Submitted by celebratedrecluse in anarcho_capitalism

Aren't these groups quite overlapping? If you aren't trying to create some commons to be shared and drawn sustenance from, which relies on working in concert (if not outright and extensive cooperation)...then you are basically asking people to draw sustenance from the depleted/destroyed natural environment, or from market economies which destroy the natural environment.

9

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

ruin wrote

Individualist is too broad for me so I’ll exclude it, but ancaps, mutualists and the like all share the distinction of owing their limited relevancy and scope of discourse to the internet and a small corner of academia. Outside of online spaces, the only anarchists one is likely to engage with are ancoms, and I see ancom as the default ideology associated with anarchism by the general public, at least where I live.

Not saying there aren’t other varieties of “out” anarchists in meat space, but all the agonizing over adjectives seems to happen much less than online. Personally, most people I know (non-anarchists) all identify me as an anarchist, and that’s enough for them and fine with me.

6

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

I know several ancaps. I will cap it there, to avoid implicating me in anything...ancapy, and likely to be targeted by some state.

They exist. They also have disproportionate power, from their position in academia, but even moreso from their position in the crypto world. This is why i make /f/CrypticTrades , to talk about these matter from an anarchist lens rather than the ancap one that dominate Dread and other platform.

2

OdiousOutlaw wrote

It's pretty hard to pin down:

Ancaps have their own definitions for words that everyone else uses differently: leftists & anarchists don't have the same definition of what Capitalism as them; ancaps seem to see it as synonymous with trade. They're also pro-industrialist in the sense that it's doubtful any of them actually have taken the time to look through the damaging effects of industrialization; they take the whole technological progress thing as a given. Ancaps are only opposed to the existence of the state and a few of them can be describe as "rugged" individualists.

Individualist anarchism is more of an umbrella term than its own thing; mutualism can be considered an individualist school of thought, but some consider it a social one. So there is overlap between mutualism and individualism; some ancoms consider themselves individualists and individualists aren't necessarily opposed to community, just wary of it having the potential to become an authority/power structure; unlike "rugged" individualists, they aren't obsessed with competition and are pretty open to cooperation. Individualist anarchists are, like social anarchists, opposed to the state, capitalism, and dominance.

4

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

I agree, it is hard to pin down. I feel individualist anarchism is simply the nihilistic form of ancap ideology. Whereas anarcho capitalists usually have money (or expect to), the individualists are broke and skeptical of anything working out, whether it's some "community" thing or some "market" thing, so they just want to do their own thing.

Ancoms like me are delusionally committed to the ability of groups to solve these problems of our existence, and I am aware of the problems of this after talking to so many on this website, although I think I am coming at the fundamental questions still quite different than many individualist. this, i think, is mostly due to my firmly social materialist analysis, which came from years of debating/attempting to understanding MLs and liberals from an ancom perspective.

3

OdiousOutlaw wrote

I feel individualist anarchism is simply the nihilistic form of ancap ideology.

Have you ever heard of Lysander Spooner? He was a natural rights-type of individualist anarchist; also an abolitionist and socialist. His writing might be of some interest to you if you want to see a perspective on individualism that isn't nihilistic and more compatible with your worldview.

Ancoms like me are delusionally committed to the ability of groups to solve these problems of our existence, and I am aware of the problems of this after talking to so many on this website, although I think I am coming at the fundamental questions still quite different than many individualist. this, i think, is mostly due to my firmly social materialist analysis, which came from years of debating/attempting to understanding MLs and liberals from an ancom perspective.

Your perspective is valid and valued.

3

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

Likewise. Love you.

Will look into this Lysander Spooner, I have heard the name but never read what they written

3

Ennui wrote

Left-wing market anarchism holds that if the an-caps were being serious then they’d destroy government-enforced private property, monopolies, etc. and then basically themselves except for in small communities where everyone agrees to private property. It’s idealistic as fuck for assuming that conservatives actually pursue those shared goals, though. They’re too busy hating.

Mutualism is sometimes a blanket term for anarchism and sometimes a synonym for left-wing market anarchism.

I don’t know what individualist anarchism is besides one of a myriad of ways of saying “I’m not a communist.”

IMO left-wing market anarchism is simultaneously the best economic synthesis and worst prescription for organizing I’ve ever seen.

4

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

left-wing market anarchism

how could markets exist, without courts to adjudicate them? without police to stop those who redistribute things they are not "entitled" to?

It’s idealistic as fuck

IE, unworkable

I don’t know what individualist anarchism is besides one of a myriad of ways of saying “I’m not a communist.”

Yeah I guess you're right

IMO left-wing market anarchism is simultaneously the best economic synthesis and worst prescription for organizing I’ve ever seen.

I think they go together, because social synthesis is the opposite of social contradiction.

2

Ennui wrote

To be clear, I don’t disagree that it’s unworkable. But in answer to the first question, any exchange of goods between individuals is a market, regardless of context. “Communism” is a sort of market. “Gift-giving” is a market relation. So is theft.

