“From each according to their gullibility, to each, according to his greed.”
Ok, for a start that's a stupid thing to say. Being greedy under anarcho-capitalism won't get you anything. Even being greedy and being born with a large chunk of capital won't get you anything. You have to actually produce something people will voluntarily trade for. Now I know to a leftist this seems like a distinction without a difference, but it's not. Actually providing people with stuff rather than just taking the money is a BIG difference between AC and State Capitalism.
“Anarcho” capitalists are, in fact, simply capitalists who object to the State cutting into their own profits by way of regulations and taxation. That is their sole gripe with the State. They see the bureaucrat as the nefarious boogeyman in their lives, motivated solely to enmesh the world in red tape — simply out of maliciousness alone."
Actually anarcho-capitalists object to the state for many other reasons, including that it cuts into their WAGES, into their time, into their integrity and many other things. The claim that they object only to the state's effect on profits is insane. Even minarchists like Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand repeatedly pointed out the ways the state harmed wage earners and the poor. Nor is it true that ANY anarchist (or minarchist for that matter) that I know of claim that the State was motivated out of maliciousness alone, or even primarily. The State actively helps the powerful get an unearned income, that openly said by every anarcho-capitalist I know of. Many feel that this is the primary motivation of those who control the state. I do not, I think it's justification of their previous acts, but I'm not a significant force in AC.
“Anarcho” capitalists do not object to private property, to class distinctions, social stratification, concentrated wealth, and other bourgeois trappings in society."
Yes we don't object to private property that's true, so what? How does that make us not anarchists? It simply means that we have something we don't think the state should be able to take away from us. So should you if you were a GENUINE anarchist, which I don't think you are.
Class distinctions, what are those? Do you mean that we don't oppose people not associating with people they don't think are in their "class" or only associating with such people under very different terms than those that apply within the "class"? Well what's a "class"? If it is simply a group of people who choose to associate within the group differently than without then every anarchist allows class differences. To do otherwise would require a state. To say that we don't object to such groups is untrue, as usual the leftist doesn't understand the difference between not objecting and not wanting to use violence to stop it.
But perhaps she means distinctions between people with "different relationships to the means of production" or some such quasi-Marxist stuff. Well of course we don't object to those. There are people who, due to their history, circumstances, abilities, interests, activities and other things have a different relationship to the means of production than others. For instance there are those who have not saved resources and traded them for the means of production required for their particular profession. Should there be no distincition between these people and those that have? Should there be no distinction between someone who worked and saved to buy a car and now wants to hire out as a taxi driver, and someone who just turns up wanting the job? Should there be no distinction between the man who cleared the land and the man who just wants to farm it without putting in any effort to make that possible? Of course not, and any system that pretended not to notice those distinctions would perish.
Leftist anarchists are fond of saying that people should keep the results of their labor, but some of those results are the means of production*, so should they not keep the means of production? And can they not trade said means of production for the products of others labor? If they can't tell me how you're going to forbid that without a State. And given the fact that not everyone creates the same amount or would have the same amount left over from consumption even if they did, that means some people have more capital than others. Yes in some cases that means some people have a lot of capital and others have none, but how is that not anarchist? Anarchists can't dictate people's circumstances. We can no more tell people they have to act such that all have the same amount of capital** than we can tell them to act such that they all have the same amount of lung cancer, skiing experience, appreciation for the complexities of pre-industrial management of the commons or anything else.
