struggling with possession based property rights

[shawnpwilbur]

So it comes down to an assertion that people can't manage their own affairs. I had thought I was debating some sort of anarchist, but perhaps not. You can assert that, given a chance to deal and be dealt with in an equitable manner, people will choose to be exploited--but I doubt many readers will see themselves in those willfully self-destructive characters. Chatter about "enlightened" masses is just a distraction. It's really just a question of presenting alternatives, and means of transition. The capitalist system is failing at providing virtually everything that it promises, and it is more and more clear every day. If anarchism fails to advance in the current crisis, it will be our inertia and our stupid in-fighting that's the cause.

[|Y|]

http://www.gapminder.org

Capitalism is winning. Neoliberals are singing its praises. Power is still highly concentrated. Please, do not delude yourself, capitalism is the single greatest single most successful societial movement in the history of human society. But it still fails to give us proper freedom.

The reason I am an anarchist is because I wish to be free from tyranny. The only way I see that as possible is to move beyond monetary and non-possessive property systems.

I don't see why I should have to rely on "society" operating a certain way for me to be free from tyranny. All society has to do is leave me the fuck alone, and not attempt to "get one over on me," particularly by expecting me to do something for it.

[Francois Tremblay]

Y, that's an absurd statement. Monetary systems are the only fair systems. By "freeing yourself" from them, you're only enslaving yourself to the tyranny of public discourse, you mealy-mouthed commie.

[shawnpwilbur]

Capitalism is winning. Neoliberals are singing its praises. Power is still highly concentrated. Please, do not delude yourself, capitalism is the single greatest single most successful societial movement in the history of human society. But it still fails to give us proper freedom.

The reason I am an anarchist is because I wish to be free from tyranny. The only way I see that as possible is to move beyond monetary and non-possessive property systems.

I don't see why I should have to rely on "society" operating a certain way for me to be free from tyranny. All society has to do is leave me the fuck alone, and not attempt to "get one over on me," particularly by expecting me to do something for it.

Whether or not capitalism is "winning," it is failing to deliver on virtually all of its promises. And centralization is more and more an economic weakness. The smoke and mirrors around the current crisis are indeed impressive, but there's no point in pretending they are anything but smoke and mirrors. Capitalism has enough cheerleaders as it is.

If communism is your thing, then develop it, although I can't imagine how non-monetary and possessive property systems will give you any more assurance against willfully self-destructive or "unenlightened" behavior. The movement needs a lot of practical thought in all schools at the moment, and it looks to me like communist forms are lagging behind more than a bit.

Propertarian market anarchisms don't really depend on "society," but on informed, self-interested individuals. Francois is doing interesting things on his blog with a de-theologized version of the "law of love," and there's a strong tradition, both in mutualist and in anarchist communist circles, of basing mutual relations on an essentially egoist foundation. Go back to Proudhon and Joseph Dejacques, or take as recent a case as Kevin Carson, and there's nothing assumed about reciprocity that requires any enlightenment beyond figuring out what side your bread is buttered on.

[|Y|]

Francois Tremblay, do you have anything substantative to say or is that all you got? Monetary systems coincide with states, and while the same is said of agriculture, and I do not consider correlation causation in either scenario, I do see that monetary systems must be backed by force. Feel free to read the "anarchy come about?" thread and my discussion with Noleaders.



shawnpwilbur, actually, the current crisis is, as I predicted, just the bullshit free market failing to deliever, and the regulated social democrats coming to save the day (while the free market thinkers cry out for them to not intervene), and in the end was nothing but overhyped garbage clinging on to those with lofty dreams and no pragmatism. No, capitalism wasn't in very much trouble, no capitalism isn't just going to go anywhere, no capitalism isn't failing to deliver on whatever abstract promises you want to claim it has. Regulated capitalism is, without a doubt, factually, irrevocibly, kicking ass.

I am not a communist, nor am I arguing for communism. If anything it is more like egoism. I am arguing for you to leave me the fuck alone.

Reciprocity is reliant on a social contract, of which none exists from the moment I am born, I am forced to cede to the wills of those around me, and am expected to be unable to freely associate in society without doing so first. If your will is not my will, and my will is not enough for me to make it in society, then your will becomes the rule, and I am insignificant.

If I want to be lazy, let me be lazy. If I want to take something, let me take. If I want to eat, let me eat. Any society where people can get in the way of my own actions, indeed, where someone is destined to be in the way of my own actions, is not freedom. I don't propose to stop you from doing anything you want (except stopping me from acting, myself, obviously). I won't get in your way, at all.

