Convince me of your stance/belief/whatever. Use the best points you have to craft a solid basis for your reasoning

Convince me of your stance/belief/whatever. Use the best points you have to craft a solid basis for your reasoning.

Other urls found in this thread:

dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/socecol.html
mega.nz/#!adAF0BQA
youtube.com/watch?v=1y65BLY4FDI
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Op is a massive faggot and gargles gallons of cum. Proof: he's OP.

Lurk first newfag. Why should we spoon-feed you. Check out the literature thread and read the discussions

What kind of stances specifically do you want to hear, politics and economics is a broad series of subjects and it's good to have a starting point of some kind so I'm not just teaching you the ABC's of leftism that you might already know.

I am a Communalist because I feel that the primary crises which will shape the world in the coming century will be ecological (e.g. climate change, loss of top soil). The effects of these crises will be catastrophic, and it will necessarily cause a complete change on how humans organise themselves.

We live in the Age of Ecology, and the ecological crises present the opportunity for a new Enlightenment, like the Coperinican Revolution. The ideas of Murray Bookchin will lead us to a glorious ecological revolution.

Let's start with property. What are your thoughts?


Okay, how do you propose we alleviate climate change? We cannot go back and un-do the Industrial revolution, so long as there are companies, there will be an escape for those markets. What is your solution?

Let me address this now so that it won't be an issue. I'm not asking for a tl;dr of some book, I am asking you why you, the individual, hold the beliefs that you do.

The industrial revolution, or industrial society, is not what is at the root of our ecological crises. The root of our ecological crises hierarchical modes of social organisation, which gave rise to the idea of human society dominating nature. Eventually this has reached crisis proportions under capitalism.

An ecological society must, at the absolute minimum, abolish the domination of human by human.

Here's an essay where Bookchin explains this: dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/socecol.html

Hierarchies are a natural consequence of existing in a non-egalitarian world. The entire reason we all exist as we do is because the strongest of our ancestors fought to survive and carry on their genetic information.
I am better than you because I can dominate you, that kind of mindset. I have achieved more than you, I am more powerful. It's a perfectly legitimate hierarchy, it is observed in nature as well because this hyper-egalitarianism is against evolutionary biology and social order.

In what way are these a fault of capitalism? How is social organization eroded by capitalism?

If I can sell something better than you, or preform a task at a faster rate than you can, I am, by nature, superior to you. I get hired more because I am better, your businesses fail because you are inferior. This is the decision of the people to make, considering a rational population, and they ARE rational when their money is involved (why pay more for a shittier thing).

Thanks for the info.

I think dogs should be able to vote

Why? With what language can dogs use to cast ballots?

...

I think that the whole liberal/libertarian concept of property in the Lockean tradition is retarded. The idea that property can be "unowned" doesn't make any sense, since there is no meaningful difference between so called unowned property and property collectively owned by everybody. So essentially he idea that you can homestead unowned property is no different than stealing it from anybody else, and since nobody is born owning anything the genesis of all property is its direct appropriation from nature, ie it's theft from the collective stock of humanity. This basically undermines the entire basis of libertarian philosophy, since it would mean that all property ownership comes about as an act of aggression, and that private property violates Mill's Liberty principle.

This doesn't mean that I don't think that people shouldn't be able to own things, just that the main point of reasoning behind libertarianism and related ideologies breaks down when put under scrutiny. I'm a cold hearted pragmatist, I take a utilitarian approach to freedom, meaning I support whatever policies bring about the greatest freedom for the greatest number. As such I support whatever system of property relations achieves this, which I would argue is socialism, because it prioritizes people's needs over profit, democratizes economic institutions, and preserves democracy by removing the capitalists who subvert democratic governments. It also ironically expands rather than limits economic freedom, since under capitalism economic freedom is only enjoyed by the bourgeoisie, whereas under socialism everybody gets a say in the activities of whatever economic unit they belong to.

They are our best friends after all. They have as much citizenship in the country.

We will have to first hire skilled nonpartisan dog interpreters who will be able to decode by a series of barks the candidates and positions the dog in question is taking. Sure paying for this will put an exorbitant amount of strain on the economy but it'll also create jobs.

What this will also do is change politics all together. The system is going to be shuffled. Soon dems will be pandering to dogs with their compulsory pats passerby policies. And scientists will be tasked to figure out how to stop that weird booming and flashing of light coming from the sky. We need that sort of mix up in world politics

Tbh fam I'm pretty drunk now, so I'd recommend reading the linked to essay, as it is no doubt more coherent than I.

Cheers.

I believe Mr noseberg should take money directly out of your pocket and put it into Jamal's wallet. Don't cry I'm just fugging.