Then we come to "concentrated wealth", well not literally obviously. Yes, we've got no objection if the free market concentrates wealth. We might not like it but there's not a lot we can do about it without using force, which is exactly what REAL anarchists refuse to do. But time and time again libertarians, both anarchist and minarchist, have pointed out that the State INCREASES the concentration of wealth. Even Noam Chomsky, who says as many bad thing about anarcho-capitalists as anyone, agrees that the State diverts money to big corporations. If there is anyone who describes themselves as an anarchist who hasn't pointed out that the State diverts wealth from the poor to the rich, I don't know them. Hell even Ayn Rand (not an anarchist) who described big business as "the most persecuted minority in America" openly pointed out the way the State ripped off the poor for the benefit of the connected rich. Now some might say that without the State the rich would take even more wealth from the poor. Great, now tell me one thing: how? How are they going to get 30% bank returns for years on end without the state rigging the money supply? How are taxi companies going to make fortunes while paying peanuts without medallions to limit the supply of young men eager to slap a meter on their car and drive all night in competition with them? How is the military industrial complex going to sell the F-35 without someone forcing someone else to pay for it?
" Their idea of a utopia is a world of unaccountable, unfettered corporate power where literally everything is up for sale and is negotiable."
Firstly there would not even necessarily be any corporations in anarcho-capitalism as you'd know if you did any actual research. Corporations are a product of the State. It is hard to see how they would even exist without it. You would know that if you did any research.
We have that world now. At the moment literally anything is up for sale and negotiable. You want someone's son to go blow up arabs so you can steal their oil? Just don't be stingy at the Party fundraisers. You want to murder someone and not have it investigated? Barack baby does it every day? Torture, theft, murder, phone-tapping, detention without trial, all these are up for sale and negotiable. So if that's what Anarcho-capitalists want why aren't they just shutting up and basking in the glow of sucess? Because that's not what we want. We want EVERYONE to be accountable including people who act in the name of corporations. If someone is talking about anarcho-capitalists and pretending that we propose no mechanisms to make people accountable he's lying. Either he's lying about what he knows or lying about fact that he knows nothing. Now you might want to argue that the private courts and protections agencies proposed in AC would not be effective in keeping corporations accountable, however to jump from your disbelief to us disbelieving and to use that as evidence against us is just being a bad human being.
Far from being the vindication of humanist values, the “anarcho” capitalist ethic is the denial of them before arbitrary, inhumane market forces.
Market forces are simply the aggregated desires of human beings, as such they are human values. Whether they are "humanists" or not depends on how you define them. But I fail to see how you can define "humanist" to consistent with ignoring the values and preferences of real human beings, which is all market values are. People want bread, toy trucks, the ability to travel long distances in a short space of time, not to have to work on their kid's birthday etc. etc. etc. These are values that are expressed throught the market, because if you want these things that has an effect on what you can get in trade from others and what they can get from you. That's all "market forces" are, the expression of these desires.
The “ideal” social interaction, in “anarcho” capitalist terms, is that of prostitution.
Oh god, there is so much stupid packed into that sentence it's, well it's bad. Firstly there is no "ideal social interaction" in anarcho-capitalist theory and if there was then anarcho-capitalist theory wouldn't necessarily be aimed at achieving it. Even if there was there is no way to tell if it would involve either sex or money since anarcho-capitalism has things to say about things unrelated to both. There is NO prejudice in anarcho-capitalism in favor of interactions that involve trade of value-for-value, other than a prejudice against forced interactions that necessarily aren't value-for-value. For any particular anarcho-capitalist, at any particular time the "ideal social interaction" might involve a cash sale, a barter trade, providing something in return for social prestige or other purely social advantage or something that doesn't involve any actual benefit to him/herself other than discharging what he/she feels is a moral obligation.
At this point I'd like to make about about arrogance, stupidity and unacceptable behaviour. If you're going to comment on a doctrine it is unacceptable to simply make things up without doing the research. This is because when you write 16 ignorant words people like me have to write 146 intelligent words to correct your mistakes and you simply don't have the moral right to take that time away from me and be considered a decent human being. Clean up your act, that's all I'm saying.
Prostitution, e.g., selling your services for an anticipated monetary gain, is the highest definition of “anarcho” capitalist “empowerment”, amazingly. The ability to sell yourself to whomever you want is the “anarcho” capitalist idea of “freedom”.
