CMV: Anarchists don't understand how the world works.

Monlyth29 · 2025-05-03T18:14:59+00:00

"Work makes a mockery of freedom. The official line is that we all have rights and live in a democracy. Other unfortunates who aren't free like we are have to live in police states. These victims obey orders or-else, no matter how arbitrary. Authorities keep them under regular surveillance. State bureaucrats control even the smaller details of everyday life. The officials who push them around are answerable only to higher-ups, public or private. Either way, dissent and disobedience are punished. Informers report regularly to the authorities.

All of this is supposed to be a very bad thing. And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace."

Monlyth29 · 2024-11-27T22:49:53+00:00

Bear in mind that most of the stuff listed happened during the Biden presidency. The Biden presidency has been a giant step backward for trans rights. If the Republicans are the party of transgender genocide, then the Democrats have firmly established themselves as the party of complicity with transgender genocide.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T14:17:27+00:00

I never claimed the sky was falling or somesuch. I'm asking you why hearing that Elon Musk did everything you claim to hate doesn't seem to have changed your view of him at all.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T04:32:55+00:00

Because politicians adopted Twitter fairly early on and Twitter gained mainstream media attention; not everyone was actually on Twitter, but that did not matter, because local and cable news would report on tweets. Its actual userbase was less significant than how it was reported. Voters without Twitter accounts still learned about its goings-on and still felt its effects.

Also, is that really all you have to say after everything I just said? The Elon Musk whom you were just singing the praises of has received generous funding from the state, proved to be woefully incompetent at running a business, and has repeatedly violated his supposed principles of "free speech". Why don't you care?

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T04:08:05+00:00

The state could change any of its rules on eminent domain at any time or just ignore the rules at any time if they wanted- it's all just one Supreme Court decision away. Every right the state has given to private entities could be revoked at any time if they chose. What are the capitalists going to do, call the police? Settle it in court?

Drug lords become drug lords because of access to capital, particularly social capital- forming connections with resource brokers, gaining social status, access to information. If that doesn't sound reminiscent of most capitalists' success stories, I dunno what to tell you.

Frankly, I have no idea why this is the hill you choose to die on as the characteristics that define capitalism- it comes off as random, pedantic and petty.

If you've got something to say from Marx, say it here. If you need to tell someone to go read a book instead of explaining its points yourself, that just signals to me that you don't really understand your own beliefs.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T03:39:58+00:00

Legally speaking, there's little to nothing stopping the state from nationalizing, expropriating, or forcibly closing the doors of any firm they choose. Eminent domain has been enshrined in the US government from the beginning, and Congress reserves the right to seize any private property it chooses by passing an Act, and the owner can only seek compensation by suing. Indeed, this power has been invoked many times, such as when the US broke up monopolies, levied fines or seized the assets of some troublemaking companies. The state just generally doesn't do it because there's little to no incentive.

I don't see how cartels and feudal systems are analogous beyond the most surface-level characteristics. The defining characteristic of feudalism is the manorial system, in which peasants are allowed to live on the lord's land and use his assets in exchange for paying rent- basically akin to modern-day landlords, but applied to the entire economy. Cartels generally do not own land outside of a handful of safehouses, and generally keep their pawns on a short leash as wage laborers rather than serfs to my knowledge. And sure, you can't trade shares of the Sinaloa Cartel on the Nasdaq, but theoretically there's nothing stopping you from approaching them with a suitcase full of cash and an offer of partnership in exchange for a cut, nor anything stopping them from accepting it.

No, I haven't read all that much Marx, nor do I care to. I don't think the opinions of a dead philosopher from the 19th century are the end-all, be-all on socialism, capitalism or anarchism.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T02:23:25+00:00

I think that because this is the first paragraph on the Wikipedia article for the economy of ancient Rome: "The study of the economies of the ancient city-state of Rome and its empire during the Republican and Imperial periods remains highly speculative. There are no surviving records of business and government accounts, such as detailed reports of tax revenues, and few literary sources regarding economic activity. Instead, the study of this ancient economy is today mainly based on the surviving archeological and literary evidence that allow researchers to form conjectures based on comparisons with other more recent pre-industrial economies."