I think the means of production should be free for workers to use as they please free of bosses. Property aside from whats productive or what cant be reasonably thought to be a community necessity is fine for you to keep for your self.

I don't think anybody votes because a candidate can beat the other in an arm-wrestling competition… unless you're an arm-wrestler. It's based on the policies they agree with and, to an increasingly larger degree, their character. Wit and quick, flashy statements that appeal to voters. That's why Trump went to counties with his voters and Hillary to hers: repubs and dems, respectively.

On the con artist video, capitalism is very much so "freedums", it's the freedom of association and trade. If you want to start a business, so for it.
Socialism is about public ownership of means of production. How do you propose you keep it "public"? Are small businesses public? Who will decide what arbitrary profit becomes "private"? How black do the ties have to be until they are no longer the "public" and become "private"?
If you want to restrict the capability of people to become some certain thing, you need force. How do you intend to make the ownership public if you aren't killing the people who don't want that?
What rights do the public, who have not payed for the land that public, but actually private though this distinction is not clearly defined, have on my land? Let's say I'm a small business owner who purchased land to start my business. You must use force to seize the means of production from private hands. The best way is to organize your forces into a government. Socialism needs to have a large government to quell the means of production from falling into "private hands". Or not a government, just a strong collective, whatever you want to call it. It can't be loosely organized "public", otherwise the private would come in and take everything.
The economic output is very much so the production. You seize the big businesses (private businesses) and give it back to the people. You destroy their economic output and redistribute it among the public because it is somehow their earned birthright but not that of the "private".
Molyneux is talking about welfare states, which are socialist in nature (with respect to the redistribution and penalization of high-earners/private–→back into the public).

...

What? How? My owning something I paid for is not related to you in any way. If I decide to make something and CHOOSE to sell it to you, then you own it now, not me. If I bought something your mother made, and she died (so the rights go to you now), then yes it should be yours (let's say I bought it from her in an unfair way because she was mentally ill or something).
But most trade is voluntary. I pay somebody for something because I have cash and he has some good/service. We both want the opposite so we trade. Water, back massages, land: it's all voluntary.
This relies upon an educated population. Most people would go to the sweetshop owner because his sweets make the pain feel better, but not go away, than to the doctor, who makes the pain feel worse, but ultimately go away, as Socrates said.
Of course I want to have the "private" production redistributed and seized, but that doesn't mean I deserve it. It isn't voluntary, I'm just taking it: no exchange occurs.
Democracies can exist without lobbies.
Again, what defines the private from the public? They can both vote, engage in social affairs, communicate, breed: they are both human groups. The difference being that one can trade better than the other. When you seize their means of production and give it to the people, you are limiting their economic freedoms. If my mom and pop store is destroyed because I saw millions in revenue, then you limit freedom for me. Doesn't matter if the majority have more of my means of production, the statement "expands economic freedom" is not correct.
What? The webm you posted literally defines it for you, public means of production. Used to be private, but not anymore. They don't have freedom, they don't get a say. That's sunshine and rainbows that the majority are happy, but this doesn't make the statement "everybody gets a say" any more true, because that isn't "everybody".


Dogs do not have citizenship, by definition.


Ideally, they would be. You can start businesses and engage in free trade with whoever wants to buy.
What is the limit set? How many acres? Let's say I buy 50 acres to grow farm. Do you think that is acceptable? Let's say you set a limit at 50 and I get 51: do you stop me? If you use force to stop "private people" from doing these things, then you don't expand economic freedom, you limit it.

I'm someone else, but I thought I'd just point two things out.


To begin with, a hierarchy is an ordering pattern. It has natural emergence, it has artificial emergence. It can pertain to meaningful patterns but is an arbitrary concept. It's not limited to "natural consequence".
Communalism is not an attempt at abolishing the hierarchies of nature, it's an effort to make artificial hierarchies serve to further the betterment of human nature.


By the nature of the game, yes, you are. If I can physically dominate you then I am superior to you by the nature of another game. If I can outsmart you in arithmetics I could win another game. Human volition permits us to not participate in wicked games through devising systems that can serve the many and leverage the both. This permits us to focus on the meta-game. To me, the meta-game is the survivability and flourishing of ourselves and our ecosystems.