And yet strangely anarcho-capitalists repeatedly point out that the State prevents you from doing anything else. Anarcho-capitalists have never said that selling your services is "the" anarcho-capitalists idea. The anarcho-capitalist idea is that you should be able to sell all that you legitimately own, this INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO selling your labor. That might involve selling your services, but then so does almost every leftist conception of anarchism. Plumbers would still plumb, surgeons would still cut, anesthesiologists will still give unwanted advice to those surgeons during surgery and they would all expect to be paid for this***. There are these things called "customers". If you want something someone else has you tend to have to do what they want, at least to some extent.
"Nothing would be free from market forces. Not families, not children, not the environment, and, of course, not you!"
What does it mean to be "free from market forces"? I know what people want you to think it means when they say it. They want you to think that being not being "free from market forces" means not being degraded to the extent that the thing can be picked up by whatever sleazy, child-enslaving, nature-raping, perversion-spreading, unethical, selfish doucebag pays the most. But that's not what it actually means. What "free from market forces" really means is "I don't have to justify my use of your efforts, I can do anything I want, take anything I want, regardless of how much extra effort you have to put in to make it right and not give you a damn thing.". Because the moment you say "I'll only take from you what you willingly give me, in trade or otherwise.", you're not free from market forces.
"Literally everything would have a price tag!"
As I've already pointed out, we have that now. If you want discharge mercury into the sea at rates that will kill dozens, or maybe even thousands just pay up. If they catch you you have the choice of paying an inadequate fine which will not even be given to your victims, or bribing helping with their campaign some government leech. In anarcho-capitalism you might have to actually shell out the VALUE TO THE VICTIMS of the damage you do, and to the victims at that.
But the assumption that this would happen is interesting. Would there be a price tag on the love of your life? Why would you put one there? Would YOU sell your children? No? Then clearly there would not be "a price tag on everything". There is only a price tag on whatever you want to sell that belongs to you. Your children do not by the way.
" Clean air, clean water, housing, human organs — each not an end unto themselves, but a marketable commodity: a product!"
Again, already happens. China, one of the LEAST anarcho-capitalist states is doing a thriving trade in livers and such. Since the livers are of former dissidents who often were teatotallers they're in excellent condition. Clean air and water are purchased daily via pollution permits.
" In such a dystopia, anything which could not be readily translated into product would be cast out as pointless and without value (measured only in economic terms, of course)."
By who? Who would throw these things out? Do you really hate people so much that you imagine they only keep things with commercial value? Then why are they keeping their kids. It reminds me of the old joke about Sydney some years ago being a great place to raise children. You could get a good price for a child back then. That joke works because the expectation is that people DON'T raise children to sell, but they raise them. So why would they suddenly stop doing things for non-commercial gain just because there is no State? Do you imagine the State makes them more concerned about their children? More compassionate towards those they find in their care? Two words for you: "Foreign wars".
Why would people start valuing things "measured only in economic terms"? Do you do that now? Do you only keep things in your house that you could sell later at a profit? Or do you value things for what you gain by owning them, including but not limited to warmth, rememberance of times past, convenience, protection and well the list is pretty much endless.
And this is how one detects fundamental dishonesty. It's not that the author of this piece is wrong, or even that's she's wrong about things she could easily have found out about. She's wrong about things she COULD NOT HELP FIND OUT ABOUT. You cannot help but notice that there are things you would not sell, that have no price tag, that you would keep even if they were without "economic" value. Not that the author understands what economic value is.
"Thus, visual art would become, instead, graphic design; writing would be merely ad copy; poetry reduced to syrupy greeting card maxims; and so on — The humanities as we know them would wither away.
