Post by Hayven » Fri Mar 28, 2014 12:07 am

[color=darkred]Darias[/color] wrote: 1)

Not to nitpick but voluntaryism is apolitical, in the same sense that atheism is not a religion.

[color=red]Darias[/color] wrote: Promoting voluntaryism does not mean that all human activity will be voluntary sans state because crime and fraud would still have to be managed. Let's keep it real; it's not a utopia.

[color=darkorange]Darias[/color] wrote: 3)

I think I know where you're going with this. Let me guess, wage slavery?

[color=brown]Darias[/color] wrote: 4)

This often bears repeating; the absence of the state does not mean no regulations or food inspection or health and safety protocols. There is an enormous demand for these things and there are serious economic consequences for failing to address them.

[color=goldenrod]Darias[/color] wrote: A stateless environment would not have limited liability, so business owners would have to get insurance to protect themselves from financial devastation in the event negligence affects customers or employees. He would have the financial incentive to do so, just as most people have an incentive to purchase car insurance.



Now, insurance companies would have the monetary incentive to require business owners to subject their establishments to safety inspections, either by their own inspectors or by a third party; failure to do this would be foolish because insurance companies would risk losing profits for insuring irresponsible business owners and criminally negligent companies. People would have the ability to seek restitution in private courts. Common law has been around for ages and our current system has inconsistent laws anyway so you can't really criticize it on those grounds.

[color=green]Darias[/color] wrote: We already have private stamps of approval on various products. People buy these products because they understand they've been inspected. Businesses have an incentive to sell safe products not dangerous ones because no one likes getting sued or being responsible for the injury, illness, or death of others.

[color=olive]Darias[/color] wrote: 5)

Actually the government makes massive inequality worse. Voluntaryism mitigates the wealth gap. Big businesses and banks don't get unfair protections at the expense of smaller ones and they don't get government favors and bail outs either. There's no such thing as too big to fail in a free market. This creates incentives for people to be careful where they invest their money and how they operate their establishments. Everyone from shareholders to business owners best be careful. State protections only protect the rich from consequences for recklessness.

[color=teal]Darias[/color] wrote: 6)

Voluntary exchange happens everywhere all of the time, but there is no free market when the government monopolizes the money supply, creates trade barriers, and dishes out favors. Hearing people say "free market" doesn't mean what they are describing is actually a free market. Reagan paid lip service to it all day, but his rhetoric was laughable as Obama's when he talks about government transparency and human rights. I don't debate human rights just because Obama speaks highly of them whilst violating them. I know what they are, and that his policies don't embody them in the least. I would ask that critics of the free market would show the same courtesy.

[color=blue]Darias[/color] wrote: 7)

When I first heard of wage slavery, I thought it was a good point, but now I see how dishonest it actually is.



Life isn't coercion; the stomach isn't coercive. Existence is not violence. Coercion is when an agent or group of agents initiates violence against you or threatens to do so in order to make you do something.

[color=darkblue]Darias[/color] wrote: What you are presenting is a false choice. A person does not have to sell their labor; they can also start their own company, grow their own food, or live in a commune (such as the ones you propose) -- or go live in the woods (as anarcho-primitivists would prefer).

[color=indigo]Darias[/color] wrote: Just because starvation is the only other alternative, it does not mean any one of those choices is defacto "coercive." Nature may constrain our options; I do not have the free will to forgo eating, but that doesn't mean I have no options but one. Even if it did, that wouldn't be coercion.

[color=purple]Darias[/color] wrote: If, for the sake of argument, there were no companies around and my only option would be to join a commune or starve -- would that also be coercive? NO; it's all completely voluntary. Ancoms and other anarchists ignore this point altogether because they only wish to portray capitalism as slavery, even when the same illogic could be applied to their own preferred systems. If being alive is coercion and capitalism is slavery, then so is the commune.

[color=deeppink]Darias[/color] wrote: Now if a manager from Evil Inc. sent some paramilitary folks to come take me in the middle of the night and force me to work for him -- THAT would be slavery.

