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No, I will not comply.
ilikebacon3000 Date: Sunday, 28/Feb/10, 4:51 AM | Message # 1

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Life's a bitch and I'm just along for the ride.
ilikebacon3000 Date: Sunday, 28/Feb/10, 4:59 AM | Message # 2

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ERIK! THIS IS FOR YOU. I don't know if this is about the same property argument I've heard you bring up from time to time, but here. WATCH IT. This guy is really good.



Life's a bitch and I'm just along for the ride.
eboyd Date: Sunday, 28/Feb/10, 5:02 PM | Message # 3

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nah, this guy is a right-wing libertarian. he's making the exact opposite argument that i'm making (and that all left-wing libertarians, aka anarchists, make). he even equates anarchy to chaos here, showing that he is a typical right-wing libertarian and not an "anarcho"-capitalist. what he does here is makes a baseless argument on bold assumptions that rights are indeed naturally allocated. if he delved for one second into philosophy, specifically epistemology, he would see that his beginning assumption -- that we have rights that are not granted, but instead exist prior to anyone telling us we have them -- is fallacious and impossible philosophically. to help you understand why i say this, i will quote my article from FaceBook (which i still plan to edit a bit):

"The rights of human beings as theorized originally by John Locke, while vital to our peaceful coexistence, are not in and of themselves naturally allocated; life, a liberty most treasured by all cognitive beings, without regard to it's being understood -- while such right is essential to society -- is but a right ensured, in theory, solely by the human cognition as our natural right is only to have existed at once and later perished; liberty in itself is compromised by an ultimate causal chain of antecedent events that make it ultimately unattainable, though it is imperative that this determined process be allowed to run it's due course without intervention; and the pursuit of happiness is but a causal subsequent of liberty."

to help you understand my point on the right to life a bit better, in case it wasn't clear above, and since it is what he begins his argument with, i will rephrase what i wrote above. if we delve into this issue philosophically, we realize that in nature, any of us, possibly even all of us at once, could potentially die right this second and there is no natural right protecting this from occurring. additionally -- and i probably need to add this point to my article -- there was no guarantee that any of us would have come into existence in the first place. let's think about the process of birth to start. every person that exists today is extremely lucky to be here. the chances that we had to be born were less than the chances for us to win the lottery. with several trillions of sperm (not counting the sperm created that do not make it into the female reproductive system ie during times of dormancy, those expended during masturbation, those that are prevented by birth control, those aborted, miscarried fetuses, etc.) not making it to the ova to begin the reproductive process in the first place, it is apparent that animal existence is not a right guaranteed naturally, but rather a naturally selected lottery. and we can go further back as well. what of those sperm that never got created in the first place? how many particles that may have otherwise formed sperm have never actually combined to do so? when this is realized, it then becomes apparent that life is not a right at all; it is just as much a lottery as everything else in this world. with all that said, i do agree, however, with his previous argument that "constitutional right" is a contradiction in terms but i take it a step further and say that, in essence, rights do not exist (which is something that i will probably need to amend in my article). this is a point Proudhon made in his book "What Is Property?" (he spoke of justice as opposed to right) that i will speak of later and also link at the end of this comment.

and from here the man in these videos jumps from natural rights to what he, as well as many right-wing libertarians, almost always consider the backbone of property rights -- self-ownership. i will quote him briefly to show you exactly what i am addressing:

"you have a right to life. where does that right to life come from? well, property. who owns your body? i hope it's you. what are you if someone else owns your body? you're a slave. so basically, if you are not a slave, then you own your own body."

