Refuting “anarcho”-capitalism by means of “anarcho”-capitalism.

Please make this article known to all your anarcho-capitalist friends, Misean idealists, paleo troglodytes, and other profit-lovers.

For example, leading “anarcho”-capitalist Murray Rothbard thundered against the evil of the state, stressing that it “arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given territorial area.” Then, in the chapter’s endnote, he quietly admitted that “[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the ultimate decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over his, etc.“

Opps. How did the editor not pick up that one? But it shows the magical power of the expression “private property” – it can turn the bad (“ultimate decision-making power” over a given area) into the good (“ultimate decision-making power” over a given area). For anarchists, “[t]o demonise state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.“

Proudon on… the labour theory of value.

How many nails is a pair of shoes worth?

If we can solve this appalling problem, we shall have the key of the social system for which humanity has been searching for six thousand years. In the presence of this problem, the economist recoils confused; the peasant who can neither read nor write replies without hesitation: “As many as can be made in the same time, and with the same expense.”

The absolute value of a thing, then, is its cost in time and expense. How much is a diamond worth which costs only the labor of picking it up? — Nothing; it is not a product of man. How much will it be worth when cut and mounted? — The time and expense which it has cost the laborer. Why, then, is it sold at so high a price? — Because men are not free. Society must regulate the exchange and distribution of the rarest things, as it does that of the most common ones, in such a way that each may share in the enjoyment of them. What, then, is that value which is based upon opinion? — Delusion, injustice, and robbery.

By this rule, it is easy to reconcile every body. If the mean term, which we are searching for, between an infinite value and no value at all is expressed in the case of every product, by the amount of time and expense which the product cost, a poem which has cost its author thirty years of labor and an outlay of ten thousand francs in journeys, books, &c., must be paid for by the ordinary wages received by a laborer during thirty years, plus ten thousand francs indemnity for expense incurred. Suppose the whole amount to be fifty thousand francs; if the society which gets the benefit of the production include a million of men, my share of the debt is five centimes.

This gives rise to a few observations.

1. The same product, at different times and in different places, may cost more or less of time and outlay; in this view, it is true that value is a variable quantity. But this variation is not that of the economists, who place in their list of the causes of the variation of values, not only the means of production, but taste, caprice, fashion, and opinion. In short, the true value of a thing is invariable in its algebraic expression, although it may vary in its monetary expression.

2. The price of every product in demand should be its cost in time and outlay — neither more nor less: every product not in demand is a loss to the producer — a commercial non-value.

3. The ignorance of the principle of evaluation, and the difficulty under many circumstances of applying it, is the source of commercial fraud, and one of the most potent causes of the inequality of fortunes.

4. To reward certain industries and pay for certain products, a society is needed which corresponds in size with the rarity of talents, the costliness of the products, and the variety of the arts and sciences. If, for example, a society of fifty farmers can support a schoolmaster, it requires one hundred for a shoemaker, one hundred and fifty for a blacksmith, two hundred for a tailor, &c. If the number of farmers rises to one thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, &c., as fast as their number increases, that of the functionaries which are earliest required must increase in the same proportion; so that the highest functions become possible only in the most powerful societies. That is the peculiar feature of capacities; the character of genius, the seal of its glory, cannot arise and develop itself, except in the bosom of a great nation. But this physiological condition, necessary to the existence of genius, adds nothing to its social rights: far from that, — the delay in its appearance proves that, in economical and civil affairs, the loftiest intelligence must submit to the equality of possessions; an equality which is anterior to it, and of which it constitutes the crown.

The problem with linear thinking.

In talking about love, I’ve talked a lot about its opposite, control. It seems therefore logical to do the same with creativity. In fact, we run into similar hurdles. As I pointed out in my previous entry on the subject, assembly-line production is not necessarily uncreative in all aspects. Neither is the refusal to create. Creative and uncreative actions come together in making up the kinds of productions and creations that we see today (or in the cases where there is little or no creativity, creativity could be added to the system, and in an Anarchist society they probably would).

