is equally radical, and shouldn't be confused with current society with factory ownership merely being transferred to workers.

The NAP, as far as I can tell, simply allows the grossest forms of inequality to exist and thrive by virtue of it being contractual.

Indeed. But it doesn't require inequality. Frankly, we are not that bothered about inequality, and I am not sure why you are.

What we need to concern ourselves with is:
1. The status of the weakest members of society, and
2. The potential for abuse by those with most wealth.

On both points, a society in which the NAP is robustly defended will do much better than the current society.

And if the poorest are doing well, and the wealthiest cannot exploit their wealth to take from others, why should I worry about inequality?

it allows any individual to be able to justify interactions, even over things that are social like the means of production, without having to engage in discourse with others.

There is nothing inherently social about the means of production. As we discussed at length, whether a given resource is used as "means of production" or not is not inherent in the nature of the resource. A knife doesn't become "social" simply because I choose to sell the sandwiches I spread with it, rather than only eat them myself.

As for "discourse with others", that is an essential aspect of the right libertarian society. Contrary to common perception, libertarians anticipate, celebrate and value "discourse with others". A capitalist requires suppliers, workers and customers. And since the capitalist has zero power to force others to work with him (in any of those capacities), he must engage in discourse, negotiations, attempts to keep others happy.

In fact, the radically-voluntary nature of society means that more, not less, discourse is anticipated.

So while a private owner of means of production needs nobody's permission to use his property as he sees fit, the only useful (and therefore likely) use of those resources is through cooperation with others. Others who have ample alternative choices, and will thus only collaborate with you if your offer is sufficiently tempting.

And while the NAP strictly prohibits physical violence it has absolutely nothing to do with the material and economic violence. So I can be aggressive all I want with my property--even though the decisions made about that property may have more of a direct physical effect on you and your community--without even gaining the opinion of those to whom it directly effects.

What do you have in mind when you say "material and economic violence"?

Property relations do not have to be the basis of society, and that seems to be what you have in mind.

Property relations aren't the basis of society. They are the basis of how resources are used within society. Any society.

Property is robbery, when social production is privately controlled and social wealth is privately appropriated, even if based on your utterly abstract "contracts".

In what possible sense is my (1) acquisition of resources that nobody bothered using before me, and (2) offering others a share of the production of those resources, which those others may (but are never obliged to take) is "robbery"?

The rise of capitalism has been nothing but the creation of pools of cheap labor to work for those who will appropriate the social wealth that is produced.

Capitalism didn't produce "pools of cheap labour". Labour is cheap when it doesn't have valuable alternatives. What capitalism did was provide productive avenues for the cheap labour that already existed, thus allowing those workers to enjoy a higher standard of living than they ever could previously.

What we have now, for the first time in history, is the material and technological ability to adequately supply more than the basic needs for everybody in the world, but the social inability to actually make that happen--and worse, the social creation of poverty for over half the world.

Where do you get your ideas?

Most of the people on Earth today see far more than their basic needs being satisfied. The only sense in which poverty is "socially created" is due to wars (internal and external) and government restrictions on freedom.

Wherever peace and (tolerable) economic freedom are found, people (by the millions) are lifted out of poverty.

Again and again, poverty is the default state of humanity. It needs no explanation, nor is it (normally) "created". It is wealth, the unimaginable wealth that we all enjoy in today's society, that requires an explanation.

[anticlimacus]

That makes my problem even bigger.

Here is the issue.

When a collection of people goes beyond a certain size (perhaps a few dozens), the impact that an average person can make, either through voting or through participating in deliberation) is very small. Consequently, most people will not be willing to invest much time or effort in such efforts. Voting, at least, has the advantage of being quick and cheap. Your deliberative institutions seem very time-consuming. Why would you expect people to bother?

Sure. That's why I mentioned, where needed, we would elect delegates. Delegates are assigned a particular task by a group, and only that task. The answer solely to the group and make no decisions without their consent.

Consumers don't need regulatory protection when they are free to choose what they want to consume. If consumers decline to purchase unsafe food (or, to be precise, food of unknown level of safety), corporations will have no reason to offer it.

What government regulations do, always, is to reduce the range of options open to consumers. When product X is prohibited, this is of no help to consumers who were never obliged to purchase product X to begin with. It is detrimental in those cases in which a particular consumer, for his or her own reasons, may wish to purchase a product disapproved by regulators.

