- Capitalism and Alternatives -

forcefields

Posted by: Gee ( si ) on August 26, 1999 at 13:17:18:

In Reply to: Protecting illusions of anarcho-capitalism posted by Samuel Day Fassbinder on August 25, 1999 at 20:19:35:

:: So defending oneself against an attacker is now *initiating* force?

:SDF: On your part it is.

I can see that by obscuring the causal and moral difference between someone attacking another and the other defending against that attack you would see nothing wrong with coercion in any form, except to your particular opinions on which ends are 'better'.

: SDF: You believe in your favorite law, don't you? What would enforce it?

No law can be enforced except by the will of people to enforce it. Think again about private property being dictated by a small minority.

: SDF: You still obsessed with protecting hoarders? In a world as full of poverty (amidst wealth) as ours? See, this is why I say stuff like that you're rotten to the core. Do you have any values that aren't sold out to the rich?

You didnt consider the previous comment which stated that someone who is aiming to achieve change by peaceful voluntary means would, to have any integrity and consistency, need to be opposed to laws designed to 're-distribute' by force or they would break with their principle code. The rest is your supposition.

: SDF: Because you're the type that would prefer to hoard while others starve (while having such hoarding redefined as "advantage"), and so you think of your activity as a "right"?

Guess work about what 'type' I am.

: SDF: Nope, it goes against the survival chances of the whole society. Everyone's interdependent, autonomy's a myth. We all need to live on a planet that is safe from thermonuclear war, for one, for even the dropping of one bomb raises everyone's cancer risk.

Ignoring a million people starving in Africa does not gain the perception of lessening a groups chance of survival in Belgium. Whilst I might contend that setting about helping them may yield very mutually advantageous relations in the future (on the premise that the more minds the more chances for new ideas, new tech etc) it is the perception of those in a group that affects decisions.

: SDF: We are still in the world where "value" of the starving individual is to be equated to the "value" of the yacht-owning bourgeois.

If you read my discussion with RD on yachts and bread you'll see what I said there.

: SDF: It takes more than the end of private ownership to create a society at peace, it takes trust. Private ownership and the suspicion of thieves go hand in hand, however.

The removal of private ownership requires absolute universal trust *prior* to it being practicable. Chickens and eggs.

: SDF: Prove it!

Same could be directed at you regarding AC, Prove why it wouldnt be peaceful - as it would where people 'learned values' as you have suggested occurs in Kindergarten. Saying what might happen based upon what things are like now and in history is the best we can do. Neither of can prove one thing or another in this context.

: SDF: But I don't use any "force," not by my definition, when I shoplift food,

Your removing food from someone else (in this case from one who would have exchanged something of value and that value the one who made the food in the first place. The common retort is that 'its only a loaf of bread' and that no one is really hurt. Extend the principle that stealing food is not force (and thus ok) to its logical conslusion the stealing all the food resulting in the starvation of the original makers of the food is also 'ok'

: if defined as above, contrary to the biological urges of those who must eat but cannot be entrepreneurs. Therefore even if anarcho-capitalists believed in your prohibition against the initiation of force, they would feel fully justified in killing shoplifters, loiterers, and other nonviolent "users of force," even though such people may have been biologically denied a "choice". Brazil is your paradise.

Why loiterers? What other 'nonviolent' users of force?


Follow Ups:

  • Keep those presuppositions locked in! Samuel Day Fassbinder Citizens for More than Brazil USA August 26 1999 (3)
    • brazil Gee si August 27 1999 (2)
      • Uruguay Nikhil Jaikumar DSA MA, USA August 30 1999 (0)
      • Russia Samuel Day Fassbinder Citizens for Mustard Greens USA August 28 1999 (0)

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