i will start by reiterating that he opens this portion up with a false premise that i have already debunked; life is not a right. he follows with equally fallacious logic with the next few sentences and i will discuss here why they are fallacious. here he is basically stating that self-ownership is a precursor to the supposedly essential right of property. in order to show you why, while it is true that it is a precursor to property, the idea of self-ownership itself is fallacious, instead of explaining it to you in my own words, here is a video that describes it best:

it should be obvious to anyone of rational logic that we do not own ourselves -- we ARE ourselves. when a person owns his or herself, this logic implies that he or she can also sell and/or rent his or herself out as well. think also about this: do we really "own" ourselves, even if there is a mind-body dualism? to the best of our knowledge, the material our bodies are composed of have existed for eternity prior to our biological existence and will continue to exist eternally long after we are gone, and additionally, over a period of about 20 years, we shed material until there is not one molecule in our body left from what we were composed of at birth, so really, can we "own" our body if the title to it will be involuntarily taken away at some given point? and the same then extends to the property argument. this is a point i also made in my FaceBook article. you should read it if you get a chance.

ok, so back to the topic at hand. then basically this section of the video ends with a false dichotomy: either you own your body or someone else owns your body. really? is this true? how is title in any way a natural right? ownership is a human concept. without human beings, ownership wouldn't exist. therefore, what about our third option -- no one owns you body; you are your body? if anything, what leads to slavery is the very idea of self-ownership: if one can own self he or she may also sell or rent self to another.

next we get into the reasons why property is not a good thing. i will first off make sure it is understood that libertarian socialists, such as myself, when speaking of private land ownership, draw a distinction between property and what Proudhon and others called possession. i do not personally draw the distinction in the same way, but rather i draw a distinction between ownership and usership (a term i coined myself), usership being what most know as ownership with occupation (ie the house that you currently live in) and ownership being what you would know as ownership without occupation (ie a vacation house, a house that the owner is renting out, etc.). in Proudhon's view, (private land title) property is land we possess through the concept of ownership that i laid out above and possession is land that we possess through the concept of usership that i laid out above (though, obviously, Proudhon never called it usership). i will again quote the above video to argue against it:

"now, most of you do not own half the things that you think that you own. there is a concept know as "alodial title". alodial title means that you own it; the way that we think of when we say that you own something. alodial title is generally referred to when we talk about land. if you own the land in alodial title, then you genuinely own the land. how many people went to a real estate agent when they bought their house? okay, when you go to real estate agent, are you buying property or real estate? there is a difference. when you buy real estate, you purchase everything from the ground up. you own the house, you own the trees, but you do not own the earth that it sits on. can you go out in your back yard and drill for oil? no? why, because there's an ordinance against it? if it's your property, can you do whatever you want with your property? and if i can't drill for oil in my back yard then apparently i don't own the property."

first off, i will state that while i am opposed to government title to that oil in our back yard, i am even more opposed to alodial title than i am to real estate and here's why:

let me start by defining economics. economics, at least to me, should be the science of the allocation of scarce resources. there should be nothing more to economics than this. a person should not be able to add personal profit to a natural resource. additionally, if the resource is not one that is scarce (in other words, if the people demand less of the resource than what is supplied for free), it should not be sold, but rather people should be allowed to have it for free. this shouldn't be hard to understand and if you get what i'm saying, you will probably agree.

now, let's assume that there is an entrepreneur who is looking to buy property and he finds an empty portion of land that contains a lake and he has enough money to afford it so he purchases it. in the case of alodial title, the owner of that property has the right to that lake and all profits he receives from it without having to labor it. now let's add another factor in. let's say that this lake is the main source of water that a local village depends on and the water within the lake is not scarce so the people have been gathering water from this lake for free. now that this lake is owned by this entrepreneur, he can do whatever he wants with this water. he could continue to give it away for free if he likes to the villagers, or, what he'll likely do instead, is sell the water to the villagers for whatever price he chooses. the entrepreneur now has a monopoly of force over a given territory (which is, btw, the very definition of the term "state" but we won't get into that here) which, in this case, is his lake and the rest of the land which he or she owns that surrounds it. now let's say parts of this lake are bought by other entrepreneurs. now the original entrepreneur has competition so naturally, to keep the money flowing to him, prices will have to drop. still, however, there is a necessity for all of the entrepreneurs to continue selling the water rather than giving it away, and if one entrepreneur does give their water away, there is now motive for another entrepreneur to do something harmful, like threaten violence, section off his or her portion of the lake and contaminate the section contained by the competitor that is giving away his or her water, etc. this is the essence of capitalism and this is only one issue i have. there are many more complaints where this came from but i will abstain from posting them here and urge you to read the works of Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Tucker, Goldman, Chomsky, etc. to understand this more. also, check the anarchist FAQ at infoshop.org. to state what has often been stated, and should be obvious, capital is private property, and so capitalism in it's bare essence, is the ensuring of private property rights. if you oppose capitalism, in essence, you oppose private property, but you also must understand what private property is to oppose capitalism.