I'm not defending everything that regulatory agencies do, but you are going off an a different extreme. I see no reason to have either blind faith in profit driven corporations making quality and safe food (or other products for that matter) or that the market will simply handle that issue by itself. There is a place for public disclosure and public safety, and the public coming together to make sure those standards are met and disclosed.

Exactly the same holds with respect to the labour market. No worker is required to take any particular job offer. At market-clearing wages, employers are precisely as eager to secure the employment of the best available workers as those workers are to obtain employment.

So what if no worker is required to take any particular job offer? Workers, more often than not--and particular under conditions of scarcity--will take what they can get, and what they can get is never secure. There is a reason workers across the country fought for minimum wage protection, and they will need to continue to fight for it, just like corporate business leaders will fight against it.

The irony, here, seems to be that you envision capitalism working at its finest without government existing at all. But the very government you continue to critique is one that is a product of capitalism itself and one that embodies many of its contradictions: market failures/government response, antagonism between labor and capital/government protection of labor government protection of capital, global expansion of capital/military expansion, etc.

That never successfully happened.

I know: Capitalism has never existed without government.

Other than government itself, it is labour unions that represent the greatest cartelization risk.

What? How so?

Amongst equals, people can easily protect their property.

In other words, as I suspected, the NAP exists solely to defend property rights amongst unequals. The NAP is a moral principle for those who are so obliged to property relations that they cannot envision, with any sense of the imagination, existing without that fundamental division. And to all our right wing friends who don't seem to get this, note how I said property relations, not personal belongings. See it is the socialist observation that society, particularly Western society, has far too long existed under the conditions of property relations. Capitalism is the most thorough and abstract version of this. It consists of property relations generally freed from their ties to titles, such as lords as suzereins. The NAP is not some universal moral maxim--it's simply an ideological rationalization of the institution of private property relations.

Amongst equals, where we share the means of production, property relations cease to exist. We actually become humans relating to each other as humans.

You seem to labour under the illusion that government is more likely to help the poor over the strong. In fact, it is invariably the other way around. A revolution might change the identity of the weak and the strong, but not the universal fact that governments tend to help the latter take advantage of the former.

No, I don't at all, and why would you think this? I'm an anarchist and I have made strong criticisms of the government. I have no illusions about it. What I have said is that the government is the only thing between workers, the poor, the peasants, the marginalized, etc. and absolute power of private corporations. This does not mean that government usually favors the former. In fact, government, more often than not, is nothing more than an arm of the rich and powerful. But because of its continued existence grass roots movements have been able to make inroads into systems of domination and control.

Where "appropriate" means making use of those resources that nobody before bothered using.

Oh, that's swell! Just like the Native Americans never bothered using their resources--therefore it was all up for grabs...

Again, it is this ever pervading idea that property relations must exist for successful society. That we must be divided and controlled by relations of property. You ancaps seem to think that property liberates you, but it does nothing except enslave you and put in-between voluntary human interaction one person's right to X property and another's need of X property. How they use each other becomes the core of social interaction in this model, not how they voluntarily work together. And I must say, the rationalizations of all this is simply fascinating.

The two sentences are contradictory. If I own a resource (and you don't dispute people's right to own some things), the first sentence suggests that others have a right to take that resource from me, against my will, if they believe that it is used in certain (peaceful) ways.

That makes this "sharing" involuntary, in contradiction to your second sentence.

We share the land and resources, but that does not mean that we can't each have our space or personal belongings. At communal tables, say in public parks, the tables are for all of us and yet we still all manage to get our very own personal spot. How in the world does that happen?

Then you must have missed my answer to "Describe your perfect nation" (here).

And that is a wonderful description, Eran. We can dream up our utopias at will, but what I am getting at is the fact that the socialist agenda is historical, I find yours to be thoroughly ahistorical. What we are looking at are the existing power relations and seeking to overcome those and find an alternative to them. This vision where we all just come together and make free decisions and organizations etc. is great--but how do we get there? From what I see, your position is to dismantle government. OK--how does that result in anything but the greatest power grab history has ever seen from those who own most of the wealth?

There is nothing inherently social about the means of production. As we discussed at length, whether a given resource is used as "means of production" or not is not inherent in the nature of the resource. A knife doesn't become "social" simply because I choose to sell the sandwiches I spread with it, rather than only eat them myself.