The opposite of creativity is, I think, not a specific sort of action but rather a way of thinking about actions, which I would call “logics.” A logic is a path that one takes, in reasoning or actions, which inevitably railroads us into specific conclusions; a series of consequences or conclusions which entail each other within a given framework. These logics generally exist as a side-effect of the existence of some system which elevates some principle as being more important than human values. Any system which does not have the expression of man’s values as its aim will inevitably subordinate or sacrifice those concrete values for some abstract objective.

To illustrate what I mean, I’ll use the example of the control logic, which I already discussed before (although I didn’t call it that). If one starts from the premise that people are innately evil, this leads us to the belief that people should be controlled, which leads us to the belief that there must be a controlling class which must also be controlled, which leads us to the belief in a total control society.

Note that I am not saying that everyone who believes that people are innately evil inevitably also believes in a total control society. In the same way, one can believe in religious dogma without getting to the point of supporting a theocracy based on the laws of [insert assumed source of dogma here]. But if one follows the natural path of reasoning, one will eventually get to such a conclusion.

The book Nowtopia gives more examples of another kind of logic, capitalist logic. It talks about various movements of self-reliance or joyful cooperation that are at least somewhat anti-State or anti-hierarchies in nature.

When these movements organize, there is a sort of natural progression that occurs. These people are well-intentioned, but as they spend more and more time on the organization, they spend more and more money on it and at the same time they work less and less at their job, so they need more money. The need for money leads them to gear more and more of their activities towards profit. But as they are small, that profit is unstable. The need for a stable inflow of money leads them to expand. To expand, they need more manpower (usually volunteers), and the new people coming in don’t tend to share the same goals, generally wanting to make the organization profit-oriented. The end result will be either the assimilation of the organization in the capitalist system, or the recuperation of the movement by the capitalist system, or both.

The capitalist logic is also demonstrated by the defense industry. As, in the capitalist logic, goods can only be supplied by a strictly hierarchical supply/demand system, the government positioned itself as the demand and the defense industry as the supplier, which lead to an industry completely depending on public policy and therefore the prime influence on that public policy. The principle towards which the capitalist logic railroads us, its framework, is the principle of profit; the more we accept profit motives, the more we are engaged in the capitalist logic, and vice-versa.

Another omnipresent form of logic is heteronormativity. Love relationships must express themselves as a hierarchical family structure, therefore homosexuals and other non-heteros who seek acceptance do so within the strict framework of a hierarchical family structure. In order to do so, they must therefore pursue marriage and child-raising privileges as well, pursue capitalist success in order to have their character validated by hetero society, and fight against “deviancy” within their own “ranks,” creating a whole new category of Others. Each of these, in turn, entail their own kinds of logic.

In the political area, other logics include the democratic logic (with votes as the ultimate goal) and nationalist logic (a vast one, which applies to war, immigration, child-raising, and other areas).

Many implicit false premises also come from logics. For instance, the belief that legal obligations or divine commands entail moral obligations is the result of a prior belief in a logic (in this case, democratic logic and religious logic) which claims to impose some moral obligation on the individual. Without the belief, the premise would not even come up, there’d be no reason to bring it up at all.

How does creativity fit into this? There are two roles that creativity plays in a free society: being the expression of a fundamental human need, and being the motor of progress. In both functions, and especially the latter, creativity is the opposite of linear thinking as I’ve described it. I think observing the way all these logics work shows well that they trample and obliterate all expression of one’s personality. Capitalism eradicates all creativity at work. Heteronormativity eradicates all creativity in one’s relations. Democracy eradicates all creativity in the political sphere. All our actions are railroaded towards a singular state of affairs.

I said creativity is the motor of progress. I have never really seen this expressed anywhere before, so I might need to clarify what I mean. First, I mean progress in the Anarchist sense, not in the capital-democratic sense. Progress not at generating always more resources, not at generating always more knowledge, not at generating always more agreement (although some of these things may be valuable, in moderation), but at generating possibilities for the individual. This, if anything, is the expression of actually existing freedom.

But whether we can conceive of new ways of doing things, and give them reality, is solely a function of our creativity and of how much we are free to express it. It will do no good to invent new ways for people to relate to each other, for example, if those ways are repressed by social norms or by laws.

