7 ms·

A better approach would be destroying capitalism. Edit: Sorry, I do more or less agree with you that what you are describing is pretty much the right way to ha

by duairc 16y ago

A better approach would be destroying capitalism. Edit: Sorry, I do more or less agree with you that what you are describing is pretty much the right way to handle drug problems, but I think it's important to point out that poverty and homelessness are symptoms of capitalism, which is the real problem.

dschobel 16y ago
Capitalism is an economic system. It says nothing about social services or policy. There are plenty of countries with free market economies which provide extensive social services and have very progressive social policies (see northern europe and scandinavia).
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
IgorPartola 16y ago
I'm just curious, what other systems have you seen?
- duairc 16y ago
  Okay, I should probably just come clean and say that I'm an anarchist (an anarcho-socialist for those that believe that "anarcho"-capitalism is actually a form of anarchism). Anarchists have a bunch of ideas about what are the causes of the problems in our civilisation are and what can be done to change it and our lives for the better which are more or less internally consistent. So do capitalists, "anarcho"-capitalists and even the Catholic Church. All of these respective philosophies are internally consistent, or at least can be made so. So, I guess it was kind of pointless for me to say "capitalism causes poverty", which although I believe in the truth of that statement, most of the people on this site are capitalists and have a set of basic assumptions which justify capitalism. The statement I was making doesn't attempt to question or identify those basic assumptions, which I guess was my intention, but was just a lazy post that really just seems a bit absurd by capitalist set of assumptions. It makes sense perfect sense from the anarchist set of assumptions. So really, the post should have said "hey guys, while that drug policy sounds good, there is a school of thought that says that the real problem is capitalism itself, and I would subscribe to that school of thought and vouch for its applicability to the real world, and maybe you might find it interesting to think about that and read up on it a bit", but in order to do that I would have had to explain everything in a much deeper way than I was prepared to do at the time. I want to get back to the point about internal consistency though. It's pointless to exchange our theorems (things like "if we change X about drug policy, Y about homelessness will change") when the axioms on which we build such theorems are different. The only truth we can get from a discussion like that is "well, given the capitalist set of assumptions, we can prove that this is true, but it is not true given the anarchist set of assumptions". That's a lemma you can use in the proof of the truth of such a statement, but to prove that it's true you have to show that capitalism's (or whatever) assumptions accurately model the real world. I admit I'm very much guilty of ignoring this in my post above, and I'm sorry for lazily making such a meaningless post. (By the way, the reason "anarcho"-capitalism isn't anarchism is because anarchism and capitalism have assumptions which contradict each other, so to be able to make it internally consistent, they must lose some of the assumptions that anarchists have which contradict capitalism's assumptions.) So, economically then, what do I propose? A sort of decentralised socialism, I guess. I would broadly subscribe to the ideas outlined here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism#Economic_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism#Economic_th...), which probably explains it better than I can. The reason I think these ideas and the ideas and the assumptions that justify them are more applicable to the real world than those of capitalism is basically just because they line up with better with what my intuitions have been. I've always been unhappy with authority and being coerced, and the justifcations offered to me for such coercion have always seemed kind of circular. In is-piracy-bad debates, I've always been on the side of the pirates, but also always felt that there's more to it than this, that there's some sort of logical conclusion that we (pirates) are not taking this to, and now I think anarchism is that logical conclusion. Anarcha-feminism agrees with and expands on ideas and feelings I've had about gender before I knew about it. Anarchism gives legitimacy to my intuitions and offers a framework in which they can be made logically consistent, and also offers an explanation for some social problems that I hadn't ever even thought about that are consistent with my intuitions. Basically, and I know this is pretty much a false dichotomy, but it does kind of get the point across - I've always felt that it's much more satisfying and generally better to be co-operative than competitive, and I think capitalists basically think the opposite and say that it's human nature to be greedy, etc. My experience has shown that I get a great pleasure out of sharing my things and with people and helping them out, but capitalism makes it difficult to share with people because you need money and everything in order to survive in a capitalist system, so by giving stuff away, you're risking your chances of survival, or at least decreasing your freedom. I think capitalist ideas might appeal to people because it gives them justification for being many times richer and therefore freer than other people. I don't think that is justifiable, certainly not when it's something that affects a person from birth (how wealthy a background they come from), and it's incredibly naive to think that everybody