The means of production produce social wealth and they most certainly are social. Adam Smith even knew this--the production of social wealth was exactly his agenda in the laissez faire perfect market! I don't care about your knife. What we are talking about are major resources, land, factories, basic technology--all those things that all society needs and that requires society to produce--whether it be by employment of private capital, or communal. What do you think people are doing when they go to work every day? Just making petty sandwiches on their own free will? No they are making food for others in order to obtain that necessary income in order to subsist, that income which is a part of the social wealth we all produce and put into the economy. These are all very deeply social relations and they are defined precisely by property relations. We seek to overcome this outdated institution, even though it may be at such a high level of sophistication in advanced capitalist societies.

In fact, the radically-voluntary nature of society means that more, not less, discourse is anticipated.

Discourse that always has as its goal an individual's private gain. This is not communal discourse about our shared interests. This is discourse that is based on our fundamental division between our private rights and needs of certain kinds of scarce resources and goods. We are fundamentally atomized and posed against each other, where any kind of working together is accidental to our working against each other.

What do you have in mind when you say "material and economic violence"?

What didn't make sense from what I wrote? I mean the sheer fact that you and your capitalist friends own the rights to most of the resources that we need and the effect us is economic violence. I am forced to act as a response to your decisions about the things I need--I am always dependent upon the will of those who are owners. And if I become an owner one day, other's simply become dependent upon my will. Everything is done on the backs of others in this system. My wealth and power depends on the masses who live without and who can do nothing but serve. The fact that we do this with abstractions--such as private contracts--does not make this any better than doing it under titles of serfs and lords, master and slave.

Property relations aren't the basis of society. They are the basis of how resources are used within society. Any society.

Oh hell yes they are, and you should be proud of this--it's exactly what you and your ilk preach over and over again. We each have our individual right to private property! We each have our individual right to acquire, if available, any resources we can--and we therefore better do it before those people over there get it! Once you get yours, you are in a better position to get those others, who don't have, to follow your will. But, of course, you can use a contract and therefore on the face of it it won't look like they are your slaves. They will just be your "employees"--at least until you can find cheaper labor, i.e. those who have even less than these suckers. This is capitalism--and it has everything to do with property relations.

Capitalism didn't produce "pools of cheap labour". Labour is cheap when it doesn't have valuable alternatives. What capitalism did was provide productive avenues for the cheap labour that already existed, thus allowing those workers to enjoy a higher standard of living than they ever could previously.

Sure it does--in fact, it just created pools of cheaper labor with the last economic crisis. Capitalism makes people dependent upon markets, and where they may experience, for a time, growth, this can and often quickly disappears with the changes of the market. What capitalism invariably does is create insecurity, inequality, artificial scarcity, enormous waste, and class divisions.

[SolarCross]

Anticlimacus - I have a few questions:

Who owns your body? Is it common property or your private property?

How will you impose your socialist utopia if only a minority want it?

If you want to own some "means of production" why don't you create it like everybody else? Are you lazy?

What do you suppose is the market? Is it not human beings, including those you call the working class, exchanging things they don't want for things they do want? Are people not still going to want to trade even after you have violently imposed your bureaucratic monopolies? Are you not just going to make black marketeers rich?

What measures will you take against dissenters? What if the dissenters are in the majority?

[anticlimacus]

Who owns your body? Is it common property or your private property?

I own my body...well, and my wife...

How will you impose your socialist utopia if only a minority want it?

I won't impose anything. If nobody desires social transformation then it does not happen, plain and simple.

If you want to own some "means of production" why don't you create it like everybody else? Are you lazy?

If I read you correctly, this is like saying the poor are poor because they are lazy, and I think that that has been thoroughly debunked. The poor, particularly the working poor, often worker longer and harder than the rich.

At any rate, what does lazy have to do with this? I said we should all control the means of production, and I view that as a matter of freeing our creative capacities as humans. I never said we do this so that we don't have to work and so that we can all just be idle couch potatoes. This has nothing to do with envy, laziness, etc. It has to do with creating a better world where we can actually interact (in both work and play) with other human beings on a voluntary basis without property divisions getting in the way.

What do you suppose is the market? Is it not human beings, including those you call the working class, exchanging things they don't want for things they do want?

The market consists of a variety of economic institutions with the aim of buying and selling goods and services for the production of economic profit. Yes, labor is put on the market. Yes labor consists also of consumers who buy things on the market. Where we differ, I believe, is that you see the market as individual monetary transactions between buyer and seller, and in this sense the market exist as an abstract nexus within which economic exchanges take place. I look at the production process as the basis of the market and market relations, where those who control capital are at different position of power than those who do not, and the effects of this occur both within production and consumption.

Are people not still going to want to trade even after you have violently imposed your bureaucratic monopolies? Are you not just going to make black marketeers rich?