2

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

“Communism” is a sort of market.

I think we would have to get more specific. Some "communists" I have no affinity with whatsoever, I guess.

“Gift-giving” is a market relation.

Only if it's not really a gift. This is frequently the case with "gifts". In fact, it is almost always the case, in capitalist contexts, and feudal contexts, as well as the liminal spaces institial to these contexts.

So is theft.

How does one negotiate with a owner, when you're stealing? Contest of skill? Surveillance/counter-surveillance? This seems extrapolated to the point of absurdity. The effect, is to naturalize market logic as immanent even in places where it is being actively sabotaged. There is a limit to the usefulness of a schema so myopic.

2

Ennui wrote

I don’t really mind if it’s myopic, but I think it clear that theft is a market relation—what’s capitalism if it isn’t?

2

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

I don’t really mind if it’s myopic

Alright, well then, why bother talking to others at all?

I think it clear that theft is a market relation—what’s capitalism if it isn’t?

capitalism takes time and labor from people because it can be infinitely substituted and symbolically abstracted on an actual market. It extracts resources from the areas in and around it, which can be used similarly for market-based profit. However, it isn't theft, because theft is self-referentially defined in a power relationship to the state which produces the currency and markets which capitalism relies on. Identifying the normative process as theft, is inherently subversive and counter to the expected reality.

However, theft is more ambiguous and general, because it doesn't imply a positionality. Some people steal just to get by, some people steal for symbolic reasons, but only a few steal for resale on a market.

2

Ennui wrote

I don’t mind if it’s myopic because the content and interest of any given market is provided by that market. I don’t know if your goal is to critique the concept of markets, redefine it, whatever, but the fact that theft, gift-giving, communism and capitalism all imply the transfer of goods, willing or not, is good enough for me. That’s why it’s called left-wing market anarchism instead of just “market”. Particular and proposed markets affect the context and method of exchange.

My apologies if you thought that my board statement that capitalism is theft was a literal definition. What is your definition of markets?

2

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

the fact that theft, gift-giving, communism and capitalism all imply the transfer of goods, willing or not, is good enough for me.

This naturalizes market logic beyond usefulness, markets are when people exchange goods in ostensibly voluntary but conditionally contextualized transactions. Theft is never "ostensibly voluntary", it's always involuntary even on the surface level. Gift-giving is ostensibly voluntary, but also ostensibly not a transaction; gift economies can be analyzed critically with this in mind, but they aren't markets as they have entirely different social and economic characteristics which contextualize them differently. For example, indigenous gift-giving cultural events and norms, that isn't comparable to colonial markets which replaced them, they are perhaps similar in certain aspects but to reduce one to the other is reductive.

Similarly, reducing communism to "it's a market, and thus similar to capitalism" is also reductive even if there is a kernel of truth. Any economic system will entail the distribution of goods and services. So in this reduction, there is a loss of purpose to the terms, or even the discussion itself. And in so doing, the conversational possibilities narrow to that which is workable within the assumed framework. Since this framework is so close to the status quo, this constraint of imagination which is implemented discursively is of concern to those who wish to change things. I would make the same argument toward the statist communists and many more traditional anarchist communists, who do not envision futures which could ever really engage with material conditions produced by markets, but for entirely opposite reasons-- instead of markets, they cling to the state power (or, "dual power") that produced markets. Leads them to the same problem, imo.

What is your definition of markets?

Ibid; it's a transactional space of interaction (digital or physical, etc) with ostensibly "voluntary" interactions between parties with invariably complicated and unequal power relationships, which are in the process, further reproduced by the market. Historically, markets emerged from military activity of imperial states and kingdoms, during the feudal mode of production. In the course of their rise, they eventually supplanted fedualism to create the bourgeois republics which are normalized today.

In this normalization, is the reason for my argument. Capitalism, as a now-hegemonic ideology and social formation, likes to naturalize itself with what I see as sloppy science and manipulative rhetoric to frame it all. It does this by focusing on terms like "market", "consumer", etc and framing the capitalist meanings as immutable, as if they were not socially produced in particular historical contexts. The entire science of economics is frequently taught this way, and I think it is unhelpful. This is also a major argument, generally summarized, which I have with the left-wing market anarchists, whose views I find too often to be a stone's toss from the views and actions of anarchist capitalists who I have interacted with. The naturalization of socially produced culture is an absolute plague in these spaces, which is a shame but also exactly what I would expect to conclude. This makes these spaces profoundly unwelcoming to people like me, for intersectional reasons.

2

Ennui wrote

Though it's more of a side criticism, your insistence that market relations be voluntary (though only in appearance) is reminiscent of the pro-capitalism argument that the free market is good because it is voluntary to participate. I don't think it's a good strategy to start a critique of capitalism by admitting that it consists of voluntary relations, when so much of the general critique is about showing how capitalist relations are involuntary (e.g. how I don't really have a choice about working for my shitty employer).