Writing would become mere ad copy if it were up to the market. Hmmm.... interesting. So then "Atlas Shrugged" is ad copy? Because it sold 500,000 copies in 2009. Whatever else you might say about it, and no doubt Daibhidh hates it, it isn't "ad copy". It isn't a simplistic, easily readable piece of pap like you think will be all that's available under a free market. But perhaps you're totally ignorant of Rand and her commercial sucess, I mean she's only one of the most influential writers in American history, it's not surprising. What about Dickens then? He's acknowledged as a great writer and he wasn't reduced to explaining the virtues of opiate baby tonics. Nor was Herman Melville, he made a decent living. None of these got a dime from universities that I know of. Certainly Mark Twain didn't. Alain de Botton there's another one.
"This is occurring already in higher education, as humanities departments get less and less academic funding."
Well television gets no academic funding, is it being reduced to syrupy greeting card maxims? No, in fact according to "EverythingBad Is Good for You: How. Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making. Us Smarter. " by Steven Johnson todays television is far more sophisticated and intelligent than yesteryears. Compare "Hill Street Blues" in it's time considered a complex, sophisticated program, with say "The Sopranos". HSB had continuing story arcs, fairly complex characters and subplots. But nowhere near the number or complexity of them that "The Sopranos" did. You could watch a single episode of HSB in a season and still understand almost everything that went on. In the Sopranos if you did that you'd be filled with questions about why everyone did what they did, because you missed a lot of complex backstory. Contrast this with "Dragnet", "I love Lucy" and "Columbo" where you can watch one episode and not even KNOW whether it comes before any other episode you've seen, not that it matters. The lack of academic funding is not turning everything into the sort of crap you seem to think the market wants in any area. Publishing, television, movies, games, in all of these you can find good "artistic" work if you want it. To pretend that without "academic funding" this would wither is simply classist arrogance, and not particularly anarchist.
If humanities were “worth” anything, economically, universities would invest in them more heavily. Why this attitude?
Where this attitude? Tell me one anarcho-capitalist that even assumes the universities would continue to exist let alone "invest in [humanities] more heavily" or even at all, in humanities under AC. Universities, as currently structured, are statists institutions, and I can't think of a single anarcho-capitalist who doesn't think their influence on the humanities hasn't be a corrupt, thought-destroying, discriminatory and yet undiscriminating, politically-correct, anti-imaginiative boondoggle that has massively helped justify and hide the crimes of the State. This complete ignorance of the anarcho-capitalist position combined with complete confidence in what it is betokens a complete disinterest in the truth. Not deliberate (if possibly unconscious) deception like I detected before, but an apathy towards the facts of the matter that is complete.
Now it's possible that something like universities could survive without sucking on the tit of absolute evil. And it's possible that such an institution would decline to fund humanities. So what? Universities aren't the only institution that would fund things, even if you assume an institution is necessary at all. Either people find value in things like Goethe criticism or poetry or whatever or they don't. If they do they will do what people have always done when they find value in something, find a way to pay for it.
"It is because, to the “anarcho” capitalist, what is “good” is purely what is profitable. Conversely, that which is not profitable is termed “bad” (or at best, “worthless”)."
To which anarcho-capitalist? Who amoung them has said this or anything that might be construed as this? Nobody. Not one anarcho-capitalist has said that John Maynard Keynes The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is a good book even though it undoubtably made a profit. The anarcho-capitalist doesn't decide for others what is good. That's the point. This is a problem with leftist "anarchists" and other "leftists" they hear the words "the market" and think the person talking only cares about money and monetary stuff. They don't bother to actually listen to what is said because if they did that they might not be able to pretend to moral superiority.
In fact what is good to the anarcho-capitalist is WHAT THE INDIVIDUAL CHOOSES. That might be that which makes him the most profit, but it will not always be. The whole point of making a profit is that you can then do things that don't make a profit without starving. If there were no non-commercial values then commercial values would be impossible and absurd. It's amazing the extent to which leftists think that without the government interfering in the market we'd all turn into Ebenezer Scrooge or the Ferengi from "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
You can see how this attitude has poisoned our existing culture to the extent that it has.
Yeah it's a really anarcho-capitalist culture out there, only 40% of the economy is spent by the government.