now, as i stated, in Proudhon's view it isn't rights that are necessary for liberty, but rather justice. here is an excerpt from one of the most important anarchist documents in existence, "What Is Property?":

"Now, of what do the lawyers and the publicists treat? Of JUSTICE, EQUITY, LIBERTY, NATURAL LAW, CIVIL LAWS, &c. But what is justice? What is its principle, its character, its formula? To this question our doctors evidently have no reply; for otherwise their science, starting with a principle clear and well defined, would quit the region of probabilities, and all disputes would end.

What is justice? The theologians answer: "All justice comes from God." That is true; but we know no more than before.

The philosophers ought to be better informed: they have argued so much about justice and injustice! Unhappily, an examination proves that their knowledge amounts to nothing, and that with them—as with the savages whose every prayer to the sun is simply O! O!—it is a cry of admiration, love, and enthusiasm; but who does not know that the sun attaches little meaning to the interjection O! That is exactly our position toward the philosophers in regard to justice. Justice, they say, is a DAUGHTER OF HEAVEN; A LIGHT WHICH ILLUMINES EVERY MAN THAT COMES INTO THE WORLD; THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PREROGATIVE OF OUR NATURE; THAT WHICH DISTINGUISHES US FROM THE BEASTS AND LIKENS US TO GOD—and a thousand other similar things. What, I ask, does this pious litany amount to? To the prayer of the savages: O!

All the most reasonable teachings of human wisdom concerning justice are summed up in that famous adage: DO UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU; DO NOT UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD NOT THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU. But this rule of moral practice is unscientific: what have I a right to wish that others should do or not do to me? It is of no use to tell me that my duty is equal to my right, unless I am told at the same time what my right is.

Let us try to arrive at something more precise and positive.

Justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole around which the political world revolves, the principle and the regulator of all transactions. Nothing takes place between men save in the name of RIGHT; nothing without the invocation of justice. Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and application of JUSTICE in all circumstances where men are liable to come in contact. If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious, our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social chaos.

This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and, as a necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact when it is shown that the opinions of men have not borne a constant relation to the notion of justice and its applications; that at different periods they have undergone modifications: in a word, that there has been progress in ideas. Now, that is what history proves by the most overwhelming testimony."

Proudhon also famously states in this work that "property is theft" and this is the the axiom around which the entire work revolves. it is an amazing read (though, admittedly, i have barely delved into it myself) and i suggest you read it, which you can do for free here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/360/360-h/360-h.htm


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eboyd Date: Tuesday, 02/Mar/10, 8:39 AM | Message # 4

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Taylor, I was expecting a response in case you didn't notice. Not to be pushy, but it would be nice to know that I didn't write all of that in vain.

my new theme song



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"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

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ilikebacon3000 Date: Tuesday, 02/Mar/10, 1:49 PM | Message # 5

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Quote (eboyd)
Taylor, I was expecting a response in case you didn't notice. Not to be pushy, but it would be nice to know that I didn't write all of that in vain.

Today, promise. ;)

It's just I won't respond something off of a halfass read, and I really wanna analyze it rather than just reading the main ideas.


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eboyd Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 1:14 AM | Message # 6

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I feel you. Hurry up though! >( :p

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"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

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ilikebacon3000 Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 3:05 AM | Message # 7

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Quote (eboyd)
this guy is a right-wing libertarian.

I've always been confused as to what a libertarian is exactly. Any good places I can refer to? Or can you explain it briefly?

