5 ms·

I am implying that on HN "anarchist" often refers to a particular niche, anarcho-capitalism, which is mostly unconcerned with notions of cooperation, voluntaryi

by rw 18y ago

I am implying that on HN "anarchist" often refers to a particular niche, anarcho-capitalism, which is mostly unconcerned with notions of cooperation, voluntaryism and humanism.

gojomo 18y ago
Huh? Anarcho-capitalism relies on cooperation, voluntarism, and humanism as much as any other anarchism. It just posits that respect for property, including giant consensual property constructs like capital/corporations, is the best basis for creative cooperation.
- rw 18y ago
  Demand curves are not democracy.
  - gojomo 18y ago
    Both democracy and demand curves are means, not ends.
    - stcredzero 18y ago
      Hallelujah! Markets are great because they are a decentralized method for regulating resources that can adjust for changing conditions. One wants them in situations where there are too many factors and actors to be regulated by something as large and slow moving as a government. Markets aren't to be worshiped. They are a tool. Governments and laws are good for certain things too. I would like murder and violence to be illegal. I want human rights to be a given. Democracies aren't perfect, but they do embody a mechanism for ensuring the above. Unfortunately, they also allow their constituents to turn them into non-democracies. Democracies require constant maintenance.
      - david 18y ago
        Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century? Random individuals/groups, or Governments? If you support nonviolence, why support an organization that threatens violence if you do not follow rules have no moral basis (ie, not "don't murder" and "don't steal") that you never agreed to follow?
        run4yourlives 18y ago
        Do you honestly believe that random individuals organized in some other fashion than government - say a corporation - are not just as able to murder and pillage on the same level as governments past? If you think that governments are some sort of special organization, and that the same problems would not occur with any other power, you sir are a fool.
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        Voted up, but almost didn't with the reference to corporations being as evil as governments. Haven't seen that yet, mostly due to free market influences. (There is a good reason why your neighborhood store owner is not also a flagrant lawbreaker -- it's bad for business) But substitute "armed gangs", "the mob", "terrorist organizations", etc -- works great.
        run4yourlives 18y ago
        Give corporations power and an absence of government and it does happen. Look at the industrial revolution prior to workers' rights, or even look at telecom and communications monopolies today. That law that the store owner doesn't dare break is what holds him back!
        randallsquared 18y ago
        But it didn't happen. No private organization ever produced something on the scale of the gulag or the Nazi concentration camps, even in places where government was very weak.
        18y ago
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    And it is impossible to run an economy as prosperous as ours without "abstract institutions". By rejecting such institutions, left-wing anarchists are really rejecting modernism. Some of them understand this, but not all of them. Personally, I favor political systems which contribute to the further advancement of the human species. That's why I'm a right-wing anarchist. I have no nostalgia for tribalism.

by rw 18y ago

I am implying that on HN "anarchist" often refers to a particular niche, anarcho-capitalism, which is mostly unconcerned with notions of cooperation, voluntaryism and humanism.

gojomo 18y ago

Huh? Anarcho-capitalism relies on cooperation, voluntarism, and humanism as much as any other anarchism. It just posits that respect for property, including giant consensual property constructs like capital/corporations, is the best basis for creative cooperation.

rw 18y ago
Demand curves are not democracy.
- gojomo 18y ago
  Both democracy and demand curves are means, not ends.
  - stcredzero 18y ago
    Hallelujah! Markets are great because they are a decentralized method for regulating resources that can adjust for changing conditions. One wants them in situations where there are too many factors and actors to be regulated by something as large and slow moving as a government. Markets aren't to be worshiped. They are a tool. Governments and laws are good for certain things too. I would like murder and violence to be illegal. I want human rights to be a given. Democracies aren't perfect, but they do embody a mechanism for ensuring the above. Unfortunately, they also allow their constituents to turn them into non-democracies. Democracies require constant maintenance.
    - david 18y ago
      Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century? Random individuals/groups, or Governments? If you support nonviolence, why support an organization that threatens violence if you do not follow rules have no moral basis (ie, not "don't murder" and "don't steal") that you never agreed to follow?
      - run4yourlives 18y ago
        Do you honestly believe that random individuals organized in some other fashion than government - say a corporation - are not just as able to murder and pillage on the same level as governments past? If you think that governments are some sort of special organization, and that the same problems would not occur with any other power, you sir are a fool.
        DanielBMarkham 18y ago
        Voted up, but almost didn't with the reference to corporations being as evil as governments. Haven't seen that yet, mostly due to free market influences. (There is a good reason why your neighborhood store owner is not also a flagrant lawbreaker -- it's bad for business) But substitute "armed gangs", "the mob", "terrorist organizations", etc -- works great.
        run4yourlives 18y ago
        Give corporations power and an absence of government and it does happen. Look at the industrial revolution prior to workers' rights, or even look at telecom and communications monopolies today. That law that the store owner doesn't dare break is what holds him back!
        randallsquared 18y ago
        But it didn't happen. No private organization ever produced something on the scale of the gulag or the Nazi concentration camps, even in places where government was very weak.
        18y ago
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  And it is impossible to run an economy as prosperous as ours without "abstract institutions". By rejecting such institutions, left-wing anarchists are really rejecting modernism. Some of them understand this, but not all of them. Personally, I favor political systems which contribute to the further advancement of the human species. That's why I'm a right-wing anarchist. I have no nostalgia for tribalism.