That is species-nationalist of you

Not true. I agree, it is an ordering pattern, by definition. But there can be no artificial hierarchy if I get what you're saying. I can't come up and say "this user is now king, respect his rule you peons". That is a hierarchy, but it is protected by me, the fucking giant who crushes any opposition against the piss-ant king. You might be weak and incapable of being at the top of any hierarchy, but I enforce your rule. It is artificial, but still legitimate. If you mean it was just you that comes up and says "respect me", then you get the shit kicked out of you by me.
Who defines this? Again, those that have this artificiality will show you that it isn't really artificial: they are at the top because they are the best in their fields. It isn't always weightlifting, it can be chess. Some guy who is the best at chess is the best because he beats the rest. You can be a moron at chess but still be a grandmaster if a grandmaster is coaching you along as you play. Artificial, but still legitimate.
Yeah, it isn't all just one field, I just used one example to make it easier.
Then the hierarchy still exists, just at its paramount form. It means the most powerful COMPLETELY rule. It's like you're playing chess with pieces that take your own pieces. Still means it is legitimate because they are the smartest.

What? I mean, by definition of citizenship, dogs don't have it. They can't sign anything. They don't have identities like humans do, with ID numbers and houses, etc.

Where does property come from? If you own something, where did you get it? There are only two options, either it was "unowned" and you arbitrarily appropriated it (in which case you stole it from the rest of humanity), or it was given to you by somebody else, perhaps as a gift, perhaps in exchange for something, it doesn't really matter. If it was given to you, the question is where did the person who gave it to you get it, which brings us to the same two possibilities. This continues ad infenitum, meaning that the origin of all property is appropriation from nature, meaning the arbitrary appropriation of resources and property from the rest of humanity, and therefore an act of aggression.


Then educate them.


No property is voluntary, the essence of ownership is saying "this thing is mine and I will use force to prevent others from using it". There is nothing intrinsically that makes something yours, or anybody's really. All property is just an arbitrary claim over an object backed by force.


Show me one.


It is correct though, because under capitalism the only people who have any economic power at all are the capitalists, ie a tiny fragment of the population. They operate the economy as a dictatorship, whereas under socialism economic agency is extended to everybody. It's exactly like with politics, under a political dictatorship only the dictator and their cronies have political freedom, whereas under democracy everybody does.

Basically if you disagree with my utopian, pure economic ideology from the 1800s, you are a Nazi and you better watch out because 16-24 year olds are going to yell at you and possibly punch you so watch out.

B ^ )

My dog… That's what they meant when they said "this is how bernie can still win." ;^( pour one out for a comrade

Sorry for the confusion, it means that patterns can emerge from nature and from man. That's obvious, of course, the point is that man-made hierarchies can be renegotiated. They exist not only as part of an evolutionary process (although they do, on a very technical level) they also exist as a product of a social negotiation.

I'm using the Oxford definition of artificial here "Made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural" and the point is to place it within the context that this a product of human systems. Which again, I think matters a great deal, because they also exist on a certain metaphysical level and are constantly being re-evaluated. Point is that it stems from actions in which we deliberate upon and act out with own volition. This changes a lot about what is to be permitted out of survival of the fittest and what isn't, as we try to act our conscience.

The hierarchy, still, and always, will exist. The point is that a meritocracy looks different within games than what it does in the meta-game, and we can devise games that furthers the meta-game, which I also think there's a strong ethical case for which we can hopefully agree on. That is the grand game of life, if you may. Do you know what is merited in the meta-game? Our sustainability, because if we perish does the game and all possible future participants.
Communalism, in my view, takes this meta-game extremely seriously. And deals not only along axis of who outwits one another or who outcompetes one another within certain parameters, because these parameter are largely changable — by us!

bookchin sounds like fucking anprim.

I used it first and defended it. It is defended by the people who defend me on my behalf. It's an artificial hierarchy, like I'm telling the other guy, but it's force by proxy. I defend it because others do it for me. Let's say I see some farmland first thousands of years ago and till it. My customers want me to continue so they defend anybody who wants to steal it from me. It's the same concept behind "territory", it is earned by force. Wolves who advocate for territory equality are quick to perish unless they use force to steal the territory. Then, it belongs to them because they are now at the top. That's just how hierarchies and power work.
That's just the fact of human existence, since thousands of years ago. If the facts don't fit the theory, you don't "change" the facts, you change the theory.
Nations are the artificial hierarchy enforces. Have fun trying to steal land from a nation that is more powerful than you.

Agreed.

It absolutely is because it is mine. I'm typing on a computer that uses minerals mined from the Earth, which are for everybody. "You" don't own it just as much as I do because the miners mined it, sold it to companies voluntarily who made it into what it is today, a component of my device. The assertion that "everybody" owns natural resources or land equally is not realistic. You can go back hundreds of millions of years ago to the first complex organisms on land that fought for territorial rights and tell them to not because everybody deserves them equally, they will just kill you because your arbitrary stance doesn't change the fact of the matter that they can and will kill you.