I'm not violently imposing anything. The history of labor's conflicts with capital has not been a history of violence on the side of labor. Quite the contrary, it's been violence on the side of capital to put labor down and keep it in its place. Strikes, direct action, political action, increased solidarity among the masses of workers, poor, and marginalized--these are the basic tactics of social transformation, and they will be met with, no doubt, violent opposition from both the state and their capitalist backers. As far as monopolies go, this is just another fabrication you are pulling out of thin air--what monopolies are you talking about?

People can trade all they want, but this will be on a human one to one level, or it will be decided between communities who have say over what goes on in their lives. The basis of all this, again for the umpteenth time, will be the social control of the means of production and a basic social equality of basic goods and services and democratic participation in all decision making. This is certainly a planned economy, but without any centralized control.

What measures will you take against dissenters? What if the dissenters are in the majority?

If the dissenters are the majority then we have a very different society. Again this is why I always keep going back to history. I am not talking about starting am some fantasy blank slate. I am talking about beginning from the ground up, i.e. from the masses coming together to overturn the authoritarian relations of the state and capital. If the people choose not to do this, if support for social reform does not develop and solidarity among the oppressed does not occur, then reform simply does not happen.

As far as crime and whatnot, I view that as mostly at matter of socio-economic circumstance. The relations of private property creates antagonistic relations between those who have and those who do not. It nests and breeds criminal activity and a massive state that handles all the crime and controls the poor and working majority has typically been the answer to this. Our answer is the end to these kinds of class relations established by private property.

Now some questions for you:

What is going to happen with all the massive corporate business and financial class once the state is gone? Do they not just have unbridled private power?

The state, in capitalist societies, is largely about controlling private property and ensuring it for the business class--why do you think the business class needs the state to do this if relations of private property are, at the core, liberating? It seems to me that the state is meant to control the population. If the state serves the business class, is that not an indictment of the institution of private property and the control that it requires?
Do you really think the poor are poor simply because they are lazy? Do you really think that workers who want more control over their lives and unite in order to do that are simply trying to mooch? Or are you just naively supporting an institution that is just as oppressive as the state?
Wouldn't you rather have people interact with each other in their everyday work lives without them trying to use each in order to gain a profit or to merely subsist?

[SolarCross]

I own my body...well, and my wife...

Okay I glad you said that; it means you are not totally bonkers. Right so you are making the natural and sane assertion that your body is your private property. But see your body is a "means of production"; you use it to produce wealth (well assuming you are not in a coma or something like that). The proof of that is here on this forum for all to see; you typed up some content and published it to the world here on pofo, this content is some wealth and you produced it using your body. So unless you want to contradict yourself you must acknowledge that at least some "means of production" is and should be private property.

I won't impose anything. If nobody desires social transformation then it does not happen, plain and simple.

Alright so you won't impose it; does that mean if some want to do your socialist utopia you just do it with them and let others do their own thing? I mean what you call "social transformation" doesn't have to be done by everyone.

If I read you correctly, this is like saying the poor are poor because they are lazy, and I think that that has been thoroughly debunked. The poor, particularly the working poor, often worker longer and harder than the rich.

No you are not reading me correctly. I am suggesting that "socialising the means of production" is a euphemism for stealing. Since you seem to want to "socialise" a means of production instead of creating one as honest people (rich or poor) do then I have to wonder if the motivation is laziness or possibly a lack intelligence. I never said you were poor so I am not sure what that has to do with anything.

At any rate, what does lazy have to do with this? I said we should all control the means of production, and I view that as a matter of freeing our creative capacities as humans. I never said we do this so that we don't have to work and so that we can all just be idle couch potatoes. This has nothing to do with envy, laziness, etc. It has to do with creating a better world where we can actually interact (in both work and play) with other human beings on a voluntary basis without property divisions getting in the way.

We can't all control all the means of production, that is just a silly and senseless fantasy. My taxi for instance, I own it 100%, that is my claim and no one but a socialist or a thief would dream of denying that claim because the previous rightful owner voluntarily gave it to me in return for a property of mine (some money) by mutual agreement. No other parties have any valid claim on it, none, so it is mine just as it should be. Does my ownership have any impact on your "creative capacities"? I don't see how and if it did then that is your problem not mine. More to the point if you want to steal my taxi you would certainly be impacting my "creative capacities" and causing huge injury to my interests. I do not kidnap or conscript my customers (unlike the government) nor do they kidnap or conscript me to drive for them, we trade by voluntary agreement, by trade.