Unfortunately, as freedom generates more freedom, control generates more control. It is precisely because we are trapped in these logics that we are unable to envision change. Most people have absolutely zero creativity in the relational and social areas of their lives, and minimal creativity in all the other spheres. They think the way they “should” think, and live their lives the way they “ought to” live their lives.

This is also the case in our social movements, especially politicized ones. If you look at the movements for women’s rights or gay rights or racial equality, there was a tremendous opportunity to create new ways of relating with each other outside of the heteronormative logic and the democratic logic that constrained people’s freedom through social norms and laws. But it is precisely those logics that prevented the excluded from being creative and fighting against the structures that were oppressing them. So instead of fighting against them, they fought to be accepted by them.

So now we have gays acting like heterosexuals, women taking on masculinity, and black people acting like masters (which is also accompanied by a violent rejection of one’s native state of mind). Because of this, the hierarchies that oppressed them are now amplified by the legitimacy brought about by these integrations. These movements have served to demonstrate to all that democracy does work after all (even though these movements existed almost entirely outside of the political process), that everyone, no matter your skin, sexuality or gender, can be an oppressor and have the chance to control others instead of being controlled. Those people who try to oppose this state of affairs are usually called “radicals” and “extremists,” while those who try to fit in the status quo are usually called “realists” and “noble reformers.”

What we gain, therefore, is not freedom at all, but rather the so-called “freedom to conform” (you have the right to complain, you have the right to vote, you have the right to write books against the system: you’re just not allowed to actually change anything). In this is implicit the notion of conformity to the norms and laws as being a highly desirable goal, and that the only evil is not permitting certain groups or demographics to be able to conform like everyone else. But this is pure insanity.

In a free society, where individuals are sane (that is to say, able to recognize their own values and respect those of others), there exists the possibility for a multitude of different economic relations and ways of looking at resources, a multitude of different ways for people to have relationships with each other, a multitude of different ways to look at the world and discover things about the world, a multitude of different ways to interact with the world, and so on. They must, however, be discovered, experimented upon, played with, and be made viable on whatever scale it is meant to operate. That is the role of creativity as motor of progress.

Proudhon on… man’s labour being dependent on society.

So, some people have asked me for more Proudhon quotes, and I did have a few more interesting things to post. I wasn’t looking forward to transcribing AND translating more stuff, until I stopped being an idiot and realized that I could just look up any passage I want online, and copy-paste it here!

So without further ado…

***

The isolated man can supply but a very small portion of his wants; all his power lies in association, and in the intelligent combination of universal effort. The division and co-operation of labor multiply the quantity and the variety of products; the individuality of functions improves their quality.

There is not a man, then, but lives upon the products of several thousand different industries; not a laborer but receives from society at large the things which he consumes, and, with these, the power to reproduce. Who, indeed, would venture the assertion, “I produce, by my own effort, all that I consume; I need the aid of no one else”? The farmer, whom the early economists regarded as the only real producer — the farmer, housed, furnished, clothed, fed, and assisted by the mason, the carpenter, the tailor, the miller, the baker, the butcher, the grocer, the blacksmith, &c., — the farmer, I say, can he boast that he produces by his own unaided effort?

The various articles of consumption are given to each by all; consequently, the production of each involves the production of all. One product cannot exist without another; an isolated industry is an impossible thing. What would be the harvest of the farmer, if others did not manufacture for him barns, wagons, ploughs, clothes, &c.? Where would be the savant without the publisher; the printer without the typecaster and the machinist; and these, in their turn, without a multitude of other industries? . . . Let us not prolong this catalogue — so easy to extend — lest we be accused of uttering commonplaces. All industries are united by mutual relations in a single group; all productions do reciprocal service as means and end; all varieties of talent are but a series of changes from the inferior to the superior.

Now, this undisputed and indisputable fact of the general participation in every species of product makes all individual productions common; so that every product, coming from the hands of the producer, is mortgaged in advance by society. The producer himself is entitled to only that portion of his product, which is expressed by a fraction whose denominator is equal to the number of individuals of which society is composed. It is true that in return this same producer has a share in all the products of others, so that he has a claim upon all, just as all have a claim upon him; but is it not clear that this reciprocity of mortgages, far from authorizing property, destroys even possession? The laborer is not even possessor of his product; scarcely has he finished it, when society claims it.