I expand rights for everybody but one group. I cannot say that economic freedom for all has been expanded, by definition.
No… you can start your own business and trade with anyone, that's free trade.
That's the hierarchy. They are where they are because they succeeded more than the rest of us.
I'd prefer if you expand upon your logic with economic freedoms under capitalism versus the rest before you hop to analogies. Doesn't make sense comparing to things before having established exact definitions.


That's great, dogs still aren't citizens.


Man is the nature around him, though. That has a lot to do with being the apex predator; the environment is our playground because we are at the top.
Yeah, if you are a shit king to me, the giant who put you there, I re-negotiate your position and usurp you. The hierarchy still exists.
Can you give me an example?
This is still a hierarchy, though. If you want to go to a natural level, then the gazelle does not curse the cheetah for chasing and killing it, but curses its own legs for not being fast enough. It does not hate the hierarchy, but itself for not being powerful/fast/smart/etc. enough.
Who said anything about us perishing? In free trade, we can choose to trade/not trade with anybody. We are guaranteed defence on behalf of the powerful, because we are in a collective society which protects the rest. Starts from humans banding together during nights to defend from the wolves, carries on forward as we develop complex social societies.

we aren't all on top, evolutionary lines that have amassed large fortunes are kings of the playground, and material wealth is not a good measure of fitness.

No, Bookchin is militantly pro-Civilization. They are even militantly pro-Western Civilization.Civilization (i.e. "civitas" or the city and the body politic that inhabits it is a fundamental part of Bookchin's ideas). There's a reason why they trigger deep ecologists, anti-civ anarchists, and primitivists so much.

Yes, but if you read what I said, I was speaking with respect to the ecological ladder. "Apex predator" is with respect to other organisms. Man is the fastest animal on Earth, man has the most diverse diet on Earth, man is the strongest beast on Earth. Of course, within being a man, there are weak and strong men. I make that point above.
You say it yourself, "amass large fortunes". Welcome to free trade. People want to shop with him. I am not going to berate the cheetah for chasing the me, the gazelle, I am going to run faster.
I already pointed out this caveat that I was speaking about specific things, not all hierarchies. There is material wealth, fitness (strength, agility, flexibility, etc.), intelligence, and so on.

I'm not entirely sure why you keep trying to point out that hierarchies exist. I clearly said they do, but not as some sort of Cosmic Plan. Insofar that they can be changed there is potential to make them better. Here I relate to communalism, as a way to make them serve us better, at the individual level, at the family level, at the community level, and at the society level.

I'm not entirely sure how to relate to this Darwinian landscape you're referring to. Is it a metaphor? Are you trying to extrapolate something concrete? It strikes me as very primitivistic and I don't see it as being a very good fit for explaining today's landscape.

Yeah, I agree. I'm just making my point that hierarchies exist. That was the point.
If you can usurp the king, then you are now king until I usurp you. The hierarchy is preserved all along the way.
No, just nature. Man is the apex predator. I can't be more straightforward than that.
It isn't just today's landscape, it is everyday from today onwards, and everyday since today.

There is no point to anything, therefore there is no point to politics

GUESS MY FLAGGO COMPATRIOTS!!!!

If there is no point to anything, why did you feel the need to respond to my alleged irrelevant, useless post? Or to post anything in general? Why verify your own existence, why not end yourself? How "pointless" do you mean? Anything is broad, why not just kill yourself?

mega.nz/#!adAF0BQA

Here, user. Here's a good read about Bookchin's work and thinking as a whole. Known as communalism to some, libertarian municipalism to others. If there's as much as a 5% chance you'll skim through it then that's good enough for me.

There are some surprisingly workable systems in there. They may complement your libertarian spirit in some interesting ways. There's also some excellent theory at making robust systems that work from the bottom up.

I'm not a libertarian, I believe in a strong state comprised of the most powerful and intelligent people that serve the will of the people/protect their future, but are not bound by their imperfections. They should also be easily purged if they ever betray the future of the citizens.
I'll skim it, though.

The lesson from the unraveling of the New Deal is clear: capitalism is too powerful a force to be regulated. Keynesianism/Social Democracy also does nothing to deal with the other menace of capitalism: the astounding inefficiency and waste of planned obsolescence.

The lesson from the failed socialisms of the 20th century is also clear: as long as a distinction between surplus value creator and surplus value appropriator exists, that fundamental class antagonism will fuel many of the very same concentrations of power that occur under private capitalism. Socialism must mean true democratic rule in the workplace and it starts with worker cooperatives. It starts with worker cooperatives because even if a full-scale bloody revolution is finally necessary to fully overthrow capitalism, they are the necessary step in priming people for democratic production and realizing the alternative to capitalism.

Markets are very inefficient and maybe in time we can do away with them for a kind of collective, decentralized mass planning.

