Blog posts I consider essential: the next generation.

About a year and so ago, I posted a list of other people’s blog posts which I found the most essential or interesting. Since then, I’ve added a few more to my list, obviously, and I wanted to share these with you also.

Obviously, which blogs I read or not read will have a major influence on who appears, so I apologize in advance for all the great entries that I’ve missed (please feel free to post in the comments about some great entries I have omitted, and feel free to post ones from your own blog).

1. From Rad Geek, “Libertarianism through Thick and Thin”, 3 October 2008.

An important entry where Rad Geek discusses the various degrees to which libertarian ideologies may or may not entail various cultural, social or economic positions (i.e. be “thin” or “thick”), and differentiates six types of “thickness” and “thinness” which have important consequences on how one ideology can relate to all others.

2. From Polycentric Order, “”Soft” and “Hard” Arguments Against The State”, 7 December 2009.

Brainpolice discusses the difference between libertarian arguments which limit themselves to proving a point but are easily worked around, and libertarian arguments which encompass a greater range of concepts and are therefore harder to defeat.

3. From A Division by Zer0, “Exploitation cannot be obscured in time”, 12 October 2008.

db0 thoroughly destroys the capitalist premise that business owners deserve to seize the surplus value because of the worker’s time-preference, and refutes the Misesian time-preference argument as a whole as well.

4. From A Division by Zer0, “What role does Capital play during production?”, 23 September 2009.

Another thorough destruction by db0, once again of the concept that business owners are owed the surplus value, but this time from the perspective of the labour theory of value, showing that all surplus ultimately reduces itself to labor.

5. From A Division by Zer0, “The Propertarian Double Standard”, 11 October 2009.

db0 wrote a short but sweet entry on the double standard that capitalists use when arguing property rights against left-libertarians.

6. From The Art of the Possible, “I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham”, 1 July 2008.

There are always great entries from TAoP to talk about. This one details how the Green Revolution goes hand-in-hand with the capitalist attack on the third-world and makes the world a worse place as a whole, despite the pretenses of the capitalist Green class.

7. From A Terrible Blogger is Born!, “Modern Procrustes, or consumerism is too important to be left to the consumers”, 17 June 2009.

rmagnum wrote an entry, drawing from many sources and influences, which seeks to show the powerful strand of “planning of the consumer” that has been going on in the American capitalist system: advertising, belief in big government and NWO, mandatory education, agrobusiness propaganda, the capitalist suppression of labor, consumeurism itself, and so on.

8. From Polycentric Order, “Anarcho-Capitalism Is Not A Form Of Libertarian Socialism”, 15 October 2009.

Brainpolice addresses the constantly annoying issue of “ancaps” trying to make us believe that they are really (honestly!) socialists, and that there’s really (honestly!) no difference between left-libertarianism and “ancaps.”

“Who decides that?”

You may have observed this strange reaction whenever you have discussed any fixed standard of anything, most likely morality, ethics or value. The very first thing many people will say in response is:
“Who decides that?”

If you talk about standards of morality or ethics to a Christian, the first thing he’ll ask you is: “who decides what is good and what is evil?”

If you talk about standards of value to a capitalist, the first thing he’ll ask you is: “who decides what my work is worth?”

If you tell a democratist that there are inalienable rights that cannot be voted away, and that we should conform society to those rights, he’ll ask: “who decides what those rights are?”

The next thing they’ll generally do is point out that people disagree so much on this subject that you must be wrong and there really is no such standard after all. If disagreement was our barometer to evaluate whether something is true or not, then the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, neurology and a lot of history would be in very dire straits indeed. But general disagreement no more disproves a position than general agreement proves a position. No matter how many people agree or disagree, what is true for you is true for you.

Consider the problems inherent to accepting absolute truths for such people. If it’s true that there is an exterior standard of ethics that we can impose on Christianity, for example, that means that we can judge the actions of Christians and Christian organizations based on that standard. But the whole Christian culture of no-responsibility and non-confront could not co-exist with any exterior standard. Besides, Christianity is based on holy writ, and holy writ does not justify itself and does not exist to be justified: it exists to be believed.