How do you defend an open park along such harsh, utilitarian lines when to the “anarcho” capitalist an open park is a parking lot waiting to happen?"
How do you defend a working class neighbourhood when to a Progressive a working class neighbourhood is just a development waiting to happen? If you want a park you can buy the land, either individually or as a group and make it a park. Whether you want to charge admission to cover the cost of purchase and upkeep, just to cover upkeep or not at all and rely on donations, up to you. If the land is unused you might not even have to do that, just improve it enough to make it yours (e.g. put in swings, paths, stuff to make it more like a park). If the park is more useful as a park than as a parking lot "utilitarian" lines aren't harsh at all. It's only "harsh" if you want to ignore the preferences of others and get someting for free to their detriment. So what is the difference between the AC system and what we have now in this context? Two words: eminent domain, a.k.a. Hand over the land and nobody gets hurt. This makes it HARDER to keep land that is genuinely valued by the community. I'm not aware of what Daibhidh prefered system is but under what system would there not be a challenge choose between parking lot and park? And how would his system decide better?
If what is profitable is good, then a book that sells a million copies MUST be good, right? Or a coat that costs $2,000 has to be high quality, by their own definition.
Well as previously described what is profitable is not necessarily good to an anarcho-capitalist. A book that sells a million copies is good - to those million buyers. A coat that costs $2000 has to be better than $2000 worth of other stuff - to the purchaser. That doesn't mean that it's good to a single supporter of anarcho-capitalism. Others have tried this with libertarianism in general, saying "Well your philosophy isn't very popular, therefore it must be wrong because you believe popular things are right". It's simply a strawman by people who haven't bothered to do any research or thinking at all. I mean if you're criticising capitalism and you don't even know about subjective value, then you're not even in the 20th century yet. Your ideas are outdated by over a century. What I'm trying to say is, READ A FUCKING BOOK. Or a blog or something that might give you a damn clue.
Moreover, what sells the most tends to be that which appeals to the largest number of people
Only if there aren't close substitutes that appeal just as much and are easy to produce. Sure Mills and Boon sell a lot of books, but each book doesn't sell that much because anyone with a modicum of skill can come along and produce pap like that and undersell you. If you want to sell something for a decent price you need to produce something that can't be produced easily by your competitors.
this means that things which challenge or threaten people the least will typically do the best, economically.
Again, ATLAS SHRUGGED. Charles Darwin's "On the origin of species". Most of Mark Twain's work. The claim that what does best "typically" challenges or threatens people least is at best disputable, at worst meaningless. In any case what is the alternative? Someone has to decide what works have economic resources dedicated to their production. Other than possible popularity what other measure would you have to decide that? Well you could have people dedicate their own resources to producing something they think others should have. Would that be better than the anarcho-capitalist way? Hah! Tricked you! There is no anarcho-capitalist way, if you want to self-publish, without concern for profit, nobody's stopping you. On the other hand WITHOUT private ownership of property someone will. You see without private property any resources you use to publish belong to "the community" and they might not like to see it wasted on pushing your views. How this differs from government control of printing under a state I leave for the "real" anarchists to describe.
Putting Profits Above People
Profits earned by who, lizardmen? Profits are profits OF PEOPLE, it is meaningless to talk of profits being above people.
Because “anarcho” capitalists use the market as their sole gauge of good and bad, they are, in effect, unable to make effective moral judgments!
Again we don't use the market as the sole gauge of good and bad. And we make moral judgements all the time. I'm making one about you right now - it aint good.
General Motors must be the most virtuous of corporations!
Note that The Anarchist Library uploaded this in 2010, 2 years after GM got a huge government bailout.
“Anarcho” capitalist “freedom” is the freedom to have anything which you can afford!
Well no it's the freedom to have AND DO anything which you can afford and which does not violate the rights of others. You see you're not owed the effort of others unless they voluntarily give it to you. You can't just say "I want a flight on a rocket to the moon because I want to feel what it's like to walk on another celestial body, do that for me and don't expect anything in return.". Any system that tried to ignore the use of resources, that tried to ignore the fact of limited resources would be a disaster.