Finally, I add the eco-socialist to my socialism because I recognize that the Tragedy of the Commons, while substantially reigned in under democratic communities, its effect can still play out on a community vs. community level. Eco-socialism is the recognition that a higher, federated authority may still be necessary to control the Tragedy of the Commons for sustainable resource use for the whole of humanity.

Bernie should be the future of DNC.
IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE Bernie vs Trump.

and this is coming from someone who supported Trump.

Since we first speciated into Homo sapiens, humans have overexploited their resources to extinction. The real culprit is the phenomenon of the tragedy of the commons, and it can only be confronted with collective will. Perhaps hierarchy is a barrier to that, but hierarchy certainly wasn't the reason hunter-gatherer bands wiped out swaths of large mammals everywhere they migrated.

Here's another query I have.
Orwell was a democratic socialist, yet he criticizes socialist totalitarianism (his IngSoc and "hate speech" is eerily similar to modern left-leaning identifiers).
Like I said above, I ask what is "private" and public. The definition is set out by the revolutionaries who wish to paradoxically expand economic freedom by limiting hierarchies, as if they won't just fall into place when a slightest moment is given to them.
Question being, how can you NOT achieve this without a state, or revolution/violence? Signing petitions won't get you anywhere, but if you wish to be involved in some democracy, wouldn't a central point installed via a revolution which uses power to take production from the arbitrarily restricted "private" and give it "back" to the "public"? Same concept behind supply and demand, if the supply is not met when the means of production are seized, then the demand will not fall, but increase. There will always be entrepreneurs to fill that void, like Mom and Pop stores who start businesses up that can out-compete the current options. To those store-owners, allowing a voluntary society is not logical because that's just free trade. If you berate those "private capitalists", then voluntarism, or free trade, is not ideal. To those that support voluntarism and some sort of seizing of production from the private, justify your stance because I, as a Mom and Pop owner, am not just going to sit down and take it in a voluntary society. If you force me out, then you don't have a voluntary society.

Also, for Stirner supporters: what makes you think your model of thought it valuable to a society? Do you think that egoism is a desirable trait in a cohesive society? I would argue that, by definition, it is not. Is that the whole point, to be antithetical to collective nations/societies? How do you propose anybody do anything for anyone else? What order will remain? Humans have complex social circles and tribal preferences, I don't think that it is in our nature to accept these beliefs, anyways, so this is more of a hypothetical topic.

OP I find nothing wrong with your picture, can you tell me what's wrong about that statement?

Why is wanting more money a bad thing?

youtube.com/watch?v=1y65BLY4FDI

Private property is the land of a landlord, a piece of property privately owned by a single induvidual where all profits generated go directly to him and then he give some away as wages. Personal property is the property in use by an individual at the moment. You can't use personal property to profit of the work of others but others have no claim to take any of your personal property that you use, Jamal despite memes can't just take over your house. Any small business were the owners are also the workers would fall under personal property.

You better hope that every small businesses is run by the largest idealist in the world who are in the business of making profit only for ideological reasons, the most basic knowledge of history of business have always shown that this is not something that happens a lot. Ofortunately captialism is not very friendly to small businesses as it is a system where those on top have a disproportionateamount of power, If any small business comes close to threatening the profits of larger corporations they will easily be dealt with by
1. Buying them out and shutting them down
2. Buying out suppliers and shutting them down
3. Buying up land around the competitor and intentionally not develop it to lower the value of your competitors business
4. Buying out all the store spaces to not let your competitor get a chance to sell their goods
None of these things are new and there is a reason that such a small amount of companies control so much.

That's what I'm trying to get.


lol.


It's my property, I can use it as I wish. If you claim that I cannot use things that I own in ways that I desire, then you cannot also say that you wish to "expand economic freedoms".


All of those are free trade. They can choose to sell out. A smart person sees that by opting to sell out, they give up their enterprise to the bigger company, which was scared of something (why extend the offer?).
Everything you posted was voluntary. Free trade. Small companies doesn't mean that others cannot come in and compete. You can still come in and run against them, build a platform of ethical whatever if they ship labour overseas. You can find ways to extort your enemy's weaknesses. I'm not going to tell you how to get it on the market; the difficulty of it today shows us that those at the top have perfected their craft and are worthy of the hierarchy.

So is there any reason to keep an obviously rigged system where the ones on top keep getting more? All your arguments are completely empty words like "free trade" and "economic freedoms". You're trying to appeal to the will of the market like an anthromorphized sentient spirit that has any sort of meaning.

So what happens when the workers band together and with superior force take sieze the wealth of the capitalists? It's not a good idea for lolberts to follow a might makes right mentality, because the workers have a lot more might than the capitalists.