[Noleaders]

Francois Tremblay, do you have anything substantative to say or is that all you got? Monetary systems coincide with states, and while the same is said of agriculture, and I do not consider correlation causation in either scenario, I do see that monetary systems must be backed by force. Feel free to read the "anarchy come about?" thread and my discussion with Noleaders.

Yes but your arguments were self contradictory. You agreed people had the right to their own possessions but then argued it required illegitimate force to stop people from just taking these things. You then agreed just taking things was bad, but still thought that money was evil for preventing people from gifting (which it doesnt, people do that) even though you admitted people have no obligation to gift.

If I want to be lazy, let me be lazy. If I want to take something, let me take. If I want to eat, let me eat. Any society where people can get in the way of my own actions, indeed, where someone is destined to be in the way of my own actions, is not freedom. I don't propose to stop you from doing anything you want (except stopping me from acting, myself, obviously). I won't get in your way, at all.

If i want to stab, let me stab....

Don't you get it, like it or not you cant do whatever you want because that would include things that oppress others (law of equal liberty). So be lazy, but dont expect people to help you out if you starve. You can take something, but dont expect there to be no consequences. You can eat, but only food you own.

[Francois Tremblay]

Francois Tremblay, do you have anything substantative to say or is that all you got?

Refuting your whole argument is not substantive enough?? What the hell do you want from me?

Monetary systems coincide with states, and while the same is said of agriculture, and I do not consider correlation causation in either scenario, I do see that monetary systems must be backed by force.

Monetary systems must be backed by force? What in the hell are you talking about? What property of monetary systems makes them unworkable without force?

Feel free to read the "anarchy come about?" thread and my discussion with Noleaders.

Feel free to go fuck yourself.

[|Y|]

Yes but your arguments were self contradictory. You agreed people had the right to their own possessions but then argued it required illegitimate force to stop people from just taking these things. You then agreed just taking things was bad, but still thought that money was evil for preventing people from gifting (which it doesnt, people do that) even though you admitted people have no obligation to gift.

Where did I ever say anyone could take someones possessions? Where? You are back to your good old twisting shit again. If money is the primary factor for societal function (as it is currently), and people chose not to use money, but rather, chose to take capital from capitalists, and non-possessions that are just sitting around stagnating, they would most assuredly be beat back with force.

If i want to stab, let me stab....

Don't you get it, like it or not you cant do whatever you want because that would include things that oppress others (law of equal liberty). So be lazy, but dont expect people to help you out if you starve. You can take something, but dont expect there to be no consequences. You can eat, but only food you own.

Um, I never said I wanted others to do anything for me, again, you're projecting and just making shit up. I, in fact, want nothing from anyone, I expect nothing from anyone. You live in this reality whereby you get things from other people, in most cases those things are only received by you because of the force inherent in monetary systems.

You guys seriously are fucked up, with this whole clinging to ideology that puts *people in the way of my existance*, and considering this the *only* way to organize, the *only* way for society to operate. This is why I am against market anarchists, because they haven't moved beyond their archaic capitalist counterparts.

[|Y|]

Refuting your whole argument is not substantive enough?? What the hell do you want from me?

If that constitutes a "refutal" I am shocked, the educational system sure did give you a good start on life.

Claiming "money is the most fair system you can have" is proposterous without clear concise reasons.

Monetary systems must be backed by force? What in the hell are you talking about? What property of monetary systems makes them unworkable without force?

I see a fig on a tree. I pick it. I eat it. No money.

I see a fig on a tree, but the tree has a fence around it, and you have a little stand there saying, "Figs for .50 cents."

What happens when I pick the fig?

You fucking bust me upside the head, that's what.

Monetary systems require people to specalize in one specific kind of labor for the majority of their existance. Indeed, we go to schools to learn one or two specalities, this way when we get into the job market, we can get this thing called money, to get the other things we want.

I do not specalize. I am a polymath. I do everything that I want for myself. Indeed, I am only a polymath because I avoided the educational system (I was homeschooled with shitty Christian doctrine, which did not give me any information about my existance). I had to learn things on my own outside of a hierarchical system of learning that "sets you up" to be a drone in a machine, where you can never actually fulfill your full potential.

Feel free to go fuck yourself.

Feel free to actually give an adequate response next time.

[Noleaders]

Where did I ever say anyone could take someones possessions?