What do you suppose is the market? Is it not human beings, including those you call the working class, exchanging things they don't want for things they do want?

The market consists of a variety of economic institutions with the aim of buying and selling goods and services for the production of economic profit. Yes, labor is put on the market. Yes labor consists also of consumers who buy things on the market. Where we differ, I believe, is that you see the market as individual monetary transactions between buyer and seller, and in this sense the market exist as an abstract nexus within which economic exchanges take place. I look at the production process as the basis of the market and market relations, where those who control capital are at different position of power than those who do not, and the effects of this occur both within production and consumption.

The market is exchanges between people and groups of people, that is all, and it is a good and civilised thing. Socialists sound like they hate for people to exchange things without begging or buying the permission of the socialists first, which is a bad thing, it is tyranny. Markets don't always behave as they should but the culprit of market distortions is almost invariably government by means of tax(theft), inflation(currency debasement which is a kind of fraud) and permission rackets. Capital in the sense you mean of people who have some surplus stuff they lend out to others to do some productive enterprise is a good thing. Capital could only be a bad thing if the person loaning its use had obtained it by fraud or theft, in which case it is not the capital or the loaning of its use that is bad. The bad is the theft of it.

I'm not violently imposing anything. The history of labor's conflicts with capital has not been a history of violence on the side of labor. Quite the contrary, it's been violence on the side of capital to put labor down and keep it in its place. Strikes, direct action, political action, increased solidarity among the masses of workers, poor, and marginalized--these are the basic tactics of social transformation, and they will be met with, no doubt, violent opposition from both the state and their capitalist backers. As far as monopolies go, this is just another fabrication you are pulling out of thin air--what monopolies are you talking about?

Libertarian socialists want to make their commitees the masters of all property especially productive property and they wish to control not just production but also consumption too, many have said this very explicitly. This would be a monopoly of a depth that only extreme statists such as the bolsheviks would want to impose and it is a monopoly that would have to be imposed violently. Do you think some committee can take my taxi from me without at least threatening me with violence? What else are they going to do, ask nicely? And if I say no?

People can trade all they want, but this will be on a human one to one level, or it will be decided between communities who have say over what goes on in their lives. The basis of all this, again for the umpteenth time, will be the social control of the means of production and a basic social equality of basic goods and services and democratic participation in all decision making. This is certainly a planned economy, but without any centralized control.

You can do all that without stealing anything. Anyone can start a business, the only ones stopping you are the zombie bureaucrats not other business people. If you want your society to have a taxi service that is democratically run and planned by commitees then go an do it, you do not need to steal my taxi to do it.

If the dissenters are the majority then we have a very different society. Again this is why I always keep going back to history. I am not talking about starting am some fantasy blank slate. I am talking about beginning from the ground up, i.e. from the masses coming together to overturn the authoritarian relations of the state and capital. If the people choose not to do this, if support for social reform does not develop and solidarity among the oppressed does not occur, then reform simply does not happen.

I am all for people overthrowing the state, this is an institution of violence, monopoly, fraud and theft. But capital is just useful stuff (by the dictionary meaning) or the people that own stuff (by your meaning, I think, actually it not very clear what you mean by capital) and overthrowing that is just plain crazy in my view. People are not oppressed by stuff or people owning stuff, people are oppressed by having their property rights violated.

As far as crime and whatnot, I view that as mostly at matter of socio-economic circumstance. The relations of private property creates antagonistic relations between those who have and those who do not. It nests and breeds criminal activity and a massive state that handles all the crime and controls the poor and working majority has typically been the answer to this. Our answer is the end to these kinds of class relations established by private property.

Sorry no this pure mythology. Crime is the result of ignorance, desire and poor moral hygiene. If a taxman burgles my house it is not my fault for living in a house, it is his fault for being an ignorant moral imbecile.

Now some questions for you:

What is going to happen with all the massive corporate business and financial class once the state is gone? Do they not just have unbridled private power?

I hope they adapt, if they don't they will go out of business or downsize and new business will win their market share. The loss of government money will be a big disruption for them, but there are other alternatives: crypto-currencies, mutual credit even gold and silver.
Most businesses are benign, they facilitate the production and distribution of wealth. The bad eggs are mostly bad because they are just wings of government or deeply in bed with it, so once the state is gone then they will not have the means of being so very bad anymore.

The state, in capitalist societies, is largely about controlling private property and ensuring it for the business class--why do you think the business class needs the state to do this if relations of private property are, at the core, liberating? It seems to me that the state is meant to control the population. If the state serves the business class, is that not an indictment of the institution of private property and the control that it requires?