Now look at the mindset indicated by the question “who decides?” To them, the truth is a power struggle. Someone or some group with authority (politicians, scientists, priests, and so on) has to make the decision for everyone else who must, presumably, accept whatever “truth” was decided upon. Their view of epistemology is essentially authoritarian, so why should we be surprised that they apply authoritarian principles? From the beginning of their lives, they have been indoctrinated to believe in the truths handed to them by their superiors. They also fully accept that this process of constant mental abuse be done to their children. The only question left is, whose “truth” do we control them with?

But this is a necessary consequence of any ideology which rejects absolutes. If the truth cannot be found outside of us, then it must be found inside of us. And since we are all human beings and equally impotent, one version of the “truth” (that of the rulers of whatever system you examine) must be imposed, by force if necessary.

The really interesting thing, which always remains implicit and that no one seems to really pick up, is that they see the laws, rules and agreements that are imposed on them as a security against everyone else’s subjectivity, even though the belief in those laws, rules and agreements makes them the victim of their own rulers’ subjectivity. So you get things like “without the law, we’d be subject to everyone’s wild ideas,” when it is the belief in the law that already makes everyone subject to the constructed wild ideas in the first place.

This belief persists because the laws, rules and agreements are portrayed as being absolute, while everyone knows they are entirely arbitrary. It is this fundamental contradiction which leads people to ask who will decide what the absolute actually consists of (the tricky part being to not think too much about the contradiction, lest you create too much cognitive dissonance). To anyone else, this is an absurd question: we don’t decide what reality is on the basis of a whim. The rest of reality is exterior to us and is greater than any of us, and we construct our views about it by our actions and our reactions.

If meant in that sense, the answer to the question “who decides…?” is “we all do.” We are all responsible for our own actions and those actions are all part and parcel of the physical and ideological society we inhabit. We are responsible for sustaining the moral and ethical systems in place, or for opposing them. We are responsible for sustaining hierarchies or opposing them. That much cannot be escaped, but it is as good as it is bad, for if only the masses sustain an evil system, they can also overthrow it.

Society, in this view, is nothing more or less than the process of constant construction and deconstruction in which all individuals are engaged together. Of course, it is important to remember that, as Anarchists, we know that our decisions can only be understood within a given socio-economic context. It would therefore be absurd to hold the individual responsible for the existence of those mechanisms of oppression and indoctrination, which predate his existence.

If we interpret the question in a different way, not as “who is in control of this reality and effects it into the world?” but as a more simple and direct “who determines the nature of these facts?”, then the answer must be “no one.” By definition, facts are facts regardless of our assessment of them.

If it is unethical to control other human beings, then no one’s opinion, even seven billion people’s, can change that fact. If it is ethical to control other human beings, then no one’s opinion, no matter how numerous or fanatical, can change that fact either. If it is unethical to control other human beings, then it is unethical to do so in any society at any time. If it is ethical to control other human beings, then it is ethical to do so in any society at any time.

The facts, when they concern absolutes, are observable by anyone who cares to observe them. This is therefore a very pro-individual and anti-authority position, since it basically tells us that anyone can know the truth regardless of their position, and that no authorities are necessary or even desirable. It gives the individual the power to fight against any law, rule or agreement when they go against the facts as he observes them (as for instance the concept of human rights supports various anti-government fights around the world).

Lysander Spooner was a master at this line of argumentation, as we see in chapter 2 of Natural Law:

If justice be not a natural principle, governments (so-called) have no more right or reason to take cognizance of it, or to pretend or profess to take cognizance of it, than they have to take cognizance, or to pretend or profess to take cognizance, of any other nonentity; and all their professions of establishing justice, or of maintaining justice, or of rewarding justice, are simply the mere gibberish of fools, or the frauds of imposters.

But if justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more be changed – by any power inferior to that which established it – than can the law of gravitation, the laws of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any man or body of men – whether calling themselves governments, or by any other name – to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being, are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would be their attempts to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion in the place of any and all the physical, mental, and moral laws of the universe.

The fact that every individual may observe the laws of justice within himself, and observe their ethical nature outside of himself, makes any concept of government necessarily evil. If the laws are arbitrary, then they are not worth anything as ethical principles, and if the laws are accurate, then they are useless repetitions upheld at the point of the gun.

None of these fellows (whether political or religious) actually believe that their position is arbitrary, especially not the Christians, who are indoctrinated to believe that their specific modern Christian sensibilities and contemporary American political categories are absolutes handed to them by God itself from the top of Mount Sinai.