But what MAKES it yours? Why is your claim to it any more legitimate than mine? Because you bought it? Where did the person who sold it to you get it? Where did the person who made it get the materials? You mentioned the miners, why do they own it? Why is their claim legitimate. You are missing my point here, what I'm trying to tell you is that appropriation of a piece of property from nature is just an arbitrary claim, it's literally just picking something up off the ground and saying "this is mine now". It has no more (or less) legitimacy tha me walking into your house, taking your computer and telling you I own it now. So then it isn't any more voluntary than theft, because the property isn't REALLY yours, or anybody else's, you just have the power to exclude others from it. Because the property is not actually or inherently yours, then the coercion you use to defend it is morally and in practice no different than the coercion I would use to take it from you.


When a country transitions from a dictatorship to a democracy, they necessarily must take away the "rights" of the dictator, because the rights and position of that dictator are predicated upon the disenfranchisement of the rest of the population. Similarly, when society changes from economic oligarchy to economic democracy (ie from capitalism to socialism) they must deprive be capitalists of their position of economic muh privilege, because that muh privilege is built on the economic disenfranchisement of the workers.


Not a viable long term option, 80% of businesses fail within ten years.


I really don't get why you keep pointing out that hierarchies exist. We know they do, the entire point of communism is to get rid of them.


It's simple. If you imagine "economic freedom" to mean the power to exert agency over the economic unit (such as a factory, farm or firm) of which you are a part, then it's not hard to see why socialism provides greater economic freedoms. Under capitalism the workers have essentially no say in how their economic unit behaves or operates, the owners and manager class make all the decisions and the workers have to obey. Under socialism, the workplace would be a democracy, meaning that each worker would get a say in how the unit operates, and thus you would extend economic agency to a greater number of people than under capitalism. This is why I use the dictator analogy, under a dictatorship only the dictator can exercise political agency and make decisions, but under democracy almost everybody can.

What rigged? It's voluntary, you are bound by your own choice.
It is clear you haven't been paying attention, as I have been doing the exact opposite: appealing to the will of the individual. You have the freedom to start up a business if you so choose. Do with it what you will, pessimism will run it into the ground, savvy spirit will let you prosper. The "economic freedom" is not in response to you, but to the guy claiming that economic freedom is expanded under socialism.


Hierarchies are maintained because they are more powerful. Workers will, eventually, fall victim to the arbitrary distinction set between "private" and "public". It's always nice seeing how many socialist fundamentalists were "wealthy landowners". Champagne socialists, if you will. When they realize voluntary societies have more freedom and if they value economic freedom, then they will become the private people of the future.

Yes. Please quote me in full, I already address this. Go talk to wolves and berate them for fighting for property. I already talked about this with the farmland being tilled.
No, I understand your point directly. Nature is for all of us, it's land and we all have equal claim.
Does the indolent tiger have just as much of a claim on the carcass of a gazelle, simply by virtue of it being natural/from nature? Do you have equal claim on the water I am drinking because it is from the Earth? I purchase something with money that I earned from a company that does the work I don't want to do (hence the voluntary transaction). Try and violate their claim on the water they sell (break into their plant and piss in it claiming it's all yours so fuck you), then they will use superior force and maintain the hierarchy. You usurp them rightfully, now it's yours. When it inevitably falls apart because you don't know shit about running massive companies, then people rise up and become the private companies to fill the niche. Kind of like how the NEP was installed by Lenin and saw benefits, but once it was removed and Stalin forced collectivization, it was a catastrophic failure for the people.
You missed the mining for the materials, the voluntary transactions, and the manufacturing process into the device, then the other voluntary transactions. They're purchasing land right now that we also own, can you believe it? Sure, we haven't worked for it and don't have enough money/power to take it, but it's ours!
That doesn't mean anything. They own it because they purchased it. You want to fall into an infinite regression, where your point of contention is with territorial domination. This would also mean that you are opposed to the ecological totem pole of superiority. All animals have an equal claim on the empire of humans, even though there are weaker and inferior species that could not earn it/defend it.

False equivalence. Dictators don't engage in voluntary transactions, they aren't really economic people (what school of thought do they agree with?). Free trade is not a dictatorship. It's apples and oranges, here.

And what sets the 20% apart from the other? Are you claiming that those other 20% are founded on an illegitimate hierarchy? Hey, if you can destroy all private companies tomorrow with your limitless might of the worker, be my guest. Until you can, they will continue to "oppress" you by having more land they can do whatever the hell they want to.

If they can. If you can't and fail, then you are at a lower rung of the ladder. It's like separating magnets: it is in their nature to be attracted to one another and unite once more. It's just delaying the inevitable.