If they can hold onto their possessions whats ethically unjustified in them insisting on trading it for money?

If money is the primary factor for societal function (as it is currently), and people chose not to use money, but rather, chose to take capital from capitalists, and non-possessions that are just sitting around stagnating, they would most assuredly be beat back with force.

This isnt an argument against money its an argument against capitalists. But didnt you kinda answer your first question here, "people chose not to use money, but rather, chose to take capital from capitalists", not that the capitalists have much right to it but you seem to be implying that if some people want to stop using money then they cant gift with people who do want to use money therefore money is equivalent to force. Maybe ive misinterpreted you here, and i apologise if i have, but surely the question of whether to use money or not is simply down to the individuals?

Um, I never said I wanted others to do anything for me, again, you're projecting and just making shit up. I, in fact, want nothing from anyone, I expect nothing from anyone.

"If I want to take something, let me take." If you dont own what you are taking then your are expecting stuff from others.

You live in this reality whereby you get things from other people, in most cases those things are only received by you because of the force inherent in monetary systems.

Ignoring the issue of capitalists for a second, where is the force inherent in me and a friend using money for our transaction if we want to do that?

[|Y|]

If they can hold onto their possessions whats ethically unjustified in them insisting on trading it for money?

Nothing, but as they aggregate "things for trade" then their "possessions" become "used solely for the purpose of trade," and they don't look like possessions to me. As I said before, if I didn't respect mutualists on grounds that they're "better than capitalists," I would happily take these supposed "mutualists possessions." But because I do respect them, I wouldn't do it.

The point still stands that if I did you would bust me over the head with a stick, just like a fucking capitalist.

This isnt an argument against money its an argument against capitalists.

I just explained that it is just not. When you have aggregated capital for the purpose of monetary exchange, then you have to use force to keep that capital, even though you are not using it yourself.

You have a store of TVs, are you watching them all at any one time? No. Tucker says you possess the store. I can respect that, OK, you have a store. It would be no different, of course, from a capitalist having the same store full of TVs, except for presumbably the wage and trade relationship that exists.

But didnt you kinda answer your first question here, "people chose not to use money, but rather, chose to take capital from capitalists", not that the capitalists have much right to it but you seem to be implying that if some people want to stop using money then they cant gift with people who do want to use money therefore money is equivalent to force.

First off, no one wants to use money, they have to use money. People prefer having things for free, as established in the other thread I had with you. This is a fact of nature.

Secondly, it is perfectly acceptable to gift to those who use money, the problem is that gifting is not easily done when the force of money is constantly hanging over our heads. It is not in my interests to give things away if I first have to earn money to be able to have access to the resources to give things away.

Maybe ive misinterpreted you here, and i apologise if i have, but surely the question of whether to use money or not is simply down to the individuals?

Not for the vast majority of indivuduals, it most certainly is not. Money is *required by society* thus people must find a way to *acquire* that money. This is why I am against mutualism or market anarchism as a primary form of societial function, because it does not give me any other choice. If it was a secondary or otherwise marginal form of society, then the mutualists would not be bothering me, because I would be getting the things I want because no one would be stopping me.

"If I want to take something, let me take." If you dont own what you are taking then your are expecting stuff from others.

This is why I will happily leave mutualists (and even capitalists) alone, and I must make for myself, because I don't need to be seen as an authoritarian, even though it is obviously you who would be the first aggressor if I were to take things from the environment.

You have a pile of scrap metal that is rusting away, if I were to go and grab some of it to make tools, you would stop me with force, because there's an opportunity there for a monetary transaction. "Sure you can have that rusting scrap metal, but only if pay me."

Ignoring the issue of capitalists for a second, where is the force inherent in me and a friend using money for our transaction if we want to do that?

You and your friend probably have no problem with it. But what if I wanted something you were not yourself using (except for the explicit purpose to trade), would you let me have it?

No you fucking wouldn't.

[shawnpwilbur]

You guys seriously are fucked up, with this whole clinging to ideology that puts *people in the way of my existance*, and considering this the *only* way to organize, the *only* way for society to operate. This is why I am against market anarchists, because they haven't moved beyond their archaic capitalist counterparts.

