I know it’s been a while since I’ve had a written post on here; expect one by the end of the week.
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Leo M.J. Aurini
Trained as a Historian at McMaster University, and as an Infantry soldier in the Canadian Forces, I'm a Scholar, Author, Film Maker, and a God fearing Catholic, who loves women for their illogical nature.
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Professionally a Bachelor of History, a Bachelor of Geographic Information Systems, and a Canadian Forces Infantry Veteran.
I write science fiction, play the saxophone, study philosophy and psychology, have dabbled in film making, and am a faithful member of the Catholic Church. Politically speaking, I'm a Red Tory and a Monarchist; my views are often heterodox to the mainstream opinion.
I'm also a strong believer in wearing hats for any occasion.
Anarcho-capitalism works great if you have a bunch of smart-hardworking males cooperating. The problem is that ANY system works great when you have a bunch of hardworking males cooperating.
My take on it these days is that communism is actually an ideal that you should strive towards in your personal life. Of course everyone wants a group of friends with similar values where you all watch each other’s back, and money isn’t really a problem. Capitalism is an ideal that governments should strive towards, encouraging the peaceful interactions of groups with differing values via the market.
The game theory reference reminded me of what I wrote last week on the Golden Rule:
http://praxamericana.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-golden-rule.html
But anyway, you know that it’s all about power, Aurini. Capitalism is a hierarchy, and the people at the bottom of it are still at the bottom. They will never be pleased by being there, no matter the propaganda; coercion is coercion, be it force or economic manipulation. Any functional hierarchy needs to be able to enforce itself. Enforcement is not a matter of choice, and cannot be. Good comments on the degenerative trends of markets, though.
“Anarcho-capitalism works great if you have a bunch of smart-hardworking males cooperating. ”
They don’t even need to be that smart, just hard working and honorable. America was founded and became great through the protestant and German work ethic (combined with entreprenerialism). Anarcho-Capitalism works if everyone sees themselves as part of the group.
Nice analysis of the flaws in Anarcho-Capitalism. As much as it is flawed, it did introduce me to red-pill thought and even the work of Ayn Rand. I still remember reading in some Anarcho-Cap literature a reference to Rand, refering to her as a “statist” and after seeing other references to her I decided to check things out for myself. In the end it was reading Rand’s books on philosophy that led me to move on from Anarcho-Capitalism.
Another structural argument against Anarcho-Capitalism is by looking at the definition of a free market. For a free market to exist coercion must be absent. Government IS coercion, and if you try to put the coercive functions of government on the free market you destroy the basis that makes free markets possible in the first place.
In addition to anarchic Ireland, there was medieval Iceland.
It was not really “capitalist” but it was polycentric, legalistic, and effectively stateless.
https://mises.org/daily/1121
quote:Another common objection to stateless legal enforcement systems is to ask for “just one example of where it has worked.”
Medieval Iceland illustrates an actual and well-documented historical example of how a stateless legal order can work and it provides insights as to how we might create a more just and efficient society today.
Because of Iceland’s geographical location there was no threat of foreign invasion, so the demand for a national military force was absent. Icelandic settlers held similar ideological and philosophical ideas toward the state and the law as where held by the founding fathers of the United States, including distrust of a strong central government.
The main reason the Vikings moved from Norway to Iceland in the first place was to avoid the feudal relationship between the king and his lords and serfs and thus the Icelandic settlers developed a decentralized system of governance.
Iceland did not have an executive branch of government. Instead of a king they had local chieftains. One permanent official in their system was the “logsogumadr” or law-speaker. His duties included the memorization of laws, the provision of advice on legislative issues, and the recitation of all legislative acts one time while in office.
Instead of a judicial branch of government there were private courts that were the responsibility of the godar. To solve disputes, members of this court system were chosen after the crime happened. The defendant and plaintiff each had the right to pick half the arbitrators. There was another level of courts called the Varthing. This was a Thing court in which the judges were chosen by the godar of the Thing. David Friedman has found that these courts were rarely used and not much is known about them. [1] Then there was the National Assembly or the Althing. Each quarter was represented by their own Althing. If a dispute was not settled by the private courts, the dispute would go up the ladder to the next highest court until the dispute was resolved.
There was no public property during the era of the Vikings in Iceland, all property was privately owned.
Typical reactionary myopia. Here are my responses to your arguments (from an AnCap…)
1. History: Asking “if capitalism/anarchism/whatever is so good, why aren’t there any examples?” is begging the question.
First, an absolute and perfect form of any system doesn’t really exist. There is no pure “communism” to point to. There is no pure “monarchy” since they’re really just oligarchies. Instead you should ask if a society is capitalISTIC, socialISTIC, etc. So your criticism can be as easily shot back at you, and means nothing anyway. Ideology is merely what you strive for.
2. Skyhook: AnCaps have plenty of ideas for reaching a preferred (not perfect) society. Some suggest peaceful separation, others suggest revolt. Evolution or revolution. We’ll just have to see how it goes.
The polycentric law society of David Friedman’s “Machinery of Freedom” is composed of very few doves. If anything, there is more rigorous law enforcement, more fierce competition between firms and consumers alike. And again, Utopia is not the vision.
3. Structure: AnCaps don’t suggest populism or party. It’s about separating enforcement from administration – neutering the state in strategic areas. Whether or not “the people” want it is irrelevant. Think Pinochet.
And if you think everything in the statist society ISN’T for sale, that people DON’T have an overriding rational self-interest, then you are not prepared for any political involvement (unless the only position you seek is that of a beta of a mainstream party.)
Interesting.Been writing of late about anhacry on the odd DT comment section and it’s imperative that the MSM promotes anhacry as a post apocalyptic, cannibal infested, barbaric, mass murder of a reality because it helps to strengthen democracy. This is why media companies will pump millions into films like ‘The Road’ and ‘The Book of Eli’ to name a few of late.It promotes fear into the public, telling them “You need to be governed and looked after or bad people will rape you and murder you and eat you…blah….blah….blah…” forgetting to tell you that the reason there is a breakdown in society is because the people wake up to being abused by the democracy promoters, that is the politicians, who then resort to a scorched earth policy, that is, “if we can’t control you then we’ll kill you” attitude.So many people are oblivious to this reality because they are continually conditioned. It’s therefore instrumental to the survival of corruption that anhacry is constantly put down, on a par that racism (original definition meaning purely a love for one’s own culture and people) is put down as well, because in doing so it strengthens multiculturalism by enforcing an incredibly false guilt complex upon people – “You like your own culture and prefer to associate with your own people therefore you automatically hate other people and their cultures” bollox. Without this promotion they wouldn’t have been able to flood countries with other peoples, in order to help the business owners reduce costs and maximise profits and eventually remove a minimum wage altogether as they come to take every penny you earn.Propaganda, brainwashing and indoctrination is the name of the game. Some people are now seeing through it. Thank god for that is all I can say.Harbinger