No this is just wrong. The state is always about collectivising (stealing) private property. Given such an odious institution, people can fight it or adapt to it. The safe but cowardly thing to do is to adapt to it by suffering its predations and trying to beg something back for our loss. We all do this adaptation not just entrepreneurs, shareholders and proprietors.

Do you really think the poor are poor simply because they are lazy? Do you really think that workers who want more control over their lives and unite in order to do that are simply trying to mooch? Or are you just naively supporting an institution that is just as oppressive as the state?
Wouldn't you rather have people interact with each other in their everyday work lives without them trying to use each in order to gain a profit or to merely subsist?

The poor are poor either because they are unlucky or because they are robbed but they are not robbed by someone offering them paid work they are robbed by government taxing them, debasing the currency they use, are limiting their options and choices through regulation. Some understand this and some are stupid and don't. We are all in it for the profit (or at least those of us that are sane). What is profit? Plainly you don't know, so I'll tell you, it is a benefit resulting from performing an action. That benefit may be monetary, or it may be emotional or karmic or just fun, the action may be work or it maybe by making shrewd choices. Wages are the worker's profit.

[Figlio di Moros]

Right so you are making the natural and sane assertion that your body is your private property.

I think his point was that his body is his personal property.

[anticlimacus]

Okay I glad you said that; it means you are not totally bonkers. Right so you are making the natural and sane assertion that your body is your private property. But see your body is a "means of production"; you use it to produce wealth (well assuming you are not in a coma or something like that). The proof of that is here on this forum for all to see; you typed up some content and published it to the world here on pofo, this content is some wealth and you produced it using your body. So unless you want to contradict yourself you must acknowledge that at least some "means of production" is and should be private property.

Oh for fucks sake...really? First of all it was a strange question, but I answered it thinking you would be able to take some common sense into it, but instead you went into libertarian mode and well...out goes the common sense.

So you asked do "I" own my own body--well, technically I am my body. It makes no sense for me to own it. What I meant was that my body is mine, nobody else's. Not that "I" (in some disembodied world) have property rights over it (but I suppose right wing libertarians can only think in terms of property rights?).

Now, I do own my labor power in a similar sense to what you mean. In other words, I can sell my labor power--what do you think it means when it is said capitalism creates conditions where capital confronts the propertyless as labor who have nothing but their own labor power to sell? What I--and other socialists--want is a society where we can use our own labor power freely, without being forced to sell it to some profit hungry bastard. I want a society where my labor power ceases to become just more capital that goes into the the production process. I want a society where I enter the production process voluntarily (and therefore not selling my labor power to those who control my means to subsistence) as a human being seeking to contribute in a meaningful way.

So what the fuck do we mean by "means of production"? Why for, about two hundred years, have socialists, Marxists, and anarchists alike gone on and on about this weird phrase "means of production"? Means of production refers to the means that go into the production of goods and services in society. Thus it does not refer to your god damned taxi, which you are so obsessed about (you and your taxi may be more like the "petite bourgeoisie" to use a Marxist term). It refers to the factory from which your taxi and other means of transportation, including your personal taxi, are produced. It refers to the resources that go into making those vehicles. It refers to the land that is privately acquired in order to manufacture those cars and mine those resources. It refers to the capital that can be used to purchase that factory, the resources, and the land, and ultimately labor power to create a profit. And it is social because it requires labor power to become productive and because they are essential to the production of social wealth. So those who privately own those means buy labor power from those who own--wait for it--nothing except their own fucking labor power to sell, in order to produce commodities. And instead of labor acquiring what it earns through its production, the capitalist skims a profit off the top and so the accumulation of capital becomes the raison d'etra of the entire system, made off the back of labor power (One of the reasons Rothbardians favorite thinker , Proudhon, says "property is theft"). Therefore, property is not just "stuff". Property creates class distinctions, which can be admittedly fluid and complex. But the core distinction it makes, under the capitalist system, is the one between those who own the means of production as their "private property" and are therefore the chief benefactors of capital accumulation, and then those who sell their labor power in order to earn a living.

[SolarCross]

Anticlimacus - yes really. I asked you if your body was your private property or common property. You said you own it, you did not say it was the property of all, or property of the state, so what else is it then but your private property? Okay so now you are saying you are your body and that it does not make sense to own it, which you immediately contradict by saying "What I meant was that my body is mine, nobody else's.". If my kidney fails can I just take one of yours? If it is common property then yes I can because it is as much my property as it is yours, if it is property of the state (public property) then I should ask permission from the agents of the state before taking it, if it is your private property then I should ask you for permission to take it. It is not hard to understand.