Thanks for your response, Darias.Any viewpoint that deals with the nature of governance is by definition political. Voluntaryism falls under that category.How would this be accomplished without a state? Private militias and private laws? What is to stop these private businesses from creating unjust laws to maximize profits? And what is to stop criminals and fraudsters from simply moving to a new area where the private laws don't apply? Unless, of course, there is a global monopoly on justice, which would be indistinguishable from a state.I would never use that term; it's hyperbolic and minimizes the suffering that real slaves experience. I prefer the more accurate term "economic exploitation" or "income-based coercion."This assumes that there are no monopolies, which would obviously not be the case in an anarcho-capitalist society. Without anti-trust regulations, corporations would merge until there are massive monopolies dominating the sectors where they operate, and they would simply be arms of a global mega-corporation that controls all business. That would bring us right back to the state -- and not just any state, but a global mega-state that controls all business, industry, policing, courts, and defense. In other words, it would be a global fascist dictatorship, operated for the profit of a small class of oligarchs.You'd probably say "the people wouldn't let that happen." But, let me ask you, how would they stop it from happening? Remember, this is a monopolistic system where the global mega-corporation owns all industry and controls a massive private militia (essentially a global super-military) with technology that would put even the U.S. military to shame. Even if the people were to revolt, they would be powerless to stop this capitalo-fascist machine.Or he could simply buy the insurance company and eliminate the problem, or he could buy the court company and have it ignore its transgressions. He can buy up or merge with its competitors to eliminate any real choice consumers might have. As long as he has enough money / gold / whatever currency is in use, he can do whatever he wants and there will be no one and nothing capable of stopping him.Remember, we aren't talking about Mom & Pop's Gas Station and General Store here. We're talking about Wal-Mart, General Electric, Microsoft, and Boeing all rolled into one.Would you trust Wal-Mart food products that were inspected by no one other than Wal-Mart? I certainly wouldn't.Remember, mega corporations have no incentive to provide safety inspections without regulatory oversight. As long as they are monopolies or can con people into buying their product (which will be quite easy when they own all the media outlets), they have no need to actually serve their customers' best interests.Under anarcho-capitalism, big banks could simply merge to create one global mega-bank, which would be completely immune to competition and not subject to any meaningful regulation (as it could just buy off the regulators). Then, this mega-bank could be as reckless as it wanted. We'd end up with a nightmare far worse than anything the Great Recession had to throw at us.A truly "free market" would swiftly lead to the creation of a grand global monopoly, which would essentially amount to a world state. How is this better than the current system (or, even better, anarcho-communalism)?Existence is not violence, but if a person is essentially forced by the current economic system to serve another entity just to survive then that person is subject to violence. This violence is initiated not by life itself, but by the controlling entity maintaining this set of relations. In plain terms, if working for a capitalist is the only option someone has, then that person isn't free, because the capitalist is artificially upholding a system that demands the person work for them or starve. Scarcity isn't an inherent feature of nature, it's created artificially by capitalism.How are those realistic options for a single mother from a poor family making $7.70 an hour? They aren't. She must continue to work her two part-time jobs or she -- and her kids -- will starve. How is that not coercion?In this case, it isn't nature constraining our options, it's the capitalist system itself. Capitalism artificially creates scarcity so that a small number of people can profit. For example, Africa isn't suffering for lack of resources, it's suffering because a small number of capitalists control those resources for their own profit. This scarcity wouldn't exist if not for capitalism.No, for three reasons.1) It would be perfectly possible in a communalist society for a solitary person to make a living aside from communes. Unlike in a capitalist society, where capitalists own and control the vast majority of land and resources, land and resources would be open for common use. There would be no ultimatum to "choose the commune or starve."2) Human beings evolved as social, communal creatures. The commune represents our natural way of life, the way we lived for hundreds of thousands of years. Capitalism, on the other hand, has only been around for about 400-600 years (depending on when you put the starting date). Unlike communalism, capitalism is an artificial construct, and a very recent one at that. It has nothing to do with any "state of nature," and so the ultimatum it gives working people is entirely contrived.3) Communes are designed to provide for everyone's needs. In one, a person would only need to do as much work as it takes to sustain the commune, and -- spread out over 150-250 people -- that would be very little, indeed. The rest of her time could be used spending time with her family, hanging out with her friends, pursuing advanced studies, and so on. This is inherently a less coercive arrangement than capitalism.In an anarcho-capitalist world, what would stop the ruling monopoly and the small class of oligarchs who control it from creating a slave class that was forced -- at gunpoint -- to work for free? This corporation would own the justice system, the media, and a massive milita with all the best weapons, so there would be no way for the people to fight this. In fact, I'm almost certain that this is what would happen if we moved to anarcho-capitalism. The re-emergence of chattel slavery.