Gee, where to start... For a guy who wants to be left alone, you're pretty belligerent. Most of the time, you actually just sound like one of those enthusiastic young an-caps, who think that capitalism and free commerce are the same thing, and who constantly overestimate their own abilities and underestimate the intelligence of those around them. If you think that treating other people as associates, rather than just potential obstacles, amounts to a "social contract" and an imposition, then I suppose you'll always be on the attack, and if you malign other people in the process of "defending yourself," then that's just too bad. That seems to be pretty much your attitude, so it's no surprise you don't pay much attention to what others say. If you did, you might have noticed that only Francois said anything like "monetary systems are the only way." I actually encouraged communists to develop their approach.

You keep piling on the silly accusations, so it's hard to keep up with the corrections. We don't know, for instance, how my parents' summer cabin might be "in your way." You said you would expropriate the winter home if it seemed to you, and you alone (since community standards don't matter to you), that someone else was more deserving of it. Perhaps, in your mind, the example was taking place in the midst of an acute housing shortage and an unseasonable monsoon. All we know is that you think that the "notion" of a "summer house" is impermissible, no matter what the communities involved might think, for reasons which you think allow you to brush off all the details. You keep invoking images of cops and guns and violence, but so far you are the one who has shown a consistent tendency to treat other people's desires and ideas as if they didn't matter. Maybe that's because you're a "polymath," and much more uberclever than the rest of us, but I'm not entirely convinced yet. I'm thinking maybe you really just don't give a shit who you mess with, if they are "in your way."

Take the tv sets, for example. The fig on the tree might be one of those "free gifts of nature," or it might be largely the result of cultivation and labor. TV sets do not, we know, grow on trees. There was some claim made about Tucker justifying a store full of tv sets, which we can discount on literal grounds, but certainly Tucker might have defended a retailer's ownership of inventory for sale on a number of grounds. Tucker certainly opposed exploitation, so it's likely that the tv sets in Tucker's TV Emporium were created by associated labor, and that the compensation to capital, when all was said and done, responded to mutualist, not capitalist norms. But even if this isn't a mutualist retailer, the shopkeeper paid for the tvs, which compensates the worker for their labor. Again, if we're talking about mutualist business, the tv salesperson is going to resell the sets for the cost of them, plus the costs of maintaining Tucker's TV Emporium. Cost the limit of price. And the sets "just lying around" represent costs--in this case the cost of enjoying television. Cost-price consumers will find those costs drop, but not to zero. If it's all just about what's "in your way," of course, other people's labors don't matter. "I want the set. I'm taking the freakin' set! Why do you have to cling to ideologies that put you in my way!"

Maybe that's not what you really mean, but it's certainly the way you're coming off in this discussion.

I'll join you in your little game of predicting responses, and figure that you will once again make vague charges about how "you guys" (cuz, you know, Francois and I agree on most every little thing) are really fucked up and just like capitalists and you'll bash me in the head or shoot me if I want something, and... Perhaps we'll get some rips on capitalist shopkeepers, as a non-response to my talk about mutualism.

[|Y|]

shawnpwilbur, do you know who my family members and friends call upon when they need something done? Me. Do you know who I call upon when I need something done? Let me give you a hint, it's not some specialized worker who has to do some thing. In fact, the only time I have called upon said specialized workers is when it was forbidden, by law, for me to act in my own interests. Such as the time that I wanted to reinitate the power lines during a power failure after hurricane Ike. We had no power for 6 days. All because a power line was laying on the ground and the transformer was turned off. When a power company person was driving through the neighborhood, I finally stopped them and told them to simply fix it, detailing how simple it was to unbolt the line, and flip the switch. Less than 20 minutes later it was done. The for profit utility could not do such a simple task for 6 days straight despite numerous calls by myself and my neighbors for them to fix it.

Why should I have to rely on anyone for anything for my livelihood? I don't see it, anywhere in the chain of things that I want or desire, no where. Nada. And before you invoke "brain surguries" and such, I'll just say, if I need one of those then put me in the ground, please. especially if said person is requiring me to pay them for their actions, and especially if, after the fact, and I am all healthy and whatnot, a security force comes up and demands I pay "restitution" for someone "saving my life." I'd rather be *dead*.

Anyway, I assumed that I was part of said community where the house was sitting, festering. Certainly I'd refuse to associate with people who would allow such a house to sit festering to begin with, so it's actually an irrelevant point.

Summer houses, in and of themselves, are not "impermissable," so much an archaic and unworkable solution, if we take it to the full extent. If we say that it's acceptable, and if someone takes the acceptablity of such a habitat and uses that to exploit communities around them. It's not acceptable to me, therefore I won't associate with those who find them acceptable, and if the scenario plays out as I thought it might, then I will not be affected. If such a scenario never happens, then no harm, no foul, but I don't have to worry about this aggregation of power through essentially propertarian associations.

