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Once, there was a peaceful anarchic village, where everybody was perfectly equal and there were no laws or rules. People shared everything freely and never foug
by pjlegato 13y ago
Once, there was a peaceful anarchic village, where everybody was perfectly equal and there were no laws or rules. People shared everything freely and never fought. Then, one day, the neighboring village invaded, killed all the men, raped all the women, and enslaved all the children. That was the end of that.
Even if somehow the whole world were to switch instantaneously to the state of anarchy, it would be a very short matter of time before someone internally decided to take over and enforce rules with the threat of violence. This person would then be the "government."
As for Communism, Armenian radio listener calls in and says, "We are told that true Communism is just on the horizon now. I ask, what is horizon?" We reply, "Horizon is imaginary line that always recedes as you approach it."
The fundamental misapprehension at work here is confusing two meanings of the word "system." There are systems created by humans, such as "the justice system of Japan." We can change those, since they derive entirely from human control. Then, there are emergent or natural systems, such as gravity. These cannot be changed simply because people decide they don't like them.
Capitalism is of the latter category. It is not a human-created system; it did not emerge from colonialism. It is merely the natural emergent behavior of actors under resource scarcity. As long as there are not enough resources for everyone to have what they want, there will be some variant of a market and capitalistic trade. It is not possible to alter this scenario simply because it doesn't seem pleasant; that's wishful thinking. All that can be done is to make the market more or less efficient.
The Soviet Union and North Korea, for example, have always had internal capitalist black markets, despite massive penalties. Prisons have internal black markets. Countries that try to control their currency's value have massive internal black markets for hard currency. Cocaine is readily available for a price almost everywhere in the world, despite massive and coordinated efforts to suppress that market.
The reverse also applies; in the absence of actual scarcity, it is impossible to enforce a market, since that is an emergent property of scarcity rather than a human-chosen system. Illegal music and movie trading online, for example, continue to grow despite massive efforts to prop up the market, because there is no actual scarcity.
- e12e 13y ago> Capitalism is (...) not a human-created system; it did not emerge from > colonialism. It is merely the natural emergent behavior of actors > under resource scarcity. 1) I didn't mean to imply that capitalism emerged from colonialism, but that the current distribution of wealth an power within capitalism is connected to colonialism (among other things). 2) I don't think you're assertion of capitalism being "an emergent system" is correct -- capitalism is defined by having capital and private ownership over means of production. There are many other systems for regulating scarcity (artificial or otherwise) (eg: feudalism). > As long as there are not enough resources for everyone to have what > they want, there will be some variant of a market and capitalistic > trade. The reverse also applies; in the absence of actual scarcity, > it is impossible to enforce a market, since that is an emergent > property of scarcity rather than a human-chosen system. 3) You imply that there aren't enough resources. While that may be true, I think the issue is more one of uneven distribution. This obviously also depend on your clause "for everyone to have what they want". I think the current system encourages aggregation without much regard for what individuals actually want (Who "wants" Foxxconn to dominate in certain areas of industrial production?). 4) Not all markets and trade systems define a capitalist system. Note also that I specifically said modern anarchism. That doesn't necessarily define away the right to self defence. Communism certainly doesn't. The main difference between the two, is that communism seeks to maintain a form of government, highly localized and highly democratic -- but with the option to retain such things as a police force and a justice system (reserve the right of the government to use violence such as detaining and investigation of crimes for the common good) while anarchism is generally more sceptical of any power structure and any use of force against the individual.
- crusso 13y agoI like the Communism on the horizon concept. I'm always suspicious of any government types who have a "better new way". They always have some new plan to get us to nirvana. That new plan always take a lot of funding, has no real scientific basis, no benchmarks, no accountability for the implementers, and no way to undo the damage once the plan fails. Despite the failures of similar masterminds in the past, the next plan will be the one that really fixes things and solves all our problems... always on the horizon. it would be a very short matter of time before someone internally decided to take over and enforce rules with the threat of violence Maybe, but then again that's what the conventional wisdom said about the Americans a couple hundred years ago. It was thought by intellectuals that so much individual freedom couldn't last very long. Yes, we've shifted pretty far toward socialism for the past hundred years. But I'd argue that if it weren't for the evil seed of slavery, we would never have had the Civil War and we wouldn't be dealing with the steady advance of the state.