Thus, those with the most money in an “anarcho” capitalist society have the MOST freedom — which means that those with the LEAST money have the LEAST freedom.
No those with the most money have most ability to convince people to do things for money. That's not the only way to convince people to do things, nor is convince people to do things the only way to achieve goals, i.e. is not the only freedom. There was a joke by Larry David "Who do you think has the most freedom, the married men in America or the single men in Communist China?". It's a good joke because the amount of freedom doesn't depend solely on political or economic circumstances. And so it would be under anarcho-capitalism. If you have money you can get a place to stay San Francisco, but if you have a friend in San Francisco you can do that too. If you have money you can get a house, if you have a lot less money and know how to build a house, you can get one too. You see that's the problem with people who don't listen, they assume you mean things, even if you say the exact opposite.
To anarchists, freedom has to be available for ALL, not just those with the cash to afford it! Otherwise, it is meaningless. True anarchists would never put a price tag on freedom!
I see, so then I'm free to fly to the moon am I? Because I really want to do that and if you put a price tag on it, or any conditions at all I'm not "free". Except that flying to the moon can't be avaialable to all at the current level of development. So what I'm free to do is only what everyone else can do without bankrupting the economy. So how is that measured? How do I know when I've taken too much out of the common stock of resources? Since there is no "price tag" on any of these freedom it's impossible to tell. Did I travel twice as much as the average fellow citizen? Does that mean I've taken a freedom not "available to all"? Or does the fact that I live in a smaller house and wear older clothes counterbalance that? How about medical expenses? Do those who consume more of them exercise a freedom not available to all if they also consumer as much in other resources?
It is this difference that reveals the manifestly bourgeois, reactionary quality of “anarcho” capitalism,
There is nothing bourgeois about the insistence that one pay one's own way (excepting in difficult circumstances beyond your control). In fact if anything it's a working class attitude. As for being "reactionary" that's not an argument. That something is a reaction, that is seeks to prevent or reverse a change doesn't make it bad. That depends on the change.
But anarchists look at that statement and ask:
What of the boss in the workplace?
What of the wealthy owner of property?
What of the capitalist industrialist?
What of the church elder?
What of the judge?
What of the patriarch of a family?
Don’t these people have very real authority over others’ lives? Haven’t each of these, in their way, brought shame, misery, and degradation to those under their control?
You can walk away from the boss in the workplace. You don't need to ban bosses to be free of them. Just decide that what they offer isn't worth what you have to give up to get it. If what they offer is good enough to give up what you need to to get it then why ban them?
The wealthy owner of property isn't bringing you shame,misery or degradation. That he has something has no implications for you. You need not deal with him. If you choose to deal with him how can you claim he is making your life worse? If you do not how could he possibly be making your life worse?
The capitalist industrialist again, isn't bringing you any shame, degradation or misery. You don't have to sell your labor to him or buy his products. If the choice not to deal with him isn't enough, what do you want?
What of the church elder? What of him? Either you believe his fairy tales or you don't. Either way he has no power under anarcho-capitalism but what you give him. Unless you're proposing that you ban ideas you think are bad that's how it would be under your system.
What of the judge, well finally we get to a relevant question. The judge under anarcho-capitalism would have to satisfy the public that his court is fair, price-competitive, and customer focused. That means that unlike every other judge in history there would be a price to bringing shame, misery and degradation to those who came before you. Would you go to fast-food joint that habitually humiliated it's customers? Or a furniture store that degraded those who came through the door? Probably not, because none of these are monopolies, and in REAL (i.e. capitalist) anarchy neither would the courts be.
What of the patriarch of the family? What the hell does that have to do with AC?
So, if your boss eavesdropped on your calls, the “anarcho” capitalist would say, “hey, you can always get a new job” rather than taking the anarchist stance of “how dare X boss eavesdrop on their employees?! We must work to end workplace tyranny!”