Define your terms and move forward with your claim. Socialism expands economic freedom. If you take freedom away from a group, regardless of what you think of them, even if they were literally dictators, you do not have true economic freedom. Freedom is freedom for all, not people you don't like. That's not how freedom works.
Employee versus employer. Voluntary choice to be in a labour market. Again, rooted in the gazelle berating the cheetah for hunting it over fixing its own legs to run faster. These hierarchies are innate, they will fall into place once you take them away tomorrow unless you put into place mechanisms to stop them (free trade/voluntary transactions) absolutely.

This assumes a platform of hyper-egalitarianism, that each person is worthwhile with regards to their votes.
The difference being, those that are eligible to vote by showing their worth on the market have a say, not every average Joe who has done nothing. It also assumes that the people know how to run massive businesses equally, that they are intelligent enough to vote majority for/against beneficial policies.

Not if each individual has institutionalized economic power. If all of the engines of economic life are socialized, then it would be impossible for any individual to wrest control of them away from the others.


All you said was that you found the farmland first. So what, your entire belief system comes down to finders keepers? The point I'm trying to make isn't just that property is an arbitrary claim, but that because it's arbitrary, the force used to maintain it is no more legitimate than the force used to steal from somebody. This means that all your harping about things being "voluntary" under capitalism is bullshit, because private property is a institution based on violence, not voluntary relationships.


But all those things are based on the appropriation of something from nature, ie an arbitrary claim backed by violence. Nothing about it is voluntary.


Exactly, I already addressed this. Look you can't say "might makes right" and then suggest that property is a voluntary institution. Those so called voluntary transactions have at they basis, an act of violence, therefore making them not voluntary.


Neither do capitalists. Do you think the rich are rich because everybody is just cool with them having all that shit? No, they have the force to back their claims, making them no different than a despot who rules a country through force. Read Adam Smith ffs.


I already did. Economic freedom is the ability to wield agency over the economic unit to which you belong. Under capitalism the workers (the majority of people) don't have this freedom under capitalism they do.


Except their economic freedom requires the loss of freedom for everybody else. By this logic freeing slaves is wrong because it infringes on the freedom of the slave owners, but the freedom of the owners is based on the lack of freedom for the slaves.


Hierarchies aren't innate, they grow out of material conditions. This that hold economic power hold the top of the hierarchies, but if economic power is evenly distributed then hierarchy is abolished.

Nice oxymoron, numb nuts. Your use of this term only highlights that your primary political motivation is a (often seemingly sexual) fetishization of market-exchange and mechanisms. But if you put your love affair aside it's pretty transparent to any six-year-old that no kind of society is voluntary. One can't even choose what kind of person you they are born as, much less the endless social relationships they are coerced into.

Come again? Power is power, the hierarchy is, by definition, preserved.
No, the hierarchy is still preserved, just that the collective is now the most powerful and not the "private" people, as they are weaker, hence their submission. If the tables turn, they will conquer the others.

No, I tilled the land and my customers defend me, as well as me defending my land, or having a state with interests in maintaining orderly society/free trade defend it for me.

Are you serious? Where did I claim this? I've been talking about hierarchies and power this entire time, now it's just who found it first? A group of people band together at night to defend against the wolves, live off the land they defend, and breed enough to form a decent-sized population that all live off of the land. Other people can come in and fight them for it, but they will lose every time if they are inferior, by definition, and win if they are superior. Then, the "finders" aren't the keepers. If all nations agreed that there would be no repercussions for invading Kenya, do you really think they would be on the map for more than a day? One nation will move in and invade, lusting for their land and resources.

Literally nothing else matters other than the issue of your might with respect to mine. If you can conquer the guys who make the rules, then you make the rules. The wolves who lose their land, lose it. You speak as if it is a net negative for all (because it's for all of us), but I can just as easily claim that profit made that isn't in my name is also a net negative. We should all pool the resources because the haves' gains are illegitimate, compared to the have-nots. That isn't a coherent stance to have. They earn that money, anything I don't have isn't automatically a loss for me, that requires a gargantuan entitlement complex. Just because you think you own the world doesn't mean shit if you don't deserve it (by working for it and defending it).

I never said that property is voluntary; very much the opposite, it is guaranteed by force. I don't go up to you and take your glass of water because it's for all of us because you have force that defends it. I don't go and stab you because the police enforces the rule of law, which protects citizens of the nation. Neighbouring nations don't come into this land and kill the people because the people are protected by a military. It's all violence, that is the entirety of all existence. Kill, or be killed. The reason why the Western worlds have such stable and orderly nations is because they are capable of the most force. You don't need to strawman my point when it's right there for all to see. I never said private property was voluntary, but that the trade between individuals is voluntary. They have no obligation to trade with you their goods or services, just as I am not entitled to all the profits made from selling land right now.
Again, go berate wolves for being powerful and dominating their territory, ask them why they do it. If and when you kill them and take their land, then you will realize why they succeeded.