For example, indigenous gift-giving cultural events and norms, that isn't comparable to colonial markets which replaced them, they are perhaps similar in certain aspects but to reduce one to the other is reductive.

I'm not reducing anything to anything by saying both of these are markets. The only similarity explicit in my definition of markets is that they both result in the exchange of goods. Placing non-traditional (i.e. non-European) contexts of exchange alongside the sacred bullshit of free-market right-libertarians is a clear break from capitalist-normalized economics, and I think it's a good thing insofar as it causes people indoctrinated into capitalist economics to look at other forms of exchange.

If you argue that such a broad definition of markets results in a loss of purpose, then I argue any definition that excludes involuntary and non-transactional forms of exchange is a loss of functionality. An analysis of capitalist markets that ignores the role of theft, for instance, would be substantially limited. Corporate theft provides insight into corporate leaders' motivations. There are entire industries devoted to the elimination of theft; theft directly influences the distribution of resources in the market. There are markets built on reintegrating stolen goods into voluntary relations. The supposedly voluntary markets of capitalism are built on centuries of explicit state-mandated theft. So, what, we should just ignore it when talking about exchange? Are you going to coin a new, equally boring term for an economics that focuses on non-bourgeoisie markets? Let us keep the term market and call capitalist-normalized economics by a new term: bullshit.

It does this by focusing on terms like "market", "consumer", etc and framing the capitalist meanings as immutable, as if they were not socially produced in particular historical contexts. The entire science of economics is frequently taught this way, and I think it is unhelpful. This is also a major argument, generally summarized, which I have with the left-wing market anarchists, whose views I find too often to be a stone's toss from the views and actions of anarchist capitalists who I have interacted with. The naturalization of socially produced culture is an absolute plague in these spaces, which is a shame but also exactly what I would expect to conclude. This makes these spaces profoundly unwelcoming to people like me, for intersectional reasons.

I don't disagree with anything said here. Facts.

2

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

your insistence that market relations be voluntary (though only in appearance) is reminiscent of the pro-capitalism argument that the free market is good because it is voluntary to participate

You misunderstand, my definition is that markets consist of formally consented-to (even if the consent is coerced) transactions. The critique of capitalism, is that it isn't voluntary due to the coerced consent. However, the system requires participation, and is characterized by it, even if everyone involved is resentful for various reasons. They still do it. They have to consent, so they do.

If that consent is removed, that is when you start seeing police violence, in capitalist societies. If people stop working, or buying things, if they even elect the wrong leader, soon the military is kicking in doors. and moreover, people will be suffering due to the scarcity/lack which is implemented once they stop consenting. But it is ludicrous to not see the essential character of capitalism as desiring of this formal participation/consent, and coercing the performance this repeatedly in daily life. It is essential to its reproduction and expansion.

So, what, we should just ignore it when talking about exchange? Are you going to coin a new, equally boring term for an economics that focuses on non-bourgeoisie markets? Let us keep the term market and call capitalist-normalized economics by a new term: bullshit.

No, no need to stop talking about in the context of economics. What I'm saying is, theft is not a market, unless the stolen goods are sold. It's not a market relationship, to steal from the grocery store, or your friend, or your employees' paychecks. It's the opposite of that, if anything it's a disruption of a market, by explicitly subverting the rules which preserve that market. The contradiction of theft being part of the economic hegemony, is one of the central contradictions of capitalism, but it's not because theft is a market based relationship. It's one more associated with statecraft, and which is in dynamic, productive contradiction with markets under capitalism today.

I'm not reducing anything to anything by saying both of these are markets. The only similarity explicit in my definition of markets is that they both result in the exchange of goods.

Then the definition of market is too vague, yes. It's more like a definition of "distribution", I guess.

Placing non-traditional (i.e. non-European) contexts of exchange alongside the sacred bullshit of free-market right-libertarians is a clear break from capitalist-normalized economics, and I think it's a good thing insofar as it causes people indoctrinated into capitalist economics to look at other forms of exchange.

I think it also causes people to extrapolate european-spread social norms and assumptions, onto things which had an entirely different historical context. It dissolves history, which is a trademark of neoliberalism for example.

2

Ennui wrote

So your redefinition is markets as spectacle (to use the term loosely, if it was ever used specifically). And you think the left-wing market-anarchist crowd would benefit from acknowledging this spectacle in a more critical way than they currently do. At least we can agree there.

2

celebratedrecluse OP wrote

That's part of it, but I am also saying that you can't just lump theft in with markets, they are different terms that are not hierarchically ordered the way you are asserting. The only way to force that cube into the spherical hole, is to reduce it in some way to something less useful except in the specific rhetorical context you are using here.

1

crapshoot wrote

Theft is an exchange of time for goods. There comes a point where it's not worth stealing something, and the owner gets to decide whether avoiding being stolen from is worth the effort of securing their property (since there's no state to do it for them).

1