Quote (eboyd)
to help you understand my point on the right to life a bit better, in case it wasn't clear above, and since it is what he begins his argument with, i will rephrase what i wrote above. if we delve into this issue philosophically, we realize that in nature, any of us, possibly even all of us at once, could potentially die right this second and there is no natural right protecting this from occurring. additionally -- and i probably need to add this point to my article -- there was no guarantee that any of us would have come into existence in the first place. let's think about the process of birth to start. every person that exists today is extremely lucky to be here. the chances that we had to be born were less than the chances for us to win the lottery. with several trillions of sperm (not counting the sperm created that do not make it into the female reproductive system ie during times of dormancy, those expended during masturbation, those that are prevented by birth control, those aborted, miscarried fetuses, etc.) not making it to the ova to begin the reproductive process in the first place, it is apparent that animal existence is not a right guaranteed naturally, but rather a naturally selected lottery. and we can go further back as well. what of those sperm that never got created in the first place? how many particles that may have otherwise formed sperm have never actually combined to do so? when this is realized, it then becomes apparent that life is not a right at all; it is just as much a lottery as everything else in this world. with all that said, i do agree, however, with his previous argument that "constitutional right" is a contradiction in terms but i take it a step further and say that, in essence, rights do not exist (which is something that i will probably need to amend in my article).

That was put very beautifully. No homo. I see what you and the guy in the video I posted are saying about "constitutional right" being a contradictory statement. "Rights do not exist". I think I have always thought this, except I never put it that way. I always thought about it like this. If someone came up and said "We live in a free country. You can worship freely here.Iraq is not free. You cannot worship freely there.", I would simply think, "Everywhere is free, it just so happens to be that in different places, you may or may not suffer consequences for doing such things."
Rights are simply a matter of will. Are you willing to give yourself that freedom, and possibly suffer persecution from those in a position of authority? Either way, you have the right to do it, because all rights exist regardless of where you live, so if they exist everywhere, then what is the point of saying some exist and some don't. Why don't you just say that none of them exist period, since either way, they will be there?
That's how I look at it. Can you see that point?

Quote (eboyd)
it should be obvious to anyone of rational logic that we do not own ourselves -- we ARE ourselves. when a person owns his or herself, this logic implies that he or she can also sell and/or rent his or herself out as well. think also about this: do we really "own" ourselves, even if there is a mind-body dualism? to the best of our knowledge, the material our bodies are composed of have existed for eternity prior to our biological existence and will continue to exist eternally long after we are gone, and additionally, over a period of about 20 years, we shed material until there is not one molecule in our body left from what we were composed of at birth, so really, can we "own" our body if the title to it will be involuntarily taken away at some given point? and the same then extends to the property argument. this is a point i also made in my FaceBook article. you should read it if you get a chance.

Agreed. We do not "own" ourselves. You taught me something there. Good job sir ;)

Quote (eboyd)
ownership is a human concept

*off topic* As if there are other concepts? Are there non-human concepts too?

Quote (eboyd)
libertarian socialists,

Waiitttt... I thought you were an Anarchist of sorts? Waiiiit... Anarchism is a political system, and socialism and libertarianism are both economic ideologies, right?

Quote (eboyd)
a person should not be able to add personal profit to a natural resource.

Why not? What if they put up the funding to buy an oil rig, they took the time to either hire workers, or work the rig themselves, and found oil? Why shouldn't they be able to sell what they have found? No one else was using it.

Quote (eboyd)
additionally, if the resource is not one that is scarce (in other words, if the people demand less of the resource than what is supplied for free), it should not be sold, but rather people should be allowed to have it for free.

Agreed 100%. My mom and I fight about this alot. Things like generic food, water, generic clothing, basic housing, electricity, and home phone lines should all be common in modern society. But how much would that cost companies if every person got that free? Wait... Cost wouldn't matter, because no matter what, they would be taken care of. But then how do people move up if nearly everything is common? How will people get things they want? We can't give everyone plasma screen TV's, but what if people want them? How would they get them if everything is common? Because once one family somehow gets one, it creates 2 classes. I don't know. I know what I am trying to say but I keep losing it.