who's poor can just go out and start a business and get as rich as anyone, as if it's their fault that they're poor (for not doing this) and that everybody is completely in control of how wealthy they are. Those are pretty much the ideas that I have. Anarchism is the school of thought that makes them logically consistent, but capitalist ideas are also logically consistent in their own framework, and if we disagree on the axioms then there aren't really any words or logic that can be done to resolve that disagreement. I'm really just trying to make people aware of anarchism, and maybe make them feel that their ideas are legitimate if they have anarchist ideas (because I think a lot of people have anarchist ideas but don't take them to their logical conclusion or realise that it's possible to do so), and maybe make people realise that there's more to anarchism than punk rawk, if there are people who haven't taken it seriously until now because of that kind of perception. That's it. Sorry about the initial post.
  - illumin8 16y ago
    So, I read a little bit about Anarchist-Communism from the Wikipedia page, but it seems like it would never work in the real world. For one thing, there are no property rights, people are free to live wherever they want, which usually tends to turn society into Mad Max type "you live wherever you can take and hold by excessive force" scenarios. For another thing, all goods and services are communal and you are expected to just walk into any community store and take as much as you want or need. Let's take beer for example: Everyone loves to drink beer but nobody wants to go to the trouble to make it. How do you suppose those community store shelves are going to stock themselves? Basic food and supplies would be the same deal. What does a farm gain from putting the food created by his hard work on the shelves? Freeloaders will just take it all and he'll get nothing in return. I guess I'm trying to see how society wouldn't devolve back into tribal villages under any form of anarchism. I just don't think people will work hard for each other out of altruism. They need a reason to work, and that reason seems to be wages and compensation.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      For a really thorough discussion of all of this, check out "An anarchist FAQ": http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html
      - illumin8 16y ago
        TL;DR. Sorry, I'm not going to read a 500 page dissertation on the philosophical points of Anarcho-communism, and all the various forms of Anarchism. If you want to bring me around to thinking Anarchy would be anything other than Mad Max you'll probably need to give me a bulleted list of reasons why. I guess what I'm asking for is some evidence, not philosophical links from a huge, wordy FAQ.
        steveklabnik 16y ago
        The problem is that not everything can be fit into one page. We're talking near-total changes to the very most fundamental ways that we've built society, and so a bullet list should not be able to convince you. As for evidence, maybe look at existing communities? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities The Spanish Revolution is probably the most popular one cited.
tommynazareth 16y ago
Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Here are a few points for you to consider, they might help you clarify your position on capitalism: 1. What you are probably really against is collusion between big government and big business. This is a real problem and is antithetical to true capitalism. 2. In a free market economy, there is plenty of room for charity and there is no one stopping people from organizing and participating in communes. 3. Taking my money through force to redistribute through inefficient state run welfare programs is not going to benefit anyone but the government. The poor will continue to be poor, and the elite will continue to extort those who actually add value.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  He's right though, in the communist countries that I've visited there was nobody homeless. I am surprised that on HN someone that states something that contributes to the discussion gets modded to -4, I thought we reserved that for trolls. You can find plenty of things wrong with communism, and I think that for the most part capitalism is to be preferred but that doesn't make him factually wrong.
  - mrkurt 16y ago
    Communism isn't the opposite of capitalism. China's both communist and capitalist. It also, incidentally, has extreme levels of poverty. The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. It's one of the advantages of having that sort of control over your subjects.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      > The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. The communist countries I visited I lived in for quite a while, and no, they didn't do a good job of it, it simply didn't exist. I would have definitely noticed. And yes, I did visit the poorer regions. Now they have homeless people though. But they're no longer communist. Everybody had a job, everybody had a house. Maybe the job was changing the traffic lights or something similarly inefficient but you'd have a job, guaranteed. And I know it isn't the opposite.
brg 16y ago
To be fair, the need for slave labor on collective farms did reduce the problem somewhat. But that practice was stopped precisely because it was inefficient to force mentally and physically handicapped people into a physically demanding profession.

by duairc 16y ago

dschobel 16y ago

Capitalism is an economic system. It says nothing about social services or policy. There are plenty of countries with free market economies which provide extensive social services and have very progressive social policies (see northern europe and scandinavia).