Who is forcing you to work? You seem to think that it is your trading partners that force you to work. I offer you some money if you will mow my lawn. You decide that you want the money more than you want to not mow my lawn and agree to the offer. How did I force you? So the socialists then say, that I am forcing you to work because you want the money to buy food or something else you want. That is silly, I do not make you hungry, nature did that to you, not me. Socialists say you shouldn't have to mow a lawn in order to eat, fine but then I shouldn't have to pay you in order for you to mow my lawn, fair is fair. Socialists then are saying trade is wrong. But what else is there? Theft and gift are the other options. Arguably gift is really just a form of trade; I give you food, you give me a mowed lawn. Maybe I give you the food and you give nothing back and if I am voluntarily giving you the food and you are voluntarily doing nothing in return and we are both consent to that arrangement then that is gift or charity which is also a trade in the sense that I am trading something for nothing. So the other option is just theft. So it is okay for you to take my money or my food even if you don't mow the lawn, but fair is fair, if you are allowed to steal my food against my will, then why can I not steal your labour against your will?

Taxi obsession - I bring up my taxi in order to bring the conversation on property out of abstractions into actual reality. We can talk airily about socialising the means of production but what does that mean in real life? My taxi is my real life, see here - www.taxizen.co.uk. If I want to keep this conversation real what else can I use as an example?

How is a factory different from a taxi or a landscaper's lawnmower, an electrician's multimeter or an accountant's pocket calculator? We imagine a factory to be bigger and with a higher market value than a car or mower but still it is property used to create more value than would exist without it. A factory is a bunch of tools protected from the elements by a building.

So what of the poor people who do not own a taxi or a lawnmower or a factory? Well luckily the market found a way of helping those people earn a living, it created the wage contract. The market discovered that even people who own no tools or even no productive knowledge can still trade by recognising that the work they can do is something valuable and worth trading for. Those people can sell their time, effort and attention even without any tools of their own and in so doing earn money which is capital. The money they earn they can re-invest in more knowledge or their own tools or shares in the large tools like factories or they can spend it on something less productive, what ever they like to do with it. The government goons however have other ideas about what to do with the unskilled and toolless people, they tax them, debase the capital they are paid in and restrict their options and choices through regulation. The market offers freedom and wealth but the goons imposes slavery and poverty. I love the former while you apparently love the latter.

[anticlimacus]

Anticlimacus - yes really. I asked you if your body was your private property or common property. You said you own it, you did not say it was the property of all, or property of the state, so what else is it then but your private property? Okay so now you are saying you are your body and that it does not make sense to own it, which you immediately contradict by saying "What I meant was that my body is mine, nobody else's.". If my kidney fails can I just take one of yours? If it is common property then yes I can because it is as much my property as it is yours, if it is property of the state (public property) then I should ask permission from the agents of the state before taking it, if it is your private property then I should ask you for permission to take it. It is not hard to understand.

Actually what you are saying is incredibly difficult to understand. Who thinks of their body as private property? To me what you are suggesting is that this corrupted thinking of private property is taken to such an extreme by you right wingers that you turn yourselves into private property. You no longer can think of yourselves as human beings. You are property, and not only to others--but even to yourselves.

Why would I say somebody else owns my body? Why would I say the state or you or anybody else does when all along I've been stressing voluntary actions? But I will still distinguish between what actions are mine and what are not. I will still say, yes this is my body if somebody asks me on the street. But do I mean that I have "property rights" over this body? Fuck no, that's not what I mean and I would be ashamed to think of myself that way. I mean this is my body, that is your body. This is what I have no choice but to live and act through--this is who I am. I will not control your body and you will not control my body without my consent. But I'll be damned if I start to think of myself as the "landlord" of my body that I can start to rent it out or prostitute. If I have to sell my labor power, I go with it, and I do it in order to subsist; and I do it, not on my own will, but by necessity of a social system that turns my labor power into something that I have to sell in order to live.