Noleaders is the one defending "defense associations," and I think it is a valid thing to critique. Certainly if I reject them outright and you do not, there is a distinct difference in our philosophies, and I should be legitimized in expressing concern against these associations. I haven't seen where you stand on them, however, I do see that if you accept behavior that allows people to aggregate power by having more possessions than they can themselves possess, then you will need to create police forces to make sure that this is acceptable. Only an extremely few of the population have "summer houses." For there to be an increase, out of the timeshare solution, it *would* require this extra force.

And really, I don't think anyones ideas matter, not even my own, not on the scheme of things. It is the aggregate of ideas that matter. I don't even consider myself a significant contributor. But I certainly do not respect ideology that is predicated on highly archaic and old ways of thinking. *If* it was presented in a new and refreshing way or if it had new applications, then I would be completely thrilled by it, but what I read here is what I have been reading for a decade, and the writings themselves and the ideas themselves have existed for a century. Call me whatever you want for being this way, but it tends to work for me.

If you have been following my and Noleaders discussions, you can be safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't take Tucker's TV sets. The point is only to illustrate how restriction is created and how force is maintained. Indeed, the discussion began (in another thread) with the idea that material items can be created with similar ease as copying a digital file. That is, that TVs can, in fact, "grow on trees." That is the basis for the whole of my argument. Labor is the basis for the argument for mutualists, I remove labor from the equation in my theory, and it becomes distinct. If I can, indeed, have anything I want, like with digital data, then, anyone who doesn't allow me to have what I want is getting in my way.

This, of course, does not apply only to digital data or "replicators" or "matter compilers" or "TVs growing on trees." If the communists took the expropriation argument to the extreme, rather than having specialized laborers on a chain of production, they would allow anyone and everyone access to all parts of the production chain for a given product, resulting in the *possiblity* for someone like me to simply walk into a shop somewhere, make a given aspect of the thing I desire, and then leave with the thing I have made, continuing on the chain of production until I have acquired what I want completely.

In either scenario no one is *stopping me from acting to acquire resources*, and that is the meat of the argument. Leave me alone. Let me act in the environment without ceding to your will.

On anti-state.com I created the mutualist analogy about a pottery store, and how, if I wanted to, I could come to the store, and if a pottery wheel was available, I could make a pot, and then pay the store owner the cost to maintain the wheel (say the belt runs down every 6 months), to replace the used clay and water, and I could have a nice little pot and sell it at cost (I used a lot of math and the pots came out far cheaper this way, and I could make more money this way, by valuing my labor higher without the owner taking a huge percentage of my work). No one, in this situation, is really "getting in my way." Sure there's a tiny percentage of maintainance cost, but it's easily overlooked.

The previous analogy, however, is distinct from a store of aggregated possessions for the sole purpose of trade. I am allowed to use the pottery wheel until it serves no more use to me. I am not allowed to use pots sitting on a store shelf until they serve no use to me.

[shawnpwilbur]

|Y|, I was assuming you were part of the community, since that was the scenario--just the part that would insist on the fact that a house was "festering" if you didn't approve of other people's arrangements (perhaps because you think someday tvs will grow on trees.) You're the part of the community that doesn't care about community standards, who wants to be left alone, but thinks he's pretty clever and would, by your own testimony, expropriate your neighbors' property if you thought you had a better idea. In plenty of neighborhoods, you would be the reason that otherwise neighborly folks would be dialing up the local defense agency. I know, you've also said you wouldn't take things, but I'm guessing you really mean it when you say you don't care what's "recognized" in other people's voluntary associations.

On the forums, it seems to me that you seldom actually engage in debate. You have your pet theory, and you have a series of rather unclever stereotypes that you substitute for other people's positions, when you don't just engage in broad, sweeping (and entirely counterfactual) generalizations. There are, of course, about a zillion people like you on forums, viciously beating a horse they haven't actually picked out yet.

[|Y|]

You have failed to convince me that non-possession acceptablity would not devolve into institutions of power, all you did is just explain that I am throwing out stereotypes and reiterated the lie that I would expropriate ones pitiful non-possessed property.

Oh and you dismiss me because of the "TVs growing on trees" statement, when I expressed not one, but two scenarios (both mutualist and communist) where I could get what I wanted without someone stopping me, without someone forcefully preventing me from having access to it.

Amusing to say the least.