Quote (eboyd)
now, let's assume that there is an entrepreneur who is looking to buy property and he finds an empty portion of land that contains a lake and he has enough money to afford it so he purchases it. in the case of alodial title, the owner of that property has the right to that lake and all profits he receives from it without having to labor it. now let's add another factor in. let's say that this lake is the main source of water that a local village depends on and the water within the lake is not scarce so the people have been gathering water from this lake for free. now that this lake is owned by this entrepreneur, he can do whatever he wants with this water. he could continue to give it away for free if he likes to the villagers, or, what he'll likely do instead, is sell the water to the villagers for whatever price he chooses. the entrepreneur now has a monopoly of force over a given territory (which is, btw, the very definition of the term "state" but we won't get into that here) which, in this case, is his lake and the rest of the land which he or she owns that surrounds it. now let's say parts of this lake are bought by other entrepreneurs. now the original entrepreneur has competition so naturally, to keep the money flowing to him, prices will have to drop. still, however, there is a necessity for all of the entrepreneurs to continue selling the water rather than giving it away, and if one entrepreneur does give their water away, there is now motive for another entrepreneur to do something harmful, like threaten violence, section off his or her portion of the lake and contaminate the section contained by the competitor that is giving away his or her water, etc. this is the essence of capitalism and this is only one issue i have.

Agreed. Water, along with nearly anything which can be qualified as a basic human need in a first world country should be provided by the community, and should be common.

I honestly didn't understand the point that Proudhon was trying to make :(


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eboyd Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 6:38 AM | Message # 8

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Quote (ilikebacon3000)
I honestly didn't understand the point that Proudhon was trying to make :(

yes, i kind of figured that from this comment :D :

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
That was put very beautifully. No homo. I see what you and the guy in the video I posted are saying about "constitutional right" being a contradictory statement. "Rights do not exist". I think I have always thought this, except I never put it that way. I always thought about it like this. If someone came up and said "We live in a free country. You can worship freely here.Iraq is not free. You cannot worship freely there.", I would simply think, "Everywhere is free, it just so happens to be that in different places, you may or may not suffer consequences for doing such things."
Rights are simply a matter of will. Are you willing to give yourself that freedom, and possibly suffer persecution from those in a position of authority? Either way, you have the right to do it, because all rights exist regardless of where you live, so if they exist everywhere, then what is the point of saying some exist and some don't. Why don't you just say that none of them exist period, since either way, they will be there?
That's how I look at it. Can you see that point?

let's make this a bit more focused for you. this is specifically what was important:

Quote (Proudhon)
Nothing takes place between men save in the name of RIGHT; nothing without the invocation of justice. Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and application of JUSTICE in all circumstances where men are liable to come in contact. If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious, our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social chaos.

This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and, as a necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact when it is shown that the opinions of men have not borne a constant relation to the notion of justice and its applications; that at different periods they have undergone modifications: in a word, that there has been progress in ideas. Now, that is what history proves by the most overwhelming testimony."

in other words, he is simply saying that it is possible that there are no rights; that the idea of "right" may be ill-defined and so believing we need rights for the purpose of liberty is ill-informed; that rather than rights, it is justice in which we find liberty, and not justice in terms of it's legal definition, but rather true justice at a humanistic and natural level. what an individual considers rights can often easily be philosophically deconstructed; life is not a right, it is a privilege, and true justice, not in any legal sense, ensures this right for us; liberty is not a right, it is a privilege secured by justice; etc.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
Agreed. We do not "own" ourselves. You taught me something there. Good job sir ;)

be careful with letting people teach you things though. i like how you question me here. it shows that i really am not teaching you which is good, because instead i am guiding you and you are learning on your own.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
*off topic* As if there are other concepts? Are there non-human concepts too?