In fact, they often argue that the detractor’s world is too uncertain and that we can never know if we’re right, if we’ve drawn the correct conclusions. This idea makes them very queasy. And yet, their position is just as uncertain: after all, laws, rules and agreements change all the time, while facts do not. Therefore, the political or religious believer can never draw the “correct conclusion,” since in his world no such thing exists. It is the believer who should be anxious, since he is the one who lives in an unknowable universe. Relying on democratic vote, capitalist booms and busts or a holy scripture that no one interprets the same way is about as safe as relying on tarot cards or tea leaves.

Are Americans a broken people?

Bruce Levine, on Alternet, asks this provocative question: have the American people just given up in the face of oppression? Is there any way to reawaken the social consciousness of the American people? Or has the power elite really and truly won, and the US will no longer be free? A must-read.

Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, “What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base.” Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.

Perhaps the “political genius” of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.

…

in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, “Yeah, every evening… If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what’s the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what’s the point?… First of all, those predictions don’t mean anything- they’re more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you’re guaranteeing that’ll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism.”

The War on Kids – Trailer

Grocery store tricks, and how to avoid them…

I’ve commented before about the fact that grocery stores operate on tricks and frauds, and that they should all be closed down for making profits at the expense of people. The blog Pay Less for Food also examines a lot of grocery-store-related issues. Here are a few entries they wrote on the subject:

How Your Local Friendly Supermarket Profits From Your Inconvenience
Supermarket Speed Bumps That Get You to Spend More
How Food Packaging Illusions Cost You Money
Psychological Supermarket Tricks That Make Us Spend

Nine Simple Ways to Avoid Supermarket Impulse Purchases

If your grocery store was truly concerned with making things more convenient for you they would place the basic staple items you need closer to the entrance.

This convenience would allow us to quickly grab what we needed and go. But how many times have you gone into the store for a quick trip to buy some butter or bag of sugar and come out with a cart full of groceries?

Supermarkets purposefully place the essential staples not at the front of the store, but far in the back. As a result, we pass through row upon row of edible temptations. In fact, nearly 40% to 50% of all of our purchases inside the store are impulse purchases!

If your supermarket made it convenient for you by placing all of the staples at the front of the store, they would lose all the profit they collect as you make your way to the back to purchase your essential items.

The confusion of “self-ownership”…

NEW: Read Kinsella’s response to this entry which, sadly, does not address any of the points raised. Also make sure to read the comments section, which is a fine demonstration of the lack of sanity of “anarcho-capitalists.”

***

I have discussed why I reject the concept of “self-ownership” in a past entry. One related article that was linked on my comments is Kinsella’s Mises Institute article “How We Come to Own Ourselves”. Strangely, in his whole article he nowhere presents an actual account of self-ownership: however, he does quote one from his nasty anti-gay paleo friend Hans-Hermann Hoppe, whom he has lied for in the past on the issue of kicking all homosexuals out of society.

I wanted to address this account, since it is a common counter-argument to my position. Hoppe’s argument goes like this:

Why do we say “this is my body”? For this a twofold requirement exists. On the one hand it must be the case that the body called “mine” must indeed (in an intersubjectively ascertainable way) express or “objectify” my will. Proof of this, as far as my body is concerned, is easy enough to demonstrate: When I announce that I will now lift my arm, turn my head, relax in my chair (or whatever else) and these announcements then become true (are fulfilled), then this shows that the body which does this has been indeed appropriated by my will. If, to the contrary, my announcements showed no systematic relation to my body’s actual behavior, then the proposition “this is my body” would have to be considered as an empty, objectively unfounded assertion… On the other hand, apart from demonstrating that my will has been “objectified” in the body called “mine,” it must be demonstrated that my appropriation has priority as compared to the possible appropriation of the same body by another person.

As far as bodies are concerned, it is also easy to prove this. We demonstrate it by showing that it is under my direct control, while every other person can objectify (express) itself in my body only indirectly, i.e., by means of their own bodies, and direct control must obviously have logical-temporal priority (precedence) as compared to any indirect control.

I am not going to address the second point, because it is valid but irrelevant: it is in the first point that the crux of the issue lies. Besides, the control argument is the one I wanted to address anyway. I grant that if the control argument is valid, then any attempt to attribute ownership to anyone else is contradictory since it implies that this other person already owns their own body.