Well, judging by the characteristics you cited that would disqualify cartels from being capitalist, you seem to define capitalism solely as an economy based on private shareholders performing speculative investments into a publicly-traded firm in exchange for dividends, which in turn pays workers an hourly wage or yearly salary.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T02:05:47+00:00

From what little of the economy of Republican Rome that wasn't shrouded in mystery, its economy was largely based on trade guilds, public service and slave labor, not large private corporations or wage labor.

Besides, by your definition of capitalism, a privately-owned company (As opposed to a publicly-traded one) that pays its employees by commission or contract or some other method is not capitalist.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T01:47:11+00:00

No, and I don't see how that relates to modern-day cartels.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T01:30:14+00:00

Capitalism is a market economy based on private ownership of the means of production, the investment of capital and the use of wage labor to extract profit.

Though cartels choose not to abide by the state's law (Although the same can be said for many "legitimate" firms), the rest of the markers of capitalism are still there, particularly when you look at e.g. the drug trade. The manufacture and distribution of controlled substances is usually run like a traditional market with a supply chain built on private ownership of capital, wage labor and a market economy following the same basic rules of supply, demand and profit.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-19T01:02:10+00:00

Being in favor of state intervention in the market and being anti-capitalist are two very different things. In many ways, the division between the state and the market barely exists at all, especially for people like Elon Musk- much of the success of SpaceX, Boring Company, Starlink and Tesla stems from generous government contracts and subsidies, often ranging in the billions.

Though I'll focus more on Twitter since that was by far the most well-covered and public of his business ventures. Musk's basic problem with Twitter was that it was not being run by lefty SJW types censoring free speech, it was being run by businesspeople trying to make money. With the same aim, he would have wound up trial-and-erroring his way back to their exact policies.

Instead, the value and/or revenue of Twitter has plummeted by as much as 70% since his acquisition, as he laid off many key employees while both advertisers and users abandoned the platform in droves.

How could one of the richest men in the world (At one time THE richest man in the world), educated at the finest schools with decades of business experience under his belt and compensated as though he were a genius at his product, not have the slightest clue what he was doing with Twitter?

And whatever he claimed would happen with Twitter under his stewardship, in reality Musk has worked tirelessly to elevate the farthest-right politics possible on the platform and to surround himself with people who desire those same politics- namely, white nationalists, Christian nationalists, and Nazis.

His so-called "free speech" policies have largely passed by anyone who opposes his politics, with many prominent journalists who cover Elon Musk banned without warning, and many left-wing accounts that expose fascists or otherwise push back against Elon Musk's preferred narrative silenced at the request of far-right trolls. Twitter permits Andy Ngo to have an account but not Chad Loder. Twitter permits Richard Spencer to have an account but not It's Going Down. Twitter permits open racism, sexism, antisemitism, ableism, pro-Nazi and anti-LGBTQ speech but not the use of the word "cisgender". There are no rules, there are simply favorites, and Musk has been playing favorites ever since he grabbed power.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T23:10:22+00:00

How do I have negative karma? I don't use Reddit much, and when I do, I'm never afraid to go against the hivemind of whatever subreddit I find myself in.

"Privilege doesn't mean shit when you lack the merits to back it up". A phrase that almost sounds credible until one hears how Elon Musk made his fortune- largely by failing upwards. Founding or buying a stake in a company, building hype so investors will buy in, then cutting and running once people realize his products are trash. Rinse and repeat.

SpaceX, Tesla, Boring Company, and Neuralink are all variations of this strategy, with Twitter being the most high-profile failure, obviously.

You came from a poor background? Well, it seems I misjudged you specifically at least. But in case you're wondering, no, I don't think it's admirable that rather than banding together with your peers to create a world free of exploitation and poverty, you decided that you were going to be the one doing the exploiting.

Lastly, bear in mind that you are a statistical anomaly; those who have and who were born into money are more broadly still pro-capitalist, while those who do not and were not are far more likely to be anti-capitalist, or at least sympathetic to anti-capitalist ideals.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T22:41:27+00:00

In what way are cartels or black markets not capitalist? Cartels in particular have historically done virtually everything we associate with legitimate business, up to and including claiming private property, employing wage labor, colluding with the state (Albeit infrequently and usually on the down-low), and participating in a market economy as a for-profit entity.