ah, and here is a great point! concepts, no. i did sound a bit redundant. all concepts that i have heard are human concepts. there may be animals on some distant planet that have the mental capacity to conceptualize, and who knows, maybe certain terrestrial animals can conceptualize in a limited fashion, but as far as i know, all concepts are human concepts. however, my point was that only humans claim ownership. other cognizant beings do not show any natural instinct towards property or ownership.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
Waiitttt... I thought you were an Anarchist of sorts? Waiiiit... Anarchism is a political system, and socialism and libertarianism are both economic ideologies, right?

lol calm down dude. libertarianism is a social aspect of one's political platform. it is in direct opposition to authoritarianism. remember that thread EmSeeD posted? despite my gripes with it, the graph was actually quite accurate, and to be fair, the people who made it are at least keeping open to the possibility that one day someone will come up with a non-authoritarian right-wing philosophy. i personally, however, believe that the graph would be more perfect if it were shaped as a sideways triangle with the tip that usually points upward pointing to the right, showing that right-wing philosophy cannot get less authoritarian because the very structure of right-wing economic philosophy is, in fact, authoritarian, however, the furthest left-wing philosophy (feudal monarchy) is the absolute most authoritarian system possible. so, in essence, a person whose ideology is strongly libertarian, to the point of virtual absolute libertarianism, they are an anarchist. this is impossible for the right-wing, and hence the reason that anarchism is actually a part of the larger socialist/communist/collectivist (anti-capitalist) movement. this is why i identify both as an anarchist and a libertarian socialist: they are synonymous.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
Why not? What if they put up the funding to buy an oil rig, they took the time to either hire workers, or work the rig themselves, and found oil? Why shouldn't they be able to sell what they have found? No one else was using it.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
Agreed 100%.

ironically, the statement that i made that you agreed to 100% is the very answer to your question "Why not?". it's hard to explain without giving you a full explanation of my economic philosophy. i will email you with some scattered notes (basically i wrote them down as i came up with them so they are all out of order), emphasizing and denoting specific things within, that should help you better understand this. also, i was up until 6AM yesterday creating economic graphs and mathematical equations that explained my ideas too. i can scan them for you tomorrow sometime possibly.

i will describe some objections to what you are saying here though:

first off, how is this person going to fund it? he will have to hire workers to build it (because there is no way one man by himself is going to build an oil rig) and if these people live in a collectivist society where they can work for higher wages at any of the several collectives within in which their work literally generates money (in the form of vouchers), why would they seek employment under the guy who wants to build an oil rig? in essence, he has to pay them less than what they will make in a collective. if he didn't, he would be losing money. it would be an unsound investment. second, where would he get said money from? he would first have to work his ass off, because that is really the only thing that would generate money. my idea is that money should literally be backed/generated by labor. this will be explained in better detail in my email. thirdly, and this is the main point (and sort of related), why work for someone who is going to watch you work, tell you what to do, and make money off of you... more money, actually, than you make off of your own labor! this is the sad reality of property rights. if we protect property, individuals can horde resources and use their monopoly over those resources to gain serious economic prosperity at the expense of others. because of this economic inequality, these people now hold these resources out of the reach of the public and so the public must succumb to employment (also known as wage slavery) under the few in order to gain access to these resources. this is called capitalism. if "no one else was using it" and the resource could be added to the economy in order to drop the price of that resource, such a society would simply not recognize a person's claimed "property rights" to it and they would simply begin drilling as well. they would not authoritatively take away the individual's right to drill. however, if they tried to be secretive and lay claim to that oil without letting others know it was there, then tried selling it while having done no labor to create it and selling it beyond natural supply and demand allows for, they would probably be forced by the people to allow others access to the oil. in essence, this would be a counter-coercive action, not a coercive action, so it would be well in the spectrum of acceptability.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
But how much would that cost companies if every person got that free?

what companies? we're talking about community managed collectives. no companies involved. all people work voluntarily in collectives or as freelancers and have full claim to the fruits of their labor, though due to this production, most things will be voluntarily surrendered to the collective and, eventually, the people that decide to buy them.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
But then how do people move up if nearly everything is common?