The City that Ended Hunger

Although this is, of course, a government program, it’s interesting reading to say the least. It gives an inkling of what would be possible under mutual aid. Eliminating hunger should be one part of our agenda.

First, some great soundbites:

To search for solutions to hunger means to act within the principle that the status of a citizen surpasses that of a mere consumer.

Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy.

And now, the story.

Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy food in the market—you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you.

…

The city agency developed dozens of innovations to assure everyone the right to food, especially by weaving together the interests of farmers and consumers. It offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce—which often reached 100 percent—to consumers and the farmers. Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.

…

In addition to the farmer-run stands, the city makes good food available by offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to bid on the right to use well-trafficked plots of city land for “ABC” markets, from the Portuguese acronym for “food at low prices.” Today there are 34 such markets where the city determines a set price—about two-thirds of the market price—of about twenty healthy items, mostly from in-state farmers and chosen by store-owners. Everything else they can sell at the market price.

“For ABC sellers with the best spots, there’s another obligation attached to being able to use the city land,” a former manager within this city agency, Adriana Aranha, explained. “Every weekend they have to drive produce-laden trucks to the poor neighborhoods outside of the city center, so everyone can get good produce.”

Another product of food-as-a-right thinking is three large, airy “People’s Restaurants” (Restaurante Popular), plus a few smaller venues, that daily serve 12,000 or more people using mostly locally grown food for the equivalent of less than 50 cents a meal. When Anna and I ate in one, we saw hundreds of diners—grandparents and newborns, young couples, clusters of men, mothers with toddlers. Some were in well-worn street clothes, others in uniform, still others in business suits.

…

The cost of these efforts?

Around $10 million annually, or less than 2 percent of the city budget. That’s about a penny a day per Belo resident.

Behind this dramatic, life-saving change is what Adriana calls a “new social mentality”—the realization that “everyone in our city benefits if all of us have access to good food, so—like health care or education—quality food for all is a public good.”

The Belo experience shows that a right to food does not necessarily mean more public handouts (although in emergencies, of course, it does.) It can mean redefining the “free” in “free market” as the freedom of all to participate. It can mean, as in Belo, building citizen-government partnerships driven by values of inclusion and mutual respect.

And when imagining food as a right of citizenship, please note: No change in human nature is required! Through most of human evolution—except for the last few thousand of roughly 200,000 years—Homo sapiens lived in societies where pervasive sharing of food was the norm. As food sharers, “especially among unrelated individuals,” humans are unique, writes Michael Gurven, an authority on hunter-gatherer food transfers. Except in times of extreme privation, when some eat, all eat.

Before leaving Belo, Anna and I had time to reflect a bit with Adriana. We wondered whether she realized that her city may be one of the few in the world taking this approach—food as a right of membership in the human family. So I asked, “When you began, did you realize how important what you are doing was? How much difference it might make? How rare it is in the entire world?”

Listening to her long response in Portuguese without understanding, I tried to be patient. But when her eyes moistened, I nudged our interpreter. I wanted to know what had touched her emotions.

“I knew we had so much hunger in the world,” Adriana said. “But what is so upsetting, what I didn’t know when I started this, is it’s so easy. It’s so easy to end it.”

For Anarchists, I suppose the following paragraph is the clincher:

“We’re fighting the concept that the state is a terrible, incompetent administrator,” Adriana explained. “We’re showing that the state doesn’t have to provide everything, it can facilitate. It can create channels for people to find solutions themselves.”

And yet they are merely coercively bringing about what should already exist all over the world, if it hadn’t been taken over by the capital-democratic system. This particular government is taking pride and credit for “solving” a problem that governments (including this particular one) caused in the first place. This is, of course, standard operating procedure.

If it’s so easy to end hunger, then we can do a lot more than end hunger. Think of what else we could end on a worldwide scale.

System Of A Down – Boom!