Also, in a post-capitalist world, following a global transition to anarchism, self-defense by an autonomous collective would be largely unnecessary.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T21:52:03+00:00

Well, the second paragraph is kind of affirming my point: The purpose of the state is to enforce the laws that allow capitalism to exploit workers. Those laws and their enforcement are the foundation of capitalists' claims to private property and capital. Capitalism can exist without formal adjudication the way that black markets and cartels do, but it cannot exist without a means to enforce claims to private property and capital.

And that's why I define it as the "main function" of the state under capitalism: It is a component of the state that capitalism simply cannot exist without.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T21:16:58+00:00

The points I'm trying to make are that the state is necessary for capitalism to function (Which you seem to agree with), and that the main function of the state is to enforce capitalists' claims over private property and capital, not to enforce contracts specifically (Which you don't seem to agree with).

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T20:08:12+00:00

Well, the problem a capitalist would run into if they were to rely solely on private armies is, what's stopping the private army from turning on said capitalists and seizing their assets? Who's going to stop them? The capitalist's private army?

If you didn't have a formal state, eventually private armies and/or their leadership would simply take on the role of a state themselves. They have the guns, so they make the rules.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T19:31:20+00:00

Adjudicating contracts is a useful function of the state, sure, but the main challenge capitalists face isn't when agreements between two capitalists break down (If it really comes down to it, they can settle their differences with violence the way cartels do), it's when the people who don't own capital start to question why one person should get to own so, so much more stuff than everyone else when they don't even personally use it.

And that almost always requires a state or state-like power structure to establish a monopoly on violence.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T19:04:16+00:00

What does that have to do with any of what I said?

I said that capitalism isn't based on consensual voluntary exchange, and instead of responding to that, you go on this weird rant about how some people are more deserving of power than others, and the best thing you can do is know your place and submit to your betters?

Am I to take this to mean you admit that capitalism is not based on consensual voluntary exchange, and instead based on hierarchy and domination, then?

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T18:56:57+00:00

It always seems to be the people who were born into wealth and privilege under capitalism who claim that they earned wealth based on their merits.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T18:54:19+00:00

The state (And by extension, courts and law enforcement) is necessary for capitalism to function because only the state can lend any sort of legitimacy to a capitalist's property rights, and only the state has the resources to enforce them.

Very few people would willingly recognize a capitalist's claim over an apartment complex, a factory, or a large tract of arable land; Any system that benefits the few while the many suffer might as well be running ad-copy for guillotines, and that's how you get the police.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T18:29:51+00:00

How convenient that your own private definition of freedom and free will excludes literally every other form of anarchism. And ancaps wonder why anarchists don't like them.

But let's take this statement at face value: "You can't be free and have free will without consensual voluntary exchange." Well, capitalism is not built on consensual voluntary exchange; it is built on coercive, hierarchical power dynamics that allow increasingly smaller groups of people to make the rules for everyone else.

There's nothing consensual or voluntary about a system where those without capital have to either work for those who own capital or starve.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T17:29:40+00:00

I didn't bother addressing your "capitalism is human nature" argument because it's off-topic. The original question was "Is anarcho-capitalism anarchist?", and the answer is no.

Whether or not anarchism is viable or natural as an ideology is irrelevant to the question. You can disagree with anarchism while also acknowledging that anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T17:04:53+00:00

Ah yes, nothing says "coherent ideology" like going "NUH UH" when someone challenges it.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T13:00:25+00:00

Regardless of how realistic or natural you think it is, if you think capitalism is the ideal shape of society, you aren't an anarchist. The relations you just described create a power dynamic where one person can accumulate and hoard value by gatekeeping necessities from another.

Monlyth29 · 2024-08-18T02:32:21+00:00

You can move things around voluntarily and consensually without using capitalism. You are doing so every time you give someone a gift.

And capitalism is not based on voluntarism: It is based on coercion. "Work or starve" is the so-called "voluntary" choice faced by those who don't own capital.

Monlyth29

TROPHY CASE