Here is where the problem occurs:

“When I announce that I will now lift my arm… and these announcements then become true… then this shows that the body which does this has been indeed appropriated by my will.”

In plain language, it is clear what Hoppe means, because our language evolved within the context of a belief in the soul as a separate entity which controls the body. But how are we to understand this from the modern biological perspective? This is important because the implicit assertion here is that “my will” is distinct from “the body.” A thing cannot appropriate itself, and if “my will” is an inseparable part of “the body,” Hoppe’s statement becomes incoherent.

I want to make clear that I am not merely accusing Hoppe of using sloppy language, or arguing that “self-ownership” is merely badly formulated. I am stating that “self-ownership” can only be a coherent concept if the mind-body dichotomy is correct. Otherwise there is no concrete entity called “the self” which we can name owner of “the body,” except to claim that “the self” is “the body,” in which case the owner is the same as the owned. And an ownership claim without an owner, or where the owner and the owned are the same thing, is nonsense.

In that respect, the English language is very deceptive, and it’s lamentable. When I say “I raised my arm,” it sounds as if I am claiming possession of an arm, which the “I,” a distinct entity, has raised. But this does not correlate to our understanding of biology or neurology. What it is that raised the arm is a complex and lengthy series of conscious and non-conscious actions which cannot be subsumed by “my will.” In fact, “my will” is only the tip of the iceberg.

This leads me to the further and even more critical problem, in that the vast, vast majority of the actions of the body, and the brain in particular, are not the result of “my will.” I do not decide when my heart beats, how fast to digest food, what hormones to release at what time, how to fend off a virus, which memories get conserved and which do not, how to translate stimuli into visual forms, and so on and so forth. Even if we accept his concepts, according to Hoppe’s own criterion, “my will” is only a minority shareholder of “the body.” “My announcements” on a vast majority of what the body does would fail to come true. Any intelligent alien observer who does not understand human biology may very well conclude that those correct announcements I made about my arms and so on were in fact pure luck (or he may also conclude that humans are stupid, or misusing language).

“Self-ownership” is nonsense, but let us be clear on the goal of such a concept. Self-ownership is a capitalist attempt to justify individual freedom in a world where property reigns. As such, it is a laudable but unnecessary mental contortion, as there is no merit to the concept of property. Nowhere can it be seen as more of a contortion than in this very article, where Kinsella deftly dances around the issue of whether parents own their children or not. To any Anarchist, the issue is very simple and straightforward: no human being can own another. But Kinsella has to keep doing the two-step until he finds the end of the song:

So, who owns a child’s body? Initially, the parents own it as a sort of temporary trustee. The parents, as the producers of the child, have an objective link to the child’s body that defeats any claims of outsiders (unless the parents sever this link by abusing their position). That is, parents have a better claim to the child than any outsiders, because of their natural link to the child. However, when the child “homesteads” or “appropriates” his own body by establishing the requisite objective link sufficient to establish self-ownership, the child becomes an adult, so to speak, and now has a better claim to his body than his parents.

Hang on there, capitalist! I thought property rights could only be taken away voluntarily or after you die. This is a fundamental principle of capitalism, which mutualists are constantly accused of breaking in the name of ideological convenience. Now you renege this fundamental principle, which you say is the only security man has in this world, because you can’t figure out any other way out of this problem, for ideological convenience? So you can promote the repulsive and unjust doctrine of parental privilege? What utter nonsense from Kinsella, the king of the Misesian dunces.

One may also reply that this implies that one can homestead anyone else’s land, and thus own it for oneself, something which capitalists would obviously oppose. This is a good analogy for the child’s body being owned and then homesteaded. But you have to remember that in their minds self-ownership is a special kind of ownership, superior to all the others, and bodies are a special kind of property which must therefore be treated differently (i.e. in any way that fits the desired outcome). They can’t justify this special treatment and merely assert it, even though it flies in the face of the concept of property itself.

Everything they say about self-ownership is ad hoc rationalizations and sophistry. Either a human being can be owned, or he cannot. There is no middle ground in this issue, no special pleading will be admitted. And if a human being can be owned, either by himself or by others, the logical contradictions rip any resulting system of thought to shreds. Let us therefore discard such an outmoded concept.