Who is forcing you to work? You seem to think that it is your trading partners that force you to work. I offer you some money if you will mow my lawn. You decide that you want the money more than you want to not mow my lawn and agree to the offer. How did I force you? So the socialists then say, that I am forcing you to work because you want the money to buy food or something else you want. That is silly, I do not make you hungry, nature did that to you, not me. Socialists say you shouldn't have to mow a lawn in order to eat, fine but then I shouldn't have to pay you in order for you to mow my lawn, fair is fair. Socialists then are saying trade is wrong. But what else is there? Theft and gift are the other options. Arguably gift is really just a form of trade; I give you food, you give me a mowed lawn. Maybe I give you the food and you give nothing back and if I am voluntarily giving you the food and you are voluntarily doing nothing in return and we are both consent to that arrangement then that is gift or charity which is also a trade in the sense that I am trading something for nothing. So the other option is just theft. So it is okay for you to take my money or my food even if you don't mow the lawn, but fair is fair, if you are allowed to steal my food against my will, then why can I not steal your labour against your will?

No Tax, you still don't get where we are coming from. Socialists don't look at benign one-to-one interactions existing in a vacuum. We look at social systems and their historical production and existence. We look at Feudalism as not private interactions between lords and serfs, but a social system that encompassed most of Europe as a hierarchical system of control ranging from lords to suzereins to monarchs with absolute power for exploiting labor. We look at capitalism as a system of property relations where private property is utilized for the accumulation of capital. Socialists don't give a shit about your silly little interactions without wider social context to explain them. Socialists care about a system that creates those who own property and those who are forced to sell their labor power in order to subsist. We are not concerned about your private contracts. We're concerned about the social system within which those contracts occur and gain their meaning. It's the system that makes us what we are and the capitalist system is one wrought with authority, control, and domination. Socialists care about the power relations that develop within such a system (e.g. between boss and employee, manager and worker, capitalist and laborer) and view it as a system that is just as much about master/servant as any other system except for the fact that labor is freed to sell itself and the means of producing wealth are both privately owned and considered to be private endeavors.

What we see you as doing is interpreting this social system, that is historically produced, as completely natural and universal--that there is simply no other way than the existing relations we have with property and with each other. That is why we see you as ahistorical, and either naive or just superficial apologists. We see you as viewing the anti-community individualization and atomization of society as something that is required by a state of nature, and we again find that to be utterly ahistorical. You seem to not be able to think in terms outside of every individual for themselves, and find that a community coming together to support each member as tyrannical. How, you ask, are we going to eat if we don't sell ourselves to each other? Such a question is emblematic of one who either has not the imagination to see beyond capitalist relations, or somebody who believes in them so much that he/she is unwilling to see beyond them as completely normal and natural. The possibility of society actually coming together to make sure basic needs are met is simply not entertained and can only be viewed as tyrannical--well such thinking seems to be the corruption of our minds and pysche, where working together becomes as foreign as our own bodies to ourselves, which, as you say, also become our own "private property". To me, everything you are saying reveals just how much of our humanity is actually lost within the capitalist system, and I only hope it's somethign that we may someday be able to retrieve. But--we may destroy ourselves before that day, for the sake of a little profit. It's entirely irrational, destroying the world in order to keep profits--but then again so is thinking of your own body as your private property.

[Rothbardian]

The exclusive ownership of property is wrong, unless it's owned by society A exclusively. Societies B, C, and D can still be excluded and it's okay. Because let's face it, to try to truly apply the concept of collective ownership would be so obviously retarded no one would take it seriously.

[anticlimacus]

The exclusive ownership of property is wrong, unless it's owned by society A exclusively. Societies B, C, and D can still be excluded and it's okay. Because let's face it, to try to truly apply the concept of collective ownership would be so obviously retarded no one would take it seriously.

I think you've got it back asswords Rothbardian. I mean you take a look at history, from the early anarchist movements like Owen or the rural utopian movements like Tolstoy, or the serious movements like the Paris Commune or 1936 Spain and current worker coops etc., it becomes strikingly clear that the aim of social reform amongst working people and the poor and the masses has always been towards community and collective ownership. The "sepctor" has never been the ancap dream of a world of private property without state involvement. What is so striking is that this seems to make absolutely no sense to you ancaps--even the fact that, anarcho-capitalism is still just a contradiction, just as much as state socialism is.

[SolarCross]

Anticlimacus - that is a very narrow historical perspective if you are drawing only from 19th century socialism. Anyway you are missing Rothbardian's point. Private property its not the same as individual property, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. The property of a commune is private property to that commune. It may be that authority over that property is held collectively by the members but non-members have no authority over it. See? Your Owenites may have agreed with each other to pool all their property and to share authority over it through some achingly tedious democratic process but if the Russian mafia turned up with trucks and started loading up all their stuff they would object, effectively asserting that the property was exclusive to their group, which is to say their private property.