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

IgorPartola 16y ago

I'm just curious, what other systems have you seen?

duairc 16y ago
Okay, I should probably just come clean and say that I'm an anarchist (an anarcho-socialist for those that believe that "anarcho"-capitalism is actually a form of anarchism). Anarchists have a bunch of ideas about what are the causes of the problems in our civilisation are and what can be done to change it and our lives for the better which are more or less internally consistent. So do capitalists, "anarcho"-capitalists and even the Catholic Church. All of these respective philosophies are internally consistent, or at least can be made so. So, I guess it was kind of pointless for me to say "capitalism causes poverty", which although I believe in the truth of that statement, most of the people on this site are capitalists and have a set of basic assumptions which justify capitalism. The statement I was making doesn't attempt to question or identify those basic assumptions, which I guess was my intention, but was just a lazy post that really just seems a bit absurd by capitalist set of assumptions. It makes sense perfect sense from the anarchist set of assumptions. So really, the post should have said "hey guys, while that drug policy sounds good, there is a school of thought that says that the real problem is capitalism itself, and I would subscribe to that school of thought and vouch for its applicability to the real world, and maybe you might find it interesting to think about that and read up on it a bit", but in order to do that I would have had to explain everything in a much deeper way than I was prepared to do at the time. I want to get back to the point about internal consistency though. It's pointless to exchange our theorems (things like "if we change X about drug policy, Y about homelessness will change") when the axioms on which we build such theorems are different. The only truth we can get from a discussion like that is "well, given the capitalist set of assumptions, we can prove that this is true, but it is not true given the anarchist set of assumptions". That's a lemma you can use in the proof of the truth of such a statement, but to prove that it's true you have to show that capitalism's (or whatever) assumptions accurately model the real world. I admit I'm very much guilty of ignoring this in my post above, and I'm sorry for lazily making such a meaningless post. (By the way, the reason "anarcho"-capitalism isn't anarchism is because anarchism and capitalism have assumptions which contradict each other, so to be able to make it internally consistent, they must lose some of the assumptions that anarchists have which contradict capitalism's assumptions.) So, economically then, what do I propose? A sort of decentralised socialism, I guess. I would broadly subscribe to the ideas outlined here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism#Economic_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism#Economic_th...), which probably explains it better than I can. The reason I think these ideas and the ideas and the assumptions that justify them are more applicable to the real world than those of capitalism is basically just because they line up with better with what my intuitions have been. I've always been unhappy with authority and being coerced, and the justifcations offered to me for such coercion have always seemed kind of circular. In is-piracy-bad debates, I've always been on the side of the pirates, but also always felt that there's more to it than this, that there's some sort of logical conclusion that we (pirates) are not taking this to, and now I think anarchism is that logical conclusion. Anarcha-feminism agrees with and expands on ideas and feelings I've had about gender before I knew about it. Anarchism gives legitimacy to my intuitions and offers a framework in which they can be made logically consistent, and also offers an explanation for some social problems that I hadn't ever even thought about that are consistent with my intuitions. Basically, and I know this is pretty much a false dichotomy, but it does kind of get the point across - I've always felt that it's much more satisfying and generally better to be co-operative than competitive, and I think capitalists basically think the opposite and say that it's human nature to be greedy, etc. My experience has shown that I get a great pleasure out of sharing my things and with people and helping them out, but capitalism makes it difficult to share with people because you need money and everything in order to survive in a capitalist system, so by giving stuff away, you're risking your chances of survival, or at least decreasing your freedom. I think capitalist ideas might appeal to people because it gives them justification for being many times richer and therefore freer than other people. I don't think that is justifiable, certainly not when it's something that affects a person from birth (how wealthy a background they come from), and it's incredibly naive to think that everybody who's poor can just go out and start a business and get as rich as anyone, as if it's their fault that they're poor (for not doing this) and that everybody is completely in control of how wealthy they are. Those are pretty much the ideas that I have. Anarchism is the school of thought that makes them logically consistent, but capitalist ideas are also logically consistent in their own framework, and if we disagree on the axioms then there aren't really any words or logic that can be done to resolve that disagreement. I'm really just trying to make people aware of anarchism, and maybe make them feel that their ideas are legitimate if they have anarchist ideas (because I think a lot of people have anarchist ideas but don't take them to their logical conclusion or realise that it's possible to do so), and maybe make people realise that there's more to anarchism than punk rawk, if there are people who haven't taken it seriously until now because of that kind of perception. That's it. Sorry about the initial post.
- illumin8 16y ago
  So, I read a little bit about Anarchist-Communism from the Wikipedia page, but it seems like it would never work in the real world. For one thing, there are no property rights, people are free to live wherever they want, which usually tends to turn society into Mad Max type "you live wherever you can take and hold by excessive force" scenarios. For another thing, all goods and services are communal and you are expected to just walk into any community store and take as much as you want or need. Let's take beer for example: Everyone loves to drink beer but nobody wants to go to the trouble to make it. How do you suppose those community store shelves are going to stock themselves? Basic food and supplies would be the same deal. What does a farm gain from putting the food created by his hard work on the shelves? Freeloaders will just take it all and he'll get nothing in return. I guess I'm trying to see how society wouldn't devolve back into tribal villages under any form of anarchism. I just don't think people will work hard for each other out of altruism. They need a reason to work, and that reason seems to be wages and compensation.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    For a really thorough discussion of all of this, check out "An anarchist FAQ": http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html
    - illumin8 16y ago
      TL;DR. Sorry, I'm not going to read a 500 page dissertation on the philosophical points of Anarcho-communism, and all the various forms of Anarchism. If you want to bring me around to thinking Anarchy would be anything other than Mad Max you'll probably need to give me a bulleted list of reasons why. I guess what I'm asking for is some evidence, not philosophical links from a huge, wordy FAQ.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        The problem is that not everything can be fit into one page. We're talking near-total changes to the very most fundamental ways that we've built society, and so a bullet list should not be able to convince you. As for evidence, maybe look at existing communities? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities The Spanish Revolution is probably the most popular one cited.