Again, the trade between individuals is the voluntary aspect. "Appropriation of something from nature" means nothing. What does this extend to? Herbivores who eat off of the land? Carnivores who eat the sons and daughters of the Earth? Lions who dominate vast stretches of land? Why don't they pool all their resources and live together? Why is there competition, why is there any competition at all? It boils down to the preservation of your genetic information. The weak (or, those who wish to grow indolent and abolish the consequences/results of competition) will die out sooner than the strong (those who dominate).

Sticking to this strawman, huh? I fully cede that property isn't peaceful. If it was, I would just walk over and take what you own because you are a weak pacifist. But it isn't you defend it with your life because it's your stuff. The virtue of your ownership/profit does not come at the expense of the global population. I wish I could live next to people like you, what's yours is mine and what's mine, well: come and take it.

Yes, they do. You choose to purchase stuff. That was my whole voluntary point: the choice of purchase, to pursue a business, to sell an item. That's the stuff you make the choice to do, not that property itself is voluntary, as in you choose to own it. No, you literally own it, full stop, if you are worthy of it.

Yes, property-wise. Now please explain to me how the evil capitalists force you to buy iPhones and address my point directly, instead of strawmanning it to mean something I agree with you on. Free trade, not that the stuff is for all/"voluntary".

You cannot simultaneously claim to expand freedom (this term does not only apply to your "true people", but to ALL people) when you take it away from those you dislike/disagree with.

In what way do private business owners force you into chattel slavery? By offering you a job? You can choose to go die in a forest alone, with no money to your name if you so choose. You have the freedom to make any life choices, they are not forcing you into a corner. This is about as intellectually dishonest as you can get. Free trade is not equivalent to slavery; this is apples and oranges. You aren't held captive against your will and forced to be a sex slave or mine for stuff, that's what slavery is. You have the freedom to do what you want.

They very much are innate. They can be genetic. If you are an unattractive male, then you are lower on the totem pole than the attractive males. Some men get the rough end of the genetic stick and look like garbage, this is a sexual hierarchy that is innate.

No, it isn't. If the workers or whoever comes in and runs the show, then they are the most powerful. The hierarchy is just in their name now. If something else comes along, then same story.

The oxymoron to voluntary is obligatory. That is not the definition of society.
You don't just get to make assertions and not define your terms.

How is this related to society, this is genetic.

You can choose to talk to the guy on the bus or not talk to the guy on the bus. If you claim that society now be defined as obligatory social interactions, then there must be a force pushing you to engage in social relationships. Virgins and beta males are proof that social interactions are not obligatory on a sexual/friendly level.

For example, go search "Primitive Technology". It's some guy who makes things out from scratch, in the raw environment around him. Kind of like a survival type situation. It's pretty viral so you might have already heard of it.
That land is his. The land that he works on and lives is his (let us assume there is no government, or any nations for the time being). He uses that land to build his shelters and fire, to farm the creek for shrimp (he literally did this), and to live on. Others who wish to come and take this from him may very well try and do these things, but all of this depends on their power and their capability to survive. An individual with long time preferences and capability to maintain stability and homeostasis will always be more powerful. If some bandit comes and tries to trash his shelter, he will be able to defend himself over time because he will always outlast the ephemeral, just by their own natures. Likewise, if a tribe of individuals who maintain this level of order and all build shelters/play out roles in their societies attack him, he will always lose because there is strength in co-ordinated numbers (they might lose if they were unorganized, but if they form societies to defend against the elements, then they are not unorganized). This slowly evolves into larger and larger tribes, until you have what we have today. People occupy roles, own shelters, and act out their lives in a nation.
You are welcome to try and invade, but it will only work if you are VERY well organized, powerful, and have greater numbers. Of course it isn't voluntary, that means that it's some choice. Two people aren't involved insofar as they exchange "opinions" and weigh the pros and cons, obviously one will be biased against the other. They hash it out and see who can out-last the other. The one who values stability and long term time preferences (planting seeds and gathering firewood over eating seeds and being lazy) will always be the victor. He will defend his land.
I thought they taught this stuff in high-school. Don't you go on field trips and watch how animals survive? A pack of animals working together, fulfilling their roles, dominating over their territory. If they were to listen to sophists who tell them to share everything because all gains are automatically losses to others who had alleged "equal" claims, then their species would become indolent.