Actually what he'd say is "Did you agree to allow your boss to eavesdrop on your calls while at work? No? Then let's sue the bastard.". So then the question is "Why would anyone agree to let the boss eavesdrop on their calls" well for the same reason they'd let fellow members of their coop do it in anti-capitalist anarchism, because some workers do real damage to their workplace. While this might be less common in cooperatives, you cannot guarantee it will never happen. Some workplaces, cooperative or not, might decide that the inconvenience of having their phones bugged occasionally is less than the cost lost by dishonest, lazt or incompetent employees. If you don't agree then yes, find another job. Describing ending consensual eavesdropping as an "anarchist stance" is inaccurate. All anarchism says is that there are no rulers, not that nobody can consent to eavesdropping.
In fact, to the “anarcho” capitalist, being able to work for whomever you want (including working for clients [e.g., “self”-employment) is what they consider “freedom”. This amounts to choosing who gets to be your boss! Some choice, huh?
Well yes, it is some choice. It's what generations of workers have wanted since the feudal system was imposed. It's the most significant advance in human economic freedom ever. The fact that you recognise that self-employment is possible and still talk about bosses as though everyone had to have one is insane. Yes you've got a boss, it's you. Do you know how easy that makes it to chuck a sickie when the crickets on? Yes if you're self-employed you'd still have to satisfy clients, but you'd have to do that under any economic system. The alternative is that you do whatever the hell you want, whether anyone else thinks the results are worthwhile or not and then they give you stuff you think is worthwhile. That people can't get why this wouldn't work is a continuing mystery to me.
Anarchists, in contrast, don’t think there should BE any bosses. Everyone pulls their fair share of the collective social burden of day-to-day living.
So let me get this straight there are no bosses, and that specifically includes customers. So nobody has to do what someone else wants to get anything. So who decides what is "pulling their fair share of the collective burden of day-to-day living"?
"the distinction between this and typical capitalist drudgery is that, in anarchy, you’d be working for your own needs, rather than for the profit of another!"
But in capitalism you're always working for your own "needs", if wants are included in needs. If they're not then his version of anarchism is desperately poor, since people work for needs and don't get anything they only "want". I don't believe that is what he meant, he meant that you are working for your own wants. But notice, he specifically rejected working for clients rather than bosses, so who decides what work is done for what "needs"?
As such, you wouldn’t have to put in 40+ hour weeks lining the pockets of whoever owns the company you work for (or servicing your clients’ needs).
You don't have to do that now. I myself don't usually work that much, and I survive. Most people don't work 40 hours, or even 30 to survive, they do it to get things they want, so they don't "have to do it". In any case you'd be servicing someone's needs, what difference does it make that these people wouldn't be clients? And if they're not clients and you're working for their needs what the hell are they? Unless he means that people would literally be working to supply their own needs, i.e. no more specialisation of labor? This guy is actually stupid enough to have that as a positive.
The only “freedom” that exists in the capitalist laissez-fairyland “anarcho” capitalists defend is the freedom to work for another’s gain or starve!
Which is exactly what they'd be doing in your moronic commonwealth, or are we going to pretend that people who didn't pull their fair share of the collective social burden of day-to-day living. Would eat? Or is that not a problem since you'll be shooting them?
In any case do you have to work for another or starve in AC? Nope, not unless you need someone else's product to not starve and nobody wants to give it to you for free. If you do need something someone else produces you're going to have to convince them you're worth giving it. Otherwise guess what? He's working for YOUR profit, and not getting anything back.
But in capitalist society, some people (owners), don’t HAVE to work! They live off of the surplus (that is, profit) earned by others — their employees!
The profit is not earned by their employees. Learn some damn economics or have some common sense. If employees earned the profits why wouldn't they go into business for themselves?
In other words, the “choice” of working for another or starving isn’t a choice, in capitalist society, because the worker can’tgo off and live on their own; somebody owns the very ground they walk on.