tommynazareth 16y ago

Wow, I'm really surprised to find someone on HN who is against capitalism. Here are a few points for you to consider, they might help you clarify your position on capitalism: 1. What you are probably really against is collusion between big government and big business. This is a real problem and is antithetical to true capitalism. 2. In a free market economy, there is plenty of room for charity and there is no one stopping people from organizing and participating in communes. 3. Taking my money through force to redistribute through inefficient state run welfare programs is not going to benefit anyone but the government. The poor will continue to be poor, and the elite will continue to extort those who actually add value.

jacquesm 16y ago
He's right though, in the communist countries that I've visited there was nobody homeless. I am surprised that on HN someone that states something that contributes to the discussion gets modded to -4, I thought we reserved that for trolls. You can find plenty of things wrong with communism, and I think that for the most part capitalism is to be preferred but that doesn't make him factually wrong.
- mrkurt 16y ago
  Communism isn't the opposite of capitalism. China's both communist and capitalist. It also, incidentally, has extreme levels of poverty. The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. It's one of the advantages of having that sort of control over your subjects.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    > The communist countries you visited likely did a good job of hiding the homelessness. The communist countries I visited I lived in for quite a while, and no, they didn't do a good job of it, it simply didn't exist. I would have definitely noticed. And yes, I did visit the poorer regions. Now they have homeless people though. But they're no longer communist. Everybody had a job, everybody had a house. Maybe the job was changing the traffic lights or something similarly inefficient but you'd have a job, guaranteed. And I know it isn't the opposite.

brg 16y ago

To be fair, the need for slave labor on collective farms did reduce the problem somewhat. But that practice was stopped precisely because it was inefficient to force mentally and physically handicapped people into a physically demanding profession.