nothing is common. you draw a dichotomy between common ownership and private ownership as if those are the only two options. i'm talking about people producing to have personal possession of what they produce (self-interest) and producing in excess of their consumption and voluntarily surrendering that excess in exchange for money (mutual aid). this is the problem. most people think in one of these two ways: either complete collectivism should be practiced to make society be about sharing only, or individual self-interest should be practiced to drive production. what people don't realize is that mutual aid is the backbone of individualism; without helping others in order for reciprocal assistance, one cannot maximize his/her success. for example, i can't build a house on my own. i need assistance in order to do such a thing. if i fail to ask for it and continue building a house by myself, it will never get finished, an when it does, it won't be as good if it would have been.

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
How will people get things they want?

easily. they labor, which generates vouchers, and they can decide what they then want to buy. i am not advocating forced economic equality, but rather a fair opportunity for everyone at economic equality. i explain this better in my notes.


my new theme song



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"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

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Menace Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 7:05 AM | Message # 9

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though, admittedly, i have barely delved into it myself

Motherfucker !!! :D . I gave it to you and you rarely read it . You just broke my heart . :( . I am alone . :D

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
I've always been confused as to what a libertarian is exactly. Any good places I can refer to? Or can you explain it briefly?

Originally the term Libertarian in a political sense was and always is synonymous whit terms anarchist and socialist at least in Europe in the US up until 1970 it had the same meaning . The problem occurred in the 1970's when the right-wing Libertarian Party popularized the word libertarian to mean market liberalism . From there the word "libertarian" took a whole different meaning in the US .

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
Waiitttt... I thought you were an Anarchist of sorts? Waiiiit...

Remember when i told you I'm a "libertarian socialist " ? well that's what Erik means by that too . Libertarian Socialism is a tradition of political philosophies which encompasses various forms of anarchism .

Quote (ilikebacon3000)
But then how do people move up if nearly everything is common? How will people get things they want? We can't give everyone plasma screen TV's, but what if people want them? How would they get them if everything is common? Because once one family somehow gets one, it creates 2 classes. I don't know. I know what I am trying to say but I keep losing it.

Consumer councils demand worker councils plasma TV's and its done if its for collective demand . If its individual initiative then you buy a plasma TV why you can buy a plasma TV ? because now you own your labor so the standard of living is higher for everyone when society grows you grow when you grow society grows .


eboyd Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 7:18 AM | Message # 10

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Motherfucker !!! :D . I gave it to you and you rarely read it . You just broke my heart . :( . I am alone . :D

lol relax, i'm getting it done... but SLOOOOOOOOWLY lol!

Quote (Menace)
Consumer councils demand worker councils plasma TV's and its done if its for collective demand . If its individual initiative then you buy a plasma TV why you can buy a plasma TV ? because now you own your labor so the standard of living is higher for everyone when society grows you grow when you grow society grows .

well put. i'm still having a hard time understanding how these councils work. can you link something that will help explain it better for me?


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erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

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Menace Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 7:38 AM | Message # 11

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well put. i'm still having a hard time understanding how these councils work. can you link something that will help explain it better for me?

Read that god damn book called PARECON : Life After Capitalism LOL :D . I'm just kidding . Here's the whole book online http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/pareconlac.htm . Scroll down on the table of contents and under the segment "Ownership" is Councils and it explains everything about them .


eboyd Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 7:41 AM | Message # 12

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Read that god damn book called PARECON : Life After Capitalism LOL :D . I'm just kidding . Here's the whole book online http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/pareconlac.htm . Scroll down on the table of contents and under the segment "Ownership" is Councils and it explains everything about them .

ok. i will say though, i have read enough on PARECON to see that it has too much of a Marxist twist and is too authoritarian for my taste. i see that many anarcho-syndicalists have this gripe with Michael Albert and PARECON because it is basically a forced economic equality which is something many anarchists whom i've read snippets of are opposed to.


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erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

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Menace Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 7:57 AM | Message # 13

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i will say though, i have read enough on PARECON to see that it has too much of a Marxist twist and is too authoritarian for my taste.