Actually there's plenty of places which aren't owned by anyone except the state. In anarcho-capitalism there is no reason to believe that every square centimeter would be owned, no reason to expect that none of it would be owned by charities etc. etc.
the absolute necessity of the State in their affairs. All rhetoric aside, laissez-faire capitalists NEED the State to uphold contracts and defend property “rights”. Otherwise, there is nothing to prevent squatters from coming along and usurping someone’s holdings.
This is bullshit and he knows it.
So, these selfsame “anarchs” will rely on law enforcement personnel and paramilitary goons to protect their property.
Note that he assumes that anarcho-capitalists will have property under anarcho-capitalism, but assumes the workers won't.
Now, they note that these latter-day Pinkertons would not be instruments of Statist oppression, but rather, are employees of private “defense firms”. But I guarantee that the truncheons they use on you will feel the same, regardless of who their boss is. In fact, there are fewer safeguards with paramilitaries, because, unlike municipal police forces, these are paid employees of the capitalists in question!
Actually there would be more safeguards because they don't have the monopoly of force, their boss can't decide what constitutes reasonable use of force etc. Nothing would stop others from hiring their own private security firms, and nothing would shield them from the courts.
Thus, if their boss wants them to shoot strikers, they’ll do it, or risk losing their employment!
Losing your employment is a hell of a lot cheaper than a wrongful death suit, which unlike under a state (and I suspect unlike your system) they'd actually lose if they were in the wrong.
And you know what? This is exactly what happened during the golden age of laissez-faire capitalism, when the Pinkerton Detective Agency serviced industrialists across the United States.
What actually happened was that the strikers tried to beat up murder alternative workers (scabs in their delightful parlance). This bizarre myth that industrialists just started murdering strikers is insane. How is murdering your workers supposed to get them to go back to work?
Further, the “anarcho” capitalists will still require a court system, and thus laws, to uphold property rights and contracts!
And your system would require a court system and laws just as much.
These private judicial firms would offer the “best” justice to the clients who paid them the best!
Oh for fuck's sake. No they wouldn't because they require that BOTH parties agree to use them. Why the hell would those who pay less use a court that decided on that basis? Except possibly nostalgia for the current system.
They say, “nobody FORCES you to work for somebody else”, but if you don’t have your own capital reserve (like most of us), what choice do you have? You must work or starve!
Which you would have to do in your system too. In our system however you can work to get a capital reserve, and given how little is needed to make a living with, not for very long.
The simplest exploration of the workplace reveals this reality: who has the final say in the workplace...the average worker, or the owner?
The one who has the final say is the one who is more prepared to end the relationship. When the state is out of the way the number of employers and the number of people willing to lend enough money to become self-employed explodes. The owner is one of many, many possible choices, they can no more force you to do something than your hotdog vendor can. But of course this guy doesn't understand that, because he is fundamentally a statist, he simply cannot imagine world without a state.
In fact, laissez-faire capitalism has much more in common with fascism, the old enemy of anarchism, than with democracy!
Such as what? Well they've both got employers, that's about it.
Look fundamentally this guy is dishonest about what anarcho-capitalism is, what it does and how it would differ from his system. Which makes me think he's dishonest about his system, i.e. that it is not anarchistic at all but fascistic/Stalinist. Note how he insists that everyone would work for "society" which historically has meant "the government" in the context of socialist systems. He doesn't want market provided courts, which leads to the question who would provide the courts? Because if they aren't market provided, if you can't choose what court you use, how is that not statism? And statism where you're made to "[pull] their fair share of the collective social burden of day-to-day living." is Stalinism. But that's OK, nobody is going to take this guy seriously who isn't already a Stalinist anyway.
* Well the capital part of it anyway. Land by definition requires no effort to create.
** The concept "the same amount of capital" is not actually definable in any reasonably consistent and accurate manner anyway.
*** Most of the time some freebies for the poor and unfortunate would happen as they do now.