Don't read on it read IT ;) . It is a council communist book overall it doesn't bother me at all . Yes it is Marxist and that doesn't bother me either because council communism is a form of libertarian socialism . Its not "authoritarian " at all overall is an anarchist economic vision . You are not used to such urgency in anarchist thought to such direct practicability that's why it seems its "authoritarian" . Libertarian Socialism as a whole avoids dense theoretical analysis or prediction of what a future society would or should look like. The tradition instead has been that such decisions cannot be made now, and must be made through struggle and experimentation, so that the best solution can be arrived at democratically and organically, and to base the direction for struggle on established historical example. Supporters often suggest that this focus on exploration over predetermination is one of their great strengths. They point out that the success of the scientific method comes from its adherence to open rational exploration, not its conclusions, rather than dogma and predetermined predictions. That's why many anarchists see PARECON in a suspicious way . For example look at the Anarchist FAQ if you observed it presents all means and ways an anarchist society will be formed going from a PARECON model to a Mutualist one and so on . That's the thing whit us anarchists and that's what qualify this tradition as a "savior" every society coming from a libertarian revolution will take her natural course one leading to a PARECON model one leading to a gift economy maybe another to a Mutualist one it depends on the conditions in which the revolution takes place ;) .


eboyd Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 8:13 AM | Message # 14

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Don't read on it read IT ;) . It is a council communist book overall it doesn't bother me at all . Yes it is Marxist and that doesn't bother me either because council communism is a form of libertarian socialism . Its not "authoritarian " at all overall is an anarchist economic vision . You are not used to such urgency in anarchist thought to such direct practicability that's why it seems its "authoritarian" . Libertarian Socialism as a whole avoids dense theoretical analysis or prediction of what a future society would or should look like. The tradition instead has been that such decisions cannot be made now, and must be made through struggle and experimentation, so that the best solution can be arrived at democratically and organically, and to base the direction for struggle on established historical example. Supporters often suggest that this focus on exploration over predetermination is one of their great strengths. They point out that the success of the scientific method comes from its adherence to open rational exploration, not its conclusions, rather than dogma and predetermined predictions. That's why many anarchists see PARECON in a suspicious way . For example look at the Anarchist FAQ if you observed it presents all means and ways an anarchist society will be formed going from a PARECON model to a Mutualist one and so on . That's the thing whit us anarchists and that's what qualify this tradition as a "savior" every society coming from a libertarian revolution will take her natural course one leading to a PARECON model one leading to a gift economy maybe another to a Mutualist one it depends on the conditions in which the revolution takes place ;) .

yeah, Chomsky and Zinn talk about this a lot. it does make sense. i notice Chomsky and Zinn, for obvious reasons, avoid predictions in general.

btw, dude, i just found out the town i live in has a history of what sounds to be libertarian socialism or something similar! check it out!:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tujunga,_Los_Angeles,_California#History


my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

Menace Date: Wednesday, 03/Mar/10, 8:27 AM | Message # 15

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Quote (eboyd)
yeah, Chomsky and Zinn talk about this a lot. it does make sense. i notice Chomsky and Zinn, for obvious reasons, avoid predictions in general.

Yup . Its a whole tradition with some universal main basic ideas these basic ideas put in practice can lead to different outcomes we can't say that Albert is shoving this down our throat as we can't say that Murray Bookchin shoved "social ecology " and "libertarian municipalism " down our throat . PARECON can be considered libertarian socialist because it has all the elements which are needed to qualify as libertarian socialist . The main thing we must worry about now is not internal strife but how to put into practice the basic ideas of this tradition so we can have a place to start from .

Quote (eboyd)
btw, dude, i just found out the town i live in has a history of what sounds to be libertarian socialism or something similar! check it out!:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tujunga,_Los_Angeles,_California#History

Oh Utopian communities . Robert Owen one of the forefathers of Anarcho-Syndicalism established such a community check here . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Harmony,_Indiana


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